Facts and Fiction Follow Cuban Reforms (As Usual)

Don't Be Told How or What To Think About Cuba

(In the Age of Google, Decide for Yourself)

      Cubans in the past week, since the government announced massive new travel regulations, have excitedly discussed (as above} the opportunities to now leave the island to visit or remain in foreign counties and, if they desire, freely return to Cuba. {The next five photos are also by Raquel Perez}

     When not discussing and debating the new travel rules on every main street on the island, Cubans gather to read government postings delineating the changes. So, that's a typical sight above.

     Colonel Lambert Fraga, the Deputy Chief of Cuba's Immigration Department, is among the key government officials using the media to try to explain the new rules to Cuba's anxious population. He told journalist Fernando Ravsberg, "The vast majority of citizens can travel without having to ask permission from their government." Colonel Fraga explained, as in other nations, Cuba will have some national security restrictions. For example, the island presently has a shortage of teachers so highly trained teachers will not be allowed to depart en masse. Colonel Fraga said he has been told "to minimize the number of people who will not benefit from the reform to the lowest possible." He also said that his office is busy "handling the daily repatriation of an average of 20 emigrants seeking to return."

    But, indeed, the new rules are very lenient. The two young Cubans above are filling out documents that will allow them to leave the island to work in Mexico. They can return to the island if and when they want to, needing only the consent of both countries to travel back and forth freely.

     Avon, the Cuban mother above, is excited about her teenage daughter being allowed to visit relatives in Miami and then return to the island when she and Avon want her to come back home.

       But there was no mad rush to Jose Marti International Airport in Havana during the first week Cubans embraced the new travel rules. For one thing, there is paperwork. For another, many Cubans cannot afford the price of tickets at the moment. And for yet another, many foreign countries are alarmed they, suddenly, might be overwhelmed by an influx of Cubans.

      Take, for example, Evo Morales -- the democratically elected President of Bolivia since 2006 (Uh, yes, poor people are now allowed to vote in Bolivia}. President Morales idolizes Fidel Castro and is one of Cuba's dearest friends. However, the island's new travel rules frighten him because he does not want a tsunami of Cubans to flood his country. Thus, Bolivia quickly established its own rules: Cubans coming to Bolivia will not get a Visa if they cannot prove they have the financial means in Bolivia to care for themselves in regards to health, education, and possible incarceration. Morales said, "No longer are foreigners robbing Bolivia blind but we still struggle to take care of our own poor people." 

       Of course, Victoria Nuland -- chief spokesperson for the U. S. State Department -- was quick to belittle Cuba's new travel rules because, after all, the U. S. would need the permission of a handful of visceral anti-Castro Cuban exiles to do anything other than denounce anything Cuba does. So, this week the official comment from the U. S. State Department, via Victoria Nuland, was: "The Cuban government has not lifted the measures implied by their responsibilities, job or industry." Whatever those disingenuous words mean, it is for sure that they satisfy a handful of Cuban exiles while -- as always -- confusing, ignoring, and demeaning the majority of Cubans, Cuban exiles, Americans, and citizens all around the world. That, we respectfully presume, is precisely what Ms. Nuland intended.

        U. S. President Barack Obama will soon have a new Secretary of State, Senator John Kerry, during his second and final four-year term. Both are sincere, capable men who have -- all their political lives -- supported decent, intelligent, and sane pro-American relations with Revolutionary Cuba. However, they have been extremely frustrated that a mere handful of self-serving Cuban exiles, and their sycophants, have ruled America's Cuban policy since the overthrow of the U. S. - backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in 1959, a colossal event that, among other things, quickly resulted in the reconstitution of that dictatorship on U. S. soil. The vast influx of Cubans plus enormous amounts of money in 1959 overwhelmed the Mafia havens of Miami, Florida, and Union City, New Jersey, and from those two bases soon overwhelmed the United States Congress.

      While neither the U. S. government nor the U. S. media, for various reasons, have properly related the story of the flight of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship from Cuba to South Florida beginning on New Years's morning in 1959, such venues as the 1983 movie "Scarface" have, quite graphically and rather honestly, filled in the void. Al Pacino {above} starred as Tony Montana; the director was Brian De Palma; and the writer was Oliver Stone. The movie still airs almost nightly on cable television. In the opening scene Stone and De Palma used actual black-and-white footage to show Cuban exiles arriving in Miami in 1980 during the Mariel Boatlift in which Fidel Castro allowed some 125,000 Cubans to flock to Miami. In the script, Pacino (Montana) was seen setting foot in Miami for the first time.

        Soon, the young Tony Montana {above} was the ruthless drug kingpin of Miami, replicating the Mafia's dominance of the drug trade during Batista's Cuban dictatorship in the 1950s. Tony Montana's thugs totally overwhelmed the authorities in Miami and took extreme advantage of the Cuban exiles' ongoing closeness to the U. S. federal government, leaving the locals quite helpless.

      The history of the Mariel Boatlift is well known. Between April 15th and October 31, 1980, it brought about 125,000 Cubans to America, mostly to Miami. Many were decent Cubans seeking more freedom. But many were like Tony Montana. History registers the fact that Fidel Castro in 1980 raided Cuban prisons and mental institutions to include the likes of Tony Montana among the Mariel Boatlifters, apparently as a means of hurting America in retaliation for America's continuously hurting Cuba. But the best historians are also quite aware of the underlying reason for 1980's Mariel Boatlift of Cubans to the U. S. The truth about that, too, needs to skirt the restraints of political correctness.

       Celia Sanchez, the one person Fidel Castro has idolized and capitulated to during his long life, died of cancer on 01-11-1980 at age 59. As the prime decision-maker in Cuba, with Fidel's blessing and support, she had been frustrated with the U. S. government permitting Miami-based Cuban exiles to "always be stirring up and financing dissidents on this island!" When she died, Fidel simply threw up his hands and proclaimed, "Alright! Any Cuban that wants to go to Miami can do so from the port of Mariel!" And, yes, he made sure some misfits -- ala Tony Montana -- were provided free escorts from prison to Port Mariel. So, that's the way it was, minus the usual sanitizing by the U. S. media.

     The Celia Sanchez connection to the Mariel Boatlift, like most of her other gigantic connections, have been self-servingly ignored or discounted by the Cuban-exile chroniclers of Cuban history but not by the best historians. When she died, in addition to concocting the Mariel Boatlift, Fidel Castro was suicidal for days, as depicted in Georgie Anne Geyer's seminal Castro biography "Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro." Much of that untold story revolves around the dominance of Celia Sanchez in the Cuban-U.S. conundrum, apparently based on the belief of visceral Cuban exiles that the macho Fidel could easily and conveniently be demonized but not the angelic, child-loving Celia although, truth be known, she remains the prime reason the Batistiano-Mafia rule of Cuba ended on January 1, 1959. Otherwise, the Batistianos would be ruling the island to this very day.

      All of which brings us back around to re-focus on today's Cuba, where tonight as every night young Cubans will cuddle, snuggle, and make love on the famed concrete walls fronting the 4-mile oceanfront Malecon Boulevard. If the rest of the world passes them by, or misunderstands them, well...Cubans have proven they adjust to just about anything. In a word, they are resilient.

       Powerful U. S. Senator Robert Menendez is among the handful of anti-Castro zealots who will try to make sure that Americans do not adjust to positive changes in Cuba, such as the new travel rules. Born in New York City to parents who fled Batista's Cuba in 1953, Senator Menendez grew up in Union City, New Jersey, where he became Mayor prior to his becoming a member of the U. S. Congress from 1993 till the present day, moving from the House of Representatives to the very safe seat in the Senate in 2006. Monolithic anti-Castro zealots with enormous power within the U. S. government or incredible influence on the U. S. government, politically or economically, have controlled the U. S. relations with Cuba since 1959. That year the U. S. love of foreign dictators came home to roost.

      Mauricio Claver-Carone is one of the dire countless influences on the U. S. government who have become rich and powerful with their anti-Castro zealotry -- often, many believe, at the expense of everyday Cubans and everyone else forced to abide by Cuba-only American dictates. Claver-Carone's many enterprises include the U. S. - Cuba Democracy PAC, Editor of the Capital Hill Cubans project, etc. You may never have heard of them but, I assure you, you have paid for them unwittingly and you have been restrained by them endlessly.

      Frank Calzon, via his "Center for a Free Cuba" and its historic and sometimes scandalous alignments with the Bush political dynasty, has for many years savored his stupendous power lobbying against Cuba in Washington, which is essentially controlled by lobbyists. At the moment, Calzon is lobbying hard against anything that might remotely be construed as a Cuban positive, such as President Obama's solid choice as the next Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel.

      Chuck Hagel, while he was representing Nebraska in the U. S. Senate from 1997 till 2009, strongly advocated a sane, decent, logical, pro-American U. S. policy towards Cuba. That, of course, makes him a pariah in the eyes of the incredibly powerful anti-Cuban lobby, which also now must worry about the post-Castro changes already underway in Cuba to mark the twilight days of the very frail, 86-year-old Fidel Castro, long a meal-ticket for Menendez, Claver-Carone, Calzon, and many, many others.

       And so...Cuba ending its travel ban is a lot easier and lot less complicated than the U. S. ending its travel ban or, in fact, making any changes to its universally maligned, self-inflicted wound otherwise known as the U. S. Cuban policy. You see...Senator Menendez, Claver-Carone, Calzon, etc., still hold the upper hand in the United States when it comes to Cuba, even as bright lights brighten previously dark tunnels on the island. And the U. S. democracy has been gored by that burr under its saddle for over a half-century now. Our best friends worldwide ask, "Why, America? Why? Why...?"

       Even as Cubans and Cuban dissidents are now allowed to fly to America or any other agreeable country, Americans still must essentially ask someone like Mauricio Claver-Carone for permission to fly to Cuba and experience the enchanting tropical island and its people for themselves.

        I think you can understand why I believe that Latin American expert and Denver Post editorial writer Penelope Purdy {above} coined the defining quotation that perfectly describes the U. S. policy regarding Cuba: "For all these decades the U. S. policy towards Cuba has been conducted with the IQ of a salamander." I think you agree there is no one who can dispute that salient quotation. However, I believe the quotation, while being very fair to us Americans, is not entirely fair to salamanders.

      Salamanders, like the little guy above, have been smart enough, decent enough, ingenious enough, and courageous enough to have survived in a hostile environment for centuries. Those who have conducted and mandated the U. S. policy regarding Cuba since back in the 1950s are not as smart, as decent, as ingenious, or as courageous as that little salamander who feasts on harmful insects. The salamanders Penelope Purdy so aptly described feast on less powerful human beings. P.S.: The salamander above is probably thinking: "I'm way down in the swamp minding my own business. So, how in the hell did I end up in the middle of a discussion about the U. S.-Cuban quagmire?" My answer to Joey (Yes, I call him "Joey") is: "Your beef is not with me, Joey. It's with Penelope Purdy!"   

In other words: Americans who want to see Cuba for themselves, should have the freedom to do so.

      But, you know what? The Caribbean is still there...and so is Cuba, 90 miles due south of the Florida Keys. And Cuba, because of its size and its location and its unleashed but long-stifled potential, may be in the proverbial cat-bird seat. To the West, Mexico has drug problems foreign to Cuba. To the North, the Bahamas are beset with crime foreign to Cuba. To the Southeast, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and especially the U. S. Territory of Puerto Rico are over-run with crime that is foreign to Cuba; and due South the island of Jamaica is ravaged by crime that is foreign to Cuba. And Cuba is the one island in the Caribbean not shackled by a few extremely rich individuals lording it over the majority poor. Take for example....Jamaica!....the beautiful island due South of Cuba.

       The above cartoon in today's Jamaican Observer newspaper (Jan. 21-2013) depicts a man who is making an "$8 million salary" telling the poor, skinny, over-worked peasant to hang in there and be "positive" so, of course, the rich guy can continue to make his $8 million dollar salary. That's sort of the way it was in Cuba in the 1950s. And that's sort of why the Cuban Revolution has survived against all odds for all these decades and now, in the year 2013, has a chance to re-invent itself yet again. 

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Cuba Changing While U. S. Still Fights Cold War

Cuban Changes Coming Fast and Furious
(Perhaps as A Prelude to the Dire Illnesses Afflicting Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez)
{Updated Wednesday, January 16, 2013}

       The AFP/Getty Images photo above depicted a scene that has been playing out all over the island of Cuba since Monday, January 14, 2013. That's when Cuba's revolutionary government began allowing its citizens to leave the country and return on their own initiative to the island. A government official above is explaining the new rules to eager Cubans. It's the latest in an ongoing series of major changes.

       Starting on Jan. 14-2013 Cubans were allowed to board a Cubana Airlines flight and fly to a foreign country with practically no restrictions, a monumental change in policy that will have ripple effects far beyond the island, and not just in nearby Miami. The reviled tarjeta blanca, the white card or exit visa that Cuba used to control who could leave the island, is no more. Also, no longer is Cuba requiring a notarized letter of invitation from a foreign host. Now Cubans need only a visa from the country they are traveling to. In preparation for Monday, Cuba had set up 195 locations around the island for its citizens to apply for their passports. This comes on the heels of Cubans being much more readily afforded access to cell phones and computers, being allowed to buy and sell cars and homes, being allowed to lease or purchase farm land, being allowed to apply for government loans to start a myriad of businesses ranging from beauty salons to restaurants, etc. In other words, even Revolutionary Cuba can make major changes; when it comes to Cuba, the U. S. policy is strictly in the hands of a few Cuban-exile zealots and their acolytes, which renders majority opinions obsolete, as it has done so caustically since 1959.

         The above AP/Ramon Espinosa photo on January 15th shows a Cuban lady with her passport in hand snuggled in an enthused line making an effort to respond to the government's new decision to allow its citizens to visit foreign countries and then return to the beleaguered but eternally fascinating island.

       By the way, Andrea Rodriguez {above}, an excellent Associated Press journalist based in Havana, is the best source for insightful, unbiased Cuban news on items affecting everyday Cubans on the island.

     Will Ostick {above}, spokesman for the U. S. State Department Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, told CBS-TV over the weekend: "The United States welcomes any reforms that allow Cubans to depart from and return to their country freely." Presumably, Ostick could not say more, at least until the State Department early this week gets permission from Cuban-exile zealots to elaborate. For example, the U. S. restrictions on Americans departing from and returning "to their country freely" will not be altered although Americans have longed for such freedoms in regards to Cuba for a long time now. Ostick also needs to check with his superiors to see if the monumental change in Cuba will effect U. S. laws that pertain only to Cuba, such as the blatantly biased "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy that favors Cuban exiles and emigrants over all others. Ostick this week also might ask his boss, "Secretary Clinton, how in the world do we explain to the American people that Cuba now has far less restrictions on letting its people fly to the United States than the United States has on allowing its people to fly to Cuba?"

       U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be expected to reply somewhat in this manner: "Now, Will, you know well enough that Americans don't care if their freedoms are infringed upon when it comes to Cuba. And anyway, the NFL playoffs are underway. Concentrate on the really important things."

        Of course, Secretary Clinton is as helpless as President Obama and the majority of Americans when it comes to altering the arduous, duplicitous, mendacious, and inscrutable U. S. policy regarding Cuba.

      Americans tend not to care about how the U. S. policy regarding Cuba smears the image of democracy around the world. England is America's best friend. The above photo depicts an image that flooded British newspapers and television outlets this past weekend. It shows a massive protest at the U. S. embassy in London denouncing President Obama's failure to live up to his promise to close the prison facility at the U. S. Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, which Amnesty International has called "the gulag of our time." The Brits above were also protesting "the theft" of the luscious Guantanamo Naval Base from Cuba, which occurred shortly after the U. S. victory in 1898's Spanish-American War.

       Brits, but not Americans, are ashamed that there is one thriving McDonald's {above} on the island of Cuba -- at Guantanamo Naval Base! U. S. naval personnel generally relish assignments in Cuba. There are also KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and other such restaurants at Gitmo, the colloquially referred to term for Guantanamo Bay. Today there are 9,500 U. S. navy personnel and 7,000 civilians working there. Some 400 miles of paved roads line the complex that also includes five major swimming pools, four outdoor movie houses, state-of-the-art work-out facilities, tennis courts, etc....a veritable Caribbean paradise! 

       A huge British warship {above} sailed proudly into Havana Harbor back on June 14, 2012. It is the RFA Fort Rosalie. It's Commanding Officer, Captain Martin Gould, announced at the welcoming ceremony: "Our visit to Havana cements relations between our two countries." England is concerned with the drug trade in the Caribbean grossly affecting crime in the region it still has interests in and both England and America consider Cuba to be the best source for fighting the drug trade in the area, with England but not America able to openly acknowledge that fact. The Brits, but not the Americans, were also reminded that, after Fort Rosalie stopped in Havana, it was not allowed to continue on to an American port for a goodwill visit. That's because the anti-Cuban, anti-world, and anti-democracy Helms-Burton Act commands that all nations, including England, can be punished if they show a kindness to Cuba or a mutual accommodation with Cuba. Every nation in the world, including America's best friends, consider the Helms-Burton Act to be a self-inflicted American wound. However, Americans themselves are not supposed to consider it at all. {The Helms-Burton Act appeases a few Cuban exiles so let's keep it on the books and trust that Americans remain ignorant of its ramifications.}

      U. S. Senator Marco Rubio's recent visit to the Guantanamo Naval Base punctuated the reminder to Cubans that the island is much too small to challenge America's "perpetual ownership" of the base. The infamous Platt Amendment "granted" the U. S. possession of Guantanamo's plush 45 square acres on Dec. 10-1903. The U. S. agreed to pay Cuba $2,000 in gold per year. In 1934, when gold coins were discontinued, the U. S. began sending $4,085 U. S. Treasury checks to Cuba. Since 1960 Revolutionary Cuba, based on an edict handed down by Celia Sanchez and endorsed by Fidel Castro, has refused to cash the checks. (The 1959 payment had escaped the meticulous scrutiny of Celia Sanchez).

       While Senator Rubio's visit made fun of Cuba's inability to do anything about Guantanamo, U. S. warplanes based there, such as the two above, are daily reminders to Cubans that they are at the mercy of the world's supreme superpower and they will never be able to regain Guantanamo Bay from the U. S.

      The lush golf course above is one of the many luxuries U. S. navy personnel enjoy at Guantanamo Bay. The golf pro on the right is providing free lessons, courtesy of the apathetic U. S. taxpayers.

        The rest of the world considers the U. S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay to be an unwanted violation of Cuba's sovereignty and a cancerous-like anathema to the world's most famed democracy.

Since 2002 Gitmo has been used to house suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists. 

        82-year-old Harry Henry and 79-year-old Luis La Rosa {above) are vivid reminders of how U. S. laws written only to appease viscerally anti-Castro Cuban exiles hurt everyone else, including innocent Cubans like Harry and Luis as well as the U. S. government itself. Harry and Luis, since their teens, had worked for the U. S. government at the Guantanamo Naval Base till they, and 65 other similarly employed Cubans, recently retired. The U. S. government wanted to pay their monthly pension fees, almost $700 each, for the rest of their lives. But Cuban-exile U. S. laws blocked those payments, at least till Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale and the Cuban government did some hand-stands to circumvent the blockage.

         ZKB (above} has just become the third major Swiss bank to drop Cuba from its portfolio in the past seven years. It did so to avoid billions of dollars in fines or curtailment of its U. S. portfolio. Such tactics continue to make the U. S. look like an imperialist bully still fighting the Cold War against the Soviet Union, which no longer exists although, of course, second generational Cuban exiles do exist and therefore so do U. S. laws that harm Cuba as well as America's best friends around the world. 

      Over the weekend Yoani Sanchez {Photo: Tracey Eaton}, the famed anti-Castro blogger, told USA Today in a phone call from Havana that Cubans on the island "are positioned like runners crouched into the starting blocks on a track" as they awaited the new traveling rules. The 37-year-old Sanchez said, "On your mark, get set, go! The majority of Cubans are very enthusiastic about this." Sanchez told USA Today that she would be among the first in line (on Jan. 14) to make preparations to fly out of Cuba. As the darling of anti-Castro factions in the Western World, Sanchez has been awarded medals and accolades from countries such as the U. S., Denmark, and Spain but Cuba has not allowed her to leave the island to accept the celebrated awards/rewards for her prolific anti-Castro blogging and books. She told USA Today that her passport is filled with visas from other countries but she has never been able to obtain a Cuban exit visa.

          In denying Yoani Sanchez an exit permit, Cuba says she speaks on behalf of a foreign power that uses her to help de-stabilize the Cuban government. However, Cuba has repeatedly told her that they will give her an exit permit if she will leave the island and never return. USA Today, in the Sunday (Jan. 13) telephone call, asked her about that. She said: "If it's not with a return trip, I'm not going anywhere." {Update: Yoani Sanchez kept her word; on January 14th she was first in line at an immigration office in Havana to test the government's new resolve that allows its citizens to visit foreign countries and then return. But she reminded the Associated Press that her case is very special: "I have hope but I'll believe it when I'm sitting in an airplane."} Meanwhile, the world awaits with abated breath {?} to learn Yoani's fate. On Monday, January 14, 2013, the long, front-page "Cover" story in USA Today quoted Yoani Sanchez as saying that she wanted to fly to Chechnya, Spain, Italy, Germany, Chile, Brazil, New York, Silicon Valley in California, and "the northern Cuban city of Miami." Yes, Yoani considers Miami to be in northern Cuba!

       That last quote from Yoani Sanchez reminds me of the map {above) that shows 47 contiguous U. S. states minus Florida. And it reminds me that once the U. S. government offered to trade Florida to Spain for Cuba but Spain refused and later lost the island when it lost the Spanish-American War in 1898. Yoani Sanchez wants to visit "the northern Cuban city of Miami?" There are many who hope she gets the chance. Considering that the U. S. merely and unfairly took Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1903, perhaps the U. S. might want to make amends and give Florida to Cuba as a belated payment for Guantanamo Bay.

      John McAuliff {above} is perhaps the world's best expert on U. S. - Cuban relations. On January 15, 2013, Mr. McAuliff told the AP: "Cuba now provides greater freedom of travel to virtually all of its citizens than does the United States." {True Cuban experts such as Mr. McAuliff are generally ignored by the U. S. media}

        Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs, says, "Yoani Sanchez's fame and fortune depends on her being an anti-government dissident on the island and not, say, in Miami where she feels she might get lost in the crowd or even London, Paris, or Madrid. Do I feel that is why she herself puts restrictions on an exit permit? Yes. Ha! Ha...! Forgive me for laughing but are you, an American news-reporter, actually saying we in the Cuban government also are allowed an opinion? Uh, thank you. I'm very much impressed." 

     Real-life cat-fights between Cuba and the U. S. in 2013 are reminiscent of make-believe cat-fights in the American West of the 1860s: "Alright, Yoani! You have three choices -- the six-gun in my left hand, the six-gun in my right hand, or the exit visa for you to leave Dodge...er, Havana...and never come back! Which is it? Hurry! My trigger fingers are itchy and I've got some other misfits to take care of after I get done with you!"

     By the way, in January of 1959 Ed Sullivan hosted the top television show in America. On January 11-1959 Mr. Sullivan flew to Havana (above) and introduced Americans to the island's new leader. Fidel Castro, somewhat shyly, told Mr. Sullivan: "Please pardon my rebel uniform. But I can't yet afford a suit."

Mr. Sullivan replied: "Fidel, Americans will understand. This is all new to them too."

        The above Getty Image photo was taken on July 26, 1960, at a gala revolutionary celebration. Celia Sanchez, Revolutionary Cuba's prime decision-maker {but don't say that out loud; I repeat: No digos eso voz alta!}, is feigning outrage after Fidel playfully tried on a goofy hat. She screamed: "Fidel! They're taking photographs. Americans will think the leader of Cuba is a clown! Cuba's leader should be dignified!"

This hearty, colorful, and dignified guy is a Himalayan Moral.

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A Potpouri of Photos Defining Revolutionary Cuba

A Few 1955-2013 Snapshots of Cuba
{Updated Jan. 10-2013}

        Enrique Meneses died at age 83 in Madrid, Spain, on the first Sunday of this New Year 2013. He spent over a half century as one of the world's most famous photographers and he was famed as an adventurous journalist. He is most remembered for the four months he spent with Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra in 1957 when the odds were still prohibitive against a nascent rebel uprising surviving against the might of the U. S.-and-Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba. His photos and captions were among the first to tell the world about Fidel Castro's "uphill but courageously ongoing fight." During his own four dangerous months in the Sierra, Enrique  shadowed both Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, later remarking that "I spotted greatness in one particular man." He was referring to Fidel Castro, whom he admired the rest of his life. On his deathbed, Enrique said, "Fidel is three years older than me and assassins haven't dogged my trail on a daily basis. I never thought Fidel would out-live me. He was lucky to survive each year since I met him in 1957."

      Above is one of the most famous Enrique Meneses photos, taken in the Sierra Maestra Mountains in 1957. The three rebels on the right are Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos -- the three leading male Commanders at the time. The three men on the left are updating Fidel on the movements of a Batista army in the foothills of the Sierra: "Just over the rise thirty yards up you can see the front elements." Enrique Meneses wrote a book entitled "Fidel Castro" and the two men spoke on the phone last December.

         In his book Enrique Meneses wrote, "I was attracted to the Cuban Revolution because it was the first revolution started by the mistreatment of women by a brutal dictatorship. When I got there and saw the fighting in the mountains and foothills in 1957, I did not think the rebels had a chance but I knew Batista and his backers had been stupid for rousing the female population on the island to such a fever pitch."

     Enrique Meneses continued: "But soon I realize that Fidel Castro's vastly superior intelligence in fully utilizing the totality of the fury of the female half of the population has over the years, beginning in the 1950s, defeated forces far superior in arms and manpower. He elevated women to a new worldly plateau."

                                     

      Jon Lee Anderson {above} is probably the world's quintessential adventure journalist today. His articles for The New Yorker and others shed glaring lights on some of the planet's most dangerous places and most egregious wrongs. He also, of course, wrote the definitive Che Guevara biography. Jon Lee Anderson has been a close friend and deep admirer of Enrique Meneses. Anderson coined this epitaph for Enrique: "He was the last of the great adventure journalist." The last, that is, except for Jon Lee Anderson.

    The beautiful young lady above is propitiously gracing an art exhibit in New York City, where she accompanied her boyfriend, the artist Arlis del Rio, back in Nov.-2012. Her name is Vilmita Rodriguez Castro. She is the grand-daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and his late, legendary wife Vilma Espin.

     A few weeks earlier -- back in June-2012 -- Mariela Castro {above}, the feisty daughter of Raul Castro and Vilma Espin, relished her visits to San Franciso and New York City, and so did the U. S. media. She endorsed Barack Obama for a second presidential term. On her return flight to Cuba she joked, "Fox News is ecstatic over my endorsement of President Obama. They think I just handed the election to Romney!" Twice married and the mother of two children, Mariela has always been a fearless rebel, like her famed mother. In college, Mariela alarmed her father Raul and her uncle Fidel, but not her mother, when she appeared topless in a play. In recent years she very successfully defied both her father and her uncle by campaigning fearlessly and tirelessly for gay rights on the island. Also this past summer she engaged in a heated Twitter exchange with the famous anti-Castro blogger Yoani Sanchez. Because it was Mariela vs. Yoani, and because Twitter almost rules the world and has proven it can start wars and revolutions, the verbal cat-fight appeared for awhile to be the start of World War Three, or at least another Bay of Pigs!

       Castro women have always had an auspicious affinity for their neighbor, the United States of America. The photo above shows the Castro sisters Emma and Augustina in Miami in 1957 soliciting money to support the anti-Batista revolution their brothers Fidel and Raul were waging in the Sierra Maestra.

    Fidel Castro, after getting out of a Batista prison in 1955, began his recruitment of revolutionary funds in Miami, as depicted by the above photo. In those halcyon days, Miami Cubans hated Batista much more than they hated Fidel!

A Fidel Castro fact (not a factoid): His favorite American city has always been New York City!

That's a nattily dressed Fidel Castro strolling in New York City's Central Park. 

      Dr. Aleida Guevara {above}, the daughter of Che Guevara, is considered one of the most skilled and dedicated baby doctors on the island of Cuba. In 2012 Dr. Guevara made a triumphant tour of England, delivering sold-out speeches in six major cities. In the above photo a reporter for the London Daily Mirror has asked Dr. Guevara, "How much do you think your father, also a doctor, regretted ending up a rebel instead of practicing medicine?" Dr. Guevara replied, "Not at all, my dear. He had an early calling to medicine and a later calling to try to help poor people in another fashion. You might say...I am my father's daughter."

        Cubans admire pure feminine beauty combined with sheer physical and mental courage as well as a high degree of intelligence. So, it's no wonder Liaena Hernandez Martinez {above} is their favorite soldier. She hails from Guantanamo province and while still a top university student was also the most decorated soldier in Brigade de la Frontera. One superior wrote: "She guards the coastline as if Genghis Khan is coming to capture the island, but if he does touch Cuban soil Liaena will be there to nab him! I guarantee it!"

          As an 18-year-old in 2008 {above}, Liaena was profiled by the BBC as she campaigned door-to-door to become the youngest person ever elected to the Cuban National Assembly. The BBC described her as "a polished, determined campaigner and one who kisses and sweet-talks babies like a polished politician in London." She won. And, yes, they do have elections in Cuba and it is not mandatory to belong to any party.

        Now a poised and elegant public speaker, Liaena is popular with many young Cubans who hope that one day she will be President of Cuba. Asked about it, she said modestly, "Probability, no; possibility, yes."

Liaena's idol is Dilma Rousseff {above}, the President of Brazil.

       Why does Ileana Hernandez Martinez idolize President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil: "She is a woman. She is the most powerful person, male or female, in Latin America. She is a fighter, a guerrilla fighter. At my age she had already been imprisoned and tortured for three years by a foreign-backed dictatorship. She is a socialist. She loves and admires Cuba. I idolize everything she has been and everything she stands for. I and all young Latin American women should aspire to be what President Rousseff is today."

Hey! The above photo courtesy of Susan and Richard Day reminds me that it's winter in Virginia.

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