Cuba's Economic Adjustments

A Work in Progress!!

       One of Cuba's rising female stars is Wendy Miranda. That's Wendy in the center in the above photo. She will play a large role in the island's economic adjustment to a Vietnamese or Chinese financial system that embraces key aspects and elements of...uh...CAPITALISM. The Mariel Port Economic Zone -- 28 miles southwest of Havana and 95 miles southwest of Key West, Florida -- has been carefully crafted to be a hub of Cuba's economic viability on the heels of President Obama's startling detente with the island and as a preamble to a post-Castro future for the island, a mortal reality brought about by the advanced age of the Castro brothers -- 85 for Raul and 90 for Fidel. In little more than a year Raul has announced he will turn the presidency over to the 56-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, which doesn't mean the Castro influence or legacy will end but, more realistically, just change gears. As long as right-wing Republicans in Miami and Congress largely dictate a U. S. Cuban policy that now gets a 191-to-0 disapproval rating in the United Nations, the Castro legacy will remain a powerful force on the island, whether or not the Republican right-wingers ever succeed in destroying Revolutionary Cuba and regaining control of the island. The Diaz-Canel rule, scheduled to begin early in 2018, will bring with it an array of young, bright, well-educated Cubans...like Wendy Miranda. Wendy is already the dynamo in charge of vital economic decisions related to the absolutely essential foreign investments in the Mariel Economic Zone, an ultra-modern, strategically located port recently the recipient of a billion-dollar upgrade before Cuban-supporter Dilma Rousseff's impeachment as President of Brazil, where she has been replaced in what she calls a "coup" engineered by "U.S.-and-Miami-friendly political patsies." Cuba today is known for such things as surviving the U.S.-backed Mafia rule of Cuba in the 1950s, the Bay of Pigs military attack in 1961 after the Cuban Revolution booted the Mafia to Miami, the U. S. embargo first imposed in 1962 to starve the island to enduce it to overthrow Fidel Castro, and the very brief 2002 coup in Venezuela that Latin Americans still blame on the Bush administration's prime, still viable anti-Cuban stalwarts Otto Reich and Roger Noriega. Wendy Miranda, as I will explain later in this essay, has emerged as a major force in Cuba's economic future. Americans are not supposed to know her, at least until the anti-Cuba propaganda machine can vilify her. That vilification has, in fact, started because she emerged as a prominent Cuban during the just-concluded 34th 4-day International Trade Fair in Havana attended by a record 73 countries and 3500 exhibitors hoping to do business in Cuba, including many mostly disappointed U. S. companies.

      The Business Enterprise Editor at the Miami Herald is Mimi Whitefield. She, of course, writes frequently about Cuban vilification. Her November 5th, 2016 article on Cuba's International Trade Fair was prefaced with this screaming headline: "CUBA SAYS NO TO OBAMA-PROMOTED PLANS TO ASSEMBLE SMALL TRACTORS ON THE ISLAND." Her first words in the article were: "When President Barack Obama visited Cuba in March he said that a small Alabama company that makes tractors would be the first U.S.-company to build a factory here {in Cuba} in more than 50 years. That was jumping the gun." Then Ms. Whitefield from Cuba proceeded to tell her readers, the choir in Miami and supposedly all across the United States, about how the terrible Cuban government had double-crossed both President Obama and the company in Alabama that thought it was going to build little tractors in its Mariel factory that Cuba badly needed. Because of the international effect of the U. S. embargo, in place since 1962, there are still Cuban farmers who use oxen to pull out-dated plows and other farm equipment. So, the tractor factory in Cuba was considered, by President Obama and other decent people, as an antidote to that draconian offshoot of the embargo, which a couple of weeks ago got a resounding 191-to-0 denunciation at the UN. But one revelation from the Trade Fair was that Cuba has denied permission for the Alabama company to build tractors in Cuba. Ms. Whitefield and other usually unchallenged anti-Cuban propagandists in the U. S. used that denial by Cuba to insinuate as usual that any negative related to Cuba is always Cuba's fault and never the fault of the powerful forces in Miami trying desperately, after all these decades, to recapture Cuba. 

        And that brings us back around to Wendy Miranda, the young Cuban who made the decision to keep Cleber, the Alabama factory, from building tractors in Cuba. The photo above shows Wendy explaining things a few days ago in front of a Muriel billboard at the Cuban Trade Fair. Working under Muriel's leader, Ana Teresa Igarza, such decisions, as it turns out, are Wendy's. And her decision regarding Cleber was a sound one as her rationale explains: "As a chief engineer at Mariel, I was excited about the tractor factory from Alabama building machines here that Cubans need. Then I discovered that the Alabama factory was using 1940s technology that they would use here. The 1940s preceded the Cuban Revolution and that is not the technology I want for Mariel. I want advanced technology, not 1940s technology. I have on my desk right now projects using modern technology in tractor building from Japan, China, Belarus and France. With such options, I believe Cleber's 1940s technology is not what I want for Mariel." Cleber itself admits it uses 1940s technology to build its tractors in Alabama. So, did Wendy Miranda make a good decision to deny it a factory at Mariel. Fair-minded Americans -- like Mr. Obama -- would probably agree that she did.

        This photo shows Saul Berenthal in front of his proud Cleber exhibit at the just-concluded 34th Cuban Trade Fair. Saul was born in Havana and came to the U. S. with his family in the 1960s. He understands Wendy Miranda's denial of the factory he planned to build at Mariel. He said, "Cuban-Americans like me still want to bridge the gap between our two countries. I have contracts from foreign countries for the tractors we build in Alabama and I still plan, hopefully, to sell them in Cuba because I believe they will help Cuban farmers. Our tractors are small but strong, cheap but effective. The 1940s technology that we use I will not deny but when the modernity is factored in as we have displayed here, they are good, affordable tractors for Cuba." 

YES, the Alabama-built Cleber tractors are exactly what Saul Berenthal says they are -- small, strong, good, and affordable. But they are built with 1940s technology using modern material and techniques. For her ultra-modern Mariel Port Economic Zone, Wendy Miranda wants both modern technology and modern material...and she says she has such offers from companies in France, China, Japan, and Belarus. So, should Wendy Miranda's decision to deny Cleber a factory at Mariel be mocked even by the Miami Herald?

        This photo shows Wendy Miranda being interviewed at the Cuban Trade Fair in the first week of November-2016 about the vitally important Mariel Economic Zone. In the interview she explained why she denied the U. S. company, Cleber, to build a tractor-making factory at Mariel. She also said she hoped Cuban farmers could replace their oxen with some of the Cleber tractors that she said are "good from what I have seen." She also explained that: "I welcome U. S. companies at Mariel if I think they are fair to us and can compete with other companies from nations that have always been our friends. For example, I want the great cancer institute based in Buffalo, New York to join us in a Mariel factory that will produce adequate quantities of the cheap, or free, life-saving cancer drug that Cuban scientists developed and that Buffalo's Roswell Cancer Institute wants to provide for Americans. I want Roswell to have its impact at Mariel. Unilever is a Dutch company that makes many consumer products sold in the United States and around the world -- like shampoos, toothpaste, and such. Unilever is already building a big factory at Mariel that will employ at least 300 Cubans. If Unilever was an American company with very similar proposals, I would have welcomed it just as readily."  

        In this photo the big guy in the white shirt  is Paul Polman, the CEO of the Dutch company Unilever that is currently building a $35 million factory at Cuba's Mariel Port. It will soon employ 300 Cubans to manufacture soaps, shampoos and other products. Wendy Miranda approved that deal because "it will help Cubans working there who will be making the products and Cubans who use them. About 300 Cubans will work there to start and more as the company expands, which I think it will." And, yes, Wendy Miranda would have approved the deal if it had been an American company and not a Dutch company. In regards to the Miami Herald berating Cuba for denying Alabama-based Cleber a factory to build its tractors at the Mariel Port, Wendy Miranda believes she now has much better offers from France, China, Japan and Belarus.

       A young Cuban hydraulic engineer, Yanelis Tellez, was born in Mariel and she longs for the day when "Cuba can be Cuba and unleash its potential free of U.S. foreign dictation." The Mariel potential, she says, "will help Cubans and the Caribbean so much if a few evil Cubans in America will not continue to dictate America's Cuban policy against the best interests of Cubans and Americans. The world representation at the UN understands this with a 191-to-zero support for Cuba against U. S. imperialism," Yanelis adds, "Cubans on this island and not the worst of the Miami Cubans need to decide what Cuba is now and will be in the future."  

       Cuba's overall boss at the Mariel Port is Ana Teresa Igarza. She says, "Wendy and I are anxious to do contracts with U. S. companies so close to us if they show respect for Cuba, which many of them are doing." 

       Mr. Obama's 8-years as the twice-elected U. S. President are almost up. He has been the only U. S. president since 1898 with both the guts and the ability to actively treat Cuba fairly, but he's only partially successful because of a hostile 535-member U. S. Congress where Cuban policy is dictated by a few self-serving Batistiano-Mafiosi loyalists now well into a second generation of trying to plunder Cuba while cowardly hiding behind the apathy and cowardice of U. S. citizens and the power of the U. S. military. 

        President Obama -- above at the Grand Theatre in Havana on March 22nd, 2016 -- bravely and honorably declared "a new day" for U.S.-Cuban relations that would benefit "most Cubans, most Americans and most citizens of the world." But back in the U. S. to close out his two-term presidency, Mr. Obama has realized that the U. S. democracy has become more money-driven than voter-driven, evidenced by two extremely unpopular presidential contenders -- Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton -- in a bought-and-paid-for two-party system that is sorely in need of a third or fourth alternative to the current bought-and-paid-for two-party system in which Americans must choose the lesser of two money-crazed evils.

           This photo shows U. S. President Barack Obama back in March on his historic visit to Cuba meeting very uncomfortably with anti-Castro Cuban dissidents. It is clear that his discomfort resulted from the generally accepted premise that much of the loud but relatively little dissidence on the island is lushly sponsored and eagerly encouraged by anti-revolutionary elements in the United States of America.

          President Obama's eight-year reign as U. S. President will soon end. His approval rating is currently an amazing 55%. His predecessor, pro-Batistiano stalwart George W. Bush, left with a typical 27% approval rating after spending 8 years in the White House trying to use American power and influence to regain control of Cuba. Obama's brave and positive overtures to Cuba have improved his approval rating as he prepares to leave office, but such things as the incredibly flawed U. S. Congress being able to maintain the embargo against Cuba into a 6th decade reveals to the world, as evidenced by the latest 191-to-zero vote in the United Nations, a weakening and money-crazed U. S. democracy in Washington, one that tomorrow -- Nov. 8th-- will elect an extremely flawed candidate -- Mrs. Clinton -- over the also flawed Mr. Trump.

         Meanwhile, this map shows the location of the Mariel Port 28 miles southwest of Havana. Its ultra-modern, deep-water renovation means it can handle far larger ships than Havana can and its economic zone is vital to Cuba's future. The coordinator of projects there, Wendy Miranda, told Sarah Marsh of REUTERS this week: "We have been growing gradually but surely. We have 19 firmly signed ventures at Mariel. Four are joint ventures while the rest are 100 percent foreign owned or Cuban owned." Ms. Miranda's goal is to finalize about $9 billion in initial contracts and then add about $2 billion in new deals each year. Asked about a Miami Herald headline that said "Cuba Says No to Obama-Promoted Plans to Assemble Small Tractors on the Island," Wendy Miranda said, "I am eager to work with U. S. companies that equal or exceed other offers. The Alabama owners of the Cleber tractor company admit its 1940s technology is not as good as four other nations are offering us for tractor-building at Mariel, but I am still interested in the small but good Cleber tractors built in Alabama. That's why Cleber had a good exhibit at our Trade Fair in Havana this week."   

Cuba's ultra-modern, deep-water Mariel Port.

Highways leading to Mariel are being widened and repaved.

 This gorgeous little Cuban girl is no one's enemy. 
She doesn't deserve punishment from the U. S. embargo.

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America's Cuban Rut

Personified by...

      ....Mr. Andres Oppenheimer. He was born 65-years-ago in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A nationally syndicated columnist, he is the top Foreign Affairs {meaning anti-Castro} writer for the Miami Herald. And as the above photo hints, he is a prolific author. His prime article this week is his usual anti-Castro harangue entitled "Trump Could Win Florida, Thanks to Cuban Americans." Although extremely biased, it's a key article because Florida has an outsized 29 electoral votes and often decides presidential elections, as it did in 2000 in a laughable, Banana Republic-type farce when it gave the pro-Batistiano Bush dynasty two more White House terms even though the Bush opponent, Al Gore, got more national popular votes. So take special note of Mr. Oppenheimer's first two sentences in this week's propaganda piece:

                     "If Republican candidate Donald Trump wins Florida, as some polls predict, and goes on to win the November 8 election -- a big if, but not an impossible outcome -- he might have President Obama to thank for lending him a hand in the final stretch of the race. Obama's October decision to further relax the U. S. embargo on Cuba by allowing American tourists to bring back home both unlimited quantities of Cuban rum and cigars, as well as his October 26 decision to abstain for the first time in a United Nations vote against the embargo on Cuba, have probably pushed many undecided Cuban Americans in Florida to vote for Trump." 

             From his sanctimonious Miami perch, Oppenheimer can preach to the choir endlessly. Of course, he doesn't have to worry about home-base contradictions, such as the fact that most Cuban-Americans even in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood favor Obama's Cuban policy, not that of the interminable anti-Castro zealots who ignore other facts such as the embargo, for the past five+ decades, has severely hurt everyday Cubans while boosting the image and the legacy of the now 90-year-old Fidel Castro, who by his own choosing is living out his life in his modest Havana home far removed from the endless proliferation of mansions in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. And, of course, Oppenheimer's attack on President Obama for America's very sane and decent abstention last week in the UN is nothing more than the usual one-sided, biased and bullying tirade from self-serving Miami hardliners. While mentioning that abstention, Oppenheimer surely stayed many miles away from the astounding UN vote against the embargo, which he so shamefully cherishes. But just for the record, Mr. Oppenheimer, that UN vote against the embargo was 191-to-zero, meaning no nation in the entire world supports it and that now includes the United States of America itself. Thus, when it comes to America's Cuban policy, the bullies stand at zero while the entire world sits at 191. In a democracy, Mr. Oppenheimer, that should represent something, don't you think?

     From his sanctimonious Miami base, Andres Oppenheimer also has a television program entitled "OPPENHEIMER Presenta." A typical recent program was entitled: "Macri Victory Changes the Political Map in Latin America." It too was interesting even if it was also completely biased. It referenced his anti-Cuban friend Mauricio Macri's election as the President of Argentina, replacing the two-term democratically elected Cristina Fernandez who idolizes Fidel Castro and his Cuban Revolution that changed the political map in Latin America by inspiring democratically elected pro-Castro, anti-imperialists Presidents throughout Latin America in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. Oppenheimer's aforementioned television program didn't hide the belief, or hope, that Macri's election replacing Fernandez in Argentina will be replicated throughout Latin America with other anti-Cuban Presidents soon replacing Castro disciples such as...Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, etc. Oppenheimer's unabashed fondness for President Macri in Argentina is nothing new; Miami's political interest in replacing pro-Castro Latin American presidents with anti-Cuban leaders has been historic for decades, greatly enhanced by Miami's long-standing alignments with the Bush dynasty and more recently with the right-wing Tea Party.

        This historic, and shameful, Latin American photo dates back to April 12, 2002. It shows one of Miami's favorite foreign businessmen, Pedro Carmona, swearing himself in as the new President of Venezuela. It followed a coup that overthrew democratically elected President Hugo Chavez, a foreign-backed coup that still sends shivers up-and-down the spines of Latin Americans who remember their imperialist pasts. It took place when the George W. Bush administration typically had put two of the all-time anti-Castro zealots -- Otto Reich and Roger Noriega -- in charge of America's Latin American affairs. Thus, the U. S. media widely reported that, as Pedro Carmona was declaring himself the new President of Venezuela, there were wild celebrations taking place in Miami's Little Havana section as well as the White House in Washington.

        Latin American history also registers the fact that the coup-powered Venezuelan presidency of Pedro Carmona lasted only a few blistering hours. Venezuelans quickly took to the streets of Caracas en masse and demanded that Chavez be freed and returned to power, with a feisty and legendary lady named Lena Ron using a bullhorn from the back of a slowly-moving pick-up truck to shout, "Return my President to power within 24 hours or we will begin a scorched earth policy from Caracas to Miami and Washington!" Her threat worked; Chavez was returned to power within hours and remained Venezuela's President and Cuba's best friend till the day he died of cancer on March 5, 2013...and since then his hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, has tried, also under extreme and ongoing duress, to be Cuba's best friend.

       This year Fidel Castro disciple Dilma Rousseff was impeached as the President of Brazil, by far Latin America's biggest, strongest and richest nation. She twice had been democratically elected President because of massive support from Brazil's much-maligned poor majority. Indeed, she was not charged with crimes but for "maneuvering" too much of Brazil's wealth to help the poor, much to the chagrin of Brazil's rich minority. And, indeed, many of her primary political opponents have been charged or tied to crimes. Ms. Rousseff calls her impeachment "a coup" and she is not hesitant to align anti-Cuban elements in Miami and Washington with her enemies, and that includes what she calls "the coup leader," Eduardo Cunho.

      Inspired by the Cuban Revolution, in her youth Dilma Rousseff became a guerrilla fighter against a U.S.-backed military dictatorship back in the early 1970s. After her capture, she is shown above stoically being forced to endure her military show trial. She was unmercifully tortured in prison for the next two years and as the democratically elected President of Brazil she was asked to testify about that at the United Nations as past Latin American dictatorships were scrutinized. She did so in tears but in sordid, intimate detail.

Dilma, in the center, had a rich family upbringing.

Dilma growing up in undemocratic Brazil.

As a teenager, Dilma pined for Brazil's poorest people.

Dilma, in the center, a debutante in Brazil in 1962. 
After this, she became a guerrilla fighter. 

The dictators had listed Dilma prisoner #3023.

Dilma, twice elected the President of Brazil.

President Rousseff with Fidel Castro in Havana.

Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment in 2016.

     The best Caribbean newspaper is the Jamaica Observer. After the 191-to-0 vote in the UN denouncing the U. S. embargo of Cuba, the Observer had a scathing article that called the embargo a "criminal act." 

   There are 7,000 Caribbean islands and 25 Caribbean nations. 

   Cuba has no Caribbean enemies. 

In fact, now that President Barack Obama has refused to support the embargo against Cuba, there are no nations in the world that support it, not even the U. S. Yet, the U. S. Congress plans to keep the embargo...and other Cuban obscenities...in place for at least another five decades or so. And that's why, I believe, the title for this essay -- "America's Cuban Rut" -- is appropriate. 

Meanwhile:

       With the U. S. presidential election only a few days away, this Getty Archive photo is very interesting. The lady in the right-center is Hillary Clinton. She is shown as part of the high-powered legal team in 1974 that called for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. Ironically, next week on November 8th either Mrs. Clinton, the huge favorite, or Donald Trump, the long-shot non-politician, will be elected the new President of the United States, the world's economic and military superpower. The direly troubled, money-crazed, two-party U. S. democracy has produced two extremely unpopular and massively flawed presidential contenders...monitored closely by the whole world. Whether Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump enters the White House on Jan. 20-2017, governing -- and holding off incessant impeachment attempts by their legions of enemies in a deeply polarized nation -- will likely command most of their attention and most of the ensuing headlines. But just think: America's two-party democratic system worked pretty good for...oh...about 230 years. And then along came this seemingly endless...better to raise and spend a billion dollars or so campaigning for each candidate...presidential race in which it seems most eligible voters are saying, or thinking, "If I vote, I'll only be voting for the lesser of two evils." Uhhhh, not exactly what the Founding Fathers envisioned. Does this photo suggest "What goes around comes around?" 

  What about a viable 3rd or 4th choice? 

{Graphic courtesy of New Zealand's The Daily Blog}

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Cuba Shuns America

  Seeks Asian, European Business 
{Thursday, Nov. 3rd, 2016}

         The major editorial in the Chicago Tribune yesterday -- Nov. 2nd, 2016 -- referenced this week's Cuban Trade Fair taking place in Havana where a record 3,500 exhibits from 73 nations are trying to arrange business investments. The editorial astutely pointed out that U. S. companies are at a disadvantage because of the U. S. embargo that no nation in the world, including the U. S. itself, supports but which a few Cuban-American hardliners in the U. S. Congress maintain as a revenge tool and, apparently for them, an economic and political bonanza. The Tribune editorial said: "Momentum is building in the ongoing detente between the U. S. and Cuba. Yet, something still isn't right. The economic embargo that the U. S. imposed on Castro more than five decades ago remains in place. It's an anachronism that simply doesn't make sense to enforce any more, a formidable barrier to unfettered trade..." No one, except a few in the 535-member U. S. Congress, could possible disagree with that logic. The Tribune pointed out that last week in the UN's emphatic 191-to-0 vote against the embargo even the U. S. refused to support it.

         This Bloomberg/Getty Images photo of a Cuban cigar factory illustrates a Bloomberg article that discusses how Cuba is not anxious to deal with U. S. companies because of the embargo. Caterpillar, the heavy equipment giant, said it is still seeking American licenses to invest in Cuba. Hernandez Gordils, the development executive at auto parts retailer Napa, said, "We are here in Havana so that the day the market opens up our brand has recognition, so people know us in Cuba." To appease a few self-serving extremists in Congress, U. S. businesses may have to suffer in future decades too. Meanwhile, Cuba says it is behind schedule in finalizing investments because it is "not accustomed to volumes" but it has completed $1.3 billion worth of projects and has $9.5 billion pending in foreign investments. The deals primarily involve health care, tourism, transportation, sugar, mining and renewable energy...but not its famed cigars and rum. Cuba also said it is "holding back" on many tourism investments in the iconic capital city of Havana in order to try to spur tourism investments elsewhere around the island.     

        The Voice of America network, representing the views of the U. S. government, used this AP photo to illustrate a major article about this week's start of the 34th Cuban Trade Fair in Havana. The photo shows Cuba's Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca, on the right, watching Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz cut the ribbon to open the Fair. The theme of the VOA article stresses these points: "Investment from European companies appears to be picking up...formal trade between the U. S. and Cuba remains at a trickle...as Cuba trumpeted new deals with Russia and Japan...Observers note that Cuba's small but growing private sector has been able to flourish and produce tens of thousands of new jobs despite the strictures of the U. S. embargo." The VOA said there appears to be "a conscious decision by the Cuban government to limit commerce with U. S. companies while funneling most business toward European and Asian companies." The VOA concluded, correctly, that Cuba prefers to deal with nations that have never had an embargo against the island, and that happens to include every nation in the whole wide world except the United States.

     This REUTERS photo shows Cuba's Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca speaking this week -- Nov. 1, 2016 -- at the opening of the island's 34th Trade Fair in Havana. Malmierca began his address by saying: "We are below our expectations," meaning that he expected more foreign investments in the past two years following monumental U. S. efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Malmierca made it plain that Cuba's distrust of the U. S. embargo makes him less anxious to close deals with U. S. companies. Yet, it's the busiest Trade Fair in Cuba's history with 73 nations and 3,500 exhibitors participating this week in Havana.

       On this entire planet, as America's President Obama well knows, there is not a single nation in the whole world that supports the American embargo of Cuba. Yet, unconcerned with shaming America and democracy, just a few rogues in the 535-member United States Congress can maintain it...perhaps forever.

       For the record, this photo shows the panel at the United Nations last week where the United States UN Representative, Samantha Power, pushed BUTTON #3 -- circled in red above -- to vote "abstained" because the U. S. government no longer had the heart to support the cruel, congressionally mandated embargo against Cuba. Thus, the worldwide 191-to-0 vote against the embargo stands as the biggest testament yet against the sheer hypocrisy of a few rogues in Congress who benefit from it. But, of course, in the eyes of the world it also reveals a weakness of the U. S. democracy in being unable to correct a Cuban policy that, more than any other single item, continuously hurts America's international image...decade after decade after decade. The irrefutable proof of that non-hyperbolic statement is the #3 circled in red in the above photo. 

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Treating Cuba Unfairly

Starts with Sanitizing Batista!

       This photo is courtesy of REUTERS/Alexander Meneghini. It showcases the ten-day Havana Ballet Festival. It is particularly memorable because the renowned Martha Graham Dance Company is making its Cuban premiere to absolutely thunderous applause. It is the first time since 1941 that the prestigious Graham troupe has performed in Cuba and it is just one of seven American companies participating.

      The superb journalist at the London-based REUTERS bureau in Havana, Sarah Marsh, has written major articles on this week's Havana Dance Festival. She said, "It underscores U.S.-Cuban cultural exchanges in the wake of the Obama detente. The Cuban and American ballet worlds have a deeply entwined history and the father of Cuban dance, Ramiro Guerra, studied under Martha Graham in New York City in the 1940s." 

       Catherine Conley, shown here with Rene Marsh of CNN, is an 18-year-old American ballerina who has moved to Cuba to train at the Cuban National Ballet. Ms. Conley says, "I feel incredibly honored to be here with such wonderful people. The Cubans at the school have been so open and welcoming. I think this is a reflection of where the two countries want to go and I cherish my decision to come here." The website EuroNews.com has an excellent video report on this week's Ballet Festival and it includes interviews with both Catherine Conley and Alicia Alonso, the 96-year-old founder of Cuba's renowned ballet school. 

 Catherine Conley at the Cuban National Ballet school. 

       All of the major Cuban cultural programs -- from free health care to free education through college to ballet, etc. -- stress children. That includes these children at the current 10-day Havana Ballet Festival.

       Even with eight major U. S. companies, including Martha Graham, on hand for the Havana Ballet Festival all this week, the superstar, of course, is the legendary Alicia Alonso. This REUTERS photo shows her being helped onstage at the Festival. She is now 96-years-old and has been legally blind for many years, but she is still the incomparable...Alicia Alonso. She is still the world's greatest ballet instructor, on the heels of a nonpareil career as the world's superstar ballerina. Since 1959, or since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Ms. Alonso has personally scoured the island in search of children that she would bring to Havana on full scholarship-and-board to be trained to be world-class ballet stars. Over the decades, the greatest ballet companies in the world -- San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Moscow, etc. -- have benefited from superstars selected and trained by Alicia Alonso. Many of those stars are now millionaires but they still love Alicia Alonso and she still loves them just as dearly as she did when they were her kids.

       This photo shows Alicia Alonso when she was the world's greatest ballerina. She had left Cuba "for good" in the 1950s because of the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship. But, a ballerina superstar, she joyously returned to her beloved homeland in 1959 after the Cuban Revolution defeated the hated Batistianos.

      This iconic WordPress.com photo is historic because from 1959 till today Alicia Alonso has been an integral part of Revolutionary Cuba. As soon as the pig-tailed Alicia returned to Cuba after the Revolutionary victory, Fidel Castro went to see her, as this photo attests. According to the famed Cuban journalist Carlos Franqui, Fidel told her, "I know you are the world's dance star, but your first love is Cuba. I want you to start a ballet school in Havana for Cuban children. You would be in total charge and I will provide you $250,000 to get the school started and then make sure it stays funded, come hell or hurricanes. I want you home here in Cuba." The pig-tailed Alicia Alonso accepted that historic offer, and the rest is also history.

     She built the National Ballet of Cuba into the world's best school.

    Fidel, "come hell or hurricanes," kept his promises to Alicia.

Fidel attended many performances with Alicia.

        Over the years as they have aged...Alicia is now 96 and Fidel is 90...he has bestowed upon her all of the top medals, honors and awards that he could think of. At the ceremony above, an audio recording captured a soft, private exchange as he pinned a medal on her chest. She said, "You have always been so very kind to me." He replied, "No one, myself included, has ever given you the total kindnesses that you deserve." 

Typical Cuban children in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

   Cuban children yesterday at the Havana Dance Festival.

 Cuban women started the Revolution.

Cuban women fought the Revolution to the end.

      Beginning in 1959, Cubans who could read and write -- like the young woman here on the right -- were sent into homes across the island to teach millions of illiterate adults, like the young mother above. 

Cuba's literacy rate today is world-class. 

       From 1959 till today, Cuba provides totally free and excellent health care for all Cubans, especially the women and children. Cuba's infant mortality rate is lower than most far richer nations, including the U. S.

        Alicia Alonso told the London newspaper The Guardian: "The Western media will never give him credit for it, but Fidel made the Revolution a female-driven affair right from the start. That is monumental considering how the plight of women and children created the need for such a revolution. You asked me a tough question, 'Why have you stood by Fidel for all this time?' Well, it's not a tough question. I know of no significant Cuban women -- Celia, Vilma, Haydee, Tete, Melba...the ones who fought beside him...none ever left his side till the day they died in Revolutionary Cuba. I, who joined him in early 1959, will do the same. In Washington and Miami some say he lied to them and he is a not good man. Well, he never lied to me and to the women of Cuba. He may not be a good man to his enemies but he is a kind man to me and to the women of Cuba. That means he is also good to Cuban children, don't you see? And what did that replace? It replaced all the Mafia unkindness."  

Alicia Alonso, a Cuban Revolutionary legend at age 96.

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