Cuba-U.S. Confer Today

An Important Meeting!

     The London-based Reuters news agency consistently provides the best and fairest coverage of news affecting Cuba, which also particularly affects the United States and even has worldwide repercussions. And that reporting is variously provided by superb journalists on the island including Sarah Marsh, Marc Frank, Nelson Acosta and Frank Daniel. Yesterday -- Dec. 6-2016 -- the primary Reuters article from its stellar reporters in Havana and Washington was entitled "Cuba, U. S. to Discuss Detente in Wake of Trump Election." As usual, that Reuters article provided the best up-to-the-minute update on Cuban-U. S. relations at a critical juncture for both countries following the election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States on November 8th and the death at age 90 of Cuba's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro on November 25th. That team of reporters recognizes that today's U.S.-Cuban session will effectively conclude the Obama administration's historically positive influence on relations between the two nations, which means the next major events will await the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, a transition that presumably goes from the all-time most Cuba-friendly Democratic presidency to what may very well be the all-time most unfriendly Republican presidency. 

      The above-titled article yesterday was written by Sarah Marsh with input from three other Reuters Cuban experts -- Frank, Daniel and Acosta. It's major points included: "Cuba and the United States will draw up a roadmap for deepening their detente on Wednesday -- Dec. 7th -- in a first meeting since the election of Donald Trump as U. S. president and the death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro;" "The fifth U.S.-Cuba Bilateral Commission comes at a time of increased uncertainty about the future of U.S.-Cuban relations given Trump's promise to end the detente;" "The administration of outgoing U. S. President Barack Obama has pressed American companies to complete cutting business deals in Cuba to help further cement the president's policy by the time Trump takes office on January 20th;" "Several major U. S. companies, such as General Electric, are in the final stages of negotiating deals with Cuba...and more than half a dozen announcements, ranging from cruise ships and travel to manufacturing and telecommunications are believed to be in the works;" "Castro had given Cuba an outsized influence in world affairs during his half-century as president, partly by clashing with the United States;" "Fidel's younger brother Raul, who took over as president in 2008, made history two years ago by agreeing with Obama to end Cold War hostility and start normalizing relations. Since then, the two countries have opened embassies, restored commercial flights, opened travel options and negotiated agreements on issues affecting the environment, law enforcement, the postal service and communications;" "Obama, who visited Cuba earlier this year, has also gradually poked holes in the U. S. embargo against the island through executive actions." Trump's executive actions can close those "holes."

        U. S. President Obama made history by merely talking to and shaking hands with Cuban President Raul Castro. But in the last two years of his two-term, 8-year presidency, Mr. Obama didn't stop there. With a combination of courage, astuteness and decency unmatched by any of the nine prior U. S. presidents, Mr. Obama earnestly tried to normalize relations with the nearby island, showing more respect for totally innocent everyday Cubans than his predecessors had ever dared to display. Also, the democracy-loving Mr. Obama, unlike the proponents of America's vile Batistiano-driven Cuban policy, was concerned with the negative image of America and of democracy that the U. S. Cuban policy spread all around the world as the recent 191-to-0 Pro-Cuba-Anti-U. S. vote in the United Nations emphatically and dramatically revealed.

       The U. S. Representative to the UN, Samantha Power, shocked many democracy-lovers and angered many Batistiano disciples by amazingly refusing to vote in favor of America's own Cuban policy, a policy dictated for decades by visceral Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress aligned with self-serving right-wingers in both Congress and Republican White Houses. The above photo shows the decent and brilliant Ms. Power explaining to the world on Oct. 26-2016 why she could not use her U. S. vote to support a Cuban policy mandated by a dysfunctional 535-member Congress that compliantly capitulates to a few extremists.

       President-elect Donald Trump has already named Nikki Haley as the next U. S. Representative to the United Nations, replacing the superb Samantha Power. That selection by Trump is enough to cause Cuba to prepare for war. Ms. Haley has been the Governor of South Carolina since 2011 because she is a darling of the right-wing Tea Party and the Bush dynasty, two elements that would love to see Cuba on its knees and under the yoke of another U.S.-friendly Batista-type regime. During the Republican primary Ms. Haley said some terrible things about Donald Trump because she campaigned wildly and wickedly for Cuban-American U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, two of the most vicious and most powerful anti-Cuba zealots.

      Nikki Haley's first choice to be the next President of the United States was/is the Senator from Miami -- Marco Rubio. Rubio has made his fortune and his political hay by securing support from the Bush dynasty, the Tea Party and a plethora of right-wing billionaires who quickly spotted the "For Sale" sign many feel is Rubio's main calling-card, that plus his anti-Cuban diatribes that seem to show zero regard for everyday Cubans on the island but intense regard for his own economic and political prowess. Now entering his second 6-year term in the Senate, Rubio accomplished nothing his first-term except campaigning for money donations while busily seeking the presidency and even avoiding the most Senatorial votes of any Senator. Nikki Haley will soon be using her UN influence to promote Rubio's ongoing second bid for the presidency, meaning the run-up to the 2020 election will again consume Rubio, along with his vicious anti-Cuban rants and anti-Cuban Senatorial maneuvers. When the above photo was taken for ABC-TV news, Governor Haley was on stage with Marco Rubio saying vile things about Donald Trump, who will become her boss in January. After Rubio was roundly defeated by Trump in the Republican primary in Rubio's own state of Florida, Governor Haley's second choice for President was the second most vicious anti-Cuban Cuban-American candidate, and not her still-viable and now new boss -- President-elect Donald Trump. 

      Once Marco Rubio was booted out of the presidential race by Trump, Nikki Haley campaigned wildly for the vicious anti-Cuban Cuban-American Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. Cruz also is a product of the Bush dynasty and the Tea Party but also, like Rubio, has a powerful stable of right-wing billionaires backing his presidential candidacy. One of the odd things that reflects the Batistiano grip on the U. S. democracy, I think, is that the majority of Cuban-Americans favor Obama's sane and decent approach to Cuba but there seems to be no chance such moderate Cuban-Americans can ever get elected to Congress or be serious candidates to be Presidents. That fact, coupled with the unanimity vote in the UN -- 191-to-0 -- condemning America's Cuban policy, reflects a Batistiano-fueled weakness in the U. S. democracy, one that might result in the Batistianos capturing the U. S. before they re-capture Cuba. Nikki Haley's appointment by Trump is a tip-off that the incoming Republican president will take his Cuban orders from only anti-Cuban zealots, ignoring the wishes of most Americans, most Cuban-Americans and all the nations of the entire world.

      But this photo remains more ominous regarding Cuba's fate than Trump's appointment of Bush-disciple Nikki Haley and his reported consideration of lofty appointments for even more dangerous Bush disciples such as Mauricio Claver-Carone, John Bolton, etc. This photo shows Trump prior to the election in Miami's Little Havana telling the elderly remnants of Brigade 2506 that he would reverse Obama's Cuban sanity and do their bidding, hinting strongly that as Commander-in-Chief he would recapture Cuba for them before the last of them died. Brigade 2506 is the CIA-backed unit that attacked Cuba in April of 1961, a not-so-brilliant historical assault that enabled front-line fighter Fidel Castro to race to the front lines and shock the world anew with his massively successful defense of Cuba and his revolution. It was his colossal defeat of Brigade 2506 that solidified Fidel Castro's international legend from 1961 till his death in 2016, and will further solidify his legacy. As President, Trump can use his Executive Power to reverse Obama's positive Cuban overtures and also use his powers as Commander-to-Chief to keep his promise to the aged survivors of Brigade 2506 to get revenge for their defeat long ago. But in doing so, he would exacerbate a vile Cuban policy and sacrifice even more of America's reputation than the 191-to-0 UN vote indicates has already been expended, starting in 1952 when the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship and topping off that calamity with an even bigger one -- allowing the ousted Batistiano leaders to resurrect their lucrative Banana Republic on once-sacred American soil.

      As referenced by the aforementioned Reuters article, today -- Dec. 7-2016 -- the United States and Cuba will hold their first bilateral meeting since the death of Fidel Castro on November 25th and the election of Donald Trump as the next U. S. President on November 8th. It is an important meeting considering that the U. S. transition from an Obama to a Trump presidency also involves such things as a Nikki Haley replacing a Samantha Power at the United Nations, the Batistianos gaining even more power in Congress, and even Brigade 2506 old-timers in Miami soon having a direct hook-up with the Commander-in-Chief himself!!  

Ominous? Absolutely! Scary? That too! 

Remember the proclamation Cuba's incomparable revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez first laid-down in 1959 right after she learned the ousted Batista-Mafia leaders had safely resurfaced in the U. S: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Celia died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11-1980; Fidel died of old age at 90 on Nov. 25-2016. Beyond that amazing prophecy, Celia made no prediction regarding Cuba's fate. Now in these perilous times, I wish she had.

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Cuba Without Fidel

 An Imperiled Island!! 
{Updated: Tuesday, Dec. 6th, 2016}

      My copy of Time Magazine -- Dated Dec. 12-2016 -- arrived in my mailbox Sunday, Dec. 4-2016. It's major article was entitled "After Fidel" and it reviewed the historic life of Cuban Revolutionary icon Fidel Castro from his birth on Aug. 13-1926 till his death at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016. The cover photo was taken by Yousuf Karsh. The long, incisive and fair-minded article also predicted Cuba's future without Fidel Castro.

         Time Magazine wisely selected Tim Padgett to write its topical review of Fidel Castro's life and how it everlastingly impacted the world, especially Cuba and the United States. Mr. Padgett is also the perfect journalist to project how Fidel's life and now his death will impact the Caribbean, Latin America, and the world -- especially Cuba and the United States. Fidel, for example, reshaped the Western Hemisphere when his Revolution shocked the world by becoming the first popular uprising in a small country to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship, a massively significant and historic event because at the very time the United States supported the extremely wicked Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba -- 1952 till 1959 -- the United States was also backing equally wicked dictatorships such as Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and Somoza in Nicaragua. This marked the first time that the world's most respected Democracy, America's, had succumbed to the greed of right-wing thugs. In fact, from the early 1950s till the early 1970s, right-wingers within the bowels of the U. S. government were permitted to use the unchallenged might of the U. S. economy and military to sponsor coups that overthrew governments in countries such as Guatemala, Chile and even Iran just so U.S.-friendly dictators could reign. The adverse consequences still linger and will also impact generations to come. The US-UK coup in Iran coveted Iran's oil but years later in 1979 the extremists Islamic Revolution in turn overthrew the US-UK friendly dictator, the Shaw of Iran. In Chile in 1973 U. S. right-wingers...famed names like Nixon and Kissinger...supported the bloody coup that overturned the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, Fidel Castro's dear friend who actually died using the engraved AK-47 rifle Fidel had given him as an inauguration gift. After the death of the democratically elected Allende, Chile's U.S.-friendly dictator -- Augusto Pinochet -- ruled for 17 bloody years as one of history's all-time most murderous dictators. Fidel Castro's big revolution in little Cuba changed such things, helping to usher in democracies to replace U.S.-backed dictators. Michelle Bachelet, for example, is now the two-term Castro-loving President of Chile in a true democracy. President Bachelet -- as well as history -- remembers that her beloved father was one of the countless victims of Pinochet's murderous reign. Other revolutions, such as current Nicaraguan leader Danny Ortega's, drastically changed that nation from a U.S.-friendly Somoza dictatorship to the current Castro-loving Ortega strongman rule that masquerades as an anti-American democracy. A prime architect of those drastic changes was Fidel Castro, whose long-shot revolution in Cuba inspired sovereignty revolts and/or democratic elections across a wide swath of Latin America -- and elsewhere. For example, the current democratically elected President of South Africa was sure to be in attendance at the mostly private ceremonies surrounding Fidel Castro's funeral Sunday, Nov. 4th, 2016. That's because all the democratically elected Presidents of South Africa -- including the beloved Nelson Mandela -- credit Fidel Castro with ending apartheid and ushering in Democracy in South Africa. Tim Padgett joined Time Magazine as the head of its bureau in Mexico City in 1996. Since then, Mr. Padgett has worked extensively in Miami and in Havana and is today a world-class expert on U.S.-Cuban relations, a relationship that today mainly reflects the input and impact of Fidel Castro as well as the two generations of Batistianos and Mafiosi that Fidel chased off his island only to see them create a functional government within the bowels of the U. S. government. While the Batistianos since 1959 have mostly dictated the Cuban narrative as well as America's Cuban policy, please note that Tim Padgett is not a Batistiano but he is a great journalist with remarkable insight into the imprints and footprints Fidel Castro made on the world, especially Cuba and the United States. So, if it didn't arrive in your mailbox, purchase this week's copy of Time Magazine and study Padgett's summation of Fidel Castro's impactful life and his prediction of what lies ahead for Cuba and the United States. Padgett's views are the antipathy of Batistiano propaganda although not pro-Castro.

       Starting in Jan.-1959, Time Magazine cover articles of Fidel Castro have chronicled the significant life of one of history's all-time most famous men -- and surely one of the most beloved and most reviled. 

Fidel Castro has been on nine Time Magazine covers.

     Time Magazine's "LION IN WINTER" has finally died at age 90...of old age, which is also significant since the Guinness Book of World Records registers the fact that he survived 627 or so assassination attempts, mostly by three of history's all-time best assassins -- the CIA, the Mafia and the Batistianos. Fidel Castro was a front-line fighter -- in his revolution, at the Bay of Pigs and elsewhere -- and his most celebrated enemies fled to seek sanctuary and, as it turned out, wealth and power hiding behind the skirts of the world superpower. While he was a very hard man to kill, his legacy will live on and constitute the biggest threat to the gluttonous greed and excesses of his enemies who still have enough control of the U. S. Congress and Republican presidents to maintain their formidable wealth and power indefinitely within the confines of the world's strongest democracy. While money and power will always constitute the essence of Fidel's enemies, the ongoing efforts to crush the last vestiges of his Revolution will actually now increase in both tone and reality, further threatening if necessary 11.2 million innocent Cubans on the island as well as continuing to demean the U. S. and democracy. The day he died Fidel Castro was aware of the 191-to-0 pro-Cuba/anti-U. S. vote in the United Nations, a unanimous worldwide denunciation of America and democracy that the Batistianos in Congress couldn't care less about. The Fidel Castro that the CIA, the Mafia and the Batistianos couldn't kill has died of old age but his legacy will live on. Just as his life was interesting, so will be his legacy but it...like his life...will be up against omnipotent and mostly unchecked opponents.

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Cuba Has NO CHANCE

 And Here's Why!!

         This AP/Ramon Espinosa photo shows Cuba's 85-year-old President Raul Castro instructing guests in Santiago de Cuba Saturday night -- Nov. 3-2016 -- after a laborious caravan had taken the ashes of his 90-year-old, more-famous brother Fidel Castro from Havana back to their home area in eastern Cuba. 

        Then last night Raul took to the rostrum to praise his brother Fidel, and shed some tears. The big headline from the speech was that Fidel's wishes will be granted to make sure that a cult of personality surrounding the legendary rebel will not evolve. Raul said, as ordered by Fidel, there will be no statues of Fidel and no streets, buildings or any such other edifices named for him.

      The 4-day journey from Havana to Santiago ended late Saturday and returned Fidel Castro's remains to the area where he was born in 1926 and where he launched his Cuban Revolution in 1953. This Sunday morning -- Dec. 4th, 2016 -- his ashes were buried in a quiet ceremony at a private family plot.

      The reason I believe the vulnerable but pugnacious island of Cuba has no chance as 2016 is about to turn into 2017 is not because revolutionary icon Fidel Castro died at age 90 on November 25th, 2016.

       And the reason Cuba has no chance on the eve of 2017 is not because the incoming President of the anti-Cuban colossal to the north, Donald Trump, went to Little Havana in Miami prior to his election and promised the aging members of Brigade 2506 {which infamously attacked Revolutionary Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961} that he would "recapture" the island for them before the last of them died of old age.

       But this photo, which speaks a thousand silent words, is the reason after all these decades that Revolutionary Cuba has no chance. This photo was taken this week for USA Today, America's largest newspaper. Like the rest of the mainstream U. S. media, USA Today has neither the guts nor the integrity to tell the truth about Cuba. To cover Cuba's monumental and historic event this week -- the death of Fidel Castro -- USA Today typically sent Alan Gomez, it's Cuban writer, to the island to report on Castro's demise at age 90. Gomez is a Miami-based Cuban-American with a massive family bias against Castro and his Revolution because he booted the Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders off the island two generations ago, way back in January of 1959. For the most part, he only booted them to nearby Miami, the famed U. S. city that since then has been known as Little Havana, the capital of the first and only Banana Republic on U. S. soil. Alan Gomez is the only type U. S. journalist allowed to regularly report on Cuba and Cuba regularly allows him to fly back and forth to the island from Miami, knowing his articles in USA Today will be vehemently biased against Cuba. That was, of course, the precise case this week when Gomez's two heralded articles about the death of Fidel Castro featured and highlighted {above} the malicious comments of Berta Soler, the most dangerous Cuban dissident and, according to many everyday Cubans, surely one of the best-funded.

      This USA Today photo of Berta Soler was featured in the first of Alan Gomez's two extremely biased articles this week in America's largest newspaper. Both articles highlighted vicious quotes from Berta Soler explaining why she was euphoric over the death of Fidel Castro, with Alan Gomez and USA Today trying to convey the lie that all the Cubans on the island felt exactly the way Berta Soler does. The sheer fact that such "journalism" is a blatant distortion of reality doesn't faze Alan Gomez, USA Today, and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media. My lament over that depravity is not in defense of Fidel Castro or Cuba but, instead, it is in defense of my two higher priorities -- America and democracy. You see, unlike many propagandized Americans, I regret such things as the recent 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations that, in astounding international unanimity, denounced America's anti-democratic Cuban policy that either cowardly or unpatriotic Americans, for two generations now, have allowed to persist unchallenged.

      This photo also says a thousand words about why Cuba now has no chance. It shows Berta Soler brandishing her biggest anti-Cuba weapon -- a passport. As with Cuba's other two most famed dissidents -- Yoani Sanchez and Guillermo Farinas -- Berta Soler can now fly back-and-forth from Havana to Miami and to the U. S. Congress in Washington or to other Western capitals around the world. When they return to Cuba each time, they are armed with far more celebrity and, many say, far more funds to conduct their overthrow-the-Cuban-government enterprises.

         This photo shows Berta Soler in Europe smiling as her earphone explains in Spanish why she has received a major award from right-wing European sources for her anti-Castro activities on the island.

       This photo shows Berta Soler being heralded at a ceremony in the United States Congress hosted by vicious and now very rich anti-Castro U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. The other lady in the photo is anti-Castro zealot Yolanda Huergas. Unmentioned, of course, at that news conference was and is the billions of tax dollars that, since 1959, have flowed out of Congress to support an unending barrage of anti-Castro schemes as well as to fund an unending torrent of programs that also enrich and empower anti-Castro zealots via the vast and lucrative Castro Cottage Industry that will continue to flourish in the U. S. even after the death from old age of the 90-year-old Fidel Castro, who has a page in the Guinness Book of World Records for having survived some 627 or so assassination attempts, which is interesting because he always fought from the front-lines while the Batistianos fled to the U. S. to hurl their bricks back at him, always missing him but always hurting everyday Cubans on the island with such things as hotel bombings, a civilian airplane bombing, and an economic embargo that is the longest and cruelest, since 1962, ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. For those reasons, the rest of the nations in the world oppose -- by a UN vote of 191-to-0 -- the Batistiano-dictation of America's asine, cruel Cuban policy.

      But that anti-American Cuban policy will continue despite its zero international support. The above photo explains why that is so. That's Senator Menendez escorting the apparently well-heeled Berta Soler through the halls of Congress. Like the other six most-vicious Cuban-American members of Congress, anti-Castro zealots and beneficiaries like Menendez can't be voted out of Congress although, amazingly, all polls show the majority of Cuban-Americans -- even in Miami and New Jersey -- favor President Obama's decent efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, not their cruelty. However, the chances of such moderate Cuban-Americans getting elected to Congress are slim & none and, quite frankly, probably dangerous.

       Back on Cuban soil with more fame and supposedly more resources after visits to Europe, Miami or Congress, Berta Soler is better able to direct her Ladies in White in massive anti-Castro demonstrations. Most everyday Cubans resent the disruptions and often taken actions against them. But apparently the primary aim of Ladies is to provoke photos such as the one above in which Cuban soldiers react. A photo like this generally gets far more coverage in the U. S. media than far more anti-government demonstrations in the United States...such as the one taking place now by Sioux Indians on the Standing Rock Reservation that straddles the North and South Dakota borders. In mostly crime-free Cuba, police shootings of civilians don't seem to occur for eager photographers or Smart-Phone videographers, so provocative demonstrations are designed as primary tools in which to help stir anti-Cuban passions -- especially in the United States but actually not in Cuba among more enlightened everyday Cubans.

           A photo like this, Berta Soler well knows, will greatly increase her support in the U. S. Congress and other rich spots. But London-based international media giants such as Reuters are free to also report that the demonstrations that provoke them are mostly "nuisances" for everyday Cubans and "major headaches" for female Cuban soldiers, like the ones shown above, who primarily have to end up dealing with them.

       This is not to say that anti-Castro dissidents on the island -- such as famed blogger Yoani Sanchez -- should be silenced, jailed or mauled. But I am saying that no foreign nation should be the prime impetus or the prime funder of such dissidence. The Cuban Revolution way back in 1953 was, in fact, spawned by the incredibly wicked United States and Mafia support of the thieving, brutal, and murderous Batista dictatorship. Thus, Revolutionary Cuba should not be constantly criticized in the U. S. for being sensitive to the well known and well funded and unending U. S. efforts to overthrow the Cuban government, efforts spear-headed by rich, powerful and unchecked Cuban exiles and their easily acquired sycophants such as the Bush dynasty. QUESTION: Would the United States be sensitive if China or Russia or Iran openly financed and legislated well-known efforts in those countries and in the U. S. to overthrow the U. S. government? I believe the answer is "Yes" and that is also the answer that little Cuba is earnestly trying to convey.

        Like with Berta Soler, the most famed and supposedly the richest anti-Castro dissident on the island, Yoani Sanchez, is now allowed by Cuba to fly back-and-for to Miami and the U. S. Congress. She is flanked above in the U. S. Congress by two prime Cuban-American dissidents -- Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez, who seem to believe that recapturing Cuba is their primary duty as opposed to working on saner and more decent projects that concern the American people. Prior to getting Cuban passports to fly around the world, Yoani's anti-Castro blog had already made her the most famous Cuban dissident. AND THEN, guess what? After visits to Miami and Congress she returned to Cuba and announced she had enough funds...money...to also add a well-funded and multi-staffed DIGITAL NEWSPAPER, which she did.

        Thus, it doesn't take much imagination to know why the "Made in USA" label is often attacked to anti-Castro dissidents in Cuba like Yoani Sanchez. As far as I know, Cuba doesn't fund United States dissidents on United States soil, and if it did it probably couldn't afford to fund free healthcare and free educations through college for all its citizens or to fund scientists who have invented vaccines and medicines for cancer and diabetes that doctors and clinics in the United States are desperately trying to get access to if the greedy Batistianos will relax the embargo long enough for Americans to acquire such medical help from a little revolutionary government that both the World Health Organization and the Pan Am Health Organization say "should be health and educational models for the rest of the world," considering what Cuba has been able to accomplish despite the embargo...and other criminal assaults...imposed by miscreants hiding behind the skirts of the world's superpower, the superpower that was surely the most respected nation in the world till it began getting 191-to-0 denunciations in the United Nations related to CUBA!

     The antithesis to Berta Soler and Yoani Sanchez in Cuba is Cristina Escobar, a passionate, extremely talented Cuban who will passionately defend her island. Americans are not supposed to know it, but there are more Cristinas on the island than Bertas or Yoanis. The image above is taken from an interview respected Florida journalist Tracey Eaton videotaped in Cuba for the Pulitzer Center. Two versions of that interview are posted on YouTube in case you want Cuban information not dictated by the Batistianos who insist on controlling both the Cuban narrative and Cuban policy in America. The bilingual, well-educated Cristina Escobar on this video says, "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami or Washington." Also, as the headline in the above graphic alludes to, Cristina said, "Journalists in Cuba have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than journalists in the U. S. have to tell the truth about Cuba." 

      At age 28, the happily married Cristina Escobar is a truly brilliant broadcast journalist, in either Spanish or English. She proves that each day on Cuban television and she proved it when she made headlines in Washington when she covered the last diplomatic session between Josefina Vidal and Roberta Jacobson. Cuba will be a better place if its future is determined by young adults on the island like her as opposed to self-serving rogues off the island in Miami, New Jersey and Washington. A 77-year-old Cuban told a Reuters reporter this week, "As old as I am, I would again take up arms to follow someone like her." The old man, teary eyed, pointed back at his television screen at an image of Cristina Escobar. He called her, "A mi nina." -- "My little girl." Many Cubans think of her that way but young adults consider her "a leader." 

        This photo of Cristina Escobar was taken since the death of Fidel Castro. That's why she looks so sad. And no matter what the rich and powerful Batistianos say in the U. S. -- or the well-funded Berta Soler and Yoani Sanchez say in Cuba -- Cristina Escobar HAS A RIGHT TO FEEL SADNESS and not jubilation over the death of a fellow Cuban, a Cuban who fought and didn't run, an inspiration he may have left behind.

        And despite what self-serving anti-Castro zealots so cowardly and piously dictate, a sad Cristina Escobar does not hide her grief or sell her soul to conform to more powerful but much more insidious forces both in Cuba and in the United States. Study her face as she studies an image on her Smart Phone, an image from a street in Cuba where other Cubans are also reacting to the death of Fidel Castro. Hers is a face that will have a say-so in the future pertaining to Cuba's fate, and that will be so regardless of what President Trump or the Batistianos concoct for her island in the turbulent months that lie ahead.

            The previous three photos of Cristina Escobar were taken by Roberto Garaycoa Martinez on November 29th, 2016 in Cuba. Her talent and her passion for her island remind me of Celia Sanchez.

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Fidel's Last Journey

Evokes memories of Celia Sanchez!!

Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins.

      At this very moment, Cuba's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro is taking his very last journey after 90 years on this earth, and most of those days he was making daily headlines that reached to the United States and even around the world. These first three photos are courtesy of Ronaldo Schemidt/Agence France Press/Getty Images. They show a caravan of motor vehicles currently making the long, laborious 600-mile trek from Havana on the western tip of Cuba to Santiago de Cuba on the eastern tip of the alligator-shaped island. The vehicle above is pulling a trailer that contains a urn that has the cremated ashes of Fidel Castro, taking them back to the region where he was born. It is also the region where the revolution that will always be synonymous with his name was launched and mostly fought to rid the island of the vile U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship. When I saw NBC-TV video of the above caravan, it brought tears to my eyes. I say that unapologetically and totally unafraid although I know enough about the Cuban Revolution to know that both first and second generation Batistiano exiles on U. S. soil are still very dangerous, and murderously so. Having said that, I should add that the tears were for Celia Sanchez, the heroine of the Cuban Revolution and, in fact, its most important player, just ahead of her soulmate -- Fidel Castro. I consider myself a history buff and the historic figure I most love and admire is Celia Sanchez. And that's why the NBC video brought unashamed and unafraid tears to my eyes. The caravan now making the trek from Havana to Santiago is eerily reminiscent of the caravan that carried Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro from Santiago to Havana during the first week of January, 1959, to take charge as the new leaders of Cuba after the amazing triumph of perhaps history's most implausible revolution -- the one that chased the Batistianos, the Mafiosi and rich U. S. businessmen back to the locales from whence they came -- which was the United States of America, mostly the Mafia havens of southern Florida and New Jersey.

 Cubans watching the Havana-to-Santiago caravan.

 More cubans watching the Havana-to-Santiago caravan.

        This photo was taken on January 4th, 1959 when Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro were in a much different caravan going in the exact opposite direction -- Santiago to Havana -- from the one taking place right now. It was also a slow, laborious journey from January 1 till January 7 of 1959 because of the boisterously happy throngs all along the way. Notice how tired the still-celebratory Fidel was and how tired the more-businesslike Celia was; she, more than Fidel, just wanted to get to Havana and begin the revolutionary rule of her island. If Celia appears more unhappy than tired in this photo, she was. She had just been told on the stopover in Cienfuegos, via a transmitter-phone hook-up with Che Guevara in Havana, that "all" the Batistiano and Mafiosi leaders had fled Havana in their pre-arranged getaway ships and planes, which were loaded with "tons of cash and gold bullion" the murderous thieves hadn't already shipped to Swiss banks or to Mafia-friendly or owned banks in Newark and Miami. Till January 1, 1959...as the guerrilla leaders...Celia and Fidel had stayed behind to secure Santiago, Cuba's second largest city and former capital, while sending the rebel army led by Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara to capture the vital city of Santa Clara and then the grand prize of Havana. Santa Clara was captured in the closing hours of 1958 but by dawn on the first day of 1959 Che and Camilo had broken Celia's heart when they told her the Batista-Mafia leaders "had escaped." Celia's distraught reaction, later revealed by Camilo, was: "GOTDAMMIT!! Now till me 'n Fidel get there, check with the people on the streets and round up any and all of the Batistianos still there that they know harmed them." That order was carried out. Later, public inquisitions and trials were carried out. First Fidel, the lawyer, was the prosecutor but Celia, the prime decision-maker with Fidel's total support, fired Fidel because she thought he was too lenient on the Batistiano-Mafiso prisoners. She replaced Fidel with Che Guevara, the doctor. That markedly increased the work of firing squads, but still -- truth be known -- not as much work as the long-maligned Cuban peasants wanted. There are black-and-white videos and photos, as well as reports by renowned journalists such as Herbert L. Matthews of the NY Times and Carlos Franqui, that prove everyday Cubans, including women and children, pointed accusatory fingers at prisoners and then at Che Guevara for fear that he, like Fidel, was going "too easy" on the left-over criminals. If that aspect of the Celia-Fidel-Camilo-Che-Raul-Vilma-Haydee take-over of Havana does not compute with what you have been told, then it's because...for the most part...you have been lied to about the demise of the Batista-Mafia rule in Cuba and its aftermath since 1959. In any case, Celia's sadness on Jan. 4-1959 {depicted above} when she should have been euphorically happy, derived from the fact that she had just been told the Batista-Mafia leaders had "escaped" Havana. Celia was hoping they would stand and fight with something akin to the guts and determination that she -- as well as other women and men -- had displayed throughout the conflict.

       This map shows the current 14 provinces of Cuba and the three aforementioned cities -- Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba. Cienfuegos was the city in which Celia got the telephone message form Camilo and Che that "all" the Batista-Mafia leaders had fled, quite massively disappointing her.

       This perceptive photo shows Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro in the early days of Revolutionary Cuba. Yes, that's Fidel one morning relaxing in the rocking chair with his slippers in front of him as though he didn't have a care in the world. Celia is over on the porch-couch busily engaged in work, as always. It's an appropriate photo because Celia was the decision-maker and Fidel's primary role, believe it or not, was to massively support those decisions, whether or not he fully agreed with them. Of course, that too is something Americans have been propagandized not to believe but all the Cuban insiders and all the best historians -- including Fidel's best American biographer Georgia Anne Geyer -- have documented those facts. SO, instead of listening to convenient and self-serving lies, study the photo above and comprehend it -- Fidel relaxing because he could and Celia working tirelessly because she had to.

        The London-based media giant The BBC, which still has the freedom to tell truths about Cuba, says this was the very first photo that shows Fidel Castro and Celia Sanchez together. It was taken Dec. 2-1957 after he had finally joined her revolution in the foothills of Cuba's imposing Sierra Maestra Mountains. Fidel had served two years in a Batista prison after his ill-fated attack on Batista's Moncada Army Garrison on July 26-1953. Then in safe-houses orchestrated by guerrilla leader Celia and other heroic Cuban women such as his lover Naty Revuelta, Fidel managed to avoid Batista's murder squads and barely vacated the island to continue his anti-Batista activities in Miami, New York and Mexico. Then he and 81 other rebels left Mexico on a leaky and over-loaded old yacht...the famous Granma...to hook-up with Celia's guerrilla unit on a pre-arranged Cuban beach. But 15 miles shy of that beach, the Granma began sinking and the rebels tried to swim and wade to shore, some unarmed. A call from Mexico had alerted Batista to their departure and a Batista helicopter patrol spotted the Granma's approach as it tried to rendezvous with Celia. A Batista army on shore ambushed the rebels, killing all but 17 of them either on the beach or capturing and executing them as they tried to escape into the thickets and brambles. Celia and her guerrillas could have beaten that Batista army and she did so after racing to the beach where the Granma was forced to ditch the rebels. Celia still managed to save the lives of 17 rebels -- including Fidel and Raul Castro, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. The great Carlos Franqui's book "The Twelve" gave the first details of that Granma episode; he thought just 12 of the 82 rebels had survived but later it was determined that the figure was 17. Later Georgia Anne Geyer in her superb Castro biography provided excellently researched details about the historic event. Both Franqui and Geyer used this famous Celia Sanchez quote about saving the lives of Fidel and 11 other soon-to-be-famous rebels who would live to join her war against Batista. That quote is: "If they had gotten to the beach where we waited, all of them would have been saved. They would have found trucks, medical supplies, food, drinks. It would have been a walkaway." Her last word..."walkaway"...has always intrigued me but the more I studied her, including on a trip to Cuba, it was typical Celia -- business-like and succinct with no frills. Batista's biggest bounty, for good reason, was on her head. Cuba's best historian, Pedro Alvarez Tabio, also for good reason, wrote: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join." The 99-pound doctor's daughter was the revolution's greatest guerrilla fighter, its greatest recruiter of rebels and money and weapons, and its greatest decision-maker. Yes, the photo above is the first ever taken of Celia and Fidel together and it was taken Dec. 2-1957. But his worship of her began in 1953, his first year in a Batista prison when he learned that her revolution was still alive. Though Celia died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11-1980, Fidel's worship of her and the ground she walked on extended until 10:29 P. M. on Nov. 25-2016, the moment he died.

       Like with the definitive photo of Celia and Fidel on the porch in the early days of Revolutionary Cuba, this photo taken during the Revolutionary War is just as perceptive. It shows Celia, at their base-camp high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, holding a candle so Fidel could devour a book and so she could study a rebel report on the location and strength of a Batista army down below. That's so she would know precisely when and how to attack it. Later, Fidel confirmed on such nights -- even as they were careful about the visibility of campfires, candles and even lit cigarettes or cigars -- that he "devoured" books such as his later-friend Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," which was Fidel's "favorite war-time novel." They were both fighters by day but night-owls under the Caribbean moons and mountainous foliage. During the war and later in Revolutionary Cuba, Fidel never failed to support Celia's decisions even, according to his biographer Georgie Anne Geyer, when Celia chose to "over-rule" his suggestions. Of course, two famous still-living intimates of both Celia and Fidel -- Marta Rojas and Roberto Salas -- confirm that historic relationship between the two prime players in the still very viable Cuban Revolution.

       This famous photo also defines Celia Sanchez. It was taken during a lull in the Revolutionary War. Note that Celia, as always, is all-business -- which at the time was winning the war. The second all-time most powerful revolutionary female guerrilla fighter and decision-maker -- Celia's dear friend Vilma Espin -- is gaily enjoying the break in action. In 1959, right after the revolutionary victory, Vilma married Raul Castro and became the beloved mother of his four children and till the day she died of cancer in 2007 Vilma was one of the most powerful people on the island. This photo, by the way, was taken by the all-time greatest female war photographer -- Dickey Chapelle -- who was killed on a Vietnam battlefield in 1965. 

Celia and Fidel -- 1960.

Celia and Fidel -- 1964.

 Celia, Fidel & peasants who loved them.

     Back in 1953 in Batista's Cuba a beautiful young woman named Marta Rojas was a young journalist trusted by Batista. Marta was, unknown to the Batista goons, also a member of the Celia Sanchez-led Urban Underground that was the biggest threat to Batista. Marta was so trusted by Batista that he gave her special permission to visit and interview Fidel Castro in his prison cell on the Isle of Pines, so Batista could prove that the hero to all the peasants, Fidel, was still alive and not tortured to death as other captured Moncada prisoners were -- including Haydee Santamaria's brother and her fiancee. Washington, mindful of the Herbert L. Matthews' articles in the NY Times, also didn't want the peasants' hero murdered because reports already were circulating about Batista's goons murdering children as a warning to peasants not to resist. Each time she visited the imprisoned Fidel, Marta took a note he had written to Celia Sanchez out of the prison in her bra and the Urban Underground's job was to get it to the rebel leader Celia. On her visits back to Fidel's cell, Marta took notes from Celia to Fidel in her bra. That communication linked Celia and Fidel indelibly long before they ever met.

       After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Marta Rojas remained dearest friends of both Fidel Castro and Celia Sanchez, often letting Celia pre-read her latest articles. In the above photo, that is Marta Rojas introducing Fidel in December of 1959 for his very first television address to the Cuban people.

      This first week of Dec.-2016, as that caravan is taking Fidel Castro's remains back to Marta's hometown of Santiago de Cuba, Marta Rojas is still very much alive and a renowned legend in her own right as a significant player in both the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba. For decades she carved out a brilliant career as a journalist and as the author of five famed novels. In fact, she is being nominated for a Nobel Prize for her life's work. Marta, a sweet and dear lady who answered my Celia Sanchez questions, knows more about Fidel and Celia than any living soul. In 2005, after my visit to Cuba to research my bio of Celia Sanchez, Marta in a precious email from Cuba to Wyoming told me, "Although Celia died of cancer in 1980, she is still the prime decision-maker in Cuba. That's because to this day Fidel rules Cuba only as he precisely believes Celia would want him to rule it." In another email, Marta sent me a copy of the January-1980 Celia Sanchez obituary that appeared in the national newspaper, the Granma. Marta herself wrote that obituary.

        For decades, the self-serving Batistiano dictation of America's Cuban narrative and America's Cuban policy...the one opposed by that 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations...has conveniently for them dictated that everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba, lest they might get wise to the litany of self-serving Batistiano lies. But the famed actor, Danny Glover, is a special American and thus he has had the freedom to visit Cuba and make some decisions about the island of Cuba on his own. Mr. Glover is shown above with the legendary Marta Rojas. Like Mr. Glover, if you ever get to Cuba and want to know the truth about Fidel Castro, Celia Sanchez, the Cuban Revolution or Revolutionary Cuba, the best place to start...if you're lucky...is Marta Rojas. Otherwise, you're probably stuck with an avalanche of Batistiano lies rammed down your throat.

        Without a doubt, Celia Sanchez had more intelligence, more guts and more decency than any Batistiano or Mafiosi she chased off her island of Cuba, mostly to their Florida and New Jersey strongholds. Till the day she died on Jan. 11-1980, she regretted they fled to safer havens by Jan. 1-1959 instead of hanging around Havana to fight. She was a fighter, not a runner. And her cause -- to end the murders and deprivations of Cuban children -- was just.

       This Carlos Barria/REUTERS photo shows a hazy dawn rising in a remote area of Cuba known as El Maja. These Cubans are lining up or sitting beside the road that they expect the caravan carrying the remains of Fidel Castro will pass. The caravan started in Havana on the northwestern tip of Cuba and is traveling the 600-miles to Santiago in the southeastern tip of the island. It is eerily reversing the Santiago-to-Havana journey that Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro took in the first seven days of January-1959 to take over as the post-Batista leaders of Cuba. Yes, it's nostalgic for me because of the nexus it has to Celia Sanchez. And I don't give a damn how many Batistianos know that.

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