Cuba, A TWO-SIDED STORY

So, Let's Talk Both Sides!
{Tuesday, May 16th, 2017}

Photo courtesy of Nora Lewis.

      Americans need to know this young lady, Victoria Ferraro. She graduates from the University of Rhode Island on May 21st, 2017. She has just returned from spending a semester at the University of Havana. The experience was shocking to her as it would be shocking to other everyday Americans if they were not the only people in the world who, for decades, have not been allowed to visit Cuba. Quite fortuitously, Ms. Ferraro got to go to Cuba via a special education program and because former President Obama had the guts and the decency to slice into America's self-serving, draconian Cuban policy mostly dictated since 1959 by a handful of revengeful exiles from the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship. In dictating the U. S. policy regarding Cuba, the Batistianos and their sycophants in the U. S. Congress have dictated that quiescent everyday Americans are indeed the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. That's important because it enables the regrouped Batistiano faction to dictate the Cuban narrative in the United States, which insinuates that the brutal, thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba till 1959 was composed of Mother Teresa-type sweethearts. With such a propaganda-ruled narrative, U. S. tax dollars have funded since 1959 military, terrorist and embargo tactics designed to annihilate Revolutionary Cuba, presumably to restore the Batistianos to power. Along the way it has sacrificed much of America's international reputation, which gets a current 191-to-0 condemnation regarding Cuba in the United Nations. But remember, all those 191 nations, including America's best worldwide friends, are not overwhelmed by Batistiano lies and intimidation.

          And so, back from Cuba and thus a bit more enlightened, Victoria Ferraro is totally "amazed" about the Cuba she now knows as opposed to the Cuba she has been propagandized about for the first 22 years of her life. In a major article on the University of Rhode Island website this month, Ms. Ferraro said, "What was most unexpected was how much Cubans love America. They love our music, our culture. We're not forbidden to them. You'd be amazed..." Yes, indeed. Americans would "be amazed" about Cuba if the handful of counter-revolutionaries who selfishly dictate America's Cuban policy did not dictate that everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba and judge it for themselves.

            So, Victoria Ferraro, thanks for that reminder upon your return home.

      There are over two million moderate and very decent Cuban-Americans in the Miami area who agree with President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Unfortunately, it seems only the most extreme counter-revolutionary types are eligible to be elected to the U. S. Congress from that wide-ranging and diverse faction. And since 1959, it also seems that neither the United States voters nor the United States media have the courage or the patriotism to ask why that is so. In past American generations, however, stalwarts in the U. S. democracy, I believe, would have asked such questions in defense of the United States and democracy.

This photo and the following one are courtesy of the Miami Herald.

        The CEO of Equality Florida, Nadine Smith, and other counter-revolutionary-type Floridians arrived in Cuba last weekend -- on May 13, 2017 -- in an unending effort to reshape the Cuban government. Ms. Smith told the Miami Herald, "I began my activism helping to found the International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organization in the '80s and I'm pleased to have an opportunity to return to the roots by connecting with activists in Cuba. Florida has a special connection to the people of Cuba. Our state has been a destination of hope and a beacon of light in the midst of a brutal regime." I have no problem with her first two sentences above but I question the third sentence about Cuba's present "brutal regime." Such propaganda, of course, is politically correct and generally unquestioned in Florida but it seems to imply, as always, that the previous Cuban regime -- the Batista-Mafia one -- was a Mother Teresa-type sweetheart government and that every Florida-directed action regarding Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 has been both decent and correct. There are, of course, mountains of very respectable documentations that say otherwise.

       At the podium above with his palm out-stretched is Tony Lima and he is backed by Dexter Lehtinen and Havana-born, Miami-based U. S. Congresswoman {since 1989} Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. As American citizens I believe they should have input in the U.S.-Cuban narrative and in formulating U.S.-Cuban policy. However, I believe the majority opinions of over two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida should also have input into the Cuban narrative and Cuban policies in the United States, and polls show that the majority of Cuban-Americans favor normalizing relations with Cuba, as does the former very decent United States President Barack Obama and as does the international community -- by a 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations.

        One of the highest-profile Cuban-Americans in Miami is Hugo Cancio. He was born in Cuba in 1964 and arrived in the United States courtesy of the famed Mariel Boatlift in 1980 when an irked Fidel Castro decided to rid the island of unwanted dissidents and other undesirables that included prisoners. Wikipedia's bio of Hugo Cancio reveals that he "pretended to be a homosexual to be granted the authorization to leave." Hugo's wife and three daughters live in Miami but, as a top businessman, he travels often to Cuba and also has an office in Havana. Hugo is Founder and CEO of Miami-based Fuego Enterprises. He publishes two bilingual magazines and they are both published and read in both Cuba and America. Like most Cuban-Americans even in Miami, Hugo strongly advocates for normal and friendly relations between Cuba and the United States. In fact, in interviews both in Cuba and America Hugo has lamented the fact that the majority opinions of Cuban-Americans like him are not represented in South Florida or by Congressional politics in Washington.

The outspoken Miami-Cuban Hugo Cancio.

 The outspoken Miami-Cuban Hugo Cancio in Havana.

       On U. S. soil and Cuban soil and in international hook-ups, Hugo Cancio voices his important themes -- such as advocating normal relations between the U. S. and Cuba and lamenting the fact that the majority opinions of like-minded Cuban-Americans in South Florida are not represented politically in the USA, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave {at least prior to 1959}. In the above photo, Hugo Cancio is being interviewed in Havana by Cuban journalist Cristina Escobar.

And speaking of Cristina Escobar:

       Cuba is now showcasing its superstar broadcast journalist Cristina Escobar on a brand-new channel -- Canal Caribe -- that also affords her Skype hook-ups for live international interviews in addition to comfy on-set interviews like the one shown above. The new channel is aimed at Cuba's well-educated and increasingly restive and influential young-adult generation. It proposes to provide news and information truthfully and without bias because it is aware that, in this digital age, the well-educated young Cubans are too smart and too informed to be misled or misguided. In that milieu, Ms. Escobar is well respected in Cuba, the region and...yes...even the United States...as I will explain below. 

Canal Caribe and Cristina Escobar.

Canal Caribe and a Cristina Escobar interview.

The Canal Caribe set with anchor Cristina Escobar.

      By the time she was in her mid-twenties, Cristina Escobar's talent as a broadcast journalist, speaking in Spanish or English, had expanded beyond Cuba into the region, including the United States, and around the world via venues such as YouTube as well as foreign interviews of Ms. Escobar herself by other journalists.

       She has reportedly been offered outrageous economic and other defection incentives but Cristina Escobar is pure Cuban and fiercely devoted to the island.

      On her journalistic visits to the United States, Cristina Escobar has gained some important fans -- such as Barack Obama, the former United States President; Andrea Mitchell, the matriarch of American broadcast journalists who is still the best reporter at NBC-TV News; and Josh Earnest, former President Obama's Press Secretary. That resulted in Cristina, as shown above, making history by being the first Cuban journalist to ask questions at a White House news conference, and she took advantage of that opportunity by asking Josh Earnest six pertinent questions.

      While in Washington to cover the 4th and final Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic session that paved the way for the reopening of Cuban-U. S. embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, Cristina Escobar made some headlines by dominating the Josh Earnest-White House news conference. Then, as shown above, she was stopped even in parking lots for U. S. television interviews. By then she was making some more headlines in America with comments such as, "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba;" and, "I don't want the U. S. to bring me democracy. That is a project for Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and in Washington." 

        In addition to being a superb broadcast journalist and anchor, Cristina Escobar, as shown above, is often interviewed by foreign networks about U.S.-Cuban issues because she is well-versed about those topics. Her University of Havana thesis eerily predicted how President Barack Obama's presidency would affect Cuba.

An international interview featuring Cristina.

        Respected U. S. journalist and Cuban expert Tracey Eaton was sent to Cuba by the Pulitzer Center to interview Cristina Escobar and the above image is taken from that interview. She consented to the video-taped session just before getting prepared to anchor her own news program. Two versions -- one just over 15 minutes and one just over 3 minutes -- are posted on YouTube as well as on the Pulitzer Center website. In that interview you can see and hear her candid and forceful comments such as, "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans, not Americans." I believe the Cuban narrative in America should include the directly expressed views of Cubans in Cuba like Cristina and not just the views of a handful of Cuban-Americans in Miami and in the United States Congress who supposedly speak for Cuba's Cubans. 

See...there are TWO SIDES to the Cuban conundrum.

And...one side is well represented by Cristina Escobar.
And by the way:

       Sunday was May 14, 2017 -- MOTHERS DAY. The Mothers Day photo above was taken by Yuliat Danay Acosta. The young mother lives in Havana. Her name: Rosy Amaro Perez. A beautiful photo; a beautiful mother; and a beautiful daughter.

This photo is courtesy of Cyber Cuba.

       On Mother's Day the talented Puerto Rican singer Olga Tanon sent her love to Cuba. On Telemundo's "A New Day" program on Saturday, May 13th, Olga talked about her great affection for Cuba. She said she is eternally grateful to Cuban doctors for treating her daughter Gabriella, who has suffered from developmental health problems. Olga says a drug developed by Cuban doctors and scientists now prevents her daughter from getting the previously very debilitating infections.

        Because she was born in Santurce and Puerto Rico is a United States Territory, Olga Tanon is a United States citizen. But her heart is in Cuba. She is shown above in Havana with the United States embassy behind her right shoulder. Olga is a truly great singer and a multiple Grammy-award winner. From Havana to Santiago de Cuba she has performed before tens of thousands of adoring Cubans at outdoor concerts billed as "Anti-Imperialist Tributes." If you go to YouTube, you can see some of Olga's "Anti-Imperialist" performances in Cuba. And seeing is believing.

In her beloved Cuba, Olga Tanon.

See, I told you "Cuba is a TWO-SIDED Story."

     This photo will surprise most Americans. It shows Mariela Castro on Mothers Day -- Sunday, May 14, 2017 -- leading a large anti-homophobia demonstration in Havana. Mariela is the feisty daughter of President Raul Castro and the late Vilma Espin.

         The huge anti-homophobia demonstration in Havana on Mothers Day was within sound and sight of the United States embassy, the blue 7-story building in the background. As this photo was taken, the crowd that included Mariela Castro was loudly chanting, "Revolution Yes! Homophobia No!" and "I am Fidel! I am Fidel!"

Yes, Cuba is a Two-Sided Story.

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Cuba TODAY And YESTERDAY

The Revolution vs. Batista
{Saturday, May 13th, 2017}

       The photo above was taken this second week in May of 2017 in the Children's Hospital in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. I'll explain its meaning but first I'll explain why this photo resonates with me and should resonate with everyone, even Americans who are not supposed to understand it.

       In 2004 President George W. Bush's administration gave me permission to visit Cuba despite the Bush dynasty's decades-old counter-revolutionary assaults on the island and despite the U. S. embargo against Cuba that, since 1962, has rendered everyday Americans, then and now, the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. My request was denied several times as I minutely explained my reason for needing to go to Cuba -- to research my biography of Revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez. One legal permission to visit Cuba concerns research by approved authors. I was finally approved when a copy of my "Sacajawea: Her True Story" book was sent with a last-ditch request to the U. S. Treasury department along with a long and very positive review of the book by the Denver Post. So, Sacajawea, the Indian girl who was the heroine of America's exploratory Lewis & Clark Expedition, was a catalyst in getting me to Cuba.

          After checking into Havana's Victoria Hotel, I asked about a car and driver that would take me around Havana and across the island to further my Celia Sanchez research. On our first day out from Havana my driver Jose and I were having lunch at an outdoor table in Varadero, the famed beach town about an hour southeast of Havana right down the scenic coastal highway. I capped my meal with ice cream as Jose went to make a phone call and I was also waiting for the photo shop across the street to develop some film for me. When Jose returned he said, "I am sorry to waste your money today. My wife this morning took our 4-year-old son to a clinic and his condition is worse than we thought. He is now in the hospital and my wife wants me there. I'll take you back to the Victoria Hotel." On the way back, with Jose now my friend, I talked him into letting me go to the hospital too. That experience resonates with me to this day. The care, attention and love bestowed on Jose's son, and the other children in that hospital, affected me profoundly. 

          Now back to the photo above. It was taken this week -- May 10th -- at the Pepe Portilla Children's Hospital in Pinar del Rio. The little girl in the crib is the patient of Dr. Nadia Arteche. This photo replicates what I saw with Jose's sick child -- profound care, attention, and love. Surely, other sick children in other nations receive well-deserved Love, Attention, and Care but in that regard Cuba...Revolutionary Cuba...stands out and that fact has been duly noted by child-loving international monitors such as the World Health Organization; the UN's children's branch, UNESCO; and the Pan-American Health Organization...and even the World Bank, which has praised Cuba for the high percentage of its very limited wealth that it spends on free health, education, and shelter for its people. Also, profoundly, the Love, Attention and Care devoted to children in Revolutionary Cuba -- from 1959 till today -- is in stark contrast to how non-elite children were treated in the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship from 1952 till 1959.

     Extreme poverty like this in Batista's Cuba among the majority poor was the norm, not the exception. There are many photos like this plus many other historic documents to confirm that well-known fact.

      In Batista's Cuba, while the majority poor were mired in hopeless poverty, America's very top Mafia kingpins, such as Meyer Lansky above, were allowed to nightly make off with satchels full of money.

        But robbing the island blind in Batista's Cuba from 1952 till 1959 was not what sparked the Cuban Revolution. Anti-Batista marches totally formed and led by outraged Cuban mothers, as shown above, created the Revolution, not the extreme poverty among the peasants. After all, never before had a U.S.-backed dictatorship been threatened by a popular revolt. But mothers like these changed history by defying those odds for the reason stated in the billboard above -- the murders, asesinatos, of their children, their hijos, apparently in the belief that such dire warnings would quell any dissent on the island. The powerful New York Times, and its main correspondent in Cuba, Herbert L. Matthews, amply reported on these marches but American citizens were not concerned. But these marches inspired a young lawyer named Fidel Castro and later he famously explained why he believed a revolution could prevail: "Previous failed revolutions had never utilized the half of its population that was female. I believed Cuba could correct that." Indeed, his belief was prescient. In the Revolutionary War against the U.S.-and-Mafia-backed Batista, Fidel Castro is famed for injecting women like Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria at the forefront of the Revolution and, in fact, Fidel Castro created and named a famed and furious all-female guerrilla force -- the Mariana Grajales Brigade -- that produced do-or-die fighters like teenager Tete Puebla who today is a General in the Cuban army. {You may Google any of those names and/or topics for more particulars}.

       Black-and-white photos deftly help tell the story of Batista's Cuba BUT the black-and-white photo above, taken in 2013, also helps spotlight modern Revolutionary Cuba's poverty and hard times. This photo is courtesy of The Life Nomadik website, which fairly chronicles real-life existence in interesting places. This photo depicted Tita, age 82, and her husband Roberto, age 83, in their Havana apartment. Their health care, shelter and food are free but otherwise they live on meager pensions. The Nomadik website that featured them also added this sentence to sanely and correctly blame the U. S. embargo of Cuba, in place since 1962, for much of the hardship innocent Cubans like this couple suffer: "The embargo is cruel, unjust, hypocritic, and simply ridiculous." No one can argue...I repeat, NO ONE CAN ARGUE...with that exact Nomadik sentence but, yet, Americans have allowed it to persist for well over half-a-century merely to appease a handful of counter-revolutionaries in Miami, Florida, and in the United States Congress.

       In Cuba today there are billboards that call the U. S. embargo...Cuba calls it a blockade..."the longest genocidal blockade in history." Well, you say, Cuba is biased and such billboards are hyperbolic exaggerations. But...the rest of the world -- including America's best friends -- agrees with it. 

       The graphic above chronicles the sheer stupidity, cowardice and lack of patriotism on the part of Americans to allow the embargo-blockade to persist decade after endless decade, hurting America's international reputation to the delight of its enemies and to the embarrassment of its best friends. This graphic depicts the current vote in the United Nations that reveals that 191 nations oppose the embargo and no nations support it. It is a glaring testament to U. S. stupidity, cowardice and lack of patriotism. 

            And that brings me back around to another color photo taken this week -- May 10th, 2017 -- at the Pepe Portilla Children's Hospital in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. The Care, Attention and Love this little sick Cuban girl is receiving reminds me of the Care, Attention and Love my friend Jose's 4-year-old child received in Revolutionary Cuba when I was very legally visiting the island. This updated photo was not staged by the government; it is typical. And, significantly, it is in stark contrast to Batista's pre-Revolutionary Cuba.

      I believe a country or a society can best be judged by how it cares for the female half of its population because they are the mothers most charged with caring for that nation's and that society's children. I speak of sick babies like the one shown above, a sick baby in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. That baby's doctor, Nadia Arteche, is well-trained, highly skilled, and lowly paid. But after her medical treatment of this baby, Dr. Arteche also believes that additional Care, Love and Attention is warranted. This baby's glowing smile, as her right hand caresses her mother's arm and her left hand reaches happily for the doctor's flower, proves that Dr. Arteche is right and those who oppose her from the holier-than-thou sanctity of a much stronger foreign nation are wrong...just as the U.S. embargo that punishes Dr. Arteche and her sick babies is wrong.

And by the way:

       The man on the left in this photo is Herbert L. Matthews, the very influential New York Times reporter I referenced for having tried so hard to tell Americans about what their tax-dollars were supporting in Batista's Cuba. Before, during and after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Mr. Matthews was a fervent supporter of Fidel Castro and the Revolution because Mr. Matthews was an expert on Batista's Cuba.

    I also referenced my book -- SACAJAWEA: Her True Story -- as the only reason the George W. Bush administration finally...finally...allowed me to travel to Cuba to research my biography of Celia Sanchez.

      This magnificent statue is in Sacajawea Park in Livingston, Montana. It shows Sacajawea on horseback holding her baby. She was a teenage Shoshone Indian girl who had just given birth before she, while caring for her baby, expertly guided and repeatedly saved the perilous and arduous Lewis and Clark Expedition from May 14, 1804 to its successful and historic conclusion on September 23, 1806. It helped shape and expand the America that we know today. Sacajawea is America's all-time most-honored female, commemorated by more statues, buildings, schools, ponds, parks, etc., named for her than any other USA female. I equate America's Sacajawea with Cuba's Celia Sanchez as heroines in their respective countries.

Celia Sanchez: an incomparable heroine.

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Cuba Helps Americans

Despite U. S. Embargo!
{Thursday, May 11th, 2017}

         This week -- May 9th, 2017 -- on the PBS News Hour anchor Judy Woodruff featured a report entitled "This Cuba Lung Cancer Drug Is Giving Some U. S. Patients Hope." She introduced Amy Guttman to tell it.

       The PBS News Hour update on Cuba's lung cancer drug was reported from Green Bay, Wisconsin; Buffalo, New York; and Havana, Cuba by Amy Guttman. She interviewed 69-year-old Green Bay businessman Mick Phillips. Six years ago, suffering from advanced lung cancer, Mr. Phillips was told he had "maybe six months or a year to live." Despite the efforts of former President Barack Obama to correct many of America's draconian Batistiano-directed Congressional laws related to Cuba, since 1962 everyday pusillanimous Americans have been the only people in the entire world without the freedom to go to Cuba. Mr. Phillips is an everyday American except for the fact he owns his own business in Green Bay. Each year now he bravely visits Cuba to be treated with the island's CIMAvax lung cancer drug that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved. Mr. Phillips pays a Cuban doctor $50 for the treatment and takes a one-year, $5,000 supply of CIMAvax back home to Green Bay with him. With the treatment, Mr. Phillips told Amy Guttman that, because of CIMAvax, his lung cancer is now in "remission." 

        For her PBS report this week, Amy Guttman interviewed Dr. Kelvin Lee, renowned as one of America's top cancer experts and some say he is America's top cancer expert. Dr. Lee has visited Cuba to investigate CIMAvax and he told Amy Guttman why he is so interested in CIMAvax: "Because it is safe, very inexpensive, and easy to administer. You could use it, potentially, to prevent and not just treat lung cancer."

         Shown here in the middle, Dr. Lee poses with part of his team at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. Dr. Lee heads Roswell Park's immunology department and his credentials as a cancer expert are nonpareil. Please note that he told Amy Guttman that he believes Cuba's CIMAvax treatment could potentially "prevent" and not just "treat" lung cancer. Unfortunately, Americans since 1959 have been programmed to ignore people like Dr. Lee if they ever make a positive statement regarding Cuba.

      In her May 9th-2017 report on the PBS News Hour with Judy Woodruff, Amy Guttman said that CIMAvax, the lung cancer treatment developed by Cuba's renowned medical scientists, "Doesn't kill cancer cells. Instead, it engages the patient's immune system to reduce the protein that cancer thrives on." And Amy Guttman also added these exact words: "The embargo that prevented Cuba's access to American pharmaceuticals led the late President Fidel Castro to invest heavily in developing medicines and vaccines." I SUGGEST THAT YOU RE-READ THAT EXACT QUOTATION FOR THIS REASON: I don't believe, other than PBS, that there is a broadcast network or a mainstream newspaper in the United States that has the guts in May of 2017 to make such a statement regarding Fidel Castro or Cuba. That's because, since 1959, revengeful elements from the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba have dictated America's Cuban narrative and most of America's Cuban policies that currently have a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations. And further, there are not many Americans in the United States today who have the courage to make or even agree with the aforementioned statement that Amy Guttman made in her insightful and important PBS report on CIMAvax yesterday. Two generations of American citizens and the mainstream U. S. media being afraid to challenge a handful of remnants from Cuba's long-ago Batista dictatorship way back in the 1950s shames decent and courageous Americans -- such as the man in Green Bay, Mick Phillips.

Next 3 Photos courtesy of Canada's CBC News.
This is Mick Phillips returning to the U. S. with CIMAvax.

Mick Phillips & his CIMAvax.

 Mick Phillips and his Cuban doctor, Dr. Ruben Ebzaurdin.

Cuba's CIMAvax lung cancer drug.
And by the way:

    A letter from Raul Castro was hand-delivered in Saudi Arabia.

     After accepting and reading the letter, the Saudis appeared quite pleased. A Saudi delegation had recently visited Cuba and President Castro's letter apparently was in reply to an investment proposal.

     Last month -- on April 17th, 2017 -- King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia personally accepted the credentials of Cuba's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Orlando Requeijo Gual. Saudi Arabia maintains an embassy in Havana and Cuba's embassy in Riyadh is one of 149 Cuba has worldwide.

          This, by the way, is the Cuban embassy in Washington, USA. It's a more beautiful building than the 7-story U. S. embassy in Havana. For 54 years, since 1961, the long-acrimonious U.S.-Cuban relationship had closed embassies in Havana and Washington until President Obama's Herculean normalization efforts reopened them in 2015. Now there are only three nations that the U. S. does not have diplomatic relations with. You can probably guess two -- Iran and North Korea. I bet you can't guess the third one, which is Bhutan.  The latter is a landlocked nation located in the Himalayan Mountains between India and China.  

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