Freedom for Ana Belen Montes!!

 

     To millions of Cubans in Cuba today, this is the sweetest smile in the world on Sunday, January 8th, 2023!!! This smile is from Ana Belen Montes right after she gained her freedom after spending 20 years in a U. S. Federal Prison in Texas.

     As of today -- Sunday, January 8th, 2023 -- Ana Belen Montes is free after serving twenty years as a Cuban spy in a Federal Prison in Texas.

    From Miami to Washington to London and around the world today -- Sunday, January 8th, 2023 -- the release of the now 65-year-old Ana Belen Montes from the U. S. Federal Prison System is Big News as illustrated by these headlines.

     On this second Sunday of 2023 above is CNN's international coverage of Ana Belen Montes being released after serving her required 20 years in a Federal U. S. prison. When she was sentenced in 2001 as a Cuban spy the sentence included 20 years in prison PLUS five years of probation once she was released. Therefore, now at 65-years-old, Ana Belen Montes has begun her 5-year probationary period. When she was sentenced in 2001 she had been, since 1985, a key and honored Cuban expert high up in the U. S. government...and a top U. S. adviser on Cuban policy. But all the while she cogently disagreed with the U. S. government's Cuban policy, which she considered "cruel and unfair." Above you can see the FBI mugshot the day she was arrested on September 21-2001, a few days after 9/11/01. Below the mugshot there is a reference of Jim Popkin's book "Code Name Blue Wren", one of the most definitive books about the saga of Ana Belen Montes. Her saga now continues. As reported correctly above by CNN: "For 17 years, Ana Montes was a diligent employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the US military's spy arm. By day she was its top Cuba analyst, with access to some of the nation's best-kept secrets. By night, Montes passed those secrets to the Castro regime..."

     Now that Ana Belen Montes, at age 65, has finished her 20-year prison sentence and is now on probation for the next five years, many people continue to debate her pros & cons. For example, for 17 years she was the USA's top expert and top adviser regarding Cuba and she firmly believed that the USA's Cuban policies were "cruel and unfair.". She still believed that 20 years ago on the day she was sentenced...and it is assumed that she still believes that now that she has REGAINED Her Freedom."

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What's Next For Ana Belen Montes?

 

    This weekend -- January 7-8, 2023 -- Ana Belen Montes -- will be released from the U. S. Federal Prison in Texas where she has spent the past two decades. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University, Ana spent years as the top U. S. Cuban expert when she worked with the United States defense department. In that capacity she believed that the U. S. policies against Cuba were "extremely cruel and immoral." Thus, she used her exalted position high up in the U. S. government to spy FOR Cuba. Even when she was finally captured and sentenced, the U. S. agreed that she was not paid...and that she acted only out of conscionable concern for the Cuban people.

 This was Ana Belen Montes during her 20 years in the U. S. Federal Prison system. The day she was sentenced she read a long and passionate statement to the judge to explain that she would never regret what she did on behalf of the Cuban people.

     This weekend the Reuters News Agency -- as Ana Belen Montes regained her freedom at age 65 -- informed the world that "Montes argued that she had obeyed her conscience and that U. S. policy to Cuba was cruel and unfair." Her saga will forever make Ana a beloved and cherished person by Cubans in Cuba but, of course, she will forever remain a pariah of the first-order in Miami and Washington.

Ana Belen Montes

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Vietnam Wants Cuba to Survive in 2023

 

   More and more, in this first week of 2023, Cubans on the island believe that faraway Vietnam is the most important nation trying to help them survive.

    The map above shows the strategic location of the *Mariel Port* 28 miles southwest of Havana. It is an ultra-modern deep-water port that, since 2014, is capable of handling the largest container ships that exit the Panama Canal. Except for the drastic and endless U. S. economic Embargo, Mariel's lavish Economic Zone has the potential to revitalize Cuba's dire financial outlook...if the U. S. would allow it to be utilized properly. At the moment faraway Vietnam is the only nation that has the courage to bravely challenge the U. S. Embargo and to invest heavily in the *Mariel Economic Zone. And, Moreover, in the New Year of 2023 Vietnam is determined to greatly expand its investment at *Mariel* by building more companies that will continue to produce vital products as it continues to hire more-and-more Cuban workers.

   Since 1962, or since the 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack and other drastic measures by the U. S. didn't defeat Revolutionary Cuba, Americans have been programmed to support the U. S. Embargo that, for over six decades, has tried to massively starve the Cuban economy. Thus, for over six decades, propagandized Americans have supported or condoned the Embargo while being lied to about such well-known truths such as those explained above about the Mariel Port. If allowed to attain its potential, the Mariel Port would be more valuable than the nearby Florida Ports.

     Above is another well-known Mariel Port fact: "Perhaps most important, Mariel is a deep-water port, and will be able to accommodate the world's largest cargo ships. If successful, it could mean big money for Cuba." In other words, only one nation -- the United States -- is keeping the Mariel Port from "meaning big money for Cuba." And in other words, the only nation seriously challenging the ongoing United States attempt to totally starve Cuba is Vietnam, which is hoping that the Mariel Port means "big money for Cuba."

    Ana Teresa is the Cuban in charge of the Mariel Port Economic Zone, but all of Cuba's top economists are involved in trying to make it the catalyst to the island's economic survival. And today -- on January 4th, 2023 -- many top Vietnamese political and economic officials are working tirelessly to make Mariel the jewel among all the ports in the Caribbean and beyond. Below are photos this week from Mariel that give Ana optimism that Vietnam's view of Mariel, not the view of the United States, will prevail and, in fact, is prevailing. Study the photos below to see some of the things that Vietnam is doing this first week in 2023 at Cuba's vital Mariel Port.

    Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel this first week of 2023 said: "If the Cuban people in this new year of 2023 begin to rise above the efforts of the United States to starve them, I now believe that the biggest reason will be the help the Cuban people are now getting from our friends in Vietnam." Above this photo of Diaz-Canel, the other photos show why the island's leader feels able to make that statement. The 2023 photos this week at Mariel Port show current Vietnamese-supported companies already manufacturing key products while new companies are being built to do the same thing...as trucks carry products to Havana along the newly paved 28-mile highway; as Cuban workers are now being paid decent wages at Mariel; as Vietnamese government and economic officials are eagerly at Mariel continuing to make more things happen...etc., etc.

    While the world's superpower, the United States, is located near Cuba's northern border, thousands of miles away the feisty nation of Vietnam is the nation in 2023 most concerned with helping the Cuban people survive history's longest and cruelest economic Embargo ever imposed by any powerful nation against any much-smaller nation.

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The Country Making Sure Cuba Survives in 2023

Vietnam also wants Cuba to Thrive in 2023!

    Revolutionary Cuba throughout January of 2023 is celebrating its 64th anniversary of its stunning victory over the U.S./Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1st of 1959. Surviving 64 years as Revolutionary Cuba is even more stunning than the initial triumph 64 Years ago.

    With the U. S. economic Embargo/Blockade in its 62nd year and as stringent as ever, a nation far from the Caribbean is determined to make sure that Revolutionary Cuba improves its blockaded economy and even has a "Happy New Year in 2023. Incredibly, that faraway country is Vietnam!!!

      The long and bloody Vietnam War finally ended on April 30th of 1975 in humiliation for the United States, which had tried to bomb North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia into oblivion to hopefully leave the U.S.-backed Saigon-based South Vietnamese government in charge of all Vietnam as opposed to the anti-U.S. North Vietnam communists. The dramatic end, however, was a bitter defeat for the U. S. that even wiped out the name of the ancient city of Saigon and left Hanoi as the capital of all of Vietnam. And, incredibly, since 1975 Communist Vietnam has emerged as a highly praised trade partner of the United States!!

    By November 17th of 2006 {see/read above} the two-term U. S. President George W. Bush was in Hanoi lavishly toasting the strong economy that communist Vietnam had amassed. Above you see The White House itself officially proclaiming Vietnam's prosperity by publishing the photo above along with the caption that included President Bush saying: "Vietnam is a country that's taking its rightful place as a strong and vibrant nation." Since that visit to Hanoi in 2006 by President Bush the U. S. acceptance of Communist Vietnam has included the two nations becoming key trade partners.

     In Hanoi in 2006 President Bush wildly praised Vietnam while acknowledging reluctantly that Vietnam's victories in bloody wars against Western imperative powers such as France and then the United States were, uh, indeed memorable victories. Of course, in sharp contrast, no U. S. leader will acknowledge the need for the Cuban Revolution and, of course, no U. S. leader will acknowledge {see below} the drastic actions that the superpower U. S. has tried for the past 64 years in its efforts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.

   Since January of 1959, against all odds, Revolutionary Cuba has survived only by surviving such things as a world-record number of assassination attempts, the famed 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack, the 1976 terrorist bomb that killed all 72 people aboard the civilian Cubana 455 airliner, and since 1962 the economic U. S. EMBARGO that, for six decades, has tried to starve, deprive, and make miserable Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their own revolutionary government that had defeated the U. S., the Mafia, and Batista back in January of 1959.

    In that milieu today -- on January 3rd of 2023 --the faraway nation of Vietnam is the only foreign country trying desperately to help Revolutionary Cuba survive the stifling U. S. Embargo. Tomorrow -- on January 4th of 2023 -- I will use 20 new photos to illustrate how Vietnam is trying so desperately to help Revolutionary Cuba survive...against all odds...in 2023.

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