Cuban President on U. S. Soil

Diaz-Canel Arrived Yesterday!!

    Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel arrived in the United States yesterday -- Sunday, September 23rd, 2018. His primary mission is to starkly denounce the U. S. embargo against Cuba at the United Nations and in other venues, such as when he meets with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and when he speaks at the historic Cuban-friendly Riverside Church. In fact, President Diaz-Canel had this bitter statement within minutes after he touched down on U. S. soil Sunday: "We bring the voice of Cuba that above all comes to denounce the abnormal policy of the blockade, a policy that has already failed, that will continue to fail, and that is the longest blockade in the history of humanity."

     This is the Cuban airplane that now sits on United States soil at John F. Kennedy Airport after bringing President Diaz-Canel to New York City.

      The highlight of President Diaz-Canel's first trip to the U. S. will be Wednesday's address at the United Nations when his primary focus will be on denouncing the U. S. embargo that he calls a "blockade." But the AFP photo above heralds the fact that Diaz-Canel not only made an anti-embargo statement when he first stepped on U. S. soil and a bit later when he told journalists, "Havana seeks a civilized relationship with the United States despite our ideological differences." He then added, "Of course, the administration of President Trump is difficult to form a relationship with."

    The photo above courtesy of Dominio Cuba and Rosa Miriam Elizalde shows Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel besieged by journalists upon his arrival in New York City.

  A non-Castro and a non-Revolutionary, Miguel Diaz-Canel took over as Cuba's new President on April 19-2018 and turned 58-years-old the very next day, meaning he was born after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. But make no mistake, he is a fierce defender of "everything the Revolution stands for -- namely, independence but also dignity for the Cuban people who have ruled their island since 1959 after centuries of rule and exploitation from Spain and the United States." Prior to becoming Cuba's President Diaz-Canel was the island's Education Minister and First Vice President. He has considerable support from Cubans all across the island -- including the well-educated, restive young-adults who bitterly oppose the "blockade" and strongly support Diaz-Canel's "reforma" policies. 

     Tasked with improving Cuba's economy and surviving the historic U. S. economic blockade, first imposed in 1962, President Diaz-Canel is stressing foreign investment, less bureaucratic obstacles to private enterprise, and he has keenly studied the market-fueled socialist economies in Communist China and Communist Vietnam, both of whom have flourished economically thanks to friendly deals with the USA. But, as with the quote above, Diaz-Canel abhors "capitalism" because he says it "shamefully enriches the few on the backs of the many."

    Not only is Miguel Diaz-Canel Cuba's new President but the Cuban Parliament has recently drafted a new "reforma" Constitution that is remarkably different from the current one that has been in effect since 1976. The new constitution, which bears Diaz-Canel's imprint, is currently being publicly debated at 24,000 scheduled meetings all across the island and then will be submitted to a nationwide referendum vote early in 2019.

    Cuba's new leader Diaz-Canel is the first non-Castro to lead the island since 1959. But that salient fact, as Diaz-Canel well knows, means very little to the vast Castro Cottage Industry in the United States that has profited so fantastically from its new capital of Little Havana in Miami since 1959. Diaz-Canel has referred to that industry as "a Golden Goose atop six decades of revenge against the necessary Revolution that has opposed them since the 1950s to this day and beyond."

    While Cuba has a new President and is getting a new Constitution, both strongly supported by Cubans on the island, President Miguel Diaz-Canel is faced with an age-old problem: In all Republican administrations since 1959, America's Cuban policies have been dictated by a fierce minority of Counter Revolutionary Cubans who have never had problems acquiring the necessary amount of self-serving sycophants -- right-wing Congressmen, the Bush dynasty, the Tea Party, etc. And Diaz-Canel's refreshing leadership of Cuba coincides with another Republican U. S. President...Trump...who has reversed former Democratic President Obama's friendly gestures towards Cuba and shamefully returned the U. S. Cuban policies back over to the most greedy and vindictive miscreants in Miami and in Washington. About 90% of the mainstream U. S. media is currently engaged in a fierce media-coup to overthrow Trump, yet that 90% lacks the courage to even criticize Trump's genocidal policies against Cuban children on the island. Diaz-Canel, prior to his arrival in the U. S. Sunday, said, "The U. S. UN veto can dismiss a 191-to-0 vote of the world nations that favor our sustained protection of Cuba's children, and the U.S.'s unique military power can permit it to continue to punish another generation of Cuban children, but neither of those things means might is right. Most of the time might is wrong, unless it is wielded by decent people who respect other people."

     Cuban President Diaz-Canel, after arriving in the U. S. Sunday, will address the UN Wednesday, September 26, 2018. That will be 58 years to the day after Fidel Castro's first UN address.

     Yes, I repeat: Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel's first speech this week at the UN will take place Wednesday, September 26, 2018 -- EXACTLY 58 years to the day after Fidel Castro's historic first UN speech on September 26, 1960.

     The photo above shows Fidel Castro making that speech at the UN on Sept. 26-1960. This was the Fidel who set a lot of all-time records during his 90 years on this earth...and he set a record on Sept. 26-1960 that will never be broken. This speech lasted FOUR HOURS and 29 MINUTES. No one has, or ever will, come close to that record at the UN although Fidel himself topped it multiple times in the open-air hot sun at Revolutionary Sqaure in Havana.

    While in New York to speak at the UN, Fidel laughed at the front-page headline in the New York Journal-American about the latest assassination attempt against him, many of them admittedly by the CIA and also by bragging and well-known Cuban exiles. Credible sources, including the Guinness Book of World Records, confirmed "638" such attempts, a record -- like the 1960 UN speech -- that'll never be broken.

 Fidel died of natural causes at age 90.

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Cuba Leader Talks with U.S. Leader

Senator Corker {But} Not Trump!!

   Cuba has a new non-Castro, non-revolutionary President -- former Education Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel. Cuba's new Parliament has devised its new and drastically revised Constitution that is currently being discussed in public meetings all across the island and will be approved in a referendum nationwide vote early in 2019. Yet, the U. S. democracy remains in the rut of capitulating to and aligning with Cuban-American Counter Revolutionary extremists since 1959...and STILL hasn't been able to recapture the island. Those topical and historic truths reflect why the photo above is so important. It shows Cuba's new President, Diaz-Canel, being interviewed on the regional Telesur network this week. His pertinent comments included: "The main obstacle to prosperity for the Cuban people is the U. S. Blockade." He, of course, was referencing the U. S. Embargo against Cuba that has existed since 1962 when, according to DE-classified U. S. documents, the purpose was to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of ordinary Cubans to induce them to rise up and overthrow their Revolutionary government. The blockade-embargo is the longest and cruelest ever imposed by a strong nation against a weak nation. And it has failed miserably "to induce" Cubans on the island to rise up against a revolutionary government that most of them to this day believe, for all its problems, to be vastly superior to the thieving, murderous U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that preceded it from 1952 till 1959. So the comment by President Diaz-Canel in the above interview is undeniably correct although propagandized and intimidated Americans are supposed to believe the constant refrains of Little Havana's Marco Rubio when he incessantly declares that, as President Trump's newly anointed Cuban dictator, he is tightening the screws on Cuba to "hurt" Castro while "helping" the Cuban people. A democracy that continually allows such absurd propaganda to take hold is, in essence, ceasing to be a democracy. {P.S.: The sole author and the only contributor to these Cubaninsider essays is a democracy-loving American who believes America's Cuban policy shames America more than any other single topic has ever shamed the world's greatest form of government}.

    The above interview this week of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel was conducted by Patricia Villegas, perhaps the most influential Latin American broadcaster. She is the President and shining star of the regional network Telesur that is based in the troubled Venezuelan capital of Caracas. But Patricia Villegas is from Colombia and she is deeply respected as a broadcast journalist and for her abiding hatred of U. S. imperialism in Latin America -- and recognized as a leading expert on such things as the Nixon/Kissinger-inspired 1973 coup that killed beloved democratically elected Chilean President Allende to install the murderous general Pinochet as Chile's U.S.-friendly Dictator for the next 17 years. While Nixon, Kissinger, and the U. S. have never been held responsible in the U. S. for the death of Allende, the democratically elected President, nor for the long reign of Pinochet, the murderous but U.S.-friendly general, Patricia Villegas uses her broadcasting platform to continually remind Latin Americans of the difference between Allende and Pinochet. And now Patricia Villegas is reminding Latin Americans of the difference between Cuba's new President Diaz-Canel and the Counter Revolutionary extremists in the United States of America.

   The Influential regional Telesur broadcaster, Patricia Villegas, indeed integrates Latin America's historic and modern relationships to the Caribbean, always stressing Cuba's strategic and symbolic significance. From her interview with Cuba's President Diaz-Canel, many international news organizations headlined the new Cuban leader's belief that it is probably useless to discuss matters of "mutual concern" with President Trump or with any Republican U. S. President, but he at least indicated he is willing to do so just as the Democratic President Obama was willing to sit down with and discuss things with his predecessor Raul Castro, which Diaz-Canel says "mutually benefited" Cubans, Americans, and Cuban-Americans.

    A powerful Republican U. S. Senator, Bob Corker of Tennessee, has paid an unannounced visit to Havana to sit down and talk with Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel. Corker is the Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. Corker and many like him in the 535-member U. S. Congress believe Cuba's new President "should at least be listened to even by Trump who certainly loves to listen to Xi in China, Putin in Russia, and even Kim in North Korea." Of course, as Corker fully realizes, Cuba's uniqueness in Republican administrations is the fact that the little island nation is the only nation that overthrew a vile U.S.-backed dictatorship and chased those leaders to their Little Havana stronghold in Miami. Corker has been a powerful Republican in the Senate since 2007 but at age 66 he is retiring from Washington's incredibly dysfunctional two-party political system, as are other Cuban-friendly politicians, such as Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona. That means people like Corker and Flake, who have visited Cuba multiple times, have given up on trying to inject sanity and decency into America's Cuban policies that are staunchly dictated by Counter Revolutionary extremists who, as far as Cuba is concerned, totally control both the Republican Party and the overall U. S. Congress. But Corker's discussion in Havana with President Diaz-Canel was otherwise fruitful. Corker assured Cuba's new President that the embargo "shames" the U. S. "even more than it harms Cubans over here." Corker was very impressed with Diaz-Canel.

   The retirements of veteran politicians like Bob Corker, Senator Jeff Flake, and even young Congressmen like Trey Gowdy reflects a disturbing U. S. trend in which their replacements are likely to be non-servants eager to use government service as the economic bonanza it has become for thousands of lobbyists and the politicians they can so easily be purchased by rich Lobbyists.

     As shown above, Senator Bob Corker was one of the powerful Republicans who helped Donald Trump pull off the most astounding upset in American history by becoming President of the United States. Of course, Bob Corker, currently the omnipotent Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is appalled with President Trump for, among other things, reversing former President Obama's decent Cuban policies and turning them back over a few self-serving Counter Revolutionary extremists in Miami's Little Havana sector. And Bob Corker flew to Havana to express those sentiments directly to Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

     Yes, America, the Patricia Villegas regional interview with Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel was very important and enlightening. You can easily dial it up anywhere in the world on YouTube and listen to what he has to say...and see his Spanish words transcribed in English on the screen. To do so would be far better for America and for Democracy than forever as an American being subjected only to extremely self-serving propaganda from Counter Revolutionary Cuban-American extremists. You see, there is a reason that President Obama in 2016 supported the 191-to-0 unanimity in the United Nations that loudly condemned the U. S. embargo-blockade of Cuba that has existed since 1962. So, in the above interview, President Diaz-Canel is correct when he says, "The main obstacle to prosperity for the Cuban people is the U. S. blockade."

     President Obama and the entire world in 2016 condemned this shameful image of the U. S. embargo against Cuba.

    Cuba calls the U. S. embargo "a genocidal blockade" and "the largest in history" being perpetrated against the Cuban people since 1962. Cuban extremists like Senator Marco Rubio from Little Havana get away daily in the mainstream U. S. media with insisting that the embargo is "to hurt Castro and help the Cuban people." That lie has been allowed to shame the U. S. democracy for 6+ decades...while the rest of the world agrees with the billboard depicted above.

     Perhaps more shameful -- and ironic -- than the Genocidal Billboard denouncing the U. S. embargo of Cuba is the definitive Editorial Statement depicted above. Ironically but emphatically it points out that a mere handful of Counter Revolutionary extremists from Little Havana and in the U. S. Congress can, decade after decade, dictate history's all-time longest and cruelest embargo against totally innocent people in a much weaker nation...as they hide behind the skirts of the world's Superpower and the ignorant apathy of United States citizens.

     A handful of Miami elite, some of them born in Havana {see above} and some of them the offspring of leaders of the Batista dictatorship {see above], have been allowed since 1959 to create a vast and lucrative multi-generational Castro Cottage Industry in the United States, resulting in the embargo/blockade and countless other self-serving tactics. This has been allowed to persist on American soil within the bowels of the precious United States democracy for 6+ decades...AND COUNTING!!

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Cuba's Female Martyrs

Revolutionary Heroines Remembered!!

     To a very large extent, as Fidel Castro often stressed, the Cuban Revolution was a female-powered revolution that began in earnest in 1953 when extremely brave mothers took to the streets with huge placards accusing the Batista-Mafia dictatorship of murdering their children as warnings not to dissent. From the outset of the guerrilla war to overthrow the U.S.-and-Mafia-backed Batista, omnipotent Cuban women were on the front-lines of the war as fighters, recruiters of rebels and supplies, and as decision-makers. Those famed women included...Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, Tete Puebla, and thousands like them. Although she died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11, 1980, there remain in Cuba today many statues of Celia Sanchez but none of Fidel Castro, who wanted it that way.

      With that being said, this week in September-2018 there were special ceremonies honoring the lives of two of the Revolution's greatest heroines -- Lidia Doce and Clodomira Acosta. Their images, courtesy of Radio Rebelde, are depicted above.

             Lidia and Clodomira were Mountain Messengers during the war. They took vital messages from battlefield to battlefield and from rebel strongholds to the Commanders, working directly under and reporting to Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara. Their work was considered the most dangerous because they had to constantly maneuver between Batista check-points and, yes, Batista's bounties for their capture were huge and paid in cash. Batista's goons wanted the Mountain Messengers captured, not killed, because they wanted to unmercifully torture them as long as possible before they died from the extreme torture. Such was the historic fate of Lidia and Clodomira.

   Lidia was 20 years older than Clodomira, who was mentored by Lidia. Lidia was born on August 27, 1916, in Vetazco in Holguin territory; Clodomira was born on February 1, 1936, in Manzanillo, the city on the southeastern tip of the island where the doctor's daughter, Celia Sanchez, began the war's most vital early recruitments of rebels and supplies. Two of Celia's most important recruits turned out to be Lidia and Clodomira.

         In 1958, as the war began to heat up and -- incredibly -- turn in favor of the rebels, Batista's huge bounties on the heads of the Mountain Messengers were paying off, and the two largest bounties were for the capture of Lidia and Clodomira. The two precious women, so vital to the war effort, were in a safe-house coordinating their missions with four young male rebels. They were betrayed and Batista's soldiers surrounded the house, capturing the six rebels. The young men were tortured and then quickly murdered and they were: Alberto Alvarez, 21; Leonardo Valdes, 23; Anelio Dampier, 22; and Reinaldo Cruz, 20.

     The four young rebels after they were executed the day Lidia Doce and Clodomira Acosta were also captured.

      Lidia and Clodomira were spared only so, as the most famed Mountain Messengers, they could be tortured as long as possible before they died.

     By 1958 Batista's most infamous murderers included Esteban Ventura. He was in charge of torturing Lidia and Clodomira. 

    The details of  how Lidia and Clodomira died are known because of the accounts of their heartless captors. For days they were tortured as punishment but also to induce them to reveal vital information about the rebel offensive that Batista and Ventura knew they possessed.
    But to the consternation and amazement of Ventura, based on data his aides reported directly to Batista, never -- NOT ONCE -- did either Lidia or Clodomira utter a single word to their torturers, NOT to plea for mercy and NOT to reveal a single word about the vital information that knew would harm the war efforts of Celia Sanchez, the Castro brothers, and Che Guevara.
     Based on the Batista-Ventura records, it is believed that Lidia died  just a few agonizing minutes before Clodomira succumbed to the relentless torture. Clodomira's very last smile in Cuba was when she at last knew that her beloved friend and mentor Lidia had finally died and could be punished no more.
     It is believed, based on Ventura accounts, that their deaths occurred on September 17, 1958. Thus, on that date each year -- INCLUDING THIS WEEK IN THE YEAR 2018 -- ceremonies honoring two of the all-time greatest rebels are commemorated. NO ONE DESERVES IT MORE.
      After they were tortured to death, Batista ordered that their bodies be thrown into the sea, and they were never recovered.

Clodomira Acosta and Lidia Doce.

Batista's Colonel Esteban Ventura.

     The Cuban Revolution's incomparable Celia Sanchez in 1965, almost seven years after overthrowing Batista, told Bohemia Magazine:

     "In September of 1958 we began winning the war...capturing cities and holding them as our forward units, led by Che and Camilo, were on a direct path to Havana, hoping to get there before the Batistianos fled. But I remember in the Sierra it was on September 24 when we got confirmation that four of our young rebels had been executed at the home where Lidia and Clodomira had been captured. I've never been a crier but after hearing that I cried for two whole days and nights. Then we learned Lidia and Clodomira were being kept alive so they could be tortured as long as possible. Finally, in the end two reliable sources informed us that Clodomira, just before she died, managed a smile because she had learned that Lidia had died and could no longer be tortured. I'm trying to say, despite all of the tragedies of the war and the tragedies that caused the war, most of the tears from my eyes were for Lidia and Clodomira. And I will never apologize for that...NEVER. They meant that much to me and to the war."

     The photo above was taken in August of 1958 by Celia Sanchez herself. The lady in the middle in the white shirt is Lidia Doce about a month before she was murdered. The lady next to Lidia is Grizelda Sanchez, Celia's lookalike sister. And, of course, at Lidia's left shoulder is Fidel Castro. Lidia had just turned to Fidel and happily said, "Estamos ganando ahora, verdad?" {"We're winning now, aren't we?"}. The Commander on the left is Juan Almeida, who also reviewed Lidia's latest messages.

Lidia Doce.

This is believed to be.......

....the last photo ever taken of.....

22-year-old Clodomira Acosta.
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Cuba President to Visit U.S.

Diaz-Canel's First U. S. Trip!!
{Updated: Monday, September 17th, 2018}

    Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, will make his first-ever trip to the USA later this month of September, 2018. He's coming to New York to represent Cuba at the United Nations. But he's set one day aside --  September 28th -- to also meet with friendly Cuban-Americans as well as U. S. business leaders interested in possibly investing in Miguel Diaz-Canel's Cuba.

     Since Miguel Diaz-Canel took over as Cuba's President on April 19th, the Cuban parliament, including the Council of Ministers, has been sharply revamped with Diaz-Canel's stamp.

     The Cuban parliament has devised a new Constitution to replace the one that has prevailed since 1976. President Diaz-Canel sees the urgent need to improve the island's economy by seeking foreign investment but also by allowing for more private enterprise and also stressing agricultural production because Cuba purchases most of the food consumed on the island, which Diaz-Canel thinks should be produced by Cubans. The new constitution has already been ratified by the parliament and currently is being publicly debated nationwide before it will surely be passed into law by a referendum vote early in 2019.

    Since the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution, women -- such as heroines Celia Sanchez, Vilma Espin, and Haydee Santamaria as well as modern leaders like Josefina Vidal -- have held powerful positions in the Revolutionary Government. But President Diaz-Canel has elevated many current women to strong positions, such as Johana Tablada, who has served as Cuba's Ambassador to Portugal. But this past week the photo above shows Tablada at the podium in Washington as she led a strong Cuban delegation that not only debunked but ridiculed the Trump administration's claim that Cuba -- or some ally like Russia or China -- is responsible for so-called sonic-or-health attacks on U. S. diplomats in Havana. She, for example, asked the U. S. to reveal how many of the "26 injured diplomats were CIA agents."

    As reported in major articles by NBC, ABC, the NY Times, the Washington Post, etc., in Washington this week the feisty Johana Tablaba accused the U. S. of "fabricating or withholding vital information about the alleged attacks" that she maintained were intended solely to be used as an excuse to reverse President Obama's positive overtures to Cuba. She claimed that the "the Cubans in Congress and in the Trump White House" want Americans to believe that Cuba, not the anti-Cubans in the U. S., wanted to destroy Cuba's vital tourism industry and she said, "that's ridiculous but I guess those who control the narrative or the intimidation factors can get away with it if the world's most powerful nation allows it to happen."

     Cuba's frustrations with America regarding the "health attacks" that Cuba has begged the U. S. to investigate fairly since 2016 were left this week in the hands of Johana Tablada and the Cuban experts she brought with her to Washington. "To claim we would hurt ourselves in such a manner doesn't meet the smell test, and the United States knows it," Tablada said, adding, "so why not come clean. Start with admitting who's being hurt and who is benefiting from the attacks."

     After her important mission in Washington, Johana Tablada took the above photo as her airplane returned her to her beloved Cuba. She posted the photo on her Facebook page with this caption: "La mas bella que ojos humanos han vista" {"The most beautiful human eyes have seen." Johana's sentence replicated the words Columbus put in his diary in October of 1492 when he described Cuba's la tierra {"the land"} the most beautiful his eyes had ever seen. [NOTE: I've been to Cuba and I happen to agree with both Johana and Columbus regarding Cuba's beauty].

Johana's airplane photo.

 Cuba's Johana Tablada believes that self-serving Counter Revolutionaries led by Senator Marco Rubio from Miami's Little Havana brigade are taking advantage of President Trump's many other distractions as well as Trump's need for the political support provided by Little Havana to "devise a Cuban policy in Washington designed to destroy Cuba but one that also harms most Cuban-Americans and Americans of all stripes too." And Johana Tablada this week, allowed to speak in Washington with major U. S. news organizations on hand, seemed to drown out Rubio who is more accustomed to speaking before the choir in Little Havana, as shown above, or to his equally self-serving and sycophantic members of the United States Congress.

     It is well known that Johana Tablada in Cuba studied some of Fabiola Santiago's recent columns in Rubio's hometown Miami Herald that scathingly denounced Rubio's self-serving actions regarding Cuba. Santiago was born in Cuba and since 1980 has been one of the Miami Herald's most anti-Castro journalists. She is now that newspaper's top Editor and Columnist regarding all things, not just Cuba. She recently assailed President Trump for putting Rubio in charge of America's Cuban policies, pointing out that Rubio is so self-centered that he ignores the best interests of everyone but himself and his billionaire political donors, disrespecting the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami. And, yes, Johana Tablada, representing Cuba in Washington this week, had read what Miami's top journalist, Fabiola Santiago, has said about Marco Rubio, the man Tablada for sure and Santiago seemingly believe is most responsible for pressuring the unpredictable President Trump with excuses to annihilate Revolutionary Cuba -- as if the city of Miami, the state of Florida, and the United States of America don't have enough problems already, such as...gun epidemics, drug epidemics, and epidemics of unpopular but entrenched politicians getting elected in a money-crazed/two-party political system in which both parties can be purchased by the highest bidders. 

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