7.5.13

U.S.-Cuban Sanity Irks Cuban-Exile Extremists

Updated: Saturday, May 11th
{New Mariela Castro photo taken Sat.-May 11th}
      Beyonce {abovewas on ABC's Good Morning America Monday, May 6th. She's in London in the middle of her European "Mrs. Carter Show" tour. {Her husband's real name is Shawn Corey CarterJournalist Amy Roback asked her about her recent controversial {at least to Cuban-exile extremists} trip to Cuba where she celebrated her 5th wedding anniversary with husband Jay-Z and their mothers. Beyonce replied: "You know, it was such a beautiful trip. I met some incredible children. I visited some incredible entrepreneurs. And it was really educational for me. I learned so much about so many people and the country."
      Photos and videos of Beyonce and Jay-Z having a wonderful vacation in Cuba and bringing joy to Cubans flew around the world. After all, with the possible exception of President Obama and the First Lady, Beyonce and Jay-Z are America's most famous couple and they are a lot richer than the Obamas. Beyonce told Fox News that the vicious anti-Cuban "backlash" from Cuban exiles was "shocking."
       Havana-born, Bush-ordained Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- entrenched in the U. S. Congress from Miami since 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager -- led the vociferous uproar denouncing the Beyonce/Jay-Z trip to Cuba, a "beautiful trip" -- to quote Beyonce -- that thrilled the Carter family as well as the Cubans on the island. The "backlash" should "shock" all Americans, not just Beyonce.
    The week after the Beyonce/Jay-Z trip to Cuba, Mariela Castro -- the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro -- visited the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen then blistered the airways with this comment: "It's insulting that the Cuban dictator's daughter and standard-bearer of the Castro dictatorship would visit a symbol of America's successful struggle for freedom from its colonial masters."
     To be fair, only the Cuban-exile agenda in the U. S. portrays Mariela Castro viciously. She is her own "standard-bearer" and when she has disagreed with her father and her uncle she stayed on the island to nobly and successfully make her points. She has lived modestly all her life, never contemplating Miami as a rich sanctuary. A twice-married mother of three, she strongly disagreed with her father and uncle when she performed topless in a play as a university student. She strongly disagreed with her father and uncle with her internationally famed support of gay rights, and she won that battle and dramatically changed the island. The prime reason she wanted to visit Philadelphia was to receive a major award from a major gay rights organization in the United States. But while in Philly, she also asked to see the Liberty Bell.
      The above photo taken by John McDevitt, a reporter for the CBS News affiliate KYW in Philadelphia, shows Mariela Castro listening intently and respectfully as she is provided the history of America's Liberty Bell. Afterward, both the Associated Press and the New York Times quoted an emotional Mariela as saying: "I dream of the day when Cuba and the United States will have normal relations."
     Havana-born, controversy-mired, Bush-ordained Otto Reich used his "Otto Reich Associates" website and a huge page in the Miami Herald to scathingly denounce Mariela Castro's visit to the Liberty Bell.
     As with almost all of the ultra-rich, ultra-powerful anti-Castro Cuban-exile zealots in the United States, Otto Reich is a product of the mutually self-serving Bush political-economic dynasty.
     The above photo shows Mariela Castro pausing to gaze back at the Liberty Bell. This is where she made her sane, emotional comment about her dream that "one day" the U. S. and Cuba will have "normal" relations. Of course, that won't happen as long as Cuban-exile zealots and economic-political sycophants-benefactors such as the Bush political-economic dynasty benefit from the status quo -- or as long as entrenched, elderly Cuban rulers on the island fear the return of U. S. dominance. Eleven million Cubans and 315 million Americans deserve sanity, not hubris, to prevail at long last in U. S. - Cuban relations.
     Back in Havana, the above REUTERS/Desmond Boylan photo of Mariela Castro was taken Saturday, May 11th, as Cubans celebrated International Day Against Homophobia. Like her mother before her, she is widely considered a national treasure in Cuba.
Mariela Castro Advocates Sanity in U.S.-Cuban Relations.
      Mariela was born a half-century ago in Havana. Her mother was Vilma Espin, the wife of Raul Castro whom Vilma married in 1959 within days after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Of course, Celia Sanchez {above} was with Vilma the day Mariela was born.
      Cuba's highly respected historian, Pedro Alvarez Tabio, 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." An understanding of that sentence is necessary for any understanding of the Cuban Revolution and what it has meant -- to Cuba, the United States, and the world -- six decades now. And so is this Vilma Espin sentence: "The fate of little Maria Ochoa was the biggest mistake Batista, the Mafia, and the United States ever made on the island of Cuba." {Quotation in Bohemia Magazine, May-1972}
      Maria Ochoa was a peasant girl beloved and befriended by Celia Sanchez, the angelic, 99-pound daughter of a rich Cuban doctor in eastern Cuba. Dr. Manuel Sanchez owned three farms and was head of the Cuban Medical Association. Like almost all Cubans, rich and poor, Celia and her father hated the Batista-Mafia dictatorship but they realized nothing could be done about a dictatorship supported by the superpower United States. That is...till Celia determined that Maria, at age ten, had been legally kidnapped and raped to death in a Mafia-run casino-hotel by a rich pedophile lured to the island to gamble. That belief transformed Celia Sanchez from an angelic doctor's daughter into the greatest female guerrilla fighter and revolutionary leader in the history of revolutions, large or small ones, all around the world.
Celia Sanchez, the guerrilla fighter.
Celia Sanchez, the very day Fidel joined her revolution.
Celia Sanchez, the military leader.
Celia and Fidel, the night they captured Cuba.
Celia was one of the first celebrities hounded by paparazzi.
        In her seminal Castro biography Guerrilla Prince, Georgie Anne Geyer went into detail about Celia having to constantly deter Hollywood starlets from commanding a little too much of Fidel's attention; she actually chased a few from Fidel's beds.
     Maureen O'Hara's fixation on Fidel particularly irked Celia...for two reasons: {1} Maureen was a major Hollywood star; and {2} she had flaming red hair. {Celia and Maureen were both aware that Fidel had a notable weakness for redheads}.
       But from December of 1957 till January of 1959 in the Revolutionary War and then in Revolutionary Cuba from 1959 till her death from cancer in 1980, there were very few instances in which Celia was not in total control of both Fidel and Cuba. 
Celia, Cuba's decision-maker as Fidel relaxes.
Celia loved driving her Metari jeep.
Celia's memories of Maria Ochoa were obsessive and eternal.
      As the prime decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba, it was her love of Cuban children that prompted Celia Sanchez to announce and to back-up this proclamation: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." She died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11-1980 but in April of 2013 the 86-year-old Fidel is still alive, and so is her proclamation. For the most part, since 1959 anti-Castro Cuban exiles have controlled the Cuban discourse in the United States and thus Celia Sanchez's dominant role in the Cuban revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba has been conveniently denied, partly because of Machismo but mostly because it is a lot easier to vilify Fidel, Che, Camilo, Raul, etc., than the saintly Celia.
    Internationally renowned photographer and long-time Cuban insider Roberto Salas {above} wrote in his acclaimed book "A Pictorial History of the Cuban Revolution: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died of cancer in 1980, we all knew no could ever replace her."
In Batista's Cuba in the 1950s Marta Rojas {above} was a young journalist.
In Fidel's Cuba Marta introduced him for his first national television address.
      Marta Rojas interviewed Cuba's famed revolutionary heroines Haydee Santamaria and Melba Hernandez the day after they were freed from a brutal Batista prison in 1955, which was also the day they resumed their notable do-or-die efforts to overthrow Batista. Melba was recently interviewed for a documentary the BBC did about Celia Sanchez; Haydee, distraught over Celia's death from cancer, committed suicide in 1980 -- facts confirmed by Haydee's biography "Rebel Lives" and by her daughter.
      Today Marta Rojas undoubtedly is the world's greatest expert when it comes to Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Revolution. A renowned author/historian, I believe Marta's best book is Tania: The Unforgettable Guerrilla, which was first published by Random House in 1973. In 2005 after my trip to Cuba to research my biography of Celia Sanchez, Marta helped me via an exchange of emails, one of which included the attachment of the obituary Marta wrote when Celia died. In another 2005 email Marta wrote: "Since Celia died of cancer in 1980, Fidel has ruled Cuba only as he precisely believes she would want him to rule it." If there is anyone who would know such details about Revolutionary Cuba, it is Marta Rojas.
Now back to the Mariela-Vilma-Celia Connection
      The above photo {taken by America's all-time greatest war photographer Dickey Chapelle} shows Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin {Mariela's mother} between battles in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of eastern Cuba in 1958. By this time Celia had become the one person that Fidel Castro would literally worship for the rest of his life. And by this time Vilma had become engaged to Raul Castro. This photo captures the personalities of Cuba's two greatest guerrilla fighters-revolutionary leaders. Celia was always the studious one, as befits a prime decision-maker. Vilma was always the carefree one; around campfires in the Sierra Maestra Vilma played the guitar and sang for the guerrillas and by the end of the war Raul and the other rebels had fallen madly in love with her. Vilma, the daughter of a rich Cuban lawyer, was a student at MIT in Boston when Celia sent her a letter and invited her to return and become an anti-Batista rebel.
      By the way, Dickey Chapelle -- on her way to becoming America's greatest front-line war photographer -- had become close friends with Celia and Vilma when she covered the Cuban revolutionary war.
        Thus, Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin were heart-broken in Cuba when they learned that Dickey Chapelle had been killed on the front-lines on Nov. 4-1965 while covering the Vietnam War.
      In 1959, in addition to marrying Raul Castro and becoming the mother of their four children, Vilma Espin founded the ultra-powerful Federation of Cuban Women {above} and meticulously led it till she died of cancer in 2007. Apart from his leadership of the Cuban military, Raul's power and influence in Cuba never matched Vilma's. After the modest Celia refused the overture, Fidel named Vilma Cuba's "First Lady."
          Unbiased historians and chroniclers of the Cuban Revolution agree with Fidel Castro that the photo above depicts the Big Four of the Cuban Revolution. It shows Vilma Espin on the left with Celia Sanchez on the right flanking the Castro brothers. It's Fidel's favorite photograph. The original copy kept at his home has his hand-writing {in red ink} on the back: "#1 Celia, #2 Fidel, #3 Vilma, #4 Raul." And that's the order, to this day, he ranks the four most important fighters-leaders of the Cuban Revolution.
      All of which brings us back around to that day fifty years ago when a little girl named Mariela was born in Havana, one of the happiest days in the memorable lives of Vilma Espin and Celia Sanchez.
   In this month of May, 2013, the 50-year-old Mariela Castro visited America's Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and then told of her "dream" that one day Cuba and the United States would have "normal" relations. Her mother Vilma and her godmother Celia, undoubtedly, would be very proud of Mariela. 
If a little girl had survived 1950s Cuba, the Batista dictatorship probably would have too.
     If Batista's enforcers had not murdered Cuban children and thereby outraged the female half of the population, the Batistianos/Mafiosos probably would still be ruling and looting the island of Cuba today.
       Celia Sanchez, were she alive today, would probably be very proud that Cuban children on the island are now better off -- from the standpoints of safety, health, education, shelter, and food -- than they were during the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Yet, it was Celia who recognized fully that, for Cuba's sake, friendly relations with its superpower neighbor, the United States, should be an absolute priority.
       That's why, in 2013, Americans should study this photo of Celia Sanchez, which is copyrighted by Yale University. It shows Celia Sanchez in April of 1959 -- less than four months after she had shed her guerrilla uniform -- in the lobby of a New York City hotel. She had taken Fidel Castro to the United States in the dire hopes and expectations that Cuba and America would be "best friends and leading trade partners." She had instructed her acolyte, Fidel Castro, to tell President Dwight Eisenhower that Cuba would hold democratic elections by the fall of that year and that the U. S. could "closely monitor" those elections. Furthermore, Fidel was instructed to tell President Eisenhower that neither he nor Che Guevara would be candidates nor would "proxies" run in their stead. Celia, before she agreed to the trip, had been assured by the U. S. State Department that Fidel could personally present those points to President Eisenhower.
     But the crooked, Cuban-exile-aligned U. S. Vice President Richard Nixon persuaded the decent but malleable President Eisenhower to go on a golfing trip while Nixon hosted Fidel, who at the time was very popular in the United States. Nixon, playing McCarthyism to the hilt, publicly accused Fidel of being "a communist" and privately informed Fidel that "your revolution will survive three months, at the longest." An incredulous Fidel {see above} informed Nixon that Batista, not the Cuban Revolution, had been supported by the "Communist Party of Cuba that twice had been reinstated by Batista." And that statement was true.
      After their four-hour meeting in April of 1959 Fidel shook Nixon's hand for the benefit of photographers. But the disbelieving look on Fidel's face countered the smirky smile saturating Nixon's countenance.
Fidel was still in a cheerful mood after the 12-day U. S. visit in April of 1959.
       But the mood that counted was Celia's, not Fidel's. By the time they were back on Cuban soil after the 12-day trip to the U. S., she realized that self-serving right-wingers in the U. S. government, aligned with the Batistiano and Mafioso elements that had fled the Cuban Revolution, ruled America's Cuban policy. She easily over-ruled Fidel's view, expressed to her on the return flight, that "you underestimate the strengths and best points of the American democracy." {Note: Even conservative journalist Georgie Anne Geyer, in her seminal Castro biography "Guerrilla Prince," clearly stated that Celia could and did "over-rule" Fidel whenever she chose to do so} This was one of those times and it inspired her proclamation: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Historians are aware that, indeed, Batista twice reinstated the Communist Party of Cuba and splattered his dictatorship, and later South Florida, with hard-line, Moscow-trained communists such as the infamous Rolando Masferrer.
      When Celia Sanchez was fighting the Cuban Revolution she considered her four prime enemies to be: Batista, the Mafia, The Communist Party of Cuba, and America...in that order. It took three developments before she allowed Fidel to announce that Cuba was a "Marxist-Socialist" state: (1) Her 12-day trip to the U. S. in April of 1959; (2) multiple assassination attempts against Cuban leaders conducted by the CIA, Mafia, and Cuban exiles in 1959, 1960, and 1961; and (3) the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba in April of 1961.
     Indeed, it was only after the Bay of Pigs attack that Celia permitted Fidel to both label and conduct Cuba as a "Marxist-Socialist" state. Her rationale, as defined by her proclamation, was simple: She would do whatever she had to do to keep the Batistianos from regaining control of Cuba, at least during her lifetime or Fidel's. She well knew by 1962 that the superpower U. S. still supported the Batistianos/Mafiosos who were retrenched in nearby Florida and fixated on recapturing Cuba. And she well knew that the only other nuclear-armed superpower in the world was the Soviet Union. She felt she had no choice. One superpower wanted to devour her revolution; the other one had already sent its Deputy Premier, Anastas Mikoyan, to Cuba in an effort to befriend Cuba and draw it into its orbit. The sovereignty-loving Celia at that moment in time believed the Soviet Union was the lesser of two evils as far as Cuba was concerned.
       On his visit to Cuba, the cunning Anastas Mikoyan -- the Soviet Union's Deputy Premier -- made an astute observation: Fidel Castro spoke for Cuba but he never uttered "a decisive word" without checking with Celia Sanchez. Mikoyan became enchanted with this feminine phenomenon. He drank vodka and flirted with her; he nicknamed her "Spanish Eyes." Mikoyan and Fidel signed lucrative business deals, approved by Celia. Before he returned to Moscow, Mikoyan gave Celia a note that included his private phone and cable numbers. After the Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961, Celia sent Mikoyan a cable. She asked for nuclear missiles to be secretly installed on the island of Cuba. She signed the cable "Spanish Eyes." The cable had arrived in Moscow before she informed Fidel what it contained. He was furious. But, in the end, as always, he supported her 100%. Her Spanish Eyes cable soon frightened the entire world.
The Cuban Missile Crisis in Oct.-1962 is the closest the world has ever come to a nuclear holocaust.
      The above photo shows Fidel Castro inspecting an anti-aircraft battery during the missile crisis. Historians now know, confirmed by de-classified documents, that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had ordered his generals in Cuba not to fire on U. S. spy planes flying over the island during the crisis.
     On Oct. 14-1962 -- at the height of the Missile Crisis -- a Sam missile shot down a high-flying Lockheed U-2 U. S. spy plane {above} and it fell back to Cuban soil, audaciously defying Khrushchev's order.
      Major Rudy Anderson of South Carolina and Clemson University piloted that spy plane and perished.
        When President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara got word of the shoot-down of the Rudy Anderson-piloted spy plane, it is believed that everyone in the War Room at the time thought President Kennedy would be forced to retaliate with an all-out nuclear attack on Cuba and Russia, something the prime "hawks" advising Kennedy had strongly advocated prior to the shoot-down. As Kennedy hesitated, even McNamara later admitted that he believed the shoot-down "signaled the end of the world and I believed I had seen my last Saturday night." And so did most in the rest of the world.
      Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, was a key advisor at his father's side during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He later moved to the United States, became a renowned historian, and is a highly respected Professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In a long, insightful, and historical essay that first appeared in American History Magazine, Dr. Sergei Khrushchev stated that his father and President Kennedy were "shaking in their boots" in Moscow and Washington while Fidel Castro in Havana was the calmest and thus "the catalyst" during the missile crisis. He referenced the order his father had given his generals not to fire on spy planes and also mentioned that even after the shoot-down of the Rudy Anderson plane, other U. S. spy planes were fired at and hit by anti-aircraft fire.
       This map shows the nuclear missile sites on Cuban soil that specifically targeted nearby South Florida. 
The foregoing facts are indisputable, so ask yourself this question:
        Did the fate of a peasant girl who was mortally loved by a doctor's daughter constitute the biggest mistake Batista, the Mafia, and the United States ever made on the island of Cuba, as Vilma Espin opined?
      And if Celia Sanchez is not the major player in the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba, why is the elderly woman above so emotional as she places a flower over Celia's crypt decades after her death?
      And why, decades after Celia died in January of 1980, do Cubans still sit around in front of her native home in Media Luna and discuss what she still means to them? I don't believe it has anything to do with dictators, democracy, the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis or things of that nature.
I think it has to do with Celia's unending love for peasant children.
         This poster would outrage Celia more than it seems to outrage her enemies in America. 
        Loudly searching for expensive, revengeful ways to hurt Celia's Cuba is wrong.
Especially while ignoring things like child hunger in America.
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4.5.13

A Very Strange U.S.-Cuban Development!

Even By U.S.-Cuban Standards!
Updated: Monday, May 6th
        Joanne Deborah Chesimard is now 65-years-old and she has lived openly in Cuba since 1984.
Joanne Deborah Chesimard is the godmother of the late famed rapper Tupac Shakur.
          This past Thursday Joanne Deborah Chesimard became the first woman to be put on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list. Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, was convicted in 1977 of the murder of Trooper Werner Foerster, which occurred on May 2, 1973. She was in a car on the New Jersey Turnpike driven by Clark Squire when the auto was pulled over by Werner Foerster and another state trooper.
       The state trooper Werner Foerster, as well as a male passenger in Chesimard's car, were killed in a shoot-out. Chesimard and Squire were sentenced to life in prison in 1977. Chesimard escaped in 1979.
      On Thursday, May 2nd, 2013, the FBI made history by making Joanne Chesimard the first woman put on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list. The FBI and the State of New Jersey are offering a $2 million reward "for information leading to the safe return of Joanne Chesimard" to the United States so the now 65-year-old Chesimard can finish serving out her term. Cuba believes she did not receive a fair trial.
        William Kunsler, the famed civil rights attorney who died in New York City at age 76 in 1995, represented Joanne Chesimard at her trial in 1977. She was one of many clients that earned Kunstler the sobriquet as "The Most Hated Lawyer In America." Kunsler vociferously admitted that Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation Army but adamantly claimed she did not murder trooper Foerster in 1973.
        As a young lawyer Ron Kuby worked with William Kunsler and to this day Kuby insists Chesimard "did not get a fair trial." Kuby thinks she was in the wrong car at the wrong time on the wrong highway.
       Many are left to wonder why in the wide wonderful world of U. S. - Cuban relations would Tupac Shakur's aunt and godmother Joanne Chesimard suddenly be named the FBI's "Most Wanted Woman" with a huge $2 million reward posted for information leading to her return from Cuba to the U. S. so, at age 65, she could resume serving her life sentence in New Jersey??? After all, the shoot-out on the New Jersey Turnpike took place in 1973, her trial was in 1977, her escape from prison was in 1979, and it is well known that she has lived in Cuba since 1984! So, why now! Has a fresh self-serving reason surfaced? Let's see....! 
      With John Kerry taking over as President Barack Obama's new Secretary of State, many expected the first week of May-2013 to see Cuba removed from the State Department's Sponsors of Terrorism list. After all, during his long-time stint in the U. S. Senate, Mr. Kerry had often defied the ultra-powerful Cuban-exile lobby when it came to Cuban issues, one of which is Cuba remaining as the oldest member {since 1982} on the State Department's very short {four total members} State Sponsors of Terrorism list. But in the first week of May-2013 Secretary Kerry left Cuba on the list that most unbiased observers strongly believe is merely to appease the visceral Cuban-exile lobby. Thus, this question may be in order: Was the loud rehashing of the Joanne Chesimard case a coincidence or did it resurface at this late date as a justification for the State Department's ongoing inclusion of Cuba on the Sponsors of Terrorism list?
      Cubana Flight 455 {actual airplane above} is a constant historical and topical reminder throughout the Caribbean and Latin America that Cuba is and has been a victim of  but not a sponsor of terrorism.
       On October 6, 1976, Cubana Flight 455 was blown out of the sky into an unforgiving ocean by a terrorist bomb. {Image from Capitan San Luis} All 73 passengers, including two dozen teenage athletes, were killed.
       The two most famed Cuban-exile extremists -- the late Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles -- are generally connected by history and by de-classified U. S. documents {see Peter Kornbluh's U.S. National Archives site} to the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 and many other anti-Cuban terrorist acts.
      To this day Cubana Flight 455 memorials such as the one above are ubiquitous across the Caribbean (Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, etc.) as are ongoing questions regarding why Miami is allowed to be a safe haven for both accused and avowed anti-Cuban terrorists. Are such questions valid and appropriate?
        Cuban-American Emilio Milian was the top-rated newscaster in Miami {at WQBA} when he aired one broadcast too many about Cuban-American terrorists going unpunished in his adopted city.
That's Emilio Milian in his station's parking lot after a car-bomb blew off both of his legs at the hips.
        Jim DeFede was the top columnist at the Miami Herald, at least until he wrote a blistering column entitled "Terrorism Is Terrorism Whether..." in which he excoriated both the city of Miami as a sanctuary for anti-Cuban terrorists and the top Cuban-American politicians in Miami {and Washington} -- especially Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers -- for supporting the terrorists.
      Just last week -- on the one-year anniversary of having her thriving airlines business bombed out of existence in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables -- Vivian Mannerud wrote a very long and very sad statement about her experience with terrorism. She attributes the bombing to the very legal passenger flights her airline was making to and from the nearby island of Cuba. In her statement Ms. Mannerud alluded to Miami's long history of harboring as opposed to prosecuting such terrorism. She referenced her belief that even the FBI had some clues pertaining to the crime -- including a photo of a suspicious car she believes might have been involved -- but was not following up on it as far as she knew. Thus, Vivian Mannerud and her (bombed out) former business join a very, very long victims list.
      Back in the 1830s French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville famously wrote that Democracy in America was the greatest form of government ever devised by man. In the year 2013 it still is. But, in retrospect, there are now a few caveats, such as: (1) de-Tocqueville's beloved grandfather had been guillotined during the French Revolution; and (2) so was Democracy in America by the Cuban Revolution.
    The Cuban Revolution way back in the 1950s guillotined the U. S. democracy in two primary ways: (1) The U. S. democracy should not have teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal-thieving Batista dictatorship on the island of Cuba; and (2) after the astonishing overthrow of the Batista dictatorship by the Cuban Revolution, the U. S. should not have permitted the immediate and seemingly eternal reconstitution of that dictatorship on U. S. soil -- namely the renowned Mafia havens of Miami, Florida, and Union City, New Jersey.
       Thus, in 2013 perhaps we should forgive the American school-girl above for freely expressing her definition of "Democracy." I believe she is mocking Americans for their failure to defend it. And she should.
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25.4.13

The U. S. Cuban Policy Ridicules Democracy

And It's a Policy Dating Back to the 1950s!
       On a daily basis, it seems that leading newspapers around the world and in the U. S. -- such as The Kansas City Star -- feature major articles ridiculing America's Cuban policy that, amazingly, has been allowed to exist for six decades now with no correction by the supposed guardians of the American democracy -- the majority of Americans who, to the rest of the world, appear either too ignorant, too cowardly, or too unpatriotic to end the interminable farce. The latest notable journalist-author-historian to call it "a farce" is Louis A. Perez Jr., Ph.D, writing in yesterday's Kansas City Star
Louis A. Perez Jr.
 

       Louis A. Perez Jr. is a Professor of History at the University of North Carolina. His books include "The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba," "Cuba in the American Imagination" and an updated version of  "Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution" published by Oxford Press University as a riveting political chronology of U. S. - Cuban relations. He also edits the informative Havana Journal blog and is a top expert on U.S.-Cuban relations.
         Mr. Perez this week {April 24th} authored a major article in the Kansas City Star entitled "What the Beyonce and Jay-Z Cuba Uproar Teaches Us." He wrote: "The furor over the recent visit of Beyonce and Jay-Z to Cuba calls attention to the archaic U.S. embargo and the odious restriction on our right to travel. Beyonce and Jay-Z oblige us to confront again a policy that has lapsed into a farce." Mr. Perez's Kansas City Star article this week explains in detail why the U. S. Cuban policy is indeed "odious" and "a farce." He is fiercely anti-Castro but, unlike the extremists Cuban-exile benefactors, he is also fair and balanced in his appraisals of Cuba and how the island relates, historically and topically, to the U. S.
Louis A. Perez Jr. this week points out that, yes, the U. S. - Cuban policy is "odious" and "a farce" and that, yes, the U. S. embargo of Cuba, put into  effect "52 years ago" remains "in place" but "the Cuban government remains in power." That's all true, making the U. S. look like a big bully that frets and whines about being kicked off the island in 1959 for supporting the brutality and thievery of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Instead of owning up to that odious farce it has been compounded, as Louis A. Perez Jr. alluded to, by two generations of Americans who lack the courage, intelligence or patriotism to do something about it. Indeed, if the United States, when it comes to Cuba, is to be viewed as a big bully, it at least should exhibit some strength and reasoning to support its Cuban policy. Instead, it just whines, weeps, and bows to the dictates of a few Cuban-exile extremists unmindful that the United Nations and the world mocks its democracy with images like the one above-left, a portrayal that should embarrass Americans.
Penelope Purdy



      Penelope Purdy, of course, authored the all-time best and sanest quotation to define the U.S.-Cuban quagmire: "The U.S.-Cuban policy has been conducted all these decades with the IQ of a salamander."
   Surely no sane and fair-minded Cuban or American can dispute that quotation.
     And surely, six decades of insanity regarding one issue and one nearby island is six decades too long.

Celia Sanchez


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      Celia Sanchez, of course, penned the all-time best and most omniscient quotation that defined the Cuban Revolution: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel Lives." She died in 1980 as Cuba's greatest heroine; Fidel is a few weeks shy of his 87th birthday. Against all odds, the Batistianos have not regained control of Cuba from 1959 till today. Thus, Celia's proclamation as well as Revolutionary Cuba have both endured since 1959.
  What transpires after Fidel's death is anyone's guess and, as far as I know, Celia did not offer a prediction regarding that. So, we'll just have to wait and see.
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21.4.13

Cuba's Mariel Port vs. State of Florida

Port of Mariel's Past and Present
{Updated Tuesday, April 23rd}
     Cuba's Port of Mariel, immersed in mysticism, is historically famous for the 1980 Cuban Boatlift when Fidel Castro, frustrated and saddened by the death of Celia Sanchez, invited Cubans to the Mariel port if they wanted free and permanent trips to Florida. About 125,000 Cubans eagerly accepted the offer.
       The still-popular 1983 movie "Scarface" -- in which Al Pacino played Miami's enigmatic cocaine king Tony Montana -- begins with actual footage of Mariel Boatlift benefactors landing in Miami, then transitioning to Tony Montana's arrival in South Florida. It represented "Scarface" writer-producer Oliver Stone's unavoidable remembrance that Fidel Castro had included about 10,000 of Cuba's most hardened criminals in the Mariel Boatlift to Miami. But that's a 1980s story so let's return to the Mariel update in 2013.
    With the Cuban capital of Havana a mere 90 miles south of the Florida Keys, Mariel -- only 28 miles west of Havana -- would be ideally located for U. S. ships except for the U. S. embargo of Cuba, staunchly maintained since 1962 to appease the revengeful and political appetites of a few Cuban exiles.
   The beautiful Mariel harbor is back in the news because, to no one's surprise, Florida is again trying to replace the U. S. government as the sole decision-maker when it comes to Cuba although, of course, all U. S. laws and the U. S. Constitution mandate that foreign relations are the province of only the federal government. But Florida notices a positive happening at Mariel and desires to buck U. S. and international law to block it. Since 1959, Cuban exiles have shaped U. S. foreign policy concerning Cuba.
       Dilma Rousseff, the President of Latin American superpower Brazil and a powerful admirer of Fidel Castro, in 2012 discussed with Cuban President Raul Castro how her country could best help the island. One of the projects agreed upon was a billion-dollar upgrade to the port of Mariel, underwritten by Brazil. That project is now underway and, not unimaginably, Florida wants it stopped on Miami's terms.
      Brazilian President Rousseff, whom U. S. President Obama must kiss down to when it comes to Latin America and the Caribbean, told President Obama, "Before you leave office in your second term, the Mariel Port in Cuba will make you want to end your Cuban embargo." She said it teasingly and, perhaps, omnisciently. And she seems willing to take on Florida and the President regarding Cuba.
    Singapore-based PSA International, a Chinese-owned company, will manage the refurbished Mariel Port just as it manages major Panama ports such as the one above. The work at Mariel is being done by Odebrecht, the internationally renowned Brazilian engineering giant and the world's best.

  
        The massive work at Mariel Harbor is also affecting and refurbishing Havana Harbor. Havana can handle 360,000 containers a year but soon all industrial port facilities will be moved to Mariel so Havana's port can handle more cruise ships and recreational boats. By 2014 Mariel will be able to handle 3 million containers a year because it is being deepened so it can host huge Panama Canal ships. Mariel is also getting a 6,550-foot (2,000-meter) dock that will be able to hold the anticipated increase in containers.
                Highway and rail infrastructures leading to and from Mariel are also undergoing extensive work in Cuba in conjunction with the port's upgrade. Of course, the sharp improvement of the Mariel port in Cuba has not been lost on the most visceral Cuban exiles in Miami, transporting it to a regional news item.
            Brazil's Odebrecht is the world's leading engineering and construction company. Odebrecht USA, its American subsidiary, "has done almost $5 billion in public projects in Florida since 1990," according to the Miami Herald. That's fine but any nation's companies that do business with Cuba have to walk a fine line to comply with anti-Cuban laws forged by the ultra-powerful Cuban-exile lobby. Odebrecht is no exception.
        Florida governor Rick Scott was born in Bloomington, Illinois, sixty years ago, not in Cuba. But Florida governors, not to mention U. S. presidents, have to bow before the Cuban-exile lobby. Thus, Governor Scott signed state legislation in Florida banning state agencies and local governments from doing business with any company that also works in countries on the U. S. terror list.  Although the Cuban-exile lobby represents the only people who believe Cuba deserves to be on that list, Cuba's inclusion enables the Cuban-exile lobby to sue unrepresented Cuba -- successfully, of course -- in Miami's state and federal courts. And it enables the Cuban-exile lobby to force governors, presidents, the U. S. Congress, etc., to punish foreign companies remotely related to the U. S. if they do business in Cuba. Odebrecht USA has filed a lawsuit in Miami federal court challenging Florida's right to make and enforce foreign policy for the U. S. because only the federal government can, by law, do that. Odebrecht USA does no business with Cuba but the Cuban-exile lobby recognizes that Odebrecht International very clearly does.
     The Miami Herald editorial board is infused with visceral anti-Castro Cuban exiles. However, the Miami Herald editorial entitled "Another Inevitable Lawsuit" on April 5-2013 excoriated Governor Scott and the Cuban lobby for legislating against Odebrecht USA and for thinking it can continue to replace the U. S. government in foreign affairs, namely involving Cuba. The editorial cogently stated: "Why did Gov. Rick Scott sign this legislation, which usurps the federal responsibility guaranteed in the U. S. Constitution? He, too, alluded to the unenforceability of state law after signing it -- and then he backtracked. And now the state will have to spend public money to fight yet another lawsuit." Usually the Cuban-exile lobby Lords itself over small nations and companies -- and bullies Florida governors, U. S. presidents and the U. S. Congress -- but Brazil is not a small country and Odebrecht is not a small company. So, Florida taxpayers this time are up against a nation and a company that also have deep pockets of cash. The aforementioned editorial in the Miami Herald concluded: "The U. S. Constitution does not give states the right to conduct their own foreign policy -- indeed, imagine 50 states conducting their own foreign affairs; that would be disastrous. The Civil War clarified where 'states' rights' stop." Indeed it did. Perhaps it is time the Cuban-exile lobby recognized that the year is 2013 and this is the USA, not Batista's Cuba in the 1950s. Here is the Miami Herald's final paragraph in that cogent editorial: "The Coral Gables-based Odebrecht USA has done excellent work in Florida and locally, and there's a lot at stake as it looks to compete for contracts at Miami International Airport and at state and local agencies. That this state law came up now raises questions about some of the companies seeking to compete and their backdoor attempts to get ahead." The word "backdoor" alludes, of course, to the legendary history of Miami-Coral Gables since 1959, a well-known history that includes controversial deal-making that has made many anti-Castro Cuban exiles millionaires and billionaires.
     But Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is no lightweight. Brazil's economy now is counted in the trillions. Her billion-dollar efforts to help Cuba will go forth because she agrees with the Miami Herald that the U. S. government, not Florida, is responsible for American foreign policy. Also, the steadfast Cuban-exile lobby in Miami and Washington is not likely to intimidate President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, a paragon of bravery.
After all.............
      She was not intimidated when a powerful U.S.-backed Brazilian dictatorship tortured her for three years in prison.
         While the famous port of Mariel on Cuba's western tip, 28 miles west of Havana, was making regional news this past weekend, an even more famous Cuban port on the eastern tip of the island was making international news once again, adding to the amalgam of shame surrounding the infamy of Gitmo. 
       The above photo was taken by Marcos Hernandez of the U. S. Navy. It shows two Cuban birds on the barbed wire at Guantanamo Bay looking down at Gitmo prisoners. An article {Sunday, April 21stwritten by Carol Rosenberg in the Miami Herald, reported that 166 of the prisoners are currently undergoing massive hunger strikes, with 14 more joining that group "since yesterday." Rosenberg said that 17 of the hunger-strikers are currently "being force-fed via tubes snaked up their noses and into their stomachs." Each gruesome headline from Gitmo, as it circles around the globe, reminds millions of people anew that the U. S. merely stole Guantanamo Bay from Cuba shortly after the Spanish-American War in 1898 gave the U. S. dominance over the entire island, at least until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959. The two Cuban birds above are curious witnesses to Gitmo's ongoing travesty. I reckon the American sailor who took the efficacious photo understands both the symbolism and the realism of Guantanamo Bay.
A great man has died! Al Neuharth passed away at age 89.
He founded USA Today in 1982.
        The visionary Al Neuharth also had typically correct topical observations. For example, he called the U. S. embargo of Cuba "insane." In his regular Friday USA Today column, Mr. Neuharth once wrote: "Fidel Castro has out-smarted ten straight U. S. presidents." (I have read every edition of USA Today since 1982).
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