The True Faces of Cuba

Contrast Sharply With Fictional Portrayals of the Island
{A Pictorial Essay refurbished on July 23rd, 2013}

        It has always amazed me how little Americans know about Cuba, especially the Americans who have heard and read so much about the island south of Florida that dominates the Caribbean. Most of what Americans hear and read about Cuba is scripted by two generations of self-serving Cuban exiles booted off the island, with reason, by the Cuban Revolution way back in 1959. Those of us who have been to Cuba and studied non-exile images of it have observed and discovered a fascinating island quite different from what we are supposed to know about it. I reckon that is why the vast and lucrative American cottage industry created by a handful of two generations of exiles dictate that Cuba is the one destination in the world that Americans cannot freely visit. Routinely accepting what we are told about Cuba is not conducive to supporting our democracy because Cuba is not what a few self-indulgent exiles or dissidents say it is. Cuba is what everyday Cubans on the island say it is. With that in mind, here is a reflection of the Cuba I saw...what I consider the true images of an island often hidden behind a veil of secrecy and deceit.

I have visited everyday Cubans from Pinar del Rio in the West to Santiago de Cuba in the East.

Ernest Hemingway's favorite bar, La Bodeguita del Medio, still serves the best mojitos.

Cubans love outdoor murals.

Santiago de Cuba, the former capital and second largest city, remains a Spanish and Caribbean gem.

The edge of Santiago de Cuba on the southeastern end of the island.

Cuban musicians are ubiquitous from one end of the island to the other.

Cuban beaches, like Cayo Largo, are among the world's most pristine.

This tiny, beautiful bird -- the Tody -- is found only on the island of Cuba.

Everyday Cubans are perhaps the happiest people you'll ever meet.

Cuban girls relax on the wall that fronts Havana's famed Malecon Boulevard. 

Cuba devotes an amazing amount of resources to such things as ballet schools.

Calm, turquoise waters near Varadero, Cayo Coco, and Cayo Largo are breathtaking.

A young Cuban woman dives into the ocean.

Havana's famed Hotel Nacional has been refurbished.

Cuban girls enjoying ice cream in Florida, Cuba {correct} after a long bike ride.

The south-central colonial coastal city of Trinidad was my favorite historical spot.

This tree separates the city of Trinidad from the ocean.

Paladars, the restaurants in homes, serve the best food in Cuba.

The World Bank says that Cuba's literacy rate is a world-class 98.6%.

All Cubans are guaranteed free shelter on the island, often in pre-revolutionary mansions.

A poster inside a school in Bayamo proclaims free educations, free health care, etc., for all children.

Cuban schoolchildren posing with their two teachers for a photo.

Even young schoolchildren in Cuba are veterans when it comes to posing for tourist photos.

Cubans young and old love to relax in spirited dominoes competitions.

A Cuban lady sweeps her stoop near a "Long Live the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution" sign.

Cuban children ride a carousel free in the seaside town of Gibara.

A Ramon Espinoso/AP photo shows a Cuban mother watching her little girl yawn at the start of a school day.

Tourists enjoy one of Cuba's beaches.

A Cuban man in Gibara just paid a truck vendor 15 pesos for a large jar of beer.

Cuban schoolgirls walk past murals honoring 19th century independence fighters against Spain.

A Cuban mother fawning over her two daughters on the way to a wedding.

Cubans following a hearse on the way to a funeral.

Even during pre-game warm-ups Cubans cheer wildly for their favorite baseball teams.

A view of the Caribbean Sea from Santiago de Cuba's old Morro Fortress built in the 1600s.

In the 1950s the U. S. trained and armed Cuban soldiers to support the Batista/Mafia dictatorship.

But the Cuban Revolution on Jan. 1-1959 booted the Batistianos and the Mafiosos off the island.

Since 1959 the exiled Batistianos and Mafiosos have yearned to feast on the island again!

The Cuban Godfathers of the 1950s are gone but they have spawned two generations of rich, eager exiles.

Ros-Lehtinen/Rubio/Menendez now lead the Cuban government within the U. S. government.

Cuban-Americans who dictate America's Cuban policy make super-heroes out of Cuban dissidents.
Therefore.................

....today's views and opinions of Cuba can best be honed and shaped by actually visiting the island.

But that's why Americans are restricted from doing so.
For decades lies and deceptions about Cuba have translated to wealth and power for an undeserving few.
And punishing innocent Cubans is a part of the equation.

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A Great Lady Died This Month

Neither Cuban Nor American, Her Life Impacted Everyone

          Nadezhda Popova died this month, -- on July 8th, 2013 -- at age 91. Everyone who has lived since World War II owes her a huge debt and we should salute the unique ethos that made her so special.

On Sept. 1-1939 Hitler's Germany attacked Poland to start World War II.

       Hitler's ally in the attack on Poland was Stalin's even larger and more powerful Soviet Union army. Together they swiftly and brutally captured Poland and shortly, with Stalin as his ally, Hitler had captured Europe, including France, and then had England and America in his sights. History's two greatest fiends -- Hitler and Stalin -- had armies, especially combined armies, very capable of conquering the world because England was alone and the United States was at least two years away from attaining a suitable war capacity.

         But Hitler made a fatal mistake and double-crossed Stalin, believing he could capture the vast Soviet Union prior to turning his Nazi sights back on England and America. Hitler's capacity to win the war ended with his attack on Russia...and the rest is history. Nadezhda Popova was a large part of that history.

       Still a teenager, Nadezhda "Nadya" Popova -- a Ukrainian national -- was appalled at what she witnessed when the Nazis attacked her homeland. She saw Nazi pilots machine-gun helpless women and children as they fled their bombed-out homes; she saw Nazi soldiers surround villages and then herd every male, including young boys, into one group and then machine-gun them all to death; and she saw Nazi solders laughingly rape young girls and women. She begged the Russian army to let her fight. 

At age 19, Nadya was arguably already the best fighter-pilot in the world!

     Flying planes like this one, and with a machine-gun in the pilot's seat and small but deadly bombs attached to the plane's belly, Nadya spent all of her days and most of her nights searching for Nazi soldiers. If she saw isolated pockets of Nazis she would fly low and attack them with her machine gun. If she knew where Nazi patrols or armies were located, Nadya would use maps and reconnaissance information to fly toward them, cutting off her motor so she could glide silently over them to release her bombs. Each time she believed she would kill Nazis but "I assumed I would die too because of their return fire or because my motor wouldn't restart on my ascent out of the glide." But hundreds and hundreds of times, in that manner, Nadya killed Nazi soldiers and lived! Cutting off her motor to glide, and being right above the Nazi soldiers, they could see that the deadly pilot was a female -- dropping bombs on them and shooting at them with a machine gun! She out-fought and out-flummoxed the Naxis!

This is Nadja's squad reading about a successful attack on the Nazis.

This is one of the planes that Nadja flew.

This is Nadya's squad just before a night attack on Nazi soldiers.

          Nadya trained other Russian women to fight with the determination and skill that, in reality, only she possessed. And soon the Nazi soldiers had given the female fighter-pilots a now-famous World War II nickname -- "The Night Witches." Nadya became a legend as a solo pilot but when she created squads of Witches she used co-pilots in each plane: "Better to do some machine-gunning." She had many close calls. It is documented by historian Albert Axell that Nadya once returned with exactly 42 bullet holes in her plane, including holes in the map she had in her lap and the gloves she wore on her hands. After that flight, Nadya told her co-pilot/navigator who was counting the bullet holes, "Why bother, Katya, my dear? We will live long." But the next day Nadya watched four planes in her squad shot out of the air. "What a nightmare," she tearfully recalled decades later. "Poor girls, my friends. Yesterday we had slept in the bunks together."

Nadezhda Popova

1921 - 2013

          The Washington Post this month had a huge article written by Emily Langer recounting the 91 years Nadya Popova spent on this earth, reflecting on the perils she had endured and her contributions to civilization. Not long before she died, the still very alert Nadya said: "At night sometimes, I look up into the night sky, close my eyes and picture myself as a girl at the controls of my bomber. And I think, 'Nadya, how on earth did you do it?'" But she did do it. As a girl...a teenager...she saw evil and she did something about it.

Those eyes that saw so much as a girl are closed forever now.

Those eyes saw the Nazis attack her homeland.

And her reaction to what she saw deserves to be remembered forever.

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Cuba Shoots Itself In The Foot!

By Dealing With North Korea
{{Updated: Friday, July 19, 2013}}

         This Reuters photo taken by Desmond Boylan shows a deactivated Soviet-era medium range nuclear-capable ballistic missile on display at the La Cabana fortress in Havana. As a tourist attraction and as a Cold War relic, no one complained about this exhibit because it served an historic purpose.

      This Reuters photo taken by Carlos Jasso today shows soldiers guarding containers holding arms seized from the North Korean ship Chong Chon Gang at the Manzanillo Container Terminal in Colon City, Panama. That ship was known to have smuggled drugs and other contraband and thus was on suspicious watch-lists of many nations. Not surprisingly, the ship was seized before it entered the Panama Canal on a trip from Cuba back to North Korea. Obsolete weapons were discovered under bags of Cuban sugar. REUTERS and other respected news agencies are sending this news around the world: "Cuba said the weapons were being sent back to North Korea for repairs and included two anti-aircraft missile batteries, nine disassembled rockets, two MIG-21 fighter jets, and 15 MIG-21 engines, all Soviet-era military weaponry built in the middle of the last century." This incident makes Cuba look like a rogue nation and the UN investigation of the containers will be extensive and time-consuming, creating multiple anti-Cuban headlines day after day. It also very correctly portrays the Cuban government as acting ignorantly for these reasons:

            #1 Involvement with North Korea, especially a closely monitored North Korean ship, is stupid.

              #2 Cuba's excuse that it needed the obsolete weapons up-graded to defend its sovereignty is equally stupid because Cuba's only perceived enemy, the United States, has the military wherewithal to totally destroy Cuba if it desired to do so and no amount of Cuban weaponry, modern or obsolete, could prevent that.

           #3 The success of the Cuban Revolution and the longevity of Revolutionary Cuba both depended on two vital things: The support of the majority of Cubans back in the 1950s and the support of most of the world's sovereignty-loving people since then, as expressed yearly at the UN and by many admirers worldwide.

This North Korean incident will usurp much of that support.  

      The revelations that this North Korean ship -- the Chong Chon Gang -- left Cuba with out-dated Soviet-era weapons hidden under containers of brown sugar is startling. It is the clearest example of Cuba stupidly and needlessly shooting itself in the foot, apparently a result of the ill, almost 87-year-old Fidel Castro no longer pragmatically making and prioritizing the day-to-day decisions on the island.

      Ricardo Martinelli, the President of Panama, said that the North Korean ship was nearing the Panama Canal on its way from Cuba back to North Korea. Panama seized the ship because it had a reputation for smuggling drugs but parts of an apparent surface-to-air missile system was discovered hidden under the sugar containers. Martinelli surmised and later Cuba confirmed that the weapons were being shipped to North Korea for repairs and the sugar was to pay for it. It is also well known that a top North Korean general was recently in Havana and met with President Raul Castro. Also, several countries have noted that a Cuban airplane recently flew to North Korea. President Martinelli, who tweeted images of the missile parts, said the Panama Canal was for "peaceful transit" and he adamantly stated that it would not be a "passageway" for weapons of any type. Martinelli thus garners international acclaim at Cuba's expense. 

        In addition to letting down and disappointing its regional friends, Cuba's involvement with the North Korean ship is apparently in violation of at least three United Nations resolutions relating to weapons restrictions against North Korea. The additional and compounding stupidity involves the fact that the North Korean ship was well known to international anti-smuggling operations and thus any nation associated with that ship or anything else connected to North Korea will be closely monitored. So Panama is rightly praised and Cuba is correctly damned for this incident, a fact that most members of the United Nations, including Cuba's friends, will support. The UN has been Cuba's friend. Cuba just slapped it in the face.

         The New York Times used the above illustration Wednesday to reveal that back in 2012 another North Korean ship -- the Oun Chong Nyon Ho -- made a trip from Cuba to North Korea through the Panama Canal "without attracting suspicion." The last thing Cuba needs is North Korea-related headlines in the NY Times!

      For almost fifty years Fidel Castro amazed the world by protecting Cuba against vastly superior forces, including a brave defense at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961 followed shortly by an alignment with the Soviet Union to off-set or counter-balance the threat from the world's other superpower, the United States. Exceedingly smart but sometimes reckless, Fidel often stood on the precipice but he never jumped off the cliff or allowed anyone or anything to push him off. He was too pragmatic for that. Anyone who has seriously studied him knows that this week's disturbing connection to the North Korean ship does not bear Fidel's imprint. He has always been too intelligent and too pragmatic to put Revolutionary Cuba in such a position. Paying 10,000 tons of Cuban sugar to a UN-maligned and tightly monitored pariah nation so it would repair and return an out-dated Soviet-era missile system? Fidel's methodologies would not have permitted that. He has long realized that Cuba could expend 98% of its resources on a modern weapons system and, to quote him, "It would be like a girl using a sling-shot to defend herself against nuclear weapons fired from land, from the air, from on the sea and from beneath the sea. Physical weapons in the girl's hand won't help against super-powered enemies. But a strong collection of friends, neighbors especially, could protect such a girl." It was a re-reading of that quotation that makes it clear that Fidel had nothing to do with Cuba stupidly shooting itself in the foot via that strange, unnecessary involvement with North Korea.

        Fidel Castro turns 87 on August 13th; and he is very ill. Many felt that, after his passing, only his legacy could sustain the Cuban Revolution. Now it appears his legacy will not be able to do that, not when such ignorant decisions as revealed by that North Korean ship are capable of being made apart from either his wishes or his legacy. The amazing longevity of Revolutionary Cuba equates only to Fidel's own amazing time on this earth. And that time is drawing short, perilously short for Cuba. After all, no one will ever replace him.

And by the way........

        This right-handed fire-baller, 26-year-old Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez, recently defected from Cuba and by this time next week he will be about $60 million richer than he was on the island. He is in Tijuana right now where about fifteen wealthy Major League teams are vociferously bidding for him. Currently young Cuban superstar multi-millionaires -- Yoenis Cespedes, Yasiel Puig, Aroldis Chapman, etc. -- are leading the Oakland A's, Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, etc. toward cherished post-season playoff berths. One scout in Tijuana expressed this consensus opinion: "After signing, Miguel will get a couple of starts in the minors and then become an immediate ace for a contender!" The American thirst for Cuban baseball stars has become one of the prime issues in U.S.-Cuban relations because of vast financial consequences.

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