Twin Perils: Cuba, Puerto Rico

Financial Problems Galore!!

       This week -- on January 9th, 2017 -- the United Nations held dire hearings concerning Puerto Rico's massive economic crisis. The UN's top expert on Debt and Human Rights, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, dominated the session. He said, "Austere measures to correct Puerto Rico's economy could trigger even more poverty for most Puerto Ricans. It will aggravate the already intolerant levels of poverty in the country and threaten human rights." Puerto Ricans are U. S. citizens and the U. S. Congress has constructed a Supervision and Financial Administration to solve the nation's financial doldrums. But Mr. Bohoslavsky seemed to suggest that the U. S. Congress was more concerned with helping Puerto Rico's millionaires and America's hedge fund billionaires who epitomize the vast disparity between the rich and poor in Puerto Rico. Indeed, "austere measures" that Mr. Bohoslavsky referenced have closed schools and health clinics in Puerto Rico even as a recent documentary showed a hedge fund billionaire showing off a new "6-star hotel" and the Caribbean's "largest display of yachts in one place." Mr. Bohoslavsky stressed that "The first guarantees should be the protections of the rights of health, food, education, housing and social security for the majority poor." The age-old and ever-expanding disparity between the rich and poor is playing out around the world, including Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, more so today than ever before in history.

An ever-expanding human disgrace.

The U. S. & worldwide mantra: "Greed is Good." 

       Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico, a much smaller island, both came under U. S. dominance after the Spanish-American War in 1898. The infamous Platt Amendment quickly gave the U. S. military control of Cuba, U. S. military occupation of Cuba's Guantanamo Bay "in perpetuity," etc. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico emerged as a U. S. Territory that includes U. S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans, quite a divergence from Cuba's fate. Cuba in the late 1800s had fought two brave but ill-fated wars trying desperately to gain independence from Spain but finally, in 1959, the Cuban Revolution's victory over the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship provided Cuba its first taste of sovereignty, which Revolutionary Cuba famously defended with its dynamic Bay of Pigs victory over the attacking U.S.-Cuban exile forces in April of 1961. Since then, the U. S. has employed a massive economic embargo-blockade against Cuba, which somehow has managed to hang on, if barely, for all these embargoed decades. MEANWHILE, at the UN the worldwide condemnation of the U. S. embargo against Cuba currently has a resounding unanimity vote of 191-to-0, which confirms that all of America's best international friends oppose it...but to no avail because a few hardline Cuban-Americans can dictate to the Republican-dominated Congress and to Republican presidents. AND MEANWHILE, this second week of January-2017 finds the UN as direly concerned about the massive poverty in Puerto Rico as it is about the U. S. embargo of Cuba that impacts so severely on Cuba's majority poor. AND MEANWHILE, U. S. laws for decades have massively encouraged and rewarded Cubans who defect to the U. S. but in January-2017 more Puerto Ricans, already armed with U. S. citizenship passports, are flocking to Florida than instantly rewarded Cubans. Is the Cuban-Puerto Rican conundrum an offshoot of a bought-and-paid-for contingent in the U. S. Congress? Uh, just asking, and please note that the previous sentence was a question, not a statement. THANK YOU for the indulgence.

      Cuba's Interior Minister, Garlos Fernandez Gondin, has died at age 78. He was one of the youngest rebels in both the Revolution and the Bay of Pigs. But he was also a top General in Angola where Cuban forces played a controversial but pivotal role in the defeat of Africa's long-dreaded apartheid affliction.

       South Africa's international Civil Rights icon, Nelson Mandela, always gave Cuba's revolutionary icon, Fidel Castro, the most credit "for providing Africans whatever measures of independence and sovereignty we finally attained after centuries of being African slaves and pawns at the behest of foreign oppression." Mandela spent 27 years in an apartheid prison with a bucket for a toilet before gaining his freedom and becoming South Africa's democratically elected President. "Democratic elections that finally emerged in waves across Africa and Latin America owe Fidel and the Cuban Revolution the most," Mandela said. Such an analysis made Mandela a pariah in certain circles, such as when he was rudely treated on a visit to Miami.

 Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro remained the best of friends for the last four decades of their long lives. They even co-authored the book "HOW FAR WE SLAVES HAVE COME." Mandela died at age 95 in Johannesburg on December 5, 2013. Castro died at age 90 in Havana on November 25, 2016. Reviled by many and beloved by many, both men are enshrined as giants in the pantheon of history as legends of survivability.

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Cuba's Coda Near at Hand

The Last Act May be Ugly!

     An article this week in the Miami Herald foreshadowed, I think, the imminent demise of Revolutionary Cuba's enigmatic 58-year rule of the enchanting Caribbean island. The article was written by Fabiola Santiago who left Cuba in 1969 and has been one of the fiercest anti-Castro zealots at the Miami Herald since 1980, now as a top editor at a major newspaper that seems only to allow anti-Castro zealots to report on Cuban-related issues. The latest article by Ms. Santiago weirdly found it "weird" that Cuban soldiers, marching to celebrate the 58th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's victory over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, chanted pro-Cuban and not pro-American or pro-Miami slogans. Beyond that weird way to assail Cuba, Ms. Santiago did offer one ominously significant paragraph that she began with her repetitious ranting about President Obama not consulting with Miami's anti-Castro zealots before he embarked on his efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Study that paragraph carefully: "The hardline exiles, including members of Congress from Miami sidelined as Obama crafted his friendly Cuba policy without them, are back in charge and already pushing hard. In a letter to Donald Trump, five former diplomats asked him to undo most of Obama's policy within the first 100 days of his presidency and block the confirmation of a U. S. ambassador to Cuba." Since 1980 at the Miami Herald Ms. Santiago has learned and exploited one valuable lesson: Within the bowels of the U. S. democracy, a mere handful of the most zealous Cuban-Americans can easily use the U. S. Congress and any Republican administration to dictate any revengeful or otherwise self-serving laws or policies to sate whatever anti-Castro, pro-Batistiano whims they may have. The Miami Herald's transformation from a respected U. S. newspaper to an anti-Castro propaganda tool used by extremists means it never has to address the other side of the two-sided U.S.-Cuban conundrum, namely why only extremist hardliners -- Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balarts, Rubio, Curbelo, DeSantis, etc. -- can get elected to Congress from South Florida -- even thought most Cuban-Americans even in Miami are moderates who favor Obama's Cuban policies, not theirs. And, of course, none of these rich and powerful hardline extremists seem to care a whit about how much their assaults on Cuba so drastically harms America's international image in the eyes of the entire world, as evidenced by such pertinent things as the 191-to-0 worldwide condemnation at the United Nations of America's Batistiano-driven Cuban policy.

      In her article, of course, Fabiola Santiago bragged loudly about how incoming President Donald Trump will quickly put the Miami extremists "back in charge" and wipe out all the positive and decent advances President Obama has made regarding Cuba. She and all the anti-revolutionary zealots who rule Little Havana are still raving about Trump's cowardly promises made to the Brigade 2506 remnants in which he promised the still-heralded survivors of the failed Bay of Pigs attack way back in April of 1961 that he, President Trump, would reverse Obama's advances and fulfill their decades-old desires to finally regain control of Cuba ala the halcyon Batista-Mafia days of the 1950s. Not even three Bush administrations could accomplish that trick but Fabiola Santiago and other Miami hardliners firmly believe Trump can and will do it. Sadly for Cubans, Americans and democracy, she might be right.

       Trump sharply buttressed his pledges to Brigade 2506 by quickly naming Bush-era career anti-Castro zealots like Mauricio Claver-Carone as his primary Cuban advisors, purposely excluding all others. One of the typical followups was a Miami Herald article entitled: "Former Diplomats Urge Trump to Undo 'Unlawful' Obama Cuba Policy." If you check that article, you will discover those five "diplomats" are:

Otto Reich

Jim Cason

Jose Sorzano

Elliott Abrams

Everett Briggs

         I enlarged and underlined the names of those five "diplomats" in the hope it might encourage you to Google their names. The recent presidential election that is sending the unqualified Mr. Trump to the White House left an indelible and undeniable reminder that the last thing the vast majority of Americans wanted was a continuation of a bought-and-paid-for, meal-ticket, establishment, and continually recycled "rigged" government in Washington. That view clearly is what got the totally unqualified and very unpopular Mr. Trump elected President because the only other alternative was an establishment candidate who called Trump supporters "a basket of deplorables" while most of them were just desperately seeking new people, not recycled and self-serving failures, in their government. From Claver-Carone to John Bolton to Roger Noriega to the five names listed above that you need to Google, President-elect Trump has recycled from the Bush dynasty precisely what the vast majority of Americans did not want, which in Cuba's case is a refurbishing of the most anti-Cuban, pro-Batistiano extremists from the Republican administrations that preceded Obama's two-terms in the White House. In between Republican administrations, what do appointed anti-Cuban extremists do? Answer: They generally bide their time making tons of money as anti-Cuban consultants, TV & radio pundits, anti-Cuban propagandists/lobbyists or as high-paid administrators of anti-Cuban Think-Tanks. Then in Republican administrations they are snatched back up as appointees to assault Cubans on the island, just as the five above-named stalwarts were doing with that lascivious "reminder" letter to Trump. The Trump election reflects the fact that unaccountable appointees slightly below the radar will continue to make decisions that benefit them revengefully and economically in America's name but shame democracy with little or no accountability.

       Back in March, 2016, when President Obama made his historic trip to Cuba, he promised the Cuban people in the above speech carried live across the island on state television that: "Cuba Does Not Need To Fear A Threat From the United States." Those kind, democratic words were spoken by a decent and brave U. S. president who did not suspect, less than a year later, his successor would be a Republican president named Donald Trump who indeed is "a threat" to the long-maligned Cuban people. Trying desperately to make his monumental overtures to Cuba as irreversible as possible, Obama has bravely defied the Batistiano fixtures in Miami and Congress by using his Executive Privileges to create massive advances in his efforts to normalize Cuban relations. He has opened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961; established commercial airplane and cruise ship traffic from the U. S. to Cuba for the first time since 1962; enabled major U. S. companies such as Google and Marriott Hotels to sign important deals with Cuba, etc. And, to his everlasting credit, we now discover that President Obama is working diligently behind-the-scenes right up until January 20th to create more positives for Cubans and Americans that Trump and his Batistiano pals will try their damnedest to tear down in defiance of democracy-lovers.

      On January 18th, two days before Trump takes office as President of the United States, forty tons of charcoal will be exported by Cuba to the United States. It will be the first product that Cuba has been allowed to export to the United States in more than 50 years!! That ban, an anathema to Mr. Obama, was in abiding by the Batistiano-fueled U. S. law designed in 1962 and then maintained for many cruel decades to starve and deprive Cubans like the hard-working man above to induce them to rise up against Castro. 

      This photo taken by Ladyrene Perez for Cubadebate shows the contracts being signed in Havana that paved the way for the historic January 18th delivery of that charcoal from Cuba to America.  The man on the left is Scott Gilbert, the President of the U. S. company Coabana Trading LLC. The lady on the right is Isabel O'Reilly, the Director of Cuba Export. If Mr. Gilbert looks familiar, that's because he was the lawyer that negotiated the release of U. S. agent Alan Gross from a Cuban prison. As for Ms. O'Reilly, she's not at all unusual; women have always been at the forefront of both the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba.

Notice that 5 of the 6 people standing behind the table are women.

     This photo shows Isabel O'Reilly reminding Scott Gilbert that Cuban charcoal is the best in the world, sweet-smelling and long-burning because it is made from the island's famed and unique Marabu. Ms. O'Reilly's official statement: "This is a first contract, but we hope to continue our relationship for many years and not just with charcoal, but with other products that we have ready to export like honey and coffee." Mr. Gilbert's official statement: "This agreement on charcoal means another plank in the construction of the bridge between the United States and Cuba." Decent Cubans like Ms. O'Reilly and decent Americans like Mr. Gilbert working together to the benefit of most Cubans and most Americans alarms a rich and powerful minority of Cuban-Americans who selfishly wish to punish most Cubans and most Americans forever.

      This recent photo also alarms the self-serving promoters of America's lucrative economic and political Castro Cottage Industry because the image depicted above is another Obama-orchestrated slice into their piggy-banks and punching bags. The image above shows Eric Schmidt, the Chairman and CEO of media giant Google, signing a hugely important telecommunication deal with Mayra Arevich, the President of Cuba's telecommunication agency, Etecsa. Mr. Schmidt said, "Engagement is best for Cubans and Americans, replacing ancient hostility." Ms. Arevich said, "This contract with Google will help Cubans connect with Gmail, YouTube, and other cyber outlets. We do not want our highly educated citizens to be isolated from world access. We want them to have what others have. This contract will also help Cuban-Americans who visit Cuba and it will help regular Americans if the embargo allows them to visit us as all other people can do." 

      Google is a very big deal in the world, now including Cuba.

      Cubans like these appreciate better access to the internet and they, of course, deserve it. The Google contract quickly reduced prices and Cuba, with help from Google, is increasing home access. A handful of self-serving Cuban-Americans in Miami and Congress that benefit from punishing Cubans like these in the guise of punishing Castro is a cruel, undemocratic policy that the rest of the world deplores.

     The head of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americans, Sarah Stephens, has for ten years used her organization to fight desperately to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States. On her website, eyeing the threat from Trump's January 20th advancement to the White House, she wrote, "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." President Obama has listened to Ms. Stephens. But the U. S. media and Republican presidents like Trump, apparently, would need permission from Rubio, Cruz, Menendez, the Diaz-Balarts, Ros-Lehtinen, Claver-Carone, Curbelo, and DeSantis to get input from democracy-lovers like Ms. Stephens, a fact that shames America a lot more than it shames little Cuba.

    Cubans now wonder about the historic arrivals of commercial cruise ships and commercial airplanes once Obama leaves the White House in a few days and they wonder if Cubans on the island will again be unmercifully targeted by Cubans in Miami and Congress tightly aligned with a Republican Congress and soon with another Republican White House. The U. S. Cuban policy dictated by a few Miami and Congressional benefactors wants to continue restricting everyday Americans from visiting Cuba, lest they counter the undemocratic dictations of a harsh minority intent on maintaining full control of the Cuban narrative, a narrative that all other citizens of the world have the freedom to judge for themselves.  

      Thanks to Obama, Cuban tourism topped a record 4 million in the past year. But thanks to a few miscreants in Congress, everyday Americans remain the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba where they could judge it for themselves. A few days ago democracy-lovers in America closed their eyes in shame when the very first thing the newly convened Republican-dominated Congress did was to stupidly and shamefully try to GUT THE POWER OF ITS OWN ETHICS COMMITTEE. Unethical Cuban practices, to be sure, are not the only reason Republicans in Congress do not want their actions to be scrutinized but, rest assured, the unethical and Congressionally mandated Cuban laws are a reason. 

      With acute Havana-connected biases and omnipotent Bush-connected tentacles that extend uncontrollably from Miami to Congress, Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers apparently have more say-so about Cuban policies than the rest of America's 320 million citizens combined, a fact that concerns America's very best democracy-loving friends around the world and should deeply concern Americans.

         As this graphic illustrates, it seems that the rest of world wonders why the U. S. democracy eternally allows a mere handful of famously biased benefactors to maintain a Cuban policy that the majority of Americans and Cuban-Americans as well as the entire world considers to be abhorrent and undemocratic.

        Yet, these are typically happy Cuban children in today's Revolutionary Cuba -- well-educated, well-cared-for healthwise, well-groomed and deeply loved and protected. {Do you think those smiles above are insincere or forced by government-minders?}. Cuban children are the favorite subjects of photo-happy tourists. Many Cubans on the island speak English but, encouraged by President Obama's decency, Cuba in 2015 began stressing English classes even for elementary students in the belief that, for the first time since 1962, even everyday Americans would be allowed to visit the island. But that decision regarding English classes was made prior to Trump's vicious anti-Cuban speech in Miami made in front of the huge Brigade 2506 banner. At least two elementary schools have since phased out those English classes. In any case, these Spanish-speaking Cuban children do not deserve to be punished all their precious lives by Congressionally mandated laws from a foreign country, especially the world's #ONE superpower.  

Foreign FAT CATS punishing Cuban children is not humorous.
And by the way:

       An award-winning Ethiopian journalist and photographer, Aida Muluneh, heard about a good deed Cuba did involving Ethiopian children years ago and she went to Cuba to follow up on the story. Cuba had rescued 2,400 children aged 7 to 14 caught up in the violent Ethio-Somali War in 1979. They were flown to the small, picturesque Cuban island of Isla de la Juventud, the Isle of Youth. There they were safe and provided all essentials, plus free educations through college and free health care for life. As adults some went back to Ethiopia and some stayed in Cuba. Aida chronicled her report, complete with photographs, for Tadias Magazine and online it is entitled "The Untold Story of Ethiopians in Cuba." She made this conclusion: "The Cubans have gone above and beyond in providing support to Ethiopians to this day." 

       Because Aida Muluneh is an Ethiopian journalist, I guess she did not have to ask the Cuban-Americans in the United States Congress if she could research and write a positive magazine article about Cuba. Someday, perhaps, we democracy-lovers may be able to say the same thing about American journalists.

      I mentioned Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, the picturesque island where the Ethiopian children were cared for. You can see its exact location on the above map. Batista's Cuba called it the Isle of Pines because of its abundance of pine trees. It was where Fidel Castro was imprisoned from 1953 till 1955. After Fidel's revolutionary victory in 1959, he later changed the name to Isle of Youth and today it's a tourist attraction and the home of one of the island's major baseball teams. About 90,000 Cubans live on the island, with about 60,000 of them in the capital city of Nueva Gerona, which is on the northern coast directly southwest of Havana. While Cuba is the largest Caribbean island, Isla de la Juventud is its 7th largest island.

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Cuba Looks Beyond U. S.

Focusing on Other Options 

      The vulnerable, pugnacious island of Cuba has grown tired of wavering in the Caribbean winds waiting for some Democratic administration in Washington to ease and mollify the Cuban designs of Republican administrations, which have consistently from Eisenhower in 1959 to Trump in 2017 used {or plan to use} superpower muscle in efforts to starve and deprive Cubans on the island as a prime, undemocratic component of eviscerating Revolutionary Cuba. And with the Democrat, Cuba-friendly Barack Obama, finishing his two-term presidency and the Republican Cuba-antagonist, Trump, poised to start his first term, Cuba is now ready to go full-bore in "correcting its biggest revolutionary mistake," which it concludes has been "waiting like a lamb for America's vacillating two-party political system to mandate a willingness for Cuba to exist as a sovereign state." As the Obama-to-Trump transition begins to occur in the United States, in about a year from now there will be an equally significant transition in Cuba where the 85-year-old Raul Castro is scheduled to be replaced by the 56-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel. The quotations above reflect Diaz-Canel's recent conclusions; they are significant. Not only is he in line to be the first non-Castro leader of Cuba since 1959, he has been Cuba's First Vice-President, second only to Raul Castro, since 2013, and that leap-frogged him over still-living and ultra-powerful revolutionary icons such as Raul's dear friend, 86-year-old Jose Machado Ventura, and over Raul's own 53-year-old very ambitious son Alejandro Castro Espin.

        Not only does Miguel Diaz-Canel have Raul Castro's ear, he is also well-liked by Cuba's general population. Born in Santa Clara 56-years-ago, Miguel endeared himself to Cubans when, representing the government, he rode his motorcycle to check on the needs of everyday Cubans and listen to their "complaints and desires," which he calls "my favorite days as a politician." Considered modest and well-grounded, he, like most Cubans, is very fond of American movies and music but not America's politics.

      As he has aged, Raul Castro has surprised many observers by grooming a non-Castro and a non-revolutionary figure like Miguel Diaz-Canel as his successor. Raul never relished being forced to succeed his very ill older brother Fidel as Cuba's leader in 2008 but he had relished being the head of Cuba's military for decades. But even then, noted for being family oriented, Raul insisted on being home each night for dinner both before and after the death of his equally famous revolutionary wife Vilma Espin, who died in 2007. Turning 86 on June 3rd, Raul is now very tired and relishes handing the reins over to his hand-picked heir, Miguel, even as Cuban hardliners in Miami and Washington claim it won't happen.

      Miguel Diaz-Canel has already established close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I wasn't born then but I have studied 1959," Miguel recently told an El Pais Reporter.  "1959 was the first year of revolutionary rule and one of the first things Fidel did was visit the U. S., believing he could forge friendly ties with the United States' Eisenhower government. He was wrong. By the time he got back to Cuba in April, 1959, after 12 wasted days in the U. S., they were trying to kill him, starve the Cuban people, and busily preparing for the Bay of Pigs attack. Fidel had one choice -- the Soviet Union, then the only other nuclear superpower, as a counter-balance to the U. S. plans for Cuba. Since 2008 Raul has tried to forge ties with the U. S. and had success with the Obama White House. Now Obama leaves and Trump takes over. Trump will have about 6800 nuclear weapons but Putin has about 7200. The third strongest nuclear power, France, has about 300. So am I glad that Mr. Putin assures me that he is Cuba's friend and he reminds me that Trump is not? Yes, I'm glad." 

       Miguel Diaz-Canel has also made it a point to forge close ties with China's top leader, Xi Jinping. China is the fastest growing nuclear superpower with a massive military machine but also China has more available investment cash than any nation in the world and Diaz-Canel covets more Chinese investments.

      Miguel Diaz-Canel has also already forged close ties with Vietnam's leader Nguyen Tan Dung. Like the United States, Miguel is extremely impressed with Vietnamese prosperity since winning the Vietnam War by out-lasting the United States. Miguel has closely studied Vietnam's economy, which blends capitalism with communism and pragmatism, and he is convinced that "a Vietnamese-style economy is the best way to counter the American embargo, which punishes some other nations just for doing minor business with Cuba." 

        To be sure, Miguel Diaz-Canel has been sharply criticized -- included by Cubaninsider's one-trick-pony -- for cozying up to North Korea's dangerous, nuclear-crazed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Back in Cuba, when quizzed by Reuters, Miguel said, "I am not a military man. I believe in diplomacy and engagement. I believe in exchanging goodwill and trade goods, not missiles. The USA newspaper Today says the U. S. is the world's largest seller of weapons at $40 billion a year with France the second largest at $15 billion. So it's no surprise that even terrorist groups are armed to the teeth and conflicts dominate the headlines. As for your suggestion that I cozied up to North Korea, I might have tried to tone down Kim's military emphasis as money and time best devoted to his people. The Cuban people know that is what I cozy up to in Cuba, so how's that?"  

      Miguel Diaz-Canel has made it a point to cozy up to the most decent and the most important Cuba-friendly leaders around the world -- such as Frederica Mogherini. She is the leader of the 28-nation European Union, which a few days ago signed a key Agreement with Cuba so the European nations, long restricted by elements of the U. S. embargo against Cuba, can engage more productively with the island.

       This photo, taken by Ismail Francisco, shows a young Cuban teacher listening intently to a speech by Miguel Diaz-Canel. The teachers and medical personnel on the island, in particular, are wildly supportive of Diaz-Canel as their future leader and Raul Castro is abundantly aware of Diaz-Canel's huge following in those key sectors. This teacher heard Miguel say, "I am so proud of the education and health workers who have sacrificed so much to contribute so much to the Cuban people. The quality, often under duress, in both those areas is incredibly high, as even our enemies admit. I want so much to lessen the sacrifices, the burdens, that our teachers and our health associates face as we strive to serve our people with even higher quality. What your dedication and courage has accomplished is historic, especially with the resistance of the ageless U. S. embargo that keeps some essentials from your skilled hands and loving hearts. I think people like you will be rewarded in heaven but I want you to be rewarded on this island too, and I want it sooner instead of later." 

      

        To be sure, there are rampant predictions on the island and in Miami that the next leader of Cuba a year or so from now will be General Alvaro Lopez Miera, not Miguel Diaz-Canel. That is based on two beliefs: {1} He reportedly wants the job and {2} he is the one man that Raul Castro will not turn down. Alvaro Lopez, at 72, is the youngest of the still-living revolutionary icons. At age 14 he joined Raul Castro's unit in the Sierra Cristal region and quickly established himself as a dedicated guerrilla fighter. After the revolutionary victory, it is said that Raul and his famed wife Vilma Espin essentially adopted Alvaro Lopez as their son and it's been reported that any job he wanted in the military "was his for the asking." It is believed that Alvaro Lopez has let it be known that he wants to succeed Raul as the next non-Castro leader of Cuba at the start of 2018. And that's why rumors now persist that Alvaro Lopez will be the next leader of Cuba.

      But I believe those rumors are wrong and that Raul Castro will stick with his plan to have Miguel Diaz-Canel as his successor. Raul is bound-and-determined that Cuba's revolutionary standards continue after his retirement and after his passing. But neither he nor his brother Fidel wanted a Castro or a military dynasty perpetuated indefinitely. That's why, for example, Raul frowns on the prospect of even his very ambitious 53-year-old son Alejandro Castro Espin being the next leader of Cuba. Raul, like Fidel, is extremely proud of the educational and health standards the revolution initiated and has maintained on the island, and no one epitomizes and promotes those two fields and revolutionary achievements more than Miguel Diaz-Canel. Moreover, Raul understands that Miguel, while neither a militarist nor a rebel, is a firm believer in all aspects of the Revolution, especially in the hallmark educational and health spectrums.

       So, probably by January of 2018, Miguel Diaz-Canel will be the new leader of Cuba. If that doesn't happen, it would mean that something drastic happened to prevent it -- in Havana, Miami or Washington. The capsule recap above is courtesy of www.stratfor.com. Miguel believes that Cuba would be "best served" by friendly relations with the United States. But he doesn't believe Miami and Washington will allow that to happen. Therefore, "the next best thing," he believes, is for Cuba to be "close friends" with all the other countries in the world. That, of course, includes China and Russia; China has more available money to invest in Cuba than the U. S. has and Russia has more available nuclear weapons than the U. S. has.

Miguel Diaz-Canel

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Cuba's ONLY Chance

It's Young-Adult Generation!

       This is a young Cuban that Americans need to know, especially Americans who believe that the incoming administration of President Donald Trump, in short order, will wipe out Revolutionary Cuba and quickly re-install the American Batistianos to power. Her name is Jennifer Bello Martinez. She is the leader of Cuba's Federation of University Students, which was founded 94 years ago and has, every year since, played a vital part in Cuba's revolutionary fervor, especially with its early support of a young lawyer, Fidel Castro, when he first decided to risk everything in a long-shot effort to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Now fast-forward to January of 2017. The current leader of the Federation of University Students, Jennifer, says that she and "over a million young-adult Cubans like me are ready to fight to the death to defend the sovereignty and independence that Fidel bequeathed to us." Don't be mislead by her youth, her gender or her sweet smile. She means it. In fact, her resolve is why she is smiling. I'll explain.

       This first week of January, 2017 was mammothly celebrated in Havana's Revolutionary Square because the first week of January, 1959 marked the first week Cuba came under revolutionary control following the earth-shattering triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. The above photo shows four old...very old...revolutionary fighters on the grandstand viewing the proceedings, a photo that conjures up reminders that the eternal face of the revolution, Fidel Castro, died at age 90 back on November 25th. The photo is also a reminder that 2017 is presumably the last year of Castro rule on the island, whether or not mortality in the form of old age inevitably intervenes. Fidel's successor, his tired 85-year-old younger brother Raul, has vowed to step down after this year with a non-Castro, 56-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, succeeding him. But as the two very best international journalists in Cuba -- Sarah Marsh and Marc Frank of Reuters -- pointed out in an insightful article this week -- it was not the Old Guard revolutionaries that led or dominated this week's anniversary celebrations of the Cuban Revolution.

      It is this New Guard of young-adult Cubans that will sustain the revolution or let it succumb to internal or foreign forces. Early indications, as illustrated by the photo above, reveal there is a powerful contingent of young adults on the island who appear ready to make any sacrifice, such as fight to the death, to preserve the sovereignty they feel the Cuban Revolution, for all its faults and shortcomings, bestowed upon them. FEU is the acronym for Federation of University Students. It wasn't the remaining Old Guard revolutionaries who inspired or dictated demonstrations at the University of Havana or who made the most fiery speech in Revolutionary Square aimed directly at what Cuba's young adults now consider their primary emerging threat -- another Republican, this time Donald Trump, as America's President and Commander-in-Chief. By far the most volatile speech and declaration made at the anniversary celebrations in Havana this week came from the heart and soul of Cuba's latest Celia Sanchez-like disciple. Her name is Jennifer Bello Martinez. Jennifer, who I introduced you to earlier, is the leader of the determined FEU.

      The focal point of all the celebrations this week surrounding the 58th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution was Fidel Castro. The student leader Jennifer Bello Martinez made that abundantly clear: "Fidel was the main reason we attained sovereignty and independence and our support of his memory will be the only way we can keep it! The other alternative is that we become destitute pawns and slaves of a cruel foreign power! We have two choices -- exist as slave-like pawns to foreigners or fight to the death to try to chart our own course and not have it dictated to us by foreigners who brutalized Cuba back in the 1950s!"  

        The word Fidel written in red on the faces of the students was, according to Jennifer Bello Martinez, "meant to signify the blood he was willing to shed to give us sovereignty and independence. If we are deserving of that precious gift, we must be willing to shed our blood to defend it." When reminded how small Cuba is compared to "the nuclear superpower that still supports the determined Cuban exiles," Jennifer Bello Martinez replied, "My generation on this island must be more determined than they are. They are fueled by greed and revenge. We are fueled by what Fidel gave us, sovereignty and independence. We will bleed for that. I don't think they will leave their mansions in America to bleed for their greed, but they may well...as before...get the CIA and the U. S. Treasury to fight for them. If so, we may die...but it will be a good death."  

      Many elderly Cubans this week, like the lady above, came out to emphasize their memories of Fidel Castro and to support the students who dominated the 58th anniversary of his victorious Revolution.

       Some of the elderly Fidel backers were as fiery and demonstrative as the young leader, Jennifer Bello Martinez. This nurse had cared for Fidel during the last decade of his life as he battled a long terminal illness. Holding his photo, she screamed, "If the bastards who tried to kill him for fifty years come back to these Cuban shores, we must destroy them or die trying!" She was crying when she added, "We owe him!"

       This elderly Cuban this anniversary week held up this newspaper to mock what he called "The Batista lie in America that most Cubans on the island hated Fidel and wanted a return of the Batista and Mafia thugs." Indeed, history registers the fact that the CIA convinced President Kennedy in April of 1961 to sign off on the Bay of Pigs attack by assuring him that, "Once the Cuban people realize that we are attacking Fidel, they will rise up against him." But when the bombs from U. S. warplanes began following on Cuba, the Cuban people en masse supported Fidel and made it easy for him to race to the Bay of Pigs and defend the island from the Cuban exiles and the world superpower, crowning both the Castro legend and the Cuban Revolution. To this day, with Cuban exiles still controlling the Cuban narrative in the U. S., many Americans are convinced that there are no Cubans on the island who revere Fidel and no Cubans who rate sovereignty above prosperity. In fact, to this day the Cuban exiles also dictate congressionals laws in the U. S., one of which for many decades has prevented everyday Americans from having the freedom to visit Cuba and judge it for themselves, a fact that makes lies about Cubans on the island all the more potent.

     This photo was staged not by the revolutionary Old Guard but by Jennifer Bello Martinez and the young-adult student leaders. It shows Cuban schoolchildren honoring a replica of Granma, the famed old leaky yacht that brought Fidel Castro and 81 other rebels back from Mexico to join Celia Sanchez's anti-Batista revolution in the Sierra Maestra foothills, although only 17 of the 82 rebels survived the ambush from shore by Batista soldiers. But 12 of the 17 survivors included the Castro brothers, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and 8 others who contributed mightily to the revolutionary victory. Speaking of this photo, Jennifer Bello Martinez said, "Cuba will honor Fidel's request that no statues be constructed to honor him and no streets or buildings or anything like that be named for him. But he always was proud of the Granma as a symbol of the revolution and a symbol of independence. So we and the younger students should be also." 

        At this week's 58th anniversary celebrations remembering the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, this unit of female Cuban soldiers was front and center. Jennifer Bello Martinez said, "It was a female-powered Revolution from start to finish, and no one echoed that fact more than Fidel himself. No other revolution has ever been as female-powered as ours. We need to stress that to remind today's Cubans that the defense of the Revolution will also be female-powered, at least 50 percent or more. It has to be that way to honor Fidel."  

       Young Argentinians were on hand to help celebrate the 57th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's victory this week. Jennifer Bello Martinez said, "No revolution in history has had as much residual and positive influence across Latin America as the Cuban Revolution, and that includes the American Revolution."  

       And this photo also was a part of the celebrations connected to the 57th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's triumph. The three people above, shown holding their favorite photos of Fidel Castro, all received Medal of Friendship plagues for their support of the victorious Cuban Revolution. On the left is famed American actor Danny Glover. Mr. Glover, a frequent visitor to and intense admirer of Cuba, said, "I support all the values of the Cuban Revolution and admire Fidel Castro's devotion to the poor and downtrodden as opposed to the wealth to which he was born but didn't define him." The other two proud recipients are Estela and Ernesto Bravo, accomplished film-makers. They wanted nothing to do with the Batista rule of Cuba but returned to the island after the Revolution. One of their most notable documentaries is "Fidel: The Untold Story." Estala said, "I met Fidel often, believed in him and shared many happy moments with him." 

        Although it may come as a shock to Americans who generally are subjected only to the Batistiano-dictated Cuban narrative, the most ubiquitous signs in Cuba this week during the 57th anniversary celebration of Revolutionary Cuba were signs and placards that proclaimed "Yo soy Fidel", "I am Fidel." 

       Starting in a few days -- on Jan. 20th, 2017 -- Mauricio Claver-Carone will be President Donald Trump's primary advisor on all things related to Cuba. Claver-Carone happens to be the most visceral anti-Castro lobbyist on the planet and this will mark the first time that Claver-Carone will have an American Commander-in-Chief to shape-and-mold to fit his extreme and self-serving Cuban agendas, all of which concern wiping out the last vestiges of the Cuban Revolution while also continuing to empower and enrich hardline Cuban-Americans. That bodes ill-will for Jennifer Bello Martinez and the sovereignty-loving generation of young-adult Cubans on the island who responded so powerfully to her fiery leadership this week. If, in the months ahead, there emerges a clash between the ideals of Mauricio Claver-Carone in Washington and Jennifer Bello Martinez in Havana, there will be fireworks...and bloodshed. But, it's been heading inexorably in that direction for six decades, hasn't it? The denouement is now on the horizon.

      
     The emergence of Jennifer Bello Martinez as the leader of Cuba's sovereignty-loving young-adults coincides with the 94th anniversary of the founding of her Federation of University Students, the 58th anniversary this first week in Jan.-2017 of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, and the recent death at age 90 of Jennifer's idol, Fidel Castro. Her official statement, word for word, follows: "These anniversaries have a special connotation as the first without the presence of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, and we decided to dedicate them to this eternal youth because we will be the continuators of Fidel's legacy. He always placed his confidence in university students, always debated any ideas he had with university students, because he knew that this is where the reliable rearguard was, in revolutionary processes. We will either prolong the sovereignty he gave us or his enemies in Miami and Washington will have to kill us. And I smile happily and at peace with myself as I say that." 

    Meanwhile, this AP photo helps fuel the speculation that America's incoming President Donald Trump will be forced to put nearby Cuba and the Caribbean on his back-burner because of far more urgent threats and challenges from afar. The image above shows a Chinese warship on the left side-by-side with a Russian warship on the right as they rush to participate in a major joint military exercise in the increasingly volatile South China Sea. With nuclear powers like Russia, China and North Korea...coupled with Iran and ISIS...to worry about, the new U. S. Commander-in-Chief may just let super anti-Cuban lobbyist Mauricio Claver-Carone along with Cuba's perennial enemies in Congress work on recapturing poor little Cuba! 

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