Cuba Adjusts to Trump

With Surprising Overtures!
{UPDATED: Tuesday, January 24th, 2017}

        This AFP/Yamil Lage photo proves that Cuba has not yet given up on a coexistence with President Donald Trump's America although, in stark contrast to the former Obama presidency, the Republican Trump now also has a Republican-dominated Congress, a combination that many believe will doom Revolutionary Cuba once and for all. But Saturday, January 21-2017 -- the day after Trump's inauguration -- a delegation of port and maritime officials from Cuba arrived in the United States to stress the mutual benefits that would result from U.S.-Cuban trade. The visit was arranged by the outgoing Cuba-friendly Obama presidency but this visit has not been canceled by the incoming Donald Trump administration, at least not immediately. 

       Later this week and into the first week of February, the newly arrived Cuban delegation is scheduled to venture to Port Everglades, which is owned by Broward County, Florida. Port Everglades is a major seaport and is a gateway for cruise vacations and other international trade and travel, especially to the Caribbean where Cuba is the largest and most populated nation. Cuba, despite its renowned hostilities with America, is desperate for the U. S., even beyond the friendly Obama presidency, to end the U. S. economic embargo of Cuba, a stifling impediment that has existed since 1962. The Cuban delegation now on U. S. soil will try to convince the Trump presidency that the entire world, by a 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations, wants the embargo ended. And in the next two weeks, unless booted out of the U. S., the Cubans will remind the U. S. and Florida governments that the financial connections of Port Everglades in Florida with Cuba's Port of Mariel would provide extremely logical peaceful and economic opportunities for both countries.

       Cuba's Port of Mariel is located 28 miles southwest of Havana. As the above Voice of America map shows, the proximity of Mariel to Port Everglades, Miami, Key West and Tampa would make for an extremely easy trade relationship between Cuba and the U. S....if Florida and Washington politicians would allow it.

        The Port of Mariel is by far Cuba's best deep-water port, able to accommodate much larger ships and many more containers than the ports in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. Mariel received a billion-dollar refurbishing largely funded by Brazil before the recent coup-like impeachment of Brazil's two-term Cuba-loving President Dilma Rousseff. Cuba has largely based its financial survival on the Economic Development Zone associated with Mariel. Spain, Russia, China, Vietnam, France and other nations have or are in the process of negotiating deals with Mariel but that is in limbo pending how the nascent Trump presidency reacts to the major advances the Obama administration made in trying to normalize relations with Cuba. Thus, if allowed to proceed in these next two weeks, the Cuban delegation now on U. S. soil will make a pitch to connect Port Everglades and other Florida ports to Cuba's prized new port of Mariel.

       As the above photo indicates, back in the 1950s when the U. S. backed the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba, the ports in Florida did MORE BUSINESS WITH CUBA THAN ANY NATION IN THE WORLD. But in 1959 the Cuban Revolution overthrew Batista. In April of 1961 the U. S. and the Cuban exiles tried to regain control of Cuba with the famously failed Bay of Pigs attack. After that, beginning in 1961 and codified in 1962, the U. S. imposed the economic embargo on Cuba that exists to this day but, incredibly, has not brought Revolutionary Cuba to its knees AND NOW Cuba wants to renew its ties to the Florida ports.

        This very important Cuban-American is Manny Almira. He was born in Cuba 59 years ago. Manny is the Executive Director of the important Florida Port of Palm Beach and he covets a renewal of trade with Cuba, his native country. For the last few years...first with President Obama's administration and now Trump's, Manny has worked fervently and feverishly for his Port of Palm Beach to have trade connections with Cuba's nearby and refurbished Mariel Port. It would have happened if President Obama had remained in office a little longer. And now if the Republican Trump's administration blocks Manny's hopes and dreams, it will severely hurt the Port of Palm Beach's future plans. Manny only recently returned his Palm Beach port to profitability. While a few hardline anti-Cuban forces in Miami and Congress supposedly can dictate Trump's Cuban agendas, most of the Cuban-Americans in South Florida want to normalize relations with Cuba and that includes many powerful Cuban-American businessmen like Manny Almira in Palm Beach.

       The leader of the Cuban business delegation in the U. S. till February 3rd is Ana Teresa Igarza. She is the General Manager of the Mariel Economic Zone. Ana is one of the many women with powerful roles in fast-changing Revolutionary Cuba, and it appears that her star is getting brighter with each passing day.

       Last week, Tom Donahue, the President of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, was back in Cuba. He told Cuban President Raul Castro that he is urging major U. S. companies such as General Electric and Procter and Gamble to sign "major deals with Cuba." Businessman-President Donald Trump may be impressed.

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The 2 Sides of Cuba

Both Sides Are Pertinent!

     To know a 31-year-old Cuban named Elaine Diaz Rodriguez is to know that there are two sides to Revolutionary Cuba {1959-2017}. Elaine is a journalist on the island, and a good one. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Havana-based independent news digital magazine Periodismo del Barrio. More so than U. S. journalists who report on Cuban issues, Elaine writes copiously about Cuban positives and negatives. Yes, she has been "detained" by Cuban authorities because of her fair-minded journalism. But she also has the integrity and guts to write about Cuba's revolutionary positives, separating her from much-better-funded, foreign-backed counter-revolutionary journalists and dissidents such as...Yoani Sanchez, Laura Pollan, El Sexto, etc. Therefore, to not know Elaine Diaz today is to not know both sides of Revolutionary Cuba.

      For the last couple of decades, Fernando Ravsberg has been the most respected journalist reporting from and about Revolutionary Cuba. Like his disciple Elaine Diaz, Fernando covers both sides of the enigmatic Caribbean nation. His blog -- "Cartas Desde Cuba" {"Letters From Cuba"} is the best Cuban blog, with many of his articles getting international coverage. He has also written for the BBC, NY Times, etc.

    So, when Fernando Ravsberg writes about Revolutionary Cuba, people read and heed -- or at least they should. For example, his Oct. 26-2016 article -- still online -- was entitled: "The Cuban Government's Communicative Strategies." He wrote: "In 1990, it was impossible to work without credentials. Today, there are Cubans working for the world's largest newspapers without having to ask anybody for permission. New blogs are created everyday that inform Cubans, from Cuba, about a country that doesn't appear in government media. We are told stories with the freshness of somebody who lives immersed in Cuban life and who doesn't have to ask for permission to write or authorization to publish their work." That Ravsberg-documented fact-of-life in today's Revolutionary Cuba is not-supposed-to-be-known in the United States, one key reason I maintain that the Cuban Revolution says a lot more about the United States than it says about Cuba. Two generations of counter-revolutionaries from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship have controlled the U. S. narrative about Cuba, assisted by an intimidated or largely incompetent U. S. media as well as vast and hugely funded counter-revolutionary propaganda machines such as the blog Capitol Hill Cubans, Washington Times, Breitbart News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, etc. If you depend on any such sources for your Cuban updates, you will soon be believing that Revolutionary Cuba spends most of its time torturing, imprisoning, and murdering its citizens...and if there happens to be a pre-arranged staged photo or video showing a Cuban soldier or policewoman restraining a dissident, ALL THE BETTER! Revolutionary Cuba is one of the world's safest nations but WHEN IT IS NOT SAFE Americans need to get such reports from the BBC, Reuters, or other top non-American news outlets. Or from Fernando Ravsberg or...Elaine Diaz.

     This photo shows Elaine Diaz...she's second from the left...and other Cuban journalists just before they were arrested-detained in Guantanamo City, which is just outside Guantanamo Bay. In the aforementioned Fernando Ravsberg article, he referenced that detainment but also told both sides of the story.

         Elaine Diaz and the other four detained journalists were earnestly covering the severe devastation, as depicted above, caused by mighty Hurricane Mathew in Guantanamo Province in October of 2016.

      Even U. S. journalists have pointed out that the U. S. and other nations should study Cuba's rescue efforts during natural calamities, such as the effects of Hurricane Mathew depicted above. It is generally accepted that Cuba's rescue operations are the best, even "amazing" according to one NY Times article related to Hurricane Mathew. Cuba only briefly "detained" Elaine Diaz and the other Cuban journalists and then explained it did so "only because rescue operators complained that journalists were interfering with their important work," which is shown above as the rescuers rescued old and young Cuban civilians.

      To be sure, as a fair-minded Cuban journalist Elaine Diaz complained about being detained in Guantanamo City but she also presented the other side of the story, which was the government's desire to have the rescuers do their work without interference. Agreeing with the fair-minded Fernando Ravsberg, Elaine Diaz -- with the above quotation -- confirms that Cuba has an "independent press" that can be "in opposition to the government." She is also well aware that in the United States there are newspapers, all three cable news operations and right-wing operations such as Capitol Hill Cubans, Breitbart News, etc. that wouldn't dare report on both sides of two-sided Cuban stories but only on a badly slanted negative side.

      An excellent speaker, Elaine Diaz as well as Cuban journalists such as counter-revolutionaries like Yoani Sanchez travel to the United States and other nations and then return to do their work in Cuba. So the well-educated Elaine Diaz is well acquainted with American journalism and American politics. This historic week, Elaine's primary article was entitled: "Dear Donald Trump: A Letter From Cuba." She concluded her long letter with these exact words:

                    "It is your duty, Donald Trump, as the President of the United States of America, to represent all of your citizens and not only a couple of politicians who keep speaking on behalf of the Cuban people without having ever set foot on the island.

                    "It is my president's duty to represent all Cuban citizens, even those who have left the country for economic or political reasons.

                 "Both leaders {Raul Castro and Barack Obama} have spoken loudly: We want relationships, we want embassies, we want the negotiations to keep going, we want to reach an agreement in every area and we are open to dialogue. We want people to be close, not far. We want to build bridges, not walls." 

             Those words in quotation marks above are the exact words that closed Elaine Diaz's long letter/advice this week to America's new President, Donald Trump. Elaine Diaz represents the emeging power of independent journalism on the island of Cuba and she understands the rhythms, hopes and dreams of her fellow citizens. When she disagrees with the government, she says so. And when she agrees with the government, she says so...not as a counter-revolutionary but as a journalist. In 1976 the top Cuban-American journalist in Miami, Emilio Milian, was car-bombed after he voiced opposition to such terrorist acts as the bombing of the civilian Cuban airplane Cubana Flight 455. American journalists today who are too afraid to address such things as the car-bombing of Emilio Milian and its aftermaths are, of course, unafraid and even anxious to assail Revolutionary Cuba for far less violations of human rights.

        So Americans who don't want to know who Elaine Diaz is and who want to only get their Cuban news from the likes of Breitbart News or Capitol Hill Cubans, fine. Meanwhile, with a ready passport and American options galore before her, Elaine Diaz is intent on remaining in Cuba as an independent journalist telling both sides of Cuban stories. At the same time, study the graphic above that depicts who Elaine Diaz is: The HUGE U.S.-Cuban handshake; a plea for Restoring Diplomatic Relations between the two neighboring nations; and a smiling photo of a hopeful Elaine Diaz. As a journalist and as a human being, she is a cut above the minority of Cuban-Americans and Americans who want to destroy Elaine Diaz and her Revolutionary Cuba even as their salacious motives and policies create a resounding 191-to-0 condemnation of America's Cuban policy in the United Nations. As Elaine Diaz suggested this week in her letter to U. S. President Donald Trump, he has a plethora of American problems to deal with before he mounts his anticipated regime-change schemes in Cuba. The last U.S.-backed Cuban government -- the 1952 to 1959 Batista-Mafia dictatorship -- may be forgotten in America but Elaine Diaz won't forget it.

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Cuba Thanks Trump

Hours Into His Presidency!

     Cuba's Ambassador to the United States, Jose Ramon Cabanas, has lavished praise on President Donald Trump for the respect he accorded Cuba on his January 20th inaugural day. Mr. Cabanas took to his Twitter page with comments such as: "Cuba invited for the first time in many years to an inaugural ceremony at Capital Hill." The well-respected Cabanas' ambassadorship in Washington relates to former president Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, such as reopening embassies in Washington and Havana for the first time since 1961. But, unlike other ambassadors, Mr. Cabanas believed he would not be accorded a front-row seat at Trump's inauguration. That belief was based on Trump's transition team including rich and powerful Bush-era anti-Cuban zealots such a Mauricio Claver-Carone, Otto Reich, etc. as well as cabinet appointments such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who says he would return Cuba to the Sponsors of Terrorism list, and U. S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who testified at her hearing that, among other things, she wanted Cuba removed from the UN's Human Rights Council. President Trump himself, of course, had vowed to "erase" Obama's long list of positive Executive Orders regarding Cuba.

       In his other Twitter-laced praise of President Trump, Cuban Ambassador Jose Ramon Cabanas included this photo and a video of his excellent seat at Trump's inaugural. A major article in USA Today on inauguration day -- January 20th -- was entitled: "THE TRUMP PARADOX: For All His celebrity, There's A Lot We Don't Know About Our New President." Trump most of all is President now but for his previous 70 years he was all-business, born and bred. His astonishing election related to Americans desperately trying to "drain the swamp" in Washington of establishment politics and his lavish promises to emphasize jobs for Americans. Well, Obama's friendly overtures to Cuba have already created thousands of jobs in major industries such as airlines, cruise ships, hotels and even construction...with the potential of creating many more Cuba-related jobs. If Claver-Carone, Reich, Haley and their ilk make the Cuban decisions in the Trump presidency, U.S.-Cuban relations will plunge to the depths of the Florida Straits, perhaps with bloody offshoots. But if the business-man Trump -- "The Paradox" -- makes the Cuban decisions, perhaps not.

    The head of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, Sarah Stephens, also seems to have been caught off-guard by President Trump's kind treatment of Cuba on his inaugural day. One of America's most forceful advocates for a sane, Obama-like Cuban policy, Sarah Stephens late on January 20th wrote: "Thinking back to the Obamas leaving aboard the Marine Corps helicopter, it was nice to see a core accomplishment of his Cuba policy alive and well after the transfer of power. Restoring diplomatic relations put Cuba's Ambassador back into the diplomatic corps, and foreign diplomats attend ceremonies like the Inauguration." Sarah Stephens was also happily surprised this week when Mr. Trump named his final cabinet appointment.

      This 70-year-old gentleman is Sonny Perdue, the wildly popular Governor of Georgia from 2003 till 2011. President Trump's final pick for his cabinet was to appoint Sonny Perdue Secretary of Agriculture. The appointment means that, for the first time in 30 years, there will be no Hispanics in a White House cabinet. Moreover, Sonny Perdue has always been one of America's strongest advocates for normal trade with the nearby island of Cuba. In 2010 as Governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue led a huge delegation of farmers and businessmen to Cuba promoting trade with Cuba. And Sonny Perdue has influenced former President Obama's positive vibes related to Cuba and, apparently, he will be a force in Trump's cabinet to stand up to Bush-era anti-Cuban zealots such as Mauricio Claver-Carone, Otto Reich, John Bolton and Nikki Haley.

       This photo is courtesy of Jim Wyss and was used to highlight his major article in the Miami Herald related to Donald Trump's inauguration as America's President. The article is entitled: "A Cuban Doctor Ponders Life Stranded Between Policies and Politics." The 26-year-old Elisabet Casero shown above was a Cuban dentist working in Venezuela, one of tens of thousands of well-trained Cubans who perform medical work in the poorest areas of foreign countries such as Venezuela and Brazil. It is a primary source of income for Cuba. The George W. Bush presidency, in its never-ending goal of starving the Cuban government, mandated what is known as the "Cuba Medical Professional Parole Program." The program lavishly encouraged Cuban medical personnel to enter U. S. embassies and defect to the U. S., supposedly with rewards over-and-above the Cuban-only "Wet Foot-Dry Foot" immigration laws that also applied only to Cubans...at least until President Obama this month of January used an Executive Order to end both the Medical Paroles and Wet Foot-Dry Foot. Thus, like thousands of other Cubans headed to the U. S. border with Mexico, Ms. Casero is now "stranded" south of the border instead of being home-free with benefits the moment her foot would have touched U. S. soil. The aforementioned article in favor of Wet-Dry Foot, the Medical Paroles and all other Bush-era laws and policies is related to undermining Cuba. It reflects the reaction of America's rich and powerful Castro Cottage Industry in trying to ward off each and every one of Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. The startling financial and political rewards harking back to Bush-era Cuban policies will always evoke massive reactions whenever such easy largess is threatened by democracy-lovers like Obama or, perhaps, by business-lovers such as President Donald Trump.

Cuban doctors stranded in Bogota, Colombia.

     The vast majority of the U. S. media is either too intimidated or too politically correct to report fairly on Cuban issues, but there are exceptions such as the bold and brilliant Paul Guzzo and the Tampa Bay Times. Paul is an outstanding journalist, author, historian and film-maker. On President Trump's inaugural day -- January 20th -- his article in the Tampa Bay Times included such pertinent information as: "In its final days in the White House, the Obama administration made it easier for the Cuban government to drill for oil in Gulf waters just beyond the country's maritime border with the United States." The U. S. previously, of course, had such an agreement with Mexico but Obama included CUBA in a new 3-way agreement. The Eastern Basin of the Gulf, as it is known, is reportedly rich in oil and China's oil industry is already helping Cuba drill for oil to make up for a sharp cut-back in Venezuela's capacity to subsidize Cuba's oil needs. Cuba and the Obama administration also signed a key joint agreement regarding regional protections against oil spills and other environmental threats. The Trump administration, as Paul Guzzo hints, could one day make it possible for U. S. oil concerns to partner with Cuba, which actually would prefer nearby American agreements as opposed to far-away Chinese, Russian and Vietnamese agreements. Such agreements with the U. S. would also, Paul Guzzo hints, nudge Cuba ever-closer to capitalism and maybe even...uh, to DEMOCRACY! 

      Also on January 20th -- the day of Trump's presidential inauguration -- Josefina Vidal was featured in a major Trump-related article in the powerful London-based The Guardian. The article had this ominous title: "TOP DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATOR IN CUBA WARNS TRUMP 'AGGRESSION DOESN'T WORK'". Vidal is Cuba's Minister in charge of U. S. relations and she brilliantly negotiated 17 key agreements with the Obama administration. The Guardian asked her if she had any suggestions for President Donald Trump. As you can see if you check the article, she replied: "Aggression, pressure, conditions, and impositions do not work with Cuba. This is not the way to attempt to have even a minimally civilized relationship with Cuba." The unambiguous Vidal is proud of her 17 important agreements with the Obama administration but, before she fully accepts a normalization of relations with the U. S., she has other lines in the sand -- notably an end to the embargo and at least serious discussions about the return of U.S.-occupied Guantanamo Bay to Cuba.

       Josefina Vidal got along famously with Obama's Secretary of State John Kerry, as this photo indicates. But Kerry even as a long-time Senator fought tirelessly for a sane U. S. policy towards Cuba. In stark contrast to Kerry, President Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has vowed to put Cuba back on the U. S. Sponsors of Terrorism list. Being on that list conveniently enabled anti-Cuban zealots to successfully sue unrepresented Cuba in Miami courts, judgments that resulted in easy payoffs from "frozen" Cuban assets as well as U. S. taxpayers as dictated by Batistiano-directed laws such as Helms-Burton. When President Obama four years ago first contacted Cuba about normalizing relations, the very first line in the sand Vidal drew was: "Remove Cuba from the Sponsors of Terrorism list and I'll be glad to talk to you or your representatives about normal relations." Encouraged by John Kerry, Obama removed Cuba from the Terror list that had been a hallmark of the hardline anti-Cuban zealots. After that, right down to Obama's final days in office this week, Vidal kept her promise and worked diligently with President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. Now Trump's Secretary of State, Tillerson, wants Cuba back on the Sponsors of Terror list. That means, unless Trump changes Tillerson's mind, that Tillerson wants to make war with Vidal. In a serious war, Tillerson would win but Trump and the U. S. would be the big losers, sinking America and Democracy even deeper than the current 191-to-0 denunciation in the United Nations of its Cuban policy.

 President Trump's VICIOUSLY anti-Cuban Secretary of State.

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Obama Exits, Trump Enters

Trepidatiously, Cuba Awaits!

       Today is Friday, January 20th, 2017. It marks the final day...or at least half-a-day...that Barack Obama will serve as America's 44th, two-term President. The photo above depicts one of the highlights of Mr. Obama's eight years as the world's most powerful and most important leader. He was at the Grand Theatre in Havana and is shown waving to the Cuban people. His trip to Cuba back in March-2016 was the first by a sitting U. S. President since 1928 and fittingly it revealed his abiding respect for democracy and his courageous respect for the Cuban people. Prior to Obama, a handful of revengeful miscreants had, since the 1950s, used weaknesses in the U. S. democracy -- namely Congress and apathy from unpatriotic Americans -- to cruelly punish totally innocent Cubans in their fervent quest to regain control of the island -- ala the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that spawned Revolutionary Cuba. The sheer undemocratic cruelty of the failed and despicable quest succeeded in making a lot of selected people rich and powerful in Miami and Newark while also, in the United Nations, creating an astoundingly unanimous 191-to-0 worldwide condemnation of America for a Cuban policy that not a single one of America's best international friends or the best democracy-lovers anywhere can possibly justify.

      On Dec. 17-2014 President Obama boldly defied Miami, Newark and Congress by announcing his plans to normalize relations with Cuba. The President then proceeded to live up to that grandiose promise, a task and decency that no previous American leader had either the guts or the intelligence to tackle.

        Mr. Obama's Farewell Speech as President was delivered before 20,000 teary people in Chicago on January 10, 2017. He made it a point to stress that he wanted his "engaging the Cuban people" to stand very tall as one his most significant legacies.

      President Obama's inroads in Cuba will be everlasting, at least in memory. His White House successor quickly named a transition team that included seven cream-of-the-crap Cuban counter-revolutionary diehards who, beginning Jan. 20-2017, will begin to dismantle all that Mr. Obama's has wrought regarding a sane Cuban policy. Those miscreants will likely succeed, bolstered by a bought-and-paid-for segment of Congress, an intimidated or incompetent U. S. media, and a generation of Americans unwilling or unable to defend their democracy.

       The U. S. embargo against Cuba, in effect since 1962, is now listed as the longest and cruelest in history ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. Only President Obama had the intelligence, decency and courage to seriously and sincerely attempt to correct that abomination, which insults America and democracy far more than it insults little Cuba.

       In Cuba last March President Obama tried to assure the Cuban people that they did "not need to fear a threat from the United States." At the time he surely did not anticipate that yet another Republican president dictated to by hardline Batistianos would succeed him as America's next Commander-in-Chief.

       Even in his final hours as President, Mr. Obama tried to impose and inject democratic principles into a Cuban policy that daily shames America in the eyes of the world. "Wet Foot-Dry Foot" has for decades been one of an endless string of Congressionally mandated U. S. laws designed to hurt totally innocent Cubans on the island while also greatly benefiting the revenge, economic and political motives of an unsavory minority. Laws such as Wet-Dry Foot served the ulterior motives of a few, decade after decade, while grossly discriminating against everyone else, mocking democracy as the Batistianos and their sycophants gleefully cheered, cheers  prior to and probably after Obama. Yesterday -- Thursday, January 19th, 2017 -- USA Today had a major article entitled: "OBAMA MEETS PRESS FOR LAST TIME." Again Mr. Obama sanely explained why he tried to normalize relations with Cuba and in the process erased, at least for a time, the insanity of extremely discriminatory items such as "Wet-Dry Foot." President Barack Obama told USA Today very correctly that it "treated Cuban immigrants completely different from folks from El Salvador or Guatemala or Nicaragua or any other part of the world. You know, that was a carry-over of a old way of thinking that didn't make any sense in this day and age, particularly as we're opening up travel between the two countries." 
          IN OTHER WORDS, the democracy-loving President Obama believed that Banana Republic practices from the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba should not forever mock the proud U. S. democracy.

       This illustration was done by Yasser Castellanos and is used courtesy of HavanaTimes.org. It references one of President Obama's final efforts to apply democracy to America's Cuban policy. Lady Liberty for the first time in decades is telling Cuban immigrants they will be treated just like other would-be immigrants. Unmindful of either democracy or America's worldwide image, the Batistianos starting Jan. 20-2017 will have the money, the Congress, and the White House to once again dictate their will regarding such topics, but that will not distract from what a great leader, Mr. Obama, has tried earnestly to correct.

       A superb First Lady for the past 8 years, Michelle Obama, like her husband, will impact America's democracy in the future after exiting the White House today. Mrs. Obama accompanied the President on his historic trip to Cuba in March of 2016. The photo above shows her talking respectfully with female Cuban university students. Far more than any American President and First Lady since 1959, Mr. and Mrs. Obama fervently believe that totally innocent Cubans should not forever be punished by a revengeful minority in a foreign superpower that has wickedly and self-servingly tried for six decades to bring about regime change against a Revolution that overthrew the extremely wicked Batista-Mafia dictatorship. 

       This interesting photo is courtesy of the European Pressphoto Agency and the New York Times. It shows a group of 16 Americans atop a mountain range in Bolivia. In the center wearing a stocking hat and yellow shirt is Malia Obama, the oldest of the two impressive Obama daughters. Malia is now 18 and she is taking a year off {before entering Harvard} to explore some non-classroom ventures. The Bolivian mountain guide told the New York Times that Malia Obama was "very humble, chatty, and spoke Spanish very well." 

       The President of Bolivia since 2006, Evo Morales -- like more than a few other democratically elected Latin American Presidents -- is a huge fan of the Cuban Revolution and not too fond of the United States, which he has accused of trying to unseat him and "others like me because of our positive Cuban policies and because of their remaining imperialist designs on Latin America." Since 2008 Bolivia and the United States have not exchanged ambassadors. But, according to the New York Times, President Obama called President Morales to inform him that Malia Obama was about to visit Bolivia. President Morales promised President Obama that his security apparatus would assist in every way it could to assure her safety.

 America's 44th President. 

His decency and fairness will be missed.

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A CUBANINSIDER MISTAKE?

You Judge!!

    More than once in this forum I have suggested and attempted to document one of my most researched beliefs, which is that Cuba's revolutionary icon, Celia Sanchez, is "history's all-time greatest female guerrilla fighter." I'll stand by that assertion even though today I received an email from a Vietnam vet -- Ben T. from Oregon -- who disagreed. He directed me to a NY Times' article on January 17, 2017 entitled: "AS THE EARTH SHOOK, THEY STOOD FIRM." Ben T. was not derogatory in his disagreement but merely expressed his first-hand and researched opinion as indicated by his first sentence: "I agree with most of your input on your interesting blog but believe you have zeroed too much on Cuba's singular Revolutionary War with your insistence that Celia Sanchez is history's greatest female guerrilla fighter. Vietnam, for example, was littered with many worthy candidates, as I personally observed." And with that, Ben T. suggested I check out that day's NY Times' article, which, being inquisitive, I most certainly did.

        The photo above is courtesy of Thanh Phong and the New York Times. It was featured in the aforementioned New York Times' article -- "As the Earth Shook, They Stood Firm" -- that caught Ben T.'s attention and then mine. This Vietnamese girl is Ben T's pick as the greatest female guerrilla fighter. Her name is Vo Thi Mo. She was 13 when this photo was taken and that's when she became a guerrilla fighter for the Vietcong, the North Vietnamese, against South Vietnamese and American soldiers.

      By the time she was 20, Vo Thi Mo was a legendary guerrilla fighter in the Vietnam War with heroism well known to both sides. She was also the Commander of Vietcong units that repeatedly took on and defeated supposedly superior South Vietnamese and American forces, such as in 1967 when she opposed a powerful battalion of the U. S. 25th Division, which was supported by massive air bombardments. When the war ended, Ms. Mo had played a vital role in deciding the outcome, which includes the renaming of the famed city of Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City as well as the unification of Vietnam under Communist rule that today is prosperous and U.S.-friendly. 

         Now 70-years-old, Ms. Mo is back living in the little Vietnamese village, Cu Chi, where she was born. The NY Times' article uses declassified CIA and Vietnam documents -- now archived at Texas Tech University -- to confirm her legend. Those archives include these exact quotes from Ms. Mo:

                  "I had never been to any military school. As a girl, I was so scared when I cocked a gun for the first time. But, you know, I learned a lot on the battlefields. I was not scared of the enemy. I fought against them to the end. I felt hatred toward them but I also saw their young men were to be pitied." She then recalled when her unit spied four young U. S. soldiers actually sitting on a landmine that she could have easily detonated. Through binoculars she noticed they were reading letters from home and...crying. "My messenger boy wanted to kill them, but I resisted because I saw they cried as they looked at letters and pictures that I guessed came from their families. I felt sorry for them. My messenger boy asked me why I fought the Americans but didn't kill them. He wanted to kill them so we would be awarded the Military Victory Medal. I told him, 'If you kill them, I will kill you.' I thought they might be students in their homeland but they were drafted, so they came here to fight. I did not kill them although I knew I could be disciplined." 

Vo Thi Mo -- guerrilla fighter in the Vietnam War.

Vo Thi Mo--at peace today in Cu Chi, Vietnam.

           Alright, Ben T., now that I know about Vo Thi Mo, I accept your hint that she, or someone like her, might be the all-time greatest female guerrilla fighter. But rest assured that my opinions regarding my choice, Celia Sanchez, remain intact.

     This photo was taken during the height of Cuba's Revolutionary War against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship, which also included powerful airstrikes against the rebel-guerrilla fighters. That's why this photo resonates; Celia is holding a candle inside a rebel cabin so she could study a battle report and Fidel Castro could read a book. Years later, he indicated the book was Earnest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The all-business Celia was not just a do-or-die guerrilla fighter. Both during the war and later in Revolutionary Cuba she was a prime decision-maker, with the total concurrence of Fidel Castro. That's why Cuba's best historian, Pedro Alvarez Tabio, correctly 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." Celia died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11-1980 in Revolutionary Cuba, after which Roberto Salas -- the great photographer who was an intimate of both Celia and Fidel -- correctly wrote in his book: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died in 1980, we all knew no one could ever replace her." And no one has.

As a guerrilla fighter, Celia Sanchez was nonpareil.

    But as a guerrilla fighter and as a revolutionary decision-maker, Celia Sanchez is also unmatched, in my opinion. Her role in Cuba's Revolutionary War and later in Revolutionary Cuba has had, to this day, remarkable repercussions for Cuba, Latin America, the United States and the world. Yes, Ms. Mo's role in the Vietnam War has also, till this day, had remarkable repercussions for Vietnam, Asia, the United States and the world. So, Ms. Mo is indeed a worthy contender. But I truly believe that Celia Sanchez remains in a class by herself as a female revolutionary.

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