Cuba in Trump's Crosshairs

A Great Floridian Is Worried!!
{Wednesday, April 5th, 2017}

    This week -- April 3rd, 2017 -- CBS News blared this major headline: "Florida Congresswoman Worried Trump Administration May Reverse Obama Policy on Cuba." That bold, astute, caring Congresswoman, of course, is Kathy Castor. Ms. Castor is by far the best and the bravest Florida member of the United States Congress since the Batista-Mafia Banana Republic in Cuba was chased to its new stronghold in Miami by the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. Ms. Castor was born in Miami 50 years ago but has represented the Tampa-St. Petersburg area in the United States Congress since 2007. She has been the only member of Congress from Florida since 1959 to have the decency, the guts and the respect for America and Democracy to fight for a sane Cuban policy, not one dictated by the most vicious remnants of Cuba's brutal, thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Congresswoman Castor told CBS News this week: "There are some real hardliners that are pressing to roll back the progress that we have made on Cuban engagement. I'm hopeful the Trump administration will not do that and they're also hearing comments from Chambers of Commerce, families, and entrepreneurs that are growing businesses in Cuba. Why would we go backwards...when for the first time in 50 years we're seeing business on both sides of the Florida Straits grow?"

       The sheer decency and sanity of Congresswoman Kathy Castor regarding Cuba is generally ignored by the mainstream U. S. media that is simply too afraid and too incompetent to depart from the Cuban narrative espoused by only the most ardent revenge-seekers against the Cuban Revolution. So CBS by merely quoting Kathy Castor is a rare display of guts and fairness from the mainstream U. S. media.

     In 2016 when President Obama himself traveled to Cuba and was very engaged in a bold series of Executive Orders regarding Cuba, Congresswoman Castor was on the island to encourage the President and to do her job representing the best interests of her constituents in the Tampa area, especially U. S. businesses desiring commerce with Cuba. As noted, she remains the only Florida member of Congress with the decency and the courage to be ashamed about a Batistiano-driven U. S. Cuban policy that properly gets a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations. This week Ms. Castor told CBS that an American Cuban policy dictated only by biased extremists both shames and harms America, not to mention 11 million totally innocent Cubans on the island. She told CBS April 3rd, "I know they {the extremists} argue that nothing has changed in Cuba, but to the contrary, a lot is changing in Cuba. Young entrepreneurs are building businesses on the island. What we've got to do is lift the embargo...so we can build on the progress that we've made." 

        Last week two of the Cuban-American/Miami-based members of the U. S. Congress -- Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio -- made headlines with their typical Cuban extremism. Diaz-Balart, whose father was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship, offered to trade his Republican vote on the Heath Bill if his Cuban dictates were adhered to by President Trump. Diaz-Balart wanted to give Cuba "90 days" to do his and the atrocious Helms-Burton bidding or...ELSE. That particular grossness by Diaz-Balart was so extreme that he was finally excoriated in a Miami Herald editorial written by the Miami Herald's most extreme anti-Castro, Cuban-born Editorial Writer Fabiola Santiago who blasted Diaz-Balart for...amazingly...using his anti-Cuban extremism to harm the thousands of Miami Cuban-Americans who were benefiting from the current Health Care bill that Diaz-Balart eagerly seemed willing to trade away if Trump would back his anti-Cuban extremism. Miami's Rubio is as extreme as Diaz-Balart when it comes to benefiting from anti-Cuban extremism. Rubio last week made headlines by bragging that he had met "three times" with Trump to expound on his anti-Cuban extremism, which demands that Cuba conform to his extreme dictates.

      A handful of Miami-based Cuban-American extremists...such as Rubio, Diaz-Balart, & Ros-Lehtinen in the United States Congress..are allowed to endlessly dictate America's Cuban narrative and Cuban policy because neither the U. S. citizens nor the U. S. media has the guts or the patriotism to challenge them.

       Havana-born Fabiola Santiago since 1980 has been the most consistently vicious anti-Castro reporter, columnist, and now editorial writer for the Miami Herald. When she of all people writes a scathing editorial criticizing Mario Diaz-Balart's anti-Cuban extremism in the U. S. Congress, I believe it is high-time for even timid Americans to realize that allowing the son of a former Batista Minister to make and promote extreme anti-Cuban decisions in the U. S. Congress is, to say the least, an insult to democracy and to America. 

       Miami-born Kathy Castor, who has represented Tampa in the U. S. Congress for the past decade, incredibly had her sane and decent views expressed April 3rd by a CBS News report. That was amazing and extraordinary because normally the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid and too incompetent to air anything other than the self-serving anti-Cuban extremism of the most extreme remnants of the extremely cruel Batista-Mafia dictatorship from 1950's Cuba. Most of the two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida, from Tampa on down to and including Miami, agree with Kathy Castor but there appears to be zero chance that such a moderate Cuban-American can get elected to the U. S. Congress. Meanwhile, Kathy Castor continues to wage a brave fight to infuse America's Cuban policy with some sanity and decency.

This photo is by and used courtesy of Dany del Pino.

        You see, Congresswoman Kathy Castor does not believe the United States of America should be engaged, decade after decade, in hurting precious, totally innocent Cuban children...such as these two...to sate the self-serving appetites of a few extremists. The current 191-to-0 condemnation of America and Americans in the United Nations stems solely from the fact that Americans have allowed this to happen...generation to generation. The little girl above is expressing a childish opinion to the little boy on their embargoed and besieged island but she is too young to understand that the embargo and the targeting is aimed at them from the richest and strongest nation in the world. But Congresswoman Kathy Castor from Tampa understands it...and one day this little Cuban girl and this little Cuban boy will too.

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Cuba's Mafia History Lingers

Still Topical Today!!
{Monday, April 3rd, 2017}

         On April 1st, 2017 The Economist -- founded in London 173 years ago and still one of the world's most respected media sources -- used the above photo to illustrate a major article about Cuba. It is entitled: "WHAT THE TOURIST INDUSTRY REVEALS ABOUT CUBA: Sun, Sand and Socialism." The intriguing and insightful first paragraph states:

                     "Few places are as naturally alluring as Cuba. The island is bathed in sunlight and lapped by warm blue waters. The people are friendly; the rum is light and crisp; the music is a delicious blend of African and Latin rhythms. And the biggest pool of free-spending holidaymakers in the western hemisphere is just a hop away. As Lucky Luciano, an American gangster, observed in 1946, 'The water was just as pretty as the Bay of Naples, but it was only 90 miles from the United States.'"

            Unlike the U. S. media, The Economist has the freedom to report fairly on Cuba and thus it can mention the island's Mafia past. Any serious update should make such a reference as a reminder of Cuba's U.S.-imposed Mafia history, which began in earnest with America's top gangster Lucky Luciano in 1946.

       YES, that Lucky Luciano -- "The man who organized crime in America" and then was sicced on Cuba in 1946 so rich U. S. businessmen and politicians could participate in the rape and robbery of the island.

       Lucky Luciano's arrival in Cuba in 1946 occurred after the United States government callously freed him from a 50-year prison term in New York -- supposedly because, as the supreme Mafia kingpin, he was needed to protect the U. S. from Hitler's Germany and to help the Allies win World War II. That somewhat questionable excuse to this day -- in April of 2017 -- still affects Cuba and its U. S. relations.

       The Mafia had eyed Cuba since the 1920's but its "massive criminal empire" in Cuba began to take shape in 1933 when Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky first aligned with Cuba's Fulgencio Batista. 

        But the most brutal, thieving Lucky Luciano-Meyer Lansky-Fulgencio Batista dictatorial plundering of Cuba began in 1952 when right-wingers high-up in U. S. President Eisenhower's administration, with no objection from U. S. citizens, supported the pillaging of Cuba so rich American businessmen could partake in the spoils. The wholesale thievery didn't spawn the do-or-die revolution but the extreme brutality did. 

        The murders of peasant children supposedly to quell resistance resulted in brave Cuban mothers mounting anti-Batista marches that fueled the revolution and emboldened a young lawyer named Fidel Castro. The Luciano-Lansky-Batista starvation of Cuban children also included totally neglecting their educational and health needs, dooming the Mafiosi rule even with the support it was receiving from U. S. businessmen and the U.  S. government. The lower-right photo reflects the fate of dissidents...at least till they were organized, first by the doctor's daughter Celia Sanchez and the young school-teacher Frank Pais and then, after the murders of Pais and his teenage brother Jesus, by Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro.

        The initial organized recruiting and resistance was led by guerrilla fighters Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria, both of whom played key roles in Cuba after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution.  

       The Havana Mob operation in Havana was run by Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, with enormous kick-backs to Dictator Batista. But soon the gangsters in Cuba included other top U. S. Mafia leaders, such as Santo Trafficante. In 1959 many of these criminals and their loot landed back in the United States.

       All the top American Mafiosi who fleeced and brutalized Cuba beginning in 1952 fled the island in the wee hours of Jan. 1-1959 instead of hanging around to fight the advancing and outraged revolutionary rebels. Typically, the frightened criminals just returned to safer havens on nearby United States soil. The photo above shows Santo Trafficante Jr. with his talented lawyer Frank Ragano after Santo Jr. returned to Tampa, Florida where he and his father were the Mafia kingpins for decades. After fleeing Cuba, Santo Jr. typically was tied to numerous Mafia and CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. In fact, Ragano himself, just before he died of cancer, tied Santo Jr. and other Mobsters to assassination attempts against both Kennedy brothers -- President John and presidential-candidate Robert -- because the Mafiosi and Cuban exiles blamed the Kennedys for the failure to recapture Cuba during the Bay of Pigs attack in April, 1961.

       The above photo shows Trafficante Jr. in the center with Frank Ragano on his left and Carlos Marcello on his right. Marcello, who participated in and profited from the Mafiosi rule of Cuba, was the long-time Mafia kingpin of both New Orleans and Dallas; according to many sources, including their expert lawyer Ragano, Marcello was more obsessed with killing the Kennedys than with killing Fidel Castro.

Photo courtesy of Larry Warner.

      While the Cuban Revolution on Jan.1-1959 booted the Mafiosi and their supporters out of Cuba, the Mob leaders who simply returned to the U. S. lived out long and lucrative lives, such as Trafficante Jr. who died on March 17, 1987 of natural causes as a totally free man...like most of his criminal associates.

                Lucky Luciano -- the most powerful of all the Mafiosi kingpins in the U. S., Italy and poor little Cuba -- died of a heart attack {above} at the Naples Airport in Italy on Jan. 26-1962. His real name when he was born in Italy in 1897 was Salvatore Lucania. He was at the Naples Airport that fateful day to meet a producer interested in making a movie of Lucky's life, which he considered fitting for a criminal of his renown.

       Although he died at the Naples Airport in his native Italy, Lucky Luciano's body was flown back to the United States so he could have a massive funeral procession in New York City where his criminal career began. Then he was buried {above} in the huge tomb at St. John's Cemetery in Queens, New York City.

        This photo shows Lucky Luciano lounging happily in Havana in 1948 when he was in his heyday as the most powerful criminal in the world and as the all-time most powerful Mafia figure. So, on April 1st in 2017 when the London-based The Economist published an interesting update on today's Cuba, it was very appropriate for the article to include a prominent quote from Lucky himself about the island he once ruled.

      The April 1-2017 article in The Economist also reminded me of this photo. Outraged Cuban women -- like the three victorious guerrilla fighters shown above -- were keys to starting the Cuban Revolution and to finishing it. The sad-looking rebel on the left is Tete Puebla. By the time she was 15, Tete had carved out a reputation as a fearless guerrilla fighter against Batista's soldiers. In regards to this photo, Tete was later asked, "You had just arrived in Havana after chasing the Batistianos and Mafiosi off the island, so why did you look sad?" She replied, "Because we were hoping they would hang around Havana and fight us." 

      Today Tete Puebla is a General in the Cuban army. In April of 1961 she defended Revolutionary Cuba at the Bay of Pigs when the revengeful Cuban exiles -- backed by U. S. air, land and sea support -- attacked Revolutionary Cuba. If necessary, she will defend Cuba today with the ferocity she fought back then.

         And yes, to understand the torrid history of U.S.-Cuban relations, you need to know the massive role played by seedy American politicians as well as the most brutal and powerful Mafia kingpins, such as Lucky Luciano. That's why the April 1-2017 Cuban article in the The Economist appropriately included a Lucky Luciano quotation. The Economist, you see, understands that second generations of U.S.-based Batistianos & Mafiosi are just as determined to regain control of Cuba as Lucky and his pals were long, long ago.

America's top crime writer, T. J. English, knows Cuba.

And so, T. J. English knows........

"How the mob owned Cuba,

and then lost it to the Revolution."
But the Mob wants it back!!

Rich, powerful and very determined!

And little Cuba...is just across...the Florida Straits.

  

  And, uh................

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To Know Cuba, Visit Cuba

Or You Won't Know Cuba!!
{Saturday, April 1st, 2017}

       This photo shows Economics Professor Patrick Gourley and his students at the University of New Haven in Connecticut on their 8-day visit to Cuba this month of March, 2017. Educational tours are one legal means Americans can visit the island but for decades everyday Americans have been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. That, of course, is to appease a handful of two generations of the most extreme counter-revolutionaries who reside in the U. S. after the Cuban Revolution in 1959 ousted the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. A few extremists easily mandating such laws in the U. S. Congress command a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations but two generations of Americans meekly accept them, which results in meek acceptance of allowing a small but rich and powerful cabal of Cuban-American exiles to dictate the U. S. Cuban narrative and U. S. Cuban congressional laws.

         Thus, the opinions from Americans who actually visit Cuba are always pertinent. The New Haven Register in a long article written by Mark Zaretsky featured these reactions from Professor Gourley and his entourage after their eight days in Cuba:

             "I really just thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience;" "Cuba has changed more in the past two years than it did in the previous 50;" "For the first time people are allowed to open their own business;" "Hands-on experience reveals that;" "The people, they seemed very modern. They all had cellphones. But I think I saw only one iPhone;" "I was surprised by the number of private businesses that were there;" "I think financially they've very excited to see the trade embargo loosening;" "I met a woman who owned a farm and wished they had a Home Depot. She talked about how frustrated she was that she had a successful business and had money, but the things that they need weren't available in the country;" "The most amazing impression I got from the place was just how pure it was;" "You didn't expect the people to be so happy;" "You can get a free Ph.D. Education and health care are free and people are given vouchers good for food;" "Buildings...still had bullet holes from when they shot at Batista;" etc. {Very interesting, huh?}.

        Professor Patrick Gourley's last comment was: "The one thing for people to know is...just go to Cuba! It really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a country that's just dramatically shifting." Of course, for decades the Batistiano-Mafiosi hardliners booted out of Cuba by the revolution have their reasons for wanting to continue dictating the Cuban narrative and Cuban laws in the United States and I assume their three prime reasons are the same old standbys: revenge, money, and power.

       With America's mainstream media having evolved and dissolved into propaganda machines as opposed to news sources, it seems most Americans actually get their real news these days from Facebook. I'm not much for social media...except for posting baseball comments and beautiful bird photos. But in occasionally doing that, I noticed that a young Cuban woman named Rosy Amaro Perez is engaged in doing a lot of worthy projects on behalf of Cubans on the island who are so unfairly besieged by a handful of rich and powerful Cuban-Americans. I used one sentence to congratulate Rosy on one such project and within minutes her Facebook reply was: "Thanks. But my English is not too good." Her English is fine...and so are her projects on her embargoed island. 

     A typical young Cuban woman, Rosy Amaro Perez is beautiful, healthy and well educated. She is married and she and her husband have a gorgeous daughter. Rosy's enthusiasm for life and for doing worthwhile things is contagious, as reflected by her Facebook renderings. She has no animosity toward Americans and Americans should not allow a few others in a nearby foreign nation to endlessly punish Rosy and her young family. With a mainstream U. S. media that is nothing more or nothing less than anti-Cuban propaganda machines, the only way to know Cubans like Rosy is to visit Cuba, but a few Cuban exiles for decades have enacted U. S. laws that make everyday Americans the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. So, Facebook is the logical means to know Cuba by knowing decent, worthy, everyday Cubans like Rosy. With Batistiano extremists in the U. S. controlling the U. S. Cuban narrative and U. S. laws, Americans are not supposed to know Rosy or her young family or....the many decent and worthy projects she is involved in.

      The above map of Cuba was used March 30-2017 by the Mississippi Business Journal to illustrate an article about Mississippi business executives who have returned home after visiting the long-embargoed nearby island. All those executives as well as officials at both of the deep-water Mississippi ports -- Gulfport and Pascagoula -- are anxious to engage in commerce with Cuba...if and when America's Cuban policy is not dictated by a handful of very revengeful first-and-now-second-generational Batistianos.

        Gulf Coast Produce, a major Mississippi business, is owned by Cristi and Mike Alise. Just back from Cuba, Mike says, "Cuba is buying rice from Vietnam. It's incredible. Cubans like building relationships. I want to go back and get out to the farms and see what they're growing and do some fact-finding. I've done that for years with Panama and Colombia. Trade with Cuba is exciting for Mississippi." Yes, Mike. Many other business people in your state and other states feel the same way. But remember...Panama and Colombia never had Mafia-backed and U.S.-backed brutal dictatorships that were overthrown only to regroup first in Miami and then in Washington. Therefore, you and many other Americans like you are in the same undemocratic boat, which has been the case for six decades now...while the rest of the world, as indicated by the 191-to-0 vote in the UN condemning America's Cuban policy, wonders WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

     History and even quick Google searches reveal that the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship HAPPENED on Cuban soil in 1952 and the U.S.-backed Batistiano-Mafiosi resettlement HAS HAPPENED on United States soil since January of 1959. Of course, if some serious, unbiased student of U.S.-Cuban history has a better explanation, be sure to let Mike and Christi Alise in Mississippi know.

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Fidel's Sister Dies

Three of 7 Siblings Still Live
{Thursday, March 30th, 2017}

        On Sunday, March 27th in Havana, Augustina Castro died at age 78. Born in Biran in the old province of Oriente, she was the youngest daughter of Angel and Lina Ruz Castro. With Augustina's passing, now only 3 of the 7 Castro siblings are still alive and they are 85-year-old Raul, the Cuban President; 83-year-old Juanita who lives in Miami; and 82-year-old Emma who lives in Mexico after marrying a Mexican.

       This photo shows Augustina on the left and Emma on the right when they were in Miami recruiting money and moral support at the outset of the Cuban Revolution that was led by Celia Sanchez and the brothers Fidel and Raul. Prior to her death Sunday in Havana, Augustina had asked to be cremated. Emma flew from Mexico City to attend funeral rites for her younger sister. Also, Augustina's two sons Silvio and Angel, who live in Orlando, were in Havana this week to honor their beloved mother.

       This photo shows the three Castro brothers -- Raul, Ramon, and Fidel -- in the back row with their four sisters and their mother Lina, who is in the middle of the front row wearing glasses. Augustina is standing between Raul and Ramon. The photo was taken the day Emma, sitting to the right of her mother, got married. It is also known that the 7 siblings had a half-brother named Martin who still lives a very quiet life as a farmer in southern Cuba where he had often been visited by the oldest Castro brother Ramon.

Fidel's oldest sister Angela was born in 1923.

Always fiercely loyal to Fidel, Angela died in 2012.

        This, I believe, is one of the most interesting of all the Fidel Castro family photos. It was taken in 1940. The back row shows the 14-year-old Fidel on the left with his favorite sister Angela in the middle and his oldest brother Ramon on the right. In the front row sitting down is Fidel's younger brother Raul on the left, Lidia Castro Argota in the center and Fidel's younger sister Juanita, the one who defected to Miami in 1964, on the right. But it is Lidia who makes this photo so pertinent. She was Fidel's beloved half-sister. This 1940 photo was taken in Santiago de Cuba at Lidia's home, which the teenage Fidel made it a point to visit often. He worshiped Lidia. From 1953 till 1956 he wrote sweet letters to her, seeking and receiving her "necessary approval and understanding" for the revolutionary life that was by then absorbing him. It is my opinion that Lidia is the only person on the planet that could have talked Fidel out of waging war against the Batista dictatorship, and she chose not to do so. Lidia was Angel Castro's daughter by his first wife Maria Argota. Angel didn't officially marry Fidel's mother Lina until after their third child, Fidel, was born. Because of Angel's extreme wealth and his contract with the infamous U. S. company United Fruit, Fidel was never close to his father Angel, who died in 1956. But his love and admiration for Lidia was both worshipful and historical. She died at age 77 in 1991, meaning she was 26 when the above photo was taken in 1940. 

       This is the 14-year-old Fidel on that 1940 visit to Lidia Castro Argota's home in Santiago de Cuba. It is believed that his beloved half-sister, Lidia, took this photo herself. She was the biggest influence in Fidel's formative teenage years. Later, when he was Cuba's Athlete of the Year he gave his trophy to Lidia; and later, when he declared war against the Batista dictatorship in July of 1953 it was Lidia whose "necessary approval and understanding" he sought and needed. Lidia's influence on Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba was huge. Her husband, Dr. Narciso Montero, died of Hodgkin's Disease in 1945. Fidel was a big eater and Lidia often fixed his favorite dish -- eggs, fruit and gelatin. 

        This photo shows the Castro brothers. Now at age 85 Raul is Cuba's President. Fidel at 90 and Ramon at 91 both died in 2016. Ramon supported his brothers but was more interested in farming than politics.

      Of Fidel Castro's six siblings, only Juanita defected to South Florida and denounced the revolution but to this day her reasonings are clouded and debatable. The photo above shows Juanita at the front of an anti-Fidel march in New York City in 1979 to protest Fidel's appearance at the United Nations. But the Miami-New York circles that she defected to included revengeful CIA-backed Cubans fiercely anti-Castro. Note the expression on Juanita's face and how tightly her arms are being gripped by two stern individuals.

After defecting to Miami, this is Juanita in 1969. 

       This photo shows Juanita with Fidel in 1959 shortly after his victorious Cuban Revolution had made him an international sensation for overthrowing the U.S. and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship. In 1963 Juanita and her six siblings attended the funeral of their mother Lina. It was 1964 that Juanita defected to South Florida where she has remained to this day but, at age 83, she admits she has never been fully accepted by Castro hardliners. According to the New York Times, one reason Juanita left Cuba in 1964 was because, at a bowling alley, pro-Fidel Cubans berated her for smoking Chesterfields, a popular U.S. cigarette. But she has acknowledged working for the CIA against Fidel in both Cuba and the U. S.

     On November 28th, 2016, Frances Robles interviewed Juanita for the New York Times in Coral Gables three days after Fidel had died at age 90 in Havana. The hour-plus interview is available on YouTube and in it she was much harsher against Donald Trump than Fidel. She said she had called her sister Enma in Mexico to discuss Fidel's passing and that she got "no joy" related to his death. She also expressed bitter disdain about the wild street celebrations in Miami that broke out as soon as Fidel's death, which occurred late at night on Nov. 28-2016, was announced. She told Ms. Robles, "That reaction hurts." 

       For years Juanita operated a very successful Drug Store in Miami-Coral Gables. She opened her pharmacy, called "Mini Price," in 1973 and sold it for a huge profit in 2006 to the pharmaceutical giant CVS. To abide in the Miami area, she had to denounce Fidel and his revolution to the highest degree, but reports abound that her defection was more about economics than politics. In Cuba, it is known that Fidel loved but only modestly took care of his closest relatives and that included his only daughter Alina who defected to Miami and got rich as an anti-Fidel writer, broadcaster and orator. Fidel's 8 sons and all of his six siblings and ten children except sister Juanita and daughter Alina remained loyal to him. Fidel also had six half-siblings: Lidia, Pedro Emilio, Manuel, Antonia, Georgina and the little-known Martin.

       Juanita Castro wrote a book -- "Fidel & Raul: My Brothers" -- but her hour-plus video interview with Frances Robles on Nov. 28-2016 was much more revealing and up-to-date about how she truly rationalizes her brothers, the revolution, and living since 1964 on the outskirts of one of her brothers' richest, most indelible, and most controversial creations -- the anti-Castro bastion know as Little Havana in Miami.

        Juanita Castro back in November did not return to Cuba to participate in the funeral ceremonies surrounding the death of her older brother Fidel nor was she in Cuba this week after the passing of her younger sister Augustina. But perhaps as much as anyone else, Juanita epitomizes the everlasting pros and cons of Fidel Castro and his famed Cuban Revolution, especially how those two historic and topical entities so drastically changed and still deeply affect the world's superpower, the United States. While Fidel's daughter Alina apparently defected to Miami for financial reasons, it seems Juanita's defection to Miami was two-fold -- financial and political, both of which apparently reflect her secretive CIA ties.

     This AFP/Getty Images photo was taken in 2003 at the tomb of Castro matriarch Lina Ruz in Biran, Holguin in southeast Cuba. The three visitors this particular day were her son Ramon and her daughters Augustina and Enma. Ramon died at age 91 in 2016; Augustina died at age 71 in March-2017; and Emma at age 82 still lives in Mexico and flew to Havana this week to attend funeral services for Augustina.

      This photo shows Lina Ruz and Angel Castro. Before they married, she was a maid and he was a rich rancher who owned or controlled about 34,000 acres of prime Cuban land. Lina and Angel had 7 children together -- Ramon, Fidel, Raul, Juanita, Angela, Augustina, and Enma. Angel had been married previously and the Lina-Angel siblings had at least six half-siblings: Lidia, Pedro Emilio, Manuel, Antonia, Georgina, and the lesser known Martin. Angel Castro's wife prior to marrying Lina Ruz was Maria Luisa Argota.

       Angel Castro was so rich that he had his own railroad outside Biran in Oriente Province to take his products to market. As shown above, on Sundays Angel often took his children...his hijos...for joy rides.

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