How easy it seems for the monsters running Cuba to impose a death sentence with no verdict named; all they have to do is ignore humanity, and mock God.  

Dania Virgen Garcia reports on Cubanet that Leonardo Brindis, age 22, died after being denied medical treatment by prison doctors.  He had been on a hunger strike for five days at the time of his death.

The story is here, in Spanish.

This New Year's Day marks fifty-three years of Castro's iron fisted rule in Cuba. Fifty-three years of repression and misery for the Cuban people, a reality usually ignored by the press and so-called Cuba experts.  However, occasionally the truth slips through the wall of propaganda.

Good friend Roland Alum, a political anthropologist, wrote this timely article on poverty in Cuba, and wonders never cease, the Jersey Journal published it.

CUBA’S CULTURE OF POVERTY PERSISTS
By Roland A. Alum
SPECIAL TO THE JERSEY JOURNAL

The Fidel-&-Raul Castro regime marks 53 years this Jan. 1. The brothers unquestionably enjoyed extraordinary popularity in 1959, but the enthusiasm soon vanished as they turned Cuba into a financially and spiritually bankrupt Marxist anti-utopia. As a result, nearly two million Cubans of all social backgrounds have fled, many of them settling in Hudson County.

By the 1950s, Cuba was a regional leader in numerous social indicators, notwithstanding instability and corruption during the republican era (1902-58). But since 1959 the island-nation has become a backward, closed society beleaguered by unproductivity and rationing.

Sociologist Tomas Masaryk noted that "dictators 'look good' until the last minutes"; in Cuba's case, it seems particularly fine to certain U.S. intellectuals. Comfortably from abroad, apologists contend that most of the socioeconomic problems that traditionally afflicted the prior five and a half decades were eliminated after 1959. Yet, fact-finding by international social-scientists challenges this fantasy.

An early, little-known account uncovering some effects of the Castros' regimentation came from research in Cuba in 1969-70 by U.S. cultural-anthropologists Oscar Lewis and Douglas Butterworth. They intended to test Lewis' theory that a culture of poverty would not exist in a Marxist-oriented society. They had naively presupposed that the socially alienating conditions that engender such phenomena could develop among the poor solely under capitalism.

The Lewis-Butterworth early on-the-ground scrutiny validates many accounts by respected experts and the much vilified exiles. There exists a culture of poverty in Cuba, although it is not necessarily a survivor of the old times, but seemingly a by-product of the Castros' totalitarian socialism. There were always poor Cubans, and some version of the culture of poverty might have existed before; but in my communications with Butterworth, he reconfirmed another discovery. The researchers could not document a case for a pervasive pre-1959 culture of poverty. The authorities must have suspected the prospective conclusions because the scholars were abruptly expelled and their Cuban statistician imprisoned.

Upon the 53rd anniversary, the old Lewis-Butterworth analysis invites renewed reflection. Apologists customarily replicate propagandistic clichés by blaming failures on external factors, such as the ending, two decades ago, of the multibillion-dollar subsidies from the defunct Soviet Bloc.

The anthropologists' undertaking, however, revealed that life for average Cubans in the Castros' first decade was already beset with corruption and time-wasting food lines. Likewise, Butterworth described how ordinary people were engaging in what socio-behavioral scientists now call "everyday forms of resistance." Cubans were already undermining the police-state through black-marketeering, pilfering and vandalism, as we hear that they continue to do decades later.

After more than half a century of oppression and poor quality of life, one hopes for a transition to an open society with equal opportunities for every Cuban.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The author, a long-time Hudsonite, is a political-anthropologist affiliated with Icod Associates of New Jersey. Email him at rolandnj@yahoo.com.

I encourage our Babalu family to follow the link to the Jersey Journal and leave a comment; share your experience, and let them know you appreciate reading an honest story about Cuba.

Gracias Roland.

Feliz Año Nuevo all, may this be the year we've been waiting for, may this be the year the long nightmare ends.

So far this isn't part of the tourist tour in Cuba, but at the rate violent repression is increasing who knows, perhaps those seeking "Forbidden Fruit" in Cuba will someday share the very real Cuban experience of having your head cracked open by one of Castro's mobs.

Photo captured from video posted below at the 2:23 mark:

Here's the video, Agredido por una turba el 2 de diciembre, (Attacked by a crowd December 2) in Spanish, from Hablamos Press.

Gorki Aguila Carrasco, Yoani Sanchez, and others on Twitter and Facebook report that popular Porno Para Ricardo guitarist Ciro Diaz has been arrested in Cuba.

I will forever hold in my heart the image of Laura Pollán, dressed in white, carrying gladiolus, leading the column of  Las Damas de Blanco. How many of us waited every Sunday for news of their weekly act of brave resistance, their peaceful, dignified walk down Havana’s 5th Avenue, as we prayed for their safety, the release of their husbands and all political prisoners, and inspired by their bravery and dignity, dared to hope for more, so much more for Cuba.

Laura Pollán´s dissidence is reminiscent of China's Tank Man.  She dared to stand down the might of an oppressive state, and sadly has suffered the same fate as that unknown rebel, but with one significant difference; unlike China’s invisible rebel, Laura Pollán is not going to disappear. Just as the weak and cowardly Castro dictators were rendered helpless to stop Laura from marching in life, her cause, Libertad, Libertad, Libertad, will prevail. They will be unable to stop Cuba’s inevitable passage out of bondage to freedom.

In the days ahead the Cuban diaspora and friends will be holding memorial tributes for Laura Pollán; we will wear white, carry gladiolus, and in her honor, we will raise our fists in solidarity with Las Damas de Blanco and all of Cuba’s dissidents.   They will continue their fight for freedom with her name added to the list of heroes and martyrs who inspire them and whose legacy they carry.  We will continue to support, as the MSM reminds us, those “tiny” number of dissidents.  The same tiny dissident movement always present during the 52 years of the Castro dictatorship, the same tiny dissident movement that Castro’s firing squads, concentration camps, forced re-locations, exile, actos de repudios, the 200 plus prisons—a gulag, has not silenced.  May God Bless and keep always, Laura Pollán.

Not much is uglier than people vacationing in a Potemkin village while ignoring  human rights atrocities  right under their noses.   However, I think Congressmen Jeff Flake and Charles Rangel naming a bill allowing  just that the "Export Freedom to Cuba Act," is an affront to all those in Cuba struggling for freedom.  Ugly Americans indeed.

From The Hill: 

Inspired by Cuba's pro-democracy leaders

 

By Mauricio Claver-Carone,a director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC and founding editor of CapitolHillCubans.com in Washington, D.C - 10/12/11 01:01 PM ET

 What could be more pompous (and insulting) than the argument that American and foreign tourists can "inspire" the Cuban people to seek democracy? Not much.

Well, on second thought, maybe Republican Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel of New York calling their bill to sweep away all remaining restrictions on American travel to Cuba, the "Export Freedom to Cuba Act."

Or, the Obama Administration, which rejects American exceptionalism everywhere else in the world, arguing that American travelers (that have been carefully screened for entry by the Castro regime) are our best "Ambassadors of Freedom" to the Cuban people.

 Their argument is that Cubans, upon seeing spring breakers and tourists enjoying luxury "people-to-people" tours and Cuban-American "mules" peddling flat-screen TV's, will suddenly realize what they're missing under the Castros' totalitarian dictatorship, as if Cubans don't already know what's missing, and life under a brutal regime was their voluntary choice.

The argument further holds that American travelers are different from the throngs of Canadian snowbirds and the European sex tourists visiting the island for the last two decades, frequently degrading the Cuban people while bankrolling the repressive regime.

American travelers, in other words, will be "truly inspirational."

Americans are undoubtedly the kindest, noblest and most charitable people in the world. But it's extraordinarily arrogant to argue that any foreign tourist is needed to inspire or empower the Cuban people, when some of the most courageous and inspirational people in this world are living in Cuba.

Meet Ivonne Mayeza Galano.

Last month, this amazing woman stood alone on the steps of the Capitol building in Havana. Knowing the brutality of the repression that awaited her, she nonetheless, peacefully held up a sign reading:

"Cambios en Cuba Sin Dictadura" ("Change in Cuba Without Dictatorship")

She was promptly arrested, stripped naked, searched and violently interrogated.

Two weeks later, four other women, Sara Marta Fonseca, Mercedes García Álvarez, Tania Maldonado Sánchez and Odalys Zurma González, continued her protest. Predictably, they too were arrested, but this time it took Castro's security forces 40-minutes to drag them away, as a gathering crowd of bystanders began to heckle the oppressors.

Or how about Iris Perez Aguilera?

This Afro-Cuban pro-democracy leader is the founder of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights. She undertakes weekly protests and sit-ins. As a result of these, Castro's secret police, on numerous occasions, has abused and brutally beaten her -- to the point of hospitalization.

Or how about Iris's husband, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez?"

Antunez, often referred to as Cuba's Nelson Mandela, spent 17-years as a political prisoner for protesting in the public square of his hometown. Today, still a young 46-years old, he is the leader of Cuba's civil disobedience movement.

Or how about Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet?

A charismatic physician, he spent nearly 11-years in political prison for his democratic advocacy as head of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights. At a recent concert, U2's Bono honored Dr. Biscet as a true inspiration.

Or Marcelino Abreu, who has spent over 100 days on a hunger strike, protesting his unjust four-year prison-sentence. His crime was refusing to show a police officer identification after walking nearby the Castro regime's tourist-only Hotel Nacional. Abreu still holds that Cubans should be free to walk on the public streets and enter the public buildings of their homeland. Cuban authorities disagree.

Or the young rappers and rockers that defy the Cuban dictatorship through their lyrics and whose concerts and music festivals are under constant siege by the "Ministry of Culture" backed by the regime's armed police.

Or the bloggers and social media activists who brave the Castros' censors to inform the world of the harsh brutality and injustices the Cuban people face.

How can foreign travelers —ignorant of life under tyranny and repression– represent democratic ideals better than these icons who have spent years in political prison, and brave daily violence and beatings, to express their democratic aspirations and promote change in Cuba?

Let those of us who live in the United States stop insulting courageous pro-democracy leaders in Cuba with talk of "inspiring" them. The Cuban people don't need to be "inspired" by people abroad. They need our unwavering support for their struggle and for tangible pressure against the dictatorship that represses them.

Week after week the Las Damas de Blanco, the Ladies in White peacefully march in Cuba, and week after week, the criminal Castro dictatorship sends violent state sponsored mobs to terrorize them.  With impunity the Castro dictatorship is beating innocent women on the streets of Cuba.  Berta Antunez provided graphic, heartbreaking details of how the Castro's torture and terrorize women in Cuba before the recent NGO Summit in New York. Watch the video of her presentation here.

As Marc writes, we are watching, but we need to do more, we need to demand of our politicians and those in office throughout the free world do whatever is necessary to stop this murderous dictator from committing any more atrocities.  Mubarek had to go after  30 years in power.  The Castro's have been in power for 52 years!  Now is the time for change in Cuba.

Castro dictatorship again attacks Cuba Ladies In White

As promised by one of its mouthpieces, the Castro regime on Saturday physically attacked one of Cuba's most effective opposition groups by unleashing its goons to besiege the Damas De Blanco ("Ladies In White").

About 200 police officers and other thugs surrounded the Havana home of Laura Pollan, where about 30 Damas, including many from other parts of the country, had gathered before a planned march to a church to honor Our Lady of Charity on her feast day.

The goons, who apparently were brought in from outside the neighborhood, shouted insults, threats, etc. designed to intimidate the Damas, according to the Associated Press.

But there was more to the story.

Several of the Damas, including Pollan, were beaten by State Security officers when they tried to start their march, according to Pollan.

For more on today's events, which may signal a new wave of repression in Cuba, follow the Damas on Twitter @DamasDBlanco.

Berta Antunez, Women's rights activist in Cuba speaks at the Global Summit against Discrimination and Persecution. 

Powerful testimony on the horrors of Castro's Gulag.

En espanol here.

In Cuba, for those in need of home repairs, there is nothing, and you can go to prison for attempting to illegally acquire building materials. So much for the "revolution" providing.

Meet Jesús Expósito Zayas, a working man living in a ruin, he communicates the following from Princelades de Cuba. (My flawed translation)

“I was born here and live here with my nephews Enrique and Ernesto Zayas, this house is everything ruined and I do not have a way to fix it. When it rains it gets wet, more inside than outside, the ceiling falls on us at any time, when it rains the district is flooded and the water enters the house and this dirty water is accumulated in all the corners and thus the floor is ruined and there is not one that takes care to improve this situation and for that reason we live like animals.”

“I have written to all the places and have sent photos of the water in the house with mud up to the beds and nothing; no one has come and neither has anyone taken care of this. Not the CDR, and not the government who solves nothing. The materials to fix this are lost and when they appear they are expensive and so I work gathering sweepings in a truck and when encounter some, I gather zinc to cover some hollow of the ceiling or the walls. The bath is worse, it does not have running water to bathe, nor for emptying the toilet.  We must load it from far so we are  able to cook and take. Our situation is terrible and this government does not help us,  but the presidents of the CDR if they live as kings it is not because they work the more, because as I said I am a working man, I fight to live and nothing serves to me.”

Media complicity with the brutal Castro dictatorship is why we are bombarded with articles promoting Tourism to Cuba, Healthcare in Cuba, Gay Rights in Cuba, et al, while members of the "Ladies in White" and other peaceful dissidents are attacked and beaten in broad daylight, under the watchful eyes of A.P., CNN, and other  MSM outlets.  They enjoy their Havana desk perks in exchange for ignoring the brutality that surrounds them. Instead of their pundits at least expressing hope for a "Cuban Spring" for the long suffering Cuban people, they spew out endless dictator approved propaganda. Why??? Are Egyptians, and Libyans somehow more deserving of freedom and human rights than Cubans?  More likely, they share the dictators disdain for the people they claim to represent.  Sound familiar?

  Thank you Thor and Pedro, from the Human Rights Foundation for speaking the truth for Cuba.

More PR Shame: Associated Press Cooperates With Dictatorial Propaganda Machines

August 15, 2011

by Thor Halvorssen and Pedro Pizano

Fidel Castro just celebrated his 85th birthday. One would think that after 52 years of running a police state in Cuba, the media would accept that Castro is a brutal oppressor and tyrant. Comparable, no doubt, to any of the totalitarian despots still alive today. For example, Bashar al-Assad in Syria (41 years of dynastic tyranny) or Teodoro Mbasogo Obiang in Equatorial Guinea (31 years of bloody oppression). Yet, surprisingly, when it comes to North Korea and Cuba, one of the most trusted wire services in the world, the Associated Press (AP), cares more about business than about journalistic ethics and the truth.

Evidence of the vicious nature of these regimes, and the lack of civil liberties and political rights that their citizens are granted, are more than well documented. Barbara Demick, in her latest book, Nothing to Envy, paints a harrowing picture of the "ordinary lives of North Koreans." By tracing the lives of six defectors, Demick chronicles the effect of government propaganda and the harsh realities of survival. Human rights abuses in North Korea spread far beyond violations of freedom of expression: government-orchestrated poverty and starvation are responsible for the deaths of millions. Yet, the ruling Kim dynasty is so successful in covering up their crimes that, during the 1990s famine, many North Koreans believed government propaganda that the United States was responsible for food shortages. One woman Demick interviewed even blamed herself for the deaths of her family members. "It never occurred to her to blame the regime," Demick writes.

We had the chance to listen to Demick's stories first hand at this year's Oslo Freedom Forum. You can watch her speech here.

Compare this to what the AP has said about North Korea in its efforts to cater to the regime, and, consequently, its announcement that it will be the first western wire service to have a bureau there. Then read what Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post and Isaac Stone Fish of the New York Times have to say. Isn't it striking that the AP would partner with the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) without even once mentioning that it's a state-run propaganda tool? Are the AP stringers in North Korea suffering from the same brainwashing as North Korean citizens?

Now consider this recent press release from the AP commemorating Fidel Castro's birthday:

Castro is proclaimed by the AP as an "iconic" leader and a "source of inspiration for many people throughout the world." Ché Guevara is lauded as a "revolutionary hero" in the picture captions. Castro is no more "iconic" than Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, or Pinochet in historical context. However, it is highly unlikely that the AP would try to sell pictures and collections of Hitler as an "enigmatic" historical figure who is "still a source of inspiration." Castro and Ché may, indeed, be a source of inspiration for ignoramuses, washed-up ideologues, tendentious institutions, or people who still believe that he accomplished some "good things," (much as Hitler "created jobs" or Mussolini "made the trains run on time" or Pinochet "saved Chile from communism") but it is shocking that the AP would sink this low to make a buck.

Again, the AP has partnered with an official state news agency of Cuba, Prensa Latina, without offering any caveats. As Tom Blumer quipped recently on BizzyBlog, "the guess here is that the AP would have more of a problem cooperating with anything or anybody associated with Fox News than it does in cooperating with the island nation's equivalent of the old Soviet Union's Tass."

Please consider, dear reader, that in Cuba, ordinary citizens cannot invite their friends over, or hold any kind of meeting, for fear of being accused of subversion. Cubans cannot even host something as innocuous as a book club. Few of them even own books—leading to the creation of underground "independent" libraries whose operators risk prosecution and prison for such subversive acts as owning a copy of a banned novel or history book.

There is no freedom of speech; internet access is severely restricted; there is no freedom of press in Cuba; property rights do not exist (your stuff isn't yours—it can be confiscated at the whim of the regime); Cubans have one currency while party leaders and tourists have another; you aren't allowed to switch jobs without government permission (and the government is the dominant employer); and most jarring, you are forbidden to leave Cuba without the government's written permission. Even the ignorant executive or venal cog in the AP machine should draw the line between the free and unfree world where you cannot vote with your feet and leave. Those who try to leave Cuba often end up drowning or eaten by sharks after days on a raft in the ocean.

Is any of this undeniable reality of life under Castro mentioned in a single caption of the thousands of photographs offered by the AP? Not once. Castro, they repeat, is a "revolutionary hero."

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are offered by the AP as sources of inspiration. Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao, all cold-blooded killers, are also inspirations. But for whom? A new generation of psychopaths and dictators? For shame.

Thor Halvorssen is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and founder and CEO of the Oslo Freedom Forum. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

Pedro Pizano is the global media liaison for the Oslo Freedom Forum and the Public Advocacy Coordinator for Human Rights Foundation . Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

This is how peaceful dissidents are treated in Cuba, and these images are of victims who got away with minor injuries.
From Net for Cuba, in Spanish,  victims of Castro's recent violent repression.

Testimony of Rafael Lincoln Diaz Balart, Fidel Castro's former brother-in-law, before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on the Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean.

Excerpts from the May 3, 1960 hearing, keep in mind that Mr. Diaz Balart answered the questions in English. 

The Batista and Castro dictatorships: 

Senator KEATING. Now, let me ask you this. Do you consider the Castro dictatorship worse than the Batista dictatorship ?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. It is very different. The Batista dictatorship was only a political dictatorship. The Castro dictatorship can only be compared in America, I think, to Peron, and even much worse than Peron, because the Castro dictatorship is a complete and a, total dictatorship. I think that is the first real example of absolute and complete totalitarian government in the American Hemisphere. And, besides that, and above all, is the first real Communist state in our hemisphere.

Senator KEATING. You consider it a Communist state?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Absolutely. I don't think there is any doubt in this moment in the minds of any that is a student of the Communist tactics and the Communist struggle. The point is that, as I have told several times -- for instance, when they asked me is Castro a Communist, I remember a professor that I had in the law school, that always taught also when you are going to talk about a very important matter you should start sharpening the terminology, and it is important when somebody asks if Castro or is anybody a Communist, it is important to know what do they mean by Communist.

Now, Castro is not a card holder of the Communist Party in Cuba, never has been. But, at the same time, the card holder of the Socialistic Party, or the Communist Party in Cuba, maybe a lot of them are less dangerous and less important members of the Communist machinery.

What happens is that Castro is a member of the Third International, which they don't, have a card never.

I want to affirm, with all my faith and all my knowledge, that Fidel Castro is the most important and most dangerous member in the Western Hemisphere of the Communist International machinery since the Russian revolution.

On the murder of Manolo Castro:

Mr. SOURWINE. Was he tried for the murder?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. No.

Mr. SOURWINE. You said he had to go before the court. What did you mean?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. In the preliminary procedures of the court -- but he did not continue with that. He went, to Bogota at that moment.

Mr. SOURWINE. Fidel Castro went to Bogota?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes.

Mr. SOURWINE. Did the Court absolve him of the killing of Manolo Castro?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. No. I think it was not held -- the hearing was not held.

On the murder of Fernandez Caral:

Mr. SOURWINE. Did you know Fernandez Caral?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes; he was a sergeant of the police body of the Havana University.

Mr. SOURWINE. Is he still alive?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. No; he was killed by Fidel Castro.

Mr. SOURWINE. How do you know this?

Mr. Diaz BALART. Because Fidel Castro had told to all my friends after he killed Castro that he was going to have to kill Fernandez Caral, because the sergeant had told that he was going to put Fidel in jail because of the previous killing.

On Raul Castro:

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know Raul Castro?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes, sir.

Mr. SOURWINE. He is Fidel Castro's brother?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes, Sir.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know whether he is a Communist?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. He is a very well trained Communist agent.

Mr. SOURWINE. How do yon know this?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Because he went to Prague, after he had already become a member of the Communist movement, ideology -- he was trained there. When he came back, he was got by the police in the airport with Communist propaganda, and when he was released from the prison, he talked with my brother, Waldo, and he, told to him that he was in prison, but that he was ready not only to be in prison, but to die for the Communist cause.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you how Raul Castro became a Communist?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes, because Fidel Castro put him in contact with the intellectual machinery of the Communist Party, being Raul a very young man, and they indoctrinated him.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you remember telling us that Fidel Castro gave his brother Raul copies of Marx's works?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes. That was part of the indoctrination that I just told you.

Mr. SOURWINE. How do you know he did?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Because I was there, and I knew both of them.

This is just the tip of the ole iceberg of the fascinating reading on Cuban History available at Latin American Studies.

If you're in a hurry to visit Cuba while it's still a totalitarian slave state, make sure you ask your tour guide about this.

To eliminate and punish those deemed unfit for his revolution while using them for free labor, Fidel Castro presided over a closed-door meeting within the regime’s hierarchy. The resulting plan was to create a network of concentration camps to intern the thousands of "unfit." First it was named "Plan Fidel." But Castro, cunningly, wanted his name out of it. It was to be called UMAP (Military Units to Help Production).

Castro ordered that his agents - at night - go house to house to apprehend at gun point all the males that fit the profile of what he called, "the scum of society," for example: gays, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other Protestant religions.

Castro's thugs went through every city, neighborhood and city block, arresting thousands of men (17 years old and up). The arrested were taken to police stations with the excuse of checking their personal ID cards – cards that all citizens of Castro's Cuba are required to carry.

At the police station, they were thrown into overcrowded cells and later taken to secret police facilities, movie houses, stadiums, warehouses, etc. In those detention centers they were photographed, fingerprinted and forced to sign under duress a confession declaring themselves the "scum of society," in exchange for their release. The ones who signed were released until they were summoned to the dreaded concentration camps. Those who refused to sign remained in jail and endured physical and psychological torture until they did sign.

The concentration camps were built in isolated areas of the province of Camagüey. They were like Hitler's camps, but without crematoriums. They have the electrified barbed wire fences, guards with machine guns and police dogs, etc. Something never seen before in Cuba's history.

Beginning in November 1965, people already classified were summoned to the camps. They arrived by train, bus, truck and other police and military vehicles. And so began the humiliation, suffering, torture and hard labor for those thousands of unfortunate men and boys. Many committed suicide while others died as a result of hunger and disease - with no medical attention - torture and execution. Many suffered solitary confinement, beating, rape and mutilation. The traumatized survivors remember that in the UMAP, "they never received humane treatment."

In July 1968 the name "UMAP" was erased from the camps. Castro's regime cosmetically transformed them into "Military Units." And all the paperwork associated with the UMAP was destroyed. New plans were created to continue confining young men discontent with Castro's communist revolution, selecting people for the same reasons as before. But this time they would receive a pitiful salary for their long and harsh working hours while living under very difficult and inhumane conditions – Castro’s lame attempt to satisfy international pressure.

This network of concentration/hard labor camps continues today as a way to repress and intimidate people, and to obtain cheap labor. Castro’s gulag network of camps and prisons is estimated at over 200 - before 1959, Cuba had just 4 prisons.

There's more, much more about Cuba's concentration camps at Totalitarian Images -  Concentration Camps in Cuba:  The UMAP.

H/T:  Agustin

Here's more on Estela Bravo, currently on a propaganda tour peddling the regimes version of Operation Pedro Pan.  Agustin Blazquez takes a revealing look back at Ms. Bravo's long association with the bloody Castro regime.

The 2005 article is about a pro-Castro documentary shown on PBS by filmmaker Estela Bravo, a known collaborator with the Castro regime.  It's quite long, so most of it is posted below the fold.  Please read the whole truth-loaded article, as every word is a bull's-eye.  Agustin takes on the despicable character assassination of the Cuban exile community, the Cuba lobby's efforts to lift the embargo, PBS hypocrisy, and so-called Cuba "expert" Wayne Smith.  It's a primer on los pandilleros de Castro.

From Misceláneas Culturales, 'Miami - Havana' A Misguided Trip:

Dedicated to Reed Irvine

by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

The New York Times, the creator of Castro’s myth (thanks to the famous Herbert Matthews series of articles that began in February 1957) and according to the tyrant himself, “I owe my job” to that newspaper, is one of the sponsors of this pro-Castro propaganda film festival that showed on April 18, 2005, the documentary “Miami-Havana.”

While talking to a Cuban defector, I mentioned that I had seen on the local PBS station in Washington, DC the 1992 documentary “Miami-Havana” during the 1993 season.  To my surprise she said, “Oh yeah, Estela Bravo.  She is a Castro collaborator.”

Being Cuban also, and knowing the different outlook and perspective firsthand experience inside a totalitarian communist society brings, I thought that this defector – who was involved in the performing arts in Cuba – might have a point.  At the same time, that statement worried me, since our perspective as non-pro-Castro has been so harshly criticized and misunderstood by the U.S. media and so many in the U.S.

So I decided to get some information from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the Washington, DC, distributor of Estela Bravo’s documentary.

What I received from Arwen Donahue, the documentary publicist at the IPS was revealing.  It was Estela Bravo’s curriculum and an article by Andres Viglucci published by The Miami Herald on September 24, 1993, about the showing of her documentary on PBS.

Almost everything in this curriculum, and details in the article, fits the profile of what the defector implied when calling her a “collaborator.”

It’s going to be difficult to explain what the defector meant, unless you come from the inside and are acquainted with the mechanisms of a communist society.  According to my experience in the U.S., it’s very difficult for Americans to comprehend or relate to the complex daily survival routine of people trapped inside a regime like the one Castro imposed upon Cuba.  As a friend of mine still in Cuba hinted in a letter, it’s “totally surrealist.”

In my attempt to understand where this documentary came from, I found that Estela Bravo – who is an American born in New York City in 1933, has, since 1963, been dividing her time between Havana and New York.

I must explain: in the early 1960s many so-called “true believers” of the Castro revolution began arriving in a sort of pilgrimage to Cuba.  Castro gave his true believers coveted jobs, expropriated houses and apartments in exclusive areas, access to foreigner-only stores and schools for their children and other privileges not allowed to ordinary Cuban citizens (the beginning of apartheid in Cuba).

Please continue reading below the fold.

That explains Estela Bravo’s privilege of commuting between Havana and New York since 1963 in opposition to Cubans who lost that simple freedom after Castro.

I learned that Estela Bravo briefly had a folk music radio show in Cuba and that she worked for the Cuban government in a cultural institute.  Also, her Argentinean husband, Ernesto Bravo, a biochemistry professor she married in 1956 and who collaborated on all her films, was given a job in 1963 at the University of Havana as professor of medicine.

There is nothing wrong with any of this in any free and democratic society, but Castro’s Cuba is neither.  But if you are a Cuban and you know the mechanism behind all these shenanigans, you understand perfectly what the defector meant.

With the knowledge I have of the Cuban situation after Castro I ask myself, where are the sympathies of this foreign couple?  They joined the heard of true believers and went to work for Castro’s regime.  Therefore he awarded them with privileges and desirable jobs.  Never mind all the freedoms and human rights Castro castrated.

Apparently Castro became the leader of their new cult.  That’s the only way I can explain joining something like that of your own accord.  The defector’s comment seems not so far fetched after all.

Then I remembered that the defector also said that Estela Bravo is very well known in Cuba and that her documentaries are shown regularly on government controlled Cuban TV.  That means a lot, since in that heavily censored propaganda machine (the Cuban media), when something is shown regularly it means that it is beneficial to Castro’s goals.

Sorry that I have to be so blunt, but just that’s the way it is.  It’s a fact of life in Castro’s Cuba and Cubans are very much aware of it.

In Estela Bravo’s list of documentaries I see a lot of familiar far left militant themes.  She has been reviewed and recognized by the official Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma.  Comments from leftie American folk singer Pete Seeger, “Deep down is her wonderful internationalist outlook . . ..”  I must clarify that in the communist jargon “internationalist” means: a person who goes to other countries to work and fight for the advancement of the Communist cause.

She received glowing comments from Castro’s official filmmaker, the late Tomas Gutierrez Alea and official national poet, the late Nicolas Guillen.  You don’t get those kind of official accolades unless you belong to Castro’s fan club and serve his goals.

I also found good comments by leftie American writer and filmmaker Saul Landau, who because of his pro-Castro views has been referred as “an incurable Fidelista” by analyst Don Kowet.

In The Miami Herald article Estela Bravo wouldn’t discuss her specific political views or sympathies for Castro’s regime.  That also fits the profile of the true believer or collaborator.  They invariably duck the question and dive away through a tangent line.  She said, “I believe I was honest in making this documentary.”  If she is really “honest,” why does she duck this most relevant question?

“We didn’t want to be political,” she said.  However, the end result of “Miami-Havana” is a very much pro-Castro, anti-U.S., politically left-leaning documentary.

“We want to show the human cost of this terrible war.”  What war?  Unless she is referring to the war Castro declared against the Cuban people since 1959!  But somehow I doubt very much that is what she meant.  I think she meant – echoing Castro – the war that the Yankees declared on Cuba.  What war?

I must point out that the slogan featured in this documentary “Cuba Si, Yankees No!” was created by Castro for the Communist international parade on May 1, 1960, just 15 months after he took control in Cuba and three months prior to his appropriation of all American properties in Cuba.

Even prior to that, Castro had already declared his own war against the U.S. to “fulfill his destiny,” as he wrote to his secretary, the late Celia Sanchez, on June 1958.  Now we know what war.

Estela Bravo made “Miami-Havana” while, as a privileged foreigner in Cuba, she has the freedom of traveling between Havana, Miami and New York pitching Castro’s survival scheme: to lift the U.S. embargo.  That is the political message and objective of her documentary – and, conveniently, Castro’s current goal.  So it is a political documentary after all.

In this 1992 anti-U.S. embargo and pro-relations with good-old-Castro documentary, Estela Bravo also conveniently ignores the fact that Castro has been circumventing the U.S. embargo for years.  Castro has been buying through Canada, Mexico, France, Spain, Italy, Japan and other capitalist countries.

I’m sure that Estela Bravo and her husband didn’t experience the same scarcity in Cuba as the typical Cuban citizen for 46 years.  Don’t they feel any guilt about this peculiar duality?  This documentary doesn’t explain that before Castro, Cuba produced its own food for consumption and even export.  Can Estela Bravo explain what happened to pre-Castro productivity?

The problem obviously is not the U.S. embargo as Castro’s propaganda has been claiming for decades.  Estela Bravo through her “honest” documentary keeps reinforcing ad nauseam Castro’s repetitive claim to dupe American audiences yet again.

The clear political objective this documentary pursues is to appeal to the uninformed American audience at the grassroots level so they start lobbying the U.S. government for the lifting of the embargo and to allow Americans to visit Cuba as tourists and investors - just what Castro needs to continue his reign of terror.  Never mind the real feelings and desires of the oppressed little Cuban people.

Estela Bravo even asserts, speaking for over a million exiles in the U.S. alone (about 3 million world wide) that “I believe the majority of people want to normalize relations.”  Somehow I don’t think so in Estela-Fidel terms.  We want to see our loved ones living with dignity, human rights, freedom in a democratic society, but that is Castro’s anathema.

Echoing Castro’s claims, Estela Bravo’s documentary portrays the Cubans as being lured from their paradisiacal island by the bad exiles and U.S. propaganda.  That’s got to be a joke!  Estela, in your zeal, I think you went a tad too far.  In the years I have been out of Cuba in Canada, Europe or the U.S., I have never met a Cuban who was lured in the fashion this “honest” documentary implies.

All the Cubans I know have left everything and risked their lives to escape in shark-infested waters are in search of freedom (about 77,824 documented deaths trying to escape in the Florida Straits).  Those escapes and defections are symptomatic of all Communist tyrannies around the globe.  Historically, human beings can’t stand to live under so much oppression.  That is a fact of life.  Sorry Estela, humans are humans.

All throughout this “honest” documentary - selected as one of the 10 Best Documentaries of 1992 by the PBS-POV (Point Of View) series – we are “tricked or treated” with the multiple incursions of “expert” Wayne Smith (the Dean of American apologists of Castro from the IPS), espousing the message of lifting the U.S. embargo.

And we are forced to see and hear Wayne Smith, wearing his promotional t-shirt of the Pan American Games (an event Castro happily used to advance his propaganda) asserting, “If elections were held today he probably still would win.”  (“Still”?  He has never been democratically elected to anything in Cuba!)

“He probably still has the support, it may be resigned support, but the support.  Another thing is that the Cuban people see no alternatives.”  Facing such speculation from “expert” Wayne Smith, I would like to pose the question: If he is so popular, why did he announce on April 9, 1959, that there would be no elections – a time when he supposedly was at the peak of his popularity?

And, why do “the Cuban people see no alternatives”?  I think I can answer that:  Because Castro has made sure there are none.

Another characterization we have to sit through in this documentary, again from Wayne Smith’s World (now referring to pro-Castro Cubans) is, “Cubans morally are very sensible, moderate people.  You don’t have these extremes.”  And referring to Cuban exiles, “But what you have in Miami, I think, is a very extreme ultra right group who want no kind of improvement on relations between the two countries.”

Well, well, well Wayne and Estela, for your information – as if you really care – the only thing Cubans ever wanted since 1959 was a return to a democratic form of government as originally promised by Castro, with respect for law, order, freedom and human rights for all and respect for family, private property and private enterprise.  We also wanted our 1940 Constitution, one of the most modern and progressive in the world that Castro discarded on February 7, 1959, when his regime was just 38 days old!

Just for these simple desires, we have been chastised, vilified, accused of being reactionary and “extreme ultra right.”  I guess the majority of Americans can be classified that way, too.

Why do Estela and her husband live and work in Cuba, a country whose un-elected ruler formed an illegitimate Mafia-like government, discarding the Constitution?

I don’t think I have enough space to continue dissecting all the inaccuracies, misinformation and propaganda contained in this documentary on an issue that it so obviously misrepresents.  I don’t even think that it qualified for the PBS-POV TV series, because according to Marc Weiss, co-executive producer for POV, in the Miami Herald article, the documentaries in that series, “Are supposed to carry ‘a’ strong point of view.”

He explains that it doesn’t have to be “journalistically balanced in the traditional sense.”  However, in the same article Estela was quoted saying, “We represented all views as much as we could.”  So, how can the documentary represent “a” point of view and “all views” at the same time?  I’m lost now.

As a friend of the late Oscar winning cinematographer, filmmaker and writer, Nestor Almendros, I am familiar with his trials and tribulations in his attempt to get financing and airtime on PBS for his documentaries “Improper Conduct” and “Nobody Listened.”

The first one, while shown and praised all over the world, was aired by just a few local U.S. PBS stations but not by PBS nationally.

The second one, which also received international acclaim, was finally aired by PBS in August 1990, after a lot of hassle, in a truncated hour-long edition (contrary to what its creator intended), in tandem with a Saul Landau pro-Castro documentary.

It is very revealing that when PBS has to choose between documentaries ridden with misinformation and propaganda covering up Cuba’s tragedy (the “charismatic” Castro version) rather than those exposing the true nature of the facts, the fantasy always wins.

Even PBS’s FRONTLINE rejected “Nobody Listened” by stating, “FRONTLINE doesn’t produce anti-Communist programs.”  Apparently, PBS’s FRONTLINE is not “journalistically balanced” either.

Nestor Almendros said in 1990, that he believed, when it comes to documentaries, the taxpayer-funded network leans unashamedly toward the political left.  “The only country that resisted [showing his documentaries], the only place where was still strong pro-Castro sentiment, was the U.S.”

When Nestor Almendros tried to get “Nobody Listened” on the PBS-POV series, after a lot of back and forth games, it was rejected for one reason or another.  Marc Weis noted, “I never supposed I’d get such a strong negative response from the committee.”

In reference to the last rejection of PBS to include “Nobody Listened” because or was “to late” for POV’s upcoming season, Almendros said, “There is something very wrong somewhere when PBS, founded by American people who are the world’s greatest enemy of communism, refuses to broadcast by itself a film about Cuba’s Communist dictator.”

PBS appears to be not so finicky when dealing with documentaries of Estela Bravo’s political persuasion – even though she doesn’t want to talk about it and claims her documentary to be apolitical.

And literally finishing off “Miami-Havana,” I must not overlook the incredible ending sequence of the returning Mariel “excludables.”   Estela doesn’t even mention that one of the demands following riots in the U.S. jails where they were in detention, was that they REMAIN IN U.S. JAILS RATHER THAN BE RETURNED TO CUBA.  How conveniently forgotten!  Brava Estela Bravo!

In her myopic version she interviewed some of them on their ominous trip back to Cuba.  Cubans, very much aware of what they have to say in order to save their skins, blamed everything on the U.S. and have to express relief, finally being on the way back to their beloved Castroland.

After landing on the real promised land, they are shown being liberated from the U.S. shackles by friendly Cuban police at the airport while Estela uses on the sound track a known-to-be-Castro-official Cuban singer setting the mood.  Then the happy ex-excludables (whom Castro forced to the U.S. in 1980) are shown leaving the Combinado del Este prison east of Havana while the same happy music plays.

Then incredibly and to my astonishment, Estela showed them going inside police cars and being delivered to their individual families for a happy reunion!

As a Cuban accustomed to these kinds of displays of “humanity” from Castro’s authorities, I started laughing.

But wait a moment.  Should I be cynical or thankful?  Probably thankful; because if it had not been for the opportune presence of friendly Estela’s camera, I could not have witnessed this “realistic” staging of the facts.  Estela strikes again!  Bravo PBS-POV, certainly a transparent and honest documentary about Estela’s belief!

However, Estela has the right to make her documentary and taxpayer funded PBS and the National Endowment for The Arts have the right to sponsor the POV broadcast in 1993, and now this New York Times’ pro-Castro film festival in New York City to show it.  But being free in the U.S. I have the right to criticize this dishonest piece of pro-Castro political propaganda.

There is nothing like freedom.  One day, not far in the future, I hope, in Cuba, Cubans will enjoy freedom in spite of the efforts of collaborators like Estela Bravo.

© 2005 ABIP

Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries

COVERING CUBA, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation & COVERING CUBA 3: Elianpresented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival and the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and released on April 15, 2005, COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below and Dan Rather ’60 Minutes’ an inside view, COVERING CUBA 5: ACT OF REPUDIATION, COVERING CUBA 6, CURACAO, COVERING CUBA 7: CHE, THE OTHER SIDE OF AN ICON.

Documentaries available at: http://www.cubacollectibles.com/cuba.mv?p=108-CC4

Author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra

For previews of all my productions: www.YouTube.com/JAUMS

Press release:  Holding Iranian Human Rights Abusers Accountable: (My emphasis)

Press Statement 

Washington, DC

July 8, 2011

Today, the United States and the United Kingdom imposed visa restrictions on officials of the Government of Iran and other individuals who have participated in human rights abuses in Iran. And Canada has announced its support for increased measures against these perpetrators. Iranian officials subject to this visa ban include government ministers, military and law enforcement officers, and judiciary and prison officials.

Today’s actions are an important reminder to Iran that the international community will continue to hold accountable those officials who commit human rights abuses and suppress the democratic aspirations of fellow citizens. Until the Iranian government brings human rights abusers to justice and protects its citizens, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other partners will stand up on behalf of the Iranian people. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State 

The Castro dictatorship has brutally repressed any and all dissent for 52 years.  They murder, imprison, beat, terrorize, and exile those individuals brave enough to seek human rights for the Cuban people.  

What is the Obama administration's response to the Castro dictatorship's continuing brutality?  Licensing Corporate Jets to Cuba. 

The Los Angeles Latin American Film Festival, in collaboration with the Si Cuba Festival, presented Estela Bravo's documentary, Operation Pedro Pan: Flying Back to Cuba. Estela Bravo, a New York native, has lived and worked in Cuba since 1963.  Her work includes the documentary Fidel, a total pro-Castro whitewash seen by useful idiots on Cuba’s "tourist indoctrination tour." 

This event perfectly illustrates the one-sided nature of “Cultural Exchanges” with Cuba. There is no exchange, no sharing of American ideals of democracy and respect for Human Rights at these events, not here in the States, and certainly not in Cuba.  Celia Cruz was never allowed to return to Cuba, and you don't see Willy Chirino playing Havana.

We received the following (Edited by me, and approved by the author) from friend and Pedro Pan member Oscar B. Pichardo.  He attended two screenings of the film, and shares his review of the film, and the presenter's treatment of audience members not on board with the Castro approved version of events portrayed in the documentary. 

The film lasted about 60 minutes. It was plagued by some technical interruptions and loss of sound, to which a wag in the audience shouted,”must be the CIA.”  Make no mistake, this film in nothing like the “unfinished” documentary Bravo released 10 years ago that we have seen.  This is a top of the line production and the picture and sound are excellent.  The editing is well done and crafted out of context to support their arguments.

The film can be summarized as follows.  Part 1:  Pedro Pan was a scam perpetrated by the U. S. State Department, the CIA, and the Catholic Church.  This segment is composed mostly from footage from the “unfinished” documentary going on ad nauseam using footage and interviews from the 70s and 90s cleverly edited to support the “scam theory.” Weaving interviews with the Pedro Pan, the parents etc., a distorted picture is presented.

Much is made in the film about the Visa waivers being granted only to the minor children by the U.S. No mention is made that the reason Cuban parents petitioned for visa waivers for the kids was due to the onerous restrictions and extreme obstacles placed by the Cuban regime once a request for an exit visa was made.  In many cases, the regime would not grant exit permits to the whole family, so parents were forced to make the decision to divide the family in the hope they would eventually reunite.

In the second half, the storyline is based on the premise that all Pedro Pans must return to Cuba as a group to be healed. It opens with footage showing the five PP arriving in Cuba, as if this is their first visit back, but these quaint vignettes of interviews on the tarmac are staged; all five of the featured PP had returned to Cuba multiple times over the last 15 or so years, and some as far back as the late 1970’s.

No mention is made of the repressive policies of the Castro regime that is the direct cause of the mass exodus, which has been taking place from the island since 1959 and continues to this day.

The whole production is very crisp, well presented, slanted, and very believable… without the proper historical background the average viewer will swallow it hook, line and sinker!

The Q&A session:  Davd Ansen introduced Estela Bravo and the four Pedro Pans present. They all spoke, basically regurgitating the interviews from the film.  Bravo of course took off on the propaganda trail regarding the CIA having documents it will not declassify, false rumor of patria potestad, ran operation, Radio Swan broadcasts etc…  Then she got around to the 5 PP and how they bonded on trip to Cuba etc., a lot of the effort due to Elly who had “found’ over 2000 PP, and dedicated to her dream of taking PP back…

Finally, they got to audience questions.  Frank Varela introduced himself self as a Pedro Pan and said,  “Although I had some shared experiences, such as the anxiety of not knowing if I would ever see my parents again, I feel that all the Pedro Pan parents were heroes, preferring to send their children away to live in freedom instead of growing up in a communist dictatorship, and whatever hardships the Pedro Pans and their parents had to endure at the beginning was a small price to pay compared to the misery the millions of Cubans left behind in the island had to suffer.”  At that point, Estela Bravo cut him off and told him it was her film and he should do one and tell his own story.  This seems to be her polished standard answer when face with questions or facts she does not wish to address.

The next question was from an older gentleman who asked for a comparison between the 10 thousand Jewish children spirited out of Europe from the Nazis (Kindertransport) and similarities with Pedro Pan.  This seemed to throw Bravo of her game she appeared flustered and babbled something about the Jewish kids not allowed into the U.S., and brought up Eleanor arguing with Franklin, and how the Pedro Pan kids were allowed into the U.S.  It appears our erstwhile documentarian has her history confused as Kindertransport was strictly a European Endeavour and none of the children was sent to the U.S. during the war.

The last question came from a lady who I believe said she was not a PP but had been on, or left the island during the same time and remembered the pecera and having to walk through a gauntlet of milicianos with rifles and machine guns and asked if anyone would comment on that.  Bravo cut the question off saying that had been addressed in the film which if it was I must have missed that segment.

Finally, David Ansen gave the floor back to Bravo and she closed the session with a propaganda diatribe on eliminating the embargo, and changing travel policy so everyone could go to Cuba…

Observation: The Castro propaganda machine is doing an excellent job of promoting these “cultural exchanges” and using them to promote their political agenda.  Bravo is a formidable and valuable asset to the Cuban propaganda venture and not to be taken lightly.

Next:  June 27, a group of Southern California Pedro Pans attended a screening of the documentary at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, where during the Q&A, their attempts to address the omissions of the Castro's role in the the Pedro Pan story were rudely dismissed.  According to Mr. Pichardo, she was very patronizing, and in a dismissive manner, she cavalierly challenged them to make their own film.

This is their response:

Dear Pedro Pan Brothers and Sisters:                 

Recently there has been considerable local publicity regarding a “Cultural Exchange” in the Los Angeles area featuring exhibitions at area museums by Cuban artists and musical performances. The “Cultural Exchange” is publicized as an apolitical “West Coast Celebration of Cuban Arts & Culture” by the sponsoring organization ¡Sí CubaSocal!  Nothing could be further from the truth.

 Among the commonly cited reasons for having these “cultural exchanges” is to promote a better understanding between the local Southern California and Cuban communities, and that politics has no place in the arts.  A noble and admirable goal not supported by the facts.

 One of the featured “artists” is filmmaker Estela Bravo. Ms. Bravo, who resides in Havana, has a long history of churning out pro-Castro government sponsored propaganda – including her personal tribute to the tyrant, Fidel. Her contribution to this travesty is the film “Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba,” which presents a pro-Castro distorted view of the exodus of over 14, 000 Cuban children sent to the U. S. by their parents to escape the terror of the Castro communist regime.

 On June 27, 2011, a group of Cuban Kids from the 60’s Exodus - Pedro Pan of California friends attended the screening of Bravo’s pseudo documentary Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, California.

During the post screening Q&A session the filmmaker refused to address valid comments and questions regarding the inadequacy of the film dealing with the actions of the Castro government which provoked the exodus of the Cuban children.

 While asserting in a very patronizing and dismissive manner that it was her film and she could do what she wanted she cavalierly challenged us to make our own film.

 This is our film. We are Pedro Pan by the grace of God and our parents. We can do anything!

"The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly."  - Adolph Hitler 

Fidel Castro, a practiced student of der Führer, learned that lesson well. With Obama's relaxation of Cuba restrictions, the regimes agents of influence wasted no time in bringing their planned grand Castro propaganda show to the U.S. audience.  The shows, given the cover of legitimacy by respected cultural institutions such as Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, dutifully enhanced by glowing write ups in the New York Times, promoted by the Hollywood establishment, well, what a fait accompli for the dictatorship!  The American masses, unindoctrinated no longer as they view carefully chosen photos depicting life in Cuba before and after the revolution,  thrill to the beat of Cuban music and dance. Yes Cuba!

From the LA Times:  "For the final performance of its first North American tour since 2003, Ballet Nacional de Cuba danced a thrilling, go-for-broke “Don Quixote” on Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion."   The reviewer goes on to describe the performances as  incandescent, sparkling, and unforgettable.  What drivel.

This Machiavellian tour is brought to our shores by the Si Cuba Festival, partnered with the following organizations: (Please, follow the links and check out their board members)

  Los Angeles: 
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Fowler Museum at UCLA
The Getty
The Int'l Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 and SPARC
LA Phil
Los Angeles Film Festival
Museum of Latin American Art
Music Center
Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Missing  from the Si Cuba Festival's display of everything Cuban  from traditional Son to the delights of Cuban Cuisine (at $75 per person in the Getty Center's private dining room), is the simultaneous hunger, terror, and repression inflicted on non-elite Cubans back home on the island.

Who's behind this disgusting deceitful collaboration with the dictatorship? Among others, a well-known suspected Castro agent of influence.  

Julia Sweig is an Honoray Committee member of Sí Cuba Festival; a "go to Cuba Expert" and member of the "non-partisan" Council for Foreign Relations.   The Castro's can surely count on their good friend Julia to promote the interests of the Castro dictatorship. 

Here is a list of her fellow Honoray Committee members, also from Sí Cuba Festival's website. Note however, that this list is from the Si Cuba's New York Festival page and unavailable on the SoCal page, an interesting omission.

Jody Gottfried Arnhold
Chair, Board of Trustees, Ballet Hispanico

Margaret C. Ayers
President, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation

Beth Rudin DeWoody
President, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation

Howard Farber
Founder, Fundación Cuba Avant-Garde

Damian Fernandez
Provost & Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Political Science, SUNY-Purchase

Mauricio Font
Director, Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies, City University of New York

Allen Greenberg
Director, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, Inc.

Dr. Ramiro Guerra
Director, Danza Contemporanea de Cuba

The Trustees of the Harkness Foundation for Dance

Stephen Heintz
President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Tania Leon
Composer, Conductor, Distinguished Professor, CUNY

Lourdes Lopez
Co-founder and Director, Morphoses

William H. Luers
Ambassador

Richard Lukins
Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, The Joyce Theater

Alberto Magnan
Co-Owner, Magnan Metz Gallery

Ben Rodriguez-Cubeñas
Chair, Cuban Artists Fund & Program Director, Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Alex Rosenberg
American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba

Carole Rosenberg
President, American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba

Jane Gregory Rubin
Secretary, The Reed Foundation

Donald Rubin
Co-Chair, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and Co-Chair, Board of Trustees, The Rubin Museum of Art

Julia Sweig
Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Luis A. Ubiñas

Who cares?  Not the MSM bent on promoting their favorite revolutionary hero, and keeping their desks in Havana... the devastation of the Cuban people be damned.

I’ve been debating with myself for weeks whether or not to pay the bucks and attend this event.  Part of me felt I should, in order to offer an honest review.  I hate when people review things they haven’t watched, read, etc.,  but I also have a personal policy to do my best not to spend money on anything; events, music, books, whatever, that in anyway benefits Castro Inc.  So, I’ve been debating, and this evening I decided to check out the Getty PR for the event.  (Don’t know why that took me so long)  Anyway, I’m not going, and I won’t be reviewing the event.  IMO this exhibition is just part of the promote Castro tour currently enjoying US comforts financed by Cuban blood.  The Cuban National  Ballet  is also on tour; does anyone really want to see a 91 year old "ballerina" pimping for an 85 year old mass-murdering dictator?

 The Getty Website has several corresponding events listed in conjunction with this exhibition, one of which is the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club® featuring Omara Portuondo at the Hollywood Bowl.   

In my humble intransigent opinion,  I think that’s all we need to know about who and what is behind this "Cultural Event."

Posted below is a letter sent to The Orange County Register by Delia Abascal in repsonse to their interview with Alicia Alonso-Carta.  I received it from Abel Perez, Editor and Publisher of the 20 de Mayo Periodico. 

 June 13, 2011

 Mr. Paul Hodgins

Orange County Register

  

Dear Mr. Hodgins:

 

After reading  your article on Alicia Alonso and seeing her comments on Fidel Castro, I want to emphasize that opinions and facts are two different matters. She said  that Castro helped her, that he was a blessing. She refused to make political comments or answer your questions on Castro.

 

Castro has destroyed  the Arts in Cuba, all the  branches of the arts world in Cuba, that is a proven fact!  Alicia Alonso should be embarrassed for the help that Castro has given her. She should be embarrassed and ashamed knowing that Castro and his bunch of criminals have destroyed the Cuban Arts, in all aspects.  Please, ask her why they helped her only and he did not allow the rest of the Cuban artists to perform their art in Cuba? Why so many Cuban artists had to escape from Cuba because they were persecuted by the Castro's criminal regime? I can name hundreds of Cuban dancing artists that are performing  and living around the world because they can not perform and live in Cuba. 

 

How wrong Alicia Alonso is! It is not a fact to say that Castro is a blessing, It is absurd and an immorality to say that! Castro destroyed the private enterprise in Cuba. We had several dancing schools in Cuba and he closed them all, closed movie theaters, nightclubs, radio stations, playhouses. Castro does not allow to play  some musical instruments that were created years ago because according to him these instruments are symbols of capitalist countries. Castro does not allow the Cuban population  to listen to  American music; he banned songs from Cuban singers that had to leave the country because of his persecution. Among these singers are Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot, Gloria Estefan, Willy Chirino, Lucrecia, Olga and  Tony, Fernando Albuerne, the list is too long to fit here.

 

There is  "the so called" Cultural Exchange Program that should allow Cuban artists to come here to perform and Cuban born artists in here to perform in Cuba. Well, the reality, another fact, is that Cuban artists who live in Cuba and that are selected and approved by the communist dictatorship can come over here but the Cuban born artists, who live in here are not allowed by the Cuban dictatorship to go to Cuba to perform there. What Alicia Alonso has to say about that? Ask her. Alicia Alonso knows that what ever profit comes from her performance here, has to be divided with Castro. Castro will pay very little to the artists and he will keep the majority of the profit for him like he does with all other professionals that he send from Cuba to work in other countries, What Castro is doing with these Cuban artists is another criminal act, the act of SLAVERY!  In the case of Alicia Alonso, she wanted to be an slave and has helped the Cuban dictator to continue the killing of innocent men, woman and children in Cuba. What Alicia Alonso has to said about that? Ask her!

.

In here, I am only referring to the performing arts because is what I am addressing now. I am not mentioning all the Human Rights that have been violated in Cuba for over 52 years of dictatorship and that Alicia Alonso hide with her attitude. By being so grateful to Castro and ignoring all the criminal acts Castro has done and is doing to the Cuban people, she is considered another assassin,  A CASTRO'S PARTNER, an accomplice of the destruction of Cuba, an accomplice of the violation of Human Rights all over the Island, these are years of proven facts.

 

I am looking forward to see my letter in the paper so the Orange County Register readers can make a decision if they want to contribute with a bloody regime that have killed the arts in Cuba or if they will abstain from going there so they will not cooperate with the bloody Castro criminal dictatorship.

 

Thanks

Delia Abascal   

From The Americano:

I write this short introduction for I know both Ernesto Fernández Travieso, the Jesuit priest who presents what his brother Tomás Fernández Travieso witnessed as a political prisoner in Cuba when he was 18 years old. I knew their mother who protected me while worrying about her two sons. This is a tale of how Cuba arrested, tried and executed those who opposed the regime. They paid the ultimate sacrifice. We honor them by remembering.   – Guillermo I. Martínez

The story is posted in its entirety below the fold.

My brother Tommy recounts his trial in Havana on the day of the invasion of Bay of Pigs April 17, 1961 when the communist government, as retaliation, began to condemn political prisoners to the firing squad. This first group of eight was caught working in the resistance movement weeks or months before. Tapia Ruano (23), Campaneria (21), and Tomas (18) were students. My brother was the only witness in what happened that night.  Ernesto Fernández Travieso, S.J

“50? YEARS AGO

By Tomás Fernández-Travieso.

The sun was setting when we emerged from the trial. Luis Fernández-Caubí was the only lawyer that dared to defend our case. The trial took only 20 minutes; it was interrupted several times by the noise of the army tanks leaving La Cabaña fortress (site of the trials) racing towards Playa Girón (the Bay of Pigs): it was April 17, 1961.

Only those sentenced to die before the firing squads were kept in the chapel. The only one that we knew was already there was Carlos Rodríguez Cabo. The prosecutors were demanding a 30 year sentence for his partner in the struggle against Castro, Efrén Rodríguez López. Efrén would stay behind in the ward where we were jailed as they took us to be tried and when he came to say goodbye to us, very upset, he said: “Look, I hate to ask you this but I am sure you won’t be coming back here (meaning he was sure we were all destined for the firing squad). Say hello to Carlitos for me when you see him”. He could not utter another word as he embraced us crying.

Handcuffed, we crossed the drawbridge. Below, in the pit, a solitary pole stood in front of a wall of sandbags. Virgilio Campanería-Angel and I were handcuffed together. Alberto Tapia Ruano was by himself.

Upon arriving back at the prison, many cellmates greeted us in silence from the courtyard across the moat. We were taken through a galley where the guards were sleeping, until we came to the chapel (interior galley split into four cells with a central corridor).

We kept on walking along a long corridor. Four guards were escorting us. We crossed three barred gates with thick padlocks. On entering the chapel, from one of the cells, Efrén’s, strong and determined voice, greeted us: “It seems that they want to “tronar” (shoot) me too. They raised my sentence from 30 years to “paredón” (death by firing squad). Besides, Carlitos was all alone and I could not leave him like that”, added Efrén, laughing. We shared the information that we had of the landing at Playa Girón that would aid and support the anti- Castro clandestine movement. Efrén and Carlitos were from Revolutionary Rescue; Virgilio, Alberto and I were from the Revolutionary Student Directory. They put us in a cell illuminated by a fluorescent lamp with two berths without mattresses and a hole in the floor that served as the toilet.

A few moments later, they brought Lázaro Reyes Benítez and Filiberto Rodríguez Ravelo, both from Güines. Filiberto had been nick-named “the Martian” because, since being arrested and brought to La Cabaña, he insisted that he was an alien and that he was in constant contact with the Martians.

A little later on, they brought José Calderín who, along with Lázaro and Filiberto, was taken to another cell. Finally, they brought Carlos Calvo Martínez; like Virgilio and Tapita, he was 21 years old. He was charged with planting the bomb at El Encanto (Cuba’s largest and finest store). They placed him in our cell.

We were all there. A guard delivered our sentences. They changed my capital punishment to 30 years of prison “because these people cannot afford to shoot a minor”, all of them told me. I could no longer share their jokes and singing. I became the repository of their memories, their link with life. I would bear witness to their sacrifice.

Hours went by. I do not know how many, time did not exist there. We prayed the rosary, we all had rosaries.

Finally three locks rattled and boot steps resounded in the chapel. Sergeant Moreno called the first name: “Carlos Rodríguez Cabo “.” Present “, he shouted firmly. Two guards with rifles escorted him up to the door of our cell. We embrace each other across the bars. He entrusted his daughter to me, he was leaving her his ring which he gave me as he said: “Courage, good luck to you”.

In a few minutes, the sound of the FAL rifles filled the chapel, followed by a single pistol shot. “Sergeant Moreno is the one that gives the coup de grace”, they had told me.

The three locks were opened again, this time for Efrén: “Present”, he responded .He embraced me through the bars; he was leaving his lighter to his wife.

The FALs sounded close by, followed by the single “coup de grace”.

Virgilio was third. In our last hug he said to me: “Tommy, I am going to shout a Viva Cristo Rey, Viva Cuba Libre and Viva el Directorio that are going to rattle their cojones. Alberto (Tapita) clung to me: “I hope that I am next “. We embrace as we listen to Virgilio fulfilling his promise, the FALs sounded, this time there were three pistol shots.

” Alberto Tapia Ruano “, Dark-haired person called. ” The Virgencita heard me “, said Tapita happily. He ran out quickly.

Carlos Calvo and I were left alone in our cell.

“Do you think that Tapita counted Virgilio’s coup de grace shots? There were three. Anyhow he is going to see him on the ground; there is no time to remove the bodies in between executions … “he said.

The fourth was Filiberto, who, admitting his prank, confessed to me: “Not even the Martians can save me from the thunder (paredón) now “. He left singing the National Anthem. They gave him two coup de grace shots.

” Lázaro Reyes Benítez “.” Present “. He hugged me and was gone. “José Calderín”: “Present”. The penultimate hug and he went out.

Carlitos Calvo was the last one. I already knew all there was to know about him. Before they opened the cell, he asked me: “Count my last shots so you can tell me up there”.

They were eight in La Cabaña, 50 years ago.

TOMÁS FERNÁNDEZ-TRAVIESO, ex-member of the anti-communist Students Revolutionary Directory, was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the Castro regime. When his play “Prometheus Unchained” was smuggled out of prison and published in Miami, his sentence was increased. He served 19 years. His novel “El Silencio del Ayer” (Yesterday’s Silence) was published recently. He lives in Miami.

Carlos Eire discussing his latest book, "Waiting to Die in Miami" at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, Thursday, April 21 as part of the George Washington Forum on American ideas, politics and institutions.  It's fabulous, revealing, instructive, and heartbreaking. Take tissue.

Thank you Carlos for sharing your Cuban soul, and bearing witness to Cuba's true history.

H/T: Honey