The 50th anniversary of the establishment of US sanctions by President John F. Kennedy on the Castro regime in Cuba is an excellent moment to reflect on whether they should be maintained, changed, strengthened or abolished. The argument made below in 2003 holds true today but unfortunately the trade embargo on Cuba for all practical purposes was ended in 2000. Economic sanctions remain but since 2001 there has been over $3.5 billion dollars in trade between American businesses and the Cuban dictatorship. The human rights situation on the island has not improved.
President John F. Kennedy signed a decree broadening trade restrictions with Cuba on February 7, 1962
There is a tragic sham that harms Americans, but it is not the trade embargo on communist Cuba. Rather, it is the cliche that "to pull down barriers," by ending trade sanctions on a ruthless communist dictatorship and provide it with subsidies would bring political reforms.
The sham seen today in China is proof that such a policy would also be a disaster in Cuba, and only serve multinational interests and Cuba's communist regime.
America normalized relations with Beijing in 1979. The belief then was that normal relations would lead to more human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy. The opposite has been the case.
In the Soviet Union, confrontation and economic isolation led to a relatively peaceful implosion of the regime. In China, the policy of trade and political engagement has led to a thriving economic system under communist control, and modernization and expansion of the military and state security apparatus.
In Cuba today, political opposition is growing, and human-rights abuses although systematic and pervasive have in practice declined in numbers. This is not due to the good will of Fidel Castro's regime, but a lack of resources.
At least the Castro regime was able to copy something we have correctly: Ecured, the Castro dictatorship's version of Wikipedia, is just as useless and filled with leftist propaganda as our own Wikipedia.
Cuban 'Wikipedia' includes entry for dissident blogger
HAVANA — Cuba's EcuRed digital encyclopedia, inspired by Wikipedia and operated by the island's Communist Youth, has added an entry for award-winning dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez.
The unusual turn of events in the Communist country, where information is tightly controlled and dissent is barely tolerated, comes with a price: Sanchez, 36, is described as a "cybermercenary."
Sanchez has been speaking her mind on the "Generation Y" blog since 2007 and has long traded barbs with a regime.
Looking for some bang-up entertainment? Cuban-American actor, filmaker and defender of freedom, Orestis Matacena has a new film, Two de Force. It's an action packed view of what might be going on behind the officially presented view of US - China relations. The cast includes Luke Steward as President Obama, Jesse Wang as Chinese Chairman, and Patty Kelly as Hillary Clinton.
From the films official website: It is 2012. The US delegation and the Chinese delegation meet in Beijing to discuss the US debt to China and all hell gets lose in a clash between these two super powers.
The Castro brothers are as bad as ever, but some U.S. politicians and government institutions want to give them a free pass. (Flickr: fotoscubahoy)
Of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates, Ron Paul’s foreign policy views really stand out. His libertarian “we love everybody” mentality is naïve at best and dangerous at worst. His Cuba policy is a perfect example.
Rep. Paul easily dismisses serious threats posed by Cuba’s communist dictatorship, which just hosted a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“It’s time to change. The Cold War is over. They’re not going to invade us and I just think that a better relationship and trade relationship,” he said at a recent presidential debate in Florida. “I think the people have changed their mind … I don’t think they see a Jihadist under the bed every night.”
Sadly, he is not alone.
A few weeks ago I received invitations to travel to Cuba by two venerable institutions; the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution. Both offered friendly “People-to-People” tours in accordance with U.S. Department of the Treasury regulations. One tour even offered to take their participants to the site of the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Relations was outraged and rightfully condemned these trips. Chairman Daniel Lungren (R-Calif.) of the House Committee on Administration promised an investigation to find out why the Smithsonian Institution, a tax-payer funded organization, would schedule tours of a country listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the Department of State.
But my dilemma clearly served to highlight that after 50-plus years of dictatorial rule in Cuba, some of our more prestigious institutions and politicians continue to see Cuba as something it’s not.
There is nothing that can be said about the Castro dictatorship that they cannot explain away or ignore outright. Somehow, when it comes to Cuba, normal rational and well-educated people tend to give this particular dictatorship a pass. People who are otherwise horrified at what the Kim’s totalitarian rule has done to North Korea or how China has ravaged and occupied Tibet, think that it is trendy to be seen in Castro’s Cuba.
The saddest part about all of this is that few nations in the past 50 years have been as virulently anti-U.S. and anti-democracy as Cuba. The gerontocracy ruling the island today is, with few exceptions, the same people that came to power in January 1959.
Miami-based Cuban lawyers slam American Bar Association for trips to Cuba
The Cuban American Bar Association is mad at its national sister organization, the American Bar Association, for planning to send two groups to learn about the justice system in Cuba.
In a press release issued Wednesday, the Miami-based Cuban lawyers group said it persuaded the ABA's Criminal Law section from visiting the island. But its Family Law and Health Law sections "have refused to engage" in conversations regarding the trips, CABA says.
"As it has done in the past, the Cuban government will undoubtedly use these visits by the world's largest voluntary professional lawyers association to bolster their shameful justice system," the release says. "The ABA should not be used in this way."
American lawyers should set up meetings with independent jurists on the island, the group added.
Forget about Betty White's resurgence. actor and former game show host Chuck Woolery has spent the last year putting some very funny political commentary to video. Here he offers a survival manual for the "zombie apocalypse"...
Thursday, February 9th, 2011
Marshall Ballroom
Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, D.C.
12:00 pm - From Fidel to Chavez: How Do We Stop the Resurgence of Socialism in Latin America
- The Honorable Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), United States Representative
- The Honorable Otto Reich, President, Otto Reich Associates, LLC, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Former United States Ambassador to Venezuela
- The Honorable David Rivera (R-FL), United States Representative
Moderator: Mauricio Claver-Carone, Executive Director, Cuba Democracy Public Advocacy
About the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)
Taking place in Washington, DC each year, CPAC brings together nearly 10,000 attendees and all of the leading conservative organizations and speakers who impact conservative thought in the nation. Regularly seen on C-SPAN and other national news networks, CPAC has been the premiere event for any major elected official or public personality seeking to discuss issues of the day with conservatives. From Presidents of the United States to college student leaders, CPAC has become the place to find our nation's current and future leaders.
Totalitarian regimes and their apologists have turned the manipulation of facts and the distortion of reality into a science. Dictatorships believe that political power flows from moral power, therefore character assassination of their opponents is imperative.
That’s why the Castro regime has launched diverse campaigns to taint those who stand up for the rights of the Cuban people. Regrettably, some in the pro-democracy movement echo these regime “lines,” focusing on the supposed ineffectiveness of federal aid to the Cuban resistance.
Let’s set the facts straight:
A nonviolent grassroots pro-democracy movement with the potential to transform the tragedy of Cuban politics has risen to challenge the most repressive, brutal and media-savvy tyranny in the history of Latin America. In this, the Cuban resistance is no different from other liberation movements, such as Washington’s Continental Army, De Gaulle’s Free French or Walesa’s Solidarity, all of which needed foreign assistance to confront dictatorships that far surpassed them in material power.
The truth is that the Cuban people are up against a totalitarian state that cannot run an economy and improve the livelihood of the nation but is excruciatingly adept at holding on to power. American aid — from the world’s foremost democracy — has been indispensable in allowing the Cuban resistance to have a permanent support infrastructure.
This support is indispensable in empowering the Cuban people to counter, even in a limited manner, the enormous resources channeled by the Castro-Chávez axis to perpetuate their oppression.
The historical experience of freedom struggles has demonstrated that foreign assistance is essential in three key areas: providing captive populations with uncensored and objective information, enabling international solidarity that provides dissidents with a network of associations that elevate the political cost of repression, and channeling direct logistical aid to resistance activists.
Agent of the Regime to Ladies in White: “You Will Not Be Allowed to Go to Church”
Marta Diaz Rondon being beaten/dragged by Cuban regime mobs. Havana, 2010
When 6 Ladies in White were violently arrested this past Sunday February 5th in the city of Holguin, they were also warned that they could not continue trying to assist mass in church, according to Marta Díaz Rondón, one of the activists who was attacked.
After a brutal detention which consisted of “twisted arms and aggressive shoves against the police vehicles“, Diaz Rondon denounces that once inside the dungeons of the Pedernales Unit, an official (whom she does not know the name of) violently threatened her, telling her that they would not be allowed to carry out their activities. “He told me that he would not allow us, the Ladies in White and other dissidents, to continue doing what we were doing“. Rondon’s response was a question: “Not allow what? That we go to Church?“, to which the regime official aggressively responded, “that was what he had said and he did not have to talk about anything else with us“.
After this confrontation and 6 hours in sealed off dark and damp cells, the women were released. In the case of Rondon and Gertrudis Ojeda Suarez- both from Banes- they were taken to their municipality but abandoned miles from their homes.
Marta Díaz explains that her home has been under “total vigilance“, as have the homes of “all the Ladies in White in the Cuban East“. The dissident adds that “they do not let us move from one place to another, but we are going to continue marching and taking to the streets, despite the threats“.
Cuban bloggers have been making their feelings known about the impending papal visit to Cuba, their main concern being that the Vatican is putting its stamp of approval on the Castro regime despite regular reports of human rights violations coming out of the island.
In light of new reports of state-sanctioned actions against members of Las Damas de Blanco Last weekend, diaspora blogger Uncommon Sense suggested that:
Pope Benedict XVI should postpone his planned visit in late March to Cuba. The visit was part of a quid pro quo between the regime and the church, but continued repression of women trying to go to Mass should not have been part of the deal.
The blogger also posted a link to an e-Petition soliciting signatures from people who agreed with the postponement of the pontiff's visit “until human rights conditions improve in Cuba”.
Pedazos de la Isla echoed this concern, as he reported on “another Sunday of repression”:
Just weeks before Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba in March, another Sunday on the island- February 5th 2012- was marked by an excessive level of violence on behalf of the dictatorship against the peaceful Resistance, for simply trying to attend church.
In the city of Holguin, 5 Ladies in White were brutally arrested around 9 in the morning as they tried to reach the Jesus Christ Redeemer of Men Church.
I came across this photograph on Facebook last night. It certainly brought back some incredible memories of my childhood, and those often dreaded Saturday afternoon excursions to the Zayre on NW 7th street and 37th avenue with my mother and older sister. Spending what felt like countless hours waiting while my mother and sister fished through those huge bins of ladies garments was punishment enough, but the requisite visit to the "Three Sisters" women's clothing store located at that same shopping center was the ultimate punishment.
Nevertheless, I also have fond memories of Zayre. It is there where my dad bought me my first Big Wheel. And later on, as an adolescent, it was the place to go for a t-shirt where you can pick out the iron-on design of your choice and have it pressed into the shirt before your very eyes. Good times.
Reincarnation? Or proof that the great prophet is still alive?
Fidel Castro has assigned himself many roles, among which is that of prophet, and he has been predicting the future for nearly sixty years. (History will absolve me! -1953) Given his recent prediction of a nuclear holocaust involving the U.S.A., Iran, and Israel – see earlier post by Humberto Fontova – it might prove useful to check the accuracy of his clairvoyant powers. After all, fallout shelters tend to be expensive, and difficult to build due to zoning laws. Before you rush to find the right contractor, check these out these gems from Cuba’s own Nostradamus. And check out the pictures above too, which seem to prove that all true prophets are not only big-nosed, but able to cheat death and grow luxuriant beards.
I am sure that in just a few years we will raise the standard of living in Cuba above that of the United States and Russia.
---Fidel Castro, 16 February 1959.
We have been researching and preparing projects to drain the Zapata swamps (La Ciénega de Zapata), which has over 15,000 caballerias of land, and will serve when it becomes usable as a source of food for tens of thousands of Cuban families.
---Fidel Castro, 15 March 1959.
We now have so much conscience, so much responsibility, so much knowledge, and are so organized – something we can see everywhere in our country – that we are guaranteed even greater achievements, with absolute confidence. In the same way that we have achieved our goal of harvesting six million tons of sugar, we will undoubtedly reach ten million in 1970.
---Fidel Castro, 7 June 1965.
We will develop a sucro-chemical industry, and we will be able to turn sugar cane husks into pulp, and – given our current plans to develop a lumber industry – we will be able in the future to mix this sugar cane pulp with wood pulp, and we will then have yet another colossal advantage in exports.
---Fidel Castro, 7 June 1965
We will not only produce ten million tons of sugar, but also about four million tons of honey, and we will also develop our cattle industry and use the honey to feed the cattle, and this will allow us to become a beef-exporting nation.
---Fidel Castro, 7 July 1965
By 1970 our island will have 5,000 experts in the cattle industry and about eight million milk-producing cows and calves. We will have so much milk that we’ll be able to fill all of Havana harbor with it.
---Fidel Castro, 23 August 1966.
When it comes to the economy, our agriculture will be extremely well-developed by 1970, and our country will place a fundamental emphasis not only in basic industries, such as cement, electricity, and other such things, but will also see the development of industrial centers during the decade 1970-1980 which will process the output of our well-developed agriculture and at the same time fulfill all the needs of a modern and advanced society.
---Fidel Castro, 2 January 1968
Sugar is our main crop, and whoever is looking for any kind of sugar, let him come to Cuba, where we have many varieties of sugar. Our cattle industry is developing and we have no doubt that in just a few years it will be one of the greatest and best in the world, and we will have no competitors of any kind, and, on top of that we will become one of the world’s top meat producers, both in terms of quantity and quality, and we will also become top exporters of tropical produce, and when it comes to the most important of these items, we will be among the best in the world, and the same will be true of our coffee, our bananas, and pineapples. (Aplause)... Fidel Castro, 2 January 1968
If they have been able to develop such a great citrus industry in Florida, with a soil far inferior to ours, then we have no reason whatsoever to doubt that we will have a citrus industry far superior to that of Florida. No doubt about it.
---Fidel Castro, 8 June 1968.
Very soon, Cuba will become a petroleum-exporting nation.
---Fidel Castro, 18 June 2008.
....... And the great prophet can not only predict the future, but also go back in time, change the past, and rewrite history:
We will need to increase production in our sugar cane fields year by year, because Cuba used to be at the bottom of the list in terms of sugar production by acre, even though we were number one in terms of total output. But we were so primitive when it came to agriculture, without machinery, without fertilizers, that our rate of production per acre was really very low.
---Fidel Castro, 26 July 1968.
Of course, there is one prophecy that some think has been fulfilled, at least thus far. As Nostradamus himself might have asked back in Provence in 1563, is this a case of le prophète malgré lui (the prophet in spite of himself) ? Judge for yourself:
My beard means many different things for my country. When we have fulfilled all we have promised in terms of a good government, I will shave my beard.
---Fidel Castro, interview with CBS News, January 1959
(Mi barba significa muchas cosas para mi país. Cuando hayamos cumplido nuestra promesa de un buen gobierno, me afeitaré la barba).
The mother waits in the hospital lobby. Outside, it is very cold- very unusual considering the accustomed high temperatures which whip through the Cuban East. The young man is barely 22 years old, he jumped in to separate two of his friends in a street brawl, and when the police arrived they began to hit them with sticks and kick them. He suffered the worst part. One of his friends went to get me because they had convinced him to give me all the details. The mother shut down all sorts of dialogues in order to protect him. It was pointless for me to explain his rights to him. My arguments that he should denounce the events were not worth anything. She would return home, ‘either way in this country nothing works…get out of here, don’t bother me anymore‘, she told me.
Just three days ago, I was publicly approached by an Honorary Official (OH) of State Security. His intention was to have me stay in my house. That way, he would save many hours which he would otherwise be chasing me. Since I responded to him by citing my citizen rights, he whipped out his blue-lettered ID tag to threaten- not me- but the passer-bys. Despite the heated discussion and his boasting that he would call a police vehicle, no one responded, no one moved. When I said- in a loud voice- that the streets belong to the people and not the revolutionaries, no one echoed the phrase. It’s true that I did not suffer a repudiation this time, but the people are just absorbed by their bags of food and I suppose they do not have time for these trifles, right?
Institutions such as the Fiscal Military, the three kinds of tribunals (municipal, provincial, and national) and, time and time again, the offices of Citizen Attention dodge the complaints against functionaries of the order and only in counted occasions- after violations are very evident- does the Counter Intelligence do something. These obsolete organisms have, in part, helped everyday people put on their own censors. Since no one defends their rights, then they mistrust everything, they fall into the generalized apathy and end up giving in to their very own henchmen. Only after seeing the gloomy face of the television presenter announcing, in yet another trick, some other dismissal, are people able to see that Cuban public institutions are also there to watch for some things, for the interests of some citizens and so that some rights be respected.
President John F Kennedy ordered an aide to buy him as many Cuban cigars as he could just hours before he authorised the U.S. trade embargo - which subsequently made them illegal.
Kennedy asked his head of press and fellow cigar smoker Pierre Salinger to obtain '1,000 Petit Upmanns' on February 6, 1962, so he could have them in his hands before they were deemed contraband.
Then, seconds after he was told the next morning that 1,200 of Cuba's finest export had been bought for him, he signed the decree to ban all of the communist state's products from the U.S.
The re-surfacing of the story, initially recounted by Salinger to Cigar Aficionado magazine in 1992, comes with the passing of the 50th anniversary of the embargo yesterday.
JFK, he said, called him into his office and said he needed 'some help' to find 'a lot of cigars'. He wanted '1,000 Petit Upmanns' and needed them by 'tomorrow morning'.
Salinger added: 'I walked out of the office wondering if I would succeed. But since I was a solid Cuban cigar smoker, I knew a lot of stores. I worked on the problem into the evening.
'The next morning, I walked into my White House office at about 8am, and the direct line from the President's office was already ringing. He asked me to come in immediately.
'How did you do Pierre?' he asked, as I walked through the door. 'Very well,' I answered. In fact, I'd gotten 1,200 cigars. Kennedy smiled, and opened up his desk.
'He took out a long paper which he immediately signed. It was the decree banning all Cuban products from the United States. Cuban cigars were now illegal in our country.'
The Ecuadorian National Assembly of dictator Rafael Correa issued a resolution condemning the "assassination" of the vicious and psychopathic murderer, Ernesto "Ché" Guevara. According the Ecuadorian National Assembly's version of history, Ché was in effect murdered in 1967 by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, who apparently both boarded a time machine and went back in time to snuff out this "great revolutionary hero."
The author of this resolution, Tomas Zevallos, a representative of the Orellana provice (Amazonia), reminded everyone that October 8 was the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Ernesto Guevera, "who died for his ideals and revolutionary projects belonging to the youth of the time, struggling against the neo-liberalism of Margaret Thatcher and the so-called 'conservative revolution of Ronald Reagan,'" said the assembly member.
"What's going to happen in Iran? What's going to happen in the Near East? What's going to happen in Syria?" he (Fidel Castro) asked at the (book release) event, which took place on Friday.
He said President Barack Obama no longer has power in the United States, that Cuba's longtime ideological foe is being run by a "high command" and not even they can "contain the situation" of a possible nuclear war.
Castro has been warning of impending nuclear war involving the United States, Israel and Iran for some time.
"The situation is difficult, more difficult than ever," he said.
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve
of destruction.
The Cuban Situation and the ‘Fallacy of the Broken Window’
One of the collateral effects of the Raúl Castro’s regime and its program of economic reforms, is the passion for self-deception it arouses on the other side of the Florida Straits. I recently watched a speech by Carlos Saladrigas and asked myself is there is no one capable of telling this gentleman that his enthusiasm for the Cuban “opportunity” is nothing more than a nostalgic mirage disguised as common sense.
The mirage takes on mutant forms, and the most recurrent in recent months seems to be the argument of money as a liberator. That is, in my judgment, a metamorphosis of the famous Fallacy of the Broken Window, so well explained in “conservative” thought. Let’s see: it all starts with a catastrophe or an act of destruction. In this we see (a posteriori) a future economic benefit. The neighbors who get together to discuss the baker’s broken window look a lot like the lobby that today defends the Cuban crisis as a business opportunity. If you think about it — they assure many entrepreneurs — perhaps the current Cuban disaster isn’t such a bad thing. Because it means that everything needs to be done, that free enterprise is about to substitute for the role of the political authority, and that as a part of this process of state capitalism, Cubans will be able to get dollars, and even spend them, which satisfies those advocates of the perfect investment, for whom the greatest possible freedom is the freedom to invest.
The initial act of thuggery — that is the Cuban Revolution — now begins to be seen as a stimulus to the economy, and self-employment as equal to “job creation,” protocapitalism, “the right path,” etc. All this semi-pragmatic opining, ostentatious or discrete, is nothing more than judging the dismal situation of the island from a moral perspective, instantaneously effective, cheap and abstract.
HAVANA — Cuba's EcuRed digital encyclopedia, inspired by Wikipedia and operated by the island's Communist Youth, has added an entry for award-winning dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez.
recent comments
Gigi: Another national treasure. No political correctness = NO fear. Wish the nominee – any of ‘em...
Rayarena: Drillanwr, your appraisal of that harridan is accurate. I looked at the video and its horrible. Not that we...
Henry Louis Gomez: John, great to see your presence again. Songuacassal
marc in calgary: Someday, I hope he runs… and you know what I’m referring to.
FreedomForCuba: ditto asombra, The MSM biases are totally stacked against the Republicans as Democrats get a free...
Gallardo: Indeed, that revolution was no more than the brainless trill and tantrum of a spoiled society that had no...
asombra: And JFK was not a “flawed man.” He was a glorified scumbag, a deliberate deceiver, a man drunk...