Babalú Blog

Aaaaaazucar!

A long detailed report from the U.N. Security Council concludes that the Castro Kingdom most definitely hid tons of armaments under sacks of sugar on the North Korean ship Chong Chon Gang.

The weapons were all in full working order.

Will Castrogonia be punished in any way?  Don’t count on it.  Will this incident stop Castrogonia from shipping military contraband in the future?  Don’t count on that either.

The only change likely is a new trade deal with the European Union, more Russian aid,  and a lifting of sanctions by the Obama administration.

From Capitol Hill Cubans

Must Read: U.N. Releases Report on Cuba-North Korea Illegal Weapons Trafficking

The U.N.’s Panel of Experts (“Panel”) has released its official report on North Korea’s illegal trafficking of weapons, in conjunction with Cuba’s Castro regime.

In July 2013, a North Korean flagged vessel, Chong Chon Gang, was intercepted carrying weaponry from Cuba hidden under 200,000 bags of sugar.

According to the report, such weapons trafficking remains “one of [North Korea’s] most profitable revenue sources.”

The report also documents North Korea’s efforts to sell weaponry to Iran, Somalia, Eritrea, Myanmar and other countries of concern.

In the case of Cuba, it’s the first time a nation in the Western Hemisphere is found in blatant violation of U.N. sanctions.

Moreover, the report notes similar Cuba trafficking patterns by other North Korean ships in the recent past.

Here are some notable excerpts from the report:

– The Panel concluded in its incident report submitted to the Committee that both the shipment itself and the transaction between Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were sanctions violations.

– The Panel found that the hidden cargo amounted to six trailers associated with surface-to-air missile systems and 25 shipping containers loaded with two disassembled MiG-21 aircraft, 15 engines for MiG-21 aircraft, components for surface-to-air missile systems, ammunition and miscellaneous arms-related materiel.This constituted the largest amount of arms and related materiel interdicted to or from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea since the adoption of resolution 1718 (2006).

– No records show the ship stopping at any countries other than Cuba between exiting the Panama Canal on 1 June and its return passage on 11 July.

– On 20 June, the ship docked in the port of Mariel, where it took onboard the arms and related materiel.

– Cuba argued that “maintenance”, as set out in paragraph 8 (c) of resolution 1718, was distinct from “repair”, which Cuba claimed was the basis of its contract with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea…The Panel is unconvinced by Cuba’s rationale to distinguish “maintenance” and “repair.”

– The transportation of undeclared weapons and explosives in this manner posed a significant danger to all persons and facilities in proximity to the ship and should be a cause of concern among shippers, port authorities, the international maritime community and insurers.

– Evidence found on the ship (see annexes XX and XXI) pointed to involvement of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea embassy staff in Cuba. Contact phone numbers and records found in the captain’s notes led the Panel to conclude that embassy officials in Havana were engaged in making arrangements for the shipment of the consignment of arms and related materiel, including the payment methods.

– In its consultations with the Panel, Cuba confirmed the parties involved in the sugar and said that the arms shipment was part of a governmental agreement. It declined,however, to give the Panel copies of these agreements, citing confidentiality clauses in the contracts.

– The incident involving the Chong Chon Gang revealed a comprehensive, planned strategy to conceal the existence and nature of the cargo.

– All identification markings and insignia of the Cuban Revolutionary Air Force had been removed from both MiG-21 aircraft; the Panel observed signs of overspray and scratch marks in places dedicated to original insignia.

– While the age of the items found in the shipment varied greatly, most appeared to have been well maintained. Records accompanying a great deal of the equipment indicated or certified the equipment functioned in accordance with specification or had been calibrated just prior to packing.

– It is the Panel’s view that examining individually the items and their handling suggest that some, if not all, of the consignment was not expected to be returned to Cuba.

– [The Panel] notes that the voyage of another Democratic People’s Republic of Korea-flagged and -owned vessel to Cuba presents a very similar pattern to the recent voyage of the Chong Chon Gang.

Continue reading HERE.

Javier Garay in PanAm Post:

El Salvador Election: 21st Century Socialism Failure on the March

Salvador Sánchez Cerén and Chavista Agenda Seize New Territory

In Latin America, Socialism for the 21st Century is once again on the verge of obtaining a political victory that we will soon come to regret.

Many in the media believe Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has found the secret formula from which socialism can grow, and few have criticized his pursuits or his plan to seek another term in office. Similarly, members of the press have almost completely forgotten to monitor the government excesses and lack of economic progress in Argentina and Bolivia. Even Cuba gained some national recognition for its organization of the second CELAC Summit.

Just last week, what should have been a defense of democracy by the continent’s leaders, became a boost for Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Increasingly discredited and useless, the Organization of American States (OAS) gave the Chavista regime a pat on the back and refrained from condemning the heavy-handed crackdown.

The latest affront to democracy in Latin America is the pending victory of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador. Although the results are not official, all signs indicate that the new president will be former guerrilla Salvador Sánchez Cerén, of the FMLN, the same party in power since 2009. As of this writing, the margin of victory remains slim, with Sánchez Cerén gaining 50.08 percent of the vote, compared to 49.92 percent for Norman Quijano of ARENA.

On the one hand, Sánchez Cerén has been part of the current FMLN government under Mauricio Funes, who is not considered part of Socialism for the 21st Century. But on the other, several actions on the part of the government suggest that this model is indeed being implemented in El Salvador. First, there has been an increase in crime rates resulting from the Funes government’s inability to confront gangs known as Maras. Second, since the FMLN party came to power, there has been a clear trend toward the gradual reduction of economic freedom. Third, particular social indicators suggest the influence of the socialist chimera.

Implementation of a totalitarian agenda is not achieved over the course of a few years. In Venezuela, for example, it has taken 15 years for Cuban policies like the ration card to come into force. Similarly, it is not until now that we are beginning to see the effects of previous economic decisions in the country’s current social instability and the government’s repressive response.

In this sense, we are able to observe that each government advances at its own pace. For example, the government of Rafael Correa today can be seen as less radical, because its fall has been less dramatic than in Venezuela. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t brewing.

Continue reading HERE.

As seen on Facebook:

So much for those so-called cultural exchanges. Any Cuban who tries to interact with foreign tourists without explicit authorization of the Castro dictatorship faces arrest and imprisonment.

Turns out the “Cuba Experts” have been lying to us all this time…

Via Martí News:

Alleged “harrassing of tourists” could get Cubans jail time

In this edition of Inside Cuba, citizens talk about the State’s law criminalizing communication with tourists.

On the island, tourist harassment is a state law that prohibits contact between Cubans and tourists. The law is intended to deter prostitutes and hustlers from approaching foreigners, but policemen from the island can arrest any Cuban on site if they are seen interacting with tourists on the streets. The sanctions to Cubans include fines and jail time that depend on the degree of their harassment.

Cubans can approach tourists for different reasons. Some try to sell items such as rum, tobacco, or sex services to foreigners, while others approach them for money or goods that they cannot buy with their income. These goods vary from food to clothing items. Others instead, approach them to make relationships and find a way out of the island, and others just want to interact with people who are not from there.

Social interaction between Cubans and tourists is a matter of concern to the Cuban regime, which considers tourist harassment as a social danger, and an unmoral, uncivil activity.

Dr. Jose Azel in Cuba Focus from the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies:

Investors Beware

Since the 2006 announcement by the Cuban government that octogenarian Fidel Castro had transferred power to his brother Raul, there has been increasing speculation regarding political and economic changes in Cuba. More recently, some potential investors seem to have bought the narrative that the Cuban government has embarked on a process of genuine political and economic reforms. But investors beware.

In its 2014 “Index of Economic Freedom” report, the Heritage Foundation ranks Cuba as one of the world’s least free economies with a score of 28.7 compared to a world average of 60.3, and an average of 84.1 for the free economies of the world. Cuba’s economic milieu continues to deteriorate in terms of most of the factors considered in the Heritage Foundation methodology such as trade freedom, fiscal freedom, monetary freedom, and particularly freedom from corruption.

One implication for enterprises seeking to do business with Cuba is that this legacy manifests itself in areas such as official corruption. Notice that my expression is not doing business in Cuba, but rather doing business “with” Cuba since the Cuban government (read the Castro brothers and the military) will obligatorily be the majority partners in any foreign investment under current Cuban law.

As noted in the Index, in Cuba, official corruption is a serious problem, “with a culture of illegality… and a vast state-controlled economy in a country where there is little respect for the rule of law.” American companies, particularly publicly traded firms subject to myriad anti-corruption and disclosure regulations, would find it nearly impossible to operate lawfully in such an environment of systemic and endemic corruption.

Let’s take just one aspect of doing business “with” Cuba to illustrate how it offends our values and morality, our labor and business laws, and our expectations of corporate behavior.

Foreign investors operating in Cuba may not establish contractual relationships with Cuban workers. The foreign firm must negotiate with the Labor Ministry a “Contract for the supply of its labor force” indicating the quantity and qualifications of needed employees. The state staffing agency for foreign enterprises then sends its pre-screened personnel to the foreign firm. The foreign employer pays directly to the staffing agency in foreign currency, or equivalent Cuban convertible pesos (CUC). Cuban workers are then paid by the staffing agency in non-convertible Cuban pesos (CUC). Under this arrangement the state pockets over 90 percent of the worker’s purported salaries.

This practice, of course, violates International Labor Organization conventions as slavery by another name, or as Cuban writer Carlos Alberto Montaner has aptly named it: Cuba the pimp state.

Foreign firms are also required to be a minority partner in a relationship where the Cuban government-the majority partner- is fiercely hostile to free enterprise and has a history of acting arbitrarily and capriciously against the interests of its minority partners.

In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba restructured the island’s economy by allowing limited foreign investment through joint ventures and other economic associations. Some foreign investors misinterpreted these crises measures as the beginning of a genuine and irreversible transition to a free market economy. The same misinterpretation is taking place today.

Investors beware, by the end of the 1990s the regime reversed the liberalization measures and recentralized economic power. It is likely to happen again if the regime feels threatened.

Read more

Fidel Castro courts newly elected Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt in Jan. 1959. Though a Venezuelan version of Cuba’s “Fidelistas sin Fidel” of the time (Mensheviks,) Betancourt quickly got Castro’s number. (Conservative Gen. Xers and Millenials might marvel but there was actually a day when many socialists were virulent anti-communists, and immune even to Fidel Castro’s “charm.”)

Among the primary Commandments of membership among the first generation of Cuba “experts” were morning and evening chantings to the effect that the block-headed and arrogant U.S. bully snubbed and scorned the innocent and friendly Fidel Castro, finally pushing him into the arms of Mother Russia. Some beg to differ:

Nowadays the Cuba-enthroned emperor of Venezuela more or less reigns while his baby brother Raul rules. The actual nuts and bolts of running the empire, which include stealing 100,000 barrels of oil daily from their Venezuelan viceroyalty as priority, comes courtesy of the 50,000 Cubans who infest Venezuela and run the colony’s vital police and intelligence functions, among many others. It took the Castros some doing, but they finally got Venezuela in the bag. To wit:

Fidel Castro’s very first trip abroad as head of state was to Venezuela where on January 25, 1959 he implored Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt to “join” his “master plan against the gringos.” The newly elected Venezuelan president soon learned that his “joining” would consist of massive loans, financial aid, and shipments of free oil to Castro from Venezuela. So Betancourt brusquely declined the “invitation.” It took Hugo Chavez for Venezuela to finally “join” Castro’s master plan.

Please note the date and the aggressive anti-U.S. policy Castro proposed to Venezuela. That was barely three weeks after Fidel Castro (with U.S. help) entered Havana. And yet you’ll be hard-pressed to find a U.S. “academic expert” who doesn’t swear up and down that in 1959-61 the U.S. arrogantly, selfishly and stupidly snubbed a friendly Fidel Castro and pushed him—kicking and screaming, no less– into the arms of the Russians.

Among Cubans, by the way, the word “gringo” was almost never used.

Our friends at Frontpage Magazine help disseminate a few items unknown or long forgotten outside a few miniscule enclaves in south Florida.

How bad is it in Venezuela after weeks of protests against the Cuban-imposed dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro? So bad that even doctors are risking their lives and joining the fray.

Via AFP in Yahoo News:

Doctors stage protest in Venezuela

Caracas (AFP) – Several hundred doctors and medical students protested conditions in Venezuela’s hospitals Monday, citing shortages of medicines and critical supplies in the troubled oil-rich country.

As police held back the demonstrators in the city’s Plaza Venezuela, other health workers marched without incident through the center to the presidential palace in a government-organized show of support for President Nicolas Maduro.

The rival protests were the latest in an unresolved, nearly five-week-old crisis that has claimed the lives of at least 20 people.

Another victim was reported over the weekend in the western Andean city of Merida, Giselle Rubilar, a 47-year-old Chilean national.

Chile’s outgoing President Sebastian Pinera said in Santiago Monday he had asked Venezuela to investigate her death of a gunshot wound to the head.

“Apparently there was a barricade near where she was living. She approached it and that’s where she was reportedly hit by the bullet that caused her death,” Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said.

Venezuelan doctors and medical students turned out in their white lab coats with signs denouncing the state of health care in the country.

“Not only bullets kill, the lack of medicine does too,” read one sign.

The president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation, Douglas Leon, said 95 percent of hospitals have only five percent of the supplies needed to take care of patients.

“The hospitals are deteriorated, supplies aren’t available and we have to tell patients to buy their own,” medical student Caterine Acosta, 20, told AFP.

Meanwhile, at the Miraflores presidential palace, Maduro touted the 2,500 medical students who he said will graduate this year from programs in partnership with allies like Cuba.

Cuba provides an estimated 40,000 doctors and health care workers to staff clinics for poor and hard to reach populations in Venezuela.

In exchange, Venezuela supplies Cuba with 100,000 barrels of oil a day at preferential rates.

The human rights abuses taking place in Venezuela under the orders and supervision of Cuba’s Castro regime are not going completely unnoticed. Amnesty International has released a statement condemning the arrest and trial of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez:

Venezuela: Trial of opposition leader an affront to justice and free assembly

The charges brought against Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López smack of a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent in the country, said Amnesty International.

“Venezuelan authorities must either present solid evidence to substantiate the charges against López or release him immediately and unconditionally,” said Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty International Americas Programme Deputy Director.

“These charges appear to be politically motivated because of his leadership in the recent anti-government protests. Currently, Amnesty International has not seen evidence to substantiate these charges. This is an affront to justice and free assembly.”

It is understood that Leopoldo López, the leader of opposition party Voluntad Popular (Political Will), has been charged with homicide, grievous bodily harm and other crimes in relation to the deaths of three people in the last few days during mass demonstrations.

President Maduro showed his commitment to human rights when he stated a few days ago that his government wouldn’t tolerate violence from his supporters and the security forces. He must now send a clear message that nobody is going to be detained for exercising their right to freedom of speech and assembly.

In the absence of any evidence against Leopoldo López, Amnesty International is calling for his immediate release and for all charges to be dropped. Likewise, the deaths of last week must be fully investigated and those responsible be brought to justice.

Background information

Leopoldo López handed himself in to the National Guard (Guardia Nacional) on 18 February after a mass anti-government demonstration he organized.

The arrest warrant issued against him on 13 February is for his alleged responsibility for violence that occurred during and after student demonstrations in the last two weeks.

Amnesty International has not seen a copy of the arrest warrant, but press statements state that he has been charged with homicide and grievous bodily harm among others.

According to the information received, Leopoldo López was due to appear before Judge Raleyns Tovar Guillén at a Court in Caracas at 10:00 local time (14:30 GMT). The judge has to make a decision on whether he will be held in detention, freed on bail or unconditionally released.

But it took place in 1953. From the AP story today on the death in Cuba of of “Heroine of the Revolution” and Moncada assaultant Melba Hernandez.

“The (Moncada) assault failed miserably, with many of the attackers killed by government soldiers and the rest, including Castro, arrested. The women, who were waiting nearby to provide medical assistance to their comrades, also were jailed. (Haydee) Santamaria’s brother Abel was tortured and killed in prison.”

In fact Dr Tony De La Cova has amply documented that the stories of Abel Santamaria having his eyes gouged out blah…blah…by Batista’s torturers…blah…blah after…being captured is total and typical Castroite horseshit.

This, of course, has not stopped all “respectable historians” from spreading the fable. After all, the intrepid AP itself is very upfront about the “scoop” for their story from this very morning: “A message from the Communist Party’s Central Committee published in the party newspaper Granma said Ms. Hernandez died of complications from diabetes. The place of death was not reported.”

From Georgia Ann Geyer’s critically-acclaimed book “Guerrilla Prince; the Untold story of Fidel Castro.”

“A sergeant named El Tigre came to Haydee Santamaria, opened his bloodstained hands, showed her the eye of her brother and demanded that she tell everything or his other eye would be torn out..!”

“Haydee’s reply, which every Cuban schoolchild came to know by heart was: if he did not tell you under torture far less will I tell you.”

Remember Georgia Ann Geyer’s critically-acclaimed book is titled “Guerrilla Prince; the Untold story of Fidel Castro.” In fact, as we see from Dr Tony’s research some of it has been very widely “told”–and by official regime spokespeople, no less.

But why pick on Geyer? In perfect keeping with most “respectable” and “academic” historyography on Castroite Cuba, the Castroite horseshit involving Abel Santamaria’s torture was earlier transcribed from Castroite sources and widely disseminated by the ultra-respectable and ultra-scholarly Hugh Thomas–or more respectfully: “Hugh Swynnerton Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton,” who–on top of all his duties as a historian and Baron–also worked a spell for Margaret Thatcher. From this ultra-respectable source the torture story (along with a huge pile of other Castroite horseshit) went “viral,” but in the 60’s sense of the term.

Need I mention that such as Julia Sweig also transcribes and disseminates the Abel Santamaria torture fable in her books?

Alas, thanks to guidance from Dr Tony De La Cova some books omit the Santamaria torture fable. In fact these books devote all of their pages and documentation to proving how swinish and/or guillible most pundits and academics remain towards Castroism.

Le ZZZZUMBA!!!

By Regina Coyula in Translating Cuba:

Like anyplace else, a successful business has many ingredients. Here many have failed because they engaged in activities they knew nothing about. But others prosper, become very visible, and then fall under the evil gaze of those who would give up an eye if they could see a neighbor get screwed over.

A quiet street of Nuevo Vedado had frequently become jammed with people, all wanting to buy at La Fontanella, a bakery that began modestly but then put up an eye-catching lighted sign. What began as a business in part of a house became exclusively a factory and sales outlet, with rotating shifts, open to the public from nine in the morning until nine at night.

Such prosperity drew attention and/or aggravation, and Monday dawned this week to find the business closed. The commentaries are various: stolen flour; workers walking off; problems with the ownership of the old family home, now converted into a bakery. The truth is that La Fontanella had become a troublesome twig on that bonsai which Minister Murillo, and the updating of the economic model, had designed to be kept well pruned.

Translated by Tomás A.

They just continue recycling the same old…

Via Voice of America:

Voters in El Salvador, Columbia Choose President, Lawmakers

Voters in El Salvador are choosing a new president Sunday, with pre-election polls favoring a former Marxist guerrilla in the runoff poll.

A victory by Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the FMLN, would make him the first guerrilla commander to hold the presidency since a truce ended a devastating 13-year civil war in 1992.

Recent polling showed Ceren holding a 10 to 18-point lead over San Salvador Mayor Norman Quijano of the right-wing National Republican Alliance, known as ARENA.

Elsewhere, Colombians are choosing a new congress in a vote seen as a referendum on peace talks with leftist guerrillas and a likely bellwether for presidential elections in May.

Nearly 2,500 candidates are competing for a total of 268 seats in Colombia’s lower house and senate.

Sunday’s election is expected to consolidate President Jose Manuel Santos as the front-runner for a second straight term in the upcoming presidential poll.

A win would allow his government to continue talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, which have dominated national political life since they opened in late 2012 in Havana, Cuba.

Both sides have agreed to allow the rebels to take part in national politics once the insurgency ends.

The FARC has been fighting for five decades against the Colombian government. It partly finances the insurgency through drug trafficking and frequent kidnappings of foreigners and Colombian officials.