Blogging the democratic revolution
Ziva at Babalu blog has found a Miami Herald exclusive, buried deep, about young Cuban conscripts who just blew away their senior commissar officers in Cuba. It’s a stunning development. Read it here. There are several interesting implications: 1. There may be more to come. People are less afraid to rebel these days and challenge communist authority. 2. A power void is being sensed. Obviously, Castro’s demise is creating less and less sense of direction, and people in leadership positions don’t know what to do, because they don’t know whether Castro will get well or not. If they make decisions…
Freedom! Some of the 19 Cuban freedom seekers who washed ashore in America this week. Welcome, amigos! Source: Babalu Yesterday I had a long conversation with a source in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. I told him Ecuador was making me sick, but I asked him what the foremost concern of the U.S. was in Latin America. He told me two things: Chavez’s declaration that he would dictate by decree … it was really bothering them … and Cuba. He wanted to know why the media was ignoring Cuba because he said they shouldn’t be. Those two matters were preoccupying…
Got a slew of dead-Castro rumors today, this time from people with ties to Washington types who say that the end is extremely near for Castro. The next three days or so will see a new power struggle as communists fight over the dead carcass of Castro in a bid to seize absolute power. What a pathetic scenario the U.S. must prepare for. The real beauty of a dead Castro will be in the rising revolution in people’s democracy – if it happens. But no one knows what the real Cuban people think, so no one knows what will occur.…
Will Cuban dictator Fidel Castro ever die? Or will he just disappear into a miama of rumor? Val Prieto at Babalu blog has compiled a great list of all the dead Castro rumors as they multiply and explained how and why they are originating. He lays them out as anecdotes, gives them a good roughing up, and explains why they matter. He’s done the whole terrific thing in a long piece for Pajamas Media here.
Castro’s goon squads beat up Cubans in Havana Sunday Source: Stefania at Free Thoughts Their crime? Celebrating human rights day. You heard that right, they were observing human rights day. That’s why they were beat up by Castro’s ‘repudiation’ squads, the barrio thugs who serve as Castro’s illegal enforcers, beating others with impunity in the name of Castroism. It doesn’t get viler than this. What’s amazing to me is that the ruling Castro brothers don’t seem to be bothered by the irony. What this shows is their essential inhumanity and willingness to strike out at any thinking about human rights.…
Now that Hugo Chavez has been reelected president by a wide margin, Venezuela is swiftly moving toward a one-party state. I know, you think I’m just being a rightwing alarmist. I’m just making it up, it’s nothing but some ruse to make Hugo Chavez look bad. But this isn’t coming from Venezuelans, or from my imagination. It’s not even overtly coming from Chavez’s office, although he may be thinking it. Given Venezuela’s pretense of being a democracy in the eyes of members-only organizations like the OAS, Chavez may have reason to not say he’s moving to a one-party state publicly.…
Cuba’s immensely wealthy Castro family, which Forbes magazine pegs for just under a billion provable dollars, is beginning to look outward for asylum with their money. That’s why the Chilean press yesterday reported that Mrs. Castro, the second or third wife of the Cuban dictator, has just bought a parcel of land straddling the Chile-Argentina border. That way, if something goes wrong on an extradition or truth commission subpoena, she can step over the boundary and remain on the estancia. It’s an amazingly shameless effort to launder out the ill-gotten Castro fortune into potential palaces of exile. In Cuba, the…
Can you imagine what it’s like to collect a bill from Castro? The guy defaults all the time, he owes about $6 billion in defaulted loans to banks all over the world, if I recall correctly. For some reason, though, Swiss banks have continued to do business with the Cuban government, perhaps because that’s where the Castro fortune is stashed. Well, they aren’t anymore. Val at Babalu, citing Child Of The Revolution (an excellent blog) has the scoop on the reason why: “it costs too much to ensure that Cuba respects and conforms to legal and financial regulations” Hear that?…
Our own dear Stefania Lapenna has published her first column for Townhall on the details of Cuba’s rising democracy movement. Cuba’s democrats realize deeply that there can be no ‘reform’ of Castro’s dictatorship in Cuba, there can only be change – more specifically – peaceful revolutionary change. That informs their tactics and as Castro withers, hurtling toward the ash heap, Cuba is seeing the rise of Cuba’s new democrats. It’s beautifully written and an absolute must-read here. (Click on and see how cute and Italian Stefania looks in her picture!)
Last Wednesday, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro may have slipped into a coma. On Saturday, his sycophant, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, flew into Havana (scroll down), possibly to bid a final farewell to his Cuban master. And Brazil’s President Lula da Silva made a slip of the tongue last weekend, saying ‘when Castro was alive…’ forgetting no one had announced that The Beast was dead. Meanwhile, Otto Reich reports that news agencies are getting visits from Castroite government functionaries regarding coming funeral arrangements, including seating, best camera angles, visas, how-tos ahead the coming spectacle…where guerrillas, tyrants, and Sandalista suckups will gather…
The first Congress of the Independent Libraries organized by the Assembly to Promote Civil Society is underway across Cuba, and despite the brutal repression the librarians are facing. The Assembly to Promote the Civil Society is civil society coalition of 365 Cuban opposition movements that fight peacefully for democratic and regime change in the island. From Octuber 10, 2006, to February 2007, a meeting of the 152 independent libraries is taking place in numerous Cuban towns and cities. They are informing the population about the goals of the civil desobedience and non-cooperation campaigns named ???????Yo no coopero, yo si quiero…
The Assembly to Promote the Civil Society, an umbrella organization gathering over 300 Cuban opposition movements that fight peacefully for democratic and regime change in the island, is planning a meeting of the independent libraries. They will inform the population about the goals of the civil desobedience and non-cooperation campaign named “Yo no coopero, yo si quiero el cambio” (I don’t cooperate with the repressive authorities, I want the change). The official motto will be “We are gathering for democracy”. Banned books, reviews, leaflets will be distribuited to the neighbors of the libraries where the meetings will take place and…
The world is loaded with well-wishers who have visited communist Cuba as tourists, and marvelled at beauty of the island, the sultry enticing laid-back culture of the people, the music, the ease of life, the apparent lack of materialism, the supposed universal health care, and other illusions. Over at Killcastro, a fine blog by Cuban exiles who have actual experience of Cuban life beyond the tourist spots at Varadero and central Havana, and who currently have some of the deepest contacts and connections inside the real Cuba, they printed a smuggled-out letter from a Cuban inside Cuba, that tells the…
Hot on the heels of the surprise power-packed U.S. consumer boycott of Venezuelan oil, a huge refinery explosion of Venezuelan oil occurred this morning in Havana, Cuba, where considerable Venezuelan oil is being refined. Gigantic. Val has a photo of the inferno, the latest oil blow to Hugo Chavez. The Real Cuba has more photos and details. Along with this, this, this, and this, just this past week, Venezuelan oil production under a communist regime is profoundly strained – beset with accidents, safety violations, waste and destruction. Even if oil prices rise as a result of all this, if Hugo…
Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez are again talking about dependency and how all the ills of the poorer nations are caused by the richer nations; particularly the USA. At the meeting of the so-called Non-Aligned Nations in Cuba, Chavez said, ???????To be radical is not to be insane, it’s to go to our roots. Let’s go to our roots, let’s be truly radical,” Chavez told diplomats and leaders from two-thirds of the world’s countries. He concluded by chanting “Patria o Muerte!” (“Fatherland or Death!”), a favored Castro rallying cry. Well, those roots are dependency theory, blaming the First World for…
Major mainstream television networks in France and Brazil have both taken aim at the odious regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba. And I don’t mean something small. They’ve put out huge high-advertising long programs out, firing a unusual cannonade at the dictatorship. This has never happened before. These TV programs document Cuba’s long lines, miserable shortages as a way of life, bureaucracy, commissars, vaunted health care that is nothing but a failure, monstrous communist indoctrination that passes for “education,” secret police surveillance, jailing of dissidents, and complete lack of freedom. It’s realistic programming on Cuba that no one in either…
While the United States pays tribute and mourns the September 11 terrorist attacks on its homeland, it must be remembered that there are people in this world who are even now actively plotting acts more deadly and terrible than anything before. They want to see America brought to its knees and are doing everything they can to see this happen. The not-so coincidence of Khatami’s speaking tour on this symbolic day as well as video releases by Al Qaeda are things that are to be expected. However, something that is not being widely reported on is the opening of the…
As if arbitrary arrests, “repudiation acts” and vile assassinations by hanging were not enough, the Castros’ regime ordered their Gestapo to arbitrarily arrest doctor Darsi Ferrer in Havana and attempt to assassinate his 5-year-old son. Darsi Ferrer leads the Center for Health and Human Rights “Juan Bruno Zayas”, affiliated to the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society. Darsi has always helped the Cuban poor by bringing medicines and clothes to women, children and elders. The State Security cannot stand this activist’s committment with the Cuban people and his calls on the world community to do something to rescue the Cubans.…
Val Prieto, the estimable and amazing Cuban-American blogger at Babalu blog has been asked for advice about creating a post-Castro Cuba, along with Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Carlos Eire and others luminaries, by none other than the White House and its top policy makers. He’s obviously been watched and read for a long time by the White House and the leading policy makers in the U.S. for a post-Castro Cuba. I am not surprised. Val projects a warmth, a soul, an unerring sense of timing, a social intelligence, and a referent power. He’s someone everyone in the Cuban-American community (and well…
Miami Cubans celebrate the coming demise of a brutal dictator Source: Rick at Stuck on the Palmetto blog As the hemisphere’s worst-ever dictator slides into death’s embrace, the mainstream media sweetly qualifies the Monster of Havana, one of the century’s worst tyrants, as a ‘maverick’ and other crap, Val at Babalu blog is providing some of the best real-time coverage and insightful commentary I’ve ever seen on a blog – EVER. EVER. I am too busy at work over these very events to be able to blog much and in any case I would not be able to top the…
I’ve discovered an interesting new blog called Cubanology which has encouraging words for Cubans and Cuban exiles in a new iSi se Puede! – ‘yes, you can’ – campaign. It’s got an interesting colorful layout, and sterling reporting on all the doings in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. See it here.
Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro is probably on his last legs. Rumors of the tyrant’s demise are circling like vultures over dead carrion. According to Val Prieto at Babalu blog, citing some items in The Miami Herald, the communist press on the island prison is giving considerable prominence all of a sudden to Castro’s no-good little brother, Raul, whom he’s designated as his dynastic successor. We are likely to know for sure on July 26, which is Castro’s favorite holiday, that of his putsch. But there’s more than that. Val has suddenly started getting actual hate mail from Castro’s brutal…
On July 13, 1994, a group of over 70 Cubans attempted to flee Castro’s Gulag on board of a tugboat named “13 de Marzo”. They was unable to leave the waters belonging to Cuba because the regime’s state security thugs were ordered, by the thug-in-chief Fidel Castro, to sink the boat. 41 people died, among which were pregnant women and children as young as 2 years old. The crime has remained unpunished and of course it will still remain unpunished with Castro still in power. Amnesty International has a must-read summary of the facts here The Weekly Standard has an…
They’re probably not true. Val at Babalu blog has the best — and some very funny – stuff here. Just click and keep scrolling.
Alicia Hernandez, mother of Guillermo, dismissed voices according which the independent journalist of Cubanac????n Press had suspended the 4-month-long hunger and thirst strike. Guillermo continues his fight. Read here, in Spanish.