Blogging the democratic revolution
“Thought he died years ago.” That’s the remark my mother made this weekend when the topic of Fidel Castro was brought up for some reason or another and the conversation rapidly moved on to some other subject. Castro should have died years ago, of course, but that hasn’t happened. If he had any dignity, he’d at least have gone into retirement. That’s why a new post from David A. Einhorn has such resonance. Einhorn recently came back from a trip to Cuba and was not impressed with what he saw and heard. Castro, like Hugo Chavez, was constantly breaking into…
The U.S. trade embargo against communist Cuba is frequently criticized, and with some good arguments, as an ineffective instrument against the Cuban dictator. But there’s more than one reason for this embargo, and Castro’s attitude toward paying his bills has a lot to do with why it’s in place too. Naturally, you ask yourself, why should anyone care whether Castro pays his bills? After all, if someone is going to be dumb enough to extend him credit and he doesn’t pay, why should it concern the rest of us? The reason is this: international trade is almost all insured by…
I found a must-see video-documentary about the Cuban Ladies in White, plus a short interview with my friend Claudia Marquez, former political prisoner now exiled in the United States and currently living in Puerto Rico. Watch the video here
Writing a sophisticated analysis on Babalu blog, Robert M explains a new movie from Cuba about dumpster divers in Havana. Like any such movie under the control of the Cuban censor, it doesn’t directly criticize the 46-year communist regime, but the point is clear enough: Cuba under supposedly egalitarianism is now producing dumpster divers. My own comment to that is this: As dumpster divers clearly can make more money digging through Western tourists’ trash than they can by working for the monopolistic state, there’s something wrong with the system that undervalues their wages that badly and makes dumpster diving more…
The Wall Street Journal has a must-read op/ed about Darsi Ferrer, the Cuban independent doctor and prominent dissident in Havana and a very good friend of mine. I told him about this article, given that he hadn’t yet seen it. He’s very very happy and thanks the WSJ for mentioning his story.
I just came through reports, in Spanish, about the likely death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The news, strangely, has been given by several news sites, among which the far-leftist Indymedia in Argentina, which quoted some Latin American media as having reported the news. The Cuban regime has immediately dismissed the claims. I assume that the regime won’t let know about the dictator’s death as soon as he dies. While we shouldn’t yet celebrate, let me say that I prepared a bottle of champaigne, as Castro’s days of life are very, very numbered. UPDATE: Given that this report is now…
A very brave independent Cuban journalist is on his 57th day of a hunger strike for the right to Internet access in Cuba. Guillermo Farinas Hernandez’s case has gotten little media attention, but it’s an important struggle for freedom of information inside news-starved Cuba. Castro knows very well the power of the Internet and its challenge to his brutal and increasingly tattered dictatorship. That’s why he’s repressing the brave ones who dare challenge his rule … not with guns, but with a hunger strike for free information. Guillermo’s, now in its 57th day, is showing no signs of stopping. To…
Today, March 18, 2006, marks the third anniversary of the “Black Spring”, o Primavera Negra, when some 75 peaceful Cubans were detained by the state security and later sentenced up to 30 years in Castro’s jails for the only crime of speaking out their mind and saying openly that they want free elections and democracy in Cuba. Source: Associated Press . During these three years, much has changed, including – for the worst – a change in the European attitude toward Cuba. The unexpected election ( by Al Qaeda’s help) of Spanish PM Zapatero has been without any doubt very…
She’s a model. Miss Czech Republic 1999 to be exact. She also has a charity for impoverished children that operates in nine different countries. Talk about a heart of gold and the hair to go with it, eh? This woman visited Cuba, the real Cuba, to get a sense of whether or not her charity could help people there. What she found made her squeamish. Not only did she find tens of thousands of people living in shantytowns, children starving in the streets, and HIV-positive workers forced into psychiatric wards, but that the Cuban secret police didn’t want anyone to…
The prominent Cuban dissident Martha Beatriz Roque, leader of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society, is harassed by Castroite mobs led by the State Security on a daily basis. She was released from prison back in 2004 for health problems, yet since months she is again a prisoner; the only difference is that now she’s prisoner at her own house! Agents of the Castroite terrorist police and mobs are denying her to leave the house and if she does, they’ll kill her. As she spoke at Radio Mart???? from her house in Santo Suarez neighborhood, Havana, a big ‘repudiation…
Dissidents dismissed reports claiming that Cuban independent journalist Guillermo Farinas ended his 13-day long hunger and thirst strike. His health, as well as those of other dissidents who bravely are supporting him and are on hunger strike too, is deteriorating. Meanwhile,Dr. Darsi Ferrer from Havana sent me an email with photos of his humanitarian work among poor Cuban families. He,his wife and other freedom fighters visited some people suffering from AIDS. As fyou can see, their living condition is quite bad. Castro tried to arrest two of these activists along a Czech model for taking pics of these people and…
Rock singer Carlos Santana is famous for wearing a great big Che Guevara t-shirt at the Oscars a couple years ago. Cuban-American Pundits blogger Conductor met the guy on the street by chance in Sausalito, wearing his ‘Che is dead’ t-shirt and provoked the rock star into a conversation with him. I had expected Santana to be a guy who could be talked sense into, but unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. The amazing encounter of the conversation between Santana and the rational Cuban American is here. BREAKING UPDATE: Conductor described Santana as a pot-addled space case and it turns out…
Why? Find out more here . And remember, the Bahamian authorities behave as badly as Castro. How long will it take before the civilized world realizes that Cuban refugees deserve the status of political refugees and must be granted political asylum? I am endorsing the boycott.
Val at Babalu blog has an important item on a hunger strike being done by an independent Cuban journalist inside Cuba who’s been denied any Internet access at all from which to file his stories to the outside world. The rest of us take this for granted but in Cuba, it’s something Castro considers his privilege. This poor fellow is willing to starve himself to get the gag off and barely anyone is noticing. It’s sad. Val’s writeup, and a photo of the Havana journalist, is here. UPDATE: And Ziva, at Blog for Cuba, has more thoughts here.
As many of you maybe know, Castro’s regime increased his war on the Cuban people.By speaking with many Cuban freedom fighters in Cuba, I notice that there’s an awareness about the upcoming end of the 47-year long communist dictatorship in the Antilles. Friends who have been continously harassed by Castroite mobs tell me that Castro is well aware that his days are numbered and that he can no longer control his people’s aspirations. Opposition movements are increasing day by day and the more repression is used against dissidents, the more people join the opposition and the more determined they’re. On…
First of all, I’ve to admit that I’m impressed by the courage and determination of the Cuban freedom fighters to keep fighting against the regime despite an increase in repression. Friends in Cuba tell me they’re convinced that the regime uses intimidation against dissidents because it knows its days are numbered. The more the regime harasses and persecutes the freedom fighters, the more determined they’re. Yesterday, several opposition groups in Banes, province of Holguin, held new peaceful activities to condemn the repression and Castro. The groups that participated are: the Cuban Liberal Movement; the Civic Resistance Movement “Pedro Luis Boitel”,…
After being targeted with a violent ‘repudiation act’ , the Sigler Amaya family is once again attacked. But this time, one of the family’s members, Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, suffered an attempt to his life while going to work. A woman????????s voice yelled ???????worm,??????? ???????worm,??????? and several male voices exclaimed, ???????we????????re going to squish you, worm.??????? Ä…Å ???????My life has become a living hell. Our situation ????????mine and my family????????s- is extremely dangerous. But, I will not leave the country, they know it, and for that reason I hold them responsible for anything that happens to me or my family.”…
Last week, I got an email from Darsi Ferrer of the Center for Health and Human Rights,which is a dissident organization member of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society. Darsi , who is living in Havana and has been victim of numerous ‘repudiation acts’ ( during one of which he was wounded to his right hand ) , sent the story of a Cuban doctor who worked at a hospital for 24 years and now is surviving thanks to his family’s help, because the regime had fired him and don’t let him return to work. He’s now forced to…
On January 25, twenty members of the Pro-Human Rights Party of Cuba, affiliated to the Andrej Sakharov International Foundation, were holding a meeting at a dissident’s house and suddenly a mob made up with plainclothes agents of the state security,the ‘committees for the defense of the revolution” and the “rapid response brigades” gathered in front of the house and started shouting all kinds of insults, offenses and threats at the freedom fighters. It’s to note that the mob shouted more offensive slogans after hearing the dissidents singing the Cuban national anthemn. At the end of the meeting, the freedom fighters…
Val Prieto at Babalu blog reports that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is raising a Great Wall of Havana to encircle the U.S. Mission there. Castro is enraged at a running lighted billboard which plays the UN declaration of human rights across its pixel-stream and the words of Martin Luther King. The former is actually an illegal document there, although Cuba has signed the declaration. So now a wall is going up. One of Val’s posters noted that this will provide a great group of souvenirs for people’s mantelpieces once the odious Castro regime is overthrown. Val’s post is here.
There’ve been numerous ‘acts of repudiation’ against peaceful freedom fighters across Cuba in the last few days. On last Saturday, Tania Nicol????s Bernardo , member of the Femenine Movement “Martha Abreu” was savagely beaten by a terrorist mob made up with plainclothes agents of the Castroite militias. It occurred in a public street in Santa Clara, following a peaceful march of Tania alongside other activists, who were distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, brochures with the word “Change” and other dissident material, to the people. Yesterday, other activists of such movement marched peacefully in Villa Clara in…
Yesterday, the ex-Polish Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa addressed Cuban dissidents via video conference at the residence of the U.S. Interest Section chief Michael Parmly in Havana. Walesa said that Cuba will be free very soon: “The system will fall because nobody believes in communism.You are close to your goal”. Meanwhile, Castroite fascist mobs continue to attack peaceful dissidents. Paramilitary mobs led by plainclothes agents of the state security and officials of the Interior Ministry attacked 3 peaceful freedom fighters members of the Cuban Democratic Alliance, the Foundation for Human Rights, the Democratic Oriental Alliance and independent agency ‘Youth Without Censorship’.…
Ramon Saul Sanchez just announced that he ended the 12-day hunger strike. The decision follows major developments in Washington. The White House agreed to meet with Cuban exile leaders on ”wet foot,dry foot” policy. However, Val of Babal???? agrees with Songuacassal, who says that it’s not yet over and won’t be until the wet/dry foot insanity has been abolished. I second that, but I also think this is only the first step toward the total abolition of the current policy. At least, I hope so.
I know that I’m not the first to write about the wet-foot/dry-foot policy with respect to Cubans fleeing Castro’s Gulag. But I’d like to let my opinion be known to Publius readers. I’m totally in favor of the abolition of this absurd and inhumane policy. For those who don’t know what this policy is about: Cubans who reach dry land in the United States are usually allowed to remain in the country, while those caught at sea are sent back. Why is it absurd? First and foremost, because it’s enforced only with respect to Cubans. Second, because sending freedom-seeking people…
I was trawling around on one of my favorite Web sites, The Real Cuba, and happened upon a whole section called ‘Cuba B.C.’ or ‘Before Castro.’ It’s a huge collection of photos of what Cuba looked like before Fidel Castro turned it into a communist wasteland, rife with poverty, corruption, absence of truth, and total decay. How strange to look into the window of the past and see a society completely comparable to our own, completely similar in development and dynamism. Those days are gone, of course, in the name of Castro’s so-called ‘revolution.’ More and more, that looks like…