tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54590620212149330622024-03-04T22:27:41.216-08:00Cuba LibreNews and articles about CubaCastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.comBlogger228125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-87177186267413588732011-11-29T19:16:00.000-08:002011-11-29T19:16:42.634-08:00Russia to help Cuba with production of rifle ammunition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<b>Russia and Cuba</b> are planning to sign a contract on building an assembly line for production of ammunition for <b>Kalashnikov assault rifles</b>, Kommersant business daily reported on Wednesday. <br />
<br />
According to a source in the <b>Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade</b>, cited by Kommersant, an assembly line for 7.62-mm rounds used in Kalashnikov assault rifles and other Russian-made rifles will be built at Cuba’s <b>Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara military plant</b>. <br />
<br />
The source said that Russia’s arms exporter <b>Rosoboronexport</b> had already prepared a contract, which includes the license and technology transfer. <br />
<br />
The official did not specify the value of the contract but said Russia was hoping to receive a contract in the future on a complete overhaul of rifle ammunition production facilities in Cuba, which were built in 1970s-1980s with the help of <b>Soviet specialists</b>. <br />
<br />
A Rosoboronexport source has confirmed the planned contract with Cuba but refused to provide more details on the subject, Kommersant said. <br />
<br />
Although the Cuban leadership has repeatedly said it has no intention of <b>resuming military cooperation</b> with Russia after the surprise closure of the Russian electronic listening post in Lourdes in 2001, bilateral military ties seem to have been improving since 2008. <br />
<br />
Chief of the Russian General Staff <b>Gen. Nikolai Makarov</b> <a href="http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20090918/156170428.html">said during his visit to Cuba in 2009</a> that modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of <b>Russian-Cuban military cooperation</b> in the future.<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://en.ria.ru/">Ria Novosti </a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-60695733877631272242011-11-22T05:25:00.000-08:002011-11-22T05:26:16.461-08:00Cuba's smoke-and-mirror reforms<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
The <b>Castro regime's</b> announcement
that for the first time Cuban citizens will be able to buy and sell their own
homes has spurred an outpouring of irrational exuberance that real change is finally
coming to the <b>island-prison</b> of Dr. Castro. "To say that
it's huge is an understatement," one interested
observer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/world/americas/cubans-can-buy-and-sell-property-government-says.html" target="_blank">told</a>
the <i>New York Times</i>. "This is the foundation, this is how you build
<b>capitalism</b>, by allowing the <b>free trade of property</b>."<br />
<br />
Another <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-cuba-reform-housing-idUSTRE7A283N20111103" target="_blank">told</a>
<i>Reuters</i>, "The ability to sell houses means instant capital formation for
Cuban families ... It is a big sign of the government letting go." Still another <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2011/1103/Cuba-legalizes-private-real-estate-transactions" target="_blank">writes</a>
in the <i>Christian Science Monitor</i> that these are "incredibly meaningful
changes."<br />
<br />
Such optimism is ill-founded. In
fact, it is indicative only of one of two things: either it betrays a brazen political
objective (<i><a href="http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/05/why-the-u-s-should-drop-the-embargo-and-prop-up-cuban-homeowners/#ixzz1cqWhYWX2" target="_blank">Time </a></i><a href="http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/05/why-the-u-s-should-drop-the-embargo-and-prop-up-cuban-homeowners/#ixzz1cqWhYWX2" target="_blank">magazine</a>: "Why the U.S. Should Drop the Embargo
and Prop Up Cuban Homeowners") or it demonstrates just how low the bar of
expectation has been placed for what the <b>Cuban people</b> need and deserve that we
must celebrate mere crumbs tossed their way by the <b>Castro dictatorship</b>.<br />
<br />
Indeed, sweep away the hype and
all you see are daunting hurdles as to how this announcement will change in any
way the regime's suffocating control of the Cuban population. The new order
restricts people to "ownership" of one permanent residence and one vacation
home (as if the average Cuban is in any position to own a second home); all
transactions must be approved by the State; no explanation is given on how you
grant titles to homes that either have been confiscated from their rightful
owners, have been swapped multiple times in the underground economy, or which
house multiple families because of the severe shortage of available housing;
the construction industry remains state-controlled; and the regime itself
admits this order reflects no backsliding on the preeminence of the State in
controlling the country's economic and political systems.<br />
<br />
Beyond these challenges, however,
is the fundamental fact that you cannot conjure private property rights, let
alone the free trade in property, out of thin air. Those rights exist only
where they are rooted in a credible, impartial, and transparent legal
superstructure that can protect one's property, settle disputes, and guarantee
transactions against the predations of the State. Anything less is a rigged
game where the State is the dealer.<br />
<br />
This is how the State Department's
annual <b>Human Rights Report</b> <a href="http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/wha/154501.htm" target="_blank">characterizes</a>
Cuba's judicial system: "While
the constitution recognizes the independence of the judiciary, the judiciary is
subordinate to the imperatives of the socialist state. The<b> National Assembly</b> appoints
all judges and can remove them at any time. Through the National Assembly, the
state exerted near-total influence over the courts and their rulings ... Civil
courts, like all courts in the country, lack an independent or impartial
judiciary as well as effective <b>procedural guarantees</b>."<br />
<br />
<br />
Translation:
Cubans' ability to "own" property, trade, or leverage their property to
build capital will continue to exist at the sufferance of the State. And what
the State giveth, the State can taketh away. The bottom line is that,
ultimately, all Cubans will really own is a piece of paper that says they own
something.<br />
<br />
Rather
than empowering individual Cubans, the regime's goal in allowing the open trade
of houses is to hopefully siphon more Cuban American money into the island's
perennially bankrupt economy. With average Cubans on the island too poor to buy
or improve their dilapidated dwellings, their hope is relatives in<b> Miami</b> and
elsewhere will remit even more cash to the island attempting to improve their
relations' situation. Indeed, the cynicism of relying on Cuban exiles to
support the <b>Cuban economy</b> has never bothered the Castro brothers in the
slightest.<br />
<br />
The
Castro regime recognizes the increasing unrest among the repressed and
impoverished Cuban people for fundamental change, but they are capable only of
prescribing more painkillers rather than the radical surgery that is needed to
restore the nation's health. Pretending to devolve more autonomy in
individuals' lives is just one more cruelty inflicted on the Cuban people over
five decades of dictatorship, a cruelty made worse by the cheerleading from
abroad.<br />
<br />
<b>By José R. Cárdenas</b><br />
Source: <a href="http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/">FP Blog </a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-19808690055793658022011-11-16T21:37:00.000-08:002011-11-16T21:38:31.431-08:00Castro's regime battles WiFi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<b>Cuba recently accused the United States of enabling illegal
Internet connections in its territory and said several people were
arrested in April for profiting from the wireless networks. <i>Granma</i>
newspaper said that those arrested, who were not identified, “had for
some time and without any legal authorization, been installing wireless
networks for profit.”</b><br />
<b> </b>
<br />
Using <b>satellite connections to the Internet</b> and equipment that was
either stolen or brought to the island illegally, they set up a service
to receive <b>international telephone calls</b> that bypassed the <b>state
telephone monopoly ETECSA</b>. “This activity is financed by the <b>United
States</b>, which is where the necessary means and tools come from, evading
the established controls,” the newspaper charged.<b> Cuba</b> has restricted
access to the <b>Internet</b>, giving priority to universities, research
centers, state entities and professionals like doctors and journalists.<br />
<br />
Because of the <b>US embargo</b>, Cuba cannot connect to the underwater
<b>fiber optic cables</b> that pass near the island, leaving satellite
connections with high rates and narrow bandwidths as the main option
available to Cuban Internet users. To overcome those limitations, a
<b>Cuban-Venezuelan company</b> laid an underwater cable between the two
countries in February. It was supposed to have been activated in July,
but it has been delayed for reasons the government has yet to explain.<br />
<br />
Cuban authorities have previously accused the United States of
illegally introducing <b>technology</b> in the island to enable the creation of
wireless networks outside state control. One such case was that of US
government contractor <b>Alan Gross</b>, who was arrested in December 2009 and
sentenced to 15 years prison for bringing <b>IT equipment</b> into the country
and delivering it to various people.<br />
<br />
“Cuba has every right to safeguard its radio-electronic sovereignty.
Those who try to evade it will bear the weight of the corresponding
administrative rules and criminal law,” <i>Granma</i> said.<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://repeatingislands.com/">Repeating Islands</a> </div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba23.07973198956396 -82.30957068750001321.217381989563961 -87.91807068750002 24.94208198956396 -76.7010706875tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-21147227053177925962011-11-11T20:35:00.000-08:002011-11-11T20:35:58.701-08:00The Unreported Tragedy of Cuba’s Repressive Communist Regime<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<b>Cuba</b>—to listen to, watch or read some of the media—is a place that
has remained unbowed in the face of impoverishment by the <b>U.S. embargo</b>.
Lately what you hear is that it is attempting to make bold <b>reforms</b> not
just in the economy, but socially as well (it just allowed gays to
marry!) The people still dance.<br />
<br />
Only that the reality of Cuba bears little resemblance to the plucky
little island narrative. Cuba’s penury has nothing to do with the U.S.
decision not to trade with the <b>communist island</b>, but with the fact that
the island is communist in the first place. If communism produced misery
in Europe and Asia (where one half of Germany and Korea stagnated under
<b>repression</b> while the capitalist halves of those countries thrived in
<b>economic and political freedom</b>) why would the result be different in the
Caribbean?<br />
<br />
Communism is a human tragedy, enslaving the soul while failing to
produce enough goods for the people trudging under it. Communist
countries are large prisons; the borders must be closed lest the people
escape. And within that hell there are smaller circles where the
repression is intensified. It’s the <b>Gulag</b>, the re-education camp or, in
Cuba’s case today, public beatings by government mobs for who speak up
their minds.<br />
<br />
One would think a journalist would want report on that, especially
when—as is the case in Cuba today—the people have finally decided to
risk it all and take to the streets to voice their opposition. Reality,
however, is again otherwise.<br />
<br />
In Cuba today there’s a growing and vibrant protestor movement,
headed by a group of women called Las Damas de Blanco (<b>The Ladies in
White</b>). Originally organized by the wives of <b>political prisoners</b>, it has
now galvanized others to lose their fear and voice their <b>anti-communist</b>
sentiments in public.<br />
<br />
Their acts are dignified. They march to Mass on Sunday bearing
flowers; sometimes they stand in squares and chant slogans or meet in
each other’s houses.<br />
<br />
The repression that <b>Cuba’s communist regime</b> has unleashed against
these poor ladies is anything but dignified. They have been seized by
government goons bused in for the occasion, pushed, scratched and
beaten. In one case, in the city of Santiago de Cuba, these ladies were
stripped to their waist and dragged through the streets. In another
instance they were bitten. The founder of the movement, 63-year-old
<b>Laura Pollan</b>, died last month and her remains were returned to
her family only after she was cremated..<br />
<br />
We understand—though it still rankles—why journalists posted in
<b>Havana</b> are reluctant file stories or broadcast on these events or on the
overall mind-numbing reality of communism. If they do, they will be put
on the next plane out (a fate any Cuban would relish, of course). As
blogger <b>Yoani Sanchez</b>—a rare Cuban allowed to speak her mind, with only
the occasional beating—posted last month at <b>Foreign Policy</b>:<br />
<blockquote>
“The dilemma of <b>foreign correspondents</b> — popularly called
‘foreign collaborators’ — is whether to make concessions in reporting
in order to stay in the country, or to narrate the reality and face
expulsion. The major international media want to be here when the
long-awaited ‘zero day’ arrives — the day the <b>Castro regime</b> finally
makes its exit from history. For years, journalists have worked to keep
their positions so they will be here to file their reports with two
pages of photos, testimonies from emotional people, and reports of
colored flags flapping all over the place.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
“But the elusive day has been postponed time and again. Meanwhile,
the same news agencies that reported on the events of <b>Tahrir Square</b> or
the fighting in <b>Libya</b> downplay the impacts of specific events in Cuba or
simply keep quiet to preserve their permission to reside in the
country. This gag is most dramatic among those foreign journalists with
family on the island, whom they would have to leave or uproot if their
accreditation were revoked. The grim officials of the CPI understand
well the delicate strings of emotional blackmail and play them over and
over again.”</blockquote>
It’s unfair to single out the press, however. The <b>Obama
Administration</b> has failed, too, to bring the plight of Cubans to the
forefront, even during the current wave of repression against the Ladies
in White.<br />
<br />
Two reasons are given for the soft approach. <b>President Obama</b> may not
want to complicate the case of <b>Alan Gross</b>, a Marylander Cuba has taken
hostage. Gross was sent to Cuba in 2009 by the U.S. Agency for
International Development to set up internet connectivity for Cuba’s
dwindling <b>Jewish community</b>. He was arrested in December of 2009 and has
been sentenced to 15 years for the crime of bringing satellite phones
and laptops into Cuba. President Obama also wants to reach out to the
<b>Castro brothers</b>.<br />
<br />
We at The Heritage Foundation agree with <b>Churchill</b> and <b>Reagan</b> that
tyranny cannot be appeased. We have a proud record of standing up to
communism, including its Caribbean variety, an effort led by decades by
such giants as Lee Edward, the chairman of the<b> Victims of Communism
Memorial Foundation</b>.<br />
<br />
That’s why next week, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, we will have two events on
these subjects; the first devoted to Cuba and the second to communism.<br />
<br />
At the first event, at 10 am, we will feature a key note address by
Representative <b>Ileana Ros-Lehtinen</b> (R., FLA), the Chairman of the House
of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as a panel on the
latest from Cuba.<br />
<br />
In the second event, which follows at 11 am, we’ll look back at the
twentieth anniversary of the fall of the <b>USSR</b>, Cuba’s former patron, in a
panel featuring Heritage experts and the distinguished scholar of the
Soviet Union, <b>Professor Richard Pipes</b>.<br />
<br />
The collapse of the <b>Soviet Union</b> was a tremendous victory, but the
survival of the Castro regime, and the rising tide of authoritarianism
in Russia, should remind us that not all the achievements of 1991 are
secure. So in addition to celebrating the return of <b>freedom</b> to Eastern
Europe, we’ll look at how the lessons and concerns of two decades ago
are relevant to today.<br />
<br />
<b>By Mike Gonzalez</b><br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/">The Foundry</a> </div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-54436094482500411562011-10-31T02:58:00.000-07:002011-10-31T02:59:06.108-07:00For Cuban Women, Sundays Are for Protest Marches<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpr97MTMGDNtNg7U6ium_sEaYLDXVNPoMgtHB5qQpBUYQnUOaLbPs2TOJiixScNNu5VvjOz57dFoUFDxYhMSTgC22kkQk2k9NuMyRvV9sOKVZwNyzyqlfgScDkHK2yP4ckTstHwYX-u9uf/s1600/ladies+in+white+havana+cuba+protest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpr97MTMGDNtNg7U6ium_sEaYLDXVNPoMgtHB5qQpBUYQnUOaLbPs2TOJiixScNNu5VvjOz57dFoUFDxYhMSTgC22kkQk2k9NuMyRvV9sOKVZwNyzyqlfgScDkHK2yP4ckTstHwYX-u9uf/s400/ladies+in+white+havana+cuba+protest.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Ladies in White march in Havana, Cuba </b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br />Relatives of political prisoners in Cuba--many of them women--are fighting to curb abuses they say family members suffer during incarceration. One of the most prominent opposition groups, Ladies in White, meets on Sundays.</b><br />
<br />
Four women stood with <b>anti-government</b> signs in a well-trafficked square in <b>Havana</b>. <br />
<br />
They were members of <b>Ladies in White</b>, a group that formed in 2003 after 75 <b>political dissidents</b> were jailed. <br />
<br />
Dressed in white--the color of peace--they march to Catholic mass to pray for <b>human rights</b> and the release of relatives and loved ones in <b>prison</b>. <br />
<br />
The group has been meeting on Sundays across <b>Cuba</b> for years. But this particular small demonstration a couple of months ago--on Aug. 23 in Havana--proved momentous. When a plain-clothes police officer came to break up the women, some nearby people defended the women and forced the officer to leave in search of backup.<br />
<br />
It wasn't the first time bystanders had aided the women, but because it was in such a busy area, it was the first time such an action was caught on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki2yAnSQnQg"> video</a> with cell-phone cameras and uploaded to <b>YouTube</b> the very next day. <br />
<br />
"It was visible proof, released to an international audience over YouTube, that there is an increasing support for the resistance movement," said Aramis Perez, a leader of the Assembly of Cuban Resistance, based in <b>Miami</b>, Fla. <br />
<br />
Often, he said, reports filed from Havana are censored or written by government supporters and describe activist groups as "small and fragmented." <br />
<br />
Two days later Amnesty International, the London-based rights group, published a call to stop the <b>repression</b> of the Ladies in White. <br />
<br />
Police and government officials have violently attacked individuals and groups of female <b>political dissidents</b> on at least 25 occasions this year--sometimes while the women were engaged in nonviolent protest, and other times while they were with their families at home--according to a report released by the Assembly of Cuban Resistance in August. The report, "Cuba: Violent Aggressions Against Women, Human Rights Defenders," was based on daily communication with activist groups in Cuba.<br />
<br />
<b>'A Leading Role' </b><br />
<br />
The resistance movement is carried out by a wide cross-section of Cuban citizens--urban, rural, farmers, students--but "women have been playing a leading role," said Perez. <br />
<br />
One of those women is <a href="http://cubaupdate-english.blogspot.com/2011/10/in-memory-of-laura-pollan.html"><b>Laura Pollan</b></a>, the leader of Women and White and the recipient of the European Parliament's 2005 <b>Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought</b>. Pollan died on Oct.14 at age 63. <br />
<br />
Another is <b>Bertha Antunez</b> who lives in exile in Florida. <br />
<br />
She spoke at a meeting last month on the sidelines of the <b>U.N. General Assembly</b> along with other human rights activists, including Marina Nemat, Iranian author and former political prisoner; <b>Jacqueline Kasha</b>, Ugandan LGBT rights activist and winner of Martin Ennals 2011 Human Rights Defenders Prize; and <b>Rebiya Kadeer</b>, Uyghur dissident and former political prisoner. <br />
<br />
Antunez used the podium to urge the international community to help women in Cuba who are working for human rights. <br />
<br />
"These women, today, at this moment, risk their lives, put their bodies before the police violence," she told a roomful of people at the forum, organized by a coalition of international nongovernmental groups. "Their voices shout for freedom while they are brutally beaten and they continue to take to the streets." <br />
<br />
Antunez said her activism was fueled by prison visits to her brother, released in 2007, after 17 years of incarceration in various prisons, making him one of the longest serving political prisoners in Cuba. <br />
<br />
"Soldiers from the prison savagely beat my brother in my presence and in the presence of two children from our family. We were beaten too. On various occasions I had to resort to a hunger strike to save my brother's life," she told the human rights activists, advocates and supporters. <br />
<br />
<b>Motivational Visits </b><br />
<br />
In an interview with Women's eNews, Antunez expanded on how those prison visits had motivated her. <br />
<br />
"I got firsthand testimony from many prisoners and there were things I couldn't believe" she said. "I never thought these abuses were taking place in my country. I knew there were injustices outside the prison because we are all victims of those; but this was torture." <br />
<br />
A Cuban dissident group, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, based in Hialeah, Fla., reports that Antunez's brother, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, was arrested during a demonstration for yelling that communism was "an error and a utopia." His speech was considered "oral enemy propaganda," the report says. His sentence was extended several times for speaking back to guards and continuing to vocalize his political beliefs. <br />
<br />
Antunez and relatives of other family members of political prisoners founded the <b>National Movement of Civic Resistance "Pedro Luis Boitel"</b> to fight abuse in prisons. <br />
<br />
The group remains active and continues to organize peaceful protests, sit-ins and hunger strikes at prisons across the island. <br />
<br />
This year, the incarceration of two of the group's members and other recent crackdowns on dissidents spurred <b>Human Rights Watch</b> to issue <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/06/01/cuba-stop-imprisoning-peaceful-dissidents"> statement</a> in June saying that Cuban laws "criminalize virtually all forms of dissent, and grant officials extraordinary authority to penalize people who try to exercise their basic rights."<br />
<br />
<b>By Maura Ewing</b><br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.womensenews.org/">Women's eNews</a> </div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-20125299160369786392011-10-25T08:46:00.001-07:002011-10-25T08:46:24.904-07:00Just How Specious is Latin America's Revolutionary Rhetoric?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
Although Cuba's <b>Fidel Castro</b>, as one of the fathers of revolution, continues to verbally assault the <b>U.S.</b> and essential democratic principles, <b>Cuba</b> is playing it safe and cautious not to stagger too far off the beaten path of a much better informed world audience.<br />
<br />
An exception to this apparent rule is Castro's admiration for his protégé, President <b>Hugo Chavez</b> of <b>Venezuela</b>. Castro does not hesitate to wave the much tattered Cuban revolutionary flag when speaking of his admired pupil. <br />
<br />
An op-ed column last week by Fidel Castro graphically demonstrated his remaining true moniker of <b>world dictator</b>. He remarked, "Given its exceptional educational, cultural, social development and its immense energy and natural resources, Venezuela is called upon to become a revolutionary model for the world." And with what must have been a monumental attempt to be sincere and appear rational, he added, "I had long conversations with (Chavez) yesterday and today. I explained to him the intensity with which I am devoting my remaining energies to dreams of a better and more just world." (Digital Granma Internacional, Havana, Cuba, Oct. 19, 2011; translation Granma)<br />
<br />
While both Castro's have been pandering for world support and U.S. mercy to lift the decades old trade embargo against Cuba, Fidel could not resist his usual venomous hatred of U.S. governance and culture. "... (T)he empire [the U.S.] is already showing the symptoms of a terminal illness.... Saving humanity from an irreversible disaster, these days, could depend on the stupidity of any mediocre president among those who have led the empire in the most recent decades, or even one or another of the constantly more powerful heads of the military-industrial complex which controls the destiny of that country."<br />
<br />
While praising the "friendly nations" of <b>Russia</b> and <b>China</b>, Castro said that "together with the peoples of the so-called Third World in Asia, Africa and Latin America, (they) could attain" the goal of saving humanity from <b>capitalism</b>.<br />
<br />
Castro's usual heady dialogue always fails to confess the financial and institutional destruction of the Cuban mainland and the horrible sacrifices imposed on the populace by iron-fisted communist dictatorial rule. And the Castro agenda, once again, telegraphed the proverbial passing of the now dimly lit torch of radical rhetoric to Hugo Chavez's narrowing optical imagination. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, Castro's revolutionary hysteria appears to have taken a curious back seat with Cuba's silence on the death of <b>Libya's Muammar Gaddafi</b>, while having and maintaining a very strong mutual support relationship. <br />
<br />
To the verbal rescue of those revolutionaries remaining mute, Venezuela's Chavez stepped up quickly to say, "(Gaddafi's death is) an outrage. We shall remember Gaddafi our whole lives as a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr." Owed loyalty could be attributed to Chavez's ego, after having been awarded the "<b>Algaddafi International Prize for Human Rights</b>," a prize granted by the Libyan leader. Cuba's Fidel Castro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega were also past recipients of the award.<br />
<br />
Fidel Castro's fading revolutionary tenure and factual recollection remained to remind that Chavez "is a supremely humanitarian person and respectful of the law; he has never taken revenge against anyone. The poorest and most forgotten sectors of his country are profoundly grateful to him for responding - for the first time in history - to their dreams of social justice."<br />
<br />
Considering apparent major voids of factual events in praise by Castro, Chavez and (Nicaragua's) Ortega of each other's human rights achievements, one must question their words and thoughts related to national liberation and social revolution - and then refuse support to the overwhelming majority of Libyans in their battle for freedom against dictatorial rule and public dissent.<br />
<br />
Leftist leaders <b>Rafael Correa</b> of <b>Ecuador</b> and <b>Bolivia's Evo Morales</b> have also been noticeably quiet recently, as citizens of their respective countries have amassed in verbal and demonstrative posture in <b>protest</b>. <br />
<br />
More than 1,000 Indians opposing a jungle highway in Bolivia's Amazon paraded last week into the capital after a 63-day protest march. Government "baton-swinging police" attempts to break up the marches "fueled charges that leftist President Evo Morales discriminates against Bolivia's Amazon-based indigenous groups."<br />
<br />
Ecuador's Correa too has had problems. Last year Correa's own brother, <b>Fabricio Correa</b>, said the nation is being "directed" from <b>Venezuela</b> in an effort to impose "a political model" that is widely rejected. "Now everybody rebels, and students, indigenous people and professors are against a Venezuelan project that nobody wants in Ecuador. A totalitarian model is intended to be established." <br />
<br />
Rafael Correa was attacked in 2010 in what he described as "an attempted coup d'état (and ‘kidnapping')" from his own police force. Soldiers subsequently arrived with tanks and submachine guns, opened fire on the police, and a fierce gun battle ensued. <br />
<br />
Even with a world "media revolution," that is apparently demonstrating new messages these days, leftist regimes in <b>Latin America</b> are having serious trouble with credibility. Consequently, many are silent - for now. <br />
<b><br />By Jerry Brewer</b><br />
Source: <a href="http://www.mexidata.info/">Mexidata</a><b><br /></b></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-42246859695801861832011-10-23T03:59:00.000-07:002011-10-23T04:07:37.881-07:00Freedom House study reveals optimism in Cuba about economic reforms<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><br />The Freedom House report on Cuba released today finds that Cubans see real economic change there, and more Cubans now would rather work for themselves than hold once-prized state jobs.</b><br />
<br />
When <b>Raul Castro</b> announced radical changes to the economic structure of communist <b>Cuba,</b> the country was in a semi-daze.<b> </b><br />
<b></b><br />
Many Cubans were excited about the prospects of <b>economic change</b>,
particularly opening access to self-employment. But, as state jobs were
slashed, many were also worried about going it alone after a lifetime of
stable, if paltry, government salaries and subsidies.<br />
<br />
But <a href="http://freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/105.pdf" target="_blank">a new Freedom House survey</a>
released today shows a radical change in perceptions. Forty-one percent
of Cubans say the country is making progress, compared to only 15
percent who felt optimistic about the country’s future when Freedom
House last conducted field research in December 2010. In fact, today
more Cubans say they would prefer to work for themselves than for the
government, the survey shows.<br />
<br />
Less than a year ago, Cubans were “very skeptical about change. They
doubted real change would happen,” says Daniel Calingaert, deputy
director of programs at Freedom House and co-author of the study. This
survey was carried out in June, after reforms were implemented formally
at the <b>Sixth Communist Party Congress</b> in April. And now, Mr. Calingaert
says, Cubans see “change is real.”<br />
<br />
This economic opening is the
“most significant <b>positive change</b> to have taken place in Cuba since
<b>communism</b> was introduced half a century ago,” the new survey concludes.<br />
<br />
At
first glance, Cuban optimism could be a good sign for the <b>Castro
government</b>. But it could also pose additional challenges. Cubans who
have tasted<b> economic freedom</b> say they want more, and a bit of stability
has also allowed them the luxury to think beyond the day-to-day
economics of feeding a family. “It’s opening people to new
possibilities,” says Calingaert. “There is more interest in <b>individual
freedoms</b>.”<br />
<br />
Indeed, one of the more surprising findings is that,
when asked what reforms they most wanted, Cubans said increased <b>freedom
of expression</b> and the <b>freedom to travel</b> (28 percent). This is a radical
change from the most recent study, when <b>economic reform</b> topped the wish
list of respondents.<br />
<br />
The Cuban government has a long way to go on
the freedom front. Most Cubans continue to get their news from the
government. The poll showed that only 40 percent of Cubans surveyed knew
what happened to <b>Egypt</b>’s leaders, while only 36 percent knew how the revolution in <b>Tunisia</b> ignited.<br />
<br />
Here are some of the survey’s specific major findings:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>79 percent say they have noted visible change in the past six months in Cuba, including more self-employed on the streets.<br /> </li>
<li>63 percent of respondents favor the reforms introduced under Raul Castro. The report quotes an ice-cream vendor: “Imagine, I can make more money selling ice cream than I ever did as an accountant for the government.”<br /> </li>
<li>49 percent say that it is better to work for themselves, compared to 44 percent who say a government job is better.
</li>
</ul>
<br />
That is not to say that Cubans aren’t wary of changes ahead of them.
For example, the field research culled commentary from Cubans voicing
concern about unsteady incomes, having enough funds to start their own
businesses – especially those without family in the <b>US</b> to help – and growing resentment among less successful entrepreneurs.<br />
<br />
“The
changes are causing a sense of insecurity and resentment among some
Cubans, as might be expected in a country where citizens were almost
entirely dependent on government for their material needs and had no
experience of market competition,” the report says. “Such insecurity and
resentment accompanied the shift from communism to market economies in <b>Eastern Europe</b> and the former <b>Soviet Union</b>.
While the insecurity and resentment presents a challenge for reform in
Cuba, it is also a reflection of how profound are the changes that are
currently underway.”<br />
<br />
<b>By
Sara Miller Llana </b><br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/">CSMonitor </a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-17489255550659551882011-10-20T04:43:00.000-07:002011-10-20T04:44:28.710-07:00Updating Immigration Policy in Cuba<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
The mere fact of hearing it on television petrifies me, but listening
to the president of my county has been illuminating, because in
revolutionary <b>Cuba</b> there are issues so ethereal that they never find an
appropriate occasion to be raised “procedurally,” taboos the single
mention of which give one goosebumps, themes that cannot be approached
without people looking at you, eyes wide with terror.<br />
<br />
This is the case with the <b>immigration policy</b> the Cuban government has
maintained over the last 50 years, one of the most traumatic and thorny
issues in <b>Cuban society</b>. The twisted mechanisms created to impede the
free flow of people, whether to travel or to emigrate, have turned what
would normally be one more choice in the life of any Cuban, into a real
ordeal.<br />
<br />
During his speech delivered to the <b>Cuban Parliament </b>on August 1, 2011, <b>Raul Castro</b> announced that work was now underway “<i>…to implement the upgrade of the current immigration policy…</i>”
While I welcome the proposal — given that <b>Fidel Castro</b> never announced
anything like this in his entire time in government — I quickly curbed
my enthusiasm when, a minute later, Raul specified that “<i>…the
flexibilization of the policy will take into account the right of the
revolutionary State to defend itself from the interventionist and
subversive plans of the <b>United States government</b> and its allies, and at
the same time will include <b>reasonable countermeasures </b>to preserve the human capital created by the Revolution in the face of the theft of talent practiced by the powerful.</i>”<br />
<br />
Stated thus, is this a way of saying he’s going to put the usual
patch over the tatters? Suddenly I sensed he was talking about me
because, being a doctor, I am subject to the super-punitive <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6ad5428.html">Ministry of Public Health Resolution 54</a> — which places restrictions on the emigration of doctors — which hangs like a guillotine over professionals in my profession.<br />
<br />
Until now, the <b>Cuban citizen</b> who desires to travel outside of Cuba
has to overcome a whole string of obstacles: obtain a “<b>letter of
invitation</b>” from a foreign citizen, getting a visa for the country in
question, first having deposited thousands of dollars in a bank — a
necessary condition for many countries — and then… ah! then… the
terrifying “<b>exit permit</b>,” also called the “<b>white card</b>,” that can be
issued or denied at will, and which also includes the “<b>entry permit</b>” —
awarded by the <b>immigration authorities</b> of the <b>Ministry of the Interior</b>
through Decree/Law 989 of December 5, 1961, which says it all.<br />
<br />
This has one obvious consequence for Cubans within and outside the
island, who for fifty years have been subjected to a tacit ban on travel
abroad, because the above-mentioned mechanism functions like a narrow
filter, unbreachable by anyone stigmatized for political reasons and
especially anyone whom it is suspected might emigrate if given authority
to travel. This monster, treacherously rationed, is subject to
thousands of acts of <b>extortion, bribery, corruption and moral
degradation</b> involving both officials and citizens throughout the
country.<br />
<br />
But as this is the land of magical realism, a government that has
practiced, for so long, this policy of secrecy with regards to travel,
has come to the point of cynically questioning the immigration policies
of others. They cite repeatedly, for example, the government of the
United States for prohibiting its citizens to travel to Cuba as a
consequence of the <b>embargo</b> — which is certainly a violation of the
rights of the American people — and even convene meetings with the
diaspora where they poetically call for “normalization” of relations
with emigrants, including, I suppose, those who left Cuba in 1980 under
the rain of their blows and tossed eggs.<br />
At these meetings not a word of apology is heard, nor is the need to
reform immigration policy even mentioned; convened by the Cuban
government, its representatives lash out, throwing stones from their
glass house. When I hear news like this I turn off the television,
because I was born with only one liver and my tolerance has its limits.<br />
<br />
Shielded behind the argument of the “…legitimate defense against the
aggressions we’ve been subjected to for more than 50 years…” —
perpetrated by successive U.S. administrations, but for which my people
bear no fault — the Cuban government lashed out indiscriminately against
our freedom and extended this “immigration” war to the rest of the
known universe.<br />
<br />
Taking as a given that the U.S. administrations certainly haven’t
rested, nor will they, in their attempt to overthrow the Revolution,
there are still more than 180 other countries with whom Cuba maintains
diplomatic relations, consulates, or full trade. This, if there’s no way
we can consider ourselves an “enemy” of all humanity, then why don’t we
have the right to travel freely in the rest of the world? Why does this
ban remain even for countries with “friendly” governments like China,
Bolivia, Ecuador and our Venezuelan ally? Why has this sick control been
maintained over something so natural? This shows that the sealed-wall
policy marks the hard line of a much wider control strategy. Maintaining
this strategy fits like a glove with our condition as an archipelago.
Our insularity greatly facilitates the wishes of the Cuban government,
which has the luxury of trampling rights that it would not be able to
monopolize so fully if we had land borders.<br />
<br />
Raul added in his speech: “<i>This sensitive issue has been subject
to political and media manipulation over many years in an effort to
denigrate the Revolution and create enmity with Cubans living abroad</i>.”
As if anyone needed to distort anything in relationship to this policy
to show exactly what it is: the glaring and massive violation of a right
inherent to every home sapiens on the earth. It is not possible to
ethically defend such a posture, nor is it necessary exhaust oneself in
any kind of “manipulation” to “denigrate” the guilty, because this
policy is already, in and of itself, a sufficiently denigrating
manipulation to universally discredit anyone who perpetrates it.<br />
<br />
Nor was it necessary to “alienate” anyone from the <b>Revolution</b>,
because this same policy led to truly bestial treatment of <b>emigrants</b>;
it’s enough to remember those shameless repudiation rallies in 1980, the
demonization of those who left, the social stigmatization of all those
“lumpen” and “worms,” of all that “social scum” dragged through the
streets everywhere in Cuba for their “sin” of emigrating, the
confiscation of all their property, the total uprooting…<br />
<br />
It was this brutality that kept families separated for five decades,
and not just residents of “enemy” territory, but every Cuban resident in
any country from Manchuria to Patagonia. This policy is at fault, in
great measure, for thousands of lives lost at sea in the last two
decades, a trail of death that could have been avoided with a policy
supporting the natural flow of Cubans through legal means. No one, given
a civilized alternative for travel, would have risked ending up adrift
with the sharks.<br />
<br />
Hopefully, for the good of everyone, sanity will finally be imposed,
because once this policy of perpetual imprisonment is eliminated,
maintained against the will of the Cuban people, its immediate and
visible consequences will end — the illegal trafficking of people across
the Gulf, for example — and then time will heal, bit by bit, its
generational consequences — which are chronic and so, deeper — at the
same time that the Cuban government casts off this serious stigma. For
now, one conclusion is clear: “normal relations” cannot exist with
immigration as long as there are not normal legal mechanisms that
regulate the migratory phenomenon; as long as this isn’t the case every
attempt to approach the subject will be a farce, as long as it is not
accompanied by sincere political will.<br />
<br />
The time has already come in my country when travel can no longer be
entertainment earned by a privileged caste, or a gift rewarded
uncritical or servile postures, but rather a strictly personal decision,
without consultation, not subordinated to the authority of any
minister.<br />
<br />
Citizens must be left to their own devices, through binding and
unequivocal laws that no authority would dare to break. They must
guarantee full respect for the individual right and return to the
national the wealth of the diaspora, the whole universe of Cubans beyond
the sea that has been separated from us for far too long; a universe
that in its time included the poetry of Gaston Baquero, the narrative of
Cabrera Infante, or the lyrical prose of Reinaldo Arenas; the music of
Sandoval and Willy Chirino,Celia’s lost voice that no longer vibrates
with Los Van Van in the Piragua; the arms of Duque and Contreras, who
don’t throw against their Cuban team, but are excluded from it in the
World Baseball Classic; I speak of the generational painting José Bedia
and many others, Cubans like me, who make an infinite cosmology that
belongs to us. We all fit under the sky of our unique tricolor Cuban
nation, but to realize this miracle will require that we forever swear
off the doomed <i>Dictionary of Absurd Analogies</i> and admit, finally, that concepts such as <i>travel and renounce, migrate and betray, abdicate and </i><i>forgive… </i>will never be synonymous.<br />
<br />
There remains, however, the sting of uncertainty: In the event that
the leadership of the country is certainly thinking about freeing
foreign travel <b>without conditions</b> — something I sincerely doubt — will doctors and other professionals be excluded? Will they take “<i>reasonable countermeasures</i>” — words of a rare exoticism among us — or will they to back to the extremes?<br />
<br />
Not to fall into sterile speculation, we can only hope. But for now I
recover the hope of seeing old friends again, alienated by this wall of
discord for over ten years, when they left for new horizons. Because
they decided not to live under this government, the doors of their
country closed behind them. I say their country, because that sacred
spiritual possession that is one’s homeland is always carried within.
These, my beloved beings who seek new paths, convince — I already said
the most universal of Cubans — that homeland is also humanity.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">By Jeovany J. Vega </span></b><br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://translatingcuba.com/">Translating Cuba</a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.187405219992467 -81.29882850000001320.325055219992468 -86.90732850000002 24.049755219992466 -75.6903285tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-64922448656920580482011-10-17T19:10:00.000-07:002011-10-17T19:22:17.103-07:00Cuba: Anti-corruption campaign hits British golf developer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
Directly affecting a core player in <b>Cuba</b>’s ambitious <b>golf development</b> plans and a major port expansion, the top executive of a <b>British investment fund</b> was arrested in <b>Havana</b> amid an investigation into alleged <b>corruption</b>. <br />
<br />
The <b>Cuban government</b> has not made any announcement regarding the arrest last week in Havana of <b>Amado Fakhre</b>, of <b>Coral Capital Group Ltd</b>.<br />
<br />
The arrest, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/17/us-cuba-fund-idUSTRE79G3C420111017">first reported by Reuters</a>, is part of a broadening anti-corruption sweep against Cuban state company executives and the foreign investors they interact with. The move against Coral Capital comes after <b>long prison terms</b>, in absence, for the <a href="http://cubaupdate-english.blogspot.com/2011/05/chilean-businessman-ex-minister-get.html">Chilean owners of <b>Alimentos Río Zaza</b></a> and a shut-downs of Canadian trading companies <a href="http://cubaupdate-english.blogspot.com/2011/09/corruption-cuba-shuts-canadian-company.html"><b>Tokmakjian Group</b> and <b>Tri-Star Caribbean</b></a>. <br />
<br />
Cuban company executives receive tiny salaries, while often handling millions of dollars worth of transactions. <br />
<br />
According to Reuters, the investigation of Coral Capital apparently centers on the company’s import business in Cuba, not on its plans to build a $120 million golf resort just east of Havana and a $43 million logistics zone at the <b>port of Mariel</b>. <br />
<br />
Set up in 1999 and incorporated on the <b>British Virgin Islands</b>, the London-based company has slowly become a strategic player in the <b>Cuban economy</b>. Coral offers trade financing, manages the <b>Laroc Trading Fund</b>, provides brand representation in Cuba, and has invested in plastics bottle manufacturing, as well as film production and other cultural ventures in Cuba. It also spent $28 million on the <a href="http://www.hotel-saratoga.com/"><b>Saratoga boutique hotel</b> </a>in the historic center of Havana and led the 2006 buyout of the foreign side of the El Senador joint venture hotel on <b>Cayo Coco</b>; that hotel, managed by <b>Iberostar</b>, is undergoing renovation and expected to reopen in winter 2011. <br />
<br />
However, Coral may have the biggest impact yet with its plans to build a 1,200-home <b>golf resort at Bellomonte</b>, just 15 miles from the center of the capital. The 628-acre site at Playas del Este, within the city limits of Havana, is anchored by two 18-hole golf courses; plans include a country club, spa, and 323,000 square feet of commercial space. On a separate 20-acre property, Coral plans to build a 160-room beach hotel and beach club. <br />
<br />
Bellomonte is one of four golf projects the Cuban government is expected to approve soon, and Coral was planning a construction start of the $120 million first phase for the end of 2012. <br />
<br />
In another key project for Cuban economic development, Coral is a partner in a planned $43 million investment in the Mariel logistics zone just west of Havana. Over five years, Coral has produced a master plan with Dubai-based <b><a href="http://www.ezw.ae/">Economic Zones World</a></b>. The first phase includes 540,000 square feet of warehousing, light industrial plants and offices. <br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.cubastandard.com/">Cubastandard</a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.512557182112385 -79.89257850000001320.650207182112386 -85.50107850000002 24.374907182112384 -74.2840785tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-63686792376607927532011-10-16T01:16:00.000-07:002011-10-16T01:16:54.146-07:00In Memory of Laura Pollan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF7ZQQFuFAqOLbeArJR-IfcPhbF2B2N5e7XUZtiEnLvSpRDZhZnCHVsIgqELWGW1yE8yPPRArq16dKBaRiXnzW5dqHIGfA52KG_JRYpedzWMHjkO9seUezldcCOxvI22GNlEdvxU0rPRpS/s1600/death+laura+pollan+cuba+ladies+in+white.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF7ZQQFuFAqOLbeArJR-IfcPhbF2B2N5e7XUZtiEnLvSpRDZhZnCHVsIgqELWGW1yE8yPPRArq16dKBaRiXnzW5dqHIGfA52KG_JRYpedzWMHjkO9seUezldcCOxvI22GNlEdvxU0rPRpS/s1600/death+laura+pollan+cuba+ladies+in+white.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /><br />Today, all of <b>Cuba</b> grieves for the passing of <b>Laura Pollan</b>, the co-founder of las <b>Damas de Blanco</b> (The Ladies in White). For nearly a decade, she helped to stage weekly protests with other wives of <b>political prisoners</b> to press for their release. She never missed a week, regardless of whether it rained or if the island was awaiting the imminent arrival of a hurricane. She also never gave up hope that her voice, and the voices of so many other families, would be heard. <br /><br />She was 63 years old when she passed from this world on Friday, October 14th. According to the <b>Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation</b>, she had been in intensive care for acute <b>respiratory problems</b> since October 7th.<br /><br />As the head of the Commission said of her, "She was a teacher and a housewife, but she became a leader for civil rights. She has played a fundamental role, without a doubt even beyond winning <b>freedom</b> for her husband."<br /><br />Indeed, it is true that few can remember a time when Pollan was seen wearing any colour other than white. But, before the <b>Black Spring</b> of 2003 that saw her husband and dozens upon dozens of other Cubans imprisoned on trumped up charges, Laura Pollan was a high school literature teacher who loved cats and plants. She steered clear of politics.<br /><br />When she dared to speak out against her husband's imprisonment and to call for his release, the Cuban authorities labelled her a "traitor" and a "subversive agent" in the employ of the <b>United States</b>. Even under attacks by paramilitary forces, she and the other brave members of the Ladies in White have continued to march peacefully once a week, a silent and non-violent expression of resistance against a decaying dictatorship that stubbornly clings to power.<br /><br />IFLRY stands in solidarity with the <b>Ladies in White</b>, the family of Laura Pollan, as well as all those who knew this courageous person, as they go through a difficult and trying time. Her loss is felt around the globe. But, as Laura Pollan passes from this world, she also leaves behind a powerful legacy. The weekly marches of las Damas de Blanco have secured the release of many political prisoners. The decision to continue, to carry on the legacy of Laura Pollan, is a welcome one. <br /><br />On behalf of the IFLRY Cuba Programme Team, I commit myself to intensifying our efforts, to giving all that we can and all that we have in the struggle for a brighter future for Cuba and the Cuban people. Laura Pollan deserves no less from us. <br />
<br /><b>Paul Pryce</b><br /><br />IFLRY Cuba Programme Manager<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://iflry.org/">IFLRY </a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba23.07973198956396 -82.30957068750001321.217381989563961 -87.91807068750002 24.94208198956396 -76.7010706875tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-82402530687411535702011-10-14T01:58:00.000-07:002011-10-14T01:58:26.729-07:00Cuba, Venezuela pose subtle, but real dangers to United States<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Havana Malecon, summer 1994 </b></td></tr>
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<br />This bicoastal discussion with a colleague began on <b><a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/arts-culture/computer-networking-internet/social-media/twitter-inc.-ORCRP00010280.topic">Twitter</a></b>. We are often — to avoid the absolutes — on different sides of most issues. This one exchange over the weekend was no different.<br /><br />We were tweeting along, disagreeing respectfully, when she came up with a question that was difficult to answer in 140 characters. What danger do <b>Cuba</b> and <b>Venezuela</b> represent to the <b>United States</b>?<br /><br />This was not a question of <b>human rights</b>, or of <b>democracy</b>, or even of <b>communism</b>. The question was simple and direct. I was stumped, particularly when limited in space. I have to admit that, in that Twitter conversation, I was check-mated.<br /><br />This is why I resort to a lengthier format; one in which I am more comfortable in responding to my colleague.<br /><br />Cuba and Venezuela do represent a serious dangers to the United States, but not directly in a militaristic way.<br /><br />Cuba did at one point represent a very real danger to the United States — during the 1962 <b>Missile Crisi</b>s, when armed with <b>Soviet missiles</b> the world came closer than ever to a nuclear war. That, however, was almost five decades ago — it will be 50 years ago in October 2012. Certainly, that is not the case now.<br /><br />Still both Cuba and Venezuela, each in its own way, present a real and present danger to the United States today. No, the danger is not of a <b>military invasion</b>, or of <b>terrorists attacking</b> this country, or even of invading other countries in the region. Still, they represent a real and present danger to this country in many other ways.<br /><br />First, let's start with Cuba. The Cuban regime has repeatedly used its <b>people as weapons</b> against the United States. It has done so at least three times, and could do it again at any point as a way of relieving the pressure from its failed economy. <b>South Florida</b> felt the brunt of its fury in the 1960s when <b>Fidel Castro</b> opened the <b>Port of Camarioca</b> in 1965, forcing the United States to adopt an orderly flow of <b>exiles</b> from Cuba that brought 270,000 Cubans to the United States over the next seven years.<br /><br />Fifteen years later, Castro did it again when he opened the <b>Port of Mariel</b> and allowed 125,000 Cubans to cross the <b>Florida Straits</b> in less than five months. And in the mid-1990s, he allowed more than 33,000 people to flee on rafts in a few short weeks.<br /><br />Back in the 1980s, then-Ambassador <b>Victor Palmieri</b>, director of Refugee Affairs in the State Department when <b>Jimmy Carter</b> was president, wrote in an unpublished paper that Mariel had been "an act of war." And this is a weapon Cuba can always use on the United States to test the will of a <b>U.S. president</b>.<br /><br />Venezuela and <b>Hugo Chávez</b>, Castro's most advanced disciple, represent an enormous danger to U.S. diplomacy in the region. In much the same way that Castro tried to oust regimes in Latin America by helping guerrilla movements, Chávez now is the chief financial officer of the movement to elect socialist leaders in countries to set up an anti-American block in Latin America. For starters, we can talk about <b>Evo Morale</b>s in <b>Bolivia, Rafael Correa</b> in <b>Ecuador</b> and <b>Daniel Ortega</b> in <b>Nicaragua</b>. All have been helped by Chávez, whose petrodollars feed anti-American sentiment in the region.<br /><br />Cuba and Venezuela still support <b>Iran</b>, as well as <b>Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi</b>, who is now probably fighting for his life in the city of Serta against Libyans rebelling against his regime. They also back the Palestinian effort to be recognized as a nation, and quietly oppose the state of <b>Israel</b>.<br /><br />Furthermore, Venezuela's armed forces have billions in new weapons purchased from Russia to please its generals, who are now heavily Involved — albeit secretly — in the drug trade. As Colombian rebels have lost power, it has moved across the border to Venezuela where its own armed forces supervise the drug trafficking to Europe and the United States.<br /><br />The elected <b>authoritarian regimes</b> rising in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua are not a direct danger to the United States. They do represent, however, represent a danger to the freedoms of people in the hemisphere. <b>Freedom of the press</b> and <b>human rights</b> are constantly violated in these countries. People live in fear of their governments and thousands have been forced to flee their homeland.<br /><br />But no, none of this represents a clear and direct danger to the United States; just to the type of government we would like our neighbors to our south to have. So point, set and match go to my colleague on the West Coast. Or does it?<br />
<br />
<b>By Guillermo I. Martínez</b><br />
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Source: <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/">Sun Sentinel</a> </div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Estados Unidos39.027719031993406 -102.3925785000000112.646469031993405 -163.65202000000002 65.408969031993408 -41.133137000000012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-34101411653303509602011-10-11T00:43:00.000-07:002011-10-11T00:44:07.187-07:00Cubans Escaping Castro's Economic "Reforms"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Cubans continue to "vote" against the Cuban regime </b></td></tr>
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<b><a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/09/2445346/illegal-cuban-migration-after.html">The number of Cubans intercepted at sea trying to reach the coast of Florida more than doubled</a></b> in the last fiscal year according to figures released by the <b>Department of Homeland Security</b>. In the previous fiscal year, <b>422 Cubans</b> were intercepted at sea by the Coast Guard, while in the fiscal year 2011 (which just ended on September 30th), 1,000 Cubans were caught. Moreover, the number of Cubans who actually reached the <b>U.S.</b> shore increased by 70%, from 409 in fiscal year 2010 to 696 in fiscal year 2011. This is the first rise in illegal Cuban immigration by sea in 3 years according to authorities. <br />
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This is yet another sign that the much heralded <b>economic “reforms”</b> announced by <b>Havana</b> aren’t working. The <b>massive layoffs</b> of hundreds of thousands of public employees undertaken by the government of <b>Raúl Castro</b> were meant to be absorbed by Cuba’s almost non-existent private sector. The <b>Communist regime</b> tried to ease the pressure by allowing private employment in 178 economic activities, such as masseurs, clowns, shoemakers, locksmiths, and gardeners. However, <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/cuban-government-will-choke-the-nascent-private-sector/">as I warned over a year ago</a>, it capped the number of permits for these private activities at 250,000 while also penalizing the new entrepreneurs with stiff <b>tax rates</b>. It doesn’t take a <b>Nobel Prize</b> winner in economics to realize that <b>Cuba</b>’s nascent private sector wouldn’t be able to make room for all of the newly unemployed. What then for these people? <br />
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Earlier this year I talked to an official from the U.S. Interest Section in Havana who told me that we shouldn’t be surprised if we see a steady increase of Cubans trying to escape the island towards the <b>United States</b>. Faced with a dilapidated economy, hundreds of thousands of <b>unemployed</b>, and growing <b>social unrest</b>, the <b>Castro regime</b> wouldn’t hesitate in letting more Cubans use the “escape valve” of emigration. We might be seeing the first signs of this.<br />
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<b>by <span class="author vcard">Juan Carlos Hidalgo</span> </b><br />
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Source: <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/">Cato@ Liberty</a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.187405219992467 -79.36523475000001320.325055219992468 -84.97373475000002 24.049755219992466 -73.75673475tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-15413247360275793612011-10-08T05:21:00.000-07:002011-10-08T05:26:14.047-07:00Vietnam presses Cuba on debt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Before increasing investment in oil and construction on the island, <b>Vietnam</b> wants <b>Cuba</b> to find a way to its debt with rice exporter <b>Vinafood</b> and allow the opening of a <b>Vietcombank</b> office in Havana, official daily <a href="http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Politics-Laws/216320/Rice-programme-a-significant-part-of-relations-with-Cuba-.html">Viet Nam News reported</a>. <br />
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Debt is rarely mentioned in the official communication between the two long-time partner countries. <br />
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Prime Minister <b>Nguyen Tan Dung</b> urged a Cuban delegation, in <b>Hanoi</b> for routine bilateral talks, to “continue creating favorable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to invest in the Caribbean nation and to encourage more Cuban investment in Viet Nam,” according to the official daily. Dung suggested the partners should “come up with solutions to settle outstanding debt” and urged Cuba to speed up the permit process for <a href="http://www.vietcombank.com.vn/en/">Vietcombank,</a> the government foreign trade bank, to open a branch in Cuba. <br />
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“The presence of the bank will help facilitate the financial settlement between Vietnamese and Cuban companies and enable Vietnamese investors to invest in Cuba, particularly in the fields of construction, oil and gas, and trade,” Dung said, according to the newspaper.<br />
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Foreign Trade Minister <b>Rodrigo Malmierca</b>, who led the Cuban delegation, said Cuba wants Vietnam to continue to sell rice, and pledged to honor Cuba’s financial commitments by gradually reducing credit debts with Vinafood, according to Viet Nam News. Malmierca said Cuba wanted the partners to agree on a joint development strategy. <br />
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Neither Cuba nor Vietnam have released details about the debt. <br />
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Vietnam, a close political ally of half a century, has been selling 400,000 tons of rice per year to Cuba under generous conditions, making the fellow <b>Communist</b> nation the island’s main source of the basic staple. Payment terms in the past have included 450 to 540 days and either interest-free or very low interest financing. In September 2010, state company Vinafood 1 signed an agreement to sell Cuba 200,000 tons of rice, including 50,000 tons for a low price of $496 per ton. <br />
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Affected by a cash crunch in Cuba, bilateral trade dipped to $250 million in 2010 but is expected to grow again this year. <br />
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State oil company <a href="http://english.pvn.vn/"><b>PetroVietnam</b> </a>leased an offshore block in Cuban waters and partnered with <b>Russia’s Zarubezhneft</b>, but has not performed an exploration drill yet. Meanwhile, state construction company <a href="http://hudfic.com.vn/en/Home/abouts/2008/9/33.aspx">Housing & Urban Development Corp. (HUD)</a> in 2008 signed a letter of intent with <b>Grupo Palmares</b> to jointly build a 300-hectare golf community near Bauta, just west of <b>Havana</b>. HUD has also been negotiating construction of another <b>golf course</b> resort in <b>Varadero</b> as well as a hotel at Playa Santa Lucía in Camagüey province. In 2009, Vietnam also agreed to set up textile and electronics joint venture production in Cuba. <br />
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Dung committed to Vietnam’s continued support of <b>rice cultivation</b> programs in Cuba. Agricultural projects supported by Vietnam have played “a very important role” in Cuba, Malmierca said. <br />
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Meanwhile, Cuba wants to introduce new pharmaceutical products to the <b>Vietnamese market</b>, Malmierca said.<br />
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Source: <a href="http://www.cubastandard.com/">Cubastandard </a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Vietnam15.792253807917948 107.578124624999998.193156307917949 103.81207962499998 23.391351307917947 111.34416962499999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-20826074732427034872011-10-05T19:45:00.000-07:002011-10-05T19:47:58.647-07:00Project: Help Young Cubans Connect Through Cell Phones<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
Summary</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
By purchasing and shipping new Cuba capable cell phones,
we are boosting connectivity among youth in Cuba. With these modern
tools, youth in Cuba can start becoming the authors of their own future.<br />
<br />
<h4>
What is the issue, problem, or challenge?</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
At the end of 2010, fewer than 8% of the Cuban population
will have access to cell phones. In other developing countries, cell
phones--especially SMS text services--have been used as low cost ways of
sharing news about job opportunities, organizing and connecting civic
groups, and broadcasting news that could otherwise be censored by the
official press. Cell phone access remains limited today, which restricts
Cubans' abilities to inform, advise and act on up-to-date information.<br />
<br />
<h4>
How will this project solve this problem?</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Our project provides pre-paid calling cards and new,
Cuba-ready phones for youth on the Island. These young people can use
their new cell phones to not only communicate with each other, but also
to connect with the world outside of Cuba.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Potential Long Term Impact</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
By increasing young peoples' connectivity, we provide
Cuban youth with a means of educating and organizing themselves. In the
process, we promote their self-determination and give them a tool for
creating positive social change.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Project Message</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Since I was born in Cuba, I could have been the young man
I am today in a country separated from the outside world. I want to
see that each day less and less young persons in Cuba are disconnected. <br />
- <i>Miguel Cruz, Cell Phones for Cuba Project Manager</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/cell-phones-for-cuba/"><img alt="Give Now" src="http://cloud.globalgiving.org/img/buttons/give_now.gif" /></a>
<i><br /> </i><br />
<div id="fundingTotals" style="display: block;">
<h4>
Funding Information</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Total Funding Received to Date: <span id="funded">$5,095</span><br />
Remaining Goal to be Funded: <span id="remaining">$17,405</span><br />
Total Funding Goal: <span id="goal">$22,500</span><br />
<span id="goal"> </span>
</div>
<h4>
Additional Documentation</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
<a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/pfil/6777/projdoc.doc">This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).</a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.512557182112424 -81.73828162500001320.650207182112425 -87.34678162500002 24.374907182112423 -76.129781625tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-90088215159810446002011-10-02T02:41:00.000-07:002011-10-02T02:42:05.408-07:00What about Cuba?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjccOsM7396v0TKSmjKlKQvRmE1P3gDhNkAp_vzD9dDt_AnbnAV0JnkUN5fZ7698hmg7AkGC6GLNoAEM4Xom922zp4gs6c4fJkAUyRTh6QZubvhjYMrDWzyHtYfjVxrWxyy5uZ1tfaFjvzU/s1600/cuba+car+ban+castro+dictatorship+change+communism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjccOsM7396v0TKSmjKlKQvRmE1P3gDhNkAp_vzD9dDt_AnbnAV0JnkUN5fZ7698hmg7AkGC6GLNoAEM4Xom922zp4gs6c4fJkAUyRTh6QZubvhjYMrDWzyHtYfjVxrWxyy5uZ1tfaFjvzU/s400/cuba+car+ban+castro+dictatorship+change+communism.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<b>Cuba</b>’s 52-year nightmare is about to end with the death of the last of Latin America’s old time <b>dictators</b>. In the long run it is hard to see how the demise of the old caudillo can be anything but good news, but the short term will be rough. The <b>U.S.</b> has a plan but no doubt so do regional nuisances such as <b>Hugo Chavez</b>. <br />
<br />
All day I have been whistling that song from the “Wizard of Oz”. You, know, “ding-dong the witch is dead”. Whether <b>Castro</b> sups with the devil tonight or not, his reign is clearly through. An eighty-year-old guy who probably pees in his pants and cannot remember what he talked about yesterday is already knocking on hell’s door. How will he come back? His brother <b>Raul</b> has taken power. <br />
<br />
Raul is known as the ruthless enforcer. He is the one who killed many of the regime’s opponents. He lacks his brother’s charisma, but may be a little more practical. He evidently advocated such radical capitalistic steps as allowing small farmers to sell produce at farmers’ markets during the hard times when the regime lost its <b>Soviet</b> sugar daddy. But after Hugo Chavez stepped in with subsidies to take the place of the Soviets Fidel was able to kill (sometimes literally) the farmers’ markets and roll back other reforms. One possible hope is that Raul will try to go the <b>Chinese route</b> when big brother is out of the picture. Ironic that the best case scenario would make Cuba only just a little more oppressive than <b>China</b>. <br />
<br />
Beyond the geriatric <b>Castro brothers</b>, there is no heir apparent. The Castro boys killed, exiled or imprisoned any bright young man or woman with ambitions so Raul is what they get. <br />
<br />
We have to remember that Cuba is not a democracy and not even as open a system as the latter day <b>Soviet Union</b>. The strength of a <b>democracy</b> is that it produces lots of leader and independent thinkers. Fidel’s did not go for this sort of idea. He executed even ideological allies if he suspected them of disloyalty and his paranoia made him suspect everyone except his brother. (Those who know say “Fidel only praises the dead,” many of whom he made that way.) That means Cuba has nobody accustomed to making decisions without asking Fidel first. Anyone with power derives it from a relationship with Fidel. When he is gone, so is that connection. The <b>Cuban communist system</b> will collapse, soon after he shuffles off this mortal coil. We need to be ready. <br />
<br />
Cuba is a mess. Fidel really believed the <b>Marxist-Leninist crap</b> he was peddling. He opposed individualism, private enterprise, investments or any of the ordinary freedoms we take for granted. Cuba was more of a closed society than most E. European <b>communist regimes</b> under communism. We will find Cuba more like <b>Albania</b> than <b>Poland</b> or the <b>Czech Republic</b>. It is a long road ahead. <br />
<br />
In 1959, Cuba was one of the most developed countries of <b>Latin America</b>. Now it is among the most backward. Most of the rest of Latin America shook off its dictators in the 1980s, but the Cuban socialist showboat managed to stay afloat, even listed a bit to the left. It will not be enough to get rid of Fidel and replace Havana’s 1950s vintage automobile fleet. The world will be surprised at the <b>abysmal poverty</b> and <b>corruption</b> when people are free to visit and take pictures all over the island. <br />
<br />
The added complication will be <b>Cuban Americans</b>. More than 10% of the Cuban population left the country soon after Fidel se up his socialist paradise on the <b>Pearl of the Antilles</b>. Others followed as soon as they learned to sail small boats or float in inner tubes. Most went to <b>Florida</b>. They were Cuba’s best and brightest. Fidel kept their property, but their skills and intelligence were their real wealth. They took their human capital with them. In the U.S., where such things are valued, they were soon successful. They and their children are still interested in their country of origin. Some want to return. <b>Expatriate</b> skills and money will jump start <b>Cuban development</b>. A similar thing happened in Poland. The difference is that Cuban-American numbers are larger in comparison to the population of Cuba. Cubans in Cuba will probably come to resent these guys. There is a real possibility of a divided society, not only divided between haves and have nots, but also between skilled and skilled not. <br />
<br />
Think of it like your rich and smart cousin who goes away to school at some nice place, while you stay at home and endure years of hardship. Then he comes back to tell you what to do. The worst part is that he is usually right. <br />
<br />
So after Fidel has gone where the goblins go, below, below, below, expect a messy transition, but ultimately a successful one, this time w/o <b>Myer Lansky</b> (who it turns out was a less successful <b>gangster</b> than Fidel).<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://china-online-news.tk/">China Online News</a> </div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.998851821393391 -82.08984412500001321.136501821393392 -87.69834412500002 24.86120182139339 -76.481344125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-69071565621632636262011-09-29T22:33:00.000-07:002011-09-29T22:38:26.710-07:00Hey Castro! Free Them Now!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQiqb5sd2Cf1DgSGypANxGJ-2kd39T7naQDmDZNov2_Ek_1q0MsrhbIQG9L3iWPWXT3pS30tP2LtMuO_ZaLBdqnxwIOAiOAb_douuPbAyp8Hs9YttdvUsaFl-m3GHOWtHPHC7yvmKtgBul/s1600/sara+martha+fonseca+cuba+dissident+protest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQiqb5sd2Cf1DgSGypANxGJ-2kd39T7naQDmDZNov2_Ek_1q0MsrhbIQG9L3iWPWXT3pS30tP2LtMuO_ZaLBdqnxwIOAiOAb_douuPbAyp8Hs9YttdvUsaFl-m3GHOWtHPHC7yvmKtgBul/s400/sara+martha+fonseca+cuba+dissident+protest.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
<br />
The worrying situation of the recently detained <b>Cuban dissidents</b> remains the same. Of the women arrested after a <a href="http://cubaupdate-english.blogspot.com/2011/09/cuban-hip-hop-artists-arrested-along.html">peaceful march through the streets of <b>Rio Verde</b></a>, Havana, very little is known, except that they have been severely beaten and the majority of them are disappeared, with unknown whereabouts.<br />
<br />
Among them, one of the most worrying cases is that of <b>Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera</b>, who has various serious health complications. According to her husband, prominent dissident leader <b>Jorge Luis Garcia ‘Antunez’</b>, “various activists who witnessed the repression last weekend on September 24th (during the march marking the <b>Day of the Resistance</b>, held every 24th of the month) have affirmed that my wife Yris received a brutal beating and many kicks all over her arms and head“. The same occurred to <b>Donaida Perez Paceiro</b> and <b>Yaimara Reyes Mesa</b>, both of whom together with Yris are part of the <b>Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights</b>. “I am denouncing that these women are still arrested/disappeared and I am directly accusing the <b>Castro dictatorship</b> and its political police of this <b>brutal repression</b> and of everything that could occur“, declares Antunez, adding that, “the authorities of the country have been incapable of even informing the relatives of those jailed about their condition or their whereabouts“.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Yris Tamara Aguilera</b></td></tr>
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Antunez took the moment to also express gratitude for all the “signs of solidarity received from different parts of the world” and also emphasized that many <b>dissidents</b> within the island have also joined in solidarity. He mentioned protests which demanded the release of these dissidents in places like <b>Palmarito de Cauto</b>, <b>Palma Soriano</b>, and a <b>hunger strike</b> “being carried out right now by members of the Central Cuban Coalition, a group headed by <b>Idania Yanez Contreras</b>“. Up to the moment, the hunger strikers are <b>Guillermo del Sol Perez</b>, <b>Michel Oliva López</b>, <b>Rolando Ferrer Espinosa</b>, <b>Alcides Rivera Rodríguez</b>, and <b>Julio Columbie Batista</b>.<br />
<br />
On the afternoon of Thursday, September 29th it was also reported that <b>Eriberto Liranza Romero</b> (detained on the previous day and released that same night) was once again arrested while he demanded to know the situation of <b>Sara Marta Fonseca</b> and her husband <b>Julio Ignacio Leon</b>, both detained. During night hours of that same day, Antunez published a <b>Twitter</b> message in which he informed that <b>‘Julito’ Leon Fonseca</b>, son of Sara and Julio Ignacio, was finally able to see his mother for a few minutes after he protested for hours in the 4th Police Unit of <b>El Cerro</b>. According to Antunez, ‘Julito’ denounced that his mother has clear marks of a severe beating and was in a poor state of health. He also learned that his father had been checked in to the Carlos Finlay Hospital of Marianao in the Prisoners Unit. The information comes from an audio accompanying Antunez’s Tweet, which can be heard in Spanish <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28oVhsA98Zg">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://pedazosdelaislaen.wordpress.com/">Pedazos de la Isla </a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.83694614846598 -81.29882850000001320.974596148465981 -86.90732850000002 24.699296148465979 -75.6903285tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-35422069340603891162011-09-28T04:52:00.000-07:002011-09-28T05:09:17.503-07:00Cuban Hip-Hop Artists Arrested along with other activists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Activists marching at Río Verde. Photo courtesy of Hablemos Press. </span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang=""><b><br /></b></span></span></b></td></tr>
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<br />
Cuban <b>hip-hop</b> artists <b>Julio León Fonseca (Julito)</b> and <b>Rodolfo Ramírez Hernández (El Primario)</b> were <a href="http://www.cubaencuentro.com/cuba/noticias/arrestan-a-los-cantantes-de-hip-hop-el-primario-y-julito-268663">arrested</a> last Monday during a protest at <b>Río Verde</b>, <b>Boyeros, Havana.</b><br />
<br />
<b>They were beaten and arrested along with other activists,</b>
including Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, Yaimara Pérez Mesa, Donaida Pérez
Paseiro, René Ramón González Bonelli, Rances Camejo Miranda, Rodolfo
Ramírez Cardoso and Yoani García Martínez, when they attempted to march to demand the release of <b>Sara Martha Fonseca</b>, her husband, <b>Julio Ignacio León</b>, and another activist arrested on Saturday.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Video of the protest in </b><b>Río Verde</b></span></div>
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<h1 id="watch-headline-title" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="" dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="El Primario y Julito NO INTENTEN">El Primario and Julito NO INTENTEN</span></span><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aRwWD9zCxfs" width="480"></iframe></h1>
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.elprimarioyjulito.com/">El Primario y Julito Website</a></b></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Boyeros, La Habana, Cuba23.011492547371439 -82.40432776757813822.957628547371439 -82.467494767578145 23.06535654737144 -82.341160767578131tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-79316472480821743902011-09-26T06:29:00.000-07:002011-09-26T06:30:02.445-07:00Arab rebellions worrying dictators elsewhere<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyDyRDtGO79UfwkQUrrHRXJ7GvMJF7iwSgcLMdp9TP_HA9xmr9xxTb1PwJAAYjV2YDvJvijIyQQqueeExZmOCruNhHAyCfS7LNHxE3cYr_H_o5d_rNaI5-qmlZw1DAKHik5FQynVGFH8_/s1600/raul+castro+dictator+revolution+arab+cuba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyDyRDtGO79UfwkQUrrHRXJ7GvMJF7iwSgcLMdp9TP_HA9xmr9xxTb1PwJAAYjV2YDvJvijIyQQqueeExZmOCruNhHAyCfS7LNHxE3cYr_H_o5d_rNaI5-qmlZw1DAKHik5FQynVGFH8_/s400/raul+castro+dictator+revolution+arab+cuba.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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<br />
These are scary times for <b>tyrants</b>. Some of the world's most enduring <b>dictatorships</b>, the ones that looked as though they would never end, have met their demise in recent months. For now, the popular revolts have spread only through the <b>Middle East</b>. Unelected governments in other parts of the world are trying to make sure they're not next. <br />
<br />
In countries such as <b>Cuba</b>, <b>North Korea</b> and <b>Burma</b> (renamed <b>Myanmar</b>), <b>unelected regimes</b> are raising the walls as they try to keep themselves safe from the very people they claim have nothing but love for their longtime rulers. <br />
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When Egyptian protesters, fed up with 30 years of rule by <b>Hosni Mubarak</b>, forced the president out of power, Cuba's <b>Fidel Castro</b> explained the events as a revolt against America. In his column in the <b>Communist Party</b> daily Granma, the iconic former Cuban president wrote, "After 18 days of harsh battling, the Egyptian people attained an important objective: to defeat the <b>United States</b>' principal ally in the heart of the <b>Arab countries</b>." <br />
<br />
Castro defended <b>Libya's Moammar Gadhafi</b> until the end, painting the uprising as a brutal <b>NATO</b> onslaught against the defenseless Libyan people, an example of colonialist Western aggression aimed at grabbing Libyan oil. <br />
<br />
Most Cubans have little if any access to the <b>Internet</b> or other sources of nongovernment-controlled media. An American contractor, 62-year-old <b>Alan Gross</b>, was sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison after he was found to have brought equipment to allow Internet access for members of the country's tiny <b>Jewish community</b>. <br />
<br />
Information is even more tightly controlled in other dictatorships. In <b>North Korea</b>, televisions come factory-tuned to <b>government propaganda</b> channels, and there is essentially no Internet and virtually no <b>cellphone service</b>. Even so, a report by <b>South Korea</b>'s Institute for National Unification says the North reacted to Arab rebellions with a number of urgent measures to prevent contagion. <b>Police</b> stations reportedly were ordered to intensify their ideological indoctrination programs, as additional <b>security forces</b> were deployed to prevent any trouble. <br />
<br />
If any significant uprising happened to occur, there's little doubt that <b>Pyongyang</b>, with more than a million soldiers receiving privileges from their loyalty to the state, would quickly use force to suppress it. <br />
<br />
<b>Burma</b>'s rulers have also shown a willingness to use force to stop protests. Long before the <b>Arab uprisings</b>, young Burmese took to the streets to demand <b>democracy</b>. It happened on Aug. 8, 1988 (8-8-88). The military killed thousands of demonstrators and imprisoned their leaders. <b>Buddhist</b> monks launched another protest in 2007. The government again responded with violence. <br />
<br />
Still, the Burmese opposition lives on, and the regime has put on a democracy charade. <b>Fraudulent elections</b> produced a new, supposedly civilian, parliament in fact dominated by the military. The new prime minister is a former general. But opposition leader <b>Aung San Suu Kyi</b>, after years under arrest, has been freed. <br />
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In an interview with the BBC, she told Egyptian demonstrators, "We're all with you." But the government says 0.8 percent of the country has Internet access. Local newspapers offer a parody of the news. Stories from Egypt during the January uprising, for example, included news of secret chambers discovered in the pyramids. <br />
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The real news, of course, is that tyrants can be toppled. <br />
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<b>No dictatorship lasts forever</b>. For the people who have struggled against all odds, facing imprisonment and worse for demanding democracy, the truth about what is happening to Middle Eastern dictators will slowly filter in. Their rulers already know the truth. They are watching closely, and they are not sleeping well at night. <br />
<b><br />By Frida Ghitis<br /> </b><br />
<h4 class="byline">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Source: <a href="http://www.kansas.com/">The Wichita Eagle </a></span></h4>
</div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-59491982380322283532011-09-23T07:09:00.000-07:002011-09-23T07:09:54.540-07:00Yoani Sanchez issues plea to We Have A Dream summit of dissidents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Yoani Sanchez </span></b></td></tr>
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<i><b><br />Yoani Sanchez, the Cuban dissident and world-renowned blogger, called on the phone from Havana today to address the <a href="http://www.ngosummit.org/">We Have A Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution</a>: </b></i><br />
<br />
Fortunately for me and many Cubans, technology has permitted us to project our voice both inside and outside the island, to be able to reach those places where our government does <b>not permit us to travel</b>. <br />
<br />
But the path to end the censorship and the <b>state monopoly over information</b> is still a very long one for us. Precisely on that topic I want to speak to you today — of the personal civic drama that signifies not being able to significantly access the new technologies and especially the <b>internet</b>. <br />
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We are a nation locked in the 20th century; we are still unable today to navigate in <b>cyberspace</b>. We need to pass through an <b>ideological filter</b>, or pay a very high price that is inaccessible for our salaries. Only the very reliable functionaries, the foreigners in our country, or the communicators from our official sector, can have access to internet from their homes. The rest of the <b>Cuban citizens</b> are condemned to an information blockade. <br />
<br />
And for that reason, today, at this forum, I want to denounce the crimes against connectivity that the <b>Cubans</b> are suffering, in not permitting us to gain access to other information…the citizens of this country are being victimized by a crime against <b>journalism</b> and mafia. <br />
<br />
It is a <b>violation of our rights</b> to be denied knowledge of what happens outside and inside of our national frontiers. Nevertheless, despite these restrictions, <b>human rights</b> activists, non-conformist citizens, and non-conformist artists are finding the way to express and spread their voice. <br />
<br />
The magnificent tool of <b>blogs</b> and <b>Twitter</b> have served us as a substitute to the free press that we do not have. From the small country in the east of the country, from the places where no one has ever seen a computer connected to the internet, through cell phones, Cubans are able to tell our story. Messages going out through Twitter are like an SOS, a call for help that is able to leap over the wall of control. <br />
<br />
<b>Technology</b> has protected us. We have avoided in many cases that the repression would be excessively harsh with us. Each minute that passes that we Cubans are not permitted the massive access to the technologies, are years and years that we remain behind professionally and as citizens. <br />
<br />
<b>International community</b>: please, pressure Cuba, so we could feel like individuals of this millennium, and interact with the citizens of the world on an equal basis. To get information today is to get <b>democracy</b> for tomorrow.</div>
<div class="entry-content">
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.unwatch.org/">UN Watch </a></div>
<div class="entry-content">
<h1 id="watch-headline-title" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="long-title" dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="#UNrights: Speech by cuban blogger @yoanisanchez from #Cuba @wehaveadream_GS">Speech by cuban blogger @yoanisanchez from #Cuba</span></span></h1>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6wLA9cvfidA" width="480"></iframe> </div>
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</div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.350076034452943 -80.94726600000001320.487726034452944 -86.55576600000002 24.212426034452943 -75.338766tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-84968514095204058922011-09-21T04:29:00.000-07:002011-09-21T04:30:52.977-07:00Jackie Kennedy Held American Marxists Responsible for Castro<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>JFK and Jackie -1960 </b></td></tr>
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<br />
While most of the media have focused on the <b>Jackie Kennedy</b> tapes as they pertain to such figures as <b>Martin Luther King, Jr</b>. and <b>Lyndon Baines Johnson</b>, there are fascinating parts of the conversations that demonstrate the anti-communism of President <b>John F. Kennedy</b>. In this context, Jackie singles out <b>The New York Times</b> for criticism for helping bring <b>Castro</b> to power. <br />
<br />
One reason for the lack of attention to these excerpts may be that they shed light on one of the worst performances of the liberal media in the history of journalism. Partly as a result of the coverage of the Castro revolution by <b>Herbert Matthews</b>, the Times correspondent in Cuba, the Cuban people have been saddled with the <b>Castro regime</b>, which once hosted <b>Soviet nuclear missiles</b> targeting the <b>U.S</b>., for over 50 years. <br />
<br />
National Review had published a caricature of Castro over the caption, “I got my job through the New York Times,” alluding to how the paper tried to promote classified advertising to job-seekers. <br />
<br />
A book by <b>Anthony DePalma</b>, described as the dramatic story of “how a New York Times reporter helped Castro come to power,” referred to Matthews as “<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586484427/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=cublibblo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=1586484427">The Man Who Invented Fidel</a></b><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=cublibblo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1586484427&camp=217145&creative=399369" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” <br />
<br />
<b>Humberto Fontova</b>’s book <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895260433/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=cublibblo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0895260433">Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=cublibblo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0895260433&camp=217145&creative=399369" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b> explains how Matthews’ coverage helped Castro. “This is not a <b>Communist revolution</b> in any sense of the word,” Matthews wrote in 1959. “In Cuba there are no Communists in positions of control.” Matthews added, “<b>Fidel Castro</b> is not only not a Communist, he’s decidedly <b>anti-Communist</b>.” <br />
<br />
Jackie indicates that the Kennedys accepted the view of one of their family friends, Ambassador <b>Earl E.T. Smith</b>, that The New York Times and the State Department were largely responsible for Castro’s rise to power and the fall of <b>Fulgencio Batista</b>. <br />
<br />
Smith said that the <b>U.S. government</b> facilitated Batista’s downfall by withdrawing support for his government. But Smith also said that “Until certain portions of the <b>American press</b> began to write derogatory articles against the Batista government, the Castro revolution never got off first base.” <br />
<br />
Smith said that Matthews’ columns “eulogized Fidel Castro, portrayed him as a political Robin Hood, and compared him to <b>Abraham Lincoln</b>.” <br />
<br />
While JFK had no sympathy for Batista, he thought it was “awful” that <b>President Eisenhower</b>, a Republican, had permitted Castro to visit the U.S. after his seizure of power in <b>Havana</b>, said Jackie, going on to cite Smith’s book, <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ZPJDFS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=cublibblo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B000ZPJDFS">The Fourth Floor</a></b>, on how the <b>U.S. State Departmen</b>t had paved the way for Castro’s takeover. The title is a reference to the officials responsible for Cuba policy who were on the fourth floor of the State Department. <br />
<br />
Smith wrote that the Fourth Floor had a “close association” with the Times’ Matthews, “who gave the impression by his editorial conduct of advocating Batista’s downfall.”<br />
<br />
Smith, ambassador to Cuba when Castro took over, spoke at an Accuracy in Media conference in 1979 when Castro’s communist comrades in Nicaragua, the <b>Sandinistas</b>, were threatening a takeover of that country. <b>Nicaragua</b> was Cuba all over again, Smith said. <br />
<br />
He signed a copy of his book to this columnist by saying, “To Cliff Kincaid in memory of ‘Accuracy in Media.’” It was a commentary on the failure of the Times to accurately depict Castro as the communist he was and the continuing failure by the media to factually describe the nature of communism and its adherents. <br />
<br />
“We knew Earl Smith then, who’d been Eisenhower’s ambassador at the time,” said Jackie in the tapes featured in the book Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. “When we were in <b>Florida</b>—that’s all Earl could talk about. Yeah, then Jack was really sort of sick that the Eisenhower administration had let him [Castro] come in and then The New York Times—what was his name, Herbert Matthews?” Jackie adds, “I can remember a lot of talk about it and wasn’t—didn’t even Norman Mailer write something?” <br />
<br />
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was interviewing Jackie, interjects, “Norman Mailer was very pro-Castro, yeah.” <br />
<br />
When Schlesinger noted that Smith had written a book about Castro being a communist and working with the communists, Jackie replied, “Yeah—The Fourth Floor? Well, he was always saying his troubles with the State Department—I remember there was a man named Mr. Rubottom he kept talking about. And how hard it was—warning against Castro and how just it was like, I don’t know, dropping pennies down an endless well. He just never could get through to the State Department. So, I suppose he thought he was a Communist, yeah.” <br />
<br />
<b>Roy Rubottom</b> was the Assistant Secretary of State at the time of Castro’s seizure of power. <br />
<br />
Smith wrote in his book, “It cannot be maintained that the government of the United States was unaware that <b>Raul Castro</b> and <b>Che Guevara</b>, the top men of the 26th of July movement, are Communists, affiliated with international communism. There was ample evidence to that effect. I have shown in this book that it was impossible for Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom, his associate William Wieland, and the Fourth Floor not to be aware of Fidel Castro’s communist affiliations.” <br />
<br />
Wieland, the State Department’s chief of Caribbean affairs and a friend of Herbert Matthews, was accused of being a communist agent. Citing Nathaniel Weyl’s book, Red Star Over Cuba, Fontova says Wieland, who had partly grown up in Cuba, had been active in the Cuban Communist Party in the 1930s and had used the name “Guillermo Arturo Montenegro,” an alias he kept secret when he filled out a national security disclosure form. Wieland resigned in disgrace. <br />
<br />
Analyzing U.S. policy, Smith wrote, “To make my point clear, let me say that we helped to overthrow the Batista dictatorship, which was pro-American and anti-communist, only to install the <b>Castro dictatorship</b> which was Communist and anti-American.” <br />
<br />
Smith noted that, in a national broadcast on December 2, 1962, Castro declared, “I am a <b>Marxist-Leninist </b>and will be one until the day I die.” <br />
<br />
Although JFK authorized an invasion of Cuba at the <b>Bay of Pigs</b> in April 1961, Jackie alludes to the failure to follow through with adequate military force. “I mean,” she said, “the invasion in the beginning and then no air strike—half doing it and not doing it all the way…” The result was a slaughter of anti-communist Cubans in the invasion force and a victory for the Castro regime.<br />
<br />
<b>By Cliff Kincaid</b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Source: <a href="http://gulagbound.com/">Gulag Bound</a></span></b></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Estados Unidos37.649034217045219 -100.2832035000000111.267784217045218 -161.54264500000002 64.030284217045221 -39.023762000000012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-54722579595814897762011-09-19T09:36:00.000-07:002011-09-19T09:36:35.375-07:00Corruption: Cuba shuts Canadian company<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /><br /><b>Cuba</b> has shut down one of the most important western trading companies in the country as an investigation into alleged <b>corrupt import-export practices</b> broadened to a second <b>Canadian firm</b>, foreign business sources said on Friday.<br /><br /><b>State security</b> agents on Friday watched who entered the building in Havana's <b>Miramar Trade Center</b> where Ontario-based <b>Tokmakjian Group</b>, one of the top <b>Canadian companies</b> doing business on the <b>communist-run</b> island, has its offices.<br /><br />The company offices on the fourth floor were sealed with a notice that it had been closed by <b>Cuban State Security</b>.<br /><br />"We received notice on Monday from the foreign ministry and the Council of State, which is the procedure in such cases, to stop all dealings with the Tokmakjian Group," said an employee of a Cuban company that does <b>business</b> with the firm.<br /><br />Like other people who spoke to Reuters about the clampdown on the company, she asked that her name not be used.<br /><br />Tokmakjian Group is estimated to do around $80 million in business annually with the Caribbean island, mainly selling transportation, mining and construction equipment.<br /><br />The company is the exclusive Cuba distributor of <b>Hyundai</b>, among other brands, and a partner in two joint ventures replacing the motors of <b>Soviet-era</b> transportation equipment.<br /><br />Company officials were not immediately available for comment.<br /><br />Cuban authorities shut down Canadian firm <b>Tri-Star Caribbean</b> on July 15 and arrested company president <b>Sarkis Yacoubian</b>. The company, considered a competitor of Tokmakjian Group, did around $30 million in business with Cuba.<br /><br />"Apparently Tri-Star Caribbean was just the beginning. They brought in more than 50 state purchasers for questioning, arrested some of them and broadened the investigation from there," a western businessman said.<br /><br />"As far as I know up to now just Canadian firms are involved, but you can bet every state importer and foreign trading company in the country is on edge," he said.<br /><b><br />FIGHTING CORRUPTION</b><br /><br />Cuban President <b>Raul Castro</b> has made fighting corruption a top priority since taking over for his ailing brother <b>Fidel</b> in 2008, and in the past year a number of Cuban officials and foreign businessmen have been charged in graft cases.<br /><br />Tri-Star Caribbean did business with around half of the 35 Cuban state companies authorized to import, from tourism, transportation and construction to the nickel and oil industries, communications and public health.<br /><br />The whereabouts of the man who founded the family business, <b>Cy Tokmakjian</b>, of Armenian heritage, born in <b>Syria </b>and educated in <b>Canada</b>, was not clear on Friday.<br /><br />He was last seen by Reuters a week ago, the day after his offices were sealed, but another western businessman said he had been detained by Cuban authorities.<br /><br />"They picked up Cy on Saturday and I heard his wife and at least one of his kids flew in to see what they could do," he said.<br /><br />Cuba's state-run media rarely reports on corruption related investigations until they are concluded and those charged are sentenced.<br /><br />Tokmakjian, a former mechanic, is a self-made millionaire with interests in Canada and other countries besides Cuba, where he is a well known figure. He made his first deal with the Caribbean island in 1988.<br /><br />President Castro, a general who headed Cuba's Defense Ministry for 49 years, has cracked down on corruption as part of his efforts to revive the country's sagging economy, but to date has done little to change the conditions that foster it, such as low salaries and lack of transparency.<br /><br />There is no open bidding in Cuba's import-export sector and state purchasers who handle multimillion-dollar contracts earn anywhere from $50 to $100 per month.<br /><br />Castro has moved military officers into key political positions, ministries and export-import businesses and in 2009 established the Comptroller General's Office with a seat on the Council of State.<br /><br />A source close to the Tri-Star Caribbean case said the Comptroller General's Office had been brought into the investigation, indicating it most likely was targeting high level officials.<br /><br />Castro's crackdown has resulted in the breaking up of high-level organized graft in the civil aviation, cigar and nickel industries, at least two ministries and one provincial government. An investigation into the communications sector and another into shipping are also under way. <br /><br /> <div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
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<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span class="name">By Marc Frank</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br />Source: <a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/">The Gazette</a> (Reuters)</div>
</div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.431340384555316 -80.94726600000001320.568990384555317 -86.55576600000002 24.293690384555315 -75.338766tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-89582093257603815352011-09-17T06:04:00.000-07:002011-09-17T06:04:06.402-07:00Cuba After Castro<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<b>Social networks</b> and media outlets have been spreading rumors on<a href="http://cubaupdate.blogspot.com/2011/08/en-twitter-se-habla-de-la-muerte-de.html"> Fidel Castro's alleged death the past few weeks</a>.. The speculations started in
early August after an <a href="http://cubaupdate-english.blogspot.com/2011/08/fake-report-of-fidel-castros-death.html">infected virus-email depicted the Cuban leader lying in a coffin</a>. The fact that Castro has not appeared in public since
the <b>Communist party</b> meeting in April 2011, and that he has stopped
writing his editorials in the Cuban paper <b><i>Granma</i></b> elicited further suspicions about the status of his health. According to an op-ed in the <b>Venezuelan</b> paper <i>El Universal</i>,
Castro's health situation is deteriorating; this could be the reason
why Venezuelan President <b>Hugo Chavez</b> decided not to go back to <b>Cuba</b> to
continue receiving chemotherapy, and instead decided to go to Hospital
Militar Carlos Arvelo in Caracas for treatment.<br />
<br />
The Venezuelan state-run media, however, assured everyone that Castro is alive and healthy. On September 7, the program <i>La Hojilla,</i>
run on Venezuelan Television, aired an interview with a Fidel Castro
looking in good shape, putting to rest rumors about his health. "Those
who are at this moment enjoying and believing that Comandante Fidel had a
stroke, I'm sorry to inform you that he is alive and kicking," said
<b>Mario Silva</b>, the program's host. In the interview, Castro joked about
the rumors about his death: "They've killed me off any number of times,"
he said. "The guys who make these predictions make me laugh, as if for
me death would be bad news."<br />
<br />
<b>Future Scenarios</b><br />
<br />
After the <b>revolutions in the Arab world</b>, some opinion makers have
wondered whether Cuba could be also hit by a <b>spontaneous uprising
against the regime</b>, in which the economic crisis might deepen, despite
policies of liberalization.<br />
<br />
The <b>Spanish</b> political magazine <a href="http://www.revistatenea.es/revistaatenea/revista/articulos/GestionNoticias_3337_ESP.asp"><i>Atenea</i> argue</a><a href="http://www.revistatenea.es/revistaatenea/revista/articulos/GestionNoticias_3337_ESP.asp">d</a>
that after the death of the Comandante, a possible scenario for Cuba
could be the continuation of market liberalization's reforms while at
the same time trying to keep alive the ideology of Catroism. Last April
2011, during the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, <b>Raul Castro</b>
took further steps towards <b>economic reform</b> and <b>political liberalization</b>.
Reuters reports that Castro's brother "in public statements… has
accused government cadres of laziness, <b>corruption</b>, neglect and
<b>ideological rigidity</b> and has repeatedly urged them to reject old
revolutionary <b>dogma</b> and embrace new ways of thinking."<br />
<br />
The <b>death</b> of a charismatic leader such as Fidel Castro, along with
the pursuit of <b>economic liberalization</b>, could, however, lead to the
disappearance of <b>Castroism</b>, and with it, the <b>dictatorial regime</b> -- but
not without a price to pay. Raul Castro lacks charisma, historical
legitimacy and the needed consensus among the government's elite. This
is why the after-Fidel time could be characterized by a power vacuum and
instability, followed by uprisings and infighting. If such a situation
emerged, there is a risk that Cuba could become a failed state if the
international community would not help its transition. Of course, that
would totally depend on who did the helping. A failed state in Cuba
would be am extremely dangerous scenario: drug cartels could take
advantage of the instability on such a strategically-situated island.<br />
<br />
According to <i>Atenea</i>, a possible political scenario for the
<b>post-Castro-era</b> in Cuba would be a negotiated transition. If Raul Castro
will not manage to continue his rule on the island, the Cuban economic
and military elite – pressured by the <b>socio-economic crisi</b>s – could be
willing to share power-quotas with other sector of the society.
Following the example of <b>South Africa</b>, where a negotiated transition was
led by <b>Nelson Mandela</b>, <i>Atenea</i> suggests that a <b>Cuban dissident</b>
could be the means of democratizing the country. Again, the success of
that, for Cuba and for the world, would depend on which <b>dissident</b>.<br />
<br />
The path thorough democratization will not be easy for Cuba, a
country for five decades under the grip of a <b>dictatorship</b>. Unless the
Cuban people suddenly start an uprising against the regime, however, the
Castro brothers have no intention of giving up power. As Venezuelan
president Hugo Chavez said, Fidel Castro is more alive than ever, and
willing to continue the fight against "<b>Imperialism</b>." Any popular revolt
would be instantly repressed by the powerful <b>Cuban Revolutionary Armed
Forces</b>, who now control <b>60% of the economy</b>. In order to avoid giving up
to this privileges, they will defend Castor's regime to the <b>death</b>.<br />
<br />
<b>Economic Liberalization</b><br />
<br />
The fake news about Castro's death succeeded in bringing back the
question of whether the ideology of Castroism can survive after Castro.
Many analysts argue that Catroism is doomed to disappear: the island has
no other choice but to liberalize its economy to overcome its current <b>
economic crisis</b>. Some cautious measure towards the openness of the
market has already taken place in Cuba under the presidency of Fidel
Castro's brother Raul. Even Fidel Castro himself admitted that the
<b>Communist economic model failed</b>: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for
us anymore," he confessed last September, 2010.<br />
<br />
As pointed out by a <b>University of New Mexico</b> <a href="http://www.spaef.com/file.php?id=1033">paper by Mario Rivera</a>,
Cuba found it necessary long ago "to put into effect market-oriented
policies," especially to address the severe economic crisis triggered by
the loss of <b>Soviet support</b> after 1989 that left the country with
nothing to sustain it. However, "even the most spontaneous and forceful
change is occurring within revolutionary bounds, and… the fits and
starts of liberalization policy have simply manifested the tactical
agility of Cuban leaders. In this view, the cyclical nature of economic
policymaking in Cuba is not cause for concern so much as a corollary of
<b>pluralism</b>—of a plurality of intersecting and competing interests within
the confines of a <b>socialist civil society</b>. The creation of mixed
enterprises, joint ventures, and other hybrid forms of commerce, and the
rise of managerial, entrepreneurial, and other social networks in the
economy, is an indication of a potential for the development of capable
institutions, both public and private, in a democratic direction," the
paper noted.<br />
<br />
<b>by Anna Mahjar-Barducci</b><br />
<br />
<b>Source: <a href="http://www.hudson-ny.org/">Hudson New York </a></b> </div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.431340384555316 -80.33203162500001320.568990384555317 -85.94053162500002 24.293690384555315 -74.723531625tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-73789942928282962262011-09-15T08:10:00.000-07:002011-09-15T08:14:03.961-07:00Why we're not seeing a "Cuban Autumn"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4X_b-KKfwasKSiBpgneGkuF1GtWz2aWTkKKTqlrgkPc0fj4mA8WK7uZ3J45EkSS3aGJKKW5kN05qxHz775KXVlagOhxUtmJ-EClZejEimV0LSfCb8APOrrXj5huUcLl1FAJmR5D_6DAj9/s1600/cuba+protest+dissident+repression.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4X_b-KKfwasKSiBpgneGkuF1GtWz2aWTkKKTqlrgkPc0fj4mA8WK7uZ3J45EkSS3aGJKKW5kN05qxHz775KXVlagOhxUtmJ-EClZejEimV0LSfCb8APOrrXj5huUcLl1FAJmR5D_6DAj9/s400/cuba+protest+dissident+repression.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A dissident signs the letter "L" for the Spanish word "libertad" or
freedom as he is detained by police during a procession celebrating
Cuba's patron saint in Havana, Cuba, Thursday Sept. 8, 2011. <span class="caption">(AP Photo/Javier Galeano).</span></b></td></tr>
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<b><br />Dissidents took heart at the successes of the Arab Spring, but pro-democracy protests aren't gaining traction. </b><br />
<b></b><br />
The uprisings that have rocked the <b>Middle East</b> this year appear to be inspiring a new wave of <b>protests</b> on this island. <br />
<br />
But while the <b>Arab Spring</b> is still in full effect in many countries, opponents of the <b>Castro</b> government have gained little momentum for a "<b>Cuban Autumn</b>." <br />
<br />
In recent weeks, <b>anti-government activists</b> have staged several public demonstrations in <b>Havana</b> and eastern <b>Cuba</b>. News and video clips of the events were posted on social-networking sites and broadcast on <b>Miami</b> television channels. <br />
<br />
They show small groups of activists banging cookware, chanting <b>anti-Castro</b> slogans and "<b>Freedom</b>!" until <b>police</b> and state-security agents arrive to whisk them away. <br />
<br />
In some of the videos, larger crowds of Cubans stand around watching the protesters, but they do not join in. <br />
<br />
The incidents come after a period of relative calm that followed the Castro government's move last year to release scores of imprisoned political prisoners, with the <b>Catholic Church</b> playing a mediating role. The amnesty briefly ameliorated criticisms by Western governments and human-rights groups of Cuba's one-party socialist system and its treatment of non-violent dissenters. <br />
<br />
Now activists are once more testing <b>Raul Castro</b>'s tolerance for public protest -- and whether the tactics used by tweeting insurgents in the Middle East could spread anti-government sentiment here. <br />
<br />
So far: not so much. <br />
<br />
One disadvantage often cited by Cuban activists is that they operate at a significant technology deficit. The island is one of the least-connected countries in the world, and though many young people have mobile phones, most lack access to <b>Facebook</b>, <b>Twitter</b> and video-sharing sites because of internet restrictions and scarce bandwidth. <br />
<br />
Anti-Castro activists on the island are also viewed suspiciously or with outright hostility by many Cubans, even those who have lost faith in Cuba's socialist model. State media broadcasts frequently show them meeting with <b>U.S</b>. diplomatic officials, depicting them as "counterrevolutionaries," "mercenaries" and "opportunists" who are out to make a buck or get political asylum abroad. <br />
<br />
Many others here remain committed to Cuba's system and its revolutionary ideals, even as the <b>free health care</b>, education and other benefits the government provides continue to diminish. <br />
<br />
But <b>dissidents</b> also say Cuban authorities are escalating their attacks to intimidate others from joining their pro-democracy efforts. In August, police violence against peaceful protesters reached its highest level in recent years, according to the Havana-based <b>Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation</b>, an anti-Castro group that the tracks political arrests and detentions. Nearly twice as many activists have been detained so far this year compared to the same period in 2010, the group said, including 130 short-term detentions over the weekend. <br />
<br />
The Cuban government has challenged those charges, accusing the group of padding its lists with fake names. <br />
<br />
Castro opponents do not claim the Cuban government stoops to the type of methods that have been used by regimes in the Arab world, where activists are raped, tortured and murdered, and where protests are commonly met by volleys of police gunfire. <br />
<br />
But state-security officials can plainly be seen coordinating counter-protests by government loyalists, who often surround dissidents and shout epithets at them for hours on end, sometimes accosting them physically. Security agents typically stand between the two sides to keep things from getting too rough. <br />
<br />
When Cubans protest in public spontaneously, as some of the recent videos show, police quickly swoop in to arrest the demonstrators and haul them away, though the activists are often released several hours later. <br />
<br />
Cuba's <b>Catholic church</b>, which played a central role in securing the release of more than 100 jailed activists over the past year, issued a carefully worded statement last week that condemned violence against "defenseless" people. <br />
<br />
But Church spokesman <b>Orlando Marquez</b> also said in the statement that the Cuban government told the church "no one at the national level" had ordered attacks on protesters. <br />
<br />
Cuban state television has aired footage of the protests, claiming the incidents were part of a "media campaign" against the island. It called the demonstrations acts of "public disorder" that were organized by U.S.-supported "mercenaries" and planned in coordination with American officials. <br />
<br />
"The goal is to create a climate of tension that will justify aggressions against Cuba," the report said. <br />
<br />
While Cuba's economy continues to struggle, there has not been the kind of broader unrest on the island that sparked street protests during the <b>post-Soviet crisis</b> of the 1990s. <br />
<br />
Raul Castro has eased state control over the economy since taking over for his older brother in 2006, allowing for new private businesses and pending reforms that would permit Cubans to buy and sell homes and cars for the first time in half a century. <br />
<br />
Castro has also encouraged Cubans to vent their frustrations -- within limits -- through established channels like workplace forums and neighborhood meetings. Criticizing state institutions and government bureaucracy is no longer taboo, but organized opposition and public protests -- like the recent demonstrations -- remain out of bounds. <br />
<br />
Since most of the dissidents freed over the past year opted to leave Cuba for <b>Spain</b> as part of an arrangement with the Madrid government, the latest rounds of protests may also be an effort by activists to remain visible, particularly to supporters abroad. <br />
<br />
Cuba's most famous online anti-government activist, <b>Yoani Sanchez</b>, sends out cascades of tweets from her mobile phone, including information about protests. Her blog, <b>Generation Y</b>, is no longer blocked on the island by the government, but many young Cubans who manage to get online aren't necessarily inclined to use their precious bytes on political sites. <br />
<br />
A high-speed undersea data link to <b>Venezuela</b> completed this summer with much fanfare is supposed to come online in the next few months, increasing Cuba's bandwidth by a factor of 3,000. Its debut has been repeatedly delayed, adding to perceptions that Cuban authorities are wary of its power, even though they have already announced it will not be used to deliver private internet access to Cuban homes. <br />
<br />
U.S. officials appear to view communication technology as the key to sparking political change on the island. In a leaked 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable that recently surfaced, the top American official in Havana, <b>Jonathan Farrar</b>, urged the lifting of restrictions on software downloads in Cuba, where <b>Microsoft</b> and other American companies have blocked access to comply with anti-terrorism statutes. Such restrictions, Farrar argued, work "directly against U.S. goals to advance people-to-people interaction." <br />
<br />
Bringing more technology, wrote Farrar at the time, could "help facilitate <b>Iran</b>-style democratic ferment in Cuba."<br />
<br />
<b>By Nick Miroff </b><br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/">GlobalPost </a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Cuba22.674847578980803 -80.59570350000001320.812497578980803 -86.20420350000002 24.537197578980802 -74.9872035tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-86027436611098546752011-09-13T02:57:00.000-07:002011-09-13T03:02:23.909-07:00Cuba: Situation created at Havana church as dangerous as Waco<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The church has been surrounded by a tight cordon of police forces. </b></td></tr>
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<br />
A top <b>Cuban church official</b> told CBS News the situation created by a Pentecostal pastor who has barricaded himself along with an unspecified number of followers in his former <b>Havana</b> church is "as dangerous as Waco," the 1993 <b>FBI</b> siege and assault on the "Branch Davidian" sect in Texas. <br />
<br />
The <b>Cuban government</b> on Sunday issued a statement on what it called "the unusual situation" in the Pentecostal Church in <b>Centro Habana</b>. The statement said more than 60 people, including 19 children and four pregnant women, were voluntarily locked in the building on a "spiritual retreat." <br />
<br />
Authorities were able to convince those inside to allow doctors in to check on the pregnant women, the statement said, but expressed concern over their condition should they remain in the church for a prolonged period. The statement also expressed concern for the children who are missing classes. <br />
<br />
The statement was the second news item on state-run television's evening newscast Sunday. It said the <b>Pentecostal Church</b> that had relieved the church's pastor, <b>Braulio Herrera Tito</b>, of his duties. <br />
<br />
The Rev. <b>Marcial Hernandez</b>, President of Cuba's Council of Churches and himself a pastor of an Evangelical Pentecostal Church, says he doesn't know the exact number of people inside with Pastor Braulio, but other sources put the number at 62. <br />
<br />
The building, which houses the Assembly of God Pentecostal Evangelical Church of Cuba, has been surrounded by a tight cordon of <b>police forces</b> since Friday evening. All traffic and including bus routes have been diverted and only those people who can show proof that they live in that area are allowed through police lines. <br />
<br />
Residents of the heavily populated and rundown neighborhood of Centro Habana where the <b>church</b> stands say the pastor told his followers the end of the world is coming and only by locking themselves into the church with him could they be saved. <br />
<br />
The leader of another cult, who did not want to be identified, said that he and his congregation had been allowed to share the space of this church for their activities until two weeks ago when the pastor threw them out. Neighbors reported that large quantities of food and water were taken into the church before the doors were locked from the inside. <br />
<br />
Hernandez says Braulio "regrettably" wandered from the canons set by his church and for the past year disobeyed orders from the National Assembly of Pentecostal Churches to return to doctrine leading to his dismissal. <br />
<br />
Braulio has refused to leave the building, which belongs to the Pentecostal Church from which he was expelled. The National Assembly of Pentecostal Churches took the case to the Cuban courts which ruled in their favor. <br />
<br />
Hernandez took Braulio to task for "not wanting to respect either the laws of his Church or of <b>Cuba</b>." He suggested the man was arbitrarily acting on impulse and because the Pentecostal churches are organized by congregations, Braulio has his followers who he convinced to lock themselves in with him. <br />
<br />
The <b>Council of Churches</b>, Hernandez says, has not had any contact with Braulio, respecting the jurisdiction of the National Assembly of Pentecostal Churches to handle the situation. However, he said the Council would step in if that body asked for help, which it hasn't yet done. He voiced the opinion that Braulio needed <b>psychiatric help</b>. <br />
<br />
All denominations of churches in Cuba have swelled since the economic crisis of the 1990s. The number of evangelicals in Cuba has grown from roughly 70,000 to more than 800,000 today, out of a population of 11 million, according to church sources. <br />
<br />
Analysts say that modern <b>evangelical Christianity</b> with its boisterous music and passionate sermons is more appealing to Cubans, particularly poorer ones, than the more conservative practices of the <b>Catholic Church</b> and traditional <b>Protestant denominations</b>. Santeria and other <b>Afro-Cuban</b> religions also retain a strong hold over the population.<br />
<br />
<b>By Portia Siegelbaum</b><br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/">CBS </a><b><br /></b></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0Centro Habana, La Habana, Cuba23.123903306825465 -82.37370766946412523.112314306825464 -82.383894669464127 23.135492306825466 -82.363520669464123tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5459062021214933062.post-74951773524364651652011-09-11T06:41:00.000-07:002011-09-11T06:42:36.038-07:00Medicare fraud pays for Cuban spy activities against U.S.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh421yZFmXqHJ1LQBYsAMJCn26cTrAExwd8iic9dPZa8qhTwPe2DWa5lB9cAl1hMB7YH_qdK5YoTRcsUpmN8mTpROyATVYg_sv72ITHoxWC_lHEJTyJyIjwvDHg_mhAXfLct_ynVhiNOIl_/s1600/cuba+usa+medicare+fraud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh421yZFmXqHJ1LQBYsAMJCn26cTrAExwd8iic9dPZa8qhTwPe2DWa5lB9cAl1hMB7YH_qdK5YoTRcsUpmN8mTpROyATVYg_sv72ITHoxWC_lHEJTyJyIjwvDHg_mhAXfLct_ynVhiNOIl_/s1600/cuba+usa+medicare+fraud.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The <b>Communist Cuban dictatorship</b> is draining hundreds of millions of
dollars from <b>America</b>'s already financially strapped <b>Medicare</b> program and
using the money to finance its military and <b>espionage services</b>,
according to one counterintelligence expert specializing in Cuban
affairs.<br />
<br />
In an exclusive interview with International News Analysis Today,
<b>Christopher Simmons</b> not only ties in the <b>Cuban dictatorship</b> with the
rampant <b>Medicare fraud</b>, but draws a stunning conclusion about the
erosion of American sovereignty in south <b>Florida</b>.<br />
<br />
Simmons is a retired Counterintelligence Special Agent with 28 years
service in the Army, Army Reserve, and the Defense Intelligence Agency
with a specialty in Cuban intelligence affairs. Simmons was part of the
team that identified, arrested, and convicted former Defense
Intelligence Agency senior analyst, <b>Ana Belen Montes</b>, Cuba's
highest-ranking spy captured to date. Simmons has appeared on radio and
television, and has given testimony before committees of <b>Congress</b>.<br />
<br />
<b>Cuban Government As Criminal Enterprise</b><br />
<br />
Medicare fraud usually involves money billed for treatment or services
never rendered. Most Medicare fraud in the <b>U.S.</b> occurs in southern
Florida, and the majority of the fraud perpetrators flee to Cuba. Law
enforcement officials publically state, however, that <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/16/2317603/fbi-struggling-to-catch-150-plus.html">there is no proof of a connection between Medicare fraud and Cuba</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmgYqWu6KQfTVS94xUAiS4oOqMIhQdFmhW1X_TVBw9F3VN3O-BfjI4Zqf2V2Iy7J18-85-hc46NDOp_Q_IkKgD6KNbMt09s6ZCf4ye9NqFX__nXGt7QdNEVDm86dFBwmEPvLUh9oExtF0/s1600/Ana+Belen+Montes+Cuba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmgYqWu6KQfTVS94xUAiS4oOqMIhQdFmhW1X_TVBw9F3VN3O-BfjI4Zqf2V2Iy7J18-85-hc46NDOp_Q_IkKgD6KNbMt09s6ZCf4ye9NqFX__nXGt7QdNEVDm86dFBwmEPvLUh9oExtF0/s1600/Ana+Belen+Montes+Cuba.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Ana Belen Montes, 1990. </b></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Simmons pointedly disagrees and does see a clear connection.<br />
<br />
"There is a huge difference between proof and evidence," observed Simmons.<br />
<br />
"The Cuban government has been a criminal enterprise for 50 years, and
has never been reluctant to engage in crime to make money," Simmons
declared. <b>Havana</b> has a 50 year history of involvement in breaking
international law, from <b>drug trafficking</b> to selling U.S. secrets,
Simmons said. He reasons that expansion into a relatively simple scheme
as Medicare fraud would be easy for the <b>Communist state</b>.<br />
<br />
The Communist Cuban government's wide experience in breaking U.S. and
international laws provides "proof of capability and intent" and a
"pattern of behavior," Simmons asserted.<br />
<br />
In seven out of ten cases, he said, the perpetrators are Cuban-born
individuals who have come to the <b>United States</b> since the 1990s and who
flee back to Cuba when law enforcement uncover their fraudulent
activities. In Cuba, they enjoy every available comfort in return for
funneling <b>millions of dollars</b> to the Cuban government.<br />
<br />
A report issued by the <a href="http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FOCUS_Web/Issue137.htm">University of Miami</a>
cites statements by a former high-level Cuban intelligence officer
indicating that the Cuban government is either directing or assisting
the perpetrators to obtain much needed hard currency.<br />
<br />
<b>Cuban Official Claims 'Ludicrous'</b><br />
<br />
Cuba officially disclaims any knowledge of either the fraud in south
Florida or the presence on the island of the perpetrators of the fraud.<br />
<br />
Describing as "ludicrous" Havana's claims of ignorance of the crimes or
the criminals. Simmons told INA Today that the newly returned <b>Cuban
exiles</b> would have at the very least attracted the attention of members
of the <b>Committee for the Defense of the Revolution</b>, a block-by-block
organization of Cuban citizen informers whose job it is to watch other
Cuban citizens and report everything they see. Simmons estimates that
one out of ten Cubans work for the CDR.<br />
<br />
Simmons' ratio of informers to citizen is corroborated by what we know
about the conditions in the now-defunct Communist East German
dictatorship. As many as one in six East Germans were informers for the
Ministry for State Security, the feared Stasi secret police.<br />
<br />
A returning Cuban exile living the good life in the <b>tropical gulag</b> that
is Cuba would certainly attract the attention of the CDR <b>spies</b> across
the island.<br />
<br />
<b>Fraud Pays for Espionage</b><br />
<br />
Based on his knowledge of previous Cuban government criminal schemes,
Simmons stated that a large part of the Medicare fraud profits go
directly to support Cuba's vast foreign and domestic <b>spy network</b> and the
military.<br />
<br />
The United States is Cuba's only important enemy.<br />
<br />
The money taken during Cuba's Medicare fraud scheme has returned to
south Florida in the person of well-financed intelligence personnel.
Simmons stated that from 150 to 200 Cuban intelligence officers are
active in south Florida, vastly outnumbering U.S. spy catchers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3vNrVdemHsIilEE2XCFLhbYZA3v01lRY5TwnLDzCiBjwxGrqLSeFm_PMFG5ZEsGkDmo0YImucWGqbRyNDqb4k4JUfICXoPmsmTibZTJy5ccNZjsd-Lp-tUQPuTIFCBpidguqF8q6I3PaC/s1600/Carmen+Kaeren+Gonz%25C3%25A1lez+fraud+medicare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3vNrVdemHsIilEE2XCFLhbYZA3v01lRY5TwnLDzCiBjwxGrqLSeFm_PMFG5ZEsGkDmo0YImucWGqbRyNDqb4k4JUfICXoPmsmTibZTJy5ccNZjsd-Lp-tUQPuTIFCBpidguqF8q6I3PaC/s320/Carmen+Kaeren+Gonz%25C3%25A1lez+fraud+medicare.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Carmen Kaeren González, suspected to be in Cuba </b></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
U.S. counterespionage efforts in south Florida are also impeded by the demands of the U.S. involvement in <b>Iraq</b> and <b>Afghanistan</b>.<br />
<br />
Simmons explained that counterintelligence personnel, because of their
experience and training, are often deployed to the Iraq and Afghanistan,
because they capable of operating both as intelligence officers — those
who seek to obtain restricted or secret information — and in their
intended role of counterintelligence personnel — spy catchers.<br />
<br />
<b>Florida as 'Denied' Area — Like North Korea</b><br />
<br />
As many as 70% of Cuba's spies operate in south Florida, and the limited
number of U.S. counterintelligence personnel available in the region
spells potential disaster for the United States.<br />
<br />
America's resources available in the struggle against Cuban intelligence
are so thin that Simmons regards south Florida as a "denied area," an
intelligence designation indicating a place where U.S. intelligence
operations "are either difficult or impossible."<br />
<br />
Examples of other "denied areas" are <b>North Korea</b> and <b>Iran</b>, said Simmons<br />
<br />
The <b>FBI</b> and other law enforcement agencies have scored impressive
victories against Cuban intelligence services, among them the
destruction of the <b>Wasp Network</b> in 1998 and the arrest of Ana Belen
Montes in 2001.<br />
<br />
There is much more to do to protect Americas against Cuban espionage
activities, but Cuba has become to many influential Americans a
politically correct subject. Within the U.S. policy elite there is often
a discernible pro-Cuban element.<br />
<br />
The U.S. pro-Cuban lobby includes in its ranks U.S. politicians,
<b>Hollywood stars</b>, and think tank experts who regularly support Communist
Cuba's agenda.<br />
<br />
Silence also aids the Cuban dictatorship. Little or nothing is ever said
in the U.S. media — liberal or conservative — about the struggles of
pro-freedom activists in Cuba who face regular beatings and
imprisonment.<br />
<br />
Communist Cuba exists because of the relentless oppression carried out
by its ruthless secret police for the benefit of the military and the
<b>Communist Party</b>. Medicare fraud is just one more crime to add to the
many perpetrated against the U.S. and the people of Cuba.<br />
<br />
<b>By </b><b>Toby Westerman </b><br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.renewamerica.com/">RenewAmerica</a></div>CastroCerdohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14871478473583474327noreply@blogger.com0