Just How Specious is Latin America's Revolutionary Rhetoric?

Although Cuba's Fidel Castro, as one of the fathers of revolution, continues to verbally assault the U.S. and essential democratic principles, Cuba is playing it safe and cautious not to stagger too far off the beaten path of a much better informed world audience.

An exception to this apparent rule is Castro's admiration for his protégé, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Castro does not hesitate to wave the much tattered Cuban revolutionary flag when speaking of his admired pupil.

An op-ed column last week by Fidel Castro graphically demonstrated his remaining true moniker of world dictator. 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)

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."

While praising the "friendly nations" of Russia and China, 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 capitalism.

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.

Furthermore, Castro's revolutionary hysteria appears to have taken a curious back seat with Cuba's silence on the death of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, while having and maintaining a very strong mutual support relationship.

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 "Algaddafi International Prize for Human Rights," a prize granted by the Libyan leader. Cuba's Fidel Castro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega were also past recipients of the award.

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."

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.

Leftist leaders Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Bolivia's Evo Morales have also been noticeably quiet recently, as citizens of their respective countries have amassed in verbal and demonstrative posture in protest.

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."

Ecuador's Correa too has had problems. Last year Correa's own brother, Fabricio Correa, said the nation is being "directed" from Venezuela 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."

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.

Even with a world "media revolution," that is apparently demonstrating new messages these days, leftist regimes in Latin America are having serious trouble with credibility. Consequently, many are silent - for now.

By Jerry Brewer
Source: Mexidata

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Report: Hezbollah opens base in Cuba

Hezbollah flag.

Shiite terror group to use operations center to launch attack on Israeli target in South America, Italian newspaper reports.

Hezbollah has established a center of operations in Cuba in order to expand its terrorist activity and facilitate an attack on an Israeli target in South America, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the attack is meant to avenge the death of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah. The organization alleges that Israel was behind his 2008 assassination.

According to the report, three Hezbollah members have already arrived in Cuba with the purpose of establishing a terrorist cell there. The cell is to include 23 operatives, hand-picked by Talal Hamia, a senior member tasked with heading the covert operation. 

The operation, titled "The Caribbean Case," was reportedly allocated a budget of $1.5 million. The Cuba base is to be initially used for logistics purposes, including intelligence collection, networking and document forgery.

Hezbollah has been active in South America for quite some time now, primarily in Paraguay, Brazil and Venezuela, the report notes.

Source: Ynetnews

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Why the Left Loves Castro, Guevara, and Chavez

Those we look to as heroes speaks volumes about whom we are, and our character. Most of us identify heroes who exhibit qualities of character that we admire and we desire to emulate ourselves. Such character is manifest by actions, and what our heroes do to deserve such respect and veneration.

The passing of the dictatorial baton in Cuba from Fidel Castro to his equally totalitarian brother Raul provides a case study in hero worship. Fidel was the revolutionary who deposed Cuba’s corrupt dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Yet Castro became much worse than the ruler he led a revolution against, torturing and executing more than five times as many Cubans as his predecessor. He nationalized business interests in the country, abolished freedom of religion, took over the media, erased free speech, and turned the tropical island into a totalitarian “paradise” stripped of human rights and freedom. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Cuba trails only China in the number of journalists and reporters behind bars.

Political prisoners are beaten, starved, denied that acclaimed Cuban medical care, locked in solitary confinement, and forced into slave labor. Castro long ago eliminated due process of law, and the right to leave the country.

Freedom House, the international human rights watchdog, rates Cuba with the lowest possible rating for civil liberties and political rights. It shares that inauspicious ranking with North Korea and Sudan as the most repressive regimes.

In short, under Castro, a once-flourishing island paradise has been transformed into a poverty-stricken, desolate hellhole where basic human liberties do not exist.

In spite of all this, American media and the Hollywood left heaps praise and adulation on Fidel. Norman Mailer, for example, proclaimed him “the first and greatest hero to appear in the world since the Second World War.” Oliver Stone has called him “one of the earth’s wisest people, one of the people we should consult.”

The paragon of objective documentarians, Michael Moore, holds up Castro’s health care system as the preeminent example. I guess if you don’t mind being stripped of all liberties and can survive the firing squads, the Cubans have something to look forward to.

Why is it that to the left a ruthless mass-murderer and totalitarian dictator would be so adored and worthy of emulation?

For that matter, why is Castro’s primary executioner of the revolution, Che Guevara, still lionized by the left? Even today, kids wear t-shirts with his gnarly image emblazoned on them. Even Angelina Jolie has a Che tattoo, which is immensely ironic considering she travels the world denouncing violence as a U.N. ambassador of good will.

Che longed to destroy New York City with nuclear missiles. He promoted book burning and signed death warrants for authors who disagreed with him. His racism against blacks makes Jeremiah Wright’s racism against whites pale by comparison, yet he’s a hero to Jesse Jackson. He persecuted homosexuals, long-haired rock and rollers, and church-goers. Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering “several thousand” executions during the first few years of the Castro regime. He carried out Castro-ordered executions on a more expansive scale per capita than Hitler’s Nazi Germany did, prior to implementation of the Final Solution.

We can even lump Hugo Chavez into the mix, for he is well on his way to doing to Venezuela what Castro did to Cuba, and he is receiving the characteristic leftist praise for it.

When analyzed logically, the left in America should hate Guevara, Castro, and Chavez. After all, they did all the things they accuse George Bush of doing: torture, capital punishment, imprisonment without due process, elimination of freedom of speech and the press. They’re probably fine with the elimination of freedom of religion.

So why is he so adored by them? What is it about Guevara, Castro, and Chavez that captures the left’s imagination like none other?

There are two possibilities. All three revolutionaries hate, or hated in the case of Guevara, the United States. In 1957, Castro wrote in a letter, “War against the United States is my true destiny. When this war’s over [the revolution], I’ll start that much bigger and wider war.” Maybe the reason the radical left loves those murderous dictators and Castro’s executioner is because they share a disdain for this country.

The other possibility is that the left more frequently judges people for their intent than their actual accomplishments. The current presidential campaign illustrates this aptly, as Clinton’s “experience” seems to have no match for Obama’s “hope.” It doesn’t matter that neither one has really accomplished anything of substance, it’s their intent that matters most.

We are left to conclude that the radical left is totally ignorant of history, and devoid of logic, or their mutual contempt of the United States trumps all else.

Apparently the Obama campaign was attracting that type of ideologue. When his campaign office was opened in Houston before the Texas primary, the volunteer director had a Cuban flag with the image of the Communist mass murderer Che Guevara’s face printed on it. I can only pray that that’s not an omen. And next time you see someone with a Che shirt on, ask them why. Their answer may be illuminating.

By Richard Larsen

Source: Larsen Financial

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Travel to Cuba eased through cultural tours

Old times are coming back...

It's now possible for the average traveler to travel legally to Cuba.

After months of waiting, specialty tour providers this week began getting their U.S. government licenses to offer "people-to-people" trips to the island nation that most Americans have never visited. The people-to-people trips are cultural tours that aim to help people understand one another.

Insight Cuba of New Rochelle, N.Y., is wasting no time launching the tours; it announced Tuesday it will start tours in August that last between three and eight nights, including Havana and Colonial Trinidad; Weekend in Havana; and Havana Jazz Experience (http://www.insightcuba.com/)

Between 2000 and 2004, a brief window opened for people-to-people travel, but it slammed shut again before most tourists could take advantage of it. Many American tourists have traveled illegally to Cuba through Canada or Mexico, but penalties were stiffened. Then last year, the Obama administration indicated it would restore the "people to people" exemption so more Americans could do cultural exchanges.

The new rules still do not allow Cuban beach resort vacations; it emphasizes cultural trips.

BY ELLEN CREAGER

 

Source: Detroit Free Press

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Cuba: Another Historiography Is Possible

The Presidential Palace, built between 1913-1920. From 1965, the Museum of the Revolution. 

Last Friday, I was talking with a young Honduran historian who was referring to Cuba’s Republican stage (1902-1959). She simplified that period by comparing it to how she sees Panama today: a paradise for gambling and sex but with a government that is failing to provide its citizens a dignified life.

No matter how much revolutionary historiography has attempted to satanize Republican Cuba (attaching it with prefixes like “neo” or “pseudo to the noun “Republic”), it takes an effort to think this way by anyone who values logic and knows something about the history of Cuba.

At least it takes some effort on my part, because for me the Cuban republic was not merely an American backyard for gambling and prostitution. There were also institutions here that for their seriousness and quality earned an esteemed place in the memory of our senior citizens.

These were such that I’ve yet to meet an elderly elementary school teacher who doesn’t speak of their career without concluding with the sentence: “Us, yes, we are true teachers!” in an obvious critique of educators created by the revolutionary government.

That republic of “players and prostitutes” also gave humanity numbers of people of international stature, such as the world champion of chess (Jose Raul Capablanca) and of boxing (“Kid Chocolate”). And I have to say that if Cuba still cannot point to a Nobel Prize winner from that time, it was simply because the sponsors and organizers of that award considered it undue to grant such a distinguished medal to a Latin American.

It’s worth clarifying that despite the fact that the Swedish academy never granted Dr. Carlos J. Finlay the award, it did indeed nominate him for it on at least six occasions. This was an award that he clearly deserved because of his discovery of the Aedes aegypti mosquito as being the transmitting agent of yellow fever, thus saving hundreds of thousands of lives, which in an ironic twist of destiny also facilitated the completion of the Panama Canal.

Another republic quite removed from the casinos and brothels was the one that grouped itself around Cuban intellectuality. Here at least three true erudite circles existed: the liberal, the Catholic and the socialist one, each led by a caliber of intellectuals at the continental level – people such as Jorge Mañach, Jose Lezama Lima and Juan Marinello, each also with their own identity and way of thinking about Cuba.

From their respective political positions, and throughout the entire period of the republic, these cultivated circles that knew how to maintain intense, respectful and enriching dialogues on the issues that affected the nation, a matter that has been excessively downplayed in today’s Cuban academic and cultural panorama.

That republic, which my Honduran friend automatically compared to the worst part of Panama, she also defined as “of little importance” also had one of the most important architecture schools on the continent. This was where architects like Nicolas Quintana (who died recently in Miami), Havana resident Mario Coyula and many others designed and built in barely a half a decade (1953-1958) two of the most emblematic neighborhoods in Havana and in Cuba: Vedado and Miramar.

It goes without saying that this Cuba, so “ill-favored” and full of thugs (according to national historiography), had the first Latin American Olympic champion: fencer Ramon Fonts (1904).

It’s also worth remembering the important role that Cuba would play in the technological development of the region. The first Latin American airborne journey was carried out by a Cuban, Agustin Parla. The 1913 flight lasted almost three hours as that pilot traveled between Cayo Hueso (U.S.A.) and the town of the Mariel, west of Havana.

Even rights such as divorce — so trying and difficult to understand for sexist Ibero-Americans at the beginning of the 20th century — was accepted in our country as early as 1918.

In terms of other women’s rights, the first feminist movement in Ibero-America appeared at the end of the 1930’s in Cuba, thirty-six years ahead of the movement in Spain, for example.

Other important facts that my friend should know is that in 1937 Cuba decreed, for the first time in Ibero-America, laws for the eight-hour work day, the minimum wage and university autonomy.

In 1940 a constitution was adopted which was the first one in Ibero-America that approved the right of women to vote, equal rights for different sexes and races, and women’s right to work.

In 1951 the Riviera Hotel became the first in the world to have central air conditioning.

In terms of our agrarian culture, my friend should also know that in 1954 Cuba succeeded in producing one head of cattle for each resident, with the Cuban population back then numbering around six million people.

It would also be worthwhile to recognize that in 1956 the UN recognized Cuba as the number two country in Latin America in terms of its literacy index, with its illiterate population consisting of only 23.6 percent – well above Spain’s illiterate population of 60 percent.

In 1957 Cuba was recognized by the UN as the leading Ibero-America country in terms of its number of doctors per capita (1 for every 957 residents).

In 1958 Cuba ranked as the second country of the world in the percentage of households with color television and it was the third in the world to establish a color TV station.

In 1958 Cuba was the Ibero-American country with the most automobiles (160,000, or one for each 38 residents).

I also feel it my duty to tell my friend that in 1959, Havana led the world by being the city with the most movie theaters (358), even surpassing cities like New York and Paris.

In conclusion, I would like to let my friend know that I don’t have anything personal against our fine Panamanian sisters and brothers, nor do I believe that she does. Still, I would like to know if she still thinks the same after this brief review of the data on the Cuban Republic.

Alfredo Fernandez Rodriguez

Source: Havana Times 

Related: Clouds in my Cuban coffee 

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Amid tension, Carter heads to Cuba

Carter threw some balls in his first visit to Cuba, in 2002.

Former President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba on Monday for a three-day trip aimed at thawing U.S.-Cuban relations, and may push for the release of an American just sentenced to 15 years in jail there.

Carter accepted an invitation from the Cuban government to meet with President Raul Castro and other officials to learn about changes there since his last visit in 2002. Called a “private, nongovernmental mission” by the Carter Center, the visit nonetheless signals an effort to improve the relationship between the United States and its neighbor 90 miles to the south.

Carter is also expected to meet with Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Havana, and members of the Jewish community. Wife Rosalynn Carter will accompany him.

Carter is the only current or former president to visit the island nation since Fidel Castro took control of the Cuban government in 1959.

The Carter Center’s announcement made no mention of Alan Gross, a State Department contractor sentenced this month to 15 years in Cuban prison for providing illegal Internet access to political dissidents. He was found guilty of “acts against the independence or territorial integrity” of Cuba.

But Carter – who traveled to North Korea last year to negotiate for the release of an American imprisoned there – is expected to bring up Gross’s case.

“We’re hoping that he will talk with the Cuban government to ask for a humanitarian release and if the Cuban government could please consider it, hopefully immediately,” Molly Koscina, a spokeswoman for the U.S. mission in Havana, told AFP.

Cuban officials have told Carter not to expect to be able to bring Gross home with him, Reuters reported, though Carter’s visit could put Gross’s case on a path toward his ultimate release.

The State Department confirmed last week that Carter is planning to visit North Korea again this year, perhaps as soon as April, with a group of former world leaders, including ex-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Jennifer Epstein 

From: Politico 

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Gambling and the Law: Cuba will have casinos, again

Casino Plaza in Cuba, destroyed in 1959.

President Obama has just announced that he is easing restrictions on visits to Cuba; the second time he will be relaxing travel rules imposed on Americans by Pres. George W. Bush.

Casual tourism is still difficult, but it will be much easier for students and teacher, religious groups and journalists to request permission to visit Cuba. He had already made it easier for Cuban-Americans to travel to see relatives on the island.

Although the State Department takes the position that tourists cannot legally travel to Cuba, my reading of the statutes is a little different. To obey federal laws, all U.S. citizens have to do is not spend any money whatsoever once they set foot on the island.

But that law will have to be changed. Because Cuba will have casinos within the next 10 years.

Or, more accurately, Cuba will again have casinos. Because during the 1950s the island nation, less than 100 miles from Florida, was one of the leading gaming and tourist destinations of the world.

It started in the 1920s, when Havana assumed a role later taken by Las Vegas: a vacation spot where Americans could party in ways not allowed at home. But it was not the gambling as much as it was the booze. America was in the midst of the disastrous experiment known as Prohibition, which also created modern organized crime. Cuba flourished with nightclubs, bordellos and casinos.

World War II was a minor interruption. Then the partying was reborn. Havana became so notorious, that in 1950 a Broadway musical, "Guys and Dolls," could be built around its reputation. The audience knew why Nathan Detroit (the Frank Sinatra character in the 1955 film) bet Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) that Sky could not convince the Salvation Army "doll" (Jean Simmons) to go with him for "dinner in Havana."

But it looked for a while like the good times might be coming to an end. Cuban casinos had become so crooked that Americans were beginning to stay away. They were saved when Fulgencio Batista became dictator in 1952.

In an ironic twist, Batista called upon the mob, particularly Meyer Lansky, to clean things up. And they did. It is hard to believe organized crime syndicates would run completely honest games. But Lansky realized they could make more money with magnificent hotel-casinos then if they cheated everyone.

Throughout the 1950s, the American and Cuban mob families opened luxurious casino resorts, each one bigger and more successful than the last. The money poured in. Batista got a cut of everything.

Three recent books, Offshore Vegas: How the Mob Brought Revolution to Cuba; Havana Before Castro: When Cuba was a Tropical Playground (great photos); and Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution (being made into a movie), may overstate the importance of organized crime in the Communists coming to power.

The economy under Batista was not that bad. Cuba had a large middle class. Lansky was, in fact, originally reluctant to open casinos, because labor unions were so strong.

Still, most Cubans never shared the wealth they saw all around them, and corruption was rampant. The result was revolution.

When news hit the streets on New Year's Day, 1959, that Batista had fled the country, angry crowds poured into the casinos, destroying everything inside.

As one of his first decrees, Fidel Castro outlawed gambling. He then tried to reopen some, with untrained dealers, after he discovered how important the casinos were to the local economy. But it was too late the American patrons were gone.

The Soviet bloc never could supply enough tourists to make up for being isolated from the U.S. I remember seeing faded posters for Havana vacations in a tourist bureau in Prague, shortly after the Velvet Revolution. But the other store windows were practically empty, since there was little to buy and few people had any money, or the right to fly over the barbed wire and minefields that had surrounded Communist Czechoslovakia.

The fall of the Iron Curtain shows what we can expect for Cuba: A combination of two of the greatest expansions of legal gaming in the last 40 years.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the replacement of communism with capitalism lead to an explosion of casinos throughout Eastern Europe and Russia.

And the death of the dictator Francisco Franco led to an explosion of slot machines and other legal gaming throughout Spain.

Although Franco was strongly anti-communist, the comparison with Castro is apt. The Iberian peninsula and Latin America have a long tradition of strongmen, "caudilhos" in Portuguese, in Spanish "caudillos." Franco ruled from 1936 to 1975, and even called himself "Caudillo de España, por la gracia de Dios;" which Wikipedia translates as "Leader of Spain, by the grace of God."

Castro has been the caudillo since 1959, first as Prime Minister, then President and now as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. Due to illness, he turned over much of his power to his younger brother Ra?l, on July 31, 2006.

Raúl has shown some independence. He doesn't really have what it takes to be a caudillo. So he might start true liberalization as soon as the sickly Fidel, 84 years old, dies. Raúl is 79, so both Castro brothers will probably be gone within the next 10 years.

The caudillo tradition seems to be coming to an end. The U.S. will drop its economic embargo when democracy and capitalism come to Cuba, in whatever form they take. In fact, as we know from Macau, democracy is not the essential part of the equation. China is still Marxist, but it is hard to call it communist.

The initial breakthrough will probably take place on cruise ships, with casinos, returning to the Port of Havana. Initially, gaming will only be permitted on the high seas. But it is a short step from there to allowing the casinos to be open while the ships are docked.

Bingo machines are sweeping Latin America. These are often called Class II. Of course, there is no Class I or Class III, since the categories were created by, and apply only to, the U.S. Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. But, it is an easy way to distinguish these gaming devices from true slot machines, at least for political cover.

True casinos, with true slots and table games, are also common in much of Central and South America. But even more so in the Caribbean. A free Cuba will quickly allow casinos to reopen, in high-quality hotels designed for, and possibly even limited to, tourists.

So, I'm inviting you to G2E-IGE Havana, 2011. Given the consolidation of every part of the gaming industry, I have taken the liberty of predicting the merger of the two largest trade shows, the Global Gaming Expo, now held in Las Vegas, and the International Gaming Expo, in London.

And the conference venue should be magnificent. Castro's Communist regime may have accidentally contributed something else to the speedy rebirth of casinos. There has been so little economic progress on the island, that apparently the ornate buildings constructed in the 1950s to house the mob's casinos are still standing, waiting to be refurbished and reopened, under new management.

By I. Nelson Rose

From: Casino City Times

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Qaddafi's Friends in Cuba

A friend in need is a friend indeed?

With the unrest in Libya and particularly with his recent public relations debacles, leader Muammar Qaddafi is rapidly losing any remaining fans. Yet down in South America, apparently, a few stalwarts remain.

Fidel Castro penned a column in Cuba's Granma, warning of Libya's appeal to the United States because of it's vast petroleum reserves. "For me it is absolutely evident that the United States is not worried about peace in Libya, and will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade this rich country maybe in a matter of hours or very few days," he wrote. Perhaps tellingly, though, while the two leaders have been allies at times, Castro was reticent with outright support for Qaddafi, noting that "we have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie."

In a look at the history of Qaddafi's relationship with Venezuela, Caracas daily El Universal reported that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proclaimed his support for Qaddafi in 2009, claiming that "Qaddafi is to Libya as [Simon] Bolívar is to us." Simon Bolivar was involved in the liberation of much of Latin America from colonial rule. The superlatives didn't end there, Chavez calling Qaddafi a "revolutionary soldier," "a leader of of the Libyan revolution," and a "leader of all of Africa as well as Latin America."

Chavez and Qaddafi, both leaders of oil-rich nations, have had an unlikely relationship blossom between them in the past few years. El Universal reports that Chavez has visited Libya five times. Libya awarded Chavez with the "Qaddafi Human Rights Prize" in 2004. In March 2009, Qaddafi named a football stadium in Benghazi after Chavez. On his end, Chavez made Qaddafi the special guest at a conference between African and Latin American countries held on Venezuela's Isla Margarita later that year, where he also presented Qaddafi with a replica of Simon Bolivar's sword. Rumors were swirling as recently as last night that the Libyan strongman had made his way to Venezuela to seek shelter.

By Eli Rosenberg

From: The Atlantic Wire

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PRESS STATEMENT FROM "POR EL LEVANTAMIENTO POPULAR EN CUBA" ("FOR THE POPULAR UPRISING IN CUBA")

Please note that during the days of 21 to 26 February, will be performed a variety of individual and collective manifestations throughout the world (see list here: >http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=156452414409238

Throughout these days will be displayed in a peaceful manner, the support of Cuban exile to the protests to be held in Cuba around the same time, through this week, and namely on the 23rd - one-year anniversary of the death of the political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

The initiative "For the popular uprising in Cuba" appeared in FACEBOOK http://www.facebook.com/pages/Por-el-levantamiento-popular-en-Cuba/173839132658920 and has more than 3900 followers (by February 20) in several countries and has resulted in the organization of a wave of protests in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Santiago de Compostela, Sevilla, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Berlin, Milan, Stockholm, Paris, Portland, Washington, Miami, Tampa, Los Angeles, Alberta Canada and several other countries, including Cuban cities we for obvious reasons did not quote, except Havana, where we have received confirmation of time and place for the protests against the Cuban dictatorship, in sharp challenge to the regime's repressive forces.

We insist on the entirely peaceful nature of the protests although it is likely to produce violent reactions from Cuban officials used to suppress with force any activity for the freedom of Cuba and they have demonstrated this on several occasions at the consulates in Paris, Barcelona, Madrid and Norway; last year the Cuban Vice Consul bit a young demonstrator in Sweden.

We inform you our determination to exercise our right to manifest for the end of the oldest dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere, which consistently violates human rights and keep in prison journalists and dissidents, despite the best efforts of the EU to help to bring democracy to Cuba.

We ask everybody to cover these activities and help us to follow these days of protests.

Here are video links and links with the media impact of this initiative in various publications throughout the world.

CNN
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv9FBdXeyLw
TELEMUNDO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ayUAWpnCg
BAYNEWS 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptI-42njXM
Diario “El Mundo”
http://www.elmundo.es/america/2011/02/02/cuba/1296604782.html
Diario “Nuevo Herald”
http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/02/03/880321/grupo-de-facebook-trata-de-alentar.html
Radio Nederland Internacional
http://www.rnw.nl/espanol/bulletin/crean-el-sitio-del-movimiento-popular-en-cuba
ANTENA 3
http://www.antena3.com/videos-online/noticias/mundo/cuba-quiere-evitar-levantamiento-ciberdisidentes_2011021600007.html

From “Por el Levantamiento Popular en Cuba”.
Contact: levantamientoencuba@yahoo.com
Twitter: @levanta_cuba

Note from the Admin: Please, forgive the English mistakes, this statement appears this way on the group's page.

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The Protests in Cuba Are As Feared As in Egypt

One of the posters calling for the uprising in Cuba.

Protests in Egypt and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak has raised concerns that Cuba would follow suit, which has moved the government of the Caribbean nation to increase the repression, according to a report released last week. The report of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS by its initials in English), from the University of Miami, says that in recent weeks the security forces of Raúl Castro's regime have increased arrests and repressive actions against the Cuban people.

Titled “Increased repression in Cuba” the report quotes arrests, temporary detentions, beatings and intimidation of at least 34 activists and independent journalists, and also fines and jail therms for those who build or trade antennas and satellite television receivers. Among the cases is the dissident Lobaina Nestor Rodriguez, leader of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy (MCJD, initials in Spanish), who fears for his life and was placed with ordinary prisoners in the prison of  El Combinado de Guantanamo, where he is intimidated and threatened, reported his wife Daneysi Galvez Pereira.

Black Spring Independent journalist, Adolfo Paul Borraz, was arrested for 10 hours at his home in Centro Habana, interrogated and threatened for his journalistic activities. Jorge Luis Antunez reported that more than 12 members of the Central Opposition Coalition were beaten by members of  the Castro's repressive apparatus in the city of Placetas and arrested later.

Stirring to start a social media revolution in Cuba, organizers of a Facebook group calling for a popular uprising on the island have called for Cubans to gather for a demonstration on Feb. 21 in Havana.

The protest will be to "demand the freedom and democracy that have been taken from us," states a message on the group's Facebook page.

The message calls for Cubans to gather at 5 p.m. outside the old presidential palace in Havana, which is now the "Museum of the Revolution."

In Cuba, as in Egypt, Iran and elsewhere where this kind of activity is not well received by the autocrats in power, this is a dangerous business, making it vital for those of us who share the same ideals of freedom, do our part to support them.

Facebook page for the popular uprising in Cuba







Pamphlet guide to revolution in Egypt: How to protest intelligently

The San Francisco Indymedia site (www.indybay.org) has published a translated nine page Guide to intelligent protesting, which was distributed widely on the streets of Egypt. The guide shows how to non-violently defend yourself from riot police. As this Blog article states, we shouldn't just be cheering on the Egyptian revolution but learning from it. This was one of the biggest non-violent uprising's in history and given that we are all facing the same neo-liberal policies and all governments inevitably turn to batons and beatings to keep us down, these tips will definitely come in handy. 

From the Egyptian Revolutionary Guide

Below is an excerpt from the article Tactical Gems from the Egyptian Revolution outlining some creative democratic ways of operating with mass crowds.

"How to make demands from a giant crowd: Now that Tahrir Square has proclaimed itself an “autonomous republic,” and demands are flying from every corner of Egyptian society, not to mention every foreign government, the crowds whose effort has made change possible are trying to articulate their demands. Here’s how:

In Tahrir, the square that has become the focal point for the nationwide struggle against Mubarak’s three-decade dictatorship, groups of protesters have been debating what their precise goals should be in the face of their president’s continuing refusal to stand down.

The Guardian has learned that delegates from these mini-gatherings then come together to discuss the prevailing mood, before potential demands are read out over the square’s makeshift speaker system. The adoption of each proposal is based on the proportion of cheers or boos it receives from the crowd at large.

Delegates have arrived in Tahrir from other parts of the country that have declared themselves liberated from Mubarak’s rule, including the major cities of Alexandria and Suez, and are also providing input into the decisions.

“When the government shut down the web, politics moved on to the street, and that’s where it has stayed,” said one youth involved in the process. “It’s impossible to construct a perfect decision-making mechanism in such a fast-moving environment, but this is as democratic as we can possibly be.” (“Cairo’s biggest protest yet demands Mubarak’s immediate departure,” Guardian, February 5)

The article has some other good tips too. Check it out. Bring on the GLOBAL revolutions. Down with all the tyrants who only serve the big business, the IMF and Washington. Don't forget that Wikileaks showed us recently that our politicians take orders straight from Washington too!

Source: CoffeToday and The Wire

Pictures from Egypt showing some protester's "equipment" for self protection.

The plastic bottle helmet.

Brick-hat, very strong.

Bucket-helmet.

Cooking armor.

The box-helmet. Not very strong, but light.

The pita helmet. Wonderful!

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Cuban artists expose revival of racism on the island

The Raft (2010), ARMANDO MARIÑO.

Rebellion is in the air. Whether in the cities of Africa and the Middle East, or within disparate communities of artists, people are examining the current status of human rights and finding it lacking.

While street crowds are forcing political change, the liter­ati are prodding more benign conversation about perceived inequities.

A case in point is the taboo-bashing exhibition "Queloides: Race & Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art" at the Mattress Factory. "Queloides" translates as "keloids," protruding scars caused by trauma, which exhibition curators apply to the wounds racism has inflicted upon the body politic.

This show, which opened last year at the prestigious Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Wifredo Lam in Havana, hit a nerve within the island's bureaucracy, which projects an image of social harmony. When Pittsburgh-based co-curator Alejandro de la Fuente tried to visit family in June, he, his wife and child were turned back at the airport by Cuban authorities.

The exhibition can be seen on multiple levels dependent upon one's familiarity with Cuban culture, history and contemporary politics. But none of that is necessary to be seduced by the effervescent artworks that herald it. In the museum parking lot is Armando Marino's classic 1950s Plymouth, its chassis replaced by multiple pairs of bare-footed, dark-skinned legs. Elio Rodriguez's inflated black protuberances -- a cross between alien invasion and suggestive body parts -- wind across the roof and upper story of the satellite gallery at 1414 Monterey. Both are startling, a bit surreal, and certain to stimulate the imagination -- vintage Mattress Factory.

The socialist state declared an end to racism as a part of the reforms instituted during the 1960s revolution. But whatever progress had been made disappeared in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed, reducing funding to Cuba and resulting in the economic crisis of "The Special Period." As opportunities dried up, the already disadvantaged tended to suffer the most, an observation that makes the exhibition broadly applicable as economies shrink globally.

Artists who were educated in the egalitarian era before the turmoil began to reflect the issue of racism in their work. The first two "Queloides" exhibitions were held in Havana in 1997 and 1999. The time felt right for a third edition to Dr. de la Fuente, an authority on race in Cuba and a University Center for International Studies professor of history and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh. A 2007 conversation with co-curator Elio Rodriguez sparked the process.

Enter the Mattress Factory, which has a history of giving voice to artists who would otherwise be unheard, from Eastern Europe to East Asia. In 2004-05, the museum presented "New Installations, Artists in Residence: Cuba," which included work by two artists in the current show, Meira Marrero and Jose Toirac, who collaborated with Loring McAlpin.

"In every country, artists are addressing issues of fairness and social justice ... . They give a visibility to hidden problems in a way that affects one on a visceral level," write museum co-directors Barbara Luderowski and Michael Olijnyk in the exhibition catalog.

Ironically, the Bush administration denied visas to the artists of the 2004 show, so their "residency" was virtual and physical works were completed per instruction by Mattress Factory staff. The 2010 artists were permitted to travel to Pittsburgh to create additional works for this venue.

The 2010-11 "Queloides" comprises video, installation, painting, photography and works on paper by 13 artists, five of whom have been represented in all three shows. All were Cuban-born, but several now live and/or work outside Cuba. Two are deceased, Pedro Alvarez and Belkis Ayon.

The Cuban cultural authorities at first approved the Havana show, but later tried to rescind their decision. To save it, Dr. de la Fuente agreed not to attend the exhibition even as he encouraged the artists to carry on. It was the month after the show closed that he tried to re-enter Cuba.

There were three guidelines thought important for the current show: That it open in Cuba, that it travel outside the country, and that it be accompanied by a catalog. The latter has significance in that it documents all of the "Queloides." The previous shows had been ignored by the Cuban art world and press and thus lost to memory.

As fascinating as is the context, the work carries the exhibition, suspending the viewer between visual language that is familiarly contemporary and more exotic references.

Mr. Marino's "The Raft" gains dimensionality if read as commentary on, perhaps, the exploitation of blacks in the Cuban labor market, Cuba's economic plight which keeps consumer goods out of the reach of many, or the various means islanders have employed in often failed attempts to reach the U.S. mainland (www.floatingcubans.com).

Mr. Rodriguez's "Black Ceiba" conflates the Ceiba tree -- sacred to religious practices of indigenous peoples and Afro-Cuban syncretic cults -- with stereotypes of black sexuality and violent behavior.

Other senses come into play via the acrid smell of charred wood in Roberto Diago's solemn "Ascending City," and the kitchen sweetness of the walls of brown sugar bricks in Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons' transporting "Guardarraya." In this multimedia piece, viewers are guided to a projection that distorts like fun-house mirror reflections over a rectangle of refined white sugar on the floor. The video, and one on the wall, shows images of two women, one black and one white, embracing and exchanging a bouquet of flowers. Its sensuality is heightened by images of fruits, including several split pomegranates, a traditional symbol of feminine fertility in Western art.

As "Guardarraya" obliquely references the grassy passageways between thickly planted fields of sugar cane, Douglas Perez's imposing five-panel "Ecosystem" takes form from the large centipedes that populate those fields. But a closer look reveals rows of brown figures, some sporting clothing with brand logos, that morph into sickly and then skeletal shapes.

Fruit is one of the subjects that appears throughout the exhibition -- symbolic of Cuba's tropic lushness, of Latin stereotypes, of the offerings made by followers of Afro-Cuban religions. Alexis Esquivel designed tongue-in-cheek "Urban Sarayeye VAPROR -- 2059, Automatic Vehicle to Collect Religious Offerings," a robot to whisk away spoiling fruit left by devotees in public places more clinically than sanitation personnel who risk being accused of religious bias.

Religion is another thread that manifests through the exhibition. Marta Maria Perez Bravo uses her body as prop for powerful photographs that channel the mystical aura of Santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion that combines Yoruba, Roman Catholic and Native Indian traditions.

In the stone-lined lower gallery is Mr. Toirac and Ms. Marrero's "Ave Maria," a table holding several versions of Cuba's patron Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, seemingly afloat on a blue sea of carpet. The statues, which range from kitsch to antique, each depict the Virgin Mary and the three Juans -- a Creole, an Indian and a slave -- that she saved during a storm, a display of folk belief that doubles as a plea for unity.

Manuel Arenas and Rene Pena more pointedly address race and the outsider status of the black male. On the far wall of Mr. Arenas' minimalist white cubical space are the words "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?," a phrase employed by the American abolitionist movement. Mr. Pena's photograph "Samurai" graces the catalog cover. The artist, nude save for a hat, holding a sword, and in a pose that references Donatello's "David," plays between Renaissance ideals of self-awareness and beauty, and cultural notions of blacks as threatening and unattractive.

There is more to explore, not the least being the many references to U.S. politics and culture that suggest Cubans are a lot more cognizant of what's happening here than we are of a country so near.

This "Queloides" continues a pluralistic and inclusive conversation on "racism, nation, history, and Cubanness" that began a dozen years ago, Dr. de la Fuente writes in the catalog. "From the island, some intellectuals cum bureaucrats are now trying to monopolize this conversation, to encapsulate it in sterile official commissions, and to hide it behind the mediocrity of patriotism and insularity. They are wasting their time.

" 'Queloides' proves it."

By Mary Thomas

From: Post-Gazette

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Forbidden Cuba now open to students

The Havana University.

Lehigh students, along with college students across the country, are now able to visit the one island previously off limits to Americans - the once forbidden Cuba is now an option for study abroad.

On Jan. 14, the Obama administration lifted the restrictions on college study abroad programs to Cuba. In 2004, President George W. Bush put limits on college students traveling to the island, but now new programs will be created, and old programs can be restored for interested students.

The U.S. has not decided if tourism or vacationing in Cuba will be an option any time soon, so college students are among the few who get the chance to visit the country at this time.

"The new regulations open up the door for a better knowledge of the situation in Cuba by U.S. students and academics," said Antonio Prieto, director of Latin American Studies and a native Cuban. "The change is a throw back to the status quo before the Bush administration, where academic travel was indeed exempt from the economic embargo against Cuba."

The Office for Study Abroad at the University of Iowa is creating a winter program in Cuba that would be its first program back in the country. Its newspaper also reports its hope to have an official Cuban program by next year.

The only problem at Lehigh is it has never had strong programs such as the one at University of Iowa in the past, so it would need a large interest to develop anything new.

"Here at Lehigh, we haven't had a strong student or faculty push/interest in going to Cuba in the past or currently," said Katie Welsh Radande, associate director of International Programs. "Should we receive such interest, we would look into options/possibilities and issues to be considered."

Katie Costello, '14, said she doesn't believe studying in Cuba would be of interest to her.

"I would have to turn down the opportunity to go to Cuba if it were offered as a study abroad destination," she said. "Although I am minoring in Spanish and would love the opportunity to travel to a Spanish-speaking country, I would feel more secure spending time in a well-established and secure location - a place where Lehigh students have been travelling to for years."

However, Prieto said he believes there will be students who will begin to express an interest in studying in Cuba because of the regulation changes.

"We have at least two courses dedicated solely to Cuba, one in sociology and one in Spanish," he said. "In the past, I had students in my course on Cuba travel there after taking the course."

Twenty-seven universities, including the University of Iowa, signed a letter with the Association of International Educators in October of 2010, asking President Barack Obama to allow students to travel academically to Cuba. This push from many academic institutions has fueled the legislature change, but politicians believe the change is really for Obama to win the 2012 Florida vote.

An argument from many Cuban exiles is that it is wrong for students to travel to the country until the Castro family government is gone. They believe that by traveling there, the U.S. is just giving money to "Castro's regime." However, many professors counter that argument by saying they are instead simply allowing for interaction of college students with the history and people of a different country.

Prieto sides with the second group and has an entirely positive outlook on the new regulations.

"I would most certainly recommend it," he said. "Not only would it help the Cuban people by bringing much-needed economic resources, but it would also expose the students to a unique political system in Latin America and to a vibrant culture, not to mention the warmth of the Cuban people and the natural beauty of the island."

Mark Schied, president of Butler University's Institute for Study Abroad, agreed that the important factor in this decision is not money.

"I don't think you're going to find that putting college kids on campus in Havana is going to make a significant impact on the island's economy," he said.

According to the Student Free Press Association, Scheid and Butler University sent 130 students to Cuba in 2003, all of whom were required to be fluent in Spanish. This trip provided a great experience for the students, and he argued that it is more important than everyone's worries about students helping the Cuban economy.

"I think the benefits for both countries far outweigh the negative, if there are any, of putting college students together," Scheid said.

Roger Noriega, the former ambassador to the Organization of American States, argues another negative aspect of the new regulations. Noriega said the 2004 limitations on study abroad in Cuba were put it place to prevent cases where students would attend a seminar or course in Cuba in order to just go partying in the capital of Havana. He said students weren't using the country as an educational trip, but instead for partying vacations.

Although no one is sure just yet what will happen with these new programs, the general feel is that students will go for their genuine interest in the country, and not the partying scene it provides.

Lehigh will not have its own program until interest is sparked, but it does support third-party program providers who have sent students to Cuban programs in the past and hope to start them up again.

"We work with The Center for Cross-Cultural Study to send students on semester programs in Seville, Spain and also for our Lehigh in Spain winter program," Welsh Radande said.

That company expects to have the new license with the government in place by summer 2011 allowing Lehigh students could be enjoying the history and culture of Havana, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

By Kathryn Suma



From: The Brown and White

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Two dissidents start hunger strike in Cuba

Two dissidents refusing to be forced into exile took on the Cuba's Communist government anew, launching hunger strikes to press their demand to be freed in their own country. The two are among 11 high-profile political dissidents who rejected a deal for foreign exile as pushed by Havana. Their move was rain on the political parade of the Americas' only one-party Communist regime, which -- by releasing prisoners to church officials -- is trying to portray itself as making progress on human rights even as it forces its opponents to emigrate. President Raul Castro's government, in desperate economic straits and seeking international cooperation, faced embarrassment and international outrage last year after a prominent dissident died following his hunger strike. Hunger strikers seem to be particularly noisome for Havana. Cuba maintains it has no dissidents, and calls most political opponents pawns in the pay of the United States. But more than 100 political prisoners remain in the Caribbean nation -- down from 201 in January 2010 -- according to Elizardo Sanchez, who leads the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation. And the strikers' move Wednesday came just as the local Roman Catholic Church said Cuba would release four other prisoners charged with piracy and send them to Spain. Pedro Arguell The hunger strikers are part of a group of 52 political detainees who were to be freed in a deal brokered by the Catholic Church with Castro in July. Of the group, 40 agreed to emigrate to Spain with their families and one stayed in Cuba, but the remaining 11 are still in jail and refuse to be exiled. The agreed-upon deadline for their release expired on November 7. Sanchez identified the hunger strikers as Diosdado Gonzalez and Pedro Arguelles -- both considered prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International. The pair, who began a hunger strike Tuesday, has turned down the offer to move to Spain and is demanding to be released in Cuba. Gonzalez and Arguelles's protest is in solidarity with Gonzalez's wife Alejandrina Garcia, who has only been drinking water since Friday. "I will not stop this hunger strike until he is released," Garcia told AFP in a phone call from her home in central Cuba. Diosdado Gonzale "The government has made a mockery of these 11 men." Laura Pollan, leader of the Ladies in White -- a group of relatives of the jailed dissidents -- visited Garcia, a 44 year-old agronomist, on Wednesday. She said she failed to dissuade her from continuing the hunger strike. "The government has raised false expectations, because it said that everyone in the group would be released, including those who reject leaving the country, but that has all been a lie," said Pollan. Pollan's husband Hector Maseda is one of the jailed dissidents. The four prisoners heading to Spain face piracy charges and do not belong to the original group of 52, according to a note from the office of the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Sanchez says the men are accused of using violence to hijack vessels in failed attempts to flee Cuba, as well as other acts of violence. "We are happy about to learn about the prison releases, but the government is using Spain's open door to get rid of prisoners that it does not want, while 11 prisoners of conscience remain in prison," Sanchez argued. Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov prize in October after his latest hunger strike, following the February death of fellow dissident Orlando Zapata. Zapata's mother charged government officials with allowing her son to die, which the Cuban government took the unusual step of denying repeatedly, and detailing the medical care he received. Farinas, who ended his latest hunger strike, was not allowed to travel to pick up the prestigious Sakharov prize. From: Capital News

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The Tunisian Revolution As Seen By Cuba

Game over for Ali. Who's next?

The Tunisian Revolution did not echo only in the Arab world, but also in Latin America. After the fall of the former Tunisian President Ben Ali, the Mexican paper "La Mañana" wrote that this was a "clear message to the other authoritarian leaders in the world: a dictator fell and sooner or later the other dictators will also follow the same fate. The op-ed stresses that regimes such as the one in La Havana are now feeling uncertain, and anxious that similar protests could also explode in their countries. Cuban dissidents, too, see many similarities, especially between the Castro regime, in power for more the fifty years, and the dictatorship in Tunisia, which for 23 years had been pillaging the country.

In Tunisia, as in Cuba, there are more than a million exiled people, and a frustrated youth with high-education, but no employment. In Tunisia, there are pockets of real poverty, particularly in the interior regions, such as Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine, where the revolt started. The unemployment rate is 14.7%, for a population of ten and a half million. Further, salaries for manual labor are unbearably low: having a job does not always avoid having a miserable life.

In Cuba, with a population similar to Tunisia's -- around 11 million, -- an administrative chaos reigns. Even though, as the Associated Press reports, unemployment is minuscule -- it has not risen above 3% in eight years -- the official data ignore "thousands of Cubans who are not looking for jobs that pay monthly salaries worth only $20 a month on average."

Tunisia was a police state, as Cuba still is. During Ben Ali's regime, policemen in plain clothes and network of spies were everywhere. Outside a supermarket in Tunis, you could even see a shoeshine pull out a big walkie-talkie, like those in use with the police, and talk to somebody clearly not his wife. After a while, in Tunisia, you are under the impression that Big Brother is always watching you.

In Cuba, it is the same. As reported on the State Department website: "Cuba is a totalitarian police state which relies on repressive methods to maintain control. These methods include intense physical and electronic surveillance of both Cuban citizens and foreign visitors."

Further, in Tunisia, as in any dictatorship, public order was implemented with force -- all too often excessive force - without taking into account torture practices used behind closed doors and in prisons, as many witnesses have recounted during the last few days. Once, you could even seen a beggar without legs being harshly taken away, and the person who accompanied him being repeatedly punched in the head. Such unnecessary violence was a standard practice.

In Cuba, Human Rights Watch reports, conditions in prisons are inhuman, and political prisoners suffer additional degrading treatment and torture. The dissident website Cubanet writes that "day and night, the screams of tormented women [in prison] in panic and desperation who cry for God's mercy fall upon the deaf ears of prison authorities. They are confined to narrow cells with no sunlight called 'drawers' that have cement beds, a hole on the ground for their bodily needs, and are infested with a multitude of rodents, roaches, and other insects".

Tunisia, like Cuba, was also a country with no freedom of press. One of the main dailies, in French, La Presse, contained only a list of presidential activities and praise and applauses for the regime's personalities. Even the foreign press was kept under control. There was also the problem of corruption -- that does not exempt the Socialist Cuba. In Tunisia, not only there was a rampant corruption from the members of the government-for-life, but even the President's family was one of the main actors in robbing the country. The President's wife, Leila Trabelsi, fled Tunisia after having taken 1.5 tons of gold from the Central Bank; and her family had been borrowing money from the bank at an interest of 0.25 per thousand (not per cent, which would already be negligible, but per thousand).

The only difference from Cuba is that Tunisia was considered by many Western governments as a "moderate" country, seen as a buttress against Islamism. Although Ben Ali himself used religion to give credibility to his regime, under his dictatorship Islamism grew as it represented the only real and strong opposition. Cuba instead lives under an embargo.

In the meantime, while the Tunisians are still fighting for their freedoms, hoping that the future will not be uncertain, in Cuba the opponents to the regime write that the "Jasmine Revolution" has renewed their hopes.

This new hope is why the Cuban government pretends that almost nothing has happened in Tunisia: it fears similar protests. The media outlet, Diario de Cuba, writes that every year Ben Ali would send messages to La Havana to congratulate it for the anniversary of its triumphant Revolución. Even this year, in the midst of the protests, on January 6, Ben Ali expressed his desire to serve the interests of these two friendly countries. However, "there was not even one line in the Cuban press on the fall of the 'friend' Ben Ali. And until now, we could not enjoy one of those farsighted 'reflections'[1] by Fidel Castro illustrating the subject. What a pity!"

[1] Op-eds that the Cuban leader writes almost weekly, under the title Reflexiones de Fidel

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

From: Hudson New York

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Whole Lotta Stupidity—Jimmy Page Visits Cuba, Honors Che Guevara

Following in the footsteps of (among many other flower-children) Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Jimmy Buffet, and Carole King (who in 2002 serenaded Fidel Castro with a personal “You’ve Got a Friend”) guitar legend Jimmy Page made the pilgrimage to Fidel Castro’s fiefdom this week.

To Led Zeppelin’s former guitarist the visit probably seemed, not only fitting, but long overdue. Cuba was, after all, the first nation ruled by bearded long-hairs. Jean Paul Sartre, after all, hailed Cuba’s Stalinist rulers as “les Enfants au Pouvoir” (the children in power). Fidel Castro, after all, spoke at Harvard in 1959 on the same bill as pioneer beatnik Allen Ginsberg.

Remove the wispy beard and beret from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) revolutionary icon on those posters and t-shirts and you’ve got Jim Morrison of The Doors. Remove the cowboy hat from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) Revolutionary icon Camilo Cienfuegos and you’ve got Grateful Dead’s Gerry Garcia. Circa 1959, Raul Castro with his blond shoulder-length locks was a ringer for Joe Walsh circa Hotel California. These Cuban Stalinists were on the cutting edge of fashion. They pre-empted the Haight Ashbury look by a decade.

Castro’s captive (literally!) media, reports that Jimmy Page’s visit: “included tours of historic sites, and purchases of souvenirs such as the famous photograph of Che Guevara.”

In an interview with the BBC last year, Oscar and Cannes-winner Benicio del Toro explained the painstaking intellectual exertion that inspired his Che-mania: “I hear of this guy, and he’s got a cool name, Che Guevara! Groovy name, groovy man, groovy politics! So I came across a picture of Che, smiling, in fatigues, I thought, ‘Dammit, this guy is cool-looking!’”

In all likelihood, similar intellectual toil inspired Jimmy Page’s recent souvenir shopping spree in Havana.

For his role as Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh’s movie Che, Benicio del Toro was recently honored by the peace-loving crowd in Hollywood and Cannes. For headlining their Concert for Peace. Jimmy Page was recently honored with the “Global Peace Award from the United Nations’ Pathway to Peace organization.

“We reject any peaceful approach! “declared the souvenir icon of the Concert for Peace’s honoree “Violence is inevitable! To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow! If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!”

“Hatred is the central element of our struggle!” raved this icon of flower-children. “Hatred that is intransigent….Hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold- blooded killing machine… My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that falls in my hands! We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm!”

In fact, Jimmy Page should know that many Cuban youths “tuned-in and turned-on” to (smuggled) Led Zeppelin music in the 60’s and 70’s. But rather than meet with his Cuban fans, Jimmy was hosted by apparatchiks of the Stalinist regime that jailed and brutalized them en masse.

In a famous speech in 1961 Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded the KGB –mentored Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”

Cuban “roquero” of the time Charlie Bravo recalls the process: “When Castro’s goons caught me with a Led Zeppelin record, they led me to a Stairway alright—but at bayonet-point and this stairway hardly led to Heaven, instead it led down into a dark jail cell.”

On the orders of Jimmy Page’s smiling hosts, Charlie was joined by tens of thousands of Cuban youths. A few years earlier the hundreds of Soviet KGB and East German STASI “consultants” who flooded Cuba in the early 60’s, found an extremely eager acolyte in Che Guevara. By the mid 60’s the crime of a “rocker” lifestyle—long hair, blue jeans, etc.–or effeminate behavior got thousands of youths yanked off Cuba’s streets and parks by secret police and dumped in prison camps with “Work Will Make Men Out of You” in bold letters above the gate and with machine gunners posted on the watchtowers. The initials for these camps were UMAP, not GULAG, but the conditions were quite similar.

Today the world’s largest image of Jimmy Page’s souvenir icon adorns Cuba’s headquarters for Cuba’s KGB-trained secret police, a gang of Communist sadists who jailed and tortured at a rate higher than Stalin’s own KGB and GRU—and many of their victims were guilty of nothing worse than listening to music by Jimmy Page.


by Humberto Fontova 

From: Big Hollywood

To read:

Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him

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