Post-Gaddafi, is Cuba next?

By David Roberts





As the Gaddafi regime appears set to crumble in Libya, perhaps now is as good a time as any to reflect on Latin America's last remaining dictatorship - Cuba.

There are more than a few similarities between the two regimes. Both are led by highly charismatic - some may say deluded - personalities in the form of Muammar al Gaddafi in Libya and, in the case of Cuba, Fidel Castro, who has largely given way in his old age to his slightly younger and much duller brother Raúl. Both the Libyan and Cuban systems of government claim to be socialist, in one guise or other, and both have lasted for decades, in part thanks to a brutal security apparatus. Both have also irked and confronted the liberal, democratic and capitalist west, and above all Washington, over the decades, in the case of Libya using terrorist tactics to do so.

In addition - and evidence of this has been seen in the Libyan conflict in recent months - both clearly have a significant degree of support among their respective peoples, although whether it was ever a majority is another matter. There are of course good reasons why the two regimes have enjoyed a degree of support. Gaddafi has used Libya's oil wealth over the years to make the country one of the most developed in the region, and also counted on the backing of his own tribe, while the Castro-led revolution overthrew a despised, pro-US dictator, winning the admiration of leftist ideologues around the world, and the subsequent regime has, despite its faults, made considerable progress in areas such as healthcare and education.

So why has one been brought to its knees while the other appears to be standing firm? There has, of course, been much speculation - often wild and unfounded, disguised as analysis - as to the real causes of the Arab uprisings, including poverty, corruption, cronyism, governments that simply don't care about their people and, at least the western world would like to believe, a genuine desire for democracy, all helped along by the use of social media. But one thing is clear, which is that no one foresaw what was coming and the governments that have been toppled or have come close to being toppled from Tunisia to Bahrain, all looked pretty secure less than a year ago from today. Just like Cuba right now.

So could the same thing happen in Cuba? Yes, of course it could. Many ask why don't the Cuban people rise up against the tyrants and demand their rights? Or how can people be so passive in the face of such tyranny? Yet the same could have been said all across North Africa and much of the Middle East until just a few months ago.

These things may not be predictable, even by the most astute of the so-called experts and analysts, but the important thing - whether we're talking about Libya today or Cuba tomorrow - is to be as best prepared as possible for a change, both the domestic opposition and the international community, to help ensure that mistakes of the past are not repeated and that what replaces the current regime is a big improvement on the old order, preferably with something resembling democracy. In the case of Libya, that includes not destroying the infrastructure developed by the Gaddafi regime, or "punishing" people for having worked for the government - and avoid letting the country fall into chaos like what happened in Iraq - and in the case of Cuba it would mean not reversing the gains made in health and education, among other things.

bnamericas

Bahamas Blog International

Cuba's Fidel Castro Ruz - Has history absolved him?

By Rebecca Theodore



“But I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”

In a speech that rang synonymous with Socrates at the portico of Athens for the alleged charge of impiety, or with Dr King fighting for the civil rights of African Americans, or even Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, Dr Fidel Castro, is still cleverly checking his adversaries, both from within and abroad.

Since that fateful arrest in 1953 for assaulting the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago in southern Cuba, Castro still controls his mind although nearly subdued by collapsing health.

Fidel Castro Ruz is the world's longest-serving head of government and the leader of the Americas' only communist country. Since he seized power in a 1959 revolution, El Comandante as he is affectionately called by his countrymen, still commands the admiration of the world.

He endured the fall of the Soviet Union, the culmination of communism in Eastern Europe, antagonized ten American presidents and outwitted dozens of assassination attempts.

It is true that the Cuban Revolution is probably one of the most theatrical, polarizing political events of the twentieth-century. Critics and proponents alike may someday eulogize Castro on the pages of history as a tyrant who suppressed freedom, equality, and social justice.

Nonetheless, education and the intelligence of a human being in a revolutionary society have immensely prevailed over instinct. Castro has without doubt offered every Cuban and many Caribbean citizens the opportunity of an education free from discrimination.

Today, Castro’s 1959 revolution provides a compelling picture of Cuba in relation to the rest of the world. Cuba’s influence on Latin America and the Caribbean, its coalition with the Soviet Union from the 1960s until the downfall of the Soviet bloc in 1989, and its riotous relationship with the United States cannot go by unnoticed.

For someone who has reiterated that “all of the world’s glory fits in a kernel of corn,” Castro is now preparing his people politically and psychologically for his absence through the power of his pen.

Adhering to his own thoughts that “a revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past and that a revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters,” his name will forever be printed on the pages of history and will again be read overtime for “one just man deserves more respect than a rogue with a crown.”

He has justified his point of view by proving that “revolution is the source of legal right” in Cuba and there is indeed, according to French writer, François Hotman, “a bond or contract between the government and its subjects.”

Yet, assuming all this as truth, John Locke, in his essay on government, seems to refute this socio-politico principle with his assertion “that when the natural rights of man are violated, the people have the right and the duty to alter or abolish the government.”

Hence, stunning doubts persist on who will be the leader who brings Cuba out of decades of seclusion? Who will be Raúl Castro’s heir?

Castro’s retirement draws the curtain on a political career that traversed the Cold War, survived US animosity, and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. As one of the most controversial, combative, and charismatic rulers in history, the assessment by political scientist of how his illness and departure will transform politics continues to raise doubts about the future of the western hemisphere's only communist state.

His wishes have always been to discharge his duties to his last breath for he believes that one has to be consistent right up to the end. After all, it is suffering and death that defines our humanity and as mortals we must die.

As to whether his policies will play a major role in a post Fidel Castro Cuba or continue to plague the US beyond the grave remains to be seen.

Notwithstanding, Fidel Castro Ruz continues to fight in the battle of ideas. That’s all he can now offer his people. His pen has become mightier than his sword after so many years of struggle but that too is irrelevant.

The question is - has history finally absolved him?

June 15, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

March 6 - a significant date for Africa and the Caribbean

by Oscar Ramjeet:


March 6 is a significant date for both Africa and the Caribbean. It is on that date in 1957 (54 years ago) the first African state, known as that time the Gold Coast, was given independence from Britain and was renamed Ghana. It was also on that date 40 years after Ghana's independence (1997) that two Caribbean greats, Dr Cheddi Jagan and MIchael Manley, died within hours of each other. Jagan died at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore in the United States, and Manley died in Jamaica.

The Gold Coast was one of the richest countries in Africa conquered by the British and after a strenuous battle with Kwame Nkrumah the Brits decided to hand over independence to the country, which was renamed Ghana. Of course, by then, the country was stripped of its vast wealth by the British masters.

There are about 1,000 Ghanaians living in the Caribbean and a few of them hold top positions. I know of a High Court Judge in St Vincent, Frederick Bruce Lyle, who started his career in 1989 and a highly respected Senior Counsel in Belize, Fred Lumor.

Like many Commonwealth countries, Ghana, like Guyana, was not only robbed of its wealth, but suffered severe brain drain. However, reports from Accra state that the country sees a bright future.

Ghana has discovered oil in commercial quantities and is currently from December last year pumping 50,000 barrels of oil for export, which is expected to increase to 120,000 barrels a day within the next couple of months. It is understood that other fields are being discovered, together with immense natural gas deposits, which would place Ghana in the big leagues of oil producers in about five years. It is reported also that the country has a stable democracy since 1992.

Jagan, who had been the president of Guyana since 1992, became ill in Georgetown and was airlifted to the Johns Hopkins hospital, but succumbed on March 6, 1997, a week later. While his death was being announced throughout the region, another sad story broke of the passing of Michael Manley, who served three terms as prime minister of Jamaica.

Jagan was considered one of the greatest politicians in the Caribbean and the Western Hemisphere, but US President John F. Kennedy dubbed him as public enemy no. 2, no doubt because of his leftist tendencies and his close association with Fidel Castro, and other world leaders who had socialist ideas and did not see eye to eye with the US and even Britain.

Jagan's People's Progressive Party (PPP) won three elections -- in 1953, 1957 and 1961 -- before independence. He served as chief minister, and later premier. It was under his leadership that Britain suspended the 1953 Constitution and brought in British troops to the country, a move that shocked the world because the country was peaceful at the time. However, both Britain and the United States wanted Jagan out of the way, and worked out a way to do so.

The usual divide and rule strategy was used and race was brought into politics in Guyana when Forbes Burnham, Cheddi's deputy and a brilliant lawyer and a great orator, was prompted to challenge Jagan for the leadership and that move back in the mid-fifties sowed the seed of racial problems in Guyana.

Cheddi was out in the cold. It was not until 1992 he was able to take over the government, but died five years later following a heart attack.

In Guyana, the political climate is not good and at present the political parties are preparing for general elections to be held later this year. I sincerely hope that the politicians will see wisdom and work in the best interest of the country, which has suffered immensely since adult suffrage the 1950s.

Over in Jamaica, Michael, son of the famous Norman Manley, came to prominence after he defeated his cousin, Hugh Shearer, a former prime minister. He served three terms as prime minister of Jamaica, and was soon branded a leftist because of his association with Cuba's Fidel Castro, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and other well known socialist leaders at that time. He got rid of the jacket and tie, and introduced what he called the "bush jacket"

Michael Manley, who was the fourth prime minister of his country, and a keen cricketer, was married five times.

March 7, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

50th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs: The CIA Nostra (10)

• On October 26, 51 years ago, Fidel announced the creation of the Revolutionary National Militia • Granma International will be publishing a series of articles on the events leading up to the April, 1961 battle of the Bay of Pigs • As we approach the 50th Anniversary of this heroic feat, we will attempt to recreate chronologically the developments which occurred during this period and ultimately led to the invasion • The series will be a kind of comparative history, relating what was taking place more or less simultaneously in revolutionary Cuba, in the United States, in Latin America, within the socialist camp and in other places in some way connected to the history of these first years of the Cuban Revolution

By Gabriel Molina

• THE Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) allied itself with two of the 10 most dangerous criminals in the United States in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960.

This shocking news was made public in an official U.S. Senate report, but only in recent years has it been possible to reach an understanding of that aberrant fact, with the declassification of secret documents.

The report from the then U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy quoted by name Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, who were invited to take part in the CIA operation approved by Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. President at the time and CIA director Allen Dulles. The information was confirmed thanks to a report from the Special Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church, which states textually: "In August 1960 the CIA took steps to enlist members of the criminal underworld with gambling syndicate contacts to aid in assassinating Castro." (1)

On the summer morning of August 18, 1960, Richard Bissell, CIA Deputy Director of Plans, and very close to Allen Dulles, summoned Colonel Sheffield Edwards, director of the Agency’s Security Office, responsible for handling everything and from which nothing leaked, and told him that he had Dulles’ express instructions to do away with Fidel Castro. The decision had been approved by President Eisenhower after a meeting at the White House with Dulles and Bissell himself.

The committee headed by Democratic Senator Frank Church affirms that a number of CIA agents were in contact with the Cosa Nostra.

Robert Maheu, an agent specializing in shady dealings, was incorporated and asked by the CIA central command to contact John Roselli "to determine if he would participate in a plan to ‘dispose’ of Castro." (2)

Those assigned to the operation had to find somebody who could execute it in Cuba and who would appear to have no involvement with the Agency, the reason for the instructions that it should be somebody from outside. Given his contacts in Cuba, Colonel Edwards proposed the utilization of the Cosa Nostra. The essential details of the CIA-Cosa Nostra are included in the special Senate Committee report of 1975.

The first association between the U.S. government and the Italian-American mafia was with Lucky Luciano, head of the committee directing the various family gangs throughout the country, who was serving a sentence of 30-50 years, handed down on June 18, 1936, in the Dannemora high security prison. Mayor Lansky, Jewish, an astute man and a friend of Luciano and in fact his consigliere, negotiated with Commander Charles R. Haffenden, a superior officer in the Third Naval District Intelligence Office, an alliance to utilize the mafia in counterintelligence work in the New York docks, a target of Nazi agents; and intelligence on the landing and taking of Sicily by U.S. troops. In that way, Luciano was released, deported to Italy and all the associates came out winning.

The Special Military Plan for Psychological Warfare in Sicily reached the hands of Army Chief of Staff George Marshall and, with his recommendation, was approved in Washington on April 15, 1943. It was sent to Algiers and handed to Eisenhower, general in charge of the theater of operations in North Africa. The message was very clear; the Allies were going to utilize the mafia to win Sicily. (3)

Given that close connection, in a matter of hours Maheu had arranged a meeting with Roselli in the Brown Derby restaurant in Beverley Hills, base of the gangster, one of the most important mafia capos in California and Las Vegas, with wide-ranging relations with artists such as Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Dean Martin.

Maheu flew to California in September 1960 and met with Roselli in the Brown Derby on the 14th of that month. Roselli was receptive when Maheu informed him that senior government officials were interested in eliminating Fidel Castro, that the assassination could be based on Castro’s Cuban enemies, and offered him $150,000 for the contract. Roselli realized that, in addition to the money, the relationship would help him elude the threat of deportation hanging over him.

In Havana, that same September 14, it was announced that Fidel Castro, Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government, would head the Cuban delegation to the UN General Assembly, and so Maheu and Roselli went to New York to contact a high-ranking CIA official in the Plaza Hotel. There, Roselli proposed including in the conspiracy his friend Sam Giancana, Al Capone’s successor, on account of his proven organizational skills in this type of operation and, to set up the necessary contacts, Santos Trafficante, who had many interests in Cuba expropriated by the Revolution and strong links with the island. Giancana then traveled to Miami to meet with them.

Giancana agreed, while discounting the possibility of a mafia-style hit. Nobody could be recruited to undertake it, there being such a slim chance of surviving it. He said that the only way to successful and protect lives would be to use a lethal poison that could be placed in a drink of Fidel Castro.

Sam "Momo" Giancana inherited Al Capone’s Chicago empire and held it from 1957 through 1966. The press described him as a small, bald man who loved silk suits, head-turning convertibles and even more head-turning women. His associations were equally notable, like the one he had with Frank Sinatra, or with the singer Phyllis McGuire from the Mcguire Trio, who was the first source leaking the assassination plot, when Giancana got the CIA to bug the singer’s bedroom to see if she was being unfaithful to him. The microphones were discovered by the FBI and the operation was about to become a scandal, only halted by an Agency cover up. Giancana’s relationship with Phyllis McGuire was very typical of him. He had her portrait painted. She "lost more than $100,000 at a gaming table in Las Vegas. Momo distracted her with his conversation so that she wouldn’t go on losing. He went to see the casino manager, the famous Moe Dalitz and told him that he would take care of the debt. He simply absorbed it." (4)

Santos Trafficante had been a friend of Giancana for many years. They were together in 1957, when a high-level meeting of the Appalachian mafiosi was uncovered by the police. He also had links with the capos Carlo Marcello, Joseph Bonnano, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano. The youthful Trafficante began by running Havana’s Sans Souci cabaret. In combination with Lansky, he made other investments in the casinos of the new Havana Riviera and Capri hotels, and thus was surrounded by Cuban gangsters. Lending his services to the U.S. government would always fetch positive dividends.

Michael J. Murphy, chief inspector of the New York police, frustrated the initial attempt of that CIA Nostra. Murphy was responsible for Fidel’s security in the city during the UN General Assembly, and Murphy knew through a member of the CIA that Walter Martino, a member of the local mafia, had been instructed to place an explosive device close to the stage in Central Park, where Fidel was to speak.

The police chief was informed of this by a CIA official in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where the New York police agents in charge of security for the heads of state attending the meeting had their operational base. Martino was arrested and the plan thwarted.

Walter’s brother, John Martino, one of the members of the Italian-American mafia at Havana’s Hotel Nacional, had been arrested aboard a ferry on October 5, 1959, attempting to smuggle out a suitcase filled with mafia dollars. He later fled and was recruited by Sam Giancana to organize the attempt on the life of the Comandante en Jefe, a contract he gave to his brother Walter.



(1) Church Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.


(2) Ibid.


(3) Tim Newark. Aliados de la Mafia (Mafia Allies. Alianza Editorial. Madrid, 2007.


(4) William Brashner. The Don Ballantine Books. New York, 1978.


(5) Fabián Escalante. Acción Ejecutiva. Objetivo Fidel Castro Executive Action. Target Fidel Castro). Ocean Press Melbourne, 2006.

Havana. January 21, 2011

granma.cu

Bahamas Blog International

“Obama has to be persuaded to avoid nuclear war” - (Interview with Fidel Castro Part 1)

• Fidel answers questions from Carmen Lira Saade, editor of Mexico’s La Jornada newspaper

(Taken from CubaDebate)

HAVANA. He was fighting for his life for four years. Entering and leaving the operating room, intubated, being fed intravenously, catheters, frequent lapses into unconsciousness…

“My illness is no state secret,” he would have said just before it became a crisis and forced him to “do what I had to do:” to delegate his functions as president of the Council of State and consequently, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Cuba.

“I cannot continue any longer,” he admitted then – as he reveals in this his first interview with a foreign newspaper since that time. He made the transfer of command, and handed himself over to the doctors.

That event shook the entire nation, friends from other parts; prompted his detractors to cherish revanchist hopes and put the powerful neighbor to the North on a state of alert. It was July 31, 2006 when the resignation letter of the maximum leader of the Cuban Revolution was officially announced.

What his most ferocious enemies failed to obtain in 50 years (blockades, wars, assassination attempts) was attained by an illness about which nobody knew anything and everything was speculated. An illness which that regime, whether he accepted it or not, was going to convert into a “state secret.”

(I am thinking about Raúl, about the Raúl Castro of those moments. It was not only the package that he was suddenly entrusted with, although he was always in agreement; it was the delicate state of health of his partner Vilma Espín – who died of cancer shortly afterward – and the highly possible death of his older brother and the only jefe in the military, political and family contexts.)

Forty days ago today, Fidel Castro reappeared in public in a definitive way, at least without any apparent danger of a relapse. In a relaxed atmosphere and when everything would make one think that the storm has passed, the most important man of the Cuban Revolution looks healthy and vital, while not fully dominating his leg movements.

For the approximately five hours that the conversation-interview with La Jornada lasted – including lunch – Fidel tackled the most diverse issues, although he is obsessed by some in particular. He allowed questions about anything – although he was the one who asked the most – and reviewed for the first time and with a painful frankness certain moments of health crises that he has suffered over the last four years.

“I came to the point of being dead,” he revealed with an amazing tranquility. He did not mention by name the diverticulitis that he was suffering from, nor the hemorrhages that led the specialists of his medical team to operate on various or many occasions, with a risk to his life every time.

What he did speak on at length was the suffering that he endured. And he showed no inhibition about describing that painful stage as a “Calvary.”

“I no longer aspired to live, or far less… I asked myself on various occasions if those people (his doctors) were going to let me live in those conditions or if they were going to let me die… Then I survived, but in very poor physical shape. I reached the point of weighing just over 50 kilos.”

“Sixty-six kilos,” clarifies Dalia, his inseparable compañera who was there for the conversation. Only she, two of his doctors and another two of his closest collaborators were present.

“Imagine: a guy of my height weighing 66 kilos. Now I’ve gone up to 85-86 kilos, and this morning I managed to take 600 steps on my own, without my stick, unaided.

“I am telling you that you are in the presence of a kind of re-sus-citat-ed man,” he stressed with a certain pride. He knows that, in addition to the magnificent medical team which attended him during all those years, thus putting to the test the quality of Cuban medicine, he has been able to count on his will and that steel discipline that is always imposed when he embarks on something.

“I never commit the slightest violation,” he affirmed. “Moreover, that means that I have become a doctor with the cooperation of doctors. I discuss things with them, ask questions (he asks many), learn (and he obeys)…”

He is fully aware of the reasons for his accidents and falls, although he insists that one hasn’t necessarily led to another. “The first time it was because I didn’t do the necessary warm-up before playing basketball.” Then came that of Santa Clara: Fidel was coming down from the statue to Che, where he had presided over a tribute, and fell head first. “That was influenced by the fact that those who look after you are also getting old, losing their faculties and didn’t take care,” he clarified.

That was followed by the fall in Holguín, likewise a severe one. All of these accidents before the other illness turned into a crisis, leaving him hospitalized for a long time.

“Laid out in that bed, I only looked around me, ignorant of all those machines. I didn’t know how long that torment was going to last and my only hope was that the world would stop;” surely in order not to miss anything. “But I rose from the dead,” he said proudly.

“And when you rose from the dead, Comandante, what did you find?” I asked him.

“A seemingly insane world… A world that appears every day on television, in the newspapers, and which nobody understands, but one that I would not have wanted to miss for anything in the world,” he smiled in amusement.

With a surprising energy for a human being rising from the dead, as he put it, and with exactly the same intellectual curiosity as before, Fidel Castro has brought himself up to date.

Those who know him well, say that every project, colossal or millimetric, which he undertakes he does so with a fierce passion, and even more so if he has to confront adversity, as had been and was the case.

“That is when he seems to be in the best humor.” Someone who claims to know him well told him: “Things must be going very badly, because you’re looking in fine health.”

This survivor’s task of accumulating daily news begins when he wakes up. He devours books with a reading speed obtained by nobody know what method; he reads 200-300 news cables every day; he is aware of and up to date on new communication technologies; he is fascinated by Wikileaks, “the deep throat of Internet,” famous for the leaking of more than 90,000 military documents on Afghanistan, on which this new ‘surfer’ is working.

“You see what this means, compañera?” he said to me. “Internet has placed in our hands the possibility of communicating with the world. We didn’t have any of that before,” he commented, while he delights in reviewing and selecting cables and texts downloaded from the net, which he has on his desk: a small item of furniture, two small for the size (even diminished by illness) of its occupant.

“The secrets are over, or at least would appear to be. We are in the face of a ‘high-technology research journalism,’ as The New York Times calls it, in the reach of everybody.

“We are in the face of the most powerful weapon that has ever existed, which is communication,” he interjects. “The power of communication has been and is in the hands of the empire and of ambitious private groups who used and abused it, that is why the media has fabricated the power that its boasts today.”

I listen to him and couldn’t help but think of Chomsky; any of the deceptions that the empire attempts must previously have the support of the media, principally newspapers and television, and today, naturally, with all the instruments offered by Internet.

It is the media that creates consensus before any action. “It is making the bed,” we would say… It is setting up the theater of operations.

However, Fidel added, although they have tried to preserve that power intact, they have been unable to. They are losing it day by day, while others, many, very many, are emerging every minute…

He went on to acknowledge the efforts of some websites and media in addition to Wikileaks: on the Latin America side, Telesur of Venezuela; Canal Encuentro, the Argentine TV cultural channel; and all the public and private media that are standing up to the region’s powerful private consortiums and the news, culture and entertainment transnationals.

Reports on the manipulation of information on the part of powerful national or regional business groups, their conspiracies to enthrone or eliminate governments or political figures, or on the “dictatorship” exercised by the empire via its transnationals, are now within the reach of all mortals.

But not of Cuba, which has just about one Internet port (ISP) for the entire country, comparable to that of any Hilton or Sheraton hotel.

That is why connecting in Cuba is a desperate business. It is like surfing in slow motion.

“Why is it like that?” I asked.

“Because of the categorical refusal of the United States to give the island Internet access via one of the underwater fiber optic cables that pass close to our coast. Cuba is obliged, instead, to download a satellite signal, which makes the service that the Cuban government has to pay much more expensive, and prevents the use of a wider band that could allow access to many more users and at the speed normal throughout the world with broadband.”

And that is why the Cuban government is giving connection priority not to those who can pay for the cost of the service, but to those who most need it, like doctors, academics, journalists, professionals, government ‘cadres’ and social use Internet clubs. It cannot do any more.

I think about the extraordinary efforts of the Cuban website CubaDebate to internally nourish and take the country’s information abroad under the current conditions. But, according to Fidel, Cuba could find a solution to this situation.

He was referring to the conclusion of underwater cables extending from La Guaira port in Venezuela to the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba. With these works being undertaken by the government of Hugo Chávez, the island could have broadband and possibilities for a huge amplification of the service.

“Cuba, and you in particular, have been pointed to many times as maintaining a strictly anti-U.S. position and you have even been accused of bearing hatred toward that nation,” I said to him.

“Nothing of the kind,” he clarified. “Why hate the United States if it is only a product of history?”

But, in real terms: barely 40 days ago, when he had not completely “risen,” he concentrated – as a variation – on his powerful neighbor in his new Reflections.

“The thing is that I began to see very clearly the problems of the growing world dictatorship…” and he presented, in the light of all the information that he was managing, the “imminence of a nuclear attack that would unleash a world conflagration.”

He was still unable to go out and talk, to do what he is doing now, he told me. He could just about write with some fluidity, because he not only had to learn how to walk again, but also, at the age of 84, he had learn to write again.

“I came out of hospital, I went home, but I walked, I exceeded myself. Then I had to do rehabilitation for my feet. By then I was already managing to relearn writing.

“The qualitative jump came when I could dominate all the elements that made it possible for me to do everything that I am doing now. But I can and must improve… I can get to the point of walking well. Today, as I told you, I walked 600 steps alone, without a stick, without anything, and I have to balance that with climbing up and going down, with the hours that I sleep, with work.”

“What is there behind this frenzy of work which, instead of rehabilitation could lead him to a relapse?”

Fidel concentrated, closed his eyes as if to sleep, but no… he returns to the charge:
”I do not wish to be absent in these days. The world is in the most interesting and dangerous phase of its existence and I am very committed to what is going to happen. I still have things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like constituting a whole anti-nuclear war movement;” that is what he has been devoting himself to since his reappearance.

“Creating an international force of persuasion to avoid that colossal threat happening,” represents a tremendous challenge, and Fidel has never been able to resist a challenge.

“In the beginning I thought that the nuclear attack would be on North Korea, but I soon rectified that because I said to myself that China would stop that with its Security Council veto…

“But nobody is stopping that of Iran, because there is no Chinese or Russian veto. Then came the (UN) Resolution and although Brazil and Turkey vetoed it, Lebanon didn’t and so the decision was taken.”

Fidel is calling on scientists, economists, communicators, etc to give their opinions on what the mechanism might be via which the horror is going to be unleashed and the way that it might be avoided. He has even taken them to exercises of science fiction.

“Think, think!” he urges in discussions. “Reason, imagine,” exclaims the enthusiastic teacher that he has become in recent days.

Not everyone has understood his concern. More than a few people have seen his new campaign as preaching disaster or even delirious. To that must be added the fear of many that his health will suffer a relapse.

Fidel is not giving up: nothing or nobody is capable of even holding him back. He needs to convince as rapidly as possible in order to detain the nuclear conflagration that, he insists, is threatening to obliterate a large part of humanity. “We have to mobilize the world to persuade Barack Obama, president of the United States, to avoid a nuclear war. That is the only thing that he can do or not do, press the button.”

With the data that he handles like an expert and the documents backing up his words, Fidel is questioning and making a spine-chilling exposition:

“Do you know the nuclear power that is held by a good few countries in the world at present, compared to that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki era?

“It is 470,000 times the explosive power of either of the two bombs that the United States dropped on those two Japanese cities; 470,000 times more,” he emphasizes, scandalized.

That is the power of each one of the 20,000-plus nuclear weapons calculated as being in the world today.

With much less than that power – with just 100 – a nuclear winter which would darken the world in its totality could be produced.

This barbarity could come about in a matter of days, to be more precise, on September 9, which is when the 90-day period given by the UN Security Council before inspecting Iran shipping expires.

“Do you think that the Iranians are going to give in? Can you imagine that? Courageous and religious men who see death as almost a prize… Well, the Iranians are not going to give in, that is a fact. Are the Yankis going to give in? And, what is going to happen if neither one gives in? And that could happen on September 9.”

Gabriel García Márquez wrote on the 41st anniversary of Hiroshima: “One minute after the explosion, more than half of human beings will have died, the dust and smoke of continents in flames will defeat sunlight and total shadows will return to reign in the world. A winter of orange-colored rain and icy hurricanes will invert the season of the oceans and turn around the course of the rivers, whose fish will have died of thirst in the boiling waters… the era of rock and heart transplants will revert to its ice infancy…”

“I DO NOT HARBOR THE LEAST DOUBT THAT THERE WILL BE GREAT CHANGES IN MEXICO”

“Tell me, tell me, what is all this that the “mafia” is saying about everything that I wrote?”

“It isn’t only the mafia, all right? There are more people disconcerted by those Reflections, Comandante. Not to mention the displeasure that you gave to the Mexican government.”

“I had no interest in criticizing the government… Why would I get involved with the Mexican government? For fun? If I devoted myself to getting involved with governments, to stating the bad or erroneous things that I consider they have done, Cuba wouldn’t have any relations.

“It is being said that with your praise and open acknowledgements, what you said to Andrés Manuel López Obrador was the “kiss of the devil”… and people are asking why it is that you are now making public both the statements of Carlos Ahumada to Cuban justice and details of your singular relationship with Carlos Salinas de Gortari. They suspect a hidden intention.”

“No, no, no. I had the good fortune to find Andrés Manuel’s book. Somebody gave it to me at the end of the (National) Assembly session. I read it rapidly and its reading inspired me to write what I wrote.”

“What inspired you?”

“Discovering what he had done with the land, with the mines; what he had done with the oil… Finding out about the theft, the plunder that that great country has suffered; about that barbarity that they have committed, and that (now has Mexico how it has…)”

“There are mistrustful people on one side or the other who are insisting that there are other intentions behind your chance words.”

“No. I hadn’t planned to write what I wrote; it wasn’t within my plans. I have a free agenda.”

“Well, it’s caused an uproar, I can tell you. They are accusing you of having unleashed a whole political scandal and the criticisms are raining down because they are saying that whether for good or bad, Comandante, you have gotten involved with the Mexican electoral process…”

“Ah! Yes?” he asks very animatedly. “So there is criticism of me? How good, how good! Send me them! And who are these criticisms coming from?”

“From many people, apart from one. The only one – of those involved – who has not said a single word is Carlos Salinas…

“Because he’s the most intelligent one, he always was, as well as being more skillful,” said Fidel with a mischievous smile. Judging by his expression, it would seem that he is already waiting for Salinas’ response. At best, even a book.

He went on to repeat some of the paragraphs of his Reflections: that Salinas had been in solidarity with Cuba, that he had acted as a mediator (appointed by Clinton in 1994) between the United States and the island “and conducted himself well and really acted as a mediator and not as an ally of the United States…”

He related that when Salinas obtained permission from the Cuban government to take refuge in that country and even “legally” acquire a house, that they saw “quite a lot of each other” and exchanged points of view, et cetera.

“I came to think that he never tried to deceive me,” Fidel said sarcastically.

“Really?” I asked. Did Salinas comment on or consult with him concerning his government’s decision to open up relations with self-declared terrorist organizations, such as the Cuban-American National Foundation, created with the exclusive purpose of overthrowing the regime and assassinating its president, Fidel Castro?

For the first time in the history of relations between the two countries, a Mexican government opened the doors of the presidential palace to Jorge Mas Canosa, at that time president of that paramilitary organization, and an old enemy of the Cuban Revolution.

“The man that you brought to this house was a killer,” I told Carlos Salinas on that occasion, during an interview with La Jornada. Salinas nodded, giving me the right. But he immediately justified himself by saying that his government was seeking participation with Cuban “plurality” in the “dialogue” that was taking place for a rapprochement between the two sides.

“I wish to state that Mexico is extremely respectful of the internal processes decided by the Cubans,” Salinas affirmed then.

“But what is happening to Cuba is not going to be at a remove from Mexicans; Mexicans cannot be absent from the transformations that might happen in that country because they will have repercussions in Mexico, in all of Latin America. We have to maintain this communication with the whole range of opinions… (La Jornada, August 1992).

“Opinions? Mexico needed the “opinion” of a criminal to enrich its dialogue with neighboring countries,” I enquired now.

Fidel had lowered his head and asked, as if to himself:

“Why did he do that to us? He had conducted himself as a friend of Cuba. Pending political and economic matters were being arranged with him, finally… He gave the impression that he didn’t have any problems with us.

“Why the hell did he have to receive that bandit?” he asked, somewhat disconcerted.

But he didn’t want to say anything more. He had turned the page a while back or had reserved it for the moment at which – after the obligatory balancing – he would decide to make public knowledge the termination of his relationship with the former Mexican president, as occurred with his Reflection “The giant with the seven-league boots.”

“Cuba never wanted to hand over the filmed documentation that confirmed the conspiracy against López Obrador, as the PRD was demanding at the time.

“In that we could not please them,” he explained. “We sent all the documentation to the authority asking for his extradition (the Mexican Foreign Ministry). Any other attitude would not have been serious,” he emphasized.

Then, Fidel became seriously ill and that matter, like many others, had had to wait.

“Why the mention of López Obrador at this pre-electoral moment?

“Because I had a debt with him. I wanted to tell him (although he did not agree to hand over the documentation asked for) that we were not in any conspiracy against him, nor (were we) or are we aligned with anybody in order to damage him. That, as I said in what I wrote, I am honored to share his points of view.

“That is precisely where they are saying that you gave him ‘the kiss of the devil,’ Comandante.”

“So we won’t even mention inviting him to Cuba, right?” he said with a roguish smile. “That would be risking too much, wouldn’t it? That whole gang would fall on top of him, to discredit him and take votes away from him.

“Like 50 years ago, in the early days of the Revolution, when traveling to Cuba was a totally daring undertaking. One photo arriving or leaving the Mexican airport for Havana could result in persecution, blows, prison…”

Fidel maintained his that little laugh of his, and advised:

“You Mexicans shouldn’t be so concerned about these things. All of that is going to change. I do not harbor the slightest doubt that there are going to be great changes in Mexico.”

To be continued...

Translated by Granma International

Havana. September 2, 2010

granma.cu

- "The world of the future has to be shared by everyone" - Interview with Fidel Castro (Part 2)

Bahamas Blog International

Church urges Cuba to make 'necessary' economic changes

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) -- Cuba's Catholic Church on Monday called on the country's regime to make "necessary changes" to reverse a spreading economic crisis and urged dialogue without conditions between Havana and arch foe Washington.

Church leader Cardinal Jaime Ortega pressed the government of President Raul Castro to "promptly make the necessary changes in Cuba" to alleviate hardship, stressing that the Cuban people were growing restless over deteriorating conditions in the only Communist-ruled nation in the Americas.

"This opinion has reached a kind of national consensus, and postponement produces impatience and discomfort in the people," Ortega said in "Palabra Nueva," the magazine of the Archdiocese of Havana, in reference to recent criticism by economists, academics, dissidents and artists.

Castro, who announced a need for reforms shortly after taking over from his ailing brother Fidel Castro four years ago, warned recently that while many "desperate" Cubans were seeking immediate change, it was vital to avoid "haste and improvisation."

Ortega's statements were the latest criticism aimed at the regime by the church, which warned in late March that "a worsening crisis is on the horizon that could break the fragile social cohesion."

The church has encouraged promotion of self-employment, legalized but restricted since 1993, and called for a law protecting small and medium private enterprises in a country where the state controls 95 percent of the economy.

It has also said performance-based pay, currently used by only 18 percent of state enterprises, should be expanded, urged "greater security" for foreign investment, and called for a boost in exports.

Ortega on Monday also urged Havana to get serious about improving ties with Washington.

"I think a Cuba-US dialogue is the first step needed to break the cycle of criticism," the cardinal said, recalling the various offers of top-level dialogue by Castro as well as US President Barack Obama, when he was campaigning for the White House in 2008.

But the cardinal also criticized Obama for repeating "the same old scheme of previous US governments," by insisting that Washington would lift its five-decade embargo on the island nation and enter high-level talks only if Havana made major changes on human rights.

"Only in advancing the dialogue can steps be made to improve or overcome the most critical situations," he said.

Havana has faced mounting international criticism that increased in February when dissident Orlando Zapata died 85 days into a hunger strike.

Cuban bishops lamented Zapata's death and called on the authorities "to take appropriate measures so that such situations do not recur."

The church also repeated its call for dissident journalist Guillermo Farinas to end his own hunger strike, begun the day after Zapata died.

Farinas told AFP Monday that he "respects" Ortega but was firm in his decision to carry on with his fast.

Ortega also criticized the harassment of the wives of political prisoners known as the "Ladies in White," who have been prevented from marching in recent weeks.

"This is no time to stir up passions," Ortega said.

April 20, 2010

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Blog International

Castro daughter says Cuba communists exclude gays

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cuban President Raul Castro's daughter accused the ruling Communist Party on Tuesday of discrimination against gays and said she will write a letter to its "top leadership" demanding that it end.

Her uncle, Fidel Castro, heads the party, while her father is No. 2.

Mariela Castro, a sexologist who advocates for gay rights, said the party excludes gays who want to become members.

"It is not spelled out in any statute, but implicitly they are rejected," she told reporters at the opening of a conference on sex education and therapy.

"Your ideological and party definition have nothing to do with your sexual orientation," said Castro, who is head of Cuba's National Center of Sex Education. "It's absurd, it's laughable."

She said her letter -- to be sent "as soon as possible" -- would demand that a no-discrimination policy be clearly spelled out in party bylaws.

Fidel Castro, 83, ceded the presidency to his brother Raul, 78, two years ago, but still officially heads the Communist Party.

The Cuban government, which Fidel Castro led for 49 years after taking power in a 1959 revolution, once sent gays to labor camps but ended the policy in the 1970s.

Castro, 47 and married, has led gay rights parades in Havana, and urged the government to approve gay marriage, which has not yet happened.

"We continue to confront strong prejudices," she said.


caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

Castro accuses Obama of cynicism over Nobel prize

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro criticized US President Barack Obama on Wednesday for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize as he steps up the US war effort in Afghanistan by deploying more troops.

Castro said just two months ago that it was "a positive measure" for Obama to be awarded the prize by the Nobel Committee, a decision that stunned the White House when it was announced in October.

Obama will frame the war in Afghanistan as part of a wider pursuit for peace when he accepts the prize in Oslo on Thursday, a US official said.

But Castro, who has generally written positively about Obama, was more critical in a column published in state-run media.

"Why did Obama accept the Nobel Peace Prize when he'd already decided to fight the Afghanistan war to the last? He wasn't obliged to commit a cynical act," Castro wrote.

"The president of the United States doesn't say a word about the hundreds of thousands of people, including children and innocent elderly people, who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, adding that Washington's current policy is "the same as Bush's."

Castro, 83, ran Cuba for almost 50 years after taking power in a 1959 revolution but was sidelined by illness and handed over the presidency to younger brother Raul Castro last year.

The elder Castro has been seen only in occasional photos and videos since having surgery for an undisclosed intestinal ailment in July 2006. But he still has a behind-the-scenes role in government and keeps a high profile through his writings.

Climate change has been a prominent theme in his columns, and in Wednesday's article he said rich countries should make the "maximum sacrifice" at UN climate talks that began this week in Copenhagen.

December 11, 2009

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

Cuba slams book by Castro's sister

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) -- Cuba's state-run media on Monday condemned a just-published book in which Fidel Castro's sister admits she spied for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The country's media added that the expose proves that the former Cuban leader was a "victim" of decades of US targeting.

"The truth is in full view: Fidel Castro is the victim, the offended person, the individual against whom they conspired," wrote the government-run La Jiribilla magazine, saying the relentless effort to target the Cuban leader was in "bad taste" and "low moral standing."

In acknowledging the cloak-and-dagger story, "the enemies of the revolution for once were casting a spotlight on their misdeeds," the periodical said.

The condemnation by the Havana government follows the admission by Juanita Castro, 76, in her Spanish-language book "Fidel and Raul, My Brothers. The Secret History" that she worked with the US spy agency.

In the book, which went on sale last week, Juanita, the fifth of seven Castro siblings, writes that she aided the CIA during the 1960s, at a time when the United States was plotting to assassinate her brother and replace his Communist regime.

Now a resident of Miami, Juanita Castro wrote that she was contacted in 1964 after she broke with Fidel and Raul, the current president of Cuba, and collaborated with the CIA both inside Cuba and when she went into exile later that year.

November 3, 2009

caribbeannetnews

BahamasCaribbean Blog International

No more free lunch in Raul Castro's Cuba

By Isabel Sanchez:


HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) -- President Raul Castro is taking a bold gamble to ease communist Cuba's cash crunch by eliminating a costly government lunch program that feeds almost a third of the nation's population every workday.

The Americas' only one-party communist government, held afloat largely by support from its key ally Venezuela, is desperate to improve its budget outlook; the global economy is slack, and Havana is very hard pressed to secure international financing.

Raul Castro, 76, officially took over as Cuba's president in February 2008 after his brother, revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, stepped aside with health problems.

Though some wondered if Raul Castro would try to move Cuba's centralized economy toward more market elements, so far he has sought to boost efficiency and cut corruption and waste without reshaping the economic system.

And so far it has been an uphill battle, something akin to treading water.

But now, Raul Castro has moved to set in motion what will likely be the biggest rollback of an entitlement since Cuba's 1959 revolution -- starting to put an end to the daily lunch program for state workers, as announced Friday in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper.

In a country where workers earn the average of 17 dollars a month, and state subsidized monthly food baskets are not enough for families, more than 3.5 million Cuban government employees -- out of a total population of 11.2 million -- benefit from the nutritionally significant free meal.

The pricetag is a cool 350 million dollars a year, not counting energy costs or facilities maintenance, Granma said.

But that will come to a halt in four ministries experimentally from October 1, Granma said. As workers stream to the 24,700 state lunchrooms, the government "is faced with extremely high state spending due to extremely high international market prices, infinite subsidies and freebies," Granma explained.

Parallel to the cutback, workers will see their salaries boosted by 15 pesos a workday (.60 dollar US) to cover their lunch.

It is a dramatic shift in Cuba, where the government workers' lunchroom has been among the longest-standing subsidies, though even authorities have called it paternalistic.

And more troubling, especially for authorities, is the fact that the lunchrooms' kitchens have become a source of economic hemorrhaging, from which workers unabashedly make off with tonnes of rice, beans, chicken and cooking oil to make ends meet.

The Castro government is keen to reduce the 2.5 billion dollars a year it spends on food imports, which it has to buy on the international market in hard currency.

"Nobody can go on indefinitely spending more than they earn. Two and two are four, never five. In our imperfect socialism, too often two plus two turn out to be three," Raul Castro said in an August 1 address alluding to corruption problems.

Some Cubans were aghast at the idea of losing a free lunch.

"What am I going to buy with 15 pesos," asked a bank worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I cannot even make anything, even something horrible, at home for that little."

But Roberto Reyes, a construction employee, said sometimes the state lunch is so bad, he would rather not eat it -- and pocket the small monthly raise.

The president has said health care and education were not cuts he would willingly make.

But Cubans wonder how long it will be until the legendary monthly ration books with which Cubans receive limited basic food goods, such as rice and beans, for free, come under the budget axe.

September 28, 2009

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

Raul Castro pushes Cubans to rethink socialism

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cubans began taking a hard look this week at entrenched customs like food rationing, pilfering on the job, cradle-to-grave subsidies and black market trading in a national debate called by President Raul Castro.

Authorities have circulated a ten-point agenda for thousands of open-ended meetings over the next month at work places, universities and community organizations to rethink Cuban socialism, focused on the economic themes highlighted by Castro in a speech to the National Assembly in August.

The discussion guide, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, makes clear that questioning the communist-ruled island's one-party political system established after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, or calling for a restoration of capitalism, are off limits.

But the guide said: "It is important that the meetings are characterized by absolute freedom of criteria, the sincerity of participants and respect for differing opinions".

The possibility of eliminating one of the world's longest-standing food ration systems, heavily subsidized utilities, transportation and meals at work and universities, among other items, would be debated at the meetings.

Alicia, a communist party militant who will lead the debate in her Havana work place next week but who asked that her last name not be used, said the purpose was "to call on everyone to do what they have to do and stop looking up into the sky and screaming that there are problems."

"Of course there are problems, lots of them, what's needed is that everyone begins taking care of their own," she said.

A similar round of meetings was held in 2007, during which Cubans were asked to air their complaints and what they wanted from the government.

Cuban President Raul Castro. AFP PHOTO

At this round of discussions, the guide says participants were being asked to look in the mirror and apply Castro's speech to their own "radius of action," identify problems in the context of his words and come up with a list of proposals to solve them.

"Nobody, no individual nor country, can indefinitely spend more than she or he earns. Two plus two always adds up to four, never five," Castro said in his August speech. "Within the conditions of our imperfect socialism, due to our own shortcomings, two plus two often adds up to three," he added.

Cubans have mixed feelings about the debate. Some say it is a sincere effort to involve them in changing their lives, while others suspect it is a maneuver to get them to buy into austerity measures that have already been decided on.

"The monthly ration lasts about 15 days and now it won't last 10," Jorge, a construction worker, glumly predicted.

Castro, in his August speech, said a foreign currency shortage had forced drastic cuts in imports and budgets and postponement of payments to foreign creditors and suppliers.

He said egalitarianism had no place under socialism, except in the area of opportunity, and more resources should flow to those who produce and less to those who do not. He has often expressed this refrain since taking over the presidency from his elder brother, Fidel Castro, 18 months ago.

The discussion guide includes excerpts of an earlier Castro speech in which he said reversing the country's dependence on food imports was "not a question of yelling 'fatherland or death, down with imperialism, the blockade is hurting us ...'", but working hard and overcoming poor organization.

Cuban leaders routinely call the 47-year-old US economic embargo against the island a "blockade" and frequently blame it for Cuba's economic woes.

Castro called for decentralization of the state-dominated economy, new forms of property ownership and an end to all government gratuities and subsidies except in health care, education and social security, though these also had to had to cut waste and inessential services.

The president also said in his speech to the National Assembly that Cuba recognized a change in tone from US President Barack Obama's administration and was open to trying to solve the standoff with the United States.

"We are ready to talk about everything, I repeat everything, but in terms of here in Cuba and over there in the United States, and not to negotiate our political and social system," he said.

Obama has eased some slight aspects of the longstanding embargo on Cuba, and initiated talks with the Cuban government on immigration and postal services. But he has called on Cuban leaders to respond by becoming more democratic, freeing detained dissidents and improving human rights.




caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International