Cuba's greatest sin.

[Carl Brennan]

Something I've found in reading and researching the international drug trade: Castro was a mortal enemy of the Cuban Mafia. Castro kicked their drug dealing, prostitution peddling sleazy asses out of Cuba and, for a time, that little nation caused problems for the international drug dealers who relied on its close proximity to the US. Santos Trafficante and Carlos Marcello where deeply into organized crime in pre-Castro Cuba and they lost their connections there after Castro came to power. They were also the primary contact people of the CIA on that island. Coincidence? No way. Trafficante and Marcello were cited as prime suspects in the murder of JFK by the House Assasinations Committee. Kennedy said he wanted to break the CIA into "a thousand pieces". He also fired Allen Dulles.

Read McCoy's "Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the Global Drug Trade"
Another book is "Strength of the Wolf" by Valentine.

Call it Communism, or Socialism or whatever ism you want. I think the unreasoned fear of alternatives to cutthroat capitalism is a scam. All I know is that most people in the US don't really know what is going on in Cuba except what the enemies of Castro care to tell them via a corporate controlled media. We have a Constitution that is suppose to protect us from political tyranny and look at what the corporatists have done and want to do to our freedoms. The US is going down the tubes like shit through a goose. Castro fought the bastards and somehow I cannot imagine him being as bad as he is portrayed. He was forced to restrict freedoms in Cuba for many of the same reasons, only with more reason, than Bushboy claims we need to curtail rights in the US: being attacked by terrorists. Well, in Castro's case that could never be more true. The relentless hostility toward him is crazy. I equate what has happened to Cuba with the world being attacked by aliens with superior technology. Can you imagine how our rights would vanish under such circumstances?

What would happen if we simply let that little country determine its own destiny? Why the duplicitous double standard with Cuba and China over trade? One answer: PROFIT. Why not put the same pressure on Burma we put on Cuba with its Halliburton business as usual while it is run by a dictator: one answer--PROFIT.

Cuba is a sacrificial lamb, a good example of a country making it without corporations ravaging the country. The BFEE thinks that needs to be squelched.

THAT IS CUBA'S GREATEST SIN.

[joelogan]

1. this deception and murder has been going on for decades

our leaders and our media have been lying to us and deceiving us for decades. All of them, as far as I can tell. We ought to hold them to account for this criminal and treacherous, murderous behavior. But we won't.

[Mika]

2. We should learn from Cuba(ns) instead of vilifying it (them)

Learn from Cuba
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/learn.htm

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

[Carl Brennan]

6. Thanks. This is really thought provoking.

They also have a very good medical research and pharmaceutical industry.

The last segment of your post is interesting. Cubans have an "incredible determination" to make their health care so good. What motivates this dedication? Smith quickly writes Cuba's dedication as phenomenological or a fluke. I think it is "systemic".

[Mika]

7. Some people think that ..

Some people think that one man - Castro - "forces" high end health care on Cuban families - great grandparents to preborn. Some people think that one man - Castro - "forces" high end universal education (including higher ed) on Cubans and their children.

It is just a crazy-think. :crazy:



on edit: I've been to Cuba many times, including during the 1997-98 election season.

The Cuban government was reorganized (approved by popular vote) into a variant parliamentary system in 1976.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html

Or a long and detailed version here,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968508405/qid=1053879619/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8821757-1670550?v=glance&s=books

[Carl Brennan]

9. I'd like to go there. Looking at the people from pictures

they don't seem to have the dejected look so many Latin American people have.

What did you think of the country?

[Mika]

15. I love Cuba

And the Cuban people are as friendly as can be.

Cubans aren't starving, and they don't hate Mr Castro (he is their living revolutionary hero who broke free the American shackles on their country and sovereignty and dignity). There are no homeless people in Cuba. Seriously, I've never seen any there (except for some "hippie" types who live in the woods by their own choice). In the cities there are no street children huffing shoe glue, stealing, dealing dope or begging. Cubans are very proud of their schools, and the kids really take pride in their education. The teachers are dedicated and have close contact with their students. Its a pro education atmosphere.

There are small private businesses there too.

Small hotels/bed and breakfasts are all over the island, so tourists don't really need a tour package. Its better to rent a car and go where one's interests takes them. (Yes, there are modern and new small cars available to rent. Fiat's, Peugot's, Diawa's, and some other Asian models.)

Cuba is as beautiful a tropical island as there is too, and the most pristine reefs in the world. Its a scuba diver's heaven.

I could go on about the small farms and farmers markets and the music and beer and rum and cigars and the ocean and the night sky. It is all Cubañia and beautiful.

I just cannot believe that Bush has just about cut off all of the legal travel for Americans to go there. Shameful. Because it keeps most Americans completely in the dark about Cuba and Cubans.


:hi:

[indigobusiness]

28. You nailed it.

People in materially strapped cultures live more through relationships than materialism, and live much richer lives than we realize. And, maybe, even, than we do.

[private_ryan]

20. "approved by popular vote"

Saddam was "elected" by popular vote too. He won like 99% of the votes everytime.

[Carl Brennan]

22. Certainly winning by popular vote is not relevant to Americans as

a measure of democracy. ;)

[private_ryan]

19. some should go and live there

if it's so nice.

[Mika]

43. I would, in a New York minute, if I could.

Cuba does not have open immigration.

I'd have to marry a Cuban in order to move there.

[indigobusiness]

58. You have missed the point of this thread, entirely.

This is more a balancing of the scales, a more complete view, or an effort to shine a more honest light on the issue.

You sound like O'Reilly. A propaganda addict, no doubt.

[wurzel]

3. "Key Lago"

The mobster Rocco (Edward G. Robinson)is staying a that Key Lago hotel for a boat of drug running mobsters coming from Cuba. Hardly anyone who watches the film gets it.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Great post, Carl!

America's mad Cuba policy has harmed the US much more than it has or could Cuba. Look at the nest of terrorist vipers in Miami. And think of the pool they've provided for some of the dirtiest black ops in American history, from the murder of an American President to Watergate to the CIA's drug trade and beyond.

[Carl Brennan]

13. Thanks MB. Someday I hope the American people learn the truth.

[indigobusiness]

5. Without Castro, Cuba would today be a disgusting Club Med for Feds

and Military Industrialists.

[Dangerman]

17. Yeah sure.

Tell it to the fleeing Cuban refugees.

[Carl Brennan]

21. Are you John Nichols?

I think that's his name. He is in a book largely taken from the works of Danny Casolaro called "Octopus". Nichols is not a very nice guy and Casolaro calls him Dangerman.

Casolaro was suicided in a motel room in W. Virginia in the early 90's.

[indigobusiness]

24. That was a compelling story,

that got swept under the rug.

[Dangerman]

49. Hmmm... Nice tidbit...

But I am NOT John Nicols.

[indigobusiness]

23. Have you ever known any Cubans,

intimately?

[Carl Brennan]

38. You are talking to a non-person, IMHO.

[Carl Brennan]

8. Why was Poppy Bush so interested in

the Trafficante--Ruby link when this came to light during the House Assasinations Committee hearings while Poppy was head of the CIA? A recent book by Kitty Kelley on the Bush Family says that Poppy later denied this interest when quizzed about it (page 347). About this time Poppy's friend a Russian emigre' Baron George Mohrenshildts was about to testify before the Committee and he died suddenly. Mohrenshildts knew Oswald well enough to get him a job at a U-2 photo lab that, oddly, was processing photos of Cuba.
Investigators of the Baron's death found the name George Bush (Poppy) in his address book.

A Washington cop named Joe Shimon told columnist Jack Anderson that Trafficante ordered Ruby to kill Oswald.

http://www.jfklancer.com/jackruby.html

[radwriter0555]

10. Thanks for taking the time to learn this yourself. Most people believe the

lies and rhetoric without bothering to learn the truth. Castro has sacrificed his entire life protecting the people of cuba from the US imperialist capitalist pigs.

VIVA CASTRO!

[knowbody0]

11. remember when he sent his insane criminals over here

on a boat? i think he has a sense of humor

[Carl Brennan]

12. Probably ex-mafiosi

but I don't really know that.

[Mika]

16. Castro never sent them here! The Miamicubans went there and picked them up

.. in whatever boats they could beg, borrow, and steal in Miami.

It was a mass immigration smuggling op perpetrated by the radical Miamicuban scum. Carter gave in to their demands and allowed them to do it.

[robcon]

25. The truth is that Castro runs a gulag in Cuba.

His police state arrests dissidents, and chokes freedom of speech. He gave 20-25 year terms for those who promoted the Varela Project.

He is scum, and it is scandalous to see support for that megalomaniac dictator on a site named DEMOCRATIC Underground .

[indigobusiness]

27. There are people in America imprisoned that long for a joint.

The American Gulag dwarfs Cuba's, in every respect.

[Minstrel Boy]

33. Guantanamo Bay

operates beyond Cuban jurisdiction.

[Mika]

45. Truth is that the US operates the gulags in Cuba - Gitmo.

Bush is scum and it is scandalous to see support for the US/Bush funded "dissidents" traitorously seeking to assist the US in overthrowing the government of Cuba on a site named DEMOCRATIC Underground.

[UNIXcock]

14. My wife's step-dad is a legal Cuban immigrant ...

... the way I understand it, Castro allows a given number of Cubans to immigrate and the list is so long to "escape" there is a lottery. His family lives in a beautiful spot called Pinar Del Rio and he visits his mother there every couple years.

... He paints a pretty grim picture living under the communist rule of Castro. According to him, many of the populous have given up on the chance at capitalism and a free market because it is looking more and more like Casto's son will inherit his presidency. I'm sure there are some, happily living under communist rule however I'm of the belief they're mostly isolated to those working for the State - with privileges increasing the closer you are to Castro. I understand the outlook for a prosperous economy is bleak and many of the younger generation are looking for more creative ways to flee.

... Oh, and on a more positive note, he doesn't smoke cigars but he can bring up to three boxes home each trip ;) hehehe

[Carl Brennan]

18. I've heard similar things and have thought about this.

Many Americans that are pro-Bush are saying that they would be willing to give up their freedoms for national security in the face of terrorism. So certainly they can understand Cuba's dilemma: being threatened as a nation for over forty years by the US, and would agree that a restriction of freedoms there is neccessary. I alluded to this out in my original post.

We will never know what Cuba's potential for free expression, even free markets is until we stop, permanently stop, the anti-Cuba crowd saber rattling. Cuba would probably become more like European countries with mixed economies and some very good living conditions for their people. In Europe they get an average of 6 weeks off a year more than in the US.

We don't have much of a free market anymore in the US unless you own it. Monopoly Capitalism/Corporatism is predominant. Then there are all of the other living standard factors mentioned in post two to be considered.

Maybe some people in Cuba who hear US radio or get a glimpse of a glitsy TV commercial don't have enough cerebral matter to figure out that isn't reality. A fool is born every minute who will be convinced the grass is always greener...

It sure would be interesting to see what would happen in Cuba without aggression by the US.

[indigobusiness]

26. Blaming Castro for the economic hardships of Cubans,

is like blaming the Iraq war on Gore.

[UNIXcock]

29. Oh come on now, give us a break!

... Cuba is a beautiful island with creative people and diverse natural resources. It is Fidel Castro's communist policies alone that prevent the country from rising from poverty.

... He is a stubborn old-school communist, labeling him anything else is ludicrous. Even communist red China recognized they were going to have to introduce some form of democracy and trade to enable growth. And look where they're at today - on the cusp of overrunning our economy!

[indigobusiness]

30. And the pressure applied by America has been of no consequence?

If America was embargoed by Mexico, America would starve.

edit- If Castro is as vile as you say, why does the rest of North and South America have no problem with him? And, the rest of the World, for that matter?

[UNIXcock]

32. I don't need to remind you that there are two sides to every story, I wish

... you could sit with my step-father in-law for a spell. The elderly man has no real alliance - just wants to live happy and healthy. He could explain to you better than I could that the majority of the indigenous peoples of Cuba do not want to live under Castro's rule. They're not stupid, they would like to open the economy up to trade and travel, but stubborn Fidel won't budge.

... Neither has any presidency since before Kennedy

[Carl Brennan]

36. Yea, blah blah but you never anwered the question.

[UNIXcock]

42. I'm sorry, there are several questions in your post and others ...

... please clarify and I will try - no guarantees

[Mika]

44. Cuba is open for everyone to visit. Its the US gov that bans Americans..

.. from going there.


"They're not stupid, they would like to open the economy up to trade and travel, but stubborn Fidel won't budge."

Actually, this belief is stupid.


Cuba trades with most countries of the world, including purchasing more and more US products as of late.

The US's Helms-Burton law prevents companies that do biz in Cuba from doing biz in the US at the same time. (Example, Bayer can't sell Aspirin to Cuba and retain the US market. So, Bayer chooses the US, the larger market.)

It is Americans who are cut off from Cuba by the US government - kept in the dark about Cuba. Cubans, including castro, have been urging the US government and American citizens to open up travel to the island for decades.

Its the US government that won't budge.


In Cuba you'll find citizens from all corners of the world visiting for tourism, trade, and education.

I know, I've seen it w/my own eyes.

[Darranar]

34. China has no form of democracy...

what they have introduced somewhat has been free-market capitalism, which is quite different.

[Carl Brennan]

39. Care to expand on China's free market, blah, blah, etc.

;)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

53. Yes, but

blaming him for his numerous human rights abuses isn't.

I suspect Cuba has quite a lot to recommend it, though it's impossible to tell - I've never been their, and I have no way of knowing which of the wildly disparate accounts I've heard are accurate - but it is *undeniable* that Castro has had a large number of people imprisoned or executed for political reasons.

It may be the case that America has done worse (I suspect it isn't, given relevant populations, but I don't know the numbers).

It may be the case that he would not have done so if it were not for America's opposition to him.

It may be the case that the majority of Cubans support him.

It may well be the case that his rule has been good for the majority of Cubans (as I've said, I have no way of knowing).

But nevertheless he has had a lot of people imprisoned or executed for no good reason, and I would say that as such he is, ipse facto, an evil man. To excuse crimes simply because they are committed by people "on our team" is in my view a) hypocritical and b) foolish, because it makes one look hypocritical.

[indigobusiness]

57. Undeniable?

"But nevertheless he has had a lot of people imprisoned or executed for no good reason"

According to whom?

[rman]

52. Cuba may not be the most wonderfull place to live, but

the ruthless capitalism and so called "free trade" we have isn't all that either. Those two terms are essentially synonymous, so let's have a brief look at this "free trade" (aka globalization):

It comes down to large transnational corporations making deals with corrupt, often dictatorial governments in developing nations. Deals that profit those corporations and governments, while impovering the people of those nations. If a government does not want to cooperate there will either be a coup or a war, in order to replace those governments with a more cooperative one.

Sometimes an insider blows the whistle on this:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions.
Democracy Now!
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251&mode=thread&tid=25

[Octafish]

31. LBJ: "We were running a damn Murder Inc. down in the Caribbean."

The War Party has tried to blame Cuba for everything. America must really be broke, thanks to the BFEE. They sure act like they need that drug, gambling and prostitution income pretty bad. -- Octafish

From Roundup: History Being Talked About...

In July of 1973, six months after the death of Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Atlantic published an article by a journalist and former Johnson speechwriter named Leo Janos. "The Last Days of the President," about LBJ in retirement, was elegiac in tone and fact, save for one dissonant paragraph—in which Johnson volunteered his opinion that President John F. Kennedy's assassination had been the result of a conspiracy organized from Cuba. "I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger," he explained to Janos. Johnson thought such a conspiracy had formed in retaliation for U.S. plots to assassinate Fidel Castro; he had found after taking office that the government "had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean."

SOURCE:

http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/5574.html

Gee. That's where newly minted CIA reformer Porter Goss served in Operation 40!

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKoperation40.htm

Small world. And very, very bad.

[Carl Brennan]

37. Kick!!! This is discovery people!! Read on!!

[Octafish]

46. The BFEE at work: Cuba means Big Bucks through Dope Inc.

Miami Mafia - International Agents of Imperialism

A recent Radio 4 programme profiled the Cuban-American CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez. It gave listeners the impression that Rodriguez was a man of 'Christian ideals' and a 'warm, embracing human being'. In reality Rodriguez is a torturer, thief, killer, terrorist and drug runner. RATB members objected to the BBC and one of their letters was used as a basis for criticism of the programme. A brief look at Rodriguez's disgusting career demonstrates, not only the depths of depravity to which this man stoops in his vendetta against the Cuban people, but also how he and the rest of the Miami mafia are an integral part of US imperialism's global campaign against all liberation struggles and how closely they are linked with the US ruling class at the highest levels.

Members of Felix Rodriguez's family were part of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista's repressive apparatus. After the Revolution in 1959, Rodriguez fled to Miami. There the CIA recruited him into Operation 40, alongside many other Cuban deserters such as Posada Carriles, Frank Sturgis, Ignacio Novo Sampoll, Jose Basulto, the Guillermo brothers and, later, Orlando Bosch. These men were to carry out murder and sabotage throughout the world on behalf of imperialism. George Bush Snr. had close links with Operation 40. Rodriguez was sent to Cuba to organise explosions ahead of the Bay of Pigs invasion. George Bush personally donated three boats as part of that operation.

After the failure of the invasion, Rodriguez escaped to Cuba and underwent further training in the US alongside Jorge Mas Canosa, founder and leader of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). Rodriguez was sent to Nicaragua where he was part of an operation that blew up a Spanish ship in reprisal for Spain's relations with Cuba. In 1967 Rodriguez acted as CIA link man in Bolivia, leading the hunt for Che Guevara. He interrogated Che and, despite CIA insistence that Che be captured alive, passed an order for Che's execution, saying it must appear as though Che had died in combat. Rodriguez celebrated over Che's body and stole Che's watch as a 'souvenir'.

In 1969 Rodriguez, by now a US citizen, was sent to Viet Nam. As part of the Phoenix programme he organised low-flying helicopters to machine-gun villages, a technique he was later to use against El Salvadorean guerrillas. Rodriguez also tortured and interrogated Vietnamese prisoners. In the Radio 4 programme, Rodriguez said he enjoyed his tour of duty in Viet Nam.

By 1970 Rodriguez was trafficking heroin from Laos to the US drugs network of former Havana gangster Santos Traficante as part of a CIA operation among isolated communities in Laos.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ratb.org.uk/vc/vc_24_mafia.html

[Octafish]

48. Miami Mafia - International Agents of Imperialism

EXCERPT...

When George Bush Snr. became head of the CIA in 1974 he asked Orlando Bosch to unite all the Miami mafia groups into one organisation, the infamous CORU. Over the years Miami mafia attacks on Cuba have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Cubans and the permanent maiming of thousands more. It was CORU agent Posada Carrilles, together with Bosch himself, who were responsible for the destruction in flight of a Cuban airliner in 1976 in which 73 people died. But CORU didn't only operate in Cuba. CORU agents Ignacio Novo Sampoll and the Guillermo brothers, together with Pinochet henchmen, murdered Orlando Letelier, ex-minister in Salvador Allende's progressive government and his assistant, human rights activist, Ronni Moffit. Altogether CORU was involved in around 100 terrorist attacks in more than 25 countries. Rodriguez collaborated with CORU, taking on missions in Uruguay, Brazil, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ratb.org.uk/vc/vc_24_mafia.html

[seemslikeadream]

51. The Santiago Declaration of 1991 - Operation Jaded Task

Let's be clear that whether U.S. officials forcibly removed Aristide from Haiti, as he has charged, or he left voluntarily, as Secretary of Powell and others have stated, it is indisputable, based on everything we know, that the U.S. played a very direct and public role in pressuring him to leave office by making it clear that the United States would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs who are threatening to kill him. His choice was simple: Stay in Haiti with no protection from the international community, including the U.S., and be killed or you can leave the country. That is hardly what I would call a voluntary decision to leave.

I will point out as well, if I can--and I know that international agreements are not always thought of as being terribly important in some people's minds. But in 1991, President Bush, the 41st President, along with other nations in this hemisphere, had signed the Santiago Declaration of 1991. That declaration, authored by the Organization of American States, said that any nation, democratically elected in this hemisphere, that seeks the help of others when they are threatened with an overthrow should be able to get that support.

Ten years later, the Inter-American Charter on Democracy was signed into law, a far more comprehensive proposal, again authored by the Organization of American States, the U.S. supporting. The present President Bush and our administration supported that. That charter on democracy stated that when asked for help by a democratically elected government being threatened with overthrow, we should respond.

President Aristide, a democratically elected President made that request and, of course, not only did we not provide assistance, in fact we sat back and watched as he left the country, offering assistance for him to depart.

I cite those international agreements because we think of our Nation as being a nation of laws, not of men. These agreements either meant something or they didn't. The Santiago Declaration and the Inter-American Charter on Democracy, apparently both documents mean little or nothing when it comes to supporting democratically elected governments in this hemisphere--not ones that you necessarily like or agree with or find everything they do is in your interest, but we do adhere to the notion that democratically elected governments are what we support in this hemisphere.

When they are challenged by violent thugs, people with records of violent human rights violations, engaged in death squad activity, in the very country they are now moving back

into and threatened, of course, successfully the elected government of President Aristide, then I think it is worthy of note that we have walked away from these international documents signed only 3 years ago and 10 years ago.
more
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r108:17:./temp/~r... ::

Congresswoman Maxine Waters' Statement on Kidnapping of Haitian President Aristide

"I spoke to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by telephone this morning and he told me that did not resign. He said he was kidnapped by American military and U.S. diplomats and military officials and was being held in the Central African Republic.
http://www.house.gov/waters/pr040301.htm

Panel to include: Rep. Maxine Waters, Rep. Major Owens, Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Ossie Davis, Gil Noble, Amy Goodman, Ron Daniels, and other prominent activists and journalists

The Bush Administration is facing a growing crisis over its role in the coup in Haiti and the kidnapping of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who continues to speak out about his abduction by the U.S. The 15-member organization of Caribbean nations, CARICOM, has refused to recognize the U.S.-installed regime and has called for an investigation, despite intense pressure and threats from the U.S. The 53-member African Union has raised the same demand.

On Wednesday, April 7, the Haiti Commission of Inquiry will initiate a public inquiry of the role of the Bush Administration in the crisis in Haiti. Delegations that visited both the Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic will present conclusive evidence that U.S. Special Forces armed, trained, and directed the "rebels" and engineered the abduction of President Aristide.

The preliminary report from the Commission states, "two hundred U.S. Special Forces soldiers came to the Dominican Republic as part of 'Operation Jaded Task,' with special authorization from President Hipólito Mejia. We have received many reports that this operation was used to train Haitian rebels. We have received many consistent reports of Haitian rebel training centers at or near Dominican military facilities. We have received many consistent reports of guns transported from the Dominican Republic to Haiti, some across the land border, and others shipped by sea."

Johnnie Stevens of the International Action Center, a member of the delegation to the Central African Republic, said, "The U.S.-installed Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, has hailed the paid mercenaries as freedom fighters, and had thus discredited himself among the Caribbean nations."

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a desperate bid to lend some credibility to the Latortue government, is now visiting Haiti for the first time. This attempt to put U. S. weight behind the isolated colonial-style regime is a response to its growing isolation. Sara Flounders, of the International Action Center, said, "This visit by Powell is a sign of the Bush Administration’s growing isolation and disarray. The U.S. is desperately trying to shore up a discredited regime in the face of international opposition to the appointed government of Haiti after the stinging rebuke directed at the U.S. by the recent CARICOM meeting." Flounders is a member of the Haiti Commission of Inquiry and was part of the delegation to the Central African Republic, where she visited with President Aristide shortly after his kidnapping.

Kim Ives from Haiti Progres, who was part of the delegation to the Dominican Republic, told the media, "In the course of our investigation here, we met with many Haitians who were forced to flee Haiti following the coup d'etat of Feb. 29. Their testimony gave very concrete names and faces to the stories of violence which we have heard that the so-called rebels, trained and assembled in the Dominican Republic, have carried out in Haiti over the past month. We were also touched by the tears of refugees who told us of how they are apprehensive over the fate of their loved ones left behind in Haiti."

http://www.iacenter.org/haiti_0407press.htm


US Troopers Secretly Land in Dominican Republic

The military training operation nicknamed Jaded Task took by surprise Dominican Foreign Ministry.

The US Army started today a training operation in the Caribbean country as part of routine maneuvers of the Southern Command. The landing had been kept so secretly that Dominican Foreign Ministry Hugo Tolentino was reported... by the TV.

As per the first reports, the US troops are training Dominican soldiers on anti-terrorism operations in the north of the island. When the national media started announcing the landing, country's Foreign Minister was having a lunch. Tolentino said that, as chief of the Dominican diplomacy, he should have been formally advised, as personally requested to the Dominican Army and the US Embassy to Santo Domingo.

(snip)

However, the most interesting thing, here, is that the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic did know about the operations. This correspondent had access to two formal communications issued by the US Embassy including details of these activities, during the Communist summit held in Buenos Aires in January. There, the US ambassador to Santo Domingo reported about 10.000 soldiers coming to the Dominican Republic to take part of the training.

Moreover, the communists and other leftist forces in the country made know such documents to the local media in November. According to the denounce, US soldiers can freely enter and leave the country without any kind of permission. Also, they can do it through owned means of conveyance.

more
http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/02/20/43514.html


:hi:

[Octafish]

60. The Dope Oliver North Ran a Dope, Inc.

The author is a former United States DEA agent, stationed in the Caribbean and Central America:

CONTRA-INTELLIGENCE
ON OLIVER L. NORTH

By Celerino "Cele" Castillo, 3rd
Former Federal Drug Agent and Author of:
Powderburns- Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War



EXCERPT...

Several years ago, the extreme right arm of the Christian Coalition selected to support Oliver North for U.S. Senate. Their support backfired and North became one of two Republicans who lost the elections that year. During North's campaign, I traveled to the Virginia to educate concern citizens on Oliver North. I went out to "grassroots" communities, and educated them on the criminal activities that Oliver North had been involved in during the 1980s. I went as far as challenging North to a debate. Of course, he refused.

During his failed 1994 campaign, he frequently claimed that there was no basis for any charges of his complicity in drug running, because as he keeps saying, "I'm the most investigated man on this planet." The truth of the matter is that the Iran-Contra special prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh, never investigated the drug trafficking allegations, because he did not consider it part of his mandate. The special prosecutor's original mandate from Congress was defined very narrowly, concentrating on the Iranian arms sales, the "diversion" of funds from the Iranian arms sales to the Contra operation, and on the Contra support operation as a violation of U.S. law.

During all the misdirected hoopla about Iran-Contra, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee (known as the "Kerry committee") continued its work. Jack Blum, an investigator for Senator Kerry, testified to the committee on Feb. 11, 1987 that the Contras move drugs "not by the pound, not by the bag, but by the ton, by the cargo planeloads."

In 1987, Henry Hyde, as a member of the congressional Iran-contra committee and a defense attorney, helped steer the panel away from any serious investigation of the contra-cocaine connection. His focus was to spare President Ronald Reagan and his vice president, George Bush from possible impeachment over the Iran-contra scandal and related drug crimes implicating the Nicaraguan contra army.

CONTINUED...

BTW: I love your graphic, seemslikeadream. Tree octopi, indeed.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. Everybody on all sides of the Cuba question should see the film

Honey for Oshun, which is about a Cuban-American man returning to the island to look for his mother. It portrays the problems quite frankly, but it also shows some of the good points of the society. It turns up on the Sundance Channel every once in a while.

My church is sponsoring a trip to Cuba in January. The group is going to be working on hurricane relief and establishing contacts with Anglicans there. I would like to have gone, but I don't have the money, and the trip has already filled up. I can't wait to hear everyone's stories when they come back.

[SoCalDem]

40. Here's a beautiful photo gallery of Cuba today..

For all the "doom & gloom" from the *² gang, life DOES go on in Cuba..

I am sure that if *² gets a chance, he will "invade" and settle once-and-for-all, the "Cuba problem"..

If there's "right of return", I may have to check into it.. My father was born there..hmmmm

http://www.pbase.com/jeweller/havana__cuba

[Judi Lynn]

41. So beautiful. You're right!

Loved the photos of guys playing in the big waves coming up over El Malecon, the photo of the man teaching the little kids to play their drums, and the cats on La Rampa.

This is a real treat, as most photos delivered to us from American media sources are taken standing in front of the most deserted, broken-down area in Havana. People who have gone to Cuba a lot have commented on that as being really WIERD, as it presents a truly distorted impression of the place.

The place looks very lively, doesn't it? Thanks a lot.

[murray hill farm]

47. Thanks for the pics

The first time i visited Cuba...one of my first thoughts was "I could live here"..is such a wonderous and magical little country with happy and friendly people..and such a rich history and such beauty. My second thought...was that my whole life,i had been lied to about Cuba and about Castro..Mika is 100% correct..the Cuban people love Castro. Are their poor people in Cuba..by American standards...yep! But they are not poor americans..and believe me..it is a different thing completely. Their are many small and imaculate farms in cuba..many with no electricity..but when you look at them, you do not see poverty...what u see is poor like the Quaker farmers in america...and all of Cuba is clean. The streets are clean..what u have heard and have been fed all of your lives about Cuba is a lie. A complete lie.

[Judi Lynn]

50. Thanks for sharing your impressions. Tremendous seeing you agree

with a great many people from the U.S., Canada, and the rest of the world which actually has NEVER had a travel ban in place and has always come and gone freely.

Americans have really been in the dark, wouldn't you say?

It's just GREAT hearing your comments. Thanks.

(Especially amusing remembering we had a reeking liar here who claimed she had been to Cuba, and wanted to inform us that raw sewage ran in the streets, or some such gibberish. She blew herself out of the water from sheer incompetance before posting very long, which is just as well. She was trying hard to score some points for the rightwingers who reallly DEMAND the travel ban on Americans wanting to see Cuba stays.)

[SoCalDem]

56. What's "funny" about Cuba (the right winger version)

Most of the "white people" LEFT Cuba in the 60's (my own family among them).. The people who were too poor, or who sided with Castro and were glad to have the bourgeoisie gone, are NOT Anglo by any stretch of the imagination.

The "vision" that so many Cuban Americans have ...the one where they return and reclaim what was once "theirs" is never gonna happen..

Most of the abuelos & abuelas are passing on, and their progeny never even knew Cuba.. To them it's a hodgepodge of old faded photos, and old stories told and re-told by aged relatives.

[indigobusiness]

55. People are people...wherever.

We sometimes forget this in the cloud of politics.

[Mitchie]

54. Cuba: No workers paradise.

Leftist fantasies exposed:

The scene is typical: the dog-end of a trade union branch meeting; members are tired after discussing complex pay and discipline issues; tired from listening to the hyper-activists glorying in the sound of their own voices; desperate to escape. Item 9 on the agenda of the hour-long meeting is expenses for a delegate to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign meeting. Exhausted hands fly up to approve the monies, without debate, voting as much for escape as for sanction.

Cuba has become a cause celebre among many on the left. For example, Michael Albert of Z-Magazine in the USA had to give a rearguard defense of his criticisms of Cuba's decision to murder a number of hijackers (his critics themselves being activists and opponents of state-murder in the US); anarchist superstar Noam Chomsky warmly supports Cuba's defiance of the US, staying stoically silent on Cuba's internal regime, save that it is a matter for Cubans themselves.

In European literature, Utopia was always supposed to be an imaginary far-flung Island in uncharted seas like the Caribbean; now, it seems, it is a very real island in perfectly well-charted waters for a good majority of the left — even if those are waters that have been well sailed by the USSR and its sundry fellow travelers. This misty eyed respect for Cuba would not be so worrying were it confined to the dying ranks of Tankie Stalinists; however, its tendrils reach well beyond them. Like Chomsky, many take an anti-American reflex and root for the underdog versus the hyper power: excusing the repressive parts of Castro's regime as mistakes, or excesses of siege warfare.

This is a siege that has been going on for a very long time. Castro's guerrillas emerged from the hills in 1959 to drive away the US-backed kleptocrat dictator Batista. What began as a simple nationalist movement was quickly driven into the “Communist” camp by the hostility of the American government. The new regime weathered numerous attempts to displace it, including Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion, and miscellaneous attempts by the CIA to assassinate Castro. Simultaneously, the former guerrillas declared for “Communism”, and abandoned dreams of national autarky by becoming a sugar plantation for the USSR rather than the US. (See Socialist Standard, April 1984).

The US has never been able to forgive the expropriation of its millionaires by Castro's party, and has maintained its siege ever since. For its part, the Castro regime has proven remarkably resilient (to the point at which American planners are now taking the 'biological resolution', i.e. Castro's death from old age, as the most likely way for them to advance their cause). In that time, the regime has maintained a tight control over the economy. At times, this has meant a heavy bureaucratic hand, requiring strings of permits to produce, distribute and export or import goods.

None of this has abolished the commodity nature of production, nor the wages system. A fact starkly illustrated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the loss of Cuba's export markets as well as the convenient supply of oil for industrial purposes. The economy underwent serious recession, from which it has yet to fully recover. Since then, the government has been trying to re-orientate the economy towards tourism to bring in essential foreign currency. This has led to a situation in which goods are produced solely to be consumed by tourists in their enclaves which are denied the Cuban workers.

The continued existence of the wages system has meant the need for measures to impose labor discipline. The Cuban state only recognizes one trade union federation, Central de Trabajadores Cubanos (CTC). This consists of unions entirely dominated by the ruling Communist Party, wherein officers are vetted (not just by their present affiliations, but on a documentary of their entire lives going back to their school records) before they are allowed to take up posts. Whilst independent trade unions are not entirely illegal, their existence is subject to repressive controls and harassment, beginning with the Associations Act (Leyes de Asociaciones) and escalating to the generally repressive political order laws. (Source: www.icftu.org).

As Amnesty International notes, in the past few years, the numbers of long term political dissidents imprisoned has fallen; but this is counter-posed by an increase in short-run harassment techniques, like arrest without trial, breaking up of meetings, threats of eviction, etc. According to the ICFTU (an organization which the British TUC is affiliated to) in the early months of this year over 78 union activists had been targeted by the Cuban state. One, for example, was arrested for attempting to resist a state organized eviction of a family.

Although Cuba nominally has 100 percent post-16 suffrage, this is restricted to candidates approved by the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Likewise, a plethora of laws make free criticism and electoral organization impossible: Article 144(17) of the criminal code prohibits disrespect to authority; Articles 200-201 preventing the spread and cause of panic and disorder have been used to imprison people publicly voicing criticisms; Article 103 prohibits 'enemy propaganda' which is interpreted as anyone inciting criticism of the Cuban system and its international allies; Article 203 criminalizes disrespect to the flag and symbols of the regime; Article 115 prevents the dissemination of 'false news against international peace'; and the piece de résistance is articles 72-74 which forbid anything 'dangerous', which can be anything the police and courts decide are so (www.amnesty.org/library/eng-cub/reports).

This battery of laws amounts to an arsenal fit to stop any independent thought and organization, and amounts to a capacity to arrest anyone the state doesn't like, any time they want. In a situation in which workers cannot hope to organize politically, it makes free association in trade unions impossible. All of this needs to be borne in mind when stories are repeated by supporters of Cuba (such as the Cuba Solidarity Campaign) about how workers have democracy and freedom to organize in Cuba; or of how workplace committees and trade unions decide industrial matters. Indeed, as the ICFTU points out, the requirements of the Labor Code demand that collective agreements be decided by both workers' meetings, and the employers, with the Communist Party being heavily involved on both sides of these negotiations. There is no legally-sanctioned right to strike.

Thus, although there are formal and nominal freedoms, much like in the USSR, in practice they are undermined by highly centralized capacity to crush dissent. In the absence of political and trade union freedoms, then, the working conditions of Cuban workers are hard. Their living standards drastically cut by the recent recessions, even if they “agreed” to this in mass meetings to save their jobs. International companies that invest in Cuba are compelled to hire their workers via agencies. These agencies pocket 95 percent of the dollar value of the wages. State officials maintain that this is to maintain Cuban equality, and not to direct the dollars into state hands. This despite the obvious stratification of Cuban society that has emerged.

The romantic supporters of Cuba put their concerns for “national rights” before class solidarity, in supporting the Cuban regime. They excuse its actions as a necessary defence against US aggression, and will it to survive against the greater power, even at the expense of its workers' lives and liberties. And they can point to its impressive record on health care, education and education (much better than in much of the rest of Latin America: including a healthy 76 year life expectancy).

Cuba does indeed show what could be possible, even with meagre resources to meet the needs of human beings, and how artificial the deprivation across much of the rest of the world is. But the difference in treatment stems largely from an autarkic nation's need to maintain a functioning workforce versus the surplus population of the mono-export countries of much of the rest of South America.

Socialists do not consider that the best way to assist the workers of Cuba is to support the régime that dragoons them in siege warfare with the US, but that the spread of the world socialist revolution is the only way to rescue them from the unpalatable set of choices facing them. To do that, we need to free socialism from the taint of the undemocratic methods applied in Cuba and stand clearly for the political freedoms of association and speech for the working class the world over, so as better to spread the ideas and consciousness required for the building of a truly stateless classless world co-operative commonwealth.

http://www.worldsocialism.com/cuba.htm

[Mika]

59. Links please (that work)

You are redefining the Cuban constitution - 3rd hand.

Please post links to the constitutional articles you refered to, and then we'll translate them properly, instead of using the wingnut attributes.




As to the communist party running elections and selecting candidates.. one word - bullshit.

http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html


--



".. anarchist superstar Noam Chomsky.." :+


Got a real laugh out of that one.