Fidel Castro

This is a LINK to articles since April 21, 2001 about Cuba and the communist threat - CHILDREN'S CODE At this LINK is a LINK to many Elian articles. Below I will post similar articles since the FR format changed and locked posts to this LINK. Please add what you wish to this thread.

Eyes Wide Open--[Excerpts] The Los Angeles kids, chosen for their photographic skills and their ability to work with others, represented the Venice Arts Mecca, a nonprofit organization that brings volunteer artists together with youngsters from low-income families to nurture their creativity in areas ranging from literary arts to photography. They looked. They listened. They photographed. And they took notes for their journals.

…….Before embarking on their adventure, the kids--who were joined by two young people from Washington, D.C., and accompanied by adult mentors--studied the sociopolitical history of South Africa, including apartheid. All were Latino or African American or a mix of the two, and were encouraged to think about their own identity, their own experiences with racism.

……..Before embarking on their adventure, the kids--who were joined by two young people from Washington, D.C., and accompanied by adult mentors--studied the sociopolitical history of South Africa, including apartheid. All were Latino or African American or a mix of the two, and were encouraged to think about their own identity, their own experiences with racism.

…..At the conference exhibit hall, the L.A. kids mounted a photo exhibition showing the underbelly of America. There were bleak images of life on an Indian reservation, of the homeless in Los Angeles. It was an eye-opener to some South Africans, who thought everyone in America was rich. "They were absolutely shocked," said Lynn Warshafsky, executive director of Venice Arts Mecca.

In turn, the L.A. group was surprised at the degree of anti-American sentiment, something they had to process. "They had to ask themselves questions they'd never asked before" about how others see them, Warshafsky said.

……..For Eamon, the highlight was hearing Fidel Castro speak. "I had thought of him as seriously evil. I realized he's not evil, he's doing what he thinks is best. He has this sort of demeanor about him. Whether you like him or not, you respect him. It opened my eyes." [End Excerpts]

Cuba Is Different: Why the China argument" doesn't hold. *** China and later Cuba have both turned to capitalism as a last ditch effort to preserve communism. In China, it has worked. The communist dictatorship across the Pacific is stronger from 25 years of foreign engagement, but it has come at the price of a burgeoning middle class and new freedoms afforded to millions that never existed before Nixon's fateful visit. Without America's trade and investment, however, China's communist dictatorship likely would have already collapsed under its own dead weight.

Knowing that trade has facilitated the continued survival of communism in China, maybe we didn't choose the best path. But hindsight is irrelevant, because you cannot put the baby back in the womb. With China a major trading partner - and growing, a sudden fall of the regime is far from America's interests.

In Cuba, however, we have no existing economic interests, and Castro is an old man. There are a few heir apparents, but Castro's cult of personality is the glue holding the deteriorating machine together. So long as the embargo remains in place, Castro's successor, and with him communism, will fail.

Doing business with Cuba unavoidably props up the regime because of the way Castro has designed the rules of the game. Castro double-dips from joint ventures: first by splitting the profits, and secondly by stealing from the Cuban workers. Foreign companies don't employ Cuban workers; they rent them. Companies must pay Castro for each worker, in cash, and the regime in turn pockets 95 percent, doling out the remaining 5 percent in pesos.

At least in China, those employed by American companies are paid directly by the corporation and usually have the benefit of exposure to American culture and values. Chinese employees of American companies are immediately vaulted into the middle, and often the upper-middle, class. Many of these employees of American corporations make enough money to send their kids to private schools, a freedom that would never be allowed in Castro's brutal society.

More importantly than the different nature of trade with China, though, is the simple geographic fact that Cuba is a stone's throw away from our shores. Our foreign policy has always recognized a distinction between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. Reagan began the push for freedom in Latin America as a move to enhance our national security. Normal trading with Castro, in fact, would be an exception from our policy toward thugs in Latin America.***

Castro said he was "hurt" to think Americans would believe that Cuba supported terrorism or could be involved in any way with weapons of mass destruction. "

He has a short memory, doesn't he?

(C)old War Ghost- Cubans in Angola

I *thought* I had more links & can't locate them, but Castro's bloody fingers have been on "national liberation movements," terrorism, and various "proxy of the old Soviet Union" revolutions from the start.

The sad thing is people continue to be duped by this propaganda- I see more & more "Che" t-shirts showing up at demonstrations.

Fugitive from U.S. prison ward finds shelter in Cuba *** HAVANA -- Guillermo Morales is a shy, soft-spoken man with streaks of gunpowder embedded in his nose, chin and cheeks and nubs where his hands should be. In 1978, as a member of a militant Puerto Rican separatist group, Morales blew off his hands when a pipe bomb he was assembling in a New York safe house accidentally exploded.

Sentenced to 89 years in prison for firearms possession, Morales escaped from a Bellevue Hospital prison ward in 1979 and went underground for several years before slipping across the border into Mexico. The Mexican government refused to extradite him, and in 1988 Morales fled to Havana, where he has found a haven outside the grasp of U.S. authorities.

Morales is not worried about being extradited and will live here until he is cleared of his charges or given a full presidential pardon, something his lawyer briefly looked into before President Clinton left office. Eleven former FALN members, including Dylcia Pagan, Morales' ex-wife, received pardons from Clinton during his last days in office. But once Morales knew he would have to return to the United States and prison, he dropped his inquiry.***

Coddling Castro***America's continued embargo of Cuba is not, as the CSG and its allies contend, a "failed policy." Quite the contrary; the sanctions have caged in Castro, limiting his financial resources. His communist government was forced to do something our Congress hasn't done in a very long time: cut the public payroll. The Cuban regime had massive layoffs in the early 1990's, precisely because Castro didn't have access to American cash. The laid-off workers, estimated at 250,000, created a new self-employed class of cab drivers and home-based restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts, though the government tightly restricted growth factors such as capacity and total volume. When the self-employed sector started to become too successful, Castro put the squeeze on through more red tape and punitive taxes. Cuban officials now brag that they managed to pare back the self-employment rolls by some 100,000 people.

Looking at the experience of the self-employed, it is easy to foresee that if the Cuban people did manage to benefit from booming trade and travel, Castro would respond immediately and put a stop to it, just as he has done time and again. In the 1980's, crop shortages were wreaking havoc on the Cuban economy. Acting as any economist would, Castro allowed farmers to sell off excess crops, a move clearly designed to spark increased production. It worked--a little too well. Some of these farmers were turning excess production to "exotic" crops, such as garlic. Many of these co-op farmers became filthy rich, at least by Cuban standards. Castro brutally shut down what he termed "Garlic Millionaires," and the policy abruptly ended in 1986.

With Castro getting up there in years, the last thing America should do is to institutionalize communism. Whoever succeeds Castro will have a very difficult time without Castro's cult of personality or access to American capital. Our policy should be predicated on the desire for tyranny in Cuba to die with Castro, something recognized by President George W. Bush.***

Cuba's elite must consider life without Castro*** The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba is the regime's key political organ. The median birth year of its members is 1943. Three out of four of its members joined the Political Bureau after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and have governed Cuba for over a decade without Soviet subsidies or troops posted in Africa. They are not ready to retire. They expect to govern Cuba after Castro's passing, and they believe that they can govern it effectively according to their preferences.

The Cuban political system survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and European communist governments. Cuban leaders take credit for this political success. Domestic political instability has declined compared to the early 1990s. The economy has recovered since 1993. The policy changes adopted for this recovery worked as the leadership had hoped. The economy has not regained its level of the late 1980s, and it was hurt by the worldwide recession in 2001-2002, but Cuban leaders believe that the worst is over. Moreover, they believe that no new significant economic reforms are necessary because the recovery remains on course.***

Varela Project: The humiliation and indignity of Cuban dissidents seeking permission to be free *** A better strategy for Paya Sardiña is to seek support for the laudable principles that he advocates under the recently enacted Inter-American Democratic Charter and the OAS Charter. These and other international agreements recognize the principles that he is advocating as fundamental human and civil rights. If the principles are couched in these agreements, then the democratic governments that have signed onto documents like the Convention must rally to Paya Sardiña's cause.

So what might Thomas Jefferson say to the Cuban people? He might advise: The rights of free men do not owe their origins to constitutions or referendums. They are God-given and inalienable rights. The Cuban people should not be seeking the Cuban government's or anyone else's permission to assert them. Paya Sardiña and his supporters should simply declare those rights.***

Bush is focused on Cuban freedom***Reasonable people can differ on the efficacy of the embargo, but surely all Americans ought to be able to agree that Castro's reign is an affront to human decency and a blot on the Western Hemisphere. So why is it that so many critics of the administration's position expend far more energy denouncing the US embargo than calling for an end to Castro's repression? The abuse of Cuban dissenters doesn't seem to anger them nearly as much as the loss of business opportunities caused by the US ban. What really motivates the antiembargo lobby? A yen for liberty - or for profits?

A few days before Bush's speech, 14 members of the congressional Cuba Working Group held a press conference to discuss their views of US policy toward Cuba. My transcript of the event runs to 12 pages of single-spaced type. It is a revealing document. All 14 congressmen spoke, yet not one expressed outrage over the way Castro suffocates the Cuban people. Not one denounced the lack of free speech or the elaborate network of government informers or the misery that drives countless Cubans each year to risk death in an effort to escape Fidelismo. Oh, there was a passing reference now and then to democracy or human rights, but on the whole the Cuba Working Group seemed to get passionate only when the topic turned to the quantities of dried beans and chicken legs that Cuba is supposedly keen to import. Would 14 members of a South Africa Working Group in the 1980s have called a press conference and neglected to express their revulsion for apartheid?

At one point Representative James McGovern of Massachusetts saluted former president Jimmy Carter for ''having the guts to go to Cuba, for standing before the Cuban government and speaking the truth about human rights.'' But when I asked McGovern the other day whether he was equally proud of Bush for speaking the truth about human rights, he pronounced himself ''very disappointed with the president's speech. It was precisely the opposite of what the dissidents have asked for.'' It is true that some Cuban dissidents call for an immediate end to the US embargo. But others call for it to remain in force until Castro leaves. And still others want what Bush wants - an end to economic sanctions but only in exchange for irrevocable democratic reform.

McGovern says the promotion of democracy and human rights is the very raison d'etre of the Cuba Working Group. Perhaps so. But while he and his colleagues persist in talking about the embargo, Bush is reminding the world that the real issue is freedom. The polestar of his Cuba policy is liberty, not chicken legs. When the Cuban people are free at last, they will not forget his steadfastness.***

1999 - Tyrant Aficionado - Fidel's Crony Capitalism*** Castro, who allegedly earns a modest salary in Cuban pesos as Cuban President and has no other sources of income, has actually amassed an incredible personal fortune. The July 28, 1997, issue of Forbes magazine lists Fidel Castro as one of the richest people in the world, with a net worth of $1.4 billion. However, Forbes' estimate of the funds that Castro actually controls may be lower than his true worth. It merely assigns to him 10 percent of an estimate of Cuba's gross domestic product. But the truth is that, in addition to controlling the Cuban economy, Castro possesses and personally controls international bank accounts and large amounts of gold and commodities, and has done so virtually from the very moment he grabbed power over the Island in 1959.

Castro may claim that he doesn't care for money, but he has a stash of cash totalling several millions of dollars hidden away in banks in Zürich and other financial centers of the very Capitalist world he profess to despise. He has a private fleet of large yachts, helicopters, planes and luxury cars, and keeps stately homes in each of Cuba's 14 provinces. While the Cuban people struggle with housing shortages, Castro reserves hundreds of houses in Havana's Jaimanitas beach section for the use of his security guards and aides. While Castro demands austerity from the people, he and his close associates order and send home foreign luxury items and use government satellite dishes to tune in to U.S. televised movies and sport events.

Until very recently Castro managed himself to push forward his image as a socialist Mr. Clean contrasting with the image of widespread corruption in Latin America and during Cuba's previous history. Now it seems that Mr. Clean has dirty hands. When Forbes published its estimate of Castro's personal fortune, some foreign observes believed that the revelation placed him in a difficult position before the Cuban people, because it tarnished his image as a sworn enemy of capitalism, constantly asking the Cuban people for sacrifices and austerity in the name of socialism. But that is not the case. Perhaps Castro fooled some of his admirers in the U.S., but he never fooled the Cuban people. From the very beginning Cubans changed the name of the political system Castro imposed in Cuba from socialismo to sociolismo (from "socio," Cuban slang for "buddy" or "crony"), a tropical version of crony capitalism.***

Sen. Boxer: 'Communism Is Dead' in Cuba ***California's ultra-left-wing senator, Barbara Boxer, insists that "Communism is dead" in Castro's Cuba. Boxer made these comments in late May at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing when Otto Reich, the assistant secretary of state for Latin America, testified. Boxer was arguing in favor of an amendment to the Trade Bill that would allow private U.S. financing of food sales to Cuba.

Boxer told Reich she is unhappy with the Bush administration's hard-line policy with Cuba, and that she holds a different view after a recent trip to the enslaved island nation. While admitting that Castro had helped to spread communism, she told Reich and her colleagues: "It's a new day. Comunnism is dead. It's even dead in Cuba. I hate to say it, it's dead."

Boxer's evidence of this new discovery - which has yet make even the liberal New York Times? She explained, "Castro may think he has communism, but he's got a whole dollar economy going and I went to the restaurants and there's all kinds of capitalism over there."***

Fidel Castro rejects Bush's vision of democracy during speech in pouring rain - June 1, 2002 - By VIVIAN SEQUERA, AP [Full Text] HOLGUIN, Cuba - Speaking before hundreds of thousands of people in the pouring rain, President Fidel Castro said Saturday that the kind of democracy U.S. President George W. Bush wants to impose on Cuba is a corrupt and unfair political system that ignores the poor.

"For Mr. W, democracy only exists where money solves everything and where those who can afford a dlrs 25,000-a-plate dinner - an insult to the billions of people living in the poor, hungry and underdeveloped world - are the ones called to solve the problems of society and the world," Castro said in his continuing attack on Bush's hard line policies toward the island.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro gives a speech in the pouring rain in Holguin, Cuba, some 800 km east of Havana, Saturday, June 1, 2002. Speaking before hundreds of thousands of people in the Castro said Saturday that the kind of democracy President Bush wants to impose on Cuba is a corrupt and unfair political system that ignores the poor. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera)

Castro's early morning address is part of the communist government's answer to Bush's May 20 speeches in Washington and Miami. Bush vowed that trade sanctions against Cuba would not be lifted until all political prisoners are freed, independently monitored elections are allowed and a series of other conditions are accepted for a "new government that is fully democratic."

A week ago, Castro made a similar speech answering Bush's declarations, telling the American people that they should never fear an attack by Cuba and can always count on this communist country's support in the war against terrorism. Saturday's speech in this eastern provincial capital was aimed directly at Bush.

"None of our leaders is a millionaire like the President of the United States, whose monthly wage is almost twice that of all the members of (Cuba's) Council of State and the Council of Ministers in a year," Castro told several hundred thousand people who traveled here from across the rural eastern provinces of Holguin, Las Tunas and Granma provinces.

"The criminal blockade he has promised to tighten will only multiply the honor and glory of our people," Castro declared of Bush's stated intention to maintain and tighten U.S. restrictions on trade and travel with the Caribbean nation.

Castro contrasted the political and economic systems in the United States and Cuba, saying that his government cares much better for its people.

"Every child in Cuba, regardless of his parents' income and the color of his skin, has high quality health care services ensured from his birth until the end of his life," he declared. "The same applies to education, from kindergarten until graduation as a Ph.D., and that absolutely free of charge.

"No other country in Latin America gets even remotely close to Cuba in any of these indicators," he continued. "In Cuba, there is not one single child begging in the streets or working to make a living instead of attending school. Nor are there narcotics that poison and destroy teen-agers and young people. [End]

Anti-Castro Organizations Bombed - Mon Jun 3, 2002 - [Full Text] MIAMI (AP) - Two organizations that oppose Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba were slightly damaged by Molotov cocktails on Monday in what police believe were related attacks. The firebombs were thrown at the buildings of the Cuban American National Foundation and Alpha 66 before employees arrived. No one was injured.

The two organizations are a little over a mile apart in Miami's Little Havana area. Police Lt. Bill Schwartz said the attacks, in the same neighborhood and at the same time, were likely related and "meant as a message." Mariela Ferretti, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said she was not aware of any recent threats. Jesus Hoyos, Alpha 66's chief of operations, said it was the fourth time his organization has been targeted. The offices have been burned out in past attacks, he said. [End]

Castro's Cuba Bad for Business*** The experience of foreign investors in Cuba is replete with horror stories. In 1995, when the "liberalizing" law was passed, the Cuban government unilaterally canceled Spanish utility company Endesa's investments in hotels. Mexico's Grupo Domos found itself arbitrarily slapped with enormous back-tax penalties, and Canada's First Key Project Technologies' proposal to build a $350 million power plant was stolen by the Cuban government and shopped around elsewhere.

Cuba last year devalued its currency by 18 percent and fell behind in debt payments of $500 million to private banks and firms in France, Spain, Japan, Canada, Chile and Venezuela. (This does not include the repayment of government trade credits to France for the last four years and the principal on foreign debt of $35 billion.) With export prices down in nickel, sugar and tobacco, along with a fall in tourism and remittances from abroad, Cuba will remain an economic basket case. Doing business in countries that violate labor rights is not considered good business practice.

In Cuba, workers in foreign joint ventures are paid $400 to $500 a month, except that the Cuban government contracts the workers and pays them 400 to 500 pesos, or $20 a month, instead. Exploitation of child labor is officially tolerated, and it is commonplace to find children as young as 8 who are working. Finally, liberalizing exports to Cuba will produce a revenue windfall for customs brokerages, wholesale, distribution and retail stores -- all government-operated. This will provide increased money for Mr. Castro's intelligence and security services and neighborhood vigilante organizations, further postponing democracy and economic freedom in Cuba.

There are a score of countries in the Caribbean Basin that embrace free markets, political democracy and institutional reforms, thereby offering far greater opportunities than Cuba.***

Senators question Bush's Cuba policy - Dodd irritated about "playing politics"*** The comments left some lawmakers irritated. "The issue of biological weapons is a serious matter and we in the Congress should refrain from the temptation to play politics with it. So, too, should the Bush administration," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. Added Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.: "The State Department has a responsibility to have a unified position and make sure everyone is not saying one thing to one group that they're not saying to another." Administration sources said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, now traveling in Europe, was to reiterate U.S. views concerning Cuba and biological weapons during a speech today before NATO allies. ***

Israel's Forgotten Enemy ***In 1975, the United Nations passed an infamous resolution that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." Cuba was on the side of the anti-Zionists, and Granma praised the resolution for demonstrating "the identical imperialist origins and racist structure of the Israeli Zionist regime that is occupying Palestine and the one that is exploiting the black masses in South Africa." The U.N. repealed the resolution in 1991, which Cuba opposed.

The Cuban embassy in Beirut was Arafat's headquarters during Israel's campaign to rout the brutal PLO mini-state in southern Lebanon. Neil C. Livingstone and David Halevy write in Inside the PLO, "Many of the PLO fighters captured by the Israelis during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon had been provided with advanced training in Cuba, including various special operations and demolitions courses."

Castro's aid to Israel's enemies continues to this day. Irving Louis Horowitz notes in the spring issue of The National Interest that "Training and arming Palestinians from the PLO forces [by Cuba] is ongoing." Granma admitted as much on March 30: "Cuba reiterates its full support for the heroic struggle of the Arab peoples, in particular that of the Palestinians, against Israeli occupation and aggression, and declares its solidarity with their resistance and defiance [emphasis added]."

And have Jewish organizations denounced Castro's demonization of the Jewish homeland and sponsorship of its enemies?

A visit to the Anti-Defamation League's website finds reports and press releases on anti-Zionism in Arab media but nothing on Cuban anti-Zionism. Cuban Jews' silence is understandable; to criticize Granma or Castro risks being charged with "crimes" like "enemy propaganda" and "disrespect."

In addition to being the most anti-Zionist regime in the Western hemisphere, Cuba is one of only seven regimes classified by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. While chronically histrionic, Fidel Castro is no mere buffoon. This autocrat perpetrates savagery internally and promotes it abroad. Friends of America and Israel should be mindful of this menace.***

U.S. Diplomat Walks Rocky Cuba Road - Silenced under Clinton*** During the Clinton administration, Huddleston kept a relatively low profile, meeting quietly with dissidents and traveling to provincial areas to ensure unsuccessful migrants weren't harassed after being returned home by the U.S. Coast Guard. Huddleston has had a higher profile under Bush, who recently reiterated that American trade and travel restrictions on Cuba will not be eased until competitive elections are held. She insists her recent tough talk on human rights and democracy is more the result of her increased familiarity with Cuba than the change in presidents.

"I don't think the Cuban government, like the rest of us, can resist the passage of time," Huddleston said last month during an interview in her home, built before Castro's 1959 revolution as the American ambassador's residence. Huddleston now has Washington's blessing to freely speak with journalists, something she could not do under President Clinton. She has traveled repeatedly to Miami for interviews, telling reporters she believes a transition began in Cuba a year ago when Castro fainted briefly during a speech in the searing sun.***

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