(January 21, 2002) Miami Herald Cuban torture suspect's citizenship targeted
(May 7, 2000) Miami Herald-- CUBA'S ABUSES OF PSYCHIATRY-- Based on the government's view of normality, Cuban officials have impugned the sanity of persistent Castro critics, arguing in effect that opposition to the regime is so abnormal that dissidents must be mentally ill.
Cubans wave Cuban flags in front of a poster representing Fidel Castro, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2002, in San Antonio Del Sur, near Guantanamo, Cuba, during a demonstration to support the five Cubans convicted of espionage in the United States. (AP Photo/Jose Goitia)
Wake up!
It is the last humiliation. --- [Excerpt] What would a continuation of communism mean to the Cuban people? The late writer, Reinaldo Arenas, Columbia University, New York, August 30, 1980: It appears admirable the naivete of talking about human rights to the dictators, when they exist precisely because they have suppressed all of those rights. The final goal of a totalitarian power is simply, the power. For and by that power dictatorships exist. To maintain that power, this power is capable of anything, not only, I say, the destruction of one human being (something, in reality, very fragile), of one writer, of one intellectual, of one worker, if not complete generations; of a people in general. And, if possible, of the human being in its totality.
Therefore, we cannot affirm without committing the sin of the naives, that Stalin has annihilated only 15 or 20 million human beings. The totalitarian system has annihilated, simply, all of the Russian people, just as in Cuba, the Cubans are being annihilated. All the inhabitants of all of those totalitarian systems have to resign in order to survive, precisely of their human condition, of life, put on a mask, play a role, stop being. Authenticity (not only of the intellectual, but any vital attitude) goes to the land of the clandestine. We are publicly the enemies of ourselves, so, in secret, with deftness, eventually, each time more fleetingly, becoming our shadow . . ..
For me I do not stop wondering at the fact that in the democratic countries, when a person is sentenced to die, he is not first forced to applaud and beg, screaming for such a sentence. What a privilege, for me, really incredible to put the head quietly in the guillotine, without having to improvise and oblige a speech praising the magnanimity of the cruel one, without before having to become your own cruel one.
That denial of true self, forced upon the citizens inside the totalitarian communist society is the real Cuba. It is the total lack of freedom in all aspects of your exterior and true inner self. It is the absence of hope and future, the impossibility to have a say and the lack of opportunity to participate in your own destiny and to help your own country. It is the disqualification of ownership and participation as an individual citizen in business transactions. It is to resign to keep your mouth shut at all times and go along with all the daily injustices, discrimination, apartheid, abuses and crimes. It is the impotence against the destruction of the environment and the extinction of species. It is the impossibility to leave and return to your own country in a civilized manner. All while publicly, dutifully applauding and cheering the overbearing power crushing you from all directions. It is the last humiliation.
All that and much more - like the documented deaths of 97,582 Cubans - is due to the obstinate ambition for total power and control by a single man shielded by a political system that perfected oppression and slavery in the 20th century. But the U.S. business community and other misguided souls, not quite content with the mistake done in China, want to do business with Castro who, in 1986, suspended payment on his foreign debt. All of it.
Where are the best minds of America? Is Castro right when he calls Americans "stupid"? Is this kind of stupidity what waits for us in the future? For sure, we have to improve an educational system that is engendering this irrational way of thinking placing blinders on the eyes of the population. And the U.S. media should be accountable for its part in the selective misinformation provided to the American people, making them savvy and empathetic toward the victims of Nazism but leaving them floundering in relation to what communism is all about and how to deal with it. The ignorance makes Americans totally oblivious and insensitive toward the victims of communism, that in 2001, are still crying for help.
Cuba is just 90 miles away. It is not too late to learn about what has been going on there for the last 42 years. Americans must learn once and for all that a trip to Cuba as a foreigner will not suffice to render an educated opinion about what you cannot experience with your own skin. Listen to the victims, they are the real Cuba. © 2001 ABIP [End Excerpt] CUBA 101
Castro's D.C. hostess, Sally Grooms Cowal,Youth for Understanding President before being set up by money from Smith Bagley (Elian DNC fundraiser host) to head the Cuba Policy Foundation, just led a U.S. Congressional group to Havana. She's cashing in her chips.
Other ARCA Foundation (Smith Bagley) beneficiaries : Pastors for Peace and the National Council of Churches--( From 1994 to 1998, Arca awarded about $3 million for pro-Castro projects)---Time for a new tally!
Doing business in Cuba means doing business with the Communist government [Excerpt] Labiofam is one of the several state firms involved in developing a pharmaceutical industry that Cuba hopes will be a key foreign currency earner. Labiofam is headed by Antonio Fraga Castro, reportedly a nephew of President Fidel Castro.
Sources close to the case have said Vesco was denounced by his foreign business partners, leading to the investigation.
The Foreign Ministry said in June of last year that Vesco was being investigated on suspicion of being an ``agent for foreign special services.''
Sources close to the case said this month that Vesco had refused consular visits from U.S. officials since his arrest but had been visited several times by Italian embassy officials. They said Vesco was moved from jail to custody in a Havana hospital last December because of a medical problem [End Excerpt]
(January 21, 2002) Miami Herald Cuban torture suspect's citizenship targeted