Defector sees Cuba in crisis

Cuba's former ambassador to the United Nations, who recently defected to the United States, said last week that Cuba is primed for a "social explosion," but the military is ready and willing to put down any unrest that might threaten Cuban socialism or coincide with the death of President Fidel Castro.

Thank you for the PING and the POST! Great article.

But the highest levels of the Cuban hierarchy - a handful of people with a lot of power - would not hesitate. They completely back Fidel."

They like being in power. Being one of the masses, just won't cut it.

More than 90 percent of all Cuban diplomats assigned to New York and Washington are engaged in espionage.

It's worse than that!!!

Sept. 29, 2001, 11:53PM/ Analyst at Pentagon arrested on charges of spying for Havana / FBI says espionage goes back 5 years / By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS / New York Times ****In 1992 or 1993, she pulled off what seemed to be an intelligence coup. She traveled to Cuba and interviewed Cuban generals about economic reforms on the island. In 1998, she played an important role in drafting a widely cited analysis that found that Cuba's much diminished military posed no strategic threat to the United States. As recently as the week before last, she briefed top Pentagon policy-makers on Cuba. According to the FBI affidavit, Montes, who had a high-level security clearance, spied for Cuba for at least five years, and possibly longer. She identified at least one U.S. undercover agent to the Cubans, disclosed a top-secret intelligence-gathering program and reported on U.S. training in the Caribbean, the FBI said. Current and former U.S. officials say she was in a position to tell have told Havana virtually everything the intelligence community knew about Cuba's military and might even have disclosed U.S. contingency plans for taking the island by force.***

Changing U.S. policy to ease the economic embargo or travel restrictions on Cuba would help prolong the regime.

Cuba woos heart of U.S. with trade - Reich: "…irrational interest by the Farm Bureau"***(Otto) Reich also suggested that U.S. businesses are being used by Cuba's political sympathizers and being suckered by Castro. "What we believe he wants to do here is to entice the U.S. agricultural community by buying relatively small amounts . . . to entice them with cash purchases so that we open up markets and have, quote, normal trade relationships," Reich said. That would mean allowing Cuba to buy goods on credit. He points to Cuba's billions in unpaid debts to other trading partners, saying the U.S. would be left "holding the bag" like other countries.

"If (Castro) can pay in cash, the administration is not going to stand in the way, but I think people should be very careful who goes down there," Reich said of U.S. business executives. "They're going to go to the Tropicana, they're going to listen to Cuban music, which is very nice, and eat Cuban food, which by the way the Cubans don't have access to, and they're going to stay in hotels the Cubans are not allowed to stay in."

…Asked if he thinks U.S. food and agriculture exporters, while operating within the law, are not acting in the national interest in pursuing Cuba's business, Reich answered: "Yes, I would make that (argument). Because - and they have the right to do it - it is delaying the transition to democracy in Cuba."***

"As long as there are no reforms improving the level of life for the Cuban people, there should be no friendly discussions toward Castro," he said.

He's exactly right! When do you reward someone for oppression, terrorism and espionage? This is the question to ask those who want to give him something for nothing. He's earned the embargo. Let him begin the process of reform before we give him so much as a look at a carrot.

Fidel Castro - Cuba

MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR HEIST
OF U.S. TREASURY BY CASTRO

Business/Economy
By Jesus J. Chao
Multibillion-Dollar Heist of U.S. Treasury by Castro

Castro is coming close to obtaining his life long dream of having U.S. taxpayers granting him over 7 billion dollars annually as a non-deductible charitable donation. The American people should not allow themselves to be fooled by Castro’s lobby; this is what they mean by ending the U.S. commercial embargo, opening an unlimited credit account for buying in the U.S. without expectations of ever being repaid.

The Soviet Union that kept Castro in power is gone and so are the 6 billion dollars a year and over 150 billion dollars in military aid; and has almost exhausted the largesse of the Western countries including Japan, which willingly accepted to be defrauded by the Cuban tyrant of many billions of dollars of un-collectable debts, Castro is now counting on his strong lobby in the United States to end the embargo and open for him the doors to Fort Knox.

Castro’s debt to Spain is 11.2 billion dollars so far, and the Spanish pirates are being paid, in part, with American properties stolen by Castro and whose legitimate owners are U.S. citizens. Similar is the case with Cuba’s debts to Argentina, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the Paris Club of European banks, and every other country that jumped in and risked shadowy dealings with an international outlaw, as is the case of the international promoted prostitution based tourism trade.

Before jumping into Cuba’s economic black hole, American investors and the American people should be aware that according to the 1995 country investment risk survey, made by the specialized magazine Euromoney, Cuba was rated in 183rd place out of 187 countries, ranking below Somalia. The Financial Times reported on June 30, 1995. “Why then, investors may ask, should they bother with Cuba in a world replete with opportunities and more welcoming governments?” The country’s investments situation have worsened considerably since 1995. Cuba’s per capita income went down from $364 in 1958 (fourth in Latin America according to the International Monetary Fund and with a strong currency on par with the dollar), to $48 year income and a worthless currency. What kind of return can the foreign investors expect?

“Useful idiots” in the U.S. Congress such as Jose Serrano, Charles Rangel, Sheila Jackson Lee and Senator Christopher Todd, among others, who strongly opposed president’s Bush tax relief for overburdening American taxpayers; are demanding, along with the unrelenting 42 year support of the radical left controlled media, the World Council of Churches and many other fellow travelers and communist front organizations, that the U.S. taxpayers bankroll Castro’s reign of terror.

The American people seem to have forgotten that President Kennedy instituted the embargo in February 1962, after Castro had seized billions of dollars of American assets. That was Castro’s first heist of the American treasure, now he is aiming to raid Fort Knox with the approval of the American people.

Cuba Offers to Help U.S. Contain West Nile Virus*** HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba offered on Friday to help the United States contain an outbreak of West Nile virus because it says the disease could spread to the Caribbean and Central America when infected birds begin migrating south in the autumn. "The government of Cuba is prepared to cooperate in any way it can with the authorities of the United States and other countries in research and efforts to counter this new danger to the health of the population of this hemisphere," the Cuban government said in a statement.

Cuba has made major advances in tropical medicine and recently controlled an outbreak of dengue, a disease that is spread to humans by mosquitoes, as is the West Nile virus. Cuban doctors currently are helping fight dengue in Honduras, one of the Central American countries hit by an outbreak of the potentially fatal disease. No case of West Nile virus, which is moving across the United States mainly through bird migration, has been detected south of the U.S. border, in Cuba or in any other Caribbean and Latin American nation, the statement published by the ruling Communist Party's daily Granma said. ***

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