Politically diverse group calls for ties with Cuba

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan advisory group, including a former Republican congressman, business leaders and influential Cuban-Americans, issued a report Thursday that renewed calls for the Bush administration to break with what they called 41 years of a failed policy.

The conclusions of the 16-page report, "U.S.-Cuba Relations, Time for a New Approach," aren't unique. But the makeup of the commission and the people articulating the message of normalizing ties with Cuba are new.

The commission's members include Peter Magowan, president and managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants; former Texas Gov. Ann Richards; Carlos Saladrigas, chairman of Premier American Bank in Miami; Thomas Wenski, auxiliary bishop at the Archdiocese of Miami; and William Frenzel, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971 to 1991.

"Despite the diverse perspectives of our members, we agree that the time is ripe for engagement, not isolation, and that should become the core of U.S. policy toward Cuba," said former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico James R. Jones. "Our national interest and security require we begin a dialogue with Cuba."

Mr. Jones chaired the Cuba Policy Advisory Group under the auspices of the Center for National Policy in Washington.

The report, which calls on the Bush administration, the Cuban government and Congress to begin a "negotiated normalization" process, sets the tone for what's expected to be another showdown this year with the Bush administration over Cuba policy.

It comes amid a growing sentiment that the days of the decades-old policy are numbered. Miami's Cubans, who once dominated the anti-Castro debate, are no longer as uniformly hard-line as they once were. Many now speak in favor of normalization, joining farmers from the Midwest and policy leaders from the Northeast.

President Bush has vowed to veto any move aimed at easing the embargo. He has said a substantial softening of U.S. policy would come only after the communist government of President Fidel Castro is out of power.

Among the recommendations from the report are a moratorium on harsh, negative rhetoric and removal of the current limit on remittances that can be sent legally to people in Cuba.

The report also calls for a streamlining of bureaucratic regulations to make it easier for Americans to sell food, medicine and medical products to Cuba and to expand the types of products that may be sold.

It's Cool Again to Be Communist--[Excerpt] The world appears to be shaking off its post-Soviet repudiation of Marxism and left-wing extremism. In Genoa, the revanchist branch of the Italian Communist Party - their red banners and Che Guevara flags heralding the re-emergence of a militance not seen since the 1960s - led the bloody vanguard of violent protest against the industrialized democracies.

From its seedy Soviet-built headquarters in Budapest, the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), created half a century ago as an international Soviet-front organization under the control of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee and the KGB, and somehow still alive, goaded the protesters on with inflammatory statements of support. When the Genoa violence subsided, WFDY issued a release saluting the protesters and condemning vehemently "the brutal and cruel attack and treatment of the demonstrators by the Italian security forces" and the "cold-blooded killing" of a masked protester who was trying to slam a fire extinguisher through a police-car window.

"In the 1980s we observed that Marxist-Leninist antidemocratic groups were consistently supported and helped by misguided members of the left wing of the Social Democratic parties in Europe and a number of other regions," says Constantine C. Menges, a former national intelligence officer at the CIA who is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. "Regrettably, they seem to have learned little from the revelations that followed the unraveling of communism in Eastern Europe, and it appears that many of these misguided groups and individuals are back supporting antidemocratic, radical causes. As examples, they are supporting the [Hugo] Chavez regime in Venezuela and the communist guerrillas in Colombia."

Inspired by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and Cuba's Fidel Castro, military strongman Chavez is turning oil-rich Venezuela into a populist, anti-U.S. dictatorship, say U.S. intelligence sources. They tell Insight that Chavez is providing a safe haven for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) narcoguerrillas, an 18,000-man insurgency that began decades ago as an offshoot of the local Communist Party and still clings to Marxist-Leninist ideology.

U.S. policy during the Clinton administration provided Colombia, a country twice as large as France, with the means to combat drug producers and traffickers but deliberately restricted the use of U.S.-supplied military equipment to prevent Bogotá from effectively fighting the FARC. A U.S.-brokered "peace" process helped give the FARC a protected sanctuary the size of Switzerland in the heart of the country. Now, Colombia faces the prospect of disintegration as the cocaine- and heroin-financed FARC gains military ground.

Economic hard times and the difficult transitions from populist welfare-state regimes to market-based systems are creating hardship and malaise across much of Latin America, including Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member Ecuador and industrial powerhouses Argentina and Brazil. Far-left politicians now run the Western Hemisphere's most populous cities: Mexico City and São Paulo, Brazil. Masked Zapatista gunmen spouting Marxist rhetoric gained political legitimacy last year in Mexico, entering into negotiations with the government and even dictating terms in the name of an oppressed Indian minority in the southern part of the country. Across Mexico, Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos, a swaggering figure in a black ski mask who smokes a pipe, enjoys a cult following of sorts. Tourists even can buy chic Marcos postcards at airport gift shops.……Snip…….

"Many of the international communist-front organizations are continuing to operate, but they now are hiding behind one level of cover - groups that are in the antiglobalism coalition," a veteran U.S. intelligence officer explains. "A lot of funding has come from the Communist Party of India. The North Korean Communist Party has taken over some coordination in recent years." Some analysts hypothesize that the People's Republic of China might be trying to jump-start the machinery of the old Soviet front groups, using North Korea as a "funding cutout." But the fronts have changed their terminology: Marxist-Leninist rhetoric is gone, replaced by antiglobalism themes. "It doesn't arouse the concern of Western governments or get stereotyped as being antidemocratic," says a longtime observer. "Though there is a considerable organizational structure behind the antiglobalist movement, it isn't totally coordinated. Much is spontaneous." Spaulding notes, "These rallies have been organized by a combination of Marxists, anarchists, ecologists, feminists and gay-rights activists. And nobody has been able to get control." [End Excerpt]

Bush holds firm to Cuban embargo, readies tough new policy against Castro ***WASHINGTON - The White House rejected pleas by former President Carter and farm-state lawmakers to lift the trade embargo against Fidel Castro 's Cuba on Wednesday, pledging an even tougher U.S. policy to undermine "one of the last great tyrants left on earth."

President Bush will hew to a hard-line stance against the Castro government while seeking ways to ease hardships on the Cuban people when he spells out the policy next week, advisers said. The president hopes to curb what aides concede is growing momentum to ease restrictions against Cuba. "The president believes that the trade embargo is a vital part of America's foreign policy and human rights policy toward Cuba, because trade with Cuba does not benefit the people of Cuba - it's used to prop up a repressive regime," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.***

Bush's hawks making way to Latin America, too*** THE Bush White House can't seem to help itself. Even as it appears ready to swoop down on Iraq, it is also elevating hawks to new perches on the Latin American branch. The White House announced on Jan. 9 that it will name Otto J. Reich to the position of the National Security Council's special envoy to Latin America -- a position that was specially created for him after his recess appointment as assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere expired. The move will keep the highly controversial Reich in government and does not require Senate confirmation. Under the Reagan administration, Reich headed the Office of Public Diplomacy, which aimed to create public support in the United States for the Nicaraguan anti-Sandinista rebels, also known as the Contras. Congress later closed down the office because a comptroller's report found that the office engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities" during the Iran-Contra affair. ***

REAL AXIS OF EVIL - Venezuela and CUBA***Fattah represents the tip of an iceberg, according to security officials, confirming that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been setting up a terrorist regime to overthrow the constitution of the oil-rich South American country. A dedicated disciple of Fidel Castro [see "Fidel's Successor in Latin America," April 30, 2001], Chavez is plugging international terrorist networks into the country's security services, financial system and state corporations as part of his plans to clone Cuba's revolution and turn Venezuela into a terrorist base.

The president's scheme also involves government-sponsored armed militias, or Circulos Bolivarianos, modeled on Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees. These militias are taking over police stations around the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and invading the facilities of the state-run oil company, PDVSA. Indeed, the latter is presided over by an ex-communist guerrilla leader, Ali Rodriguez Araque.

Following the blueprint that Castro drafted for Chile's Salvador Allende, a minority president who similarly imported thousands of Cuban paramilitaries to overthrow the constitution of Chile and establish a Marxist-Leninist regime there, Chavez is facing an internal rebellion against his plans. With 80 percent or more of the national revenues cut off by an oil strike, he is faced with difficult choices. Chavez may be forced to order his navy to take over some 20 oil tankers that are refusing to load. Since he cannot entirely rely on the loyalty of his armed forces, he is expected to bring in the Cuban advisers.

Cuba's Direccion General de Inteligencia (DGI) special-operations teams already are positioned at the port of La Guaira, according to Venezuelan navy sources, who report that Cuban undercover agents are using the local merchant-marine school. Sources say that they could be studying Venezuela's oil-tanker fleet as part of contingency plans to prepare for commandeering of some of the tankers by a U.S.-trained Venezuelan intelligence officer. A Cuban special-assault unit reported to be occupying the second and third floors of the Sheraton Hotel in La Guaira also could be part of the plans to break the strike and impose a terrorist dictatorship.

During the last few weeks, Chavez has moved to control the military high command with his closest acolytes. Gen. Luis Garcia Carneiro, who has been leading the Caracas-based 3rd Infantry Division in operations to disarm the metropolitan police, now is the effective head of the army.

Possibly thousands of Arab terrorists as well as Colombian narcoguerrillas are being protected by DISIP, which has come under the control of Cuba's DGI, according to members of the Venezuelan security agency. European diplomatic officials in Caracas confirm that Cubans are operating DISIP's key counterterrorist and intelligence-analysis sections. According to a variety of sources, 300 to 400 Cuban military advisers coordinated by Havana's military attaché in Venezuela, navy Capt. Sergio Cardona, also are directing Chavez's elite Presidential Guard and his close circle of bodyguards, some of whom can't even sing the words to the Venezuelan national anthem. As many as 6,000 Cuban undercover agents masquerading as "sports instructors" and "teachers" also are reported to be training the Circulos Bolivarianos and even operating naval facilities.

"I quit my job when I got tired of doing dirty work for Chavez with the Cubans looking over my shoulder," Ferreira tells Insight, claiming that Interior Minister Rodriguez Chacin and other presidential aides repeatedly pressured him to launder the identities of terrorists and narcotraffickers transiting through Venezuela. He also was ordered to deceive U.S. authorities on the activities of a Hezbollah financial network whose files were requested by the FBI following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Chavez gave instructions to destroy records on 10 suspected Hezbollah fund-raisers conducting suspicious financial transactions in the islands of Margarita, Aruba and Curaçao, and the cities of Maracaibo and Valencia, according to Ferreira. The Venezuelan president also dissolved key military counterterrorist units by firing 16 highly experienced, U.S.-trained intelligence officers at the time of the terrorist plane attacks in New York City and Washington. Circulos Bolivarianos leader Lina Ron celebrated the event by burning an American flag in the center of Caracas. ***

________________________________________________________________

***In a July 11 letter to the House Appropriations Committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill wrote: "Trade by other nations with Cuba has brought no change to Cuba's despotic practices, and it has frequently proved to be an unprofitable enterprise." Unprofitable, indeed. France, Spain, Italy and Venezuela have suspended official credits to Cuba because Castro has failed to make payments on its debt, including debt incurred on agricultural purchases. In fact, according to Powell and O'Neill's letter, two foreign governments have approached the United States to complain that Cuba's payments of cash for U.S. agricultural products have meant that they are not getting paid at all.

……….Critics of current policy claim that Cuba is purely a matter of Florida's electoral politics, but the facts show otherwise. While announcing his "U.S. Initiative for a New Free Cuba" in May, President Bush declared that, "Cuban purchases of U.S. agricultural goods ... would be a foreign aid program in disguise." Current policy toward Cuba has saved taxpayers millions in export insurance, subsidies, and de facto foreign aid. All, because trade with Cuba does not represent trade with Cuban business owners, entrepreneurs or consumers; Trade with Cuba is trade with the Castro government itself, which monopolizes virtually all enterprises and exploits Cuban workers as their sole employer. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, recently wrote that, "In Cuba, Fidel Castro is still the one man through whom everything has to go. Any trade that goes through Cuba is going to strengthen Cuba's regime."***

Europe Excludes Cuba From Aid Funds [Full text] NADI, Fiji (AP) - The European Union has excluded Cuba from a multibillion-dollar pool of aid because of its poor human rights record and lack of democracy, a spokesman for a group of former European colonies said Friday. Cuba is a new member of the African Caribbean Pacific group, or ACP, which is holding a leaders' summit at a palm-fringed island resort near the Fijian town of Nadi. The 63 national delegations are trying to forge a single negotiating position ahead of trade talks with Brussels in September. Central to the talks is a 25-year pact signed by the EU and ACP in 2000, known as the Cotonou agreement, which promises $12.7 billion in aid to ACP states over the next five years if they show efforts to improve human rights and root out corruption.

As a latecomer to the ACP, Cuba has not signed Cotonou. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who is attending the summit, on Friday rejected overtures from ACP leaders to give Cuba quick access to the agreement, said ACP spokesman Hegel Goutier. The EU believes Cuba cannot satisfy basic principles of the agreement, especially with respect to democracy and human rights, said Billie Miller, deputy prime minister of Barbados, who heads the Caribbean grouping at the summit. Miller said she had formally appealed on behalf of Caribbean nations to the EU to fast track Cuba's inclusion. The head of Cuba's delegation, Ricardo Cabrisas, called the EU decision "a humiliation and slap in the face for Cuba," Goutier said. Lamy told delegates that the EU wanted to see more political reform from Havana, Goutier said. [End]

Fidel Castro - Cuba

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

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.***

FIDEL BATISTA!

Third in a series: Though he was corrupt, Batista made Cuba into an economic powerhouse with a thriving free press. In the hands of Fidel Castro, the island's economy, and the voice of the people, have both been throttled

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
Canada
Colaboración:
Juan F. Cuéllar
E.U.
La Nueva Cuba
Enero 27, 2003

Over at the Museo de la Revolucion, Fidel Castro's case against the dictator he overthrew 44 years ago is vividly on display.

Fulgencio Batista was evil incarnate, the museum earnestly instructs visitors in room after room of the once-magnificent building, formerly a presidential palace built in 1920 and decorated by Tiffany's of New York. Under Batista and his predecessors, we learn through photos and text, Cuba became a playground for crass tourists who came for sex, drink and gambling, and who crowded the country's pristine beaches to the detriment of ordinary folk. To drive home the immorality of pre-socialist times, the museum displays an original National Lottery of Cuba ticket from early in the century, a symbol of the country's fall from grace.

We learn that Batista was an illegitimate leader, the election he won stolen by manipulating the press. Worse, Batista intimidated, even jailed or killed, political opponents.

But Batista also failed Cuba by failing to invest government funds wisely. One damning display berates Batista's priorities with a list of budget line items that show government expenditures on frills such as roads, promenades and buildings. Batista's sky-high spending on telecommunications -- which the display dubs as military -- comes in for criticism. Another display lambastes Batista for failing to diversify the economy. Another still, which provides a year-by-year report of sugar output, accuses Batista of neglecting this all-important industry. The numbers show a downward trend, interrupted with some up-ticks, in the 1950s, and then a giant leap forward, as Castro mobilized the country to produce more sugar in one of his regime's grand economic plans.

The moral and economic rot under Batista led to humiliation and human tragedy, the museum tells us. "Many women who were denied jobs saw themselves forced to become prostitutes in order to survive," said one display. Said another: "According to a census in 1953, there were 200,000 shacks and misery huts." Said a third, also referring to the 1953 census: "40,939 people died due to lack of medical attendance and unsanitary living conditions."

The history the museum imparts is part truth, part fiction and all hypocrisy. Batista was indeed an unsavory character. He did oversee a corrupt administration in Cuba. He did undermine the halting democracy that the United States helped create after liberating Cuba from oppressive Spanish occupation at the turn of the century.

But Cuba and its U.S.-style constitution was also an economic powerhouse with potent social institutions and impressive accomplishments. A 1958 United Nations report ranked Cuba's vibrant free press eighth in the world, and first in Latin America. Despite its much smaller population, Cuba had 160 radio stations compared to the U.K.'s 62 and France's 50. It had 23 television stations compared to Mexico's 12 and Venezuela's 10. The tiny country supported 58 newspapers, fourth in Latin America behind populous Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

Cuba once installed telephones at a rapid rate. No more. It once ranked first in Latin America, fifth in the world, in television sets per capita, and also ranked high in radios, automobiles, and many other consumer goods. No more. With the population increased and the housing stock degraded, more people suffer inadequate housing today than ever before, and sanitary conditions have become a scandal through much of the country.

The information-hungry populace in the Batista era was well-educated, as it remains. Student registration at primary schools in 1955 was 1,032 students per 10,000 inhabitants, higher than the figures for 1990 of 842. The registration rate for higher education was an impressive 38 per 10,000, about the same as it was 10 years later (34 per 10,000) and 15 years later (41 per 10,000). The country, in fact, had a long history of high literacy levels: At the turn of the 20th century, only 28% of those 10 and over couldn't read or write, not that different from the current figure, 100 years later, of 16%.

But unlike today, Cuba's economy under Batista was powerful, both domestically and in exports, and it was becoming increasingly diversified. Under Castro, its economy is in tatters, nowhere more so than in the sugar industry that Castro once promoted so heavily. Last summer, Castro announced a shut down of half of the country's sugar mills. "We had to act or face ruin," he explained. As he told NBC News just this week. "It cost us more to produce sugar than what we could sell it for."

But if Batista bested Castro in virtually every broad socio-economic indicator, he paled in comparison when it came to controlling either the electoral process or the populace. Castro executed thousands of political opponents after he came to power, imprisoned tens of thousands and caused hundreds of thousands to flee to exile. Where Batista won a disputed election, a Castro election leaves no room for dispute: Castro allows no opponents, no opposing viewpoints to appear in the press, and, because that might not be enough, his political machine ensures a good turnout by keeping tabs on who votes and who doesn't: In last Sunday's national election, Castro managed a 90%-plus "yes" vote, not quite as impressive as Saddam Hussein's 100% but, among dictators, respectable enough.

Those who revile Batista often point to a decadent economy that relied on mafia-run casinos, prostitution and other demeaning jobs servicing tourists. Tourism was important under Batista -- Havana was an east-coast alternative to Las Vegas, complete with the sex and gaming, and the same mafia owners -- but never as important as tourism has become today. Cuba's once diversified economy is gone and Castro is now putting all of his hopes in attracting tourists.

To do this, Castro's Cuba now permits prostitution, it winks at sex tourism -- tourist guide books even include sections on the country's once-taboo gay and bisexual scenes -- and, as under Batista, the country unabashedly invests heavily in tourism. Earlier this week, Castro inaugurated a US$100-million resort on the island's northeastern coast, broadcast nationwide, to underscore the importance the government places on the new five-hotel complex of 944 rooms able to house 1,500 tourists.

Tourism is now Cuba's No. 1 source of foreign income, with 1.6 million visitors generating about US$2-billion last year. More tourists come from Canada than from other important sources of foreign exchange, chiefly Germany, Britain, Italy, France, and Switzerland. Castro, like Batista, is eyeing one other important tourist market.

"Our friends from the north are not in this list," Castro said with a grin, referring to Americans that can't travel to Cuba due to U.S. government regulations.

Some day soon, perhaps, Castro's dream may be realized, and Cuba's economy may once again benefit from U.S. tourism. If it does, Cuba under Castro will have recovered one of the benefits that the country once enjoyed. Forty-four years into the Revolution, Castro will have achieved all the failings, real and perceived, that Cuba had under Batista, and it will have retained few of the virtues.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research Foundation. Email: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.

© Copyright 2003 National Post

BELAFONTE AND HOLLYWOOD’S HUMANITARIANISM
© 2003 ABIP
by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

Cubans in need of democracy and human rights instead are accustomed to the throng of international true believers visiting their island as guests of the Castro regime for the past 44 years.

Many are part of the Hollywood crowd that espouse far-left, socialist and communist causes, like Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Danny Glover, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Ed Asner, Peter Weller, the late Jack Lemon, Woody Harrelson, Leonardo di Caprio, Frances McDormand, Naomi Campbell, Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg, Joel Coen, etc.

The people in Cuba realize that many are naïve fools that are being used and others are die-hard Marxists and Stalinists. They all seem clear about what they think is best for the Cuban people while they visit as pampered guests of the Cuban elite. They are seen, however, as collaborators of Castro’s repression and their activities are noted.

They are also seen as bricks in Castro’s foundation that they help extend all over the world. After leaving Cuba, they talk about the fraudulent accomplishments of the revolution as if they were real, thereby misleading and misinforming others abroad and recruiting more for the constant pilgrimage to Castro’s island.

As in former communist countries, Cuba began drawing these fools in 1959 and has developed and perfected the technique of attracting and making the most of them. The structured visits make it almost impossible for the guests to see through the propaganda. In the communist inside jargon these people are classified as “useful fools.” Indeed, they are.

In the article Harry Belafonte's Havana Farewell, published on July 18, 2000 on FrontPageMagazine.com written by Ronald Radosh, he says “Most American admirers of Harry Belafonte probably don't realize that the popular singer and actor is an unreconstructed Stalinist.”

The article continues, “In April 1997, Belafonte was the featured speaker at the 60th Anniversary celebration of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, where he honored the efforts of these self-proclaimed ‘premature anti-fascists’ who in reality served as Stalin's brigade in Spain, the enforcers of Soviet policy.”

A look at this article reveals Belafonte’s long history of Stalinism. Of course, in our democracy he is free to think and promote whatever he wants. But the article exposes what lies behind this seemingly harmless humanitarian.

If he had been a fan of Hitler, Belafonte’s reputation would have been destroyed long ago. And that is a double standard when you take into account the crimes of the Nazis vs. the crimes of the Communists. Both should be equally repudiated by all people of goodwill. There is no place for either one in a civilized world.

With the excuse of “supporting the Cuban people,” Belafonte’s multiple trips and speeches at communist rallies in Cuba are very much resented by those opposed to Castro inside the island, who consider him nothing less than a collaborator of the regime.

His interference in internal Cuban affairs is not welcome, especially since he is an entertainer, not a Cuban and has never lived there as an ordinary citizen for any of the 44 years of suffering the most brutal regime in the 500 years of Cuban history.

What is incredible is that for many years Belafonte has been UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassador and in his constant visits to Cuba has never denounced Castro’s regime for violating the United Nations Charter since 1959 as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For example, among others: Article 3, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Article 5, “No one should be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.” Article19, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Article 20, No. 1, “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.” No. 2, “No one may be compelled to belong to an association.”

Apparently, Castro can do no wrong in the eyes of Belafonte even though he promised the Cuban people to restore the 1940 Constitution, to provide an entirely civilian government, to have full democratic political freedom of expression and press and to have honest and free elections. Instead, Castro installed a totalitarian communist regime, which in reality is totally illegitimate, because it violated the 1940 Constitution.

But apparently, the fact that the little Cuban people under Castro do not have the same rights he enjoys is fine with Belafonte’s humanitarianism.

In 1990 and 1991, I saw on PBS, Belafonte’s series Routes of Rhythm. I wrote to Belafonte agreeing 100% that Cuba was the lunching ground and source of inspiration for popular music in this hemisphere. But what I could not overlook was that “for the last 32 years no more new rhythms have evolved and been launched from that island. That is very revealing indeed. I wonder if it has anything to do with freedom of creation.”

After pointing out the propaganda he was exposed to in the making of his series, distortions and revisions to the history of Cuba according to Castro I continued, "Your show, with the unfortunate misinformation it contained, may fool/foul many Americans. But the eyes of a Cuban, who remembers the past and is up to date with the present reality, can see through the routes of your show Ruse of Rhythm.

“It is a shame that there is plenty of information about Cuba in public records that no one bothers to research. The lack of interest to know and hear what has really been going on in Cuba and the apathy of reporting by the [U.S.] media has made it possible to cover up the truth, to create the myth of Fidel among gullible intellectuals and political activists and help the longevity of that regime in detriment to the Cuban people trapped inside that island.”

The last paragraph of my still unanswered letter said, “The people interviewed on your show have not possessed freedom of speech as we know it since 1959. So, in their interviews they are doing their best under the circumstances. The only free people in Cuba are the political prisoners in jails and concentration camps, and the dead.”

On March 26, 2001, at the Lincoln Center in New York, Harry Belafonte performed a concert to benefit the Center for Cuban Studies, a non-profit organization with a long history of pro-Castro activities.

Founded in 1972 and headed by Sandra Levinson, this organization is dedicated to counter the effects of American policy toward Cuba. This concerned-about-Cuba veteran Calypso singer has not raised his voice before for the outrageous violations of humans rights going on in Cuba for decades, but he raised his singing voice and collected money for a notorious pro-Castro organization.

This concert was also sponsored by the pro-Castro Artists and Writers Committee for Normalization of Relations with Cuba. Actor Danny Glover, who is the founding member of this organization, hosted the evening. Glover, described in his bio as a “humanitarian,” is also a frequent guest of the Castro regime.

However, the humanitarian Glover has never raised his voice on behalf of the Cuban people’s human rights, the existence of the shameful tourist apartheid, the disproportionate majority of black Cubans in Castro’s dungeons or the absence of black Cubans in key government positions. What has Danny Glover done on behalf of the black Cuban political prisoners like Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet?

As further evidence of what lies behind the scenes of this event, the fanatical pro-Castro “religious” organization Pastors for Peace was also promoting this fundraiser.

On June 2000, Belafonte was a featured speaker at a political rally in Cuba honoring convicted Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

On November 2002, Belafonte insulted Secretary of State Colin Powell comparing him with a plantation slave who is “serving his master [President Bush] well.” Belafonte was insulting to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice when he used his influence to have her disinvited as a keynote speaker at an event where he was going to be honored for his “humanitarian” efforts.

Communism exterminated 100 million people. Is it humanitarian to promote it?

And on December 2002, while Belafonte was visiting Havana again with his comrade Danny Glover because of the 24th International Festival of New Latin American Film, he used the opportunity to criticize in Cuba’s communist newspaper Granma the U.S. policies in Iraq. Glover expressed similar feelings.

Belafonte, an American from the U.S. says, “It would be very difficult to find a nation more committed to the culture of its people and the development of the culture than I have witnessed in Cuba.''

However, Maritza Lugo Fernandez, a former Cuban political prisoner from her dungeon in a women’s jail in Cuba accused Castro’s regime of “keeping the Cuban people in complete ignorance about politics and democracy.”

Who has better knowledge of Castro’s Cuba, Harry Belafonte or Maritza Lugo Fernandez?

Unfortunately, people like Belafonte and other “humanitarians” from the Hollywood crowd contribute with their extraordinary influence to the misunderstanding of the Cuban situation. Far from helping the Cuban people victimized by a brutal regime, they willingly serve at the side of their executioners.

© 2003 ABIP

Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation & COVERING CUBA 3: Elian (available in VHS & DVD at http://www.cubacollectibles.com/

Author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra

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