Free Republic

Speaking under the hateful gaze of Che Guevara in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution — a shrine to ruthless communism — Pope Francis scolded us to “serve people, not ideas.” “Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas,” he said. “We serve people.” What a quaint and beautiful concept to ponder here in this fallen world full of violent men who thirst for absolute power and feast on death, rape and slavery.

Cuban authorities prevented leading dissidents from meeting Pope Francis in Havana on Sunday, in a sign of the Communist regime’s rigid intolerance of political opposition. Two well-known dissidents, Marta Beatriz Roque and Miriam Leiva, had been invited by the Vatican to attend a vespers service led by the Pope’s in Havana’s historic baroque cathedral.

Even while the Civil War raged, slaves in Cuba could be heard singing, “Avanza, Lincoln, avanza! Tu eres nuestra esperanza!” (Onward, Lincoln, Onward! You are our hope!) – as if they knew, even before the soldiers fighting the war far to the North and long before most politicians understood, that the war in America would change their lives, and the world. The secession crisis of 1860-1861 threatened to be a major setback to the world antislavery movement, and it imperiled the whole experiment in democracy. If slavery was allowed to exist, and if the world’s leading democracy could fall apart...

If Christian broadcaster Stendal goes on trial in Colombia, missions work nationwide may be at risk. Is Russ Stendal, the famed missionary to FARC terrorists in South America, actually El Gringo, a terrorist leader seeking the overthrow of Colombia’s government? That question is before a three-judge panel, based on allegations from Carlos Manuel Silva, chief sectional prosecutor for the Colombian department of Cundinamarca, which includes the capital, Bogota. Stendal denies any allegation of leadership in FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). He said in a recent Facebook video, “Somebody set a trap for me, and I walked into it. They...

We understand that Nancy Pelosi is married to a very successful businessman in California. We are very happy that the Pelosi family has enjoyed the fruits of capitalism. Of course, they've enjoyed those fruits because they live in a country that respects property rights and does not confiscate businesses. This week, Rep Pelosi went to Cuba and stayed at the Hotel Saratoga. Let me share this from our good friends at Capitol Hill Cubans: "The Hotel Saratoga is a beautiful neoclassical structure in Old Havana. It was purchased in 1939 by Blanco Lopez and Co., headed by Jose Blanco and...

The historic U.S.-Cuba talks are under way and they may have attracted a new addition to the Havana port. The Russian spy ship Viktor Leonov CCB-175 parked there Tuesday, laden with high-tech software, radar and 30-millimeter cannon and anti-aircraft guns, replacing a cruise ship that had been there the day before. Normally, the surveillance ship travels up and down the American Eastern Seaboard in international waters, with its radars pointed in the direction of the United States. On Tuesday, however, just as the Americans were due to arrive for big talks with Cuban officials—the first such high-level talks held in...

Since The Resident’s unexpected and unethical decision to unilaterally discard a half-century of history and reopen diplomatic relations with the Castro brothers’ prison colony known as Cuba, a particularly destructive claim has resurfaced, one that merits careful analysis and rejection. For decades now, the Left has spouted a peculiar claim – that Cuba is poor because of our 54-year-long embargo against the communist country. If the reader has compassion for the suffering denizens of that miserable island, this has to be a strong argument, but it’s wrong – utterly without merit, in fact – for several critical reasons. The claim...

Putin's Secret Message to ObamaI’m Andrew Klavan and this is the Revolting Truth. Ever since President Obama took office, he’s been making friendly overtures to the Russians, trying to “press the reset button” in relations between our two countries. In 2012, the president was even caught on an open mike promising he’d have more “flexibility” to cave in to Russian demands after he was re-elected. Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded warmly to Obama’s gestures by warmly cheating on our arms treaties, warmly supporting our enemies in Syria, warmly annexing Crimea, and warmly abetting the destruction of a Malaysian airliner...

Neill Blomkamp’s 2013 science-fiction film Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, takes place in Los Angeles, circa 2154. The wealthy have moved into an orbiting luxury satellite—the Elysium of the title—while the wretched majority of humans remain in squalor on Earth. The film works passably as an allegory for its director’s native South Africa, where racial apartheid was enforced for nearly 50 years, but it’s a rather cartoonish vision of the American future. Some critics panned the film for pushing a socialist message. Elysium’s dystopian world, however, is a near-perfect metaphor for an actually existing socialist nation just 90...

Fifty-three years ago, my father had a meeting on the other side of town in Havana where we lived at the time. Cuba was in turmoil and opposition to Castro was widespread as more and more people saw communists in positions of responsibility. At mid-morning, my dad called my mom and told her that something was happening in Cuba. Our phone kept ringing as friends and neighbors spread the news. Humberto Fontova recalls the events of that day: ""Freedom is our goal!" roared commander Pepe San Roman to the men assembled before him 48 years ago this week. “Cuba is...

Havana (AFP) - A Russian warship was docked in Havana Wednesday, without explanation from Communist Cuba or its state media. The Viktor Leonov CCB-175 boat, measuring 91.5 meters (300 feet) long and 14.5 meters wide, was docked at the port of Havana's cruise ship area, near the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The Vishnya, or Meridian-class intelligence ship, which has a crew of around 200, went into service in the Black Sea in 1988 before it was transferred seven years later to the northern fleet, Russian media sources said.

(AFP)—A Russian warship was docked in Havana Wednesday, without explanation from Communist Cuba or its state media. The Viktor Leonov CCB-175 boat, measuring 91.5 meters (300 feet) long and 14.5 meters wide, was docked at the port of Havana's cruise ship area, near the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The ship is reportedly armed with 30mm guns and anti-aircraft missiles.

To the soundtrack of fingers banging on keyboards, a cluster of Internet users recently caught up on their e-mails, updated their statuses on Facebook and looked for love on Match.com. The activity would seem unremarkable in any other Internet cafe except there were no lattes for sale and no soft-rock music being piped over speakers, and the owner of "the cafe" is the Cuban government. The "navigation hall" as such establishments are called here, is one of 118 government-run Internet access points that Cuban authorities opened in June, marking a small step towards greater connectivity in a country with some...

Ramón Mercader from Barcelona killed Trotsky with an ice axe in Mexico City. On 20th August 1940, the exiled Leon Trotsky was fatally wounded at his home in a suburb of Mexico City when an ice axe was driven into his skull. He cried out to his guards as they burst into his study, ‘Don’t kill him! He must talk.’ Despite struggling fiercely, and even managing to bite the hand of his assassin, Trotsky died the next day, and the man who wielded the murder weapon was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He insisted throughout his trial and his...

'Slave-like conditions, dismantling cars...' While the communist Castro regime likes to complain loudly about US activities at Gitmo -both real and imagined- maybe first they ought to answer a few questions about how they've been treating all the Cuban citizens locked-up down there... Of course, many of them were put in the slammer for dubious political offenses -like daring to complain about Cuban socialism's myriad failures- with 7000+ arrested just last year for peaceful political protest. But for any in the States who think Havana's liberalizing, hardly: a human rights group reported this week that the overall number of political prisoners...

Dictator Hugo Chavez and friend of Sean Penn and Oliver Stone was mandated to take a sworn presidential oath before the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela this morning due to the specifics of their Constitution and that he won the Oct. election (unfortunately) for another six-year term starting today. However Hugo "smells of sulphur", it is reported, and is out of the country and deathly ill in Havana, Cuba of apparently malignant cancer, so he is not exercising his duties in addition to being absent from the country in the first place. There are succession plans in place in Venezuelan...

It was a year marked by the long awaited immigration reform (that 0 couldn't or never meant to deliver) the visit by Pope Benedict XVI, the "accidental" death of Oswaldo Paya, hurricane Sandy striking eastern Eastern Cuba suffered the worst hurricane damage in perhaps 50 years in Hurricane Sandy. Hundreds of thousands of homes were wrecked .( + attendant cholera and dengue fever)

ATLANTA (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter is set to arrive in Cuba next week for a visit at the invitation of the Cuban government. The Atlanta-based Carter Center says the ex-president and his wife Rosalynn will arrive in Havana on Monday and meet with President Raul Castro.

The Che Guevara-founded, official wire service of the Government of Communist Cuba, La Prensa Latina, reports Mr. Obama's victory tour to Iowa to bolster support for his Obamacare. (Link to article in Spanish above), and HERE.

The Obama administration has caved to demands from Fidel and Raul Castro's government to shut down a U.S.-sponsored electronic billboard in Havana. This is a symbolic step backward in America's mission to promote freedom.