The article by the Guardian is full of lies. Every lie can be dismissed by a lot of proofs. Did you try to contact such a 'journalist' to complain about his piece of ...propaganda?

I sent him a one line email. Can anyone guess what it said?

Henry:

You are right not to waste your time on Philip Agee. He is the greatest traitor in American history since Benedict Arnold. Agee revealed the identities of thousands of CIA operatives throughout the world in his campaign to destroy the agency he had once served. He lived for a time in Cuba, although I don't know where he is now. The praise of such a creature is less than worthless.

“A Journalist View”

Well, I was not disappointed. Oscar Espinosa Chepe is still true to his commandante. He calls himself an “independent journalist” when he’s never had an “independent” thought in his life. All he does is parrot the same rhetoric as the Cuban government.

“An Asshole’s View”

“Probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement.”

Just for ONCE… Please, please, please… Just ONCE, can anyone please, list these IMPROVEMENTS for me?

“A Book Reviewer’s View”

Canadians have a lot to answer for, beginning with Sherritt International Corp.

“A Balanced View”

“Instead of being a model socialist state, Cuba was suddenly revealed as a country deep in crisis.”

Suddenly revealed? Earth calling Peter Goodspeed… Earth calling Peter Goodspeed…

Firefly:

Ironically, every country in the world (except Cuba) is better off today than it was 50 years ago.

Just a reminder that a link in an "ajiaco" post is not an endorsement of the linked article, merely food for thought. And by balanced I meant relatively balanced coming from a Canadian newspaper.

Doesn't Agee run a travel agency in Cuba?

www.cubalinda.com

I remember seeing it linked to "Granma"'s web page.

Apparently he was let off from the CIA because he was an alcoholic; he was a KGB pawn for years, according to the Mitrokhin files.

Today is the 55th anniversary of Batista's bloodless coup of March 10, 1952. Batista took over the government without firing a shot or shedding one single drop of blood. The formula for bloodless coups died with him. Perhaps it was for the best, or perhaps not. A bloodless coup in Cuba today would be a very welcome event.

Manuel: Batista was a dictator, better than Castro, but a dictator anyway. Before 1952, Cuba had a democratic constitution approved on 1940. I guess nobody who wants a free Cuba has nostalgy for Batista.

Since I was but an infant when we left Cuba I asked called my mother a few months back after watching the Lost City (which I loved). I asked for her perspective of Batista having lived through it all. It was interesting as she said that he was not a good man( as a dictator cannot be), but not near as bad as people paint him to be. I am not defending Batista in any way especially a dictator. But I fear we fall into castro's trap of blaming all of Cuba's woes on him as he was castro's poster boy for his actions. I feel he was a cupcake in comparison to castro. Yet I would opt for the 1940 Constitution. I am afraid that we have bought into castro's propaganda in ways.

Pototo:

Batista was a man; a flawed man, but still a man. Whether or not he was a good man doesn't even enter the picture. By virtue of being a man, flawed as are we all, he already belonged to a higher order of humanity than the unnatural (desnaturalizado) monster who replaced him, who wouldn't have spared the life of his own mother if he thought she had betrayed him (and, indeed, at one time Juanita blamed him for their mother's death).

Just as all democratically elected leaders are not good men (e.g. Hitler), all dictators are not created alike, either.

To equate Batista with Fidel is to belittle the magnitude of Castro's crimes; indeed, almost to excuse them.

You are right when you say (or your mother says) that there is a tendency to blame Batista not only for his sins but also for Castro's. This is essentially the subtext of "The Lost City." This is exactly the same thing as blaming the leaders of the Weimar Republic for Hitler, or Lincoln for the rise of the Confederacy.

The blame for Castro is borne by the U.S. and the Cuban people (in that order). All that we know about Castro today was known in 1958 or could have been guessed at from his past conduct. Yet the U.S. government and a considerable number of the Cuban people chose to support the forces of barbarism against those of civilization. For such was the only question in 1958: civilization or barbarism.

As late as March 1958 a majority of the Cuban people opposed Castro and were ready to accept even Batista if Castro was the only alternative to him. In March 1958, Castro called for a nationwide general strike to bring down the Batista regime. 95 percent of the Cuban people refused to honor Castro's call for a general strike. This was the greatest setback of the Cuban Revolution and it was inflicted on Castro not by Batista, but by the Cuban people. In the November 1958 elections to choose Batista's replacement, more than 50 percent of the population voted despite Castro's threats to kill anyone who did. Clearly, even in the last days of the Republic, a majority of Cubans did not want Castro. But the U.S. did. It placed an embargo on arms sales to Cuba (the first time such an embargo had ever been placed on a friendly nation). It informed Batista that it would withdraw diplomatic recognition if the winner of the 1958 presidential election took office in February 1958. The U.S. would accept no other replacement for Batista but Castro and it got what it wanted.

And we paid the price.

Manuel, I am not saying that Batista was equal to Castro. I would still prefer him to the bearded bastard. What I am saying is that Batista's coup was not to overtrow a dictatorship, but a democratic , though imperfect, government. Also, the revolution was betrayed by the communists. I still believe that the liberals and anti-communists freedom fighters like Mario Chanes De Armas, Frank Pais, Pedro Luis Boitel, Huber Matos, Carlos Franqui, Penalver, ect, were the majority in the anti-Batista fight. And they were the ones who were loved by the Cuban people. That's why the asesinos comunistas con Castro a la cabeza, didn't keep their promise to hold free elections. Because they were aware that they would loose big time.

What Cuba needs, in my opinion, is a multy-party democratic system with a Constitution modeled after the 1940's.

I repeat: I still prefer Batista to Castro, but to me, dictators are dictators, no matter their political colour, even though some are far better than others. But the 1952 coup, although bloodless, was not justified by the presence of a previous dictatorship, because the 1940s Cuba was an imperfect democracy (I don't think the Chivas were totalitarians).

Having said this, our focus should be against Castro, because Batista ruled more than 50 years ago, while the Castros are desgobernando y destruyendo a Cuba hacia mas de 4 decadas.

Correction: hace mas de 4 decadas.

I hope not to be misunderstood. I am one of those who is bothered whenever I hear the comunistas responding to my anti-Castro messages with phrases like "Batista was ...", because it would be like to say, in Italy, "If you are not communist, then you must be a Mussolini nostalgic".

I just wanted to say my point about Batista, but I would never falsify facts by saying that Batista was the same as Castro, because that's a big lie. I only meant that I prefer the 1940s Cuba to the one of the 1950s until these days. If I didn't read wrong, in the beginning, Batista was allied with the communists. Then, he was too soft on them. I guess liberals (meaning anti-communists)were not as well treated as it was Castro, who was even pardoned (if only Castro was given a life-term sentence, maybe today Cuba was a democracy).

That said, I am still disgusted at the Guardian's article and I would like to have enough time to dismiss each claim the author made.

Stefania:

I also prefer the Cuba of the 1940s to the Cuba of the 1950s. But I would take any Cuba (even Weyler's Cuba) and suffer the worst of it rather than endure a single minute in Castro's Cuba.

Of course, not all those who fought against Batista were Communists. Mario Chanes is certainly the best illustration of this: a man who saw what was blowing in the air and refused to be swept away by it. Huber Matos consented to be Castro's henchman before he saw the light. He also led the firing squads just as "Che" Guevara did. As for Carlos Franqui, he led the march that symbolically buried "El Diario de la Marina" and freedom of the press in Cuba. In his book, far from regretting this act, Franqui said that he was proud of it.

There were very few honorable men involved in the Cuban Revolution since honorable men would not naturally have gravitated towards Castro.

Henry: You display a lack of sensitivity when you refer to refer to Phil Agee as an asshole. The asshole is an essential and indespensable part of the anatomy.

"Henry: You display a lack of sensitivity when you refer to Phil Agee as an asshole. The asshole is an essential and indispensable part of the anatomy." — Omar

Indeed! Just ask Fidel.

Dear Manuel, I disagree with you on Huber Matos, Carlos Franqui, etc.

They might have committed grave mistakes, but then they paid the price: Huber Matos suffered 20 years in Castro's jails. Same for Carlos Franqui. Huber Matos' book "Como llego la noche" is a clandestine best seller sold by the Independent Libraries in Cuba. It is one of the books the politcal police conficates during their violent searches of the independent libraries. If you try to sell or read that book in a Cuban street, you're arrested and/or fined. This is because Huber Matos, after realizing that Castro betrayed the original goals of the revolution and lied to the people by refusing to admit that he was a communist, is now considered a "counter-revolutionary" and a "Miami-based terrorist". Same goes for Carlos Franqui, who now is the editor of the dissident Carta de Cuba (www.cartadecuba.com) .

Most dissident leaders, among which Martha Beatriz, have been communists and some even were part of the State Security until bravely defecting and joining the opposition. I think we should judge people from their present, not past. If they have rejected the Castroite tyranny, then they should be welcomed. And when you hear or read the regime calling them "contrarrevolucionarios" or "CIA agents and terrorists", then you can be sure that they are real and genuine dissidents.

P.S.: I am more suspicious of people like Oswaldo Paya and Manuel Cuesta Morua than Huber Matos or Carlos Franqui, who are part of the movement "Yo No Coopero con la Dictadura, Yo Si Quiero el Cambio" in Miami.

Stefania:

I am never "comfortable" with anyone who has had a communist period in his life. Surely you would not be so fast to embrace these people if they had been "former" Nazis. A Nazi, I think, all would agree is irredeemable. Why not a Communist? Is a Communist less of a moral reprobate than a Nazi?

Huber Matos' conduct during and after the Revolution was no different from that of Fidel, Raúl or "Che" Guevara. He too fed the firing squads and rivers of blood trail him too. The fact that he fell out with Fidel and spent 20 years in prison because of it says nothing to me. Carlos Franqui is even more contemptible in my eyes because he killed not only men but ideas. Before the Revolution, Cuba had 58 daily newspapers. Franqui was responsible for extinguishing every one of them.

I agree with you that by now Matos and Franqui are "pretty safe." Others in the so-called "opposition" are far more dangerous to Cuba's future. As for Oswaldo Paya, he is the most travelled "dissident" in the history of Cuba. All Cubans would become "dissidents" if they were guaranteed the privileges that Paya enjoys.

I respect your opinion, Manuel, but I disagree with your way of judging some people's past mistakes. However, I agree with you on Paya or Manuel Cuesta Morua (or even Oscar Espinosa Chepe). I am not saying they are regime's agents, but I don't like their privileges denied - for example - to Martha Beatriz and the opposition members who are friends of her. They have been labeled as "extremists" by Paya, Morua, and Chepe, just because they want Regime Change and supportin sanctions against the regime.

Stefania:

In the Eastern bloc, after the fall of Communism, many "dissidents," even bishops, were exposed as informants. There will be many surprises and some none-too-surprising when Communism breathes its last in Cuba. You can be sure of it.

Of the Guardian:

More racism directed at Cubans unable to run their own affiars. Europe and her Anglos suffer from some sort of delusion by which they feel they are astute enought to dictate what Cuba (or other small Latin American nations for that matter) needs and what Cuba deserves - never mind those who actually live either on the island or in exile. They obviously wouldn't know what the hell they're talking about.

Cheers.

-Gabriel