Why fidel castro is my bitch.

Because despite the fact that it's the Miami Herald, it's not every day that his name is on the front page.

Oye, viejo 'e mierda, te queda poco ya, no?

Hurry, fidel, the line to piss on your grave has already started, and it's long.

Brace for Impact, Venezuela

Hold your lunches, folks:

Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres.

And there you have it. Hugo Chavez donning the prolific-through-idiocy Che shirt.

Coincidentally, my wife happens to be a realtor and, browsing through one of her trade magazines I read where Hugo Chavez was voted as realtor of the year in some contest. Not because he actually sold any real estate, but because he was responsible for much of the new real estate being sold to many Venezuelans here in South Florida.

Gracias, Hugo. And keep 'em coming will ya, I could use a bigger boat.

Ill watch it, but chances are I wont like it.

Tonight, 9 pm (in my area), PBS.

The American Experience presents Fidel Castro.

I sure do hope they dont forget to mention the 100% literacy rate and the free universal healthcare!

Below the fold (Updated Again)

Here's an interesting dichotomy:

There's a story about me and Babalu Blog on the front page of today's Miami Herald. I was interviewed a few weeks ago, a photographer came by the house and shot the pictures. I wasnt sure why anyone would want to run a story on me or my blogging. I mean, I just sit here in front of the computer and write about things and issues that are important to me. I write about family and politics and pig cooking.

But, obviously and as most of you that come here regularly know, I write mostly about Cuba. Why is that, you say?

Well, apart from the obvious reason, because I can. Because I am free to do so. I can sit here at my computer everyday and tell fidel castro to kiss my ass. Because I am an American and I have the right - and the responsibility that comes along with it - to express my opinions.

Freedom of speech, freedom of expression... Freedom.

It's a different story on that island shaped like a crocodile just South of us. There are no opinions allowed in castro's Cuba. No freedom of the press, no freedom of speech. Nada.

Case in point:

HAVANA, January 28 (Reinaldo Cosano Alén, Lux Info Press / www.cubanet.org) - Two men who said they were just walking home January 21 were stopped by police, briefly jailed, and issued a warning for "hanging out in a tourist zone."

Israel Guerra, 29, and Bárbaro Ferrer, 38, live in Guanabo Beach, east of Havana, and said they were just walking home at about 1:30 a.m. when a police car stopped them and asked them for ID.

Guerra said police asked them whether they had a police record, and Guerra said he did: theft and illegal slaughter of cattle, but he said that was 10 years ago and he had served his time after he was convicted. Ferrer has no police record.

Guerra added that he now works as a watchman for a grocery store near his home.

Guerra said the officers questioning them received a radio order to take them in, and subsequently handcuffed them and took them to the Guanabo police station, where a captain ordered them held in a cell.

At 8:00 the next morning, Guerra said, they were issued warnings for "hanging out in a tourist zone" and released.

Once having been given a warning, the men can be very easily charged with any transgression.

A couple of men walking home in Cuba get arrested for "hanging out in a tourist zone" and I am here in exile telling fidel castro to kiss my ass.

Somewhere on that island, in quite a few somewheres actually, there are independent journalists and librarians rotting away in castro's gulags simply because they attempted to do exactly what I do here on this blog.

Freedom is a beautiful thing, folks. Take it in. Hold it. Embrace it. Bask in it. Revel in it. Not everyone is blessed with it.

Oh, and, fidel? Kiss my ass.

(If you're coming here through the Miami Herald and this is your first time here, welcome. Take a look around, scroll down for the past 2 weeks worth of posts. Check out the archives there on the right sidebar. Use the search option, look for whatever you want. Chances are, if it's about Cuba, it's been written about here.

Here's just a few posts you might enjoy reading:

Revolutionary Oil Lamps
Cuban Grapes
El Tencén
Sweet and Sour Leaf Blower
Noche Buena

Bienvenidos! And as one of my favorite Cubanisms goes: Between between and drink a chair. Entre, entre, y tome una silla.)

Update: I just received this wonderfully graceful email from a new Babalu reader and thought I would share it with you all. Feel free to comment on its beauty:

My Dear Perieto Starting off with what you call Free and what I call Free. The Journalist in America cannot be free to write What they want: Bush and his Hitler Group are taking care of that. My Wife is Cuban and I travel to Cuba often, My wife and I live in America THIS IS AMERICAN FREEDOM (WAKE UP YOU ANTI CASTRO CUBANS AND GET A LIFE) One of the regular visitors to the site is A.M. Mora y Leon, a California journalist who uses a pseudonym to protect her identity because some of the topics she writes about are controversial. When was the last time you visited Cuba? and lived with the people: The only thing you do is screw the Cuban People Tell Bush to Kiss your Ass and put it in the News you'll see how far you go, All, kinds of S-it will be happening to you, be antiwar have your Photo taken by the police and kept on file. If you've got the balls E Mail me back and I can fill you in on Cuba: (YOU AINT GOT A CLUE WHAT THE REAL CUBA IS ABOUT) I Write to you and the CIA, and FBI will be after Me. (You can bet your A-- on that. What A Cuban Hero you are to tell Castro to Kiss Your Ass. You're a Complete jerk You want News on Cuba I can fill you in on many things you know nothing about. The Truth about Cuba. 87% of the Cubans would vote for Castro 51% of Americans vote for Bush and the whole World hate him: I have to be careful what I say or the OOFAC will be after me and I will have to go to an American Jail: With my DD-214 Form ( You or your Daddy don't have one.) Your Daddy was to busy leaving Cuba with his money than to susport the Castro Goverment, and the Cuban People America screwed the Cubans Thru people like you. Get Balls and E Mail me George

My, my. So much hatred going around. Tell me, George, of those so many things I know nothing about. I must warn you though, no te tires si no das pies.

Update: And the beautiful words keep coming in via email. Please note the delicate nature and subtle whispers of the following email I just received:

your writing is a window, for all to see, into how small your penis is. please, do everyone a favour a cover up this highly objectionable and indecent exposure.

your hate mongering is shocking, nothing less.

you thank tony blair for helping america invade iraq and kill hundreds of
thousands of civilians? you are nothng but morally corrupt prostitute.

guess what low-life? all governments and their "leaders" oppress people.
this is not exclusive domain to fidel, saddam, or idi amin. this includes
george bush, and paul martin, and vincente fox, and every other "leader".
you say, yes but you can dissent here and not be killed? is that really what
you think queer? they'll come after you in a split second and terrorize the
shit out of you without a peep.

old cuban blowhards really amuse me. one thing they should understand: fidel
kicked your ass, get over it. you won't get the island back until he dies.
he is on his last legs now doing the ickey shuffle in the end zone, making
fun of you. even when you get the island back you won't get your property
back and you won't get your slaves back. cuba is a changed place. some for
the better, some for the worse. but all that matters is, it is not yours
anymore. complain and bitch all you like. everyone hates whiners and
bitchers. it is a reflection of what's in your soul.

i will close with some simple logic even a worthless piece of shit like you
can comprehend: ruling classes don't remain so just because they were born
that way. wealthy land-owners/slave holders/oppressors have no right to
complain if a bigger, stronger conqueror comes along and does the same to
them. as much as fidel may have devastated a small part of his population, a
much larger part loves what he did for them. they are people too and they
have rights too, as much as you would like to believe otherwise. bitch

I get goosebumps, I really do.

Libertad.

Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.

José Martí

Three fowls

Turkey-duck-chicken.

A nice light lunch,eh?

Democracy in Iraq

72% of population reportedly has voted in the first Iraqi elections in over 50 years.

Freedom. What beautiful thing.

What I'm doing today...

Absolutely nothing.

Diplomatic Apartheid

Vaclav Havel takes on the European Union in the following editorial from the Miami Herald, posted here in its entirety. (all emph. Ed.)

EU and Cuba: Freedom vs. appeasement

BY VACLAV HAVEL

www.project-syndicate.cz

I vividly remember the slightly ludicrous, slightly risqué and somewhat distressing predicament in which Western diplomats in Prague found themselves during the Cold War. They regularly needed to resolve the delicate issue of whether to invite to their embassy celebrations various Charter 77 signatories, human-rights activists, critics of the communist regime, displaced politicians, or even banned writers, scholars and journalists -- people with whom the diplomats were generally friends.

Sometimes we dissidents were not invited, but received an apology, and sometimes we were invited, but did not accept the invitation so as not to complicate the lives of our courageous diplomat friends. Or we were invited to come at an earlier hour in the hope that we would leave before the official representatives arrived, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. When it didn't, either the official representatives left in protest at our presence, or we left hurriedly, or we all pretended not to notice each other, or -- albeit on rare occasions -- we started to converse with each other, which frequently were the only moments of dialogue between the regime and the opposition (not counting our courthouse encounters).

`Dissidents or trade'

This all happened when the Iron Curtain divided Europe -- and the world -- into opposing camps. Western diplomats had their countries' economic interests to consider, but, unlike the Soviet side, they took seriously the idea of ''dissidents or trade.'' I cannot recall any occasion at that time when the West or any of its organizations (NATO, the European Community, etc.) issued some public appeal, recommendation or edict stating that some specific group of independently minded people -- however defined -- were not to be invited to diplomatic parties, celebrations or receptions.

But today this is happening. One of the strongest and most powerful democratic institutions in the world -- the European Union -- has no qualms in making a public promise to the Cuban dictatorship that it will re-institute diplomatic Apartheid. The EU's embassies in Havana will now craft their guest lists in accordance with the Cuban government's wishes. The shortsightedness of socialist Prime Minister José Zapatero of Spain has prevailed.

Try to imagine what will happen: At each European embassy, someone will be appointed to screen the list, name by name, and assess whether and to what extent the persons in question behave freely or speak out freely in public, to what extent they criticize the regime, or even whether they are former political prisoners. Lists will be shortened and deletions made, and this will frequently entail eliminating even good personal friends of the diplomats in charge of the screening, people whom they have given various forms of intellectual, political or material assistance. It will be even worse if the EU countries try to mask their screening activities by inviting only diplomats to embassy celebrations in Cuba.

I can hardly think of a better way for the EU to dishonor the noble ideals of freedom, equality and human rights that the Union espouses -- indeed, principles that it reiterates in its constitutional agreement. To protect European corporations' profits from their Havana hotels, the Union will cease inviting open-minded people to EU embassies, and we will deduce who they are from the expression on the face of the dictator and his associates. It is hard to imagine a more shameful deal.

Cuba's dissidents will, of course, happily do without Western cocktail parties and polite conversation at receptions. This persecution will admittedly aggravate their difficult struggle, but they will naturally survive it. The question is whether the EU will survive it.

Today, the EU is dancing to Fidel Castro's tune. That means that tomorrow it could bid for contracts to build missile bases on the coast of the People's Republic of China. The following day it could allow its decisions on Chechnya to be dictated by Russian President Vladimir Putin's advisors. Then, for some unknown reason, it could make its assistance to Africa conditional on fraternal ties with the worst African dictators.

Where will it end? The release of Milosevic? Denying a visa to Russian human-rights activist Sergey Kovalyov? An apology to Saddam Hussein? The opening of peace talks with al Qaeda?

Coexistence with dictators

It is suicidal for the EU to draw on Europe's worst political traditions, the common denominator of which is the idea that evil must be appeased and that the best way to achieve peace is through indifference to the freedom of others.

Just the opposite is true: Such policies expose an indifference to one's own freedom and pave the way for war. After all, Europe is uniting to defend its freedom and values, not to sacrifice them to the ideal of harmonious coexistence with dictators and thus risk gradual infiltration of its soul by the anti-democratic mind-set.

I firmly believe that the new members of the EU will not forget their experience of totalitarianism and nonviolent opposition to evil, and that that experience will be reflected in how they behave in EU bodies. Indeed, this could be the best contribution that they can make to the common spiritual, moral and political foundations of a united Europe.

Václav Havel is former president of the Czech Republic.

I cant possibly add anything to Mr. Havel's editorial, save for one thing. As my mother would say: Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres. Tell me who your friends are, and Ill tell you who you are. Are you listening, EU?

Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca

It was about eight degrees outside. Piles of snow lined the streets and sidewalks. People, faces barely visible behind layers of scarves and hats and clothing, bustling about as if the previous day's snowstorm and it's gift of 20 or so inches of snow were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. A typical winter Sunday in New York City.

I'm walking along Sixth Avenue with my wife and cousin, who has just told me that he was there with my father, pacing the sidewalk in front of the hospital in Cuba, the day I was born.

I am forty years old plus one day, in an arctic New York City, heading towards Central Park down Sixth Avenue, The Avenue of the Americas.

We'd been chatting all this time as we made our way to the park. My cousin telling me about the day I was born, or about the next place of interest we needed to see, or about how cold it is, or about where we're having lunch.

We reach the end of the Avenue of the Americas, where this beautiful New York street, teeming with life and cars and snow meets New York City's Central Park. There's a statue right at the entrance to the park. We all see it, and even though my cousin has seen it a million times and I and the Mrs have not, he doesnt need to tell us who it is up there depicted in bronze atop a pedestal. We all know who it is.

None of us say a word as we cross the street and enter Central Park. Get closer to the statue. We dont need words, we each know what each other is feeling.

There in front of us is José Julian Martí, slumped on his bronze horse, meeting death as he fought for the freedom of his patria. Cuba. The very same country where forty years and one day earlier my father had paced up and down the hospital sidewalk awaiting the birth of his son. The same country that despite Marti's death, along with the death thousands upon thousands of his countrymen, is still not free.

Today is José Martí's birthday. Cuban patriot, poet, writer and martyr.

José Julian Martí
1853 - 1895

Numero 5 de Versos Sencillos

If you see a hill of foam
It is my poetry that you see:
My poetry is a mountain
And is also a feather fan.

My poems are like a dagger
Sprouting flowers from the hilt;
My poetry is like a fountain
Sprinkling streams of coral water.

My poems are light green
And flaming red;
My poetry is a wounded deer
Looking for the forest's sanctuary.

My poems please the brave:
My poems, short and sincere,
Have the force of steel
Which forges swords.

The words you see in the background of this page are his, and are the steel that forges my sword.

And the beatings begin in five...four...three...two...

The EU will suspend all sanctions against Cuba next week. The dictator's plan of releasing a dozen or so political prisoners in order to get in the good graces with the Euros worked.

How long thereafter will castro's next crackdown begin?

There's never an egg timer around when you need one.

No Che for you!

Remember the tshirt in this photo:

It's one of only three that were made before those fine liberal bastions of free speech over at Cafepress decided not to print anymore. Despite the fact that the image of the Marxist murderer is freaken everywhere, they cited copyright isues as the reason for not continuing to print my shirts.

Yesterday I get an email from a very well known blogger - that person also having had a few problems with Cafepress and their censorship - who started a blog specifically to bring to light the complete hypocrisy of the online store.

Cafepress Watch.

The politically correct, leftist, Northern Californians* of CAFEPRESS are disproportionately selective in what they censor.

This blog is dedicated to highlighting what 'slips' through.

Lots of things, including other Che images, slip through. It's only the ones where the ideology doesnt match that of the company's that get ixnayed. Just like Papa Che would do.

Drop by Cafepress Watch and check it out the sheer hypocrisy for yourself.

I went to NYC...

...and all I got was this nasty flu.

What say now, Martin? (Updated)

A few weeks ago I posted an entry titled The Final Stages where I described the stages of castro's revolution vis-a-vis Venezuela.

I wrote:

One: Convince the have nots that the haves are evil.

Two: Decry the evils of foreigners.

Three: Manipulate an election.

Four: Nationalize all media sources.

And the fifth stage: Expropriations.

I also mention the sixth stage, the Nationalization of Banks, which, if I am not mistaken, has already begun in castro's Venezuela.

In the comments of that post, I had a run in with a person named Martin who stated, among other things, the following:

A little on the dramatic side, don't you think? Government opponents have been using the threat of Cubanization since day one--Christ, I remember being in Venezuela three years ago and hearing women screaming bloody murder about how it was only a matter of time before Chavez exposed his Castroite roots. I'm still waiting.

And:

Like I said earlier, Val, the threat of impending cubanization is thrown around all too often, much too freely, and with much to little regard for the truth. It's one thing to say you are concerned about the state of a country, it's quite another altogether to equate those concerns with the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship. I visit Venezuela regularly enough to know that the opposition has used the same argument for years, though interestingly enough, few of them have ever travelled to Cuba to make that comparison. Trust me on this one--Venezuela is nowhere near Cuba, nor is it going in that direction.

Well, I wonder what Martin is saying now that mini-fidel Chavez has just given his mentor carte blanche to arrest anyone in Venezuela with no legal due process.

Cuban agents can accompany Venezuelan cops on raids and force statements from Venezuelans in Venezuela with no accountability. If this isn’t a surrender of sovereignty, what is? And you can see where this will lead. Anyone who can’t be snagged by Venezuelan ‘justice’ can be hauled off to face Cuban ‘justice.’

Yes, that's right. Cuban agents will no longer be called diplomats (as they have been called the past few years). They can now operate overtly about the country, with the public endorsement of the Chavez government, and impose the will of the bearded one himself without implication or repercussion.

That, Martin, is the final stage. A country rife with State Security agents experienced with the oppressive and heavy handed tactics necessary to rid a people of their free will.

Still think we're being overdramatic, Martin?

There's lots more on Venezuela's downfall over at VCrisis.

Update: Tman's got a great related post up here.

Plus, Scott has an entry on Thor Halverson'sVenezuela related article in the Weekly Standard.

A Glimpse of Cuba

I just received the following memoir from a reader, a Cuban-American, who traveled to Cuba in 2002 and chronicled his time there. I have read it before at La Nueva Cuba, but the author granted permission for me to post it here at Babalú. (Per his request, I am not posting his name.) It's a bit long for a blog post, but well worth the read.

A Glimpse of Cuba

These vignettes are a glimpse of my experiences and the people met while visiting Cuba to see relatives this October 2002. All of the names have been changed to protect these contacts. Cubans shared their thoughts and stories at the personal risk of harassment, detention and even years in prison. I feel obligated to share what they told me with friends and perhaps the press as well. Any comments and criticisms are welcome.

Ay Cuba! Finally, after years of curiosity, Havana came into sight under my plane’s window. Cuba is the largest island in the Greater Antilles, a long extended claw that is home to Fidel Castro as well as about 11 million other Cubans. At 21-23 degrees north, Cuba lies on the same latitudes as Algeria, Egypt, India, Mauritania, Oman, Vietnam and Hawaii. My stated purpose—necessary for the US to grant me a general license to travel to Cuba--was to visit my mother’s cousin whom no one from the Cuban side of my family had seen since the beginning of the Revolution (1959). But what I really wanted was to explore the land of Rum, Rumba and Revolution for the next three weeks.

While in Cuba, I would come to fall in love with the graciousness and humor of its people, the beauty of its land and climate and the charm of its architecture. But I would leave grieving over the poverty in the country, the grinding oppression, the lack of any semblance of human and civil rights, and the pervasive fear by Cubans of their own government. Though many Cubans would greet me with a smile, their disaffection and dwindling faith in the Revolution shocked me. I learned that the Revolution was for sale.

Ever since my father died five years ago, I have had a passion to learn more about my family’s roots. My father, an American, met my mother in Havana while on a business trip. It was love at first sight. They wed in 1954, years before the takeover by Castro in 1959. All but two of my mother’s relatives left Cuba by 1960 after their businesses and freedoms had been confiscated. My mother neither spoke of Cuba nor of her relatives still there. She even declined to visit her former friends from Havana who had settled in Miami. Not being a sentimental woman, she refused to reminisce about the past, especially a tragic past. She felt that Castro had laid waste to Cuba. She had moved on with her life.

I had pestered her with questions about her childhood. What she remembered most were the parties in Havana. She came of age in the early 1950’s—the belle epoch—of Havana. My father used to joke that that is why the Revolution occurred—the rich were oblivious to the problems in the country. My Mom partied while the sugar cane burned.

I also begged my Cuban Aunts and Uncles for their remembrances of Cuba. Though I forget the details of their stories, I remembered their loathing of Fidel Castro’s lies and oppression, their sadness over losing their country and how they didn’t think my traveling to Cuba was such a bright idea. They worried that Castro’s thugs would hurl me into one of his island Gulags for some imaginary offense. One friend thought that my incessant curiosity would cause me to ask impertinent questions resulting in a stay behind bars. Later I would learn that tourists were almost a special, protected class. As one Cuban told me, “We have less rights than a dog while foreigners are treated like royalty.”

For my first night in Havana I chose to stay in an upscale hotel. The prices were as expensive as a hotel in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda, but the services and food were miserable. Maybe the only reason Fidel was letting me onto his island was so my dollars could help bail out his plunging economy.

That evening I couldn’t help but notice the dozens of hermetically sealed tourist buses waiting outside to take the package tourists to their next destination. State security agents in their black pants, white Guayabera shirts and walkie-talkies were everywhere. My hotel was safe from being stormed by hungry Cubans. Or perhaps the guards were necessary to protect some government dignitary. Anyway, I felt oppressed.

Most Cuban tours are highly structured and controlled by the government which doesn’t want to reveal too much of the Cuban reality. Most tourists come to the island on two-week packages. Few have direct contact with Cubans outside the tourist centers, much to the satisfaction of the Communist government. To Castro, tourism is a necessary evil and tourists are no more than dollar signs. “It’s out of necessity,” he would say apologetically. “Tourism is a sacrifice we must make. There is no choice.” Besides, if tourists can be herded from government owned hotels to tourist resorts, less dollars slip out of its control and onto the black market or other non-governmental entities like casa particulars (small bed & breakfast homes) or paladares (private restaurants). This is why upon arrival, custom agents often require bookings for three nights at a hotel by tourists entering the country.

I asked a young Cuban outside the hotel who was waiting to guide tourists why he was not allowed into a hotel in his own country. He replied, “There are places Cubans are not allowed to go. They (the government) don’t want Cuban people to mix with foreigners, they don’t want us to trouble you, to steal from you, or tell you the problems of our lives. We are all humiliated.” “It must be difficult,” I said. “No, it is inconceivable,” he said.

After a night in a Cuban hotel, an experience I vowed never to repeat, I wanted to look up my relatives. I had obtained the address from my Aunt Tona, who told me the house had been in the family for generations. October is still a hot month in Havana. The sun blistered and my shirt became soaked from walking the 12 blocks from the hotel to my cousin’s house. When I stood in front of the door, I thought it might be condemned or abandoned. The house number was painted with whitewash in large scrawling letters by the door, the shutters were closed and the floorboards on the porch were cracked. The wooden doors seemed to be from the time of the Spanish Conquistadors. I went over to the next house to ask a neighbor if my cousin still lived there. “Si, claro, si” (yes, of course) came the reply.

I then knocked on the door. Immediately two barking dogs lunged against it. A commotion ensued, as the dogs were dragged back and a slat in the door opened. “Who is there?” a voice called out. “It is a relative of Garcia’s from New York, Juan,” I replied. The door opened and I stepped into a large foyer with high 14-foot ceilings. The home is a row house with two stories and windows facing the Malecon and the sea. It has an open-air interior garden at the center of the house. A row house indicated that my family had been rich enough to have a two-story house on a block with two to four story buildings throughout the neighborhood.

My second cousin, Garcia, certainly looked like one of my Grandfather’s nephews. He was tall, rail thin with white hair and a quiet English air about him. I had brought a photo album including a family tree with pictures of all my Cuban relatives. I pointed out that my mother, Elena, had been named after his mother, the sister of my Grandfather. We embraced, and he introduced me to his two daughters, three grandchildren, a daughter-in-law, and the mother of his deceased wife. Typical of many Cuban families, three generations were living under one roof. His grandson and daughter-in-law were living there since they could neither find nor afford other housing.

I was led through the house where my mother, aunt and uncle had grown up. It was where my Grandparents had raised their family and lived most of their lives. Most of the house now seemed in disrepair and decay. The walls had crumbling plaster, almost all paint had peeled away from doors, window frames and floors, and the shutters were cracked and missing slats. Forty years of salty air, sun and rainstorms had beaten the house into crumbling submission. My cousin could read my mind because he said that it had been difficult to maintain the house with the lack of paint, wood and other materials due to rationing and the economy. Though I thought the house was in similar condition to a deteriorating tenement, I would learn later that my family lived better than most Havana residents.

My mood was darkening. Any hope of bringing my mother back to Cuba was gone. She would be aghast to see her family home. And, thank the Lord, my Grandfather couldn’t see it either. Finally, Fredrico took me to where a pig was housed -- kept for food. The pig’s vocal cords had been cut, since a squealing pig would alert neighbors to an illegal possession. The government prohibits livestock in Havana homes.

I sat with my cousin asking questions in my broken Spanish. Was he happy living in Cuba? What was most difficult about the current situation? What had the Revolution achieved? Garcia, 78, had lived all his life in Cuba working as a civil engineer. He was now retired, supplementing his $8 a month pension with a small business of selling ice water to vendors at the market behind his house. He was a cuenta propista, a small entrepreneur. Yes, he was happy because Cuba is peaceful with little crime. All children can go to school and, when they graduate, find work. He told me Castro fought for the liberty and sovereignty of Cuba after years of domination by the Spanish and the Americans. Castro had followed in the footsteps of Jose Marti. Yes, the economy was weak, but the embargo was the main reason. Cuba couldn’t buy needed supplies from the U.S. I was taken aback by my cousin’s answers, but I wasn’t going to probe any further. I accepted his beliefs at face value, but I promised myself to ask the same of other Cubans. I would revisit him after my travels through Cuba.

Then I walked over to the Malecon and sat with my back to the sea and Miami, 90 miles away. My emotions were conflicted. My cousin sat in a crumbling house with no new paint or plaster available to improve conditions, he had a pittance of a pension, and his house was jammed with relatives and even livestock, yet he was happy. Why? I would try to find out through my travels. Well, if he was content, who am I to judge, I thought.

My thoughts turned to Papa and Mama, my grandparents, and to my uncle and aunts who fled from Cuba during the Revolution. Did they have to leave in the middle of the night with police at their door? Did they think they would return? After spending 70 years of his life raising his family, building a business, working honestly, what was my Grandfather feeling and thinking as he packed his small suitcase while being exiled from his own country? His freedoms had been denied, his property stolen in the name of the State and his business confiscated. Was he fearful for his life? I couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been leaving for the airport and closing the door behind him—the same door I had entered ten minutes ago.

Ernesto Che had scribbled a warning in his notebook that revolution is impersonal, that it consumes the innocent and guilty together, and then manipulates the memory of the dead as an instrument of control. Perhaps my Grandfather and his family and millions more were “consumed” by the revolution, but for what purpose and at what price? Did the Cuban Revolution “liberate” Cuba from foreign domination or did the Cuban people just trade one dictator, Batista, for another, Castro? It was time to go ask the Cuban people.

It’s another hot, steamy night in Centro Habana as I am met on the street corner by Carlos, a jinitero or hustler, who asks me, “Quieres una chica, cigar o run?” I politely decline his offer of a woman, cigar or rum, but we hang out and talk. So what is life like in Castro’s Cuba, I ask? Glancing left and right, he says, “Sin Libertad” (without freedom). Next to us, four of his neighborhood buddies are playing dominoes for a bottle of rum while across the street several young men and women gyrate to disco music booming from a cassette player. I feel like it’s a block party.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “All is illegal here,” he answers, “The government can’t provide for the people, so we must break the law to survive. There is a huge conflict between reality and rhetoric here, between what Castro says to the wider world and what he actually permits inside the country. Castro is an aging megalomaniac who doesn’t know his time is past,” he said.

Carlos, 33, is a Havana University Physics professor who moonlights hustling tourists or, more appropriately, procuring services for them. He can make potentially more money in one night through earning dollars than being paid in Cuban pesos for one month’s teaching. Cubans joke that, “We’re paid in pesos, but life is lived in dollars.” Cubans face a daily struggle to supplement their ration cards and meager peso salaries. To survive they must break the law and operate in the black market; they face the abyss of starvation on one side and imprisonment on the other.

Carlos continued to speak in a low voice. He did not want our neighbors to hear, “The government doesn’t provide adequate rations of rice, yet it is illegal to buy rice on the black market. This is the contradictory chasm that disgusts us. Castro profits on the dollars, yet punishes those who try to earn dollars outside the system. The average Cuban is paid 220 pesos ($8.00) per month, which is impossible to live on, so the rest of the time is spent in line trying to obtain rationed items where they can be found—on the black market. Some say it is the way the government prevents Cubans from organizing. We are all too exhausted from standing in line or going hungry to protest. To get by we pretend to go along. We wear a mask and say that all is fine. But people are tired of living a lie.”

I was lucky to have found an articulate observer, so I asked, “So what happened to the Revolution?” Carlos smirked and said, “It was hijacked by one person and turned into a tool for personal power. Castro’s vision has turned it into a nightmare for 11 million people. The original social contract between the State and people exchanged free education, healthcare and security for allegiance to the Party/State/Revolution. It worked at first because of the support of the eastern block and the redistribution of accumulated wealth from before the Revolution.

“Then,” he continued, “After 1990, during Castro’s “Special Period” when the government here couldn’t deliver, things changed. There have been developments in the last decade such as an increase in tourism and small businesses and the liberation of the dollar. But these things weakened the original social contract. If the people could provide for themselves, what happened to their absolute allegiance and dependence on the State? Now, of course, it is too late to roll back the socialist system, but Castro is trying, in small ways, to do just that while constantly pointing to the failings of capitalism in the outside world. As a result, people are confused, disillusioned and very frustrated, especially the young. Any protests to voice opinions are met with…” Carlos moved his finger across his throat like a knife cutting flesh.

“What happens if someone is brave or foolish enough to speak out?” I interjected. Carlos answered, “The huge police and military presence is meant as a deterrent to crime and as a reminder of State power. And if you push against all that? Well, the first response is to ignore you, to isolate and make you seem irrelevant, powerless. The State has almost a total monopoly on jobs, of course, which is a powerful weapon, and then there are the CDRs, Comites para Defensa La Revolucion (similar to a neighborhood watch), which make about 90% of us collaborators in the repression and control of dissidents. The second response would be to crush you. Our jails are full of political prisoners.”

“Then who does support Castro and the “Revolution?” I asked. Carlos replied, “Cuba is split three ways. There is the sixty-plus generation who remember the years before Castro, who probably fought in the war and who retain some of the youthful ideals. To them, Castro is still a hero. But this group is dying off or becoming undone by all the sacrifices. Then there is the lost generation, people of my age, who, being on the periphery, suffered the most and perhaps understood the least, having neither the ideals nor the advantages. Then there are the under-thirties who have never known anything else, who are bewildered and blankly angry because none of the propaganda about the revolution had any personal relevance.”

“What about the praises for free education and health care?” I pleaded. Carlos sighed, “You can give people education of course, but what is it worth if you don’t allow freedom of thought or action? An educated person here can’t think independently. Even obtaining books from outside Cuba is difficult. No one here really knows what the outside world is like. We have “Granma,” the State published newspaper, which we use for toilet paper.”

During my stay in Cuba I had read Granma, the Communist party newspaper. It would be a stretch to call it a newspaper, for it is free of any news. Articles are monologues by party officials fleshing out truisms, such as “The quality of education is important for our society.”

Carlos continued, “The young question the value of an education. They say, `Why study to become a slave of the State and earn $8.00 a month when by trading cigars on the black market, I can make five times that?` Also, education is not completely free. Parents have to buy books, paper and pencils for their children. The schools have nothing.”

“And free healthcare?” I asked, “Yes,” Carlos agreed, “Healthcare is free, but the reality is different depending if you have dollars to buy medicine. I have heard that even doctors have not been able to help their own mothers obtain needed care since they lacked dollars for medicines. The excuse is the American blockade, but, of course, anyone knows Cuba could buy cheaper medicines from Mexico. So, where is the medicine? We are broke or Castro steals the money, I don’t know, but I suspect. Propaganda tells us that we are building a biotechnology industry, that we are building more and more hotels for the tourists, yet we Cubans can’t even buy an aspirin. A disgrace!”

(Cubans with dollars usually asked me to purchase medicine for them since they could not enter international pharmacies. These medicines were first reserved for the Communist Party Elite and foreign tourists.)

“Why do people accept such frustrations?” I asked. Carlos answered, “Many Cubans outside the country, particularly in Florida, who feel sentimental about their homeland, send large sums of money to their families. It is a paradox, but our government is supported by its enemies in Miami. The money (the biggest source, one-fifth, of foreign exchange) contains what would otherwise be a very difficult situation. Then there are four classes of people in Cuba. The majority consists of the lowest class, the comemierdas, the “shit-eaters,” the people who work for around 250 pesos or roughly $10 dollars per month. Then there are the people who work at the bottom of the tourist market. They have some problems, pay expensive licenses, get into trouble over nothing, get shut down. But mostly they survive. Then there are the top people who work for the government, maybe in tourism or other businesses. These people travel abroad, they have holidays in Varadero, they are very comfortable. The top of the heap is the army….the chupadores, the “bloodsuckers,” the exploiters who own everything and have everything in their control. Finally, Castro exiles many of the troublemakers, so you have the more passive people left who are just waiting and surviving.”

“Carlos, I read that for Castro the revolution seems bent on creating financial and living equality for Cuba’s 11 million people. To Castro, the ideology suffers when the elements of a free market appear. These are the seeds of capitalism and if allowed to grow, mass corruption will follow and things will return to their pre-1959 state overnight,” I prodded. Carlos sarcastically replied, “The alienation between the government and the people stems from this attitude because Castro doesn’t trust the Cuban people to care for and maintain the “Revolution’s” integrity. It’s a “People’s Revolution” that the people have no say or part in.”

I thanked Carlos for his insights and he offered to take me to visit his family the following night. He then invited me to accompany him to a Cuban disco. I was depressed at what I had heard, but whenever my gloom crept in, cheerfulness in Cuba always seemed to erupt. The situation was sad, even desperate, but Cubans levy most things with jokes: “Cuba has all the ingredients for a paradise, but Castro doesn’t know how to cook.” Eager to experience the music and dance of Cuba, I set off with Carlos.

We enter a Casa de Trova (a music house) where the walls pulse with Rhumba. The crowd dances side by side or in tight pairs, putting on a spontaneous, erotic display. Women swivel their hips in a maneuver appropriately referred to as la batidora (the blender) or do el tembleque (the shake), punching the air and rippling their torsos as if they have just received electroshock. I stand with mouth agape and stare.

Cuban women are striking. Tan muy Linda! (So very beautiful!) Centuries of mingling Spanish, indigenous, and African blood have created skin colors that range from creamy white to dark chocolate. Noses are aquiline; cheekbones are well-defined. Eyes are almond-shaped and framed with long, black lashes. Cuban men worship las nalgas cubanas-the Cuban Ass. Excess flesh is no sin. They celebrate it in all of its glory. I noticed that Cubanas sway, they don’t walk. To my right is a large Mulatta gyrating her ample endowments in a glistening, sweaty fury. She has swaddled her galactic ass in pink spandex and stuffed her papaya-shaped breasts into polka dot halter-tops. A bouffant of Afro-mermaid hair spills across her body. Now I know that sensuality is a state of mind, not body.

In Communist Cuba, I found shortages of everything except ironies. The Bay of Pigs is a beach resort now. The Isle of Youth, long the most famous Alcatraz of the Caribbean, now entices visitors with its International Scuba Center. Havana has the ramshackle glamour of an abandoned stage set. That sense of wistfulness, of a life arrested in mid-breath, is everywhere in Cuba: the boarded up stores, Hemingway’s house left exactly as he had left it, the unread “Field and Sports Illustrated” scattered across the bed. The buildings all around, unpainted and unrepaired, speak of departed hopes. I often thought, “Why ask the time when time has stopped here?” But I knew there were changes, conditions in Cuba that were causing people to question themselves, their government and their faith.

I was going to meet Carlos’ family. I strolled from the decaying mansions of Vedado towards the teeming tenements of Centro Havana. Havana has a fascinating mix of architecture, which includes churches from the 16th century to the art deco of the 1950’s. I wish I could spend three months photographing the buildings of this city.

As I dodge a rickshaw, I hear a tremendous rumble, like an avalanche or landslide. Derrumbe! Derrumbe! I hear people scream. Where a four-story building used to stand is now a heap of cinders, splintered wood and dust. A crowd is rapidly gathering. “Oh no,” I think, “Could it be?” Through the haze of dust, I glimpse what could be a hand sticking up through the rubble. I am snapping pictures when a policeman yells, “Prohibido! Prohibido!” The policeman knows that it is against the law to take photos of these catastrophes. Castro doesn’t want the foreign press to make negative propaganda of Cuba’s collapsing buildings. Or is it because Castro can’t see the irony symbolized in his crumbling “Revolution”? I duck into the crowd, ashamed at my voyeurism. “Why didn’t I jump in and heave the bricks off of that poor soul?” I pondered. My eyes sting from the dust, but I notice former occupants of the building huddled to my left holding each other, crying, wondering who of their family, friends and neighbors had been killed.

These people had next to nothing and had now lost the rest of their possessions to the elements of erosion, time, lack of maintenance, rain and the salty, corrosive sea air. I asked a man at the edge of the crowd what would happen to the families. He replied, “When the buildings collapse, the families are moved to the suburbs in Guanabacoa and Habana del Este. They will be promised a new home, but that will never happen, perhaps in ten years. Now when they go to work, they must pay a peso to park their bicycles and cars at the empty lot where their homes used to be. Havana is becoming one big parqueo (parking lot).”

The government’s own study estimates that nearly 25% of the buildings housing the 2.2 million Havana residents, or more than 20% of Cuba’s population, are in poor condition. If a minor earthquake ever shakes Havana, many of the city’s buildings would be leveled within seconds. Foreign investment is helping to restore a few of the oldest buildings at the center of tourist areas, but this is only a tiny portion. Havana would need billions of new investment to restore itself to its pre-revolutionary glory.

Shaken by my experience, I hurried towards my meeting with Carlos’ family. Cecilia met me at the door. She was 65, the mother of Carlos, and behind her were her sister, Juanita, her nephew, Juan and her aunt, Marsala. Carlos was not there, because the police had arrested him. No one knew what for.

I was there to learn what the older generations thought of Cuba and the Revolution. Cecilia, a light colored mulatto, had come of age when the Revolution began in 1959; she had lived most of her adult life during Castro’s reign. She graduated from Havana University and became an Economics Professor until she quit to sell coffee and rent out a room in her apartment.

“La vida esta un poco deficil, verdad?” (Life is a bit difficult?) I ventured. “La Lucha” (the struggle), she said. “The people are tired. The embargo is used as an excuse, but that is an excuse for everything. We have been made to feel that we are at war for forty years and we are tired. What kind of war continues for forty years? You, foreigners, can never really know what it is like since you are always free to leave, to return to your own country. Cubans have no other country. This is home.”

“Why is Fidel always mentioned and no one else?” I ask. Cecila responds, “Fidel has an iron lock on control as President of the Republic of Cuba, the first secretary of the PCC’s Central Committee, chairman of the Council of Ministers, and the commander-in-chief of the Cuban Armed Forces. That is why he is called “El Lider Maximo” (the maximum leader). His only threat is the wavering faith of the people. Castro has turned Cuba into a Fidelista state, one where Marxist-Leninism has been loosely grafted onto Cuban nationalism, then used as an instrument of control by one man. Fidel once promised free elections as a stalling tactic while he consolidated his power. He will lie, betray, and kill to remain in power. His megalomania and obduracy in following a failed system is leading us to ruin. Whether every Cuban starves, every monument crumbles doesn’t concern him. He is totally out of touch with the Cuban reality.”

“How?” I asked. Cecila answers, “By refusing to allow the free expressions of Cubans to create, trade, buy and sell with one another and with foreigners, he hinders Cubans from empowering and sustaining themselves. Castro’s Revolution is bankrupt because he refuses to cede power to his own people. In trying to control everything, he has ended up disenfranchising his support.

“His failed experiments have devastated the economy. For example, when la zafra--the sugar harvest-- failed, the people lost faith in Castro’s ability to run the economy. Now the State is closing many Centrales, (Sugar Refineries) due to the high cost of inefficient production caused by lack of capital investment leaving many unemployed in the countryside. Rural poverty throughout Cuba is increasing because sugar is on the decline and without dollar commodity crops to replace it, the campesinos (farmers) have no alternatives for making a living. And ironically those poor, unemployed workers are prevented by law from moving to where they could get work.

“Isn’t Castro liberating the economy slightly by allowing some private businesses?” I asked. Cecila laughed, “Oh, you mean capitalism frio, or cold capitalism. That has been a result of a battle between reformers and hardliners in Castro’s ruling class.” “Ruling Class?” I interrupt. Cecila continued, “Yes, Castro has built a privileged ruling class based on top government officials, the security apparatus and the military. Who do you think rides around Havana in black Mercedes? Obviously, with Cuba having two unequal currencies, the peso and the dollar, there will be huge differences between those who have dollars and those who don’t.

“Reformers think that Cuba will become so poor that there will be little left to steal so they have pushed for some openings in the economy. Before 1993, Cubans caught with even one dollar were sentenced to four years in prison while now dollars keep Cuba afloat. But if the people are too successful like the farmer’s markets in the early 1980’s, Castro stamps them out. Currently, private businesses like casa particulars (Bed & Breakfast lodging) or private restaurants face ruinously high taxation and cumbersome licensing regulations to protect inefficient State hotels. (Casa particular owners told me that they had to pay their taxes $200 to $300 per month up front to the government whether they earned revenues or not). Advertising is restricted so we as business owners have to pay middlemen like Jiniteros to find customers while the government tries to arrest them. We suffer the indignity of contradictions upon contradictions.”

Cecila continued, “The government wants you out of business so you can work for them at 200 pesos a month. When I worked at the university I saw that the harder I worked, every year, I am in the same place. Why should I be a slave for the government? So, I quit and began in the black market. This is the Cuban black market reality. It is a web and the entire population operates in it. It is a matter of survival. In Cuba, everything is illegal. Everybody is committing a crime to survive. Not all the laws are enforced, but when the State wishes to, it only has to find out which crime is being committed. For example, without paying absurdly high license fees, any making of dollars is considered “illegal enrichment.” Farmers can’t sell excess milk to poor neighbors. Selling privately is against the law and butchering a steer will lead to 7 years in prison for “illegal slaughter.” The real crime is competing against the State. All dollars belong to Castro’s elite; nobody is allowed to make any money here. They want every dollar for themselves.”

I mentioned that I had met a man who was serving 12 months for selling lobster on the black market. It was another case of a Cuban being punished for interfering with the State’s monopoly.

“Yeah,” Cecelia’s nephew piped up, “Here you can be arrested for anything. Or nothing.”

“Well then, why doesn’t Fidel confiscate everything and have everyone work for the State?” I countered. Cecila replied, “Castro already tried that in 1970 with government controlled taxis. Then the transportation system collapsed. Think about it. As a driver, whenever there was a mechanical breakdown or flat tire, why fix it? The drivers left it to the government mechanics while they sat home to collect 200 pesos a month. Every taxi was in the shop.

“Don’t think of Cuba in terms of capitalism, socialism, or communism. Those are just words. Cuba is the perfect laboratory to observe the destruction of wealth and lives--a country--because people lack freedom to think, speak, and create for themselves. Nor can we exchange our goods and services with each other or foreigners. Cuba suffers under the rule of an aging tyrant, bereft of any consideration over the agonies of his long-suffering people. If only we had a rule of law and human and civil rights.”

“At least you have the libreta,” I offered. The libreta, a ration card for food and basics, was created in 1962 to provide a safety net for the population. These ration cards typically had enough food to last a family of four about 7 to 10 days. Meat, fish and vegetables were not included on the libretas, so Cubans had to find other sources of food.

Cecila shot me a withering glare. Now the words came tumbling out of her, “But we don’t want to be given anything. We only wish to be free to find for ourselves what we need. We want freedom and independence to make our own lives. We are sick of being treated like children who don’t know what is best for ourselves. You can’t imagine a life without freedom!”

Juan joins in, “Have you ever seen Castro clutching his libreta while waiting 4 hours in line for a bowl of watered down soup? Where’s Fidel?”

Juanita turned to her sister, “Please -- the neighbors might hear us.” “I don’t care. What difference if I am in prison or not. We are all waiting, waiting for something to change, for Fidel to die. We are living lost lives,” Cecila yelled.

I braced for storm troopers. Surely by now the neighborhood watch, the CDR or Comites para Defensa La Revolucion, had filed their report. In 1991, Rapid Response Detachments were formed under the Ministry of the Interior to deal with public expressions of dissent. These brigades were there to beat square pegs into round holes. These pogroms were camouflaged under the guise of spontaneous reaction of outraged Cubans. Would I be dragged into a waiting van and then to interrogation? Or would I be flung into prison with not even a show trial to present a vague charge of “dangerousness” against me. Would I be able to appeal?

“Are there many political prisoners in jail? What happens if you are accused of a crime?” I asked. My nervousness had me glancing for exits.

“Courts are not independent. There is no concept of individual rights or due process. The private practice of the law is not permitted, and the accused can’t choose their own defense. In Cuba, the judge reads you your sentence and punishment and then the court presents the evidence!” said Cecila. My research concurred that according to Article 121 of the Cuban Constitution the judiciary is charged with “maintaining and strengthening socialist legality, not protecting individual rights.” There goes my defense, I thought.

(Four Cubans told me of their friends who had been jailed and tortured for various offenses such as “disrespect, dangerousness, and unjust enrichment.”)

“Why are there so many jiniteras (prostitutes) in Havana,” I wondered out loud.

Juanita exclaimed, “Havana is one big garbage can. Jiniteras are a national disgrace (Spanish for “jockeys” or Cuban for prostitutes), but Castro is turning the island into a brothel. Women are selling what foreigners want-- their bodies. The women are desperate for money to buy things that they need like underwear, cosmetics, and shoes, and for that they need dollars. The government knows this. The police exploit and beat up the girls. They arrest girls who won’t give them money and sex. Yes, Cuban women enjoy sex, but women with the freedom to choose wouldn’t risk disease, injury or arrest to sleep with drunk, fat, middle-aged tourists flocking to the island. There are girls under 12 years of age selling themselves. These girls are trying to survive. This crazy system is impoverishing the country. Castro and his henchmen are driving the people to desperation.”

(Later, an English tourist boasted to me that Cuba had the world’s cheapest prostitutes. The women that I saw on the street ranged from professionals to a college professor moonlighting for a date. I asked one jinitera why foreigners were more interesting to her than Cuban men. “Cuban men are boring,” she said. “Why?” I probed. “They don’t have money; you do,” she leered. The attraction wasn’t my scraggly-toothed smile, but the dollars in my pocket. I was a walking dollar sign.

When I entered a Havana disco, I saw dozens of beautiful women looking to pounce. To my left two mulattas squirmed in the laps of two pasty white Germans, one of which looked like he needed a C-section to relieve his bursting gut, while to my right several cologne drenched Italians attempted to keep up with their “dates” on the dance floor. For the women there, their goal was to extract presents, dinner and perhaps even develop a husband to get them off the island. Economic necessity--not love--seemed to be the driving force behind the trysts.

(During a foray down to the docks of Havana, I met three young girls who were trolling for tourists. I traded a glance at one of the girl’s ID cards for a coke. She was 11 years old. For a country that prides itself on protecting and educating its children, child prostitution indicated a new low for the “Revolution.”)

I asked Cecila, “Why doesn’t Fidel know what is going on? After all, he stamped out prostitution during the beginning of the Revolution.” Cecila threw down two clippings from a 1992 Castro speech about Prostitution. The quotes read, ‘There are no women forced to sell themselves to a man, to a foreigner, to a tourist. Those who do so, do it on their own, voluntarily, without any need for it. We can say that they are highly educated hookers and quite healthy, because we are a country with the lowest number of AIDs cases...Therefore, there is truly no tourism healthier than Cuba’s…Women become jiniteras because they like sex.’- Fidel Castro’s 1992 speech to the National Assembly.

(Leave it to Castro to turn any social disaster into propaganda for his sick Revolution, I thought. Castro was either deeply cynical or completely delusional).

I was near the end of my rope. Every question brought a further pummeling of the Revolution. I turned towards Aunt Marsala to ask, “What was life before the Revolution?” Marsala said, “We had little money but there was always plenty of cheap food. Socially it was chaos: Mafia and corruption everywhere. Batista was a butcher. The whole country wanted him out. There was no honesty in the government or in the country; no law. If you did something wrong and you were rich, you bought yourself out of the problem, even if it was murder. Now it is much better in that respect, but not in any other.”

“Those that fought to overthrow Batista and who wanted democracy were betrayed early. Those people have all been exiled, jailed or killed. Those that stayed and believed in the Revolution are paying the price now. We are starving on this island prison. We live a lie to survive. Castro has betrayed everyone. Oh God, what will become of us?”

“One more thing,” I asked. “Is Internet access available?” “Ordinary Cubans are denied access to the Internet. It is just another liberty that is denied without reason or discussion,” replied Cecila.

I gratefully thanked Carlos’ family for their hospitality and the risks taken to share their thoughts. With only a few days before boarding a plane back to New York, I planned an excursion to Pinar del Rio, the finest tobacco-growing region in the world.

The warm sea air blew against my face as I held a cold beer and listened to thumping salsa music while driving west along the coastal road. Three giggling Cubanas, nurses picked up hitchhiking, sat in the back of my rented Fiat mocking my singing in broken Spanish while palm trees breezed by. The tropical colors of the blue sea, the green forests and white beaches were spectacular. “Could this be paradise?” I wondered. But my conversations with Cubans about the reality of their lives kept interrupting my thoughts.

Along the highway, there were Cubans of all ages sitting or standing under bridges and walking along the road hoping to catch a ride to their destination. Despite the long distances between major towns, public transport was next to nil. Some old women held children under the broiling sun while hundreds of Cubans lined the highway. Since Cubans were prohibited from buying cars without a special license and the government was not providing more bus service, Cubans had to walk, pedal bikes or hitch rides from tourists or State vehicles—again, more contradictions upon contradictions. The lack of transport caused economic chaos. Crops were left to rot in fields, workers couldn’t reach jobs, and supplies couldn’t find markets. My car was always packed with Cubans of all ages.

I drove by numerous abandoned sugar refineries and commercial trucks were scarce. Cuba seemed on the verge of bankruptcy. Only a paranoid would bother to look both ways before crossing the highway since there were few, if any, cars on the road. Back in the States, I had read that Cuba was billions of dollars in debt to Russia and other trading partners. Cuba has reneged on paying for goods from Canadian, Italian and Spanish companies in order to cough up the cash needed to buy American grain and chicken. Castro knows that food riots in the streets of Havana and Santiago de Cuba would topple tourism and dent his propaganda machine.

During my travels, I spoke with farmers, college professors, students, policemen, military, clerks, doctors, and housewives. Everyone complained about the economy. “If only there were jobs that paid more money; if only life were not so hard,” they said. Though many did not know the cause of such an economic mess, they wanted more freedoms and less interference from government. But, likewise, few seemed to desire an abandonment of free healthcare or schooling.

Driving towards Pinar del Rio, I gave two black soldiers a lift. I wondered why Castro, who had ordered the end of racism early in his revolution, had top leadership as white as the Ku Klux Klan. These two men said that blacks were hassled much more by the police than whites. While I often saw police ask darker skinned Cubans for their identification papers, I did not witness tension between races.

While in the town of Vinales, I met a man who took me to a house formally lived in by a political prisoner. I took a picture of the prisoner’s house because he had written with black letters on the outside wall about his ordeal. He had suffered electroshock torture in a psychiatric hospital for telling the truth about Cuba. “Cuba is ruled by fascists, Castro and Che,” he had scrawled. When I asked neighbors where I might find this man, they said the police had taken him to the hospital for more “therapy.” This was one Cuban who objected to being part of Cuba’s “free” health care system.

I encountered the first cases of malnutrition when I helped a young Cuban woman carry her sick child back to her village outside Jaguey Grande, a center for citrus growing. Three black children had the orange tinged hair of malnourishment. Their mother said that the family ate mostly rice and beans without fruit, vegetables and meat. Their shacks lacked running water, electricity or sewage systems. Her husband was unemployed and had left months ago in search of work. Life was grim; not even the crumbs of the revolution were reaching this village. Perhaps this was what Cecila was talking about when she mentioned rural poverty. Bleached, blubbery Europeans on their package tours would never cross paths with these children.

On my drive back to Havana, I couldn’t resist stopping to photograph faded, torn and broken billboards proclaiming propaganda such as “Socialismo o Muerte!” (Socialism or Death!) or “Hasta La Victoria Siempre” (Always onward towards victory). One brave graffiti artist had crossed out the o and written Socialismo e Muerte (Socialism is Death!). The irony was delicious. The contradictions and ironies assaulted you every day while living in Cuba.

Back in Havana a day before my flight home, I revisited my cousin, Garcia. He asked me what I thought of Cuba. I didn’t have the heart to reply that while I loved Cuba and Cubans, I loathed the hunger of people living on reduced rations, the lack of transport, the collapsing buildings, Cubans held in prison for the crime of selling an onion to their neighbors, the huge investment in a security apparatus designed to crush dissent, and the total denial of property rights, free expression, due process and individual rights. Or that Jose Marti would roll in his grave being associated with Castro since Jose Marti sought democratic rights for Cubans and national sovereignty for Cuba, not a tyrannical despot like Castro. I could have piled on, but I thanked him for his hospitality and wished him well.

After three weeks of travel, I was appalled by the deprivation Cubans battled daily. I was amazed at their ability to resolver, to survive through ingenuity, resourcefulness and the help of family and friends. Cuba’s salvation lies in its people’s ability to create and be resourceful. Cubans had suffered confiscation of their properties and freedoms in exchange for some equality--free schools and hospitals. But as the subsidies of the Soviet Union evaporated and Castro’s choking regulations throttled the economy, Cuba struggled to fund these services. Cubans are now paying a terrible price in constantly dwindling privileges while being ruled by Fidel and his party elite. Cubans must break laws to survive, thus tearing the moral grounds of the society. They live in a tropical gulag on a financially bankrupt island.

If power is fun, then absolute power must be absolute fun for Castro as he manipulates his levers of control. As a pragmatist, Castro has loosened slightly the State’s total control of the economy to allow farmers’ markets and limited self-employment. But when the private market economy shows more vigor than the official, socialist economy, he halts reforms abruptly. Any entrepreneur caught being too successful is purged of their goods and profits through Castro’s “unjust enrichment” law.

Yet, Castro can only distribute and consume what has been produced. His dictatorship discourages, reduces and disrupts production while, by contrast, capitalism tends to maximize production. Declining production destroys Cuba’s dwindling capital base, which in turn reduces production further. Cuba is in an economic death spiral, but Castro is too arrogant to face the truth of his failed social experiment.

Many Cubans have voted on the success of Castro’s revolution by leaving Cuba through exile or death. More than 15% of Cubans today live outside the island, and Cuba ranks second in the Western Hemisphere in suicide behind one of the Scandinavian countries.

I met young Cubans who were either waiting for Castro to take his biological exit or seeking a way out of Cuba. No one mentioned a possible democratic transition, not while Fidel still breathes. I asked, “What happens after Fidel dies?” Some feared a civil war while others did not know since they have never lived under any ruler but El Lider. The young do not see a viable alternative as Castro ruthlessly stomps out any opposition. Currently, confusion and anomie has filled the vacuum left by the collapse of the egalitarian promise.

I believe Castro has no intentions of relinquishing his power to micromanage the lives of Cubans and of holding free and fair elections. As one Cuban waiter told me, “We are all puppets on a string.”

Castro’s tyranny can be camouflaged in the name of a revolution for the people, yet Fidel is accountable to no one. Does building schools or a limited healthcare system justify the imprisonment, murder, exile and torture of tens of thousands of Cubans? Though Castro has not made it to the big leagues of tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot—Castro is too subtle to have skulls piling up on his beaches—Castro has inflicted these crimes for 44 years and outlasted 9 U.S. Presidents while sitting 90 miles from our shores. The international press focuses more on the hardships of the US embargo against Cuba and Castro’s next meeting with a foreign dignitary than on the prisoners rotting in Castro’s jails or the difficult lives of ordinary Cubans. That is wrong.

What hope is there for the future? While I know that while neither lifting nor keeping the embargo will remove Castro, Cuba is changing under the surface. The older generation such as my cousin, Garcia, who still believe, are dying, while the young grow in disillusionment and frustration, longing for more freedom. Each day brings Castro closer to his end while a political demographic time bomb ticks away. Cuba will change, but how?

I pray for a peaceful transition.

Note: Carlos still had not been released from jail by the time I left Cuba. Neither his family nor I know why and where he is being held..

In castro's paradise... (Updated)

A guy can't even drown a few worms...

SANTA CLARA, January 21 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) - A physician who was vacationing at a recreational fishing resort was beat by the local police chief who thought the man was a commercial fisherman.

Dr. Ismely Iglesias was fishing at the Manajanabo, Santa Clara fishing club January 18, when a man who turned out to be the sector's chief of police, charged him, beat him, and handcuffed him. Iglesias' assailant, who only gave his name as Lester, said he assumed the Dr. was a fishing illegally.

Later, Lester set Dr. Iglesias free, threatening to charge him with disobedience.

Dr. Iglesias said he had a dislocated ankle for which he would have to observe 10-days' rest.

I guess it's a good thing he has free universal healthcare.

Update: My buddy homebru hits the nail on the head with this from the comments section:

Drowning gusanos is apparently reserved for fidel.

Y El Mono Chifla

Hey, Ed, is the monkey still whistling up there in NYC?

A Cuba Discovery

Last New Year's Day, I wrote a short piece for The American Thinker on one horror of Cuba's tyranny - that in a global society that allows us to email from New York to Miami to Caracas to Baghdad to Jakarta to London in lightning seconds, we cannot reach anyone in Cuba. It's a black hole. People under the darkest totalitarianism are completely shut out of what the rest of the world, even the poorest people in the Andes and Caucases and dusty Indian plains and Southeast Asian rice paddies, enjoy - the right to communicate to anyone in the world through the Internet. And, oh yes, it really happens. But not in Cuba.

Cuba suffers a double whammy, though. Not only are Cuban voices shut out of the Internet. They are also shut out of the Extranet. This is due to the liberal stranglehold on the intellectual aspects of society. The Herbert Matthews tradition rules at the New York Times, for one, with Miami Cubans portrayed almost exclusively as rightwing crazies. Meanwhile, New York publishing houses won't print anything that isn't pro-Castro, so forget about Cuban voices in the literature, they aren't seen. And don't even think about Hollywood, where Motorcycle Diaries fills the quota for Cuban culture.

This is intolerable. But as a famous economist said, anything that can't go on, won't.

So it was a great pleasure to discover a new publishing house in Los Angeles this weekend, called PureplayPress devoted to publishing the works of Cuban writers who've otherwise been shut out of both systems.

It's run by a former journalist and author, David Landau, who, being a good journalist, had a habit of listening to people. Fate threw into his path a man who had spent 18 years in castro's dungeons, a former political prisoner from Cuba, when they met in New York. And they became roomates.

Scroll back - eighteen years.

Think about what that might do to your mind. He was a brilliant person of course, exactly the kind of person Castro cannot tolerate in his gray, mirthless, blotting-paper-faced bureaucrat satrapy. And the former prisoner shared what he knew with David, the reality of Cuba. Intensely. And David really listened - closely enough that it changed who he was.

From this, David wrote a historic novel about the authentic Cuban culture that the prisoner had shared with him. Even though he was not Cuban, real Cubans who read it said he got it. But although David was an accomplished writer with a proven track record of writing salable books about current events, he found himself running into a brick wall with the New York publishing houses. He ran into their unwritten code - that anything negative about Castro cannot see print. He also learned about other Cubans who had similarly been turned down.

But he did something about it. About two years ago, he founded a publishing house devoted to the revealing the real truth about Cuba from Cuban writers - the kind who are invisible even in our own society. He had quite a treasure trove of works to choose from.

I called David up to learn about his story as publisher. Here is a little of what he told me:

"Cubans in particular have a great literary tradition. They are great readers in Cuba itself," he said, explaining that 97% of Cuba was literate before castro took over and destroyed the country.

But because the country is totalitarian, and the New York publishing houses shut them out, "there are lots of (Cuban) writers sitting around with great books they wrote 10 or 20 years ago that they have not published, there are a number in that category. They have mature voices, and books finely honed and written. These are people who've written books in Cuba for one reason or another, often about politics.

"Cuban editorial houses can reject a book (not only for being ideologically incorrect, but) for being ideologically unclear. Authorities are not sure anything is wrong with it, but it has an independent vovice - there may be nothing to do with politics - so it's refused.

"The the writer gets to the U.S. - He says to himself: 'I am finally free as an artist, and (once they reach the New York publishing houses, they find) they can't do it here, either. It's much tougher.

"There are a lot of writers who are caught in this cultural divide. They are yearning for an outlet. We are one place where they can come and find an outlet. I have been contacted by lots of writers.... and a high number are really good," said David.

David explained that unlike a lot of the American establishment, which won't give Cuban writers the time of day, he doesn't bother with looking at a writer's establishment credentials. "I judge writers by the merits of what they present. I can tell in a minute and a half whether a book is decent. ... After that, I don't have to look at resumes. If everyone would do that, the world would be a happier place. ... Otherwise, a lot of good stuff gets missed."

Pureplay Press, now in its third publishing season, has about six titles, all of which look intriguing. For now, they are mostly in Spanish, but English-language titles are coming up soon.

"We have a six really beautiful books, all in Spanish, although one is bilingual," said David. "Among these, we have a pair of books, one is called " A brief history of Cuba," - it's the best synthesis of Cuban history of any language I know," he said. David explained it was written in the 1960s by a scholar at the University of Miami.

He's also got a satirical history of Cuba, written in the 1980s in Cuba. "It's Voltairean satire. "It begins five centuries before Colombus and ends five centuries after castro," he said.

Another is a novel about prostitutes of Havana. Author Teresa Dovalpage, who wrote the intriguing 'A Girl Like Che Guevara' earlier, said it was the best novel about prostitutes of Havana.

There's another title about Castro's foreign policy, great invisible topic, a memoir about a Cuban-American woman, called 'Scatter my ashes over Havana," and Dovalpage's latest about haunted women in Havana.

There is also a novel called 'Marina Hemingway', about American yachtsmen who live in Havana," said David. "I think it's a nice lineup."

TO BE CONTINUED...(or revised)

Slowly Getting in the Groove

I will be going nuts the rest of the day putting out fires at the office and generally trying to get back into life's groove. Bear with me folks, New York stories coming up as soon as I can get my head above the I've been gone for four days and all hell is breaking loose at the office and I have tons of news to get into and loads of emails to read and answer and a lot of great posts and commentary to read and catch up on water.

I want to thank my niece Amanda for, well, being the coolest niece any uncle could ever ask for and for keeping an eye out here at Babalu, and also a great big thanks to A. M. Mora y Leon for such great articles posted in my stead.

You rock, guys!!!

The Aguila has landed

Home sweet home. We're beat. Neither the Mrs nor I have ever walked so much in the span of three days.

Hitting the showers now and then going to bed.

Tomorrow Ill start telling you all about the big NYC trip.

Blizzards be damned!

With a Che Guevara keyring

I'm at work and can't write in much detail, but if you are up for it, this St. Petersburg Times item by David Adams is the best long piece by far on Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's Cuba-style communist land confiscations. This is tremendous, award-deserving material, with every detail recognizable to anyone who's endured castro's Cuba.

Adams writes:

Chavez signed a decree setting up land reform commissions. He called it the opening shot in a "war against the large estates."

Like many of his political moves, this latest one has everyone guessing. Chavez says he has no intention of copying Cuba's communist system, but he sure seems headed that direction.

"Land for those who work it! Justice in the farmlands," he told an adoring crowd of red-shirted revolutionaries who packed a Caracas convention center when he signed the land reform decree.

All done by a warden with a Che Guevara keyring, that will in time be full of jail keys. The ugly face of Che tells us clearly what this is all about.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

At 8 A.M. Sunday morning, the implosion of The Everglades Hotel changed Miami's skyline forever. Built in 1926, it was once considered Miami's largest and most luxurious hotel. The hotel had a rich history, serving as a shelter after a disastrous 1926 hurricane, providing living quarters for soldiers in training during World War II, and housing the first antenna to provide television transmission in Miami for WTVJ.
Two condo towers will take it's place.
As a child, I remember traveling down Biscayne Blvd. with my family, looking up at the skyscrapers through the car window. In my mind, this old landmark will always stand.

Everglades Hotel: 1926-2005

Uh oh

AP reports:

More than 900 flights were canceled Sunday morning at the New York metropolitan area's Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, in addition to about 700 that were grounded Saturday, Port Authority officials said.

Val - I guess you picked a memorable weekend for New York - hope you can get back to civilization soon!

Wipe that silly grin off your face, Puerquito!

Any doubts now?

Just a sunny Sunday in Che-racas today. Good thing for him that Val is preoccupied.

New York blizzard snowfall watch

It's gotten really bad in New York - one of these huge deep blizzard snowfalls that leaves the Manhattan city sky deep gray and all of the surfaces blazingly white. There are long frozen crystal icicles dripping from warm roofs and everywhere the city is utterly silent. Ice cold too - but magical. New York Times has the account with some photos.

Val, I hope you are all right - and you can find it enchanting. And can get back as planned. Quite a difference from Miami! What a weekend!!!!

Che Guevara Emblem of Hemispheric Terrorism

Che Guevara is more than just a sleazy tee shirt on an aging leftwinger's food-dribbled chest. Che Guevara is a live emblem of hemispheric terror, kidnapping and murder. And not just in the 1960s but happening right now. Today! The news, still in only Spanish, has just come out this afternoon.

Colombia's government just released a tape proving, without a shadow of a doubt, that filthy Marxist narcoterrorist FARC and ELN guerrillas are operating a string of working terrorist camps inside Venezuela. And not just inside Venezuela in the way we thought they were, as Hugo Chavez-hosted recreational guerrilla spas, but as centers for planning real terror attacks all over our hemisphere. These are bin-Laden-style terrorist training camps! Condoned by Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez himself, a true state sponsor of terror. Can you believe this? If not, here is the Colombian radio tape of the guerrillas in action! And here is a Venezuelan government Web site that disingenously asks: 'Who says FARC guerrillas are terrorists?'

What again are these camps and brigades called? At least one of them, containing 50 thugs, is called the Che Guevara Commission. Isn't that special?

Che Guevara.

What do you suppose this Che Guevara Commission does? Does it specialize in landmining Colombian schoolyards, so that little kids dare not go to school and instead grow up illiterate? Or does it put the necklace bombs around Colombian housewives and old men, laughing into the ether as these torture devices go off, taking them and the people trying to rescue them? Or does it specialize in kidnapping engineers and people who build jungle roads, holding them hostage for years and years, tying them to trees in the cold mountains or putting them in cages, before collecting big ransom money? Could it be the vermin who kicked off the new year of 2005, by wiping out a whole Colombian settlement, machine-gunning every man, woman, and child in the now empty, ghost-rattled village as the foggy wind blows? Was it from them that the monster who shot dead a Colombian radio show host last week for praising President Uribe emerged?

It could be all of them. They are capable of anything. After all, they are named after Che Guevara. And for this very reason. Che is the ratbag who specialized in casual murder on a wide scale, shooting dissidents here, organizing massacres there - all the while filling his pockets and living like a Ralph Lauren toff, (yeah, that's him) an upper-crust twit who had all the advantages of life, so as his 'contribution,' chose to take it away from others. A creature so foul fidel got him out of the country so he didn't have to look at him anymore (and this is saying a lot). Che Guevara was a lot like Rodrigo Granda, an aging Colombian radical-chic rich banker, who popped up one morning and decided to turn guerrilla, a true Latin American Idiot, like Che. His capture by bounty hunters paid for by the Colombian government triggered this new revelation of the camps.

Here is a NYT background article about Granda whose capture brought this news about the Che Commission to light.

This naming of this brigade after is no accident, no whimsy of the imagination, no 60s-backwash romanticism. These camps represent the essence of what Che Guevara was and sickeningly enough, still is. You can ask the guerrillas themselves and this is what they will tell you. But never mind what they 'think.'

It's what the Colombians actually know. Miguel Octavio this week translated a chilling El Tiempo of Colombia editorial about the purpose of these guerrillas now expanding their camps not just around Colombia but now into Venezuela. (Spanish original here.) It's the Che Guevara dream of spreading revolution, the same old communist conniving that eventually prompted the Bolivian peasants to say 'basta,' and give him what he deserved.

The El Tiempo editorial puts it this way:

From the (Colombian) Ministry of Interior and Justice we (Colombians) warned that the key to our relationship with (Hugo) Chavez could be found in the Sao Paulo Forum, and in the communist conspiracy that was being brewed there for the takeover of the Continent. ...

The attempt is an old one. The octogenarian muse (the Colombian editorialist means castro but to actually write it makes him sick) of comrade the President, (Chavez) has had an old appetite for Colombia. When a member of the Communist youth, (castro) came to Bogotá to sabotage the Pan-American Conference with the murder of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, he was already dominated by his geopolitical obsession. That is why he armed the FARC, the ELN, the M-19 and all of the groups of bandits that have whipped the nation with the preaching of a popular revolution. And now, in that languishing autumn that (castro's) friend Garcia Marquez predicted for him, he finds that he can revive those dreams of revolution in Colombia.

And it serves for him his purposes an ignorant charlatan (that's Hugo Chavez), who lacks any moral scruples, owner of a country lined with gold. ... he is a communist, he is “Bolivarian”, he has the weapons, the dollars, the flatterers, the cynicism and perhaps the gall to be the perfect instrument for the little Cuban Dictator.

Chavez and Castro know that there are no Dictatorships without weapons. That’s why they love the FARC and that is why they are concerned that we will end up defeating them

That is the Che-Guevara masterplan right there. In perfect historical context. It's no longer just about mauling the Colombians, as they have been doing, but now but about spreading outward. In new base camps in Chavista Venezuela, they are transforming themselves from grubby drug dealers intent on 'independence' into an extremely dangerous, remorseless extraterritorial military strike force capable of spreading terror to other countries, and forcing communist takeovers. They will do this against Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Uruguay, and possibly others. And remember, these are the foulest, most conscienceless terrorists you can find anywhere in the hemisphere. All of this ultimately is to form a hate-America bloc against the U.S., encircling us with hungry enemies.

The Colombian editorialist writes powerfully about the plans for 'revolution' and it's the truth. Che Guevara is more than a tee shirt right now, he is the inspiration and emblem for terrorism that comes ahead of communist takeovers in this hemisphere and we should be concerned.

Embargos are like diets - and not only for fidel

There was the spark of a neat discussion over at Miguel Octavio's worthy Venezuelan blog about the U.S. embargo on Cuba this morning and I thought it might be worth looking at here where intelligent people here genuinely think about this issue.

What is the deal with the trade embargo on Cuba?

The Bush administration's policy has been to tighten it, prohibiting money transfers, fining sandalista political tourists, busting big banks, publishing a publicly available Operation Free Cuba blueprint, kicking out castro's diplomats, appointing a splendid handsome, very classy Cuban-looking, anti-Castro Cuban-American citizen to the Commerce Department portfolio (with its prized ag contracts) to his own cabinet, hiring pit-bull diplomats like James Cason, putting up Christmas lights to commemorate those forgotten in barbudo's dungeons, and whispering around a little about aircraft carriers. It's made the country's smelly, unshaven, unkempt, unbathed, brutal leftist tyrant scream in agony. This is one strategy.

The other is, to open the doors wide and flood the place with Coca Cola, Nikes, McDonaldses, Blockbusters, Walmarts, Burger Kings, TCBYs, Disneyworlds, Schwarzenegger movies, Citibank accounts, Starbuckses, anything Made In China, Fords, Toyotas, cable TV, satellite dishes, CARE projects, Pepsodent-smiling missionaries, gangsta rap, Britney Spears, Amway, Internet cafes full of Google, and big-butted American tourists in sunglasses and Hawaiian shirts on package tours. Yeah, pour it on! And give the French another need for Alka-Seltzer, forcing them to buy yet another American brand, for our pocketbooks, too!

Either of these can and probably would work. But only if they are not mixed with each other. Embargos are like diets and I don't mean just on fidel, even as Bush's approach certainly is a diet of s