Monte Rouge Video Update

Just a quick note to say that Im doing my darndest to get the Monte Rouge video posted - embedded here for your viewing pleasure - but Im having a few technical issues. Im working to get these issues ironed out but Im no video or computer expert so bear with me folks. It'll be up as soon as possible.

Thanks.

And the Useful Idiot Award goes to... (Updated)

Carlos Santana!!!

Ahh, you see, this is much better. I think the Suicide Bomber Belt makes the outfit.

Venezuela is a mess

You should definitely read this over at American Thinker. And then this at Venezuela News and Views. And then there's this little interesting item:

SANTA CLARA, February 24 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) - A group of 600 members of paramilitary forces from the central Cuban provinces have been enrolled in intensive courses in several medical specialties since January for eventual deployment to Venezuela.

The students are enrolled at the Abel Santamaría School for Social Workers, in Santa Clara, Alexander Agüero, a local dissident, said, quoting what he called a reliable inside source.

According to the source, the student body is composed of men and women, 17 to 45, coming from any of the various Security and Protection Corps of the National Ministries, and from the general military service, by special recommendation of Military Counterintelligence.

The specialties taught at the school include nursing, epidemiology, and X-ray technician. The three-month courses for pre-selected parties aim to insure the personnel deployed to Venezuelan duty be less likely to seek to remain there or in a third country.

The Cuban government has instituted a program of incentives for Cubans who agree to serve abroad in programs of International Aid. The incentives can include access to hard currency, while in service, and after completion, preferential treatment in obtaining a home, telephone service, of being able to buy a car.

With the help of Jimmy Carter and the likes, fidel castro is rather easily spreading his revolutionary cancer throughout Latin America and there's no chemotherapy in sight.

Bienvenidos

If you are just getting here through USA Today, welcome. Please pull up a chair and make yourselves at home. The cafecitos are almost ready so feel free to scroll down and read some spirited discussions and debate. There's also a memorial post for some fallen American pilots and a whole heckova lot of fidel bashing.

If you're interested in anything in particular about Cuba, I urge you to use the search feature as I'm sure the topic has been covered here at one point or another.

Tomorrow I'll be posting a short movie made in Cuba that has been playing clandestinely throughout the island. It's called Monte Rouge and all the people involved may have been at great risk in making such a film critical of the castro regime.

Again, make yourselves at home and please, try to keep the cigar ashes off the carpeting, the Mrs. gives me hell about it.

Monte Rouge Video

The Monte Rouge video making the rounds clandestinely in Cuba is forthcoming. Stay tuned...

UPDATE: The video is all in Spanish and I would like to translate it and add subtitles. If there's anyone out there with any experience or suggestions on how to do that, please email me at the link on the sidebar. Thanks.

Tributo a Papa

I write a lot about my father here at Babalu. He's a very special man and one that, despite the fact that he never tried to influence me on my opinions about Cuba and castro, is primarily responsible for how I feel about the island and my culture. He has taught me by example and I dont know what my life would be like had I not had him be a part of it.

I am lucky. There are many many Cubans who grew up without a father because of fidel castro, who had them killed simply for refusing to bow to his dictates.

The link below is to a documentary (in Spanish) titled Tributo a Papa, a Tribute to Father, hosted by the site El Veraz in Puerto Rico. It's an hour long and interviews many Cubans: daughters, sons, wives, brothers, friends of the many men who died by the order of fidel castro.

If you're Cuban, and you havent already seen Tributo a Papa, do so. You will never forget it.

Tributo a Papa.

Let me fix that quote for ya, fidel.

It's not "History will absolve me" like you said, fidelito.

It's "History will dissolve me." Got that?

It's something like this:

Thanks to CB for the image.

LIFT THE EMBARGO!!!!

The lifting of the embargo will cure Cuba's ills!!!

All those goods flowing in!!!

All that information getting to the PEOPLE!!!

Cubans will get a taste of freedom!!!

The problem is the size of the spoons. fidel and his regime will still have the big ole serving spoons while ordinary Cubans will only get baby spoons.

Stick it all in a pot and see who can scoop it all out faster.

Case in point:

Cuban tourism workers told to keep their distance from foreign visitors

HAVANA (AP) - Cuba's tourism ministry issued a resolution telling its workers to keep their mingling with foreigners to a minimum, prohibiting everything from accepting personal gifts to attending events in the homes or embassies of foreigners without written permission.

The resolution was signed by Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero in January and went into effect last week. It applies to Cubans working in tourism on the island, as well as overseas.

The action is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to further tighten state control on the island, which embraced tourism in the 1990s as a necessary evil after the fall of the Soviet Union thrust Cuba into an economic crisis.

Marrero took over as head of the tourism ministry last February after officials acknowledged serious problems in an agency that handles much of the business stemming from foreign visitors. (emph - Ed)

In case you havent heard, the "Tourism Ministry" in Cuba is run by the Ministry of Defense.

(Thanks to Alex G. and a couple others for the heads up.)

Las Grandes Ligas

Just thought I'd point out this article about one Yuniesky Betancourt, a Cuban baseball player whose dream of playing in the Major Leagues began with a covert trip on a small boat to leave his island home.

Fifteen months ago, in the wee hours of the morning, Betancourt boarded a motorboat on the Cuban coast with nine other passengers seeking freedom in Mexico. The trek took four days, one of which was spent docked on an island, waiting for the treacherously choppy waves in the Gulf of Mexico to calm down.

The anxiety of arriving safely in Cancun was compounded by the dread of having to return to his homeland, where those who are unsuccessful in their attempts to flee are not cited for their ingenuity and valor.

“If we’d been caught,” Betancourt said Wednesday, “I wouldn’t play baseball again. They’d harass my family.

“But I wanted to get to the big leagues. That’s what motivated me.”

Had he been sent back to Cuba, he would have been ostracized. Not allowed to work, harrassed and never allowed to play Beisbol again.

Every single country in the world roots for one of their own when they play in the Majors. Except, of course, Cuba. Where wanting a better life and a future are cardinal sins.

In Memoriam

I don't recall whether it was a Saturday or a Sunday but I recall noticing it had turned out to be a beautiful South Florida day as we made our way through the tunnels and ramps at the Orange Bowl. The clear sky and light breeze went unnoticed by most as the previous few days in Miami had been ill-weathered and marred by pain and anger and protests and tears and more pain.

I was there with my girlfriend at the time, a Colombian girl who despite having lived her whole life in Miami had never really delved into the Cuban psyche of its diaspora. She was there with me for me. She knew what it meant to me. I had to be there. I had to go regardless of the hurt. She'd seen me crying for days. Seen my father depressed and my mother somber. She'd seen the anger build up in me and turn into a rage, then, as quickly as it had begun, lulled into a whimpering sob.

There were thousands of people there. I remember I had to fight back tears the moment we made it through the ramp and up into the stands. So many people, I thought. So many flags.

There were hundreds and hundreds of Old Glory's waving alongside the red, white and blue of the Cuban flag. The colors of Venezuela waved there, and Colombia. Argentina and Brazil chimed in with the light breeze. Puerto Rico and Nicaragua represented. Dominican flags waved alongside flags from Jamaica and Mexico. It was a sea of solidarity. Symbols of our neighbors offering condolences and support.

On the stage below were red, white and blue wreaths and large photographs. Pictures of four men who had just been murdered. Men whose only crime was wanting freedom for the people of Cuba and who spent their days flying over the Straights of Florida seeking those seeking liberty. Men who saved countless lives. Who spent hours upon hours searching the ocean for the speck of a human trying to survive it.

An old couple came and sat next to us. Someone's grandparents who had braved the parking and the crowd and the stairs and the ramps because they knew they had to be there. This was their fight. Their battleground and they came to make a stand. To be heard. I remember I helped the old woman sit. She held my arm as her years made her legs tremble when she bent to sit.

I dont think I will ever see or remember a more heartfelt "Gracias" as the one she gave me at that moment. She was sad and glad and proud all at the same time. There were alot of years in her eyes. Both her and her husband dressed to the nines, old school, just like my grandparents had always been.

Speeches were made. Roars of "Libertad! Libertad!" resounded through the stadium over and over again. Madeline Albright came up and assured us something would be done. The pressure would be put on the murderer. The world was with us, she said. They didnt seem like empty promises then.

The old folks next to us, their white hair gently dancing to the breeze never wept. They consoled my tears instead. The woman held my hand, softly ran her thumb across its back. No llores, mijo, she said. Dont cry. As if to say they had already run out of tears. Understood already what was incomprehensible to me.

We have been here before, the old man told me. We saw Kennedy here. We shed our tears then.

A moment of silence was announced, the din of the crowd slowly wanned. I helped the old woman up from her chair. My girlfriend held one hand, the old woman, this new Abuela of mine, held the other. I could hear her whispered prayers amid the sound of flags in the wind.

A faint sound approached from the South. It grew louder and louder. The crowd slowly began looking toward the sky. And then, during this moment of silence, four twin engine Brothers to the Rescue Cessnas appeared. The Missing Man Formation flew directly above us in honor of their fallen brothers.

My new grandmother looked up and squeezed my hand, then began to cry.

Today marks the memorial of the murder of three American citizens and one US legal resident by fidel castro. On February 24, 1996, Cuban Migs shot down 2 Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters at the order of fidel castro.

Rest in peace, Hermanos.

COBARDES

I havent heard this since 1996 and I thought I'd post it so you all can understand where the unbridled hatred for castro and his regime come from.

Audio of the fucking coward Mig Pilots who shot down the 2 Brothers to the Rescue Cessnas.

You can hear the cowards rejoicing in their victorious attack agaisnt unarmed Americans. Oh, how I wish there would have been a few American fly-boys in their F-16's in the vicinity that day.

So, once again, I am relegated to the following: fidel, me cago en el recontracoño de la madre que te pario. Cobarde! Sinverguenza! Maricon! Hijo de la gran puta! Cuando te mueras, fidel, que te quemen y te desaparescan las senisas, por que si no, te sacare de la tumba y me cagare en ti por ser la mierda de la humanidad que eres.

Sorry, payment up front only.

I havent written much about the trading of agricultural commodities with Cuba, but my friend Paxety has. I have been a bit ambivalent on the subject as first, the Bush administration would be hardpressed to prevent the constituents of primarily red state Senators and Congresspersons from selling their crops to Cuba. Second, some of those commodities must ultimately trickle down to the Cuban people, one way or another. And finally, all goods must be paid for in cash. No credit, and the worst thing you can do to someone who is already strapped for cash is to make them pay in cash.

That said, the Bush administration has just tightened agricultural trade with Cuba:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration announced Tuesday that it will begin requiring Cuba to pay American farmers in advance of shipment for agricultural products, a change that trade proponents say will hurt lucrative food sales to the island.

It's not much, mind you - if castro has the money to pay for goods upon arrival he certainly has the money to pay for them up front - but it's something.

If you try to feed your family...

...you will be fined.

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, February 22 (Jorge Ramón Castillo, ICD Press / www.cubanet.org) - Police launches a series of raids at the end of last week targeting street vendors who typically sell foodstuffs in the main thoroughfares of the city.

The raids, labeled "Operation Rake," seek to bring under control activities considered illegal by the government, but which many here call simply citizens trying to make ends meet.

Last week's operations involved two trucks, dozens of patrol cars and motorcycles and a substantial number of officers who went after push carts, confiscating tools, merchandise and imposing fines that exceeded 1,000 pesos.

One vendor specializing in meat products who worked the vicinity of the Agricultural market said he lost 5,000 pesos, refrigeration equipment, his utensils, and faces a 7,000 peso fine.

The word in the streets after the raids was that the Office of the Conservator of the city was a force behind the raids, since the office's line is that the hodgepodge of carts and people detract from the beauty of the city.

The other force behind the raids is customarily the Tax Office, who grants permits to those who seek to work for themselves, or more precisely, according to many here, refuses to grant permits in most instances, precipitating the wave of what the government later calls illegals.

Relajo con Orden (Updated)

I've written before about the ability Cubans have to laugh not only at themselves but at dire circumstances and life in general. It's just a part of the Cuban spirit. If Cubans weren't able to make light of life's hardships then their lives would truly be bleak. You have to laugh, else there's no other way to get through it.

Today's Miami herald has a great article on just that. The Cuban people's ability to make fun of their own circumstances and shortcomings.

There's a short film making the rounds on the island clandestinely that makes fun of Cuban State Security agents. Not many people have seen it, it's on DVD format and of course there is no plethora of DVD players or DVD able computers in Cuba.

Here's a quick transcript of a piece of the film via the Herald article:

The video, first reported by the BBC, opens with a visit by two state security agents to the Havana home of a character named Nicanor O'Donell.

''Good morning. My name is Rodríguez, this here is comrade Segura, and we are here to install some microphones,'' one of the agents says. Segura is a Spanish version of ``secure.''

A stumped O'Donell struggles to make sense of this unusual admission to eavesdropping, a state security tactic that Cubans rarely talk about openly.

THE INSTALLERS

''Our mission is to install these microphones in your house so we can clearly hear your antigovernment comments,'' one of the agents says.

When O'Donell tells his visitors, ''You don't even bother to hide it anymore,'' one agent snaps back, ``I don't get these clients. Before, they would complain that we don't show our faces!''

Caving in to threatening looks, O'Donell finally lets the agents into his home, offers them a shot of Cuban coffee and helps them find the best locations for installing the listening devices.

''Where do you speak bad of the government, in what part of the house?'' one of the agents asks.

''Anywhere,'' O'Donell responds. ``Here. In the bedroom. In the kitchen.''

I can't wait to see it and am in the process of trying to get a copy of it to post here at Babalu, but, just like everything Cuban, no es facil.

Mas: Here's a couple of pics from the video, sent to me by a reader with some determination and connections. The first pic appears to be a few Cubans actually watching the video on what looks like a computer monitor. The rest are supposedly from the scene where the G2 arrive at O'Donell's house.

I'm told the title of the film, Monte Rouge, is a new brand of coffee available in Cuba, that O'Donell, the unsuspecting homeowner of the film, is preparing when the G2 Agents arrive at his door.

The original BBC piece can be found here (in Spanish).

Update: If you've arrived here looking for the Monte Rouge video, bookmark this page, the video will be available within the next few days.

Useful Idjits

Why is it that Jimmy Carter and the likes insist on "monitoring" the goings on in Venezuela in the name of democracy and only end up being played like the goobers they really are?

Daniel of Venezuela News has a message for the folks at the Carter Center who once again are in Caracas to "offer help in consolidating peace and democracy!"

Fish, cut bait, or get the hell outta the damn boat.

Chirrrriquitiquirrriquito

Break out the Electron Microscope

You know how they say that some men buy these big muscle cars and huge trucks and all that because they have some kind of personal problem? Trying to compensate for some shortcoming?

Well, fidel castro got himself a whole island.

Think about that.

El Maestro

The following is a press statement sent out by Andy Garcia upon news of the passing of Guillermo Cabrera Infante. It echoes the sentiment of all Cubans, in exile and those within the island fortunate enough to have been able to covertly read Cabrera-Infante's works:

"El Maestro"- G. Cabrera-Infante - A Cuban original.

The news of the death of the Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera-Infante brought great sadness to all of us who cherished not only his extraordinary literary legacy but shared with him his passionate love for our native Cuba and it's culture, to which he dedicated his entire life.

My collaboration with him on the film "The lost City," an original story he wrote for me and that we have been dreaming of for the past 15 years has been one of the highlights of my life. Finally after so many years of struggle the film is nearly finished and almost ready to be viewed by the public. An experience he will never have. I will try and find solace in the feelings of pleasure he expressed to me after viewing the film for the first time just weeks ago.

His passing marks the end of an era - the tragic passing of a generation of leaders, artists, who kept our culture alive in exile and who never, gave up on the tireless fight for a free and democratic Cuba.

He was a man of extraordinary intellect and literary genius. But beyond that, the one thing I will always remember is his most-treasured sense of humor and wit. His unique and un-equaled word play, with its roots in the streets of his beloved Havana, fueled by his uncompromising sense of observation, seducing readers in all corners of the world. A Cuban Groucho mixed with Sophocles, with a dash of the thousands of volumes of books that surrounded him in his home in London.

Have you read them all? I once asked.

"Only once." he replied dryly.

My smile could not have been wider.

You like jokes don't you? I asked.

"It's the laughter, you become addicted to it," he said with glint in his eye as he puffed on his ever-present cigar. His devoted and beautiful wife Miriam by his side -- "Ay! Guillermo", she would enjoy him even more than I.

What is one to do now? How does one behave faced with a loss so great? Yes, our lives will go on but never in the same way, not without "El Maestro," without our guide who for a time lent us his eyes and used his pen to point us forward. All we can do is honor him for his love of Cuba, it's culture and it's language, by carrying his example and sharing his wisdom with future generations.

My deepest admiration and condolences to his beautiful family.

"Maestro," I'll see you at the premiere. Your spirit will forever be represented in our film.

A love Lost, a lost love, The Lost City.

Andy Garcia
Los Angeles, Ca.
2/21/05

Thank you, Andy, for such kinds words and for the homage to Mr. Cabrera Infante's works and life through "The Lost City."

And I am sure I am not alone in stating that my generation of Cubanos and Cuban-Americans still carry the love for the land and people and culture of nuestra Patria.

Mas: Guillermo of Venepoetics has a wonderful essay on Cabrera-Infante; his life, his work and his art.

SOLIDARITY

Because the stifling of dissent begins with only one, then two, then it exponentially increases.

Make some noise for those who would be silenced.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Cuban writer and staunch anti-fidel advocate Guillermo Cabrera Infante died yesterday, in exile, in London.

LONDON - Cuban-born novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante, widely regarded as one of the most original voices in 20th-century Spanish-language literature, has died in London. He was 75.

Cabrera died in a hospital Monday from septicemia, said Carmen Pinilla, a spokeswoman for his literary agents, the Balcells agency in Barcelona, Spain. Septicemia is a type of blood infection.

The writer, a London resident since 1966, had suffered a series of illnesses in recent years including diabetes as well as heart and kidney problems, Pinilla said in a phone interview Tuesday. She added that Cabrera's wife Miriam was by his side when he died.

Cabrera had long been lauded for his experimental use of language in his novels, essays and cinema criticism, and he won the 1997 Miguel de Cervantes prize for literature, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world.

"Perhaps his greatest originality was to turn cinema criticism into a new literary genre," Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who served on the jury that awarded the prize, said of Cabrera.

Cabrera's most famous novel, "Three Trapped Tigers," was published in 1967. "Its success surprised me. It is half written in Cuban (slang) and so most readers won't understand" the author said in an interview with The Associated Press after winning the Cervantes prize.

Other titles include the author's personal favorite, "Twentieth Century Job" published in 1963, "Holy Smoke," published in English in 1985, and the 1997 essay "Cinema or Sardine."

Cabrera also wrote screenplays, including the adaptation of Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano" for the film directed by John Houston.

Cabrera, born in Gibara, Cuba in 1929, was a founding member of the magazine "Revolucion" in 1959 and served as the revolutionary Cuban government's cultural attache in Brussels in 1962.

But Cabrera became a harsh critic of the Castro regime, publishing a collection of political writings under the title "Mea Cuba" in 1991.

"I have not been back (to Cuba) since I left in 1965 and will not until Fidel Castro leaves power" he said in 1997.

Cabrera settled in London and took on British citizenship.

Cabrera had two daughters from his first wife, who divorced him in 1961. He remarried later that year.

His latest work was a collaboration with Andy Garcia for the movie "The Lost City."

One more Cuban exile who never gotto see his homeland free of the tyrant.

Descanza en paz, Guillermo.

Vermillion Public Library ROCKS!!!

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Vermillion Public Library and how it's the first and only public library in the US to sponsor an independent library in Cuba. This is both a slap in the face to fidel castro and hopefully a wake up call to the other members of the American Library Association.

Last week, Nat Hentoff wrote once again about the Vermillion Public Library in the Village Voice. It seems that the Vermillion Public Library Board is not content with only sponsoring a Cuban independent library, but with inciting other public libraries in the country to do the same.

This reverberating act of simple decency was started by one person, Mark Wetmore, vice president of the Vermillion library's board of trustees. Wetmore tells me that his impetus for bringing freedom to read to Cuba came from reading my columns here on Castro's brutish repression. But it was Wetmore who actually did something that has brought increased international attention to those prisoners in the three-foot-wide and six-foot-long cells.

Jack Powell, a fellow trustee of the Vermillion library, told the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota: "[Mark] kept us on task during all our discussions, kept coming back to the fact that the issue of freedom of access to information was the core concern. As a board, we're happy to be collectively doing this, and we hope other libraries will follow our lead."

Says Wetmore, who shows that one person can begin to strike back at a dictator: "It diminishes all our libraries a little if we know that there are people being persecuted for trying to operate free, uncensored ones and we don't try to do something about it."

Yet Mr. Wetmore did not stop there. He has prepared a guide for other members of the ALA to follow his lead.

Wetmore keeps on keeping on. He has now written a guide, Sponsoring an Independent Cuban Library, that lays out "the steps a library board in this country" can take to join this freedom caravan. In it he tells, with specificity, how the Vermillion Public Library learned how to do it—and much more, including how to ship books to Cuba, and what it costs. (Librarians in other countries have been adding to the shelves of the independent libraries since the Castro crackdown.)

Let's all hope that more American public libraries follow Mr. Wetmore's and the Vermillion Public Library's example.

Gracias, Mr. Wetmore, for your solidarity with the Cuban independent libraries and for your work to tear down Cuba's information barrier.

Bill, Janet, MSM: KISS MY ASS!

Remember Elian, right? Of course you do. His name is synonymous with Cuba and fidel and us crazy Cuban-American exile extremists.

I'm sure you all remember the Cuban-American community up in arms, as seen daily and nightly, over and over, on all the network news. Those crazy extremist Cubans!!! The boy belongs with his father!!!

And who could forget the pre-dawn raid? Machine gun totting feds tear gassing and busting into the home and usurping the boy at gunpoint. And that famous photo of little Elian in the hands of the fisherman that found him in a closet with a fed pointing his gun at him.But the boy!!! The boy belongs with his father!!!

Of course, we crazy extremist Cuban exiles knew the drill. While the rest of the country and the world is blissfully ignorant of the goings on in Cuba and the extremes to which fidel castro will go to remain in power and win any political propaganda battle, we crazy extremist Cuban exiles live in the damn fray. We live, eat and breathe news from Cuba. We know the system of repression because we have lived it and have family and friends that still live it.

Every single newscast reported that the father wanted the boy back. The contention of the Cuban exile community was that any father worth his salt would want what's best for his son. The father was being forced to succumb to fidel's will. No one believed us. It was the Cuban exile community against the world.

The world won. The boy lost.

Elian is back in Cuba now where he is always at the right hand of his master fidel castro. He is just another reminder of how fidel castro defeats an American President without any balls. A President more concerned with public opinion, ala JFK/Bay of Pigs, than what is morally right.

But the boy belongs with his father!!!! is all we kept hearing.

The father must be under duress!!! is all we kept saying.

We were 100% correct.

One of the most controversial issues (in the Elian case - Ed.) has received almost no follow-up investigative reporting by the press: namely, that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had a memo written before Elian was seized, indicating the INS was weighing political asylum for Elian days before the feds seized him.

The press refused to follow up on something that would have actually helped Elian and agreed in principle with the exile community?

But wait, there's more:

Elian was returned to the Castro government and his father in Cuba. The father was depicted as a faithful communist who wanted Elian back with him. That line was accepted by the Clinton Administration. But the memo, authored by INS attorney Rebeca Sanchez-Roig, stated that Elian's father may have made his "own attempts to depart Cuba," and had made two phone calls "from a pay phone in Cuba" to let his family in Miami know that Elian was coming. In addition, the memo says that "the Cuban government installed what somebody described as a speaker phone" in the father's home in Cuba so that Cuban government agents could coach him on what to say.

Just like we've been saying all along, a father only wants what's best for his child.

The memo said if coercion could be shown against the father then the INS could accept the child for entry into the U.S. Then-INS chief Doris Meissner ordered Sanchez-Roig to destroy the memo. The raid followed within days.

So, Elian gets sent back to the hellhole, Clinton and Reno wash their hands of a politically unsavory situation by most assuredly ordering an underling to see to it that no evidence of anything contrary to their stance is forthcoming, and fidel pats himself on the back.

But, it's not just Bill and Janet's fault. There's enough blame to go around. There's one more finger to point:

This is not the first time that news about the memo has surfaced. Christopher Caldwell, senior editor for The Weekly Standard, wrote an article, "The Elian Cover-up" back in 2002, citing evidence that INS chief Doris Meissner knew that Elian's father was acting under duress and didn't want his child returned to communism.

Actually, the memo's existence was known at the time that Elian was in the U.S. If its contents had been exposed then, the reporting would have had a significant impact. I was told about it by an individual in Ft. Lauderdale who said he could not "get anyone at the Miami Herald interested in covering this." Sanchez-Roig didn't speak to the press, but surely some intrepid reporting could've led to uncovering and publicizing the truth about the real wishes of Elian's father. Elian could be living and prospering in freedom today if the press had done its job.

And there you have it, folks. The selfless, unbiased, stand-up-for-the-little-guy Mainstream Media refused to report the truth. Covering the story on the memo would have meant the MSM had to eat a buffet of crow after weeks of slanted and sloppy reporting on the actual wishes Elian's father. Yet the mainstream media loves fidel castro - hell, they MADE him - and decided to not only not give us all the facts, but to ally themselves with castro and surpress the real story.

The proverbial tree fell in the words, while everyone was around, and no one made a peep about the sound.

(Thanks to Jeff Quinton of Backcountry Conservative for the eye opening heads up.)

Leche!... Lechero!...Leche!...

SANTA CLARA, February 17 (José Moreno Cruz, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) - Officials of the La Villareña Milk Products Enterprise have announced that starting February 16, the company will start distributing powdered milk instead of fresh in most Villa Clara province municipalities.

The pouch of fresh milk that has been available for sale under the government rationing system to children up to age 7, will no longer be available. Instead, eligible consumers will be allowed to buy three kilograms (about six and a half pounds) of powdered milk. Only in Santa Clara, Sagua la Grande, and Placetas municipalities will fresh milk continue to be distributed, said Mario Castillo, director of the Milk Products Enterprise.

The announcement was tied to lowered milk production caused by drought, which has reduced available feed and drinking water for cattle.

During previous instances in which powdered milk has substituted for fresh, consumers have uniformly rejected the new product, citing poor taste and the fact that the allotted amount is not enough for the month, anyway.

I bet tourists get fresh milk.

Visiting Family

President's Day weekend is perhaps one of the better weekends here in Miami for big shindigs. Every year, while people up north are out shovelling snow or laying down salt or throwing on layers of clothing before going outside, we Miamians are donning shorts and tshirts and flip flops and heading out into the beautiful warm weather with clear blues skies. It isnt scorching hot yet and the summer's humidity isnt yet upon us.

Two huge events are run this weekend every year.

First, there's the Coconut Grove Arts Festival, one of the nation's premiere outdoor art festivals, where people flock to the streets of Coconut Grove, right by the bay, to see and buy all kinds of art ranging from paintings to massive sculptures to handcrafts and everything else in between. There's plenty of food - even elephant ears! - and outdoor concerts. It's my favorite outdoor festival and we try to go every year..

If you arent into art then fret not. Miami also offers the International Boat Show this weekend, the largest yacht and boat show in the world. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of boats and yachts exhibited for your viewing, and buying, pleasure. All the new marine crafts are there, as well as humongous yachts that you can walk through or have some bikini clad beauty show you around. Even if you cant afford anything you see but just love boating, its and awesome display.

Yet this year my wife and I are doing something different. There's another event here in Miami this weekend we'll be attending. There are no paintings, no fancy sculptures. There will be no concert there or food and beer vendors. Not a single boat will be seen there, and much to my disappointment, no models in string bikinis. There wont be as many people there as in the other two events mentioned before.

There will be, however, at least 10,300 people there symbolically represented.

Today, the Mrs and I are attending El Memorial Cubano, the Cuban Memorial, at The Tamiami Park and Youth Fair Grounds. It is a memorial commemorating those who have died at the hand of fidel castro. 10,300 crosses placed in a field Arlington Cemetery style to represent the hundreds of thousands of Cubans and others whose deaths are attributed to the brutality of fidel castro's regime.

We may not recognize any name on any of those symbolic gravestones. We may never have met any of these people who are representing their fight for liberty, who gave their lives for their convictions. But our sentiments are perfectly expressed in the last two lines of this article in today's Miami Herald:

But even those who had not lost an immediate family member came to pay homage among the crosses.

''For me,'' said Marta Tamargo, who gave birth to her son Leopoldo in Havana just as Castro was consolidating power, ``they all are relatives.''

(c)astro Flunked Latin

Has no idea what mea culpa means.

Even though I have not yet read the original article by Warren Howe (if anyone can find a link to that Feb 4th piece Id appreciate it), I can guess, by the response of the following letters, that Mr. Howe follows fidel castro's line and blames the US for all of Cuba's ills.

From Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of State in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State:

U.S. works to free Cubans from tyranny.

Regarding the Feb. 4 Point of View column on conditions in Cuba by Warren Howe, "U.S. 'war' against Cuba must end": In March 2003, the Castro government handed out prison sentences, some as long as 25 years, to 75 democracy activists, whose crimes included owning a typewriter without a license and writing a report on Cuba's economy that the government didn't like.

Unfortunately, Howe's tour of Cuba did not include a visit to the rat-infested prisons where Cubans who dare to disagree with the regime are held.

Howe's description of Cuba as a "poor country" is accurate. Cuba is the world's largest per capita debtor. Though the Cuban government enjoys good trade relations with Europe, Canada and Asia, the island is desperately poor because the Castro regime follows policies that benefit a small circle of government cronies while impoverishing the vast majority of Cubans.

Cuba does indeed suffer from food shortages, caused by the Castro regime's inefficient collectivized agricultural system; Cuba's state-dominated distribution system; a scarcity of foreign exchange caused by the government's unwillingness to liberalize the economy or diversify its export base, and Cuba's failure to pay the debts it owes to its European, Japanese and Latin American trading partners.

Howe would have received a valuable lecture on the sources of Cuban poverty from the ordinary workers at his hotel, had they been allowed to speak freely without fear of being fired or jailed.

The United States wants Cubans to decide if they want the freedoms that are commonplace and cherished by the 34 democratic nations in this hemisphere. Far from waging a war on the island, we are preparing and implementing actions that will speed the arrival of liberty to one of the last remaining outposts of tyranny.

ROGER F. NORIEGA
WASHINGTON, D.C

And this from Brian Corteville of the Center for a Free Cuba:

In his Feb. 4 Point of View column "U.S. 'war' against Cuba must end," Warren Howe's intentions are only the most noble -- helping the Cuban people. As a recent visitor to Cuba myself, I empathize with the harsh economic conditions that the Cuban people must endure and the deteriorating infrastructure that only complicates economic growth.

However, I believe that Howe's anger is misplaced. The real fault lies not with the U.S. administration but with Fidel Castro, the dictator who has dominated the Cuban political scene for the last 46 years. If anyone can be called the architect of Cuba's current political and economic situation, it would be Castro.

U.S. trade policy, while a contributing factor, cannot be solely to blame for Cuba's bleak economic outlook. Cuba is free to trade with every other nation on this planet besides the United States. Perhaps a combination of gross economic mismanagement, a cumbersome bureaucratic structure, corruption and the crippling loss of Soviet subsidies would better explain Cuba's current financial woes.

Even companies that are free to trade with Cuba have chosen not to do so from a purely economic standpoint. On one hand, the Cuban government does not pay its bills -- Cuba's debts to foreign creditors and investors number in the tens of billions of dollars. On the other hand, any foreign company wishing to do business must do so on Castro's terms. Investment is only allowed as joint-ventures with the Cuban government, limiting the prospects of substantial profits.

Foreign firms do not pay Cuban workers directly, but rather to the authorities in Havana, who then pay the workers a fraction of what their work is worth, pocketing the rest. The Spanish milk company Central Lechera Asturiana recently announced that it will soon end all business activity in Cuba, only six years after making its first investment. Pedro Astals, CEO of the company, stated that "speaking from a business point of view, the island of Cuba is a lost cause."

In his column, Howe also misunderstands the nature of the American embargo. He quoted Stephen Rosenfeld of the Washington Post as criticizing the indefensible "American embargo on medicine, medical supplies and food to Cuba." In reality, American companies are free to supply medicine and food to Cuba. Just this week, California-based Dairy American announced that it will sell more than $22 million worth of powdered milk to Cuba. The only stipulation is that Washington will not provide financing for these purchases, forcing the Cuban government to pay for the goods up front, in cash.

Given Havana's shaky track record paying its debts, does this not seem to be a wise business decision? And contrary to Howe's claims, the American people do have something to gain from the current trade sanctions. They have the peace of mind knowing that they are not doing business with an authoritarian dictatorship that controls every aspect of the country's economy, a government that would arrest 75 peaceful dissidents and sentence them to long prison terms, a government which has been sanctioned by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights 11 of the past 12 years.

I dont know how many times I have either posted thoughts similar to this or had discussions with people on line who refuse to accept the fact that Cuba's problems stem solely from the underachievements of one very delusional old man.

Eat your hearts out, New York Times!!!

Now this, this is a freaken headline folks:

Cuba’s immensely prestigious reputation at the Human Rights Commission

I want to comment on this but I just cant stop laughing. My sides hurt already.

Alabaooo caballeros, que paja mental!

Hat tip - Aleks

Vertigo Update

Cubans have great "old wives tales." Things they tell their kids in order to keep them at bay or sometimes to explain the unexplainable. Little superstitions, if you will.

For instance, if you're chewing gum in front of an older Cuban and making those nasty gum chewing noises you may get this: Be careful and don't swallow that gum! A gum tree will grow in you stomach.

There's also the great embolia one. If you're at the beach or at a pool and you have lunch, then you have to wait a few hours for your digestion to be complete before you can go back in the water. If you dare go swimming right after eating, then you will get an "embolia," some kind of medical trauma like an embolism.

Oh, and ladies, never, ever put your purse or handbag on the floor else all your money will disappear. And if you're single, never, ever, ever, let anyone sweep a broom across your feet. If that happens you will never get married, youll be doomed to be a solterona.

There's a million of those little superstition nuggets.

Yet as silly as some of these sound, every once in a while you hear one that resonates in some way. One that makes you think for a second, wonder if it can be true, or if it has some basis in truth.

Last Sunday I was sitting out at ManCamp with my father before everyone showed up for his birthday celebration. Just tossing a few beers back and talking with the old man. I mentioned the heartbreak of the day before, of having to put our cat Kiddo McFiddo to sleep because of his injuries and how we both had cried our behinds off.

"I know it couldn't have been easy for you," he says. "But maybe it was for a reason."

I asked what possible reason was he referring to.

"In Cuba," he says."It's said that when an animal close to you dies, a pet, it means that he has taken a maldad, an evil, for you. He suffered and he died to rid you of some evil against you."

Now, I dont usually believe in all the superstitious stuff, but when my father told me that I had to stop and think for a moment. On Saturday, when I was doing stuff around the yard in preparation for his party, I had been feeling a little dizzy. And ever since the hospital visit I had been light-headed every day with little bouts of dizziness every once in a while. The vertigo had not gone away.

But Sunday, after having put my cat to sleep the day before and crying my ass off, I felt great. For the first time in weeks I wasnt dizzy at all. No light-headedness, no spinning environment, no listing to the side while walking. Nada. I felt great.

Did my cat give up his life for my well being? For my good health? Was he fighting some evil that was to befall upon me?

I don't know for sure. But I do know Kiddo McFiddo loved me and I do know that despite having compound fractures and a dislocated hip, when I picked him up to see what was wrong with him, he gave me no indication whatsoever of any pain. Nada. Not a peep or meow from him despite the fact that he must have undoubtedly been in severe pain. I dont know how else to explain it. It was like he knew he had to make the sacrifice. Like a noble warrior, a good soldier who valiantly and selflessly gives his life so that his brothers in arms may live.

And I never got to thank him.

Pssst! fidel!

They're talking to you. And it's about your alleged great healthcare that all the useful idiots laud.

BIG NEWS AT BABALU

Talk to any Cuban living in exile and there is one thing you'll notice, there is always an ever present feeling of nostalgia. Longing. A longing for their homeland, their old neighborhood, friends. A nostalgia for things they left behind.

These things could be tangibles. The homes they grew up in, an old bicycle, a favorite pet. Or they could be intangibles. The aroma in their home when a grandmother was making arroz-con pollo, the touch of a sea breeze, palmas cubanas, Vitrolas playing throughout their town. Every Cuban in exile is nostalgic for the life they had to leave behind.

Some, like me, long for a youth they never got to live. They have this war within them, a daily battle between the near perfect youth they were afforded here in the US versus the youth they should have lived in Cuba. A nostalgia for something they never had the chance to experience.

Nostalgia is both the bane and the bliss of every Cuban.

Some years back an event was begun here in Miami where people were invited to participate by getting together and presenting their own bits of memories, their own items of nostalgia for each other to wistfully contemplate. It began as a small thing, a couple dozen or so exhibitors and a few hundred visitors, and has since grown immensely.

The event is called Cuba Nostalgia and it's now in it's seventh year. It is, by far, the largest convention of Cuban memorabilia, art, music and historical exhibits in the world.

A few days ago, I received an email from the event's organizer asking if I'd be interested in participating in this years Cuba Nostalgia Convention. When I picked my jaw up off the floor and wiped away the tears, I still couldnt believe it.

"I think you're doing important work," the email said. "And I think we should not only show the patrons of Cuba Nostalgia what you're doing, but show them how they can connect to other Cubans and learn about what's happening in Cuba and with Cuba through blogs and the internet."

I was both humbled and floored. When I began Babalú, I never dreamt it would get as much exposure as it as gotten. I didnt realize the importance of it. Of how just a few items or anecdotes about Cuban life in exile and on the island could give so many people something to contemplate and so many Cubans in exile a little bit of the home and life they left behind.

Cuba Nostalgia is no ordinary convention. It's not like an industry show where all the booths are basically squares set apart by dividers and such. Each booth and exhibit in Cuba Nostlagia has an elaborate and intricate motif. Each exhibit is specially designed and constructed to represent something from Cuba. The Cuba of nostalgia. There is even a huge map of La Habana on the floor where folks who lived in Havana can stroll through their old streets and neighborhoods. It's not your average run of the mill convention.

I am totally psyched out this. The possibilities are endless.

I've yet to get into all the details with the organizers, but they will be setting me up with an exhibition space designed specifically for Babalu Blog and I will be live blogging for three days from the event. We will be having a sit down soon to come up with an appropriate theme.

Ill be starting to work on the logistics: getting high speed net access, procuring computers for folks to be able to read blogs and possibly write entries or communicate with others, graphics, sponsors, the whole nine yards. I will also be running another BlogCuba that weekend to show the patrons of the convention that there is in fact a solidarity with their cause, that it's not just us Cuban-Americans or Cubans in exile that believe in the cause of a Cuba without a dictator.

The convention isn't until May, the weekend of the 20th through the 22nd, but there's alot of work to be done. I would appreciate any info or input or suggestions you all may have as it's you guys that read this blog that have helped make this happen. I'm grateful to each and every one of you that graces this blog with your visits and your comments.

And, if you've been thinking of coming down to Miami for a few days R&R, consider making it that weekend. The more people we have there will not only help show your average person attending the convention how important this blog phenomenon is, but, best of all, it will stick it to fidel by showing him that he can't stop the communication forever.

Gracias, mi gente.

Against all odds

It takes some guts to be a journalist in Cuba:

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, February 15 (Guillermo Espinosa,APLO / www.cubanet.org) - Independent Cuban journalist Juan Carlos Garcell says he recently recognized a State Security agent among some people who visited him claiming to come from the U. S. Interests Section in Havana.

Garcell said the officials asked him about the distribution of supposed moneys that they said Garcell received for political prisoners and other members of the opposition.

Just a few days ago, I myself was warned by a State Security official that I would soon be visited by officials from the U. S. Interests Section that were touring the island interviewing dissidents.

Cuba linda de mi vida

I dont write much about celebrities here, save for a few rants on the castro and che loving Hollywood types, or tributes to the late Celia Cruz and other Cuban artists and musicians. Yet there's one guy, one very famous actor, Cuban-American, that deserves praise not only for his thespian accomplishments, but for his dedication to his roots.

Anday Garcia is, to me, un orgullo. A sense of pride. Despite his fame and notoriety, he has never forgotten where he comes from, never forgotten his people and never forgotten his culture. And he has never, ever, given up the fight against fidel castro.

My good friend Sheila wrote about Andy's latest film production, a movie about his homeland. A movie that has taken him 16 years to finish. And yet, despite his fame and notoriety, Andy has yet to find a distributor for The Lost City.

Mr. Garcia, who has directed only one other feature, the documentary "Cachao," and is also "The Lost City's" lead actor, said he had been knocking on doors for almost two decades to secure financing for just that kind of movie about the Cuban experience. He estimated that he had attended 50, perhaps 70, meetings with studio executives and others, but Hollywood was not interested and appears to remain uninterested. The film has yet to find an American distributor.

Mr. Garcia said that though studio executives who declined to back "The Lost City" never told him they were bothered by the film's political undertones, he did not doubt that politics may have played a role. In one scene, it is implied that Che Guevara has given the order to execute a friend of the character Mr. Garcia plays in the film.

"I've seen a lot of naïve opinions about Cuba," Mr. Garcia said. "They think of it as that island down there, where people have rum and the cigars and 'I hear is very nice' type of comment. That's all they know. They have no clue that people live in an oppressed society."

The Hollywood elite refuse to let go that romantic noton of a young idealistic che guevara riding motorcycles through South America, or a big bearded teddy bear in green fatigues chewing a cigar addressing throngs of "supporters." They casually ignore all the deaths attributed to these men. And those that try to bring to light their injustices are branded "extremists."

I find it somewhat telling of the Hollywood arrogance that they believe they know more about fidel and che and the Cuban experience than those that have actually lived it. Perhaps all that living in the make believe actually makes them believe it's not make believe.

The final quote from the following is telling of where Andy's heart and soul come from, an island shaped like a crocodile just South of us.

The film pays homage to Cuban music, one of Mr. Garcia's passions. But more than anything, it is a story about an impossible love, which, Mr. Garcia says, is "the central metaphor of an exile's life."

"The thing you most cherish, you can't have, so you find solace in the things that never betray you: your music, your family," said Mr. Garcia, who has been married to Marivi Lorido Garcia since 1982 and has four children.

Ask him if he ever dreams of living in Cuba again, and with his characteristic raspy, low voice, Mr. Garcia sighs and says: "Every day. Every day."

Si. Andy. Todos los dias. Todos.

Here's a quick clip from a song called "Cuba Linda" from Garcia's collaboration with the famous Cuba bassist Cachao featuring Arturo Sandoval on the horn and Andy reading from Jose Marti's Versos Sencillos:

Cuba Linda

UPDATE: Long time Babalu reader Mercedes comments that Andy's reading of Jose Marti brought her to tears. Mercedes, I can hear this a million times and a million times I will cry.

MSM: Whirling Dervishes

Vodkapundit's Will Collier has an excellent essay on the MSM and what it needs to do to get its respectability back.

At its core is the Eason Jordan/Ted Turner/fidel castro connection I wrote about here, plus a few more dictator appeasing instances from CNN.

SHHH...Keep it under your hat.

Dont tell Michele Malkin.

From NewsMax:

1980 Mariel Boat Lift Detainees Released

Nearly 150 Cuban refugees convicted of crimes and imprisoned in the years following the 1980 Mariel boat lift have been released, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Miami Herald, citing an unnamed federal official, reported that at least 147 Mariel convicts have been released since last month's Supreme Court decision that found the indefinite detention of illegal immigrants is unconstitutional.

Cuban president Fidel Castro in 1980 sent criminals and psychiatric patients to U.S. shores from the port of Mariel, along with thousands of other fleeing Cubans. Some of the refugees were convicted of crimes in the United States.

About 600 Mariel convicts remain in prisons and jails nationwide, said Manny Van Pelt, spokesman for the federal Department of Homeland Security. Most are expected to be released in the next few months, he said.

Im double checking my locks tonight before turning in.

It's a push

There's a pretty good opinion piece in today's Miami Herald by Frank Calzon - whom you may remember was sucker punched by Cuban "officials" in Geneva last year after the UN HuMan Rights Commision censured Cuba - about the European Unions recent cave in to fidel castro.

The money quote:

It is sometimes necessary to repeat the obvious: There is no substitute for U.S. leadership. President Bush has reaffirmed clearly America's commitment to freedom around the world. Castro's pejorative response was to say that Bush looks ''deranged.'' Castro also angrily accused Europeans of treating Havana ''as if we were condemned to a death sentence'' and said, ``[The world is] observing our behavior, Cuba doesn't need the United States, it doesn't need Europe. Cuba doesn't need any assistance.''

Castro's disregard of human rights and callous indifference to the plight of the Cubans suggest that aside from occasional diplomatic gestures, there will be no offers of assistance.

Hats off to Mr. Calzon, who despite being a thorn in the side of castro's regime, continues his work for a free and independent Cuba. Please check out Mr. Calzon's Center for Free Cuba, where you can not only find his numerous editorials taking on the bearded bastard, but find interesting information on Cuba and Cubans.

Would that it were so...

Got an extra few minutes?

Want to fast forward to a day in the (near, I hope) future that you will appreciate for its sheer joy?

Want to hear some sweet, sweet music? A symphony that one day will play its beautiful tune?

Si?

OK.

Here's VOA's obituary for fidel castro.

It's a bit long, but, man, it's like a dream.

Thanks to Mike R for the heads up.

A News Related Cubanism

I've received quite a few emails from readers mentioning or linking to the CNN/Eason Jordan/Ted Turner/castro connection. Thanks to those of you that sent the heads up.

Quite a few bloggers have posted on this subject as well, including the heavyweights Charles Johnson of LGF and the Powerline guys. Here's the now infamous quote:

I thank you very much for being here tonight. Let me also thank Fidel Castro. In the earliest days of CNN, when CNN was meant to be seen only in the United States, the enterprising Fidel Castro was pirating and watching CNN in Cuba. Fidel was intrigued by CNN. He wanted to meet the person responsible. So Ted Turner, who at that point had never traveled to a Communist country or knowingly met a Communist, [went to Havana]. It was big deal for Ted and during the discussions Castro suggested that CNN be made available to the entire world. In fact it was that seed, that idea that grew into CNN International, which is now seen in every country and territory on the planet.

Apparently, it's big news to some that the Ted Turner/castro connection had something to do with the beginning of CNN International. Cubans and Cuban-Americans have always called CNN the (c)astro News Network. It's a running joke. Of course, the irony of it is that in Cuba, only fidel and his minions watch CNN. The general population isn't allowed to watch the actual channel, only news clips that are in keeping with the bearded one's anti-American ideology.

A shitload of accented "I told you so's" are being heard here in Miami.

Which brings me to today's Cubanism:

Cubanism: Caérse de la mata.

Literal translation: Falling out of the tree.

Actual meaning: Falling off the turnip truck.

Usage: They're reporting that castro is responsible for CNN International. Parece que esta gente se acaban de caér de la mata.

The Cuban Solzhenitsyn

This is a lecture Armando Valladares gave at the Heritage Foundation in 1992. As usual, he is, along with Dr. Biscet, the light of conscience when it comes to matters relating to the Cuban Resistance. Many thanks to Powerline Blog for referencing this lecture.

Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag by Armando Valladares Heritage Lecture #737

March 15, 2002

Good afternoon to all of you. I would like to thank the Heritage Foundation and my friend Charlotte Ponticelli for having invited me to participate in this conference.

The Heritage Foundation has always been a great defender of the human rights of the Cuban people. Fifteen years ago I was here for the first time speaking about the violation of human rights in Cuba, this on the occasion of the first edition of my book. When my memoirs were published in 1986, during my first appearance at Heritage, things were very different. At that time, the government of Castro and his allies designed a campaign of disinformation to try to say that what I described in my book was not true. Thanks to the work of many advocates and defenders of human rights in Cuba - some of them are in the audience here today - all the horrors that I relate in my memoirs were documented by the working group of the UN Commission on Human Rights which visited the island at the end of the 1980's. Today no one doubts that Castro is one of the worst dictators of the 20th century and, unfortunately, the 21st century as well. The UN has condemned Castro repeatedly, as have non-governmental organizations throughout the world.

For me, the horror that I relate in my book is in the past, but not for hundreds and hundreds of political prisoners in Cuba who today still languish in the same torture cells where my friends and I were tortured.

Today I think of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, president of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, a humanitarian organization which is considered illegal by the Cuban government. Dr. Biscet was arrested on November 3, 1999, for allegedly "insulting the symbols of the homeland"(article 203 of Cuba's penal code) for having hung the Cuban flag on his balcony. This was only a pretext for which he was condemned to a year in prison. However, on February 25, 2000, he was again sentenced to three years in prison, having been accused this time of "public disorder" and "inciting criminal acts." Dr. Biscet, who denied all of these charges against him, explained that he had hung the flag as a peaceful protest.

I also wish to express my admiration for another courageous Cuban, Marta Beatriz Roque, of the Internal Dissidence Working Group for the Analysis of the Cuban Socio-Economic Situation. She was arrested many times for "sedition." On January 26 she was arrested again for refusing to allow government officials to come into her home and fumigate it with substances to which she was allergic. This is something so ridiculous that it might provoke laughter except for having occurred in Cuba where for some time now even laughter can be considered subversive! From Cuba, with great courage, Marta Beatriz Roque, proposes the only formula that will give Cubans the opportunity to enjoy freedom, and that is the exit of Castro and his dictatorship from the political scene.

The dissident Maritza Lugo Fernandez , was allowed to emigrate to the United States by the Cuban government on January 11 of this year. Even though she is only 40, she has documented many recent arrests in Cuba and she herself has been arrested more than 30 times. Her husband, Rafael Ibarra Roque, is serving his eighth year of a 20-year sentence. Jay Nordinger, of the National Review, recently interviewed Mrs. Lugo. His moving article describes the challenges that Cuban dissidents are facing.

Cuban dissidents, standing face to face with Castro's forces, and even at the risk of retaliation, steadfastly maintain their opposition to the dictatorship. Amnesty International has documented all of the cases I have mentioned and hundreds of additional cases involving political prisoners in Cuba. To abandon these dissidents, to fail to remember them by their names, is like abandoning the Cuban people.

One school of thought some years ago was that a dialogue with Fidel Castro would somehow move the old dictator and give way to democracy. I believe that any solution that puts in Castro's hands the illusion of a change toward freedom is just that, an illusion. It would be like putting in Hitler's hands a solution that would be respectful and humanitarian for the Jewish people, or putting in the hands of racial extremists the life of African Americans, or in the hands of Pol Pot and Ian Sari the democratization of Cambodia.

Cuba continues to be under international scrutiny not only as a country that violates human rights, but also as one of the countries that protect, promote and practice terrorism. There is substantial evidence to back this up: the shooting down of the unarmed planes of the "Brothers to the Rescue" organization, the sinking of the tugboat which carried adults and children, the training of terrorists from all over the world, and the fact that Cuba has become a sanctuary for terrorists and criminals in this hemisphere. Only two weeks ago, the independent film producer Eduardo Palmer produced a documentary precisely on this subject. This is a 45-minute film. I have a copy of it with me for those who want access to statements, information and evidence that Castro supports and fosters terrorism.

Unfortunately, as long as Castro continues in power, there will be no change. Castro himself declared three weeks ago that for those who hope for change, "Let them sit down and keep hoping, because in Cuba there is no need to change a thing."

I do not want to conclude without pointing out recent events that occurred in the Mexican embassy in Havana. These events were not unexpected. The policy of collaboration between the government of Mexico and the Cuban dictatorship is nothing new. The Mexican embassy in Cuba has a long history of handing over people who seek political asylum, people who are persecuted, to Castro's police. I remember my prison companion Reynaldo Aquit. After he escaped from prison, he was denounced by the then-ambassador of Mexico, Gilberto Bosque.

In truth, to me, it is no surprise that Mexican authorities would ask Castro's secret police to come into their diplomatic headquarters to take away the people seeking asylum there. >From the day President Fox declared that there was no dictatorship in Cuba, when he denied that Castro was a dictator, I knew such a thing could happen.

The Mexican embassy in Cuba continues to be a branch of Castro's police and Mexico his most loyal accomplice. Only two weeks ago, with President Fox's blessing, a conference of international terrorists was held in Mexico. The conference was convoked by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC. How can Mexico, a country that is supposedly an ally of the United States, and an ally of the people of Cuba, also be an ally of the Cuban dictatorship?

Prestigious journalists like Mary O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal, Jay Nordlinger of National Review, Robert Novak and many others have told the story of Cuban dissidence. However, their accounts are outnumbered by the articles that have been published in reference to the alleged mistreatment of the Taliban prisoners now in Guantanamo. I do not believe that anyone should be mistreated or tortured. However, the same journalists who are worried about the lack of air conditioning in Guantanamo do not concern themselves with the hundreds of innocent people now in Cuba's jails or the reasons why millions of Cubans are suffering from a lack of freedom, hunger, a thirst for a civil society - all that is necessary for their spiritual and material well-being.

Recently, Washington Post journalist William Raspberry wrote a column about his visit to Cuba in which he says that he felt free walking the streets of Cuba. [Amazing, isn't it? -ed.] That is a very ironic statement and charged with cynicism. And I wonder, how is it possible that a person of such intellect can go to Cuba and know nothing of Cuba, go to Cuba to drink pina coladas without seeing the dictatorship and without thinking for a single moment about the victims, without visiting those prisons, without speaking with those dissidents?

Much is to be done yet in Cuba. I have no doubt that with our friends in Congress and my friends in the State Department, Assistant Secretary Otto Reich and Undersecretary Paula Dobriansky, U.S. policy toward Cuba will be of great support to the dissidents in Cuba. Thanks to organizations like The Heritage Foundation, the focus of the nation and of the policies of the United States will continue to be on the dictator Castro, and they will not be fooled by his maneuvers.

Many thanks.

Message for Cubaniche

Folks, this is a rant, so you may want to send the kids to the other room. I'll wait.

Ok. All set?

Cubaniche,

Imagine you are visiting somebody's home. They let you in, ask you to sit down, offer a cafecito or something. There are a few other people there with you and everyone is discussing one thing or another. You dont like what is being said in any discussion so you begin to yell and mouth off. You pretty much insult everyone because only your opinion matters to you and you could care less about what anyone else - who, for the most part are much older, wiser, and more experienced than you - has to say. The person whose house you have just been invited into as a courtesy asks you to leave. You tell him that you will leave when you a damn good and ready. Then the guy grabs you by the collar and throws your ass out the door.

Now, imagine that house being this blog. Im the guy grabbing you by the collar and throwing your ass out.

See, this is my house. I maintain it, pay the rent, keep it clean. I let you in here as a courtesy. I'll even let you speak here regardless of the inanity of your commentary. What I wont do, however, is allow you to disrespect me or my house or my visita. Apparently, respect is not something you have ever been taught either at home or at NYU. Que pasa, no tienes abuela?

You want a platform for you own ideas? Great, it's a free country after all. Start your own blog and do your own writing and cultivate your own readership. Spend your own time and your own money on it. But, here, you are not welcome until you learn some manners. And I will continue to ban each and every IP address you come in from, even if I have to block the entire NYU block of IP's. You dont even have to common courtesy of using a real email address. Why is that? What are you scared of?

The last thing I need is some comemierdon like you coming to my house and disrespecting it. I probably have pendejos older than you. Respeta para que te respeten.

Aqui nadie te ha dado vela pa' este velorio.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Here's what it's all about:

Do I look fat? (Updated)

Yesterday we celebrated my father's 74th birthday at our home. Steve and I roasted a lechón for the old man. It was incredible. We stuffed it with 10 lbs of congris and roasted it on a spit. I can't even begin to describe how delicious it was. Or how unbelievably beautiful it is to open up the stitches on the lechón and seeing and smelling that steamy rice and beans inside.

Dad was impressed. It was one of those days I know I'll remember forever.

Hopefully, Steve will have some pictures up today.

Update: A few pictures from yesterday's lechón eating frenzy are up at Hog On Ice.

Tough Choices

No es facil.

Let's say you found a kitten one day in your yard. It's surprising cause there's no cats anywhere around your immediate vicinity and there's really no way for a cat to get into your yard. Yet there he is. A kitten.

For weeks you try to catch him to no avail. He's a tough cat, smart. A survivor. Not only has he been able to elude your man made traps, but he has managed to survive alone, in your yard where there's dog's on both sides and a snake riddled canal in the rear.

You try every which way to catch him and he is just too quick, too spry, too able. So you give up trying to snare him and you just keep feeding him, no questions asked. After a week or so he gets a little closer while youre opening the can. He is no longer running away when he sees you.

Every day thereafter you start placing his little can of food a little closer to you. You set up a chair somewhere nearby and patiently wait for him to eat, coming closer day by day. It's like you two are starting to know each other. Starting to understand each other.

One day, while your opening his little can of food, you feel someone rubiing on your ankle. You get a little startled and in that millisecond it takes you to look down the kitten has already sprung away from you. It wa