Uncommon Sense

Another reason Ché Guevara was a bastard

I spent part of my morning today watching part of a History Channel documentary about the life of Ché Guevara.

Missing from the part of the film I saw were stories like Fernando Villar's.

Fortunately, his son, Fernando Jr., and Conductor at Cuban American Pundits are here to fill in the gaps.

Conductor writes:

Recently I was contacted by Fernando Villar Jr. He wanted to ask me some questions for a documentary he is filming about the idolization of Che Guevara. Here's what he's attempting to do in his own words:

I am a Cuban American student at Rutgers University. I am currently, in preproduction for a documentary on the mass production and idolization of che guevara.

I want this documentary to provide a voice for the otherwise voiceless standpoint of Cuban exiles who know what a despot and murderer el che really was.

This is an ambitious project but I am very passionate about it because ideally I want the admiration and idolization of this murder to cease, mostly among the youth.

Fernando Villar, the filmmaker's father was a political prisoner in Cuba for almost 8 years. After his son finished interviewing me yesterday, we talked for some time about his experiences. Almost immediately tears began to well up in his eyes. Here's a man, 75 years old, who has gone through more than any of us could imagine, a strong man, reduced to tears when thinking about what what was done to him, his compatriots and his country.

One thing he said has really stayed with me. "If we were document everything that has happened, all of the process of the Cuban Revolution, it would fill more than 20,000 pages."

Luckily we have people like his son, Fernando Jr., who will document these things for future generations. Stories, like those of his father, should not be lost to time but rather an example for us all.

Thank you Fernando and Fernando Jr. for making my day yesterday.

The History Channel will be showing the Ché documentary again, starting in a few minutes. I have set the DVR.

Samartino ordered deported to Gitmo

EFE News is reporting that a Bolivian judge has ordered Cuban dissident Dr. Amauris Samartino deported to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and not to Havana, where he would have met certain persecution.

Samartino, who the Bolivian government wanted out of the country because of his criticisms of President Evo Morales, moved to Bolivia in 2000, after U.S. immigration officials intercepted him as he tried to make it to the United States via boat. Before going to Bolivia, he had been held by the Americans at Gitmo.

Journalist at war with his jailers

Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta

The war of wills between Cuban political prisoner Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta and his jailers rose to a new level this week, when Herrera declared a new hunger strike after prison officials barred him from receiving visitors or making telephone calls. To show he is serious, Herrera again sewed his mouth shut, according to a story by journalist Luis Esteban Espinosa posted at Payo Libre.

Prison officials moved to punish Herrera, 40, an independent journalist who in 2003 was sentenced to 20 years in prison, because of his relentless efforts to inform the outside world about the deplorable conditions in the Cuban gulag. His prison's political "re-education" officer reportedly told Herrera he could not have visitors for the rest of the year because of his "uneducable attitude," according to a story by journalist Liannis Meriño Aguilera, a colleague of Espinosa's at the Youth Without Censorship news agency.

Espinosa's story quotes a source who detailed other ways prison officials have tried to break Herrera, including using common prisoners to harass him and accusing him of being a homosexual. They also have placed him in a punishment cell where he has to sleep on a hard floor surrounded by insects and rats.

For more on Herrera — who suffers from a variety of health ailments NOT being treated by doctors from Spain — read Reporters Without Borders (in English) and Payo Libre (in Spanish.)

Bolivian outrage update

Via Babalú, the Associated Press has the latest on efforts by the Bolivian government to deport Cuban dissident Dr. Amauris Sanmartino back to Cuba.

A Cuban dissident who has publicly criticized President Evo Morales' close ties to Havana said Wednesday that he fears for his life if he is deported home after a Bolivian court declined to block the move.

Dr. Amauris Sanmartino holds permanent residence status in Bolivia but was arrested this past weekend in the city of Santa Cruz, 540 kilometers (340 miles) east of La Paz, under a law forbidding immigrants to be involved in Bolivian politics.

Sanmartino's lawyers argued that the government did not properly notify Sanmartino of their intent to deport him, but a La Paz district court on Wednesday ruled that was not enough to halt his deportation, which has not yet been scheduled.

At the hearing, Sanmartino accused the Cuban government of working through their Bolivian allies to target him for criticizing Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

"Before they said it was the Americans, but now it's the Cubans who run things here," Sanmartino said. "They're sending me to certain death."

Babalú also has contact information for U.S. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who are traveling to Bolivia in the next few days. Implore them to not forget about Dr. Sanmartino, whom the United States help settle in Bolivia after he and other dissidents in 2000 tried to make it to the United States on a boat.

Dixie Chicks boycott is over

As a Texan and as an American, I think it was bad form for Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, to go overseas and trash-talk President Bush. I'll defend her right to sound like an idiot, but that doesn't mean I have to listen to her music or buy her records, and in the almost four years since, I haven't.

Until now.

My boycott of the Dixie Chicks is over.

I still think Maines was wrong, and I'll defend the right of anyone who wants to express their disgust with her by boycotting her music. Yes, speech is free, but that doesn't mean it always is free of consequences.

However, my "protest," such as it was, is over. My heart was never in it, and as I thought about it recently, I realized that I previously was a Dixie Chicks fan not because of Natalie Maines' politics but because of her music. And if I was to continue to "punish" her, I would be holding her to a much different standard than, say, Willie Nelson, whose politics are much more radical than Maines' but who has never been barred from my playlist.

In the end, my love affair with the Dixie Chicks is only about the music.

Here is one of the best songs off their latest CD, which you can now find in my collection:

Gerald Ford and Cuba

From Discovery Times:

After Richard Nixon was forced out of the White House by the 1974 Watergate scandal, his vice president, Gerald Ford, inherited a secret dialogue that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had begun with Castro.

In July 1975, the Ford administration actually took the bold step of voting with the majority of the Organization of American States to end multinational sanctions against Cuba. That August, the administration announced that it would grant licenses to foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies who wanted to trade with Cuba, officially endorsing a practice in which American automakers and others were already quietly engaging.

But the Ford administration's efforts to warm relations with Castro ultimately fell through, in part because the Cuban leader insisted on a complete lifting of the U.S. embargo before formal talks on restoring diplomatic relations could begin. Kissinger pulled the plug on the effort after Castro sent Cuban troops to Africa to fight in the Angolan civil war and introduced a United Nations resolution calling for Puerto Rican independence.

Can you trust your doctor?

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

HAVANA - Lillian Holloway picked her way through the darkened streets of Havana, skirting a pile of discarded pork bones, an unfinished construction trench, and fresh dog dung, on her long journey back to Philadelphia.

Past faded colonial facades looming out of the night like so many old ghosts, she crossed to a building with a worn sign: Hospital Pediátrico Docente del Cerro.

This children's hospital in a rundown section of Havana is Holloway's next step toward her own medical practice in Germantown or West Philadelphia. She is one of nearly 100 U.S. medical students enduring the hardships of life in communist-run Cuba for a free education and the hope of an eventual medical residency back home.

A question for future patients of Lillian Holloway and the other American medical students in Havana:

Would you trust your doctor if they had received their medical training in a country that's always bragging about the quality of its health care but whose best physicians, presumably, had to reach across the ocean for a second opinion on the condition of their most important patient ever?

"Cuba cannot stand more of the same"

The repression continues, but the Cuban street is alive with the sounds of the need for change, according to some dissidents interviewed by EFE News.

Cuban dissidents see momentous 2007

Havana, Dec 27 (EFE).- Members of Cuba's ever-beleaguered but generally optimistic pro-democracy movement say they are perceiving a rise in street-level consciousness of the need for change and expect 2007 to be a momentous year.

With Fidel Castro, who ruled charismatically and autocratically for more than 47 years, sidelined last July by illness, expectations of a transition are growing, the dissidents say.

Manuel Cuesta Morua, leader of the Social Democratic Progressive Arc, told EFE that the phrase that best sums up the situation is "Cuba cannot stand more of the same."

"Regardless of whether people are more critical of the regime or not, whether they have their thoughts aligned more coherently or not, running through the whole society is the sensation that Cuba cannot stand more of the same," he said.

He senses that the systematic repression of non-Communist and non-official thought and deed has become more "passive" in recent months, with the regime taking a mostly reactive rather than pre-emptive role.

"Two thousand seven will be the year in which the succession of power is completed and there could be a new government within the Revolution," he said.

Fidel, who turned 80 this year, delegated power "provisionally" last summer to his brother Raul, the longtime defense minister and designated heir, after undergoing intestinal surgery. The supreme commander's diagnosis and prognosis are "a state secret."

Hector Palacios, a former political prisoner released early this month after more than three years behind bars, said Cubans are more preoccupied with getting by than with Fidel's health.

"The comandante's health is not a big concern of the people. They have so many things to resolve that they have no time to be thinking about Fidel's health, and they are aware of the need for change," he said.

The coming year "will be crucial, a year of great shifts." He said movement toward some sort of climax is contributed to by economic woes, including "rampant inflation" spurred by hikes in utility rates and public transportation.

For Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation - which like the other organizations mentioned here is considered illegal by the regime - "political repression has been a constant this year like in all previous years."

He saw slight ups and downs in the level of application, but said he considered a pro-government mob's roughing-up of peacefully protesting dissidents on Dec. 10 "a demonstration of muscle flexing" by Raul Castro.

"What the average citizen on the street wants is for this page (regarding Fidel) to turn, and for better times to come," he said.

"The repression continues," said Miriam Leiva of the Women in White, a group of relatives of political prisoners that advocates respect for fundamental civil rights.

"It was at such high levels before, that I don't think you can say it was worse this year," she said. "It was stronger in the interior of the country though, to remind people that they cannot move about freely and with the specific intention of reminding us that we all are hostages."

"On balance, (2006) was not negative," said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, another former political prisoner. "There have been advances in the public's consciousness of the need for change. That is something I perceive in the street."

Raul Castro said in a speech last week that neither he nor any other indvidual can take the place of Fidel and that the top commander's only legitimate heir is the Communist Party.

"Fidel cannot be substituted for, unless it is all of us together that substitute for him, each one in the place that belongs to them," he told an audience of university students.

"This is an historic moment," he said. Without elaborating and perhaps referring only to his advanced age and that of Fidel, he added: "We at this time are concluding the fulfillment of our duty."

"We must make way for the new generations, or continue to open the way for new generations, gradually," he said.

Castro doesn't have cancer, doctor says

Posted, for whatever it's worth, which is questionable because the doctor won't say what then is causing the pain in the dictator's gut.

The Associated Press

MADRID, Spain
A Spanish surgeon who is helping treat Fidel Castro said Tuesday the Cuban leader does not have cancer and is recovering slowly from a serious operation.

"He hasn't got cancer" said Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, chief surgeon at Madrid's Gregorio Maranon Hospital. Garcia Sabrido flew to Havana on Thursday to see Castro and give his opinion on how his treatment was progressing.

"It is not planned that he will undergo another operation for the moment," he said. "His condition is stable. He is recovering from a very serious operation."

He also said that he was amazed at Castro's good spirits. "He wants to return to work everyday," he said.

Castro, 80, has not appeared in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July, but has since released little information on his condition. Castro placed his younger brother, Raul, in charge of the government.

Spanish authorities on Monday confirmed that Garcia Sabrido had traveled to Cuba's capital with advanced medical equipment for Castro and to study a possible surgery. The Madrid's health department has been sending medicines to Cuba since June.

Castro's medical condition is a state secret. Cuban authorities deny he suffers from terminal cancer as U.S. intelligence officials have said, but have nonetheless stopped insisting Castro will return to power.

Chances are the Cuban people are being told even less.

Bolivia does Cuba's dirty work (UPDATED)

UPDATED - The Real Cuba has contact information for the Bolivian embassy in Washington, and the e-mail address for the Bolivian foreign minister

If you are a Cuban living in Bolivia or Venezuela because you can't stand life in Cuba under Fidel Castro, Ziva at Blog for Cuba has some sound advice:

Get out while you can!

Here's why, as reported by the Washington Times:

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- Authorities have arrested prominent Cuban dissident Amauri San Martino, who escaped to freedom by swimming to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay six years ago, and plan to seek his extradition to Cuba, the government said yesterday.

Mr. San Martino, who has become a vocal critic of Bolivian President Evo Morales' growing ties with Havana, was picked up at his home on Saturday by a group of armed men in plainclothes, according to witnesses.

The dissident also has been instrumental in the defection of more than 100 Cuban doctors from Bolivia, where 2,000 Cuban medical personnel, teachers and other aid workers have been working under a cooperation agreement between the two governments.

The United States arranged asylum in Bolivia for Mr. San Martino after he swam onto a beach at Guantanamo Bay in 2000. He was denied entry into the U.S. because the naval facility is not legally considered to be American soil; under existing law, only Cuban exiles who land in the continental United States can be granted residence.

The Bolivian government did not comment on Mr. San Martino's arrest for almost two days. Yesterday morning, the Interior Ministry issued a brief statement, saying that he would be deported to Cuba because he is no longer considered to be a refugee.

"Mr. San Martino has violated his refugee status through his political activities and repeated attacks against the government," said Osvaldo Peredo, a chief spokesman in Santa Cruz for the ruling Movement Toward Socialism.

The government said Mr. San Martino had violated a 1996 law forbidding immigrants to "intervene in any form in internal politics or incite by any means the alteration of the social and political order."

Members of the opposition insist that Mr. San Martino has a right to speak his mind and that his criticism was directed mainly at the Cuban government of President Fidel Castro.

"This violates international agreements for the protection of refugees. It's the worst thing that has happened under the Morales regime, which is trying to emulate the Castro regime," said Walter Arrazola, a Santa Cruz deputy for the opposition Podemos party.