Was Michael Moore's 'Sicko' banned in Cuba?

Well, according to a cable sent by officials at the US Special Interests Office in Havana, Cuba, published in the Guardian, it was banned from screening in Cuba as 'it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a popular backlash.' Of course, this has been picked up particularly by the right-wing media and immediately accepted as fact.

But is this actually the truth? According to Michael Moore, it's a load of crock! As Moore brilliantly stated on his blog, Sicko was shown on Cuban TV for everyone to see on 25 April 2008. Check out Moore's post here for full details. As Moore states, you'd think someone would have checked up with Cuba first to see whether this was actually the case. This is yet again proof that the leaked cables from Havana are full of information that the bosses in Washington would like to hear but have no reflection on reality. Those guys in Havana should get some tips off their colleagues then.

Vile! - US State department disrespect for death of Cuban leader's wife

Vilma Espín and her husband Raúl Castro standing next to Che Guevara

If there is one thing that the leaked US State Department cables published by WikiLeaks have shown, the World's self-appointed defender of transparency, freedom and 'human rights', the United States government, has proven to be riddled with double standards and hypocrisy in its actions. It will only push for the promotion of its version of human rights when it suits its interests, which tend to be the interests of US big business. When it hates a country, usually a poor place without any resources accessible to US large corporations, then the US State Government is, you could say, un-Christian, to say the least.

Case in point is the unpublicised cable that recently appeared on the WikiLeaks site giving the US 'Special Interests Office' in Havana's view of the death of the Cuban president Raúl Castro's wife Vilma Espin. All I can say is that the unsubstantiated allegations and innuendos are vile and grossly inaccurate. The level of hate and disdain displayed by Michael Parmly, author of the cable, towards the Castro brothers is impalpable.

Parmly's vile comments include doubting that Fidel Castro would care very much about
the loss of Vilma Espin or much else beyond his own personal legacy, insinuating that Raúl Castro and his late wife (who had been comrade-in-arms and partners since their guerilla days in the 1950s) had been 'estranged for the past few years', relishing the thought that the loss of his wife would cause Raúl Castro to 'lose his bearings' and opening the way for leadership instability to precipitate regime change, as well as seeing Espin's death serving as 'a dry run for other much-more-anticipated deaths in the ruling family'. Parmly, a US government official, is clearly stating that he would like to see the Cuban leadership dead - how Christian of him!

The most hypocritical and unsubstantiated belief Parmly states in this cable is that he says 'yes, both Fidel and Raul Castro are mass murderers and cruel leaders, but Raul always has had a parallel reputation as a family man.' What the...? First of all, how are they mass murderers and evil? Where are the mass graves to testify this? Obviously, based on the picture painted by the US State Department cables we have seen so far, the Castro brothers are 'evil' solely because they have tirelessly work against US government actions and business interests. Judging by the nature of this cable, do you blame them? And what's with Parmly dismissing the Castro brothers as 'mass murderers and evil' anyway? The US government should not criticise as that has never stopped it supporting many dictators and leaders who were actually mass murderers and evil. And how would you describe US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan then? If that isn't mass murder, then what is? If you don't believe me, then check out the classified documents allegedly leaked by the very brave Bradley Manning to WikiLeaks.

Bradley Manning

Talking of which, disturbing reports are coming out that Manning, the US military intelligence analyst who, being a person of moral principle was disgusted at his own government and military's responsibility in the hidden deaths of many innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan, decided to uncover this to the World for the sake of transparency (central to a democracy like the USA) and bring justice to those who perpetrated such crimes, is now facing 52 years in jail for his actions and is reportedly being held in inhumane conditions akin to torture. This is despite not having been formally charged with any 'crime' as yet. Furthermore, friends, family and supporters of Manning, have been facing US government harassment so as to shut them up - a tactic well used in all 'evil' totalitarian systems. What is also disgusting is that opponents to dropping the US military's 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy requiring gay US military personnel to keep quiet about their sexuality or else risk discharge, have used Manning, who happens to be gay, as an example that having homosexuals in such military positions threaten national security!

It says a lot about a society which will seek to severely punish and torture someone with a humane conscience but will reward those who kill innocent people in Iraq or Afghanistan. As his supporters' website states: exposing war crimes is not a crime.

Some sense about Cuban changes

Thank you BBC for actually asking a proper expert about the proposed latest changes to Cuba's economic system. Stephen Wilkinson of the Centre for Caribbean and Latin American Research and Consultancy, London Metropolitan University, in an interview with the BBC explained, among other things, that:

The media frenzy that has followed the announcement that Cuba is to reduce its state workforce by 500,000 by the middle of 2011, is similar to that which followed Fidel Castro's throwaway remark last week that the Cuban model isn't working - it has largely missed the point.

This is not the end of communism or socialism in Cuba

The announcement yesterday by the Cuban Workers Confederation is highly significant and it does spell the final death knell of the old Soviet model of centrally planned socialism in Cuba, but it would be very wrong to interpret it, as some have, as the harbinger of free market capitalism and liberal democracy.

Far from it. The changes are couched in the rhetoric of revolution and the discourse is very much one of deepening the socialist character of the system rather than one of shifting towards capitalism.

Unlike the prospect of suddenly being left without work that faces many in the UK, as the present government's budget cuts loom, these cuts in Cuba are being undertaken after a long period of consultation with the trade unions and other organisations.

Workers know what is going to happen to them. The programme is to be undertaken in stages, the effect on people's livelihoods is to be mitigated and it is important to understand that the announcement does not mean that all the 500,000 workers mentioned are to become unemployed.

A large number of them will be offered alternative employment opportunities and a good many will continue in their jobs but will cease to be employed by the state anymore.

This is a far cry from the egalitarian days when workers were expected to labour for no recompense other than their own moral good and of the country and fellow Cubans”
End Quote In many cases it means that they will become self-employed or become part of a workers' cooperative.

Taxi drivers for example, or shop workers and workers in small manufacturing enterprises, all of whom are currently state employees, will essentially take over the administration of their own workplaces and earn their salaries directly from their takings or revenues rather than being a salaried state employee.

They will essentially be doing what they have always done - but they will no longer be on the state's payroll.

In cases where workers are made redundant they will be encouraged to set up new business or transfer to other sectors.

This does of course imply a huge change towards a system in which the market dictates the distribution of goods and services and this in turn also implies other significant changes.

As one Cuban economist put it to me recently, the role of the state is to be transformed from being the administrator of economic activity to the regulator.

Wilkinson goes on to say:

However, it would be wrong in the short term to see the reforms as leading inevitably to a change in the political organisation inside Cuba.

Cuba is to remain a one-party communist state for the foreseeable future.

This leads some to suggest that the Cubans are following a Chinese or Vietnamese model. True, there are similarities between the two Asian tigers and what was announced yesterday.
The Cubans have certainly studied both models closely. But my sources tell me that at a very high level, while the economic progress of the pair impressed, neither met with approval in their entirety.

Cuba, they say, wishes to avoid the negative social consequences of the Chinese experience.

A more laudable direction of travel is towards Latin America where Cuba recently announced that it was seeking to eventually form an economic union with Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez is leading Venezuela away from the free-market capitalist model towards what he calls "21st Century Socialism". Interestingly this includes encouraging workers' co-operative enterprises. Might this be Cuba's first step towards meeting Chavez half way?

This new system is very reminiscent with the first economic changes applied in Gorbachev's Soviet Union in the mid 1980s, which in turn was an adaptation of Lenin's 'New Economic Policy' (NEP) of the early 1920s. While NEP was quite successful until Stalin closed the shop (literally) with the first five year plan in 1928, Gorbachev's economic policies, adapted by Abel Aganbegyan, did not end up with the revitalisation of the USSR's then stagnating economy. What Cuba does have on its sides is hindsight, and a lot will depend on whether the Cubans can apply the right measures to avoid the mistakes made in places like Cuba, Vietnam, the final years of the USSR and Tito's 'self-managed' Yugoslavia. In any case, exciting times await for Cuba, whose system is proving to be more adaptable to changing circumstances than were the former Eastern Bloc economies.

Castro condemned for Roma Holocaust remark

Well, sorry French government but Castro is right. Obviously the truth hurts for Sarkozy's knee-jerk government when they come up with retorts of this calibre:"That Fidel Castro shows an interest in human rights is truly revolutionary."

The fact that the French government is very publicly deporting Roma from other EU countries, making a mockery of the fundamental EU right to freedom of movement, is pandering to ingrained universal prejudice towards Roma. This comes at a time when Sarkozy is languishing low in opinion polls, especially in light of failed promises of 'getting tough' on disadvantaged French youths who rioted three years. When all else fails, let's pick on the Roma.

Castro is quite justified in describing this as a 'racial holocaust' as the moves made by the current French administration is very reminiscent of the actions taken by complient Nazi puppets during World War II when the Roma were sent to the death camps such as Auschwitz and Birkenau in great numbers for much the same reasons as the Jews.

So instead of castigating Castro, Sarkozy and his ministers should devote more efforts into solving the problem rather than adding to racism, something that EU countries like France are always quick to denounce other non-EU countries of when the opportunity arises.

What I don't believe to be a coincidence is that news of French condemnation of what otherwise were previous non-newsworthy remarks by Castro have come quickly after a the revelation of a rather suspicious media 'gaffe' involving Castro. Much was made of Castro's supposed comments to US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg yesterday that he belives that the Cuban socialist system has even failed Cubans. This was a rather bizarre comment to be attributed to Castro as the US-imposed blockade is the usually main reason given by the Cuba for its economic shortcomings and not a fault of the system itself. Apparently this was a misinterpretation, and some media outlets, like the BBC, have pointed this out. However, many others have been comparatively mute about this, yet again lending to a distortion of Western public persecption. So many people out there will continue to believe that Castro is even against his own system when in actual fact he isn't. I also don't believe that this 'misinterpretation' was as 'accidental' as it has been made out to be. I believe this is Western misconception will play a dangerous role in future actions towards Cuba in the future. For instance, when the EU condemns Cuba for anything, it will be with the full-hearted blessing of the Western public because 'hey, even Castro said he doesn't like his system'.

Knowledge and awareness is strength, so a misinformed public is easier to control and manipulate.

CIA's 'Red Cell' Hypocrisy on Terror

From the Consortium News blog, by Robert Parry. Interesting reading about US government hypcocrisy about its role of exporting terrorism and harbouring terrorists. Remember, unlike Putin who was just a KGB agent, Bush senior actually headed the CIA!

The Central Intelligence Agency has scoffed at an internal memo that cites a few terrorist acts by some American citizens as possibly causing foreign nations to see the United States as an “exporter of terrorism.” The CIA notes that the paper came from its “red cell” analysts who are assigned to “think outside the box” to “provoke thought.”

However, what’s most striking about the secret three-page memo, dated Feb. 4 and disclosed by WikiLeaks last month, is how it reflects CIA self-censorship regarding the agency’s own long history of supporting acts of terror and protecting terrorists.

Cases of terrorism that implicate the CIA or its operatives, such as the blowing up of a Cubana airliner in 1976 or the arming of Nicaraguan contra rebels in the 1980s, are ignored by the “red cell” analysts even though many of the alleged perpetrators and their funders are still harbored in the United States – and include current and past U.S. government officials.

Yet, instead of citing these well-documented terrorism cases, the “red cell” memo references a few cases of individual Americans who have gone abroad and committed terrorist acts as well as some distant history of terrorism linked to U.S. immigrants.

The “red cell” memo notes that Irish-Americans have supported the Irish Republican Army back to the 19th Century. The analysis then skips to Zionist terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Palestinians as they prayed at a mosque in Hebron in 1994.

In sketching this background, the analysts jump over a lot of blood-soaked history of CIA-connected terrorism. Though assigned to “think outside the box,” the “red cell” analysts apparently knew better than to open a can of worms that they might have found inside CIA’s document vaults.

So, instead of noting the obvious truth – that other countries might view the United States as “an exporter of terrorism” because the U.S. government and particularly the CIA have had a long history of exporting terrorism – the “red cell” analysts confine their study’s frame to some individual Americans with no connection to the U.S. government or the CIA.

Thus, terrorists who have ties to Official Washington are left outside the frame.

For instance, there is no mention of Luis Posada Carriles, the alleged right-wing Cuban mastermind of the bombing of a Cubana airliner that killed 73 people, nor to any of the former Nicaraguan contras who slaughtered civilians as part of a bloody campaign to destabilize the leftist Sandinista government. Yet, Posada and many ex-contras still openly live in or visit Miami.

The CIA files are surely filled with data about Posada and the contras because the CIA worked closely with and provided material support for them.

Not that self-censorship by the “red cells” is all that surprising. It’s been practiced by U.S. government officials and the Washington news media for decades now.

Otherwise, the American people would have been confronted with the uncomfortable reality that many esteemed U.S. government officials, including Republican icon Ronald Reagan and both Bush presidents, had their hands dipped in the blood of innocent victims of terrorism.

What if ex-President George W. Bush’s dictum – that a government that harbors or helps terrorists should be punished as severely as the terrorists themselves – were applied to the United States or even to his own family? Maybe the “red cell” should have asked that “out-of-the-box” question.

In other words, the U.S. political/media system – including these “red cell” analysts – continue to view the world through a cracked lens that focuses outrage on “enemy” regimes and groups while refracting away a comparable fury from similar actions by U.S. officials.

So, for instance, American officials, pundits and journalists rage against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for allegedly assisting Colombian guerrillas, but are getting ready for a year-long celebration of Reagan’s centennial birthday in 2011.

Yet, not only did Reagan arm the Nicaraguan contras, but he continued the covert war after the ruling Sandinistas won an election in 1984 that most outside observers praised as free and fair. He also wasn’t deterred by disclosures of the contras’ human rights abuses – kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering civilians – even when those acts were acknowledged by some senior contra leaders.

Reagan was well aware of the contras’ cruelty (he privately called them “vandals” in a conversation with CIA officer Duane Clarridge), while he hailed them publicly as “freedom fighters” and equated them with America’s “Founding Fathers.”

Reagan kept arming the contras even after Congress ordered him to stop and the World Court denounced the CIA’s secret mining of Nicaragua’s harbors.

Reagan also backed vicious rebel forces in Angola and Afghanistan (including foreign Islamic fundamentalists who later coalesced into al-Qaeda), and he supported state terror against civilian populations in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, killing hundreds of thousands.

By any stretch of the imagination – if any other country had so brazenly violated international law and human rights standards – that government would be condemned by civilized nations and would be treated as a terrorist pariah.

But the vast majority of Republicans and many Democrats view Reagan as a political hero. In a ceremony last year, President Barack Obama feted former First Lady Nancy Reagan at the White House for the signing of a special law to commemorate Reagan’s 100th birthday.

To suggest that the late President was a war criminal or a sponsor of terrorism is unthinkable within the U.S. political mainstream.

Similarly, it is unacceptable to note how the Bush Family has protected Cuban-American terrorists – from 1976 when George H.W. Bush ran the CIA to 2008 when George W. Bush balked at extraditing Posada to stand trial in Venezuela. At times, the hypocrisy was staggering.

On May 2, 2008, more than six years into Bush-43’s “war on terror,” there was a remarkable scene in Miami as Posada, then 80, was feted at a gala fundraising dinner. Some 500 supporters chipped in to his legal defense fund.

Posada arrived to thundering applause. Then, in a bristling speech against the Castro regime in Cuba, Posada told his supporters, “We ask God to sharpen our machetes.”

Venezuela’s Ambassador the United States, Bernardo Alvarez, protested the Bush administration’s tolerance of the dinner. “This is outrageous, particularly because he kept talking about [more] violence,” the ambassador said.

Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen who worked for Venezuela’s intelligence agency in the 1970s, masterminded the Cubana Airlines bombing in 1976, according to an overwhelming body of evidence compiled by the U.S. government and in South America.

Despite the strong evidence against Posada in U.S. government files, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made little effort to capture Posada when he sneaked into Miami in 2005. Posada was detained only after he held a news conference.

Then, instead of extraditing Posada to Venezuela to stand trial for a terrorist mass murder, the Bush administration engaged in a lackadaisical effort to have him deported for lying on an immigration form.

During a 2007 court hearing in Texas, Bush administration lawyers allowed to go unchallenged testimony from a Posada friend that Posada would face torture if he were returned to Venezuela. The judge, therefore, barred Posada from being deported there.

After that ruling, Ambassador Alvarez accused the Bush administration of applying “a cynical double standard” in the “war on terror.” As for the claim that Venezuela practices torture, Alvarez said, “There isn’t a shred of evidence that Posada would be tortured in Venezuela.”

The kid-glove treatment of Posada and other right-wing Cuban terrorists stood in marked contrast to George W. Bush’s tough handling of Islamic militants. While Posada was afforded all U.S. legal protections and then some, suspected Islamic terrorists were locked away without trial at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In a further ironic twist, the Bush-43 administration allowed Venezuela to be smeared about torture while Bush and his top aides were concealing the fact that they had authorized extensive torture on suspected Islamic “terrorists,” including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other brutal torture techniques at CIA “black sites.”

Posada also made no apologies for his long terrorist career. In 1998, in interviews with a New York Times reporter, Posada admitted a role in a wave of Havana bombings, citing a goal of frightening tourists away from Cuba.

Similarly, his alleged co-conspirator in the Cubana Airlines bombing, Orlando Bosch, showed no remorse for his violent past. In a TV interview with reporter Manuel Cao on Miami's Channel 41, Bosch justified the mid-air bombing that killed 73 people in 1976.

When Cao asked Bosch to comment on the civilians who died when the Cubana plane crashed off the coast of Barbados, Bosch responded, "In a war such as us Cubans who love liberty wage against the tyrant [Fidel Castro], you have to down planes, you have to sink ships, you have to be prepared to attack anything that is within your reach.”

“But don’t you feel a little bit for those who were killed there, for their families?” Cao asked.

“Who was on board that plane?” Bosch responded. “Four members of the Communist Party, five North Koreans, five Guyanese.” [Officials tallies actually put the Guyanese dead at 11.]

Bosch added, “Four members of the Communist Party, chico! Who was there? Our enemies…”

“And the fencers?” Cao asked about Cuba’s amateur fencing team that had just won gold, silver and bronze medals at a youth fencing competition in Caracas. “The young people on board?”

Bosch replied, “I was in Caracas. I saw the young girls on television. There were six of them. After the end of the competition, the leader of the six dedicated their triumph to the tyrant. … She gave a speech filled with praise for the tyrant.

“We had already agreed in Santo Domingo, that everyone who comes from Cuba to glorify the tyrant had to run the same risks as those men and women that fight alongside the tyranny.”

[The comment about Santo Domingo was an apparent reference to a meeting by a right-wing terrorist organization, CORU, which took place in the Dominican Republic in 1976 and which involved a CIA undercover asset.]

“If you ran into the family members who were killed in that plane, wouldn’t you think it difficult?” Cao asked.

“No, because in the end those who were there had to know that they were cooperating with the tyranny in Cuba,” Bosch answered.

Though Bosch and Posada have formally denied masterminding the Cubana Airlines bombing, Bosch’s incriminating statements and other evidence make the case of his and Posada’s guilt overwhelming.

Declassified U.S. documents show that soon after the Cubana plane was blown out of the sky on Oct. 6, 1976, the CIA, then under the direction of George H.W. Bush, identified Posada and Bosch as the masterminds of the bombing.

But in fall 1976, Bush’s boss, President Gerald Ford, was in a tight election battle with Democrat Jimmy Carter and the Ford administration wanted to keep intelligence scandals out of the newspapers. So Bush and other officials kept the lid on the investigations.

Still, inside the U.S. government, the facts were well known. According to a secret CIA cable dated Oct. 14, 1976, intelligence sources in Venezuela relayed information about the Cubana Airlines bombing that tied in Bosch, who had been visiting Venezuela, and Posada, who then served as a senior officer in Venezuela’s intelligence agency, DISIP.

The Oct. 14 cable said Bosch arrived in Venezuela in late September 1976 under the protection of Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, a close Washington ally who assigned his intelligence adviser Orlando Garcia “to protect and assist Bosch during his stay in Venezuela.”

On his arrival, Bosch was met by Garcia and Posada, according to the report. Later, a fundraising dinner was held in Bosch’s honor. “A few days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was overheard to say that, ‘we are going to hit a Cuban airplane,’ and that ‘Orlando has the details,’” the CIA report said.

“Following the 6 October [1976] Cubana Airline crash off the coast of Barbados, Bosch, Garcia and Posada agreed that it would be best for Bosch to leave Venezuela. Therefore, on 9 October, Posada and Garcia escorted Bosch to the Colombian border, where he crossed into Colombian territory.”

In South America, police began rounding up suspects. Two Cuban exiles, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, who got off the Cubana plane in Barbados, confessed that they had planted the bomb. They named Bosch and Posada as the architects of the attack.

A search of Posada’s apartment in Venezuela turned up Cubana Airlines timetables and other incriminating documents.

Posada and Bosch were charged in Venezuela for the Cubana Airlines bombing, but the case soon became a political tug-of-war, since the suspects were in possession of sensitive Venezuelan government secrets that could embarrass President Andres Perez.

After President Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush took power in Washington in 1981, the momentum for fully unraveling the mysteries of anti-communist terrorist plots dissipated. The Cold War trumped any concern about right-wing terrorism.

In 1985, Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison, reportedly with the help of Cuban-Americans. In his autobiography, Posada thanked Miami-based Cuban activist Jorge Mas Canosa for the $25,000 that was used to bribe guards who allowed Posada to walk out of prison.

Another Cuban exile who aided Posada was former CIA officer Felix Rodriguez, who was close to then-Vice President Bush. At the time, Rodriguez was handling secret supply shipments to the Nicaraguan contra rebels, a pet project of President Reagan.

After fleeing Venezuela, Posada joined Rodriguez in Central America and began using the code name “Ramon Medina.” Posada was assigned the job of paymaster for pilots in the White House-run contra-supply operation.

By the late 1980s, Orlando Bosch also was out of Venezuela’s jails and back in Miami. But Bosch, who had been implicated in about 30 violent attacks, was facing possible deportation by U.S. officials who warned that Washington couldn’t credibly lecture other countries about terrorism while protecting a terrorist like Bosch.

But Bosch got lucky. Jeb Bush, then an aspiring Florida politician, led a lobbying drive to prevent the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service from expelling Bosch. In 1990, the lobbying paid dividends when Jeb's dad, President George H.W. Bush, blocked proceedings against Bosch, letting the unapologetic terrorist stay in the United States.

In 1992, also during the Bush-41 presidency, the FBI interviewed Posada about the Iran-Contra scandal for 6 ½ hours at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras. Posada filled in some blanks about the role of Bush’s vice presidential office in the secret contra operation.

According to a 31-page summary of the FBI interview, Posada said Bush’s national security adviser, former CIA officer Donald Gregg, was in frequent contact with Felix Rodriguez.

“Posada … recalls that Rodriguez was always calling Gregg,” the FBI summary said. “Posada knows this because he’s the one who paid Rodriguez’ phone bill.” After the interview, the FBI agents let Posada walk out of the embassy to freedom.

The double standards on terrorism are now so deeply engrained in Official Washington that the well-established history of U.S. government officials collaborating with terrorists is not only kept “outside the box” of the city’s conventional wisdom but is ignored by the CIA's “red cell” analysts who are assigned to “think outside the box.”

So, the “red cell” analysts may take note of Irish-Americans filling coffee cans with cash for the IRA, dating back to the 1880s, and of individual Americans conducting outrages on their own, but the analysts know better than to look into their own agency’s files for the real reasons why foreigners might “see the United States as an ‘Exporter of Terrorism.’”

"If someone is responsible, it's me"

This is what Cuban leader Fidel Castro had to say regarding persecution of homosexuals in Cuba in the 1960s to 1980s, in an in-depth interview he recently had with the Mexican paper La Jornada. Castro has seen the errors of the past and is very much seeking to amend them. Cuba, like in many other social aspects, is a champion of gay rights in Latin America. Thanks to the revolutionary work of Fidel Castro's niece and daughter of current Cuban leader Raul Castro, Mariela Castro, homosexuals in Cuba are now enjoying greater rights and greater government assistance in areas of concern such as health and HIV than many gay people in other Western Hemisphere countries. Bravo Fidel!

Castro said homosexuals had traditionally been discriminated in Cuba, just as black people and women. In 1979 homosexuality in Cuba was decriminalised (earlier than many parts of the USA and Australia!) and, more recently, there have been efforts to legalise same-sex unions.

Many in the West are unaware that despite the fact that most Eastern bloc countries were very anti-gay and dismissed homosexuality as a 'bourgeois disease', there were times and individual countries where this was not the case. The early years of the Russian Revolution saw groundbreaking changes in gay rights, only for Stalin to repeal them, as remained as such until past the fall of the USSR.



The German Democratic Republic was a firm supporter of gay rights, especially towards the end of its existence in the 1980s. The GDR even decriminalised homosexuality and brought age of consent laws in line before West Germany! Gay groups under the auspices of the FDJ, the Young Communist League, were set up that organised gay nights and awareness, and even a gay rights film called 'Coming Out' was released in late 1989 just as the Berlin Wall was about to fall. Czechoslovakia (with the Czech Republic in particular) was also very gay-friendly as a society.


It's great to see that Castro is able to make amends for the errors of the past, and I would like to see his counterparts in Western countries to do the same.

Russian tourists heading to Cuba for the nostalgia

Interesting report about how Russian tourists are arriving in ever increasing numbers on holiday in Cuba. Many are people who had been based in Cuba in the 1980s as technical and military advisors. It should be added that during that time there were also large numbers of advisors and experts coming from other Eastern Bloc countries, in paricular the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. It was also at that time that Cuba (along with Vietnam) became an exotic destination for some Eastern bloc tourists. One aspect that this report touches on that I can personally testify is the nostalgic and time-warp element to it all in Cuba in seeing the 'Pioneer' schoolchildren wearing their red kerchieves and the thousands of impeccibly-maintained 1980s Ladas on Cuban roads. It's also quite amazing to see the same type of highrise flats so common throughout Eastern Europe amidst the tropical setting, or 1970s and 80s Russian technology, complete with Cyrillic markings, still in use, such as air conditioners and tractors, or the same traffic posts used by the police at busy intersections once common in the Eastern bloc and still in Cuba. It's also very interesting to meet Cubans who had spent time, either as students or guest workers, in Eastern bloc countries up until the early 1990s. Plus, it's freaky to meet Cubans (born in the 1960s usually) with names like Iván, Vladimir, Lyudmila and Svetlana. The one thing I also insisted in seeing in Cuba was the huge bust of Lenin at the huge park named after the Soviet leader - I felt like I was 5 years old in Bulgaria again! When watching the BBC report, check out the Cuban woman who conducts tours for Russians - her Russian is great!

How to score $$$$ of US taxpayer money in Cuba

The US is giving away more than US$3.5 million to groups and individuals that would “expand Cuban civic participation and leadership in social relationships and independent civil society groups with a view to supporting the ability of Cuban citizens to freely determine their own future.” How nice. In other words, anyone who opposes Castro and the Communist Party. Pity that US citizens cannot be granted the same type of money for similar activities.

The US Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor does have a few vague stipulations. Cuban aid recipients should be “local groups; cooperatives; associations; informal groups; NGOs; student groups; and media outlets” that do not support a “member, affiliate, or representative of a designated terrorist organization, whether or not elected members of government.” Oh dear, I saw that dreaded term in the middle - NGOs. In the West, an NGO is precisely that - a non-governmental organisation. In emerging and developing countries, especially ones going through democratisation, an NGO is usually a Western-funded slush fund fronted by those working solely for the benefit of their Western patron's interests. 'NGOs' were the main tool used in the Western-funded, fake, colour revolutions of Eastern Europe (Serbia 2000, Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004, Kyrgyzstan 2005). Basically, most NGOs are usually not trusted in these countries, especially when NGO heads and their children are often seen driving around in fancy Jeeps.

In Cuba's case, the breakdown of the US$3.5 million goes like this: The sum of $500,000 will be distributed to family members of Cuban political prisoners. Using dissident Elizardo Sanchez’ own figures, there will be about 100 political prisoners in Cuba once the releases that are currently underway are completed. That calculates to about $5,000 per dissident in a country where a decent yearly wage is around $300. It surely does pay to be a 'dissident' in Cuba then. And now it also can mean a quick and all-expenses paid getaway to Spain as well.

The US government will also be scouting talent and doling out a whopping $1,500,000 to their preferred performing artists, visual artists, musicians, poets, writers, journalists, and bloggers who apparently charge to freely express themselves. The US knows that entertainers and celebrities are the real money when it comes to 'capturing the hearts and minds'.

Another $500,000 will be awarded to religious groups to foster freedom of religion. Never mind the fact that religions of all shades are already freely practiced on the island. An additional $500,000 is also tagged for “independent” labor unions, obviously excluding the already existing unions. Visions of Polish Solidarity come to mind.

Women rate second to last with only $350,000 earmarked for supporting “on-island efforts to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of women.” One wonders, does an equivalent grant for Las Vegas exist? Anyway, it would be nice if that money were to be granted to the organizations currently working on this issue in Cuba, e.g. CENESEX and the Cuban Women’s Federation, but that’s doubtful.

Lastly Santa Sam will give $300,000 to “groups and individual Cubans who request small grants for independent civil society initiatives that are Cuban-conceived and Cuban-led.” Can’t get any vaguer than that! A lot of small grants can be carved out of $300,000 and being on the US payroll is one of the best paying jobs around. Too right!

The report goes on to say: As a US taxpayer and thus contributor to this program, I would at least like some accountability. But to my dismay, when I tried to get information on last year’s award winners (yes this has been going on for years), the grants manager informed me that they do not “make the names of the organizations or the amounts they were awarded a matter of public record” because “information about the programs would jeopardize the grantees’ ability to operate safely on the island,” and to “minimize the risk that their Cuban partners on the island would be targeted for harassment or reprisal from the Cuban government.”

So, while the US government cannot see fit to extend unemployment benefits to its own struggling citizens, it is clandestinely paying Cubans to work against their own government — thus turning those accepting the money into what we in the US call “unregistered agents of a foreign government”.

But that’s OK, because when the recipients get arrested sometime down the line, the US will have new political prisoners to replace those being released nowadays with which to attack Cuba in the international public opinion arena. It’s a win-win situation!

So when they show images of the 'brave dissidents' and their families, just remember that their motivation is not so much for their often vague ideals of a better Cuba but because being a 'dissident' is a very profitable profession.

Thank you Gary for alerting me of this.

But where is this Lady Gaga drag act happening?

Would you believe that this elaborate drag stage production happened in the provincial city of Santa Clara in Communist Cuba? Yes, it's true. Cuba's gay community held a large-scale gay pride celebration in the city famous for the Che Guevara memorial in May this year. Festivities also took place in the capital Havana and many other Cuban cities. Despite economic hardships and a decades-long US blockade, Cuba and its gay population, led by Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, show a resilience and dynamism unparalleled in the world. Definitely this proves that Cuba is not the repressive jail that US neocons would like us to believe. There are more amazing photos here, with some pretty impressive and glamourous drag queens to boot! Byron Motley gives more detail about the celebrations here.

Cuba, Fidel on TV and 'dissidents'

A frenzy of news has been generated over a group of Cuban 'dissidents' who, in a move mediated by the Catholic Church, have now moved to Spain. Much publicity about these 'dissidents' has been given in the Western media, but what about in Cuba? What significance do these 'dissidents' have? If you were to go by the attention lavished on them by the Western media, and that the Cuban government has practically deported them, then it would seem that they hold some clout. Well, in actual fact, they don't.

Again, as is the theme in this blog, the West, just like the East beforehand, is driven by ideology, so that when reporting about ideological enemies, a selective view is presented. To the West, these 'dissidents' are 'fighting for human rights' in Cuba, with particular emphasis placed on the Afro-Cubans. Cuba sees them as paid US agents, which considering that Obama has approved funding for telecommunications and computer equipment for these people, you can see why they come to this opinion. It's also interesting to add that while the Western media heavily emphasised the 'dissidents' in recent days, media sources in Eastern Europe such as Bulgaria and Russia paid little attention to them, knowing very well from their own experiences how little these 'dissidents' matter. For the West, yet again the romantic images of the Cold War still capture and distort our view and imagination.

First of all, we must see how historically different ideologies have classed a 'dissident', what publicity is given to them and how this does not necessarily reflect their clout. During the Cold War, much emphasis in the West was given to dissidents in Eastern Bloc countries such as Andrei Sakharov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vaclav Havel and Georgi Markov. They were well known in the West, however in their home countries they were often irrelevant and had scant following amongst the masses. Their clout was greatly exaggerated by the Western media. To give an example, let's reverse the ideology. In the early 1970s the most famous American in the Eastern Bloc was Angela Davis. Do you know her? Well, if you have lived in the West all of your life, most likely not. In the Eastern bloc she was a prominent American dissident who was arrested for her activities with the Black Panthers, making her a poltical prisoner. In reality, her influence on American politics and society was minimal at most. However, if you were to believe the attention given to her in the Eastern Bloc at the time, which was immense, you would have thought that Nixon and the American establishment would have been trembling over her. Now, reverse back the analogy by replacing Angela Davis with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the Eastern with the Western media, and now you know what's the case with these Cuban 'dissidents'.

Another aspect of the Cuban 'dissident' movement that is not lost on the Cuban public that even bothers with them is that it is predominantly white and elitist. The same was true in essence with the dissidents of Eastern Europe, many of whom came from well-educated and relatively comfortable backgrounds, and often much removed from the strain and hardships that the most of the population had to bear. This is another reason why they are not as popular as it would seem. That these dissidents had to suffer for their beliefs afterwards was often seen as tough and fair retribution by the masses for their priveleged backgrounds.

The Cuban 'dissidents' have now gone to Spain, but have vowed to continue the fight. But Cuba's government won't be scared. As what other countries have found out, it's better to get rid of the trouble makers as their actions are practically ineffectual once outside of the country. This is something that East Germany knew about, or even more pragmatically, Tito's Yugoslavia recognised this as the perfect way to flush out opposition - if you don't like it, then here's your passport and get lost! And they did!

The one thing is that 'dissidents' like the ones from Cuba can be too idealistic and naive. I am sure that their intentions are quite genuine and that they would like to see some elements of Cuban society change for the better. However, they should realise that they face the same fate as their East German counterparts who formed Neues Forum in 1989. Despite their genuine intentions of wanting to reform East Germany and initial public support, they ended up being used and eventually ditched by Western forces who saw them as just a disposable means to topple the East German government and completely impose capitalism. A year after Neues Forum had bravely organised demonstrations against the anachronistic SED leadership under Honecker, it was already forgotten by a public enticed by the lure of instant Western wealth and consumption.

Here is where the East Germans (and Eastern Europe as a whole) differ from the Cubans, plus why the 'dissidents' have little support in Cuba. By the late 1980s, Eastern Europe was comparing itself with Western Europe, so it could see that it was failing economically. So, seeing that the basic premise promoted by Western propaganda sources was that only Capitalism and the accompanying Western democratic system brings wealth, and that it was only geographic and historical coincidence that brought Communism to the East, that if they were 'democratic', they'd be just like West Germany. The Cubans, on the other hand, who are very well versed on world affairs and also aware of the pain and false hopes that Eastern Europe went through after the fall of the wall in 1989, know what type of system would result if the 'dissidents' were to gain clout. First of all, while the East Germans knew that had they been occupied by the Western Allies and not the Soviets, they would have been wealthy like the West Germans, the Cubans too look to their counterparts and see what Cuba would have been like had they remained capitalist after 1959 - The Cubans see Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Central America and see poverty and inequality. Yes, the Cubans aren't exactly living in riches, but they do have universal and high quality education and health systems that are only available to a wealthy few in other Latin American countries. The USA tries to portray that Cuba would become rich like itself if it were to become a 'western democracy', but most Cubans are well aware that that won't be the case. Cubans know that despite the shortcomings of the current system, the system the US would impose after hijacking the initial efforts of these 'dissidents' (why else would the US be so interested in giving them equipment) would result in Cuba being no better than its neighbours. No more free education and universal medical care, and more grinding poverty. This is what these 'dissidents' represent to the Cuban masses.

Cubans often and quite loudly complain about their system and government, much like most people in supposed 'free' countries. Of course, if you were to go solely by the Western media, you'd think that all criticism of the government there is liable for prison - well, it isn't, and far from it. At least Cuba does not have death squads of the types that currently roam 'democratic' countries allied to the US such as Honduras or Colombia to silence dissidents. But we never hear of these, do we? Neither do we hear of Cuba's definition of what are greater human rights, namely the right to health care and decent education. If these were the parameters of human rights, the US would rank quite low.

To quote the words of my uncle in Bulgaria, before we used to complain not too much but have at least something to eat and a doctor look after you. Now we are free to complain all we want about being hungry and sick all the time and what's the point of freedom of travel when I can't afford to even catch a bus to the next village - that's 'freedom' for you.

More photos of Castro

This time showing a very well Castro on a visit to the World Economy Research Centre in Havana. For someone at 83 who has gone through so many serious health problems in the past few years, he is doing great! More photos here

Were the photos of Fidel part of a decoy campaign?

Well, that's the insinuation from this article on the BBC website, which states:
"Photographs emerged at the weekend showing the 83-year-old former president smiling and greeting workers. The images were published as the Cuban government began steps to release the first dissidents". While another BBC news item claims that "On Saturday, state media released photos of Mr Castro greeting well-wishers at a scientific centre in Havana. He was smiling and looked slightly stooped but relatively healthy during the appearance, said to have taken place last Wednesday".

In other words, it was the Cuban government who released the photos in an effort to deflect the 'embarassing' news of the arrival of 52 Cuban 'dissidents' and their families in Spain. Also, by saying that the photos 'are said to have taken place last Wednesday' also throws doubt on the circumstances surrounding the authenticity of the photos.

Last Friday I received photos taken from a friend of a friend in Cuba. By the next day, by the viral nature of e-mails and blogs, the photos had become worldwide news. I'm sure my contact had no idea that her innocent photos would spread like this. In any case, the allegation that the timing of these photos is somehow linked to the release of the 'dissidents' to Spain is completely groundless. Such elaborate attention-deflecting PR campaigns are obviously something that a political system based on spin would use, so no wonder the Western media would recognise this as such. Furthermore, it's quite disgusting how something as innocent and mundane as a person in Cuba taking photos of their president at their workplace and then innocently sending them by e-mail to friends is now being construed as part of some sort of propaganda campaign.

A good friend of mine is currently in Cuba and has met up with the photographer of the photos (described as an 'unidentified worker' in the mainstream media), so I hope to give you some more background information very soon.

Exclusive! Latest photos of Fidel Castro

Wow, I feel special now. Alt World Watch's first exclusive! Here are exclusive photos, taken by a friend of a friend in Cuba, of Fidel Castro on a surprise visit yesterday to the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas (National Centre for Scientific Research) in Havana. He appeared quite thin but well, and according to the director of the centre, Fidel is well mentally. When leaving, he bowed and blew kisses to the staff. These photos were taken by mobile phone - yes, that is possible in Cuba. Los gusanos ('the worms' - Cuban exiles in Miami) can wait. So now you know - Fidel is very much alive and is seen in public.







Thanks Gary!