Cuba’s Unknown Dissidents
Most Americans are blissfully unaware of the tropical gulag that exists just 90 miles from the United States in Castro’s Cuba. The U.S. has been so generous in responding to human tragedies such as the devastating earthquake in Haiti. And yet, so many Americans have no idea that a struggle for basic human rights has been taking place in a country that neighbors Haiti so closely. President Bush made it a point of his foreign policy to attempt to call attention to the reality of the dictatorship in Cuba. President Obama, though claiming to espouse different tactics, has also called for changes to Cuba’s totalitarian system. So if the power of the president truly is the power to influence, how can it be that nobody seems to know the names of Cuba’s political prisoners and dissidents?
I’m 40 years old, which means I grew up during the 1980s when the world’s attention seemed to coalesce around South Africa and that country’s despicable policy of apartheid. It’s been years since apartheid officially ended and Nelson Mandela left office as president, but the anti-apartheid movement remains indelibly etched in the American consciousness. In fact, a recent Hollywood movie, Invictus, highlighted South Africa at the end of the apartheid era. So why is it that nobody seems to know who the Cuban Mandela is? Why is it that when it comes to Cuba everyone’s answer is to remove sanctions against that country’s corrupt regime instead of isolating it and showing solidarity to Cuba’s people?
The answer, of course, is that Cuba’s dictatorship is one of the left and the tastemakers in New York and Hollywood would rather pal around with Fidel and Raul Castro than say they won’t play Cuba’s equivalent of Sun City.
March 18 marks the seventh anniversary of what has become known as the “Black Spring” to the select few that seem to care about Cuba transitioning to a democratic state. In 2003, Castro’s thugs arrested 75 dissidents, independent librarians, and independent journalists in the biggest crackdown on independent thought on the island in years. Most were sentenced to lengthy prison terms after being found guilty in show trials that would have made Stalin proud. Today, the majority of the 75 still remain in prison, though one was recently freed in the metaphorical sense.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arrested on March 20, 2003, because he had the gall to stage a hunger strike against the Cuban government in an attempt to create space for civil society on the island. He was sentenced to 36 years in prison though he didn’t get to serve a quarter of that. Amnesty International recognized Zapata as one of Cuba’s 71 prisoners of conscience. In December 2009, Zapata began another hunger strike in prison to protest his treatment and that of his fellow prisoners. He died on February 23 of this year. Zapata’s death, unlike any event in recent history, has stirred up the debate about Cuba and what it is and what it isn’t. An online petition denouncing the death of Zapata is gaining traction.
Obama just likes Fidel.
Obama’s just like Fidel.
I remember the first Gulf War when Peter Arnett was peddling the propaganda given him by Sadly Insane’s minions, in order for CNN to continue to broadcast from Baghdad.
It was the same with the NY Times and Walter Duranty, but at least Duranty had the Kremlin act as a pimp, for he was supplied with a Russian mistress.
As long as what is timelessly true is avoided like the plague, we will continue to see more examples of the unsavoury side of humankind, and fewer examples of the best of the human race.
Therefore, it is my contention that an alternative government be set up, which would be a preparatory regime for those parts of South America (and this would include the Caribbean), as well as Asia and Africa, which frankly need time for the Magna Carta to establish deep roots in those lands which are currently brutalized.
JFK foolishly included, as part of his deal with Krushchev over the Cuban Missile Crisis, not to overthrow the Castro regime.
I think, however, that the deal only extends to Fidel himself. Once the old murderer is roasting in eternal hellfire, I believe it’s time for some regime change- the old-school, unapologetic way, involving US Marines.
Thanks for keeping us informed about Cuba. Seems like it just falls off the radar. I will never understand how the Castro’s can be the liberal darlings. Makes no sense.
I have called the Congressional Black caucus,my congressmen and women, and a host of other people in regards to the man who died from the huger strike in Cuba a number of weeks ago…As of today, I have not recieved not even a whisper about it….Either they want to continue the status quo, or they agree with what Casro is doing…One or the other….My opinion….
The politicians don’t care because the public doesn’t care. The public would care, however, if they were told about the murderous Castro regime in the media and in books, movies and TV.
Can you remember the last book written for entertainment – with action and a swift plot – about Cuba and the way most Cuban refugees came to the U.S.? Of course not. Few books about Castro’s rise to power and the Cuban situation have been published by the pro-Castro N.Y. Publishing industry.
Want to do something? Read “Mercenary’s Tale: fighting Fidel Castro”. Go to Amazon. look it up; read the reviews. After you read this book you will want others to read it. Once enough people read what really happened to Cuba, something will get done.
Bill Heuisler
My thinking is that there are people who are petrified at the prospect that all groups are equal, but different.
Some groups have accomplished more with their time than others, even when you start at the same point in history.
Let’s face it, the Christian faith tradition, even though there are roughly 20 thousand branches, and the number is rising, has done more than Islam, since Constantinople was conquered roughly 550 years ago.
South Korea has done more with its time since the end of World War
Two, than Egypt, when it comes to economics.
Yet, those who have more power than the average person, and I point the finger at those who are elected, tend to run for the hills, or sidelines, leaving people like Geert Wilders to fend for himself. Well, at least when it comes to politicians, Wilders
stands alone, unless I am mistaken.
“My thinking is that there are people who are petrified when it comes to communicating that all groups are equal, but different.” instead of “My thinking is that there are people who are petrified at the prospect that all groups are equal, but different”.
I hope this makes what I posted earlier clearer than mud.
Henry, I am very awared of Guillermo’s conditions right now. He has asked the Marxist Paraguayan President Lugo to condemn Fidel. Paraguay is praying and trying very hard to have Farinas freed. Communism is a deseased and people who follow this dogma have a serious mental problem. Marxism has killed millions of people in the world and so far the world has not gotten rid off poverty and inequalities but have multiplied the number of dictators and murderers like Fidel.
It’s useless to expect the MSM(Moribund Stalinist Media) to expose and denounce the brutal repression of dissidents in Cuba. After all,the Obamanistas and their media courtiers regard Castro as a role model .It’s up to the New Media: PJM bloggers, posters, and other Conservative blogs, and talk radio to denounce Castroite atrocities.Contact Fox, Rush, Sean Hannity,Glen Beck et al. Tell them to publicizice and expose Castro’s reign of terror.Demand that Bill O’reilly interview Armando Valladares! Let’s agitate for Cuban freedom !
deguello, I agree with everything you’ve posted except for one small note from my own personal biases. I believe if anyone were to interview Armando Valladares, it definitely should not be Bill O’Reilly. In my estimation, O’Reilly is hardly a predictable conservative voice, all the others you mentioned would probably allow Mr. Valladares to develop his story without much snidely cynicism.
Move along folks, there’s nothing new here that hasn’t been already told by other countless sources. The author exhorts us to stop being accomplices. He might be an accomplice, but I’m not. I was born and lived in Cuba for the first eleven years of the so called revolution. I bet anything the author has not had relatives jailed and destroyed both mentally and physically. I didn’t see my father for eleven years after I left Cuba, for he had to remain behind because he was a doctor. I had an uncle, may he rest in peace, that was sent to work camp for three years, where his health was destroyed, so he and his family could leave Cuba after all of his hard earned property had been stolen from him by the goverment. Another one of my uncles died of a cerebral hemorrhage shortly after arriving in the U.S., no doubt from the continued strain of having been told by the cuban authorities s to go to the airport in La Habana to board a flight for the U.S., only to be repeatedly told along with his family that there was no room in the flight, which caused him immense fear his 14-year-old son, just days before reaching military age, would not be allowed to leave the island, and be forced to stay behind and be conscripted into the cuban army, and sent to fight in Angola, or God knows wherever else. The author is only regurgitating what many others, including those truly courageous souls in the island like Yoani Sanchez, etc., have been telling an uncaring world for many years. The author wasn’t born there and I suspect he’s never been there. Enough of mealymouth exhortations. No one cares about the plight of Cubans, least of which our supposed latin american brethren, and most americans, I’m sorry to say.
# 11,
Joseph, why then are there reports of demonstrations in front of the
Czech embassy whenever the Czechs cast Castro in a poor light.
Plus, do not ignore what others have done. For instance, this from
Daniel Hannan: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100030490/how-the-us-and-the-eu-sustained-the-castro-dictatorship/
and this from George Jonas: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/06/10/george-jonas-hitler-s-dream-come-true.aspx