Cuba’s Unknown Dissidents
But Zapata wasn’t alone in his quest for peaceful change in Cuba. There are others worthy of our collective attention. One of them is Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, another Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. During that same spring Biscet was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Biscet, a medical doctor, is black like Zapata. I mention this only because the Castroite myth is that among other things the Cuban revolution was fought to liberate Cuba’s black population from oppression. So Biscet’s acts of dissent are magnified by his skin color. Not only is he guilty of failing to recognize the supposed legitimacy of the Castro brothers, but he’s an ungrateful “worthless ni**er” as well, a cardinal sin in the tropical gulag.
Another Afro-Cuban that Americans know nothing about despite the fact that news outlets like the Associated Press, CNN, and Reuters have bureaus in Cuba is Guillermo Fariñas. Fariñas is also currently engaged in a hunger strike in an attempt to bring attention to Cuba’s miserable human rights record. Apparently his story and that of Biscet and Tamayo are deemed unimportant by these media outlets. It’s hard to imagine Nelson Mandela staging a hunger strike with the international media refusing to cover it.
In his 2007 movie Sicko, Michael Moore repeated Castro’s talking points about the Cuban health care miracle. That same year another Afro-Cuban doctor risked his life to obtain hidden camera footage of Cuba’s real hospitals, not those reserved for tourists and government officials. Dr. Darsi Ferrer gathered this footage for John Stossel and ABC News, but the most damning evidence never made it onto ABC. You see, ABC also has a bureau in Havana and didn’t want to risk losing it by broadcasting, you know, the truth. Luckily a copy of the video had been made and was supplied to Fox News, which aired it. Today, Dr. Ferrer is also rotting in a Cuban prison.
In direct response to the “Black Spring,” the European Union enacted a series of weak sanctions against Cuba, sanctions that were subsequently dismantled and then repealed. Still, Cuba’s political prisons remain full and dissent is a punishable crime there.
It’s time for the world to take notice of the incredible suffering going on at the hands of the kleptocratic Castros. Regardless of our political leanings here at home, we should be able to call a dictatorship a dictatorship. It’s time for our liberal neighbors to wake up and smell the Cuban coffee. It’s time for the news media and Hollywood to start telling the truth about Cuba rather than enabling the dictatorship’s propaganda. It’s time for Americans to stop being accomplices to the most deadly dictatorship in the history of the Western hemisphere and instead be the champions of liberty we all believe ourselves to be. It’s time for Solidarity Now.
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