A View to the South

Some Questions About our New War

2011-03-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Something very strange and amazing has just happened before our eyes. An open-ended bombing campaign was “authorized “by the vote of 10 countries – including several who intend to partake in the bombing.

This was all done with about 3 hours notice and with no release of the text until it was voting time. There was basically no debate and little discussion. The 5 countries who opposed the plan decided to abstain (including Brazil, India and Germany) declined to speak.

So we have Obama’s first war. Yes, war. Not just a “no fly zone,”as some keep misstating. The world’’s highest body has blessed “all necessary measures…to protect civilians.”

I am all for helping the Libyan people achieve their democratic destiny, but a few questions need to be answered before I can support another US war in the Middle East.

Is our mission to protect civilians, or is it to back a rebel army to change the regime?

Are we really protecting civilians by dropping bombs from airplanes?

Will foreign military intervention really work?

Why has dialogue not been tried?

How do we know we are not going to create the next Afghanistan or Somalia - a failed state.

First off, lets talk about the mission, the goal. It seems to depend who you ask. The UN resolution only talks about protection of civilians. But leaders in the US, UK and France have openly said that Gaddafi “must go.” Certainly that seems to be the goal but whether it’s authorized by the resolution is another question. On the same note, does the Resolution protect only civilians but also rebel fighters? Again, there appears to be a disconnect between what the resolution says and what the US, UK and France are saying.

Second, on civilians., we have to mention a bit of international law. The UN Charter only recognizes only 2 reasons to authorize warfare: when international peace and security is threatened and for self-defense (Article 2(4)). But this vote did not cite either rationale.

What we have in Libya is a pretty classic Civil War, fed by regional/tribal divisions and also religion (Gaddafi is not religious enough). Civilians have certainly paid a price – but it is nothing in scale to the many other Civil Wars in Africa over the last decades – none of which apparently warranted air strikes. Why are Libyan lives worth more than those from the Congo or Sudan?

Third, the internationalization of the Libyan issue has the potential to poison the well, so to speak. Libyan rebels will lose one of their biggest strengths – their independence from foreign powers. Under attack, Libyans are likely to rally around the (current) flag. Therefore, the result may backfire.

Fourth, it is highly worrisome that dialogue and discussion has not even been seriously tried. A proposal to accept international mediation was accepted by Gaddafi more than a week ago – but went nowhere because the rebels refused. They demand regime change and will not accept anything less than a revolution. But since when has a violent rebellion been a legitimate way to achieve power?

Fifth, even if we “win” and kick Gaddafi out, we should know by now that this is not the endgame. We break and country, we own it. While we still don’t really know who we are dealing with, Islamic Fundamentalists certainly form a strand of rebel support. An entire new country would have to be created under a new regime.

Colombia: US Alters Documents Showing True Intentions Behind new Military Bases

2009-11-27T16:10:00.000-08:00

VHeadline.com - Washington alters USAF document to hide intentions behind Colombia accord

By Eva Golinger:

In an explicit attempt to hide Washington's military objectives in South America, a US Air Force document submitted to Congress in May 2009 that provoked deep concerns in the region has been modified and re-published on November 16, 2009. The official US Air Force document, revealed and denounced by this author on November 4, explained the justification for a $46 million request to improve the military installations in one of the seven bases Washington will occupy under the military accord signed on October 30 between Colombia and the United States.

The modified document has eliminated all mention of war and military operations in the region, as well as offensive language directed at Colombia's neighbors, Venezuela and Ecuador. Nevertheless, Washington's intentions remain the same.

The original Air Force document dated May 2009 outlined the importance of the military base in Palanquero, Colombia to enable "full spectrum military operations" in South America. The original military document also detailed the necessity of investing $46 million to improve the airfield, ramps and other essential installations on the base, converting it into a Cooperative Security Location (CSL) for US military missions in the region.

Hit the link for the original docments, and what they were altered to read now.

Venezuela and Those Blown Up Bridges: More US Hypocrisy

2009-11-20T10:45:00.001-08:00

In an attempt to get this blog some more action, I am going to do something I don't usually do, and post a straight rip from a blog I highly respect - Otto's INCA KOLA NEWS:

Another taste of bizarre today as the hypocrisy of US foreign policy towards Venezuela shows up once again. Several newswires are running the story about how Venezuelan troops "blew up two bridges" that connect Venezuela with LittleUSA (a.k.a. Colombia) in the Norte de Santander region this week. Anyone who knows anything about that spot on the planet knows that those bridges are used for two main purposes:

Carrying cheap fuel from Venezuela to Colombia illegally
Carrying cocaine from Colombia to Venezuela (need I mention that's illegal?)

But sure enough, LittleUSA is going to make a protest about the fact that Venezuela wants to protect its borders from Colombia's main source of dollars. Apparently, f*cking up your neighbours via a long term and very large cocaine habit is socially acceptable while watching them protect themselves from you is aggressive behaviour.

This comes on the same day that The USA declares it wants to see Venezuela make more effort against drug runners. The arrogantly entitled 'Voice of America' (hint, 'America' is not a country, it's a double continent) starts off its report thusly:

U.S. anti-drug officials are calling for greater efforts by Venezuela to combat drug traffickers who are using the country to make illegal shipments.
So Venezuela has to make more effort to combat druggies, but when it does there's hell to pay. Go figure.

Again, go check out Otto's wonderful Latin American blog IKN. Don't hold it against him that he is also trying to make some money off gringo's irrational fear and misunderstanding of the region (mining stock).

FAO: Venezuela Reduces Malnutrition from 21% to 6%

2009-11-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

Venezuelans now consume 2,790 calories daily, more than the number of calories that the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the UN suggests is the daily requirement, according to National Nutrition Institute (INN) Director Marilyn Di Luca.

Malnutrition has diminished from 21% eleven years ago to 6% currently, owing to the government’s agriculture and food distribution policies, Di Luca said.

She said Venezuela ranks fifth in Latin America for lowest nutritional deficiency amongst children, with Cuba, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina ranking higher.

Di Luca said the achievements in nutrition are thanks to social planning. “Currently a plan of harvesting and storage is being carried out... as well, the Ministry of Education’s Bolivarian curriculum is teaching the children to eat the food that is produced here and that links us to our origins. Further, the folks in the Culture Mission [a social program] are in the street linking food and nutrition to socialist values.”

“Also, the government has developed a structural platform with the Venezuelan Agrarian Corporation (CVA) that has a gigantic system of 59 food processing plants,” said Venezuela’s vice minister of food policy, Rafael Coronado.

Government financing of producers has increased from BsF 268 million bolivars in 1998 to BsF 20 billion (US$ 9.3 billion) this year, and harvested areas have increased from 1.6 million hectares in 1998 to 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) this year, according to Vice Minister for Agrarian Economy Richard Canan.

Canan argued that the government has changed its attitude toward production. Where previous governments thought it was cheaper to import food, the current government, through technology transfer, international agreements, and financing, is promoting more local production.

To improve food distribution and control food prices, the state-run company PDVAL (Venezuelan Producer and Distributor of Food) sells food at government-regulated prices and supplies thousands of public cafeterias that provide free meals to the most needy.

Since their founding in 2003, the state-run MERCAL markets sell food at subsidized prices to nearly every community nation-wide, sometimes as much as 40% cheaper than the regulated prices.

In addition to the permanent MERCAL markets, the government and local communal councils organise temporary MERCAL food distribution points in central and remote places across the country. Last Saturday, MERCAL had 3,116 tonnes of food for sale at 779 such distribution points.

The FAO representative in Venezuela, Francisco Arias, said Venezuela has closely followed FAO recommendations. “Strengthening the networks like MERCAL, PDVAL and the public cafeterias, but also promoting local food production, is precisely the strategy that FAO has promoted to deal with food insecurity,” he said. (Translation by Venezuelanalysis)

UN: Venezuela and Cuba Excel at Human Development

2009-11-19T16:06:00.000-08:00

Below is an algamation of reports from Earth Times and Green Left Weekly.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) revealed that China and Venezuela were the two top gainers in terms of human development since 2007. The UNDP's "Human Development Index" compiles multiple statistics relating to health, education, poverty, women's rights, etc. in order to come up with the most holistic picture of actual human progress (rather than just economic).

Venezuela has been led by President Hugo Chavez for the past decade. Chavez is an outspoken critic of capitalsm and has pursued socialist policies aimed at combatting disease, illiteracy, malnutrition and poverty.

Cuba’s education index is equal highest in the world, along with Australia, Finland, Denmark and New Zealand. Cuba’s education index is 0.993 of a possible score of 1. Its adult literacy rate is 99.8% and school enrolments are 100%. Public expenditure on education in Cuba is 14.2% of total government expenditure. This is higher than Australia (13.3%) and the US (13.7%). Cuba also tops the world in the ratio of female to male enrolment in all levels of school, at 121%.

Cuba’s life expectancy is 78.5 years, the highest along with Chile in Latin America and the Caribbean. It compares favourably with Australia (81.4 years) and the US (79.1 years).

Cuba fares well desptie having a relatively low population and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Mexico, with twice the GDP per capita as Cuba, actually has a lower level of human development than Cuba.

Since 2005, Azerbaijan, Cuba and Venezuela have improved their HDI more than any other countries. Venezuela was one of the few countries that significantly bettered its HDI ranking since last year, jumping four places from 62 to 58.

Venezuela has achieved a relatively rapid rise of 5.2% in its HDI between 2000 to 2007, compared to a 4.8% increase in its HDI over the previous 20 years.

Supreme Court: Miami school can ban book on Cuba

2009-11-16T15:19:00.001-08:00

Supreme Court: Miami school can ban book on Cuba | csmonitor.com

Posted using ShareThis

How Cuban American Hard-Liners Influence U.S. Policy With Campaign Money

2009-11-16T15:09:00.001-08:00

By Nick Sabloff in the Huffington Post:

While U.S. policy toward Cuba has opened up since President Barack Obama took office, a new report from Public Campaign, an organization dedicated to reforming campaign financing, raises the question of whether hard-line Cuban Americans will succeed in stifling further changes in U.S.-Cuba relations through their campaign contributions to members of Congress.

According to the report, the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee, along with a "network of hard-line Cuban American donors," have made over $10 million in campaign donations since the 2004 election cycle, with 337 federal candidates receiving funds through the PAC.

The report claims that the candidates that received these contributions have "more often than not cast their votes on Cuba policy issues with the hard-liners. " It highlights a group of 18 House members, a mix of Democrats and Republicans, whose voting patterns appeared to have shifted significantly since receiving their first contribution from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC. Having once voted consistently in favor of easing relations with Cuba, these members were now more often found to be questioning any such shift, the report concludes. Unsurprisingly, as the power in Washington has shifted, so too has the money. In 2004, 71 percent of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC's money went to Republicans; in 2010, the figure is projected to be 76 percent to Democrats.

When it comes to public sentiment toward the U.S.'s relationship with Cuba, the Public Campaign report insists that the hard-liners, in their opposition to repealing such things as the travel ban for Americans, are out of step with where the majority of the country is heading. A poll by Bendixen and Associates conducted in September 2009, which is cited in the report, found that 59 percent of Cuban-Americans favored lifting the travel ban for all Americans. Similarly, a national survey conducted by World Public Opinion in April claimed that 70 percent of Americans were in favor of being allowed to travel to Cuba. A congressional hearing is due to be held on November 19 by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the topic of lifting the travel ban to Cuba.

In April, Obama abandoned restrictions on Cuban Americans' ability to travel to the island and send money to relatives, a move described by the New York Times at the time as the "most significant shift in United States policy toward Cuba in decades." Obama also cleared the way for telecommunications companies to pursue licensing agreement in the country. The U.S.'s trade embargo with Cuba, however, remains firmly in place.

Cuba: Strange Inconsistencies in Yoani's Account of "Beating"

2009-11-07T01:48:00.001-08:00

I wonder how many people in the Western Hemisphere are abused by police officers each year. All the victims of police abuse in the US, Mexico, Dominican republic, Guatemala, Colombia, Jamaica, Venezuela, Brazi, etc. How many of the victims every get a first-hand Reuters and AP article written about the abuse just a few hours after it occurs? How many get any articles in the US at all?

Well if it happens in one country, odds are that US audiences will hear about it. Cuba.

In the most recent case, (12 million hits per month) Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez was supposedly the victim of a great crime of state violence today. The story broke on the blogs and then she spoke with the Miami Herald. The Herald piece talks about a true police beating, complete with "karate holds," "judo," "punches," "blows" and "being violently thrown on the street."

The weird thing is that NONE of this police violence was mentioned at all in a Reuters article where she was interviewed right after the Herald piece. There is nothing about a beating or violence at all. The closest detail is that she says her PURSE was "thrown on the street as they drove off." The article, in fact, clearly states that Yoani "had no injuries, she said."

Another critical inconsistency is that she says "there was no time to resist" getting taken in the (presumably) security services car, in the Reuters account. In the Herald piece, she says she resisted and refused to get in the car, and that is when the violence occurred. That and also when she took a piece of paper with information on it from the agents pocket, and put it in her mouth to destroy it.

I certainly can not explain why one account sounds like an episode from a low budget mafia movie and the other sounds rather typical what has happened in Cuba forever - a dissident is not arrested, bus is prevented from attending a particular anti-Government rally or event. In this case, it seems pretty clear that the Yoani seemed to indeed resist the security forces and then play the aggressor, in taking something from the agent's pocket. Whether any true abusive blows were leveled by a Cuban agent, or whether the act of forcing a resistant person into a car and trying to defend a piece of security information in a pocket is all we are talking about, can not be known at this point. Certainly, no State violence against its people can be tolerated.

I certainly hope for the day when security forces in all countries refrain from abuse. I also know that Cuba does not a big problem in this regard, compared to what takes place in other countries in the region.

But Yoani has achieved her goal. She wroter very early on that she wanted "to know where the line was" in Cuban political life. Whether through her sheer celebrity, her moxie and conjones or too many exaggerations (or lies) - she has run across a Cuban line. Maybe it was visiting too many hostile foreign Embassies? Maybe her cooperation with US Government run entities like Radio Marti? Maybe the Miami friends she's met? Predictably, she claims she was told it is her writings. Well, Yoani could certainly test that hypothesis and refrain from foreign embassies and US propaganda organs for a spell, couldn't she?

Honduras: US Washes its Hands and Blesses Coup

2009-11-06T11:27:00.001-08:00

The supposed agreement to reinstate President Zelaya of Honduras is officially dead. The coup government of Micheletti has forsaken the text of the signed agreement, which called for a "unity government" and instead put together a new cabinet of his cronies - with no anti-coup representation.

On the same day, the best indication of the real Obama Administration policy on Honduras was revealed by Republican Senator Jim DeMint. In a overjoyed press release he claimed that the Administration will recognize the elections even if the Honduran Congress refuses to make a decision before the November 29 election. This goes against everything that had been said in the past and against everything every other country in the world has said on this issue.

So it appears the US has tacitly endorsed the coup plotters hopes of dupe and delay. Zelaya will not be restored and elections are to be held on November 29th. Already 2/3 of the Constitutionally required election campaign has been held under repressive conditions (martial law, media closures, thousands of arrests of grass roots leaders, etc) and an illegal Administration. The US position is to bless these elections and pretend that the (boyocotted) November 29th election will wash their hands of this whole mess. They ought to think again.

I've officially had it with this Administration, at least as it related to Latin America. This whole Honduras story has been very instructive of how "soft power" can be even more devious and destructive than hard. The US always professed (against evidence to the contrary) that it needed to have Zelaya instituted. Now we know that was a fallacy. All the US really wanted was for this to all go away, without alienating the region too bad.

The State Department was praised by all official quarters when the initial deal was breached. They are probably thinking they are in the clear even still, with the situation unraveling quickly (and two bombs having gone off in the capital). That is ok. We (the US) won't have to be there to try to solve the lasting problem being created.

Since th pretension of regional cooperation has passed, it is time to pick sides folks. Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua said today that Zelaya's reinstatement is not negotiable. That elections will not be legitimate unless the repression ends and Michelletti gives way to Zelaya. This is the position of every major human rights group in Honduras and the world. The US has regrettably staked out another position. One that would legitimize a coup and set a horrible precedent for the entire world, but the region in particular. US talk about democracy is just that, if we can not get a tin pat country that depends wholly on the US to reinstate a legitimately elected President for just a few more weeks, before his term ends.

Even Time magazine sees trouble brewing.

And it could certainly have negative implications for Obama's credibility in the region if he is perceived to have brokered a deal that allowed a military coup to succeed. Then again, the U.S. President could always shift the blame by pointing out that it was Zelaya that signed the deal.

Venezuela vs. Colombia: The People Choose Venezuela

2009-11-05T01:01:00.000-08:00

We are told over and over again that Colombia is led by a great President and Venezuela has one of the worst. That Uribe's Colombia is on the way up and Chavez's Venezuela is about to self-destruct. One wishes there were a way to test those assertions.

Wait a second. Aren't the 2 countries right next to each other? So it might be reasonable to ask what country's people are migrating to the other country in greater numbers. Turns out the numbers aren't even close. It is a blow out. Colombians, even in a time of much improved security, are flocking to Venezuelan in huge, unprecedented numbers. Why? Because of Venezuela's "greater employment opportunities and more secure social safety net."

Venezuela vs. Colombia: The Battle Over Emigres

Fredys Villanueva has abandoned his native Colombia for neighboring Venezuela. But he's not quite like the hundreds of thousands of Colombians who have fled their country's bloody 44-year long civil war for the safety of the land of Hugo Chávez. Instead, he's like 2 million or more Colombians who have moved to Venezuela because it offers greater employment opportunities and a more secure social safety network.

After coming to Venezuela from Barranquilla, Colombia, in 2003, Villanueva, 55, found steady work with decent pay at an aluminum factory, a job that came with a free house and other benefits. "There's a health clinic over there," he says, pointing down a dusty road lined with haphazardly constructed brick houses. "The Cuban modules are nearby too," he adds, referring to the free clinics, started by Chávez, that use Cuban doctors in poor neighborhoods. "They give me free pills for my hypertension."

...As many as 75% of the more than 3 million to 4 million Colombians living there have come for economic reasons. Juan Carlos Tanus, president of the Association of Colombians in Venezuela, says that Venezuela's advantages include jobs and subsidized food and health provided in the past 10 years by Chavez's socialist government. In fact, Tanus notes, from 2002 to 2008 — even as Colombia got safer thanks to President Alvaro Uribe's offensive against leftist guerrillas — the number of Colombians emigrating to Venezuela each year rose from 21,200 to 93,000.

Why haven't we been told this story before?

Chevron vs Ecuador

2009-10-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Some dust has settled from the expected Chevron hail-mary play a few weeks ago - releasing a "hidden" video made by an "ex"-employee and American "businessman," now receiving pay and protection from the company. Pay for their services and protection from anyone who wants to ask some very basic questions.

Chevron says their spies (with hidden cameras in watches and pens) "just wanted to expose corruption" in Ecuador. Nevermind that the 2 were actually manufacturing corruption, going around Ecuador trying to offer up bribes to anyone who'd listen. And the logical way to expose this corruption in Ecuador is by handing their tapes over to an American company that no longer even does business in the country. But they do happen to be in a very expensive ($27 Billion) lawsuit.

Are they serious? Apparently nervous about the whole thing, one of the men in hiding in the US has retained the same lawyer used by Barry Bonds.

The man who apparently represented the Ecuadorean Government in the secret tapes, Carlos Patricio Garcia, has come forward to state his case. He is a car salesman who says he performs petty jobs for the governing party - Alianza Pais - catering food and the like. He says the 2 US businessmen approached him at a political rally to try to do some business. His lawyer admits he was basically "carried away" by trying to get some bucks from this eager to pay gringo. Garcia makes clear however, that he was basically talking out his ass in terms of what he could deliver. He appears to be nothing but a wannabe, a nobody. Alianza Pais says they've never heard of him and have no records of party membership. And his supposed relationship with President Correa's wife, is actually just having met her once at another rally.

“Garcia is the kind of person who likes to talk so he can look good in front of people, and that’s what he was doing in that video,” Zambrano said in an interview in Quito. “He has no connections.”

I noted earlier that there is no evidence (on tape or elsewhere) that the actual Ecuadorean authorities (or presiding Judge Nunez) knew anything about this proposed bribe. Despite this, another Judge has removed the Nunez from the case, which is still moving forward. The Ecuadorean authorities are investigating and calling on the US to do the same. They are wondering why, if the only thing caught on tape is ATTEMPTED bribery, the US has not moved a finger to investigate the 2 US men under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which outlaws bribery of foreign officials to obtain business.

But still the main questions remain. Why would these 2 men try to expose their own corrupt practices in Ecuador? Why would they hand over evidence to a US company - Chevron? Why are they being protected by Chevron?

The only logical explanation is that these men were working for Chevron, trying to help their $27 Billion court case. This is an extremely grave act, that ought to be investigated by the US immediately. Not let to sit out there and delay justice for the Amazon jungle and the people who live there.

Honduras: US Silence on Human Rights Violations is Deafening

2009-09-23T11:55:00.001-07:00

Manuel Zelaya at the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, 21 September 2009.

I can't say it any better than Mark Weisbrot did in the Guardian today:

Now that Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras, the coup government – after first denying that he was there – has unleashed a wave of repression to prevent people from gathering support for their elected president.

This is how US secretary of state Hillary Clinton described the first phase of this new repression Monday night in a press conference: "I think that the government imposed a curfew, we just learned, to try to get people off the streets so that there couldn't be unforeseen developments."

But the developments that this dictatorship is trying to repress are very much foreseen. A completely peaceful crowd of thousands surrounded the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, where Zelaya has taken refuge, to greet their president. The military then used the curfew as an excuse to tear-gas, beat and arrest the crowd until there was nothing left. There are reports of scores wounded and three dead. The dictatorship has cut off electricity and water to the embassy and cut electricity to what little is left of the independent media, as well as some neighbourhoods.
...
The strategy for dealing with them has been to try to render them powerless – through thousands of arrests, beatings and even some selective killings. This has been documented, reported and denounced by major human rights organisations throughout the world: Amnesty International, the Centre for Justice and International Law, Human Rights Watch, the Inter American Commission on Human Rights and others.

One important actor, the only major country to maintain an ambassador in Honduras throughout the dictatorship, has maintained a deafening silence about this repression: the US government. The Obama administration has not uttered one word about the massive human rights violations in Honduras.

This silence by itself tells you all you need to know about what this administration has really been trying to accomplish in the nearly three months since the Honduran military squelched democracy. The Obama team understands exactly how the coup government is maintaining its grip on power through violence and repression. And Barack Obama, along with his secretary of state, has shown no intention of undermining this strategy.

In fact, Zelaya has been to Washington six times since he was overthrown, but not once did he get a meeting with Obama. Why is that? Most likely because Obama does not want to send the "wrong" signal to the dictatorship, ie that the lip service that he has paid to Zelaya's restoration should be taken seriously.

These signals are important, because the Honduran dictatorship is digging in its heels on the bet that they don't have to take any pressure from Washington seriously. They have billions of dollars of assets in the US, which could be frozen or seized. But the dictatorship, for now, trusts that the Obama team is not going to do anything to hurt their allies.

Luz Mejias, the head of the Organisation of American States' Inter-American Human Rights Commission, had a different view of the dictatorship's curfew from that of Hillary Clinton. She called it "a clear violation of human rights and legal norms" and said that those who ordered these measures should be charged under international criminal law.

What possible excuse can the military have for breaking up this peaceful gathering, or can Clinton have for supporting the army's violence? There was no way that this crowd was a threat to the Brazilian embassy – quite the contrary. If anything it was protecting the embassy. That is one reason why the military attacked the crowd.

On 11 August, 16 members of the US Congress sent a letter to Obama urging him to "publicly denounce the use of violence and repression of peaceful protesters, the murder of peaceful political organisers and all forms of censorship and intimidation directed at media outlets." They are still waiting for an answer.
...
What a horrible, ugly message the Obama administration is sending to the democracies of Latin America, and to people who aspire to democracy everywhere.

Ecuador: The Chevron Dirty Tricks Tactic

2009-09-01T17:32:00.000-07:00

Those of you good people aware of the way Chiquita skirted its responsibility for poisoning thousands of banana workers in Nicaragua had to be waiting for Chevron to attempt a similar feat. Well here we have it. Complete with spy cameras hidden in shirt pocket pens and a full blown PR website with carefully edited videos and all.

For those not paying attention, in play is a hugely important $27 Billion lawsuit pitting the Amazon communities of Ecuador against oil giant Chevron (was Texaco) for their wanton destruction of the land, water and native peoples when they were pumping oil there. Simply put, the communities want their land restored and their victims compensated. There is a very long and interesting history, parts of which can be found here - and in this 60 minutes broadcast.

The allegations from Chevron are that 1) the Ecuadorean Judge in the case was being bribed for one million dollars, 2) that he was under the control of the Government of Ecuador, 3) that he had therefore already improperly made up his mind as to the verdict and the amount of the award, and 4) that the Ecuadorean President's political party and sister were parties to the bribe.

In response, Chevron has already said that they will no pay up if they lose the case, as they were widely expected to. It will be up to the United States to enforce the decision, as Chevron has no assets in Ecudor. This will be a real test for the Obama Administration. Uphold the rule of law or cave into PR spy games manufactured by one of the most obscene instances of overseas pollution ever recorded.

Hidden from the story at present are the people making the bribe soliciting their money all around Ecuador. That is an American named Wayne Hansen (who either has a water and soil remediation company - or is a consultant) and his ex Chevron worker Ecuadorean connection Diego Borja. Chevron claims it had nothing to do with the hidden cameras and set-ups, but will not allow the two to be made available for interviews to explain the absurdity of the story.

We are apparently meant to believe that those attempting to bribe officials like to video their deals for their own reasons. And that they just turned them into Chevron because they felt it was all so morally wrong. And now they have been ferried to the US with "relocation expenses and other interim support." Are you kidding me? Who does not what is going on here?

For those just getting on board, Chevron has tried to make charges of "political manipulation" and judicial misconduct stick ever since the election of President Correa - exploiting his mark as a Chavez-esque socialist (I mean what else do you need to know about the place?) They forget to tell you that the trial should not even be in Ecuador, except that Chevron's lawyers thought they'd have a better chance there. Chevron was quite used to running Ecuador with its wealthy political clients, before the indigenous people (and socialists) assumed their democratic place in the institutions of that region.

Thankfully some news outlets have made clear that there is no evidence the Judge ever knew about a bribe, much less had accepted one. There is similarly no evidence that the Ecuadorean authorities knew anything about this proposed bribe. There is only the apparent bluster of a supposed official of the ruling Allianza Pais party.

Photos courtesy of San Francisco Bay Area photographers Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak, who traveled to Ecuador to document the physical and emotional reality of those affected by pollution and their struggle for justice.

Let us have some more fun. Let's dissect this carefully crafted "news release" by Chevron. It is noteworthy that they are actually more circumspect than the media has been already about the actual charges against the judge and Government. Lawyers know they can not get too far from reality. But they get close.

After describing the people involved, Chevron jumps to the first meeting, where they say:

Judge Núñez stated that the government of Ecuador, not the plaintiffs, would receive the funds earmarked for remediation produced by the judgment against Chevron.

I guess this is meant to be some kind of revelation or reminder of the sinister hand of the Government of Ecuador, who quite obviously, will have to be responsible for regulating and assigning remediation work, according to the Court decision of course. Did Chevron really think they would be given the contracts to pay themselves for cleaning up their mess?? So they could profit off their earlier profits? Are they serious? Subsequently, at the next meeting:

Judge Núñez answered a series of questions about the case from the (US) businessmen, who was seeking assurances that the court proceedings would generate business (for him). Novoa (a Govt. lawyer) stated that “we (the State) have the political power” to direct remediation contracts and stressed the judge “is generating the work through the ruling.”

What they leave out is the next line by Noboa, who says "What more can I tell you, I
can’t tell you how the ruling will come out because for that you have to go
through a process and you have to work out an entire draft... In other words, you, Sir, you have to wait for there to be a ruling.

NOVOA: There’s no way to—

Judge Nuñez: Look, Sir, the ruling will be issued. It will be issued. The ruling, there will be one. The ruling, there will be one. But I repeat, I as a judge, Sir, as to telling you or not telling you whether your company will do the remediation, I can’t say."

Next, Chevron's press release reports nefariously that:

Judge Núñez confirmed that he would be issuing a ruling, the appeal would be a formality and the government would be handling the funds associated with remediation contracts”.

Well yes, of course there would be a ruling coming down soon. Everyone knows that. But no, the Judge does not just dismiss the inevitable appeal as "a formality." He explains the appeal procedure - the legal deadlines, the location of the trial, etc. He issues no judgment on the appeal of course - as he does not decide any appeal.

UPDATE: The Amazon Defense Coalition has accused Chevron of using Nixon-style "dirty tricks" in an attempt to corrupt the court proceedings. They say:

After carefully reviewing the videos and transcripts of the videos released by Chevron, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Chevron's hidden cameras produced "not even a scintilla of evidence" that the judge was involved in bribes, "made no sense" about how contracts would be awarded and raised questions about Chevron's own involvement in the bribery scheme perpetrated by an Ecuadorian Chevron contractor and an American businessman.

"There is clear evidence from the videos that individuals associated with Chevron were trying to bribe Ecuadorian government officials to undermine the trial process so the company can avoid paying a judgment," Fajardo said.; "Corruption of the trial process by Chevron has become a pattern which we believe extends to the highest levels of the company and which may constitute a violation of criminal laws both in Ecuador and the United States," he added.

Anti-Cuba Terrorist Gets Pay Day From US Courts... Again

2009-08-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

Once again, a US Judge has ordered that millions of Cuban dollars be paid to the family of someone we would call a terrorist today (they might have been called "soldiers of fortune" or mercenaries in the 60s). This is a man who carried out "bombing runs" against civillian positions in Cuba with his refurbished B-25 bomber. The man was, not surprisingly, connected to the CIA.

The judgement was based, without a hint or irony, on recent US anti-terorrism legilation. The money used to pay for the absurd judgement is from fees Cuba pays for telephone service with the US. There are more than $250 million dollars that we confiscated from the Cuban people. More than $100 has been awarded to families of terrorists thus far.

Not sunk in yet? Consider the reverse situation. In the 1960's lets pretend that a mad Cuban went on bombing runs over Louisiana, targeting our oil refinaries. Then 45 years later Cuba decides to award millions of US dollars confiscated illegally to the families of those bombers. Would Americans be a little upset? Cubans are, unfortuantely, used to such injustice from its neighbor to the North.

From the Bangor Daily News

A Maine court has found the Republic of Cuba guilty of the wrongful death of an American veteran believed to have been shot down while on a covert mission over the island decades ago.

In finding in favor of Stockton Springs resident Sherry Sullivan, Waldo County Superior Court Justice Jeffrey Hjelm granted her damages of $21 million plus interest. Sullivan is the daughter of Geoffrey Sullivan, whose plane is believed to have disappeared over Cuba in October 1963.
...
The last known sighting of Geoffrey Sullivan was when he took off from Mexico in a twin-engine plane accompanied by Rorke.

A month earlier, Sullivan and Rorke had allegedly taken part in a bombing run over Cuba in a refurbished B-25 bomber. That daring act received widespread newspaper coverage at the time, and both men were identified as being involved.

The official story was that their plane disappeared somewhere over Central America, but Sullivan believes he was held in a Cuban jail for at least a decade and later executed as a spy. She was 5 years old when her father disappeared and has been investigating his fate for decades. The Department of Veterans Affairs has listed Sullivan as “missing in action.”

NY Times Honduras Editorial - So Many Myths

2009-08-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

NY Times Editorial
Mr. Micheletti’s Dangerous Game, August 14, 2009

Honduras’s de facto government appears to be running out the clock. It seems to believe that it can slow-pedal negotiations to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya, who was summarily ousted by the armed forces in June, and hang tight until voters elect a new president in November.

So far so good. It has been about 52 days, with about 102 days left until the November election. This is the obvious product of "negotiations" with a criminal regime who has vowed not to budge an inch.

It must be disabused of this notion. Honduras has been deeply divided by the coup and passions could easily spin out of control. Even if the de facto government manages to pull off new elections, the results would be viewed as illegitimate by much of the Honduran population. That could mean years, not months, of crisis.

The Organization of American States, Washington and the Latin American governments that are trying to broker a solution must press this point with Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president, and his advisers.

Now might be the time to note that the South American countries (through a UNASUR declaration) have made this point clear by the best way possible. To say that they will not recognize ANY election held by the coup regime. The US has indicated it does not agree with this regional approach.

Mr. Zelaya, a self-styled populist and favorite of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, is no fan of the United States. But, as Mr. Obama rightly pointed out, Mr. Zelaya was democratically elected.

Self-styled populist eh? Anyone know what that is supposed to mean, except to say... (wait for it) a disciple of Hugo Chavez and anti-(north)American. Nevermind that Zelaya is a free-market liberal, a believer in CAFTA, a self-described "friend" of the US and supporter of Obama. His only criticisms of the US are on drug and immigration policy? Does anyone disagree?

Washington condemned the coup and suspended about $18 million in mostly military and development aid to the de facto government. But it carefully modulated its rhetoric to keep the focus where it belonged — on Mr. Micheletti and the illegal coup. And it held off on imposing more drastic penalties, like withdrawing Washington’s ambassador to Tegucigalpa or freezing the bank accounts of people associated with the coup, as some Democrats in Congress have urged.

The US "modulated" its rhetoric all right, to the point where it has still refused to officially call a coup a coup. It managed to piss off everyone in the region, who have demanded the US use some of its immense influence. The military and development aid, in fact, continues.

This has given the United States room to encourage negotiations led by President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The administration has rightly held to that course even after some Congressional Republicans — whose support for democracy is apparently selective — criticized this approach.

How exactly has doing little to nothing encouraged negotiations?? Even worse, the Obama Administration telegraphed - in a letter to Senator Lugar - that it is not considering ANY additional major sanctions. Negotiations 101 says you have to have a stick - or at least act like you have one. Many Republicans don't even believe a coup took place, of course they oppose any action.

The administration may not be able to hew to this fine line for much longer. Mr. Arias has proposed that President Zelaya be returned to office immediately and that Honduras move up its presidential elections by a month to October. Mr. Zelaya has also agreed not to try to change the constitution so he can run for re-election — the issue that prompted the coup. But Mr. Micheletti has dug in his heels, refusing to accept the deal

.
Still, 53 days in, we have the top news media in America repeating a couple golpista lies as if they were truth. Zelaya did not try to "change the Constitution so he could run for re-election." This idea is based on absolutely no facts and would have been a a complete impossibility (the elections were in November and the Constitution could never have been changed by then).
<

Foreign ministers from several Latin American countries plan to visit Honduras next week to press Mr. Micheletti and his backers to change their minds. The de facto government has already forced a postponement of the visit once. If it continues to reject the deal, the United States must be prepared to exert more pressure.

It would have been nice for the Times to say this 53 days ago. And not to continue to misrepresent the facts.

Honduras: The Article 239 Deception

2009-07-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

Photos from the MiMundo blog.

With last ditch talks underway at this moment in Costa Rica, actions may soon outpace legal questions. But one of the most common and insidious claims being made the coup-plotters needs to be addressed head on.

Readers paying attention have likely heard the notion that President Zelaya brought his removal on himself. That he violated a sacred clause of the Constitution and therefore had to be removed. Sophisticated readers will know that this nonsense is usually based on a reading of Article 239.

Article 239 does indeed talk about the removal of any official that even proposes the removal or alteration of to Presidential (one) term limits. While quite draconian, the Article is said to be justified in response to the history of dictators in Central America.

The only problem is that Article 239 has not even been mentioned by the Honduran Courts ion this case, let alone officially invoked against Zelaya. There are 81 pages of Supreme Court mumbo-jumbo mentioning every other possible Article violation, but Article 239 is not one of them.

What the Court documents intended to do is justify the detention and trial of President Zelaya, under the provisions of a special tribunal (the only way a sitting President can be judged). To be clear, none of supposed violations cited in the documents include the automatic removal provision. A trial and sentence would have to be rendered in any case.

Instead, we know what happened. The military high command decided to kidnap the President and ferry him out of the country, rather than detain him. The military's own lawyers have admitted this was an illegal act. Therefore the Congress had to make up a way to pass the Presidency from Zelaya to Micheletti. Someone manufactured a fake resignation letter from Zelaya, which was voted on and that was that.

With universal international condemnation, the coup plotters knew they were in trouble. They had to convince the US to play along, so they hired American PR gurus with close ties to Sec of State Hillary Clinton (Larry Davis and Benncliff). And these folks get sympathetic (blatantly false) editorials like this and this printed in the US press. Article 239 forms the basis of their arguments. They condescendingly tell us to "google it" when it is clear they have not even read the Court documents they claim to be lecturing us about. Nice

Cuba-US Migration Talks Start Back Up

2009-07-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 5 years, Cuban and US diplomats sat down to discuss the lapsed migration accords. Things seems to have gone pretty well. Both sides aired their grievances and released positive statements. The Cubans invited the Americans to come to Havana in December for another round - an interesting move. I wonder when the last time a high State Dept official landed in Havana?

I challenge anyone to disagree with the Cuban statement that the (supposed US goal of) "legal, safe and orderly migration from Cuba would not be achieved under the US 'wet foot/dry foot' policies." This is something that could and should be changed pronto by Obama. The Cuban Adjustment Act is the other half of the special Cuba migration policies that need to die - from Congress I think. All Cuba wants is to be treated like any other country. Luring people with automatic US residency (and "refugee" assistance) causes a lot of people to see 90 miles as an easy boat ride.

Cuba is also asking to resume cooperate on illegal human smuggling. This should be a no-brainer, as it has become an much larger issue since it was originally part of the 1995 Clinton migration accords. Mexican gangs like the Zetas appear to have taken over the enterprise.

The US' demands are not quite as straight forward, or on topic. We want our Diplomats and Embassy staff (often spies) to be able to have the free roam of the island again. Of course, the last time this was allowed US diplomats pushed the envelope of domestic interference with their close work with the dissidents. The US claims this is related to migration because Embassy staff needs to check on those returned to Cuba to make sure they are not harassed or discriminated against. Nevermind that the State Dept. admits this doesn't happen in Havana (where they do check up supposedly).

The US is also essentially asking for a new place to jeep Cuban returnees (with a deepwater port). They are asking for a Cuban refugee camp essentially - on Cuban soil, but administered by the US presumably. I don't understand how Gitmo Bay is too shallow for Coast Guard ships? What? Aren't these usually small vessels? And don't much larger US naval ships use the Bay at Gitmo without a problem? Someone will have to explain this one to me.

US Warns Latin Nations to Improve Treatment of US Corporations

2009-07-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

Obama decision puts Ecuador on notice - US groups

President Obama has pleased the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups by using trade benefits as a political weapon against supposed bad treatment against US corporations. Nevermind that these benefits are supposed to be tied to drug cooperation, not economic policies. Nevermind also that no actual violations were mentioned - though the words against Ecuador are implied to be about the ongoing environmental trial against Chevron (a case where Chevron rejected utilizing US courts because they thought they'd get better treatment in Ecuador). Forget about facts and what the law is supposed to be about. Obama does not try to hide that the real purpose of these trade benefits is so Washington can use them as leverage to that our Southern neighbors continue to bend over backwards to please US corporations, or else...

WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has put Ecuador on notice that it could lose valuable U.S. trade benefits unless the Andean country improves its treatment of foreign investors, U.S. business groups said on Wednesday.

Although Obama decided on Tuesday to extend Ecuador's trade benefits for six months, the concerns raised in a report he sent to Congress suggests the preferences may not be extended again, said Myron Brilliant, vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"We welcome the increased -scrutiny of Ecuador's eligibility going forward," Brilliant said in a statement.

The Emergency Committee for American Trade, which lobbies on behalf of U.S. multinational firms, said Obama's report reflected "the negative experiences of many U.S. companies that have operated in Ecuador over time."

Without mentioning any company by name, Obama noted concerns about two outstanding investment disputes involving U.S. companies in Ecuador. One appeared to refer to a case brought by 30,000 Ecuadorean plaintiffs against Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which bought Texaco in 2001.

The plaintiffs say Texaco polluted the jungle and damaged their health by dumping billions of gallons of contaminated water over more than two decades before leaving in the early 1990s. "The company argues that the Ecuadorian government bears legal responsibility for any damage under the terms (of) a release agreement," Obama noted in his report.
...
Ecuador and other Andean nations have long had U.S. duty-free access for most of their goods under a drug fighting program that dates to 1991.

Last year, Congress extended the benefits for Colombia and Peru through Dec. 31, but set a mid-year review of Bolivia and Ecuador's eligibility due to mounting complaints about the deteriorating treatment of U.S. investors.

Not long after that renewal, former President George W. Bush suspended Bolivia from the program, citing its poor cooperation in the U.S. war on drugs.

Obama upheld Bush's decision on Bolivia in his report to Congress, but decided to renew Ecuador's benefits through the end of the year.

Senator Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said on Wednesday he would closely watch Ecuador and Bolivia's behavior over the next six months in deciding whether to support renewed benefits in 2010. (Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Does Obama Really Want Democracy Restored in Honduras?

2009-07-06T12:46:00.001-07:00

While the right-wing is busy denouncing President Obama for joining every nation of the world in condemning last week's military coup in Honduras, the reality is that the role being played by Washington is much more complex and contradictory. With each passing day, it's becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration is not committed to restoring democracy in Honduras.

The stakes are becoming much higher. Already we have at least 4 or 5 killed by security forces. We have thousands of injured. We have at least 651 arrested with no rights to habeus corpus. We have an indefinite suspension of citizen's constitutional human rights and free media. Soon we may have a lot more unless the US gets serious.

We should have known something was up when Obama's first reaction to the coup stressed the danger of "outside interference" when we knew the State Department had been intimately involved with events prior to the coup and that outside help would be the only thing to restore Zelaya to his rightful Presidency. We know the US holds all the possible diplomatic cards, given our tight economic and military relationships with the coup plotters, but we have refused to play them. Making the hesitation to support democracy clear the State Department pointedly refused to call a coup a coup, because it would have economic and diplomatic consequences. Comments coming out of Washington have been increasingly out of step with the world in categorically condemning the reasons for the coup.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported that US officials tried to persuade Zelaya from making the trip to his homeland yesterday. This could not have been just to "prevent bloodshed" (echoing the putschists), for the plane could have simply and easily been diverted to our Soto Cano military base. Refusal to consider that option shows where Honduran democracy rates in the scheme of things. Maintaining an Imperial outpost easily outweighs democracy I guess.

And check out this jaw-dropping quote from Davidow - Obama's "Special Advisor" to Latin America (from the Pose piece above):

"The threats against democracy in Latin America, and I don't in any way minimize what's happened in Honduras . . . are not those coming from military coups, but rather from governments which are ignoring checks and balances, overriding other elements of government.

I was amazed not only because of its foreign policy implications, but also in the timing. This clearly signals US displeasure with Zelaya and takes the position of the coupsters in the forthcoming legal arguments, whether in Tegucalpa or the Hague. We can debate the (frightening and hypocritical) larger point another day (I wonder if Mr. Davidow believes that Roosevelt "stacked the courts" and Garcia in Peru shuts down TV stations), but it is now clear to me at least, where the intellectual sympathies of this State Department lie.

Zelaya is supposed to return to Washington tomorrow, to meet with Hillary Clinton. I would advise him to tell her to play real diplomatic hard ball with the putschists (ie. some real consequences) or the US will be held partially responsible for whatever comes next. Forces are quickly radicalizing, particularly with the apparent killing of a youth yesterday.

Zelaya realizes the coupsters merely want to delay any action and hope the world moves on to other things (maybe another infomercial star will die). Now that a meeting with Hillary Clinton has been set for tomorrow, it appears the spotlight will be firmly on Washington. Zelaya has made his point to Washington clear:

"Starting tomorrow, the United States, which has tremendous power, should take action."

"Specifically, the strongest government in economic matters, in aspects of the sphere of the dollar, for us is the United States. If they decide to live with the coup, then democracy in the Americas is over... In this sense, I ask the powers that have economic and commercial influence to apply measures when legitimate institutions of society side with barbarity and terror to commit abuses as in Honduras."

If they don't, more radical moves by Zelaya's real friends will be the obvious result. And the US will bear the blame because it wanted to play it both ways. Hope and change? Not if Obama insists on putting Cold War dinosaurs like Davidow in charge of his Latin American policies.

2009-05-05T23:39:00.000-07:00

Hidden Truths about "Political Persecution" in Venezuela

The masters of the universe have been telling us about a major political "crackdown" happening now in Venezuela, represented by 2 high-profile "political asylum" cases. We are told there is a "wave of indictments and government investigations of the president's most vocal political foes." How the arrest of 11 politicians in recent months is an egregious example of Hugo Chavez's "persecution" of "dissidents." Some allege (like opposition Mayor Antonio Ledezma) that "It is a general political witch hunt that no sector that opposes the government can escape."

Unfortunately, what the press and their masters do not tell us at all is that almost half (5/11) of those who have been charged with corruption are from pro-Chavez parties, including long-time Chavez supporter Juan Barreto. 5 of 9 Mayors are PSUV or Government supporters. That kind of blows up the who argument right there doesn't it? Wonder why the good reporters did not think of telling us that?

Very few US press accounts also mention that Interpol certified the legitimacy of the charges against poster-boy political asylee Manuel Rosales (in Peru as of last week). This verification affirmed, as Interpol's Constitution mandates, that Rosales was not wanted on political charges - but that the evidence against him for corruption is serious.

I guaranteed they didn't tell you the public corruption prosecutor in Venezuela is in a wholly independent branch of Government from Chavez. In fact, they probably said the courts are under Chavez's control. How is that, one might wonder, given the near-total separation of powers in Venezuela's Constitution?

And don't we usually assume that when people flee rather than face their accusers they are guilty of a crime? Rosales blew off the scheduled interviews with authorities to offer his side of the story, but then claims the Government will not listen to him.

But I digress...

2009-04-24T01:07:00.001-07:00

One would think this Washington Post headline "Auditor: 'Hundreds Of Billions' Of Bailout Could Be Lost To Fraud" should have drawn some interest. Yet, I typed in" TARP" into google news right now and this story does not even come up in the top 30-40 stories. Noo bloggers are really covering it. Amazing.

Perhaps this is because we just assume there will be fraud, or feel powerless to stop it. More likely is the media doesn;t know how to spin it into a story of good and evil. It is just sad. But what if I told you that the loss of "hundreds of billions" of taxpayer money will come from the basic way the program has been set up by Geithner and Co (not fraud) and can pretty simply be made a thousand times better.

I actually listened to Obama's "inspector general" of the $700 Billion TARP fund on CSPAN today (Neil Barofsky) and he explained how the problem is the fundamental design of the program, whereby the buyers of "toxic assets" will inevitably be the ones who own other similar assets (big fund managers). They will be able to basically set the price of these assets higher putting our money at risk and then pawn off their current worthless assets for this higher price. We get stuck with assets worth diddly squat in the end. The game was designed for Wall Street, not the taxpayer.

We are about to get robbed for a sickening amount of money, and are being told exactly how it is going to happen. Not one thing will likely happen to prevent it. Is this a joke? We hire a person to tell us how we are going to get screwed and we can't even get it together enough to put a condom on.

Obama and Chavez's "Ghetto Handshake"

2009-04-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

About an hour or two ago, I heard that Obama and Hugo Chavez shook hands. Of course, I had to find the photo. When I saw it I just KNEW that this (handshake in a room where everyone is shaking hands) will soon become a BIG right-wing rallying cry.

It is still very early, but the first video that pops up on Youtube already (like an hour after the shake) is titled "Obama Happy To Greet Dictator Hugo Chavez With A "Ghetto Handshake." Within an hour on Youtube, Obama is called an "anti-Christ," "evil" and "scary". Someone calls for his forced removal from power.... for a handshake.

Without any video to really see if Obama gave a "ghetto handshake" - or just an awkward clasp - I predict we may have another "bow" moment at hand. You've got the race element, the socialist element and the blame America element all in one glorious photo.

Reports say Obama went across the room to greet Chavez. After shaking hands, Chavez said "I want to be your friend" and something about desiring a better relationship. Obama supposedly did not say anything - he smiled and walked away.

Politically, Obama may suffer in the short term as the photo will ricochet across the world. People who don't know the name of the Venezuelan capital will tell us how terrible this is for our foreign policy. But, in fact, this was a genius move by Obama. To tackle Cuba and Chavez pro-actively, rather than being on the defensive for the Summit weekend, is brilliant strategy.

All the countries in Trinidad want a new US relationship with the region. Most importantly, that means an end to the idea of intervention in the internal affairs of others. That means money and support for subversion (Cuba, Bolivia), that means support for military coups (Venezuela 2002), that means orchestrating the forced removal of a sitting President (Haiti), that means an end to using aid and drugs programs for political reasons (Ecuador and Bolivia).

In the end, Obama will be judged by historians in this country and abroad by the result of his policies. But a sector of people will always be fooled by theatrics and symbols. We know what Obama really thinks of Hugo Chavez (an "obstacle to progress") and what Chavez thinks of Obama ("ignorant about Latin America"). Whether meaningful change is on the way or not, and both sides are able to find a common ground, this week will be remembered for its glimmer of hope.

Obama Does the Bare Minimum on Cuba

2009-04-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

You would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not realize that Cuba has become THE issue facing Obama in Latin America, particularly in the run-up to the Summit of the Americas next week in Port of Spain, Trinidad. A drumbeat of Latin & Carribean leaders and organizations have made clear they see Cuba as issue #1 in proving whether the US foreign policy attitude towards the region has really changed. After all the noise, there was no question Obama had to do something before the summit.

Today's announcement of the lifting of travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban-Americans (only), as well as some other minor things, will be scoffed at by the region, who demands the wholesale normalization of relations, not only with Cuba, but also Venezuela, Bolivia and others. Many Republicans (include Richard Lugar) and even most of the well-know "Cuban dissidents" will be disappointed - insisting, rightly, that the rights of US citizens to travel and buy things from somewhere should not depend on whether we like socialism or not.

In addition to the paltry actual policy change, the attitude of the announcement will be poorly noted in the region. Obama's spokesman really went out of their way to frame this shift as part of the same old same old. The rhetorical goal is "changing Cuba" by "opening up space" between the Cuban people and Govt. They now expect Cuba to "respond meaningfully" to this minor correction of a Bush-era mean spirited anti-family policy.

This prioritization of one class of Americans (Cuban) with full rights and the rest of us, without, needs to be condemned. So does the policy of having 2 sets of Cubans - Communist Party member and non. Did that policy work well in Iraq? I thought I might be able to send some "humanitarian" goods to my doctor friend in Havana now - but he is/was a UJC member. This Administration wants to have it both ways.

I am glad to see that US telecom companies will be able to connect the undersea fiber optic internet cable b/w the US and Cuba. But the stuff about allowing US satellite TV to operate in Cuba seems designed to provoke and ignorant of the fact that a key issue for Cuba is the presence of US propaganda (TV Marti) that is allowed to illegally penetrate the country via Direct TV.

"Certain telecom devices" will be allowed to be donated also. That is good - but it is too bad that the trouble of a "license exemption" will be needed. I hope that all groups wanting to donate to Cuba are treated the same. But it does not look like that is in the cards, as the prohibitions will remain on sending anything to charitable, religious or educational groups "administered or controlled by the Cuban Government." Seems as how the US can create a definition to include most of those groups that way, the vast majority of aid will still be banned. The real attempt here seems to be to create a class of organizations dependent on donations from the US.

The "Fact Sheet" and the Briefing both included calls for Cuba to reduce the "usurious" fees Cuba charges on all dollar exchanges. How absurd. The 10% fee is for changing dollars into Cuban currency (not remittances directly) and is hardly usurious. Never-mind, that in Miami, private businesses take up to 40% of the total amount as a "processing fee" ($20 on a $50 remittance).

And jeez, Obama needs a new spokesman. that guy is clueless. He didn't even know that Cuba is not in the OAS and won't be present at the Americas Summit.

Alexei Ramirez's story pokes holes in stereotypical 'Cuban defector' tale

2009-03-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

The World Baseball Championship is upon us again. Apart from being great fun and good for baseball, we also get a front row as journalists try their hand at connecting world politics to the great game. When they try to explain the success of amateur clubs like Cuba against the titans of MLB, the results are predictably coarse.

Typical is the NY Times slant, which takes great pains to assure us Americans that any perceived unity, cohesion and healthy sportsmanship on the Cuban side is "forced" and "not by choice." From MSNBC we get snide jokes about Cuban defectors hiding in luggage and and 8th grade mockery of heartfelt quotes from Cuban players about not playing for the money. And that is the "liberal media"...

We have to go to the (normally) right-wing Chicago Sun Times to get some semblance of truth about the pure wonder that Cuban baseball. It is the pretty boring story of how personal fave White Sox player Alexei Ramirez came to leave Cuba and how he thinks the media gets the Cuba baseball story wrong almost every time.

There is an image the words ''Cuban defector'' conjure in the minds of most U.S. baseball fans, but Ramirez is here to change that.

''There are a lot of misperceptions,'' he explained through interpreter Lou Hernandez. ''There is no pressure to play [in Cuba]; there are no guns pointed at you. There is just pure love of wanting to play the game by Cuban baseball players.

''The difference between Cuban ballplayers and players from the United States [is] players here play because that's their job. Cuban ballplayers play because of the encouragement from the province they're from, the town they're from, the region they're from. There is a sincere pride and passion for playing for your province. But no pressure.''

The story of former Sox right-hander Orlando ''El Duque'' Hernandez risking his life by escaping on a raft in 1997 captured headlines in the United States. That story has been disputed over time (YEAH BC IT IS A LIE), but that didn't change the fact that, to many Americans, he risked his safety and the safety of his family that remained in Cuba to chase a dream to be a major-leaguer.

Ramirez had dreams, too -- to play for the Cuban national team. Standout Cuban players earn a level of recognition in their country that Derek Jeter and David Wright never could imagine. To the young Cuban player, baseball is still pure sport. It's untainted by cash bonuses, and the pride Cuban players feel by playing for their country doesn't have a price tag on it.

''My dream was to always play for the Cuban national team, and I achieved that dream,'' Ramirez said. ''Then the Olympic Games, and I achieved that. That was a dream of mine, too. Then to play in the World Baseball Classic with the Cuban national team. Again, another great experience.''

During that time, Ramirez married Mildred, a woman from the Dominican Republic. When she finished school, she wanted to return to the Dominican. Ramirez simply went with her and their two children at the time.

No manhunt, no shark-infested waters. That was his ''defection.''..

Argentina Responds to CIA's Economic Lies

2009-02-27T00:54:00.000-08:00

Washington Post:

The first Economic Intelligence Briefing report was presented to the White House yesterday by the CIA, the agency's new director, Leon Panetta, revealed at a news conference. The addition of economic news to the daily roundup of terrorist attacks and surveillance reports appears to reflect a growing belief among intelligence officials that the economic meltdown is now preeminent among security threats facing the United States....

...The spy agency is following worrisome trends in many corners of the globe, from East Asia to Latin America. In private meetings yesterday, Latin American intelligence officials warned their U.S. counterparts of a crisis spreading throughout the hemisphere, particularly in Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela, Panetta said.

This is unacceptable. Given the US' primary role in creating this crisis and the incompetence we see here, the CIA ought to leave economics alone. We know the CIA's job in the region is to discredit the dominant left-wing tide, but they are supposed to be more covert than allowing their Director to spew in front of reporters. Argentina, Venezuela and Ecuador are rightly pissed. Argentina has taken the lead in responding.

(Argentina's) Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana called the comments made on Wednesday by CIA Director Leon Panetta "unfounded and irresponsible, especially from an agency that has a sad history of meddling in the affairs of countries in the region."

The US Ambassador to Argentina unfortunately has responded by insulting everyone's intelligence insisting we all simply misinterpreted what we know we heard very plainly. We heard very serious lies and defamations - product of the same Imperialist wishful thinking that infects the media and our host.

We can see the fallacy by looking at one of the most easily comparable and important economic metrics - industrial production. Only one major country in LA registered growth in January - Venezuela (at 2.4%). On the opposite end, Brazil went through the floor (-12.4%). Colombia followed with a 9.6% decline. Mexico has dropped for 8 months and fell 6.7% in January. Their GDP is already in the red and they are burning billions of dollars to prop up the peso.... here is a realistic regional economic portrait.

Colombia Spied on Judges, Lawmakers and Media

2009-02-24T23:35:00.000-08:00

The jaw-dropping abuses in Colombia just never seem to let up under President Alvaro Uribe. Of course, all the analysis and discourse in the US automatically takes Uribe at his word, that these are "rogue" agents. If it was one of the "bad left" countries of the region, best believe there'd be no such deference and silence from the media and US Govt.

BOGOTA (AFP) — Colombia's intelligence service was at the center of a political storm Monday, following revelations it spied on judges, politicians and journalists, forcing President Alvaro Uribe to deny he had ordered the move.

The revelations in the Colombian magazine Semana prompted the resignation of the Department of Administrative Security (DAS) deputy director Jorge Alberto Lagos, and may lead to further high profile departures.

"I have never given a single order to monitor these people's private lives," Uribe said Monday.

As well as lawmakers, judges and reporters that were considered political opponents to the Uribe administration, some officials close to the government were also spied on, according to the magazine.

The recordings were beginning to be destroyed in January, according to Semana.

Uribe blamed the illegal eavesdroppings on a group of DAS officials, describing them as a "mafia gang" that hoped to hurt
Colombian democracy.

Since 2002, at the outset of the Uribe government, the DAS has been the target of numerous accusations for alleged links to right-wing paramilitary groups, and for accusations it spied on opposition figures.

Why Obama Should Talk to Chavez

2009-02-20T21:41:00.000-08:00

A rare piece in the mainstream media that looks at Latin America and Venezuela with sober eyes. This really could be such an easy "victory"
for Obama- restoring the US image in Latin America. But the right-wingers wouldn't let it happen. Creating boogeymen is too useful at the polls and even good liberals have too deep a resentment against socialism.

By Tim Padgett
Time Magazine, February 18, 2009

Washington started off on the wrong foot with Venezuelan president
President Hugo Chávez shortly after he took office in 1999: Embarking
on his first international tour as head of state, Chávez took a call
from a high-ranking Clinton Administration official, who told the
Venezuelan leader that it would be better for his country's relations
with the U.S. if he avoided visiting Fidel Castro in Cuba. Chávez, a
left-wing nationalist, had yet to develop his gushing friendship with
Castro, but like leaders all over Latin America - even those who
dislike the Cuban leader and his politics - he took umbrage at
Washington's assumption that it could veto his itinerary.
...
Chávez isn't going anywhere, just as Castro didn't despite almost five
decades of U.S. efforts to isolate him. That fact alone should prompt
President Barack Obama to break with the failed policies of his
predecessors and meet with Chávez ahead of April's Summit of the
Americas in Trinidad.
...
For one thing, it's a good idea for the U.S. to have a better rapport
with one of its major oil suppliers. Chávez, who said last weekend
he's willing to meet with Obama, likewise seems to realize that his
favorite yanqui enemy, President George W. Bush, is gone, and that a
new relationship might be possible with his major oil customer. And,
as the Castro example demonstrates, it's hard to isolate a Latin
American head of state when the rest of Latin America doesn't sign on
- and most nations in the region are not willing to freeze out Chávez.
He may irritate them, but he also emboldens them, because his
oil-fueled socialist revolution has changed the political conversation
in the Americas. The fact that Venezuela's majority poor have been
enfranchised for the first time has prodded the rest of Latin America
to finally confront its corrosive social inequality. Even officials of
moderate Latin governments say privately they're gratified that
Washington's regional hegemony has been challenged and often blunted
since Chávez took power.
...
Latin America also sees a certain hypocrisy in the U.S. position. Yes,
Chávez has been a pain in the rear to U.S. oil companies, and he has
cozied up to Iran and staged military maneuvers with Russia in the
Caribbean. But Chávez, unlike U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, at least still
lets U.S. oil firms have stakes in Venezuelan petro projects.
..
Many poor Venezuelans see his "Bolivarian" revolution, despite its
polarizing effects on the country, as a safeguard against the looming
economic pain of falling oil prices. Analysts such as John Walsh, a
senior associate at the independent Washington Office on Latin
America, may worry that indefinite re-election would allow Chávez
accumulate excessive power, but he credits Chávez with actually
"restoring a modicum of confidence in Venezuela's election system."
...
He'll find that thawing
relations with Chávez before he goes to Trinidad will do a lot to
break the ice with the rest of the hemisphere once he gets there.

Venezuela: Huge Gains Made During Chavez's 10 Years

2009-02-05T15:10:00.000-08:00

Report Examines Economy and Social Indicators During the Chávez Decade in Venezuela

The utterly indispensible Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington DC released a report on the tenth anniversary of President Hugo Chávez's tenure as President of Venezuela.

When reading these remarkable statistics, keep in mind that the US public has never been told any of these things. The capitalist press only tells us about fictitous and exaggerated "abuses" and totally ignores the positve (see the next post down and this horrible Economist article for proof). If any other country in Latin America had achieved such remarkable results in such a short amount of time, they would be haralded around the world as a model of development.

Key findings of the report include:

The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.

Most of this growth has been in the non-oil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.

During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or education.

Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.

There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.

Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.

Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006

"Looking at the economic data and social indicators, it's not difficult to see why Chávez remains popular and has won so many elections, despite overwhelmingly hostile media coverage," said Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of CEPR.

Colombia Vs. Venezuela: US Media Distorts Human Rights Issues

2009-02-03T23:14:00.000-08:00

FAIR Study: Human Rights Coverage Serving Washington’s Needs
FAIR finds editors downplaying Colombia’s abuses, amplifying Venezuela’s

This needed to be studied. This needed to be said. Very plainly.

Any evenhanded comparison of the Colombian and Venezuelan governments’ human rights records would have to note that, though Venezuela’s record is far from perfect, that country is by every measure a safer place than Colombia to live, vote, organize unions and political groups, speak out against the government or practice journalism.

But a new survey by FAIR shows that, over the past 10 years, editors at four leading U.S. newspapers have focused more on purported human rights abuses in Venezuela than in Colombia, and their commentary would suggest that Venezuela’s government has a worse human rights record than Colombia’s. These papers, FAIR found, seem more interested in reinforcing official U.S. policy toward the region than in genuinely supporting the rights of Colombians and Venezuelans.
...

As with the FAIR study, selective concern for these issues was the rule, a system in which editors seemed to have internalized U.S. strategic thinking, subordinating human rights commentary and reporting to politics, where a given country’s human rights record is held to greater or lesser scrutiny based on how friendly the country is with the U.S.

Rather than independently and critically assessing the Colombian and Venezuelan records, major corporate newspaper editors, to one degree or another, have subordinated crucial human rights questions.

No couldn't be. Not the NY Times, Washinton Post. Those scions would not totally get their Latin American human rights coverage ASS BACKWARDS, would they? I shudder to think what the coverage is like in less discerning capitalist rags.

Subsidies versus Welfare to Help the Poor?

2009-01-27T22:53:00.000-08:00

I was inspired to think about the issue of subsidies at the end of the year by Cuban blogger celebrity Yoani Sanchez. I was further compelled when I read an attack on subsidies by World Bank economist Marcel Giugale over at Boz's site (where my Latin musings have tended to find expression this last year in blog exile).

Subsidies are an interesting angle because liberals get confused. I had thought our fair Yoani was too smart to allow her true free market colors to show. With her post however, we can now confirm that Yoani opposes the very idea of richer sectors of society helping out the poorer. She opposes the production of nickel subsidizing health care and schools. She is against well-off hotels helping out those that are struggling. Now one can understand why she wants to get rid of the Cuban Revolution and go back to the days when companies were “free” to extract resources and exploit cheap labor without contributing to Cuban society.

Giugale, the World Bank official, tries in the Miami Herald to dress up his discredited market fundamentalism in 2009 faux-populist rhetoric for political purposes. Trouble is, one does not have to look very hard to see that Latin America has explicitly rejected the capitalist's dream that the market ought to determine who has access to water, education, electricity, etc (think water riots). In fact some Constitution's got rewritten to make the point quite clear (Bolivia's got approved the other day).

Of course, some subsides are stupid and ought to be re-worked (like Venezuela's enormous fuel subsidy), but most are for the good of society and provide a level of fairness and solidarity in a cruel world that seeks to divide us into categories of the deserving and undeserving. A means based test to receive a lump-sum handout is prone to cheating, encourages non-work and is manifestly unfair to the person just on the other side of the income line. We ought to be building socieities that encourage unity rather than sow divisions and jealousies. The test ought to be whether the good or service is a basic right. Charging "market prices" for things like water and education are idea's that were killed in the 90s and ought to never return.

Venezuela: Obama Must Act on Terrorist Posada Carriles

2009-01-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

The NYTimes reported today that Venezuela Will Push U.S. to Hand Over Man Tied to Plane Bombing, in reference to notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who is amazingly living free in Miami today.

Venezuela will press the Obama administration in the coming days to extradite a former senior official in Venezuela’s secret intelligence police so that he can be tried for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, according to lawyers for the government here.

The move will test the new administration’s willingness to engage on a festering issue that has further strained America’s relations with Venezuela and Cuba. Both nations have depicted the case of Luis Posada Carriles, an elderly Cuban exile who is a naturalized Venezuelan and a former C.I.A. operative, as an example of hypocrisy by Washington in its fight against terrorism.

This is a hugely important case, though most Americans know nothing about it. It is obvious to just about everyone that the Bush Administration interfered in the case thus far. Now the issue has to be rectified fairly and justly. The world is watching.

Despite this, some are saying Obama "should step back and give the power back to the judicial branch and independent prosecutors." Sounds great but this view is more than a little naive. The Justice Department works fundamentally like any other Department. It bends the way of the Executive and the popular will. The important decisions are made behind closed doors.

In this case, the Bush Justice Dept knew they were screwed and decided to tie Posada up with immigration charges - in West Texas courts. That was a choice, though it looked fair and just. The person who made that decision probably wanted to make their boss happy. It was a smart move for them.

The critical legal issue now is whether an immigration judge was correct he ruled Posada could not be extradited to Cuba or Venezuela because of torture concerns. This laughably occurred while all the US torture allegations were in high relief - and with a total lack of hard evidence. The Government did not challenge the claim that Cuba and Venezuela tortures. That was a decision that needs to be challenged - by the Obama Justice Department. Another decision is whether to ask additional countries to take him (an ejection order still stands) - who could then do the required extradition to Venezuela or Cuba. Bush asked only 6 countries - ones that we thought would not cooperate with Venezuela.

Venezuela is now presenting additional evidence (written proof from the actual admitted bomber) and a written guarantee to not harm or torture Posada in any way. This is an issue of national security importance. Our credibility on the new war on terror lays in the balance. We would not accept this BS if Osama Bin Laden was being tried on immigration charges in Syria or something. There are plenty of things the Justice Department could do to serve justice here. If Holder needs to be told from Obama to make the issue a priority, then so be it. Is this "interference"??

Fidel Castro: Obama's Honesty Not Doubted

2009-01-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

Fidel got back to writing today, and said some things about Obama directly. This after news reports of him watching the Inaguration all day and meeting with Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez.

I said that I personally do not doubt the honesty of Obama... as he expresses his ideas, but that his noble intentions notwithstanding there are still many questions to be answered. By way of an example I wondered: How could a wasteful and consumerist system par excellence preserve the environment?

Some have been remarking about the apparently different early Obama signals coming from Cuba and Venuzeula. This is partially the result of recent Obama insults of Chavez but it is also very likely part of an astute strategy. Cuba wants to end the embargo and normalize relations, while Venezuela is able to play bad cop, keeping the pressure on Obama to fundamentally change the US posture in the region.

There have been some interesting noises out of Washington lately and Cuba appears to be reciprocating. Raul called Obama "a good man" and said "I wish him luck." I hope we can continue to see these indications of confidence building. But real progress will only happen when the US makes clear its policy of regime change is over. That means no more money for subversion, no TV/Radio Marti, an end to the selective Cuban migration policy, etc. I see Raul continuing to make administrative economic reforms, which will buttress Obama's piecemeal dismantling of the most idiotic aspects of US-Cuba policy. First a repeal of Bush's stupid travel and remittance regulations, then going back to Clinton's people-to-people nonsense, then perhaps some real progress after that. If I could advise Obama I would stress the importance of behind the scenes dialogue to avoid any appearance of pressure.

Latino Inaugural Gala: Exclusive Photos

2009-01-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

New York Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez and Secretary of Labor frontrunner Hilda Solis chatted with Si TV.

Via SI TV, check out some great pictures from last night's star-studded Latino Inauguration Gala ball held in the old Union Station, Washington DC.

Hurricane Gustav: Help Cuba NOW

2008-09-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Hurricane Gustav has inflicted grievous damage on Cuba, including the
destruction of 100,000 homes and crops worth millions of dollars. It is
Cuba's worst hurricane in 50 years.

Like you, our hearts ache for the Cubans who are dealing with this
tragedy. We are writing this special appeal now to ask you to join our
organizations and other Americans who want to help the Cuban people by
sending charitable aid for recovery from this terrible storm.

While Cuba was broadly battered by Hurricane Gustav, the Isle of Youth
and the province of Pinar Del Rio bore the brunt of the devastation. No
human lives were taken, but Cubans have lost their homes, food, schools,
and livelihoods. Pinar Del Rio, a region of stunning natural beauty,
has been wrecked by the storm's ferocious winds and rain. Gustav
delivered a cruel, devastating blow.

Other countries are doing their part. Russian planes have already
landed in Cuba providing its first significant assistance since the fall
of the Berlin Wall. A plane sent by the Spanish Government carrying 15
tons of supplies will land in the next day or two. Venezuela, China,
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico have also offered aid. Now it is
time for our country to do its part.

Years of antagonism between United States and Cuba mean that traditional
offers of assistance, government to government, will neither be made nor
accepted. But there are steps that can be taken - right away - that
would help the people of Cuba at this moment of great need.

First, we have identified 6 organizations operating here in the U.S.
which can legally accept contributions from U.S. citizens that can, in
turn, send aid to Cuba. We strongly urge everyone who can donate money
to do so through any of these groups. We are asking that checks be
written to the organization( s) you choose and then mailed to one place
so that we can keep track of the money we have collectively raised and
report back to all of you. We will immediately send your checks on to
the organizations you have identified. Please write checks to one of the
organizations listed below and then mail checks to: Cuba Hurricane
Relief, P.O. Box 53106, Washington, DC 20009. (Note: you can also donate
online directly to any of these organizations, or through the Cuba
Central site here)

Second, please join us in asking U.S. policy makers to free
Cuban-Americans from restrictions that prevent them from providing aid
to their own suffering families on Cuba. Until this tragedy is
resolved, there should be no restrictions on their ability to send money
and relief packages, or to travel and offer a helping hand, to family
members in need. Cuban dissidents such as Martha Beatriz Roque and
Vladimiro Roca have asked President Bush to do this, and he should
respond positively to their pleas - and ours. You can reach your
Representative by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-225-3121.

This is both the hurricane season and the political season, but humanity
should trump politics, especially now. Please join us in providing
charitable assistance to the Cuban people and the opportunity for
Cuban-Americans to help their families. It is the right thing to do,
and the right time to do it.

Sincerely,

Cuba Central and Center for Democracy in the Americas
Center for International Policy
Fund for Reconciliation and Development

1. Global Links

Global Links' program of medical aid to Cuba began in 1994 at the
request of The Pan American Health Organization/ World Health
Organization (PAHO/WHO). This program is a federally licensed
humanitarian aid program. Aid sent is received and distributed to health
institutions by the PAHO/WHO office in Havana and the Cuban Ministry of
Health. Global Links has received a list of requested products from PAHO
and is raising funds to purchase and send them to Cuba.

2. Operation USA

Since its inception in September 1998, CMAP has delivered major
shipments to pediatric hospitals and other health facilities. Supplies
are donated by private companies, hospitals and physicians and are sent
to Cuba under license from the U.S.-Departments of Commerce and
Treasury. Operation USA is accepting cash contributions to pay for
shipping medical supplies to Cuba.

3. MEDICC

MEDICC-Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba, is a non-profit
organization working to enhance cooperation among the US, Cuban and
global health communities aimed at better health outcomes. MEDICC
supports education and development of human resources in health
committed to equitable access and quality care, providing the Cuban
experience to inform global debate, practice, policies and cooperation
in health. MEDICC is seeking financial donations to replenish stocks of
key medical reference books lost at the badly damaged Isle of Youth
Medical School, where over 2,000 young Cubans study medicine and public
health.

4. Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services has worked with Caritas Cubana, the Catholic
Church's relief agency, to provide emergency, humanitarian assistance to
the most vulnerable and needy people in Cuba since 1993. CRS delivers
medicine, medical supplies, food and clothing to Cuba for distribution
in hospitals, homes for the elderly, and to children with Down syndrome
and other vulnerable groups. CRS is working with Caritas Cubana in the
affected areas in infrastructure projects and assistance with access to
food, hygiene products and water.

5. Jewish Solidarity

Since 1993, Jewish Solidarity has delivered over 35 tons of medicine,
food and other supplies to Cuba's more than 1500 Jews in Havana and
throughout this island nation. They have a humanitarian license that
allows them to collect financial donations to then buy the necessary
items that are most needed in Cuba. Jewish Solidarity is accepting
financial donations to buy medicine, food and other supplies to be
distributed in Cuba.

6. Daughters of Charity

The Daughters of Charity, a non-profit organization based in Miami,
Florida, that has been sending humanitarian goods to Cuba since 1994.
You can send a check donation so they can buy needed food items and pay
the cost of the containers they will be sending to Cuba.

All donations are tax deductible. Please include your name, address and
phone number on any mailed donations in order to receive a donation
confirmation letter.

Please mail checks to: Cuba Hurricane Relief, P.O. Box 53106,
Washington, DC 20009.

Olympic Baseball: Cuba Beats US in "Extras"

2008-08-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

A classic Olympic baseball game is going down right known and America has to watch it on the Internet. Cuba vs. US – a likely old medal preview.

The score is presently tied 2-2 in the top of the 11th. And now Olympic baseball's 2008 oddity has its first display. Because of a rule change meant to appease the Olympic Gods (baseball is toast after this year) a game-forcing cheat is put into play. After one normal extra inning, Cuba is allowed to place whatever 2 players on 1st & 3rd in the top of the 11th.

Boom. After a successful sacrifice bunt got both runners in scoring position for Cuba, a shot by Michel Enriquez past the first baseman scores two. 4-2 Cuba. A double play ends the inning.

With US runners placed on 1st and 2nd in the bottom of 11, Nix (USA) proceeds to bunt it off his face - blood gushing all over. Strike 1. Then a good bunt by Barden moves runners into scoring position. 1 out.

17 year old veteran Cuban workhorse Pedro Lazo is still in the game, after relieving Rodriquez in the 5th. He also pitched two days ago vs. Japan (which Cuba won 4-2) and has allowed 0 runs in 8 innings combined.

Damn GE commercials... They are not in the middle of innings like TV. They pop up every 10 minutes, always in the wrong place.

A deep sac fly, which scored one and got the tying run to 3rd with 2 outs. Then it's popped up, to the back-screen! The ball stays in by a foot and is caught by the Cuba catcher. Cuba wins!!!

A nation goes wild, as every self-respecting Cuban household and tavern had this game on live at 2AM. This game was particularly huge in baseball terms because Cuba had begun to show signs of weakness after losing games to the US and others (like Netherlands for God’s sake) in recent tournaments. Cuba, of course, is still considered the world's baseball powerhouse, having won all the golds in the sport, except in Sydney, when Tommy Lasorda took it home for the US.

What a game. And even though you have to dislike it ending unnaturally like this, it is fairer than penalty shots. The goal of trying to get baseball put back in the Olympics (by taking it easier on pitchers) makes it worth it. That is one goal the US and Cuba can agree to.

In the end Cuba got a base hit, the US did not. If I hear any more cry-babying about unfair things at this Olympics I am going to tear my eyes out.

Chevron Trying to Blackmail Ecuador in Pollution Lawsuit

2008-07-31T23:43:00.000-07:00

Newsweek reports that the Bush Administration is considering a high-level request from Chevron lobbyists to punish Ecuador for a pollution lawsuit currently proceeding in Ecuadorean courts. Special trade preferences for Ecuador would be removed if the lawsuit is not quashed.

Chevron has been sued for dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into Ecuador’s rain forest in an eco-disaster billed as an Amazon Chernobyl. They laughed it off until a court-appointed expert recommended Chevron be required to pay up to $16 billion to clean up the rainforest. Chevron’s lobbying team includes former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, former Democratic Senator John Breaux and Wayne Berman, a top fundraiser for John McCain. One lobbyist told Newsweek, “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world.”

Well said sir. Nevermind that when Ecuador's Courts were ruling in Chevron's favor, they argued for 10 years in NY courts that the Ecuadorian legal system and courts were impartial and that complaints should be heard there. But when justice starts taking a real course, they have to turn to arm twisting in Washington to punish the entire country of Ecuador. Chevron has demonstrated what it thinks about the rule of law, the Amazon and the thousands of rainforest residents who were injured by their (well Texaco's... which they bought out) neglect. Let us hope that some anti-Correa hot heads in the State Department do not try to get cute and take this crap seriously.

The Three Crises: Financial, Energy, Food

2008-07-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

By Ignacio Ramonet
Le Monde Diplomatique

It has never happened before. For the first time in modern economic
times, three major crises -- affecting finances, energy and food --
are coinciding, coming together and merging. Each interacts with the
others, exponentially worsening the deterioration of the real economy.
As much as the authorities try to minimize the seriousness of the
moment, the truth is that we're facing an economic cataclysm of
unprecedented magnitude, whose social effects are just beginning to be
felt and will explode with total brutality in the next several months.
Disaster is never certain and numerology is not an exact science, but
the year 2009 could very well turn out like the grim 1929.

As feared, the financial crisis continues to worsen. To the problems
suffered by prestigious U.S. banks -- such as Bear Stearns, Merrill
Lynch and the giant Citigroup -- add the recent disaster afflicting
Lehman Brothers, the world's fourth-largest bank, which on June 9
announced a loss of 1.7 billion euros. Because this is Lehman's first
deficit since being listed in the Exchange in 1994, the loss had the
effect of an earthquake in a financial America that was already
violently traumatized.

Every day there are new reports of banks going under. So far, the most
affected entities have admitted losses totaling almost 250 billion
euros. And the International Monetary Fund estimates that, to emerge
from the disaster, the system will need about 610 billion euros -- the
equivalent of twice the French budget!

The crisis began in the United States in August 2007 with subprime
mortgages falling in arrears and has extended throughout the world.
The crisis' ability to transform and spread, through the proliferation
of complex financial mechanisms, likens it to a lightning epidemic
that's impossible to stop.

Banking entities no longer lend money. They all mistrust the financial
health of their rivals. Despite the massive injections of liquidity
made by the major central banks, the drought of money in the markets
has been unprecedented. And what some people fear most is a systemic
crisis, in other words, a collapse of the world's entire economic
system.

From the financial sphere, the crisis has moved to the whole of the
economic activity. Suddenly, the economies of the developed countries
have cooled. Europe (particularly Spain) is in full deceleration and
the United States is on the brink of recession.

The harshness of this adjustment is most noticeable in the real-estate
sector. During the first quarter of 2008, home sales in Spain dropped
29 percent! Nearly 2 million apartments and homes could not find a
buyer. The price of land continues to fall. And the rise in mortgage
interests and the fears of recession plunge the sector into an
infernal spiral, with ferocious effects on all fronts of the huge
construction industry. All the construction businesses are now in the
eye of the hurricane and witness with impotence the destruction of
tens of thousands of jobs.

From financial crisis we have gone on to a social crisis. And the
authoritarian policies emerge again. The European Parliament on June
18 approved the infamous "directive of return," and the Spanish
authorities have announced their willingness to arrange for the
eviction from Spain of one million foreign workers.

On top of this awful situation comes the third oil shock, as the price
of a barrel of crude rises to about US$140. That's an irrational
increase (in 1998, a barrel cost less than US$10), due not only to an
excessive demand but, above all, to the action of many speculators who
are betting on the continuing rise of a fuel on its way to extinction.
Investors flee the real-estate bubble and shift colossal sums of money
because they are now betting on the price of oil rising to US$200 a
barrel. Oil is now financialized, with the consequences we see: a
formidable rise in the prices at the pumps and explosions of anger on
the part of fishermen, truckers, farmers, taxi drivers and all the
professionals who are most affected. In many countries, by staging
demonstrations and confrontations, those professionals demand help,
subsidies or tax breaks from their governments.

As if this whole context weren't gloomy enough, the food crisis has
suddenly worsened, reminding us that the specter of hunger continues
to threaten almost 1 billion people. In about 40 countries, the high
cost of food has provoked uprisings and general revolts. The summit of
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), held June
5 in Rome to consider alimentary security, could not reach an
agreement to relaunch worldwide food production. Here, too,
speculators fleeing from the financial disaster are partly
responsible, because they're betting on a high price of future
harvests. So even agriculture is being financialized.

This is the deplorable balance left by a quarter-century of
neoliberalism: three venomous intertwined crises. The time has come
for the citizens to say "Enough!"

Obama and McCain Don't Get Latin America

2008-06-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

A dialogue of the deaf

Obama and McCain have devoted a lot of rhetoric to Latin America, but they've both shown themselves to be hopelessly out of date

Richard Gott
guardian uk, Friday June 13 2008

Few governments in the world are waiting with greater expectation for the new US president than those of Latin America. No continent has experienced such benign neglect during the past eight years of Republican rule, a period in which every country in the region, bar Peru and Colombia, has taken the opportunity to elect governments of a leftist persuasion that the US would not have permitted during most of the 20th century.

Conveniently forgetting that unfortunate record of support for military dictatorships, the US is now committed to sustaining democracies wherever they may appear, foregoing any attempt to secure regime change with the assistance of friendly conservative generals.

Yet the new president will find himself faced with a continent that relishes its newly-acquired freedom, and enjoys its chance to poke fun at Uncle Sam. Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are in the vanguard of a leftist "Bolivarian" movement hostile to the model of democracy and capitalist development that the US has mapped out for the world, while Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and most recently Paraguay, all have governments of a social democratic persuasion. The new president will have few arrows in his quiver to combat these changes, although economic coercion remains a possibility. If they wish to make an impact, John McCain and Barack Obama will have to come up with something new. Their preliminary sketches are disappointing.

Both candidates have little direct knowledge of Latin America, but they have set out their rival stalls in recent speeches to the faithful, both, as always, in Spanish-speaking Miami, sometimes seen as the unofficial capital of the hemisphere.

Both are loth to move far from the mainstream, yet both are conscious of the desperate need to suggest something fresh. McCain talks of forging "a new policy", while Obama, echoing John Kennedy's soundbite of nearly half a century ago, has called for "a new alliance of the Americas". So far, neither sounds very convincing.

Obama proffers a harsh indictment of the impact of the Bush years on Latin America, declaring that since the start of the "misguided war" in Iraq, US policy in the Americas has been "negligent towards our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples' lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region." He clearly recognises that the continent has changed dramatically, and is concerned that the US has failed to change with it.

Top of the agenda for both candidates, as always, is the island of Cuba, now under new management. Against all the odds, Raúl Castro will celebrate the half century of the revolution at the New Year, shortly before the inauguration of the new president. McCain, with a crude sense of imperial history that dates back to Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican who joined the US force that invaded Cuba in 1898), made his most recent speech on Latin America on May 20, a day that the Americans, but not the Cubans, celebrate as "Cuba's Independence Day".

He talked blithely of the "courageous men" who "found their calling at the beginning of the last century in winning for Cuba its independence". This may still evoke ancestral memories among Cubans in Miami, but on the island the date in May 1902 is recalled as a day of infamy, when Cuba lost the independence gained from Spain in 1898, and came under the colonial tutelage of the US. The Cubans were obliged to accept the so-called "Platt amendment" which gave the Americans the right to intervene in their affairs, both financial and political, and to seize portions of their territory for use as permanent US military bases, of which the prison harbour of Guantánamo on Cuba's south coast exists to this day.

McCain went on to echo the policies of the Bush years, calling for the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners "unconditionally", and "to legalise all political parties, labour unions, and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections." He declared that he would maintain the US economic embargo on the island first imposed years ago by President Kennedy (and reinforced by President Clinton) "until these basic elements of democratic society are met". So not much change there then.

Obama is also obsessed by Cuba, but he jumped ahead 30 years, from 1902 to 1933, to recall a time when another Democrat, Roosevelt, called for freedom from want and fear. He adopted what was called a "good neighbour" policy towards Latin America in the 1930s. Obama is calling for "a new strategy" in dealing with Cuba after "eight years of the disastrous policies of George Bush", and he has repeated an earlier promise "to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions". He does not rule out meeting Raúl Castro, but insists that "there will be careful preparation, we will set a clear agenda". The real way to bring about change in Cuba, he argues, is "through strong, smart and principled diplomacy".

This marks an important change in the rhetoric of US politicians, for strong and smart diplomats have been conspicuous by their absence on the state department's Cuba desk over the past half century. Obama says that he will maintain the economic embargo, since this, he claims, will provide him with leverage. But he promises a significant unilateral initiative, reversing President Bush's clampdown on travel and foreign remittances to Cuba, unpopular both in Cuba and in Miami.

Fidel Castro has rightly complained about Obama's ignorant criticisms of Cuban reality, ruefully recognising that it would be politically unwise to defend him, yet there must be some quiet optimism in Havana since, for the first time in half a century, a US presidential candidate has outlined a possible step-by-step way out of the morass that successive presidents have lacked the courage to deal with.

Second on the agenda for both candidates is the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez. McCain accused Chávez last year of using "the cloak of electoral legitimacy to establish a one-party dictatorship", while Obama attacks him as "a demagogue" whose "perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and chequebook diplomacy" harks back to an earlier era.

To deal with this perceived problem, McCain has few suggestions, apart from reducing US reliance on imported oil and strengthening ties "with key states like Brazil, Peru and Chile", while Obama has hardly given the subject more thought. With the ever-popular and regularly-elected Chávez in his sights, he calls for "a vision of democracy that goes beyond the ballot box." This would include US support for "strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, free press, vibrant civil society, honest police forces, religious freedom, and the rule of law." George Bush has had a similar programme and got precisely nowhere.

Apart from Obama's initiative on Cuba, the two candidates sound desperately out of date. There is nothing in their recent remarks to suggest that their advisers have any understanding of the new mood in Latin America in the 21st century. They do not seem to have noticed that huge social movements protesting against US-backed privatisations have destroyed governments, or that a tidal wave of indigenous opposition has entirely altered the enforced ethnic consensus that has sustained the status quo of centuries. Whoever wins in Washington in November will pay dearly for their ignorance and lack of preparation.

LA Times and Colombia

2008-05-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

The LA Times followed the lead of many more conservative rags in praising the recent extradition of 14 right-wing paramilitary leaders (called terrorists by US authorities) to the US last week. I expected the Wall Street Journal and House Republicans to praise the deal, but with all major victim and human rights groups criticizing the maneuver, I might have expected a different tone.

For those who haven't been following the story, the 14 militia chiefs were supposedly safe from extradition as long as they respected the 2005 "justice and peace law" that governed the demobilization of the far-right paramilitary groups (responsible for at least 80% of the Civil War violence). The peace law required that victims confront their tormentors and that the leaders tell the truth about their links with the political and military authorities.

The Uribe Government says they extradited the 14 because they were not cooperating with authorities and continuing their operations from jail. However, the latter issue has a simple fix (holding them incommunicado), while the former is blatantly untrue, as the revelations coming from the investigations seemed to come every day for the last couple months. More than 60 lawmakers, nearly all of them pro-Uribe, were under investigation for their ties to the paramilitaries, as part of what has been dubbed the "parapolitics scandal." They include the rightwing president’s cousin and main political ally, Mario Uribe.

The extradition will end the investigations. All motivation for the 14 (and all other paramilitaries) to cooperate are out the window. The US will try them for drug crimes and care little about getting to the bottom of the troubling allegations. Their lawyers will tell them to plead the 5th to the other questions.

Uribe is clearly tired of the mounting and deadly serious allegations against his Party and Government coming out of these folks mouths. Perhaps Mancuso's offer the other day to name all the (other) multinationals who "freely" gave payments to the paramilitaries was the straw that broke the camels back. Uribe and Bush want the trade deal and more Chiquita's would have been the death knell. So, just as Uribe wanted, the paramilitary-political scandal will now end: As the lead investigator Claudia Lopez said, "They've taken away all the witnesses.”

So much for the victims whose bodies are still missing. So much for the bodies without names. So much for the victim's families. So much for truth. So much for Colombian justice. Everyone knows what this is about, Uribe just hopes no one is paying attention. He apparently, is getting his wish, with even the “liberal” LA Times taking him at his word. Here is my letter in response to the editorial.

The Times' editorial board ought to consult with the victims of Colombian paramilitary violence or human rights groups, not Bush Administration talking points, when talking about President Uribe's recent extradition show. Far from demonstrating his Government’s "independence and impartiality,” the extradition of 14 paramilitary leaders to the US only put justice further away for the thousands of families who are demanding answers about their loved ones. It also assured that the dirty secrets that were beginning to come out about the relationship between Uribe-allied politicians and the abuses will never be found. Free from the confines of a peace process that permitted limited jail sentences in exchange for truth telling, the 14 leaders in the US now have no incentive to cooperative with investigations and will go to their grave with their secrets. The reality is that the investigations were getting too close to Uribe and the multinationals and therefore had to be terminated. Extradition did just that, with the added bonus of fooling US editorialists into thinking it was progress.

Cuba has world's highest rate 100-year-olds

2008-05-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

HAVANA (AFP) — About 1,800 Cubans are over 100 years old, making it the country with the highest rate of centenarians, an expert said Saturday.

Eugenio Selman-Housein, chairman of the 120 Years Club and previously head of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro's medical team, also said "life expectancy has gone up to almost 80 years" on the communist-run Caribbean island.

There are "currently about 1,800 Cubans registered as over a century old," he said, according to the National Information Agency.

This figure would make Cuba, which has a total population of 11.2 million, "the country that has the most centenarians per number of inhabitants in the world," Selman-Housein said.

He noted that reaching the grand old age of 100 in good health required motivation, first of all, but also "a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, physical activity, culture and the right atmosphere."

The 120 Years Club, created in 2003, promotes a style of living and eating that will help people live a long and happy life.

Cuba has 16.6 percent senior citizens -- more than 12 percent is considered high -- which represents more than 1.9 million elderly people, official figures show.

The oldest Cuban is a 122-year-old woman who lives in Granma, 760 kilometres (470 miles) southeast of Havana. Her identity has never been disclosed.

Cuba: US Brings Terrorist's Money to "Dissidents"

2008-05-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

Cubans protesting US sponsored terrorism march past the US Interests Section in Havana in 2007

It is public knowledge that groups funded by the US Government send cash directly to anti-Government activists in Cuba. We also knew the US Government imports things like computers, radios and fax machines to folks working with US officials as well. But the US always denied directly giving cash directly to Cubans. Things appear to have changed.

Today Cuba held a news conference where it unveiled emails and videos that show the US Interest Section (USIS) Chief, Michael Parmly, has himself acted as a courier of cash to (at least) several high-profile dissidents (Martha Beatrice Roque and Laura Pollan, head of the Damas de Blanco). Not coincidentally, the recipients of the cash were the same folks who chatted with George Bush via video-conference last week. The USIS responded by not conforming or denying the charge but did defend the general practice of assisting Cubans.

The fact that the USIS did not deny the report, accompanied by the Cuban evidence, tells us the story is true. This would be scandalous enough - a secret change in an 11 year old foreign policy that explicitly forbids such direct monetary support. But Cuba is alleging a much more sinister detail. The money appears to have originated from a foundation headed by none other than convicted terrorist Santiago Alvarez - who was given a light sentence 2 years ago for getting caught with grenade launchers, C4 explosives, dynamite, dozens of machine guns, detonators, etc intended (by admission) to use on the Cuban island. Alvarez is also known as chief benefactor for terrorist mastermind Luis Posada Carriles - wanted for a 1976 airline bombing that killed 73 people (as well as many other bombings).

As a Cuban diplomat asked today: "One wonders whether the U.S. government, which has declared the fight against terrorism as a cornerstone of its foreign policy, is aware that its main diplomat in Havana is working with a notorious terrorist."

Surprisingly, the Cuban authorities did not respond with any threats to expel the diplomat (perhaps knowing that Parmly is on his way out anyhow) or arrest the money recipients, but instead requested a thorough investigation and an end to the practice. However, they have also said more information is to follow.

Cuba Releases "Political Prisoner" Who Smuggled Guns for Insurrection

2008-03-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here is another sad example of the types of people labled "political prisoners" by Cuba's highest profile opposition group. Nevermind the actual charge was entering a county with high-powered weapons at the service of a US based terrorist group (who calls themselves insurrectionists, just in case there was any doubt). A respected press organization (AFP) goes along with the charade.

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Cuba has freed a Cuban-American political dissident for health reasons, a human rights activist said Thursday, adding that he was the 10th dissident released in Cuba so far this year.

Adalberto Ramos Monteagudo "was released from jail ... because he suffers from prostate and bladder cancer and his condition is very delicate," Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Committee member Elizardo Sanchez told AFP.

Ramos was sentenced in 1991 to 24 years behind bars for illegally entering Cuba bearing weapons, under orders from the Miami-based, anti-Castro National Insurrection Directory group.

Fellow conspirator Alexis Lozano was sentenced together with Ramos, but was later released for undisclosed reasons and allowed to return to the United States, Sanchez said.

Ramos, he added, has chosen to remain in Cuba.

Sanchez said Ramos was is the 10th political prisoner to have been freed so far this year from Cuban jails, where his group calculates more than 230 political prisoners still linger.

Cuba earlier this year swore in a new president, Raul Castro, brother of Fidel Castro, who retired at 81 in poor health after ruling the country for nearly 50 years.

Cuban Alexei Ramirez Makes the White Sox Roster

2008-03-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

After weeks of speculation and showing one's worth, Cuban baseball find Alexei Ramirez appears to have won a starting role on the White Sox 25 man roster. Sox manager Ozzie Guillen confirmed his place on the team today, but whether he will start at 2b is another matter all together.

Alexei Ramirez has the possibility of being a real major league star in his first year. He is batting .381 this spring, with tons of runs, RBIs and a home run yesterday. Today he comes off the bench and delivers a clutch 2 out RBI single and went 4/5 in his first game of the year. Alexei led the Cuban league in hits and HR last year and shows good speed, athleticism and ability to make solid contact and hit to the opposite field.

Ramirez was signed by the White Sox in November, months after he left Cuba to gain residence with his Dominican wife. Many other clubs passed on him, including the Cubs, not trusting the Cuban pedigree.

Utiility man Pablo Ozuna is set to start opening day versus left hander CC Sabathia, against who he has had luck. Juan Uribe, last years's 2b, has been placed on waivers, while back-up Danny Richar is opening the year on the DL. Uribe may very well stay on the team after the dust settles, but it appears unlikely at this point.

As someone who watched Alexei slam a line drive off the wall vs. Japan's Dice-K last year in the World Baseball Classic in San Diego, I hoped the White Sox would pick him up. Then, despite the heavy odds of being shipped down to AAA, I hoped he would make the team. Now I just hope he gets the necessary at bats to learn and show his stuff. Alexei is not afraid to have a good time on the field, smile and bring some flash to the clubhouse. His attitude and abilities should be a joy to watch this year. I can't wait.

The Truth About the Jailed Cuban Journalists

2008-03-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

On this 5th Anniversary of the largest arrest (75 people) in recent Cuban history and the Iraq War, human rights groups like Amnesty Intl and Reporters Without Borders took pains to treat the two issues equally. I need not remind readers about the humanitarian toll inflicted by US agression in Iraq, including the dozens of journalists killed there. The conflation of the two issues is just another example of the misguided approaches that exist inside these two organizations.

Cuban side of the jailed writers story
The Guardian, Wednesday
March 19 2008

The distinguished writers who protest at the treatment of their Cuban colleagues (Letters, March 18) have every right to voice opposition to a government that limits freedom of expression. However, the cause of the writers for whom they are campaigning is not as clearcut as they suggest. Those imprisoned in 2003 were convicted of being paid agents of the US, and the evidence against them was convincing.

The Cuban government made a huge effort to show exactly what these people were up to, and yet its side of the story is ignored. The writers were convicted under laws brought in after the Helms-Burton law in the US was passed in 1996. This gives millions of dollars (this year $45m) to groups that foster opposition in Cuba. This money goes to pay people to write hostile stories that are then posted on websites sited in the US.

To combat this the Cuban government passed laws to prohibit people from taking money and aid from the US in order to subvert the political process. The people jailed were even going so far as to entering the US Interests Section to use computers inside. Some were appearing regularly on radio programmes beamed from Miami. It is hard to believe that any government would tolerate such a level of interference in its internal affairs by a foreign power.

To protest the plight of these prisoners while ignoring the role they were playing in this ongoing confrontation between Washington and Havana is disingenuous and does not serve the purpose of trying to reach a peaceful resolution that will see all political prisoners eventually released.

Professor Patrick Pietroni
International Institute for the Study of Cuba, London Metropolitan University

And here is my own letter to RSF and AI:

I was disappointed to check both of your websites (AI and RSF) yesterday and note the coverage given to the plight of the so-called Cuban "dissidents" arrested 5 years ago this week. As someone who was in Cuba during that time, and also remembers the start of the Iraq War at the same time, it was highly shocking for me to see the equal play given the two milestones and the disregard for facts given to the Cuban issue.

In Cuba, the arrests were widely publicized, as was the evidence against the original 75 arrested in March 03. Speaking to dozens of everyday Cubans that week, there was universal agreement that those arrested deserved no sympathy at all. After all, Cubans work hard for little pay and here was 75 people making a fine living (in dollars) writing slander and extremely non-journalistic (biased) articles for foreign entities, often funded by the US or other Foreign Governments (ie. Cubanet, Radio Marti) and written and sent from the offices of the US Embassy.

I hope I need not remind anyone that the US Government has had a hostile policy of regime change and embargo for nearly 50 years - condemned by 180 countries every year. Literally thousands of acts of violence and subversion have been planned from Washington DC. When, in 1996, the US Congress passed a law that authorized payments to "dissidents" in order to speed the downfall of the Cuban Revolution (a Law condemned by almost every US ally), Cuba had no option but to respond making such cooperation illegal. In Cuba there is no laws against speaking out or writing. No one is in jail for just expressing themselves. The 58 who remain in jail are guilty of associating with the US Government and participating in its regime change plans for profit.

Why do these essential facts not make it into ANY of the piles of literature AI and RSF produce on the Cubans? As organizations who must rely on your integrity, I find the exclusion of the mountains of Cuban evidence (available to all on the internet) on each of those in prison highly irresponsible. These were not fly by night arrests. They were only arrested after years of disregarding repeated warnings to end their relationship with the US and its funded groups. I find myself questioning all of AI and RSF advocacy work, just because I happen to know most about the Cuban issue. As someone who is generally supportive of your advocacy, this should be highly problematic for your mission.

Sincerely,

UNESCO Ends Relationship with RSF Over Web Freedom

2008-03-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Once again, the political agenda of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) organization has been embarrased and exposed. The respected United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) withdrew its official support for their "Online Free Expression Day" - a day to shame certain countries they claim blocks free expression online. UNESCO was sufficiently embarrassed that the also ended all future cooperation with the group.

UNESCO removed their "patronage" officially because they said RSF put UNESCOs name on statements and materials that they "had not been informed of and could not endorse." But UNESCO sources quoted in the Cuban press say RSF demonstrated a "lack of ethics" in its attempts to discredit a given number of countries. The source said UNESCO's purposes are not in line with RSF's penchant for sensationalist interest nor it is acting as a court of inquisition for developing nations.

The virtual protest consists of RSFs website being turned into a space where people are encouraged to don an avatar and hold a virtual sign with one of five "approved" messages. I wanted to make my own protest, but apparently free expression does not apply in this virtual protest for freedom of expression on the internet... how could they be so blind to the hypocrisy?

There was no space to inform readers that the United States has shut down several hundreds foreign websites that deal with Cuba (see below). Nothing about the web surveilance the US secretly carries out in Europe under its Echelon program. There are no criticisms of the US or any EU countries; After all, the EU and US help to fund the organization (with more than a million dollars since '05).

There was no ability to let "protesters" know that regulation of private access to Cuba’s internet is based on the fact that the US blocks their access to a fiber-optic connection, which would provide a faster and more efficient connection. If everyone was allowed access, the result would be pure net gridlock (it is already too slow in Cuba). No space to say that the so-called cyber-dissidents in Cuban jails were actually arrested for taking payments from organizations funded (and often set up) by the US Government. No room for anything about the propoganda the US Govt. pumps into Cuba using illegal means.

The French non-government organization has been frequently accused of having close ties with the US Central Intelligence Agency. Canadian journalist Jean-Guy Allard has written several articles and a book denouncing that RSF is being funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy.

By the way, for a Government that supposedly prevents critical messages appear on their press - online or otherwise - the Cuban web is full of stories about the RSF charges.

Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela Make Nice, But Who Won?

2008-03-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

Watch the hug

What a surreal scene down in Santo Domingo, DR. One minute the Ecuadorian, Venezuelan and Colombian Presidents (Correa, Chavez and Uribe) are enchanging insults, the next they are shaking hands. What the hell happened over lunch?

My guess is that crisis fatigue wore on. All involved realized they had made their points and there was nowhere else to go but to back down nice and east with all egos in check.

The tone was perhaps set by the prior night's announcement by Ecuador that they had raided and caught FARC rebels (the 47th such camp they have raided under Correa). Hugo Chavez was also quoted earlier in the day as calling for peaceful discussions and a racheting down of the crisis. Uribe continued his attacks, but Rafael Correa got the loudest applauses with his reasoned and principled stand.

Who wins, who loses? I think all win with their domestic constituencies. Correa, like Uribe, was supported by 80% plus of his countrymen during the crisis, but he probably boosted his standing in Latin America and the world the most. Chavez should also get a bump, though his enemies are inclined to see only bluster and not appreciate what he did for a little country by sticking his neck out there. He stood up to creeping aggression but eventually knew when to back off and take at least a partial victory.

Colombia had to apologize and say they will never do it again, pleasing Correa and Chavez. The concensus in the room on that was just too strong. Uribe was terribly isolated. But Colombia will probably end up getting some better cooperation on border issues from Ecuador and Venezuela. Hopefully progress on the hostages and Colombian peace process will also get back on tgrack, but I doubt it.

So the biggest losers of all this appears to be the families of the FARC hostages. Uribe could change and create the conditions for negotiation and progress, but I doubt it. But there may perhaps not be a better time for serious talks. Let us hope.

US Shuts Down Cuba Travel Websites

2008-03-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears
By ADAM LIPTAK, NY Times

Steve Marshall is an English travel agent. He lives in Spain, and he sells trips to Europeans who want to go to sunny places, including Cuba. In October, about 80 of his Web sites stopped working, thanks to the United States government.

The sites, in English, French and Spanish, had been online since 1998. Some, like www.cuba-hemingway.com, were literary. Others, like www.cuba-havanacity.com, discussed Cuban history and culture. Still others — www.ciaocuba.com and www.bonjourcuba.com — were purely commercial sites aimed at Italian and French tourists.

“I came to work in the morning, and we had no reservations at all,” Mr. Marshall said on the phone from the Canary Islands. “We thought it was a technical problem.”

It turned out, though, that Mr. Marshall’s Web sites had been put on a Treasury Department blacklist and, as a consequence, his American domain name registrar, eNom Inc., had disabled them. Mr. Marshall said eNom told him it did so after a call from the Treasury Department; the company, based in Bellevue, Wash., says it learned that the sites were on the blacklist through a blog.

Either way, there is no dispute that eNom shut down Mr. Marshall’s sites without notifying him and has refused to release the domain names to him. In effect, Mr. Marshall said, eNom has taken his property and interfered with his business. He has slowly rebuilt his Web business over the last several months, and now many of the same sites operate with the suffix .net rather than .com, through a European registrar. His servers, he said, have been in the Bahamas all along.

Mr. Marshall said he did not understand “how Web sites owned by a British national operating via a Spanish travel agency can be affected by U.S. law.” Worse, he said, “these days not even a judge is required for the U.S. government to censor online materials.”

Whole thing

Colombia Commits Crime, Chavez Defends Latin Dignity

2008-03-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

So for 12 hours, the world has been told (by everyone from CNN to my local LA news channel) that South America is on the brink of war. Why they mouth this lie is beyond me, but probably is an indication of how messed up American media views on that Continent have become.

Chavez is certainly bold, and he has chosen to put Venezuela's arm around its hermano Ecuador. It is a gesture that is not without risks but I feel Colombia will get the intended message - don't dare try that foolishness again. Sovereignty is the one thing everyone understands in Latin America. Even "moderate" "US friendly" folks like French Pres. Sarkozy called the death of Reyes "bad news," while Chilean Pres. M. Bachelet is "demanding and explanation."

The timing of the assault was probably not related to the military action nearby in Colombia, as Uribe's Govt. claims. Are we to believe that FARC would suddenly be that stupid to endanger an important leader by the need to take pot shots at aircraft at least a mile away (and with what weapons) and then go to bed (all killed were in their skivvies)?

Reyes was probably found by the US (or US equipment) and the attacks were related to the recent release of 4 more (quite important) hostages, orchestrated (without uribe's permission) by Chavez. This news increased the pressure by the hostage families on the Uribe Govt. to negotiate with FARC in order to get more of the releases (and even a peace agreement) they've dangeled out there.

But Uribe has no desire for an end to the status quo, where (right wing) narco para-militaries get (at worse) a negotiated couple years in plush facilities and get to keep control of the drugs, money and power - while the left is systematically mowed down. Meanwhile, Uribe has thetop Judge investigating it all (probably killing any he chance for a US Congressional approval of their pending free trade deal).

Uribe has a criminal mentality. No regard for law, which is explicit about armed incursions into another country - let alone unleashing the devastation he did. Need proof? Read any of the previous buried stories I featured here. You can find that 1) Uribe's campaign manager was the country's top importer of cocaine's principal chemical, 2) there are pictures of his brother with one of the leading narcos of the time, 3) his father's helicopter was found at a cocaine lab, 4) the FBI wanted him, 5) there are even very serious accusations of him being instrumental in Escobar getting his hands on airplanes and aviation licenses as head of that Ministry in the 80s... but he's the good duy in Latin America we are told.

Why Cuba is A Beacon

2008-02-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

NEW STATESMAN (UK)
Why Cuba is a beacon

John McDonnell

There can be no dispute that Fidel Castro's coming to power in Cuba in 1959
was a progressive revolution - heroically led by Castro and his allies. It
replaced a barbaric regime under Batista in which the island economy served
the US business elite and mafia. The 26th July movement, led by Castro and
Che Guevara, swept to power on a wave of popular support.

Neither can there be any dispute that there have been immense achievements
in terms of healthcare, poverty reduction and education. As a poor country,
Cuba now has levels of healthcare that rival some of the wealthiest
countries in the world and exports its doctors across Latin America and
other parts of the developing world - with over 20,000 Cuban doctors working
abroad - demonstrating the internationalism of the revolution.

These achievements have been made in the most arduous circumstances - with
the US embargo, invasions, acts of sabotage, assassination attempts and
threats that have kept the country in a state of permanent siege.

This has almost inevitably meant a more tightly controlled society - but
unlike Stalin's Russia there have never been any Cuban gulags. The one camp
in Cuba that holds political prisoners without charge or hope of a fair
trial is in Guantanamo Bay - an illegally occupied part of Cuba, in which
the US still holds hundreds. It is an irony that some may criticise Castro,
yet forget that many countries the UK government cosies up to - from the US
and Israel to Saudi Arabia and China - commit grotesque human rights abuses
with barely a peep from the Government or media.

Some argue that the revolution has not yet gone far enough in terms of a
thoroughgoing democracy based upon fundamental civil rights, but this
revolution is a work in progress. The transfer of wealth and power from a
corrupt elite to a situation in which every Cuban has the right to free
healthcare and education, to secure housing, to subsidised food and travel
is a massive advance in social rights. Unlike many Latin American countries,
abortion in Cuba is free on demand, and maternity leave is one year on full
pay.

Cuba's achievements have also been phenomenal in democratising access to
sport and the arts - the reason Cuba excels in these fields is because
everyone is encouraged to develop their talents all regardless of wealth.

People rightly ask could the Cuban revolution have gone further? Of course,
and undoubtedly will in a new climate in Latin America where popularly
elected leaders such as Chavez in Venezuela and Morales in Bolivia have
bolstered the regional forces in support of socialism.

With the potential of change in Washington too, there is an opportunity for
the US to reject its outdated Cold War policy towards Cuba. There is a role
for the UK and European partners to mediate a new relationship between the
US, Cuba and Europe.

This must not be done in a patronising way but recognising that when it
comes to creating a more equal, a more environmentally sustainable, and a
more engaged society, we can learn a lot from Cuba and Castro's
achievements.

Cuba serves as a beacon to many socialists because it shows in the most
difficult circumstances - isolated, bullied and victimised - what can be
done in a society where people's living standards are put above the rights
of a few to be filthy rich. Next time you hear a UK politician tell you that
free prescriptions, free care for the elderly, free university education is
all unaffordable - ask them how a poor tiny island nation can manage it, yet
the fifth richest country in the world can't.

Hillary and Obama BOTH Flip on Cuba - to the Right

2008-01-29T22:24:00.000-08:00

The Hill reported this morning on the flip (or "pivot") that Hillary Clinton has done on Cuba. Hillary's "fact squad" struck back (after the polls in Florida were closed) defending herself and claiming that that Obama has a flop of his own.

Hillary voted to allow US citizens the freedom to travel to Cuba in 2003 and '05, but on a recent questionairre said she doesn't support that (basic human) right. Obama has voted to end the embargo in the past, but said he supports it now.

Big surprise right? Democratic candidates move to the right on Cuba once running for National office. Some hoped that the democratic candidates might not pander to Miami as much because the primary was invalid. But no, the American people and common sense continue to have no input into the Cuba issue. Florida is too important in November.

Hillary tries to weasal out of her flip (and perhaps intentionally confuse the issue) by claiming that the old votes were consistent because she "has always been in favor of easing travel restrictions for humanitarian reasons." In fact, her votes were not humanitarian, but strategic - that they would help bring along regime change in Cuba by providing a "rebuke". She also gets extra nasty points for her campaign's attempt to sneak a lie past reporters. Before her fact squad responded in writing, her spokesman tried to claim to reporters that her votes were for family travel only (when they were for ALL US travel).

Obama's boldness to vote for dropping the entire embargo was one of the first things that attracted me to him. It is a shame he felt compelled to make his position more palatable in Florida, but that is the sad political reality.

Fidel Castro to be Nominated for President of Cuba

2008-01-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

Hidden in a Cuban report about today's election from an hour ago was this:

Vice President Carlos Lage and First Vice President Raul Castro Ruz said they would support the reelection of Fidel Castro as President of the State Council ('el Presidente').

Maybe I am looking to much into it. But I believe these are the first clear statements by the top 2 (acting) Cuban officials potentially contradicting convention wisdom, which has been that Fidel would be formally stepping down from his post.

The Parliament elected today is predicted to be more than 2/3 new blood, 43% women and include representatives from the island's main religions. The body will have 45 days to elect 31 persons to the Council of State, which then chooses its President.

It seems likely now that Fidel will at least be put up for re-election. This will put the onus on Fidel to reject the nomination, if we are to take his words about not "clinging to power" literally. But perhaps he is truly feeling better. Perhaps the leadership situation is still unresolved and Fidel is needed to broker differences...

I doubt it. My thinking is that this announcement is intended to confuse the US and those plotting in the shadows (keeping cards close to vest). It also makes for a more dignified exit for Fidel, with him declining an invitation to stay on as President. All very well planned...

The election results will not be known until tomorrow, but we already know the turnout is as high as it has been in previous elections - above 95% (amazing). The only question will be how many voters heeded Fidel's advice and voted for "the slate" rather than making individual yes or no choices on particular candidates. The NY Times noted that voting against well known figures, or leaving a ballot blanked, are forms of protest that should be closely compared to previous years. In Cuba, candidates for office have been pre-elected directly by open neighborhood-level meetings and mass organizations. Candidates must gain at least 50% of the vote to be elected.

Venezuela: Unemployment Reaches Record LOW

2008-01-18T16:37:00.000-08:00

Using the table above (the only one I can find), Venezeuela has literally gone off the charts in terms of employment. Has unemployment ever dropped so fast as it has in the 4+ since? The huge increases in the unemployed in 02 and 03 were due to the Coup and related employer-led strikes and oil lockout.

Venezuela December Unemployment Drops to Record Low
By Matthew Walter

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's unemployment rate fell to a record low in December as a fourth year of economic growth spurred increased hiring.

The country's unemployment rate fell to 6.2 percent in December, down from 6.3 percent in November and 8.4 percent in the same month a year earlier, according to an e-mailed statement from the government-run National Statistics institute.

Rising employment, spurred in part by increased hiring at government ministries and state-owned companies, has fueled a consumption boom in Venezuela, which has in turn led to a jump in inflation. Consumer prices rose 22.5 percent last year, the biggest increase in Latin America.

Employment in the ``formal sector'' of the economy rose to 56.2 percent in December from 55.5 percent a year earlier, the government said.

Miami: Cuban Militants Prevent Free Speech, Defend Terrorist

2008-01-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

By Ruth Morris | Sun-Sentinel.com
Peace activists in pink dresses and tiaras demanded the arrest of anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles Saturday, but aborted plans for a demonstration in Little Havana after Carriles supporters rushed their vehicle.

The six activists, of the Codepink anti-war group, had planned to speak to reporters outside the landmark Versailles restaurant to publicize their campaign against Carriles-- a former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner.

However they were met by some 200 irate Cuban-Americans who consider Carriles a champion of freedom. Some ran at the activists' truck as they arrived, tearing off its pink fringe, while others shouted sexist slurs. More...

Watch the local Miami CBS4 news segment on the terrible incident here. A great new agit-prop styled CodePink video on Posada Carriles (and Bush's hypocrisy) can also be watched below.

Venezuela: Is Hugo Chavez Getting Bad Rap from U.S. Media?

2008-01-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

To cite only the most recent of the literally thousands of examples of media bias against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, last week the bastion of liberal thinking, the NY Times, changed wording in a Rueters story from "pro-poor" to "self-styled socialist." The sentence that apparently offended NY Times editors was: "Chavez said it was important to reach out to Venezuela's middle class and other sectors of society often alienated by his pro-poor policies."

Is Hugo Chavez Getting Bad Rap from U.S. Media?

YES: It's absurd to call Venezuelan leader anti-U.S., dictatorial
MARK WEISBROT, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

(The truly laughable "NO" response to this question can be found here).

If we read the newspapers and watch TV in the United States, we are told that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a "dictator," "authoritarian," "a threat to democracy" in his own country and the region, and "anti-U.S."

But leaders who try to empower poor people are generally vilified in the media and hated by those in power. Martin Luther King, Jr. now has a national holiday named after him, but when he was leading marches in the Chicago suburbs or denouncing the Vietnam War, the press treated him about as badly as they treat Chavez.

The idea that Venezuela under Chavez is authoritarian or dictatorial is absurd. Most of the press there opposes the government, more so than in the rest of the hemisphere -- including the United States.

Chavez and his allies have won 10 elections, the most important of which were all certified by international observers. Last month Chavez lost a referendum that would have abolished term limits on the presidency and ratified a move toward "21st-century socialism."

After losing by a razor-thin margin, Chavez not only immediately accepted the results but last Sunday announced a shift of policy in line with the electorate's wants. He said that the government would slow its efforts at political change and concentrate on solving some of the voters' top-priority problems, such as crime and public services.

Chavez's relations with the Bush administration and the rest of the hemisphere are also commonly misrepresented.

The standard media description of the U.S. role in the military coup that temporarily overthrew Chavez in 2002 is that the Bush administration gave it "tacit support." But "tacit support" is what the administration gave to the opposition oil strike in 2002-2003, which devastated the economy in another attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government. In the April 2002 coup, the Bush administration actually funded opposition leaders involved in the coup, according to the U.S. State Department.

Rather than apologizing for supporting these attempts to overthrow and destabilize Venezuela's democratic government, the Bush administration went on to fund further opposition efforts, and continues to do so today -- including funding of the recent student movement in Venezuela, according to U.S. government documents.

Is it any wonder that Chavez does not have kind words to say about Bush?

Most of South America has left-of-center governments who understand that the Bush administration's hostility toward Venezuela is really about the U.S. losing illegitimate power over sovereign governments, in a region that Washington considers its "back yard."

Their leaders -- including President Lula da Silva of Brazil -- consistently defend Venezuela. In Venezuela, the economy (real GDP) has grown by 87 percent since the government got control over its national oil industry in early 2003; poverty has been cut by half.

Venezuelans have repeatedly elected Chavez for the same reasons Americans are voting for Barack Obama -- they see him as representing hope, and change, in a region that needs both.

Cuba: Lesbians Marry With Government Blessing

2008-01-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

Two women were symbolically married in Cuba last week in the courtyard of a Government Ministry. It is not the first gay marriage in Cuba, but the first to receive high-level State support and publicity.

The issue is a bold move by the Havana authorities, as there still remains quite a bit of social unease with homosexuality in Cuba. When I was in Cuba I was amazed by the scenes of hundreds of gays openly partying and making out in public deep into the night. It was a far cry from the repression I was warned about before visiting. Still, I cringed when a cab driver used the "M" word when describing the scene.

As IPS reports:
A proposal for legal reform advocated by the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX) and the Cuban Women’s Federation calls for the recognition of de facto unions between same-sex couples and equal rights for heterosexual and homosexual couples, as well as eligibility to adopt children and, for women, access to assisted fertilisation services.

The legal machinery is already rolling and the initiative may reach parliament in 2008, but no one can predict how long it will take to come to a vote. Meanwhile, CENESEX was advised by the ruling Communist Party to make efforts to prepare the public through a media campaign.

Mexico: NAFTA Begins Its Endgame for Small Farmers

2008-01-02T21:10:00.000-08:00

An incredibly important occasion just passed. One that could affect the immigration, environment and free trade debates as much or more than all the garbage tossed around by the politicians. On January 1st, the final phase of NAFTA went into effect. It removed the remaining subsidies Mexico provided for its small scale famers of (national staples) corn, tomatoes, bean and sugar.

Since 1994, NAFTA has already displaced some 1.7 million Mexican farmers off their land. When forced to compete with large-scale American mechanized agri-business (and their billions of subsidies), campesinos are unable to compete. The dispossed go to el Norte (the US) or to the slums of Mexico City (immigration rates to both have doubled since NAFTA).

When the midnight bell rang, there were loud protests in towns across Mexico, including a very Latin American-style tactic right up against our gates in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez (above). A thousand Mexicans manged to block one of the most critical points of entry into this country for most of a day - the highway border crossing.

While President Calderon says the date is a happy one, I doubt the Mexican people will much like what they will begin to see this year. The best thing about the Mexican Revolution was land reform, which gave plots of land to the peasants. NAFTA will inevitably swallow that up, with one of a few US companies buying up land piece by piece until the entire heritage of traditional Mexican rural life disappears. On top of the social disaster will be an environmental one, as land that can not be profitably tractored dries up (not to mention the immigration impact).

Chavez Pardons Those Accused of Coup

2007-12-31T15:26:00.000-08:00

While the Colombian government and Western media seem to be having a laugh at the expense of the 3 hostages and Hugo Chavez's sincere attempt to free them, Sr. Presidente phoned up the local TV station to announce this unempected act of New Year's forgiveness. Expect the lack of news out of Villavicencio (or news about Oliver Stone) to take higher media precedence. But this is quite a feat of turning the cheek, considering the seriousness of the crimes committed by the coup-mongers.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez granted amnesty Monday to those accused of involvement in a failed 2002 coup that briefly drove him from power.

Chavez said he signed an amnesty decree that would also pardon others accused in suspected attempts to overthrow the government or assassinate him. It was not immediately clear how many accused opponents would be affected by the amnesty.

"It's a matter of turning the page," Chavez said in a telephone call to state television on New Year's Eve. "We would like a country that moves toward peace."

Chavez read aloud the law, which grants amnesty to those who signed a decree recognizing the interim government that briefly took power during the 2002 coup. Chavez was ousted by dissident military officers, but within two days he was returned to the presidency loyalist generals amid protests by his supporters in the streets.

Opponents accused of violently taking over the state television channel would also fall under the amnesty, along with those who sought to violently sabotage oil tanker ships during an opposition-led strike that followed the coup.

He reiterated that regardless of the law, no one in Venezuela is jailed "for his political ideas."

Ecuador: Government Hikes Private Salaries 18 Percent

2007-12-27T20:38:00.000-08:00

Cuenca, Ecuador

In two months I will be honeymooning in Ecuador (and either Galapagos or Havana) and the US Congress will make an important decision about whether to cut Ecuador off from a lucrative preferential trade program (favored status). The program has resulted in a export boom of 53% since 2002, but is in favor of being blocked by legislators increasingly spooked by the left-wing politics coming out of Latin America. Meanwhile, Correa made another move sure to worry the capitalists - he stepped into a dispute between unions and employers and raised all private sector salaries 17.6% next year.

QUITO, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Ecuador on Thursday decided to hike the minimum salary for private sector workers by 17.6 percent next year in a move that could fuel more tensions between the leftist government and business groups.

The increase that will set the minimum wage at $200 per month is one of the largest since Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar as its national currency in 2000 after a crippling economic crisis. Ecuador expects to register inflation between 2.7 and 3.2 percent in 2008.

President Rafael Correa, a leftist former economy minister, has vowed to battle the oil-producing country's rich elite and help the poor majority. He has clashed with business leaders over his proposed legislation to reform the tax law, which could force businesses to pay in advance part of their income tax and hike duties on unproductive lands.

Business trade groups says Correa's plans to boost state control over the economy will erode the Andean country's finances in the long-run.

Parasitic Worms Infecting Quarter of US Inner City Minorities

2007-12-26T13:03:00.000-08:00

B
y Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Roundworms may infect close to a quarter of inner city black children, tapeworms are the leading cause of seizures among U.S. Hispanics and other parasitic diseases associated with poor countries are also affecting Americans, a U.S. expert said on Tuesday.

Recent studies show many of the poorest Americans living in the United States carry some of the same parasitic infections that affect the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease expert at George Washington University and editor-in-chief of the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Writing in the journal, Hotez said these parasitic infections had been ignored by most health experts in the United States.

"I feel strongly that this is such an important health issue and yet because it only affects the poor it has been ignored," Hotez said via e-mail.

He said the United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defend against bio-terrorism threats like anthrax or smallpox or avian flu, which were more a theoretical concern than a real threat at present.

"And yet we have a devastating parasitic disease burden among the American poor, right under our nose," Hotez said.

He noted a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, presented in November, found that almost 14 percent of the U.S. population is infected with Toxocara roundworms, which dogs and cats can pass to people.

"Urban playgrounds in the United States have recently been shown to be a particularly rich source of Toxocara eggs and inner-city children are at high risk of acquiring the infection," Hotez wrote, adding that this might be partly behind the rise in asthma cases in the country. Up to 23 percent of urban black children may be infected, he said.

"Because of its possible links to asthma, it would be important to determine whether covert toxocariasis is a basis for the rise of asthma among inner-city children in the northeastern United States," he added.

"Cysticercosis is another very serious parasitic worm infection ... caused by the tapeworm Taenia solium, that results in seizures and other neurological manifestations," Hotez wrote.

He said up to 2,000 new cases of neurological disease caused by tapeworms are diagnosed every year in the United States. More than 2 percent of adult Latinos may be infected, and with 35 million Hispanics in the United States, this could add up to tens of thousands of cases, Hotez said.

"In the hospitals of Los Angeles, California, neurocysticercosis currently accounts for 10 percent of all seizures presenting to some emergency departments," he wrote.

"We need to begin erasing these horrific health disparities," Hotez wrote in the paper, available online at here.

Colombia: Chavez Wins FARC Pledge to Release Hostages

2007-12-19T15:40:00.001-08:00

Farc pledges to release three hostages
By Benedict Mander in Caracas
Published: December 19 2007 01:38

Colombian rebels said on Tuesday they would release three hostages to Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, including an aide to former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt held captive since 2002.

Clara Rojos, her son Emmanuel, who was born in captivity, and Consuelo Gonzalez, a former lawmaker kidnapped in 2001, would be released in Colombia to Mr Chávez “or someone he designates”, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, said in a statement to Cuban news agency Prensa Latina. The statement, dated December 9, did not say when the release would take place.

Mr Chávez recently put relations with Colombia “in the freezer” after Alvaro Uribe, Colombian president, cancelled his role as mediator in the hostage crisis.

The leftwing guerilla group called its decision “compensation” for the families of the kidnapped and for Mr Chávez, whose treatment by Colombia’s government it described as “diplomatic barbarism”.

Mr Uribe terminated Mr Chávez’s role as mediator on November 21, after it became clear the Venezuelan leader had contacted Colombia’s army chief despite being asked not to. Mr Chávez reacted angrily, calling Mr Uribe a “pawn” of the US.

Videos were subsequently released showing prisoners, including Ms Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician captured during her presidential campaign in 2002, were still alive.

“It was thanks to Chávez that we got the proof of life of Ingrid and that the problem was recognised by the international community.” Lorenzo Delloye Betancourt, Ms Betancourt’s son, said. “I ask Chávez to continue.”

Mr Delloye Betancourt urged the international community to increase pressure on the Colombian government to achieve the release of the 45 hostages held by Farc in exchange for 500 imprisoned rebels.

Farc said Mr Uribe’s offer this month of a 250-sq km “meeting point” where a possible prisoner swap could be discussed was “unacceptable”. Instead, it continued to demand a larger demilitarised zone in southwest Colombia for the talks.

Luis Carlo Restrepo, Colombia’s high commissioner for peace, said the news should be treated with “caution”, since Farc had previously said it would release prisoners without fulfilling its promise.

Farc’s statement thanked Mr Chávez for “his dedication, his colossal effort as a facilitator, his good faith, [and] his solidarity with the peaceful cause of the Colombian people”.

US Censors Movie Poster

2007-12-19T13:31:00.000-08:00

The poster for the winner of a number of prestigous "best documentary" awards has been censored by the MPAA. The film tells the story of an Afghan taxi driver arrested on false charges and later killed there. The image can be seen above. As you can see, there is no blood, no torture - like the horror flic billboards allowed everywhere over the summer. There is simply an REAL image of 2 GIs escorting a detainee in the way our regulations advise = hooded. There should darn well be a shit storm about this, but we will see. Americans don't like to beleive their is censorhip in the "freeest country in the world" but alas, further proof is before us. Shame on the MPAA.

By ANNE THOMPSON
The MPAA has rejected the one-sheet for Alex Gibney's documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side," which traces the pattern of torture practice from Afghanistan's Bagram prison to Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay.
ThinkFilm opens the pic, which is on the Oscar shortlist of 15 docs, on Jan. 11.

The image in question is a news photo of two U.S. soldiers walking away from the camera with a hooded detainee between them.

An MPAA spokesman said: "We treat all films the same. Ads will be seen by all audiences, including children. If the advertising is not suitable for all audiences it will not be approved by the advertising administration."

According to ThinkFilm distribution prexy Mark Urman, the reason given by the Motion Picture Assn. of America for rejecting the poster is the image of the hood, which the MPAA deemed unacceptable in the context of such horror films as "Saw" and "Hostel." "To think that this is not apples and oranges is outrageous," he said. "The change renders the art illogical, without any power or meaning."

The MPAA also rejected the one-sheet for Roadside Attractions' 2006 film "The Road to Guantanamo," which featured a hooded prisoner hanging from his handcuffed wrists. At the time, according to Howard Cohen, co-president of Roadside Attractions, the reason given was that the burlap bag over the prisoner's head depicted torture, which was not appropriate for children to see.

"Not permitting us to use an image of a hooded man that comes from a documentary photograph is censorship, pure and simple," said producer, writer and director Gibney. "Intentional or not, the MPAA's disapproval of the poster is a political act, undermining legitimate criticism of the Bush administration. I agree that the image is offensive; it's also real."

ThinkFilm plans to appeal the ruling, although Urman admitted that he "doesn't know what that entails. I've only appealed ratings before."

If ThinkFilm ignores the MPAA and uses materials that have not been approved, it runs the risk of having the rating revoked, which is what happened earlier this year to "Captivity."

The "Taxi" ad art is actually an amalgam of two pictures. The first, taken by Corbis photographer Shaun Schwarz, features the hooded prisoner and one soldier. Another military figure was added on the left. Ironically, the original Schwarz photo was censored by the military, which erased his camera's memory. The photographer eventually retrieved the image from his hard drive.

"It's the photo that would not die," Gibney said. "This movie is not a horror film like 'Hostel.' This is a documentary and that image is a documentary image."

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117977926.html

US Homeland Security Distracted by Focus on Cuba

2007-12-19T11:40:00.000-08:00

Photo from Don Gurewitz Photography.

Catching Americans who travel illegally to Cuba or who purchase cigars, rum or other products from the island may be distracting some American government agencies from higher-priority missions like fighting terrorism and combating narcotics trafficking, a government audit to be released Wednesday says.

December 19, 2007
By MARC LACEY
The report, from the Government Accountability Office, says that Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, conducts secondary inspections on 20 percent of charter passengers arriving from Cuba at Miami International Airport, more than six times the inspection rate for other international arrivals, even from countries considered shipment points for narcotics.

That high rate of inspections and the numerous seizures of relatively benign contraband “have strained C.B.P.’s capacity to carry out its primary mission of keeping terrorists, criminals and inadmissible aliens from entering the country at Miami International Airport,” says the audit, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

The audit also called on the Treasury Department to scrutinize the priorities of its Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces more than 20 economic and trade sanctions programs, including those aimed at freezing terrorists’ assets and restricting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but has long focused on Cuba.

Between 2000 and 2006, 61 percent of the agency’s investigation and penalty caseload involved Cuba embargo cases. Over that period, the office opened 10,823 investigations into possible violations involving Cuba and just 6,791 investigations on all other cases, the audit found.

Critics of the American embargo on Cuba seized on the report as evidence that Washington’s policy, which began in the Kennedy administration and has grown more stringent ever since, was outdated.

“This is not good policy,” said Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, who requested the report a year ago with Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California. “It’s vindictive. It’s stupid. It’s costly. And now we find out it’s a threat to our national security.”

...
The Bush administration’s tightening of the Cuba sanctions in 2004 appears to have discouraged many Americans from visiting the island. Manuel Marrero, Cuba’s tourism minister, acknowledged as much in a recent interview in Havana, blaming the “blockade,” as Cubans call the embargo, for scaring Americans away.

“Sooner or later, there will be justice for the people of the United States, and they will be allowed to visit and share with our people,” Mr. Marrero said.

...
Most of the Americans who visit Cuba each year do not go directly from Miami but use third countries like Canada, Mexico, Jamaica or the Bahamas. Catching them is difficult but not impossible. In some cases, American immigration officials simply observe them getting off flights from Havana at foreign airports where the United States has a presence, officials say.
Whole thing

Iraq War Veteran Testifies About Cuba Travel Trestrictions

2007-12-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

Mr. Lazo is a sergeant and combat medic in the Washington Staet National Guard and is an Iraq War veteran. He testified yesterday about the insanity that is our Cuba travel policy, which forbade him from visiting his 2 sons who live in Havana after returning from Iraq. I'll let him tell the story and make the case against the travel restrictions, as he does so eloquently:

Statement of Carlos Lazo Washington State National Guard
Committee on Senate Finance
December 11, 2007

...In Iraq, I was risking my life on a daily basis. All I wanted to do was to
hug my boys and spend even a few hours with them. In a war, time is
precious, life is uncertain, and this visit had profound significance to me.

I flew all the way from Iraq to Miami intending to board a plane to Havana
from there. By that time, though, our government had imposed new
restrictions limiting travel to the island. These new regulations, among
other things, limited family visits by Cuban Americans to once every three
years. The new rules also re- defined the concept of a family.

I returned to Iraq to fight for freedom, to fight for my adoptive country
and to promote American values and ideals in Iraq. But what about my freedom
to visit my children and my other family members in Cuba? That freedom was
denied to me.

I served and I survived. After more than a year, and I completed my tour of
duty in Iraq, I tried once more to visit my sons and family in Cuba, but I
was again denied a license to do so. Not even the fact that one of my sons
was gravely ill and in a hospital was good enough reason for our government
to allow me to spend a few hours to travel to Cuba.

These Cuba travel restrictions make no exceptions for humanitarian reasons...
What does this mean, no humanitarian exceptions? For example, if I were to
visit my father in Cuba and three months later he were to die, there is no
legal or humanitarian mechanism in place which would allow me to go to his
funeral. These licenses may be granted but once every three years - and
there are no exceptions.

These regulations were supposed to deprive the Cuban government of money and
thereby accelerate the so-called Cuban transition to a more democratic
society. But after four years, all these rules have done is impose even
greater suffering on Cuban Americans here and their families on the island.
These laws have created only a greater sense of family separation and
suffering with no discernible impact on Cuba`s economy or its government.

Wouldn`t it be better if the greatest ambassadors of democracy - Cuban
Americans - could visit the island and relay our message of freedom and
American values? What better way of promoting these basic values intrinsic
in our society than through people to people contacts.

When I tell my American friends about the obstacles that stop
Cuban-Americans from visiting their family members in Cuba, they
automatically assume that they have been imposed by the Castro government.
Even after I explain the truth to them, they cannot believe that the travel
restrictions were created by our government. The real victims of this
cruelty are not the Cuban government or its leadership, but Cuban families
and America`s highest ideals.

These restrictions are cruel, they are inhumane, they are irrational, and
they are unjust. Most of all, rules that prevent families from visiting, and
helping, and loving each other, are un- American. But you have the power to
undo them. These rules may have no humanitarian exemptions, but I cannot
believe there is no humanity here in the United States Senate.

With the greatest respect, I implore you to eliminate these restrictions so
you can reunite Cuban families on both sides of the Florida Straits.

I would like to conclude with this quote by Alex Haley. He said, ``In every
conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.``
Let me leave you with a question: Will America allow its future to be
defined by the cruelty of these regulations or will we instead win over our
enemies with the love that a united family provides? Thank you.

Colombia: Documents Suggest Uribe Family Drug Link

2007-12-10T17:39:00.000-08:00

A justice minister -- later assassinated -- complained in the 1980s that drug dealing had infiltrated politics, possibly even the Uribe family, documents showed. This is not the first time in recent months evidence of this sort has come out. Add that to the terrorism angle of these associates and you have the US's model "good guy" President in the region.

BY GERARDO REYES
El Nuevo Herald

Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Colombia's former justice minister who led a campaign against drug trafficking in the 1980s, once said President Alvaro Uribe and his father were models of how Colombian society had been infiltrated by drug dealers, according to legal documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald.

In a sworn declaration made in 1984, Lara Bonilla's sister declared that he had cited the case of a helicopter that had been captured in a huge cocaine laboratory in the south of Colombia that, according to government information, was owned by the president's father, Alberto Uribe Sierra. He had made the statement just weeks before his assassination by ''sicarios'' from the Medellín Cartel.

President Uribe has denied any wrongdoing by either himself or his father and family, saying that the helicopter had been sold a month before the seizure. But there is no document showing the transfer of the chopper in the aeronautics registry.

Lara Bonilla's son and Colombia's current anticorruption czar, Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, told El Nuevo Herald that neither he nor his brothers had read the files of his father, who was killed in April 1984.

''Now that I know [of] these documents, I believe it is a delicate topic, and I will give a declaration the next few days,'' he said.

Weeks before he was assassinated, Lara Bonilla complained about drug traffickers infiltrating all sectors of society. His remarks weren't generic. They came with names, dates and places....
Whole Thing

Mexico: US and Cuban-Americans to Blame for Smuggling

2007-12-10T13:04:00.000-08:00

The rising numbers of Cubans forsaking the dangerous 90 mile boat ride to Florida in favor of a safer trip to Mexico and guaranteed admittance at the US border has become a larger issue this past year. Now, Mexico is speaking up, telling the US its discriminatory Cuban migrant policy is to blame, as are Cuban-Americans financing the trips.

MEXICO CITY -- Cuban-Americans are financing the smuggling Cuban immigrants through Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, an illegal trade that is fomented by the U.S. policy of granting Cubans automatic asylum, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said Monday.

A violent ring of immigrant smugglers operates in Mexico, where Cubans land on the coasts in rickety boats before crossing overland to the U.S. border, Medina Mora told reporters.

"This has been legally proved, that people of Cuban origin but who are citizens of the United States are involved, financing these people-smuggling operations, obviously with the complicity of Mexicans," the attorney general said.

"This has to do with U.S. policy toward Cubans," he said. "Those who make it to (U.S.) territory by their own means can get automatic refugee status, so that policy serves as an incentive" to smuggle Cubans here.

Under the so-called "wet foot, dry foot" policy, the U.S. turns back Cubans intercepted on the seas but grants asylum to most who make it to shore. To avoid capture by U.S. authorities before making it to land, many Cubans decide to go through Mexico.

Mexico is struggling to deal with a series of gangland-style slayings apparently related to the trafficking of migrants from Cuba, which lies only about 130 miles east of the Yucatan Peninsula, just slightly farther by boat from Cuba than Florida.

In a new trend, nearly 90 percent of all undocumented Cubans who make it to the United States now travel overland rather than reaching U.S. shores by boat, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Mexico also is having problems with its burgeoning population of detained Cuban migrants, most of whom want to go to the U.S. Most Cubans are released after being held 90 days at a Mexican immigration center. Only about one-third of all those arrested in 2006 were repatriated to Cuba, Mexican migration officials say.

Last week, three Cuban immigrants were treated for dehydration at a Mexican hospital after going on a hunger strike to demand release from a detention center. They were returned to the center and are awaiting decisions in their cases.

The Truth about the Recent Campus Violence in Venezuela

2007-11-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

Violent opposition students outside the School of Social Work (ABN)

I'm still in the thick of wedding mayhem, but I had to post something about the recent violence at the UCV campus in Caracas. This is another astounding example of the way the US media twists 180 degrees nearly every story coming out of Venezuela now (similar to the way the King of Spain has been applauded nearly everywhere for breaking all diplomatic niceties by telling telling President Chavez to "shut up" at a recent summit in Chile). Imagine any other democratically elected leader being told to shut up by a monarch.

U.S. Media Bias and Recent Student Violence in Venezuela
by JoJo Farrell for ZNET
November 15, 2007

Why is it that the U.S. media condemns Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for limiting freedom of press while in the same breath self-censoring their Venezuelan news coverage to such an extent that it completely distorts the story? This has been the case ever since Chavez came to office, but last week, after the incidents at the Central Venezuelan University, the asymmetries once again were violently thrust to the surface.

Last week, in standard fashion, nearly every major US newspaper, momentarily forgot their commitment to an independent press, and omitted crucial facts, martyring the Venezuelan opposition student movement, and acting as a de facto mouthpiece for the opposition.

Sean McCormick, spokesperson for the US state Department had this to say, on the morning of November 8th, ³These people are just expressing themselves in a peaceful manner. They've had a view contrary to the views held by the government, but it was a peaceful protest, as far as I've been able to determine from the news reports.²

An analysis of 10 major U.S. media outlets shows very consistent reporting of the story (links below). Seven of the 10 reprinted the same AP story. Only the Washington Post, however briefly, brings to light that there are even two different sides. Most media outlets reported that following peaceful protests in downtown Caracas, masked Chavista-gunman attacked anti-government supporters on the campus of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). Photos of the masked gunman have accompanied most of these articles lending themselves as powerful images of violence against peaceful protestors.

Violent oppositon supporters at the UCV- picture Reuters

The Miami Herald reported ³Photographers for The Associated Press saw at least four gunmen - their faces covered by ski masks or T-shirts - firing handguns at the anti- Chávez crowd at the UCV. Terrified students ran through the campus as ambulances arrived. The New York Times on Nov. 7th led with the following, ³Masked gunmen shot into a group of students on Wednesday at this country¹s most prestigious university. The students were returning from a march here protesting changes to the Constitution proposed by President Hugo Chávez that could allow him to remain in power indefinitely.² The following day, the Times printed a quote from one of the student leaders likening their tactics to those of Gandhi.

Unfortunately, these reports have left out an important chunk of the story. After last Wednesday¹s peaceful protest, many students headed back to UCV campus. Here is where things get complicated. According to Chávez supporters, eyewitnesses, and videotape recorded by the community TV station, Catia TV, opposition students, mainly from neighboring privates Universities, chased down a group of pro- Chávez students putting up signs in favor of the reform. The pro-Chavez group found refuge in the faculty of Social Work, which is known to be a Chávez friendly zone, and where it was also reported that another group of pro-Chavez students were meeting. The opposition students surrounded the faculty, armed with weapons, rocks, and gas masks shouting, ³We will lynch you all.² According to reports, opposition students fired weapons, threw rocks at the students inside the building, and lit fire to the entrance. Chávez supporters present that day affirm that the motorcyclists televised to the world as sinister gunmen, arrived on the scene as part of a rescue mission to help their companions trapped inside the building by the rabid opposition outside. They argue that this was necessary because the Venezuelan army or police force are, by law, not allowed to enter the grounds of the University. To this day, the entire truth is not known about the events at the UCV last Wednesday, but the inability of the international press to report an unbiased account calls into question their journalist integrity. The consequences of this could lead to further violence in Venezuela.

Media distortion is nothing new in Venezuela, the media played a critical role during the 2002 Coup de tat which removed Chávez from power temporarily. At the time major outlets ordered a black out of pro- Chávez street protests. The movement in the street ultimately led to the return of the President, and has encouraged a new generation of community media around the country. It was those small community stations that spread the news that wasn¹t available on the major outlets. What the private and international mainstream media reported, is that pro-government protesters had fired at opposition marchers, killing over a dozen. It was later revealed that video footage was manipulated, as were the reports, and that in fact the deaths were caused by snipers firing from the nearby buildings, and the pro-government protesters were defending themselves from the armored vehicles of the metropolitan police, advancing on the crowds from only a few blocks away. This past summer the Venezuelan government pointed to the role of Radio Caracas Television in the 2002 coup as the impetus for not renewing its broadcast license. This is a fact that was consistently left out of the story reported in the private and international media. The RCTV story read that Chávez was silencing the station due to their opposition to his policies. The same story, which continues to be perpetuated in the US media today. Unfortunately, this one-sided hypocrisy intentionally leaves out facts leading to one-sided coverage. This type of journalism not only misrepresents the truth, but its impact can have dangerous and lasting effects on Venezuela. We should call on our media to take more care, to ensure that it reports everything that is to be reported, and not just the image it wants to portray.

The School of Social Work trashed by opposition students (ABN)

Videos of the violent attack by opposition students can be seen here and here.

Argentina's President Elect is not Hillary

2007-10-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

So sorry for the lack of postin' of late, I'm getting married!!! Check the extensive archives at random for fun in the meantime, or catch me over at Phil Peters' Cuban Triangle. I've been sucked in...

For now, I'll share 2 letters to the editor I recently wrote to the LA Times - calling them out for their misinformation on Cuba and the other arguing against the notion that Argetina's President-elect Fernandez de Kirchner would be close to Hillary Clinton and therefore "good for the US."

They printed 2 other great pro-Cuba letters, so I can't complain they didn't print mine (they did use the word hypocrisy in their subtitle though...

Re: "Madama President." Oct 26

Mrs. Fernandez de Kirchner will be elected in
Argentina by a wide margin because she represents
successful opposition to the very neo-liberal economic
policies both the LA Times and Hillary Clinton
champions. Therefore, she will not likely see eye to
eye with (President elect?) Clinton on these
contentious issues. To assume so based on her sex is
demeaning to both women.

Allegiance to the Washington concensus has been
rejected by the people in almost every Latin American
country. For three years, the top three growing
countries in the region have been Venezuela, Cuba and
Argentina, an inconvenient fact that few Americans
know.

Re: "A New Course for Cuba Policy." Oct 26

I applaud the Times for pointing out the hypocrisy and
futility that defines US policy on Cuba. However, it
is wrong to assume that more information will kill the
resilliant Revolution. The Cuban people are well
informed about the world and know exactly what many
people think about it's human rights violations.
Cubans routinely hear these attacks directly,
including Bush's speech, which was printed and shown
in its entirety. Cuba prints these attacks because so
much rings false to Cubans ears.

Case in point is Bush's (and the Times) assumption
that Cuban authorities view the Internet as a
"existential threat." In fact the opposite is true,
evidenced by current training of 2 million Cubans in
IT at computer clubs. Internet cafes provide 100%
access (for a fee), as do many workplaces. In a recent
poll, 35% of Cubans said they are online. The lack of
universal free internet access (their goal) on the
island is a direct result of the embargo, which means
the Cubans must rely on a slow, expensive satellite
connection, rather than a US controlled fiber optics
cable 12 miles away. Universal free access would
simply render the system too slow to be useful,
therefore some prioritization is required. If the US
really wanted to call Castro's bluff, Bush should have
offered up the optics line.

Photos from the recent Heavy Metal "Rockero" festival in Holguin.

The Amazing Legacy of Che Guevara - 40 Years After His Murder

2007-10-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

Forty years after Ernesto "Che" Guevara was captured and killed by soldiers in a Bolivian jungle, Western newspapers have begun writing their obligitaory Che stories. As the google snapshot above (oh so) perfectly illustrates, there is some confusion as to the message they are supposed to contain. The killing of Che was celebrated in the West in 1967. US elites thought their struggles to dominate Latin America were over. And perhaps they were for 30-some odd years.

However today, with Che posters and t-shirts pretty much ubiquitous on college campuses of all continents and socialists taking back their country's natural resources from foreign companies, the elites are not quite so sure about this whole "dustbin of history" thesis. Some try to get around this fact by concentrating a story on Cuba, where they find a couple well known dissidents to back up the 'man on the street' view that while Che is still widely admired, Cuba has a ways to go to live up to his ideals. Others are more honest.

To me, Che is much more than an important symbol. He is a true model of what a human being can be. He never stopped trying to learn and relate political theory to the state of the world. He inspired and was inspired by the youth. He knew a better society was possible - one that shared, cared for each other and fought for justice. He criticised the Soviet Union and believed there was more to life than consumerism. He was a brave and inspired leader on the battlefield and as a Cuban Government Minister .

Who could predict how right on he would be when he yelled out to his shooter 40 years ago: "Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man".

Check out what Gary Hart, Evo Morales, the founder of the Buena vista Social Club and British artist Gavin Turk had to say about "What Che Meant to Me."

As a fitting aside, the BBC recently reported that Cuban doctors in Bolivia saved the sight of the Bolivian army officer who puit the final bullet in Che - Mario Teran - as a part of their humanitarian health programs across the Continent.

Colombia's Uribe Tied to Escobar, Attacks Journalist

2007-10-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

It has not been a good week for the US's best bud in Latin America - Colombia's President Uribe. First a book comes out from Pablo Escobar's ex-lover alleging Uribe assisted Pablo Escobar's drug activities as head of the aviation administration. Then press freedom groups CPG and RSF condemned Uribe for his reckless comments against a US-based journalist whom be blamed for the book (a journalist who has required official bodyguards for 3 months due to a death threat). And now today Uribe's first cousin was forced to resign his seat in the Senate in order to avoid investigation by the Supreme Court. As an expert was quited in Rueters, "It is looking more and more like President Uribe and allies such as cousin Mario won office in 2002 with paramilitary support." But at least he met our Defense Secretary Robert Gates (above). The NY Times reports:

BOGOTÁ: President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has lashed out at allegations in a new book that he had close ties to the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. He said he never aided Escobar's drug dealings or benefited from his political patronage.

Uribe's comments Monday were in response to the book "Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar," by Virginia Vallejo, Escobar's former mistress. Vallejo repeats claims that Uribe, as head of the civil aviation authority in the early 1980s, helped Escobar's cartel secure licenses for landing strips used to transport cocaine.

"I had no political relations with Escobar, I had no business dealings with Escobar and I was not a friend of Virginia Vallejo," Uribe said in comments broadcast on Caracol Radio. Vallejo, who is believed to be living outside Colombia, could not be reached for comment.

Uribe, the Bush administration's closest ally in South America, has been dogged by claims of his links to Escobar since his political star began to rise in the 1990s, allegations that became pronounced during his presidential campaign in 2002. Vallejo's book, published here last month, had not received much publicity in Colombia until Uribe's emotional reaction to it this week.

The president also denounced a journalist, Gonzalo Guillén, a correspondent in Bogotá for El Nuevo Herald of Miami, claiming he had helped Vallejo write the book. The claim drew a sharp denial from Guillén, who said he would sue Uribe for slander.

Vallejo, a former actress and television personality, also refers to Uribe's father as one of Colombia's "first drug traffickers" in her book. The president says his father was killed in 1983 by Marxist rebels.

A declassified U.S. intelligence report from 1991 described Uribe as a "close personal friend" of Escobar's. The report, by the Defense Intelligence Agency, also listed Uribe among Colombia's important drug traffickers and said he was linked to an unidentified business involved in narcotics in the United States.

Uribe's office denounced the intelligence report when it was first publicized in 2004 as fitting within a trend of political attacks against him, but it did not specifically address the assertion that Uribe was linked to Escobar. U.S. officials have also disavowed the report's findings. But Uribe's comments Tuesday showed more explicit efforts to distance himself from any association with Escobar, who was killed by the police in Medellín in 1993.

Iran-Venezuela Axis Myth Explodes at Tehran Conference on Che

2007-10-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

It is fashionable in foreign policy circles today to be warning Americans about the approaching danger from a supposed growing alliance between Iran and the leftist governments in Latin America, particularly Hugo Chavez. This piece from today's LATimes is indicitive of the tone most observers strike, which is somewhere between mild worrying and outright alarm.

But the truth is that while relationships are budding between the two regions, the issue is nothing the US needs to worry about. The reality is that there are huge differences between the new Latin socialists in Caracas or Quito and Islamists in Tehran (or Beirut). All the diabolical meetings and agreements that have been signed have yielded very little. While the press says trade is "booming", the reality is that less than $17 million in trade has actually occured this year between Venezuela and Iran. There has been increased coordination on the OPEC bloc as would be expected, but little success in deviating from the pro-US Saudi policy.

Of course there are similarities in their experiences with the Empire that people in the Middle East and socialist south can bond over. The desire for more friends in a hostile world is understandable. But as the embarrassing episode in Tehran described below shows, they new axis of evil has a ways to go to even get on the same page, let along threaten anyone. But of course, the Western press failed to pick up on this disaster and instead focussed on the new steel and cement factory Iran is helping to build. Be afraid America, be very afraid.

POLITICS-IRAN: Islamist, Socialist Revolutions Don't Mix
By Kimia Sanati

TEHRAN, Oct 3 (IPS) - An attempt to rope in the son and daughter of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara to forge a parallel between Iran’s Islamist revolution and the socialist revolution in Latin America through a four-day conference has ended in fiasco.

After Aleida Guevara protested from the podium against perceived distortions of her father’s ideology by the first Iranian speaker, Haj Saeed Ghasemi, the four-day ‘Che Like Chamran’ conference, that started Sep. 25, was aborted and the Latin American guests whisked away.

‘Che Like Chamran’, the title of the conference, was chosen for the alliteration in the names of the two revolutionaries and because both Che and the Iranian, Mostafa Chamran, fought alongside revolutionaries in other countries. But the similarities end there, no matter what the organisers intended to promote.
...
Organised by the student militia of Tehran University, the conference was attended mostly by counterparts from various other universities as well as members of hardline student groups such as the PJSM that strongly support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies. These groups regularly organise demonstrations and protest rallies against the US and other western countries.

But Ghasemi, who is associated with Iran’s Esteshhadiyoun (volunteers of suicide operations) must take credit for scuttling the conference. Referring to a translated version of a Che Guevara book that he held in his hand, he said Che Guevara was religious and believed in God. "The people of Cuba, Fidel (Casro) and Che Guevara were never socialists or communists. Fidel has several times admitted that he and Che and the people of Cuba hated the Soviets for all they had done.’’

''Today communism has been thrown into the trash bin of history as it was predicted by Ayatollah Khomeini," Ghasemi told the conference and added that the only way to save the world was through the ‘’the religious, pro-justice movement’’.

An indignant Aleida (Guevara), however, started her own address "in the name of the people of Cuba". "We are a socialist nation," she asserted. She also said the people of Cuba were grateful to the Soviet Union and there had never been any discord between the two nations, as mentioned by Ghasemi. She advised him to "always refer to original sources instead of translations to find out about Che Guevara’s beliefs".

"My father never talked about God. He never met God. My father knew there was no absolute truth,’’ Aleida said, responding to Ghasemi’s speech. The coverage of her address by state-sponsored news agencies like ISNA was brief and excluded most of her contradictory remarks.
...
"Belief in socialism is considered a crime in the Islamic state, punishable by death. Ahmadinejad’s slogans against the West and the U.S., his pro-justice rap, and his promises of economic assistance bring them here -- much to our disappointment," she (an Iranian leftist student leader) said. "Daniel Ortega and other leftist leaders too must clarify their position about their relations with Iran. We feel greatly betrayed when for their countries’ economic benefit they choose to support extreme rightists, fascists like Ahmadinejad," she added.

Following Aleida’s outspoken address to the conference, the organisers took flak from their own comrades. "It is appreciable to commemorate Che Guevara as a revolutionary figure. Otherwise, our former perspectives on his ideas, methods and attitude are still the same. We are Muslims and he is non-Muslim. The difference will always remain," Mohammad Sedaghat, the leader of Student Militia of Shahed University was quoted by ISNA as saying.

Whole thing

Landslide for Correa's Socialist Project in Ecuador

2007-10-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

The results will take weeks to roll in from Ecuador's hinterlands (and abroad), but all indications are that Rafael Correa's bid to change the Constitution of Ecudaor has recieved the massive support of the people. The apparent landslide (80 of 130 seats) for the Constitutional Assembly is striking as just a few days ago most polls were forecasting a less than majority result for Correa's ad-hoc party Alianza Pais.

Congratualtions to Rafael Correa - a fellow alum of mine from the University of Illinois - where he earned his Doctorate in Economics. Let us hope he can marshall the enormous potential of this small country and turn the tide against poverty and an entrenched elite that has expoited the country while hopelessness festered. Already his reforms have given the country some economic breathing room. But the bond traders are not at all happy and his opponents are likely to get more radical - like in Bolivia. Alos look for more cheap hit-job pieces like this from the media, trying to say Correa is a Chavez replica. It is an insult.

QUITO, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on Monday emerged with a strong mandate to dissolve Congress and seek broad reforms after claiming a majority in a weekend vote for an assembly to rewrite the constitution.

The left-winger joins allies Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales in convoking a national assembly to push through a constitutional rewrite and limit the influence of powerful elites who resist his proposals.

A convincing victory for his Alianza Pais, or Country Alliance, party in the assembly will allow Correa to shore up legislative control and push through his "21st Century" socialism and plans for tighter state economic control that have already rattled Wall Street.

Correa on Monday called for his delegates to press for early presidential and congressional elections after the assembly, end the central bank's autonomy and abolish special oil saving funds that restrict government spending.

He also struck a more moderate tone in dismissing concerns he wants to expand his authority and saying his renegotiation of oil contracts would be "friendly," with no deep reforms expected in the energy and mining sectors.

"This is a great slap on the back for the government ... we will take this with great responsibility because we cannot fail," Correa said at a press conference. "No one is trying to establish a monarchy here."

Correa, who came into office in January, wants to purge the influence of traditional parties, which are widely blamed for the instability that ousted three presidents in a decade.

Whole thing

Cuba Debates its Future at Thousands of Local Meetings

2007-09-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Raul Castro, at the July 26th rally in Cienfuegos, where he criticized the island's economic problems and called for "structural reforms."

There have been a rash of articles in recent days waking up to the reality that Cubans are taking up the challenge of Raul Castro to "debate fearlessley" about issues related to "structural change." Probably the best piece is in Spanish, from El Pais. Mark Frank from Rueters, who wrote the piece below, also wrote somethingspecifically tied to changes in the agricultural sector, which has already begun.

Hard liners in Washington and Miami will never accept the results of these kinds of participatory processes because they occur within the system. Only change imposed from outside will meet their satisfaction. I beleive soe modest (to US eyes) economic changes will indeed come out of this process, however the more touchy political changes will wait until the US drops its aggressive attempts at regime change under the guise of some "transition." This will occur as a result of negotiation with the next democratic Administration. The timing and everything about this process, tells me this moment has been well planned and thought out.

Raul Castro launches Cuba-wide debate on future
Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:48pm EDT - Rueters
At workplaces and in neighborhoods across Cuba, people are complaining about the state of their country in a national debate on economic reform opened by acting President Raul Castro.

After years of economic crisis, Cubans are being asked to propose fixes in group discussions after Castro acknowledged in a keynote speech on July 26 that wages are too low and agriculture needs structural reforms to feed the country.

"People were expressing themselves like never before about all the problems in their lives," a Communist Party member said after attending a meeting. "Raul is raising everyone's expectations, so he better have some solutions."

Common complaints range from low wages, which average about $15 a month, and poor services to restrictions on killing your own cow, buying cars and booking rooms in hotels reserved for tourists.

"When the meeting started, nobody wanted to speak, but we were told to speak out frankly about the issues raised by Raul, and everything that affects us," said Lariza, who sells coffee to her fellow workers to supplement her salary.

Since "temporarily" taking charge of the Cuban government and the Communist Party from his ailing 81-year-old brother Fidel Castro a year ago, Raul Castro has repeatedly called for more debate and constructive criticism.

He also demanded studies from experts on reform proposals to raise productivity, including on the state's ownership of the economy, which exceeds 90 percent.

But it is not yet clear how far he plans to take reforms, and Fidel Castro pushed similar initiatives in the past.

"Grass-roots debate is not new in Cuba. There was a similar debate led by Fidel in the late 1980s and again in the mid-1990s," said Rafael Hernandez, editor of "Temas" (Issues), a magazine that for a decade has encouraged limited discussion of controversial issues from race relations to market economics.

The last issue focused on transitions in the former Soviet Union, China and other countries, and featured intellectuals, youth leaders and Cuban officials, many of whom said state control of the economy was not a prerequisite for socialism.

"What's new is that Fidel is less active and others need to build a new consensus as people are not responding to current policy," Hernandez said. "Cubans interpret Raul's call for structural change to mean deep changes in the model, not just a cosmetic change."

Continue reading the whole thing

A Radical Gives Bolivia Some Stability

2007-09-19T09:25:00.000-07:00

As the United States continues to call Hugo Chavez a threat to regional stability, what they are really referring to is the election of like-minded bretheren like Evo Morales in Bolivia. But we know the truth is the US is not concerned about stability - as this NY Times article shows - it is concerned about the success of a model that successfully expropriated the profits of multinational oil companies for the benefit of the people.

By SIMON ROMERO
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, Sept. 14 — Evening newscasts speak of a country on the verge of balkanization. La Paz and Sucre dispute which city should be the capital. Santa Cruz, in the east, clamors for autonomy. The governor of the province encompassing this bustling city in the Andes has called on President Evo Morales to resign.

But Mr. Morales, the first Indian to govern Bolivia since the Spanish conquest almost five centuries ago, knows a thing or two about unrest, having organized protests for years as the leader of the country’s cocaleros, or coca cultivators, who fiercely resist American efforts to eradicate their crops.
...
For all the worries that Mr. Morales’s radicalism would create economic and political turmoil in Bolivia, the reality of his tenure is that the country is relatively stable. Social divisions and poverty remain entrenched, but Mr. Morales has surprised many, including some in the business community, with his staying power.

When asked about Bolivia’s problems, he replies with an economist’s precision. “One of the most ferocious debates in my cabinet is whether we should spend part of our foreign currency reserves,” he said, explaining how these reserves had more than doubled since he took office in January 2006, to about $4 billion. In a nod to economic orthodoxy, Mr. Morales said, “I don’t want to for now.”

Bolivia remains South America’s poorest country, with about 60 percent of the population of 9.1 million mired in poverty, making such debates crucial. Yet the results of one of Mr. Morales’s policies in particular — the nationalization of the petroleum industry last year — has surprised even skeptics.

Feared as a radical move, the nationalization was in effect a renegotiation of terms with foreign energy companies that have stayed in Bolivia, attracted by the country’s bountiful natural gas reserves. Revenue from oil and natural gas climbed to 13.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2006 from 5 percent in 2004, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

That increase has placed Bolivia on its most enviable economic footing in years, with growth of about 4 percent expected this year. Economists also note that coca is lifting Bolivia’s economy, with traffic climbing to neighboring Brazil.

In a touch of irony, the urban upper classes, many of whose members remain explicitly critical of Mr. Morales, are benefiting from the newfound stability and economic vibrancy. With a cocalero in power, cocalero activists no longer shut down the main highway from Santa Cruz, enabling the province’s exports to reach important markets. Similarly, parts of the southern area of La Paz are prospering as builders rush to meet demand for comfortable apartment buildings. Here in Cochabamba, a new $6 million Cineplex, which seems plucked from suburban California, illustrates how investors are pouring money into new projects.
...
For now, Mr. Morales, dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, seems at ease after attaining the highest approval ratings of any president in recent memory. He shoos away advisers and bodyguards, preferring to conduct the interview alone. He jokes about efforts to improve his swing in frontón, a sport similar to racquetball that is beloved by Bolivians.

“We’re creating another way of doing government, but it has not been easy,” Mr. Morales said in halting and carefully enunciated Spanish as the sun rose above Cochabamba. “The challenges seem to arise every day.”
Whole thing

Cuba, the Internet and Reporters without Borders

2007-09-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

I have written before about this bogus internet report the US funded group Reporters Without Borders put out last year. I noted how, despite its obvious anti-Cuba slant, the report was notable because it contradicted the group's own previous statements (that the internet was "heavily censored"). The report concluded that Cuba allowed mostly unfettered access to Web sites, even those considered "subversive." Still the report needed a good smack down, which it (belatedly) receives here by the food folks at Global Research - a Canadian research center. Enjoy

By Salim Lamrani
Global Research, September 10, 2007

(I snipped out the beginning section of this report, which described the way that Reporters Without Borders intentionally mis-translated and twisted the words of Cuba Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes. That is small potatoes compared to the larger issues RSF is invovled in. They should be made to change their name, as not to libel the heroic groups Doctors Without Borders.)

The RSF “report” about the Internet in Cuba
In regards to the Internet in Cuba, “Reporters without Borders pointed out that Cuba’s delay on the matter of the Internet is a consequence, above all, of the wish of the government to control the circulation of information in its territory. With less then two Internet users per every 100 inhabitants, Cuba is among some of the most backwards countries on the matter of the Internet. It is by far the worst in Latin America – Costa Rica is 13 times better—and is at the level of Uganda or Sri Lanka” [9].

These claims of RSF aren’t derived from a meticulous and comparative study of Internet development throughout the world. No, it only deals with an arbitrary allegation which is not based on any research and which is completely disconnected from reality. No international organization has ever given such figures. Once again, RSF is content with rehashing the U.S. propaganda against the Caribbean archipelago.

A different reality
In Cuba close to 2 million children and adolescents have daily access to the Internet in their schools, all equipped with a computer classroom provided with the latest generation of materials. In Cuba, 146 schools exist in distant regions of the country at which only one student attends and all have a computer laboratory. There are also free community computer clubs in every municipality, used by thousands of people. One mere, ordinary question: if the Cuban government wishes “to control the circulation of information in its territory”, why would it spend several millions of dollars to universalize the access to computers and the Internet? [10].

RSF carefully minimizes the main constraint to development of the Internet in Cuba, which are the ruthless economic sanctions that the United States has imposed on the country’s population since 1960. Cuba couldn’t connect to the Internet until 1996 since before a clause from the economic blockade impeded having access to the international network controlled by the United States. But the Cuban access is conditional because of the Torricelli law, which stipulates that each megabit bought from a U.S. business, needs to have previous approval from the Department of the Treasury. All violators are subject to extremely harsh sanctions. Furthermore, it must be remembered that more than 80 percent of Internet traffic passes through U.S. servers [11].

On the other hand, the United States denies Cuba the use of its fiber optic submarine cable which surrounds the archipelago. Thus, the island is obliged to connect via satellite, which reduces the speed of communication and quadruples the price. For a small country from the Third World, isolated for close to half a century, the effects are not negligible. In the same way, Cuba is obliged to procure new technologies through third countries because of the economic sanctions, which substantially increases their price. Nor can it be forgotten that the United States produces close to 60% of the software of the world and that Microsoft controls the operating systems of 90% of the computers on the planet [12].

RSF deliberately censors this reality. How could it be otherwise with an organization financed by Washington through a CIA front group—the National Endowment for Democracy? Can one expect anything different from an entity that receives tens of thousands of dollars from the Cuban extreme right such as, for example, “ Center for a Free Cuba”, directed by Frank Calzón, the same former director of the Cuban American National Foundation, a terrorist organization responsible for numerous attacks against Cuba? [13]

RSF never has denounced the fact that Washington uses the Internet to inflict sanctions which can carry ten years of jail for its own citizens who commit the unpardonable crime of traveling to Cuba and who buy their ticket on the Internet. Several travel agencies who offer tourist packages to Cuba saw their Internet sites blocked in the United States. RSF never has been moved by such an attack on freedom of expression and never has condemned the economic sanctions against Cuba [14].

RSF’s other “objective report” about the Internet
On October 19, 2006, RSF published a “report” about the Internet in Cuba which “shows that the authorities deliberately impede access to the Internet.” Here the organization, which tries to be objective and apolitical, also doesn’t explain why the only country about which it issues a “report” – which stands out for its flimsiness—is Cuba. But the most interesting thing is that this same tendentious report, peppered with contradictions and manifest falsehoods, recognizes at the end that it is possible in Cuba to have “access to practically all the information sites, lemonde.fr, bbc.com, el Nuevo Herald (a daily newspaper from Miami [controlled by the extreme Batista right]) and includes the sites of the dissidents of the anti-Castro regime [15].

The report adds: “Tests carried out by Reporters without Borders show that the majority of the sites of the Cuban opposition, as well as those international human rights organizations are accessible by means of ‘international’ service. In China, by means of key words filters were installed on the Net, which makes it impossible, for example, to download pages which contain ‘subversive’ key words. The organization could ascertain, testing a series of prohibited terms in cybercafes, that this type of system is not installed in Cuba”. Nonetheless, RSF, doesn’t explain why it carries out such an obsessive campaign about the supposed censorship of the Internet in Cuba. [16]

The report is also full of crude accusations. “In Cuba, they can be sentenced for twenty years in prison for some ‘counterrevolutionary’ articles published on foreign sites and to five years for connecting to the Internet illegally”. RSF multiplies the lies: “The political dissidents and independent journalists in general aren’t authorized to go to the cybercafés”. Any person who has visited a cybercafé in Cuba absolutely knows that this is false. They don’t ask either name of address, only payment for the time that one spends on the Internet. [17]

RSF continues with the same tone and admits at the U.S. Interests Section (SINA) in Havana offers valuable help to the famous dissidents: “Many of them utilize, consequently, the twenty computers that are put at their disposal at the SINA […]. But a single visit to the premises of the American diplomacy is enough to be considered as an ‘enemy of the revolution.’” For RSF, the “American diplomacy” doesn’t welcome the opposition in order to subvert the established order and to overthrow the government. Only a disinterested and altruistic hand is offered to them. Washington is only defending democracy. Additionally, its activities throughout the word and the actions of Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq are irrefutable proof of that. [18]

In any country of the world, assiduously visiting the diplomats of a foreign power—that, in this specific case publicly stated on July 10, 2006, that it gave itself 18 months to overthrow the government—with the confessed objective of breaking the constitutional order is a synonym for treason and invites the most severe sanctions. In Cuba, the legendary “independent journalists” go each week to the offices of the SINA not to practice the job of press professionals but to conspire. Those individuals are not encouraged by great feelings in favor of freedom and democracy. The generous payments which Washington offers are their principal sources of motivation. Even now, the Cuban authorities have shown themselves to be a little indulgent. It would not be astonishing if in the future they decide to severely apply the law as was the case in March 2003 [19].

About this matter, RSF continues misleading public opinion and makes it believe that the persons arrested and sentenced to severe punishment in 2003 for conspiracy and for acting as agents of a foreign power are only “independent journalists.” It cites 24 when in reality only one is really a journalist (Julio César Gálvez Rodríguez). Additionally, these people were sentenced only for receiving financing from an enemy country and in no case for a speech that was contrary to the official line. To be persuaded of this, it’s enough to read the virulent statements against the revolutionary government that the famous dissidents make each week in the international press, without being bothered by the law. [20]

“The black holes of the Net”, according to RSF
On November 16, 2005, RSF published “its list of 15 enemies of the Internet,” on which were Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Myanmar, China, North Korean, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunis, Turkmenistan and Vietnam. Of course, Robert Menard’s organization didn’t indicate in any way the criteria he used for his selection [21].

A year after, in 2006, a new list with 13 countries was published in which Libya no longer appeared. The 2005 report, nonetheless, was overwhelming: “Unfortunately, in one country that doesn’t tolerate any independent press, it might have been overwhelming that the Net will develop without obstacles. Thus, the sites of the dissident Libyans in exile are systematically blocked by means of filters installed by the power. More seriously, the authorities now harshly attack dissident cybernauts.”[22]

The 2006 report is the opposite of that of 2005. “After one mission in the country, Reporters without Borders could affirm that the Libyan Internet no longer was censured”, affirmed the organization, without any other explanation and without publishing another report. What happened in one year in order that RSF radically changes its opinion with regards to Libya? Perhaps Moamer Kadhafi has become a great democrat? Or simply normalized his relations with Washington and now forms part of the Bush administration’s allies? Will it now be the reason it can receive good marks on behalf of RSF? [23]

Thus, the classification of RSF isn’t more then a farce. The work of the Parisian organization don’t have anything to do with freedom of the press but that it is above all an ideological war at the services of its landlords who are the United States, among others.

The report of OpenNet Iniciative
The “OpenNet Initative,” sponsored by the very conservative universities Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and Toronto, function as an observatory of freedom of expression on the Internet. According to this group, 13% of the cybernauts of the world are not free to navigate on the Net. In other words, 146 million people. The “OpenNet Initiative” established a list of 9 repressive countries that limit Internet access and repress cybernauts. It includes China, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Iran Uzbekistan, Tunis, Vietnam and Yemen. Cuba isn’t on the list [24].

The foundation later established a list of 22 other countries where different degrees of control exist, among which are found the United Kingdom at the rank of 16, France at 17, Canada at 18, United States at 19 and Cuba only at 20[25].

Even more interesting, the “OpenNet Initiative” details the obstacles imposed on Internet access. For example, the United Kingdom filters some contents, according to the British government, to remove the spread of child pornography. With regards to France, the administration filters “without any legal ruling” the contents of the extreme right. For Canada, control and filters exist at colleges and public libraries. Finally, for Cuba, it is only the cost of the connection for individuals that is “prohibitive” [26].

The foundation doesn’t point out any instance of control or filters imposed by the Cuban state. It emphasizes “on the other hand Cubans have complete access to the national Intranet. Preliminary tests indicate that very few web sites are blocked.” The only blocked Internet site is, according to “OpenNet Initiative”, that of the terrorist organization in Florida, “Brothers to the Rescue”. Therefore, the main reason for Internet access restrictions is none other than the U.S. government itself which imposes sanctions on the country and impedes the technological development of the nation [27]

RSF continues with its propaganda war against Cuba and tries to deceive public opinion about the reality of this isolated island. It remains faithful to the bellicose agenda of the Bush administration against the Cuban people since Washington knows how to reward its servants.

Cuba's Young Rebels (Juventud Rebelde) Redefine Cuban Press

2007-09-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

Most good intentioned Americans probably think there is no possibility that a brutily critical and honest article about the failings of the Cuban system could appear in the Cuban mass press. They have not been paying attention this past year to the erstwhile #2 newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Just check the title of the latest missive (part 1) surveying the peculiarities of Cuban commercial life:

Maintaining Momentum: The Challenge of Follow-through in Cuban Society (I)
"It’s easier to unravel the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle than to discover how to maintain quality and enthusiasm around initiatives that we undertake," said Havana resident Raymundo González. She took part in an opinion poll carried out by Juventud Rebelde with some 200 Havana residents.

This lack of perseverance is an evil that still doesn't seem still to have a cure, and that frequently filters down into the core of Cuban society.

Coming up with a diagnosis of this "illness" turned out to be a challenge worthy of Dr. House; in fact, one of the interviewees preferred to talk about what Cubans are able to do consistently, because otherwise he’d be talking for hours about programs that peter out and fail.

The French-built cross country train ceased being the best example of rail transport
The French train was one of the examples mentioned. The special service debuted in 2001; assuring riders their money back should the train arrive late at its destination —crossing the country between Havana and Santiago de Cuba— in addition to offering comfort.

"With this new option, for a few years we felt relief from the troublesome delays of the other trains, the rank odors of their bathrooms and the sorry condition of the cars... but like saying goes, 'happiness in a poor person´s house doesn’t last long,' said Raúl Álvarez, of the municipality of San Miguel del Padron.

The lateness of the trains began to become more frequent. After five years of service, they have stopped being the model of railroad travel that they used to be – and the money-back guarantee has been eliminated.

Raysa Vega, from Havana Province, noted that another of the offenses were local taco stands throughout Havana, where the celebrated Mexican tortillas were offered. They once appeared on several main streets in the capital city, but now there isn’t a single stand.

Yuselys Silveira, from Havana’s Playa neighborhood, recalled a phrase that always comes to her mind: "Let’s see how long that lasts." She has been disappointed time and again with repairs made to buildings to which the country has made significant investments in their rehabilitation, only to find problems resurfacing within a short time....

The whole thing continues like that. If there is any such withering criticism in any US mass newspaper please show me. Here is another JR classic from October 2006 explaining why Cubans sometimes are compelled to swindle their work place. I'm sure most Americans are unfamiliar with the notion....

Oh, and yes, Cubans love the show House apparently....

Miami Newspaper Allows Cuban Terrorist to Write Editorial

2007-09-05T00:04:00.000-07:00

Orlando Bosch, when asked about a plan he blew up with 77 innocents inside said, "We were at war with Castro, and in war, everything is valid.”

Notorious Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch was given a platform in the "respectable" Diario Las Américas - a rag that can be found in all Latin American airport sand Mariott hotels. Bosch should not need an introduction as he is the Western Hemisphere's Bin Laden - known for being arrested for shooting a bazooka at a Polish freighter, for bragging about downing an airplane killing 77 and for killing a Chilean diplomat on the streets of Washington DC.

Like Posada, Bosch is a free man - pardoned by Bush's dad for his handiwork. His presence shows how the CIA runs America. For el Diaro to print the words of a cold hearted killer like Bosch is sickening. His career puts Posada Carriles to shame...

Write them and tell them they are an affront to American values and should pack up and go back to Cuba.

Diario Las Américas
Por la Libertad, la Cultura y la Solidaridad Hemisférica
(ISSN-0744-3234)

2900 N.W. 39 St.
Miami, FL 33142
Estados Unidos

Central Teléfónica: 305-633-3341
No. de fascímil: 305-635-7668

Cuban Custody Battle Gets Heated in Miami

2007-08-27T22:47:00.001-07:00

Sounds like an another interesting day down at the Miami Courthouse in the custody trial of the 4-year old Cuban girl that is finally beginning to get some press attention.

In early action, Florida prosecutors got berated by the Judge for trying to argue that a 4 year-old child would be "irrevocably harmed" by being reunited with his father in a small town in Cuba - something both the father and mother desperately want.

The center of the case now seems to lie on whether Rafael Izquierda, the 4-year old girl's biological father, lost his rights by not acting like a good father. His fault seems to be that he allowed his child to go to the United States with his mother seeking a better life for his child. How was he supposed to know it would lead them to ruin and result in this needless custody fight? After all, he hears the same propoganda we all do about the American Dream.

There was an interesting disclosure about why there is no written documentation of the birth mother's (Elena Perez) supposedly having given up custody of her child in Feb. 2006. It is apparently because the previous judge - Spencer Elg, who represented the Miami relatives of Elizan Gonzales 7 years ago - did not sign the needed paperwork. The current Judge Cohen, tried to minimize the issue by saying Elg could just sign a document saying it happened exactly like the State says. I would no imply that the current Judge could be influenced by her predecessor's conflict of interest. But as the Miami Herald reports, this certainly got things cookin':

That prompted a tense hourlong argument with lawyers for the girl's birth parents. Cohen at first declined to discuss the missing documents.

"Can we be heard?'' asked Ira Kurzban, a lawyer for Rafael Izquierdo, the girl's birth father. "This is outrageous. This is Alice in Wonderland.''

Cohen read long passages from the transcript of the Feb. 21, 2006, hearing, in which Perez described in detail her struggles in the United States after she legally emigrated from Cuba with her two children.

''I was coming here with great ideas, thinking only positive things for me and my children,'' she said, according to the transcript.

But as soon as Perez arrived at Miami International Airport her husband, Jesus Melendres, abandoned her. ''My dream [was] to stay in the U.S.,'' Perez said. His desire [was] to go back to Cuba.''

With the help of Catholic Charities, Perez said, she resettled in Houston, where she found a job at a shampoo factory. Months later, struggling for work and help with the children, she returned to Miami.

Perez said she called 911 because she desperately needed help. ''I did this looking for protection for my children,'' she said.

Both Kurzban and Greer Wallace, Perez's lawyer, said the transcript shows Perez did not give up custody voluntarily. For one thing, they said, Perez did not have a court interpreter. A relative of Perez's estranged husband, who may have had motives of his own, they said, translated.

The transcript shows Perez appeared confused: ''It's just that I don't understand,'' she said at one point.

Wow! So the State of Florida is arguing it is ok to take the custody away from a woman (and father) based on the fine print of a conversation that took place with a crooked would-be translator? Someone needs to tell the Judge that the United States says you must disregard anything said without a a Grade A plus official Government translator is null and voice - so much that it compells us to release known terrorists.

But how about the situation of poor Mrs. Perez. Granted we don't know the whole story, but the fact that her husband left her and then goes BACK to Cuba is astounding. So is her opinion of the American Dream. But as that does not fit in the narrative Mr. Cubas is so known for.

This case appears to be going the way of justice, probably the reason why the Cuban press (and Fidel) have so far been silent about the case. But the silence of the US media speaks volumes about how stories that don't fit the mold of the "American Dream" get treated (only the Post, NPR, a few papers and local Florida media have really covered the story thus far, but I sense a surge gathering).

US-Cuba Custody Battle Heats Up - Elian Pt II?

2007-08-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

Joe Cubas - infamous "sports agent" specializing in bribing Cuban baseball players to defect for promises of corvettes, blonds and millions. He's since had to quit that gig after he was found to have abused the very players he was supposed to "help."

Rafael Izquierdo, a part-time fisherman and malanga farmer who wants his child back in Cuba. The mother agrees. This should be an open and shut case. But with Cuba, it never is. And when money and power are against you, you can never trust the law.

Expect this case to heat up in the media now that a gag order was lifted by the judge in the case. Beyond the blatant injustice involved, where a mother and father lose their rights to act in the best interests of a child, I was struck by this quote from the mother of the children, who left Cuba in 2005: “I know it goes wonderfully for some people, but I’m very disenchanted in this country,” Ms Pérez said. “My experience here has been abysmal. My two children and I experienced nothing but hard times.

Judging from some comments from the Miami Cuban exile community, it appears they have learned their lesson about looking like anti-family extremists in front of the nation. Unfortunately the State of Florida has not.

Times UK - August 28, 2007
Cuban fisherman fights celebrity sports agent for tug-of-love daughter
James Bone in New York

A Cuban man’s struggle to retrieve his young daughter from a prominent Cuban-American foster father in Miami threatens to start a new tug-of-war between the two nations, reminiscent of the battle over Elian González.

Rafael Izquierdo, 32, a part-time fisherman who farms malanga and other crops in the small town of Cabaiguán, went to court in Miami yesterday to seek the return of his four-year-old daughter, who was taken to America by her mother.

But the state of Florida argued that the girl should remain with her foster father, Joe Cubas, 46, a controversial former sports agent who made a career out of representing defecting Cuban baseball stars.

The custody battle had been proceeding quietly in family court until the judge lifted a gagging order on both sides before the trial. “It’s going to explode,” Judge Jerri Cohen said. “I know that as sure as I sit here. I can’t prevent that.”

Mr Izquierdo’s daughter arrived in Florida in 2004 when her mother, Elena Pérez, won a visa lottery allowing her to move to America with her son and daughter, each of whom has a different father. Both fathers gave their permission for their children to go with Ms Pérez, but she lost custody of them when she was taken to hospital after a suicide attempt in December 2005.

“I know it goes wonderfully for some people, but I’m very disenchanted in this country,” Ms Pérez said. “My experience here has been abysmal. My two children and I experienced nothing but hard times. One horrible night, I decided that my kids would be better off without me and did something stupid. I’m not crazy. I have been depressed and had many sleepless nights, but I’m fine.”

The two children ended up in foster care with Mr Cubas, who became something of a folk hero in Miami’s “Little Havana” because of his career. He reportedly lost his certification as a sports agent in 2005 after one defector accused him of refusing to return his immigration papers unless he paid triple the standard fee. Mr Cubas now works in real estate. Ms Pérez agreed to allow the Cubas family to adopt her son, now 13, but not her daughter.

Mr Izquierdo says that he will not return to Cuba until he can take his daughter back home, where she has a room with a bed and toys waiting for her. “When I let her come, it was with the understanding that she was coming with her mother. Now she belongs with me,” he told reporters.

Mr Cubas insists that the two half-siblings should remain together. The state of Florida agrees. Florida officials have filed court papers alleging that Ms Pérez told fellow residents in Cabaiguán that Mr Izquierdo beat her, including once with a coat hanger, and “did not want Ms Pérez to carry her pregnancy to term”. Ms Pérez denies that she was the victim of abuse.

The Cuban exile community in Miami is bracing itself for the little girl to be sent back to the communist island, as Elian González was.

“If the mother is saying she should be with the father, and the father is saying he wants his daughter, it would be very difficult for her not to go with him,” said Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a popular local Spanish-language radio host. “Cubans understand that the right of parents should be above all.”

Viva Fidel Castro: Why America Hates Cuba

2007-08-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

As the (probably wrong once again) rumors fly in Miami, perhaps it is time to reflect on why the United States has always hated Fidel Castro Ruz. The answer is simple, and serious US foreign policy documents have always been clear about this. The risk is that the very existence of the regime, by not subordinating itself to the world power just 90 miles away, is just an unacceptable defiance for the rest of the world.

Let us hear what someone else has said on the matter

What is Cuba’s sin? What honest person has any reason to attack her?

With their own blood and the weapons seized from the enemy, the Cuban people overthrew a cruel tyranny with 80,000 men under arms, imposed by the U.S. government.

Cuba was the first territory free from imperialist domination in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the only country in the hemisphere, throughout post-colonial history, where the torturers, murderers and war criminals that took the lives of tens of thousands of people were exemplarily punished.

All of the country’s land was recovered and turned over to the peasants and agricultural workers. The natural resources, industries and basic services were placed in the hands of their only true owner: the Cuban nation.

In less than 72 hours, fighting ceaselessly, day and night, Cuba crushed the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion organized by a U.S. administration, thereby preventing a direct military intervention by this country and a war of incalculable consequences. The Revolution already had the Rebel Army, over 400,000 weapons and hundreds of thousands of militia members.

In 1962, Cuba confronted with honor, and without a single concession, the risk of being attacked with dozens of nuclear weapons.

It defeated the dirty war that spread throughout the entire country, at a cost in human lives even greater than that of the war of liberation.

It stoically endured thousands of acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks organized by the U.S. government.

It thwarted hundreds of assassination plots against the leaders of the Revolution.

While under a rigorous blockade and economic warfare that have lasted for almost half a century, Cuba was able to eradicate in just one year the illiteracy that has still not been overcome in the course of more than four decades by the rest of the countries of Latin America, or the United States itself.

It has brought free education to 100% of the country’s children.

It has the highest school retention rate –over 99% between kindergarten and ninth grade– of all of the nations in the hemisphere.

Its elementary school students rank first worldwide in the knowledge of their mother language and mathematics.

The country also ranks first worldwide with the highest number of teachers per capita and the lowest number of students per classroom.

All children with physical or mental challenges are enrolled in special schools.

Computer education and the use of audiovisual methods now extend to all of the country’s children, adolescents and youth, in both the cities and the countryside.

For the first time in the world, all young people between the ages of 17 and 30, who were previously neither in school nor employed, have been given the opportunity to resume their studies while receiving an allowance.

All citizens have the possibility of undertaking studies that will take them from kindergarten to a doctoral degree without spending a penny.

Today, the country has 30 university graduates, intellectuals and professional artists for every one there was before the Revolution.

The average Cuban citizen today has at the very least a ninth-grade level of education.

Not even functional illiteracy exists in Cuba.

There are schools for the training of artists and art instructors throughout all of the country’s provinces, where over 20,000 young people are currently studying and developing their talent and vocation. Tens of thousands more are doing the same at vocational schools, and many of these then go on to undertake professional studies.

University campuses are progressively spreading to all of the country’s municipalities. Never in any other part of the world has such a colossal educational and cultural revolution taken place as this that will turn Cuba, by far, into the country with the highest degree of knowledge and culture in the world, faithful to Martí’s profound conviction that "no freedom is possible without culture."

Infant mortality has been reduced from 60 per 1000 live births to a rate that fluctuates between 6 and 6.5, which is the lowest in the hemisphere, from the United States to Patagonia.

Life expectancy has increased by 15 years.

Infectious and contagious diseases like polio, malaria, neonatal tetanus, diphtheria, measles, rubella, mumps, whooping cough and dengue have been eradicated; others like tetanus, meningococcal meningitis, hepatitis B, leprosy, hemophilus meningitis and tuberculosis are fully controlled.

Today, in our country, people die of the same causes as in the most highly developed countries: cardiovascular diseases, cancer, accidents, and others, but with a much lower incidence.

A profound revolution is underway to bring medical services closer to the population, in order to facilitate access to health care centers, save lives and alleviate suffering.

In-depth research is being carried out to break the chain, mitigate or reduce to a minimum the problems that result from genetic, prenatal or childbirth-related causes.

Cuba is today the country with the highest number of doctors per capita in the world, with almost twice as many as those that follow closer.

Our scientific centers are working relentlessly to find preventive or therapeutic solutions for the most serious diseases.

Cubans will have the best healthcare system in the world, and will continue to receive all services absolutely free of charge.

Social security covers 100% of the country’s citizens.

In Cuba, 85% of the people own their homes and they pay no property taxes on them whatsoever. The remaining 15% pay a wholly symbolic rent, which is only 10% of their salary.

Illegal drug use involves a negligible percentage of the population, and is being resolutely combated.

Lottery and other forms of gambling have been banned since the first years of the Revolution to ensure that no one pins their hopes of progress on luck.

There is no commercial advertising on Cuban television and radio or in our printed publications. Instead, these feature public service announcements concerning health, education, culture, physical education, sports, recreation, environmental protection, and the fight against drugs, accidents and other social problems. Our media educate, they do not poison or alienate. They do not worship or exalt the values of decadent consumer societies.

Discrimination against women was eradicated, and today women make up 64% of the country’s technical and scientific workforce.

From the earliest months of the Revolution, not a single one of the forms of racial discrimination copied from the south of the United States was left intact. In recent years, the Revolution has been particularly striving to eliminate any lingering traces of the poverty and lack of access to education that afflicted the descendants of those who were enslaved for centuries, creating objective differences that tended to be perpetuated. Soon, not even a shadow of the consequences of that terrible injustice will remain.

There is no cult of personality around any living revolutionary, in the form of statues, official photographs, or the names of streets or institutions. The leaders of this country are human beings, not gods.

In our country there are no paramilitary forces or death squads, nor has violence ever been used against the people. There are no executions without due process and no torture. The people have always massively supported the activities of the Revolution. This rally today is proof of that.

Light years separate our society from what has prevailed until today in the rest of the world. We cultivate brotherhood and solidarity among individuals and peoples both in the country and abroad.

The new generations and the entire people are being educated about the need to protect the environment. The media are used to build environmental awareness.

Our country steadfastly defends its cultural identity, assimilating the best of other cultures while resolutely combating everything that distorts, alienates and degrades.

The development of wholesome, non-professional sports has raised our people to the highest ranks worldwide in medals and honors.

Scientific research, at the service of our people and all humanity, has increased several-hundredfold. As a result of these efforts, important medications are saving lives in Cuba and other countries.

Cuba has never undertaken research or development of a single biological weapon, because this would be in total contradiction with the principles and philosophy underlying the education of our scientific personnel, past and present.

In no other people has the spirit of international solidarity become so deeply rooted.

Our country supported the Algerian patriots in their struggle against French colonialism, at the cost of damaging political and economic relations with such an important European country as France.

We sent weapons and troops to defend Algeria from Moroccan expansionism, when the king of this country sought to take control of the iron mines of Gara Djebilet, near the city of Tindouf, in southwest Algeria.

At the request of the Arab nation of Syria, a full tank brigade stood guard between 1973 and 1975 alongside the Golan Heights, when this territory was unjustly seized from that country.

The leader of the Republic of Congo when it first achieved independence, Patrice Lumumba, who was harassed from abroad, received our political support. When he was assassinated by the colonial powers in January of 1961, we lent assistance to his followers.

Four years later, in 1965, Cuban blood was shed in the western region of Lake Tanganyika, where Che Guevara and more than 100 Cuban instructors supported the Congolese rebels who were fighting against white mercenaries in the service of the man supported by the West, that is, Mobutu whose 40 billion dollars, the same that he stole, nobody knows what European banks they are kept in, or in whose power.

The blood of Cuban instructors was shed while training and supporting the combatants of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, who fought under the command of Amilcar Cabral for the liberation of these former Portuguese colonies.

The same was true during the ten years that Cuba supported Agostinho Neto’s MPLA in the struggle for the independence of Angola. After independence was achieved, and over the course of 15 years, hundreds of thousands of Cuban volunteers participated in defending Angola from the attacks of racist South African troops that in complicity with the United States, and using dirty war tactics, planted millions of mines, wiped out entire villages, and murdered more than half a million Angolan men, women and children.

In Cuito Cuanavale and on the Namibian border, to the southwest of Angola, Angolan and Namibian forces together with 40,000 Cuban troops dealt the final blow to the South African troops. This resulted in the immediate liberation of Namibia and speeded up the end of apartheid by perhaps 20 to 25 years. At the time, the South Africans had seven nuclear warheads that Israel had supplied to them or helped them to produce, with the full knowledge and complicity of the U.S. government.

Throughout the course of almost 15 years, Cuba had a place of honor in its solidarity with the heroic people of Viet Nam, caught up in a barbaric and brutal war with the United States. That war killed four million Vietnamese, in addition to all those left wounded and mutilated, not to mention the fact that the country was inundated with chemical compounds that continue to cause incalculable damage. The pretext: Viet Nam, a poor and underdeveloped country located 20,000 kilometers away, constituted a threat to the national security of the United States.

Cuban blood was shed together with that of citizens of numerous Latin American countries, and together with the Cuban and Latin American blood of Che Guevara, murdered on instructions from U.S. agents in Bolivia, when he was wounded and being held prisoner after his weapon had been rendered useless by a shot received in battle.

The blood of Cuban construction workers, that were nearing completion of an international airport vital for the economy of a tiny island fully dependent on tourism, was shed fighting in defense of Grenada, invaded by the United States under cynical pretexts.

Cuban blood was shed in Nicaragua, when instructors from our Armed Forces were training the brave Nicaraguan soldiers confronting the dirty war organized and armed by the United States against the Sandinista revolution.

And there are even more examples.

Over 2000 heroic Cuban internationalist combatants gave their lives fulfilling the sacred duty of supporting the liberation struggles for the independence of other sister nations. However, there is not one single Cuban property in any of those countries. No other country in our era has exhibited such sincere and selfless solidarity.

Cuba has always preached by example. It has never given in. It has never sold out the cause of another people. It has never made concessions. It has never betrayed its principles. There must be some reason why, just 48 hours ago, it was reelected by acclamation in the United Nations Economic and Social Council to another three years in the Commission on Human Rights, of which it has now been a member for 15 straight years.

More than half a million Cubans have carried out internationalist missions as combatants, as teachers, as technicians or as doctors and health care workers. Tens of thousands of the latter have provided their services and saved millions of lives over the course of more than 40 years. There are currently 3000 specialists in Comprehensive General Medicine and other healthcare personnel working in the most isolated regions of 18 Third World countries. Through preventive and therapeutic methods they save hundreds of thousands of lives every year, and maintain or restore the health of millions of people, without charging a penny for their services.

Without the Cuban doctors offered to the United Nations in the event that the necessary funds are obtained –without which entire nations and even whole regions of sub-Saharan Africa face the risk of perishing– the crucial programs urgently needed to fight AIDS would be impossible to carry out.

The developed capitalist world has created abundant financial capital, but it has not in any way created the human capital that the Third World desperately needs.

Cuba has developed techniques to teach reading and writing by radio, with accompanying texts now available in five languages –Haitian Creole, Portuguese, French, English and Spanish– that are already being used in numerous countries. It is nearing completion of a similar program in Spanish, of exceptionally high quality, to teach literacy by television. These are programs that were developed in Cuba and are genuinely Cuban. We are not interested in patents and exclusive copyrights. We are willing to offer them to all of the countries of the Third World, where most of the world’s illiterates are concentrated, without charging a penny. In five years, the 800 million illiterate people in the world could be reduced by 80%, at a minimal cost.

After the demise of the USSR and the socialist bloc, nobody would have bet a dime on the survival of the Cuban Revolution. The United States tightened the blockade. The Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts were adopted, both extraterritorial in nature. We abruptly lost our main markets and supplies sources. The population’s average calorie and protein consumption was reduced by almost half. But our country withstood the pressures and even advanced considerably in the social field.

Today, it has largely recovered with regard to nutritional requirements and is rapidly progressing in other fields. Even in these conditions, the work undertaken and the consciousness built throughout the years succeeded in working miracles. Why have we endured? Because the Revolution has always had, as it still does and always will to an ever-greater degree, the support of the people, an intelligent people, increasingly united, educated and combative.

Cuba was the first country to extend its solidarity to the people of the United States on September 11, 2001. It was also the first to warn of the neo-fascist nature of the policy that the extreme right in the United States, which fraudulently came to power in November of 2000, was planning to impose on the rest of the world. This policy did not emerge as a response to the atrocious terrorist attack perpetrated against the people of the United States by members of a fanatical organization that had served other U.S. administrations in the past. It was coldly and carefully conceived and developed, which explains the country’s military build-up and enormous spending on weapons at a time when the Cold War was already over, and long before September 11, 2001. The fateful events of that day served as an ideal pretext for the implementation of such policy.

All said by Fidel Castro himself in a speech in 2003

Cuban Activists Gathering Signatures to Change Cuba Law on Hard Currency

2007-08-20T23:27:00.000-07:00

A "dollar store" (that no longer takes dollars) in Havana.

The Associated Press
Friday, August 17, 200
HAVANA: A little-known group of rural Cuban woman said Friday it has gathered more than 6,000 signatures petitioning lawmakers to study the possibility of a law closing the gaps in a dual economy they say hurts the island's poorest people the most.

The petition asks the government to allow the use of standard Cuban pesos — the currency of state employee salaries — in upscale stores, restaurants and hotels that only accept the convertible Cuban peso, whose value is linked to the U.S. dollar.

Crowded into the tiny living room of a modest Havana apartment, a half-dozen members of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women told journalists that they launched their campaign, called "With the Same Money," a year ago and still need 4,000 more signatures to present them to the Cuban parliament, known as the National Assembly.

Sounds like a basis for an interesting discussion, though at first thought it perhaps seems to defeat the very purpose of having "hard currency" stores. But I wish them luck.

At least that was my sentiment until I clicked on the link and immediately saw mentions of a tribute to Brothers to the Resuce, releasing "political prisoners," an "independent library" and other Miami fingerprints. So I did of quick bit of googlng and found that FLAMUR was started by a Mrs. Magaedilia Hidalgo" - who is from Las Tunas but now lives in Miami. She was an "independent journalist" for the US Government funded Cuba Free Press association and also ran an independent library out of her home. The video of a FLAMUR meeting, begins with thanking Freedom House - another US Govt funded anti-Cuba org. There are other links to a Polish "Solidarity with Cuba" group, who just met with US "Transition Coordinatory" Caleb McCarry... alltogether not the best company for a group trying something like this. Why is it always the same story?

One might also wonder why a "rural" group would be concerned about shopping at hard currency stores since they are mostly in urban areas?

Obama Calls for Easing Anti-Cuba Restrictions

2007-08-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

So Barack Obama has taken the bold step into Cuban-American politics. He is set to release an op-ed announcing his intention to reverse a couple mean-spirited Bush policies that affect Cuban-Americans ability to travel and send money to relatives.

Obama's move is a modest and politically popular position - even in most Miami neighborhoods. Still, to be the first to stake out this easy position was politically very smart. It could help him in the Florida (and NJ) primaries. If someone wanted to trump him, and get help in the farm states, they'd pledge to also end the senseless agricultural restrictions (on payment and just doing business). If convictions trumped politics, they'd pledge to also end the travel ban.

I find the hardline response in the Herald (from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC's Claver-Carone) to be completely uninformed: "It (Obama's as yet unknown op-ed) entrenches the regime at this historic time."

Havana already knows the their prospects in Washington are better than at any time in recent history. As long as they don't make any mistakes, Cuba will be in a position to negotiate (behind the scenes) with the next Admin successfully. I think Raul has been trying to make that clear. Cuba could care little about reversing these stupid Bush policies. They will wait until they get a just return from the US in return for any planned reforms. Perhaps a grand bargain - property claims cancel out embargo damages. End of embargo for certain political or economic adjustments that give the US political cover. The path seems to be getting clearer as Cuba's relative strength increases. Obama however, is not to blame - Bush's stupid policies and Cuba's relative strength and stability are.

UPDATE: The editorial is online now and while it predictably talks a lot about what Cuba must do, it also talks about positive steps an Obama Administration is willing to do to at the same time to eventually, hopefull, drop the embargo.

Obama's piece blends nicely with what is coming out of Havana in terms of a view towards an endgame negotiated settlement. The following paragraph, to me, is more significant than any appeal to drop a couple anti-family Bush provisions. It is the first time I've heard a serious candidate talk about moving concurrently with Cuba, rather than wait for some unrealistic moving target of Western style markets and democracy in Cuba.

Accordingly, I will use aggressive and principled diplomacy to send an important message: If a post-Fidel government begins opening Cuba to democratic change, the United States (the president working with Congress) is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades. That message coming from my administration in bilateral talks would be the best means of promoting Cuban freedom. To refuse to do so would substitute posturing for serious policy -- and we have seen too much of that in other areas over the past six years.

Cuban Five Appeal Begins in Atlanta

2007-08-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today a US federal appeals court began reconsidering whether the "Cuban Five" - 5 Cubans convicted of spying on violent Miami exile groups - are going to get a new trial. They were arrested in 1998 and given long sentances (including 3 life terms), by a Miami area jury, which was later (unprecidentedly) found by an Court to be fatally biased and unfair. This same court later overruled that decision, bringing us here to deal with the trial's other serious problems...

In Cuba, the Five are considered hereos for infiltrating groups connected to terrorist groups who were placing bombs in hotels in Havana in the mid 1990s and were planning more. The Cuban government says the trial was political and accuses the US of double standards in the fight against terror (particularly coming a few days after one of the actual terrorists were let out early from jail after doing jsut 22 months).

The court in Atlanta is hearing oral submissions on defence claims about lack of evidence and the length of the sentences. It must then decide if there are grounds for a retrial.

The 5 men's lawyers are arguing that no evidence was produced in the courtroom that proved the prosecutors chief accusation - that they were guilty of obtaining and transmitting US military secrets to Havana. The prosecution broke Court rules in making this accusation and numerous improprieties were observed in the closing arguments. Numerous ex-high ranking US officials who viewed the evidence said in Court, that it showed no secrets or sensitive information was comprimised. The 5 were using 100% open sources like newspapers and flight patterns.

Defense lawyers will also argue the 3 life terms, 12 and 19 year sentences were unduly harsh, considering similar cases. An American agent of Sadaam Hussein was given only 4 years for doing similar work for Iraq. Also, the very fact that the US sees it their right to work covertly in other countries to thwart terrorism. Why can't Cuba???

Meanwhile, the US press continues to misrepresent the case, calling them spies in their headlines. The Miami Herald reports on opening arguments on Day 1.

There are more than 300 chapters of "FREE THE FIVE" groups worldwide, yet few Americans know about the case. The head of the gruops said, ''If the American people only knew of the mission of these men, they'd call for their freedom immediately,. They fought terrorism peacefully. They only monitored and reported. And that's what's so egregious about this case.'

Unfree Markets = Increased Latin American Prosperity

2007-08-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

The normally half-way decent Economist magazine published a totally dishonest piece this week trying to spin a story about the growing middle class in Latin America TOTALLY to the right. While the UN (ECLAC) report the piece is supposedly based on it upbeat, it says nothing to support the thesis that moderate market friendly policies are finally paying dividends for the poor. They focus (conveniently) on Mexico and Brazil, though the data points toward Argentina leading Venezuela registering the most significant drops in poverty. Of course those 2 countries are doing exactly what the US and neo-liberal concensus deplore - increasing State control over natural resources and monetary policy.

I wrote about this particular media crime over at BloggingsbyBoz:

Yeah, the macro economic snad social situation is much improved today versus just 5-6 years ago. But the region is only finally getting to the point where they were in 1980. We all know what kind of reforms characterized the period of 1980-2002. We all know the trends since then...

Unconscionably, in a piece obsencibly about poverty reduction, not one mention is made of the place where rates have fallen the fastest, and most impressively = Venezuela. HH poverty rates have gone from 55% in 2003 to 30.1% in 2006 - a more dramatic decline than in even Argentina since their collapse.

Meanwhile, the stats regarding the "golden boys" of Mexico and Brazil had to be cherry picked from other sources to sound convincing. The reality is that Brazil has seen a miniscule decrease in poverty rates since '99 (1.5% points), and Mexico barely moved under Fox. Likewise "market friendly" Costa Rica, Panama and Peru recorded the largest poverty INcreases in that time frame. Conversely, the biggest employment boosts in the last 3 years came in Argentina, Uruguay, Panama and Venezuela. The report takes a special look at Argentina and concludes the ("peronist") economic growth of the last few years resulted in hugely better employment and wage results than during even similar growth periods during the "macroeconomic reforms" of decades previous (pg 120).

It is true that informal and temporary employment continues to rise at the expense of permanent private and State jobs. But this is nothing to applaud, as wages, labor rights, stability and social security all go out the window. The ability of States to fund retirees is becoming in serious doubt. In Brazil and Mexico, fewer workers have SS coverage than in 1990. In fact, in only four countries (Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru) did the
purchasing power of wages actually fall during the period. In Mexico the real minimum wage also fell.

The simple fact is that Brazil and Mexico lag well behind the pack in nearly every measure, while Venezuela and Argentina strongly lead. To say, market reforms are "FINALLY bearing some fruit" is more than a little digingenous. Shameful.

Cuba: Hope or No Hope After Raul's Big Speech?

2007-08-09T23:08:00.000-07:00
After the historic speech by Raul Castro 2 weeks ago, one might wonder how Cubans are reacting. One might even wonder how the same old official half-dozen "dissidents" are feeling. Do they feel "hope" or not. Well it depends, as we see through the magic of google. 2 good ole non idiological reporters reach 2 totally opposite opinions based on almost the exact same content. This is the type of sh*t Cuba watchers like me have to deal with in the US.

Hint: read the headlines of the top 2 stories carefully.

22 Cubans on anti-US Hunger Strike - At Gitmo

2007-08-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

As a 22 person hunger strike continues on American soil, only the AP (outside of Miami) has written or said anything on this sad story in the US press. A total of 16 newspapers of the thousands around the globe Google brings together have found space for it. As a comparision, hundreds of Western newspapers reported last year on one Cuban hunger striker (who wanted free internet access).

The sadness and irony of this affair is perhaps too much for American newsrooms. I don't know what it is, but this story should be news. The American public should know that 1) we are keeping supposed refugees behind bars for years at a place with not the best reputation, 2) that they are being mistreated and given the run around for 1-2 years, and 3) supposedly persecuted Cubans are actually saying 'no thanks' to offers to go to 3rd countries like Hungary - and feel so strongly that they are hunger striking. Something about beggers and choosers comes to mind, but that should be obvious. The absurdity of the US turning away supposedly presecuted refugees but taking in any Tom or Jose who washes up on Florida beaches (or gets caught crossing the Mexican border) should be obvious...

Phil Peters gives some fine background and analysis.

Mostly, when we hear of the wet foot/dry foot policy, it’s when migrants are intercepted at sea and returned to Cuba. Others, however, are sent to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo because when they are interviewed on the Coast Guard vessels, their statements indicate that they might qualify for refugee status because they establish a well founded fear of persecution if they were to be returned to Cuba.

In Guantanamo they are interviewed further, and a final decision is made. If they do qualify, the United States finds a third country to accept them for resettlement. That way, the thinking goes, the United States honors its obligation not to return people to a place where they face persecution, and at the same time avoids sending a signal to Cubans that getting picked up by the Coast Guard is the first step to gaining entry to the United States. (The U.S message is that rather than take to sea, they should go to the U.S. consulate in Havana where they can be receive a refugee visa to come to the United States if they qualify.)

The problem for those in Guantanamo is that, as Wilfredo Cancio reports in today’s El Nuevo Herald, the process takes a long time – he interviews one Cuban who has been at the base for more than two years; another has been there one year and three months. 22 of the 44 Cubans on the base are now in the tenth day of a hunger strike, Cancio reports, protesting the length of their stay and their treatment by U.S. authorities.

Representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an organization that helps to resettle refugees around the world, assist U.S. authorities at Guantanamo.

One of the hunger strikers and his pregnant wife were offered resettlement in Hungary. But for “reasons of idiosincracia” and the language barrier, Cancio reports, they declined to go to Hungary and at that point the IOM apparently withdrew its sponsorship of the couple.

The article does not tell if any other protesters have rejected similar offers of resettlement.

I don’t blame anyone for wanting to come to America. And maybe, as the protesters allege, they are mistreated at Guantanamo. But if the real grievance is that they oppose resettlement in third countries, then I find it hard to side against the U.S. government on this one. There are about ten million refugees in camps and holding centers around the world, and millions more who are displaced within their own countries. Very few receive offers of resettlement; the United States, for example, only admits about 50,000 refugees per year. Hungary, in the scheme of things, is not a bad option.

Cuban boxers who Defected are 'Repentant,' Want to Return to Cuba

2007-08-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

An amazing turn of event here. I wonder how they will be recieved back in Havana? Probably as heroes - in the streets if not by the regime. They will probably be given opportunities to speak frankly to the Cuban people about temptations and what is really important in life (perhaps it is not money after all)?

Rio de Janeiro - Two Cuban boxers who were arrested in Brazil after defecting during last month's Pan American Games told police they are "repentant" and want to "return home," authorities said Friday. Erislandy Lara and Guillermo Rigondeaux were staying at a hotel in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, whose name was not made public for security reasons. They are no longer under arrest but being kept under surveillance because they are in Brazil illegally, police commissioner Felicio Laterca said.

Rigondeaux, 25, and Lara, 24, were found Thursday in Araruama, in the north-west of the state of Rio. The two boxers disappeared during the games on July 21 and reportedly signed contracts with Germany's Arena Box-Promotion.

The two boxers told police they left the Pan American Village in the company of two businessmen - a German and a Cuban citizen - who promised to take them to Europe to embark on a professional career.

But they have since apparently changed their minds, saying they regretted the defection and hoped to return to Cuba. The sportsmen rejected the assistance of lawyers who said they had been sent by the businessmen.

Police said the two Cubans were identified Thursday because they spoke no Portuguese and had no money or papers on them.

Brazilian daily O Globo reported that they had spent the past few days with two Europeans and three prostitutes in a hotel, and were expecting forged documents from Germany in order to leave Brazil.
Whole thing

Venezuela: The Economic Miracle Under Hugo Chavez

2007-07-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

We tend to hear the same things from the Chavez bashers about Venezuela's economy: That it is headed over a cliff, that the current prosperity is just an oil illusion, that the private sector is being choked, that the poor are not really better off, etc. We never get any date to prove those remarks, but they "seem" true to enough newspaper writers and bloggers to get repeated ad nauseum.

Well here are the real facts, from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which shows all of that is just plain bull. I call the impressive results an "economic miracle" because we have been told by our leaders and economists for years that it is impossible to pursue socialistsic economic policies and have results such as these:

Since the bottom of that downturn in the first quarter of 2003, Venezuela's real GDP has grown by 76 percent.

Moreover, the private sector is still a larger share of the economy than it was before President Chávez took office.

In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, social spending per person has increased by 170 percent during the period 1998-2006. But this does not include the state oil company PDVSA’s social spending, which was 7.3 percent of GDP in 2006. With this included, social spending was at least 314 percent more in 2006 than in 1998 (in terms of real social spending per person). This has brought about significant gains for the poor in health care, subsidized food, and access to education, some of which are detailed in the paper.

The official poverty rate, which measures only cash income and does not include such advances as increased access to health care and education, has dropped by 31 percent from 1998 to the end of 2006 – from 43.9 percent of households to 30.6 percent. Measured unemployment has dropped from 15 percent in June 1999 to 8.3 percent in June 2007.

The government's revenue increased even faster than spending during this period, from 17.4 to 30 percent of GDP over the same period, leaving the central government with a balanced budget for 2006. The government has planned conservatively with respect to oil prices: for example, for 2007, the budget plans for oil at $29 per barrel, 52 percent under the average $60.20 dollars per barrel that Venezuelan crude sold for last year.

In 1998 there were 1,628 primary care physicians for a population of 23.4. Today, there are 19,571 for a population of 27 million. The Venezuelan government has also provided widespread access to subsidized food. By 2006, there were 15,726 stores throughout the country that offered mainly food items at subsidized prices (with average savings of 27% and
39% compared to market prices in 2005 and 2006, respectively).

In Cuba, the Obese Can Become Ballerinas

2007-07-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

Wonderful stories like this are commonplace in Cuba - whether it is sports leagues for the mentally disabled, good jobs for the physically disabled, exercise for the elderly. The State assures the all marginalized sectors are given ample opportunities to the rights of work, study and play.

This dance troupe does not hide from the reality of obesity in Cuba, while giving the obese a chance to express themselves through dance, something denied in most places. It is hard to even consider something like this being taken seriously in the United States - let alone funded and being so well recieved. The market does not even allow obese people to be on TV or the theatre, let alone dance.

New York Times
HAVANA, July 28 — The prima ballerina of the Danza Voluminosa troupe weighs 286 pounds, and as she thumps gracefully across the floor, she gives new meaning to the words stage presence. Her body is a riotous celebration of weight — of ample belly and breasts, of thick legs and arms, of the crushing reality of gravity.

“I always liked to dance,” the dancer, Mailín Daza, said later. “I wanted to dance in the classical ballet, but my mother told me fat girls could not dance. I always dreamed of being a ballerina. With this group, I feel I am a ballerina.”

Formed a decade ago by Juan Miguel Mas, this company of obese dancers has become a cultural phenomenon in Cuba, breaking stereotypes here of dance, redefining the aesthetics of beauty and, along the way, raising the self-esteem of heavyset people.
...
For the dancers, working with Mr. Mas has changed their lives. Several said they suffered from constant embarrassment and guilt over their weight before they began dancing. But dancing has taught them to accept, if not love, their bodies. They also say that after a performance, they feel self-esteem that is foreign to most them, having suffered from the gibes of their peers since childhood.
...
The reaction of audiences has been immensely positive. The government lets the troupe practice and perform in the National Theater of Cuba. Mr. Mas now receives a state salary to continue his work. The dancers who have been with the troupe for years say that when the group started in November 1996, they faced ridicule and laughter. These days, people take them seriously.
Whole Thing

Cuba: Benicio to play 'Che' Guevara in "Guerilla"

2007-07-20T01:16:00.000-07:00

It is the so perfectly ironic (and a classic example of "blowback") that in killing Che, the CIA did more to create a socialist icon than could have ever been dreamed of. Che seems to be going nowhere and more popular than ever...

His remains are still being battled over between ex CIA agents and Cuba, who just yesterday, claimed to have put to rest questions about the authenticity of the handless body shipped to Havana in 1995.

Oh yeah, speaking of Che, the blowhards over at Babalu blog have a new censorship campaign. This time against the Smithsonian, who has dared issue a collection of music and speeches collected in Cuba in the 60s, including one from Che. Mambi Watch has got the scoop - and where you can write to help preserve free speech and counteract the small but radical Miami crowd.

As for the "Guerilla" movie, I wonder if it will be about more than just Che in Bolivia? Hopefully Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro coming together again will result in something as good as Traffic. I'll probably find reasons to hate it...

The Associated Press, July 19, 2007
MADRID, Spain: Benicio del Toro will play Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara in a film directed by Steve Soderbergh, the film's production company said Thursday.

The production company did not release the title of the film, but del Toro's official Web site said it would be called "Guerrilla." The Spain-United States co-production will be filmed entirely in Spanish.

It is the second biography about the famous Argentine guerrilla in recent years following 2004's "The Motorcycle Diaries."

The film reunites del Toro with Soderbergh for the first time since "Traffic," for which del Toro won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his portrayal of a Mexican police officer.

Julia Ormond, who starred with Brad Pitt in "Legends of the Fall," and Catalina Sandino of "Maria Full of Grace" will co-star.

Canada's Harper Takes Shot at US, Gets Earful on Cuba

2007-07-19T11:44:00.001-07:00

New Conservative Canadian President Stephen Harper is testing the waters down south, trying to promote Canada as a kind of 3rd Way "model" for development (between Venezuela and US I suppose). Apparently things are not working out so well. His presence has been greeted by a big yawn from the Latin press, as well as protests and controversy.

In trying to present itself as distinct from the US, Harper mada an amazing shot at the United State. Unlike the US, Harper said the region has nothing to fear from Canada. "It is not in our past, nor within our power, to conquer or dominate," he said. He added Canada differs from the U.S. in its policies of "social cohesion," such as universal health care, equalization and other progressive institutions. Of course, he went on to bash Venezuela though not by name, for its "syndrome of economic nationalism, political authoritarianism and class warfare."

In Colombia, Harper seemed eager to present himself as a stong ally of beseigned President Uribe, facing a swirling and deepening "para-gate" scandal. In response, Uribe seemed to latch himself to Harper "like a piece of floating wood in an unfriendly ocean." Amnesty International and other Candadian NGOs are rightfully pissed

In the Carribean, Harper got an earful from the President of Barbados, Owen Arthur, on Cuba. Arthur said said Cuba should be respected for what it is, and be allowed to follow its own path, without foreign criticism or interference. "We have a relationship with Cuba that's over 30 years old," The world's approach to Cuba should be guided by principles of "respect for people's sovereignty, and non-interference, and the right of people to pursue alternative paths to their development," Arthur said. "Our hemisphere is diminished when we do not recognize Cuba, and validly so, as a citizen of our hemisphere, that needs to be integrated in the affairs of our hemisphere," he said, in particular reference to the United States's policy of non-engagement with Cuba.

Justice at Last for Leader of Haiti Coup

2007-07-18T00:17:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: It appears Philippe managed to escape arrest and is nowhere to be found. A brother over at Haiti-Cuba-Venezuela Analysis has some... well, analysis. Given all that Phillipe knows about the events of 2004 (the roles of prominent businessmen and the US) anything is possible.

It seems the reprecussions of the US backed toppling of Haitian President Aristide in 2004 coup are not going away. On Sunday thousands of Aristide supporters marched in the capital - against Rene Preval for not allowing his return. And now, we have reports that coupster Guy Philippe, trained by US Special Forces and installed by the US supported coup, has been arrested for drug running.

In fairness, the guy was supposedly estranged from US officials for quite some time. But this does not explain how Mr. Philippe ended up with all his new guns and uniforms before the coup, nor why the US forbid Aristide's security company from bringing in additional guards, nor help protect democracy from thugs and criminals when it mattered. instead the 1000 Marines stationed offshore landed the day AFTER Phillipe marched on Port Au Prince.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested a former rebel leader and presidential candidate with alleged ties to drug traffickers, Haitian radio reported.

U.S. and Haitian officials declined to comment on the Radio Metropole report, which cited eyewitnesses who said officers swooped down Monday in helicopters on the home of Guy Philippe, who helped toppled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

Earlier, both Metropole and Radio Vision2000 reported that foreign-looking agents searched Philippe's home in the southern coastal town of Les Cayes but found only his wife.

Metropole said later that the former rebel leader was captured in Les Cayes by DEA officers, but the station cited no source and gave no details on the status of the 39-year-old former police commander who ran for president in 2006.

Philippe was the police chief of Haiti's second largest city, Cap-Haitien, but fled the country in 2000 after being accused of plotting a coup. He returned in 2004 to help rebels topple Aristide in a three-week uprising.

Aristide called Philippe and other rebels "terrorists," and accused them of ties to drug traffickers who use Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic to reach the U.S.

Human Rights Watch says that while Philippe was police chief in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Delmas from 1997 to 1999, dozens of suspected gang members were executed by police under the command of his deputy.

Venezuela: Copa America a Success

2007-07-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

World Cup 2014 … in Venezuela?
By Simon Romero and Daniel Cancel, in Caracas - NY Times

Before this edition of the Copa América began, there were some dire predictions of political turmoil, organizational snafus, general chaos, and even local indifference to soccer from Venezuela’s baseball-loving public. So the bar was set fairly low for what might constitute success. But the tournament was a success even by objective terms — so successful, in fact, that today Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez will present FIFA president Sepp Blatter with the country’s formal application to play host to the 2014 World Cup.

It’s hugs all round among Chávez and the lords of football these days. On Sunday Blatter officially rescinded FIFA’s altitude ban which would have barred most Bolivian cities from staging World Cup qualifying games, thus acceding to the request of Chávez’s political ally, Bolivian president Evo Morales. And over the weekend Blatter noted that this year’s Copa was having “unprecedented repercussions” around the world, by which he meant that more people were paying attention to it than ever before.

Today at the presidential palace in Caracas, Chávez bestowed upon Blatter with a sash of the Order of Francisco de Miranda. “The Copa was incredible,” Blatter said, according to the Caracas daily El Universal. “It presented good football and an infrastructure of the first level.” The FIFA president went on to say that now, on his third visit to the country, he sees that soccer is now the “No. 1 sport” among Venezuelans. Still, Venezuela’s candidacy for 2014 would have to be considered a long shot; Brazil are tipped as the favorites to host the Mundial.

Nevertheless, Chávez praised the Vinotinto for their fifth-place finish at the Copa, as well as the champions — “¡Congratulations to my friend Lula and to Brazil on their championship!” he said — and tournament organizers for finishing the stadiums on time.
Whole thing

VIVA BRASIL!!!

Bush Vs. Castro on Latin American Social Justice

2007-07-16T18:40:00.000-07:00

For years US foreign policy elites have been telling the Bush Administration to get serious about the mounting problems of poverty and exclusion in Latin America. This is almost always framed as a way to counteract the growing anti-American and anti-free market sentiment - in order to reassert US & corporate dominance in the region.

Finally, almost 7 years of tone deafness and mounting electoral losses, we had the failed Bush trip to the region in March, which was preceded by Bush saying the words "social justice" and "the neighborhood" more than he ever had before. There were a couple new modest (but perfectly nice) health and educational programs, many pronnouncements about American values and mucho rehash of the same ole same ole.

Then we had 4 more months of the usual Castro-Chavez obsession, until last Monday's Bush chaired “Conversation on the Americas” event - designed as a follow up (echo chamber) to March's newfound social justice themes. But in the end we had nothing but a well rehearsed PR event full of press releases and empty rhetoric.

Everyone in Latin America knows the initiatives are too little too late, rife with hypocrisy, shallow in actual good deeds and therefore unlikely to produce anything near the desired result - reversing the dreadful polling data on the US in Latin America. The reason, like all US Government initiatives, is because any response must be organized solely within the confines of free market ideology and US foreign policy dictates.

Bush continues to hold dear to the BS that “the best way to help defeat poverty is to encourage commerce and trade.” While these are not necessarily bad things in and of themselves, the Administration does not say how that differs from the policy dictates of the last 27 years. Nor why the secret medicine is the narrow vision of NAFTA-style free trade pacts, which ignore the rights of workers, the environment and anyone or thing that can not be protected from the ravages of survival of the fittest? And nobody asks US officialdom why neoliberalism is so discredited in the world, why the 1980s and 90s were the worst decades on record for the poor people of Latin America, why Mexico has fared so badly, why Venezuela has prospered under Hugo Chavez?

In all the press releases and PR events, we have oft-repeated claims that Bush has “nearly doubled foreign assistance to the Western Hemisphere. But in fact Bush has proposed slashing “core development assistance” every year he has been in office, and that total aid dollars have dropped precipitously since 2001. In this year's budget, the proposed Bush Administration cuts amount to a 26% decrease from 2006 figures. Bush’s new money is mostly in the form of Millennium Challenge accounts, but these dollars only go towards 3 countries right now and are tied to discredited neo-liberal measures of progress.

We also hear repeatedly that the best way to overcome poverty in Latin America is through people to people relations, not government to government. This is little more than ideological trickery, as of course only people can help people, but only Governments can organize ways and means for people to help people. Of course, this is simply a way to say that the US may not be doing much directly, but we have billions in remittances and plenty of do-gooder Churches doing good work south of the border.

We have calls for extending health care and education “to all” at the same time the Bush Administration seems poised to veto a bi-partisan against extending basic health care to more children of the United States under the CHIP program. And for those who wonder whether such calls for universal health care in other countries is a bit absurd, when 50 million Americans lack access, don’t worry. According to Bush the United States already has universal health care access - “After all, you just go to an emergency room.” (July 10, 2007)

We have endless calls for “open and transparent government” from the same Government that has set new records for bogus claims of executive privilege and secrecy. And perhaps that is the central problem. Anything coming from war ciminal Senor Bush - this far into his term sounds as hollow as tin.

The list of relatively modest US Government development/aid programs on the fact sheet is aimed at winning hearts and minds, but are so limited and self-interested that they seem petty in comparision with the programs that even poor old Cuba manages to expand year after year. I will let Fidel Castro compare and contrast:

By Marc Frank, HAVANA
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro on Sunday scoffed at Bush administration efforts to ease social problems in Latin America, boasting his poor country could run circles around the United States in health and education aid.

"Bush will discover that the empire's political and economic system can't compete in the area of vital services such as education and health with Cuba, assaulted and blockaded for almost 50 years," Castro wrote in an editorial published by the official newspaper Rebel Youth.

"Everyone knows the U.S. specialty in the area of education is to steal brains," Castro charged, citing an International Labor Organization report that 47 percent of foreign-born students that complete a Ph.D. in the United States stay on there.

A Cuban literacy program is being used by millions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, Castro said.

The 80-year-old Cuban leader has taken to writing opinion pieces as he recovers from a series of intestinal surgeries over the last year.
....
Castro on Sunday ridiculed the current four-month tour of the region by the U.S. hospital ship Comfort.

"You can't carry out medical programs by episodes," he said, comparing the ship's coming weeklong stop in Haiti with the hundreds of Cuban doctors working for nearly a decade there alongside Haitians trained in Cuba.

Bush highlighted a Panama-based center that has upgraded the skills of 100 Central American doctors and plans to establish a nursing school, among other projects, during his opening speech at the Conference of the Americas.

Castro countered on Sunday with the Cuban-run eye clinics in the region that have operated on 700,000 of the region's poor.

"Our country has dozens of thousands of Latin American and Caribbean students studying medicine in an absolutely free program," Castro said.

"We are cooperating with Venezuela to train more than 20,000 youth there as doctors," he added.

Also check the excellent wrap up over at Left I on the News

Colombia: Uribe's Cousin Probed on Death Squad Links

2007-07-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

I am losing count, but I think we now have probes and indictments against the head of Colombia's Army, the head of the secret police, the ex-Foreign Minster's father and cousin, at least a dozen pro-Uribe legislators and now we have President Uribe's own first cousin. This comes a week after a video surfaced showing then candidate Uribe meeting with a most wanted terrorist.

The worst fears of conscientious observers is being confirmed in front of the world's eyes, but is barely being reported on because it is a bit inconvenient to have the Empire's bulwark against Chavismo implicated in such crimes. We now have proof that Colombia's most influential political, military and business figures helped build and assisted death squads and terrorists to operate with impunity, kill civilians and send cocaine to the U.S.

STILL, with the walls crumbling around Mr Uribe, we must read about conservative Canadian President wanting to cozy up to Uribe at this very moment. We must also read that Colombia's Foreign Minister thinks that anyone who has doubts about Uribe and his Government must be treated like "slow students." Likewise the Economist bemoans the fact that the international community does not show enough love towards Uribe and his Government. Darn state sponsored terrorism... how dare it interfere with trade preferences and military aid deals

Cousin of Colombia's Uribe probed for "para" links
By Hugh Bronstein
BOGOTA (Reuters) - A scandal linking political allies of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to right-wing death squads deepened on Wednesday when the Supreme Court opened an investigation into his first cousin, Senator Mario Uribe.

The president's international standing has already been damaged by the scandal in which his former security chief and some of his closest allies in Congress have been jailed and are awaiting trial for supporting paramilitary militias.

The scandal began late last year when members of Congress admitted they had signed a document agreeing to support paramilitary groups formed in the 1980s to help defend drug lords and cattle ranchers against left-wing rebels.

Since the 1990s the "paras" have grown rich on Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade and notorious for massacring peasants suspected of leftist sympathies.

"It is very worrying that the 'para-political' scandal is getting closer and closer to the president's inner circle," said Jorge Rojas, head of Colombia's top human rights group.
Whole thing

Fidel Castro: Cuba's Self Criticism

2007-07-11T10:21:00.000-07:00
Below is an excerpt from Fidel Castro's latest editorial. In it he bemoans the "irritating ineequalities" that have arisen in the wake of the 'special period' as a result of 50% or more of the population receiving dollars (or convertable pesos), while 50% receives only pesos. Dollars in Cuba provide an opportunity to buy many non-subsidized Western consumer goods because they are bought and sold in international market prices.

While we are on self-criticism, check out an exceprt from a new 'harsh' Cuban documentary about the migrants of Eastern Cuba to Havana called Buscándote Habana (Looking for Havana). It is an isse Fidel addresses frankly in a recently translated excerpt from Ignacio Ramonet's book Cien Horas Con Fidel (100 Hours With Fidel).

But I thought Cuba did not permit complaints (let alone award them at film festivals). Here is Fidel's latest missive:

Not all workers receive the incentive of convertible pesos, a practice that became generalized in a large number of companies during the Special Period, without always fulfilling the minimum committed requirements. Not everybody receives convertible currency from abroad, something which is not illegal but which at times creates irritating inequalities and privileges in a country that does its utmost to supply vital services free of charge to the entire population. I do not mention the juicy profits being made by those who transport people clandestinely, nor the way they would fool us by changing the US bills into other currencies in order to avoid our response measures against the dollar.

The real and visible lack of equality and the lack of pertinent information gives way to critical opinions, especially in the neediest sectors.

In Cuba, without a doubt, those who some way or another receive convertible pesos –even though in these cases the sums are limited –or those receiving currency from abroad, also acquire free essential social services, food, medicines and other goods at extremely low subsidized prices. However we are strictly fulfilling our financial obligations precisely because we are not a consumer society. We need serious, brave and conscientious managers.

Those using up gasoline all over the place with our current fleet of vehicles of all kinds; those who forget that the prices of food increase sharply and that raw materials for agriculture and industry, many of whose products are distributed to all at subsidized prices, must be acquired at market prices; those that forget that the country has the sacred duty to struggle until our last drop of blood and must spend money for raw materials and defensive measures faced with an enemy who is permanently on guard, they can compromise the independence and life of Cuba. We cannot fool around with that!