Bolivia: the battle for public opinion continues, and the restoration of democracy begins

Evo Morales committed electoral fraud in an attempted coup against Bolivian democracy.

Coup plotters: Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia

Listening now to the OAS Permanent Council as it considers the situation in Bolivia and the governments of Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela are attempting to rewrite what took place. In the case of the latter two countries the irony that they claim to be defending human rights and democracy would be grounds for satire if it were not so tragic.

Evo Morales attempted to follow the path trod by Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Both succeeded in undermining the rule of law, judicial independence, and compromised the electoral system in a slow motion coup against their respective democratic systems. Maduro and Ortega succeeded, and Morales appears to have failed in Bolivia.

There had been long term slow coup carried out by Evo Morales that sought to perpetuate his regime for another term power. Morales had already been in office for 13 years and nine months in power, and would have completed 14 years in office at the end of the current term.

A coup d'état in #Bolivia?

Yes. When they tried to steal the elections of October 20 and perpetuate @evoespueblo in power.
Part 1 of the speech of Secretary General @Almagro_OEA2015 to the #OAS Permanent Council. #OEAenBolivia pic.twitter.com/UBvmQklbqn

— OAS (@OAS_official) November 12, 2019

Evo Morales and his regime undermined the rule of law in Bolivia, compromised the independence and integrity of the judiciary and the electoral system that violated democratic norms. Furthermore Morales tried to build a highway through a national park occupied by indigenous communities that met popular resistance in 2011 and again in 2017. Morales also ignored a 2016 referendum against scrapping presidential term limits, and the October 20th fraudulent election combined with repression of protesters was the last straw for many Bolivians.

Morales had the Latin American disease of autocrats, he didn't want to leave, and Bolivian democrats should remain vigilant. This is not over. This is why the opposition maintains mobilized and in the streets. Now is the time to focus on restoring peace, stability and organizing free and fair elections that meet international standards with full guarantees.
The Castro regime, its vassal state in Venezuela, and the rest of the Sao Paulo Forum are mobilizing to back Evo Morales, denouncing his departure, and still seek to carry out Morales's coup against Bolivia's democratic order.

Today, violent protests continue in the streets both against and in favor of Morales, and calls for civil war now by pro-Evo groups. However it is important to remember that the three killed in the protests are all members of the opposition. The democratic opposition must hold firm, and use non-violent tactics to bring order to the situation.

At the international level Cuba, Venezuela, China, North Korea and others will work with larger and informal communist networks to demonize the legitimate aspirations of Bolivians, with the aim of restoring Evo Morales in power.

The stakes are high. The tragedies unfolding in Nicaragua and Venezuela should be two cautionary examples for all Bolivian democrats.

The battle for international public opinion continues, but the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in Bolivia begins, and its success will play an important role in who wins the battle for international public opinion.

Behind these efforts to destabilize democracy in the region is the Castro regime, which underscores the importance of a democratic transition in Cuba for a democratic consolidation in Latin America.

Why the Obama administration's outreach to Cuba and Venezuela is a mistake of historic proportions

Good relations with regimes in Venezuela and Cuba while their peoples die and flee

Obama with Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro  (April 2009)

 The Obama Administration since 2009 has sought a new relationship with Latin America, specifically with Venezuela and Cuba. This has been achieved in the midst of a worsening human rights situation in the region, coinciding with the expanding influence of Cuba. The situation today in the region is dire and the future is bleak. A new Mariel is underway with tens of thousands fleeing Cuba. Prominent dissidents murdered by Cuban intelligence agents.  Hunger riots are breaking out across Venezuela. However, in March 2016 President Obama made an official state visit to Cuba with his family and got some great photo ops with the Castro clan.

President Obama with General Castro (March 2016)

The Fantasy devoid of reality
The voice of the American establishment reflected in the the publication The American Interest provides an insight into the thinking in Washington DC that helps to explain the fantastic statements by policy makers such as Secretary of State John Kerry who in  August of 2015 said "the United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis." Here is the analysis offered by Walter Russell Mead in The American Interest as to the logic behind this approach.

"Socialism has failed both in Cuba and in Venezuela. The Cuban people know just what is happening in Venezuela, and they know, too, that the two excuses that the Castros have always made for socialism’s abysmal record in Cuba (no oil, and the U.S. embargo) simply fall to pieces in the light of the Venezuela catastrophe. They know that the Castros aren’t getting any younger, and they know that integration with the U.S. economy represents the only possible future for their island.

Just possibly, Fidel and Raul have genuinely drawn the appropriate conclusions from more than half a century of socialist failure in the Americas. Just possibly, they want to burnish their legacies by doing something to help Venezuela step away from the abyss, especially if they can get some U.S. help for Cuba by doing so. Investigating that possibility was the most important reason, other than grandstanding, for the President’s visit. Let’s hope the subject came up."

According to Secretary Kerry if the current Maduro regime fails then Venezuela will become a refuge for terrorists and drug traffickers. This approach ignores some unpleasant facts that stretch back over decades and ensures that this policy will end in disaster.

State's Thomas Shannon (far left) and Diosdado Cabello (far right)

The Hard Facts
Not only is Venezuela already a refuge for drug traffickers but finds them within the highest reaches of the Venezuelan government. For example, Diosdado Cabello, a leading member of Venezuela's National Assembly is suspected by U.S. prosecutors of being in charge of the infamous drug-trafficking organization, "Cartel de los Soles". In spite of this Thomas Shannon, counselor to Secretary of State John Kerry met with Diosdado Cabello. Nicolas Maduro's family has been directly implicated in drug trafficking.

Castro regime involved in drug trafficking and terrorism
The Castro regime has been involved in drug trafficking for decades in the service of its ideological mission to undermine the United States with drugs and use the profits to fund guerrilla and terrorist movements. Raul Castro faced a federal indictment for drug trafficking in the 1990s but the Clinton administration quashed it. Despite ample evidence of continued bad acts the Obama administration took Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Venezuela under both Chavez and Maduro has become a refuge for terrorists and drug traffickers with the aid of Cuban state security agents.

Nicolas Maduro and Cuban General Ramiro Valdez in Venezuela

The existing reality in Venezuela is the product of decades of Castro regime involvement there trying to overthrow and undermine the democracy that existed there since 1958 until it was fatally compromised with the rise of Hugo Chavez to power in 1998 through popular elections.

The Castros really do want the end of the economic embargo

Furthermore, elite opinion in the United States has bought into the lie that the Castro regime wants the embargo to limit Cuban American and American influence there, but that is not true. With or without the Embargo the confrontation with the United States will continue as long as the government of the United States is a democracy. The propaganda of the regime in Cuba and its allies in Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia, and elsewhere is that the United States is an imperial power. Opening up to the United States economically as it has with other countries will present a new line of argument to justify its totalitarian control: the threat of economic domination by the imperialists.

This can already be seen in the arrests of Western businessmen and the confiscation of their assets with preferences to companies from ideologically friendly countries such as communist China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Brazil, etc.

The increased hard currency that the Castro regime is getting its hands on will go towards reinforcing the dictatorship's repressive apparatus at home and expanding its power and influence abroad at the expense of U.S. interests.

Hunger riots in Venezuela

US imperialism will be blamed for Venezuela's failure

The United States will be the scapegoat held responsible for the failure of Venezuela. Both Venezuela and Cuba are accusing the United States of playing a game of divide and conquer with the two revolutionary regimes that are both ideologically and strategically joined at the hip. The irony is that the Obama Administration prefers a stable Maduro regime in Venezuela than any sort of regime change. This is reflected in their outreach to Cuba in order to reach an accommodation on Venezuela.

The Obama Administration and the Implosion of Latin America

"What's past is prologue."  - William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act 2 Scene 1

Then Cuba and Nicaragua vs Now Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela

Latin America is imploding with pro-Castro regimes pushing a revolutionary agenda in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela that runs counter to improved human rights in the region. At the same time these regimes are networking with international and transnational bad actors. Cuban intelligence agents and the military are projecting power across the region and the Russians are back.

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it in North Korea, in 2015 removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror while ignoring the ongoing bad acts of the Castro regime. This is done in the hopes that their behavior would improve. In both North Korea and Cuba this has had the opposite effect.

This is a dangerous situation to the U.S. mainland when one considers that the United States does not have control of its borders. For example on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, four uniformed Cuban Coast Guardsmen arrived in Key West from Cuba with AK-47s and a Chinese handgun. Despite the fear of terrorist attacks the coastline remains unprotected and most recently in 2016 two Cuban police men arrived in South Florida still wearing their uniforms.

Past is prologue
 Fidel Castro overthrew the Fulgencio Batista regime on January 1, 1959 following a U.S. arms embargo being imposed on the military dictator on April 2, 1958. On January 7, 1959 the United States recognized the new Cuban government ushered in by the Castro brothers and had actively pressured Batista to leave since 1958.

The honeymoon
 The United States thought that it could have normal relations with the Cuban revolutionary government which was also a reason for recognition within the span of a week. In comparison it had taken the United States 17 days to recognize the government of Fulgencio Batista following his March 10, 1952 coup. The United States had not been consulted ahead of time about Batista's coup and this led to the delay in recognition. 

How the Castro regime ended the honeymoon with the United States
On March 3, 1959 the Castro regime expropriates properties belonging to the International Telephone and Telegraph Company, and took over its affiliate, the Cuban Telephone Company. On May 17, 1959 the government expropriated farm lands over 1,000 acres and banned land ownership by foreigners. On February 6, 1960 talks begin publicly between the U.S.S.R and Fidel Castro. The Soviet Union agreed to buy five million tons of sugar over five years. They also agreed to support Cuba with oil, grain, and credit. On July 6, 1960 the Castro regime passed a nationalization law authorizing nationalization of U.S.-owned property through expropriation. Texaco, Esso, and Shell oil refineries were taken. These policies combined with the Castro regime engaging the Soviet Union led the Eisenhower administration towards an embargo on Cuba and in 1960 exploring options to overthrow the new dictatorship that ended being taken up in the Kennedy Administration first with the Bay of Pigs fiasco and later Operation Mongoose overseen by his brother and attorney general, Robert Kennedy.

Trying to destabilize Latin America
The Castro regime beginning in 1959 sent armed expeditions to Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to overthrow their governments. The regime's destabilization policy led two thirds of the 21 states of Latin America voting to expel Cuba from the Organization of American States on February 14, 1963.   A cache of three tons of weapons was found on a Venezuelan beach in November 1963 that was to be used to disrupt the democratic elections there.

Throughout the 1960s the policy of containment and sanctions were also supported by much of Latin America because the efforts of the Castro regime to violently overthrow their governments led to hemispheric unity for a policy of isolating the dictatorship.

The "low point" in U.S. relations with the Castro regime was during the Kennedy Administration with the Bay of Pigs (1961), the Cuban missile crisis (1962),  Operation Mongoose and the assassination of John Kennedy in November of 1963. The Johnson Administration ended active measures to overthrow the Castro regime and pursued a policy of containment.

First efforts to normalize relations
Fidel Castro, during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, requested a nuclear first strike on the United States in a letter to Nikita Khrushchev and it would not be the last time. In the early 1980s Castro again pressed the Soviets hard for a nuclear strike against the United States. Andrian A. Danilevich, a Soviet general staff officer made Fidel Castro’s second request public knowledge in 2009 in The New York Times.

Argentina junta leader Reynaldo Bignone with Fidel Castro

The efforts of the United States beginning in the Ford administration to normalize relations with the Castro regime, that were then accelerated and intensified during the Carter administration, may have been in reaction to understanding this threat. However these overtures contributed to weakening the hemispheric consensus to isolate Castroism. This ironically opened the way for the Castro regime not only to overthrow the Somoza regime in Nicaragua installing a Marxist-Leninist regime there but also into a strange alliance with the military junta in Argentina that at the time was "disappearing" 30,000 leftists. Carter had ended a policy of supporting the Somoza regime and had cooled relations with the military regimes in Argentina and Chile.

Reagan's returns to policy of containment rejecting Carter's normalization policy
Carter's policy of détente was rejected by the Reagan administration. Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 and re-imposed the travel ban, toughened economic sanctions, in 1982 placed the Castro regime on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and started Radio Marti to break through the communist monopoly with uncensored information for Cubans on the island. This policy reversed Castroism's gains in Grenada and in Central America. The collapse of the Soviet empire between 1989 through the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 put the Castro regime into a crisis. However in the midst of this collapse, the remaining communist parties from around the world gathered in Brazil at the Sao Paulo Forum and planned their comeback.


Clinton resurrects Carter's Cuba policy with deadly results
Carter's  détente policy would reassert itself first during the Clinton Administration beginning in 1994 when President Bill Clinton authorized the U.S. military to have permanent contacts and joint exercises with the Castro regime's military.

The Clinton administration stopped calling Cubans refugees declaring them migrants. The General Accounting Office (GAO) explained this change "for over 30 years, fleeing Cubans had been welcomed to the United States; however, the U.S. government reversed this policy on August 19, 1994, when President Clinton announced that Cuban rafters interdicted at sea would no longer be brought to the United States."  Wet foot, dry foot" was a massive set back for Cuban refugees. At the same time a  1995 agreement with the Castro regime empowered them to control who would arrive in the United States by registering Cubans for a lottery and up to 20,000 "immigrants" would be eligible to enter the United States annually. This is a large part of what has led to South Florida being filled with regime oppressors and who knows how many spies. This, not the Cuban Adjustment Act, is what needs to be ended. 

This normalization effort peaked when Bill Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro in 2000 and opened cash and carry trade with the dictatorship loosening sanctions.  This was done in spite of tightened sanction in 1996 following the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. This new period of engagement coincided with the rise of Hugo Chavez and reversals of the democratic gains made in the 1980s and early 1990s.

George W. Bush cools relations without rejecting Clinton normalization advances
During the George W. Bush Administration the cash and carry trade continued as did the joint military exercises. Even though in 2003 in the aftermath of the Black Cuban spring in which 75 dissidents were jailed following show trials the Bush administration responded by tightening sanctions limiting travel by Cuban exiles to Cuba and remittances. In 2006 the Sandinistas return to power in Nicaragua with the old dictator Daniel Ortega now winning a democratic election with 38% of the vote. Despite all of this, under the Bush Administration, the United States became the fifth leading trade partner with the Castro regime in 2008.

President Obama shaking hands with President Hugo Chavez (2009)

Obama's back to the future retread of Carter era Cuba policies
The Obama administration's current Cuba policy of engagement and detente with the Castro regime in the past has served to empower other anti-democratic actors in the region with the aide of the Cuban intelligence service and military. Latin American democrats in the region, despite some positive signs, should remain vigilant. These are dangerous times. It is important to recall that the long term policy goals first enunciated by Fidel Castro on July 26, 1959 continue into the present: "We promise to continue making Cuba the example that can convert the cordillera of the Andes into the Sierra Maestra of the American continent." This vision was reaffirmed by Fidel Castro at the VII Cuban Communist Party Conference in 2016: 

"Lenin’s work insulted after 70 years of revolution. What a historical lesson! We can say that it should not take another 70 years before another event like the Russian Revolution occurs, so that humanity has another example of a great social revolution that meant a huge step in the fight against colonialism and its inseparable companion: imperialism."

The Cuban dictatorship is not limited to Latin America and has also pursued an ambitious foreign policy in Africa, that in the case of Ethiopia contributed to famine and mass murder, as relations improved with the Carter administration in the 1970s. Human rights defenders today are being targeted across the hemisphere.

With or without sanctions Castro regime's hostility will continue
With or without the Embargo the confrontation with the United States will continue as long as the government of the United States is a democracy. Furthermore, the propaganda of the regime in Cuba and its allies in Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia, and elsewhere is that the United States is an imperial power. Opening up to the United States economically as it has with other countries will present a new line of argument to justify its continued totalitarian control: the threat of economic domination by the imperialists. This can already be seen in the arrests of Western businessmen and the confiscation of their assets with preferences to companies from ideologically friendly countries such as communist China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Brazil, etc. The increased hard currency that the Castro regime is getting its hands on will go towards reinforcing the dictatorship's repressive apparatus at home and expanding its power and influence abroad at the expense of U.S. and regional interests.

Nicaragua: A deteriorating situation that can spark conflict in Central America
Ominous signs in Nicaragua for Central America with the purchase of 50 new T-72B1 battle tanks at a cost of 80 million dollars in 2016 could be to send a message to the domestic opposition but also points to a more aggressive foreign policy that may target neighbors. Last year human rights defenders were ejected from Nicaragua. In 2011 the Sandinistas stole the elections with violence and appear to be on track to repeat in 2016.

President Obama and General Castro during press conference

 U.S. policy in Latin America is counterproductive to U.S. national interests
Advances that are made in Latin America in the coming years, if there are any, will be in spite of not because of U.S. foreign policy. Consider for a moment the following: Secretary of State John Kerry in an interview with journalist Andres Oppenheimer in August 20, 2015 made it known that "the United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis." This ignores that it is the Castro regime that backed Hugo Chavez's rise to power in Venezuela and engineered a succession in Havana that brought Nicolas Maduro to power and seeks to maintain him there at all costs. Today what passes for U.S. foreign policy in Latin America would be better described as wishful thinking divorced from reality.

Another reason that Cuba under the Castro regime should have remained on the list of terror sponsors

Hillary Clinton's emails: Hezbollah sets up operational base in Cuba

Back on May 29, 2015 the day the State Department removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror this blog offered ten reasons why it should have been kept on the list. On February 13, 2015 Vice News reported that in 2011 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been warned that the Lebanese Islamist militant group Hezbollah was setting up an operational base in Cuba to carry out attacks in Latin America that might also involve attacks on American diplomatic posts or banks there was revealed in an e-mail from September 9, 2011 that stated the following:

The Hezbollah office in Cuba is being established under direct orders from the current General  Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, who replaced Musawi in 1992. According to the information  available to this source, in preparation for establishment of the base, Nasrallah, working from  inside of Lebanon, carried out secret negotiations with representatives of the Cuban Government,  particularly the Cuban Intelligence Service (General Intelligence Directorate — DGI), agreeing to  , maintain a very low profile inside of Cuba. Nasrallah also promised to take measures to avoid any trail of evidence that could lead back to Cuba in the event of a Hezbollah attack in Latin  America.

This is another reason that Cuba under the Castro regime should have remained on the list of terror sponsors. The full document is available online here and click on the image below to read the portion mentioning Cuba and Hezbollah.

Fact Checking President Obama's State of the Union Address Remarks on Cuba

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - President John Adams

President Barack Obama in his 2016 State of the Union Address in the space of one paragraph on Cuba uttered so many inaccuracies that a fact check is needed. Below is what he said tonight broken down sentence by sentence.

Sentence One: "Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America."

FACT: The United States did not isolate Cuba for fifty years and three administrations (Carter, Clinton and Obama) have engaged with the dictatorship and sought to normalize relations prolonging the life of the Castro regime.

First Time
The Carter Administration was the first to lift the travel ban and hold high-level negotiations with the Cuban dictatorship, and both sides opened Interest Sections in their respective capitals between 1977 and 1981. Then from 1981 to 1982, the Castro regime executed approximately 80 prisoners, which was a marked escalation when compared to 1976. Furthermore, during the Carter presidency, Fidel Castro took steps that resulted in the violent deaths of US citizens.  

Outcome
During the Mariel crisis of 1980, when over 125,000 Cubans sought to flee the island, the Cuban dictator sought to save face by selectively releasing approximately 12,000 violent criminals or individuals who were mentally ill into the exodus. This first attempt at normalizing relations saw a worsening human rights situation and migration crisis.

Second Time
The Clinton Administration in 1994 initiated regular contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military that included joint military exercises at the Guantanamo Naval base. Despite this improvement of relations, the 1990s saw some brutal massacres of Cubans that are rightly remembered such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. The shoot down involved two planes blown to bits over international airspace by Cuban MiGs killing three American citizens and a Cuban resident who were engaged in the search and rescue of Cuban rafters.   Bill Clinton on September 6, 2000 was the first sitting president to shake hands with Fidel Castro. One month later he signed the  Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TEFRA) that opened trade between the Castro regime and U.S. companies. Opposition in congress led to that trade not being subsidized by taxpayers by not providing government backed credits ensuring business would be cash and carry.
 
Outcome
The worsening human rights situation was a contributing factor in the August 1994 rafter crisis in which 35,000 Cubans fled the country. Experts have identified that this was a migration crisis engineered by the Castro regime. The Cuban dictatorship did this because it successfully reasoned that it could coerce the Clinton Administration to the negotiating table to obtain concessions, which indeed it did, and prolonged the life of the dictatorship for another twenty years.  Prior to Bill Clinton, Cubans fleeing the Castro regime were received into the United States. It was on his watch, beginning in 1995, that Cuban refugees were declared migrants and began to be seized on the high seas and deported to communist Cuba with the infamous wet foot/ dry foot policy.

Third Time
The Obama Administration beginning in 2009 loosened sanctions on the Castro regime. On his watch concluding on December 17, 2014 the Obama administration freed all five members of the WASP spy network, including Gerardo Hernandez, who was serving two life sentences, one of them for conspiracy to murder four members of Brothers to the Rescue murdered during the previous attempt at normalizing relations during the Clinton Administration. The Obama administration de-linked the pursuit of full diplomatic relations from the rise in human rights violations in Cuba and in the region by Cuban state security.  The White House has doubled down in concessions ignoring the Castro regime's continuing sponsorship of terrorism and smuggling of weapons to sanctioned countries in order to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Outcome 
Still unfolding but will be addressed in response to the additional false claims made by President Obama that his policy is succeeding in promoting democracy.

Sentence Two: "That’s why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people."

FACT: The lives of the Cuban people has worsened during the Obama administration with a worsening economic situation; the murder of democratic opposition leaders such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Laura Inés Pollán and a mass exodus of Cubans. Since December 17, 2014 the White House politicized the report on human trafficking to give the Castro regime a pass; made access to the U.S. embassy much more difficult for Cuban dissidents and independent journalists; did not invite dissidents to the opening of the embassy; and the State Department threatened the daughter of a murdered dissident who was properly accredited as a member of the press from asking questions during a press conference there with the Cuban Foreign Minister. Commerce between Cuba and the United States has steadily declined during the Obama administration. In 2008 the last full year of the George W. Bush administration the United States sold $711.5 million in sales to Cuba vs 175.4 million in the first 11 months of 2015 under the Obama Administration according to the United State Census Bureau.

Sentences Three: "You want to consolidate our leadership and credibility in the hemisphere?  

FACT: The Obama State Department's politicization of the human trafficking report that watered down critiques of China, Cuba and Malaysia is costing the United States credibility on this issue leading to a backlash.  Gerardo Hernandez, convicted of conspiracy to murder Americans on orders of the Castro brothers, has announced that he is ready for his “next order” from the Castro regime after returning home to a heroes welcome and agents of the dictatorship are traveling the world declaring victory. Inviting the Cuban dictatorship to the Summit of the Americas and the violence perpetrated by Cuban state security agents combined with President Obama's embrace of Raul Castro there while at the same time ignoring violence visited on U.S. citizens damaged U.S. credibility. American disengagement from Latin America under the Obama administration has also led to a loss of leadership.

Sentence Four: "Recognize that the Cold War is over."  

FACT: The Castro regime never recognized that the "Cold War is over" and following the collapse of the Soviet bloc met in Sao Paolo, Brazil in 1990 for the totalitarian left to regroup and carry on the objectives hostile to the interest of the United States. Recent examples of this continuing "cold war" mentality can be found in the tons of weapons smuggled by Cuba under bags of sugar on a freighter, detected and intercepted in July 2013 by Panamanian officials, while on its way to North Korea in violation of international sanctions. Among the weapons found were Cuban MiGs, rockets and ballistic missile technology. In February of 2015 a shipment originating in China with final destination in Cuba was also smuggling tons of weapons and ammunition when discovered in Colombia. In the past few days it has been learned that a U.S. Hellfire missile that was supposed to be returned to the United States from Europe ended up in Cuba in 2014. The emerging information in the media is pointing to a possible espionage coup by the Cuban intelligence services. The Cuban government, despite requests by the Obama administration, has refused to return it. Ironically during the Cold War the United States did return Cuban MiGs piloted by defecting fighter pilots from Cuba.

Sentence Five: "Lift the embargo."

FACT: The Clinton administration opened up cash and carry trade with Cuba in 2000. Beginning in 2009 the Obama administration began to unilaterally further loosen and weaken economic sanctions on Cuba. The main objective of the Obama administration, the Chamber of Commerce, agribusiness and the Castro regime is to provide credits to the dictatorship. This means that if the Castro regime is granted credits but defaults in paying American creditors, the cost will be passed on to American taxpayers.