"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
"The era of dictatorships and totalitarian systems has not ended at
all. It may have ended in a traditional form as we know it from the 20th
century, but new, far more sophisticated ways of controlling society
are being born. It requires alertness, carefulness, caution, study and a
detached view." - Václav Havel, "Freedom and Its Enemies" November 14, 2009.
On February 20, 2014 Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and seized Crimea. Eight years later, on February 24, 2022, Moscow began a new offensive to seize all of Ukraine, but unlike in Crimea, Russian troops were unable to achieve their new objective due to armed Ukrainian resistance.
The war continues to rage today, and Moscow has brought in troops and soldiers from around the world..
Equally disturbing are the links between Cuba and Iran, and their decades long hostility against the United States.
In a transmittal letter accompanying the Defense Department’s May 1998 report,The Cuban Threat to U.S. National Security,
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen wrote to the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee: ‘‘I remain concerned about Cuba’s
potential to develop and produce biological agents, given its
bio-technology infrastructure.
In its public Executive Summary, the report stated,"Cuba’s current
scientific facilities and expertise could support an offensive BW
[bioweapons] program in at least the research and development stage.
Cuba’s biotechnology industry is one of the most advanced in emerging
countries and would be capable of producing BW agents.’’In the October
2001 issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Jose de la Fuente,the
former director of research and development at Cuba’s premier Center for
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, wrote he was ‘‘profoundly
disturbed’’ that Cuba was selling to Iran technology that could be used
to produce biochemical weapons. He wrote, ‘‘No one believes that Iran is
interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting all the
children in the Middle East from hepatitis, or treating their people
with cheap streptokinase when they suffer sudden cardiac arrest . . .."
During a May 2001 visit to Tehran, Fidel Castro proclaimed,"Iran and Cuba, in
cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees."
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, during a speech at the Imam Khomeini Mosque in Tehran in 2015, said Israel "will not see (the end) of
these 25 years.” This was just after the nuclear deal between Iran in which they agreed to cut its uranium stockpile.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy, invaded Israel killing 1,200, and taking hundreds of hostages. Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, began firing rockets into Israel.
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba are creating an alternative world order hostile to Western democracies and the rule of law.
There are two options. The first is to recognize the challenge, and develop intelligent strategies to counter it within a framework of Western alliances or secondly, ignore it, and pretend there is no threat and surrender to the new configuration of anti-democratic forces. The first is not without risk, but the latter guarantees servitude to tyranny.
However, with the first, there is an alternative to war. Cuban and Venezuelan freedom activists have made the case for it. Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born human rights activist, actress, and 2023 Sydney Peace Laureate, made the same case in an OpEd published in Time today.
For decades, many of us pleaded with world leaders: reject both appeasement and war with the Islamic Republic. There was another path—to strangle the regime and empower the people. Few chose it. Too many asked the question, “Do the people of Iran really want change?” as if they did not hear waves of Iranian protestorschant, “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei” on the streets. Perhaps now—as these cries echo from the rooftops of Tehran, even under the specter of war—they will finally listen.
Ronald Reagan in his 1964 speech "A Time for Choosing" made the case plainly between the options of resistance and appeasement. "There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's
only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you can have it in the
next second - surrender," said the future 40th President of the United States.
“There is a secret family of victims of totalitarianism, which can be
the families in Burma or the victims in North Korea or in Iran or in
Cuba. We feel a special bond with them because we belong to the same
family.” - Carlos Alberto Montaner, (2011)
Carlos Alberto Montaner
One year ago today Carlos Alberto Montaner shuffled off this mortal coil after a long and debilitating illness. The Center for a Free Cuba released the following statement on the same day.
The death of Carlos Alberto Montaner in Spain after a long illness is a great loss for Cubans in the island and around the world who benefited from his tireless efforts to denounce the crimes of the Cuban regime. It is also a loss for millions of people worldwide whose struggle for human rights he defended in his many books, columns, and thousands of articles that appeared in major newspapers on three continents. Carlos Alberto was a champion for the victims of communism and oppression, and he urged the international community to assist them.
The chairman of the Center for a Free Cuba, Guillermo Marmol, stated: “Carlos Alberto Montaner served for many years on the Center’s research council where he made significant contributions to the Center’s policies, publications, and research. We are confident that it will not be long before the extent, significance, and importance of Carlos Alberto Montaner’s life is fully known in Cuba itself.”
The Center for a Free Cuba extends its deepest condolences to Linda, his widow; to Carlos and Gina, his children; and to his family, colleagues and friends.
The life he lived could have been very different, if at age 17 Carlos Alberto had not successfully escaped from an arbitrary detention in 1960, found protection in an Embassy, and months later was able to leave Cuba.
A year later, and the loss of this great man of letters is still felt. Three days ago, Alvaro Vargas Llosa paid homage to Carlos Alberto Montaner and observed that despite having had success in life, following his death his legacy has grown larger, and more impactful.
His writings, and interviews remain even more relevant, and important today.
For example, on April 4, 2007, Helen Aguirre Ferré interviewed Carlos Alberto Montaner on GBH, public television, about communism in Cuba. This analysis is still applicable today, but he had refined his stance by 2014.
Carlos Alberto Montaner contributed an article
to the New York Times published on October 13, 2014 in which he made
the case against normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba. He Tweeted it out one week after President Obama announced the normalization of relations with Cuba.
Below is the article Carlos Alberto Tweeted out ten years ago this December. Time proved him right.
New York Times, October 13, 2014
Cuba Doesn’t Deserve Normal Diplomatic Relations
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a Cuban-born author, journalist and syndicated columnist. His work appears in The Miami Herald and other publications throughout Latin America, the United States and Spain. His latest novel is "Tiempo de Canallas." He is on Twitter.
The United States should not normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba for several reasons.
First, the Cuban government has been officially declared “a state sponsor of terrorism" by the State Department. It's inconceivable to oppose the terrorists in the Middle East while treating them normally in the United States' neighborhood.
There's also a bipartisan consensus in Washington against the Castro regime. All three Cuban-American senators and four Cuban-American representatives, Democrats and Republican, agree that sanctions should be maintained. They are the best interpreters of the opinion of the almost three million Cubans and descendants of Cubans living in the United States.
Cuba systematically engages in undermining the interests of the United States. It is an ally of Iran, North Korea (to whom it furnishes war matériel), Russia, Syria, the FARC terrorists in Colombia and Venezuela. The F.B.I. recently warned that Cuban intelligence is trying to recruit people in the academic world as agents of influence. It once infiltrated them into the Pentagon and the State Department; today, they are in prison.
The Cuba dictatorship continues to violate human rights and shows no intention to make amends. The small economic changes it has made are directed at strengthening the regime. Why reward that behavior? During the entire 20th century, the U.S. was (rightfully) reproached for maintaining normal relations with right-wing dictatorships. For the first time, the U.S. maintains a morally consistent position in Latin America and should not sacrifice it.
A reversal of policy would be a cruel blow against the Cuban democrats and dissidents who view the United States as their only dependable ally in the world. Normalizing relations would be the proof needed by the Stalinists in the Cuban government to demonstrate that they don't have to make any political changes to be accepted. Not to mention a premature reconciliation without substantial changes would also be a harsh blow to the reformists in the Cuban government who are pressuring toward a democratic opening.
Cuba is the North Korea of the Americas, a secretive, totalitarian communist dictatorship with a terrible human rights record. Why would anyone go on vacation in Cuba or North Korea? There are cautionary tales on what happens to tourists traveling to these countries.
Otto Wambier: December 12, 1994 - June 19, 2017
College student Otto Wambier was sentenced to 15 years in prison and hard labor
in March 2016 for allegedly trying to steal a political propaganda poster in
North Korea. One year and three months later he was released to the
United States in a coma acquired in prison allegedly from botulism and
died a day after his return. e.
Joachim
Løvschall was a Danish youth studying Spanish in Havana. On March 28, 1997 Joachim Løvschall ate his last dinner with white wine in a little restaurant called Aladin, located on 21st street in Havana. He went to the Revolutionary Plaza and bought a ticket to the Cuban National Theater. Following the performance he went to the theater's bar, Cafe Cantate, and met up with two Swedish friends. They each drank a couple of beers, but soon left because Joachim did not like the music. At 23:30, they said good bye to each other on the sidewalk in front of Cafe Cantate.
Joachim Løvschall: December 7, 1970 - March 29, 1997
Joachimwas gunned down by a Castro regime soldier in Havana, Cuba on March
29, 1997. The identity of the soldier has never
been revealed to Joachim''s family. No one has been brought to justice.
He was killed after leaving friends from a night out, on his walk back
home
Despite these cautionary stories, tourists continue to go to North Korea and Cuba on holiday, and tragedies continue to happen. William Southworth, a recent university graduate, has written the following report on the plight of Canadian national, Benjamin Tomlin and conditions in Cuba's prisons. This blog first reported on his plight on September 18, 2020. Below is an update.
Injustice and Inhumane Conditions in a Cuban Prison
Something is rotten in the state of Cuba.
Benjamin Tomlin: falsely imprisoned
By William Southworth
There are 300 prisoners at La Condesa, most of them foreigners. Nearly all have been sentenced on blatantly false charges if the men we interviewed are any good indication. Many have been detained chiefly for their value as political prisoners and not for their roles in any potential crimes. They were arrested abruptly and without explanation. Not understanding their predicament, these unfortunate persons were left to rot under terrible conditions without a sentence for months or years. One French prisoner had to wait 3 years and 5 months before he had his prison sentence explained to him.
If the incarcerated are lucky, they may eventually get the formality of a trial. The charges are normally exaggerated and oftentimes pure fiction. The witnesses are being led and if representation is provided, it is normally provided in bad faith by the Cuban state. While it may seem strange for a country whose economy depends on tourism to arbitrarily imprison visiting foreigners, the Cuban regime has a habit of taking political prisoners in order to seize their assets or use them as bargaining chips in foreign negotiations [1]. Regrettably, Cuba has gotten away with these practices by keeping its human rights abuses well out of the international spotlight.
If the Cuban regime does one thing very well, it is to control the flow of information [2]. The regime keeps a tight grasp on its hyperactive mass media to effectively project an image of power and purity both to its citizens and the outside world. Cuban independent journalists are a critically endangered species and are frequently , so an honest headline out of Cuba is a rarity [3]. Surely, Cuba has earned its lowest rank for journalistic freedom in Latin America [4]. As impressive as Cuba’s ability to control the spread of information in Cuba within their borders is, this achievement pales in comparison to their ability to control the spread of information outside its borders.
Consider the example of Benjamin Tomlin.
Benjamin Tomlin is a well-respected Canadian businessman and a former employee of the Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV), he was arrested in 2018 during a visit to Cuba. He was charged with allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl during a previous visit, but the exact nature of his charges was kept from him for a very long time. Tomlin was arrested without proper explanation and held for months before a trial. While it is impossible to know the real motives behind his arrest, it stands to reason from previous cases that Cuba may have seized Benjamin over his potential value as a well-connected prisoner. The Cuban state has arrested several other prominent Canadian nationals in order to secure their large on-island assets, namely the wealthy Sarkis Yacoubin and the well-connected Cy Tokmakijan, [5].
When he was being arrested, Tomlin asked the attending officers a poignant question:
“I am a criminal?”
The answer was equally pointed.
“No, you’re just unlucky.”
When he did finally get his trial, it was marred by irregularities and gaps in evidence. Luckier than most, Tomlin was represented in good faith by a Cuban Canadian lawyer, Ricardo Alcolado Perez[6]. Even so, none of the witnesses were able to identify Tomlin before the court, not even the girl whom Tomlin had allegedly had intercourse with. According to Tomlin’s later testimony, he had never seen the girl that was brought before the court. Tomlin was also made to sign various agreements in a Spanish without proper translation. Despite the clear lack of evidence, Tomlin was sentenced to ten years at La Condesa.
The conditions there are terrible. The prison is overcrowded, the beds tightly packed. Tomlin estimates the prison is built for 150 but houses at least twice that number. Disease runs rampant, electricity is intermittent, toilets are hard to access and supplies are scarce. Seriously sick prisoners must wait months for treatment. Mr. Tomlin said he had to wait a month before he received treatment for an excruciatingly painful kidney infection. He has also never received medication for chronic pain owning to a spinal injury. His time at La Condesa has debilitated Benjamin. If this is not proof enough of bad conditions, surely the recent death of one Venezuelan prisoner there, a man named Oscar Nuñez, puts it beyond all doubt. According to Tomlin, Nuñez had been asking to see a doctor for some time before he died without treatment. The prison authorities were allegedly aware of Nuñez’s critical condition before his death.
Tomlin supported his horror story of neglect and inhumane conditions with the testimonies of three other prisoners. These prisoners, one Canadian, one Frenchman and one Venezuelan, echoed Benjamin’s account with their own stories of arbitrary arrests and months spent waiting for an explanation and then, at last, sham trials. They were all in prison for long sentences ranging from 8-10 years and were ready to tell their stories despite the potential consequences. Although they had all once been wary of running their mouths about prison conditions, they had lost all hope of a sudden release and all fear of the extended sentences the guards still threaten them with.
The other Canadian prisoner spoke about the crumbling infrastructure with as much detail as the short interview allowed. The Frenchman, Jacques, alleged the prisoners suffered psychological abuse at the hands of the guardsmen. The Venezuelan, Fabio, talked about moldy food and speculated about the nature of the Cuban police state.
Talking about the muddy circumstances surrounding his sudden detention, he hazarded a few words.
“Esto es Cuba.” (This is Cuba.)
Who knows what other injustices these prisoners might have revealed if they only had a few more minutes to speak? When we interviewed the prisoners, the lines were on a 5-minute time limit and always monitored. The prisoners spoke rapidly in quiet, urgent tones to keep a modicum of confidentiality. Our conversations would often be cut out off at random intervals, or when sensitive topics came up. I received calls from restricted numbers soon after these conversations, although I declined to answer them.
But according to Caroline Simpson, Tomlin’s sister, the true state of these Cuban prisons is a secret. Her inquiries about the prison never got straight answers from Cuban officials, who painted a rosy picture of La Condesa. In this fantasy, all the prisoners were well-cared for and had easy access to the supplies in the prison store. If they had any issues, they could easily contact their native embassies for governmental assistance. But as the testimony of the prisoners reveals, the reality at La Condesa and other Cuban prisons is far worse than the official picture [7].
That these prisoners should be willing to testify at all is an act of bravery. The guards had promised punishment should they speak about the poor conditions at La Condesa, threatening the prisoners with extended sentences. But Tomlin said that he and his fellow prisoners had grown tired of keeping their silence and living in fear.
Now that a new president has assumed office, the Cuban question is all the more pressing. Will the United States pursue a policy of détente or renew a blockade with the island? Is a middle course possible and if so, what will it mean for the prisoners in La Condesa?
As the case of Benjamin Tomlin demonstrates, the United States and Canada must remember that they are dealing with a dishonest, totalitarian state. If other nations continue to tolerate boldfaced human rights abuses in Cuba, Tomlin will certainly not be the last foreigner to fall victim to a predatory Cuban police state.
Cited Sources
[1] Whitefield, Mimi. “53 Cuban Political Prisoners Are Free, but Controversy Remains.” Miami Herald, Miami Herald, 14 Jan. 2015, www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article6544485.html.
[2] MacDuff, Carlyle. “Cuba's Official Media and Its Informative Omissions.” Havana Times, 18 July 2020, havanatimes.org/opinion/cubas-official-media-and-its-informative-omissions/.
[3] Oppenheimer, Andres. “A Horrible Time for Journalists - and Not Just in Cuba and Venezuela.” Miami Herald, 27 Oct. 2018, www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article220668215.html.
[4] N.A. “Cuba : Constant Ordeal for Independent Media: Reporters without Borders.” RSF, Reporters Without Borders, 2020, rsf.org/en/cuba.
[6]The Canadian Press | News. “Freeland Says She Brought up Case of Imprisoned Canadian with Cuban Foreign Minister.” National Observer, 2 Sept. 2019, www.nationalobserver.com/2019/09/02/news/freeland-says-she-brought-case-imprisoned-canadian-cuban-foreign-minister.
[7] Associated Latin Press. “Prensa Latina - Latin American News Agency.” Www.plenglish.com/, 25 June 2020, www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. - Martin Luther King Jr
South Florida Sun Sentinel, December 23, 2020
Obama’s Cuba policy only emboldened Castro | Opinion
By John Suarez
Special to the Sun Sentinel| Dec 23, 2020 at 1:46 PM
President Obama’s détente began in 2009 with sanctions loosened and
calls for a willingness to negotiate with Havana. This coincided with
increasing violence against dissidents, including high-profile
opposition leader Oswaldo Payá, who died in a suspicious car crash in
Bayamo, Cuba, on July 22, 2012. Payá's children and the driver of his
car that night all say the car was run off the road. The Cuban
government, of course, says otherwise.
In June 2014,
a U.S. Hellfire missile used in NATO exercises in Europe ended up in
Havana’s possession instead of being sent back to the United States.
Although U.S. officials said this was the result of a shipping mishap by
Lockheed Martin, the missile’s manufacturer, this was at a time during
which the U.S. was already secretly negotiating with Castro. Relations
were officially reestablished in July 2015, and yet, the United States
was unable to obtain the return of this weapon, despite repeated
requests, until the story went public in January 2016.
The Hellfire missile, filled with sensitive technology, was returned in
February 2016, after over a year and a half in Havana’s possession.
On Dec. 17, 2014, when President Obama opened what he called “a new
chapter” in U.S.-Cuba relations, he commuted the sentence of Cuban spies
who planned terrorist acts on U.S. soil and freed Gerardo Hernandez,
who was serving a double life sentence for espionage and murder
conspiracy, as part of a prisoner exchange.
The murder conspiracy
charges were for his role in the killing of three American citizens and a
Cuban national with residency in the United States on Feb. 24, 1996.
The four were shot down by Cuban fighter jets as they flew small
aircraft with Brothers to the Rescue, a group that searched the seas for
Cuban refugees in trouble. Hernandez’s spy group had infiltrated
Brothers to the Rescue. Hernandez returned to Cuba and became tasked
with spying on Cubans on a national level. Last week, on Dec. 17, he was
promoted to the Castro dictatorship’s Council of State, the 31-member
body that governs day-to-day life on the island.
LeoGrande and Kornbluh give a false impression when they state that
“Obama restored full diplomatic relations and fully staffed the embassy
and consulate in Havana.” The president did restore full diplomatic
relations, renaming the Interests Section an Embassy, but the Interests
Section had been fully staffed for years. What the authors left out was
that, beginning in November 2016, on President Obama’s watch, scores of
U.S. diplomats began suffering neurological injuries, and the Cuban
government failed in its duty to protect them on their territory. This
was the reason for the reduction in personnel.
Moreover, they write about “diplomatic civility” but omit that on Jan.
2, 2017, Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in which Cuban soldiers chanted:
“Obama! Obama! With what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness,
give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and make you a hat out of
bullets to the head.”
This was a one-sided and failed détente that did not serve U.S.
interests or improve the lot of Cubans on the island, but it did empower
the dictatorship that oppresses them.
John
Suarez is the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, an
independent nonprofit institution dedicated to promoting human rights
and a nonviolent transition to democracy and the rule of law in Cuba.
The world is in the midst of a deadly pandemic, in part because international organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), are failing us because they have been co-opted by dictatorships that have priorities in conflict with the mission statements of those entities. It's American subsidiary, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has a record as terrible as WHO. Both organizations have praised the Castro regime, while the WHO has also kowtowed to the Chinese communist dictatorship for years.
PAHO has been caught up in scandals involving the failure to report a viral outbreak of Zika in Cuba in 2017, and human trafficking. The WHO subsidiary was sued, because PAHO was profiting off the trafficking of Cuban doctors in an arrangement with the Castro regime that Mary O' Grady described in her April 12, 2020 OpEd in The Wall Street Journal where she called for an audit of the PAHO. The Yucatan Times also has an important article titled "The Cuban medical brigades -A history of enslavement", raising concerns from a Mexican perspective.
Along with these scandals is the reality that the quality of the doctors trained in Cuba falls short of the standards in other Latin American countries, raising concerns about the care they provide. But The New York Times reported on something more sinister, how Cuban doctors in Venezuela were ordered to deny or ration care to advance Nicolas Maduro's election prospects in the March 17, 2019 article, "It Is Unspeakable’: How Maduro Used Cuban Doctors to Coerce Venezuela Voters," including the denial of needed oxygen to deathly ill patients.
This relationship between PAHO, the World Health Organization, and the Castro dictatorship also resulted in dangerous lies. For example, the 2016 claim of the World Health Organization Bulletin that "last year Cuba became the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis as public health problems." When I asked visiting Cubans that worked in the healthcare sector about these claims, they just rolled their eyes. Meanwhile, according to Avert, an NGO that provides information on HIV worldwide, “nearly 90 percent of new infections in the Caribbean in 2017 occurred in four countries — Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.”
Health officials in Cuba are most likely under reporting the full impact of the Wuhan Virus in the island now. They have a long track record of not reporting disease outbreaks on the island. Footage has emerged of a dead body in the street in Pinar del Río, and police afraid of being infected trying to figure out what to do.
Victor Batista Falla, uncle of the Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, died of coronavirus in Havana on April 12, 2020. He had been hospitalized at the Pedro Kourí Tropical Medicine Institute for a week. Batista Falla was a prominent publisher and "one of the greatest sponsors of Cuban literature in exile."
CiberCuba reported on April 1, 2020 that the mother of a young girl with coronavirus was detained after criticizing Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz Canel for the spread of the illness. Cynically, Diaz Canel on April 9, 2020 stated that "hiding information can be woefully lethal" but the official communist daily Granma warned that reporting "false or malicious news about the coronavirus" was punishable by up to four years in prison.
Let us examine what the regime considers "false or malicious news" based on how it has applied the policy in the past.
In 1997 when dengue broke out in Cuba, the regime tried to cover it up. When a doctor spoke out, he was locked up, sentenced to 8 years in prison. Amnesty International recognized Dr. Desi Mendoza as a prisoner of conscience, and he was released from prison in 1998 under condition he leave Cuba. The dictatorship eventually recognized that there had been a dengue epidemic.
Calixto Martinez
A 2012 cholera outbreak once again demonstrated how the Cuban public health system operates. News of the outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald on June 29, 2012 thanks to reporting by the outlawed independent press in the island. Official media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. BBC News reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with Cholera in Havana. The dictatorship stated that it had it under control. Independent journalist Calixto Martínez was arrested on September 16, 2012 for reporting on the Cholera outbreak, and declared an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. Cholera outbreaks would continue on the island.
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) building in Washington, DC
Worse yet, international media outlets in order to maintain a presence in Cuba have compromised their reporting and too often peddle government propaganda, camouflaged as news and echoing the statements of WHO and PAHO without question, while omitting the history of covering up past epidemics where doctors and journalists were jailed for speaking out.
The Inter American Press Association Report on Cuba in 2011 described the process whereby press agencies can cross the line into biased reporting through something akin to Stockholm syndrome:
The Cuban government wages a policy of the carrot and the stick against foreign correspondents accredited in Havana. If the correspondent becomes too raucous in his criticism, all sorts of problems are created for him until his presence in Havana turns into a torment, or else they denounce him in the official press to the point that he leaves the country. If, on the other hand, if he behaves nicely, they let him work and even facilitate contacts and interviews for him. This brings about permanent self-censorship and even reports with a touch of sympathy for the regime.
Meanwhile independent journalists in Cuba and China, who are trying to do real reporting, are threatened, jailed or go missing. Morning Star News is reporting how a Christian independent journalist has been targeted. "Intelligence officials in Cuba have increased harassment of an independent journalist, summoning [ Yoe Suárez ] and his mother twice in the past two weeks to threaten harsh consequences if he continues reporting on human rights issues, sources said," informed Morning Star News.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has provided a timeline of the explosion of the Wuhan virus around the world and the coverup by Communist China and obsequious statements of the WHO that further legitimized their lies. This kind of timeline should be maintained for the Cuban response to the coronavirus.
Reuters reported the claim made by the official press in Cuba on March 11, 2020 that "four Italian tourists who were staying at a hostel in the southern town of Trinidad after arriving at Havana airport on Monday had presented respiratory symptoms and were taken to a hospital on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the hospital confirmed that three of the tourists had tested positive for the coronavirus, the broadcaster said."
Panama's Ministry of Health, a day earlier, on March 10th reported that two Panamanians, ages 55 and 29 who visited Cuba had tested positive for the coronavirus when they returned home.
On March 11, 2020, Nicolas Maduro was promoting Cuba's "interferon" as a cure that saved "around 3,500 lives in China" declaring Cuba in the vanguard, Caribbean National Weekly called it the antidote for COVID-19, and Newsweek was calling it a "wonder drug." The reality is far more humble. Interferon Alpha-2B Recombinant (IFNrec) was jointly developed with China, but they did not pioneer the discovery of interferon. Interferon research, not surprisingly, was pioneered in Switzerland in the 1950s.
Despite this, the Cuban dictatorship's military run tourism industry continued to pitch Cuba as a travel destination last month and posted a tweet on March 13, 2020 claiming that Coronavirus does not replicate at high temperatures and that the island is now 29-32 degrees Celsius. Havanatour is owned and run by the Cuban military.
On March 16, 2020 Barbara Díaz, director of marketing for the Castro regime's Ministry of Tourism in a press conference said, “Clients who decide of their own free will to come to Cuba are welcomed.” The dictatorship's director of marketing declared that “our social function is to receive tourists, give them assistance ... and demonstrate that Cuba is a safe country in all aspects.” The government had not canceled flights from Italy or other hot spot countries, reported Nora Gamez in The Miami Herald.
The fiction presented by the Cuban government was that the Wuhan virus was not present in Cuba until March 9, 2020 when these four Italian tourists arrived to Cuba, but how does one explain that the Florida Department of Health announced on March 15, 2020 that a 17-year-old male from Cuba tested positive [for the Wuhan virus] in Hillsborough County.
On March 6, 2020 Granma, the official communist newspaper of Cuba, made the claim that "to date, no cases of Coronavirus ( Covid-19 ) have been confirmed in Cuba." At the time, there were cases in Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay, Spain, the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, France, and many other places. Regime officials claim to be ready if and when an outbreak takes place.
This type of claim was made during the zika outbreak in 2016-2017 and it was learned in 2019, through studies of zika infected tourists from around the world, that Cuba had over 5,000 zika cases active on the island in 2017 that the dictatorship did not report.
At the same time officials of the Castro regime reported that there is a shortage of soap and detergent in Cuba that will not be alleviated until May - June 2020.
The Castro regime blames the embargo for its shortages, although those items are not restricted by US sanctions, but Cubans blame the internal blockade raised by the Castro regime and are circulating a petition calling for its end so that civil society can create a humanitarian bridge and get supplies to Cubans in need.
South Florida has become a hot spot for the pandemic in Florida. Furthermore, the emerging hot spot in Florida is Hialeah, the city with the largest number of Cubans per capita in Florida. Not shutting down travel to and from Cuba earlier, because the regime failed to alert the severity of the outbreak on the island, may be a contributing factor to this emerging disaster.
Hundreds of thousands of people are dying, and the numbers could rise to the millions, but too many are still giving the benefit of the doubt to dictatorships such as Cuba's and China's and the consequences will continue to be dire.
"The class struggle
is continuing and it is our task to subordinate all interests to
that struggle. Our communist morality is also subordinated to
that task." - Vladimir Lenin (1920)
CCTV broadcast Xi Jinping's visit to Wuhan at a Beijing shopping center March 10.
The past couple of months should have been a wake up call on the international community's credulity regarding health data provided by communist regimes, such as China, and Cuba. It is now known that the first case was diagnosed on November 17, 2019 in Hubei, China.
China's focus from the start has been on its international image, and this includes censoring information that would have been useful to stopping the spread of the pandemic, but also helping coronavirus victims. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported on specific cases.
Li Wenliang, a doctor in Wuhan who was reprimanded for warning
colleagues of a new coronavirus earlier this year, used the messaging
app WeChat to share his concerns on December 30, 2019, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Be careful, our group chat can be suspended,” a contact responded, according to screenshots
purporting to show the private exchange. CPJ could not independently
verify the screenshots, which were widely cited in online discussions
and media reportsafter Li sickened and later died from the COVID-19 disease.
On March 7, 2020 a five-story Xinjia Hotel in China's Fujian province that had been converted into a "quarantine hotel" collapsed and killed 29 patients. China built what it called "two new coronavirus hospitals" in 12 days and used it as part of a propaganda campaign to promote its regime. Business Insider noted that
"Official data [which should also be questioned], however, shows that
the utility of the hospitals has yet to match the pace or spectacle of
their construction, with the facilities running at less than half their
projected 2,600 capacity."
Search for survivors in rubble of collapsed hotel in Quanzhou, in China's Fujian province, March 7th AFP
Now Communist China is trying to spin conspiracy theories to draw attention away from its own culpability in making a bad situation worse, continuing to disappear prominent Chinese voices that have criticized the regime's response, and with their Cuban and Venezuelan allies they are spinning a yarn of Cuban medicine saving thousands of Chinese lives with a pioneering treatment, but that in fact arose out of research surrounding SARS and MERS years ago patented by private firms. However that doesn't stop Venezuelan tyrant Nicolas Maduro and the propaganda organ teleSur from repeating the talking points.
It is in this upside down environment that Marion Smith of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has published an article in National Review titled "Why Do Global Medical Institutions Trust China?" in which he describes the role played by international organizations in the initial cover up of what now has become a pandemic.
"As the coronavirus spread from China across the world in January and February, the World Health Organization repeatedly praised Beijing’s efforts to contain it. The agency did so despite China’s censorship of medical professionals and evidence of undercounting deaths. As the second-largest donor to the United Nations, which oversees the WHO, China, it appears, has induced the agency to provide a veneer of legitimacy while it engages in cover-up, thereby worsening the global crisis."
Context must be provided to the unfolding global tragedy that began in China. The Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero observed in Oratio Pro Animo Milone XVI that "Maxima illecebra est peccandi impunitatis spes." (The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong.) Communist China has been able to act with impunity invading and occupying Tibet in 1950, killing tens of millions of Chinese in the Great Leap Forward (1958 - 62), the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), crushing the Tiananmen Square protests (1989), and forced organ harvesting (2000 - present).
Chinese Tycoon Who Criticized Xi’s Response to Coronavirus Has Vanished https://t.co/A72RibZVw8
Looking the other way at the crimes visited on tens of millions of Chinese nationals is now threatening many more lives around the world following the coronavirus coverup and the active complicity of the World Health Organization. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was right "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
This is the same World Health Organization (WHO), who has a subsidiary, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), profiting of the trafficking of Cuban doctors in a questionable arrangement with Cuba's dictatorship.
The Castro regime, that also has a history of committing crimes and covering up epidemics with impunity is once again being given the benefit of the doubt with regards to its claims that it has been coronavirus free.
This despite the February 2020 announcement by the Castro regime that there is a shortage of soap and detergent in Cuba that will not be alleviated until April 2020 or later, due to decisions made by the central planning authorities. This means that Cubans will not have access to soap to wash their hands.
Secondly that tens of thousands of travelers from Europe, China, and other areas heavily impacted by the coronavirus have been entering Cuba throughout this outbreak. At least 147,900 Italian tourists and 49,781 Chinese tourists traveled to Cuba in 2018 and Cuba's military run tourism industry sought to double the number of Chinese tourists.
The claim that Cuba did not have coronavirus in larger numbers under these circumstances was highly unlikely, but then North Korea continues to claim that they have no cases of coronavirus, despite having a border with Communist China, and South Korea having 7,979 cases.
Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo forced public workers to march in a pro-govt rally today
In Nicaragua, where dictator Daniel Ortega and his wife, and first lady, Rosario Murillo carried out a mass march titled, "Amor en tiempos del Covid-19" (Love in the time of Covid-19), and mandated that public workers attend on Saturday, March 14, 2020. This was done against recommendations of the World Health Organization.
Poster calling for walks in midst of coronavirus threat in Nicaragua.
Unlike their North Korean and Nicaraguan counterparts, the Castro regime recognized reality to a certain extent. Three days ago the Cuban government reached a point where they had to acknowledge that the situation had changed and that Cubans were finally being impacted by coronavirus, after denying its presence for weeks.
Reuters reported the Cuban dictatorship's official press on March 11, 2020 that "four Italian tourists who were staying at a hostel in the southern town of Trinidad after arriving at Havana airport on Monday had presented respiratory symptoms and were taken to a hospital on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the hospital confirmed that three of the tourists had tested positive for the coronavirus, the broadcaster said."
It is important to note that Panama's Ministry of Health, a day earlier, on March 10th had reported that two Panamanians, ages 55 and 29 who visited Cuba had tested positive for the coronavirus when they returned home.
Despite this, the Cuban dictatorship's military run tourism industry continues to pitch Cuba as a travel destination and posted a tweet on March 13, 2020 at 11:01am claiming that Coronavirus does not replicate at high temperatures and that the island is now 29-32 degrees Celsius. Havanatour is owned and run by the Cuban military.
However even non-Cuban tour operators, in the past, have demonstrated a callous indifference for the lives of their clients. In September 2017 when Hurricane Irma, a deadly category five storm with 180 mile per hour winds was bearing down on Cuba and a hurricane watch already issued, tourists were still being flown into the island by British and Canadian travel agencies.The British travel agency "Thomas Cook defended itself saying the company followed the Cuban government's emergency instructions to the letter," BBC News reported.
Cayo Coco suffered the full impact of Hurricane Irma and was destroyed by the storm. They were flying tourists into Cuba to Cayo Coco a day prior to the storm's arrival, as reported by The Independent (United Kingdom).CBC News (Toronto) reported that Canadian tour operator Sunwing had elderly tourists flying into Cuba 24 hours before the Hurricane smashed into Cuba, forcing them to flee for their lives.
Needless to say, the Cuba's dictatorship has a no money back policy.
Meanwhile, the Castro regime sought to shut down a markets in Villa Clara, where merchants would sell products not available in government stores, leading to a large scale demonstration for communist Cuba with protesters shouting, “We want commerce! We want a solution! We want answers! We are not delinquents!” Rumors are circulating that they were going to shut them down to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Returning to the issue of data and statistics, but shifting from health data to educational data. USA Today has published an important article on the literacy rates in Cuba pre-1959 and post-1959 that is a must read, but would also recommend reading Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago's essay on the subject.
Observing these lies that have been bought into by many who should know better, and many others who just absorbed it without critical thought. Theodore Dalrymple gave an analysis of the purpose of communist propaganda that, although terrible, is sadly too optimistic, but there is much truth to it for those already living under communism.
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
Flagg Taylor in his 2015 essay in National Review, "What’s New in the New Political Correctness?" responded to Dalrymple's view, "My one quibble with Mr. Dalrymple is that communist propaganda’s purpose
surely went beyond humiliation—it attempted to disrupt the link between
people’s inner thoughts and reality—to erase the distinction between
true and false." Both Taylor and Dalrymple ignore communist morality, which would give a better understanding of how communist propaganda operates.Vladimir Lenin stated the primary element of communist morality clearly in a speech to Russian communist youth on October 2, 1920.
"The class struggle
is continuing and it is our task to subordinate all interests to
that struggle. Our communist morality is also subordinated to
that task. We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old
exploiting society and to unite all the working people around
the proletariat, which is building up a new, communist society."
This is why Fidel Castro
denied being a communist, why Hugo Chavez called Fidel Castro a
dictator during his first presidential campaign, and why Senator Sanders
claims to be critical of Cuba and Nicaragua, when he has been a long time apologist, and was resistant to calling Venezuela a dictatorship.
This denial of objective reality, truth and an ability to systematically lie to achieve is sometimes effective in taking over a country and imposing a totalitarian dictatorship, but is a total disaster when dealing with infectious diseases, and an outbreak such as the coronavirus.
On the other hand, democracies such as South Korea, and Taiwan (despite being diplomatically isolated by communist China) have successfully contained the spread of the disease and are exemplars that are the antithesis of the communist model.
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