Cubazuela: Maduro reveals once again that Venezuela is a Cuban colony

"To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself." - Martin Luther King Jr. Stride to Freedom (1958)

Down with Cuban Imperialism in Latin America. Save Latin America

On January 20, 2020 Nicolas Maduro at the XX Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission of the Cuba-Venezuela Integral Cooperation Agreement revealed the colonial status of his government: "I've told our older brother and protector, Raúl Castro Ruz, and he agrees. And it has been discussed in this mixed commission and we agree. The ambassadors are practically part of the Council of Ministers, the ambassador of Cuba has open doors in each ministry to coordinate, to move forward."

Maduro plantea que el Embajador de Cuba se integre al Consejo de Ministros de su régimen en Venezuela. #20Ene pic.twitter.com/UkZhH0Sv8F

— Gabriel Bastidas (@Gbastidas) January 20, 2020

This has been a long term objective of the Castro brothers. The Cuban dictatorship beginning in 1959 had strategic designs on taking over Venezuela to exploit its natural resources in order to magnify its regional impact.

On January 23, 1963 Cuban Communist leader Blas Roca made it public when he told a Havana rally that when the communists gained full control in Venezuela and they “make themselves owners of the great riches in oil, aluminum and everything their earth imprisons, then all of America shall burn.”  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.

Fidel Castro would continue to agitate for revolution in Venezuela. A well documented incident occurred on May 8, 1967 and was reported in The Washington Post that described how: "two small boats carrying a dozen heavily armed fighters made landfall near Machurucuto, a tiny fishing village 100 miles east of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Their plan was to march inland and recruit Venezuelan peasants to the cause of socialist revolution." An all night gun battle with the Venezuelan military led to nine guerrillas dead, two captured, and one who had escaped.

Cuban Commandant Ramiro Valdes and President Hugo Chavez

Venezuelans successfully defended themselves from repeated ventures, and the Castro regime relented pledging not to attempt the violent overthrow of the democracy, but years later they succeeded with Hugo Chavez at the ballot box what they had failed to do through force of arms.

In 1992 Hugo Chavez was involved in a failed coup against the Andres Perez government. Pardoned by Andres Perez's successor, Rafael Caldera, in March 1994 Hugo Chavez made his way to Cuba later that same year where he was received by Fidel Castro as a hero not a failed coup plotter.

Fidel Castro greets Hugo Chavez in Cuba on December 13, 1994

Four years later, in a reaction to generalized disgust with the corruption endemic to the Venezuelan democratic order epitomized by the Carlos Andres Perez administration the former coup plotter was elected president.  President Caldera, who pardoned Chavez, handed power over to him in 1999. Together with Fidel Castro, as a mentor, Chavez began the process of turning a flawed democratic order into the regime it is today.

Maduro's action on Monday, was just the latest statement echoing what Hugo Chávez had already announced. In 2007 Chávez had declared that Cuba and Venezuela were a single nation. “Deep down,” he said, “we are one single government.”  

In February 2010  Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, then age 77, was hired "as a consultant for that country's energy crisis" but his expertise is not in energy.  Valdes was the Vice President of the Council of State and Minister of Communications in the Cuban government. His role in Communications was figuring out in 2007 a way to muzzle the internet, what he called a "wild colt of new technologies."

Nicolas Maduro and Ramiro Valdes

Commander Ramiro Valdes, founder of the Castro regime's feared Ministry of the Interior, head of the organization between 1961 and 1968 and was viewed by some as "the No. 3 man in the Cuban hierarchy." He is the architect of Cuban totalitarianism's repressive apparatus and assisted Chavez and Maduro in building the Venezuelan version.    

The Castro regime turned Venezuela into their colony. Today it is Cuban occupied territory.

Caracas Chronicles is right when it observes: "Amazing how everything the left accuses the U.S. of wanting to do in Venezuela —siphon off oil wealth, install a puppet dictator, run hundreds of spies, crush democratic institutions— is stuff Cuba is *actually* doing. And has been. For years."

Thousands of Cuban military advisers and intelligence officials assisted the Chavez and Maduro regime's consolidate power to entrench the dictatorship in Venezuela. OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro has described it as "being like an occupation army."

Maduro and the Castro regime are attempting to complete the installation of a communist dictatorship in Venezuela. One of the instruments that these regimes have used to subjugate populations is famine and rationing food to those who are loyal and denying it to those who are not.

Famine is a tool communists have traditionally used to remake societies. 

The deadliest famines in the 20th century were not in Africa but in Europe (Ukraine) and China.
Social science research has demonstrated that famines "happen only with some degree of human complicity."  Human decisions "determine whether a crisis deteriorates into a full-blown famine."

Jean Pierre Planchart malnourished inVenezuela. Pic: Dr. Livia Machad

In the case of Venezuela, Chávez and Maduro destroyed the market in food by imposing price controls "that resulted in underproduction when the official prices did not meet costs of production. Their governments expropriated farms, ranches, and even food distributors such as butchers. There’s very little if anything produced on these expropriated territories." Rhoda Howard-Hassmann's article "Famine in Venezuela" published on August 21, 2018 in the World Peace Foundation reports:

"By 2017 malnutrition was confirmed in Venezuela, precipitating the political unrest now roiling the country. According to Antulio Rosales (“Weaponizing Hunger is a New Low for the Venezuelan President,” Globe and Mail, March 12, 2018, p.A11) and Enrique Krauze (“Hell of a Fiesta,” New York Review of Books, March 8, 2018, pp. 4-7), by early 2018 more than half of all Venezuelans had lost between 19 and 24 pounds, and 90 per cent said they do not have enough money for food."

Despite this reality, on February 4, 2018 Maduro shipped 100 tons of aid to Cuba. Maduro's regime issued ration cards for food in a country were mass hunger is an ever present reality and it is understood by many that following regime instructions, such as going to vote in the last sham election, was necessary to be eligible for rations.  The electoral calculus was clear: "Everyone who has this card must vote," said Nicolas Maduro and continued, "I give and you give."

This is a very old playbook.

According to Felix Wemheuer, professor of Modern China Studies at the University of Cologne, in his book Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union," during the twentieth century, 80 percent of all famine victims worldwide died in China and the Soviet Union." 

Maduro, and his Cuban allies issued denials about the extent of the problem of hunger in Venezuela. The rejection and destruction of humanitarian assistance combined with images of tons of humanitarian assistance shipped from Venezuela to Cuba appears bizarre, but it needs to be placed in the context of previous episodes involving other communist regimes.

Both the USSR and China used Western journalists, such as Walter Duranty in Moscow and Edgar Snow in Beijing to deny that a famine was taking place and to defend the official lies of the regime. This practice continues today in Cuba, Venezuela and elsewhere.

Fidel Castro lounging with Mengistu Haile Mariam, in Ethiopia in 1977

In Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime, reproduced Soviet and Chinese practices when he blacked out communications, and refused access to aid agencies.

In December 1979, during an Ethiopian military offensive, this time including Soviet advisors and Cuban troops, it “was more specifically directed against the population’s means of survival, including poisoning and bombing waterholes and machine gunning herds of cattle.”

Worse yet, as starvation took hold in Ethiopia, Mengistu ordered planeloads of whisky to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his taking power. Denying that a famine was taking place. Once that could no longer be denied he then used the famine as a cover for ethnic cleansing and removing opponents.

Despite all of this the Castro regime on too many occasions is being given a pass, and this is not only a disservice to Cubans, suffering under a 61 year old dictatorship, but also to Venezuelans that have been colonized by the Castro regime.
  

Anatomy of a coup in Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro is an usurper

Usurper (noun): a person who takes a position of power or importance illegally or by force.

Nicolás Maduro is an usurper who has carried out a coup against Venezuelan democracy

Diego Zambrano in the Lawfare blog has outlined the constitutional validity of the presidency of Juan Guaidó and the illegitimacy of Nicolas Maduro who is an usurper. It is Maduro who has carried out a slow motion coup undermining Venezuelan democracy.

"The present Venezuelan crisis began on Jan. 10, when Maduro was sworn in for a second term scheduled to end in 2025. Nobody seems to dispute that his first term ended that day, in accordance with Articles 230 and 231 of the Venezuelan Constitution. The relevant question is whether Maduro was in fact reelected and legally president after Jan. 10.

Any plausible reading of the constitution shows that Maduro was not reelected and, indeed, that there has been no election at all for the term beginning Jan. 10. Article 293 governs the process for calling and organizing new presidential elections, delegating to the National Electoral Council control over the process. Members of that body are nominated through a complicated scheme that gives significant power to the National Assembly, the country’s unicameral legislature, under Article 296. To Maduro’s chagrin, however, the National Assembly has been under opposition control since 2015.

In an attempt to circumvent the National Assembly, Maduro created a parallel legislature under Articles 347 and 348. These provisions, however, were meant solely to call for a constitutional convention and required a national referendum (like the one in 1999). Knowing that a popular vote would defeat his proposal, Maduro concocted an “electoral” process that would ensure every member of that alternate assembly would be under his control. That entire process was outside of the constitutional structure and violated the procedures prescribed by Article 347 and Venezuelan law. Under any sensible reading of the constitution, there was no basis for a parallel legislature nor the process by which it was staffed.

Here’s the key connection between that parallel body and the Venezuelan presidential elections: In 2018, the unconstitutional assembly called for, and organized, a presidential election—in direct violation of the constitution. The alternate assembly sidelined the actual National Assembly’s role, staffed the National Electoral Council with Maduro loyalists, and ensured another “election” that would keep Maduro in power."

Undermined election, packed court to gut powers of National Assembly  2015
On December 1, 2015 on his weekly television show Nicolas Maduro spoke clearly on how he would respond to an opposition victory in the legislative elections: "I will never allow this to happen, ever. I would go out on the streets and fight side by side with the people." Even if he were to lose in the elections Maduro declared: "Were we to lose, which I find unimaginable, I will govern with the people in a civilian-military alliance."

Maduro lost the vote, but the opposition had to defend the results.

Venezuela is not a democracy, but a country where contested elections are held within an anti-democratic regime. This has meant that the opposition had to take to the street to ensure that the vote be respected on and following the December 6, 2015 election. There are prisoners of conscience today in Venezuela and the democratic opposition is demanding their release in an amnesty before Christmas which Maduro rejected. 

Bolivarian National Guard firing at protesters in Venezuela

Furthermore the Maduro regime packed the Supreme Court and used the court to undo the results of the National Assembly elections by challenging the results in 22 races. By denying the opposition its super majority it opens the path to gutting the National Assembly's powers replacing it with a newly created and un-elected communal congress. 

Maduro took things a step further using the supreme court to strip the National Assembly of the power over the Central Bank and leaving it firmly in the executive, i.e. Maduro's hands. 

Illegally suspended a recall referendum
On October 20, 2016 Nicolas Maduro illegally suspended a recall referendum because the dictatorship knew that it could not obtain a favorable result.  

Military snipers targeted and killed protesters on Sunday in Venezuela

Created an alternative to the National Assembly with a fraudulent vote (2017)
The so-called vote for a Constituent Assembly on July 30, 2017 was to do away with the last vestiges of the old democratic order following the Cuban Stalinist model as the end goal. This is why it was so profoundly unpopular.  Despite threats of reprisals from the Maduro regime for those who did not go out to vote only 12.4% of Venezuelan voters took part in the sham election and 87.6% abstained from taking part in it.

The Maduro regime's election officials claimed that 8.1 million voted in their sham election, but Smartmatic, the company that provided the voting machines issued a statement that the turnout numbers had been tampered with.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemned "the new measures taken by the Government of Venezuela to prevent the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and to prohibit the exercise of the right to protest and peaceful assembly in the context of the electoral process convened on July 30, 2017 for the National Constituent Assembly."

Venezuela's Presidential election: If you don't vote for Nicolas Maduro, you don't eat. (2018)

Ration cards were issued for food in a country were mass hunger is an ever present reality and it is understood by many that following regime instructions, such as going to vote in a sham election, is necessary to be eligible for rations. The Maduro regime has continued, the process started under Hugo Chavez, of taking over sectors of the economy. The electoral calculus is clear: "Everyone who has this card must vote," said Nicolas Maduro and continued, "I give and you give." This is part of the reason why the international community refused to recognize the May 20, 2018 election. It was called early by Maduro, and did not respect international norms.

Maduro rally of government officials in May of 2018

Foreign power interfering in Venezuela's internal affairs for decades.
Caracas Chronicles is right when it observes: "Amazing how everything the left accuses the U.S. of wanting to do in Venezuela —siphon off oil wealth, install a puppet dictator, run hundreds of spies, crush democratic institutions— is stuff Cuba is *actually* doing. And has been. For years."

Thousands of Cuban military advisers and intelligence officials assisted the Chavez and Maduro regime's consolidate power to first form and then entrench the dictatorship in Venezuela. OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro correctly describes it as "being like an occupation army."

The Castro regime's personnel have been training the military, security services and pro-regime militias in tactics and strategies to terrorize and repress the citizenry in Venezuela. Many young Venezuelans have paid the ultimate price for standing up for freedom in their homeland. 

Ramiro Valdez, the Cuban official who constructed the police state in Cuba with the help of the East German Stasi and Soviet KGB, has spent a lot of time in Venezuela installing the police state there.

Nicolas Maduro with his Cuban handlers has undermined the National Assembly, stacking the supreme court, creating an anti-democratic parallel assembly while centralizing all power in the executive, and outlawing freedom of assembly, speech and association. Maduro's regime has invited Russian mercenaries to protect him in Venezuela.  Reports indicate that their are 2,000 Russian nationals working in intelligence roles and reporting to the Ministry of Defense.

Castro regime's Ramiro Valdez with Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro

What we are witnessing today are the last elements of Venezuelan democracy found in the National Assembly seeking to mobilize itself and the country around the constitution and the rule of law to defend itself from Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan tyrant backed by Cuba, Russia, Mainland China, North Korea, Turkey, and Nicaragua.

 

Remembering some of the victims of Cuban communism: Génesis Carmona, Venezuelan fashion model, beauty queen, and college student

"Whoever destroys a single life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world." - Mishnah  (1135-1204)

Génesis Cristina Carmona Tovar, September 20, 1991 –  February 19, 2014

Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin put it more succinctly: "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." In the case of Cuba the communist regime has killed tens of thousands, and many have become numb in the face of this horror. Therefore on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first communist regime in Russia, that caused so much harm around the world, will focus on an infinitesimal sampling of some of the victims of Cuban communism.

The fifteenth entry remembers a young martyr: a Venezuelan fashion model, beauty queen, and college student who was shot in the head on February 18, 2014 while nonviolently protesting the Maduro regime in Venezuela and died of her injury on February 19, 2014.

Previous entries in this series were about Cubans trying to change the system nonviolently, Cubans who tried to leave the island, a student shot to death for walking down the wrong sidewalk in Havana, a young Ethiopian woman murdered in a red terror in her homeland for unknown reasons in 1978, and the eleventh entry three young black men executed by firing squad in 2003 for having hijacked a ferry in an effort to reach the United States. The thirteenth entry remembered two young men shot by firing squad in La Cabaña on April 18, 1961. They fourteenth entry remembered a former seminarian, who became a nonviolent human rights defender in a movement founded by lay Catholics, and was killed together with the movement's founding leader on July 22, 2012. 

22 year old fashion model, beauty queen, and college student shot in the head.

 In this entry one explores how a 22 year old woman engaged in peaceful protest in her country was shot in the head and killed by pro-regime forces and how her death is linked to the Castro regime. 

Génesis Cristina Carmona Tovar was marching at approximately 4:00 pm on Tuesday February 18, 2014, near Cedeño Avenue and the intersection of Carabobo, when  a group of masked gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the demonstrators. Génesis was shot in the head in the left occipital region. She was with her sister Alejandra Carmona at the moment it happened. Alejandra in a radio interview said "I was with her, when the motorized units (of the Government arrived), we fled running. We were stopped on a street corner, looking up and then suddenly she fell."  

Genesis Carmona is evacuated on a motorcycle after being shot on February 18, 2014.

According to VOXXI the "22-year-old was rushed in a motorcycle to the Medical Center Guerra Mendez in Valencia, where she was operated and kept in intensive care. Less than 24 hours later on 12:14 p.m., the doctors announced that she had died from her injury. 

The headline in the February 20, 2014 edition of People Magazine read " Venezuelan Beauty Pageant Winner Killed in Anti-Government Protest." She was a model who had won the Miss Tourism Carabobo beauty pageant in 2013. On her Twitter account Génesis described herself as “friendly, but not stupid!” and “passionate about life.” She was studying marketing at Center Technological University (UNITEC) and was in her last year of study.   

Jorge Ramos of Univision interviewed Gabriel Cegarra,  the young man who was holding Génesis on the back of the motorcycle as they hurried to get her to the hospital. Below courtesy of John Sexton of Breitbart is a translation of an excerpt of the interview:

Ramos: The images of the students that have lost their lives in the protests in Venezuela are impressive because, in the majority of cases, they have been shot at and they have no way of defending themselves. To these images we add this impressive photo: beauty queen Genesis Carmona being carried away as she was dying. The student is named Gabriel Cegarra, who had her in his arms to try to save her life. He joins us now via satellite from Valencia, Carabobo state. Gabriel, thank you for speaking with us. What happened that day? Where were you?
Gabriel Cegarra: We were in Cedeño Ave, Valencia. We were protesting there– the protest concentration was there. There was a large group of us there protesting normally, peacefully. All of a sudden we began to see motorcycles on the north side of Cedeño Ave. That is a steep street, and at the top of the street we saw motorcycles with, um, they were armed and over there. At first they were not doing anything, they were just there
concentrated, and we were concentrated in our part and we took note of each other. Then, all of the sudden, there were gunshots, there were three rounds of gunshots. In the third, unfortunately, a bullet hit her in the head.
Ramos: The government said, without proof, that the shots came from the opposition group itself. Do you think the shots came from an armed Chavista group?
GC: Yes, because they were the only ones who were armed. We
do our protesting with a simple tricolor hat, a white shirt– which was what we
organized for that day—
Ramos: So the official version from the government is not true from your point of view? The bullets came from Chavista groups, not the opposition? This is very important.
GC: Not from the opposition, because among ourselves, I don’t think we are there to kill each other. We were just there peacefully protesting. The motorcycles that were shooting, you could see they were armed and they had red shirts, some were black striped, but there were people with red shirts.
Ramos: You already knew Genesis. At what time did you see her get shot through the head?
GC: Yes, I knew Genesis, she is my– was my “buddy” for all life. She was my friend for five years. I realized that she was shot in the head when… I heard the gunshots from where I was, I ducked, and then when I see that she is leaning on a friend’s arms.
The friend brought her to me– it was a short route, about 5 meters, something like that– and I see that when I touch her with her left arm, which I put behind my neck, I started to feel something cold on my arm, and a doctor who was there at the protests also told me, “get on your bike and get help, she’s been shot in the head.”
Ramos: That is precisely what you did. That image and that photograph traveled the world. When you were carrying her with you on the motorcycle, she was still alive, right?
GC: Yes, she was conscious.
Ramos: She was conscious. Could she talk? Did she say something?
GC: No, she didn’t speak to me but her eyes were open. With her right hand she was pulling my shirt, as you can see in the image, and with the left hand she was pulling the shirt of the motorcycle driver.
Ramos: What did you tell her?
GC: Stay still, everything will be fine, I would do everything possible I could to arrive quickly so they could treat her, not to worry, that nothing was going to happen.
Ramos: Then you arrived at the hospital. When did you find out she had died?
GC: I found out yesterday, Wednesday, around 12:50– I was making some declarations and was not at the clinic at the moment, but I got a message simply saying she had died. It was really very sad, that moment; reading that message was nothing good. I didn’t expect that to happen.

Génesis Carmona's aunt, Martha Baron, who lives in Calgary spoke out in English concerning her nieces death on February 24, 2014 to the Calgary CBC: "I would like her to be remembered as a brave girl that died for her country. That's the only way I want her to be remembered." 
 
Her last four tweets were re-tweets from others but give an insight into this young woman's state of mind and are reproduced below:

The first RT is from Leopoldo Lopez announcing that he would be on CNN in Spanish and asking for a RT which she obliged. The second from VVSincensura said that "the opposition united should defend Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado before the intention of the government to jail them. The third from Reinaldo dos Santos gave technical advise stating "If they drop Twitter for Venezuela use a "hotspot shield" which is private navigation without restrictions. Spread the word." The last retweet from Evo Morales (not the president of Bolivia) said: "Stay with the one who tells the best stories. One day they will tell yours."  

Castro regime's man in Venezuela, Ramiro Valdez with Chavez and Maduro

Castro regime's repressive role in Venezuela
In 2007 Chávez had declared that Cuba and Venezuela were a single nation. “Deep down,” he said, “we are one single government.”  When Hugo Chavez died in 2013 the succession to Nicolas Maduro was planned in Havana. The Maduro regime is a puppet regime controlled by Havana.

The name of this "single nation" is Cubazuela and is a term that has been used by mainstream press publications such as The Wall Street Journal. The consequences to the people of Venezuela are well known. Violence has escalated during the Chavez-Maduro era to levels never seen before. There is widespread hunger now in Venezuela. Civil liberties and the rule of law are rapidly disappearing, replaced by the Cuban model.
In addition to domestic repressive forces there is a foreign presence heavily embedded in the Venezuelan military and intelligence services. The head of the opposition National Assembly of Venezuela on May 15, 2016 complained, over social media, of the presence of 60 Cuban officers. This included a Cuban general, who he identified by the last name Gregorich, who had a leadership role that included issuing orders to Venezuelan troops. Capitol Hill Cubans identified the Cuban General as Raul Acosta Gregorich. 

Cuban involvement in Venezuela reaches into the highest levels of the military and intelligence apparatus. In February of 2010  Ramiro Valdes, then age 77, was hired "as a consultant for that country's energy crisis" but his expertise is not in energy. He is viewed by some Cuba experts as "the No. 3 man in the Cuban hierarchy" and the architect of Cuba's repressive machinery. Afro-Cuban scholar Carlos Moore offers the following background information on Commander Valdez :

"Ramiro Valdez was an inflexible, totalitarian and brutal person. He was the most feared man in Cuba. The repressive policies of the regime were crafted by him. Valdez struck fear into the hearts of Cubans (even revolutionary ones). Today, he apparently continues to be the same dogmatic, sectarian and brutal person he was at the height of his power."

 The use of political terror to impose totalitarian control is straight out of the Castro regime's playbook, and the Cuban dictatorship, if not the material authors of the murder of a high profile figure such as Génesis Cristina Carmona Tovar, are the intellectual authors of this extrajudicial execution.

Four years later, those responsible for her killing remain at large, and her mother, María Eugenia Tovar, as well as her sister, Alejandra Carmona fled to the United States in December of 2014 and remain there to the present day.

Meanwhile the situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate and Cuba is making it worse.

Nicolas Maduro and Raul Castro

 

Venezuela: Cuban Occupied Territory

"Franklin Brito died 5 years ago a victim of this dictatorship that stole his land, his property, but never his dignity. We will never forget him." -  María Corina Machado
 

Nicolas Maduro and General Ramiro Valdez in Venezuela

Secretary of State John Kerry in an interview with journalist Andres Oppenheimer last month made it known that "the United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis." In a previous blog post I outlined some of the reasons why this is a bad idea. Emilio J. Cardenas, former Argentinian Ambassador to the United Nations, in El Diario Exterior reports on what the Cubans are currently up to in Venezuela:

Cuba Trains "Thugs" in Venezuela

As a result of the so-called process of "normalization" of relations between Cuba and the United States, the former country has been formally excluded from the U.S.'s list of countries that "export" terrorism. Right or wrong. But that's how it is.

One would think this would definitely preclude Cuba from the possibility of further promoting violence in our region, as indeed it did -- actively and constantly -- in the 1970s, feeding and arming those who killed innocent civilians during the various "internal armed conflicts" in the decade of lead. But this, as we shall see, is not necessarily the case. There are different types of deception, and infamous variants, that are still being used.

Cuba, for a long time, has usually repressed dissidents through its security forces, but also "accompanied" by groups of allegedly independent "thugs" who -- in the streets and squares of the country -- beat opponents mercilessly, with a reprehensible "professionalism".

This allows the communist authorities to argue that only the allegedly "spontaneous" group are responsible for the repression and its consequences. Never the authorities. They pretend to have nothing to do with the violence, when in fact, they are the ones who prepare, decide and to put in place their "thugs" for the crackdowns. It's similar to what is done by the Russian Federation, in Crimea, as in eastern Ukraine. An old trick, which no longer fools anyone, but still serves to hide the sad truth of violence against innocent people. They do the "dirty work" for authoritarian regimes. Again and again. With the endorsement, hidden but real, of the authorities.

This technique is also used by Nicolas Maduro, with his so-called "collectives". They move on motorcycles, in pairs. They are groups of thugs armed to the teeth, not only with guns, but also with sticks and chains to hurt their targets. And to intimidate. They carry revealing designations: "Los Tupamaros", "La Piedrita" or other. They are directly responsible for the violence; especially repression against students, of whom they have killed 25, and have wounded several hundred others participating in peaceful protests -- of both sexes.

These Venezuelan groups are trained in Cuba or by Cuban instructors. Or on the border of Venezuela, with instructors from the FARC, as revealed by the content of computers seized by the Colombian army from the leaders of this terrorist organization. They train for periods of up to three months.

Moreover, they are often serve as "bodyguards" for public officials at all levels. As was the case of a former secretary of commerce, now processed, among us. Among those responsible for the training -- according to reports -- are three Cuban generals: Leonardo Andollo; Ramiro Valdes; and Carlos Fernandez Rondín.

Some estimates place the number of Cubans in Venezuela at 210,000  According to a 2014 article in The Guardian: "Cubans have computerized Venezuela's public records, giving them control over the issue of identity papers and voter registration. They have representatives in the ports and airports, as well as supervising foreign nationals." In short, Venezuela is Cuban occupied territory and under the control of the Castro regime.

Secretary Kerry, the best message to send to the Castro regime to solve the Venezuelan crisis can be summed up in two words: Get out.

Pandora's Box 2015: Re-opening diplomatic relations with the Castro regime

"Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn't be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice." - Corazon Aquino

Castro state security chief Ramiro Valdez with Hugo Chavez in 2009 in Venezuela

Candice Malcolm, a columnist in the Toronto Sun, on February 27, 2015 in an essay titled "Troubling truths about Castro's Cuba" outlining the political, economic and security arguments against engaging with the Castro regime. Ms. Malcolm's essay highlighted a report that addressed present threats to Canada by Cuba such as:

Cuba also helps orchestrate an immigration fraud network that has smuggled radical Islamists into North America, as demonstrated in the Center for a Secure Free Society’s “Canada on Guard” report.

 The "Canada on Guard: Assessing the Immigration Security Threat of Iran, Venezuela and Cuba" report reveals that the Castro regime overhauled "the information systems of the Venezuelan passport and naturalization agency, formerly known as ONIDEX ( Oficina Nacional de Identificación y Extranjería)." In 2005 a new system was implemented and the final version of what is now called SAIME (Servicio Administrativo de Identificación Migración y Extranjería) that can store biometric data and has sophisticated security protocols came into effect in 2009. According to the above cited report this system:

  ..."facilitates the entry of Cuban agents into Venezuela, embedding themselves into various facets of the Venezuelan social missions and national security apparatus. Aside from Cubans, this group also used SAIME to facilitate the travel of Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO's), Colombian guerrillas, and Islamist terrorists."

Unfortunately the Obama Administration seems to be ignoring these unpleasant facts although it has applied an emergency order on Cuba to prevent democrats from engaging in nonviolent protests in territory north of Cuba.

Gerardo Hernandez, convicted of conspiracy to murder, honored by Raul Castro

 On December 17, 2014 President Obama commuted the sentences of three Cuban spies. One of them, Gerardo Hernandez, was serving a double life sentence for espionage and conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the deaths of four members of Brothers to the Rescue. Mr. Hernandez has announced that he is ready for his “next order” from the Castro regime. His last order involved first terrorizing and murdering by means of a mail bomb able to circumvent post office security protocols an individual the Castro regime had identified as a CIA agent living in Bal Harbour, Florida. Hernandez and the other spies were unable to execute that order because they were arrested in 1998. Fidel Castro himself has explained that intelligence gathering can be done through the Lourdes spy base. Castro regime agents are engaged in active measures.Considering this what could this "next order" involve?  Here are just three out of many more options taken from newspaper headlines over  the past three years.

Cyber Terror
In 2012 there were reports in the media of Cuban, Iranian and Venezuelan officials meeting in Mexico to discuss cyber attacks on U.S. soil this allegedly also involved seeking information about nuclear power plants in the United States. Little information emerged afterwards. 

Smuggling arms out of Cuba to a sanctioned country
In 2013 Panama captured a North Korean-flagged ship traveling from Cuba with undeclared military cargo headed to North Korea in violation of international sanctions. The Castro regime did not cooperate with the 2014 UN investigation and systematically lied about the weapons and circumstances surrounding the smuggling operation.

Smuggling weapons into Cuba 
Today, March 2, 2015 the news broke that the government of Colombia had seized a shipment of ammunition bound for Cuba on a China-flagged ship due to lack of proper documentation.

Despite all the above the Obama administration hopes to re-open the US embassy in Cuba  within weeks. This also means that the Castro regime's embassy would be fully active in the United States allowing its espionage networks greater reach for mischief. Considering that just one of these spy networks, the WASP network, planned terrorist acts on US soil and had a member convicted of murder conspiracy that led to the deaths of three U.S. citizens and a U.S. resident should be cause for concern. Returning a spy that planned terrorism in the US and contributed to the deaths of Americans to Cuba to a heroes welcome should be cause for moral outrage. This is not reconciliation. This is a dishonorable version of appeasement.