Castro regime agents beat down and arrest Gay activists at Pride Parade in Havana

“Gay” “rights” in Cuba are like all the other “rights”: nonexistent. - Ambassador Roger Noriega, over Twitter on May 11, 2019

On Saturday, May 11, 2019 the Castro regime's efforts at Pinkwashing its totalitarian edifice came crashing down as gay rights activists were beaten down, arrested and taken away for carrying out a Gay Pride march in Havana.

It is important to recall that there is a deep-seated homophobia at the heart of communist ideology that viewed it as a symptom of bourgeois or capitalist contamination. This resulted in the systematic repression of homosexuals in Communist China and the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union homosexuality was criminalized in 1933, "punishable by prison and hard labor, and Stalinist anti-gay policies persisted throughout the 1960s and 1970s." In 1949 upon taking power in Mainland China the communists declared homosexuality a symptom of "bourgeois decadence" and set out to eliminate it.

On March 13, 1963 Fidel Castro gave a speech were he openly attacked “long-haired layabouts, the children of bourgeois families,” roaming the streets wearing “trousers that are too tight,” carrying guitars to look like Elvis Presley, who took “their licentious behavior to the extreme” of organizing “effeminate shows” in public places. The Cuban dictator warned: “They should not confuse the Revolution’s serenity and tranquility with weaknesses in the Revolution. Our society cannot accept these degeneracies.”


Fidel Castro went further in 1965 declaring: “We would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct that would enable us to consider him a true revolutionary, a true communist militant.” ... A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant communist should be.

In 1964 the Castro regime began rounding up Gays and sending them to Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción). These forced labor camps were for those suspected of or found guilty of "improper conduct."  Persons with effeminate mannerisms: what the Cuban government called "extravagant behavior" were taken to these camps.  

Taken away by secret police in Cuba for marching for Gay rights.

April 11th marked the 35th anniversary of the release of Improper Conduct, the film that exposed communist intolerance to Gays and Lesbians in Cuba, and documents what happened during the first 30 years of the Castro regime.  One month later and the relevance of this film was seen in the streets of Havana, Cuba.

Mariela Castro, General Raul Castro's daughter, has led efforts to Pinkwash the Castro dictatorship. Saul Landau, a Castro apologist who passed away in 2013, worked on a project that highlighted her efforts, Mariela Castro's March: Cuba's LGBT Revolution. In light of what happened this past Saturday, the documentary screened by HBO in 2016 has aged badly.

You can march for the rights of animals in Cuba, but not for the rights of human beings. https://t.co/RNk520oBk2

— Phil Gunson (@philgunson) May 11, 2019

Reports emerged on May 7, 2019 that the state-run Center for Sex Education, headed by Mariela Castro, said in a Facebook post that the Conga Against Homophobia scheduled for an unspecified date in May had been canceled on orders of the Ministry of Health.

#CUBA: Yasmany Sanchez Perez says #Cuban #gay community is not just @CENESEX. Says he was there reclaim his rights in the context of the new #Cuban #constitution. He was one of several later arrested for disobeying orders. @WPLGLocal10 pic.twitter.com/kX1zGQsyds

— Hatzel Vela (@HatzelVelaWPLG) May 12, 2019

Gay rights activists condemned the cancellation and then organized their own demonstration. On Saturday, more than 100 demonstrators took to the streets of Havana. After setting out on Havana's Paseo del Prado, the marchers came up against a large number of police and state security forces. Beatings, detentions and several arrests ensued.

This would be a good time to invite friends that do not know the Castro regime's history on Gays to see Improper Conduct.

Spies in the Ointment: Downside of going to Cuba to get "A Revolutionary Perspective on Education"

 Do participants in "A Revolutionary Perspective on Education" know what they are getting into?

Florida International University and The University of New Mexico are organizing a 9-day trip to Cuba in what they say is a "people to people program" that will "focus on educational practice and philosophy on the island."

"The program kicks off on July 8, 2016 in Miami, Florida, with a one-day educational training session led by FIU Cuban Studies experts." From July 9th until July 17th participants will be introduced to Cuba's totalitarian regime complete with at least two propaganda sessions that portray the dictatorship in a positive light.

This is a Potemkin Village visit to a totalitarian communist dictatorship that has demonstrated its effectiveness in controlling the narrative with visiting groups. To begin to counter this one must read Paul Hollander's Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society that studies and catalogs the strategies and tactics that these regimes use, including the Castro regime in Cuba.

A trip highlight that raises eyebrows is the visit to Revolutionary Square on July 9, 2016. This landmark was built during the Batista regime and called the Civic Square until the Castro regime renamed it the Revolutionary Square. The image of Che Guevara is found on the side of the Ministry of the Interior, which houses the Castro regime's secret police.

Also raising eyebrows on Wednesday, July 13th participants will view a propaganda film “Maestra” on the Castro regime's 1961 literacy campaign in the country side, produced by Catherine Murphy, a collaborator with the late pro-Castro propagandist, Saul Landau. No mention is made of observing the 22nd anniversary of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat sinking on that day.

A day before on July 12, 2016 participants will attend a meeting with the "Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP)" that should raise more than eyebrows but alarm. According to counter intelligence expert Chris Simmons the "ICAP’s intelligence collaboration with the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) dates back over three decades. It is not a DI entity per se, but is believed to be roughly 90% DI-affiliated due to a large pool of collaborators who serve the small team of ICAP-embedded DI officers." A past president of the ICAP was indicted for drug smuggling into the United States in 1982. Do participants understand that they may be profiled by Cuban intelligence officers? Will the orientation at Florida International University by Cuban Studies experts provide adequate preparation so that participants are not compromised?

Dr. Carlos & Elsa Alvarez: Castro spies at FIU

A word of caution to participants that during their stay in Cuba they are at the mercy of the Cuban intelligence service and sadly Florida International University in the past has not been a reliable partner for visiting groups. Psychology professor Carlos Alvarez who was the associate professor for educational leadership and policy studies, and his wife Elsa Alvarez, counselor for the psychological services department  at Florida International University were arrested by the FBI on January 6, 2006. Professor Alvarez conducted trips to Cuba with young professionals in the late 1990s in what was billed a conflict resolution project.  Alvarez was sentenced to five years in prison and his wife to three years in prison on February 28, 2007 for conspiring to act as unregistered Cuban agents.

An overview of the agenda shows that this is an official visit that will provide a false impression to visitors on the real nature of the Cuban educational system under the present regime. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama repeated the same cliches on the Cuban education system that are not backed up by the historical record when he stated during his recent visit to Cuba: "Cuba has an extraordinary resource -- a system of education which values every boy and every girl." Sadly, this is not the case.

First, according to the 1953 Cuba census, out of 4,376,529 inhabitants 10 years of age or older 23.6% were illiterate, a percentage lower than all other Latin American countries except Argentina (13.6%), Chile (19.6%), and Costa Rica (20.6%). Factoring only the population 15 years of age or older, the rate is lowered to 22.1%”  Other countries in Latin America were able to achieve similar literacy rates to those claimed by the Castro regime without sacrificing civil liberties. (1)

The Slovak-based People in Peril conducted a study between 2005 and 2006 that generated a 77 page analysis, What is the future of education in Cuba?, gathers criticism,  suggestions and proposals for a future educational reform. According to Eliska Slavikova in an interview with El Nuevo Herald on October 23, 2007 observed ''Cuban education is destroyed, with grave problems like the deterioration of the schools, the predominance of ideology over teaching  and the bad preparation of teachers.'' The study made the following findings:

• There's been a ''pronounced'' departure of teachers to other jobs because of low salaries and the lack of social recognition.
• Many teachers also left their jobs because of the government's growing ideological pressures. The primary objective of education is the formation of future revolutionary communists.
• The great majority of schools lack the equipment and installations needed to provide a good education.
• High school graduates have been put to teach after only an eight-month special course. But much of the teaching now is done through educational TV channels.

More recent analyses of the Cuban educational system in 2014 and 2015 arrive at the same conclusions on lack of quality, resources and continued politicization of the curriculum.  One wonders if the participants of "A Revolutionary Perspective on Education" will be able to get an accurate perspective on the education system in Cuba or will just repeat the same platitudes as President Obama that are divorced from the reality experienced by the average Cuban child.


Footnote
(1)Alvarez Díaz, José R. “A Study on Cuba .” Cuban Economic Research Project. Coral Gables : University of Miami Press, 1965. pg 426-427.