"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)
On January 20, 2020 Nicolas Maduro at the XX Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission of the Cuba
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.
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.
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."
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."
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:
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.
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.
 |
| Down with Cuban Imperialism in Latin America. Save Latin America |
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.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
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
"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 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.
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