International communist terrorist says Fidel Castro killed more people than me

"I'm a professional revolutionary." - Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, a.k.a Carlos the Jackal, on trial in Paris for murders and terror bombings, November 7, 2011

Warfare is a tool of revolutionaries. The important thing is the revolution! The important thing is the revolutionary cause ... Fidel Castro, Memorial service for Che Guevara, October 8, 1967

Carlos the Jackal inspired by Fidel Castro

International terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal, who went on trial in France on Monday, boasted in an interview with the daily El Nacional of committing more than 100 attacks that claimed up to 2,000 lives explaining that:

With the means that I have in jail I began to make a rough account and the dead do not reach 2,000. Less than 10% of innocents suffered for it.

Later in the same interview when questioned about the attacks and asked if mistakes were made Ramírez Sánchez gave a candidly brutal answer:

Reporter - But then you, personally, believe that you were not mistaken in anything?
Ramírez Sánchez- Errors one commits all the time. President Chavez makes mistakes and thats normal, it is not a serious problem. Fidel Castro made ​​terrible mistakes.

Reporter- But people were killed in your attacks.
Ramírez Sánchez - Yes, but Fidel killed more people than me.

An interesting side note the Venezuelan terrorist claims that aide sent by both Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the former despot of Libya Moammar Qaddafi did not reach him stolen by their respective underlings.

On December 24, 1997 Ilich Ramírez Sánchez was convicted of murder by a French Court and sentenced to life in prison. He responded to the sentence stating:

"I am satisfied and I am proud I chose my cause when I was 14 and I have never strayed."

According to the New York Times, "his real cause was anti-Americanism, adopted when he was a student in the 1960s looking for a way of defying U.S. domination and capitalist values the way Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had done for Cuba before him."



In France, a life sentence apparently means at least 22 years and now the international terrorist is on trial for the first time for acts of terrorism that took the lives of 12 people in order that he spend another 22 years in prison including "complicity in killings and destruction of property using explosive substances".

The tactics for which Carlos the Jackal is on trial facing a life sentence were and are glorified by the regime in Cuba. In addition, as early as the 1960s the Castro regime recruited, organized and trained terrorists from around the world to make them more effective. Carlos the Jackal is just one terrible consequence of the Castro regime's belief in revolutionary violence.

Electoral Fraud and Irregularities in Nicaragua

Violence is a tool of people who feel weak. Nonviolence is a tool of those who feel empowered. -Cynthia Boaz

Sweep away the corruption: Corrupt Magistrates, Electoral Fraud, Stealing from the State, Decrees

The circumstances leading to the elections on Sunday in Nicaragua where one of the presidential candidates, the incumbent Daniel Ortega, shredded the constitution in order to be placed on the ballot to run for a third term were already suspect. The Los Angeles Times laid out the background:

The Nicaragua constitution forbids a person from serving as president more than twice, and from succeeding himself or herself. Ortega was ineligible on both counts. But since his second election as president in 2007 (after an earlier stint 1984-90) Ortega succeeded in placing supporters in key posts on the courts and electoral bodies. Last year the Nicaraguan Supreme Court, at Ortega’s behest, ruled that term limits were unconstitutional, clearing the way for the 66-year-old to run again.

Depressing enough without taking into account Ortega's and the Sandinista Party's financing by drug cartels exposed by wikileaks and the creation of paramilitaries and state security to repress and spy on the political opposition.

The news at the end of the day describes a stolen election with violence and a lack of transparency. The Miami Herald reported that "voting was marred by scattered violence, including reports of gunfire that wounded four people near the coffee-growing city of Matagalpa and arson attacks on several rural precincts." The Carter Center sent a group to visit Nicaragua during the elections but did not participate as election observers according to CBC due to restrictions placed by the Nicaraguan government. International observers from both the European Union and the Organization of American States expressed their reservations about the electoral process:

Luis Yanez, a Spanish legislator who heads a European Union delegation, said 20 of the group's 90 observers faced "inexplicable" difficulties in gaining access to polling stations.

"I don't understand why there are so many obstacles, so much opacity and so many tricks in a process that should be clean and transparent," Yanez said, adding that some precincts opened late, blocked opposition election monitors and filed vote tallies that were illegible.

Dante Caputo, a former foreign minister from Argentina who heads an observer mission from the Organization of American States, said obstacles were tantamount to a disavowal by the Ortega government of accords to allow election observers.

At least 10 OAS teams arrived at key precincts around the country where they were to monitor voting and ballot counting only to be told they could not enter, Caputo said.

"We faced a series of difficulties ... We were blocked from being where we were supposed to be. This kind of situation has not happened before. It is worrisome," Caputo said.

Both the violence and lack of transparency on the part of the Ortega government are demonstrations of weakness and no doubt that if the elections were properly held he would lose. Mohandas Gandhi's observation that "Truth never damages a cause that is just" is being demonstrated in Nicaragua and that what Ortega and the Sandinistas are doing is unjust. Hence the lies.

With 6% of the vote reported Daniel Ortega obtains 66% of the vote and most likely control of the legislature in order to follow the example of Chavez in Venezuela in undermining democracy in Nicaragua.

The Movement for Nicaragua has placed the above reproduced cartoon on its twitter page calling for sweeping out corruption. Unfortunately, the results tonight indicate that the elections in Nicaragua rather than being a democratic exercise that legitimizes the political system will create greater instability and insecurity in the country. The people of Nicaragua are in my prayers and thoughts at this difficult moment in their history.

Property and human rights in Cuba

Without human rights the "right" to buy and sell property is a right to expropriate the poor.


Newsrooms around the world are reporting with great excitement that Cubans will be able for the first time in half a century to buy and sell property. It is being hailed as an expansion of economic freedom. The reality is much more somber. Human rights are non-existent in Cuba. There is a powerful elite known as the nomenklatura that has the power, in practice, to do whatever it wants regardless of the "law." Property rights are human rights. Human rights are non-existent in Cuba. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to the dictatorship, is a subversive document to be cited in court proceedings after being confiscated from the home of a dissident not something to to be taught in schools.

Human rights and the rule of law exist in order to protect those without power from the abuse of the powerful. Even in the United States this concept has been eroded with the 2005 Supreme Court decision Kelo vs. City of London which ratified the right of using government power to condemn private homes to benefit a property developer. However, in a communist state where the rule of law and human rights are not existent such as China for example Beijing has been described by Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University as "Kelo-on-steroids: neighborhoods are ripped down as skyscrapers go up."

"Enough of Evictions"

In reality, property can be taken from one owner and given to another with greater political influence. What has until now been a de facto practice for decades will be given a legal veneer in order to give the rich, powerful and politically connected [i.e. the nomenklatura] in Cuba the right to plunder the island. Variations of this took place in Russia and China. A practice that has already been going on for years in Cuba. Now the Cuban communists will become the oligarchs of a post-Castro Cuba.

Guillermo Fariñas arrested and beaten up for visiting hunger striker in hospital

Meanwhile, the level of violence against human rights defenders is increasing. EFE and AFP newswires reported that Guillermo Fariñas was arrested on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 while visiting hunger striker Alcides Rivera Rodríguez at the hospital. Guillermo's mother Alicia Hernandez told AFP that

"According to what I was told by someone who was with him, he was on his way in and (state agents) told him no, and there was some kind of melee and they arrested him. One of the agents held him, kept him in place, while another beat him. They have him in the police unit. They had never before physically abused him."

Jorge Luis Perez "Antunez" and Yris Pérez Aguilera
arrested and beaten for visiting hospitalized hunger striker

Three days earlier on October 31, 2011 around 4:00pm, activists Jorge Luis Perez "Antunez", Yris Pérez Aguilera [Antunez's wife], in the Arnaldo Milian Castro Hospital visiting Rivera Rodriguez, were beaten and arrested by State Security agents.

Also violently arrested before hand at around 3:15pm were activists Damaris Moya Portieles, Idania Yánez Contreras, Julio Columbié Batista and Yanisbel Valido among others totaling 20, who were gathered in the hospital lobby. Damaris Moya Portieles described what happened:

We were taken out of the hospital, dragged and beaten up to the cars of the Special Brigades, the patrol cars that state security had and well, the police. [...] From there we were taken to police instruction better known as "UPOC" and when we got there dragged out of the cars, and beaten up. I was already inside the unit and standing in front of the occupation room when my sister Idania Yanez Contreras arrived with three female guards from the Guamajal prison. They arrived hitting her with a closed fist to the abdomen, to the head, everywhere. There, I run to where the sister Idania Yanez Contreras is and try to take them off her although it is one of these women on top, she physically hold her hands completely peacefully saying please do not hit me any more. One of these women takes me by the hand and leads me to the front of the occupations room pushing me where the other two brought Idania by the hair and beat her and punched her.

Then I free myself from this woman that was holding me and I go to where my sisters Idania Yanes Contreras and Yanisbel Valido Pérez where. They were almost strangling Yanisbel because the color of her face was red, red, red and they were punching Idania a lot. Then a guard from Guamajal grabbed me who is a really tall and bulky woman who collides with me and my head falls on top of a fence. I'm hit on the head and there I have a very big bump, really huge. From there my hands and feet start to feel numb. It felt like my feet were inflamed ,they swelled up and they leave me lying on the floor and attack Idania with hits and punches she's dragged inward to the cell.

Idania Yánez Contreras badly beaten in the past and again this past week

Unfortunately, there is much more about this brutal episode and it is available in Spanish. Its disappointing that these three women and the other 17 activists, not being high profile international figures, suffer these brutal assaults and arrests that go unreported in the news wires. As in the case of Guillermo Fariñas they have suffered brutal beatings and arrest because they demonstrated their solidarity with a man who has spent a month on hunger strike demanding an end to the violence against nonviolent activists. The regime's response is to attack his visitors.

Both Idania Yánez Contreras and Yris Pérez Aguilera have been so badly beaten in the past that the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights had issued precautionary measures concerned about both women's physical integrity in 2011. Changes are taking place in Cuba but it is going from bad to worse. Without the rule of law, respect for human rights and escalating violence against nonviolent activists things are bound to get a lot worse.

Learn how to end tyranny without a blood bath

"If you fight with violence, you are fighting with your enemy’s best weapon and you may be a brave but dead hero."- Gene Sharp


Gene Sharp founded the Albert Einstein Institution in 1983. Since its founding the institution has been and remains "dedicated to advancing the study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflicts throughout the world. It is committed to the defense of freedom, democracy, and the reduction of political violence through the use of nonviolent action." Professor Sharp has been described as the Machiavelli of nonviolence.

Now through film, How to Start a Revolution, the world has an opportunity to learn about this man and his work. The world premiere was in Boston on September 18. There is a one time opportunity to see this film in South Florida. How to Start a Revolution, a documentary about non-violent strategic theoretician Gene Sharp premieres in South Florida at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival on Wednesday, November 9 at 5:30pm at Cinema Paradiso. Its in the middle of the week at a horrible time but it is worthwhile to do what you can to attend.



The Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter blog has been online since August 23, 2009 and has already referenced Dr. Sharp on several occasions. The author of this blog back in June 14-15, 1996 spent two days in a training led by Gene Sharp in Miami, Florida at Florida International University that was sponsored by Brothers to the Rescue. Sharp gave a presentation on how to face dictatorship's realistically. It was a life changing experience.

Gene Sharp is now 83 years old and his physical movement is limited but the strategic nonviolent vision, strategy and tactics that he has spent a life time teaching and writing about is on the march around the world. It is an alternative to violent wars that minimizes the human cost in confronting tyrants and despots around the world.

If you want to learn how to change the world without a blood bath then you should run to see this film and read as many of Gene Sharp's books as you can get your hands on.

South Florida Premiere of How to Start a Revolution, at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival on Wednesday, November 9 at 5:30pm at Cinema Paradiso located at 503 S.E. 6th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL - (954) 525-3456 Tickets available here.

Will you stand up for Tibet?

Today, November 2, 2011 is a Day of Action by Tibetans and Tibet-supporters being held the day before world leaders meet in Nice, France for a G20 Summit. Around the world demonstrations and actions are being carried out on behalf of the people of Tibet. Sadly, the regime in Cuba has been complicit in the suffering of the Tibetan people. All the more reason for Cubans and people of Cuban descent to demonstrate their solidarity with Tibet. Will you take a few moments to sign a petition and take a stand for Tibet? Additional information is available below.

Ten young Tibetans have set fire to themselves in eastern Tibet since March 2011; eight since 26 September. At least five have died including a nun. These unprecedented and truly desperate acts are a cry to the outside world for help.

Seven of these self-immolations are linked to Kirti Monastery in Ngaba, one of the largest and most influential monastic institutions in Tibet. China’s merciless and violent crackdown in Ngaba and throughout Tibet is intensifying Tibetan grievances and exacerbating the resentment and desperation felt across Tibet

This growing tragedy, if left unchecked, could spiral even further into a nation-wide crisis, unless the world acts now.

The international community, both citizens and governments, must Stand Up for Tibet. Global diplomatic intervention now will save Tibetan lives.

We demand a coordinated international response by world leaders to condemn China’s repressive measures in Ngaba and across Tibet, and to institute multi-lateral mechanisms to advocate for the Tibetan people. Most immediately, we call on China to withdraw its security forces from Ngaba and across Tibet now, and stop the ongoing harassment and torture of monks.