Category Archives: Cuban Revolution

Cuban Culture, Cuban Revolution, Saul Landau

Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up: Saul Landau

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By DemocracyNOW.org – Amy Goodman

Award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author, professor Saul Landau has made more than 45 films and written 14 books, many about Cuba. His latest film is “Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up,” about U.S. support for violent anti-Castro militants. Landau joins us to discuss the history of the Cuban Five and U.S. support for a group of anti-Castro militants who have been behind the bombing of airplanes, the blowing up of hotels and assassinations. Today they are allowed to live freely in the United States. “What did Cuba do to us?,” Landau asks. “Well, the answer, I think, is that they were disobedient, in our hemisphere. And they did not ask permission to take away property. They took it away. They nationalized property. And the United States … has never forgiven them.”

Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro

The Nobel Peace Prize winner

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I will hardly refer to the Cuban people, who one day rid their country of the United States domain, when the imperialist system had reached the height of its power.

Men and women of different ages paraded on May Day down the most symbolic squares in all provinces of the country.

Our Revolution emerged where it was least expected by the empire, in a hemisphere where it was used to act like an all-powerful master.

Cuba came to be the last country to get rid of Spanish colonialism and the first to shake off the heinous imperialist tutelage.

Today I am thinking particularly about the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its heroic struggle against the ruthless plunder of the resources with which Nature has endowed that noble and self-sacrificing people who one day sent their soldiers to faraway places in this continent to bring the Spanish military power to its knees.

Cuba has no need to explain why we have been in solidarity not only with all the countries of this hemisphere but also with many others in Africa and other regions of the world.

The Bolivarian Revolution has also been in solidarity with our homeland. Its support was transcendental during the years of the Special Period. That cooperation, however, in no way came up at Cuba’s request. Neither did we demand any condition from any of the peoples that required our educational or medical services. We would have offered Venezuela our maximum support no matter the circumstances.

For revolutionary Cubans, to cooperate with other poor and exploited peoples has always been a political principle and a duty towards humanity.

I feel great satisfaction to watch, as I did yesterday, through Venezolana de Televisión and Telesur, the profound impact that the adoption of the Labor Organic Law enacted by the Bolivarian leader and president of the Republic, Hugo Chávez Frías, caused among the people. I had never seen anything like that in the political landscape of our hemisphere.

I paid attention to the huge crowds that gathered in the squares and avenues of Caracas, particularly the spontaneous comments made by the citizens who were interviewed. I had hardly –ever, perhaps- seen the level of emotion and hope that transpired in their statements. It became evident that the overwhelming majority of the people are humble workers. A true battle of ideas is being powerfully waged.

Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, courageously stated that we are living through a change of times rather than through times of change. Both Rafael Correa and Hugo Chávez are Christians. But, Obama, what is he? What does he believe in?

One year after the murder of Bin Laden, Obama is competing with his rival, Mitt Romney, to justify that action which was perpetrated at a facility close to the Military Academy of Pakistan, a Muslim country allied to the United States.

Marx and Engels never talked about murdering the bourgeois. According to the old bourgeois concept, the judges were the ones who judged and the executioners were the ones who executed.

There is no doubt that Obama was a Christian; one of the facets of that religion helped him to learn the trade of conveying his ideas, an art that meant a lot to him during his meteoric rise to the upper echelons of his party.

The principled declaration of Philadelphia of July of 1776 stated that all men were born equal and free and that they were all endowed by their Creator with certain rights. As far as we know, three quarters of a century after independence the black slaves, with their wives and children, continued to be sold at public squares; and almost two centuries later, Martin Luther King, a Nobel Peace Laureate, had a dream, but he was murdered.

The Oslo Nobel Committee awarded Obama his prize, and he almost became a legend. However, millions of persons must have watched the images. Nobel Laureate Barack Obama traveled hurriedly to Afghanistan as if the world ignored the mass murders, the burnings of Muslims’ sacred books and the desecration of the corpses of murdered persons.

No honest person will ever assent to the perpetration of terrorist actions. But, has the US president any right to judge or kill, to become both the judge and the executioner and commit such crimes in a country and against a people on the opposite side of the planet?

We watched the US President in shirtsleeves, running up a steep staircase, walking at quick pace down an overhead corridor and stop to give a speech to a large military contingent that applauded unwillingly the words of the illustrious President. Those men were not all American-born. I thought about the colossal expenses this meant, whose burden is being borne by the world. After all, who is bearing the burden of that huge cost which exceeds already 15 trillion dollars? That is what the illustrious Nobel Peace Laureate offers humanity.

Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 3, 2012

7:50 p.m.

Cuban Revolution, The Cuban Five

René González is in Cuba

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Reprinted from Prensa Latina

René González, one of the five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters unfairly given harsh prison sentences in the United States, arrived to Cuba on Friday on a family, private visit in the wake of authorization by a US judge to visit his gravely ill brother.

According to information released by the TV news program, René arrived minutes alter midday.

On February 24, René had filed through his lawyer an emergency motion before the South Florida District Court, requesting an authorization to visit his brother, seriously ill in Cuba.

Nearly a month later, on March 19, Judge Joan Lenard, who have been handling the case of The Cuban Five since the start of their proceedings, authorized the trip for 15 days under certain conditions, including obtaining all US government travel permits needed.

She also set as a prerequisite failing a detailed travel schedule, his location in Cuba and information of contact in the country, as well as a systematic phone contact with his probation officer.

The judge also made clear that all conditions of Rene’s supervised release remain unchanged and he has to go back to the United States as soon as the two weeks pass from the date of his trip.

After having suffered 13 years of unfair prison, René is under a supervised release regime for another three years during which he has to remain in the United States, which constitutes an additional sanction.

The decision of authorizing his trip is fully in line with conditions established for his supervised release, which allow him to travel to Cuba after an approval by the probation officer or the judge.

Even the US Government, which has opposed all motions filed by René to be allowed a permanent return to Cuba and his temporary visit to his brother, admitted that conditions of his supervised release do not prevent him from visiting our country.

In this regard, as of March 7, 2011, the Attorney General’s Office argued that the terms of Rene’s supervised release do not prevent him from traveling to Cuba during that period. “Nothing will prevent him from requesting his probation officer (or the court, if he was denied that by the former) a permit to travel to Cuba to visit his wife, his old parents or other relatives.”

In the motion filed by his lawyer, Rene said he would comply with the terms established for the visit and return to the United States.

Despite the terms imposed, our people, with deep respect, welcomes home our beloved René, and do not stop fighting for his final, permanent return home along with his four close brothers, says the press release.

René González, along with his comrades Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, was detained in 1998 in the United States for monitoring Miami-based violent groups operating against Cuba.

Cuba - Social, Cuban Revolution

The Cuban man who outwitted CIA tells his story

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CubaSI
Written by Aday del Sol Reyes

Cuban Man Outwitted CIA

Raul Antonio Capote was filtered in the United States of America’s CIA. He was known as agent Pablo and had —among other tasks—, to convert university students into enemies of the Revolution.

For years, Raul Antonio Capote, agent Daniel in Cuban security force, was filtered in the United States of America’s CIA. He was known as agent Pablo and had —among other tasks—, to convert university students into enemies of the Revolution.

The CIA developed a complex plan of subversion to penetrate a key sector for them, university students.

His experiences in facing these plans and the circumstances surrounding agent Daniel to carry out the mission are addressed in Enemigo (Enemy), a book launched at the 21st Havana’s International Book Fair on February 18th.

It was the perfect pretext for JR (Juventud Rebelde newspaper) to talk with university professor and Master in Contemporary History and International Relations, agent of Cuban State Security and writer Raúl Antonio Fernández Capote (Havana, 1961).

-First El Adversario (Plaza Mayor Publishing House, Puerto Rico, 2005), and now Enemigo. Is there any other relation between these two books besides the similarities in the title?

-In El Adversario, Havana natives face the evil forces that have selected Havana as the final battle scenario in which they will try to defeat Gemini (equality), and the good will prevail. The history of battles between Cuban people and the special services of their mortal enemy, specially the CIA, is narrated in Enemigo. Both texts are a tribute to heroism of a people.

The difference? Well, the first is fiction and the other book is a testimony. Both have high human value. At least I tried to achieve it as a writer and protagonist of the time we are living. El Adversario is the struggle of the best human values against animal instincts, against lust. In Enemigo I tried to portray the human side of an agent of the Cuban State Security, of a revolutionary intellectual, a communist writer, against the enemies of his country, a battle that is carried out from the absolute silence, not expecting any reward other than satisfaction of the mission accomplished. In this unusual case, the identity of the agent is revealed and the recognition of his people is seen.

-Both books outwitted the CIA. Is Capote engaged with this sort of confrontation?

-That is my own war to the same extent this is the war of a whole people. As long as the enemy exists, this fight will never stop. It is not rhetoric, it is conviction of life.

-Much of the book Enemigo is dedicated to report how the U.S.’s CIA has committed million of dollars in the execution of subversive political and ideological plans aimed at young Cubans. What is the role of new technologies in this project?

-The enemy has elaborated a subversive plan, where new technologies play an important role, e.g. Libya, Syria, etc… Clearly, men are the ones who work, organize, and generate ideas, start revolution or counter revolutions. But the Internet and new equipment designed to communicate within seconds allow a great level of mobilization. Building on these strengths, the government of the United States provides the internal counterrevolution with sophisticated and expensive equipment like Bgan to increase their ability to articulate and summoning.

We cannot forget we are referring to the same government that forbids Cuba’s access to the Internet, by blocking and pursuing any attempt of Cuban government and companies to do business with American companies and their subsidiary companies all over the world. This government controls more than 80% of the Internet service and the necessary technology for its use.

Blocking the accessibility of Cuba to new technologies of communications and information, and simultaneously, facilitating the access to internet to Cuban counterrevolutionaries for internal subversion, training them in its usage, flooding the country with the necessary tools to bring the Cubans manipulated information, distorted and elaborated in the U.S., without any control required by the relevant international standards, would allow them to monopolize the information in the country and eventually, encourage people to carry out actions against the Revolution to justify an armed attack. We can never forget that, because the plan against Cuba was and still is to occupy the country to return the properties to Americans, as stated in U.S. laws such as the Helms Burton Act. The plan in Cuba is that of Iraq, not that of Poland or Czechoslovakia. It means to occupy the country to try to overcome the resistance they will find. Then, they will remove even the memory of the Revolution. Hose people still in doubts, I invite them to read the Bush Plan. I invite them to read Enemigo.

Young people who belong to a new digital era and were born in the midst of this technological revolution become ideal target for these plans. The American empire and its special services mastermind such projects. Organizations like the United States Agency for International Development ‘(USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and many others, regarded as facade of the CIA, spend millions dollars to work with subversion aimed at Cuban youth and highly qualified specialists.

– Did the CIA recruit you for being a university professor? Why does the U.S. government consider Cuba’s youth as the most vulnerable sector?

I do not think that young people in Cuba are the most vulnerable sector. I don’t even believe they are vulnerable. These days I have discussed many topics with many young people across the country and such meetings have given me elements to confirm that we have a mostly firm and revolutionary youth. I heard that some U.S. officials believe they lost their particular war against the historical leadership of the Revolution. Therefore, they bet on who they have named the grandchildren of the Revolution. We should not forget that we live in a world ruled by capitalist culture and our young people know about capitalism by the things we tell them, and we did not know it either. Our enemy knows it well. This is a war of axiology, a war that takes place in the minds of men. If they succeed in changing our thinking, if they succeed in conveying the values ​​of capitalist culture in the new generations of Cuban, then they will have won the battle. This Cuban struggle against demons is the greatest challenge of youth nowadays.

-You venture into testimony in Enemigo. Is it something temporary or an abandonment of narrative fiction?

-No, I have not abandoned the fiction. I’m writing a novel, but I have the intention to keep on writing testimonies. I have many things to say and this literary genre allows me to achieve the communication I need with the Cuban people.

– How would you define yourself, university professor, writer, or agent of the Cuban State Security?

-The great strength of the Cuban State Security, the strength that has allowed it to defeat the CIA, with its well-trained officers, agents and technicians, with its unlimited budget, with its latest technological resources, is that the Cuban State Security is composed of all Cuban revolutionaries, most of the people. I define myself as an intellectual revolutionary. That’s me.

-Do you think Enemigo can help young people to understand that the enemy is actually everywhere and it is not a fable like that of the Wolf.

-The book is dedicated to young people. I was also a young man not too long ago. I remember we referred to the enemy to justify our own mistakes. Moreover, the enemy and its lackeys try to convince us that the danger is not real, trying to demobilize us, with the resource thousand times repeated, that there is no threat and it is only an exaggeration of the revolutionary government.

My experience within the enemy allowed me to fully appreciate the danger is real and constant. I wondered sometimes: why were we worried with the enemy? The mission I accomplished let me know that such concern was actually small. The enemy will never stop trying to destroy the Revolution. Why? Because Cuba is an example too powerful and Cuban revolutionaries are by far the most active dissidents within this world of global capitalist power, because we are managers and promoters of a culture that is deadly opponent of capitalist culture; because they fear us, because they hate us more than anyone else, because we ended half a century of absolute dominion of the empire over the land and sow hope in the land of a possible better world.

If the book helps to clarify the truth, if the book serves as a tool for the revolutionary, if it serves as argument for the fighters in this battle of ideas, and helps to encourage the timorous, instruct the ignorant, convince unbelievers and denounce the traitors, then it will have well its purpose, right?.