Si Dios fuera negro, mi compai*

Human Rights Comments Off
Jun 202007

He wouldn’t want to live in Cuba:

“Their rights and protection from potential genocide and violence depended on them never trying to organize politically as blacks,” said Mark Sawyer, a UCLA professor who spent 11 months in Cuba researching his recently published book, Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba.

That kind of talk also likely scares the Castro government.

“There is an unstated threat,” Moore said. “Blacks in Cuba know that whenever you raise race in Cuba, you go to jail. Therefore the struggle in Cuba is different. There cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead.”

Yep, another fine example of Castro’s classless, raceless society.

*”If God were black, my friend,” the title of a popular Spanish-language song.

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 7:38 pm

Happy Mother’s Day!

Human Rights, Miscellaneous Comments Off
May 132007

I’d like to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to the following:

  • My mother
  • My stepmother
  • My soon-to-be mother-in-law
  • My stepsister
  • My sister-in-law
  • Las Damas de Blanco, and any other Cuban mother who suffers because at least one of her children is in one of Castro’s many prisons simply because of what he or she believes
  • Any mother reading this
Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 11:31 am

Cuba #5 country where press freedom has most deteriorated

Freedom of the Press, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
May 032007

In honor of World Press Freedom Day, May 3, the Committee to Protect Journalists has published a list called “Backsliders,” of the top 10 countries where press freedom has most deteriorated.

Surprise, surprise, Cuba made the list.

Here are a few choice lines from the article:

  • Other countries such as Cuba have long had poor records but have ratcheted up press restrictions through widespread imprisonments, expulsions, and harassment.
  • Authorities in several countries are silencing critical coverage by imprisoning journalists. Cuba and Ethiopia became two of the world’s leading jailers of journalists in the past five years.
  • Twenty-nine journalists imprisoned in massive 2003 crackdown. Four foreign journalists expelled after covering 2005 opposition meeting. Another 10 barred entry when Fidel Castro becomes ill in 2006.
  • Cases of government harassment increase in the past year.
Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 5:38 am

Who do YOU believe?

Anti-Communism, Castro Is Dead, Human Rights, Media, Politics Comments Off
May 012007

An article in USA Today about Raul Castro’s rule over Cuba is laughingly titled “Many find reassuring continuity under brother Raul.” Read the article carefully and you’ll find the so-called “many” who find continuity “reassuring” are those who benefit the most from said continuity: Castro’s lackeys:

To those close to the government, there’s been a reassuring continuity.

(Jorge Mario Sanchez, an economist at the Center for the Study of the United States, a government think tank in Havana), says Raul Castro is using the party constructively.

Meanwhile, what does the average Cuban Jose have to say about this? How does this affect his life? Does he, too, find this continuity “reassuring?”

Ordinary Cubans, including many who won’t allow their full names to be published for fear of retribution, say they’ve noticed little change.

Abdel, a former wrestling coach, says a heavier police presence is the only difference he’s seen since Fidel Castro underwent emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding in July.

Rene, a carpenter, says food and other routine purchases cost more today.

The U.S. government says Raul Castro has brought hard-liners back into prominent positions and given the Communist Party more authority.

Miguel, a carpenter and electrician in Havana, is wary of the party’s new assertiveness. “This is how they intimidate us,” he says.

I think that last quote sums it up quite well.

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 8:30 pm

Breaking: 13 Cubans make landfall in Miami

Anti-Communism, Defection, Friends of Cuban Freedom, Human Rights, Wet Foot Dry Foot Comments Off
May 012007

According to Channel 7 in Miami (WSVN TV), 11 adults and two children have made it to shore safely from Cuba in the Miami area. The 13 are reported in good health as they made landfall near Key Biscayne in Miami. The news coming on the High Holy Day of communism, May Day. Ha!

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 5:46 am

Anti-Castro news makes MSM?!?!

Anti-Communism, Cuban Dissidents, Freedom of the Press, Friends of Cuban Freedom, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
Apr 282007

Holy cow, the Apocalypse must be coming soon! I found an article about an anti-Castro journalist winning a Spanish journalism award on both the Miami Herald’s and ABC News’ respective websites:

Cuban dissident writer Raul Rivero has won a prestigious Spanish journalism award for his work as a journalist reporting on his native country, where he spent two years in jail on charges of trying to undermine President Fidel Castro’s government.

Rivero, who is 62 and moved to Madrid in 2005 after being released from prison, won one of several Ortega y Gasset prizes that were announced Wednesday. The awards, now in their 24th year, are given by Spain’s top-selling newspaper, El Pais.

The jury voted unanimously to give Rivero the prize for journalism in recognition of his “tenacious and committed battle for journalistic freedom” in Cuba.

It praised Rivero, who is also a poet, for a life’s work that is “very original and of extraordinary literary value.”

Rivero was among 75 independent journalists, opposition politicians and other activists who were arrested in 2003.

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 10:13 am

But, but, but…

Cuba's Economy, Cuban Slavery, Human Rights, Prostitution Comments Off
Apr 282007

Castro did away with the whole “Cuba was America’s brothel” thing, didn’t he?

Well, of course he did! Why, instead of being America’s brothel, Cuba is now Europe’s brothel!

Foreigners have come to Cuba for years seeking escorts for nights out and sex in exchange for gifts or cash to help the family. Cubans dub them ‘yumas’, a term adopted for Americans after a 1957 western set in the town of Yuma on the US border with Mexico.

Traveling here a decade ago, when Cubans were going hungry from the loss of Soviet aid, I saw countless beer-bellied foreign men smooching young women, and mid-forties women with hot young Cuban guys.

There you go, equal-opportunity prostitution, brought to you courtesy of socialism!

While the lovebirds head for bed my hostess shows me photographs of her daughter’s ‘quinceanera’, or 15th birthday, which marks a coming of age for girls in many Spanish-speaking countries.

‘She’s pretty,’ I say, admiring the showy ball gowns and skimpy outfits in the photos. ‘Will she get a yuma one day?’

‘A yuma?’ the mother snaps. ‘I would kill her.’

Yep, another bright socialistic future in Castro’s Cuba.

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 9:33 am

Still more news about Cuba ignored by the MSM

Anti-Communism, Friends of Cuban Freedom, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
Apr 262007

On Yahoo! News, from the Christian Science Monitor:

On Friday, a hospitalized Fidel Castro met with a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo, Wu Guanzheng. It may be no coincidence that Mr. Wu’s specialty is Communist Party discipline.

No coincidence? Ya think?

But there’s more:

Meanwhile, Cuba’s rickety economy is beset by continuing problems. This year’s sugar harvest was well below normal, and tourism is down by 7 percent. Cuba faces a continuing shortage of oil and has been existing on deeply discounted shipments from Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chávez, sees Castro as a leftist brother in arms. Cuba’s own oil is heavy with sulphur, which is highly corrosive.

Some power plants have been shut down as a result of using the damaging Cuban oil. Oil from Venezuela was intended for Cuban domestic use but the Cuban regime is selling some of it for badly needed cash to solve some of its financial problems.

While Venezuela’s Mr. Chávez idolizes Castro, nations such as Spain that may once have been friendly to the Cuban regime are expressing concern about its continuing clampdown and imprisonment of dissidents and would-be reformers.

Two former Polish presidents, Lech Walesa and Aleksander Kwasniewski, issued a letter in March to the Cuban people, drawing on Poland’s experience of abandoning communism for democracy. Published in the Miami Herald, the letter said Poland’s example was a “testimony to the victory of agreement over conflict, dialogue over quarrel, good over evil.”

The letter said the “time of change is imminent. The breath of awakening democracy in Cuba can be felt even … in Poland. Be persistent and in solidarity, be patient and indomitable, ready to construct common future for all Cubans, so that your beautiful country can become a friendly home to all those of your citizens who today inhabit the island and those who have been forced to abandon it.” That last phrase is an obvious reference to the large Cuban exile community in Miami.

In a trenchant challenge to the Castro regime, the letter reminded it that “the time of tyrants and running the country while following ‘the only right line’ is coming to an end. A triumphant march of democracy cannot be stopped. We in Poland know this better than anyone else.”

The letter was timed for the fourth anniversary of a Cuban crackdown on dissenters called the “black spring,” an event that the letter called “yet another blow against the democratic opposition.”

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 7:45 am

More news about Cuba ignored by the MSM

Anti-Communism, Friends of Cuban Freedom, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
Apr 252007

I suppose when international leaders speak out AGAINST Castro, it’s not important enough to be covered widely. From the České noviny, the only place I could find this story:

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel called for greater international solidarity for the benefit of freedom and human rights in Cuba, at the start of a two-day meeting of the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC) in Berlin. Havel addressed his appeal mainly to the European Union.

“Everything that serves human rights and freedoms must be paid attention,” Havel said.

He stressed the importance of international support, referring to his personal experience from opposition to the former regime in Czechoslovakia.

The ICDC brings together politicians and intellectuals. It was created on Havel’s initiative four years ago. Its members include former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar and Nobel Literature Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa from Peru.

“Europe should catch up with the United States in its effort at human rights,” Havel said in an allusion to the EU’s effort to compete with the USA mainly in the economy.

He clearly pointed to the EU’s years-long disunity on the totalitarian regime in Cuba.

The Czech Republic and some other post-communist EU member countries are among the major critics of the Cuban regime and refuse to cooperate with it while some western countries are more accommodating towards the regime of Fidel Castro.

Maybe the reason for a lack of coverage is the self-important MSM can’t pronounce České noviny?

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 7:06 pm

You won’t read this in the MSM

Anti-Communism, Cuban Dissidents, Friends of Cuban Freedom, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
Apr 252007

If Castro farts or Cuba issues some ridiculous statement, it gets picked up all over the MSM. Meanwhile, this is being ignored:

The United States has praised a statement from representatives of the Cuban opposition movement calling for peaceful democratic change in Cuba.

In its statement, released April 16 in Spanish, members of most of Cuba’s leading opposition groups said they were united in their call for Cuba to change peacefully from communist rule to democracy, freedom, social justice and human rights for all the Cuban people.

The statement added that the task of achieving democratic change in Cuban society is up to “Cubans and only Cubans.”

The Bush administration’s Cuba transition coordinator, Caleb McCarry, told USINFO April 20 that the statement is an “important message to the Cuban people and the outside world from Cuba’s peaceful democratic opposition.”

The United States, said McCarry, “supports the right of the Cuban people to define a democratic future for their country.”

McCarry oversees day-to-day operations of the U.S. Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. The commission, co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, was created in 2003 to ensure that the U.S. government is prepared to assist Cuba’s peaceful transition to democracy.

Michael Parmly, chief of mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, added that U.S. policy “has been to give the Cuban people the lead in deciding their country’s future.” Parmly told USINFO that the statement from the opposition Cuban group, dubbed “United for Freedom,” represents the “views of many Cubans who have been advocating for human rights and democratic change for a long time.”

The Cuban opposition’s statement also urged the release of all political prisoners from Cuban prisons who have been “imprisoned unjustly for defending, promoting, and peacefully exercising universally recognized human rights.”

More than 20 members of Cuba’s opposition movement have signed the statement.

Signatories include prominent dissident leaders Oswaldo Payá of the Christian Liberation Movement; Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation; Martha Beatriz Roque and Rene Gomez Manzano of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society; and members of the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) opposition movement, which consists of wives and other close female relatives of imprisoned Cuban dissidents. Among its many honors, this last group was named one of the three winners of the 2005 Sakharov Prize for the promotion of freedom of thought.

But there is no media bias. And I’m Santa Claus.

Share
Posted by Castro Death Watch at 6:44 pm
Older Entries Newer Entries
© 2011 Castro Death Watch Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha