The Sarko in Mexico Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Cross-posted

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. If you would like your posts included in next Monday's Carnival, please email me: faustaw2 "at" gmail "dot" com.

The big stories last week were Hugo Chavez's nationalizing American food producer Cargill in Venezuela, and the change in the Cuban Communist regime. Developing this week: Nicolas Sarkozy's first state visit to Mexico, and Lula's visit to the White House on Saturday.

The Sarko visit, in today's podcast:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni spent the weekend at the beach and touring Aztec ruins with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Sarkozi's first state visit to Mexico starts today. He's expected to discuss the upcoming G-20 meeting, economic crisis and the Florence Cassez case.



Other links from the international media on the Sarko visit:
Le Figaro: Mexique : Sarkozy et Calderon évoquent «l'affaire Cassez»
Libération: Affaire Florence Cassez : transfèrement «probable»
France24: Cassez case casts long shadow over Sarkozy's state visit
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is visiting Mexico on a mission to boost trade with the Central American country. He will also plead the case of Frenchwoman Florence Cassez, who is languishing in a Mexican jail on kidnap charges.
El Universal: Calderón-Sarkozy: una cita en tierra de dioses
Sin actos protocolarios, los presidentes de México, Felipe Calderón, y de Francia, Nicolas Sarkozy, recorrieron ayer las pirámides de Teotihucán
UK's Mail: Sarkozys' stay in £3,000-a-night Mexican villa sparks outrage in recession-hit France

LATIN AMERICA
Border lawmakers fear narco-nuke terrorism link

Bad news for Latin America

ARGENTINA
El kirchnerismo analiza nacionalizar el comercio de granos

BAHAMAS
Double digit unemployment recorded in Bahamas

BOLIVIA
Bolivia Exports Decline 32.9% in January From a Year Earlier

BRAZIL
Nine-Year-Old's Abortion Outrages Brazil's Catholic Church

Reaping the rewards of indolence:
Some of the unreformed aspects of Brazil’s economy are now helping to limit the damage from the world downturn—but its prudence in recent years is helping too

Brazil Said to Be Considering Reducing Primary Surplus. Reaction? Negative

COLOMBIA
We Recommend Shunning Shares of Ingrid Betancourt. The Revelations of the Three Americans Finally Break an Absurd Code of Silence

Via IBD Blog, Colombia says troops kill guerrilla commander

An article by Marc Gonsalvez: I Was Held Hostage in Colombia, and My Captors Should Face US Justice

An unmended fence: Colombia gained much and suffered little from its raid into Ecuador

CUBA
The Queen

Fidel not a hands-off political leader

CT Blog: Is Removal of Cuba From “State Sponsors” List Inevitable?

Richard Brown Pérez, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 3/8/09

Como vacas al matadero

Ex-ministers admit “errors”

The other Castro stamps his heel: Two senior figures are dismissed after tasting “the honey of power”

Obama will use spring summit to bring Cuba in from the cold
US companies are queuing up as the president moves to ease restrictions on travel and trade, raising hopes of warmer relations and an end to the embargo

Cuba regime purge may be defensive act

ECUADOR
Narcotrafico de las Farc se beneficio en frontera con Ecuador tras ruptura de relaciones

El Salvador
El Salvador's Presidential Election, March 15th 2009

MEXICO
Via the Baron, EXCLUSIVE: 100,000 foot soldiers in cartels
Numbers rival Mexican army

Make Mexico's War A Higher Priority

Mexican criminal insurgency comes to Houston

Mexico Finally Rises Near the Top of the Agenda

US Federal agent cautions travelers headed to Mexico

Lech Walesa receives the Legion of Liberty Award - IPEA

Hasta la vista, baby

The Financial Storm Hits Mexico : Their politicians aren't doing much to staunch the bleeding.

PERU
A rare victory in the judicial war in Peru

Las casas ALBA en el Perú

PUERTO RICO
Coast guard rescues 1 man, searches for another, while 11 others rescued in Puerto Rico

VENEZUELA
No more arepas for you

Government to “intervene” areperas?

Hugo Chavez Calls On Obama To Follow Path of Socialism

Zombie capitalism

Chavez tightens state control of food amid rocketing inflation and food shortages

Venezuela seizes Irish company's tree farm

Chavez Sets Up Showdown With Mendoza After Seizures

Venezuela May Take Over More Rigs to Allow Drilling to Proceed

Chavez sours Latin American investment climate

Inmates at Venezuelan jail play football with inmate's severed head

Special thanks
to Ada, the Baron, Eneas, Larwyn and Maggie.

The week’s posts and podcasts
In the face of the Cuban cosmetic change, Obama will use spring summit to bring Cuba in from the cold
Viva Maria Conchita
Chavez calls on Obama to follow the path of socialism. UPDATE: “Go wash your *ss, Mr. Obama”
Chavez’s full digestive cycle: First the rice, now the toilet paper - all in today’s podcast!
Today at 11AM Eastern: Unannounced Fidel Sightings
Chavez and the food supply
The real Ingrid Betancourt in captivity, and today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern
¿Por qué no te callas?, part 2

At RCW
The Cuban cosmetic change
Brazil’s Lula to visit Obama
Raúl Castro's House Cleaning

You can also find all the week's tango posts here

The “smells like Bush” day Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Cross-posted

It's the day before inauguration day, and contrary to some overly optimistic expectations, t Hugo Chavez said on Saturday Barack Obama had the “stench” of his predecessor as U.S. president. While here in the USA "To trash Bush was to belong," the trend continues with Chavez and his minions. The carnival goes on!

In today's podcast I'll be talking about Pres. Bush's legacy in Colombia. Chat's open at 10:45AM.

LATIN AMERICA
“Lula marcó distancia ante la posición de Chávez” Lula distances himself from Chavez's position; Hillary and Obama aren't happy about Chavez's anti-Americanism, and other brief news today at Noticias24.

ARGENTINA
Argentine President Urges Consumers to Keep Spending while Cristina Fernandez visits Cuba

A U.S. Court's Threatening Ruling

Enrique Dumas, Who Took Tango to Television in Argentina, Dies

BOLIVIA
Oliver Stone entrevista a Evo Morales en La Paz

Book Review: "Los planes A y B de Evo Morales" de Paul Coca - Juventud y Analisis

BRAZIL
Brazilian church roof collapses

Iran wants Brazil’s support for trying Israeli leaders as war criminals

Ex- terrorist gets asylum in Brazil

Italy's Foreign Min Blasts Brazilian Decision On Fugitive

Brazil's army: But what is it for? A philosopher redesigns an army

COLOMBIA
Uribe's Voice: Transcript of a Call

CUBA
Another flare-up of Castro’s death rumors Signs keep adding up, while Fidel still active, Chávez now says yet Report: Fidel Castro in a coma

Come and live it

"Che" Director Has an Eerie Feeling. Wonder Why?

Medvedev hails renewed ties with Cuba

ECUADOR
Ecuador vows partial bond buy-back

GUYANA
Libya to establish People's Bureau in Guyana

MEXICO
Thick-billed Parrot: Mexico and beyond…?

They Kidnap Americans Don't They?

What If Mexico Loses Its Drug War?

Anarchy in Mexico

NICARAGUA
Bad news out of Managua, the Pacto lives on

PANAMA
Cocaine plane trail is open challenge for Obama administration

PARAGUAY
Fundacion Libertad contra el monopolio de internet

PUERTO RICO
University of Puerto Rico begins new environmental education programme

Separatist? PBS Can't Call a Terrorist a Terrorist

URUGUAY
Uruguay Minister Posts Photos of Her Taking Shower on FaceBook

VENEZUELA
Chavez to swipe US$ 12 billion in international reserves for his personal use

Chavez dysfunctional reality

Venezuela's Chavez takes stock

Chavez turns into Palestinian hero

Kuwaiti MP calls to move Arab League to Caracas
Waleed al-Tabtabai says Venezuelan President has proved he is more Arab than some Arabs.

Chavez - a worse threat than bin Laden?

Hugo Crawls Back

Chavez 'part of evil side of politics'

Chavez Chagrined: Will Oil Companies Return to Venezuela?

Hey, what's one little Order of Magnitude between friends?

Venezuela's indigenous people: A promise unkept. Indigenous Venezuelans get welfare but, so far, not much land

ENTERTAINMENT
Part II: “Che:” Bad Movie About A Bad Guy Gets Worse

US POLITICS
Did Barack Obama promise Mexico’s president he would open the borders?

Chavez to Assess Obama’s Policies Before Reaching Out

Obama’s Hispanic Agenda

Special thanks to Ada, the Baron, Eneas, Larwyn and Maggie.

The week's posts and podcasts:
Eeet steeenks...
Today’s 15 Minutes on Latin America, at 11AM Eastern: Chavez wants the oil companies back
A name from the past: Noriega
Begging after biting the hand that feeds him
Today at 11AM Eastern: That military report on Mexico
“U.S. military report warns ’sudden collapse’ of Mexico is possible”
Pres. Bush honors Tony Blair, John Howard and Alvaro Uribe
Today’s 15 Minutes on Latin America: Venezuela’s back-door currency devaluation

At Real Clear World Blog:
Venezuela: Can't Take "No" for an Answer
Venezuela: Currency Depreciation Through Back Door





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Castro's new video

The latest video showing Castro with Chavez and Raul, with Castro wearing the same jogging suit he's been wearing for a couple of years now,


Hugo says that they talked about the food and energy crisis, but the footage has no sound. It was released after Granma forgot to post Castro's byline for a couple of weeks.

The video was supposedly taken during Hugo's latest visit two days ago. Reuters makes the understatement of the day,

Castro's long absence from the public eye had fed rumors that his health was failing.

The mummy lives.



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From this morning's email basket:

"Don't vote for McCain because he's ... bald."

What in the world?

Clearly the author of that post misjudged me:

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When I first did the Patrick Stewart post above, Jeremayakovka reminded us all of Johnny Carson's "Daddy Sang Bass (mamma sang tenor)", so here's the video:


Jeremayakovka's got The O-Bomb Threat

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Le Monde interviewed Little Miss Atilla, and she looks marvelous!
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Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis is now public. Jammie Wearing Fool has the links (h/t Larwyn).

If I have time, I'll read it, but to me what counts is what she's saying now, which bears all the signs of Ivy League Populism (h/t M.).

Barack means "blessing" in Arabic.

Isn't that precious.

From Maria, Habla Usted English, Mrs. Obama?
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Now the Iranians are holding mass executions of people "offending the sacred". (h/t Larwyn)
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In an effort to remake Weekend at Bernie's as performance art on the Oscars' red carpet, Michael Moore wants to bring Castro to the Oscars (h/t Laura).

Speaking of Castro, Mark Falkoff remembers a dinner from 2001. Castro was cleary senile even then, but the ones who were wrong not to act immediately were the Americans.
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The Anchoress is Grateful for art.
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Poonovation. Take The Tour



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"We Must All Be Very Kind To Uncle Castro"

Back in 1925 Noel Coward wrote his song We Must All Be Very Kind To Auntie Jessie, where he exhorts everyone to be kind to his very difficult and domineering aunt.

CNN must have taken Coward's advice to heart:

Michael Graham at The Natural Truth and Henry Gomez at Babalu Blog came across a memo instructing CNN anchors - imparting some "Castro guidance", that is - on how to be kind to uncle Castro:

Some points on Castro - for adding to our anchor reads/reporting:

* Please say in our reporting that Castro stepped down in a letter he wrote to Granma (the communist party daily), as opposed to in a letter attributed to Fidel Castro. We have no reason to doubt he wrote his resignation letter, he has penned numerous articles over the past year and a half.

Of course they have no reason to doubt it, because it's the Cuban government saying it. CNN would do well to ask, From Fidel, a farewell, or a fraud?

The "Castro guidance" continues:

* Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba - namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.

On the subject of racial integration, allow me to remind you Batista was of black ancestry.

Any of you having any questions on Cuban "universal" healthcare and "free education" please click on the label "Cuba" below this post and learn a few things about the Cuban apartheid system; ditto on oppression.

Did any of the CNN correspondents in Havana contact any of the Ladies in White recently? Or any of the Cubans asking for cambio?

By the way, has anyone ever heard the name of Oscar Elias Biscet mentioned on CNN? Particulary on the issue of abortion?

* Also the Cuban government blames a lot of Cuba's economic problems on the US embargo, and while that has caused some difficulties, (far less so than the collapse of the Soviet Union) the bulk of Cuba's economic problems are due to Cuba's failed economic polices. Some analysts would say the US embargo was a benefit to Castro politically - something to blame problems on, by what the Cubans call "the imperialist," meddling in their affairs.

Thank goodness someone at CNN has figured out that "the bulk of Cuba's economic problems are due to Cuba's failed economic polices." Was high time someone did.

* While despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero, especially with leftist in Latin America, for standing up to the United States.

And heaven forbid that CNN get thrown out of Cuba before they get to report that the tyrant's croaked (or after it's been made official) after half a century of ruining a people morally, financially and spiritually.

In yesterday's podcast my dear friends Siggy and Val discussed the Castro "resignation". You can listen to them here.

We weren't kind to "Uncle Castro".

UPDATE:
Via Pajamas Media, Four possible successors to Fidel Castro: Raul Castro, Ricardo Alarcon, Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque.



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In today's podcast: Castro resigns, and the Akaka bill

Today's breaking news: Fidel Castro resigns. Siggy and I will discuss the news in today's podcast at 11AM Eastern.

Later in the podcast, our special guest, Andy Blom of Hawaiian Values.US, will talk about the Akaka bill, i.e., the 'Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005'.

For background information on the Akaka bill, Betsy Newmark has two excellent posts on the subject: The Akaka Bill is Baaaack and The return of the Akaka Bill . The Heritage Foundation's The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act page contains a great roundup of articles on the bill and its consequences.

Chat will be open by 10:45, and the call-in number is (646) 652-2639. Join us!



Cross-posted at Heading Right



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Dora translates the road map, stay off the vaginal couch, and other morning items

President Bush and His New Spokeswoman, Dora the Explorer

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Craigslist Item: "Pink Upholstered Vagina Couch" Eeew!
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Castro Says He's Too Unhealthy to Speak
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The Top 25 Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians
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Obama's Admiration of Ronald Reagan means he'll say anything to get elected.
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How Metrosexuals Came Into Being



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Fidel's running? Yeah, right, whatever...

A week ago, while looking at the "Castro hints at retirement" news, I said, "Don't count on that anytime soon."

Yesterday this popped up in the news,
Raul Castro Seeks Support for Fidel Bid

HAVANA (AP) - Raul Castro said Monday that Communist Party leaders support his brother Fidel's re-election to parliament, saying he is exercising two hours daily and gaining weight while keeping his mind healthy with reading and writing.

A seat in parliament is the first step in a process that would allow Fidel to retain his post atop the Council of State, Cuba's supreme governing body.

Communist Party leaders ``defend him running again'' Raul Castro said of his brother's candidacy for re-election to the Cuba's National Assembly, or parliament, on Jan. 20.

And this, Castro 'well enough for election'

The "possible run" is discussed as if the Cuban public had any say in it:

Speaking of Cuba's electoral system, Raul Castro noted that U.S. democracy pits two identical parties against one another, and joked that a choice between a Republican and Democrat is like choosing between himself and his brother Fidel.

"We could say in Cuba we have two parties: one led by Fidel and one led by Raul, what would be the difference?" he asked. "That's the same thing that happens in the United States ... both are the same. Fidel is a little taller than me, he has a beard and I don't."

Henry has the The Lemming Report on Media Metooishness (emphasis added):

Today we'll be touching on the topic of fidel and his possible "run" for president in Cuba's sham elections. Cuba is a communist state where only one political party is legal. There is virtually no division between the communist party and the Cuban government. As a result voters have a choice of exactly one candidate for each and every position they "vote" for. raul castro, tyrant Jr., even joked about this recently. The international news media never notes these facts when it produces a story about Cuba. To an uninformed observer Cuba is a functioning democracy.

Just chalk it up to more Associated Press Deficit Disorder: it fits the narrative.



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Fidel hints at retirement

Castro hints he will not hold on to power

Cuba's National Assembly could formalize Castro's retirement as head of state when it approves the members of the executive Council of State in March.

Paving the way for a bigger announcement, perhaps?

Don't count on that anytime soon.


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Abortion and Oscar Elias Biscet

If you read yesterday's Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean you know that President Bush has awarded Cuban political prisoner Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor:

Oscar Elias Biscet is a champion in the fight against tyranny and oppression. Despite being persecuted and imprisoned for his beliefs, he continues to advocate for a free Cuba in which the rights of all people are respected.

Mary Anastasia O'Grady explains how Dr. Biscet came about to his path as a dissident:

He is a medical doctor. He got his degree in 1985 and just the next year he started having problems with the government and the way it operates its medical system.

But in 1998 what the did was, he started investigating the use of a drug called rivenal to achieve abortions of advanced pregnancies and he produced a study which showed that the fetuses were actually being born alive and then the umbilical cord was cut and they were allowed to bleed to death or they were being asphyxiated in paper bags, and he produced a study, he presented it to the government, and he also denounced the government for its policies.

He was fired from his job, and things have gone from bad to worse for him in the sense that his conscience just did not allow him to go back.

You can watch Ms O'Grady's WSJ interview here.

In her article, Ms O'Grady explains,

In 1998, at a Havana hospital, he took the risk of engaging in a clandestine study on the administration of a drug called rivanol to abort advanced pregnancies. The drug was being widely used, particularly on girls as young as 12, who, having been forced to leave their parents and work in rural areas as part of their schooling, found themselves "in trouble."

Let me call attention to the fact that children are forced to do this: they belong to the state as soon as they turn twelve years old. Many of the girls are raped by adults in charge of the farms. I know a woman who was raped under those circumstances: there was no possibility of prosecuting the man who raped her. Fortunately she did not get pregnant.

Ms O'Grady's article continues,

The study concluded that rivanol resulted in viable fetuses being born alive. What often happened next horrified Dr. Biscet, who later wrote that, "the umbilical cord was cut and they were allowed to bleed to death or they were wrapped in paper and asphyxiated."

As a result of his vocal opposition to these abortion practices he lost his job, his family lost their home and Castro's goons were sent to beat him up.

These are the conditions under which Dr. Biscet is held when in solitary confinement:

I have translated the video:

In the video, Dr. Biscet's wife, Elsa Morejon, explains (at great risk to herself) that this is a full-scale replica of the dungeon in which Dr. Biscet was imprisoned, "despite the fact that Cuba has signed international agreements and rules on prisoner treatment".

Ms Morejon points to a piece of paper with her husband's words on the front wall of the dungeon. Dr. Biscet spent the months of November and December, 2004, including New Year's Eve, in a dungeon like it. She points to the narrow slot on the door, for delivery of food, and in some dungeons the slots are positioned at different heights. "There are no windows, no lights since for a while he didn't have a light bulb, no ventilation, in Cuba, a country with very high temperatures".

Inside the dungeon she points to a pipe for water, a hole for latrine. She shows the actual shoes he owned during that period, and how the leather rotted. She lists the meager possessions a prisoner is allowed: underwear, a towel, a sheet, toothpaste, cup, toothbrush, soap, deodorant, sometimes prisoners are allowed to have their Bible with them. No bed is provided. The prisoner sleeps on the floor, and "sometimes they are brought a filthy mattress at 10PM".

The food they are given is unfit for human consumption.

Ms Morejon asks, "We ask the world to intercede and ask Cuba to set my husband free. He's a man who loves God and justice, who believes in non-violence, and shouldn't be there [in prison], because all he's asked for is to live in democracy in his own country".

Notice how both videos point to a total disregard for human life.

Dr. Biscet's activism started when he saw how newborn children were murdered. Now he is suffering for his decency.

Dr Sanity has posted on the illness of the soul of the island prison's regime:

The apologists of tyranny are again hard at work trying to redeem the one of the last outposts of communist enslavement. They see a "worker's paradise"; a "healthcare utopia", but underneath the civilized veneer of Castro's Cuba is the same deadening illness of the soul that infected all the other failed communist and socialist "paradises".

And for that illness, the only cure is Freedom.

(Follow the links at my post for more on the subject.)



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'Fidel' is now a truther; Putin dissolved the government

I was about to post on this earlier this morning when my internet connection was rudely interrupted:

Fidel Castro says U.S. fooled world over 9/11

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said the U.S. government misinformed Americans and the world about 9/11, echoing conspiracy theories about the terror attacks against the United States six years ago.

In an essay read by a Cuban television presenter on Tuesday night, Castro said the Pentagon was hit by a rocket, not a plane, because no traces were found of its passengers.

"Fidel" or his amanuensis have now officially joined the Truthers.

In other "Fidel" news, the Cuban Culture Minister says Castro's not dying.

Which is probably true.

Moving right along,
Vlad is taking time off from his modeling job to dissolve the government and name a new prime minister,

Russia President Vladimir Putin has dismissed his entire cabinet and replaced his prime minister in a bid to pave the way for his successor. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov submitted his resignation, and the speaker of the State Duma later announced he was being replaced by the relatively unknown Victor Zubkov, head of the country's money-laundering watchdog agency.

He probably won't stay there for long.

Though it's no safe bet, many analysts have their money on Putin ally and KGB veteran Sergei Ivanov to be voted in as the new president in the March 2008 election. It is probable that Putin will put him in the place of Zubkov at the last minute, since Russian presidents usually come from the post of prime minister, as Putin did himself to succeed Boris Yeltsin.

UpdateZubkov seems to want to run for president next year.

Those of us old enough to remember the Cold War days find no joy in reading that Vlad's also embarking on a new arms race.

What does this all mean? Pajamas Media has an article by Sean Guillory that sheds light on the subject.

But don't be surprised if the "dad of all bombs" turns up at a Caribbean nation near you, along with the Russian subs.



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By the way, "Castro" didn't endorse Clinton Obama

As I explain in my article today, while in his latest article "Castro" refers to Clinton/Obama "the seemingly invincible ticket" he did not endorse them, contrary to what you may interpret from reading this.

In my article I have a link to the original Granma article from "Castro", and I even bothered to read it in the original Spanish.

The reason? Both Hillary & Obama want democracy for Cuba.

Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, goes over big with "Fidel".

Cubazuela today: The "seemingly invincible Clinton-Obama", and Buckely on Hugo

"Fidel" has written another article for Granma, and he damns "the seemingly invincible ticket of Clinton-Obama" for asking for a democratic government in Cuba. However, he heaps praise on Jimmy Carter, that friend of Hugo.

Apart from the usual stuff one expects from the invisible dictator who writes newspaper articles from an undisclosed location, "Castro" also mentions that he and Che used to play golf together and that Che had caddied in his younger days.

Who'd have thun it!
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William F.Buckley notices that Hugo Chavez is an Annoyance (what took you so long, Bill?)

The thing about Hugo Chavez is that he is not crazy. He just acts crazy.

On the foreign-policy front, he endears himself, or seeks to do so, to every tyrant on Earth. He went to Iran and intended to visit North Korea, but there, Venezuela's National Assembly drew the line. He is abject in his praise of Fidel Castro, and unequivocal in his hatred of American institutions.

It is a pity; but we need to remind ourselves that every now and then democracy simply spits in one's face. The people who voted in 1933 for Adolf Hitler were driven by that dangerous temptation.

In Latin America, the demagogue has a great natural advantage. The reason for this is that the United States represents, to the angry Latin American voter, the hothouse of hateful institutions. Hugo Chavez is head of a country of 27 million people. They are mostly poor. And with poverty there often comes pain from observing those who do not share in it.

We all know where this is leading them.

Expect it to get worse for a long time.

Postpolitical on Castro

During yesterday's rumors about the "not-dead-yet" Castro, I wrote at Pajamas Media that

Is Castro dead? Until the Cuban government makes an official announcement, there is no way of knowing for sure.

The Cuban government, however, has very little to gain and a lot to lose if and when they make an official announcement.

Today Postpolitical (via Barcepundit) has a brilliant post on the Cuban government's options (emphasis added):

As even El Gusano notes, the current state of transition from Fidel to Raul has provoked no visible popular revolt or known palace coup attempts. This is the point at which the state is most vulnerable as well. If Raul is as clever as is claimed, he might just realize that he has hit upon the ultimate method to perpetuate autocratic despotism: rule as regent to an immortal corpse.

Consider it if you will. A dead dictator certainly can't be assassinated or even really overthrown. What's to seize from a pile of bones? Raul need not risk a genuine political transition, or take the time to build his own personality cult, or even give a single speech to persuade the masses to accept him as their new surrogate secular deity and adopted father. The corpse already has all that.

Sure, the secret will leak out eventually. But is the notion that Castro is both dead and ruling, really too much doublethink for a people who are told daily they're drowning in plenty on empty stomachs? The Cuban state has been lying to the people about almost everything for over four decades now. Why should they suddenly lose obedience over this lie? The people might even be eager to consent to the charade. After all, could a dead man's policies be any worse than a living Castro's?

The benefits are considerable for Raul. If they were to accept the corpse ruler, communism in Cuba could last for a thousand years, because a dead man cannot die. But also because the nature of that political contract - accepting rule by a dead head of state -is perhaps the ultimate exchange of independence for total social control. For any people, I can think of no greater indignity or humiliation than the realization that they are in fact governed by a nonexistent executive, which an entire government pretends to believe exists. If that is granted, anything can follow.

I heartily agree with Postpolitical: Don't expect any official notices that Castro's kicked the bucket for the foreseeable future, folks.

Kim Jong-il is probably watching how it all plays out, too.



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About those rumors....

My friend Val at Babalu has gone out on a limb, Perez Hilton sticks by his guns, and Drudge Report is abuzz with the rumor that Fidel Castro is dead.

I've been listening to Cuban radio stations from the island-prison for the past 5 hours and there is not only no official announcement, there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary; their usual programming has continued as it does any other day.

Read my article at Pajamas Media for more.

"Fidel absent as Cuba celebrates"

Says the Beeb,

Fidel Castro has written a series of articles but not appeared in public
Cuba's acting president, Raul Castro, is leading revolution day celebrations, filling in for his brother Fidel who was last seen in public a year ago.

Ah, huh!

And why would that be?

Update
Meanwhile, over in Venezuela...

Sting goes to Cuba

UPDATED
Scroll down for podcast
Tonight at 8:30PM in Miami, FL, Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty (BUCL) are holding a candlelight vigil for Cuba's past and present political prisoners with an appeal to Sting, singer of The Police, to advocate for human rights on the band's concert in Havana Miami scheduled for tomorrow.
Correction The Havana concert is not scheduled yet; tomorrow he's playing Miami.

Ponder that for a moment: Sting, yoga practitioner and human rights activist in the 1980s, is playing in the island prison. This is the one opportunity that Sting has to show what he's about. Let's hope he's not one of these.

And the fans are calling him on it: Fans Call On 'The Police' For Liberty Of Cubans

Henry Gomez and Alberto de la Cruz are both huge fans of Sting and the Police. They are also both bloggers who advocate democracy in Cuba, and when they heard their favorite band might be performing in Havana, they had an idea.

"We really want to appeal to Sting, The Police and their better angels to do what's right," said Gomez, of Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty.

What they want is for Sting and The Police to take up the cause of Cuba's political prisoners, people such as human rights activist Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, who is serving a 25-year-sentence.

"The Cuban political prisoners right now are largely being ignored by the media and the world, and we want to bring that to light that they are not invisible, that they do exist," said his partner Alberto de la Cruz.

The bloggers have launched an awareness campaign to coincide with the band's concert in Miami July 10th. They call it the Campaign for the Invisible Ones, a name taken from the lyrics of a song Sting wrote in honor of the Chilean mothers whose sons and daughters disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

Henry has a video you must see:


Click on the logo for the Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty website:

Here is their Campaign Fact Sheet.

While the Cuban government insists that there are no political prisoners in Cuba, Marc Masferrer has a list of journalists now in Cuban prisons. I have posted extensively on the subject.

Cuba has an apartheid medical system, which Castro apologists ignore even when eyewitnesses clearly attest to the facts. And now Michael Moore's croc makes some wonder if there is a way to take that knee-jerk sting out of the phrase "socialized medicine."

Does it come down to an illness of the soul?

The apologists of tyranny are again hard at work trying to redeem the one of the last outposts of communist enslavement. They see a "worker's paradise"; a "healthcare utopia", but underneath the civilized veneer of Castro's Cuba is the same deadening illness of the soul that infected all the other failed communist and socialist "paradises".

And for that illness, the only cure is Freedom.

We'll see what Sting is all about in a day or two.

If you are in Miami tonight, the demonstration is in front of Versailles on 8th Street.

UPDATE
Since my podcast guest couldn't make it, I dedicated my podcast to this subject.
You can listen to the podcast here

Gerard Van der leun of American Digest will be my guest next week.

One-Way U.S. Trade For Ecuador?, asks IBD

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, who wants to dissolve his country's Congress by an assembly with powers to rewrite the volatile nation's constitution, a la Hugo, is knocking at our door asking for free trade:

Presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Evo Morales of Bolivia, are both running notoriously anti-American regimes. They have blasted the U.S. as a capitalist oppressor, and said their whole national mission is to slip its imperialist shackles. Needless to say, they've been no friend to the U.S. in the United Nations. Worse yet, they've forged alliances with some of America's worst enemies, like Iran and Cuba. They've also grown increasingly slack and obstructive in even fighting the drug war that plagues the entire Andean region. Morales has increased coca production by 8%, keeping the street price of cocaine steady even as Colombia's production falls 9%. Ecuador has emerged as a major drug transshipment point and money laundering center - something that is evident by its well-developed illegal immigrant smuggling routes to the U.S., which are the region's best. Ecuador has announced "irrevocably" that it will shut down a tiny U.S. military base at Manta port that tracks drug planes, in order to kick out the U.S. imperialists.

But in exchange for fighting the war on drugs, they've both been recipients of large amounts of U.S. aid in 2006 - $120 million in Bolivia's case and $500 million in Ecuador's. Along with this aid, which is both humanitarian and technical, they both have preferential "ATPDEA" trading privileges to sell their goods duty-free in the U.S. without having to reciprocate the favor to American firms.

With a setup like that, they can, in practical terms, reject and obstruct the idea of real free trade, which would ask them to open their markets to U.S. competition, as long as they retain their current trade privileges. Thus, America's generosity to them has provided a platform for them to condemn real free trade with impunity. But under the radar, they feverishly want a continuation of these one-way US trading privileges, which is why they're suddenly telling America they never really meant it about the 'imperialismo' charges and all that as the expiration beckons.

Investor's Business Daily has more:
Foreign Relations: Should the U.S. offer preferential trade privileges to hostile anti-American regimes that view them as cheap handouts? Offering nothing in return, Ecuador thinks so. We are less sure

The U.S. doesn't ask much from Ecuador. Sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has only provided a tiny "forward operating base" at the port of Manta, with 300 U.S. troops conducting aerial surveillance to keep Colombia's FARC Marxist narcoterrorists from bringing war to Ecuador as they have to their own country.

Instead of helping on that front, Ecuador now vows to shut down the Manta base and let the skies there go unpatrolled.

The Manta shutdown ends any rationale for APTDEA. So does Correa's refusal to recognize the FARC as a terrorist organization or to chase its operatives from Ecuadorean soil.

Worse, Ecuador has harassed Colombia with lawsuits as it tries to eradicate coca fields, making Colombia's war that much harder.

Read both.

In other, "Gimme, gimme!" news, Castro Says U.S. Must Change Its Cuba Policy `Unilaterally'.
But, is he still wearing his jogging suit?



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Jogging suit photo-ops continue

While paying lip service to the environment Hugo's doing his best to enlarge his carbon footprint, and the jogging suit photo-ops continue:

Chavez pays 'surprise' Cuba visit

Mr Chavez has visited his friend and ally several times since his illness
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made a surprise visit to Cuba at the invitation of its convalescing leader, Fidel Castro, Cuban state TV reports.
He was greeted at the airport by Vice-President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.

Mr Chavez is expected to meet Mr Castro and his younger brother Raul, who has been acting president since he underwent intestinal surgery in July.

The visit is Mr Chavez's sixth since Fidel Castro fell ill.

The 80-year-old Cuban leader has been recovering at an undisclosed location.

Of course he is.

He and Hugo even discussed energy issues and a regional trade pact during an emotional visit. Anita Snow says so.

Anita's today's winner of the "No Sh*t, Sherlock" Award for Obvious Journalist Statements:
Castro a Key Influence for Chavez

Here we have the only two self-declared Communist rulers in Latin America, Hugo's been Fidel's Mini-Me for years now, and it's taken her this long to realize it.

But then, she has to pimp pump up the pair so Hugo will grant her exclusive interviews:

Chavez, 52, spoke fondly of his friend during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Saturday. He brought up memories of their many conversations, recalled greeting crowds of supporters together in Venezuela and also talked about Castro while condemning as unjust the execution of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

As is customary with her, here comes the excellent Cuban healthcare system obligatory soundbite^tm

"In Cuba there is no child that isn't in school, no sick person who isn't tended to," Chavez said.

Unless the child's pulled away from school doing mandatory service in el campo, while the sick are tended in the customary way:


All the same, Hugo took her for a ride:

During the four-hour drive, Chavez abruptly broke away from his motorcade at one point, saying he wanted a glimpse of the Apure River swollen by rains - "a magic river," he called it.

That's the kind of reporting Associated Press Deficit Disorder gets you.


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The article on Cuba you must read:

Via Albert, A Cuban death rehearsal

With Fidel Castro apparently on the verge of death, I returned to Cuba to visit old friends. Little has changed over recent years and life for most Cubans remains harsh. Yet western visitors continue to romanticise the place

Bella Thomas is intimately familiar with Cuba:

Between 1996 and 1999, I lived periodically in Havana with a gay Spanish diplomat, a close friend who had once, maybe not entirely jokingly, suggested that we marry but maintain our separate ménages. I was too square for that, but when he was posted to Cuba I went to stay with him. Cuba was reputedly not an easy place for homosexuals. I was interested in the country, and I could write about it.

And so for a while I became a pretend prometida of the Spanish cultural attaché. Eventually, many of those we knew—and didn't know—in Havana, seeing my friend's rather open homosexuality, began to suspect that I was a spy, that I was from the CIA (which Cubans pronounce "seer"), or MI5.

As I have mentioned before in this blog, the Castro regime has a history of persecuting gays, hence her need to pose as a "beard".

During the late 1990s there much talk about regime change, which came to nothing,

What observers at this time most underestimated was the power of the regime's nationalist rhetoric and Castro's strategic skill. Unlike in eastern Europe, where nationalism helped to erode communism, Cuban nationalism has shored up the regime. Castro was always a nationalist in communist clothing, and, throughout the 1990s, the communist references in his speeches were gradually replaced by nationalist ones.

The continuing hostilities with the US have played into Castro's hands. It was as an embattled nationalist leader of a small island, standing up to an aggressive, neighbouring superpower, that Castro preserved his revolutionary credentials most effectively.

The UN crowd is still buying into that.

The shortcomings of life under his regime were, he argued, attributable mainly to the US embargo. Many swallowed the argument.

Many still do.

He knew, too, how to capitalise on the latent anti-Americanism in Latin America, Europe and Canada to give his struggle more universal appeal.

In fact, the regime seems to act with zeal to ensure that the embargo continues. When it looks as if the US government might consider ending it, some heavy-handed Cuban act ensues that the status quo prevails. In 1996, when Clinton was keen to initiate rapprochement, the regime shot down two US planes manned by members of a Cuban exile group rescuing those escaping the island on rafts. When, in 2003, an influential cross-party lobby in the US seemed set to dismantle the embargo, the Cuban government promptly incarcerated 75 prisoners of conscience and executed three men who hijacked a tugboat with a view to getting to Miami.

Castro created the textbook for Latin American tyrant wanna-bees.

This is a most insightful article, and a must-read to all who are interested in learning about Cuba. I highly recommend it.