"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Nicaragua is in mourning. Protests and repression mark one year of resistance.
Six years ago in Nicaragua on April 18, 2018 long standing frustrations with the Sandinista regime
of Daniel Ortega erupted across Managua in response to a "reform" of the
pension system that reduced them for current recipients while raising
the amount taken from salaries of current workers. At 5:00pm "Sandinista
youth" and national police attack protesters, destroyed commercial establishments and took over the Central American University.
The following day classes were canceled across the country and the
government continued to call on the police and the Sandinista youth to
counter-protest.
On Sunday, April 22, 2018 with over 25 confirmed dead
Ortega rescinds the "reform." This would have ended the protests on
April 18, 2018, but after the thuggish behavior of the regime combined
with the wholesale violation of freedom of the press, freedom of
expression and association the citizenry was aroused.
Tens of thousands protested against Ortega regime on April 28
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States issued a statement in which they condemned "the deaths of at least 25 people in a context of repression of
protests against plans to reform the social security system in
Nicaragua." The IACHR also made known that "four TV channels that were reporting on the protests were taken off the air following government orders."
Photos of seven of the youth killed in Nicaragua during anti-government protests
The death toll would continue to mount over the upcoming days and weeks.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018 was Mother's Day in Nicaragua, and it is a day traditionally of great celebrations across the country. Nicaraguan mothers marched on this day to remember the children, who were among the 80 killed since the start of the protests at that time. Pro-government para-police called "shock forces" and armed third parties fired on the non-violent demonstrators. Official reports are that 15 people were killed and 199 were injured in Managua, Estelí and Masaya.
Moms in Nicaragua peacefully protested for children killed by government.
By July 14, 2018 the Sandinista regime's
campaign of extrajudicial killings and political terror to hang on to power had reached new lows. 350 Nicaraguans
had been reported killed, 169 disappeared and 3,000 have been wounded
by police agents since the protests began reported
Nicaraguan student leader Victor Cuardas. At least 20 people were
killed on July 8, the Economist reported, and reports of new killings flooded social media every day.
However one aspect that is not being widely reported is that Nicaraguan
torture victims have disclosed hearing Venezuelan and Cuban accents in
the regime's secret prisons. The Miami Herald quoted Nicaraguan student leader Victor Cuadras on July 13, 2018:
“Castro copied his recipe for repression and harassment in Venezuela,
and now they are doing it in Nicaragua. There are many people who,
while being tortured, heard the accents of Venezuela and Cuba in the
clandestine prisons.”
Two day later the São Paulo Forum gathered in Havana, Cuba and backed Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista regime despite their slaughter of civilians.
Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela
Agence France Press reported on July 27, 2018
that more than a dozen doctors, nurses, and technical staff in a public
hospital in Nicaragua were fired because they treated wounded
anti-government protesters. The Associated Press reported that eight public hospital doctors in Nicaragua said Friday that they have been
fired after violating alleged orders not to treat wounded protesters
opposing President Daniel Ortega’s government. Despite all of this the protests continued and students continued to put their lives on the lines. There are more than 600 identified political prisoners. On September 10, 2018 Amaya Coppens, a fifth year medicine student at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de León in Nicaragua was arrested and accused of "terrorism." She was arbitrarily detained along with
Sergio Alberto Midence Delgadillo by hooded police that used violence to
detain them, and taken away in a van. Amaya was finally freed on December 31, 2019. She had suffered ill treatment during her arbitrary detention, but refused to remain silenced, continued her activism, and called for an international probe into the abuses of the Ortega government.
Amnesty International estimated that 322 Nicaraguans had been killed "as of September 18, 2018, most of them caused by gunshots to the head, neck, and torso."
Six years later, and we remember this day of freedom, the repression that followed, and the struggle that continues for freedom in Nicaragua.
Today, as we commemorate Nicaraguan Freedom Day, we are reminded of the bonds that unite us across different backgrounds and experiences. Miami-Dade County's declaration today is more than a symbolic gesture—it is a reaffirmation of our shared commitment to the principles of… pic.twitter.com/fQAeIHXFBu
Human Rights Foundation also observed this important date in Nicaraguan history.
1/ Today marks the 5th anniversary of the 2018 anti-government protests in Nicaragua. Citizens took to the streets opposing social security reforms and demanding President Daniel Ortega’s resignation. pic.twitter.com/AqYdd7tQHl
"It happened, therefore it can happen
again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it
can happen everywhere." - Primo Levi, 1986 The Drowned and the Saved
Never Again is Now.
Six months later, and the hostages are not back home, and the war ignited by an unprovoked attack on October 7, 2023 against Israelis rages on.
1,200 Israelis massacred on October 7, 2023 by terrorists. May the memory of the victims be a blessing.
All proceeds from the OK song/video will go to non profits combatting anti-semitism. I am grateful and humbled by so many of you who continue to share this message around the world. This is a time for choosing. #WeAreNotOKhttps://t.co/JjeTYEXwZW
My definition of terrorism is the systematic and deliberate attack,
the murder, maiming, and menacing of innocents, of civilians, for
political goals." ... "Those who fight with terroristic means end up
being masters of terrorist states." - Benjamin Netanyahu, Firing Line (May 30,1986)
"If the missiles had remained we would have used them against the very
heart of the United States, including New York. We must never establish a
peaceful coexistence." Ernesto "Che" Guevara, London’sDaily Worker (1962)
“A republic, if you can keep it.” -Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question during the Constitutional convention: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Cuban presidents 1902 to 1952, and dictator Batista 1952-59.
The Lost Republic
After 406 years of Spanish colonial rule, and four years of a United States occupation, Cubans got their Republic.
Cuba had several independent newspapers, radio, and television stations. There was a vibrant civil society, and culture that made its mark in the world.
Cuban diplomats in this democratic era fought for improved international human rights standards. They helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, lobbied for its passage in 1948 and the creation of the UN Human Rights Commission..
Cuba had regular and periodic, free and fair elections until March 10, 1952 when Fulgencio Batista carried out a coup against the last democratically elected president of Cuba, Carlos Prio Socarras.
Fidel Castro repeatedly told Cubans and Americans he was not a communist. Washington believed it, placing an arms embargo on Batista in March 1958, and diplomats pressured the Cuban dictator to leave power in December 1958.
Cuba had seventeendifferent rulers from 1902- 1959 versus two from 1959 - 2024, the brothers Fidel Castro (1959 - 2006) and Raul Castro (2006 - present).
Castro lied, but communists view lies in the service of imposing communism as justified, and the truth as non-existent when it does not advance their agenda.
This is how Cubans lost their Republic.
The Havana Cartel and the Terrorist International
Terrorists, drug dealers, and regime's hostile to democracies gained an ally with the rise of the communist dictatorship in Cuba.
The Castro dictatorship early on began, with the assistance of the KGB, assisting drug trafficking networks improve their ability to get more drugs into the United States to strike at American youth. The Havana Cartel documentary provides an overview of these practices to the present day.
Havana hosted terrorists from Africa, the Americas, and Asia at the Tri-Continental Conference on January 3rd through 16th in 1966.At the Conference, Fidel “Castro insisted that ‘bullets not ballots’ was the way to achieve power.” Hemaintained “‘conditions exist[ed] for an armed revolutionary struggle.’
The Cuban dictatorship created the Organization for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAL) to coordinate terrorist groups worldwide.
Afterwards Havana set up terrorist training camps in Cuba, Libya, and Algeria.
This wreaked havoc in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, but it did not exempt the United States.
Terrorists attack on U.S. soil killing Americans
The Puerto Rican terrorist group, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional
Puertorriqueña, (FALN), from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s,
carried out more than 130 bombings, including in the United States.
This group was started in the mid-1960s and received
advanced training in Cuba. This information is taken from Zach Dorfman’s
article “How Fidel Castro Supported Terrorism in America: ‘FALN was
started in the mid-1960’s with a nucleus . . . that received advanced
training in Cuba,’” published in The Wall Street Journal on June 8, 2017.
The FALN was responsible for the January 24, 1975 bombing of the historic Fraunces Tavern in New York City which killed
Alejandro Berger (28), James Gezork (32), Frank Connor (33), Harold H.
Sherburne (66) and wounded 63 others.
The same Puerto Rican terrorists were also responsible for a bombing spree in New York City
in August 1977 that killed Charles Steinberg, (age 26),
injured six, and forced the evacuation of 100,000 office workers; and
the purposeful targeting and maiming of four police officers, among many
other crimes.
Joseph Connor, who's father Frank Connor was murdered in the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing, on March 20, 2024 made a statement in which he revealed that William "Guillermo" Morales, the FALN bombmaker, likely responsible for his dad's untimely death, fled U.S. custody becoming a fugitive, and is currently protected in Cuba by the Castro dictatorship that harbors him.
Other terrorists groups in the United States were also backed by the Communist dictatorship in Cuba. The New York Times reported on October 9, 1977 that
“according to a top‐secret report of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation” prepared in August 1976 and 400 pages long, “Cuban
espionage agents operating in the United States and Canada supplied
limited aid to the Weather Underground, a militant antiwar organization,
in the late 1960's and early 1970's.”
President Biden, during his 2020 campaign, promised a return to the Obama Cuba policy, and engagement by an Administration that, unlike his predecessor, "would act rationally."
The disastrous Afghanistan pullout completed on August 30, 2021, sent a green light to Havana that they could further intensify the migration crisis and leverage additional concessions from the Biden Administration
The influx dramatically increased with Cubans traveling through Nicaragua in the last month of 2021. In late November 2021, days after the United States condemned Cuban-ally Daniel Ortega for stealing the Nicaraguan presidential election on November 7, 2021, Managua lifted visa requirements on Cubans entering the country, creating a new and larger channel for an exodus.
Over 500,00 Cubans have entered the United States over the past two and a half years.
History demonstrates that economic conditions and sanctions are not the determining factors in generating a migration crisis. It is the ability to obtain unilateral concessions from the United States without incurring a negative response for compromising U.S. national security, and taxing resources with hundreds of thousands of refugees.
The communist dictatorship murders and brutalizes Cubans to maintain absolute power.
Cubans who seek a better life abroad on their own terms are targeted with violence by the dictatorship.
Mariel 1980
The 1980 Mariel exodus was the first time that acts of repudiation were seen and documented, when Cubans who simply wanted to leave the country were brutally assaulted and forty Cubans were lynched.
Granma, the Communist Party’s daily paper, compiled a list of 100 insults to scream at those who wanted to leave. Meanwhile Fidel Castro prepared to associate these refugees with the worse of the worse.
Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, Fidel Castro's former bodyguard, wrote a tell all book published in May 2014 of his time with the dictator titled, The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Lider Maximo that included a remarkable passage on the events of Mariel.
Brian Latell, a former U.S. intelligence analyst and academic at the University of Miami, in a June 8, 2015 op-ed in The Miami Herald reviewing the above book touched on how Castro dealt with the Mariel boatlift during the Carter presidency:
For me, Sánchez’s most appalling indictment of Fidel concerns the
chaotic exodus of more than 125,000 Cubans in 1980 from the port of
Mariel. Most who fled were members of Cuban exile families living in the
United States. They were allowed to board boats brought by relatives
and to make the crossing to South Florida.
But many of the boats were forcibly loaded by Cuban authorities with
criminals and mentally ill people plucked from institutions on the
island. Few of us who have studied Fidel Castro have doubted that it was
he who ordered those dangerous Cubans to be exported to the United
States. He has persuaded few with his denials of any role in the
incident.
Yet Sánchez adds an appalling new twist to the saga. We learn that
prison wards and mental institutions were not hurriedly emptied, as was
previously believed. Sánchez reveals that Castro insisted on scouring
lists of prisoners so that he could decide who would stay and who would
be sent to the United States. He ordered interior minister Jose
Abrahantes to bring him prisoner records.
Sánchez was seated in an anteroom just outside of Fidel’s office when
the minister arrived. The bodyguard listened as Fidel discussed
individual convicts with Abrahantes.
“I was present when they brought him the lists of prisoners,” Sánchez
writes, “with the name, the reason for the sentence, and the date of
release. Fidel read them, and with the stroke of a pen designated which
ones could go and which ones would stay. ‘Yes’ was for murderers and
dangerous criminals; ‘no’ was for those who had attacked the
revolution.” Dissidents remained incarcerated.
A number of the criminal and psychopathic marielitos put on the boats to
Florida went on to commit heinous crimes — including mass murder, rape,
and arson.
The author and former bodyguard of Fidel Castro, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez,
passed away at age 66 on May 25, 2015. Within a year of the Spanish
edition of the book being published.
Cuban migrant shot in the back by State Security in 2015
Three Cuban families totaling about 70 persons looking for a better life away from the regime boarded the Cuban tugboat "13 de Marzo" in the early morning hours of July 13, 1994. The captain of the tug was among those who wanted to depart. Despite their best efforts, an informant had already reported them to State Security. They left the port at 3:00am on July 13, 1994 and almost immediately were being pursued by other tugboats, also of the Maritime Services Enterprise of the Ministry of Transportation. Seven miles from the Cuban coast line at a location known as "La Poceta" the “13 de Marzo” tugboat was confronted by the tugboats. Amnesty International in their 1997 investigation reported that the vessels which attacked the “13 de Marzo” were Polargo 2”, “Polargo 3″ and “Polargo 5″ and identified as belonging to the Ministry of Transport. According to the IACHR report the attack did not appear improvised. Thirty seven were killed in the "13 de marzo" tugboat massacre.
Massacres of Cubans fleeing continue to the present day
On October 28, 2022, off the coast of Bahía Honda, Artemisa Province, Ministry of the Interior (MININT) agents of the communist dictatorship in Cuba rammed and sank a boat of fleeing Cuban refugees. Seven Cubans were killed in this latest attack, and their names are: Aimara Meizoso, Israel Gómez, Indira Serrano, Omar Reyes, Yerandy García, Nathali Acosta, and Elizabeth Meizoso (age two). This is not an isolated incident, but the latest in a list of vessels sunk by the regime to prevent Cubans from fleeing communism. Those who survived the attack on October 28th stated that the MININT vessels blocked their path as soon as their boat departed, and that they were deliberately attacked to break the boat in half with which they intended to flee the island. These witness reports, gathered after the event, say that one of the repressors threatened to “split them in two.”
Cubans who stay, and seek democratic change within the existing rules of the system face death threats, attempts on their life, and extrajudicial killings by government agents.
Sirley Avila Leon: Machete attacked for speaking out.
Sirley Ávila León was a delegate to the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power in Cuba from June 2005, for the rural area of Limones until 2012 when the regime gerrymandered her district out of existence. The Castro regime removed her from her position because she had fought to reopen a school in her district, but been ignored by official channels and had reached out to international media. Her son, Yoerlis Peña Ávila, who had an 18 year distinguished career in the Cuban military was forced out when he refused to declare his mother insane and have her committed to a psychiatric facility.
Sirley joined the ranks of the democratic opposition and repression against her increased dramatically. On May 24, 2015 she was the victim of a brutal machete attack carried out by Osmany Carriòn, with the complicit assistance of his wife, that led to the loss of her left hand, right upper arm nearly severed, and knees slashed into leaving her crippled. Following the attack she did not receive adequate medical care and was told quietly by medical doctors in Cuba that if she wanted to get better that she would need to leave the country.
On July 22, 2012 agents of the Cuban dictatorship murdered pro-democracy leaders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero. Oswaldo Payá was a Sakharov Laureate who had been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Why did the Cuban dictatorship seek revenge against Oswaldo and Harold?
The Varela Project demonstrated to the international community that thousands of Cubans were not satisfied with the status quo, and wanted human rights to be respected, and multiparty democracy to return to Cuba. This contradicted the official narrative that Cubans are happy with the existing communist dictatorship.
On May 10, 2002, Oswaldo, along with Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez of the Christian Liberation Movement, turned in 11,020 Varela Project petitions, and news of the petition drive was reported worldwide.
Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez were sentenced to long prison sentences in March 2003 following show trials, along with 73 other Cuban dissidents. Many of them had taken part in the Varela Project and, nearly eight years later, were forced into exile as an alternative to completing their prison sentences.
In spite of the crackdown, Oswaldo would turn in another 14,384 petition signatures with Freddy Martini on October 5, 2003. He would spend the next eight years campaigning for the release of his imprisoned compatriots and continuing campaigns to achieve a democratic transition in Cuba.
Early in 2012 Oswaldo also denounced that the Cuban government was engaged in a fraudulent change in which Cuban exiles were being asked to be complicit in their own repression.
Once again he was disrupting the Cuban regime's narrative, they killed him, and through continuing death threats forced his family into exile.
His daughter, Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo, continues his struggle for a free Cuba.
What Cubans want and what the Communist dictatorship in Cuba wants are in conflict.
Cubans want to live in freedom. In recent protests across the island in addition to chants of "food" and "electricity" one can also hear the chants for "liberty." Cubans want to be the protagonists in their own lives, not automatons with everything decided for them by the communist elite of the dictatorship. They want their Republic back.
The communist dictatorship wants to maintain power, and continue to spread their model beyond Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to other countries while assisting America's enemies in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran.
“60 Minutes producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados discuss the evolution of their 5-year investigation into ‘Havana Syndrome,’ which led them to what one source calls "a receipt" for acoustic weapon testing done by a Russian intelligence unit.”
Officials in the Cuban government have also been quick to dismiss the Havana Syndrome, but the record shows that if Russia was testing an acoustic weapon on American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana, the Cuban secret police would know about it, report it to their superiors, and approve it. Havana's role in supporting Putin's illegal war in Ukraine, including the deployment of Cuban soldiers in Russian uniforms fighting on the front lines, underscores their strategic relationship with Moscow.
60 Minutes, March 31, 2024
Havana Syndrome mystery continues as a lead military investigator says bar for proof was set impossibly high
By Scott Pelley
March 31, 2024 / 7:42 PM EDT / CBS News
This report is the result of a joint investigation by 60 Minutes, The Insider, and Der Spiegel
Tonight we have important developments in our five-year investigation of mysterious brain injuries reported by U.S. national security officials. The injured include White House staff, CIA officers, FBI agents, military officers and their families. Many believe that they were wounded by a secret weapon that fires a high-energy beam of microwaves or ultrasound. This is our fourth story and for the first time, we have evidence of who might be responsible. Most of the injured have fought for America, often in secret. And they're frustrated that the U.S. government publicly doubts that an adversary is targeting Americans.
One of them is Carrie. We're disguising her and not using her last name because she's still an FBI agent working in counterintelligence. She says, in 2021, she was home in Florida when she was hit by a crippling force.
Carrie: And bam, inside my right ear, it was like a dentist drilling on steroids. That feeling when it gets too close to your eardrum? It's like that, you know, times ten. It was like a high pitched, metallic drilling noise, and it knocked me forward at, like, a 45 degree angle this way.
National Security reporter Jeff Stein, and founder of Spy Talk gives his analysis on the latest installment of the CBS newsmagazine show 60 Minutes report on Havana Syndrome that points to the Kremlin.
Two teasers, one on CBS News, and another on CBS Morning, offer reasons for concern, and to question the official narrative.
This blog has been following this story since August 9, 2017 when spokesperson Heather Nauert in a State Department briefing revealed
that two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the United States on May
23, 2017 in response to "incidents in Cuba." According to U.S. officials five U.S. diplomats were targeted
by a "sonic weapon" that led to "severe hearing loss" that led to some
of them canceling their tours and returning early to the United States. [ Full entry here ]
On August 10, 2017 another shoe dropped, the Associated Press reported that Canadian government said that at least one Canadian
diplomat in Cuba has also been treated for hearing loss.
"Global Affairs Canada spokeswoman Brianne Maxwell said Canadian
officials 'are aware of unusual symptoms affecting Canadian and US
diplomatic personnel and their families in Havana.'" [ Full entry here ]
The attacks began in November 2016 during the Obama Administration
which apparently had no knowledge of what was going on or downplayed it
out of fear that it would negatively Cuba normalization policy.
On January 9, 2018 three State Department officials testified
before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the
subject of the 2016-2017 attacks on U.S. diplomats and dependents
stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba that seriously impacted 24 of
them.
The three officials who testified
are: Senior Bureau Official
Francisco
L.
Palmieri Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs;
Assistant Director Todd J. Brown of the International Programs
Directorate, Bureau of Diplomatic Security; and Dr. Charles Rosenfarb,
Medical Director for the Bureau of Medical Services.
Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) asked when they became aware that brain trauma was
involved and Dr. Charles Rosenfarb responded that the first patient was
medically evacuated on February 6, 2017 and over the next two months
evacuated 40 people. [ Full blog entry ]
Efforts to downplay the inconvenient fact that Cuba has a top notch intelligence service, and that such attacks on U.S. diplomats could not be carried out without their knowledge, and consent led to a letter to the editor in The Washington Post to set the record straight.
The Washington Post, October 30, 2020
Opinion
Cuba has a long history of using sonic weapons
The Oct. 26 editorial “Another invisible enemy”
was correct when it called for the perpetrators of sonic attacks on
Americans in Cuba to be identified, Americans protected and a proper
response delivered, but too many are quick to believe the claims from
Cuban officials that nothing happened and that they had no knowledge of
what caused the injuries.
Furthermore, on Oct. 18, dissident Cuban artist Tania Bruguera described
and recorded a sonic attack that caused her a headache and ear ache
that she found difficult to tolerate. Two former Cuban political
prisoners, Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez and Luis Zuniga, described
at a forum held on Capitol Hill in November 2017 how prison officials
used high-pitched sound to cause them physiological harm in 1979. This
history and the recent attack against Ms. Bruguera using the same kind
of sonic weapon with similar symptoms that had been visited on U.S.
diplomats should invite greater scrutiny of Havana.
John Suarez, Falls Church
The writer is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.
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