Guantanamo's Neighbors Trying to Adapt (Imposing on Paradise)

CAIMANERA, Cuba -- Built on the coast of Guantanamo Bay, this Cuban town of 10,600 people is tied like no other to the U.S. naval station in southeastern Cuba.

Residents of this remote, southeastern community of steaming, narrow streets and weathered wooden houses are the closest Cuban neighbors to the U.S. military camp now filling up with prisoners from the war on Afghanistan.

The sixth flight of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners arrived Monday, adding a new chapter to what Caimanera residents say is a long story of the town and a 45-square-mile piece of land seized by U.S. troops in 1898.

The Americans have remained, despite opposition from the Cuban government. Cuba, however, has not opposed holding the prisoners on its soil.

"Thanks to the base, Caimanera grew," said Ofelia Garcia, the community's historian. "But it has also suffered much because of its presence. We have not been able to develop a normal life here."

The community of fishermen and salt mine workers flourished at the beginning of the 20th century precisely because of the base's construction.

It was a magnet for Cuban workers and a popular spot for visitors, including Cubans from across the island and people from nearby countries such as Jamaica.

The base, Garcia said, eventually had thousands of Cuban employees. Many American military officers and their families lived off base in Caimanera.

In a little less than three years, Cuban defense forces formed a military zone along the 17-mile perimeter of the American base, seen on this side as enemy territory.

During that period, thousands of Cuban employees were fired or quit their jobs at the base, Garcia said. Today, less than a dozen Cubans work there.

Once the relationship between Cuba and the United States changed, Caimanera began to lose an important source of employment -- good jobs that at the time paid $2.80 a day.

Many former workers left, but those who stayed -- and successive generations -- learned to live with the watchtowers, the fences, and the proximity of mine fields that Cuba still maintains around the U.S. installation.

Two army posts on the road leading to Caimanera open only to the town's residents and their relatives.

The community grew so poor that in 1985 Castro's socialist government ordered salaries here and in the nearby town of Boqueron raised by 30 percent to encourage workers to stay.

In 1991, the government decided to use the base to promote tourism, opening a 19-room hotel here. Still, few visit: just 300 foreigners last year, manager Angel Barreda said.

Most who stay at the Hotel Caimanera are Cuban-Americans visiting relatives in town. Those family members living in the United States are an important source of income for Caimanera, which had an unemployment rate of 18.2 percent in 2000.

About two miles away, about 5,000 visitors a year -- mostly Europeans -- travel to Guantanamo town through trips arranged by government tourism agencies.

There, they can go to Malones lookout to see a section of the base being used to hold the prisoners. Military approval is required to get to that site.

Living so close to the base, Caimanera residents have access to the U.S. military's television programming, providing glimpses about the arriving prisoners that few Cubans have had.

Judging by the number of prisoners and the space set aside to house them, "it must be pretty bad over there," said Manuel Prieto, 73, a resident and former base worker. "But I understand that they are building a prison" with more room, he said.

Prieto himself was a prisoner on the base for six days in 1961 when he was questioned by U.S. military officials about possible Cuban agents at the American installation

Prieto, who worked 14 years at the base as a welder's assistant, said he still suffers nightmares.

If this wasn't so pro-Castro/Communism it might be amusing.

He has nightmares about not being able to leave the U.S. Base! Good grief, this must be a happy prisoner. Good thing he was questioned about spying. BTW how is it possible to be unemployed in a Communist state? Cubans are property of the state. One more thing, poverty exists because of Communism.

Cuba Wages Offensive on 'Over-Sized' Houses -- ``The day money is the factor behind distribution of the nation's properties is the day we will be divided into social classes. We will not allow that,'' said Juan Contino, who heads the movement of Cuba's state-affiliated neighborhood groups, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

An Agenda for The Americas: Otto Reich Takes the Reins of U. S. Policy-- With LINKS to President Bush's remarks on Western Hemisphere policy.

Sorry -- but not surprised -- that so many are so ignorant-- A recent news story reported that 80 percent of the seniors from the top 55 colleges and universities -- including Harvard and Princeton -- scored a D or an F on a 34-question American history test. The people who did the study said that 99 percent of the students could identify Beavis and Butthead, two sick television characters, but that only 23 percent identified James Madison as the principal framer of the Constitution.

Communists should not teach in American Colleges-1949

[Excerpt from a Gregg Dodd column in the Atlanta Constitution] But maybe that's expecting too much. Said the network whose theme is "We report... You decide," "Fox News has full confidence in Rivera's explanation and journalistic integrity." Well, I've decided. Fox opts for entertainment.

And Geraldo? He eventually blamed the "fog of war" for his "honest mistake," claiming he "confused" the faraway friendly fire incident that killed Americans with the scene he'd observed where two Afghan fighters had died. Fair enough-- unless you heed the Pentagon's account that those Afghans were killed three days after Geraldo's initial report.

The mustachioed correspondent's unrepentant reaction: "Stop the Geraldo-bashing," he grumbled, it "impugns my honor." Wrong. Geraldo -- and by supporting him, Fox--- impugns the honor of real journalists. [End Excerpt]

Ha haa haa ha! Honor of real journalists?!

Arrested Cuban Dissidents Feel Betrayed by CNN-- Many of the Cubans who participated in the November 23 protest were later rounded up at a religious gathering. They were beaten and jailed. Gonzalez Bridon, the trade-union leader, is among those in prison. His wife has told supporters in the U.S. that she does not hold CNN responsible for the arrests; she does, however, believe the network behaved unethically and misleadingly. Many of the oppositionists are incensed at CNN, feeling betrayed. They maintain that CNN promised them it would air a story. The network's spokeswoman, however, says that it is CNN policy never to make such a promise. The oppositionists are in a very dark mood, suspecting the worst about CNN. They complain that the network is consistently pro-regime, and they note, too, that CNN honcho Ted Turner is a friend and admirer of the island's dictator.

Media Research Center Special Report: Back to the "Peaceable" Paradise: Media Soldiers for the Seizure of Elian

In the Cauldron (journalistic omphaloskepsis)---Don't blame us, it's so hard to get info when Cuba is a closed society……….

January 17, 2002-- American Women Meet With Castro-- ``It was certainly exciting to meet with him. He is a very charming and eloquent man,'' said Jeffords, who traveled here with the university's Center for Women and Democracy. Their visit ends Friday.

Listing the offending college professors and their 9-11 quotes: Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It---"At a time of national crisis, I think it is particularly apparent that we need to encourage the study of our past. Our children and grandchildren-indeed, all of us-need to know the idea and ideals on which our nation has been built. We need to understand that living in liberty is such a precious thing that generations of men and women have been willing to sacrifice everything for it. We need to know, in a war, exactly what is at stake." -Lynn Cheney, October 5, 2001

American celebrities who trot to Cuba almost never see the country in which Cubans have to live; they see a Potemkin Cuba, set up for visitors and off-limits to Cubans. Outright leftists from America have always journeyed to Havana, to use and be used: Robert Redford and Ed Asner, Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee (two congresswomen from California). Other pilgrims, however, are less malicious than they are trendy and naïve: Leonardo DiCaprio, Woody Harrelson, an assortment of pop musicians. A few years ago, the fashion models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss had an audience with Castro. Campbell hailed the dictator as "a source of inspiration to the world." Castro complimented the ladies on their "spirituality." Jack Nicholson, too, had a high time in Cuba. He drank choice rum, smoke choice cigars, and buddied for three hours with Castro, afterward pronouncing Cuba "a paradise."

---Under the Guise of Religion
Joan Brown Campbell, recently retired head of National Council of Churches and Thom White Wolf Fassett, United Methodist Church. Castro's U.S. handlers of Juan Miguel Gonzales and family.

Sowell: Why There's No Freedom for Elian --[Excerpt] How long the Castro regime will last after Castro himself is gone is problematical. But Cuba has no tradition of freedom to assure that it will become a democracy any time soon.

The one thing that is clear already is that this case was not about parental rights, which do not exist in Cuba, nor about "the rule of law," which does not exist in the Clinton administration. Judging by the polls, the American people do not understand that.

Part of the problem is that most Americans have no conception of a totalitarian dictatorship or the ruthlessness with which they use family members as hostages. This is nothing new, but our schools and colleges teach so little history that the public can hardly be expected to understand what an old and widespread pattern this is, among dictatorships of the left or right.

Back in the 1930s, for example, Nazi agents were infiltrating the many German organizations in Brazil. Those Germans in Brazil- many of them born in Brazil - who opposed Nazi takeovers of their organizations were reported to the Hitler government and their relatives back in Germany were subject to visits from the Gestapo. [End Excerpt]

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