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To: STARWISE

Well, this sounds like the end for the disgusting dictator who kept so many in essential slavery to the Maixist idea of social justice where every one lives a miserable life except those at the very top.


325 posted on 08/24/2007 2:44:35 PM PDT by Bahbah
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To: Bahbah; All

Let’s hope so.

The contingency planning from 2006 for this eventuality:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/24/wcastro24.xml

Emergency planners in the United States have been rehearsing for a range of “nightmare scenarios” that they fear could unfold on their doorstep after the death of Fidel Castro.

With the 80-year-old Cuban president believed to be terminally ill and his brother Raul, 77, who now runs the country, showing little appetite for democratic change, authorities believe that Florida could be hit by a tidal wave of refugees from the communist island once the sickly dictator dies.

In the biggest exercise of its kind, 520 officials from 75 federal, state and local agencies have been running through their plans for such a crisis, wary that Castro’s demise could prompt an exodus on a scale unseen since the Mariel boatlift in 1980, when 125,000 Cubans took to the sea.

“If Raul lets people go and there’s not a naval blockade to stop them, we estimate as many as 500,000 people will leave in the first year,” said Andy Gomez, a senior fellow at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, which has been involved in the planning.

He added: “The pressure on the social infrastructure here will be unbearable.”

In a series of table-top exercises held in a convention centre in Fort Lauderdale, emergency officials from agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, police and Coast Guard, worked through simulated scenarios.

They included the Cuban military fighting bloody running battles with pro-democracy protesters in Havana, and a mass migration north across the 90-mile wide Florida Straits that would bring chaos, drownings, and force the Sunshine State to declare a civil emergency.

Other concerns centre on pledges by some Cuban exiles in the US that they will head south in boats to pluck stricken refugees to safety, or even to lead an uprising.

The drill resulted in the fine-tuning of contingency plans for thwarting outbound exiles. Measures would include shutting down marinas in Florida, stopping road vehicles seen towing boats, and even restricting fuel sales.

Meanwhile hurricane shelters and detention centres would be used as temporary accommodation.

Authorities emphasise that the plans being drawn up relate to a “worst case scenario”. But few have confidence that the transfer of power from one Castro to another will bring any significant let-up in the repression of Cubans.

Despite Raul Castro’s recent hints that he wants to talk with Washington, nearly five decades after President Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations, the US State Department says it has nothing to discuss until he restores democracy and opens a dialogue with his own people.

~~~~~

I could see how at least the housing market could definitely get a boost if this is true.


347 posted on 08/24/2007 3:27:36 PM PDT by STARWISE (They (Rats) think of this WOT as Bush's war, not America's war-RichardMiniter, respected OBL author)
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