Free Republic

JOHN PAUL II HAS ENDANGERED THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH IN CUBA
Jesús J. Chao
3/15/2003

On March of 1938, Hitler annexed Austria. When the Austrian cardinal, Innitzer, publicly welcomed Hitler and urged Austrians to vote for the Anschluss, the prelate was summoned to Rome and made to sign a retraction.

John Paul II’s policies towards Fidel Castro are in stark contrast with the unequivocal positions taken by H.H. Pope Pius XI and his successor, H.H. Pius XII, when dealing with a tyrant (Hitler) who as Castro, persecuted The Church and murdered tens of thousands of Catholics.

You might envision where would the moral status of The Church be if in 1942, after the Nazi persecution of the Church and when The Pope already knew of the extermination camps, H.H. Pius XII had honored Hitler with a high decoration of The Church and sent as his envoy the prefect of one of the Congregations of the Holy See with a personal message from Peter’s successor.

That is just what John Paul II did in Cuba after Castro’s 44 years of persecution of the Church and the murder of tens of thousands of Cubans, mostly Catholics, many of whom died shouting ¡VIVA CRISTO REY! ¡VIVA CUBA LIBRE! Before falling murdered by Castro’s infamous firing squads.

In appreciation for allowing Castro the opening in Havana of a convent for the Swedish Order of the Most Holy Savior of St. Brigid, the general abbess, mother Tekla Famigletti, bestowed on Fidel Castro one of her religious order's honors, the Ecumenical Cross with the Star of the Commander of St. Brigid. Honoring the ceremony was del Papal personal representative, Crescinzio Cardinal Sepe, Prefect for the Pontifical Congregation for the Evangelization of the Nations and the Mexican Archbishop of Guadalajara, Juan Cardinal Sandoval. Corresponding to such a high honor, Castro bestowed the medal of the Order of Felix Varela, First Grade, to Mother Telka Famiglietti. Everything was so outrageous that the whole ceremony bordered on the sacrilegious.

Castro proved to be a shrewd horse trader. After expelling hundreds of priests and confiscating from the Church more than 150 Catholic schools and most of its properties in Cuba, by allowing a Mexican millionaire to pay for the convent, he bought the blessings of the Pope, and a Church decoration that in fact represented a Papal Bull condoning all his crimes against humanity. Castro, once again, outsmarted the Pope, as he has outsmarted most of the world secular and religious leaders during his 44 years reign of terror.

These Vatican’s policies have unquestionably damaged the future of the evangelization in Cuba, even though Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, as a show of respect for the suffering of the Cuban people, was not present at the ceremonies, and the Cuban Bishops’ Conference published a letter criticizing the exchange of decorations and excessive pleasantries. In the document the Cuban bishops made clear that “the Cuban Church did not have any participation neither in the preparation or the coordination of the program. Neither the cardinal Ortega, nor any other Cuban bishop was present, nor they were officially represented by any cleric from the Archdioceses of Havana or from the Cuban Church.”

The Cuban bishops had released a pastoral letter less than two weeks ago urging the government to ease up on its harsh treatment of citizens. Cuba’s top Roman Catholic clergyman, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, said in that letter: "The hour has come to pass from being a legalistic state that demands sacrifices and settles accounts to a merciful state willing to offer a compassionate hand before imposing controls and punishing infractions.”

The relationship between the Pope and Castro has raised deep discontent among the persecuted Cuban Catholics. Since their first encounter at the Vatican, the Pope received the Cuban tyrant as a very beloved prodigal son. It was the first affront of John Paul II to the dignity of the Cuban people. It was an appeasement policy maintained by the Holy See, regardless of the crimes committed to this day by Fidel Castro. On the other hand, John Paul II had repeatedly denied an audience to prestigious and honorable members of the Cuban Diaspora. Unfortunately, the Pope has profoundly damaged the moral status and the future of the Church in Cuba.

John Paul II has traveled the world asking for forgiveness for all the alleged offenses and sins, real or unfounded, committed by other Popes in another time. John Paul should make his own soul searching about his dealing with the Cuban tragedy. I wonder when is he going to ask forgiveness from the Cuban people for his lack of sensitivity towards the suffering of our people during the 44 years of bondage under the communist rule?

TOURISTS SHOULD GO TO THOSE COUNTRIES THAT HAVE BEEN PROVEN FRIENDS AND CANCEL TRIPS TO FRANCE,GERMANY, BELGIUM, RUSSIA AND MEXICO.

TOURISTS SHOULD GO TO THOSE COUNTRIES THAT HAVE BEEN PROVEN FRIENDS AND CANCEL TRIPS TO FRANCE,GERMANY, BELGIUM, RUSSIA AND MEXICO.

PERHAPS RATHER USED HIS CLOSE FRIENDSHIP WITH FIDEL CASTRO, WHO AS A LONG TIME PARTNER OF SADDAM IN TERRORISM, COULD HAVE ARRANGED THE DEAL.

How outrageous and ungrateful can some people be? Twelve people, legal residents of any ethnic background, could have been saved with the organs donated to this poor girl, and her parents respond now denying other human beings to be saved with her organs now that she is dead. In spite of being illegally in this country she was put ahead of thousands of others waiting for the life saving proceeding free of charge. Now they are suing those who tried to help her.

Meanwhile 30 children died in a Mexican hospital in Chiapas of unknown causes, and the Mexican president Fox instead of demanding an investigation on the causes of those deaths, took the United States to the International Court in the Hague accusing our country of violating the rights of 30 Mexican murders that were convicted to death by our courts. It is unacceptable Fox’s gross and arrogant interference with our internal affairs in demanding special unequal protection for Mexican criminals than those applied to any other criminal in the United States. If president Fox does not want Mexicans in death row in the United States, he should keep the criminals in Mexico before they come here to commit the crimes.

After a conference with the Spanish president, Jose Maria Aznar, Fox reiterated that in the war against Saddam and the terrorism, Mexico will vote in the United Nations Security Council against the United States and support Hussein Saddam. To add injury to the wound, in the televised interview after the meeting, his spokesman reiterated that Mexico would investigate the cases of each one of the Mexican criminals waiting in the death row, something that had not relation with the Fox/Aznar meeting, but just for the pleasure of showing to the Spanish President, the Mexican President’s contempt for the United States and its laws.

There is not doubt left; president Fox is neither president Bush's friend, nor a friend of the United States. In a critical moment when the security of the United States and the World is at stake, Fox put his lot with genocide and terrorist Hussein Saddam against the United States. It is the same policy followed by the PRI of unconditionally supporting the godfather of terrorism for over 4 decades, Fidel Castro.

AS a token of appreciation towards President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox accused the United States at the International Court of Justice in The Hague alleging violations of the rights of 30 Mexican murderers condemned to death by our courts for heinous crimes committed in United States. After demonstrating an outrageous disrespect for our laws and the judicial system, President Fox assumed the responsibility for protecting those murderers. Therefore, it should also be the responsibility of President Fox and the government of Mexico to assume the burden of properly compensating the families of the victims of the crimes committed by those Mexican nationals regardless if they were here legally or illegally. Another important matter to be resolved is the use of our welfare and medical services by illegal aliens who are severely burdening our hospitals and medical resources. Since it is a dereliction of the Mexican government to fail in caring for its own people, the Mexican government should therefore, reimburse those huge unpaid bills incurred by Mexican nationals while living illegally in the United States.

As a token of appreciation towards President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox accused the United States at the International Court of Justice in The Hague alleging violations of the rights of 30 Mexican murderers condemned to death by our courts for heinous crimes committed in United States. After demonstrating an outrageous disrespect for our laws and the judicial system, President Fox assumed the responsibility for protecting those murderers. Therefore, it should also be the responsibility of President Fox and the government of Mexico to assume the burden of properly compensating the families of the victims of the crimes committed by those Mexican nationals regardless if they were here legally or illegally.

Another important matter to be resolved is the use of our welfare and medical services by illegal aliens who are severely burdening our hospitals and medical resources. Since it is a dereliction of the Mexican government to fail in caring for its own people, the Mexican government should therefore, reimburse those huge unpaid bills incurred by Mexican nationals while living illegally in the United States.

There is not doubt left; president Fox is neither president Bush's friend, nor a friend of the United States. In a critical moment when the security of the United States and the World is at stake, Fox put his lot with genocide and terrorist Hussein Saddam against the United States. It is the same policy followed by the PRI of unconditionally supporting the godfather of terrorism for over 4 decades, Fidel Castro.

Excerpts of Jeb Bush's letter to Gov. Ventura


I want to share some information that I hope will provide you with a broader and more-realistic picture of life in Cuba. While I don't expect you to cancel your trip, I strongly believe doing so would be the right thing to do. I encourage you to consider other options as you look for opportunities to expand international trade for your state.

Recently, it has become politically popular for U.S. elected officials to travel to Cuba. But we should never forget that the people of Cuba don't share the same basic freedoms and rights that the residents of Florida and Minnesota enjoy. The reason: Fidel Castro denies them the opportunity to exercise the unalienable rights that we have come to take for granted in America.

Speaking out against government policies, fighting for what you believe, or attempting to change the established order to create a better society will make you an ''independent'' or ''maverick'' in the United States. In Cuba, you become a ''dissenter'' and an ''enemy of the revolution'' and are summarily thrown in jail.

As a strong supporter of worker rights, you should be aware of the abysmal conditions that hard-working Cubans must endure. For example, when foreign companies use Cuban laborers, the companies pay the Castro government in dollars or other hard currency, but the workers are paid in near-worthless pesos. In effect, Castro skims off the top and leaves the workers with a tiny fraction of what is rightfully theirs. He uses the difference to finance his oppressive regime and ensure its continued existence.

While in Cuba, ask about the Varela Project, a petition initiative --legal under the Cuban Constitution -- that calls for a referendum on open elections, freedom of speech, protection from state-sponsored political retribution and the establishment of free enterprise.

The initiative is led by the courageous Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who is being honored by the National Democratic Institute with its 2002 Democracy Award. The award is scheduled to be presented to Payá in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30. So far, he has not been granted a visa from the Cuban government to travel to the United States. Ask every Cuban official you meet, including Castro, when Payá can expect to receive his visa.

Because your trip concerns the establishment of trade agreements, it should be noted that Cuba is not the economic windfall some U.S. companies are hoping for, nor is it the kind of business partner that Minnesota corporations are accustomed to working with. The Cuban government repeatedly fails to pay its bills, and many nations have stopped doing business with the island. The current business state of affairs in Cuba has been described as ''uneasy, unreliable and uncertain.'' That should not come as a surprise from a failed economic system that still considers private business and profits as evil. The result is a standard of living for Cubans that has gone in just a few decades from one of the highest in Latin America to one of the lowest.

Now is not the time to encourage expanded trade and grant unrestricted tourist travel to Cuba. Dollars generated from such activity are funneled into the coffers of the Cuban military and internal security forces. In fact, expanding tourism travel was exactly what Castro did in 1991 after he lost his stipend from the collapsed Soviet Union -- a stipend he earned by spying on the United States and inciting revolution throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Moreover, Cuba is a bad credit risk. Even the European Union, with many current and former Castro allies among its members, complained to the Cuban government about ''delayed payment, excessive government fees, and inconsistent and sometimes outlandish rules.'' France, Spain, Italy and Venezuela have suspended official credits after being left holding the bag filled with millions of dollars in IOU's.

CASTRO'S DOCTOR DIPLOMACY

Virgilio Beato-Núñez,
MD, Enrique Cantón,
MD, Gladys Cárdenas,
DO, José Carro,
MD, et al
The Medical Sentinel


Feature Article


Castro's "Doctor Diplomacy"

Cuba's health services have come under attention recently.(1,2) Since 1963, Fidel Castro has been exporting health care personnel including physicians to countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. It is estimated that approximately 5 percent of the Cuban physicians working for Castro's MINSAP (Cuban Public Health Service) are involved in service abroad.(3) The so-called "doctor diplomacy" may have begun in the manner of an assistance program for guerrilla movements, but it soon turned into big business for Havana. In this article, we analyze briefly the current events that led to two physicians serving in Castro's "doctor diplomacy" in Africa to desert in a maneuver that turned dangerous for them and for innocent bystanders.(4) Furthermore, we analyze the recent offer from Fidel Castro to train low-income Americans in medical sciences in order to remedy the health statistics of the United States in the context of the "doctor diplomacy" --- one of Castro's ways to influence public opinion abroad.


The Breadth and Scope of "Doctor Diplomacy"


The story of two Cuban physicians who were serving in Castro's elite "doctor diplomacy" service in Zimbabwe became front page material when they dangerously escaped from being kidnapped and returned to Cuba under the "long arms of the revolution."(2) The doctors who managed to escape, Drs. Leonel Cordova and Mirta Peña, were two of the thousands of physicians and health care personnel who are currently stationed in carefully crafted, thoroughly supervised and managed units in many countries of the so-called Third World. The income to Castro's purse from this "doctor diplomacy" in Zimbabwe alone is estimated at $1.2 million (U.S.) per month.(4) A very small fraction of this goes to pay the physicians themselves and their families in the island.

Contrasting with the saga of the doctors serving in Zimbabwe, two weeks ago, Castro offered free medical instruction to recruit and register Americans to join his "doctor diplomacy."(5) Castro's offer was made to "low income Americans" who were invited to study medicine in Cuba for free and then return to the United States to provide treatment for the poor and underserved in what may turn into the latest twist of the "doctor diplomacy" schemes. These events seem to be temporally intertwined making it possible to look at them chronologically. Let us retrace them together from the various press releases that have appeared later. On May 26, the first signs of defection of Drs. Cordova and Peña were noted in Havana. During the weekend of June 3-4, Castro offered free medical training for low income Americans to a congressional delegation of African-American lawmakers that were touring Cuba. At that time, the communist leader was already attempting to divert the defection by kidnapping the Cuban doctors, ordering them to return to Havana via Paris.4 Later, when the logistics in Zimbabwe and South Africa became known through a note written by the defecting doctors and the press coverage, perhaps Castro attempted to divert negative public opinion on his "doctor diplomacy" by offering free medical training to Americans.

Castro made the free training offer without consulting the proper authorities in his own MINSAP. He just commented to the press on this "offer that could not be refused" after Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson told him that his Mississippi Delta congressional district has an infant mortality rate much higher than that of Cuba. According to the Associated Press, Castro stated: "It would be hard for your government to oppose such a program. It would be a trial for them. Morally, how could they refuse?"(5)

We feel compelled to reject the offer made by FIdel Castro. His is an offer of malicious distraction, and a propagandistic attempt to improve on the perception of the health standards and achievement claims of his Revolution.(6) Castro has used these claims to justify all aspects of his 41 year rule by a single party and a single individual --- himself.

Our conclusion is based on facts that can be described and analyzed. The first consideration in assessing the offer by Fidel Castro for free medical training is that medicine is in reality a social science that uses the methods of the natural sciences to attain four goals: to promote health, to restore health, to prevent disease, and to rehabilitate the patient.(7) The practice of medicine is therefore carried out in a social order that cannot be improvised, invented or assumed to be totally controlled or controllable --- unless, of course, one practices medicine in a totalitarian society. While it is no secret that Castro's Cuba is a totalitarian society ruled by a tyrannical leader for the past 41 years, the people of the United States and of Mississippi in particular must not be intimidated into accepting an "offer that could not be refused." Castro's offer can and must be refused on further grounds. While Castro pointed out that Cuba has an infant mortality rate of 7.3 deaths per 1000 live births,* he did not disclose that the mortality of children in Cuba in the age group from 1 to 4 years is 11.8. This latter figure is 34 percent higher than the equivalent health statistic for the United States, despite the fact that Cuba has the most comprehensively organized health service in the Americas. These official data from the Pan American Health Organization (8) and our analysis suggest that Castro has organized the MINSAP services with one goal in mind: to lower the infant mortality rate without effective consideration to other important health parameters.

The importance of infant mortality is that it correlates with the overall health, education, nutrition, standard of living and well-being of the population. In Cuba's case, this is not true. Cuban health services are organized and structured so that the resources, support, and services are directed to reach the facilities that must maintain a lower infant mortality (death from the time of birth to 12.0 months). Therefore, in Castro's Cuba, life support may be artificially instituted and continued on an individual infant or a community to achieve a numerical goal in the infant mortality of a particular health sector or region. This is done without consideration to other health services that are rationed, denied, simply ignored, or blamed on the CIA, obscure reasons or the improperly called American embargo. While these excuses are made part of the propaganda, fundamental health issues such as the provision of the elements for public hygiene are not prioritized. Instead, priorities are given to the desired goals of the MINSAP, a lower infant mortality with bonuses and favors for those physicians and units that reach their goals. Therefore, infant mortality data in Cuba since the 1970s reflect the organization of the health services and the compliance of the health care personnel in terms of the promulgated and designated goals promulgated by the totalitarian State. Infant mortality in Cuba cannot be a measure of the well-being and the standard of living of the population under these circumstances.

The issues on infant mortality must be developed further. The following brief analysis will demonstrate the lack of seriousness in Castro's infant mortality propaganda. Consider, for example, a health parameter linked to infant mortality, maternal mortality. The maternal mortality of Cuba in the last three years has been 26 to 33 deaths per 100,000 live births. This health statistic is not low despite the fact that Cuba has the lowest birth rate in Latin America (12.5 births per 1000 population). Cuba's maternal mortality figure is in fact 4 to 5 times greater than the equivalent parameter for the United States (8.4). Furthermore, Castro's comments to the African-American lawmakers alluded to the health status of Mississippi, a State with an infant mortality of 10.2 but a maternal mortality of 9.3.(9) It is well recognized that mortality statistics do not depend solely on medical care. Issues such as nutrition, education and communication are considered important in achieving truly significant health statistics. Therefore, unless Castro is planning to take over the economy, the schools, the agriculture, and the communications of Mississippi, how can he offer to lower this important health statistic through his "doctor diplomacy?"

Physicians who take their undergraduate training in a foreign country outside the regulations of the American Association of Medical Colleges are required to apply to the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). This is a regulation that applies to all individuals, foreign born or nationals, who have completed a course equivalent to that of an American medical school. The ECFMG has supervised and controlled the influx of foreign medical graduates (FMG) since its inception in the late 1950s. At this point in time, FMG's sit for the same exams offered to American medical students and graduates but the passing scores are not identical for each of these groups. The passing score of FMG's is set, among several considerations, on the number of physicians that may be desired in the U.S. for immigration purposes. Where will the graduates of this new posture of Castro's "doctor diplomacy" fit in any of these regulatory measures? It is true that Cuban FMG's have in general passed the required examinations in about 25 percent of the cases in their first attempt.(10) But even if the graduates from Castro's "doctor diplomacy" do go through the arduous passages reserved for FMG's, how are the imprints of communist social indoctrination going to fit into the training programs offered in the U.S.? Or how are the working habits, values, and merits for promotion free of political alignment or ideology going to adapt to American institutions? Some have argued that medicine under Castro in Cuba has been inappropriately contaminated with militarism, politics, specific guidelines and schemes for the management and treatment of all commonly seen illnesses, and directives on what can and cannot be written into a death certificate.

Finally, medical education is known to be easily adapted to fit one or another system of indoctrination using biological or social principles.(11) Therefore, during the so-called free medical education offered by Castro, one could easily expect that students will be subjected to the systematic indoctrination that goes on in Cuban medical education under Castro. Cuban medical indoctrination has been applied to Cubans and Latin Americans enrolled in medical schools in the island since the early 1960s.(12)

The indoctrination begins with the premise that the physician owes to society and the Castro regime their medical education. It continues in terms that the physician must become a communist and he or she must pledge to improve his or her skills as a communist in parallel to his or her skills as a physician. Finally, the graduate swears to be like Che Guevara.(12) Although this last goal of Castro's medical education may provide a new fashion to European designers, the fact remains that violent revolution, destruction, and death were all part and parcel of the preachings and deeds of the communist martyr of Cochabamba.

While Castro told the black lawmakers that he supports their efforts to issue him credits despite the dismal status of his bankrupt economy; the bearded, legendary communist leader failed to discuss with the African-American lawmakers the current issues dealing with physicians in the island. Castro did not address anything regarding the situation of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, prisoner of conscience. Castro never mentioned his handling of the Colegio Médico Independiente during the destruction of Concilio Cubano in 1996.(13)

Moreover, since 1999, Cuban physicians have not been able to leave Cuba with proper documentation and permits according to the MINSAP regulation Number 54.14 According to this regulation, medical doctors and dentists must serve 3 to 5 years in designated areas in the island of Cuba before they are considered for a permission to leave the island. In this manner, Cuban physicians are blatantly discriminated and made to suffer higher penalties than the rest of the professionals.

Castro also failed to recall the stories of Dr. Desy Rivero(15) and Omar del Pozo Marrero,(16) both physicians who were unjustly jailed and later forcefully exiled from Cuba for reasons that perhaps Castro alone would have been able to explain to the press and the American lawmakers. And, it goes without saying that Castro failed to disclose to the lawmakers and the press those sensitive negotiations that he was carrying out with Zimbabwe's dictator-president, Robert Mugabe. The nature of those negotiations on the defection and fate of the Cuban physicians may have enlightened the lawmakers from their financial, human rights, and political perspectives.


Conclusions and Summary


In summary, Castro's "doctor diplomacy" involves utilizing Cuban physicians to serve in areas where the Cuban regime has entered into contractual relationships with the expressed intention of providing health care aid and establishing or nourishing diplomatic relations with the host community. The physicians serving in these units are essentially under surveillance all the time and any change in their plans not consistent with the orders given from Havana invariably lead to the involvement of police or paramilitary security forces. In the recent desertion of Dr. Cordova and Dr. Peña from southern Africa, the news media got involved in the saga about one week after its onset. This led to massive media attention and the eventual agreement between Castro and Mugabe to "let the doctors go." The terms or consequences have not been disclosed. Financially, "doctor diplomacy" is an outstanding source of income for Castro's economy since his MINSAP pays doctors and other personnel only a small fraction of the millions of dollars that are received by Cuba. Regarding the alluded health statistics for Mississippi, the offer of Castro to train for free low-income Americans must be refused because his "claims on health achievements" are based on propaganda that are not indicative of health, well-being, or adequate standards of living in Cuba. We must reject the fact that these young American students will undergo an aggressive brainwashing and indoctrinating process through which they will become Castro's pawns. They will inevitably take to Castro the much desired influx of dollars that he needs to remain in power. Finally, the specific claim of Castro that he can lower the infant mortality rate in Mississippi implies a future control by Castro of health care, finances, education, nutrition, and communications in that State. Obviously, such claims must be denounced as delusional and their malicious implications rejected.

Castro's offer of free medical training to serve the poor and underserved can and must be refused. First and foremost, it must be refused because there is no need to turn Mississippi or any State or region of the United States into another Cuba. Second, there is no need for hundreds of young Americans to turn into Che Guevaras, who will then come into the United States to preach and practice death, hate, and oppression of individual and collective rights and liberties. Furthermore, there is no need to adopt the propaganda in "Castro's revolution health achievements" without recognizing their hidden liabilities: widespread alcoholism, sociopathic behavior, low birth weights, endemic giardiasis, growing incidence of hepatitis E infection, widespread venereal diseases, very high abortion rates, high maternal mortality, double to triple the deaths from unintentional injuries and accidents. Finally, there is no need to guide the wholesome medical vocations of young people in the United States from any race, creed, nationality or income bracket to become physicians in Cuba. Castro's is a society that will likely turn them into revolutionaries looking for some "Mission Impossible" scheme in order to establish an elusive, egalitarian, socialist worker's paradise that has never existed. Instead, it has forged chains on the people and a Hell on Earth wherever it has been established.



Footnote

* This figure is highly open to question and does not agree with U.S. government figures as published elsewhere. For example, I suspect "live" is subject to Fidel Castro's interpretation. See Tom Carter, "Cuba was 'advanced' before Castro took over, report says." The Washington Times, March 29, 1998, p. 23. It cited an infant mortality figure of 12 per 1000 live births, according to Cuban government figures.


References


1. Cuba sells snake oil to visiting congressmen. Miami Herald, June 6, 2000, p. 6B.
2. Gaither C, Marques-García S. Castro maneuvers to bar doctors' defection to U.S. Miami Herald, June 11, 2000.
3. Miranda OC. Recursos humanos en salud de Cuba. Educ. Med. Salud. 1986;20(3):375-381.
4. Gaither C. Diserción en Zimbabwe empaña la "diplomacia médica" de Castro. El Nuevo Herald, June, 12, 2000.
5. Shepard P. Castro to offer medical training. Associated Press, June 4, 2000.
6. Breo D. In socialist Cuba, primary care now reaches rural areas. American Medical News, July 25, 1977, pp. 11-13.
7. Martí-Ibañez F. To be a doctor. Miami Medicine, November 1987, pp. 27-29.
8. Health situation in the Americas. Pan American Health Organization. Basic Health Indicators 1999. PAHO/99.01, Washington, DC.
9. Personal communication with Dr. Thompson, Head of the Mississippi Health Department contacted by telephone.
10. Seywell RM, Studnick J, Bean JA, Ludke R. A performance comparison: USMG-FMG house staff physicians. Amer. Journal Public Health 1980;70(1):23-28.
11. Stetten D. The medical school curriculum: the indoctrination of the medical student. Bull. New York Acad. Med. 1973;49(4):285-288.
12. Gordon AM. Medicine in Cuba. Lancet 1983, October 29; 2 (8357):1026.
13. Amnesty International. Cuba: government crackdown on dissent. April 1996. AI Index: AMR 25/14/96.
14. El gobierno Cubano pone trabas a los viajes de médicos y dentistas. El Nuevo Herald, September 13, 1999.|
15. Cuba: doctors imprisoned. Lancet 1998;351:439-440.
16. Gordon AM. Omar del Pozo Marrero, physician prisoner of conscience. Lancet 1995. August 19; 346 (8973):509.


The collaborators for this paper were: Virgilio Beato-Núñez, M.D.; Enrique Cantón, M.D.; Gladys Cárdenas, D.O.; José Carro, M.D.; Alberto Fibla, M.D.; Sergio González-Arias, M.D.; Antonio Gordon, M.D., Ph.D.; Eduardo Martínez, M.D.; Manuel Peñalver, M.D.; Juan C. Pérez-Espinosa, D.O.; E. Ricardo Puig, M.D.; Joel Silverman, D.O. Finlay Medical Society, P.O. Box 523096, Miami, FL 33152, http://www.finlay-online.com.


Originally published in the Medical Sentinel 2000;5(5):163-166. Copyright ©2000 Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

WHO CARES ABOUT CUBA?: NINETY MILES AWAY, FAR FROM OUR MINDS
By Jay Nordlinger
Managing Editor
National Review
Mayo 27, 2001


It is a bald question, and one that pops up from time to time: Why are Americans so indifferent to the plight of Cubans? Why do Americans, particularly our elites, scorn the exile community in Florida? Why do our elites continually excuse, or defend, or outright champion the Communist regime in Cuba? Why do the media ignore the heroics of Cuban dissidents, which should be the stuff of page-one stories, and magazine covers, and Movies of the Week? Why?

This is a question that Cubans and Cuban-Americans ask all the time, in anguished and bewildered tones. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.N. ambassador, says that all this is "both a puzzling and a profoundly painful phenomenon of our times." What is "especially puzzling," she continues, "is the extreme selectivity of concern over terrible, terrible suffering, the deprivation of all rights." Americans followed the saga of South Africa with intense interest, and activism. The abuses of the Pinochet regime in Chile are the subject of film, song, and much else. The victims of right-wing dictatorship can usually count on the world's attention. But those who dare to resist and challenge the regime in Cuba work in near-total darkness.

Let us take a couple of cases out of the darkness. Here are two that have crossed my desk in recent days.

The first involves a man named Rene Montes de Oca Martija. He is a dissident, a human-rights campaigner, and a Christian. Thirty-seven years old, he has been jailed or detained repeatedly. Montes de Oca was born into a family of oppositionists; his uncle, for example, was a well-known political prisoner. For this reason, Montes de Oca himself was singled out at school, denied what privileges there were and marked as an enemy. His mother was a Jehovah's Witness, which meant additional persecution. Montes de Oca himself is a Pentecostalist, and an official with the Human Rights Party (illegal, of course), which is affiliated with the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, watched over by the late physicist's widow, Yelena Bonner.

Montes de Oca was arrested and imprisoned in July of last year. He was charged with "threatening the security of the state." His actual offense was to have called for the release of political prisoners, free elections, a fair penal code, and the possibility of Christian education in the schools.

On April 20, he escaped. There is a kind of Underground Railroad in Cuba, a network of people who help oppositionists. Montes de Oca could not very well avail himself of this system, however, as he was a fugitive, and the penalties for aiding a fugitive are severe. But he managed to contact Cuban-Americans in Florida who do what they can to help oppositionists, mainly by simply taking their statements and trying to disseminate them somehow. These helpers then turned to me. They knew that I had written about Cuba, they knew that National Review was anti-Communist ("pro-Cuban" would be another way to put that), and they thought we would be interested. Would I be willing to interview Montes de Oca, if it could be arranged? I spoke to him by phone on May 5.

The dissident related his story in an agitated but resolute voice. He expected to be arrested again soon; he was desperate for his story to be heard. He knew that, once he was recaptured, he would face not only heavy punishment for having escaped, but trumped-up charges of "common" crimes, such as thievery. The mother of his child had already lost her job because the authorities demanded that she testify that Montes de Oca had beaten her. She refused, and suffered the consequences.

Primarily, Montes de Oca was worried about his son, twelve years old. The boy had been badly beaten a number of times at school, by older boys who are sons of "patriotic" military personnel. This occurred with the apparent blessing of the authorities. Police were dogging the son to and from school.

Montes de Oca's highest hope was that the boy would be allowed to leave the country to receive medical care: He suffers from a hernia affecting his testicles, and also from a twisted spine. Both conditions require surgery. The boy is being denied treatment, however, because he is the son of an oppositionist.

Montes de Oca has endured persecution that can hardly be imagined. "Why do you persist?" I asked him. "Why do you take these risks? How can you be so brave?" He answered, "There are many brave people in Cuba, both men and women. We have always been faithful: a faithful community, a faithful people. We take our strength from the Bible. We believe in love, justice, and peace. We take God's truth to the darkest and loneliest places of human existence, like the prisons." And what did he want from Americans, I asked, beyond specific help for his son? "I would like them to remember their principles: their sense of unity, justice, and liberty, maintained over so many years." Last, he wished to say, "Human rights cannot exist without God."

Three days later, on May 8, he was indeed rearrested. In the afternoon, he spoke with supporters in the United States, wanting to provide as much information as possible, and then he went to the home of a fellow oppositionist. In the night, state security broke in and hauled both men off. No one has heard from Montes de Oca again; his family, at this writing, has been denied any information about him, and they fear the worst.

The second case I wish to discuss involves another dissident and political prisoner, Jose Orlando Gonzalez Bridon. He is an officer with the Cuban Democratic Workers' Confederation, a trade union (illegal). Gonzalez Bridon stands accused of distributing "enemy propaganda" and "false information" for the purpose of "provoking public disorder." His chief crime seems to have been to place on an American website-that of the Cuba Free Press Project-a statement questioning the regime's role in the death of a fellow trade unionist, Joanna Gonzalez Herrera. He also incensed the regime with a protest at his home on November 23, 2000. On that day, a large group of oppositionists gathered in the presence of a CNN camera and reporter.

The protesters were greatly encouraged by this opportunity to be heard. They are willing to challenge the regime under any circumstances; but, naturally, they would like some reward for the risks they take.

For reasons unknown, CNN declined to broadcast the protest, or to report on the matter at all. This dismayed and outraged the oppositionists. Several of them contend that CNN's reporter promised that the protest would be reported. A spokeswoman for the network says that it is CNN policy never to make such a promise.

Later, many of the Cubans who participated in the event were rounded up while attending a religious ceremony. They were beaten and jailed. Gonzalez Bridon's wife has told supporters in the U.S. that she does not hold CNN responsible for the arrests; but she does believe that the network behaved unethically and misleadingly. Other oppositionists feel grossly betrayed by the network. They complain that CNN is consistently pro-regime. They note that the network's founder, Ted Turner, is a friend and admirer of Fidel Castro. CNN's spokeswoman counters that the network has reported on "both pro-Castro and anti-Castro demonstrations." Such evenhandedness is apparently the most Cuban dissidents can hope for; but they do not believe they get even that.

CNN did run a story from Cuba on November 23: It was about the reentry of Elian Gonzalez, the "raft boy," into Cuban society, where (said the network) "he is a typical, happy-go-lucky schoolboy." CNN's Havana correspondent, Lucia Newman, said toward the end of the report, "What is unquestionable is that Elian's return to Cuba was a resounding political victory for Cuba's president, and a devastating blow to his arch-enemies, the anti-Castro exile community in the United States." Note the language there, because Cubans certainly do: the dictator as "president"; his opposition, "arch-enemies, the anti-Castro exile community in the United States." First, what of the anti-Castro community in Cuba? Second, the Florida Cubans are seldom described, in the mainstream press, as anti-Communist or pro-freedom or pro-democracy or pro-human rights. They are, at best, anti-Castro, and more often "right-wing" and worse. Robert Conquest, the great historian of Communist terror, notes that Orwell liked to observe that anti-Communists were always described as "rabid": rabid anti-Communists. Almost never was there a "rabid anti-Nazi," for example.

So, there are a couple of names named: Rene Montes de Oca Martija and Jose Orlando Gonzalez Bridon. There are thousands of others, belonging to thousands of other political prisoners. Hear (merely) three more: Vladimiro Roca, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, and Maritza Lugo Fernandez. These names mean nothing in our country, except to Cuban-Americans. Perhaps the most inspiring name of all is that of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, a virtual saint of the resistance. Biscet is a practitioner of civil disobedience in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, his avowed models. He has been imprisoned and tortured since 1998. We know, through his wife, that he has blessed and forgiven his torturers even as they have tortured him. Here is a man-Biscet-whose name should be on many lips. Cuban dissidents complain bitterly that if he were a prisoner of a right-wing regime he would be a worldwide cause. Yet he is anonymous; not even his dark skin seems able to help him. The stream of American celebrities who go to Havana to sup, smoke, and banter with "Fidel" are oblivious.

One man who has thought long and hard about all this is Armando Valladares. He is the most famed of the dissidents, the author of the memoir Against All Hope, one of the most powerful testaments of this age. Valladares persevered through years of imprisonment and torture, showing almost unfathomable courage, of every kind: physical, political, spiritual. Eventually he came to the United States, where he has devoted his life to truth-telling. Valladares has earned the designation "the Cuban Solzhenitsyn." One of the most bracing things President Reagan ever did, of many, was name Valladares U.S. delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Valladares divides those Americans who are neutral or friendly toward the Communist regime into two groups: those who lack information (a majority, he says, perhaps generously), and those-politicians, intellectuals, journalists-who should know better, to put it mildly. "I look at this from a psychological point of view," says Valladares. "Many Americans hate their own society, for whatever reason. Perhaps they have failed to attain their goals. So they sympathize with anyone who attacks American society. The cliche 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' applies here. And remember: The most envied, the most hated country in the world is the United States of America. I felt this clearly during my years as U.S. representative in Geneva."

Robert Conquest points out that Western defenders of the Soviet Union were "always more anti-American than they were pro-Soviet"; so it is in the case of Cuba. Jeane Kirkpatrick finds it astonishing that "some of our elites are actually proud of their indifference to Cuba's victims, or China's, or Burma's. It is in bad taste, intellectually, to give much thought to these victims." And "frankly, there is something perverse about the hostility to anti-Communists." We saw in the Elian affair, she says, that Cubans in the United States are close to a pariah community.

Paul Hollander is another great historian of Communism and its fellow-travelers. He finds it especially noteworthy that "American intellectuals haven't been much interested in the incredible repression of their fellow intellectuals in Cuba. The Cubans have had it much worse than intellectuals in the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin." The American academy proves all the time that it is nearly hopeless on the subject.

One of the most shocking things I ever saw occurred at Harvard in the mid 1980s. Valladares arrived to give a talk to students about his experience; and the school paired him with a pro-Castro professor. Evidently, Harvard felt that Valladares's witness should not be given without rebuttal. To most anti-Communists, this is rather like "balancing" an anti-Nazi with a pro-Nazi. The further sad truth is that the pro-Castro professors, in their classrooms, are paired with no one, least of all with a giant of conscience.

And what of journalists? They seem weirdly unconcerned with the fates of their counterparts in Cuba. Journalists are commonly thought to be obsessed with their profession and the freedom to practice it. If that is true, they might look into the case of Bernardo Arevalo Padron, once the director of an independent press agency, Linea Sur Press, and a political prisoner since 1997. His crime was to "insult" the dictator and his regime. Arevalo is being held at a forced-labor camp in Cienfuegos province, where he is undergoing what Castro's regime, like all such regimes, calls "political reeducation."

Vernon Walters-a second ex-ambassador to the U.N.-says that the indifference of the American press is "absolutely normal": "They would go to the death searching out Franco's or Pinochet's prisoners. But the attitude toward Castro's is, 'They probably deserve to be there anyway.' Anti-Communist prisoners are of no interest to anybody. A prisoner of a left-wing government is highly suspect, probably a fascist." Conquest points out that Western elites have always scorned resisters to, and refugees from, Communism: Accounts from Soviet Russia were "rumors in Riga"; refugees from Mao's China, when they staggered into Hong Kong, were bandits, warlords; "and the Cubans! They escaped, went to Florida, and started voting Republican, so they were clearly no good." The anti-anti-Communist mindset, says Conquest, remains fierce, above all with regard to Cuba.

Valladares, for his part, says that "the hardest part of our struggle is to fight against a double standard: one standard for right-wing regimes, another for left-wing ones. Torture and denial of rights are the same, no matter who perpetrates them."

The dissident community suffered a special blow on April 26, when the American secretary of state, Colin Powell, gave testimony in the House. Badgered by Rep. Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat and one of Castro's most ardent champions, Powell said, "He's done some good things for his people."

The "he" was Castro. And when Powell uttered those words, he gave away more than he must have known, for they are a standard propaganda phrase. Apologists have always said, "Well, Fidel might deny his people [creepy phrase, by the way: "his people"] political and civil rights, but he has done some good things." By "good things" they usually mean advances in education, health care, housing, and race relations. These claims are entirely bogus, demolished ad nauseam by objective analysts. But they are undying. After Powell's testimony, Castro praised and thanked the secretary for his concession, another blow to the dissidents.

Valladares has a ready answer to this business of "good things," given with patience and weariness: Say these things have been accomplished (which is laughable, but leave that aside). Could they not have been accomplished without torturing people? Without imprisoning them? Without denying them all rights? Is material well-being incompatible with human freedom? Besides which, few people go out of their way to stress the material achievements of other dictators: autobahns and so forth. The likes of Jose Serrano do not pause to acknowledge Chile's economic explosion. And then there is the matter of Castro's sheer longevity as dictator. Says Valladares, "I was talking to an American, a Democrat, the other day. I said to him, 'How would you like it if Richard Nixon got to be president for over forty years?' The man almost shrieked in horror."

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 naive: 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, smoked choice cigars, and buddied for three hours with Castro, afterward pronouncing Cuba "a paradise."

Such behavior may seem merely ridiculous, but it is not without its effect on dissidents. Valladares confirms the obvious: that it demoralizes them terribly. "It demoralizes not only the resistance inside Cuba, but all of us who have struggled for many years while we wait for the solidarity of those who believe in democracy." He may wait for that solidarity a long time. The likes of Naomi Campbell and Jack Nicholson, sadly, have far more influence on Americans than Armando Valladares ever could.

Cubans and Cuban-Americans feel a persistent hurt over the general American attitude toward them. One exile in Boca Raton reports that he can no longer talk with his Anglo neighbors about his homeland. "If I explain to them the reality of Cuban life, all I get is, 'Oh, you're a right-winger,' or, 'You're biased against President Castro.'" Can you imagine being biased against the tyrant who deprives you of rights, throws you in jail, and makes life so intolerable as to force you into the open sea on a homemade raft? Many Cubans especially resent this honorific "President" before Castro, as if the dictator were the equivalent of a democratic leader. Worse is the affectionate, pop-star-ish "Fidel." We would never hear, for Pinochet, "Augusto." Gus!

The oppositionists and their supporters are extraordinarily, even disturbingly, grateful for any sincere attention they receive. They are accustomed to being snubbed or defamed. Another exile writes, "Prisoners cling to newspaper articles about human rights in Cuba as their only hope against being abandoned and forgotten. The sense of helplessness, that no one is listening, that no one cares, is what kills their souls. I've known many such people, including within my own family."

Back in the Reagan years, Jeane Kirkpatrick became a heroine in the Soviet Union for the simple act of naming names on the floor of the U.N.: naming the names of prisoners, citing their cases, inquiring after their fates. Later, in Moscow, she met Andrei Sakharov, who exclaimed, "Kirkpatski, Kirkpatski! I have so wanted to meet you and thank you in person. Your name is known in all the Gulag." And why was that? Because she had named those names, giving men and women in the cells a measure of hope. Kirkpatrick says now, "This much I have learned: It is very, very important to say the names, to speak them. It's important to go on taking account as one becomes aware of the prisoners and the torture they undergo. It's terribly important to talk about it, write about it, go on TV about it." A tyrannical regime depends on silence, darkness. "One of their goals is to make their opponents vanish. They want not only to imprison them, they want no one to have heard of them, no one to know who or where they are. So to just that extent, it's tremendously important that we pay attention."

Indignation and concern are not inexhaustible, of course; no one, including Americans, can watch the fall of every sparrow (although, somehow, it seemed possible in South Africa). But American attention is a powerful thing; so is an American consensus. "Fidel will eventually die," some people say, with a shrug. But certain other people have waited long enough.

DO NOT FORGET CASTRO'S TERROR NETWORK


Center for the Study of a National Option
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001

Rafael Artigas and Ana Carbonell provided research support for this article.

It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the Supreme Leader and the Comandante together for their summit meeting in Tehran in May. The statements made by Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

According to news reports, during the visit Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei "assured Castro that Iran and Cuba can defeat the U.S. hand in hand,” to which Castro agreed, adding that America was "extremely weak today,” and that "we are today eyewitness to their weakness, as their close neighbors.”

At Tehran University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty, "The imperialist king will finally fall,” (AFP, May 10, 2001). Immediately afterward the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States.” (IPS, May 10, 2001)

Some have argued that Cuba’s well-documented sponsorship and instigation of international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be understood in light of the Cold War context.

However, irrefutable evidence indicates that to this day:
The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor international terrorists,
The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with terrorist states so as to create an ‘anti-Western’ international front, and
The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks and espionage against Americans. As recently as July 1999 Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban government official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government, wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is troublesome. Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?” (University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).

Evidence indicates that Cuba today continues to serve as a base for coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. In August, Colombian authorities arrested three suspected IRA terrorists who were providing specialized training to the FARC terrorist organization. One of the men, Nial Connolly, had lived in Cuba since 1996 as the IRA’s representative. (The Times, Aug. 16, 2001; BBC News, Aug. 17, 2001)

It is believed that it was in Cuba where the IRA established contact with the FARC and ELN terrorist organizations. These two organizations, according to the State Department’s 2000 report on global terrorism, have "… maintained a permanent presence in the island.” It is further believed that the IRA men were training the Colombian rebels in the development of powerful anti-personnel explosives destined for the proposed FARC "urban offensive."

There is additional information that indicates that the Colombian territory under FARC control has become a haven for Terror International. Argentine journalist Julio Cirino, an expert on international terrorism, has written about the existence of a logistical support base "in a small city near the Colombian border with Venezuela,” where "Middle Eastern types” receive fake Colombian passports and move on to other unspecified destinations. In October 1998, Interpol arrested Egyptian extremist Mohamed Enid Abdel Aal, in Bogota, Colombia. Abdel Aal, a leader of one of the most dangerous of the Islamist terrorist organizations, told authorities under questioning that "he planned to stay in Colombia for a few days and then head to Venezuela over land.” (El Nuevo Herald, Sept. 16, 2001)

The Castro regime has not only continued to provide support for the vicious Basque terrorist organization ETA, known for its ghastly car bomb attacks on civilian targets, but it has also publicly attempted to scuttle diplomatic efforts to condemn it. In a 1995 raid by French police on ETA hideouts, computer files were found which clearly indicated that Cuban intelligence aided members of the group wanted for terror attacks in Spain. According to the files, Cuba’s Communist Party "considers its relations with ETA to be ‘fraternal, sustained, strategic and increasingly deep.’" (The Miami Herald, Dec. 27, 1997)

Cuban covert support for terrorism in Spain has been accompanied by attempts at diplomatic protection. Castro not only refused to join the other Ibero-American heads of state in condemning ETA terrorism at the 2000 Ibero-American summit, he also "slammed Mexico for its support of a statement against terrorism at the Ibero American Summit in Panama.” (The Miami Herald, Nov. 11, 2000).

The Cuban dictatorship’s continued relationship with bloody terror groups and the use of Cuban territory and diplomacy to protect them has long been a mainstay of Cuban foreign policy. As State Department reports indicate, Americans sought for crimes linked to 1960s radical groups have long received sanctuary in the island. What proves even more worrisome however, has been the recent effort by the Cuban regime to forge an "anti-Western" front with terrorist states in the Middle East.

'I Will Not Reconcile'
On Sept. 18, 2000 in an exclusive interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television, Castro stated that "We are not ready for reconciliation with the United States, and I will not reconcile with the imperialist system.” He further added that his government had defended Cuba against "a Western cultural invasion,” echoing one of the key themes of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region.

In May 2001 Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya and Iran. Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "people must be informed and awakened; they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West.” On July 26, 2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, now a high-ranking Iranian official.

Biological War
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in the U.S. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the U.S.S.R.’s bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book "Biohazard," Alibek quotes his former boss, Gen. Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an active bacteriological arms program.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen stated in May 1998: "Cuba’s current scientific facilities could support an offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and development stage.”

In October 2000, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice minister of health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical objectives of the installation, because Iran already produces 97 percent of the medicines its population consumes.

It is feasible to establish the links of the bin Laden network with the Iranian government and to identify its common interests with the Castro regime. Castro and bin Laden work hard to build a common front to bring down the United States and to develop biological weapons of mass destruction.

In its indictment of bin Laden, the Justice Department stated that the Al Qaeda terrorist organization under his command sought to "put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies.”

The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah.”

In February 1998 Osama bin Laden announced the creation of an "international front” against the United States. According to a document obtained by the PBS program "Frontline," bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with Iran and China as something to be considered.”

But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link. In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported: "A young Afghan who trained this winter at a camp in mountainous Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. The North Korean, he said, had brought chemical weapons, which were stored in caves and in the dozens of sunbaked mud-and-stone houses.”

In an official statement Sunday, the government of Grand Cayman reported that in August 2000 it had arrested three Afghan nationals who had illegally entered the country from Cuba using fake Pakistani passports.

The New York Times reported in September 1998 that advisers provided then-President Bill Clinton with evidence that "bin Laden is looking to obtain weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons to use against U.S. installations.” Is it that far-fetched to see that the ideological affinity between Cuba and Al Qaeda and the allure of bin Laden’s money for Castro’s cash-strapped regime could easily result in the worst of scenarios?

As America prepares to build a global coalition for a definitive assault on international terrorism, it must come to grips with the fact that the enemy is a step ahead. Policy makers, legislators and analysts must not dismiss Cuba’s insistent efforts aimed precisely at building an anti-Western alliance, its continued support and encouragement for international terrorist organizations, or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its propensity to share it with other terrorist states directly linked to U.S. enemies.

Above all, Castro’s continued virulent rhetoric against the U.S. and the Western world in general must not be overlooked. It was not too long ago that Americans were the direct targets of Castroite terrorist attacks. On Feb. 24, 1996 two unarmed U.S. civilian aircraft were shot out of the sky in plain daylight in international air space, murdering three US citizens and one resident. A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens, seeking to penetrate US military installations, spying on members of the U.S. Congress and providing information on Miami International Airport.

Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the "first war of the 21st century" would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and fascist alliance with Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. The enemy is 90 miles south of Key West. And he does not hide his hatred for us.

DO NOT FORGET CASTRO'S TERROR NETWORK

Center for the Study of a National Option
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001

Rafael Artigas and Ana Carbonell provided research support for this article.

It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the Supreme Leader and the Comandante together for their summit meeting in Tehran in May. The statements made by Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

According to news reports, during the visit Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei "assured Castro that Iran and Cuba can defeat the U.S. hand in hand,” to which Castro agreed, adding that America was "extremely weak today,” and that "we are today eyewitness to their weakness, as their close neighbors.”

At Tehran University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty, "The imperialist king will finally fall,” (AFP, May 10, 2001). Immediately afterward the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States.” (IPS, May 10, 2001)

Some have argued that Cuba’s well-documented sponsorship and instigation of international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be understood in light of the Cold War context.

However, irrefutable evidence indicates that to this day:
The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor international terrorists,
The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with terrorist states so as to create an ‘anti-Western’ international front, and
The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks and espionage against Americans. As recently as July 1999 Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban government official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government, wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is troublesome. Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?” (University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).

Evidence indicates that Cuba today continues to serve as a base for coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. In August, Colombian authorities arrested three suspected IRA terrorists who were providing specialized training to the FARC terrorist organization. One of the men, Nial Connolly, had lived in Cuba since 1996 as the IRA’s representative. (The Times, Aug. 16, 2001; BBC News, Aug. 17, 2001)

It is believed that it was in Cuba where the IRA established contact with the FARC and ELN terrorist organizations. These two organizations, according to the State Department’s 2000 report on global terrorism, have "… maintained a permanent presence in the island.” It is further believed that the IRA men were training the Colombian rebels in the development of powerful anti-personnel explosives destined for the proposed FARC "urban offensive."

There is additional information that indicates that the Colombian territory under FARC control has become a haven for Terror International. Argentine journalist Julio Cirino, an expert on international terrorism, has written about the existence of a logistical support base "in a small city near the Colombian border with Venezuela,” where "Middle Eastern types” receive fake Colombian passports and move on to other unspecified destinations. In October 1998, Interpol arrested Egyptian extremist Mohamed Enid Abdel Aal, in Bogota, Colombia. Abdel Aal, a leader of one of the most dangerous of the Islamist terrorist organizations, told authorities under questioning that "he planned to stay in Colombia for a few days and then head to Venezuela over land.” (El Nuevo Herald, Sept. 16, 2001)

The Castro regime has not only continued to provide support for the vicious Basque terrorist organization ETA, known for its ghastly car bomb attacks on civilian targets, but it has also publicly attempted to scuttle diplomatic efforts to condemn it. In a 1995 raid by French police on ETA hideouts, computer files were found which clearly indicated that Cuban intelligence aided members of the group wanted for terror attacks in Spain. According to the files, Cuba’s Communist Party "considers its relations with ETA to be ‘fraternal, sustained, strategic and increasingly deep.’" (The Miami Herald, Dec. 27, 1997)

Cuban covert support for terrorism in Spain has been accompanied by attempts at diplomatic protection. Castro not only refused to join the other Ibero-American heads of state in condemning ETA terrorism at the 2000 Ibero-American summit, he also "slammed Mexico for its support of a statement against terrorism at the Ibero American Summit in Panama.” (The Miami Herald, Nov. 11, 2000).

The Cuban dictatorship’s continued relationship with bloody terror groups and the use of Cuban territory and diplomacy to protect them has long been a mainstay of Cuban foreign policy. As State Department reports indicate, Americans sought for crimes linked to 1960s radical groups have long received sanctuary in the island. What proves even more worrisome however, has been the recent effort by the Cuban regime to forge an "anti-Western" front with terrorist states in the Middle East.

'I Will Not Reconcile'
On Sept. 18, 2000 in an exclusive interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television, Castro stated that "We are not ready for reconciliation with the United States, and I will not reconcile with the imperialist system.” He further added that his government had defended Cuba against "a Western cultural invasion,” echoing one of the key themes of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region.

In May 2001 Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya and Iran. Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "people must be informed and awakened; they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West.” On July 26, 2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, now a high-ranking Iranian official.

Biological War
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in the U.S. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the U.S.S.R.’s bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book "Biohazard," Alibek quotes his former boss, Gen. Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an active bacteriological arms program.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen stated in May 1998: "Cuba’s current scientific facilities could support an offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and development stage.”

In October 2000, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice minister of health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical objectives of the installation, because Iran already produces 97 percent of the medicines its population consumes.

It is feasible to establish the links of the bin Laden network with the Iranian government and to identify its common interests with the Castro regime. Castro and bin Laden work hard to build a common front to bring down the United States and to develop biological weapons of mass destruction.

In its indictment of bin Laden, the Justice Department stated that the Al Qaeda terrorist organization under his command sought to "put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies.”

The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah.”

In February 1998 Osama bin Laden announced the creation of an "international front” against the United States. According to a document obtained by the PBS program "Frontline," bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with Iran and China as something to be considered.”

But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link. In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported: "A young Afghan who trained this winter at a camp in mountainous Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. The North Korean, he said, had brought chemical weapons, which were stored in caves and in the dozens of sunbaked mud-and-stone houses.”

In an official statement Sunday, the government of Grand Cayman reported that in August 2000 it had arrested three Afghan nationals who had illegally entered the country from Cuba using fake Pakistani passports.

The New York Times reported in September 1998 that advisers provided then-President Bill Clinton with evidence that "bin Laden is looking to obtain weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons to use against U.S. installations.” Is it that far-fetched to see that the ideological affinity between Cuba and Al Qaeda and the allure of bin Laden’s money for Castro’s cash-strapped regime could easily result in the worst of scenarios?

As America prepares to build a global coalition for a definitive assault on international terrorism, it must come to grips with the fact that the enemy is a step ahead. Policy makers, legislators and analysts must not dismiss Cuba’s insistent efforts aimed precisely at building an anti-Western alliance, its continued support and encouragement for international terrorist organizations, or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its propensity to share it with other terrorist states directly linked to U.S. enemies.

Above all, Castro’s continued virulent rhetoric against the U.S. and the Western world in general must not be overlooked. It was not too long ago that Americans were the direct targets of Castroite terrorist attacks. On Feb. 24, 1996 two unarmed U.S. civilian aircraft were shot out of the sky in plain daylight in international air space, murdering three US citizens and one resident. A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens, seeking to penetrate US military installations, spying on members of the U.S. Congress and providing information on Miami International Airport.

Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the "first war of the 21st century" would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and fascist alliance with Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. The enemy is 90 miles south of Key West. And he does not hide his hatred for us.

DO NOT FORGET CASTRO'S TERROR NETWORK


Center for the Study of a National Option
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001

Rafael Artigas and Ana Carbonell provided research support for this article.

It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the Supreme Leader and the Comandante together for their summit meeting in Tehran in May. The statements made by Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

According to news reports, during the visit Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei "assured Castro that Iran and Cuba can defeat the U.S. hand in hand,” to which Castro agreed, adding that America was "extremely weak today,” and that "we are today eyewitness to their weakness, as their close neighbors.”

At Tehran University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty, "The imperialist king will finally fall,” (AFP, May 10, 2001). Immediately afterward the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States.” (IPS, May 10, 2001)

Some have argued that Cuba’s well-documented sponsorship and instigation of international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be understood in light of the Cold War context.

However, irrefutable evidence indicates that to this day:
The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor international terrorists,
The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with terrorist states so as to create an ‘anti-Western’ international front, and
The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks and espionage against Americans. As recently as July 1999 Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban government official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government, wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is troublesome. Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?” (University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).

Evidence indicates that Cuba today continues to serve as a base for coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. In August, Colombian authorities arrested three suspected IRA terrorists who were providing specialized training to the FARC terrorist organization. One of the men, Nial Connolly, had lived in Cuba since 1996 as the IRA’s representative. (The Times, Aug. 16, 2001; BBC News, Aug. 17, 2001)

It is believed that it was in Cuba where the IRA established contact with the FARC and ELN terrorist organizations. These two organizations, according to the State Department’s 2000 report on global terrorism, have "… maintained a permanent presence in the island.” It is further believed that the IRA men were training the Colombian rebels in the development of powerful anti-personnel explosives destined for the proposed FARC "urban offensive."

There is additional information that indicates that the Colombian territory under FARC control has become a haven for Terror International. Argentine journalist Julio Cirino, an expert on international terrorism, has written about the existence of a logistical support base "in a small city near the Colombian border with Venezuela,” where "Middle Eastern types” receive fake Colombian passports and move on to other unspecified destinations. In October 1998, Interpol arrested Egyptian extremist Mohamed Enid Abdel Aal, in Bogota, Colombia. Abdel Aal, a leader of one of the most dangerous of the Islamist terrorist organizations, told authorities under questioning that "he planned to stay in Colombia for a few days and then head to Venezuela over land.” (El Nuevo Herald, Sept. 16, 2001)

The Castro regime has not only continued to provide support for the vicious Basque terrorist organization ETA, known for its ghastly car bomb attacks on civilian targets, but it has also publicly attempted to scuttle diplomatic efforts to condemn it. In a 1995 raid by French police on ETA hideouts, computer files were found which clearly indicated that Cuban intelligence aided members of the group wanted for terror attacks in Spain. According to the files, Cuba’s Communist Party "considers its relations with ETA to be ‘fraternal, sustained, strategic and increasingly deep.’" (The Miami Herald, Dec. 27, 1997)

Cuban covert support for terrorism in Spain has been accompanied by attempts at diplomatic protection. Castro not only refused to join the other Ibero-American heads of state in condemning ETA terrorism at the 2000 Ibero-American summit, he also "slammed Mexico for its support of a statement against terrorism at the Ibero American Summit in Panama.” (The Miami Herald, Nov. 11, 2000).

The Cuban dictatorship’s continued relationship with bloody terror groups and the use of Cuban territory and diplomacy to protect them has long been a mainstay of Cuban foreign policy. As State Department reports indicate, Americans sought for crimes linked to 1960s radical groups have long received sanctuary in the island. What proves even more worrisome however, has been the recent effort by the Cuban regime to forge an "anti-Western" front with terrorist states in the Middle East.

'I Will Not Reconcile'
On Sept. 18, 2000 in an exclusive interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television, Castro stated that "We are not ready for reconciliation with the United States, and I will not reconcile with the imperialist system.” He further added that his government had defended Cuba against "a Western cultural invasion,” echoing one of the key themes of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region.

In May 2001 Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya and Iran. Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "people must be informed and awakened; they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West.” On July 26, 2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, now a high-ranking Iranian official.

Biological War
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in the U.S. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the U.S.S.R.’s bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book "Biohazard," Alibek quotes his former boss, Gen. Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an active bacteriological arms program.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen stated in May 1998: "Cuba’s current scientific facilities could support an offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and development stage.”

In October 2000, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice minister of health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical objectives of the installation, because Iran already produces 97 percent of the medicines its population consumes.

It is feasible to establish the links of the bin Laden network with the Iranian government and to identify its common interests with the Castro regime. Castro and bin Laden work hard to build a common front to bring down the United States and to develop biological weapons of mass destruction.

In its indictment of bin Laden, the Justice Department stated that the Al Qaeda terrorist organization under his command sought to "put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies.”

The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah.”

In February 1998 Osama bin Laden announced the creation of an "international front” against the United States. According to a document obtained by the PBS program "Frontline," bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with Iran and China as something to be considered.”

But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link. In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported: "A young Afghan who trained this winter at a camp in mountainous Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. The North Korean, he said, had brought chemical weapons, which were stored in caves and in the dozens of sunbaked mud-and-stone houses.”

In an official statement Sunday, the government of Grand Cayman reported that in August 2000 it had arrested three Afghan nationals who had illegally entered the country from Cuba using fake Pakistani passports.

The New York Times reported in September 1998 that advisers provided then-President Bill Clinton with evidence that "bin Laden is looking to obtain weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons to use against U.S. installations.” Is it that far-fetched to see that the ideological affinity between Cuba and Al Qaeda and the allure of bin Laden’s money for Castro’s cash-strapped regime could easily result in the worst of scenarios?

As America prepares to build a global coalition for a definitive assault on international terrorism, it must come to grips with the fact that the enemy is a step ahead. Policy makers, legislators and analysts must not dismiss Cuba’s insistent efforts aimed precisely at building an anti-Western alliance, its continued support and encouragement for international terrorist organizations, or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its propensity to share it with other terrorist states directly linked to U.S. enemies.

Above all, Castro’s continued virulent rhetoric against the U.S. and the Western world in general must not be overlooked. It was not too long ago that Americans were the direct targets of Castroite terrorist attacks. On Feb. 24, 1996 two unarmed U.S. civilian aircraft were shot out of the sky in plain daylight in international air space, murdering three US citizens and one resident. A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens, seeking to penetrate US military installations, spying on members of the U.S. Congress and providing information on Miami International Airport.

Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the "first war of the 21st century" would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and fascist alliance with Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. The enemy is 90 miles south of Key West. And he does not hide his hatred for us.

DO NOT FORGET MANDELA SUPPORT FOR CASTRO'S TERROR NETWORK


Center for the Study of a National Option
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001

Rafael Artigas and Ana Carbonell provided research support for this article.

It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the Supreme Leader and the Comandante together for their summit meeting in Tehran in May. The statements made by Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

According to news reports, during the visit Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei "assured Castro that Iran and Cuba can defeat the U.S. hand in hand,” to which Castro agreed, adding that America was "extremely weak today,” and that "we are today eyewitness to their weakness, as their close neighbors.”

At Tehran University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty, "The imperialist king will finally fall,” (AFP, May 10, 2001). Immediately afterward the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States.” (IPS, May 10, 2001)

Some have argued that Cuba’s well-documented sponsorship and instigation of international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be understood in light of the Cold War context.

However, irrefutable evidence indicates that to this day:
The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor international terrorists,
The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with terrorist states so as to create an ‘anti-Western’ international front, and
The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks and espionage against Americans. As recently as July 1999 Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban government official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government, wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is troublesome. Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?” (University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).

Evidence indicates that Cuba today continues to serve as a base for coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. In August, Colombian authorities arrested three suspected IRA terrorists who were providing specialized training to the FARC terrorist organization. One of the men, Nial Connolly, had lived in Cuba since 1996 as the IRA’s representative. (The Times, Aug. 16, 2001; BBC News, Aug. 17, 2001)

It is believed that it was in Cuba where the IRA established contact with the FARC and ELN terrorist organizations. These two organizations, according to the State Department’s 2000 report on global terrorism, have "… maintained a permanent presence in the island.” It is further believed that the IRA men were training the Colombian rebels in the development of powerful anti-personnel explosives destined for the proposed FARC "urban offensive."

There is additional information that indicates that the Colombian territory under FARC control has become a haven for Terror International. Argentine journalist Julio Cirino, an expert on international terrorism, has written about the existence of a logistical support base "in a small city near the Colombian border with Venezuela,” where "Middle Eastern types” receive fake Colombian passports and move on to other unspecified destinations. In October 1998, Interpol arrested Egyptian extremist Mohamed Enid Abdel Aal, in Bogota, Colombia. Abdel Aal, a leader of one of the most dangerous of the Islamist terrorist organizations, told authorities under questioning that "he planned to stay in Colombia for a few days and then head to Venezuela over land.” (El Nuevo Herald, Sept. 16, 2001)

The Castro regime has not only continued to provide support for the vicious Basque terrorist organization ETA, known for its ghastly car bomb attacks on civilian targets, but it has also publicly attempted to scuttle diplomatic efforts to condemn it. In a 1995 raid by French police on ETA hideouts, computer files were found which clearly indicated that Cuban intelligence aided members of the group wanted for terror attacks in Spain. According to the files, Cuba’s Communist Party "considers its relations with ETA to be ‘fraternal, sustained, strategic and increasingly deep.’" (The Miami Herald, Dec. 27, 1997)

Cuban covert support for terrorism in Spain has been accompanied by attempts at diplomatic protection. Castro not only refused to join the other Ibero-American heads of state in condemning ETA terrorism at the 2000 Ibero-American summit, he also "slammed Mexico for its support of a statement against terrorism at the Ibero American Summit in Panama.” (The Miami Herald, Nov. 11, 2000).

The Cuban dictatorship’s continued relationship with bloody terror groups and the use of Cuban territory and diplomacy to protect them has long been a mainstay of Cuban foreign policy. As State Department reports indicate, Americans sought for crimes linked to 1960s radical groups have long received sanctuary in the island. What proves even more worrisome however, has been the recent effort by the Cuban regime to forge an "anti-Western" front with terrorist states in the Middle East.

'I Will Not Reconcile'
On Sept. 18, 2000 in an exclusive interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television, Castro stated that "We are not ready for reconciliation with the United States, and I will not reconcile with the imperialist system.” He further added that his government had defended Cuba against "a Western cultural invasion,” echoing one of the key themes of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region.

In May 2001 Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya and Iran. Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "people must be informed and awakened; they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West.” On July 26, 2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, now a high-ranking Iranian official.

Biological War
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in the U.S. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the U.S.S.R.’s bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book "Biohazard," Alibek quotes his former boss, Gen. Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an active bacteriological arms program.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen stated in May 1998: "Cuba’s current scientific facilities could support an offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and development stage.”

In October 2000, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice minister of health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical objectives of the installation, because Iran already produces 97 percent of the medicines its population consumes.

It is feasible to establish the links of the bin Laden network with the Iranian government and to identify its common interests with the Castro regime. Castro and bin Laden work hard to build a common front to bring down the United States and to develop biological weapons of mass destruction.

In its indictment of bin Laden, the Justice Department stated that the Al Qaeda terrorist organization under his command sought to "put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies.”

The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah.”

In February 1998 Osama bin Laden announced the creation of an "international front” against the United States. According to a document obtained by the PBS program "Frontline," bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with Iran and China as something to be considered.”

But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link. In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported: "A young Afghan who trained this winter at a camp in mountainous Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. The North Korean, he said, had brought chemical weapons, which were stored in caves and in the dozens of sunbaked mud-and-stone houses.”

In an official statement Sunday, the government of Grand Cayman reported that in August 2000 it had arrested three Afghan nationals who had illegally entered the country from Cuba using fake Pakistani passports.

The New York Times reported in September 1998 that advisers provided then-President Bill Clinton with evidence that "bin Laden is looking to obtain weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons to use against U.S. installations.” Is it that far-fetched to see that the ideological affinity between Cuba and Al Qaeda and the allure of bin Laden’s money for Castro’s cash-strapped regime could easily result in the worst of scenarios?

As America prepares to build a global coalition for a definitive assault on international terrorism, it must come to grips with the fact that the enemy is a step ahead. Policy makers, legislators and analysts must not dismiss Cuba’s insistent efforts aimed precisely at building an anti-Western alliance, its continued support and encouragement for international terrorist organizations, or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its propensity to share it with other terrorist states directly linked to U.S. enemies.

Above all, Castro’s continued virulent rhetoric against the U.S. and the Western world in general must not be overlooked. It was not too long ago that Americans were the direct targets of Castroite terrorist attacks. On Feb. 24, 1996 two unarmed U.S. civilian aircraft were shot out of the sky in plain daylight in international air space, murdering three US citizens and one resident. A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens, seeking to penetrate US military installations, spying on members of the U.S. Congress and providing information on Miami International Airport.

Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the "first war of the 21st century" would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and fascist alliance with Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. The enemy is 90 miles south of Key West. And he does not hide his hatred for us.

THE AYATOLLAH CRONKITE.

By: Jesus J. Chao

October 1, 2001

Walter Cronkite’s hysterical attack on Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson shows to the world the lack of respect by the semi-gods of the U.S. elite media for the First Amendment Rights of those who do not share their ideology.

Falwell’s crime; the evangelist alleged that the attacks were divine retribution on American for "pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People for the American Way."

Many considered, and rightly so, Falwell’s remarks inappropriate, but Cronkite should be the last person to be involved in a vicious attack on his freedom of speech affirming that Falwell’s remarks in regards to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as "the most abominable thing I've ever heard," and told TV Guide columnist Max Robins, "It makes you wonder if [Falwell and Roberson are] worshipping the same God as the people who bombed the Trade Center and the Pentagon."

It is preposterous to equate Falwell’s commentary with the terrorists’ abominable actions. Mr. Cronkite’s remarks are more appropriated for a fundamentalist Ayatollah than for a U.S. media demi-god. Where was Cronkite’s wrath when a professor in New Mexico lamented that the whole Pentagon was not destroyed or the elementary school teacher who lamented to the students that the President was not killed?

It is clear that the elite media does not worship the same God than the rest of us. Cronkite is one of the demi-gods of the media’s Olympus, where he shares with Walter Duranty, Louis Fisher, and other, who were also media luminaries, the paeans of their worshipful comrades.

Certainly the elite media's idols are made of clay.

MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR HEIST
OF U.S. TREASURY BY CASTRO

By Jesus J. Chao

Castro is coming close to obtaining his life long dream of having U.S. taxpayers granting him over 7 billion dollars annually as a non-deductible charitable donation. The American people should not allow themselves to be fooled by Castro’s lobby; this is what they mean by ending the U.S. commercial embargo, opening an unlimited credit account for buying in the U.S. without expectations of ever being repaid.


The Soviet Union that kept Castro in power is gone and so are the 6 billion dollars a year and over 150 billion dollars in military aid; and has almost exhausted the largesse of the Western countries including Japan, which willingly accepted to be defrauded by the Cuban tyrant of many billions of dollars of un-collectable debts, Castro is now counting on his strong lobby in the United States to end the embargo and open for him the doors to Fort Knox.


Castro’s debt to Spain is 11.2 billion dollars so far, and the Spanish pirates are being paid, in part, with American properties stolen by Castro and whose legitimate owners are U.S. citizens. Similar is the case with Cuba’s debts to Argentina, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the Paris Club of European banks, and every other country that jumped in and risked shadowy dealings with an international outlaw, as is the case of the international promoted prostitution based tourism trade.


Before jumping into Cuba’s economic black hole, American investors and the American people should be aware that according to the 1995 country investment risk survey, made by the specialized magazine Euromoney, Cuba was rated in 183rd place out of 187 countries, ranking below Somalia. The Financial Times reported on June 30, 1995. “Why then, investors may ask, should they bother with Cuba in a world replete with opportunities and more welcoming governments?” The country’s investments situation have worsened considerably since 1995. Cuba’s per capita income went down from $364 in 1958 (fourth in Latin America according to the International Monetary Fund and with a strong currency on par with the dollar), to $48 year income and a worthless currency. What kind of return can the foreign investors expect?


“Useful idiots” in the U.S. Congress such as Jose Serrano, Charles Rangel, Sheila Jackson Lee and Senator Christopher Todd, among others, who strongly opposed president’s Bush tax relief for overburdening American taxpayers; are demanding, along with the unrelenting 42 year support of the radical left controlled media, the World Council of Churches and many other fellow travelers and communist front organizations, that the U.S. taxpayers bankroll Castro’s reign of terror.


The American people seem to have forgotten that President Kennedy instituted the embargo in February 1962, after Castro had seized billions of dollars of American assets. That was Castro’s first heist of the American treasure, now he is aiming to raid Fort Knox with the approval of the American people.

Should the World Maintain Sanctions Against the Castro Regime?

By John Suarez

The Cuban Exile continues to support sanctions against the Castro regime, and advocates for its expansion and its entrenchment. Our support of sanctions rests on several pillars: distrust of United States and its Corporate interests, opposition to rewarding a tyrant, the Canadian example, and having some form of leverage against the Castro regime.

Our distrust of the United States government is based in its treatment of other totalitarian despots. During the Bush Administration, Brent Scrowcroft showed the US government's response to the massacre in Beijing in June of 1989 by toasting champagne to those who had butchered students demonstrating for democracy. President Clinton, a candidate at the time, denounced this immoral policy.

Upon becoming President, he has detached human rights and commercial dealings with China completely. Human rights have been placed on the backburner. According to Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, "the Clinton Administration simply collapsed, Chinese officials were given every reason to conclude that for the rest of the world, access to Chinese markets far outweigh concern for the rights of Chinese citizens."

Recently President Bill Clinton invited the Chinese General, who issued the order for the 1989 Tiennanmen Massacre, to tour the US Capitol and receive the honors due a foreign dignitary. One of the members of the general's entourage had just this past year threatened Los Angeles with nuclear annihilation. We cannot have trust in the "principled leadership" of such a government.

When Fidel Castro visited the United Nations he was dined and entertained by America's corporate elite. In addition these business leaders were eager to discuss trade opportunities with Mr. Castro. For example, Wayne Andreas, the chairman of Archer Daniels Midland, said, " I talked to him most of the time about business. He seems to know what he's doing, I'd say. It was like talking to the president of AT&T." Castro was literally embraced by one of the Rockerfellers. These businessmen would exploit Cuban labor, and plunder Cuba's natural resources along with the Canadians, Europeans, and Mexicans who currently in collaboration with the Castro regime pay their workers about $10 a month.

The United States has a history of rewarding Latin American dictators ranging from Castro's predecessor Fulgencio Batista, to Manuel Noriega in Panama. Fulgencio Batista controlled Cuba and was able to terminate the Platt Amendment which had long outraged Cubans as an assault on their sovereignty. This gave Batista a huge propaganda victory which the US never offered Cuba's authentic democratic governments. In Panama, President Carter handed the Panama Canal over to a Military dictator, thus offering a huge propaganda victory which had been denied the previous democratic governments. Now some Americans want to reward yet another tyrant with the lifting of sanctions and the return of the Guantanamo military base to the Castro regime.

Fidel Castro has ruled Cuba with an iron fist for over 37 years. Cuba presently has a penal population totaling 289,000 men, women and children in 241 prisons and concentration camps distributed throughout the island. As far as we can tell, 54,000 people have died for political reasons in Cuba--among them 12,486 executed by firing squads--in the last 37 years. 39,200 women are incarcerated in 27 prisons. 56,500 minors have been confined in 73 prisons. During the last four years, Cuba has been condemned by the Human Rights Commission of the UN. This organization even named a special investigator, ambassador Carl Johan Groth, whom the Cuban government has never permitted to enter the island.

Occasionally an outsider can look beyond the smoke and mirrors and see the Castro regime in action:

In the summer of 1993 Cuban marine patrols, determined to stop refugees from reaching the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, were repeatedly tossing grenades and shooting at fleeing swimmers and recovering some of the bodies with gaff hooks. At least three Cubans had been killed as Cuban patrol boats attacked swimmers within sight of U.S. Navy personnel at Guantanamo. The killings are the latest sign that Cuba is resorting to violent means to stop a torrent of desperate people from fleeing the impoverished island. "This is the most savage kind of behavior I've ever heard of," said Robert Gelbard, deputy assistant secretary of state for Latin America. The United States has no previous record of such activity in Cuba, he added, calling the practice "even worse than what happened at the Berlin Wall."

On July 13, 1994 the Cuban government massacred their own civilians. Seventy-two people were on board and set out for the United States when the tug was surrounded and hit by four newer and bigger Cuban tugboats. The 13 de Marzo sank seven miles north of the Cuban coast and 41 people drowned, 10 of them children. Survivors say the four boats ambushed them as they left Havana Harbor, used their powerful fire fighting water cannon to force most of the escapees inside the tug's hold and then rammed it repeatedly until it sank. ``Evidence clearly shows the sinking of the tugboat 13 de Marzo was not an accident but a premeditated and intentional act,'' said a report by the OAS' Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

On February 24, 1996 the Cuban government purposely shot down two civilian planes over international waters. The planes were conducting a search for Cuban rafters to supply them with water, supplies, and contacting the Coast Guard to rescue them. Four young men died that Saturday afternoon at 3:20pm as Cuban MiGs shot down these aircraft on a humanitarian mission. At the same time in Cuba, the Cuban government continued its crackdown on dissidents seeking to meet together peacefully, and discuss a non-violent transition to democracy and the rule of law.

Finally, when Cuban exiles sought to send humanitarian aide to victims of Hurricane Lili, the Cuban government refused it for political reasons. After Lili pounded Cuba more than 30 tons of aid was collected and flown to the island. It was then held up by the Cuban government. Finally, the Cuban government said it would return one-fourth of the aid, stating that the boxes were marked with ``counter-revolutionary propaganda.'' The words ``Exile'' and ``For Cuba, love conquers all'' were written on some of the boxes.

Canada's record in Cuba is one of exploiting Cuban workers and polluting Cuba's environment while plundering it. At Moa Bay, in Eastern Cuba, Canada's Sheritt Mining Company runs a nickel mine and smelter. Buildings in the area are beginning to show a reddish tint, the result of emissions from the smelter. Cuban mothers warn their kids to keep their shirts on to avoid skin rashes, and untreated discharges into the bay have killed much of marine life.

Sheritt has no labor troubles in Cuba. Sheritt - and other foreign capitalists-don't pick their workers. That is a service provided by the government. Sherritt pays Castro $9,500 a year per worker, and Castro pays the workers the equivalent of $10 a month. None of this is new. It's how the old imperial powers dealt with natives of Latin America and Africa. They concentrate instead on extractive industries such as nickel and petroleum exploration, providing services for foreign tourists, and export-oriented industries that net hard currency for the Castro regime and little for the Cuban people.

The Cuban government has focused all its propaganda efforts and assets on lifting sanctions. They'd like to offer the American business class the same opportunities to exploit and pillage the Cuban people that the Canadians have. Fidel Castro wants hard currency to finance his state security apparatus, and maintain himself in power. Cuban exiles want to see democratic reforms, an amnesty for all political prisoners, and the return of the rule of law to Cuba. In addition, to the Cuban exiles a number of internal opposition groups have supported supported sanctions comparing it with the embargo against South Africa, and as a necessary feature to a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.

The Castro regime has passed Law 88 which threatens them with 20 years in prison for expressing such opinions. The question is not " Should sanctions be maintained on the Castro regime," but "Why hasn't the rest of the world placed sanctions on this despotic and murderous regime?"

Cuban Doctors Imprisoned for
Warning of a Dengue Fever Outbreak

Anita Manning

A Cuban physician has been in prison for more than a year after being arrested for criticizing his country's handling of an epidemic of dengue fever.

Public health experts fear his conviction for spreading "enemy propaganda" will stifle reports of disease outbreaks that could have international significance.

The arrest of Dessy Mendoza Rivero, they say, comes at a time when world health leaders have called for better communication and surveillance to spot emerging diseases that could race around the globe at the speed of a jetliner.

"It is notable that countries are becoming more open about reporting outbreaks, in the interest of global public health," Says Jack Woodall, director of ProMED-mail, an electronic disease surveillance network.

"Nowhere, with the single exception of Cuba, have we heard of anyone being imprisoned for carrying out their duty as a physician to report publicly matters affecting the public health."

Mendoza 43, was arrested June 25, 1997, in Santiago de Cuba. He was brought to trial on Nov. 18 and now is serving eight years in Boniato Prison. He is permitted visits only every other month.

His wife, Caridad del Carmen Pinon Rodriguez, also is a physician, and they have three sons, ages 13, 7 and 1. The baby was born just 20 days before his father's arrest.

Pinon spoke by telephone recently with Sarah DeCosse of Human Rights Watch, describing events that led to her husband's arrest.

"In early 1997, Dr. Mendoza had become aware there were a lot of cases of dengue in Santiago," DeCosse says.

He visited hospitals, clinics and family members of victims. Dengue causes painful fever and in its hemorrhagic form, internal bleeding.

Mendoza estimated that 20 to 40 people had died and 3,000 had been hospitalized; 30,000 had fallen ill, but not seriously.

"He was concerned because none of the official media was reporting the outbreak. So he went to the international media," DeCosse says.

He gave interviews, to Radio Marti, the U.S.-sponsored radio network, along with a Spanish news service, and Netherlands radio.

"What likely propelled this case was that soon after Dr. Mendoza made his statements, the Spanish and Portuguese press did coverage that warned tourists to be careful," DeCosse says. "It seems likely the Cuban government would be sensitive to that, in that they have invested so much in tourism."

Cuban authorities ultimately acknowledged the epidemic, claiming eight deaths and 2,058 hospitalized, and took steps to eradicate it, she says. But Mendoza remains imprisoned, suffering from high blood pressure and cardiac arrhythmia, DeCosse says.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have protested Mendoza's imprisonment. Barbara E. Joe, Amnesty coordinator for Cuba and the Dominican Republic, says Mendoza is "a prisoner of conscience and deserves to be released. He's never advocated or engaged in violence. He's being imprisoned for engaging in free speech toward a benign end -- public health."

But spokesmen for the Cuban government disagree and, while refusing to discuss the case, they question the interest of human rights groups.

"He was sentenced for activities against the country," says Luis Mariano of the Cuban Intersection, the Cuban representative in Washington, DC He d no further comment and said he did not have a contact in Cuba who could comment.

David P. Fidler, who teaches law at Indiana University, specializing in international law and public health, says he hopes the World Health Organization and and International Commission on Human Rights will challenge Cuban president Fidel Castro on Mendoza's behalf.

But no such action has been taken, he notes and, in fact, WHO recently awarded Castro a "Health for All" gold medal "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the attainment of health for all."

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said it's not WHO policy to comment on the citations it wards to individuals.

But, says Fidler, "One of the key elements of the new WHO strategy for emerging disease is global surveillance.... If we don't know what's going on out there, were not going to be able to develop intervention strategies."

Reprinted from USA TODAY, July 16, 1998

Cuban Medicine and Foreign Patients

Mark Falcoff

Few political myths in the contemporary world have proven more durable than the notion that medicine in Communist countries is somehow superior in quality and service to that offered in the West, particularly the United States. For some inexplicable reason, the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the embarrassing revelations in its wake have done little to diminish the notion as far as it applies to one of the world's few remaining Communist states: Fidel Castro's Cuba. Establishment figures such as former Defense Secretary and World Bank President Robert McNamara, though gingerly critical of Cuba's political system, go out of their way to praise the island's medical "achievements," and the American press periodically regales its audience with reports on the thousands of foreigners who flock to Cuba for excellent medical treatment, at a fraction of its cost, we are continually reminded, in the United States.

Even now, nearly seven years after the collapse of its Soviet patron and financier, Cuba harbors pretensions of being a "medical superpower." As the author of this document makes clear, this is no accident: rather, it is the product of a conscious political and ideological campaign with important economic implications. Today, Cuban medicine and, particularly, its surgical branches are wholly oriented toward the generation of foreign currency. As a result, ordinary Cubans are shunted aside or made to wait indefinitely while foreigners occupy hospital beds, surgical wards, recovery rooms and rehabilitation facilities.

But this is not all. Even in the privileged precincts where only foreigners are treated, medical care is often substandard or flatly fraudulent. Foreign patients are lured to Cuba with promises of nonexistent treatments or cures for diseases where none exist. The treatment they receive is in no way superior to what they would obtain in their own countries, and, in some cases, it is inferior. Once in Cuba, the foreign patients are subject to robbery, sexual harassment, and extortion by hospital and nursing staff. They are prescribed Cuban drugs they do not need, merely to increase the size of their bill. Most important, many patients do not improve after treatment. Some succumb to opportunistic infections due to unsanitary conditions in kitchens and even operating rooms.

Some of the incidents described here are horrifying: Women seeking abortions are forced to have Cesarean sections when an ordinary vaginal procedure would suffice; fetal tissue is sold outside Cuba; patients are urged to submit to unnecessary surgery so hospitals can fulfill their "quotas;" qualified doctors and staff are often replaced by party hacks and bureaucrats; hospitals are used in narcotics trafficking. All this and more is detailed in the pages that follow. It does not make for appetizing reading. But it provides a devastating corrective to notions all too prevalent in the Western media and in many political and cultural circles in the United States and Western Europe. Perhaps surprisingly, although Cuban hospitals are being pressured to become financially self-sufficient by giving exclusive priority to foreign patients who can pay in US dollars, our author tells us that most medical institutions on the island are starved for resources: What they earn from their foreign patients must be forwarded to a central fund from which they cannot draw at their own discretion. Rather, the state decides funding levels, which, according to the author, almost always fall short of the hospitals' actual needs. She also suggests the possibility that the central fund is used for decidedly nonmedical purposes, namely, to pay for trips abroad for the Cuban chief and his cohorts.

FOREIGN PATIENTS ARE LURED TO CUBA WITH PROMISES OF NONEXISTENT TREATMENTS OR CURES FOR DISEASES WHERE NONE EXIST... THEY ARE PRESCRIBED CUBAN DRUGS THEY DO NOT NEED, MERELY TO INCREASE THE SIZE OF THEIR BILL.

The author of this document is no run-of-the-mill Cuban physician. A distinguished neurosurgeon of international reputation, she is the founder of Cuba's International Center for Neurological Reconstruction and a pioneer in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Until recently, she was a member in good standing of the Communist Party and the Cuban Federation of Women. Her relatively high standing in the medical establishment is attested to by the fact that she occupied a seat in the National Assembly, Castro's puppet parliament. Her difficulties with the regime began in 1989, after the Soviet subsidy ended and Cuban hospitals were pressured to follow the regime's new economic logic. But there were other problems as well. She refused to engage in political propaganda on her foreign trips, which she regarded as wholly of a scientific nature. She refused to participate in Cuban efforts to recruit foreign scientists for tasks of an (undisclosed) "nonmedical nature." She resisted attempts to divert her staff from their duties to attend sessions in political indoctrination. Her efforts to enforce high ethical and professional standards among subordinates backfired politically, causing her serious problems with the provincial authorities of the Communist Party.

But her chief difficulty with the authorities was her refusal to convert her Center into a cash cow for Castro's regime: She would not prescribe therapy or drugs that her patients did not need. In retaliation, the authorities forbade her from traveling abroad. They organized a whispering campaign against her and her Center. They even introduced political provocateurs to sow dissent between the hospital management and its workers. Eventually, the Cuban government and the Communist Party demanded that she share administrative authority in the hospital with a "political commissariat." Instead, she resigned. At that moment she also rescinded her party membership and her seat in the National Assembly.

Thereafter, the Cuban regime blocked all her communications with professional colleagues abroad, intercepted and read all her personal correspondence, tapped her telephone and put her under surveillance. She even received anonymous phone threats. The regime attempted to undermine her reputation in Cuba and "to create confusion and disinformation abroad about [her] work,'' happily without much success. Most recently, she was refused an exit permit to visit her son, also a physician, who lives in Buenos Aires with his Argentine wife. From a woman deeply involved in the revolutionary process, she has suddenly become a non-person.

Since her departure, the International Center for Neurological Reconstruction has completely lost contact with the international scientific community. The foreign contacts it maintains are driven strictly by the need to generate money from abroad. Servimed, the Cuban government agency in charge of recruiting foreign patients, now works hand in glove with unscrupulous tour operators and foreign physicians (many trained in Cuba) to funnel unsuspecting patients to the island. Close by are a gaggle of foreign politicians, businessmen and diplomats who skim off resources in their role as Servimed's advance men and propagandists. Let those who contemplate medical treatment in Cuba, the author seems to say, beware.

The document which follows begins with a general survey of medical conditions in Cuba since the Soviet Union's collapse. From there, it turns to an extensive discussion of the conditions in the author's hospital and the difficulties that eventually led to her resignation. Finally, it concludes with a brief survey of other Cuban hospitals, about which the author has some professional knowledge, presumably through her still wide network of professional contacts in Cuba .

This testimony does not make for light reading. More than just a report on a medical crisis, this is a remarkable exercise in self-revelation. A woman fully committed to Communist ideals came to see over time that "the problems which, in [her] naiveté, [she] had attributed for years to individual errors, were part and parcel of a larger system, one with neither scruples nor any sense of ethics." She continues, "Let those who read these pages do with the information what they consider best. I am not moved by any personal interest, much less desire for revenge. But I do consider it my obligation as a physician to defend both ethics and truth." Both are well-served by this timely, courageous and revealing document.

Mark Falcoff is Resident Scholar in Foreign Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. He was a professional staff member with responsibility for Latin America of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the Ninety-ninth congress, and has taught at the universities of Illinois, Oregon, and California (Los Angeles). He is the author of Small Countries, Large Issues, A Tale of Two Policies, and Modern Chile: A Critical History.