FIFTY TWO YEARS OF LIES ,PLUNDER AND REPRESSION :THE PRICE BALANCE.

FIFTY TWO YEARS OF LIES ,PLUNDER  AND REPRESSION :THE PRICE BALANCE. 

By Pedro Martori

13-Sep-11

For decades the world , the mass medias and the left have mistakenly the perception 

and belief that the regime imposed by blood and fire to the Cuban people have made

positive changes and corrected the ills of the former..Cuban regimes .

Most people around the world have a wrong idea and knowledge of what that Cuba was.

To blame for this we should point to the regime’s propagande machine that was one of the

most powerful communications machine and infrastructure in the world. 

Adding to those Facts and means is the undeniable fact that the regime was supported 

and had the support From the ex-Soviet Union and the rest of its colonized satellites in

Eastern Europe that added to the repetitive choir of lies and rethorics from Castro’s

propagande machine of disinformation.

But time has been always the father of all truths. Time has gone by to show the reality of 

the new Cuba under a destructive regime or better put, of a hating blood thirsty tyrann

Who inherited a prosperous and full fledging Economy and a nation that had positioned itself

among the others as the number 23 in the world and third in the American context.

Far from an indigenous and underdeveloped nation, Cuba was in many respect on top of

many countries in Europe and the Americas. i.e. Even Canada was behind Cuba in many 

areas of development.

Such as unions organizations, a huge gamme of consumer items that were not found in Canada

or even the USA but could be found in little “poor & underdeveloped “ Cuba. An exemple :

top of the gamme swiss made watches ,such as Only the very rich might and even so no always

they are aware of what a Patek Phillipe is.

I know that many people in North America ignore what a Patek Phillipe is.

This is just one of the hundreds of exemples that most people around the entire world ignore

about the Cuba that Castro took over in 1959.

One of the best exemple to describe that other Cuba is the number of Cuban Banks ( 50 )

With their branches all over the nation. On top of those Cuban ones tere were two Canadian banks :

 the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Royal Bank. Not to mention the main American Banks which were

also present in Havana and a few other towns.

If these facts don’t let the readers figure it out, nothing else that I write in here will.

The fact that Cuba has been portrayed -- by the biased propagande from Castro’s 

machine of disinformation and that that was coupled with the Mass Medias biases 

from around the world – as if it were a very backward or underdeveloped nation must

be rectified , redressed and in case of doubt by anyone : investigated and researched.

Just the numbers of BANKS present in the Cuban Economy, give an idea that it was not 

such a poor country, not the miserable and backward nation most people have believed it was.

It is not a surprise that after swallowing the infinite amount of lies by the Castro’s machine

of propagande  and the cover up  by the medias leftists around the world, that most people believe

all those lies  spread over the span of these last 52 yrs.

How can it be that Cuba was so poor with so many banks ?

American, Canadians, Spaniards and 43  Cuban banks ?

How come that Cuba prior to Castro’s regime had a very small Foreign Debt of less than $300 million as compared to the huge one Castro has contracted in the last 52 yrs. 

and that  the present day Debt is actually somewhere around $ 30 Billions ? ?

This should also open the eyes of those that have believed all those lies from that regime.

Check the site : http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/ to read the complete list of the countries  with which  Castro  has an outstanding  Credit Debt of more than $12 billions .

The best proof that Cuba WAS NOT what the propagande and disinformation says in terms of Economic

and Development can be found in the Commerce Telephone book guide published in the ending year 

of 1958 to 1959 that is : PRIOR TO CASTRO’S TAKEOVER. ! Prior to all the lies and disinformations.

In those pages are found hundreds of Jewellery shops and factories,  the car dealers by the dozens, the Flower shops,Cinemas ( Cuba boasted more Cinemas houses than New York.) and so on. And on …and on when Cuba was only 6,7 million inhabitants. Cuban actual currency was at par with the american dollar. Both  types of moneys  were used freely by the people in their daily life  transactions.

In those times prior to 1959, Cuba had 167 Sugar mills operating and producing an average 

of 6, 5 millions tons of sugar.Cuba was the number one exporter of the product in the world. 

TODAY those sugar factories left are less than 30 and having lots of trouble to function

and produce efficiently. NOW Castro has to import some Sugar…SIC !

In 1959 Cuba’s Construction business was booming and with only two cement plants ,

one in the Mariel sea port and the other in Santiago of Cuba,yet  managed to supply all the demands.

TODAY and since the last part of the 70's ,there are FOUR PLANTS and the lack of home units, 

apartments is in the order of the six digits, the people  in Cuba need over 2,5 millions units

to satisfy the needs. Yet the regime is far from solving the critical and  intolerable miseries that almost 3 million Cuban families are suffering because  of the lack of housing. A fact that makes the direst terrible 

living conditions  and that  are worse than what  the people around the world could ever imagine.

Is it necessary to describe the miserable conditions of the actual and present day living 
conditions in those old buildings that might fall apart crumbling down because 
of the age and lack of maintainances. ?

Just to simplify, those families live in small areas that are less than a room and a half in many cases,

yet crowded into it there they live THREE GENERATIONS OF CUBANS.

The grand parents , the parents and the children. Sharing the toilet and shower rooms in the same

building, ther are some 50 or more families. Just imagine if you could enter any of those toilet ( WC) “rooms”…

All these conditions are the ones Cubans have to endure for the last 52 yrs and after 
Castro took over and the hopes for any improvement are farther and farther away. 

In the mean time the Castro’s have been exporting Cuban produced cement,

and construction materials to several countries in the region.

While we write about living conditions and crumbling buildings, let’s not forget 

the Cuban Public Services infrastructures which was mostly INHERITED from the regimes 

prior to Castro’s one. Acueducts, highways, bridges, ports and airports , Schools, Hospitals 

were in the numbers of the network of Public Services .For instance , in the Capital Havana 

of the 20 Hospital in service today, 17 were already there when Castro took over.

Some of them were just build in those later days of the former Batista’s regime. 
Such was the case of th Oncologic Hosp.The Naval Military Hosp. in Havana. 
Outside from the capital the sam Batista’s regime build the biggest hospital of all Cuba
in the central part of Cuba in the midst of the mountains, the TOPES DE COLLANTES SANATORIUM
in the locality by the same name. (Escambray Mountains).

It is tough true that during this Castro regime some more hospitals and schools were built too.

But the fact is that not all of what is found in Cuba after 1959 was built .by Castro’s regime . 

Today , the Topes de Collantes Hospital does not show up as a hospital in the statistics,

Castro took great care to it,and converted it into a Hotel to erase any traces

of positive  legacies left by Batista’s regime or any former president of Cuba. 

Erasing, denying and criticizing or demolishing any thing from the past or prior to his rule. 

As if to give the impression that Cuba as it is  seen today  was all made by his regime. 

These facts, no matter how many times we Cubans have tried to make them known and acknowledged

by the Mass Media, have not ever covered or reported by them. In seldom or rare occasions

known and then a true and honest journalist will cover and report of these facts or investigate

to the deepest of the issues the reality.

This is why today I am trying to describe and bring up the comparison and the balance

of the last 52 yrs of tyranny and the cost of it to the Cuban people.

So where are we Cubans now ? In what state of development is it Cuba today ?

In the Economics issues and in the general living conditions what do we find in Cuba today?

We must start by defining and describing who and what is the cause of the retrogradation of Cuba

to the level of the NUMBER 85 NATION IN THE WORLD.

A ruling gang acting and operating as a mafia gang. Using the same methods of a mob group.

Blackmailing the population inside and outside of the Cuban gulag.

Charging exhorbitant prices for foodstuff at the Special Stores where only hard currency

is adccepted. 

Now ask yourself : From where  and from who are the Cubans in the island,getting

that  hard currency if they are only paid in Cuban pesos ?

So the answer is : Cubans who have relatives abroad can get help and remittances

in hard cash that then they are obliged to exchange to the Cuban government mafia

for a special money  called CUCs and  in that process the Cuban Mafia rulers skim

from 12% to 23 % of those remittances from abroad depending on which currency is exchanged.

Extortion, using the old mafia method to extract money from Cubans inside or outside

by jacking up to an excessive level the  prices of any services from the regime’s burocracy

 or for the right to get in Cuba or to get out of Cuba. Fees for all and any red tape must be paid

in Hard Currency ,dollars or euros. The prices are so insolent and indecent that they

are mind boggling, but if a Cuban wish to vist his or her relatives in the Cuban gulag ,

hey must paid all what is asked from them.A Cuban Passeport cost over $230.00

The Cuban who wishes to enter or leave the gulag has to ask for a permission to do

so and this “permission” has to be paid too. $150 .00 or so

If a cuban abroad wishes to sent to his /her relatives some goods, such as clothing, medicaments,

or food, the prices are so exhorbitant that we can’t but define them as blackmail.

For instance each pound in a parcel or luggage sent to Cuba cost from around $10 to $12 .00.

If a Cuban travels to Cuba, the luggage will be weighted and charge $10.00 per each pound

That anyone from any country abroad wish to call a person in Cuba, he or she will have to pay

the most expensive rate price in teleph calls in the world. For instance a call placed from

Canada to Cuba, using Bell Co. will cost $ 3,75 a minute . Other means are via Calling Cards

and Calling Companies that always will charge , at the least ,$0.90 a minute.

 While a call from Canada to the farthest nation in the world will be less than

0.30 cents Cuba gets a big share or chunk of the price on each call to Cuba

All these cases can be classified under the BLACKMAIL issue.

But the regime’s mafias methods and tacics do not end just here.

The regime has been accused and sued for falsifying brand labels or products.

Even made false champagne with south African wines.

The drug trafficking has been well documented. and some transportation and delivering

operations have been filmed on videos.

Traffick of humans also enters in the gamma of “business “ Selling Visas to Cubans

desperate to escape from the gulag. Transporting clandestinely from Cuba to the USA

Cubans for the whooping price of $8,000 a head.

A government or nation which has to depend on such ways for imcome is what ?

Even when the regime was sucking up the Soviets , at a rate of $ 3 to 4 billions per year

They never stopped the plundering robing and pillaging the cubans by the bias of the

nationalizations” or confiscations.

All of Cuba’s productive base , infrastructure, and productive sectors were taken over

by this mafia in power and under the leader “maximo “ Fidel Castro . Not only the foreign

or American properties but as well the Cuban ones were taken over or “confiscated”.

Americans businesses were ousted .

However today, the same regime is imploring for their return and their investments…

yet not a single word from this thuggish regime about INDEMNIZATION FOR THE 

PROPERTIES AND THE LOSES IN 52 YRS. for not having them and getting  no profits.

Same story for the thousands of Cubans whose properties, businesses and factories were

taken under that raging madman Castro’s rule. So we can see that the criminal and unfairness

from the tyrann , at the beginning of the 60s , has lead to nothing but total demise and the destruction

of the national productive infrastructure and the basic sources of wealth for that nation.

The sugar Industry is in total desarray , destroyed in more than its 80%

Many of the agricultural products are not yielding the amounts and thus the incomes.

Except for a few agro items the rest of the Cuban traditional products output is not

showing up and can’t be counted for as a source of revenues.

The LAND WAS CONFISCATED, “NATIONALIZED” but despite three ( 3 ) Land Reforms

and the almost total control of the land and its production the people are not able to get all the foodstuffs without a Rationning Book. Over 85 % of the agricultural lands are in the hands of the regime 

or “government” More than 45 % of it is idle and by now covered by bad herbs and unproductive brushes.

 Was not this one of the reasons claimed by that same Castro in those days

 to confiscate the land from landowners ????

Never before 1959, Cubans had to suffer from a rationned system for Food, Clothing,

 medicaments or anything. Yet despite all the finantial help or assistance from the Soviets,

 the many credit lines granted by the Paris Club ( France, Belgium, Germany,Italy etc) Japan,

 Argentine, Spain and Canada and Mexico in the amount of over $ 7 billions starting in 1969

the regime has not given the Cuban people anything better than miserable dwellings,

 lack of houses, rationing of food, repression , and bloody anticuban executions of political opposers.

The false claim that this regime has given the Cubans social improvements as

 “free Education and Health care”can be easily debunked The regime has exalted 

and exploited the Cuban mass of labor or workers for the last 52 yrs.under

 the so called “Voluntay Work” scam or an imposition to the whole manpower under 

the guise and the slogans ,demagogically conceited and conceived to make the people 

work for no pay and so the“revolution” , the Patria or the Nation could go ahead and d

evelop faster and better for the future generations.SIC !

52 years have gone by and the third generation is still waiting for better conditions of living…or let’s be realistic..they are waiting for the best opportunity to get out and escape that hell.

Two millions or more have left that island since 1959. BEFORE people immigrated to Cuba.

And more are still longing and wishing they could escape the gulag conditions and the repressive regime. 75,000 have perished either under the firing squads of in their attempts to escape from Cuba. 

Or  during those foreign expeditions and wars in Africa, Asia and latin Amer. where Castro sent them to pay with their lives the so called “free “ Educ. and health care.

Today, the island is on the verge of more difficulties and adverse conditions than ever.

and despite the new credit lines by China $ 680 millions and the Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez transfers of oil at a rate of 75 ,000 barrels per day. The conditions will not improve unless there is a true change and a 180 degrees turn in the stand the dictaroship has used as a leif motive of false flag to keep the totalitrian control on the Cubans.

Because at this pace oand rate of endebtment the Cuban future generation will have to pay an undesirable high price and interest that these gangsters in Cuba have contracted to save their bloody dictatorship from crumbling down.

by PETER MARTORI

 CANADA