Where's Fidel? Where's Raul?
By Erick Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Update [2006-8-4 15:18:45 by Erick]: Jack's blog outdoes Kathryn and me.
I meant to write about this earlier today. K-Lo's post reminded me.
Cuba has shut out the foreign press from Cuba.
At a momentous moment in Cuban history -- with long-time strongman Fidel Castro in a sickbed and transferring his power to his brother -- foreign journalists are being shut out of the Communist island.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reported Thursday that more than 150 foreign journalists trying to enter Cuba with tourist visas have been turned away at the Havana airport since the government announced Castro had internal bleeding and faced "complicated surgery."
Here's what we know:
- Fidel has not been seen since before last Friday when he reported entered the hospital.
- Raul Castro has not been seen either.
- There are growing reports that the military in Cuba is doing something that no one can explain if Raul was actually in charge.
- Cubans in Florida report getting strange phone calls from Cuba -- one I heard about involved a Cuban transplant in MIami getting a call that his mother had died last Friday. That was absolutely not the case.
- Another involves several media inquires and other Cuba watchers who have noted strange goings on down there -- things you would not expect unless the Dear Leader had died, leaving a power struggle behind.
Time will tell. Fidel's birthday is August 13th. If he does not show up that day, he's dead, which is probably likely.
So the question remains, where is Raul?
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Where's Fidel? Where's Raul? 9 Comments (0 topical, 9 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
"Coup d'etats".
Cuba is now on the brink of civil war.
Some are questioning the promptness of the Bush administration's response.
How can the President be vacationing at a time like this?
of Americans is forth coming. Maybe Nagel can loan those submersible buses to drive them to Florida.
Fidel Castro "back soon": health minister
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Cuban leader Fidel Castro is recovering after surgery and "will be back with us soon," the country's health minister said on Friday.
"We know Comandante Fidel will recover soon and will be back with us soon," Jose Ramon Balaguer said during a visit to Guatemala.
That answers everything.
It won't be long before authors of instant-history books, newspaper articles and blogs start touting the now famous lines of rhetoric like: "fundamental mistakes" committed by the Bush administration; using words like "Quagmire" explaining the "carnage" and "chaos" in the streets as signs of the country's "impending" doom or "undeclared" civil war / coup d'etat.
Funny how this could be easily said about many different countries, now and in the recent past?
In commemoration of Cuba's Mariel shenanigan, I say we release everyone in Gitmo amongst the general Cuban population.
They will then happily meld into the local population, taking an entire class of jobs that Cuban's do not want to do (although I can't possibly think which jobs those would be).
The new Cuban "underclass" can then wax poetically and nostalgically about how the immigration policies were better under Castro.
In response, they will then create an insurgency which challenges the new democratically elected government of Cuba.
Democrats will then blame Bush and say he lied about pre prisoner release intelligence which indicated the Gitmo detainees would move to Curacao and become a problem for the Dutch. Whew!
Sorry about the thread jack Erick and the ridiculous Iraqi, immigration metaphorical thingy.
where is Richard Dreyfus?
I wish I had a gig that good. Just a lowly corporate fitness specialist/personal trainer.
I sure hope that Castro is dead. The people od Cuba deserve better than what they have gotten for many years now. I am always amused by those that think he is a good or even neutral leader. My co worker today actually said, "It is sick that people are happy he may be dead, just because his politics are diffrent."