CUBA: Failed Counterrevolutionary Provocation in Havana

[magbana]

From Walter Lippmann's Cuba News list -- the comment below is from Walter)

(It's unusual for the Cuban media to respond at such length and such
detail as this. The GRANMA article itself should be translated soon.
The original Granma article in Spanish is posted below.)
======================================================================

Failed Counterrevolutionary Provocation in Havana

Havana, April 22 (acn) A reduced group of mercenary elements tried to
stage a blatant and shameless provocation Monday morning in the
surroundings of Havana's Revolution Square, reads an article
published by Granma newspaper today.

The group intended to demand the release of counterrevolutionaries
punished with prison terms for their activities against the Cuban
people and for their mercenary and annexation-oriented positions.
As it is usual in these cases, the group called the foreign press
accredited in Cuba in order to have their provocations published,
the article in Granma reads.

The incident was immediately and spontaneously rejected by the
people, who were on their way to work centers and schools at that
time in the morning. Female forces with the Interior Ministry
evacuated the women that attempted to stage provocative action back
to their homes in order to avoid a clash with the population.

Some days before the provocation attempt took place, those same
counterrevolutionaries had received the support of the US-based
Anti-Cuban mafia, which was revealed by a phone called made by US
congress woman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who, with obviously interfering
aims, called for the action of such groups as a justification to get
the financing granted by the US administration.

Their anti-Cuba and subversive radio station echoed the afore-
mentioned phone contact, as well as some other previous contacts
made by the congress woman with renowned terrorist Luis Posada
Carriles.

Neither provocations nor mercenary actions carried out in the style
of their US masters will damage the firmness and will of today and
tomorrow's generations of Cubans, who are working to build a better
society, based on the independence and anti-imperialist traditions of
their socialist project, and convinced that the usurpation of Cuba´s
independence, an independence conquered with so much blood, will not
happen again, concluded the article published by Granma newspaper.

Fracasa provocación contrarrevolucionaria

http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2008/04/22/nacional/artic03.html

En horas de la mañana de ayer un reducido número de elementos mercenarios,
intentó realizar una provocación burda y descarada en los alrededores de la
Plaza de la Revolución.

Entre sus intenciones estaba reclamar la excarcelación de
contrarrevolucionarios sancionados por actividades contra nuestro pueblo, y
sus posiciones mercenarias y anexionistas, para lo cual convocaron, como
siempre, a los medios de la prensa extranjera acreditados en nuestro país,
con el fin de que estos difundieran sus acciones provocativas.

De inmediato y espontáneamente el incidente fue rechazado por la población,
que a esa hora se dirigía a sus centros de trabajo y estudio. Fuerzas
femeninas del Ministerio del Interior evacuaron a las provocadoras a sus
hogares con el fin de evitar un enfrentamiento con nuestra población.

Estos contrarrevolucionarios, días antes, habían obtenido el apoyo de los
representantes de la mafia anticubana al recibir una llamada telefónica de
la congresista Ileana Ros-Lehtinen quien, con evidente propósito
injerencista, estimuló el accionar de estos grupúsculos, como justificación
para recibir el financiamiento que otorga el gobierno yanqui. La emisora
subversiva anticubana se hizo eco del mencionado contacto, al igual que los
realizados en días pasados por esta representante del gobierno
norteamericano con el connotado terrorista Luis Posada Carriles.

Ni provocaciones, ni patrañas mercenarias, empleando métodos ordenados por
sus amos yanquis, mellarán la firmeza y voluntad de las actuales y futuras
generaciones cubanas, las que trabajan por construir una sociedad mejor,
basada en la tradición independentista y antimperialista con un proyecto
socialista, convencidos de que la historia de usurparnos la independencia,
alcanzada con tanta sangre, no se repetirá jamás.

[Vogon_Glory]

1. For The Rest of Us Outside The Far Left Spin Zone

For the rest of us outside the far left spin zone, the events have been covered as the damas en blanco prostesting against the detention of their loved ones by the current Havana regime.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0422/p01s07-woam.html

Havana, Cuba - – When Laura Pollán's husband, a journalist, hosted his colleagues at their house in Havana, she busied herself in the kitchen making coffee. When their talk turned "too political," she left.

But since his imprisonment, the former high school teacher is now at the center of discussions, prayers, fasting – and a rare, impromptu street protest Monday. Ms. Pollán is a leader of the "Damas de Blanco" (Ladies in White), a group of wives, mothers, and sisters of 75 dissidents, many of them reporters, jailed after a sudden sweep of arrests nationwide in March 2003.

On Monday morning, Pollán and nine other Damas were roughed up by a mob and arrested near the offices of President Raúl Castro. "We are here to demand the release of our husbands and won't leave until they are free or they arrest us. We have waited long enough, we want to talk to the new president," Pollán said, according to Reuters.

<snip>

[Mika]

2. For those in the reality based community

I've posted some paras from that left wing rag, the Miami Herald, on this event.


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/504647.html

"They were not beaten" said Yolanda Huerga, the Miami spokeswoman for the group and an original member who was on a cellphone with one of the women dragged on the bus by female police officers.

-

Once loaded on the bus, they were driven home.

-

For five years, the women, who dress all in white, have staged demonstrations every Sunday challenging the government's crackdown and jailing in 2003 of 75 dissident writers and independent journalists. More than than 50 remain incarcerated.

Monday's incident began around 6 a.m. when the women asked to speak to Minister Abelardo Colomé Ibarra. They had a copy of the letter for Cuban President Raúl Castro, Huerga said.

''The women want to sit down and speak to the minister about their loved ones, about their release,'' Huerga said. ``They were told by the main security officer at the building that this was not the right time or place for a meeting.''

The women then asked: ''So when is the right time, and place?,'' she said.

By 9 a.m. the women were on the ground, arms locked, and refusing to leave. ''They started to yell: ``Libertad, Libertad,'' Huerga said. Then the buses arrived.

Huerga said it's not unusual for authorities to drive the women home. ''I was there once when they did it,'' said Huerga, who left Cuba in 2005 with her husband, Manuel Vázquez Portal, who had been among the dissidents arrested.

Every Sunday, the group holds a silent protest march down Havana's busy Fifth Avenue, demanding the release of relatives jailed .

-

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called the incident a ``shameful episode.''

They were locking arms during a sit-in in front of their minister's house. Refused to leave. Unarmed, unprotected female officers put them on a bus and drove them home.

Oooo. Nasty brutal jackboot thugs of Castro (pictured here, "manhandling" the protesting women) ...




Much more brutal than anything here in free Miami :sarcasm: where U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sees nothing shameful.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. No Doubt There Was Similar Right-Wing Rhetoric About the Argentine Women

US based paid so-called "scholars" and so-called "researchers" working for right-wing US think tanks undoubtedly wrote similar defensive apologetics about the treatment of the mothers, sisters, and aunts of Argentine victims who protested what happened to their loved ones during the murderous right-wing Argentine junta's "dirty war" and lauding the gentle tactics of the Generals' junta. I have as little respect for the actions of the people on the left who cover up the Havana regime's political oppression as I do the paid shills and toadies working for such outfits as the AEI, the Heritage Foundation, and other fonts of misinformation, distortion, and deceit about the brutal, murderous activities actions of the security apparatii of the former right-wing dictatorships of mainland Central America or the "fellow travelers" who continued to cover up the wholescale political murders, persecutions, and genocides of Stalin's Soviet Union.

[Mika]

4. Interesting that the majority of the foundations/think tanks/ etc spewed the same swill you peddle..

.. by posting RW propaganda via CSM.

You claim to have little respect for RW paid shill & toadies, but yet defend their propaganda when it comes to Cuba or Castro.

The jailed 75 "dissidents" are flat out RW paid shills & toadies who's goal isn't mere profiteering, but aiding and abetting the declared enemy of Cuba (the US gov & its paid media minions), that has openly, overtly, covertly, and heavily funded a mission to overthrow the sovereign government of Cuba.

To compare socialist Cuba to the murderous RW regimes you mention is the paragon of RW anti Cuba propaganda.


--

[Vogon_Glory]

5. Even Stopped Clocks Can Tell The Correct Time Twice A Day

Just as dial-and-hands stopped clocks can give the right time twice a day, political opponents of the current Havana government CAN ACTUALLY TELL THE TRUTH about political repression in the worker's and peasant's paradise off the tip of Florida. Not always, not necessarily often, not often with full accuracy, but just often enough. Just because the folks at Radio Mambi, the CANF, and in Gee Dubya Boosh's administration don't like the Havana government DOESN'T mean that there isn't repression of the right to assemble, the right to air grievances, or the right to publicly oppose the current regime, despite the fond wishes of "sandalistas" and off-shore Castro fans. Just because the folks at Radio Mambi, the so-called Cuban Liberty Council, the Diaz-Balart brothers, and the Gee Dubya Boosh mal-administration oppose the Havana regime is NO EXCUSE for progressives remaining SILENT about the Havana regime's shortcomings when it comes to freedom or expression or how the Havana regime deals with political dissent or with those who gather information that doesn't conveniently fall within the confines of what the powers-that-be in Havana wish to be known by the general public.

Too bad for the hard-core "sandalistas" that there are so many reports of human rights abuses by the Havana regime emanating from outside Miami exile, "Conservative" and US government propaganda organs that claims of human rights abuses within Cuba can't be written off as just so much chaff.

I fail to see why people like the Ladies in White or their loved ones in jail need to be repressed.

[Mika]

6. I guess that you didn't read that they demonstrate every Sunday.

Only a couple of times have they been removed, only to be given a free ride home by authorities, and those times were when they refused to leave the premises of the vice president or other government representative's house of office.

I fail to see how Bush policy supporters see this as repression.

-

[Vogon_Glory]

8. So did the Argentine mothers of the Plaza de Mayo n/t

[magbana]

7. MINREX Statment on the Ladies in White Incident

Below is the Cuban gov't. statement on the incident.

Before that, let's get straight on the Ladies in White and their loved ones. The loved ones took money from the US to destabilize Cuba and given enough time,circumstances, and more money they would have participated in the overthrow of the gov't. The Ladies in White have been demonstrating on Sundays for a long time. They provoked the Cuban gov't. and got just what they were looking for -- highly dramatized pics and entry into papers around the world. And then they got a free ride home. Ladies in White are not repressed by anyone or anything other than the poor judgment of their loved ones. And those in jail -- when you take money from a foreign country, especially if that country has tried to murder your President numerous times, and committed every criminal act conceivable to destabilize your country, you should feel lucky to be in prison for anything less than a life sentence. .

FROM WALTER LIPPMANN'S CUBA NEWS LIST

STATEMENT ISSUED BY
THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA

On April 22 last, the Government of the United States issued a press
release which was distributed by its Interest Section in Havana in
which it “deplores” the immediate and spontaneous reaction by our
people against the gross and shameless provocation that a handful of
counterrevolutionary individuals attempted to orchestrate the day
before at the Revolution Square.

In that press release, an irrefutable evidence of the complicity of
the US government, which encourages subversion in our country, the
Government of Cuba is accused of "forcefully removing" a group of
women known as the “Ladies in White”. It further reiterates the US
government solidarity towards the mercenaries who are in the payroll
of the imperial superpower.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses the US government of
fabricating and promoting these and other counterrevolutionary
provocations as well as the subsequent media campaigns launched
against Cuba.

The empire, rendered helpless by the unstoppable advance of our
Revolution, has decided to strengthen its subversive plans, by virtue
of which only from 1996 to 2006 it was able to supply the local
counterrevolutionaries with 385 000 pounds of medicines, foodstuffs
and clothing; more than 23 000 short-wave radio sets, as well as
millions of books, booklets, and other information material, as was
recognized in the report published by the US government’s General
Accounting Office (GAO). Only in the course of the present year,
2008, the US government has allocated 45.7 million dollars to pay to
its mercenary groups in Cuba and put up provocations like the one
orchestrated yesterday. This amount of money is part of a total
invoice of 116 millions earmarked during the Bush administration to
support an industry of domestic subversion and counterrevolution in
Cuba at the expenses of American taxpayers.

The US Interest Section in Havana (SINA) has become a pillar of the
US government subversive policy, and has strengthened its role as the
General Headquarters of the domestic counterrevolution. According to
the aforementioned report issued by GAO, between the years 2000 and
2005 the imports by the US Interest Section increased almost by 200
per cent. Fifty to seventy per cent of this big total was material
that the US Interest Section delivered among its mercenary groups in
Cuba.

From January to March, 2008 the SINA has facilitated access to
Internet services for this groups; it has taught “courses on
computing” and on “independent journalism” to its sepoys in Cuba; it
has never ceased to supply them with all sorts of goods, including
electronic equipment, stickers, pullovers, and subversive literature.
It has organized for them several video-conferences with top
officials of the Bush administration, anti-Cuban Congress members and
representatives of the Cuban-American mob based in the United States.

The US Interest Section is constantly guiding those
counterrevolutionaries, whom it systematically contact and give
instructions to. Only in the course of the present year, it has
organized tens such meetings with its mercenaries in Cuba.

The US Interest Section has enhanced the profile of its provocations.
As was seen in the images aired by the Cuban television, the US
Interest Section offers its official sites and the residences of some
of its officials to hold receptions, videoconferences, and exhibition
of subversive material. It even offers its diplomatic means of
transport to carry the counterrevolutionaries to these activities.
Just one example: the house of the US Interest Section official
Gregory Adams, located at Calle 42 No. 521, Miramar, has become a
true “conference center” for the mercenary groups financed and
controlled by the US government.

Our government has every proof that shows the direct involvement of
the US Interest Section in the subversive actions against Cuba as
well as in the most recent provocation orchestrated at the Revolution
Square.

One of the groupings that have been particularly sponsored, backed,
and financed by the US Interest Section has been precisely the so
called “Ladies in White”, which has currently been chosen by
president George W. Bush and his special services as a spearhead
against Cuba.

Its members are customary visitors of the Internet centers of
the US Interest Section, and receive logistic support for their
counterrevolutionary work. They frequently meet with the officials of
that Interest Section, and their most notorious ringleaders have
earned the “privilege” of receiving direct attention from Michael
Parmly, the chief of that office.

One of them has even received a letter of recognition from President
George W. Bush himself, as well as financing and support to publish a
book about the counterrevolutionary experience of her husband, one of
the mercenaries who were sanctioned for serving the interests of the
government that is attacking us. The “launching” of this book was
attended by the Yankee Interest Section official in Havana Thomas
Hamn.

On January 24 last, Bush himself welcomed a member of this group,
the wife of another notorious mercenary who was also convicted.
The US president not only offered his support; he asked the world to
“support” the cause for counterrevolution in Cuba.

Likewise, in its most recent diatribe against our people on March 7,
Bush openly recognized, once again, the role of this grouping as the
favorite instrument of its policy against Cuba.

It wasn’t by mere chance that, days before its provocation, the so
called “Ladies in White” received the encouraging words and the
instructions given by the anti-Cuban Congress member Ileana Ross
Lehtinen, who became notorious for supporting the worst actions
against our country, including the kidnapping of the child Elián.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounces the all-out responsibility
of the US government in these incidents. Cuba reaffirms its right to
prevent, neutralize, and respond to these provocative actions
conceived, financed, and promoted by the US government and its
Interest Section in Havana.

The Cuban Revolution will never give up its right to defend itself;
it will never cease in its struggle.

Now that we are coming near to celebrate the first half a century of
our victorious Revolution, not even the most powerful empire ever
known to humankind should have any doubt about our people’s capacity
to thwart any attempt to deprive us from the future that we have
conquered with so much effort, dignity and sacrifice.

Havana, April 23, 2008.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Remarkable attempt to compare the mothers of young adults who were tortured, then often thrown from

airplanes into the ocean, or rivers, and some kept alive long enough to deliver children who were then stripped from them and handed off as gifts to favorite military officers or police officials and their wives, the mothers themselves becoming the prey of the military right-wing junta who sent in infiltrators who targeted some of them for torture and assassination, as well, and the female relatives of people who have been taking money from a foreign goverment, which is AGAINST THE LAW IN THE UNITED STATES, as well as in Cuba, to provoke instability and crank out anti-government bilge for sale in any number of right-wing rags in the states, and who maintain close ties to the violent reactionaries in Miami who have sent people to Cuba since the beginning to murder Cubans, kidnap and murder them, to murder Cubans outside their country, to murder tourists visiting Cuba, to murder officials of other countries who support the Cuban government, to commit filthy acts of terrorism like bombing the Cuban airliner in midflight, first one of its kind in history, slaughtering all 73 people including children, bombing people who even supported DIALOGUE WITH CUBA, for ####ing crist's sake, biochemical warfare, as testified in court in New York by Eduardo Arocena, hiring people of other countries to go into Cuba and kill Cubans for them! Jesus H. Christ on a broomstick.

No one could really be STUPID enough to attempt to compare the two groups of people, surely! As has been obvious from the first, some people simply don't care, and repeat their spew year in, year out, apparently hoping there are enough a-holes of like "minds" to keep them company.

It would be far more intelligent to try this nonsense at a message board which invites cold warriors. Gee, I miss the good old McCarthy and Reagan days. Thank God we've still got so many corporatists to carry on their traditions.

Now for some lovely photos. It's Ileana time!

[Mika]

10. One word.

Scum.