Richardson Enjoys Castro's Welcome Cigar

Below is a picture (courtesy of the AP) of former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson during his current stay in Havana.

According to media reports, Richardon has traveled to the island to seek the release of American development worker Alan Gross, who has been unjustly held prisoner by the Castro regime since December 2009.

But first, Governor Richardson took some time to relax at the outdoor bar of Castro's exclusive Hotel Nacional to have a drink and a cigar.

Courtesy of his tyrannical host, of course.

Brutal Crackdown of Peaceful Activists

From the European human rights organization, Front Line Defenders:

Cuba: Ongoing brutal crackdown on human rights defenders during peaceful demonstrations

Since 17 July 2011, as many as seventy human rights defenders have been subjected to physical attacks, harassment, arrests and detentions while exercising their legitimate right to hold peaceful demonstrations calling for the release of political prisoners in Cuba. It is believed that these attacks form part of a brutal crackdown orchestrated by Cuban Government forces working under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior. Front Line expresses deep concern that similar attacks may be perpetrated against human rights defenders during similar demonstrations. Front Line previously issued an urgent appeal on 10 August 2011 following assaults on members of Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) by pro-Government groups and police officers on 7 August 2011 in Santiago de Cuba and Palmarito de Cauto, in the eastern province of Cuba. Damas de Blanco is a human rights organisation which advocates for the release of political prisoners in Cuba.

On 4 September 2011 eleven members of Damas de Blanco were detained in two cities in Matanzas province; 5 in Colon and 6 in Cardenas. Amongst the detained women were: Laura Pollán, Sara Marta Fonseca, Yaneris Perez Rey, Mercedes Evelin, Teresa Castellanos, Rosario Morales and Leticia Ramos Herreria, all of whom were released that evening. It is believed that María Teresa Castellanos, Mayra Morejon, Caridad Brunate Gómez, and Ivonne Mayesa remain in detention.

Between 26 and 28 August 2011, many protesters were arrested and held at various police stations throughout the province of Santiago de Cuba while attempting to hold peaceful demonstrations calling for the release of political prisoners. Specialised riot police used tear gas and violently beat protesters before taking them away to detention centres. It is reported that many of those detained suffered serious head injuries and required stitches, while others reportedly vomited up blood and fainted as a result of exposure to tear gas. Whilst those injured did receive medical attention they were not allowed to contact their families or legal representatives.

Although the majority of those arrested were released over the last number of days, Front Line has been informed of the names of seven human rights defenders, plus 3 relatives, who remain in detention as of 4 September: Messrs Miguel Rafael Cabrera Montoya, Bismarck Mustelier Galán, José Enrique Martínez Ferrer, Nivaldo Amelo Ramírez, Alexis Aguirrezabal Rodríguez, Alexis Yachoi Kuan Jerez and Víctor Campa Almenares. All seven are members of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Cívica Orlando Zapata Tamayo (National Front of Civil Resistance Orlando Zapata Tamayo).

They had been in the home of ex-political prisoner and member of the Secretariat of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Civica Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Mr Marino Antomarchit Rivero, in Palma Soriano on 28 August 2011 when police raided it. Marino Antomarchit Rivero's mother, wife, and two-year-old daughter were in the house at the time of the raid. His daughter was taken out through the window so as to avoid being caught up in the raid. Riot police destroyed the furniture in the house and stole the family's savings. It is further reported that police officers confiscated two computers, mobile phones, cameras, memory flash drives, notebooks, and hard drives. It is reported that 27 of those present were arrested at the time. The meeting had been organised in coordination with the Unión Patriótica de Cuba (Patriotic Union of Cuba), an organisation that has recently been founded by former political prisoner Mr José Daniel Ferrer García.

Marino Antomarchit Rivero, along with human rights defenders Messrs Jorge Cervantes and Guillermo Cobas, had been previously arrested on 26 August 2011, and therefore were not in the house at the time, although they have since been released.

On 28 August 2011, 13 women human rights defenders gathered at the home of Ms Aimeé Garcés Leyva. The women, who are members of Damas de Blanco, had planned to attend mass at the Santiago de Cuba cathedral, and afterwards hold a peaceful protest in the nearby streets. The house where they had gathered was surrounded by police cars and officers who subsequently entered the house, removed the women and beat them and twisted their arms. Ms Tania Montoya required medical attention as a result of an injury to her arm sustained in the beating. The women were placed on police buses which were then driven to nearby towns in the Province of Santiago de Cuba where they were released. On 27 August 2011 two members of Damas de Blanco, Ms Caridad Caballero Batista and Ms Marta Diaz Rondon, were beaten and sexually harassed, then detained, by police as they made their way to Aimeé Garcés Leyva's home in Palma Soriano. The former suffered a fractured finger and both women were covered in bruises upon their release from the police station in Bayamo the same day.

Protests in the towns of El Cobre and Palmarita Soriano were also violently repressed by Government forces.

Front Line is concerned for the physical and psychological integrity and security of the members of Damas de Blanco, Frente Nacional de Resistencia Civica Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Unión Patriótica de Cuba and all other human rights organizations involved in peaceful protest actions, considering reports of ongoing brutal crackdown against them. Front Line believes that the human right defenders have been targeted solely as a result of their legitimate work in the defence of human rights and expresses deep concern that these assaults may be repeated over the coming weeks.

In Memory of Julio Ruiz Pitaluga

Yesterday, former Cuban political prisoner Julio Ruiz Pitaluga died in Havana.

Pitalgua was a "plantado" -- a group of political prisoners that refused prison work, indoctrination or uniforms. And thus, who received the harshest punishments.

Like most "plantados," Pitaluga fought against both the Batista and Castro dictatorships.

He was a Captain in Castro's 26th of July Movement upon the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

Upon seeing that Castro's intentions were simply to become a dictator himself -- and a totalitarian one, at that -- Pitaluga entered the opposition.

For this, he spent 25 years in Castro's political prisons.

"People-to-Castro" Travel

One of the most deceptive aspects of the Obama Administration's Cuba policy is its so-called "people-to-people" travel.

The argument behind these trips is that they facilitate non-governmental contact between the American and Cuban people -- and that this will somehow "enlighten" the Cuban people (as if they were ignorant to the realities of the totalitarian regime that represses them).

Yet, even if this were the case, the current "people-to-people" trips barely even provide any contact with non-governmental Cubans.

To the contrary, these trips are approved by the Cuban dictatorship and their itineraries are almost unanimously composed of visits with Castro regime officials.

Moreover, the tour guides are regime officials as well.

Just look at some of the upcoming Fall 2011-Winter 2012 trips:

The trips hosted by the Center for Cuban Studies almost all include meetings with the daughter of current dictator Raul Castro, the Ministry of Culture, the official cultural censors (UNEAC), the Ministry of Public Health, the repressive neighborhood watch committees (CDR), and of course, visits to Varadero beach to learn "how tourism affects the community."

The trips hosted by Common Ground Travel include more of the above, plus a "legal studies" trip that visits with the regime's lawyers guild (perhaps a visit with imprisoned American development worker Alan Gross would be more appropriate), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (a long-time front for Cuban intelligence).

The trips hosted by Global Exchange follow the same trend and even include visits to the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Ministry of Tourism to "research opportunities for investment in Cuba."

The Insight Cuba trips are nothing more than tourism - baseball games, rum museums, cigar factories and music.

And finally, Witness for Peace invites Americans to go hear from Castro regime officials just how evil the U.S. and its foreign policy is.

Bottom line: These current "people-to-people" trips are essentially promotion seminars by a repressive regime (on the state-sponsors of terrorism list).

Moreover, they are a slap-in-the-face to courageous Cubans fighting for freedom.

Castro Laps 2010 Repression

According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights (CCHR), the Castro regime has made at least 2,221 political arrests during the first eight months of 2011.

That's 1,091 more than in the same period in 2010.

More "reform" you can't believe in.

Conceding How Tourism Funds Castro's Military

News reports about the death of Castro's Defense Minister, Julio Casas Regueiro, have almost unanimously conceded the fact that the military owns and controls Cuba's tourism industry.

So why would anyone support having tourists fuel this industry (thus, Castro's military)?

Unless, of course, you support Castro's military dictatorship.

From AFP:

Among Casas Regueiro's unexpected legacies: he helped turn Gaviota into Cuba's largest tourism conglomerate, with hotels, restaurants, retail shops, marinas and airlines.

From CNN:

When Raul Castro was made defense minister, he put Casas in charge of the profitable businesses that the military ran, including tourist hotels and the main telephone company.

From Reuters:

[Casas] helped lead Cuban military-run enterprises that are some of the largest in the country and include everything from tourism to retail stores.

From AP:

Beginning in 1990, Casas ran the Defense Ministry's Business Administration Group, which includes a host of efficient and profitable enterprises designed to generate the hard currency Cuba has needed to buy critical imports... The armed forces also manage a chain of hundreds of small consumer goods stores and a tourism company that runs more than 30 hotels, with subsidiaries that provide domestic tourist travel by air and land.

From Al Jazeera:

As a military official, Regueiro was credited with pressing through some of Cuba's political and economic reforms in the 1990s as the island sought to recover from the collapse of the Soviet Union, its key supporter during the Cold War. They included creating new roles for the armed forces such as managing the Gaviota hotel chain to create a source of hard currency for the military and creating small local industries to maintain and replace Soviet-made equipment.

And even The New York Times:

The Cuban military runs real estate businesses, factories, supermarkets and even a large tour operator, Gaviota. Its companies, many of which generate much-needed hard currency, enjoy a reputation for efficiency in a country dogged by mismanagement and a bloated bureaucracy.

Are Castro, Chavez and Gaddafi Rational Actors?

A wake-up call for those that have argued -- and still argue -- for rapprochement and negotiations with the Castro and Chavez regimes, as if they were rational actors.

From Bloomberg:

When asked if he would offer Gaddafi asylum, Chavez recalled a conversation he had with Cuba’s Fidel Castro about the capture of Saddam Hussein after Iraq was invaded. Chavez said Fidel told him that in such situations “what we have to do is win or die.”

While on this topic (sort of), please make sure to read Nicholas Kristof's editorial in The New York Times, "Thank You, America!"

Here's the introductory paragraph:

Americans are not often heroes in the Arab world, but as nonstop celebrations unfold here in the Libyan capital I keep running into ordinary people who learn where I’m from and then fervently repeat variants of the same phrase: “Thank you, America!”

CBC Members Snub Cuban Freedom Fighters

Excerpt from a hard-hitting critique of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in World Net Daily:

*It's important to note that not all CBC Members are sympathetic to the Castro regime. Some of them have been strong allies of Cuban freedom. Thus, it's never wise to generalize. However, the criticism of the seven Members below is fair.

In 2009, seven members of the CBC visited Fidel Castro. Not only were they full of praise for the tyrant – in that regard, they were hardly alone on the left – but they also refused to meet with any democratic dissidents, including Cuba's leading black dissenter.

As a Washington Post editorial noted at the time, "In five days on the island, the (CBC) Congress members found no time for dialogue with Afro-Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez... Mr. Garcia, better known as 'Antunez,' is a renowned advocate of human rights who has often been singled out for harsh treatment because of his color. 'The authorities in my country,' he has said, 'have never tolerated that a black person (could dare to) oppose the regime.'

"His wife, Iris, is a founder of the Rosa Parks Women's Civil Rights Movement, named after an American hero whom Afro-Cubans try to emulate."

As the snub of Cuba's leading black freedom fighters demonstrated, in a conflict between helping the left and helping blacks, the CBC chooses the left.

Havana's Accreditation Requirements

News that the Castro regime has "irrevocably" revoked the accreditation of Spanish journalist Mauricio Vicent raises an interesting question:

What does it take to remain an "accredited" foreign journalist in Castro's Cuba?

Perhaps writing stories about 24-fingered Cubans or pigs that feed milk from a dog, particularly while pro-democracy activists face daunting repression during daily protests.

Or perhaps referring to dictators Fidel and Raul Castro as "President" despite having never been elected by the Cuban people during their 52-year totalitarian rule.

Or perhaps always using qualifiers for Cuba's courageous pro-democracy movement, such as small, disorganized, U.S.-supported and always stressing that the regime refers to them as "mercenaries" (no matter how absurd).

Or perhaps -- as is the case today -- just ignoring the arrest of over 10 Ladies in White in the province of Matanzas.

We recognize it's a tough balancing act for many of these foreign journalists, but people who do not follow Cuba on a daily basis are unaware of these nuances (and of the nature of the Castro dictatorship) -- thus, it sadly leads to disinformation and indifference.

More Ladies in White Arrested Today

At least 10 Ladies in White, including one of their leaders, Laura Pollan, were arrested today in the central province of Matanzas.

Also (re-)arrested was Sara Marta Fonseca, who led a courageous protest on the steps of the Capitol building in Havana early last week.

Some of the others were Yaneris Perez Rey, Caridad Brunate, Mercedes Evelin, Teresa Castellanos, Rosario Morales, Mayra Morejon and Ivonne Mayesa.

Amnesty Demands Release of Dissidents

From Amnesty International:

Dissidents Arrested in Cuba

Eleven members of a dissident organization and three of their relatives have been detained, without being told of any charges against them, since their arrest on 28 August in Cuba. They have not been allowed access to their families.

Eleven members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unión Patriótica de Cuba, UNPACU), an umbrella group of dissident organizations from the east of Cuba have been detained without charge since 28 August. Three other men, who are relatives of the detainees, are also in detention. According to relatives they are being held at a State Security facility on the outskirts of the city of Santiago de Cuba.

Twenty-seven members of UNPACU met at the house of Marino Antomarchit in the town of Palma Soriano, in the south-eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, to discuss the current crackdown against dissidents in the province.

Witnesses state that around 140 members of the security forces, including the National Revolutionary Police (Policía Nacional Revolucionaria), State Security and members of the prison service surrounded the house at 1pm.

Shortly afterwards, tear gas canisters were launched into the house, where Marino Antomarchit's two-year old daughter and 76-year-old mother were also present, causing nausea and coughing of those who were there. At 5:40pm, between 30 to 40 members of the security forces entered the house and reportedly beat the men and caused damage to the house. The 27 UNPACU members were arrested as were three relatives who had come to the house after the arrival of security forces. Sixteen of the men were released on 31 August, all without charge. Eleven of them remain incarcerated in overcrowded conditions and have not been allowed family visits.

Please Take Action here.

Castro Rejects Free Libya, Welcomes Iran

Never missing an opportunity to oppose freedom and foment tyranny:

The AP reports:

Cuba has announced the withdrawal of its ambassador and diplomatic mission in Libya and reiterated that it does not recognize the rebels' transitional government.

Meanwhile,

Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Rahimi is scheduled to visit Cuba and Ecuador in mid-September, Iranian Journalist Club reported.

And just when,

The United Nations' nuclear agency says it is "increasingly concerned" that Iran has conducted experimental work to develop nuclear weapons, in particular on warheads to deliver nuclear payloads.

Castro's Defense Minister Dies

General Julio Casas Regueiro, who replaced current dictator Raul Castro as Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) and oversaw the Cuban military's lucrative economic conglomerates, died today at the age of 75.

This now raises the important question of who Raul Castro will choose to replace this key confidant, for the MINFAR is undoubtedly the backbone of the Cuban dictatorship's economic and power structure.

With General Juan Almeida's death in 2009 and his brother, Fidel, ailing -- is Raul running out of people to trust?

Or will he succumb to nepotism, with son Alejandro Castro Espin or son-in-law Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas?

Cuba's Brave Ladies in White

From The Charleston Post and Courier's Editorial Board:

Cuba's brave 'Ladies in White'

Raul Castro, Cuba's successor to brother Fidel, has recently unleashed his thugs on women peacefully protesting Cuban human rights abuses. The brutal attacks completely undermine Mr. Castro's attempt to appear moderate and will set back his carefully cultivated relationship with the European Union. Ultimately it could lead to a popular uprising.

The attacks are unconscionable, and betray a realistic fear that the Cuban public is fed up with Castroism and only lacks a spark to rise up against the geriatric dictatorship. The Cuban women's protest movement could supply that needed spark.

Members and supporters of the "Ladies in White" human rights movement attempting to assemble for protests after church services in Santiago de Cuba have been physically attacked by Cuban government agents every Sunday from July 24 through Aug. 28.

The women are expected to exercise their right of peaceful protest again this Sunday.

But don't expect eyewitness reports from the foreign press in Cuba. They are being kept away.

The most detailed account of the beatings is a report by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights on what happened Sunday, Aug. 7, in the vicinity of Santiago. It said state security officials and "Castro supporters" attacked women assembling for a protest march using "sticks and other blunt objects" causing "injuries, some considerable," according to The Wall Street Journal.

The women were forcibly taken by bus to the city outskirts and forced to walk back.

When some attempted another protest march the same afternoon they were again attacked.

Government bullies also broke into two homes of recently freed political activists who refused to be sent into exile as a condition of their freedom. The wife and daughter of former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer and four other people were sent to the hospital with contusions and broken bones, the Federation report said.

According to Cuban dissidents, similar harassments, arrests, beatings and home invasions have been experienced by demonstrators on each of the past six Sundays.

In Havana on Aug. 18, a government-inspired mob punched, slapped and kicked members of a Ladies in White march, spit on them, pulled their hair and ripped clothes. Several of the 42 marchers reported bruises, according to their spokeswoman, Berta Soler, who spoke with the Miami Herald.

The government tactics could quickly backfire. On Aug. 23, a crowd of Cubans gathered in front of the steps of the capitol building in Havana was recorded on video as it booed, hissed and insulted government agents forcibly dragging away four women protesters.

One of the women, Sara Marta Fonseca, a member of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights, told a Spanish newspaper her hope is that "people will cross the barrier of fear and join the opposition to reclaim freedom."

Thanks to the Ladies in White and their supporters, the Cuban people are one step closer to realizing that hope.

Alan Gross Needs a New Lawyer

Yesterday, Alan Gross's lawyer, Peter Kahn, a partner at the D.C. firm of Williams & Connolly, made public some selective excerpts of his client's testimony during his farcical Cuban "trial" months back.

In the released testimony, Gross apologized for having been a "trusting fool."

The widely-respected blog, Penultimos Dias, commented on this news item:

Those who aren't "trusting fools" are the readers of these declarations, who have been following the events of Gross and who know the poor bet his lawyer made in keeping the whole case confidential, first, and then betting everything on the clemency of the Cuban government (later). After many months in Villa Marista [Castro's secret police headquarters], Alan Gross said what he though would please the Cuban government. And it obviously didn't work.

We fully concur.

For nearly two years, Kahn has been playing Castro's charade, withholding information, limiting public outcry and jumping through hoops to win the good graces of Gross's captors.

Although we've always believed this to be a tragic miscalculation of the nature and psyche of the Castro brothers, we've respected his prerogative.

However, it has become increasingly clear that Alan Gross needs a new legal strategy -- or a new lawyer.

CNN Story on Alan Gross

His Eminence is Too Tired

This week, the Ladies in White asked to meet with Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega in order to seek his intervention against the upswing in violence towards Cuba's pro-democracy movement.

Yet, when the Ladies in White arrived for the scheduled meeting, the Cardinal was a no-show.

Instead, they were received by Msgr. Ramon Suarez Polcari and spokesman Orlando Marquez -- as the Cardinal was "recuperating" from a recent trip to Spain.

In other words, the Cardinal was too tired from his visit to Madrid to meet with the Ladies in White, who'd just been brutally beaten by Castro's thugs.

So who really needed "recuperating"?

Peaceful female activists facing down constant physical repression or a Cardinal dealing with jet-lag (and perhaps too much red wine and Serrano ham)?

Of course, The Ladies in White, with the distinction that characterizes them, downplayed the Cardinal's snub.

But it's indicative of where the Cardinal's misplaced priorities lie.

Castro's Terror Smoking Gun

From Investor's Business Daily:

Cuba's Terror Smoking Gun

For years, Cuba's apologists have debunked U.S. warnings of Havana's sponsorship of terror. It withers in the face of news that Cuba has just set up a Hezbollah base.

According to a report in Italy's respected Corriere della Sera Wednesday, three Hezbollah terrorists operating out of Mexico have left that country to establish a permanent "bridgehead" to the communist island, calling their clandestine operation "The Caribbean Dossier."

Twenty-three other terrorists from the Iran-linked terror group are expected to join the operation, which has a startup budget of more than $500,000. Corriere reported that the mission in Cuba is to provide logistical support for upcoming terrorist attacks planned in the hemisphere.

This is what "state sponsor of terrorism" means, which is how the U.S. accurately classified this odious regime since 1982, even as Cuba's leftist apologists have dismissed it, claiming Cuba is no threat.

Safely ensconced with the Castro brothers' hospitality, Hezbollah's operatives can carry out missions such as acquiring passports, recruiting informants and forging documents.

More disturbingly, they have been tasked to network with Hezbollah's other terrorist cells in Venezuela, Paraguay and Mexico, all in need of logistical support for attacks.

The Italian newspaper reported that Hezbollah might be planning a major attack against Israeli targets in the Western Hemisphere in retaliation for Israel's killing of Hezbollah's chief assassin, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus in 2008. Mughniyeh was a Hezbollah terrorist leader implicated in the two huge attacks in Buenos Aires in the 1990s on Jewish targets — strikes that remain unpunished.

But the targets might not all be Latin American. With Hezbollah ordered to meet with, presumably in Havana, Mexico's cartel traffickers that control illegal alien routes into the U.S., it's likely terrorist attacks are in the works for America, too.

That's classic terrorist networking coming into a place before a scourge emerges.

Make no mistake, it's the Castro dictatorship that's enabling Hezbollah. More to the point, it corresponds with the fact that the Castro brothers have always opened the doors wide to terrorist operatives — from Colombia's FARC, M-19 and ELN terrorists, to Chile's leftist terrorists of the Allende era, Nicaragua's Sandinistas and Spain's ETA Basque operations.

The Castro brothers have long been champions of Hezbollah, and there are no more "professionally trained" terrorists capable of carrying out large attacks than Hezbollah operatives.

Against all this, the Cuban regime screams whenever the State Department awards it the designation of state sponsor of terror. Just last week, Cubadebate.com, a Cuban state-controlled media organ, said the U.S. used "old, unprovable arguments" in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2010 that gave Cuba the terror title it deserves.

What's outrageous is that the left has consistently echoed this line. Just last year, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote:

"Cuba poses no terror threat. Cuba is not a failed state with territories out of governmental control. The idea that a Cuban citizen could get explosive artifacts or have terror accessories of any kind in the island is simply ridiculous."

Filmmaker Michael Moore, academic Noam Chomsky, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin and quite a few elected officials have made similar statements.

How are they going to explain away a Hezbollah base in Havana now?

More on Hezbollah's New Cuban Base

Here's an English translation of the original source story in Italy's Corriere della Sera:

Hezbollah Heads to Cuba

There are three men, one of them uses a peculiar nickname: Agave Tequilana. They belong to a division of Hezbollah, the Lebanese pro-Iranian movement, in charge of "external" operations. The three men recently moved from Mexico to Cuba with the objective of setting up an operations center on the island.

Within a few days, another 23 guerrilla fighters chosen by Talal Hamia, a high-ranking Hezbollah official in charge of clandestine operations, will join them. The move by the three men is not temporary. With the approval of Secretary Nasrallah, Hamia has decided to open a "base" in Cuba with a generous budget of more than $1.5 million, which will be called "The Caribbean Case."

The base in Cuba should not come as a surprise. For years now, Hezbollah has been operating on a regular basis in Latin America with the help of Iran. The organization has strongholds in Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) and Brazil, but the extremist organization has also set up operations on many border cities and in Venezuela. They are able to raise funds, travel freely and have lists of cell groups they can mobilize to strike an adversary whenever necessary. With assistance from Iran, Hezbollah has struck Argentina twice: the Israeli embassy, and the headquarters of a Hebrew association.

The Cuban operation will initially provide logistical support. Hezbollah members will be able to develop new contacts, obtain and produce travel documents for various South American countries, recruit informants, and develop relationships with smugglers that move merchandise and are involved in human trafficking.

Translation by Alberto de la Cruz.

A State of Discontent

A must-see short documentary on the state of discontent across all sectors of Cuban society:

Hezbollah Opens Base in Cuba

From Ynet:

Report: Hezbollah opens base in Cuba

Shiite terror group to use operations center to launch attack on Israeli target in South America, Italian newspaper reports

Hezbollah has established a center of operations in Cuba in order to expand its terrorist activity and facilitate an attack on an Israeli target in South America, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the attack is meant to avenge the death of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah. The organization alleges that Israel was behind his 2008 assassination.

According to the report, three Hezbollah members have already arrived in Cuba with the purpose of establishing a terrorist cell there. The cell is to include 23 operatives, hand-picked by Talal Hamia, a senior member tasked with heading the covert operation.

The operation, titled "The Caribbean Case," was reportedly allocated a budget of $1.5 million. The Cuba base is to be initially used for logistics purposes, including intelligence collection, networking and document forgery.

Hezbollah has been active in South America for quite some time now, primarily in Paraguay, Brazil and Venezuela, the report notes.