www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall The situation in Latin America

While much of the world focuses on yet another Middle East flareup, several countires just south of the US border are having big problems.

Traditionally, the US media ignores Latin America. I think that's stupid, seeing as how Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the USA and may one day be the majority.

Colombia is torn by civil war. The FARC, a Marxist terrorist organization funded by kidnappings and cocaine profits (from US consumers) has been attacking civilians with car bombs, and blowing up oil pipelines and power transmission lines. The Colombian goverment broke off peace talks recently after a plane was hijacked and a senator kidnapped. Their escapades go largely unreported in the so-called "newspaers of record" and the networks. Only the Miami Herald covers it much at all.

Venezuela is the third-largest supplier of oil to the United States, exceeding all Middle Eastern countries except Saudi Arabia. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who is an open admirer of Fidel Castro, has attacked the Catholic Church in Venezuela, accused his political adversaries of corruption and treason, and has driven Venezuela's economy into deep recession. In case you didn't know, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA owns Citgo.

Argentina's economic problems have been well-documented. A decade of rampant overspending has left Argentina with a foreign debt it can't pay, and thousands of young educated people are fleeing the country for the United States, Italy and Spain.

Cuba is, of course, run by the only dictator in the Western Hemisphere. The anti-Castro website run by the CANF has posted news stories about Castro's travels to Libya and Iran, neither of whom are the US's friends.

Last September, after the 9/11 attack, an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Belen Montes, a Puerto Rican, was arrested and charged with spying for the Cuban government. It was feared that she would feed information to Castro, who would then turn it over to the US's Middle East enemies. Montes recently reached a plea bargain agreement with federal prosecutors.

while this goes on, the media covers the protesters at Vieques, and politicans and US network executives visit and party with Fidel.

Yeah, the Middle East is important, but it ain't the only hot spot. Too bad the USA never seems to learn this.

Sixty percent of my neighbors are compesinos, mostly refugees both economic and political, who make a hard living picking ferns. I estimate anywhere from 30-60% of my neighbors are illegals.

I lived in Miami at the height of the first mass exodus from Cuba and went to high school with boys and girls whose fathers had been professionals in Cuba. Many of these well-educated men found themselves waiting tables at the Fountainbleu and other hotels on the beachside. No, they were not too proud to do manual labor to care for their families.

How quick are the American people to forget the many contributions these folks made to our country, including rebuilding the inner cities that had experienced white flight to the suburbs and were in a serious state of decay. These Cuban refugees breathed new life into sections of Miami that were essentially stagnating.

Certainly, immigrants--legal and illegal--have presented us with a whole set of issues and problems we would like to have avoided. But it takes a certain type of meanness to ignore the many contributions made by these exodus folks to our country--a certain type of personality that most would be more than glad not to be personally afflicted with.

But if you are an advocate for compesinos and Cuban refugees, be prepared to become the "village pariah," if not the village idiot.

In my religion, fighting against oppressors and oppression is a sacred duty, from which there are no exceptions. It seems to me that many Latin-American Roman Catholics are of the same conviction.

Salaam,

Abdur

[ 04-08-2002: Message edited by: Abdur Islamovic ]

From: acota07@hotmail.com (Juancarlo�Acosta) Date: Mon, Apr 8, 2002, 9:35pm To: CubanIssues@yahoogroups.com Subject: [CubanIssues] Assassins who are torturing me:LETTER BY PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE JORGE L LARRAZ Reply�to: CubanIssues@yahoogroups.com

LETTER BY PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE JORGE LUIS LARRAZ ZULUETA TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY.

I, Jorge Luis Larraz�bal Zulueta, prisoner of conscience of the
Political "Presidio" Pedro Luis Boitel, presently in Combinado de Guant�namo,
sanctioned to 3 years in jail for the presumed crime of disrespect
to the figure of Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz, in the cause No.
22/2000, publicly denounce before the international public opinion
that they have me in solitary confinement in a "tapiada" punishment
cell known "tola" because I was able to unite the inmates in
detachments
1-B and 2-B of this prison by transmitting to them that there is
a battle going on against all the injustices that are being
committed against the Cuban prisoners.

This has been a source of preoccupation to the High Command of the
Prison System and is the reason why I have been incommunicado since
February 25th in the most terrible conditions, sleeping on the floor,
I cannot bathe because there is no running water in this hole,
all my family visits have been suspended for the past two months,
depriving me from having any contact with my family and my children,
torturing me physically and mentally.
In this cell in solitary confinement,
I am kept with my hands and
feet handcuffed from 7 in the morning to 7 at night by orders of
the assassin Pablo Reyes Cobas, I am not allowed to have any
breakfast
nor lunch, and my body wastes roll down my legs for they keep my
hands handcuffed to my back, I can only eat dinner after they remove
the handcuffs at 7 o'clock at night.

I am under constant threats; they don't respect doctor's order, which
state that due to my health problems I cannot be kept in this place,
nobody listens. I was transferred to this cell on February 25th,

I cannot remember when was the last time they gave me my medication.
An authorization has to be issued for medical assistance; no
authorization
has been issued in my case.

I am a victim of the most ruthless violation of human rights; they
want to drain my conscience by the use of force. I have decided
to start a 10 days hunger strike beginning today March 19th to
protest
this criminal isolation, torture and humiliation of which I am victim.

The people in charge of these repugnant acts are:
1. Tte. Colonel Reynaldo, Head of jails and prisons.
2. Tte. Colonel Jorge Chediak Perez, Unit Commander .
3. Captain Silvester Obret Herrera,Head of the Department of Estate
Security,''Castros SS'' [Departamento de la Seguridad del Estado
[DSE].
4. Major Pablo Reyes Cobas, Head of prison inner order.
These are the assassins who are torturing me. I want the World to
know them by name and therefore accuse them as violators of human
rights.

(HAVANA,CUBA/April 5th –April 3rd, the Civic Resistance Movement
Pedro Luis Boitel, received a denouncement dated March 19th 2002,
signed by the prisoner of
conscience Jorge Luis Larrazabal Zulueta, from the jail of Combinado
de Guant�namo, also known as, Provincial Prison of Guant�namo, in
the Guant�namo Province and sent to The Democratic Party November
30 "Frank Pa�s" in Havana, regarding the physical and mental abuse
perpetrated against him by officers at the penitentiary in question
From the Cuban Center for Information, Luis Osvaldo Manzaneira C�calo,

President in Function of the Democratic Party November 30 " Frank
Pa�s".
http://www.puenteinfocubamiami.org/cuba_latest.htm
____________________________________________
Hable con sus amigos en l�nea, pruebe MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.es

jw,

Interesting post. Although I would differ with you on the tone of your post concerning Castro. Just my opinion, but I think Castro would not party with our Mid-East enemies if we traded with Cuba like we do China -- Mind you China is a far worst human rights violator then Cuba... or at least I'd bet the Tibetans would agree with me.

Also it is often stated that US users of cocain buy Colombian cocain thus economicly supporting terrorism of the FARC. This is a gross over simplification of the matter. For one, US cocain users in Des Moines Iowa don't import cocain into Iowa or the US. Nor does the user buy it from those that import it. Rather it looks more along the lines like this -- the Colombians sell it to the Mexicans the Mexicans to big US distributors such Vice Lords, Latin Kings, and Gangster Disciples. But then this is just to gang heirarchy, the heirarchy sells it to smaller independent sellers and to lower rank gang members of it's own. From there the independent sellers and or gang members sell the cocain to even smaller distributors, and from here often to even smaller distributors - who then sell to the common user.

My point is the FARC got there cash long before the user had Colombian cocain - and for that matter by the time it gets to the common user the cocain is "stepped" on so many times it is probably preferable to call it US cocain.

The American mafia - La Costra Nostra - were big distributors of Heroin at onetime, at least the Bananno crime family was inconjunction with the Sicilan Mafia. And from my highschool years I can recall hearing that if you wanted to sell cocain, the Bananno crime family here, sold some of the "best" cocain in the city - just don't sell it in their neighborhoods. And as I recall the Catholic President JFK had close ties to La Costra Nostra, so close they use to come into the White House (Casa Blanca for you Latino types ) as guests with lots of nice looking women the President liked. As a matter of fact didn't La Costra Nostra help finance the "Bay of Pigs"? Also our heroin buyers here in the US helped keep the Afgan Northern Alliance (the biggest heroin suppliers out of Afganistan) financed who intern supplied the bulkwork of frontline ground troops in Afganistan to toople the Taliban and Al-Quida terrorist members. The Taliban on the other hand came down hard on heroin dealing to the outside world. So are US heroin buyers heroes of the "war on terrorism"?

Just some clarifications:

It'strue that the FARC in Colombia uses terrorism, drug trade and other crimes as a method and this is not correct. The fact is that Colombia has been ruled by two parties (twin parties, like in the USA: conservative and liberal) that support the interests of the powerful land owners, drug traders, the rich people in Colombia and the American interests. When the left-wing tryed to participate in an election they formed the Patriotic Union and most of its members were killed. The problem is that the FARC doesn't undrestand that the country has changed and that most of the Colombians don't want them to rule their country. It's a tragedy, Colombia has four true "complete" armies in a civil war: the FARC, the ELN (marxist), the AUC (paramilitary, ultra right wing, terrorist), and the Regular Army.

Cuba is a different thing, it's not the "hell" described by the Americans, but it's not the paradise described by Castro. People are well educated and healthy but there's not a democracy, freedom and a lot of human rights.

"

"Hell" must be a relative term. Most Americans would consider any country that forbids freedom of speech, assembly, association, and lacks a free and independent press, hell on earth.

And no common-law writ of habeus corpus? That is pure hell.

I suppose political systems, like religions, are purely relative.


FARC? The Spanish acronym provides anglophones with an interesting play on words.

Abdur

[ 04-09-2002: Message edited by: Abdur Islamovic ]

Most Abdur, not all.

A huge population of America lives hand to mouth, and under conditions that would be considered a "state of arrest." When some neighborhoods are literaly patroled by criminal outfits with "walkie-talkies" and all or most of these criminal outfits vote Democratic - if they do vote - then one wonders who really controls their city and nation. I guess your right "Hell" must be a relative term.

I have admiration for the Cuban people. Even Castro. Honest admitance of being outclassed is not an American (USA) trait. The Cubans are a handful deep and told not only the Americans (USA) to get out of town but the American mafia La Costra Nostra to enities the majority of the world at onetime during those days ran scared from. I understand Castro thought President JFK to be a rich kid with no real desire to stand up for anything he believed in, if he believed in anything at all. And from remembering reading this book with the FBI files on Malcom X years back, supposedly the FBI was watching JFK and had him recorded telling Martin Luther King that he desired to help him but he could not because he was afraid of Hoover. Castro on the other hand out gunned in a rebel outfit with no pay and no VA system to fall back on if injured and willing to face prison sentence, fought for what he believed in.

The Cubans are a tough bunch of cookies who are deathly loyaly to their beloved Cuba. And you are right they endure conditions that most Americans would consider literal hell. But they endure them because they love Cuba.

So what if the USA isnt exactly a free country. No nation is truly free because we all need laws to protect ourselves and organize society around. If some secret government "Within a government" really controls us under the mask of democracy, then why should I oppose them. It is the will of God that this be and we should except it and simply try to make the best of our lives. Through out history most great emipres have been secretly controlled at one time or another by a select few. Such is the way of things because we are all fallible human beings who sin and no country can truly be Eden.

We Americans are very lucky to live the way we do and should thank God that we have the opperunities that are available to us. If you dont like our system of life then go to Canada or someplace.

Robert K.

Robert,

Who are you addressing this to?

If your adressing this to me, why do I get the impression your connecting my comment about criminal outfits with "walkie-talkies" to the police department? If this is the case you are wrong. I'm talking about drug gangs that operate in neigborhoods and use murder and intimidation as means to keep their grips on neighborhoods.

La Costra Nostra a.k.a. the mafia unlike the common perception given through the media extorts moneies from honest working people that can go up to 50% of their profits from the small buisness they open up themselves with their own hard work. Again La Costra Nostra if they vote will vote Democratic. These figures are often given respectable images as men of honor who kiss each other and make secret pacts (yes some elements of them may be honorable in certain respects). But these thugs will murder your teenage duaghter if it profits them.

"We Americans"? Who are we Americans? The upper echlon of Enron? Or those poor Hmongs who got the shaft on their welfare after helping this nation fight the North Vietnam Army and the Viet Cong and loosing their homeland, never had a written language, a farm people, and have a difficult job readjusting to Urban American way of life - stuck in the ghetto - and sometimes taking their own life as bread is short on the table and respect is short coming in their life.

As that I have family that have served this nation in war going all the way back to WWI, and that I've served it's Marine Corps 4 years out of my life and honored it's call to go overseas when it felt the need to liberate some small nation conquered by a bigger, badder, neighbor. No I think I'll stick around and try to make as much money here as I can - given America is the place to make money at now. But if you think I should still - I'll send you my adress and you can come move me. But then I have no kids, no wife, and am willing to do the prison time, so that might not be to smart of a choice for you.

Forty years of up close and personal contact with the Cuban "boys and girls" I grew up with---and have grown old with---has taught me that, yes, Cubans are a tough bunch....and courageous as well.

It takes more than just a little intestinal fortitude to brave the Florida Straits with little more than a flimsy raft separating you--and your family--from eternity.


I agree with you that the Cubans are intensely loyal to their country.... because they love it. And millions of the most loyal of Cubans live in the US!


And you should worship with them in Miami on great Catholic and Cuban feast days!

It's enough to make a Catholic out of an infidel. Well...almost.

Viva Cuba Libre!

Libertad Siempre!

Abdur

Abdur, I agree with you about the Cubans. they are tough, detemined people. I detested the way they were portrayed by the media in the Elian situation, which, as I saw it, was strictly a family situation. There was never any reason for Clinton or Reno to get involved. The media talking heads made the Miami Cubans look like a bunch of loony Latins.

I remember that thirty years ago it was so cool to tell Polish jokes and portray all Polish people as stupid buffoons.

Castro - this man is not worthy of any respect. So he kicked out the Mob. He destroyed the Cuban economy and eliminated freedom in Cuba.

Castro has been behind radical Puerto Rican separitists, the FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaraugua, the Chilean left during the time of Allende, and Castro has ties with both the FARC and the ELN.

Castro has always supported the worst side in these conflicts, and he needs to be called on it.

If JFK had the guts, Castro could have been eliminated long ago. JFK and Bush Sr. made huge errors in letting tyrants stay in power.

I wanted to start this thread because the US faces serious problems south of our border. The civil strife is growing worse in Venezuela, a major supplier of oil to the USA, and it is hardly noticed. The FARC has taken to randomly attacking and killing civilians in Colombia - and they ARE funded by cocaine producers. Much of the national income of El Salvador is money earned by immigrants - both legally and illegally in the USA.

Other than providing more support to the Colombian government to destroy the FARC, there isn't a lot the US government can do about these situations, but Americans need to be aware of the problems, and they are not.

As Catholics, we have an obligation to support the Church in Latin America. When priests and bishops are kidnapped and murdered, I get angry.

No, I understand that you were not talking about the police but the mafia. Please frogive me again, but I am not sure what I can do about the mafia though. Being half Italian however I am used to being steryotped as "mafia" because of my ancestory.

I am sorry for the fact that honast people are being exploitedby suchn groups since this is what happened (And still does to an extent) In the Italian American community. My prayers are with you in your struggle.

PS. Excuse me for being niave but cant the polics do anything to put an end to such outward harrasment by this and other antagonistic groups? Mus everyone live in fear?

Robert K.

I remember that thirty years ago it was so cool to tell Polish jokes and portray all Polish people as stupid buffoons.

When did it ever stop being "cool".

Robert K. (Who is part Polish).

jw,

You might be surprised but I was totaly against the government snatching Elian out of his relatives homes. Though I always felt he should go back to his father, I was very much taken back by the goverments actions in the whole thing - any other case of a child would have been dragged for all it's worth through the courts.

Castro can support who he wants if it helps hurt the US. The US should trade with Cuba, if we do it with China we can do it with Cuba. I bet the health of the US would be more of a concern for all of the Cubans in Cuba then.

jw, I appreciate the reason you started this thread. And you are right I believe that we in the US should be concerned about the state of Latin America. You know how we dealt with our enemies in Afganistan? Well not to pound my chest and be the tough guy, but I can tell you simply and honestly, that if I was the leader of the "free world" I would use as much air power as I could to break the backs of the FARC in colombia. I would bring such tenacity to the project, through out Latin America, that I would be considered a literal tyrant to much of the world. But for my enemy I would intend to obliterate their race. There would be only two paths to final peace for my enemies - 1) The steady march of Roman (US) troops across your hallowed ground. Or 2) The law, which translates into my *law*.

I share fully with you your displeasure for the murder of our religous through out Latin America. I have actually contemplated joining up in the Colombian military. But for one thing my spanish is not so good, and there is such a thing as the "fog of war". And I don't need to be any more confused then I perhaps would be in the thick of battle, nor do I need to bring any more confusion then it already would have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Abdur,

We would be so lucky to have you as a catholic.

But you can get people to liking you so much that we might not want you to change.

Robert,

I'm sorry for being very harsh on you, I just don't like when people are quick to throw out this "love it or leave it" kind of thing when people are critical of the US.

Robert, you are a citizen of this country as much as I am, and are entitled to your opinion. You are very right the United States provides many opportunities that many other nations in this world doesn't. But I personaly fail to see how we provide this abundance gifts that Great Britian doesn't, that Canada doesn't, that France doesn't, that Italy doesn't, and so on. Because of the propaganda put out about the United States, many people in other parts of the world think that the majority of all American families have all of this extra doe that they just throw around and have no worries or burdens at all except that if their black or asain nanny will show up on time and do the laundry. This simply is not the truth of the vast majority of American families. Like wise it seems that many Americans seem to fall for the American propganda too, and some how think that no one else in any industrialized Western nation goes to school grades through K - 12 or have the opportunities to go to college or university. Or as though we are the only ones in the world to be allowed to say what we don't like. I understand why we lead, I am often just at a failure to understand why we think we are so God awful superior to everyone else in the world?

***

Robert,

Yes things can be done and are being done. But the game plane is more one of sustinance then to truely uproot the problem. The mafia is no longer any great threat that it once was, at least not here in Milwaukee. I'm sure there still active, but they no longer carry the power and fear they once did. It is often overlooked that it was my generation (Gen X) of blacks and Latino's that told the mafia to go take a hike in their neighborhood's criminal operations i.e. the drug trade. Black and Latino 27 year olds with pistols and assualt rifles in national gangs will quickly send mafioso's of the La Costra Nostra to their graves. This same level of violence intimidates your average working class "Joe". The police would do alot but their hands are tied behind their backs. You take the Latin Kings who did such numbers as shoot down a rival on Church steps as he came out of Sunday Mass (the Priest who administered last rites to him, became a big presence in that Latino community for change after that, but he has sometime ago been placed in therepy for personal issues) and conduct a walk-in assisnation of another rival in a busy well known barbar shop as he sat and recieved a hair cut, a barbar shop that was frequented at times by the Mayor and even Govenor, and who's owner and person who was cutting the victims hair for that matter was running for alderman. The shop full to include the barabar cutting the victims hair reported to police they could not identify the gunnmen even though he walked in calmly and shot the guy in the head, and walked out calmly.

Good news is, the federal government got involved here, had a joint task force going and busted 30 LK's under RICO. But to truely change things needs as I see it an effort of true love and charity by a prophet of sorts and the strong arm justice and wrath from a mayor.

The mayors of cities typicaly blame the Police Chiefs of their cities for the crime and murder rate. Just my opinion but I say the Mayor holds more responsibility then the Police Chief. I grew up around thugs and understand thugs. And if I was in office like the Mayor I would publicly announce at a news confrence that this certain element of our city has a certain amount of weeks to get out of town before I turn my Police units a loose on them. As far as I'm concerned if I'm in office there is only three states of being that drug dealers can be in - Dead, Bleeding, or Crying.