The National Post of Canada, a respected newspaper in that country, is reporting on the rumours sweeping the blogosphere that Cuban dictator and mass murderer Fidel Castro has finally arrived in Hell.
These rumours start up every six months or so, but never like this with observations of police and military mobilization in Cuba.
We’re on the story folks, and we’ll see what we can find… but I bet you it will break on the blogs first somewhere.
Barbados Free Press 
Isn’t a hurricane heading to Jamaica and Cuba? That seems like a good reason to mobilise the security forces.
Elvis is still alive, isn’t he?
well there is no redemption for Fidel if this is true
Owen should get down on his kness and pray for forgiveness and start changing his ways immediately, despite being a bride to Fidel.
The ‘deathlist site’ does not show him as ‘officially’ dead yet.
http://www.deathlist.net/?person=Fidel%20Castro
Having said that, to quote one site:
”Signs of the death of Fidel Castro
According to sources inside Cuba, the situation is very tense at the top level. Randy Alonso Falcon, has not hosted the daily TV program “Mesa Redonda” with their frequent guest from the MININT, for 3 days. The sources in Cuba reported that they are in disarray about the death of the tyrant. Raul Alarcon factions are struggling. Many high level officers are being detained. The Internet has been canceled in government departments, including the MININT. The telephones of high members of the apparatus has been disconnected. The Mesa Redonda is running in “automatic”, showing documentaries without their host or guest. El noticiero is reading in its entirety Las reflexiones del coma-andante with an unusual mood.The Police is in “high alert” in Havana, especially in El Malecon under the “unprecedented” pretense of protecting the people from the prospects of high waves by hurricane Dean. Plans for intimidating dissidents groups not to appear publicly is underway.
The sources emphasize that certain elements in Miami are being “utilized” as “active measures” by Ramiro Valdez. The USA, as this elements proclaims, is not communicating with the “high power” in Cuba, is the other way around by some factions. The news that supposedly was coming from Cuba Friday, has been canceled. They are in the process of announcing it today or in the following days. I guess they have to tie any loose ends left. The beginning of the end.”
That bit……
”The news that supposedly was coming from Cuba Friday, has been canceled” referring to Friday 17th.
ties in with another site which, on Friday 17th (same date noted above for expected news disclosure) quotes re Miami (where all of the ‘dissidents’ reside) ” just received a phone call from a source in law enforcement. Apparently, police and other officials are being mobilized for a possible crowd control situation expected supposedly tonight.
I was not told what the cause of the crowd control situation would be, but, well, what else can it be but fidel castro dead? ”
One thing is for sure, when it happens, it will be announced ‘at the leisure’ of the Cuban officials and then we will know for sure.
My guess? He has passed.
The beginning of the end for our US Tourism product?
And FINALLY, if indeed it was to be announced Friday 17th, with Dean it makes sense to delay until Dean passed (no pun intended).
To announce before would open the ‘Government’ to security threat…what better time to attempt a ‘change’ or civil action than when the whole country is in turmoil and the security forces under pressure already?
Hence, delay until Dean has ‘safely’ passed and this will neutralise the danger of dissident action during the hurricane.
Look for the announcement Tuesday or Wednesday, if there is one.
Er…Finally…really.
I trust that just as we look to welcome Haiti into the Caricom fold, we will also extend the hand of warm welcome to a ‘free’ Cuba.
If one is going the Caricom route, Cuba, with its highly skilled personnel including medical, holds tremendous input into Caricom, particularly with its renewed Hotel sector which undoubtedly would quickly become the number one in market share for the Caricom region.
I will await the ‘welcome brothers and sisters’, with bated breath.
Rumple:
“…….particularly with its renewed Hotel sector which undoubtedly would quickly become the number one in market share for the Caricom region.”
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What do you think MM Lynch will have to say with Cuba poised to become the country to take away our “tourises”? What will be the excuse(s) coming from that liar?
I thought it was said that Raoul Castro would follow in his brother’s footsteps? So how would that free up Cuba? In fact, someone once told me that Raoul is worse than Fidel! I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Let us hope the old murderer has finally gone, soon to be followed by Raoul.
Only one country stops its tourists from visiting Cuba. Can you name that country?
The Italians, Canadians,Brits and Germans have been enjoying Cuba for decades! It’s a quiet tourism trade, but it’s been going on for YEARS!
It is a myth that when Cuba finally opens up that it’ll somehow drain (the American sector of) our Tourism.
How big a sector of our tourism figures are American arrivals??
Cuba’s alleged ‘opening’ will be a novelty for AMERICA’s holiday makers.
America is not the whole world, even though we (and they) like to think so.
UK 40%, USA 40%, others 20%. that is roughly the percentage mix of Tourist to Barbados.
A free USA controlled Cuba will probably have an effect on the Barbados Tourist Industry.
Cuba will become the Las Vegas of the Caribbean.
I disagree entirely. ‘When or if’ Cuba opens up the big US chains will have a field day.
Cheap labour, impacting cheap services, people as friendly as anywhere else, beautiful (so I understand) country and plenty of land for development, close to North America, thus airfares will be cheaper, perfect for conference centres, golf courses and (yes) casinos.
Our North American tourism will be gone, full stop!
Then, you have Financial Services and Medical Tourism.
If or when the Cuban administration puts in the relevant legislation, as it is much closer to North America, it will be perfect for offshore industry.
Location, location….
Then, with Cuban medical care already well advanced compared to the rest of the Caribbean and further investment can only improve, then it will make sense to save $$$ and have operaitons there, no?
Having said that, since the average Bajan cannot afford 10,000 square feet here, maybe we should start thinking about investment in Cuba, probably get beautiful land cheap at a rsk of course.
But, IF the open up comes,not only will the land skyrocket, may as wlel emigrate there anyway as that is where the jobs will be.
Learn Spanish!
Rumplestilskin is correct – it’s game over for the majority of Caribbean tourism from North America. It will affect Puerto Rico more than elsewhere but assuming a new Cuban government sympathetic to the US, our Yankee vistors Gone. Full stop. Proximity, value for money, memories from the good ol’ days, a strong heritage, pent up demand after decades of insane travel restrictions and you get the picture. Time to refocus on the Europeans again…
There is also the proximity to Jamaica which could benefit from being so close to an Americanised Cuba.
Barbados Tourism will have a problem
Barbados Tourism already has a problem.
not-great-value for money spent.
You guys make it sound like it’s toast already!
Maybe you’re right!
Barbados Tourism can be improved by getting back to basics.
All it takes is for Tourists to get good value for the money they spend.
From what I have heard, Adrian Loveridge understands and practises that concept.
It is really simple. If you buy a chicken leg and Macaroni Pie for $12 from a supermarket deli counter you should be pleased at the taste and the value for money.
If you spend $100 for Lightly seasoned Mahi Mahi in a cream sauce with whatever at a restaurant by the sea, you should be just as pleased at the taste ,service and value for money.
You can never please everybody but your objective should be to be the best you can be and Barbados can be better.
I must be fair and I have been in Barbados 3 times this year and the tourists I encounterd really like Barbados and they all said they will return because they really like “the Bajan people”.
To all Caribbean People round the world, let’s get a hurricane and emergency relief fund started for our Caribbean brothers and sisters. We must pull together and support our Island people. We all ended up in the Caribbean the same way, let’s now start acting like we are the same people.
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Sounds like Chicken Little is still busy:
“The sky is falling, the sky is falling.”
Hands off Comrade Fidel!!!
When Fulgencio Batista was allowing the sale (prostitution) of ten and twelve year olds to the “tourists” I suppose that was alright!!Fidel Castro put an end to that and other “rapes” of the Cuban population.
He has done some harsh things, but so too have Ronald Regan, John F Kennedy, George Bush, Lyndon B Johnson, Pol Pot, Tony Blair???
The proof of Fidel’s pudding is the number of strides the Cubans have made in sport, medicine engineering …to name a few disciplines.
How much further, progress-wise, would theCubans have reached were it not for the wicked USA enforcement of an embargo???
What about Namibia, South Africa, and several South American states that have benefited from the help of the Cuban army in their quest for colonial release???
Viva Fidel and the revolution!!!
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BFP Comments
Littleboy, your comments are reminiscent of the attitude that said “Yeah, sure Hitler murdered a lot of people, but he did make the trains run on time.”
So, real or not?
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=1785
Course, the above would mean that he has been dead a while.
Information, dis-information, lies and statistics.
Yes Viva Cuba.
Why do so many of you bloggers believe that Cubans want to open up their country to the slave like worship of capitalism and all the socially detrimental aspects that go hand in hand with capitalism. Our Western countries are not in the environmental, social and economic mess that they are in because it just happen to be so. It is because the system is rotten to the core and the vast majority are suffering because of it.
Cuba has shown the world that arming police for everyday functions is not the way to control crime, they have shown that they can unite to remain independent of countries that would manipulate their resources and people. The Cubans maintain a deep cultural history and social lifestyle that should be the envy of many of us in the Caribbean and indeed the World.
The Cuban leadership has shown a military commitment to defend and lend assistance to less well trained underdogs in Africa that have had to fight and die for their independence.
The other Caribbean islands, except for Haiti, did not fight for their freedom to live as they choose, they accepted massas offer of ‘freedom’ with all it’s inequities.
The eventual death of Castro like that of Mugabe or Mandela will only elevate the status of these men to that of hero/martyr as they will have fought for what their people believe is just and true. Not for a system of survival of the fittest where corrupt officials simply take all that they can get away with without a thought or care for those who have nothing.
Peace
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BFP Cliverton Replies
Maat, I don’t think you’ve ever been to Cuba, have you? Not even to a resort let alone living with the real people. Fear of the CDR is palpable… or are you even aware of the CDR?
Cubans embraced capitalism decades ago even if their government pretended not to.
When Castro and his crones fall, a great digging will commence to recover the bodies of the missing – the locations of which have been passed down from generation to generation within the families.
Er, you put Mugabe in the same sentence as Mandela? You ARE joking.
Muderous butcher vs peacemaker.
BFP
I am aware of man’s inhumanity to man, but do not agree with you that Castro is as you choose to paint him.
Please respect my point of view and cut out the snide remarks.
The Cuban people have had several years (almost 50) to decide if Fidel is good for them or not.
I have been friendly with many Cubans over the yearsand they speak highly of their homeland.
I will recite two cases to further strengthen my case…In the 1960’s I met a Barbadian who resided in Cuba for decades and he refused to stay here/”at home”…
I also interacted with one who worked and returned after the revolution and he was high in praise for Fidel.
I have never taken Reuter, Associated Press or any of that ilk as GOSPEL.
We Barbadians have a way of life of which we are proud (even if there has been a bit of a moral decline) and the Cuban people are likewise happy with their way of life.
There will always be exceptions…we have examples of nationals of ALL countries who emigrate and refuse to return to the land of their birth.
I can go on but I do not like long posts…However. Viva Fidel!!!
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BFP Cliverton Replies
Littleboy you start with the false premise that the “average Cuban” who has had 50 years to decide whether Castro is good for them or not actually had a choice of saying anything other than “castro is good”.
The Cuban people are as little frightened children or inmates who are about to be released. Proud, yes. Stoic, yes… but still as little children in many ways.
You haven’t lived in Cuba as I have. You haven’t seen the fear and what the CDR still does in the night. I have.
Here’s a little sample of why I know there is a spot in Hell waiting for Fidel Castro…
And for more perspective on Castro…
“…Make no bones about it: Cuba is an island of slaves. What else does one call a place where the people eat what one man feeds them; work at what one man decides that they work on; march when one man tells them to march; say what one man tells them to say and think only what one man tells them to think. What else do you call a place where the people are kept from progressing as individuals, where the people are kept away from information, where people are isolated from the rest of the world?
Cuba is just one big island plantation.”
Fidel did a huge amount for Cuba following the US-supported dictatorship of Batista including the much vaunted primary health care and education systems you still see vestiges of today. He’s still respected for this by many Cubans but anyone who still thinks that Cuba is a socialist utopia really has to get to Havana or some of the rural areas. Even forgetting how enormously corrupt the system is, favouring the party faithful while doctors moonlight as taxi drivers to put food on the table, the repression is stifling and the younger generation see nothing beyond a creaking system that’s teetering on the verge of collapse. Go visit a hospital sometime and while the staff are good medicines, beds and often basic hygiene are in short supply unless you have the right connections. The real problem is that Cubans don’t see an alternative. One guy in Havana told me that, “Nobody likes Fidel but then he’s got to be better than the Americans.”. It’s not a simple choice between Fidel and a takeover by a bunch of Miami Cubans with US money and feudal attitudes. And as for Fidel, you can respect what he did at the beginning whilst recognising that the man is 30 years past his sell-by date and leading his country to ruin.
No regime in human history has been able to persist in the face of opposition from its own people. Not the Soviets nor the apartheid regime of South Africa. If the MAJORITY of Cubans are as opposed to the Government as you claim they are then it will fall!
I do not hold Castro in hero-like status and would not wish Barbados to follow the Cuban model but I surmise that that the majority of Cubans probably support their government. Yes there is opposition but that is so everywhere. Even Mugabe has substantial, maybe even majority support, among Zimbabweans. The much reviled Pinochet of Chile still had many supporters up to the time of his death.
Your quote above could very well be applied to Singapore where former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew has attributed their success to precisely such behaviour. In fact, his widely admired regime was described as a “soft” dictatorship.
Barbados is also one “big plantation”!!!
How else would we explain the fact that after several years of “free education up to tertiary level” our people still “look for a good job”, preferably with an organization run by/owned by “white people”, and land ownership redides with the “too few”.
Watching CBC tonight was a classic…Richard Cox referred to Douglas Skeete as “Doug”, and Colin Brewer as “Mr Brewer”. This is a common occurence.
You may have lived in Cuba, but you obviously are a believer in the “so-called free system” which measures progress and success in $.
I however am aware that we need to find an alternative to the rampant exploitation that masquerades as “free enterprise”.
The system that you praise kills on the premise of”weapons of mass destruction”…while Fidel has assisted poor colonies throw off the shackles of colonialism.
No man is perfect; Fidel is far from perfect, but he has fought to bring educational opportunities to ALL his people.
He is a dictator,yes; but all good leaders, including our parents and teachers, are dictators!!!
There is no doubt that Castro has indeed done some good, not least showing that survival is possible without rampant capitalism at the expense of humanity aka the USA sysem where education and medical possibilities are limited by the dollars in one’s pocket, sometimes with little fault of one’s own.
Neverthless, just as there are faults in the North American model, there are faults in the Cuban model.
Sometimes to protect what we have we go too far to the extreme. This is the problem. Why do some need to leave Cuba as refugees rather than wilfully? That alone indicates oppression.
I think it best to take from the Cuban model and learn from it, rather than copy. Just as we do not need to copy the North American model as ‘Dollars Almighty before humanity’.
Balance is what I would seek.
Having referred to the philosophical aspect of this, now to look at the practical and operational of the scenario, which can only be impacted by the philosophical to the extent that the Cuban people themselves are committed to Castro’s model.
I personally think that once Castro passes, even if the successors wish the status quo to remain, it will change, depending on the desire of the Cuban people.
A long-standing’ leader can himself/ herself create either a following by persuasion or oppression.
When that leader passes I personally think that ‘ties that bind’ mentally break, leaving inevitable weakness in the remnants. Either lack of respect or fear will reduce the bindings, even if the successors are just as bad or worse. The ‘icon’ has gone.
What it means is, even if the transition is drawn out, depending on the successors’ efforts, change will come, even to the extent of social breakdown to achieve the change.
Thus, I do not expect the Castro model to continue much after his death, a few years maybe.
That is why the successors will have to, or already are, ‘managing his death’ to maintain a semblance of continuance and keep the citizens from questioning or proposing the need for alternatives.
I actually think that if he has not already passed, he will soon, but we will only know for sure that it has occurred, when the successors decide it ‘safe’ to tell the Cuban people.
”Either lack of respect or fear will reduce the bindings, even if the successors are just as bad or worse. The ‘icon’ has gone.”
And I should say also ‘even if the successors are just as good’.
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Hmmm. Certain internet sites are reporting that certain Cuban ‘Elites’ have been preparing to clear out for a couple months now, including his personal bodyguard and longtime friend.
Also, the reference to a power squabble between ‘old guard’ and ‘reformists’.
So much smoke…
And this ‘may’ include Che Guevara’s daughter, a loyal Castro supporter, who only recently obtained her Argentine passport, depending on how one ‘reads’ this action, after decades of living in Cuba.
Certain Cuban elites are also ready to move back in.
Miami shipping companies and their CIA agents are predicting “free” elections within six months and real big business on the horizon.
Whatever CIA sponsored free elections mean.
This could be Bush’s godsend to mask the debacle in Iraq.
Pull out those troops and claim credit for democracy in Cuba.
Whatever Cuba can never be the same again.
It is inevitable that when Castro goes the U.S. will interfere one way or another to ensure that Cuba goes back to being the satellite state of the U.S.A. that it used to be.
This time it won’t be Hershey or the crime syndicates who are in charge. There are plenty of Cuban-Americans who are waiting to go back to their homeland with some of the millions they have made. They will buy what they want in quick time.
Cuban tourism is already growing steadily, despite being a pariah state; but with Castro gone there will be a Surge that puts Baghdad to shame. It will almost certainly draw many North american tourists because of closer/cheaper flights. This will inevitably have a depressing effect on our ambitions to increase North American arrivals.
Well, he has resigned ‘officially’. Change sweeps the Americas. Clearly indicates that he is very unwell.
I do not think Raoul will last too long, or maybe his job will be the transference to a ‘new way’.
We will see.
As I said before, it is ironic that now his ‘rule’ comes to an end, he lives to see the Southern Americas embracing a rather socialist agenda and the world economy based on ‘capitalism’ facing very real challenges.
All shows, we play our political and economic games, but in the end it counts for little.
What counts is peace, love, understanding, hope and for those who wish, a full belief in the Almighty.
Peace.
Breaking News …….
Castro has resigned, “never to seek the presidency again”.