A Man Who Hunted Down Che Guevara Reveals The Secret Gravesite

One of our readers alerted us to this article after (surprisingly) clicking on an advert for Cuba Study Group on The Nation News.

Cliverton

From Cuba Study Group…

On The Trail Of Che: Miami Man Revives Debate Over Remains

Miami Herald- Luisa Yanez

March 23rd, 2007 – On an October night outside the Bolivian city of Vallegrande, Gustavo Villoldo says he secretly buried the body of iconic revolutionary leader Ernesto ”Che” Guevara along with two fellow rebels. The year was 1967.

That night, he says he snipped a lock of Che’s hair and scribbled down the exact geographical coordinates before dropping the bodies into a common grave.

Now, Villoldo — a Miami Cuban exile hired 40 years ago through the CIA to hunt down Che — has come forward for the first time with his evidence to claim that Che’s remains may still be in Bolivian soil and not in a Cuban mausoleum, his official grave site — as Fidel Castro claims.

”In the hair, I’m sure there is a sample of Che’s DNA, and I’m willing to have it tested and compared against the remains in his tomb in Cuba,” he said.

To prove it, Villoldo would need the cooperation of Che’s relatives to compare DNA and that of the Cuban and Bolivian governments to examine Che’s supposed remains.

That’s unlikely, but Villoldo’s claim is sure to add more intrigue to the long-running international debate over one of the Cuban Revolution’s most recognizable faces. It’s a debate that began in 1995 when the Cuban government, amid much fanfare, announced it had located Che’s bones and returned them to Cuba in 1997…

… continue reading this article at Cuba Study Group (link here)

Forty Feet and 15 Tons Of Dead Stinking Whale On Our Beautiful Barbados Beach – Who Ya Gonna Call?

Another Thankless Task Well Done By SSA Folks

AS WITH SO MANY OTHER JOBS, NOBODY (except perhaps Ian Bourne) grows up wanting to work at the Sanitation Service Authority.

Think about it. What ten year old says, “When I grow up I want to be a garbage truck driver.”

That is also true of many other jobs. No ten year old says “I want to be a night shift manager at the transit garage” or “When I grow up, I want to be the one to check the tyre pressure on golf carts at Sandy Lane”…

But more often than not, life decides for us where and how we will work. We take jobs for a year, expecting to move on to something better, and then find we like our friends at the new job and the pay is ok… And a little one comes along and now we can’t quit because we have a family. Or, we do well and move up with a first promotion and a little more money – but we’re still doing that job we swore we’d quit.

Many of you reading this know exactly what I mean.

So we continue going to work at something we didn’t think we’d be doing five or ten years later – and we do the best job we can.

Many folks look down upon our fellow citizens at the Sanitation Service Authority, thinking “I wouldn’t do that!

And that is precisely my point.

Our Sincere Thanks To The Folks At Barbados Sanitation Service Authority

To the men and women of the Sanitation Service Authority who work hard to keep us all healthy and the island clean – thanks so much. We wish we could pay you more because you surely deserve it. We don’t know what, if anything, we at BFP could do to make your life easier, but we’re going to try to think of something.

In the interim, again, thank you for looking after all of us.

Cliverton, Marcus, George, Robert, Shona & Auntie Moses

Media Release From Barbados Sanitation Service Authority

The Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) faced one of its greatest challenges in recent times, when the Authority removed a forty-foot dead whale, which was beached on the shores of Tent Bay.

After reviewing the scene where the creature was beached, the SSA contacted the rapid response division of the Central Emergency Relief Organisation (CERO), who sent two officers. They helped in breaking up the head. A team of three SSA employees with an open backed truck plus a tractor was used to tackle the dead whale, which was 40 feet in length and it weighed 15 tons.

It took five hours to get the whale out of the water – due to its decayed state, it was very slippery to handle. As the team tried to lift it, it started to break up and the stench caused onlookers to quickly scatter from the rare sight.

Then the tractor with its backhoe-blade cut the whale into pieces to load into the open-backed truck. This took another two hours to accomplish since the skin, despite advanced decomposition, was very tough. It was eventually taken to the Mangrove Pond Landfill where an extra deep hole was dug for the large creature. It was then buried and covered to ensure no odours at all escaped.

The SSA was pleased to help keep Barbados clean and is grateful for the swift attention from CERO.

Financial Fallout Of Cricket World Cup Hits India

What About All Those Air India Charter Flights That Were Coming To Barbados?

Now that India is out of the Cricket World Cup finals, Indian businesses are taking a heck of a hit – and as this BBC article mentions, it’s not just the travel industry that is out millions.

In Barbados, we will realize a certain level of economic activity just from hosting the finals – but as many Indian businesses are reminding themselves, sponsorship and involvement in mega-events carries significant risks. No one can definitively predict the outcome of an endeavour that involves so many variables.

From the BBC…

The Financial Cost Of India’s Failure

With cricket-crazy India now out of the first round of the World Cup, the financial fallout is starting to become apparent.

India’s exit poses questions about the viability of heavy spending around a team that has not won a competition of note outside the subcontinent since 1985.

“The major stakeholders in the tournament – the television channels and major sponsors – risk losing millions, either in cash or kind, if India go out in the first round,” wrote Sambit Bal, the editor of leading cricket website Cricinfo last week.

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

The disaster has now happened

It is difficult to pin down exactly how much money the television channels, advertisers and travel agents who sold packaged cricket trips to the West Indies have lost, but unofficial estimates say corporates will take a hit of at least $35m.

‘Big flop’

One of those hit by the debacle may be the World Cup’s official broadcaster Sony Entertainment Television…

… continue reading this article at the BBC (link here)

Illegal Barbados Rubbish Piles Yield Thousands Of Confidential Documents – We Have Them All!

Barbados Free Press Goes On A Trash Hunt At Illegal Dumps

Illegal rubbish piles are everywhere on Barbados, but we were surprised to learn just how foolish some folks are about disposing of their trash and outdated business records. It is one thing to not care about the environment or your fellow citizens – it is quite another situation to dump industrial waste and bags of office garbage in the middle of a cane field…

… Especially if that garbage has the name of your company all over it!

For the last few months Barbados Free Press staff have been patiently visiting illegal dumpsites across the island to photograph and retrieve abandoned garbage.

Did We Find Any Confidential Or Embarrassing Documents Or Business Records?

We sure did… Thousands and thousands of pages – some in pristine condition, and some that were just YUK! Most we photographed and left, but we kept some of the more interesting documents. Hundreds of them, in fact.

In the next year we will show you some of our finds, but many of the documents will be used as source material without publishing them or letting our readers know we have them. There must be a hundred great stories in the pile in front of me.

What Did We Find?

“What didn’t we find?” is the more appropriate enquiry. Here are some examples of the types of documents thrown to the winds by very foolish and lazy people…

Family photos, banking records, income tax returns, salary spreadsheets, Cricket World Cup planning committee strategy documents, BLP documents, DLP documents, handwritten notes on the back of letters, utility invoices, corporate customer lists, corporate notes and minutes of meetings, bid documents for government projects, charity financial records, leases, personal letters and on and on and on.

You get the idea!

Why Are We Doing This?

Barbados Free Press originally started collecting and photographing documents from illegal rubbish piles simply to curtail the use of illegal garbage dumps through embarrassing the people who use them. We thought we would photograph a pile of garbage and then publish the owner’s name.

But then we found all sorts of goodies in the trash, and we knew that we were onto something. So we are having fun and writing some stories that our readers will find extremely interesting.

We haven’t quite decided on how we’re going to use what we found, or to what extent we will reveal personal information, but you know us…

There Is Mischief Afoot!

Now, where was that tax return? Oh yes… here we are… Mr. so and so… MBE. 🙂

hmmmm….

Perhaps we won’t publish that one just yet.

Here are a few teasers from the Democratic Labour Party and the Cricket World Cup Organising Committee.

Everyone loves a little mischief!

Let Me Win, But If I Cannot Win, Let Me Be Brave In The Attempt

Well Folks,

Just received a letter from a reader, chastising us for failing to mention the Special Olympics events that have been taking place over the last week and a half. I could make excuses about the World Cup occupying our attention, or ask why the reader didn’t give us a tap on the shoulder before the events were over, but instead I’ll offer this sincere apology:

We’re sorry. We should have been on it.

We hope that both spectators and participants alike had a great time ..

Read about it here …