Viva La Cuba.

"I kill a communist for fun" ~Tony Montana, Scarface~

That was a classic quote from the movie, Scarface. Tony Montana's character was a criminal in Cuba, and he had no love for Fidel Castro or his government.  He called himself a "political prisoner", but as we all remember from the movie, he was nothing more than a drug dealer and a murderer.

Unfortunately too many leaders in our history have had a similar simplistic view of the Fidel Castro government like the fictional character from the Scarface movie.

Personally, I tend to disagree with Tony's assessment of the Cuban leader, and I am glad for the president's historic trip to Cuba today. I have never understood the trade embargo and sanctions against Cuba for all these years when we were trading with the Chinese and Russians for crying out loud.  

I remember as a kid in Jamaica, listening to one of Fidel Castro's speeches, I didn't know a word of Spanish, but even before the interpreter told us what he was saying, I remember cheering my ass off. He was that charismatic.

Maybe it's because the man who I consider one of the greatest leaders in history, Michael Manley, had to turn to Fidel at a time when the American government and the West turned their backs on the Jamaican people, as we tried to cope with the draconian benchmarks for the country's recovery set by the IMF.

It was Castro and the Cuban government that gave Jamaica micro- dams, adult literacy, trained physicians ,quality health care, and innovative teaching methods that merged education and sports.

And, if that wasn't enough, it was the Cuban government and Fidel Castro who helped to end Apartheid in South Africa . It was also Cuban soldiers who fought alongside the Angolan people in their fight for liberation. 

Throw in the fact that the people who were in Cuba ---who didn't have a pot to piss in before the revolution--- look more like I do than Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and you can see where I am coming from. Afro Cubans didn't flee to Miami with their riches, because they had no riches.

Barack Obama and is family going to Havana sends a powerful message to those Cubans living on the island and to the world.

It is a message that is long overdue.

Now if you will excuse me I have a  cigar to smoke.


*Pic from AP.





 

The Field Negro education series continues.

It's nice to see that us Americans are finally normalizing our relationship with our neighbors to the South in Cuba. 

This, of course, is a big deal. Because not long ago America was doing everything in her powers to keep other popular destinations in the region from going the way that Cuba did under Fidel Castro.

Being Jamaican I have somewhat of a vested interest in this subject.

"With the recent violence in Jamaica and the controversy over alleged drug lord, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, many people are talking about the infamous Jamaican Shower Posse and the neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, where they have their base. What is being ignored largely by the media, is the role that the American government and the CIA had in training, arming and giving power to the Shower Posse.

It is interesting that the USA is indicting Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the current leader of the Shower Posse for drug and gun trafficking, given that the CIA was accused of smuggling guns into Jamaica and facilitating the cocaine trade from Jamaica to America in the 70s and 80s. In many ways Dudus was only carrying on a tradition of political corruption, drug running, guns and violence that was started with the help of the CIA.

Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father was was Lester Coke, also known as Jim Brown, one of the founders of the Shower Posse and a fellow champion and protector of the impoverished Tivoli Gardens neighborhood in Kingston. Coke was a political enforcer and bodyguard to Edward Seaga, the leader of the Jamaican Labour Party.

Seaga’s opponent Michael Manley had begun to adopt “socialist” stances and began openly criticizing American foreign policies and meeting with U.S. enemy, Fidel Castro, in the 1970s. Given the Cold War the US was having with Russia, the CIA did not want Jamaica to be friendly with communists.

According to Gary Webb’s book,”The Dark Alliance,” Norman Descoteaux, the CIA station chief in Jamaica began a destabilization program of the Manley government in late 70s. Part of that plan was assassinations, money for the Jamaican Labour Party, labor unrest, bribery and shipping weapons to Manley’s opponents, like Lester “Jim Brown” Coke.

Author, Daurius Figueira writes in his book, “Cocaine And Heroin Trafficking In The Caribbean,” “In fact, it meant that illicit drug runners linked to the JLP were integrated into a CIA linked illicit drugs guns and criminal trafficking pipeline.”

Former CIA agent, Philip Agee, said “the CIA was using the JLP as its instrument in the campaign against the Michael Manley government, I’d say most of the violence was coming from the JLP, and behind them was the CIA in terms of getting weapons in and getting money in.”

One of Lester Coke’s associates, Cecil Connor, would claim that he was trained by the CIA to fight political wars for the JLP through killing and spying. Connor would stuff ballot boxes and intimidate voters to help the JLP win elections. Connor would go on from being a political thug to being part of the international Jamaican based cocaine ring known as the Shower Posse. He wound up testifying against Lester Coke and his cohort Vivian Blake, only to return to his native St. Kitts to become a drug kingpin who almost held the country hostage.

Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father, Lester Coke has also been accused of working with the CIA. Timothy White speculates, in his biography of Bob Marley, “Catch A Fire,” that Jim Brown was part of a team of armed gunman that attempted to assassinate Bob Marley led by JLP enforcer Carl “Byah” Mitchell. Authors Laurie Gunst and Vivien Goldman also make the same assertions in their books, “Born Fi Dead” and “The Book Of Exodus.” Marley’s manager Don Taylor claims that one of Marley’s attackers was captured and admitted that the CIA had agreed to pay him in cocaine and guns to kill Marley.

Lester Coke would later be burned to death in a Jamaican jail cell, while awaiting extradition to the United States. Many people have claimed that he was killed so he wouldn’t reveal his secrets dealing with the CIA, JLP and criminal activity.

In its efforts to destabilize the Jamaican government in the 1970s, the CIA created a group of drug dealing, gun running, political criminals. Through the cocaine trade, these criminals would eventually become more powerful than the politicians they were connected to. The CIA destabilization program did not only destabilize Jamaica in the 70s, but it destabilized Jamaica for the next 40 years. Given the secrecy of both CIA and Jamaican society, it is unclear exactly what was the CIA’s role in creating the Shower Posse. Did they give them guns? Were they given cocaine? Were they trained how to smuggle drugs? Did the CIA use the Shower Posse to try and kill Bob Marley? These are all questions that the CIA should answer.

If what is alleged about the CIA is true, then they are partially responsible for the cycle of gun trafficking, gun smuggling and violence that plagues Jamaica today. If the US can extradite the son of one of the CIA’s political enforcers for trafficking guns and cocaine, shouldn’t the CIA be investigated for training Jamaicans on how to conduct political warfare, arming them, giving them cocaine and helping them traffic it? Given the revelation that the CIA allowed Nicaraguan drug dealers to sell cocaine in the US to fund their revolution against their communist government, it is not that far fetched to believe that they would arm Jamaicans to with guns and give them cocaine to fight communists in Jamaica." [Source]

Hmmm, sounds a lot like another plan to use cocaine for something other than snorting.  

Hurricane Sam was worse

"January 4: The Us secretary of State, Henry Kissinger , left Jamaica , unsuccessful in his mission to dissuade Manley from supporting the presence of Cuban troops in Angola. Despite this failure, he assured Manley that there was no CIA interference in Jamaica, but did not add that the CIA station in Kingston had just been strengthened by the arrival of a new chief, Norman Descoteaux, a man with recent field experience in Argentina and Ecuador where it was thought other destabilisation campaigns had previously taken place. "

I wasn't going to post today. But as I sit here in the comfort of my Northeast Philly home, one eye on my phone, and the other on CNN, I am scared for my country, my family, and my friends that are down in Jamaica. Hurricane Dean is making a bee line for the country I love like no other. It is intent on a path of destruction and mayhem. I am not a praying person, but for those of you who are;please do what you do and send up a request to whatever god you happen to believe in.

I was also thinking about something my man Chris-that increasingly angry black man, and Princeton grad-said in the comments section of my last post. Chris waxed poetic about the poverty and lawlessness which is at times prevalent in the island, and the politicians there who far too often line their own pockets at the expense of the masses. I am here to tell you that some of what Chris said is actually true. I am sitting here lamenting over 260 murders in Philly, a city of 1.5 million people, when I know damn good and well, that just recently, the murder count in Jamaica topped 1,000. And Jamaica is a country of about 3 million people. And I am, also aware of the gap between the have and have nots in Jamaica, which clearly makes it a Third World country.

But I have to respectfully disagree with Chris about all the real causes for Jamaica's problems, because I think that I am in a unique position to address it. In the mid seventies, I was a youngster growing up in Jamaica. I lived through the brain drain and the flight of the islands wealthy, and powerful financial class. Honestly, my family could have left too, but we didn't. Primarily because of my father's commitment to his work, and his love for his island home. But I saw it first hand. The destabilization, the CIA supplying guns and ammo to the gangs of the opposition Jamaica Labor Party, and the IMF's cruel, impractical, and unrealistic demands on the Jamaican banks and its government.

"But field why would the U.S. care about destabilizing the Jamaican government and bringing it to its knees? Isn't Jamaica just a happy go lucky tourist destination where we go to hear some reggae music, and if you are so inclined smoke a little ganja every now and then?" Good question, but the answer is a rather simple one. Ideology. You see, the leader of Jamaica at the time, was a man by the name of Michael Manley. A man, who contrary to what Chris alleged about the typical Jamaican politician, actually cared about his people, and their plight. Michael Manley was; gasp, a Socialist! He believed that the islands wealthy class should pay more taxes, and things like literacy training, and proper health care should be made more affordable to all Jamaicans. He believed that Jamaica should work closely with our neighbors to the North, the Cubans. He believed that Fidel Castro and the Cubans, actually had some good ideas that the Jamaican government should adopt. He cross trained Jamaican dentist and doctors in Cuba. (free of charge thanks to the Cuban government) With the help of the Cuban government micro dams were built, agricultural schools were started, and many of Jamaica's poor actually started to see their lives improve. But alas, America could not have that; nope, not another Socialist country so close to our shores. Michael Manley had to be stopped. So what did Washington do? Well, not only did they, along with the other G7 countries and the IMF, put some draconian policies in place to control the Jamaican governments spending, but they unleashed the CIA and its agents like Phillip Agee on the Jamaican political scene, and they wreaked their havoc from a street level. What followed were political gang wars and fighting of unprecedented proportions. Chris, I know of what I speak, I lived through it. Honestly, it's what shapes my views of politics to this day. The term politics is a "blood sport" takes on a literal meaning for me.

"In Washington they just looked at us and said, 'No, no, no. Your inflation last year was 18% and we are not allowing you to lend to your farmers at 12%. You must charge 23%.'" That's what Michael Manley said at the height of his frustrations with Washington. His hands were tied, and Washington wanted it that way.

So as another hurricane goes barrelling towards Jamaica to do unprecedented damage, let's not forget another metaphorical Hurricane that hit my Island home about thirty years ago. With all due respect to the National Hurricane Service, I will call it Hurricane Sam, as in Uncle Sam. We still haven't recovered from that one, and it's effects will be felt long after the clean up from Dean is over.

Thank you Mr. Kissinger.