A Flag that Represents the Castro Regime

The Castro Regime Flag

 This flag represents the Castro dictatorship. After 55 years in power this regime should have a flag that accurately represents its legacy and the impact it has had on Cuba domestically and in the world.

The three blue stripes, no longer represent the original three provinces. They now represent the bodies of water that surround Cuba, where there are estimates that it is a watery grave for as many as 100,000 Cubans who have died fleeing the dictatorship, the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic, and Caribbean. The red color is the innocent blood shed to keep the dictatorship in power. Flag designers debated whether or not headstones should be included in the blue for the watery graves.

The skull and cross bones have a triple meaning. The obvious is that it signifies death which has been a driving force of the Castro regime for the past 55 years but also a warning that this country has been occupied by a poisonous ideology and lastly the pirate nature of the regime looking for plunder in other lands (like Venezuela).

The black stripes signify the totalitarian pollution visited on Cubans by the dictatorship. Dividing families, forcing children to spy on their parents.

Finally the red triangle is a warning sign that combined with the skull also signifies that this is a dangerous area. Under the Castro regime cholera has become a persistent problem that the dictatorship under reports.

Castro Incorporated will most likely not adopt this flag but nevertheless it does represent their legacy. Please share it with others when discussing the dictatorship.

Huber Matos Benítez: Requiescat in pace

Huber Matos Benítez spoke truth to power 55 years ago and it cost him 22 years in prison. He emerged defiant and continued to fight on for another 35 years. He went on to write his memoirs and continued in the battle for a free Cuba until age 95. His final words were: "The struggle continues. Long Live Free Cuba!" Below is an interview conducted by Free Cuba Foundation members in 2009 about his courageous stand in 1959.

Vigil for Victims of Castro and Maduro held at FIU on #24F

Silent Vigil for Justice on February 24, 2014 between 3:21pm and 3:27pm

 On February 24, 2014 starting at 3:21pm and ending promptly at 3:27pm there was a moment of silence for the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown that claimed the lives of Armando, Carlos, Mario and Pablo. This year we once again recognized and honored prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died on hunger strike on February 23, 2010.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights published the most complete report on the February 24, 1996 shoot down and is available online.



Tragically, over the past two weeks at least 12 Venezuelan students have been murdered by agents of the Maduro regime in Caracas which is a puppet of the Castro regime in Havana. Therefore today we also prayed for them all and specifically for Bassil, Roberto, José Ernesto, and Génesis. We recognized their sacrifice and prayed for justice.

Following the vigil Miriam de la Peña whose own son, (Mario de la Peña) was murdered by the Castro regime spoke about the violence taking place against the students in Venezuela.



Below is a copy of the flier we distributed on campus:

#24F Silent Vigil for Justice at FIU

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr. 

"Violence is the tool of he who does not have reason."- Leopoldo Lopez , youtube video released after his arrest on February 19, 2014

 

On February 24, 2014 at beginning at 3:21pm and ending at 3:27pm we will be holding a silent vigil to demand justice for the four victims of the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down that took place 18 years ago today, and for the students murdered by agents of the Maduro puppet regime in Venezuela over the past two weeks, and finally in remembrance of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the Cuban hunger striker who died on February 23, 2010 after years of torture. This vigil will be held were it has been for the past 18 years at the main fountain at Florida International University at the campus located on 107th Ave. and SW 8 St. This is an open invitation for FIU students and members of the university community.  

Orlando Zapata Tamayo: Four years later

"I come on behalf of the 75, I come in the name of Freedom ... Long live the internal opposition. Long live the Ladies in White"... On the anniversary of our murdered brothers, our brothers sunk on July 13, 1994, our brothers of February 24th ... and on behalf of all of Cuba and the exile, long live the homeland of Varela, of Marti, of George Washington, of Barack Obama, democratic and free forever. Long live a Free Cuba. Down with Fidel Castro. " - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, 2009 from a Cuban prison

Orlando Zapata Tamayo (1967 - 2010)

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born on May 15, 1967 and died a victim of the Castro regime on February 23, 2010. He was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and as a human rights defender collected signatures for the Varela Project collaborating with Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and the Christian Liberation Movement. Orlando Zapata also collaborated closely with Oscar Elias Biscet and took part in teach-ins on human rights in what were called "human rights circles".  It is important to mention this because the Cuban dictatorship has engaged in a slander campaign against this man.

Oswaldo Payá pays homage to Orlando Zapata in 2010

 Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas had campaigned to save the life of Orlando Zapata and spoke out on his behalf in a Spanish television program in January of 2010, a month prior to his death. Tragically, two and a half years after Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death, on July 22, 2012 Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero were killed under suspicious circumstances that implicate State Security.



*Original text in Spanish: "Vengo en nombre de los 75, Vengo en nombre de la Libertad ...  Viva la oposición interna. Vivan las Damas de Blanco". ...En el aniversario de nuestros hermanos asesinado, nuestros hermanos hundido el 13 de julio del 1994, nuestro hermanos del 24 de febrero ... y en nombre de todos y del exilio de Cuba, viva la patria de Varela, de Martí, de George Washington, de Barack Obama, libre y democrática para siempre. Viva Cuba Libre. Abajo Fidel Castro".

Castro's killing of innocents: Then and Now

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Two groups of young people separated by 18 years and hundreds of miles but joined together in two fundamental ways.

First, they all decided to serve their neighbor. They took a stand.

Mario, Armando, Carlos, and Pablo were members of Brothers to the Rescue an organization that searched the Florida Straights providing life saving water and food to fleeing rafters. Brothers to the Rescue saved thousands of lives in the 1990s. 

Bassil, Roberto, José Ernesto, and Génesis took to the streets to demonstrate in favor of human rights and a democratic restoration of their homeland. Millions of young people are challenging the totalitarian trend of Venezuela and at this hour are all that stand between Venezuela becoming a totalitarian dictatorship. 

These eight young people took a stand to serve others. 

This is one thing that they have in common.

The second is that all were murdered on the orders of agents of the Castro dictatorship in the month of February. 

We will remember and honor them in a moment of silence at Florida International University on February 24, 1996 between 3:21pm and 3:27pm at the main fountain.

You are welcome to join us. No speeches. No noise. Just silence and reflection during that time to honor those who took a stand to help others.

Join silent vigil for victims of Castro and Maduro regimes

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"Violence is the tool of he who does not have reason."- Leopoldo Lopez , youtube video released after his arrest on February 19, 2014

Students murdered by Chavistas during student marches

On February 24, 2014 at beginning at 3:21pm and ending at 3:27pm we will be holding a silent vigil to demand justice for the students murdered by agents of Maduro and Castro in Venezuela over the past two weeks, the victims of the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, the Cuban hunger striker who died in 2010 after years of torture and humiliation. We will also be calling for the freedom of  activists in Venezuela and in Cuba who have had their homes invaded and searched by government agents without search warrants. This vigil will be held were it has been for the past 18 years at the main fountain at Florida International University at the campus located on 107th Ave. and SW 8 St. This is an open invitation for FIU students and members of the university community. 

Our prayers and thoughts are with Venezuela's students as they stand up and take to the streets in defense of their freedom. We mourn with them the murders of Bassil Da Costa (age 24), Roberto Redman (age 31) both shot in the head and killed and José Ernesto Méndez (age 17) run over by a car driven by a Chavez supporter. They were all protesting the Maduro regime and the Cuban presence in the country. In one of life's tragic ironies, hours before he was killed Roberto had carried the lifeless body of Bassil and tweeted it only to be gunned down hours later by agents of the Maduro regime. Others have been grievously wounded such as Génesis Carmona (age 22) shot in head by motorized paramilitaries called "colectivos" that have been firing on the nonviolent student demonstrators is fighting for her life in a Venezuelan hospital.

Génesis Carmona: Shot in the head in Caracas on 2/18/14

Now Amnesty International is calling for an investigation into the demonstration deaths in Venezuela as it did 20 years ago in the "13 de Marzo"tugboat killings in Cuba.

For the past 55 years Cubans have suffered under a totalitarian dictatorship that has killed many in Cuba, but the regime did not limit itself to the substantial body count in the island, that included massacres of fleeing refugees, but also went abroad and assisted war criminals such as Mengistu Haile Mariam to carry out a genocide in Ethiopia in the 1970s and early 80s that went into the hundreds of thousands. Bob Marley, the legendary reggae singer, denounced the Castro dictatorship at the time.

Since the presidency of Hugo Chavez, the dictatorship in Cuba has been sending soldiers to Venezuela and reshaping the Venezuelan military along the Castro model which seeks to divide and crush dissent. In 2010, the New York Times reported on concerns raised about Cuban infiltration of Venezuela's military. The concerns were well grounded. Today, Venezuelan students are being arbitrarily detained, tortured, shot in the head, and disappeared for nonviolently demonstrating their desires for a free Venezuela. The patterns of repression are familiar to Cubans because they were designed in Havana.

Unfortunately, now we share in the month of February not only patriotic dates from the wars of independence from Spain, but also of martyrs murdered by agents of the Cuban dictatorship and the man who was selected in Havana to be the next president of Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro.

Over the past 20 years we have held silent vigils at Florida International University, first for the victims of the "13 de Marzo"tugboat massacre that took place on July 13, 1994,  but beginning in 1996 in the month of February we have held a silent vigils for the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down that claimed the lives of four humanitarians: Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre who sought to save the lives of rafters in the Florida Straits on the orders of Fidel and Raul Castro. On February 23, 2010, Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after a prolonged hunger strike in reaction to numerous beatings and acts of torture that drove him to that extreme protest. Right now a Cuban democratic opposition leader has been on hunger strike since February 10, 2014 protesting the abuses of the Castro dictatorship and fear for his life.

Yesterday, we heard the words of Leopoldo Lopez before turning himself over to the regime that had slandered his name and accused him of fleeing Venezuela in the previous days addressed an audience of tens of thousands who turned out to march alongside him:

"Well brothers and sisters I ask you to continue in this fight and do not leave the street, to assume our right to protest, but to do it in peace and without violence, I ask that us, all of us that are here, all of the Venezuelans that want a change, to get informed, educated, organized, and to execute non-violent protests, the protests of masses, and the will of souls and hearts that want to change, but without hurting your neighbor. "

 There is no better way to observe the Season of Nonviolence then discovering a new nonviolent exemplar to emulate while at the same time gathering on February 24th in a silent and nonviolent demonstration demanding justice for the victims of these two regimes and freedom for Antunez and Leopoldo.