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Re: Cuba’s bloggers are as sharp abroad as at home
“On April 1, 1980, twelve Cubans traveling in a bus smashed through the gates of the Peruvian embassy with the purpose of seeking asylum.”
A Cuban soldier stands by a refugee ship at the port of Mariel on April 23, 1980, as the refugees aboard wait to sail for U.S., where they hope to start new lives. | Jacque Langevin/AP Photo
This incident caused the stampede of 10,834 Cubans that fleeing from oppression, voted with their feet entering into the Embassy grounds, after Castro removed the guards protecting the Embassy. The social pressure became so great that Castro on April 20, announces that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the U.S. are free to board boats at the port of Mariel. Cuban exiles in the U.S. hire boats to go to Cuba and rescue their relatives. A total of 125,000 Cubans fled the island and their arrival on the U.S. created problems for the Carter administration, forcing it to declare a state of emergency on some Florida counties. The Castro regime released around 5,000 jailed criminals and mentally ill inmates, homosexual and prostitutes, forcing them to leave with the refugees. To validate his action Castro said that that the Cubans leaving the island were counter-revolutionaries who needed to be purged because they could never prove productive to the nation. The immigration crisis contributed to Carter losing the election to Ronald Reagan.
That's how devil pays those who served him well.
The Peru Embassy crisis and the Mariel BoatliftNostalgia For The Cage Of The ‘80s
Nostalgia For The Cage Of The ‘80s | Generation Y
Posted on April 22, 2019 by Yoani-Sánchez
The ‘80s were also years of experiments and official programs marked by the voluntarism of Fidel Castro. Headline: “Now We Are Going to Build Socialism!” (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 22 April 2019 — That day I did not want to watch national television but rather some documentary on the ‘Weekly Packet’, but when I turned on the screen there was Ramiro Valdés, speaking before the National Assembly about the “diversion of resources,” the official euphemism used to talk about stealing from the State, and how “ethical values” had deteriorated in Cuban society with the arrival of the Special Period. In his tone and choice of words there was a nostalgia for the 80s, for that “golden” decade before the economic crisis.
I perceive a similar recollection in many Cubans over 40, who consider that time as the best we have experienced in the last 60 years of socialism on the island. The longing leads them to see everything that happened in that decade through rose-colored glasses. With a highly selective memory they remember markets full of products, bread and eggs for sale freely without having to go through the rationed market, an average salary being enough to feed a family, and public transport operating with numerous routes and sufficient vehicles.
They forget the shadows of those years and only emphasize the lights. Their melancholy over the lass of those times ignores the control the Plaza of the Revolution exercised over every aspect of our individual lives. Those were the years when we could shop only in state stores, watch only the television controlled by the Communist Party, and travel outside the country only on official missions. Every pair of pants, shoes or shirt that we wore had been acquired through the ration card controlling industrial products, as had been any furniture in our homes not inherited from parents or grandparents.
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“On April 1, 1980, twelve Cubans traveling in a bus smashed through the gates of the Peruvian embassy with the purpose of seeking asylum.”
A Cuban soldier stands by a refugee ship at the port of Mariel on April 23, 1980, as the refugees aboard wait to sail for U.S., where they hope to start new lives. | Jacque Langevin/AP Photo
This incident caused the stampede of 10,834 Cubans that fleeing from oppression, voted with their feet entering into the Embassy grounds, after Castro removed the guards protecting the Embassy. The social pressure became so great that Castro on April 20, announces that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the U.S. are free to board boats at the port of Mariel. Cuban exiles in the U.S. hire boats to go to Cuba and rescue their relatives. A total of 125,000 Cubans fled the island and their arrival on the U.S. created problems for the Carter administration, forcing it to declare a state of emergency on some Florida counties. The Castro regime released around 5,000 jailed criminals and mentally ill inmates, homosexual and prostitutes, forcing them to leave with the refugees. To validate his action Castro said that that the Cubans leaving the island were counter-revolutionaries who needed to be purged because they could never prove productive to the nation. The immigration crisis contributed to Carter losing the election to Ronald Reagan.
That's how devil pays those who served him well.