Thursday, June 17, 2010

Cubezuela

I know most of you don’t care about foreign affairs, but this one is kind of interesting. Ever since Castro came to power, he’s been trying to spread his revolution around the world. They’ve funded and supplied leftist rebels throughout South and Central America. They sent troops to Angola. And now, it looks like they’ve conquered Venezuela. Seriously.

When Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, he did so democratically and with the backing of the vast number of peasants in Venezuela. Since that time, he’s signed all kinds of bilateral agreements with Cuba where Cuba provided technical know-how and advisors in exchange for oil, oil which bankrupt Cuba desperately needs since it lost its Soviet backers.

So how many Cubans are we talking about? At last count, Cuba has about 40,000 “advisors” in Venezuela. What’s more, they seem to be running the place. Here are some of things the Cubans control:

• Cubans control the training of the national police, an organization created last year and modeled on the Cuban secret police.

• Cuban agents occupy key posts in Venezuela’s military intelligence agency.

• Cubans built the digital radio communications system used by the security forces, which gives them access to antenna locations and radio frequencies.

• Cubans run the electrical system.

• Cubans control the ports.

• Cubans designed and control the computerized identification card system, which includes personal information on all residents.

• Cubans designed and control the passport control and immigration systems.

• Cubans designed and control the health care system.

• Cubans designed and control the public registries, the business registries, and the notary system.
In fact, Cuban control is so thorough that Cuban advisors are known to wield more power than the Venezuelan officials whom they supposedly advise. Coffee growers, for example, say they answer directly to Cuba’s former trade minister Barbara Castillo, rather than the Venezuelans who supposedly run the trade ministry.

In another example, the former Venezuelan ambassador to the U.N. protested the seizure of his farm by turning over his ownership documents to the Cuban embassy rather than the Venezuelan authorities.

Chavez himself accidentally acknowledged this reality last year when he announced that a large number of medical clinics would be closing. His slip up was admitting that he had heard about this from Castro, rather than any Venezuelan officials, because data from the medical system goes to Cuba before it gets released to the Venezuelan government.

Chavez tries to downplay this, saying that: “Cuba helps us modestly with some things that I’m not going to detail. Everything Cuba does for Venezuela is to strengthen the homeland.”

But others aren’t buying it. Froilan Barrios of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers says that the “oil and petrochemicals [industries] are completely penetrated by Cuban G2,” which is Castro’s intelligence service. He also says that when they threatened a strike in the oil industry, Cuban officials threatened them. Coincidentally, Venezuela sends 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba. Moreover, the government will not allow the unionization of worksites run by the Cubans.

The military isn’t happy about this either. Former Brigadier General Antonio Rivero resigned in protest because of the control Cuba exerts over their military. Says Rivero, “They’ve crossed a line. They’ve gone beyond what should be permitted and what an alliance should be.” He specifically complains about Cuban officials running high level meetings, training snipers, and establishing a system of bunkers around the country where weapons are being concealed. He speculates that if Chavez loses in the next election, the Cubans could “become part of a guerrilla force.”

Interestingly, when Chavez flies to Cuba, he does so on board Cuban military jets. He also uses Cuban intelligence to spy on dissidents.

Castro and Chavez even got a time share on Sean Penn’s affections.

Sounds like a puppet state to me.


22 comments:

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

The phrase 'Hoisted by his own petard.' comes to mind. :)

Cuckold does as well. Impotent, cheating, adulterous to name a few more.

With Chavez, the Venezuelans could at least say, "It is my own country man who is effing me over." Now...... :)

I am sorry if I offended anyone, but this is just too funny. Hehehehe.

Unknown said...

Andrew: Gerald Ford probably lost his reelection bid because he couldn't recognize or define a satellite nation. When he slipped and said that Poland was not a captive nation of the Soviet Union, he lost a huge portion of the electorate.

Latin American voters other than Mexicans and Cubans do not comprise a large enough segment of the voting population to make that kind of difference for Obama--unfortunately. But right now, he's two for two in denial of the insidious influence of Cuba in Central and South America. He supported the Cuba-friendly Zelaya in Honduras, and failed. He supports the Cuba-friendly party in Ecuador, and with the help of his bumbling Secretary of State, may succeed. But either way, the Messiah's reelection probably won't rise or fall because of his pro-communist stand on Castro-type governments south of the border.

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, I think "hoisted by their own petard" is good enough. They really have gotten themselves in trouble, but this is what happens when you deal with dictators.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, Good point about Ford. I also don't think this will hurt Obama at the polls, but it should. This is the kind of thing he should be paying attention to and he should be actively working to stop it from spreading anywhere else in the world -- not supporting Cuba-sponsored dictators in Honduras and Ecuador and wherever else they are working to gain power. This isn't a problem yet (except for the people of Venezuela, but it could be if we don't watch it).

CrispyRice said...

OMG, Andrew, how do you manage to keep tabs on all this stuff? (Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you do!)

You know, just when you figured that Cuba was finally on its last legs, it seems to have found a lifeline. Ugh. This does not bode well.

AndrewPrice said...

Crispy, LOL! It's just stuff we pick up here and there!

You're right about Cuba too. Everyone was hoping that they would finally be finished, that their government would fall and they would turn into some sort of democracy. But, sadly, this means that they've got another whole country to plunder, which will sustain them for at least another generation.

This is the sort of thing that really does not firm action.

MegaTroll said...

Wow! You never hear this kind of information from the MSM. This is the kind of story that should be on the evening news.

AndrewPrice said...

Mega, I agree. This is the kind of information that could one day blow up on us. And it's not like this information isn't out there, I found it. But the MSM just doesn't care about anything that isn't politics or celebrity related these days.

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

I do like the foreign news articles on Commentarama, by the way. I would love for mainstream American news outlets to do more stories on world events, and not just the World Cup or the Olypmics or the natural disaster of the week.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Pitts! I'm glad you like the foreign policy stuff, because we don't really intend to stop -- foreign policy issues can often have more effect on our country that even some of the hot button political issues that the MSM obsesses over.

Take this one for example. If Cuba controls Venezuela, and it gets its hands on Ecuador and Honduras, and it's aiming for Columbia. . . suddenly we're looking at a huge "power block" in the Southern Hemisphere that is both anti-American and militarily aggressive. That's the kind of combination that can completely disrupt all of Central and Southern America and cause us serious problems.

Or consider the issue of China in Africa, which I wrote about before, which could endanger our oil supply.

These issues are important.

StanH said...

Hey! …I wonder if Castro will get the Venezuelans into 1950’s Chevys? One can hope.

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, How funny would that be -- two countries in the world where 1950s Chevy rule to roads! Of course, the problem with that is that Venezuela has already moved beyond the 1950s. So they would be stuck with 2005 Chevys, which would ruin the effect! ;-)

Ed said...

Interesting stuff, even if it is foreign news. ;-)

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Ed. I think it's interesting.

Anonymous said...

Keep doing the foreign policy articles. I need to get this news somewhere!

Ponderosa said...

To expand on what Mega said.

If I do see a foreign news story by the MSM - I know it is full of half-truths. But I won't have any way of knowing what to believe.

It is a question of trust not interest level. Keep 'em coming.

Tennessee Jed said...

It looks to me like you have found the makings of a nice new leftist tee shirt!;-)!

AndrewPrice said...

Anon, Thanks! We do our best to bring our readers all the interesting news we can find. And if the MSM won't do it, then we will.

AndrewPrice said...

Ponderosa, Thanks! I know exactly what you mean. So many times I hear foreign stories and I think, "something sounds wrong with that." Sometimes I know what's wrong because I've already see the rest of the story somewhere else, sometimes I just have to file it away until I can get a chance to find out what's real and what isn't. It's really pretty sad.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, Tell me about it. We could put the flag(s) (seen in the article) across the background. Then in the front we can put Castro's head and Chavez's head back to back. We might even be able to fit in Sean Penn's head. LOL!

tryanmax said...

Makes one wonder if there are any other Cuban satellites that we don't know about?

AndrewPrice said...

It does, doesn't it? This is so under the radar that it could be going on in each of the other countries with a leftist president and few people would know for sure.

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