.
The tragic Elian Gonzalez affair, which has been used so skillfully by the
Clinton administration (until the violent pre-dawn raid), will be used, mark
my words, for the appeasement of Fidel Castro and for trying to establish
normal relations with his brutal communist regime.
Defending Fidel Castro and his socialist regime ("Socialism or Death") has
been a passion for many journalists of the establishment's media since the
time of Herbert Matthews of The New York Times. This notorious apologist
interviewed Fidel Castro during his days in the Sierra Maestra in the years
1957-1958, when Castro was waging war against the Batista regime, and by
romanticizing and glorifying Fidel and his band of barbudos, Matthews paved
the road to tyranny in Cuba.
To many of us it is obvious why President Clinton would want normalization of
relations with Cuba. Besides his ideological affinity with Cuban socialism,
Clinton would transform overnight his legacy from improper relations with
"that woman, Monica Lewinsky" (as well as Paula Jones and all the other women
he has victimized) to that of being the president who normalized relations
with Cuba.
After all, President Richard Nixon's legacy was at least partially
rehabilitated by opening up Red China. Today trade with the Red Chinese is
supposedly being used as a geopolitical tool to bring China into "the
community of nations," the World Trade Organization, and to allow a smooth
transition to "economic and political freedom." President Nixon has been
given considerable credit for this development. Why couldn't Slick Willie do
better?
Yes, Bill Clinton would do even better than Richard Nixon did. Clinton may
have been the first elected U.S. president to be impeached by the House of
Representatives for high crimes and misdemeanors, but that could be forgotten
with a new legacy.
Normalization of relations with Cuba could catapult him from that
embarrassing historical notoriety to, perhaps, becoming the first American
elected secretary-general of the United Nations (traitor Alger Hiss was only
president of the U.N. founding conference in 1945), or he could be the second
U.S. president nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - i.e., for making peace
with a dictatorship with which we have been at political war for more than 40
years!
But even if Bill Clinton's reasons were purely ideological and not political,
it isn't as easy to discern why seemingly divergent groups of Americans,
influential Americans, are militating so stridently for normalization of
relations with the communist regime.
Among these divergent groups we find the establishment elite, the captains of
industry of the giant corporations who salivate at the thought of the profits
they may realize by opening trade with Cuba - among them, Citicorp, the
banking and financial behemoth, and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the giant
agricultural business, which has been leading the pack for the last six years.
There are others, but ADM has been at the forefront. Dwayne O. Andreas, its
chairman and CEO, has long been an advocate of lifting the Cuban embargo.
More recently, he has been identified as being "the financial angel" in
funding the much-publicized grandmothers' visit to Elián. And Charley Reese
in the Orlando Sentinel (April 23) reveals that Mr. Andreas has already
extensive commercial interests in Cuba, some of which may involve
exploitation of Cuban workers.
Clinton's impeachment attorney and now Juan Miguel González's counsel,
Gregory B. Craig (commanding an $800-an-hour fee paid by the Methodist
Church), belongs to the law firm that represents ADM as a client. Asked
specifically about Cuban political repression, the fact a half million Cubans
have passed through Fidel's political prisons since 1959 (according to
Freedom House), and Castro's overall shameful human rights record, Andreas
replied that he "didn't think about them" in his conversation with Fidel,
according to a Reader's Digest article, "Fawning over Fidel" (May 1996), by
veteran reporter Trevor Armbrister.
As to the accumulating evidence of Fidel's political executions? "That is for
the politicians to worry about," replies Andreas. Obviously, for these
corporations, profits come ahead of freedom. The irony is that without
freedom they would also lose their profits - as well as their liberties!
In 1995, Castro visited the United States to address the United Nations
during its 50th anniversary celebration. It was a visit that was quite
telling, as divergent groups came out to embrace him and sing his praises. He
was the honored guest at the Rockefeller family estate in New York. Yet,
because of peaceful but serious protests, the honorific invitation had to be
moved to the prestigious Pratt House, the headquarters for the Council of
Foreign Relations, on East 68th Street in Manhattan. At that confab, he was
met by retired Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller and a fawning
audience of internationalists.
Later, Castro visited and was feted and warmly received by real estate
developer and publishing magnate Mortimer Zuckerman and other media moguls
and opinion molders such as Barbara Walters, Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace and
scores of other media personalities. Castro called them "the cream of the
crop" and in return got a big hug and kiss from Diane Sawyer, the most
beautiful of them all.
And finally, during that visit, he was also honored at Harlem's Abyssinian
Baptist Church. There, he was proudly surrounded by U.S. Reps. Nydia M.
Velazquez, Charles Rangel and Jose Serrano - all New York Democrats and all
members of the extreme left-wing House Progressive Caucus. They are among the
58 U.S. representatives who belong to this group closely aligned to the
Democratic Socialists of America, the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist
Internationale, the proud heirs of the first Internationale in which Karl
Marx participated over a century ago.
All the members of the Progressive Caucus are Democrats, except for Bernie
Sanders, I-Vt., who makes no pretenses and is a self-avowed socialist.
Interestingly, some of these leaders, particularly some of those who are also
members of the Black Caucus, have blamed the CIA for pouring drugs into the
streets of L.A. and other cities and killing black youth.
Yet they embrace Castro and his brother, Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro,
who has been implicated for using drugs as an instrument of war against the
United States, as documented by Dr. Joseph Douglass in his book, "Red
Cocaine." In 1993, a federal court in Miami indicted Raul Castro for drug
trafficking. Neither Attorney General Janet Reno nor the Black Caucus has
asked for his extradition.
In Harlem, Castro was cheered and applauded by the roaring crowd yelling,
"Fidel, Fidel, Viva Cuba, Viva Cuba!" He was warmly bear-hugged by Rep.
Rangel and told by the presiding church minister that he was one of the
greatest leaders of the world and that they joined him in opposing the U.S.
blockade. Then the noted cleric consecrated Castro: "God bless you," he said,
although Castro is an atheist and Cuba officially is an atheist state where
the faithful are persecuted.
To this topsy-turvy insanity, my understanding for this admiration for Castro
and his regime can only come from Scripture in Romans 1:22-25: "Professing to
be wise, they became fools who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and
worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator."
***
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D., is editor-in-chief, Medical Sentinel of the
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and author of "Vandals at
the Gates of Medicine"(1995) and "Medical Warrior: Fighting Corporate
Socialized Medicine" (1997). To reach him:
P.O. Box 13648
Macon, Ga. 31208
(912) 757-9873
Fax (912) 757-9725
E-mail: hfaria@mindspring.com
Websites: http://www.haciendapub.com and http://www.aapsonline.org
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