Cuban defectors

[arcticpenguin]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-02-07-cuba-defectors_x.htm

Four Cuban Coast Guard officers defected. They docked their patrol boat in Key West and looked for a police officer to whom they could surrender.

[Thumper]

You know,... Originally, Castro had a really good idea. He brought a lot of happiness to his people. He brought them out of the gutters. He gave them literacy and healthcare. He was their hero for a good reason.

This is an awesome example of what happens when a country is not allowed to grow and change, of what happens when it is ruled by a single personality.

Hopefully, things will change soon.

[Smalso]

Originally posted by Thumper
You know,... Originally, Castro had a really good idea. He brought a lot of happiness to his people. He brought them out of the gutters. He gave them literacy and healthcare. He was their hero for a good reason.

This is an awesome example of what happens when a country is not allowed to grow and change, of what happens when it is ruled by a single personality.

Hopefully, things will change soon.

That's not exactly the way I remember it happening.

Originally posted by Thumper
You know,... Originally, Castro had a really good idea. He brought a lot of happiness to his people. He brought them out of the gutters. He gave them literacy and healthcare. He was their hero for a good reason.

This is an awesome example of what happens when a country is not allowed to grow and change, of what happens when it is ruled by a single personality.

Hopefully, things will change soon.

You know, Saddam Hussein raised the literacy level in Iraq, too. And hospitals. In fact, Hussein received an award from the U.N. in the 70s (I think) for his literacy work.

Of course, it didn't help the guys down in the torture chambers or in front of the firing squads much.....

I was stationed in Gitmo for three years. Every once in a while, a Cuban would defect. Sometimes quite dramatically. Our base was surrounded by the world's largest active minefield. These Cubans would risk their lives crawling or running through them to get to us.

Most of the time, they didn't make it. Every once in a while you would hear a large explosion and see a mushroom cloud. I would silently hope it had been a deer each time.

Our Marines were not allowed to assist someone on the run until they reached our side of the fence. Once/If a defector managed to make it to our side, the closest Marine would "capture" him, and receive an instant promotion.

I was responsible for a transmitter site right on the fenceline. There was a guard tower there. One day I went up to the site, and the young marine (18 years old!) told me he had just seen an attempted defection.

For some months, the Cubans had been building an additional fence inside their fence. As it was nearing completion, one of the fence builders suddenly made a dash for our side. The other Cubans opened up on him with automatic weapons. Just a few feet from our young Marine. Not a damn thing he could do.

In the 60s, there were about 500 Cubans working on our base. Each day, they would come from the Cuban side, strip down inside a concrete building, put on clothes provided by the U.S., walk through a concrete cattle run, and come to work on the base. At the end of the day, the process was reversed.

By the time I was stationed there in the 80s, there were only 50 Cubans left. As each one retired, Castro would not allow someone to come in their place. So we supplemented the losses with Jamaicans.

On the day of their retirement, a Cuban was allowed to make whatever purchases they wanted at our Exchange store and bring those items back with them to Cuba.

If a Cuban chose to defect, they were given a house on the base, and lived there the rest of their lives. And the base was only 37 square miles, half of which was bombing range. Their children were offered American citizenship.

I met a woman there in her 30s who had been born on the base. Her dad was a defector. She went to America in her twenties and stayed for about 7 months. She couldn't stand it. She was used to the small town community atmosphere of Gitmo.

Strange, eh?

[Smalso]

Interesting antecdotes, Luke. A lot of the same things happened at the wall in Berlin. And look what happened in China when the military had to be called in to put a stop to all those students wanting freedom. Seems to me, all is not well in the people's paradises.

[subgenius]

The policy of the US to Cuba is counter-productive. If we engaged them economically, flooding the countryside with cash and goodwill Castro would have become irrelevent long ago.
We have kept him in power by being the out-group threat he needed to create in-group solidarity/power.
He will become dust soon, and the country will change so fast it'll make our heads spin.

[Iwentsouth]

Cuba recieved many times the financial assitance from the USSR then Europe did under the Marshall plan.

Cuba trades with most the world already.

Trying to say the US has something to do with Cubas financial situation doesn't make sense.

Of course Cubans can read =)

Too bad they can not choose what they read.

[LucienVanImpe]

Looks like Fidel found himself a new Hollywood buddy:

Amigos: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2003/02/08/stone/index_np.html

Is it just me, or could Oliver easily get a moonlight gig as a Saddam Hussein doppelganger?

[Supercharts]

What's interesting is how the US let them in.
I thought the US had radar and tracked everything off the coast of Florida.
So did the US let them in or was is a case of not watching?

Originally posted by Supercharts
What's interesting is how the US let them in.
I thought the US had radar and tracked everything off the coast of Florida.
So did the US let them in or was is a case of not watching?

A small boat won't really show up that well on radar, if at all. And since it was Florida, how can you tell one boat from another on radar? Lots and lots of pleasure craft out there.

Originally posted by subgenius
The policy of the US to Cuba is counter-productive. If we engaged them economically, flooding the countryside with cash and goodwill Castro would have become irrelevent long ago.
We have kept him in power by being the out-group threat he needed to create in-group solidarity/power.
He will become dust soon, and the country will change so fast it'll make our heads spin.

It won't change at all. His brother will take over. And he is worse than Fidel.