We Saw It Happen: The Race Card Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit WE SAW IT HAPPEN: The Race Card by Alberto N. Jones THE CUBAN NATION, AUGUST 1-15, 2001 http://www.thecubannation.com/ Approximately seven years ago, I came across the first indications that a concerted and well-funded effort was underway, geared to divide the Cuban people along racial lines. Some friends and some well-intentioned people suggested I was overreacting. I was seeing ghosts or imagining things; in sum, I was a bit paranoid. Some ongoing unrelated issues caught my attention which, once they were placed into context with the Cuban development, revealed a striking similarity. The never-ending "religious" conflict in Northern Ireland, the sudden discovery by the people who bombed Iraq back into the stone age that what was not achieved with bombs could be done by inciting the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north to rise against their central government, are very illustrative. We saw it happen between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans. We saw it happen between the Hutus and the Tutsis and between the Misquitos and the Nicaraguan central government the U.S. Government disliked. We saw it many years ago when the Congo achieved its independence, which led to the murder of Lumumba and the annointment of Moishe Tshombe, later known as Mobutu Sese Seko, who ravished that country's economy and murdered its citizens, but was then allowed to move into his palace, like a Bishop, upon retirement. We saw it happen in Indonesia, the Philippines, everywhere! Do we not have reason for concern that there was a real possibility that they were trying to do the same in Cuba, since the engine behind this deadly machine was the same one involved in the places listed above and many others? Irrespective of my personal feelings, views or thoughts about how to deal with the Cuban issue, as a son of that country I have the moral obligation not to sit idly by, to ignore, or be part of, the wishes, plots and destructive machinations of people who are not Cubans, or of those Cubans whose moral behavior has led them to forfeit all of their citizen's rights, not to remain silent and indirectly become an accomplice in a terrifying conspiracy that would lead our nation into a horrendous fratricidal war. No one has any God-given right to decide the future of the Cuban people! We may like or dislike the way they do things, but it is solely up to them -- the Cubans -- to accept, change or modify the type of government that they have. Frustrated, some "thinkers" have floated the idea that the Cuban people have not risen up in arms against the present government because they are cowed, they are afraid and without arms. Only people who don't have the slightest notion of the fiber the Cuban people are made of can make such a statement. No country in this hemisphere has fought harder or longer, has provided more martyrs, has shed more blood for its independence and sovereingty than Cuba. From the first uprising of the natives in the sixteenth century, the slave rebellions, the Ladder conspiracy, the struggle for independence in 1868 and 1995, the Blacks' rebellion and slaughter in 1912, to the 1933 revolution and the 1953 uprising against Fulgencio Batista and his cronies -- just a brief summary of our "fear." As a teenager living in Guantanamo in the mid '50s, part of the province of Oriente, the center of activity against the murdereous dictatorship of Batista, where his henchmen roamed the street armed to the teeth in an attempt to instill fear in everyone by detaining, beating, torturing, murdering and leaving the bodies of hundreds of the best of our youths by the roadside to rot, none of us stepped back. None of us walked away from the challenge. Tens of our schoolmates and friends paid the ultimate price. We remember thier ravaged bodies with their ripped-out fingernails, their plucked-out eyes and their cut-off genitalia. And today, some of those same murderers, who have found shelter, wealth and status in Miami, are now leading the flock of "born again" human rights advocates for Cuba. A month ago, the most notorious of these Cuban henchmen died peacefully in Miami. His body was blessed by one of the most vocal religious personalities in that community, who stridently demands religious freedom in Cuba. The sole mention of his name, Coronel Esteban Ventura Novo, sends shock waves down the spines of everyone who lived through those endless days. The V Police Station unit that he headed became the best-known torture chamber during the Batista regime -- for which reason, as the new government took office, it was immediately razed and turned into a park to honor its victims. Still, these henchmen were not sufficient to dissuade our youths from overthrowing that corrupt regime. I remember once at a meeting, when the question was raised about where to get weapons and Zuniga, the leader of the group said, "We will take it away from those who have it, the military," and that was done. That's why it is easy for Cubans to identify where a statement originates. Real Cubans know better than that. For the past 40 years, all imaginable tactics, plots, conspiracies and methods which are fit for science fiction have been applied in a effort to overthrow the Cuban government. Having failed, they are now desperately attempting to enlist the Afro-Cuban community -- the same community they segregated, despised, rendered hopeless in Cuba prior to 1959. They have since re-applied their expertise to decimate the Afro-American community in Miami. With the dramatic demographic changes in Cuba, in which the Afro-Cuban community is the largest ethnic sector in a country in which 70% of its population was born after 1959, it is seemingly easy for them to attempt to capitalize on lingering inequalities, injustices and the urgent need for corrective measures to maladies that have been around since 1512. The opportunists now pretend to pick up the gauntlet and demand that these shortcomings be eradicated in 40 years. Shouldn't it be we, the Afro-Cuban community, who are most interested in solving these protracted, festering issues -- more than our recently found "sponsors," the Cuban American National Foundation and some of their mouthpieces, many of whom happen to be Black, on the outside? The media, symposiums, roundtables, radio talk shows, letters to the editor, communicators wandering the halls of centers of higher education, are all actively spreading these divisive initiatives. Arts expos, film festivals, music, an occasional sport defector, and the highlighting of any so-called "dissident" who happens to be Black, are symptoms of this coordinated campaign. Multiple Afro-Cuban associations are being formed to challenge the Cuban government's policies. Rather than offering moral and material support to different Afro-Cuban organizations in Cuba who are struggling to provide the most basic means of survival to their communities, these Afro-Cuban organizations in the United States are mostly interested in creating "their groups" in Cuba, in order to bribe, coerce and manipulate. Mr. Tom Carter, a writer for none other than the well-known Washington Times, wrote an article ["Cuban racial equality a myth; White minority has most power" (10/24/00)] that is symptomatic of the course many have embarked upon. He selectively chose statements provided by "scholars, Cubanologists and people who support Cuba's independence and sovereignty stance" to reflect his position. He did not mention the outrageous, outlandish and offensive statement at the same conference he describes, made by one of its participant, who stated categorically, that the only solution for the Cuban racial problem was the partition of the country, with Afro-Cubans living in the East and whites in the West. No mention was made about those of mixed races. Mr. Carter should know by now that such a statement constitutes in any country, a call to war, a serious crime punishable, in the United States, by the Justice Department. May I ask Mr Carter, what would have happened to the Japanese-American community in 1941, had they called for the creation of an independent state in Kentucky, Indiana or anywhere else in the United States? There is nothing that the Afro-Cuban community would need and appreciate more than someone who is honestly and sincerely concerned with our problems. But when we see that our problems are being used, manipulated in order to achieve other objectives, we are deeply hurt. Are Afro Cubans a different type of people descended from Africa? Why this special dispensation for our real, lingering shortcomings -- when nothing is done or said about worse problems affecting people of African ancestry living elsewhere? Can we have these anthropologists, sociologists, and members of all of these groups described above assess and report on the status of Blacks in the Americas? Will Afro-Cubans be at the bottom of the pit, as they attempt to imply? General Antonio Maceo, the greatest son of Africa ever to live in Cuba, warned us about these dangers. He eloquently described in 1895 "the dangers of contracting a debt of gratitude with such a powerful neighbor." General Maceo taught us that a distinction must be made and principles must be kept. In his prophetic statements anticipating the involvement of the United States in Cuba's War of Independence, he stated: "After fighting against the Spanish occupying forces for more than thirty years, if Cuban soil was ever invaded by United States forces, I would align my sword with the Spanish forces until the invaders were pushed back into the sea, at which time I would resume my struggle against Spain." It is therefore clear: We Cubans in general, and Afro-Cubans in particular, have a road map, a guide, as to the standards to which we will be held accountable. Contrary to all our teachings, there is no argument, no reason, no explanation capable of justifing what happened last week, when a delegation of Afro-Cubans, supposedly preoccupied with and interested in improving the plight of the Afro-Cuban community in Cuba, travelled to Washington and visited the Congressional Black Caucus -- under the auspices of no one else but the Cuban American National Foundation. This organization, which negated for many years the existence of Blacks in Cuba? This organization, whose members have never visited Overtwon or Allapath? This organization, which supported the disgraceful offensive behavior of the City of Miami did toward Nelson Mandela? This organization, whose Board of Directors has no Blacks and is saturated with the landlords, who literally enslaved the Afro-Cuban community in Cuba and enforced some of the most vicious racism in this hemisphere? This organization, which ejected one of their own members, because a Black person could not occupy such a public position? Should I need to provide more specifics? This organization, that has sided with and has financially supported all the white and hispanic police in Miami who have murdered black people, even an invalid? This organization, in which so many members of its Board of Directors -- by controlling most of the financial sectors in South Florida -- have a direct hand in decimating the Afro-American community in Miami? This organization, whose hands were all over the recent questionable electoral process, in which, thousands of Afro-Americans were denied their most basic rights? No, it could not seem to be true. History taught us that we should rise or fall by our own ability, never by subjecting ourselves to debts of gratitude that we may not be able to live with. Rather than travel to Washington to do the dirty work of the Cuban American National Foundation, I think my brothers and sisters who mistakenly participated in this regretful attempt to separate the Congressional Black Caucus from the eleven million Cubans living on the island could instead have traveled to Fort Lauderdale to comfort the 14-year-oldchild who has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for killing his teacher. Rather than trying to convince any member of the Black Caucus, they could have tried to establish the root cause of this tragedy, develop preventive measures in order to avoid a repetition. Rather than traveling to Washington, they could have flown to Cincinnati to look into the violence that caused the death of more than 20 Blacks in a month. Rather than accepting money from the Federal Government to subvert our people and lay the groundwork for bloodshed, they could use some of that money to help thousands of homeless in their own communities. Rather than theorizing and writing articles and papers, they could visit any of our neighboring islands in the Caribbean and extend a helping hand to people really in need. Rather than speaking on behalf of Afro-Cubans who are suffering badly in Cuba -- in part as a direct result of the brutal, 40-year-old embargo imposed on that nation, which many civil libertarians support -- they could stop by Parramore in Orlando and share an evening with our hopeless brothers. These are some of the reasons why, without questioning the intent or attempting to read the minds of people who join such questionable groups, it becomes increasingly clear that behind the Race Card, there is an hidden ulterior motive. Every Cuban has the constitutional right to bear arms against wrongs perceived or imposed by any government on our people. It has happened many times before. What none of us should conscientiously do is to lend a hand to, or become a vehicle of, despicable actions by others, or try to emulate and become another Narciso Lopez of our contemporary history. 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