Disinfo from 'Reason' about Che, Fidel, Congo Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [Ah, wonderful. Just in time for Carter's visit, a column has appeared in Reason, a conservative christian mag that gets some of its copy picked up fairly broadly, in which it is claimed that new Che Guevara diaries show that Che was a seething racist. The New York Times, meanwhile, runs a piece demonstrating quite clearly the seething racism of the living sitting President of the United States and his brother, Governor of Florida. The Guevaras distortion is blatant from the outset; his murder is presented as the action of a drunk: a man acting alone and not even in control. This is one of the more spectacular attempts I've noticed to completely distance the US government from its role in ordering the murder. The buttress against which the claim of racism rests, the diaries themselves, are actually quoted exactly *twice* in the column, and both quotes highlight Guevara's difficulties with the Congolese campaign -- but neither quote even mentions race. Next, I suppose, we'll get excerpts from Bolivian diaries presented as proof that Che was a self-hating Latin American. The most bizarre claim is that the diaries are being released now and written up so sloppily as part of a campaign by Cuba to discredit Che. Fidel, presumably, phoned the reporter at Reason to furnish his own insights and suggest that they invent falsehoods? It's wonderful how the 'free press' takes Cuban openness and twists it like taffy. In the meantime, this morning's Times runs an interesting counterpoint; the Times has an article which discusses the treatment of blacks in Florida under Bush, where they're kept warehoused in maximum security jails without charges. These black folks are Haitian emigres, who are again being detained indefinitely while the INS decides if they are at risk of murder in their homeland. While the bulk of these Haitians are likely economic refugees, as are the bulk of Cubans arriving in the US, unlike their Cuban counterparts a substantial number of them no doubt do risk death upon their return -- the tonton macoutes and their allies are still active in Haiti. And the INS decisions on all of them will no doubt be as just as they were with Salvadorans in the 80's, where even having a copy of the list the death squads had left on your door as a calling card if you were lucky enough to be out when they arrived was not sufficient to prove that you and your family were targets of political assassins. Were these Haitians granted the same access to legal status and eventual citizenship as their far less at-risk Cuban counterparts, the threat to Bush is obvious: they might vote. And it's not terribly likely that they'd vote as they were instructed to.--Peter Bell] * First the Kristian Konservative Disinfo, republished by the SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/12/IN46649.DTL Myth Meets Man Che Guevara, revolutionary hero turned sneering elitist Cynthia Grenier Mike Tyson's mighty rib cage boasts a sizable tattoo of the late Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a testament to Guevara's status as the marker of subversive cool. It's a safe bet that Tyson hasn't read "The African Dream," Guevara's recently released "diaries of the revolutionary war in the Congo." Indeed, Che's comments on his African brothers might just send Iron Mike to the nearest laser specialist. "Given the prevailing lack of discipline, it would have been impossible to use Congolese machine-gunners to defend the base from air attack: they did not know how to handle their weapons and did not want to learn," noted Guevara in a typical moment of condescension. Thirty-four years after Guevara was killed by a drunken Bolivian sergeant, Grove Press has finally brought out the legendary journal he kept during the time he spent with Congolese rebels in 1965. Grove knows how to play to the fantasies of Baby Boomers who remember when they fit trimly into their Che T- shirts. The cover of "The African Dream" includes a glam photograph of Guevara, cigar cocked, eyes slyly assessing the potential for victory. "This fascinating secret history at last illuminates the missing chapter of a revolutionary icon," promises a blurb from the Sunday Times of London. As radical icons go, Guevara surely takes the beauty prize, with eyes that are sometimes dashingly romantic, sometimes starkly idealistic, but always captivating. The ever-present cigar and trademark commando beret complete the image, the ultimate in revolutionary chic. As evidenced by everything from Mike Tyson's torso to the placards waved by World Treaty Organization protesters in Seattle and beyond, Guevara's stock has hardly slipped in the years since his death. But can his reputation survive the publication of his own words? Back in the early '70s, while I was European acquisitions editor for Ballantine Books, I tried to get the U.S. rights to the Congo diaries, then one of publishing's holy grails. I managed to get a meeting with Regis Debray, the famous French celebrator of the Castro regime and one of the few people at the time who had some notion of their content. Debray had spent four years in a Bolivian slammer for having visited Guevara in the South American back country. Debray's thinking about Castro and Cuba would undergo a major shift in the decades ahead. But when he and I met, he still claimed to be on the best of terms with Castro. He acknowledged the Congo diaries would certainly make for some very interesting reading, but, shaking his head sadly, said, "The Cubans will never let them out. They'll keep them in their archives forever." Debray was convinced that the diaries revealed too openly the great difficulty in fomenting insurrection among native populations, a grim reality which Che's Bolivian diaries also underscored. Reading "The African Dream," it's easy to understand Debray's conviction. Guevara casts serious doubts on the possibility of anything like world revolution. Everything went wrong, and the racial politics were hardly progressive. The Congolese had decided that Guevara should not be viewed as the leader of the Cuban-Congolese forces, but rather as a Cuban "councilor," so it would not appear that a white man was giving them orders. After discovering that so many of the African fighters were incompetent, Guevara took charge anyway, breeding bad blood. He had ongoing problems, too, with his black Cubans acting superior to and contemptuous of the native Congolese. As for igniting revolutionary fervor among people he believed would lie -- and lie preposterously -- at the least provocation, Guevara found it just impossible. The beloved revolutionary icon sounds pretty much like an old- fashioned racist when it comes to evaluating his black brothers in arms. And then there is the counterrevolutionary, existentialist angst: As Guevara and a small number of Cubans finally pulled out of the Congo, aware that their mission was a dismal failure, he noted, "During those last hours of our time in the Congo, I felt more alone than I had done even in Cuba or on any of my wanderings around the globe. I might say: 'Never have I found myself so alone again as I do today after all my travels.' " Perhaps the most interesting question raised by the diaries is one of timing. Castro kept the diaries under lock and key for years. Why did he decide to release them now? Could it be that in his old age, he is getting envious of Guevara's lasting fame? Can the sight of those glorious Che posters appearing wherever in the world there is a demonstration be getting to the old dictator? One might have supposed that Guevara's memory would be undermined by Cuban refugees such as Armando Valladares, whose terrifying prison memoir, "Against All Hope," was also reissued last year by Encounter Books. Who would have ever guessed that Che's demythologizer might turn out to be his oldest ally? [Cynthia Grenier is a Washington, D.C.-based writer. This piece first appeared in Reason magazine. ] * Meanwhile, Haitian immigrants never have a nice day> The New York Times - May 12, 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/national/13HAIT.html In Florida, a Limbo for Haitians Only by Dana Canedy with Eric Schmitt MIAMI, May 12--Hedwiche Jeanty sleeps on a cot next to strangers, wears the same clothes for up to five days and, he says, eats food that is often stale off plates that are never quite clean. Most days, he just sits, worrying about the future. Mr. Jeanty's life might not seem surprising for a man from Haiti, an impoverished country in perpetual political turmoil. But he is living in those conditions in Miami. Mr. Jeanty and nearly 300 other Haitians seeking political asylum in the United States have been held in detention centers for more than five months, under a Bush administration directive that does not apply to refugees of any other nationality. "I haven't committed any crime in the United States," said Mr. Jeanty, 22. "I'm feeling humiliated." Speaking by phone from the Krome detention center, he said he had fled Haiti last December to escape persecution for denouncing the government. The order from the Immigration and Naturalization Service requires officials here to detain Haitian refugees with plausible asylum claims. All others are sent back to Haiti. The order applies only in South Florida and is a departure from a policy that favors releasing refugees to relatives or sponsors while they pursue asylum claims in immigration court. The agency says the new policy is necessary to deter thousands of Haitians from taking to sea in rickety rafts and flooding South Florida, or dying en route. But the office of the United Nations high commissioner for refugees says this approach violates international norms of refugee law. Several civil rights advocates and a growing group of lawmakers from both parties say the policy is discriminatory. A suit filed on March 15 in federal district court here seeks to force the government to release the detained Haitians and to stop considering race and nationality when adjudicating cases. Immigrant rights groups plan to hold a demonstration in Miami on May 20, when President Bush visits for Cuban Independence Day. Representative Carrie P. Meek, a Florida Democrat with one of the largest Haitian constituencies in the country, says the new order also shields Gov. Jeb Bush from an influx of Haitian refugees in an election year. Governor Bush, the president's brother, has denied any connection between his office and the new policy, and recently said the order should be rescinded. "Haitian refugees should not be treated any different from refugees of other countries," said Katie Muñiz, a spokeswoman for Governor Bush. "If the refugees prove to the I.N.S. that they have a well-founded fear of persecution, they should not be detained." The United States has a history of creating immigration policies that favor one nationality over another. Since 1966, the Cuban Adjustment Act has allowed Cuban immigrants to apply for permanent residence. The policy was modified in 1995 after a flood of refugees reached the United States and now dictates that Cubans picked up at sea be sent back, and those who make it ashore be allowed to stay. No other class of refugees receives such a preference. The new policy took effect on Dec. 14, 11 days after the Coast Guard rescued 167 Haitians from a boat off Florida. They were taken to Miami, where they were permitted to apply for asylum. At the time, the number of Haitians intercepted at sea was rising steadily. The Coast Guard picked up 350 last November alone, compared with 96 in the three previous months combined. The influx was fed by rumors spreading in Haiti that the United States needed workers to help rebuild the World Trade Center, and that the Coast Guard was no longer stopping boats from landing in Florida, said Cmdr. Christopher B. Carter, the chief of the Coast Guard's migrant interdiction division. After consulting officials from the White House, the State and Justice departments and the Coast Guard, the immigration service's acting deputy commissioner, Peter Michael Becraft, ordered agents in South Florida to detain all Haitian refugees, even those arriving at airports. The order had its intended effect, at least initially. The Coast Guard picked up no Haitians in January and February, but 427 in March and April. Most were sent back to Haiti. Only 11 Haitians have reached Florida this year by boat, Coast Guard officials said. Justice Department officials who oversee the immigration service declined to comment, as did the White House, citing the lawsuit. But in an affidavit, Mr. Becraft argued that the new directive was not a formal policy change but merely an effort to "adjust its parole criteria" that subjected Haitians to a more restrictive "case-by-case review." About 270 Haitian men, women and children are being detained. Officials say that since December, 36 have been released for humanitarian reasons, including pregnant women and unaccompanied minors. The treatment of the refugees has drawn sharp criticism from the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Two Republican House members from Miami, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, also oppose the policy. Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, president of Barry University in Miami Shores, has offered to have the refugees paroled to the care of the university. "What worries me is that because they're in a maximum-security jail, they are treated as criminals when they are not," said Ms. O'Laughlin, who two years ago intervened in the case of the young Cuban refugee Elián González. The strains of detention are wearing heavily on many of the refugees. Laurence St. Pierre, 27, is being detained at Turner Guilford Knight Detention Center, a maximum-security jail here. In a shaky voice, she said that what troubled her most, besides the food, the lack of information about her immigration status and an inadequate supply of things like shampoo and sanitary napkins, was that no one seemed to make a distinction between her and the criminals with whom she is housed. "Instead of getting better, everything has gotten worse for us here," Ms. St. Pierre said in Creole, through an interpreter. Ms. St. Pierre, who fled for Miami on a boat last December, said she wavered between being angry and sad about how Haitian detainees are treated compared with those from other countries. "I see many women from other countries arrive here and be released after a few days. I wonder why Haitian women are not being released? ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-05.13.02-15:28:08-29290