“If I’m fortunate enough to become the next president, it is my expectation that Fidel Castro will finally be taken off this planet,” Mitt Romney told to a group of Cuban exiled and political leaders in Miami on January. With this short sentence he showed the world that he is not willing to conceive of Cuba as a friend, as long as Raul and Fidel Castro are still alive.

It seems that Mitt Romney dreams of a free Cuba and is willing to make his dream come true. He also wants to be everything Obama isn’t, so in the Cuba issue he would follow the same plan. If Obama, at the beginning of his presidency, adopted an appeasement strategy, Romney in his campaign assured he would harden the sanctions against Cuba if he is elected president. His plans are clear: the embargo would come to an end when Cuba is free, and free means with the Castro’s out of sight. It is clear that he wants the Cuban community’s support for presidential election.

But in these hard economic times, this strategy may not attract as many Cuban voters as he expects. Cubans are decisive in a crucial state like Florida. Most politicians try to gain their support by criticizing Castro, because most of their ancestors escaped the island when the Castro regime started in 1959. But in this period of crisis, most Cuban voters just think about the economy as their priority. Maybe in a time of prosperity, the priority of the Cuban voters will be the position of the presidential candidate over their country, but not in these hard times.

But Mitt Romney has bigger plans than the Cuban community support. He wants the entire Latin community support; he reassured citizens that he is interested in Latin American issues and clearly expressed the route that he will follow, referring to the relations with the different Latin American governments, if he is elected president. Romney believes that Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela and declared enemy of the United States,  and Fidel  Castro are serious threats for the United States.

That leaves the country members of ALBA (The Bolivian Alliance for the People of Our America), an alliance proposed by Chavez as an alternative to the FTA (Free Trade Area of the Americas, proposed by the United States) without hope of having good relations with the United States in the nearby future.

But Romney may not be the biggest threat toward Chavez. His real enemy is his sickness.Although president Chavez real health condition is a mystery; the fact is, he hasn’t been present in Venezuela during the last months, and it is very difficult to run a country and win an election just by Twitter. Chavez’s health will be a crucial issue during the next months because it will condition the relationship between the United States and Latin America. Also, if Venezuela falls, it is almost certain that Cuba would fall, because Venezuela is the country’s stronger economic supporter.

The future of the United States and Latin America is a mystery. We still have many questions without an answer, like if Romney would be elected president or if Chavez’ health would make him able to compete in the October elections against Henrique Capriles. All these answers are crucial and would determine the future of the continent.

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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Just minutes prior to taking the podium in front of a room jam-packed with members of the Miami media on Tuesday morning, the Miami Marlins announced that manager Ozzie Guillen had been suspended by their front office for five games following comments that he made earlier in the week regarding Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

“I feel like I betrayed my Latin community,” was the English translation of one of Guillen’s opening statements. Guillen spoke in his native Spanish for most of the press conference. “I am here to say I am sorry with my heart in my hands and I want to say I’m sorry to all those people who are hurt indirectly or directly.”

“I’m sorry for what I said and for putting people in a position they don’t need to be in. And for all the Cuban families, I’m sorry,” said Guillen. “I hope that when I get out of here, they will understand who Ozzie Guillen is. How I feel for them. And how I feel about the Fidel Castro dictatorship. I’m here to face you, person to person. It’s going to be a very difficult time for me.”

Bench coach Joey Cora will manage the club until Guillen’s return next week.

In what has become an infamous interview with Time Magazine a few days ago, Guillen stated, “I love Fidel Castro.” His immediate reason for the remark was Castro’s ability to remain in power after several decades despite the overwhelming hatred that Cuban citizens have for him.

This sparked immediate outrage from Cubans in Miami, who compose the city’s majority population, especially where the Marlins new ballpark is located, Little Havana. The last thing they ever want to hear is someone supporting the man whose tyrant communist practices have caused them and their families relentless suffering for years on end, forcing them to flee their homeland with zero intent of ever returning.

“Guillen’s remarks, which were offensive to an important part of the Miami community and others throughout the world, have no place in our game,” said MLB commissioner Bud Selig.

With an off-day in Philadelphia during the Marlins series against the Phillies, Guillen decided that it would be best to take a flight back to South Florida on Tuesday and apologize for his insensitive comments.

Along with multiple apologies to those he offended, Guillen repeated numerous times during the press conference that he does not have any admiration for Castro.

“The interpretation didn’t come out as I wanted,” Guillen said in defense of his controversial words. “I was thinking in Spanish and I said the wrong thing in English.”

No prepared statement in front of him, Guillen spoke directly from the heart.

“Everybody in the world hates Fidel Castro, including myself,” said Guillen. “I was surprised that he’s still in power. That’s what I was trying to say to the journalist. And that’s the first thing that came out of my mouth. I admit it. It was the wrong words.”

Much of the Miami community did not believe that Guillen’s apology sufficed, and a series of boycotts and protests outside of the stadium will take place once the Marlins return this Friday for the first of a three game series against the Houston Astros.

Despite many of these people wanting Guillen fired, Marlins president David Samson assured that the team never considered it.

Positive comments about Castro were also made by Guillen back in a 2008 interview with the Chicago Sun Times, but it was essentially a non-story because of the paper’s location.

“I will do everything to try to make things be better,” said Guillen. “I’m willing to do everything in my power, in the Marlins power, to do everything I can to help this community.”

“This is the biggest mistake of my life. When you make a mistake this big … I will learn from this,” he said.

Image Courtesy of  Keith Allison

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Hugo Chávez remains admitted in Cuba due to his medical issues caused during an official trip to La Habana.

The venezuelan president had an emergency operation, possibly, in the same hospital where, in 2006, Fidel Castro was also admitted during his worst health stage.

The history seems to repeat it self again. But now is due a pelvic abscess that affects to Chávez.

Doctors worldwide, started to wonder what “pelvic abscess” means. They leak a firm definition that refers to a pus accumulation in an organ underneath the abdomen, possibly the urethra, bladder or prostate.

God bless Twitter.

If you follow @chavezcandanga, you will see the Chávez’s official activity. Last friday he tweeted four new messages, the last one, related to his relatives visit.

It seems to be a hard moment for Hugo Chávez, but fortunately has a huge support: The Castro family, of course.
The Chávez – Castro union is an important mainstay for their International relations, strengthen by the petroleum power.

But now we all wonder, when will Hugo Chávez show up?
Be alert to Twitter. May be there is the answer.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/quecomunismo/

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An opponent of the Cuban government died Sunday morning after having been arrested on Thursday and detained for three days, according to Andrea Rodriguez of Associated Press. Juan Wilfredo Soto, age 46, died at a hospital in the central city of Santa Clara;  his cause of death was suspected to be the result of the beatings he received while in custody.

Guillermo Farinas, a fellow dissident, told AP that Mr. Soto was detained during an anti-government protest on Thursday and was hospitalized upon his release from custody. The attending doctors told Farinas that he died of pancreatitis, but Farinas explained that he had not seen the death certificate yet.

Mr Soto was among the supporters of a 134-day hunger strike alongside Farinas last year in a call for the release of political prisoners. Despite the fact that Soto’s cause of death is yet to be confirmed, fellow activists are blaming the police for his death.

Elizardo Sanchez, another prominent dissident and leader of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told the BBC that he was convinced the death was related to Soto’s detention. “We believe that the blows he received were a catalyst,” he said, adding: “We do not think there was a political intent to kill him, but there was a struggle when he was yelling anti-government slogans.”

Witnesses told CNN that Mr. Soto was resisting arrest on Thursday, which caused the police to start beating him in public view. Soto had before served 12 years in jail as a political prisoner. Officials from the Cuban government have not been available for comment.

Sanchez is calling for an open investigation of the incident, and argues that the Cuban police are becoming increasingly brutal. The death of Soto follows that of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year-old dissident who died in February last year, after an 85-day hunger strike over demands for better prison conditions. The incident provoked the release of 52 political prisoners three months later. More than a hundred prisoners have since then been release, most into exile in Spain.

Soto was buried on the day of his death, and Reuters reported that some 80 people attended his funeral, including prominent dissidents. It is unknown if his death will be officially attributed to police brutality since Pancreatitis, inflammation of the pancreas, has a number of possible causes. Farinas also acknowledged to AP that Mr. Soto had a number of pre-existing health issues including diabetes, circulatory and heart problems, and gout.

The Cuban government has called the small community of dissidents “mercenaries” of the United States, which they claim finance the resistance with the purpose of undermining the revolution. Sanchez has told the AP that physical intimidation and violence against dissidents has increased in the last two months.

Mr. Farina echoes this statement in the BBC report; “If we do not do something, so that the government changes its stand toward peaceful protestors, we are going to be reporting even more deaths.”

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Almost a year ago, the controversial Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez encouraged the Bolivian President Evo Morales and Cuban political leader Fidel Castro to join him on Twitter. The unorthodox invitation came after Chavez himself had joined Twitter under the name @chavezcandaga. Curiously enough some might say, since only 30% of the Venezuelan people have internet access. His move also took some by surprise as he had previously described Twitter as a potential “tool of terror”. Nonetheless, in two days Chavez had gained more than 100.000 followers and the notoriously verbose leader, who once spoke for 8 hours on a television show, was so excited about the medium that he encouraged his fellow South and Central American leaders to join.

Interestingly enough, the former communist revolutionary took Chavez up on the offer and signed up under the username @reflexionfidel. The 84-year-old Castro stepped down as Cuban president in 2006 – first temporarily and then permanently – ceding power to his younger brother Raul Castro, age 79. Fidel remains the head of the Communist Party and often publishes opinion pieces, called ‘Reflections’, in Cuba’s state-run news media. His Twitter account is said to tweet excerpts from his frequent musing on world affairs.

While Castro has admitted to being a news junky who spends hours reading off of the internet, he does not send the tweets out personally, according to a story in the state-run Cubadebate web site. Instead, it is the members of the Cubadebate staff who select passages from the revolutionary’s writings and publishes them. The account has sent out more than 1.750 tweets with Castro’s thoughts, including his fears that the world is heading for nuclear Armageddon, and his warnings that NATO is planning to invade Libya.

“The U.S. and NATO can’t resist taking advantage of the conflict in Libya to promote military intervention,” read a tweet two weeks ago, quoting from an opinion piece Castro wrote a few days earlier, according to Associated Press. “In every U.S. war, like Vietnam, the most cynical justifications and measures prevailed,” read another posted the following day.

The followers of the former Cuban president has past 100.000 people which the government has said makes it the first official Cuban-themed Twitter account to break that threshold. Despite the impressive numbers, however, the government’s claim that Castro is the most followed Cuban Twitterer is far from undisputed. The Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, known internationally for her critical portrayal of live in Cuba under the Communist rule, does also have an account and her followers have reached 109.000 but since Sanchez is considered a dissident, the government’s conclusion does not seem far fetched.

Neither of them has much competition in Cuba, where less than 2% of the Island’s population uses the internet – making it the lowest penetration rate in the Western Hemisphere. But by reaching the 100.000 people mark, Castro has entered the realm of several other global figures who reach out through Twitter. His friend Hugo Chavez has reached nearly 1.3 million followers, a year after promoting the medium, while the British Prime Minister David Cameron has nearly 1.8 million – and President Barack Obama close to 7 million.

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