So then Guyana should not intervene in US domestic affairs.  If the USA says it will keep its embargo then Guyana will have to stop demanding that it doesnt.  To the credit of the Obama administration,and unlike Bush and others, the USA does not exercise punitive actions against those who befriend the Cuban dictatorship.

BTW I do not expect to hear any more whining from PPP supporters about why they think that CARICOM heads of state supported Burnham.  Their views were like the PPPs, they didnt want to intervene in another country, despite their private (and not so private) opinions of its head of state.  Errol Barrow, Michael Mianley and Eric Williams all expressed PUBLICLY, their disapproval with Burnham rigging elections.

BTW if citizens of Guyana, who arent US citizens, misbehave then there is nothing to talk about.  No nation keeps nationals of other countries who are illegal, and worse yet, criminal. 

“Cuba has been a very good friend to us and the United States has been a very good friend to us. I don’t know that there is a one-size fit all where democracy is concerned. I see that many of the countries have partners with other countries that don’t have our brand of democracy as well,”

So ifr there is a coup and the PPP is pushed out, please respect the opinion of those nations who say that they will not condemn this act because they do not intervene in other country's business.

Silly Putty on sale. COUP VS Internal Policies, you need to read up and hopefully will understand.

Cuba had a coup and Guyana says that they do not plan to get involved in their internal affairs.  So if there is a coup then the rest of the world should do what the PPP plans to do.  Say nothing and keep out of Guyana's internal business.

The minister of foreign affairs made her statement not to interfere in Cuba's internal affairs. Mark Benschop, our gutter rat minister took it upon himself to demonstrate against the Cuban government for human right violation. Little does he know that the PNC which he supports did worst to the Indian people of Guyana than Castro could ever done to the Cubans.

Fidel Castro and his brother are as bad or worse than Burnham was.  Put it this way at least Burnham didnt stop you from leaving.  The Castros not only oppress Cubans, but make it very hard for them to leave and the numerous people leaving in car tires or having to prostitute themselves indicates this.  All Guyanese had to do was to buy a plane ticket and ensure that they would not be immediately deported once they arrived at their destination.

So AGAIN if there is a coup in Guyana the PPP has given foreign govts permission not to say anything other than they do not interfere in the internal affairs of Guyana.

And what ever you claim that Burnham did to you the Castros did.  No benefits except to party supporters....the Castros are kings at that. Racial discrimination.  Blacks arent even allowed to work in Cuban hotels, or to visit guests, without facing humiliation.  Pegasus was filled with Indians.  Violent harrassment of those seen as political opponents....please.  The Castros dont only arrest their opponents without cause but even ensure a solid prison rape.

So you have no excuses.

So you finally giving Guyana a better grade than Cuba. Cuba is far better than haiti...what r u saying here? You need to make some correction from speaking with forked tongue.

Mrs Beckett ought to be aware not to use the term democracy so loosely. Cuba has none and we are at significant deficits as well. Lets hope that if the PPP continue to demand absolutist authority over every aspect of the lives of the Guyanese people and an insurgency action starts against their pitiful behinds they will not ask for international help. One remembers only recently such a letter was sent out to the International community complaining of opposition belligerence. These people are a hilarious lot. All the lady had to say we value cuba as a friend and chose to be neutral.

Ask anyone who went to Cuba for a vacation and they will tell you it is a very safe place to live.  Two months ago I was speaking to a Sudanese man who lived in Cuba.  He told me that his blood pressure pills in Cuba cost 7 Cuban cents.  While the same blood pressure pills in the USA cost $175 dollars US.

Cuba may be a poor church rat country.  But any of you who visited Cuba ever seen a homeless man or woman who is sleeping on the streets like we see in the so call wealthy USA and Canada.

all of you so call capitalists living in ABC countries can bash Cuba but all of you who live in these capitalist countries are just 20 pay checks away from homelessness. So think about that before you open your mouths.

Racial discrimination for black Cubans was overwhelming before the Cuban revolution.  Fulgencio Batista was a black man who ruled Cuba. Yet there was more racism against black Cubans under his rule than under the Castros rule. You can change the political system but it is hard to change people minds when it comes to race. The Castro Brothers may be alot of things but they are not racist against black Cubans.

Where do you live Wally?

who in their most drunken state want to live in cuba? Of course it is pretty and shit is dirt cheap but that is because you are visiting and you have yanki dollars.  Poor cubans are doing anything to get out. I know a dude, ugly as fugly came out with a maria that would make you think wild things just looking at her. I know she did not do it for love. You go to cuba only because you can leave.

I personally have no desire to visiting Cuba.

Another spot I would never go...Mexico, It'd probably be safer visiting Syria or Mali.

I live now most of the year in Bullhead Arizona.  But I like  to travel around the USA and Canada at least once every year. This year I am planning to stay three weeks in Salt lake City.

And that was over 50 years ago, when most of teh world was unenlightened.

Do you know that nothing has changed in Cuba, when even South Africa has abolished apartheid and Jim Crow is gone?  So why ha sthe USA and South Africa undergone massive changes and not Cuba.

Quit the silly excuses for the fact that Castro is a racist son of a wealthy white Cuban land owner, and whose ancestors were quite likely to have been slave owners.

Well I guess Cuba is better than one country in the hemisphere in 2013, when in 1955 only the USA, Canada and Argentina were better off.

Whatever you have to say about Burnham applies even more to Fidel and Raul.

We  might be one pay check away from homelessness. Large numbers of people in Havana are squatting in buildings which have effectively been abandoned, and can collapse at any time.  In many instances basic amenities, like working toilets, have collapsed.  Not only that but Castro has a process of evicting people who live in certain districts when he wishes to have the buildings restored to turn the city into a tourist attraction.

As to your Cuban health care system.  Go to see a doctor and try to obtain medication.  yes it might be cheap WHEN YOU CAN GET IT, and given that many who visit people in Cuba, have to bring medications with them, finding this in Cuba is a chore, just like finding food.  Indeed the numerous beggars and prostitutes rushing behind tourists reminds me of one country....HAITI!!

You all say that Burnham starved Guyana.  Well what is Castro doing? And the thing is that Cubans would love to farm, but the intense bureaucracy and the high taxes and the extreme regulations, render this a very difficult task.  Do you know that if you sell meat products, you can go to jail in Cuba?

You know what many Cubans parents wish for their daughters.  Not access to education, because, unless one is prt of the favored few Party heirarchy, the few jobs available do not even begin to allow Cubans to pay for their BASIC needs.

They wish their daughters to find a rich foreigner who will whisk them away to the same capiatlist countries which Wally despises.

Wally needs to explain to me why many Cuban men turn a blind eye to the fact that many of their wives spend their days selling their bodies to rich tourists, so that the family will have food to eat.

Caribj, I need to go to Cuba and live for six months like an ordinary Cuban in a flat to answer that question.

I don't despise capitalism.  After seeing the wealth of Palm Beach and Lake Tahoe, I just want it to be a more equal system.

By the 2nd day you wou8ld be begging to leave...but if you were an average Cubans you would not be able to.

Hunger because your US$20/month that you earn AS A DOCTOR, doesnt allow you to buy food from the dollar stores and there is nothing in the peso stores.   You are trying to make 3 eggs and a loaf of bread feed a WHOLE family for ONE week.

If you say anything you are damned as a Counter Revolutionary and probably thrown in jail.

The only good thing that has happened is that Fidel is sick so cannot bore Cubans with his SIX HOUR rants which they were fdorced to stand up and listen top, even though hungry and tired.

Think of this.  Were Burnham like Castro Cheddi would have been quite familiar with man on man rape, because that is what Castro tells prisoners to do to those who doesnt like.

Originally Posted by Wally:

"Ask anyone who went to Cuba for a vacation and they will tell you it is a very safe place to live. "



Oh Really? What have you been drinking Wally?

I know quite a few Canadians who go to Cuba on vacation and they have spoken about the place being safe and a bit cheaper than other vacation spots but those are the only positive things ever heard from them.
Would they live there? You bet your ass they won't, nor would you.

Whatever little good this gentleman did on the planet is overwhelmed by his perverse dictatorial domination of a people and his oppressive one man rule for 60 years. That he wanted to be there so long diluted all his worth and left him no less renown for tyranny than any of the despots the world has ever known.

Wally if Cuba and Castro was so great how come you are not living there.  You living in the good old America and traveling all over. You eye pass America. You better not go to Florida and say that Castro is great the Cubans there will beat up you bad.

Haiti was also a very safe plavce under the Duvaliers.  Now it isnt.  I predict the same future for Cuba once the Castroregime is over.  Fascist states (which is what Cuba is) have a premium to ensure that the only criminal activity which occurs is that which benefits them.  Castro has  a huge network of spies to keep Cubans under control.  Once that is dismantled all hell will let loose.

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y98/sep98/17e9.htm

And you can fidn many articles like this about being black in Cuba.  Castro is like Lincoln. He was offended by cruelty towards blacks, a smany are offended by cruelty towards animals,  Like Lincoln, Fidel Castro does NOT respect blacks as his equal.

Indeed race in Havana is much like what is was in New York City 50 years ago.  Blacks can still get embarrassed if they try to enter a hotel.  Blacks, including those who college degrees, are still openly discriminated (not subtly as in NYC) in employment.  People will OPENLY repeat the racfist nonsense about blacks that we see here from Rev, ABIDHA and the other PPP Indo Nazis on GNI.  

The only lucrative jobs in  Cuba are top level communist party jobs, and working in the tourism sector.  Doctors in Cuba earn much less than taxi drivers and waiters.  Furthermore they have scant opportunities to earn US dollars, which are critical if one is to purchase basic items in Cuba, as the peso stores are EMPTY (if youy lived in Guyana in 1980 you will know what that means...rums, cigarettes and nothing else).

Guess what?  The hotels are lily white as are the top party positions.  Your Fidel, who so loves blacks, surrounds himself with the few pure whites left in Cuba (most of them are now in Miami).  Cuba is 50% black or mixed.  Yet 90% of its leaders are white.  Blacks live in Havana's ghettos. A black attempted to enter a hotel will be rudely stopped by a guard.

Indeed several black tourists have been embarrassed by crude Cuban police men demanding ID, thinking that they were Cubans. 

So spare me your nonsense about Fidel caring about blacks.  Fidel gets what he wants and if he cared about blacks there would not be barriers of institutional racism against them.

BTW Cuba had a decent sized black/mulato middle class prior to Castro.  This as reported by Eric Williams in a book "Negro in the Caribbean", which he wrote during WWII.  Long before Castro.  Caarlos More, a Cuban black of Jamaican ancestry, describes Fidel as a rcist in the same way as ehe would describe the Bacardis and other white elites who fled Cuba in 1960.

Fidel is a RACIST...end of story!

Do you know why Castro was in South Africa?

1.  The USSR ordered him to send troops in exchange for the massive aid that they gave him.

2.  He wanted to reduce the population of black Cuban males on the island.  Most of thesoldiers he sent were blacks.

Furthermore the demise of apartheid had NOTHING to do with Castro.  Indeed his involvement STRENGTHENED that regime as they were able to get OPEN assistance from Reagan and Thatcher on the guise of "fighting communism", citing as eviodence the presence of Cuban soldiers, financed by the USSR.  Cuban soldiers were also in Ethiopia defending mengistu and BLOODTHIRSTY dictator, merely because the USA funded his opponents.

Apartheid ended because of the boycott of South Africa by the USA, and European nations.  This due to pressure on college campuses, by consumers, and elsewhere.That country, starved of export markets and of access to capital, had to capitulate to the demands of the international community.  Castro's little war in Angola and Namibia had NO IMPACT!

Carib_J, i don't believe this is historically correct; we make grave mistakes when we oversimplify things

the Cuban expeditionary force in Ethiopia was indeed a Soviet affair; in contrast, the intervention of Cuban troops in Angola during 1975-1976 was a Cuban initiative in direct support of Agostino Neto's "fraternal" MPLA which was in danger of being overwhelmed by UNITA and FNLA forces in the civil war.

Castro's troops eventually took over most of the fighting in Southern Angola as South African troops invaded in support of UNITA and split the country.

As with the PNC in Guyana, the decline of the Soviet Union/Cold War greatly facilitated the departure of the apartheid regime in SA; but there is no doubt that the Cuban army's blunting of the initial SA invasion in support of Savimbi, and fighting those same forces to a bloody standstill at Cuito Cuanavale (resulting in the evisceration of UNITA in the South) brought the South Africans much earlier to the negotiating table and saved Angola from partition and even more bloodshed [not that the MPLA and ANC tiefmen now in charge are anything to write home about]

Castro's war in Angola was no "little war" . . . and it had a huge impact

credit where credit is due . . . even to a dictator

ask Nelson Mandela

Caribj this is not correct.  Interviews with former KGB administrators have stated (and the Americans know this) that it was Fidel who approached the Soviets for food and arms for Cuban troops because he had decided to send Cuban forces to Southern Africa.  The Soviets did not force him to go to Southern Africa.

Caribj as for your comment about Lincoln.  Booth the man who shot Lincoln said he did so because Lincoln had decided to give the black man the right to vote.  In Booth's mind that was the last straw.  Lincoln made a speech at the white house a few days before he was killed and he stated that he will be giving the vote to the black man.  Booth was in the audience.  This was long before the white woman was given the right to vote.  If Lincoln did not see the black man as his equal he would have never ever ever think about giving the black man the right to vote.

We are forgetting how racist the apartide South African government was. Declassified British and American intelligence cables have stated that South Africa wanted to invade and occupy Botswana because their leader Seretse Khama was married to a white woman ( Ms. Ruth Williams) who he met when he was a student in Britain.  They saw this marriage as an affront  to the neighboring South African apartheid state.  Only a severe warning by Britain and the Cuban presence in Southern Africa prevented a South African invasion of Botswana.  Harry Belafonte  is right, without Fidel the continent of Africa would have been so much more worse off than it is today.  Bien hecho, bien hecho Fidel.

 Lets not miss the forest for the trees. This man is a dictator who on his own belief system ( we live in communities and decision making should be communal) squatted on the administration of the state for 60 year. Those who saw this as wrong ( and it is) were subject to horrible sanctions. No one should defend anyone who do this. Even if he was a benign tyrant ( no such ever lived) he is not an example of a way to the good life in any community. I hope he dies quickly so the people can experience a new beginning.

what's the relevance . . .?

Believe this.  Given the dependence of the South African economy on British capital and markets this wouid have carried significant weight.

As to the Angolan party which Cuba supported.  Well they turned out to be a bunch of mulato hypocrites, stealing billions and exploiting the majority black population.  And Angola one of the worlds most corrupt nations and the majority black population, probably even WORSE off then they were before.  Please do not make them out to be angels. 

As to poor Harry Belafante, that little Uncle Tom best known for runnimng behind white women in the Village and singing white sounding folk songs.  Oh well he is conspicuously silent on the fcat that every bit of racism which blacks in the USA complain about, is equally problematic in Cuba.  But here is the difference.  In the USA blacks can organize against racism and protest.  In Cuba any blacks who does this is accused of being counter revolutionary.

So let us deal with a fact that you cannot refute.  In 2013 blacks in Cuba suffer discrimination equalivalent to what blacks in the USA suffered 40 years ago (cant imagine a black man being barred from entering ANY hotel in NYC).  They cannot protest unless the plan to have a bloody encounbter with Castro's goon squad.

http://www.theroot.com/views/r...los-moore-0?page=0,2

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/200...ting-context-to.html

And a Jamaican woman who admired Catsro before she saw the naked racism on that island.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Race-and-Cuba

Lots for you to read.  Castro has as much hatred for AfroCubans and Rev Al, skeldon man and other typical PPP supportters have for AfroGuyanese.  But at least in Guyana we can protest.  Castro arrests any Cuban who says anything about the widespread and archaic types of racism which exist in that island.

A Jamican telling the world about racism in Cuba.  Many many Jamaicans love the white skin and straight hair probably much more than Cuba ever did. A light skin red man with straightish hair from Guyana is king in Jamaica

Castro such have step down along time ago.  Even Jagdeo step down. Castro like the job and the perks that come with it. When anyone look at the pictures of the Cuban cabinet over the years that Castro ruled Cuba you will find very few black man so CaribNY may be right. No work for CaribNY in Cuba. 

Which is why they know racism when they see it.

The woman thought that Cuba woulod have been different from Jamaica, but sadly saw much of what she was accustomed to, though in Cuba it is way more possible to say outwardly negative things about blacks than in Jamaica.

You need to take a look at who has leadership positions in Jamaica,not only in the public sector, but even the private.  So yes Jamaicans have their skin color issues, but its WORSE in Cuba.