>Latin America File: Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas wraps up 5th Summit in Venezuela, liberation theologian lauds anti-USA bloc

>The neo-communist political-economic bloc Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is designed to bypass and undermine the perceived “imperial hegemony” of the USA’s Free Trade Area of the Americas. Pictured here: ALBA leaders: Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Communist Party of Cuba Politburo member Carlos Lage, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and Haitian President Rene Preval. ALBA is successfully wooing Haiti into Latin America’s Red Axis. Coincidentally or not, Gennady Zyuganov, Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, was strategizing with counterparts in Caracas, while the ALBA wingding occured in another Venezuelan city called Barquisimeto.

Latin American Summit Mulls Energy Accords

Havana, April 29, 2007 (acn) The 5th Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Latin American Countries (ALBA) wraps up Sunday in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, with the signing of new accords likely.

An agreement on oil supplies would benefit the four ALBA members: Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, as well as Haiti. The initiative was proposed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during the opening ceremony on Saturday, PL News Agency reported.

“The time has come for Venezuelan oil to contribute to the happiness and integration of our Latin America,” said Chavez. He also recalled that for nearly a century, Venezuelan oil contributed to the development of the United States, which obtained it through direct exploitation or at ridiculously low prices.

Projects on mining, energy, education, and medical attention are some of the other accords under consideration, noted Chavez. Possible joint ventures between participant countries were also announced by Jose Khan, Venezuelan minister for Mining and Basic Industry.

Khan mentioned two large-scale joint ventures involving Cuba and Venezuela. One is based in the South American country to produce stainless steel. A second is for iron-nickel production on the Caribbean island.
An aluminum enterprise with five production lines to supply this metal for Nicaragua and the rest of Latin America is currently under study in Nicaragua.

Likewise, an accord with Bolivia will help that country exploit its large iron (called Motu) reserves and install three new plants, one for steel and two for cement production.

The role of social movements within the ALBA and the crisis faced by Washington in its attempt to build a hegemonic world order are also under discussion during the two-day summit at the Las Trinitarias Hotel.

Source: Cuban News Agency

Meanwhile, Brazilian-born Dominican monk and theologian, Castro chum, and advocate of Puerto Rican independence Frei Betto appeared on Cuban television to denounce the USA for harboring alleged anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and incarcerating the “Cuban Five” spies, and to praise ALBA as “the path towards a synergy among all countries and a new dawn for the integration of Latin America.”

In a dialogue with yoga monk Dada Maheshananda, recorded at the Dominican Seminary in Sao Paulo, in 1999, Betto lauds the liberationism of the Brazilian bishops’ conference: “I think that liberation theology is passing through a crisis of creativity. A certain form of it has penetrated in the life of the Catholic Church. The documents of the bishops about social injustice in Brazil, their criticism of the sale of the national Brazilian mining company Vale do Rio Doce and of neo-liberalism [capitalism], are the healthy fruits of liberation theology.” Betto also gushes about the communist gulag of Cuba: “I consider Cuba in advance of the rest of Latin America, for the simple fact that the social indices are much higher there. So my evaluation of a country is not, for example, how often the president changes, but rather the percentage of the population that has the right to life. This is why I admire Cuba, while at the same time that I have a lot of criticism of it, too. I see various defects in the Cuban Revolution, but the social successes are most important.” Responding to the yogi’s question about Pope John Paul II’s January 1998 visit to Cuba, the good friar intones: “I think that it will be a positive event. It will certainly irritate many Cubans in Miami, because it is a form of religious legitimation of the revolution.” Thus, Betto, who personifies the Catholic-communist convergence in the Third World, informs us that the pope’s pilgrimage to Havana was a “form of religious legitimation of revolution.”

Following the pope’s demise on April 2, 2005, Cuban Tyrant and student of the Jesuits Fidel Castro published a letter in the front page of Juventud Rebelde in which he declared: “Humanity will preserve an emotional memory of the tireless work of His Holiness John Paul II in favor of peace, justice and solidarity among all people.”

>Latin America File: Russian Communist leader Zyuganov visits Venezuela, meets counterparts, promises 5 million will rally in Red Square on May Day

>With Gennady Zyuganov’s visit to Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union has now made its keen interest in the current communization of Latin America very evident. “The Western Hemisphere,” wrote American geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist in 2003, “is being subverted before our very eyes. While we are distracted by events in Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea an enemy combination is forming at our back door.” Comrade Gennady should be recognized as one of the prime movers behind that subversion. Meanwhile, the USA’s shopping mall regime staggers on, oblivious to the noose dangling over its head.

During his meeting with the Communist Party of Venezuela, Zyuganov promised to mobilize five million Russians in Red Square on May Day, no doubt to remind the “pro-Western” CPSU frontman in the Kremlin, Comrade Czar Vladimir Putin, that the communists will be “taking back” Russia, thank you very much.

Pictured above: Venezuelan Communist leader Oscar Figuera (brown jacket, red shirt collar) welcomes his Russian guest. Translation below courtesy Babelfish, with some refinements by your resident blogger.

An Internationalist Greeting to the Venezuelan People from Gennady Zyuganov, CPRF Secretary General
By Tribuna-Popular 28.04.2007
Caracas

The Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Federation Russian (CPRF) and delegation of the Duma, Gennady Zyuganov, visited Cantaclaro, the seat of the Communist Party of Venezuela in Caracas today, where he met with the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. Representing the PCV were President Jerónimo Carrera, Secretary General Oscar Figuera, National Union Secretary Pedro Eusse, and Elena Linarez, member of the party’s International Secretariat, head of International Solidarity of Young Labor, head of the women’s front, and president of the Clara Zetkin Movement.

Comrade Zyuganov, heading a delegation of deputies of the Duma and the CPRF, extended to the Venezuelan people and the communists a brotherly internationalist greeting, wishing success in the anti-imperialist fight, and the creation of a society of social justice in the socialist perspective.

He remarked that Latin America has transformed into the epicenter of the anti-imperialist fight. Therefore he sees the important social and political movements in the different countries developing under the important role of the revolutionary government of Cuba and the leadership of Fidel Castro. Now the Venezuelan process has opened a new perspective in the fight by socialism.

He explained that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has reached a new point in the electoral process, with an important presence and growth in 85 provinces of the Federation, and can expect to secure 30 to 35% of the votes in the main cities.

Gennady Zyuganov was very interested to know the position the Communist Party of Venezuela with respect to President Chávez’s call for the formation of the PSUV, one of the other forces that compose the Venezuelan revolutionary process. The Russian Communist leader informed his hosts as to the situation which is occurring in the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, namely, that the Union of Communist Parties-CPSU [or restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union] now embraces 17 communist parties. He indicated that this process embraces the different experiences and knowledge of the organizations comprising the movement.

The encounter lasted approximately two hours, in which an ample exchange of information occurred on the Venezuelan reality, Latin America, the Russian Federation, and the peoples of the ex-Soviet Union in the battle against imperial hegemony.

Zyuganov informed his hosts that on May 1 in Moscow a mobilization is being organized that will summon nearly five million Russians in Red Square, to celebrate the International Day of the Workers. They are also prepared for May 9 to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the victory over fascism with the arrival of the Red Army to Berlin in 1945. All of this will occur within the framework of the celebration of the 90th anniversary of the triumph of the October Revolution in 1917.

Finally, Zyuganov sent a greeting to all the Venezuelan people and its total and ample internationalist solidarity with the struggles that are developing in all of Latin America. Jerónimo Carrera thanked him for the exchange of information between both communist parties and showed his emotion to the visit of the CPRF Secretary General Comrade Gennady Zyuganov to Cantaclaro by saying: “I feel like the heirs of the Bolshevik Party which Lenin founded.”

Source: Tribuna-Popular

>USSR2 File: Kremlin-friendly radio to describe USA as "enemy," 50% positive content; FSB/KGB grills Kasparov, arrests anti-Putin Internet posters

>Comrade Czar Putin is rolling up the last vestiges of New Economic Plan Version 2.0 and Comrade Gorbachev’s vaunted political-economic reforms, which “Final Phase”-savvy journalist Edward Jay Epstein noted in Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB & the CIA (1989) comprised Moscow’s “Sixth Glasnost” since the Bolshevik Revolution. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s dialectical zigzag is about to lurch sharply to the left and the West is not prepared. (See diagram in this blogsite’s right column.)

50% Good News Is the Bad News in Russian Radio
April 22, 2007
By ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW, April 21 — At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia’s largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news of their own: from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be “positive.”

In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin.

How would they know what constituted positive news?

“When we talk of death, violence or poverty, for example, this is not positive,” said one editor at the station who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution. “If the stock market is up, that is positive. The weather can also be positive.”

In a darkening media landscape, radio news had been a rare bright spot. Now, the implementation of the “50 percent positive” rule at the Russian News Service leaves an increasingly small number of news outlets that are not managed by the Kremlin, directly or through the state national gas company, Gazprom, a major owner of media assets.

The three national television networks are already state controlled, though small-circulation newspapers generally remain independent.

This month alone, a bank loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin tightened its control of an independent television station, Parliament passed a measure banning “extremism” in politics and prosecutors have gone after individuals who post critical comments on Web chat rooms.

Parliament is also considering extending state control to Internet sites that report news, reflecting the growing importance of Web news as the country becomes more affluent and growing numbers of middle-class Russians acquire computers.

On Tuesday, the police raided the Educated Media Foundation, a nongovernmental group sponsored by United States and European donors that helps foster an independent news media. The police carried away documents and computers that were used as servers for the Web sites of similar groups. That brought down a Web site run by the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a media rights group, which published bulletins on violations of press freedoms.

“Russia is dropping off the list of countries that respect press freedoms,” said Boris Timoshenko, a spokesman for the foundation. “We have propaganda, not information.”

With this new campaign, seemingly aimed at tying up the loose ends before a parliamentary election in the fall that is being carefully stage-managed by the Kremlin, censorship rules in Russia have reached their most restrictive since the breakup of the Soviet Union, media watchdog groups say.

“This is not the U.S.S.R., when every print or broadcasting outlet was preliminarily censored,” Masha Lipman, a researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in a telephone interview.

Instead, the tactic has been to impose state ownership on media companies and replace editors with those who are supporters of Mr. Putin — or offer a generally more upbeat report on developments in Russia these days.

The new censorship rules are often passed in vaguely worded measures and decrees that are ostensibly intended to protect the public.

Late last year, for example, the prosecutor general and the interior minister appeared before Parliament to ask deputies to draft legislation banning the distribution on the Web of “extremist” content — a catch phrase, critics say, for information about opponents of Mr. Putin.

On Friday, the Federal Security Service, a successor agency to the K.G.B., questioned Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and opposition politician, for four hours regarding an interview he had given on the Echo of Moscow radio station. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Kasparov of expressing extremist views.

Parliament on Wednesday passed a law allowing for prison sentences of as long as three years for “vandalism” motivated by politics or ideology. Once again, vandalism is interpreted broadly, human rights groups say, including acts of civil disobedience. In a test case, Moscow prosecutors are pursuing a criminal case against a political advocate accused of posting critical remarks about a member of Parliament on a Web site, the newspaper Kommersant reported Friday.

State television news, meanwhile, typically offers only bland fare of official meetings. Last weekend, the state channels mostly ignored the violent dispersal of opposition protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Rossiya TV, for example, led its newscast last Saturday with Mr. Putin attending a martial arts competition, with the Belgian actor Jean-Claude Van Damme as his guest. On the streets of the capital that day, 54 people were beaten badly enough by the police that they sought medical care, Human Rights Watch said.

Rossiya and Channel One are owned by the state, while NTV was taken from a Kremlin critic in 2001 and now belongs to Gazprom. Last week, a St. Petersburg bank with ties to Mr. Putin increased its ownership stake in REN-TV, a channel that sometimes broadcasts critical reports, raising questions about that outlet’s continued independence.

The Russian News Service is owned by businesses loyal to the Kremlin, including Lukoil, though its exact ownership structure is not public. The owners had not meddled in editorial matters before, said Mikhail G. Baklanov, the former news editor, in a telephone interview.

The service provides news updates for a network of music-formatted radio stations, called Russian Radio, with seven million listeners, according to TNS Gallup, a ratings company.

Two weeks ago, the shareholders asked for the resignation of Mr. Baklanov. They appointed two new managers, Aleksandr Y. Shkolnik, director of children’s programming on state-owned Channel One, and Svevolod V. Neroznak, an announcer on Channel One. Both retained their positions at state television.

Mr. Shkolnik articulated the rule that 50 percent of the news must be positive, regardless of what cataclysm might befall Russia on any given day, according to the editor who was present at the April 10 meeting.

When in doubt about the positive or negative quality of a development, the editor said, “we should ask the new leadership.”

“We are having trouble with the positive part, believe me,” the editor said.

Mr. Shkolnik did not respond to a request for an interview. In an interview with Kommersant, he denied an on-air ban of opposition figures. He said Mr. Kasparov might be interviewed, but only if he agreed to refrain from extremist statements.

The editor at the news service said that the change had been explained as an effort to attract a larger, younger audience, but that many editorial employees had interpreted it as a tightening of political control ahead of the elections.

The station’s news report on Thursday noted the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Moscow metro. It closed with an upbeat item on how Russian trains are introducing a six-person sleeping compartment, instead of the usual four.

Already, listeners are grumbling about the “positive news” policy.

“I want fresh morning broadcasts and not to fall asleep,” one listener, who signed a posting on the station’s Web site as Sergei from Vladivostok, complained. “Maybe you’ve tortured RNS’s audience enough? There are just a few of us left. Down with the boring nonintellectual broadcasts!”

The change leaves Echo of Moscow, an irreverent and edgy news station that often provides a forum for opposition voices, as the only independent radio news outlet in Russia with a national reach.

And what does Aleksei Venediktov, the editor in chief of Echo of Moscow, think of the latest news from Russia?

“For Echo of Moscow, this is positive news,” Mr. Venediktov said. “We are a monopoly now. From the point of view of the country, it is negative news.”

Source: New York Times

>Latin America File: Zyuganov leads communist delegation to Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela; rubs elbows with Obrador, Castro, Chavez’s FM, and PCV leaders

>Latin America is turning Red.
— Gennady Zyuganov, Chair, Communist Party of the Russian Federation; quoted in Eurasia Daily Monitor, January 27, 2006

The Twentieth Century was the century of Socialism. The Twenty-first Century is the century of the transition to Communism.
— Communist Century website introduction

First, we will take over Eastern Europe, then we will organize the hordes of Asia . . . then we will move on to Latin America; once we have Latin America, we won’t have to take the United States, the last bastion of capitalism, because it will fall into our outstretched hands like overripe fruit.
— Statement attributed to Vladimir Lenin, quoted by US President Ronald Reagan, September 9, 1985

While communists and assorted leftists throughout Latin America, Europe, and Asia raise a hue and cry against the USA for failing to extradite alleged CIA operative and anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the MSM overlooks (purposely?) Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov’s visit to Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela. In like secretive fashion, in November 2006 Zyuganov accompanied President Vladimir Putin to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Hanoi. This news was only posted at the website of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), which comprises the Russian section of the restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of August 1991 coup mastermind Oleg Shenin. Pictured above: Chairman Zyuganov addresses the Russian Federation State Duma.

The itinerary of the CPRF State Duma faction in Latin America follows. Note the reference to the planned meeting with all of the Mexican parties linked to Pretender President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, as well as the reference to the “traditional” collaboration between the CPRF and the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC). How much more proof is needed to accept the fact that the international communist conspiracy is not the product of overheated right-wing imaginations but a very real combine of anti-Western political forces, now many decades old. That the Soviet communists are bold enough to openly visit their comrades in Latin America indicates that the Communist Bloc, per KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn’s warnings, occupies a position of superiority over the benighted West.

Indeed, in a September 2006 address titled “Time to Change Course” and published at the Marxism-Leninism Today website, Zyuganov remarks: “Capitalism in its globalist stage is fast approaching a point where it will exhaust itself.” Taking due notice of the “red spread” in Latin America and the opponents of twenty-first-century socialism, he then portrays Soviet communism as the means by which to correct the ills imposed by neoliberalism/capitalism:

Our geopolitical opponents are very well aware of it. That is why they are mounting ever new attacks on the CPRF seeking to discredit it and even have it banned. The recent attempt of the Council of Europe to pass an anti-communist resolution is one more evidence of that.

The CPRF is successfully beating off these attacks with the support of the fraternal communist parties and democratic movements in the whole world. The road toward which it is calling the country is not a utopia, nor it is a call to return to the past. On the contrary, we are the only political force in Russia which, backed by its thousand year history and unique achievements of the Soviet government, is showing a real road to a new future.

The successes of Red China where the communist party is effectively guiding the development in the context of a market economy and a combination of various forms of property give the jitters to modern globalists and neo-liberals. Venezuela and Bolivia have resolutely embarked on the road of confronting imperialist diktat, of nationalization of natural resources and protecting the rights of the working population. Cuba and Vietnam continue successful construction of socialism. The whole world is waiting for a resurgence of Russia pinning on it its hopes for an end to wars and attempts to create new colonial empires, economic and political blackmail and diktat. The world is waiting for healthy changes in our country.

It is time to start acting. It is important that the broad masses finally understand that this is an imperative. At stake is the salvation of Russia, restoration of its honour and destiny and its future.

Thus, we see that the CPRF/CPSU remains committed to world revolution and the overthrow of the capitalist nations. The same spirit of triumphalism pervades the Communist Century website, which proclaims: “The Twentieth Century was the century of Socialism. The Twenty-first Century is the century of the transition to Communism.” There the site creators refer to the Eighty-One Party Congress, held in Moscow in 1961, where the communist parties of the world established their long-range strategic deception, which is currently reaching its awful culmination. KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn relates the important of this historic communist conference in his book New Lies for Old (1984).

All translations below courtesy Babelfish with some refinements by your resident blogger.

The press service of the State Duma faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation:
18.04.2007

For the information of the media. Respected associates!

We report to you that today begins the official trip of the delegation of the faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma, headed by the leader of fraction Gennady Zyuganov, in the countries of Latin America. In the course of the trip they will visit Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela, as planned.

The visit to Mexico is achieved at the invitation of the Labor Party, during which time there will be an encounter with the representatives of the parliamentary factions of the parties belonging to the Broad Progressive Front.

The trip to Cuba is achieved within the framework of traditional collaboration between the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Communist Party of Cuba, including planned encounters with the leadership of the CPC and visits to educational institutions and social welfare facilities. The departure of the [CPRF] delegation to Venezuela is planned after the visit to Cuba.

Source: CPRF Website

On April 21 the CPRF website reported that in Mexico the Russian delegation met with representatives of Obrador’s Broad Progressive Front, as well as Senor Obrador himself: “In the course of his stay in Mexico, Zyuganov met with the leadership of the Labor Party, exchanged opinions about the experiences of our parties and the position of the international Communist movement. Then took place an encounter with the representatives of the parties’ parliamentary factions in the Broad Progressive Front. It was expected too that there would be a meeting with Lopez Obrador in the city hall of Mexico City.” In addition to the Labor Party, the other elements of the front include the Party of the Democratic Revolution and Convergence. Together, the front forms the second largest bloc in the Mexican Congress.

Comrade Gennady’s second stop was Havana, where he bestowed the Commemorative Medal of the Great October Socialist Revolution (pictured here) upon Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro for services rendered on behalf of world revolution and promoting Soviet power in the Western Hemisphere. On April 25 the CPRF website reported:

Working encounters with the government of Cuba took place on Tuesday. The first meeting occurred with Comrade Fernando Remirez, leader of the International Division of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. In the course of warm, frank conversation, questions of interaction in the international communist movement were discussed. Then G.A. Zyuganov visited the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples of Foreign Countries, where he met with the leaders and activists of the Cuba-Russia Society.

During the same day the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation visited parliament, where he conversed with the chairman of the National Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba, Comrade Ricardo Alarcon. In addition, there took place encounters with members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Comrades Machado Ventura and Carlos Lage, and Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, Estevan Lasso.

Zyuganov’s third stop was Venezuela, which he visited on April 26. The government of President Hugo Chavez is moving Venezuela toward a single-party dictatorship under the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela, with the parliamentary support of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) and two other leftist groupings. The arrival of the CPRF chairman in the Bolivarian Republic, therefore, could not be more timely. The PCV website reports of Zyuganov’s meetings with Venezuelan government authorities and the PCV leadership:

Gennady Zyuganov, Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, visits Venezuela and the Communist Party

(PCV) Caracas, 26 abr. (TP). – The Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and deputy of the Russian Duma Gennady Zyuganov, arrived today in Venezuela, within the framework of a tour of Latin America, heading a delegation of Communist parliamentarians of the Russian Federation. On his agenda were scheduled meetings with the chief authorities of the government of Venezuela, including Chancellor Nicolás Maduro Moros. This Friday at 4 p.m. he will visit Cantaclaro, seat of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), where he will meet with the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, headed by Secretary General Oscar Figuera and President Jeronimo Carrera.

Chancellor Maduro belongs to Chavez’s cabinet and serves as minister of foreign affairs. We have unearthed no reports or photographs of Comrade Gennady meeting Comrade Hugo, but it is possible that Zyuganov and Chavez will confer through intermediaries to avoid the public spotlight. The Fifth Summit of the neo-communist political-economic bloc known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas is also slated to meet in Barquisimeto, which is west of Caracas, between April 28 and 29. Thus far, only the websites of the CPRF, CPC, and PCV have reported Zyuganov’s presence in Latin America’s Red Axis.

>Breaking News: Ukrainian communists accuse President Yushchenko of "state coup," plans to occupy Supreme Rada; reds set stage for "counter-coup"

>While the Ukrainian Constitutional Court holds a closed-door session to determine the legality of President Viktor Yushchenko’s early election call, “ex”-communist Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich reiterates his opposition to the decision, the prime minister’s communist allies accuse Yushchenko of mounting a “state coup,” and the Justice Ministry urges the president to annul his election decree. The Constitutional Court will announce its decision today. Petro Symonenko, leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine and ruling coalition member (pictured here), warned: “Yushchenko is taking a more radical approach, and doing his best to encourage a forceful resolution of the current conflict. I do not rule it out that the president and hawks in his secretariat might let blood be spilled.” The report below has yet to appear in the English version of Novosti.

The Ukraine: Communists denounce plans to occupy parliament
12:09 27/ 04/ 2007
Kiev, 27 April 2007, RIA Novosti

The Communists affirm that there are plans to occupy by force the seat of the Supreme Rada, or Parliament of the Ukraine.

“It is planned to occupy the parliamentary seat during the next holidays to prevent the deputies from returning to their place of work”, Piotr Tsibenko, of the communist fraction, declared Friday.

The deputy said the Ukraine is living through a coup d’etat whose objective is to implant the dictatorship of President Victor Yuschenko.

Tsibenko proposed to urgently present a motion of censorship against Yuschenko and to inform the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe of the situation. The deputies, according to him, would have to suspend all their trips and to work during the next celebrations.

Source: Novosti (Spanish version)

Ever masters of provocation, Ukrainian communists and crypto-communists are developing a pretext for ousting Yushchenko and re-establishing the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, much as Russian communists and crypto-communists are developing a pretext for ousting President Vladimir Putin and his “pro-Western” regime and restoring the USSR. That Ukrainian communists would seek to involve the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on their side of the crisis is somewhat hypocritical in view of the wrath that communists worldwide poured out upon that body when the European institution passed its anti-communist resolution last year.

>USSR2 File: Putin intervenes against his supporters, Russia’s crypto-communist parties conclude "row": Hammer and sickle will stay on Victory Banner

>The Kremlin, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and the crypto-communist United Russia and Just Russia parties can’t bring themselves to part with the past: the hammer and sickle, symbol of proletarian revolution, will stay on the Russian Federation Victory Banner. Everyone’s on the Red Team in Russia and everything’s under control. Pictured here: The communists lofted the Victory Banner over the Reichstag when the Soviet Army rolled into Berlin in 1945.

Putin saves hammer and sickle after row
Fri Apr 20, 2007 6:02 PM BST
By Christian Lowe

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened on Friday to stop his own supporters removing the Communist hammer and sickle from one of the most hallowed relics of the country’s history.

A draft law passed by the pro-Kremlin lower house of parliament and put on Putin’s desk for approval stripped the hammer and sickle device from copies of the “Victory Banner”.

The banner was the flag that Soviet troops raised over Berlin’s Reichstag building on May 1, 1945, official histories say, an act caught in an iconic photograph and which came to define the victory over Nazi Germany.

Angered by the law, war veterans took to the streets with placards reading “Hands off the Victory Banner!” and the normally docile media accused parliament’s lower house of desecrating the memory of the millions of war dead.

Lower house speaker Boris Gryzlov, whose pro-Kremlin United Russia party initiated the law, met Putin and veterans’ representatives and announced a climbdown: the hammer and sickle would stay.

“The point was raised that for the veterans this (removing the hammer and sickle) is not acceptable and the president supported that,” deputy Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters.

Putin, a former KGB spy who described the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the 20th century” has shown a soft spot for attributes of the Soviet past.

A year after taking office he reinstated the stirring melody of the Soviet national anthem, which his predecessor Boris Yelstin had scrapped, and it was set to new words.

The victory banner in the famous Reichstag photograph was, it later emerged, made from a tablecloth by the photographer who recreated the scene after the real banner had been planted. The original is in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow.

Those wanting to remove the hammer and sickle from the flags that festoon Russian towns for May 9 Victory Day celebrations said it was out of date. “It does not belong among the symbols of modern Russia,” said United Russia MP Franz Klintsevich.

His party did not expect the storm of protest that resulted.

“It is a blasphemy to tinker with history,” said Gennady Gudkov, a member of parliament with Fair Russia, a rival pro-Kremlin party that led the campaign against the law.

Source: Reuters

>Feature: Alleged Soviet agent Henry "Bor" Kissinger, KGB ex-chair Primakov lead US-Russian working group; Putin threatens to withdraw from CFE Treaty

>I think it is necessary to announce a moratorium on Russia’s implementation of the CFE treaty until all NATO countries ratify it and start to strictly adhere to it, as Russia does today unilaterally. I propose discussing the issue at the Russia-NATO Council, and if progress is not reached in negotiations, consider the possibility of terminating our obligations under the CFE Treaty.
— Vladimir Putin, Russian Federation President, Annual State of the Nation Address, April 26, 2007

Will the new working group operating under the leadership of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Russian Prime Minister and KGB Director Yevgeny Primakov lay the groundwork for Washington’s surrender to the Communist Bloc? Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin, as well as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have approved the formation of this body, which focuses on the “future of bilateral relations” between the USA and the neo-Soviet Union, even as the two states go head-to-head over US missile defense deployments in Central Europe.

We carefully avoid “New World Order” conspiracymongering at this site since it plays into the hands of communists and faux rightists, both of whom utilize such theories to condemn capitalism and private property. However, high-level, semi-secret political activities involving personages whose commitment to defending the West against communism is suspect are newsworthy. “Dr. K,” an alumnus of the pro-communist Council on Foreign Relations, is a case in point. More than 30 years ago Gary Allen, citing the allegations of Michael Goleniewski, a colonel in Polish intelligence, exposed “Dr. K” as Soviet agent “Bor.” State-run Novosti reports that Dr. K’s most recent activities include “frequent” trips to Russia: “Kissinger, U.S. secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, has been a frequent guest in Russia since Putin took office in 2000.” Citing various conflicts of interest, Kissinger, who had been nominated by President Bush, resigned from the 911 Commission in 2002. Not content to infiltrate the Nixon Administration in 1970s, Dr. K still exerts his unholy and untrustworthy influence in the White House.

Kissinger, Primakov to head Russia-U.S. working group -1
18:47 26/04/2007

MOSCOW, April 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and the United States are forming a working group that will focus on the future of bilateral relations and will be co-chaired by a former Russian premier and an ex-U.S. secretary of state.

President Vladimir Putin met with the co-chairmen, Yevgeny Primakov and Henry Kissinger, in Moscow Thursday and welcomed the idea.

“I have supported the Russian-American initiative to set up the working group …, which will unite famous and respected politicians and public figures of both countries,” Putin said.

Primakov, who also heads the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the group would gather for its first meeting in early July in Moscow. “The results of debates will be reported to the leaderships of both countries,” said Primakov, Russia’s prime minister from September 1998 to May 1999.

Kissinger, who is also head of his own international consultancy, said President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had approved the idea, and called on the international community to treat Russia as an equal partner, which, he said, is what Putin is trying to attain.

Kissinger, U.S. secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, has been a frequent guest in Russia since Putin took office in 2000.

Source: Novosti

Meanwhile, reacting to NATO’s “aggressive” posture in “post”-communist Eastern Europe, Comrade Czar Putin is threatening to pull Russia out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, thereby opening up Western and Eastern Europe to Red Army re-occupation. President Putin accused the North Atlantic Alliance of failing to uphold the terms of the CFE Treaty and articulated the Kremlin’s planned response: “I think it is necessary to announce a moratorium on Russia’s implementation of the CFE treaty until all NATO countries ratify it and start to strictly adhere to it, as Russia does today unilaterally. I propose discussing the issue at the Russia-NATO Council, and if progress is not reached in negotiations, consider the possibility of terminating our obligations under the CFE Treaty.” On April 24 Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, joined the Kremlin’s saber rattling by treatening to destroy US missile defense installations should they in fact be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic: “If we see that these installations pose a threat to Russia’s national security, they will be targeted by our forces. What measures we are going to use – strategic, nuclear or other – is a technical issue.” This is war talk, but no one in the West listens.

>Latin America File: Prediction confirmed: Ortega announces first trip to Russia since 1980s; Zyuganov visits Latin America, condemns US over Posada

>Bold and Brazen Communists: Kremlin Openly Consorts with Cold War-Era Latin American Client States, Consolidates Links with Neo-Communist Regime in Caracas, and Tightens Noose Around the USA’s Sleepwalking Shopping Mall Regime

For the most part at Once Upon a Time in the West we seek to practice the Christian virtue of humility. However, we would like to point out that on April 16, 2007 we predicted that Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega would again visit the neo-Soviet Union some time after re-assuming the rein’s of Nicaragua’s presidency. Lo and behold, the official organ of the Sandinista National Liberation Front has announced that Comandante Ortega will visit Moscow this June, reciprocating at least two official visits from Russian/Soviet delegations since his inauguration. On January 10 former (“ex”-CPSU) Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, acting as President Vladimir Putin’s official envoy, attended Ortega’s inaugural ceremony, while on April 18 Sergei Baburin, vice president of the Russian State Duma, led another delegation to Managua. Baburin formerly held membership in the defunct Kremlin-concocted Rodina party but now represents Just Russia, which absorbed Rodina.

Translation below courtesy Babelfish with some refinements from your resident blogger. We have placed this news item under MISSILE DAY ALERT, rather than simply Breaking News, as the revitalized Moscow-Managua Axis does not bode well for the security of North America. Pictured above: Stepashin and Ortega.

President of Nicaragua announces visit to Russia

The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, announced that next June he will make an official visit to Russia, with a view to expanding the bilateral relations with that Eurasian country

By: PL 25 April 2007 17:59:14

Nicaragua’s chief executive made the announcement in the meeting that he held Wednesday with the first vice-president of the Russian Parliament, Sergei Babúrin, and the delegation that accompanied him.

Ortega explained to the visitors the poverty situation that the new Sandinista government inherited upon his resumption of the power last January 10, and the efforts that are made at the moment to resolve the situation.

The Sandinista leader admitted that low wages, power deficit, illiteracy and hunger are the most pressing problems for the Nicaraguans, the result, he said, of 16 years of neoliberalism.

The 16 years of neoliberal governments brought to the country more poverty, more delay, and the privatization of health and education services, he asserted.

After remembering the collaboration that the previous Sandinista government (1979-1990) maintained with the extinct Soviet Union, Ortega supported the renovation of bilateral bonds with Russia. Babúrin, on the other hand, announced the intention of his country in investing in the power sector, especially geothermal energy, and the projected construction of an interoceanic channel in Nicaragua.

In the political arena, the Russian legislator supported the endorsement given recently by Nicaragua to the government of Iran, with respect to the sovereign right that Tehran enjoys in developing nuclear energy with peaceful aims.

Source: La Voz del Sandinismo

The official neo-Soviet media, such as ITAR-TASS, portrayed the FSLN’s victory in the November 2006 election as the triumph of Latin America’s progressive political forces over the “neoliberal imperialism” of the USA. The Kremlin’s rancor toward Washington has not diminished one drop since the Communist Party of the Soviet Union gave the West what it wanted on Christmas Day 1991, a false “victory” in the Cold War. Note Stepashin refers to Russia’s low profile in Nicaragua during the 1990s as “the forfeited decade.” However, President Putin’s personal envoy warns that the neo-Soviet Union has returned to Nicaragua in “earnest” and for a “long time.”

Ortega’s inauguration – anti-neoliberalism demonstration
11.01.2007, 13.00

MANAGUA, January 11 (Itar-Tass) – The inauguration of President Daniel Ortega has turned into a demonstration of the Latin American political elite’s protest against the neoliberal methods of reforming the economic systems, which the United States had forced on the countries of the region. This is the conclusion, drawn by local and international analysts, who came to the capital of Nicaragua to witness the return to power of the leader of the Sandinista Front of National Liberation.

The fourth channel of the National Television noted that “the presence of such a huge number of Latin and Central American top leaders, almost all of whom had come to attend Ortega’s inauguration, is patent proof that the return to power of the leader of the Sandinista revolution in one of the poorest countries of the hemisphere is perfectly legitimate and, at the same time, testifies to the actual collapse of the neoliberal model in the majority of Latin American countries”.

Some fifteen leader of the region, adhering to different ideological trends – from the ultra-leftist orientations of the Venezuelan and Bolivian presidents, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, to such “moderate left-wing leaders” as Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and Panamanian President Martin Torrijos, were present at the inauguration ceremony.

It was a rare case when the views of the region’s political elite, which was never been represented so handsomely at the inaugurations of Ortega’s three liberal predecessors on the post of president, coincided so such with the expectations of the population of Nicaragua. A recent public opinion poll showed that almost sixty-seven per cent of respondents were sure that Ortega’s comeback would help make the country prosperous. Only nineteen per cent of the 1,800 participants of the poll, which was held in Nicaragua at the end of December, are of a different opinion. Sixty-four per cent of those polled said the Sandinista comeback, after a sixteen-year-long rule of the liberal cabinets, “holds out fresh hope”. Approximately sixty-eight per cent of the Nicaraguans believe Ortega will definitely be able to fulfil his election promises and to give the county social stability and peace.

Even newspapers that are a far cry from leftist ideas are voicing positive expectations in connection with the former revolutionary’s return to power in spite of the fact that he had evoked the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie’s fierce wrath and resistance back in the eighties. The conservative newspaper “La Prensa” notes that the close relations, which Ortega’s government will have with the Hugo Chavez regime, do not mean that the relations with the United States are bound to be ruptured. This is the view of the newspaper’s Washington correspondent, who also cites the results of a France Presse poll of experts. It showed that, in their opinion, the Ortega regime will not “put all its eggs in one basket” and that the Sandinistas’ return to the Presidential Palace will not necessarily boost Venezuela’s influence in the region and will not oust the United States from it.

According to a blitz-poll, which Itar-Tass held in the streets of Managua, the proportion of those who are strongly in favour of Ortega’s return to power and of those who are afraid of a repetition of the previous Sandinista mistakes, primarily of their excessive state interference in the economy, is approximately 50:50. Small businessmen, employees of various services and farmers on the local retail market are particularly worried by this possibility. On the other hand, most students, young workers and intellectuals are enthusiastically welcoming the return of the 61-year-old politician to the National Palace.

Daniel Ortega noted in an exclusive interview, granted to Itar-Tass, that he had “learned many lessons during his 16-year-long period in opposition”. “Sixteen years after the democratic forfeiture of power by the Sandinista Front of National Liberation and its stay in opposition, we are now getting a new chance to pool our efforts and to cope with the common task of doing away with poverty, to give a fair start to the young people and, at the same time, to guarantee a lasting peace, necessary to achieve this end,” he stated.

Head of the Russian Audit Chamber Sergei Stepashin, who led the Russian delegation to the inauguration ceremony, said Russia was now returning to Latin America “in earnest and for long” after the so-called “forfeited decade”. Parallel with the resumption of broad-scale cooperation with Nicaragua in the traditional commercial and economic field, he noted, “Moscow is also ready to establish partnership with it in science, fishing, agriculture, energy and, of course, in the military-technologic domain”.

Stepashin delivered to Daniel Ortega a personal message from President Vladimir Putin. It expresses, in particular, the conviction that “we shall be able to ensure, by joint efforts, the promotion of the entire range of Russo-Nicaraguan relations”.

Source: ITAR-TASS (Google cache)

In addition to revitalizing the Moscow-Managua Axis, the leadership of the restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union, has sent its top spokesman, Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation–which constitutes the Russian section of the CPSU–to Latin America to revitalize the Moscow-Havana Axis, consolidate the new Moscow-Caracas Axis, and expand its influence throughout Mexico.

Russia’s Communist Party awards medal to Fidel Castro

UPDATED: 11:05, April 26, 2007

The visiting Russian Federation’s Communist Party (PCFR) secretary general, Guennadi Ziuganov, on Wednesday awarded Cuban leader Fidel Castro the first 90-year Commemorative Medal of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

At a ceremony in Cuba’s Council of Ministers’ headquarters, Ziuganov handed over the medal to Vice President Carlos Lage, wishing Castro a speedy recovery.

Castro temporarily handed the reins of government to Defense Minister Raul Castro after undergoing intestinal surgery in July last year.

Ziuganov praised Castro as a symbol of the anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America. Lage said this is a reason of satisfaction for the Cuban revolution’s top leader.

The PCFR chief arrived here on Sunday as part of a Latin American tour, which also includes Mexico and Venezuela.

Meanwhile, the Russian communist leader blasted Washington for the bailing of anti-Castro terrorism suspect Luis Posadas Carriles, saying the move “is beyond the limits of cynicism and impudence.”

Posada Carriles is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for trial on charges of masterminding a Cubana Aviacion airliner bombing that killed 73 people in 1976. Cuba also accuses him of bomb attacks on Havana hotels.

The 79-year-old former CIA operative was freed last week on bail from a New Mexico jail and is under house arrest at home in Miami pending trial on immigration charges.

Source: People’s Daily Online

KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn must be comparing the current activities of the not-so-dead Communist Bloc with his timely but unheeded warnings in New Lies for Old (1984) and The Perestroika Deception (1995) with great satisfaction, as well as fear.

>Grey Terror File: Messianic Rabbi: Virginia Tech killer, South Korean national Seung-Hui Cho, quoted Koran in video clips mailed to NBC News

>Seung-Hui Cho’s otherwise unreported adherence to Islam would not be surprising, especially in view of Sulejman Talovic’s murderous attack on the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, February 12, 2007. On April 18, two days after the Virginia Tech massacre, NBC News received a package from Cho, addressed from “A. Ishmael” and containing a DVD in which Cho reads a personal manifesto. Citing a Virginia peace officer, Eric Carlson, a Messianic Rabbi and leader of the Congregation Zion’s Sake in Newport News, contends that Cho quotes the Koran in his home-made video clips. After the murder-suicide, investigators discovered the words “Ismail AX” written in red ink on Cho’s arm. Both Jews and Muslims view Ishmael as the progenitor of the Arab nations. As one might expect, Muslims are not impressed by the attempt to link Cho with Islam.

Was VA Tech Massacre A Terrorist Attack?

Reported At Christian Worldviewnetwork.com First:

The following is a letter from a Rabbi in Virginia. Several other sources have confirmed aspects of this story. It truly appears the mainstream media is ignoring what looks like what was a terrorist attack. Officials need to release the audio and/or transcripts of the other videos made by this terrorist.

Shalom Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I wanted to take a moment and share with you some inside information concerning the events at Virginia Tech this past Monday. Living in Old Dominion, this was not a national tragedy, it was a family tragedy. Several gunshot victims are friends with my own children who graduated High school with them and several murder victims were from our communities here in Newport News, Yorktown, Hampton, and Virginia Beach. This morning (Thursday April 19th) I met and prayed with some of the Samaha family members here in Williamsburg, Va. 19 year old Reema Samaha, a beautiful, vibrant, and outgoing Freshmen at Virginia Tech was violently murdered Monday. I cannot place in words the grief, emotions, and shock we are experiencing now, even as I reflect back upon this morning and feebly attempt to communicate to you what we are experiencing and that has occurred here.

The Samaha family name is misleading. They are a close knit Lebanese Christian family that dearly loves the lord. Reema’s parents live in Centerville, Virginia but a major portion of the family live here in our area. The family expresses it’s heartfelt thanks for your prayers and support as they grieve their horrendous loss.

I also spoke this morning, right after this meeting with a peace officer here in Virginia who had access too and has read some of the transcripts of the other ten videos that are not being shown on the news. The shooter (Cho) was quoting verses from the Koran and had Ishmael written on his arm and as his return address on the package sent to NBC. It appears that he did not randomly pick his targets but rather chose classes that had high concentrations of Christians and Jews in them-he was targeting Christians and Jews!!!!!

This may never come out in the media and some may tend to disregard this but my source is a solid believer and a trustworthy officer who has personally read some of the transcripts. What adds to this is that the press is not mentioning that a very high percentage of the victims were believers. The names of the victims can be misleading and don’t indicate who they really are! It has literally been a whirlwind here these past few days and unfortunately it has just begun for us. The blast arc of destruction extends beyond the campus in Blacksburg to friends and families across the Commonwealth into our own communities and people who are in shock, pain, and overwhelming grief. The initial shock will linger as long as the media circus continues but the true pain, emotional impact, scaring, and damage will surface in the next 6 to 12 months and longer when the nations short term memory has forgotten the rampage and terror that occurred here.

I have been astounded by our young men and women who have shown great courage, integrity and faith in the face of an inimaginable horror. Their resiliency and determination have led to a great openness towards God and Yeshua as they congregate together in grass roots prayer meetings, seeking the Kingdom of God! I pray this would be a great time of revival among them and that God receive Glory for what the enemy meant as devastation and destruction.

We, the families of the victims, all of those at Va Tech, across Virginia, and the Congregation covet your prayers and support at this time. Please continue to stand in the gap for us and pray for healing and shalom.

In His Love,

Eric S. Carlson, Rabbi

Source: Christian Worldview Network

Per GRU defector Viktor Suvorov’s history of Spetsnaz (Soviet/Russian special forces) both Cho and Sulejman would make useful recruits for pre-Fourth World War “grey terror,” otherwise known as the “overture”:

The overture is carried by agents of the secret services of the Soviet satellite countries and by mercenaries recruited by intermediaries. The principal method employed at this stage is ‘grey terror’, that is, a kind of terror which is not conducted in the name of the Soviet Union. The Soviet secret services do not at this stage leave their visiting cards, or leave other people’s cards. The terror is carried out in the name of already existing extremist groups not connected in any way with the Soviet Union, or in the name of fictitious organisations.

The GRU reckons that in this period its operations should be regarded as natural disasters, actions by forces beyond human control, mistakes committed by people, or as terrorist acts by organisations not connected with the Soviet Union.

The terrorist acts carried out in the course of the ‘overture’ require very few people, very few weapons and little equipment. In some cases all that may be needed is one man who has as a weapon nothing more than a screwdriver, a box of matches or a glass ampoule. Some of the operations can have catastrophic consequences.

Cho’s actions were truly “catastrophic.” Thirty-two people were murdered and 29 injured. The Left is screaming for more gun control and the nations of the world view the USA through eyes of disbelief.

>Feature: Islamo-Marxist nexus in Havana: Iranian FM meets Raul Castro, PRC envoy delivers letter from Hu to Fidel; Ortega demands Posada extradition

>The current high-level Iranian delegation and recent high-level Chinese delegation to Havana personifies the Islamo-Marxist nexus that the Moscow-Beijing Axis has carefully cultivated since the 1960s, but especially since the “collapse” of communism in the Soviet Union. Both Cuba and Iran use the Non-Aligned Movement, mentioned in the first article, to inconspicuously advance the influence of this nexus. The USA is surrounded by enemies, geographically and ideologically. Pictured here: Acting President of Cuba Raul Castro and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Cuban First Vice President Meets Iranian Foreign Minister
Havana, April 24 (acn)

Cuban First Vice President Raul Castro held talks on Monday with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

During their meeting, Raul Castro and Manouchehr Mottaki addressed international issues of bilateral interest; they expressed their willingness to strengthen the role of the Non-Aligned Movement (NOAL) in the current world situation, Granma daily reported.

Both top officials also evaluated the state of current bilateral relations and agreed to further expanding bilateral economic and cooperation relations. The Iranian Foreign Minister briefed Raul Castro on his country’s current situation.

The meeting was also attended by Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, and by Iran’s parliament member Hamidreza Aji Babaei and ambassador to Havana Ahmad Edrisian.

Source: Cuban News Agency

High Level Chinese Delegation Wound up Visit to Cuba

Varadero, Matanzas, April 24 (acn) Wu Guanzheng, member of the Permanent Committee of Chna’s Communist Party Political Bureau concluded an official visit to Cuba in this central Cuban locality, on Monday.

The Chinese top party official departed from Varadero’s Juan Gualberto Gomez International Airport, as he was seen off by Fernando Remirez de Estenoz, member of the Cuban Communist Party Central Committee Secretariat.

During his stay on the island, Wu Guanzheng, also secretary of China’s Communist Party Central Commission for Disciplinary Control, met with Cuban President Fidel Castro on April 20. Guanzheng handed over to Fidel Castro a letter from Chinese President Hu Jintao as an expression of the excellent bilateral relations between the Communist Parties, governments and peoples of Cuba and China.

The Chinese top party official also met with Cuban Vice President Raul Castro. The meeting was also attended by members of the Cuban Communist Party Political Bureau.

In statements to the press, Remirez de Estenoz recalled that China is Cuba’s second commercial partner, since both countries share a balance of trade amounting to more than 2 billion dollars annually.

Meanwhile, China’s ambassador to Havana Zhao Rongxian told reporters that the visit here by Wu Guanzheng was mutually beneficial and he expressed the gratitude of his diplomatic mission and the high level delegation for the attention they received on the island.

Source: Cuban News Agency

Meanwhile, following up on its pledge to offer “unrestricted” support to communist Cuba, neo-Sandinista Nicaragua is demanding the extradition of alleged CIA operative and anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who sought asylum in the USA in 2005:

Nicaragua to Request Extradition of Posada Carriles

Managua, Apr 19 (Prensa Latina) Nicaragua will request the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, President Daniel Ortega announced Thursday, while he condemned the terrorist’s release by US authorities.

We are giving instructions for Nicaragua, besides condemning his release, to offer its territory so that Posada Carriles can be tried in our country, taking into account that he also committed terrorist acts here, said Ortega.

Source: Prensa Latina

>USSR2 File: Boris Yeltsin dead at age 76: Former Soviet/Russian dictator, butcher of Grozny, and Putin mentor

>Failing to appreciate the true Leninist nature of the new Russian political structure and Yeltsin’s role within it, Western leaders, with exaggerated expectations of Russian “progress towards democracy,” committed themselves to supporting Yeltsin–believing mistakenly that he was sincere and that he enjoyed a relatively free hand as President to pursue “reformist” policies. As a consequence, Western policy became the captive of the Kremlin strategists, of whom Yeltsin is just one.
— Anatoliy Golitsyn, “Memorandum to the CIA, February 1, 1995” published in The Perestroika Deception (London: Edward Harle, 1995, 1998), page 224

In my book New Lies for Old [1984] it was shown that, on the basis of a study of Soviet strategy and disinformation, accurate predictions could be made concerning the forthcoming liberalization of the Soviet system, and of the course that it would take. Accurate predictions concerning events in the context of the new fake “democratist” political set-up in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] can also be made, once it is recognized that the system is being manipulated by the political elite of “former” Communists who are extending the strategy of which they were the architects.

Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Rutskoi and Khasbulatov are all members of this elite, which contains the group I have referred to in successive Memoranda as the Russian strategists. The elite were reponsible for returning Shevardnadze and Aliyev to power in Georgia and Azerbaijan. They are also responsible for planning and conducting the Leninist evolution of the political system and the way it operates, including the occurrence, and recurrence, of political “crisis.”
— “Memorandum to the CIA, October 1, 1993” published in The Perestroika Deception, page 236

The death of Boris Yeltsin, as the quotes from KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn imply, changes nothing in the long-range plan of the restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The collective leadership of the CPSU is working well: Yuri Andropov promoted Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev promoted Yeltsin. Yeltin promoted Vladimir Putin. CPSU chairman Oleg Shenin will step out of the shadows and promote himself as Soviet/Russian president in 2008.

In response to his mentor’s death, Comrade Czar Putin lied through his teeth on neo-Soviet television: “Thanks to Boris Yeltsin’s strong will and direct initiative, a whole new epoch has started and a new Russia was born — a free state open to the world.” A whole new epoch, indeed, an epoch characterized by the most subtle and widespread communist deception since the Bolshevik Revolution. With respect to Putin’s characterization of Russia as “a free state open to the world,” even the White House and the European Union are now failing to swallow that hook and line.

Pictured above: Yeltsin welcomes Putin into the Kremlin’s corridors of power, 1999.

Russia’s first President Yeltsin dies at 76
18:08 23/04/2007

MOSCOW, April 23 (RIA Novosti) — Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first ever democratically elected leader (1991-1999), has died at the age of 76 of cardiac arrest.

Yeltsin was born in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in 1931 and trained at the local Urals Polytechnic Institute.

Yeltsin began his career in the construction business (1953-1968). He joined the Communist Party in 1961 and became first secretary of the party in the Sverdlovsk Region in 1976 and a member of the party’s central committee in 1981. In 1985, then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin to head the Communist Party’s Moscow branch, and in 1986 made him a non-voting member of the party’s ruling Politburo.

In October 1987, he was forced to resign from the party leadership and in 1988 from the Politburo after he challenged hardliners and criticized Gorbachev’s reforms. He was appointed a deputy construction minister.

In 1989, Yeltsin won elections to the Supreme Soviet (parliament), was elected Russian president by that body, and resigned from the Communist Party. He retained the presidency in the popular election in 1991, when he became Russia’s first democratically elected president and Gorbachev’s main liberal opponent.

In August 1991, Yeltsin led the resistance to the coup by Communist hard-liners, when Gorbachev was detained at his country house. The success of opposition to the coup shifted power to reformers. In December 1991, he helped found the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a new alliance in which Soviet republics were declared independent. Thereby, Yeltsin helped end attempts to preserve the Soviet Union. Gorbachev resigned as president December 25.

In September 1993, Yeltsin issued a decree to dissolve the Supreme Soviet and hold parliamentary elections. A month later, he ordered the armed suppression of a coup by former Supreme Soviet members led by Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi.

As president, Yeltsin moved to end state control of the economy and oversaw sweeping privatization deals, which brought fortunes to a handful of Kremlin-connected businessmen. Economic difficulties and political opposition slowed the reform.

In 1994, Yeltsin ordered the suppression of Dzhokhar Dudayev’s separatist regime in Chechnya. The military campaign in the breakaway republic ended in September 1996 when Russia withdrew all its troops from the republic, thereby, de facto granting Chechnya independence.

In June 1996, he ran for the presidency again and defeated his main communist contender Gennady Zyuganov in the runoff elections in July.

In November 1996, Yeltsin underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery and was confined to the hospital for months and appeared in public less frequently. Moreover, in the late 1990s, Russia was hit by a series of economic crises and frequent cabinet reshuffles.

On New Year’s Eve in 1999, Yeltsin surprised the nation by announcing his resignation and appointing then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin acting president.

He is survived by his wife, daughter, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Source: Novosti

Meanwhile, the website of the President of Russia is announcing that Czech President Vaclav Klaus will be visiting the Kremlin at Putin’s request between April 26 and 29. Czech dissident Petr Cibulka alleges that Klaus is of Russian ancestry, an KGB/FSB asset, and friend of Alexander Rebyonok, a Czech-based GRU illegal. If that is so, then Russia pulls the strings on both the left and right of the political spectrum in Eastern Europe. Documenting these connections has been the main point of our “Red World” series.

>Eden

>

>USSR2 File: Neo-Soviet Union in chaos: Kremlin "crushes" leftists, pro-Yushchenko MPs resign en masse, Kyrgyz protestors demand reforms

>Who will rescue the Not-So-Former Soviet Union from foreign financial “occupation,” political chaos, and economic adventurism? Enter the restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Pictured here is Yulia Tymoshenko, Komsomol capitalist and ally of communist puppet Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko.

Tymoshenko bloc members offer resignation to president
22:0919/ 04/ 2007

KIEV, April 19 (RIA Novosti) – Over 150 members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine have offered their resignation to President Viktor Yushchenko, Tymoshenko said Thursday.

“All our members of parliament have offered their resignation to the sole legitimate person in the country, the president,” the bloc’s press service quoted Tymoshenko as saying.

She said following the presidential decree to dissolve parliament, “Supreme Rada leaders, factions, and parliament have ceased to exist,” which gives the president additional grounds for calling early parliamentary elections.

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court, which is now in its third day of examining a presidential decree ordering the dissolution of parliament and calling for snap elections, was accused by Tymoshenko Wednesday of representing political parties and of bias and being corrupt. She said that her bloc would not recognize the ruling and called the court session a farce and “a seizure of power by Yanukovych’s clan.”

Tymoshenko, Yushchenko’s fierce ally in the 2004 protests that swept him to power, urged a non-stop rally Wednesday to demand early polls without waiting for a decision by the court, which is due by April 27.

Several thousand protesters gathered near Ukraine’s Constitutional Court Thursday, with about 4,000 backers of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, whose allies dominate the Supreme Rada, facing some 6,000 supporters of President Viktor Yushchenko, who are demanding the dissolution of the legislature.

The camps are separated by a police cordon and metal fence. No clashes have been reported so far. The court building is also cordoned off by police following pro-presidential protesters blocked the court entrance Wednesday delaying the court session for an hour, and clashes with pro-premier forces.

Both Yushchenko and Yanukovych, who are locked in a long-running power struggle, have pledged to obey any court decision and have not ruled out a compromise on an election date.

Source: Novosti

Meanwhile, on the periphery of the “post”-Soviet space, Kyrgyz protestors notice little improvement in their republic’s political situation since the 2005 Tulip Revolution, when Kurmanbek Bakiyev (“ex”-CPSU) replaced Askar Akayev (“ex”-CPSU) as president. The fact that former Bakiyev ally and prime minister, socialist Felix Kulov, is now leading the opposition in the Kyrgyz Republic should cause one’s red flags (pun intended) to pop up. More communist-scripted drama?

Fourteen injured in Bishkek protests – health ministry
21:4819/ 04/ 2007

BISHKEK, April 19 (RIA Novosti) – The Kyrgyz Health Ministry said Thursday 14 people have been injured in a protest in Bishkek.

Protesters have been rallying in central Bishkek for nine days demanding that the new Constitution reducing presidential powers be adopted and early elections called. The protests were organized by the United Front of Kyrgyzstan, a major opposition movement.

Preliminary reports said that one person had been killed, but so far this is unconfirmed.

Felix Kulov, former Prime Minister and presidential ally and current leader of the radical opposition, said: “The Kyrgyz authorities bear responsibility for the consequences of dispersing the protesters.” Kulov accused “the provocateurs, who stayed at the government building,” and started the disorder.

According to the latest reports, the Kyrgyz parliament will gather Thursday night for an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in the country, parliamentary speaker Marat Sultanov said, adding that the meeting would be closed.

Police used tear gas and stun grenades against protesters gathered in front of the government building in the Kyrgyz capital.

Source: Novosti

>USSR2 File: White House, EU condemn Kremlin for attacking Other Russia’s April 14-15 Marches of Dissent: BBC: worst repression since Soviet era

>The restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which controls the Kremlin through its frontmen in the Putinist-Chekist-Surkovist-Gryzlovist regime, recently revealed its reasons for rebuilding the Soviet Union since 2000 and employing Soviet-era tactics in “crushing” dissenters such as the Other Russia coalition, which not so coincidentally contains the CPSU youth section, Red Youth Vanguard. On April 11, 2007 Yevgeny Myasnikov, a senior research scientist at Moscow’s Centre for Arms Control, lamented: “Cold war thinking has prevailed, especially on the western side. Russia has been deeply disappointed by what has happened after 1991. Nato started to expand, and the US started to think it had won the cold war. We had hoped for a partnership. But it didn’t happen.” Note the Kremlin’s disappointment: “Russia has been deeply disappointed by what has happened after 1991.” As usual, no one in the West paid attention to this candid revelation of the CPSU’s long-range strategy for East-West convergence on communist terms. To summarize the Leninist lament: Convergence is too slow, war is coming, hence the second Sino-Soviet war game slated for summer 2007.

Be assured, the timid responses of Washington and Brussels to the Kremlin’s nuclear-tipped FSB police state will amount to something less than nothing. I bet the Soviet communists are shaking in their boots. Not.

Pictured above is world chess champion and political activist Garry Kasparov, who has been summoned by the Russian Federation Federal Security Service (FSB/KGB), to respond to official charges of “inciting extremism.” In Putin’s Russia, “inciting extremism” apparently refers to any expression of opposition to Putin.

White House Criticizes Russia
By Associated Press
April 16, 2007 posted 2:33 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House on Monday sharply criticized Russia’s harsh handling of anti-government demonstrators, saying it was part of “an emerging pattern of use of excessive force by the authorities.”

The criticism came after riot police beat and detained dozens of anti-Kremlin demonstrators Sunday in St. Petersburg on a second day of protests that tested the weak opposition’s ability to challenge widely popular President Vladimir Putin. On Saturday, police in Moscow forcefully broke up protests by an anti-government coalition led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

“We are deeply disturbed by the heavy-handed manner in which this weekend’s demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg were broken up by the authorities and by an emerging pattern of use by excessive force by the authorities in reaction to similar events,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We also find it intolerable that journalists were detained, an unacceptable practice that hinders freedom of the press.

“We underscore that allowing peaceful expressions of protest is an element of democracy and a universally recognized human right,” Perino said.

She said she did not believe that President Bush had spoken with Mr. Putin about the incidents.

Ms. Perino said America supports calls for an investigation of the government’s actions. She urged the Kremlin to reiterate its commitment to respect international standards of freedom of speech, the media and the right of assembly.

Opinion polls rate Mr. Putin as Russia’s most popular political figure by far, thanks to newfound political stability and rapid economic growth fueled by high world oil prices. That popularity has cowed mainstream politicians in parliament and allowed Mr. Putin to strengthen the Kremlin’s powers.

Mr. Putin’s foes said the harsh handling of demonstrators, who included many elderly people, would fuel a growing sense that the leader is strangling democracy ahead of parliamentary elections in December and a presidential vote next spring.

Source: The New York Sun

EU worry over Russia ‘crackdown’
By Steven Eke, BBC Russia analyst

The European Union has called on Russia to respect freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, after a weekend crackdown on demonstrators.

A spokeswoman for the EU said the body was very concerned about the police action in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Earlier, Russia’s human rights ombudsman said he intended to investigate the incident.

Police are accused of randomly beating demonstrators, journalists and even passers-by.

‘Exceeded authority’

The EU spokeswoman said the European Commission would continue to raise the issue of respect for basic freedoms in its regular meetings with Russian officials.

Human rights groups in Russia say they intend to set up a commission to investigate why such force was used against peaceful demonstrators in Moscow on Saturday, and then St Petersburg, Russia’s second city, on Sunday.

They have been encouraged by a pledge from Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s official human rights ombudsman, who said he believed police had exceeded their authority.

In a key election year, the Russian authorities appear nervous. They have begun to use a degree of violence against demonstrations not seen since the 1980s, when the Soviet Union still existed.

Demonstrators argue that they have a constitutional right to participate in protests unimpeded by the authorities. They say a raft of laws and regulations – some introduced very recently – limiting such protests are simply unconstitutional.

That is not an analysis the authorities agree with. Russia’s top political commentators say there is a logic to the authorities’ actions.

Russia will hold parliamentary elections in December and then a presidential vote in March next year.

It is already clear that the authorities’ key strategy is to consolidate support for their parties and candidates by stressing unity in the face of an external enemy – namely the West.

In response to complaints from foreign governments that their journalists were also attacked by police, Russian diplomats have accused them of “unobjective coverage” of the protests.

Source: BBC News

>Red World: Saint Vincent and Grenadines’ pro-communist PM "Comrade" Ralph friends with Castro and Chavez; flown to Cuba after Apr. 14 crash

> Pictured here: Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines “Comrade” Ralph Gonsalves visits good buddy President Hugo Chavez in Caracas in 2005.

We have now completed our profiles of communist influence in Central America and the Caribbean. South America will be treated next. With the exception of Puerto Rico, which is included below, dependent territories in the Western Hemisphere are not considered here. Hence, for example, we do not profile the British territories of Montserrat, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla, Cayman Islands, and Bermuda. Nor do we profile the Dutch territories of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG)
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring ruling pro-communist government
Independence: October 27, 1979 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: “Comrade” Ralph Everard Gonsalves (Unity Labour Party): March 29, 2001-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines House of Assembly, which occurred on December 7, 2005, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Unity Labour Party (social democratic) 12 and New Democratic Party (conservative) 3.
Next general elections: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ next general elections are scheduled for 2009.

Communist government:
1) Unity Labour Party (pro-communist): 2001-present

Communist insurgency: none

Communist parties: Possibly People’s Progressive Movement, Progressive Labour Party, and United People’s Movement.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: Unity Labour Party (consultative)
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: The current socialist prime minister of SVG Ralph Gonsalves is a Rhodes Scholar and holds a PhD in political science from the University of the Manchester, while his bachelor’s and master’s degrees were obtained at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. His publications include: The Spectre of Imperialism: The Case of the Caribbean (University of the West Indies, 1976), The Non-Capitalist Path of Development: Africa and the Caribbean (One Caribbean Publishers, 1981), and Notes on Some Basic Ideas in Marxism-Leninism (University of the West Indies). Gonsalves is affectionately known as “Comrade Ralph.” He is an admirer of Guyanese pan-Africanist and Black Power advocate Walter Rodney, who also taught at UWI Mona and in Tanzania. Upon returning to Guyana, Rodney established the Working People’s Alliance to contest the ruling People’s National Congress. Agents of Guyana’s communist President Forbes Burnham assassinated Rodney in 1980.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ ULP government has a close relationship with the communist dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba. The heads of SVG and Venezuela, for example, have each traveled to the other’s country on official business. On November 22 and 23, 2001 President Chavez made his first state visit to SVG. In September 2005 Prime Minister Gonsalves visited Caracas. On the evening of February 16, 2007 Chavez made his second state visit to SVG, following a visit to neighboring Dominica earlier that day. Upon his reception by Gonsalves, Chavez gushed to the welcoming crowed of Vincentians: “Today is the time of the people, of unity. The Caribbean should be a sea of resistance to imperialism.” During this trip, Chavez was scheduled to visit the town of Argyle where Venezuela, Cuba, and Mexico are funding the construction of an airport. (One is immediately reminded of Cuba’s extensive involvement in 1983 of building a new 10,000-foot runway at St. George’s in then communist Grenada.)

On April 12, 2007 SVG’s Minister of Urban Development and Culture Rene Baptiste visited Havana where she conferred with Cuban counterpart Abel Prieto.

Cuba and Saint Vincent-Grenadines Expand Cultural Relations

Havana, April 12 (ACN) The cultural exchange between Cuba and the rest of Caribbean countries is a priority for the Cuban government, said the island’s Culture Minister Abel Prieto after signing a bilateral cooperation accord Wednesday with the minister of Urban Development and Culture of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Rene Baptiste, in Havana.

Baptiste said the agreement may further strengthen relations between both governments, which were established more than 30 years ago.

Cuban Culture Minister Abel Prieto said that in the context of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a regional integration program launched by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and known by its acronyms ALBA (meaning DAWN in English), many projects can be implemented for the spiritual enrichment of the people of this region.

Rene Baptiste said her visits to the National Ballet School and to other places in Havana were very useful and she expressed her confidence on the future expansion of cooperation relations among Caribbean nations.

The distinguished visitor and her delegation will also meet with Cuban officials from different sectors and tour the western province of Pinar del Rio.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles chain of the Caribbean Sea. Its 389-square-kilometer territory consists of the main island of Saint Vincent and the northern two-thirds of the Grenadines. The country has a British colonial history and is now part of the Caribbean Community CARICOM.

By joining the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas and Petrocaribe, in which the country is entitled to receive subsidized Venezuelan petroleum, SVG, like other Caribbean Community countries, has become subservient to Latin America’s Red Axis.

On December 1, 2006 PM Gonsalves attended ceremonies organized in Havana in honor of Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday. On that occasion, the state-run Cuban New Agency reports, Comrade Ralph extolled Castro’s “leadership of the socialist revolution in the face of the United States, the most hostile and powerful empire of the world.” The Cuban propaganda source quoted Gonsalves as affirming of Castro: “He has been a man of ideas and action who inspired in the example of José Martí. I know Fidel pretty well as a revolutionary and human being, his sense of humor and love for life.” The persecuted Christians and journalists of Cuba might be forgiven for doubting Gonsalves’ characterization of the Cuban dictator.

On April 14, 2007 PM Gonsalves was involved in a car crash on SVG. He was flown on a Cuban jet to Havana where he received medical treatment for non-life threatening injuries.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

>Red World: Saint Lucia’s tropical paradise has no communists, but absorbed into Venezuela’s Petrocaribe initiative

>Pictured here: Castries marina, Saint Lucia. No communists, tropical paradise. I’ll need some time to think about this . . . okay. I’ll go. You don’t have to twist my arm.

Saint Lucia
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system
Independence: February 22, 1979 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Saint Lucia: Stephenson King (United Workers’ Party): September 7, 2007-present (predecessor Sir John Compton died same day)
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the House of Assembly of Saint Lucia, which occurred on December 11, 2006, the seats were distributed in the following manner: United Workers’ Party (conservative) 11 and Saint Lucia Labour Party (moderate socialist) 6.
Next general elections: Saint Lucia’s next general elections are scheduled for 2011.
Communist government: none
Communist insurgency: none
Communist parties: none
Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: Saint Lucia Labour Party (consultative)
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: By joining Petrocaribe, in which it is entitled to receive subsidized Venezuelan petroleum, Saint Lucia, like other Caribbean Community countries, has become subservient to Latin America’s Red Axis.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

>Red World: Petroleum-rich Trinidad and Tobago absorbed into Venezuela’s Petrocaribe initiative; Islamic coup fails in 1990

> Pictured here: Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Patrick Manning visits President Hugo Chavez in Caracas where, after reversing his previous policy, Manning signs a document committing his country to Venezuela’s Petrocaribe initiative.

Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Type of state: Republic with multiparty system
Independence: August 31, 1962 (from United Kingdom)
Prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago: Patrick Augustus Mervyn Manning (People’s National Movement): December 17, 1991-November 9, 1995, December 24, 2001-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Parliament’s House of Representatives, which occurred on November 5, 2007, the seats were distributed in the following manner: People’s National Movement (conservative, predominantly Afro-Trinidadian) 26, and United National Congress (center-left, communist infiltrated, predominantly Indo-Trinidadian) 15.
Next general elections: Trinidad and Tobago’s next general elections are scheduled for 2013.

Communist government:
1) Government of “ex”-communist Prime Minister Basdeo Panday (Workers’ and Farmers’ Party, United National Congress): November 10, 1995-December 23, 2001

Communist insurgency:
1) While Trinidad and Tobago has not experienced a communist insurgency per se, the country has witnessed the insurgent activities of allied forces, such as Islam and Black Power. The Jamaat al Muslimeen (“Muslim Group”) is a Muslim organization in Trinidad and Tobago with predominantly Afro-Trinidadian membership. On Friday July 27, 1990 more than 100 Jamaat members, operating under the command of Yasin Abu Bakr and Bilaal Abdullah, staged a coup d’état against the government of Trinidad and Tobago. Forty-two insurgents stormed the Red House, where parliament meets, and seized Prime Minister A.N.R. Robinson and most of his cabinet. Meanwhile, seventy-two compatriots attacked the offices of Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) and the Trinidad Broadcasting Company. That evening Abu Bakr appeared on television and declared that the government had been overthrown and that the Jamaat was negotiating with the armed forces.

In response, the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF) and police isolated the area around the Red House. Acting President Emmanuel Carter announced a state of emergency and martial law was enacted. In spite of Abu Bakr’s plea for calm, looting and arson occurred in the national capital Port of Spain and the East-West Corridor. On the night of July 27, the TTDF assumed control of the TTT transmitter on Cumberland Hill, effectively shutting down Jamaat’s access to the outside world. After a six-day siege, Abu Bakr and his forces surrendered, were arrested, tried for treason, and then amnestied and released. The Privy Council subsequently overturned the amnesty, but authorities did not re-arrest the Jamaat. About 40 people, including one parliamentarian, died during the coup attempt.

The Jamestown Foundation’s Global Terrorism Analysis notes that Jamaat al Muslimeen has no known connections to Al Qaeda, but maintains relations with the dictators of Libya and Venezuela, Muammar Qadhafi and Hugo Chavez: “U.S. and Trinidadian authorities have kept a close eye on the Jammat’s activities since the 9/11 attacks, but there is no hard evidence tying the group to international terrorism, let alone al-Qaeda. However, Abu Bakr did maintain links with Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi in the 1980s and 90s and considers him a close friend to this day. The Jammat reportedly received funds through Libya’s World Islamic Call Society (WICS) to finance the construction of its main mosque, schools, and a medical center, but there is no evidence linking Tripoli with the failed 1990 coup attempt. Abu Bakr’s most recent publicized links with controversial international figures include Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.”

2) In 1970 the marches and protests of the Black Power Revolution gripped Trinidad and Tobago as the National Joint Action Committee, Black Power movement, Oilfields Workers Trade Union, and mutinous elements in the armed forces challenged the authority of the post-independence government of Prime Minister Eric Williams. Protestors portrayed Fidel Castro, Stokely Carmichael, and Malcolm X as their revolutionary champions. Following a few token political gestures from the government, police killed a protestor on April 6. One week later, Member of Parliament A.N.R. Robinson, who then supported the ruling People’s National Movement, resigned in protest. On April 18 sugar workers went on strike. Rumors of a general strike circulated. On April 21 Prime Minister Williams announced a state of emergency and ordered the arrest of 15 Black Power leaders. In response, Raffique Shah and Rex Lassalle, two rebellious officers in the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force, led a mutiny and held hostages at the Teteron army barracks. With the assistance of the Coast Guard, the government negotiated the surrender of the mutineers on April 25 and the Black Power Revolution was crushed.

3) The Butler Riots of 1937 trace their origin to the formation in that year of the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU). Grenadian-born Baptist preacher and labor leader Tubal Uriah Butler and Indo-Trinidadian Krishna Deonarine, who later changed his name to Adrian Cola Rienzi, in honor of the Italian revolutionary, were the union’s architects. Prior to this collaborative effort, Butler was expelled from the Trinidad Labour Party for “extremist tendencies” and, in response, formed the British Empire Citizens’ and Workers’ Home Rule Party. Likewise, Rienzi founded the Trinidad Citizens’ League, which was widely perceived as a communist organization, while Rienzi himself was branded as a “communist agitator.” In June 19, 1937 Butler and Rienzi fomented a strike among oilfield workers against the colonial authorities. Butler was jailed from September 9, 1937 to May 1939. When the Second World War began in September 1939, Butler was re-arrested and remained imprisoned during the entire war. Rienzi died in 1972, while Butler died in 1977. During the 1960s and 1970s George Weeks developed the OWTU into a powerful political force that played an important role in the 1970 Black Power Revolution and the formation of the United Labour Front.

Active communist parties:
1) Movement for Social Transformation: Founded in 1989 this party is left socialist in orientation.
2) Socialist Alternative: This party is communist in orientation.

Defunct communist parties:
1) Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago (CPTT): Founded in 1979 the CPTT was a pro-Albanian Marxist-Leninist party that has been apparently defunct since the early 1990s. Hardial Bains, the leader of Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), is the CPTT’s reputed founder. The CPTT published Class Struggle, attracted support from Trinidad and Tobago’s Black and East Indian communities, and exercised a strong influence among workers. Former CPTT members Michael Als and Wade Mark transferred their allegiance to the mainstream United National Congress (UNC) in the late 1990s. Mark is a member of the UNC executive, while Als was a UNC candidate in the 2000 election.
2) National Joint Action Committee (NJAC): Founded by black power revolutionary Geddes Granger, also known as Makandal Daaga, the NJAC traces its origins to the Guild of Undergraduates at the University of the West Indies’ St. Augustine Campus. The NJAC contested general elections between 1981 and 1991. This party also spawned the National Women’s Action Committee, National Youth Action Committee, and National Action Cultural Committee.
3) United Labour Front (ULF): Between 1976, when it was founded, and 1986 the socialist ULF served as the opposition party in parliament. The party’s collective leadership eventually coalesced around co-founder Basdeo Panday. In 1981 the ULF formed the National Alliance in combination with the Democratic Action Congress, under the leadership of A.N.R. Robinson (born 1926), and the Tapia House Movement, under the leadership of Lloyd Best (1934-2007). In 1988 the National Alliance’s former ULF faction protested Prime Minister Robinson’s “authoritarian” leadership and, under the guidance of Panday, formed the United National Congress in 1988.
4) Workers’ and Farmers’ Party (WFP): The Marxist WFP was organized by former Democratic Labour Party (DLP) leader Stephen Maharaj, Trotskyist C.L.R. James, and George Weekes, leader of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union. (The DLP was the main opposition party in Trinidad and Tobago between 1957 and 1971.) The WFP contested the 1966 general elections, in which it failed to obtain any seats in parliament. The WFP’s main political impact was that it kick started the political career of Basdeo Panday who later joined the United National Congress and between 1995 and 2001 became prime minister.

Crypto-communist parties:
1) National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR): In 1986 the National Alliance, consisting of the United Labor Front, Democratic Action Congress, and Tapia House Movement, merged with yet another party, the Organization for National Reconstruction, to form the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR). The NAR won the 1986 general elections, defeating the conservative People’s National Movement for the first time since 1956. Subsequently, the NAR divided and its former ULF faction founded the United National Congress, while prominent members such as Winston Dookeran and Nizam Mohammed continued to operate the NAR. Robinson was prime minister between 1986 and 1991, during which period he survived the 1990 Jamaat al Muslimeen coup, and again between 1997 and 2003. In 1989, during the 44th session of the United Nations General Assembly, he floated the idea that led to the creation of the International Criminal Court.
2) United National Congress (UNC): Founded in 1988, the UNC is ostensibly center-left in its orientation. However, the founder of the organization Basdeo Panday was a member of the defunct communist Workers’ and Farmers’ Party. In addition, Michael Als and Wade Mark, who were previously members of the defunct Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago, transferred their allegiance to the mainstream UNC in the late 1990s. Mark is a member of the UNC executive, while Als was a UNC candidate in the 2000 election.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: In view of the fact that Trinidad and Tobago is merely seven miles from Venezuela, across the strait known as the Dragon’s Mouth, and that, moreover, both countries boast extensive gas and oil reserves, it is to be expected that the burgeoning socialist dictatorship in Caracas will endeavor to bring Port of Spain within the orbit of Latin America’s Red Axis.

To that end, on March 21, 2007 Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning dutifully trooped to Caracas to sign an agreement with President Hugo Chavez that will obligate the two countries to share the hydrocarbon reserves located on their common border. In addition, reversing his previous policy of opposing Petrocaribe, Prime Minister Manning committed his country to joining the Caracas-led initiative, thereby making Trinidad and Tobago eligible for receiving subsidized Venezuelan petroleum. Within the Petrocaribe framework the Venezuelan government only collaborates with state-owned oil companies throughout the Caribbean Community (Caricom), as well as Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Venezuela is an observer in Caricom. During his visit to Venezuela, Prime Minister Manning also indicated that his island country was considering the possibility of joining the new natural gas cartel known as the South American Organization of Gas Producers and Exporters. This organization is an initiative of the neo-communist governments of Venezuela and Bolivia, and their ally Argentina. The following article is from the pro-Chavez site Venezuelanalysis.com.

Trinidad and Tobago Signs Energy Agreement with Venezuela
Wednesday, Mar 21, 2007

Mérida, March 21, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning met in Caracas yesterday to sign an energy agreement between the two oil producing countries. Despite previous conflicts regarding regional energy agreements, the two nations took a historical step forward in terms of economic integration, agreeing to unify the oil and gas reserves found along their maritime border.

During the signing of the agreement that took place in the presidential palace on Tuesday, the Venezuelan president pointed out that together Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago have one of the largest gas reserves on Earth, making this agreement to unify the reserves of historic importance.

Taken together in one block, the total proven reserves reach 10 trillion cubic feet, almost half as much as all the gas reserves of the United States. “What great potential we have, more than the reserves, we have our will, our visions, our projects, and our efforts,” said Chávez.

The two nations agreed on the general terms to share the hydrocarbon reserves located on the border between them, including oil and natural gas. The costs and benefits will be divided between the two states depending on the amount of participation of each government, guaranteeing a policy that will allow for the development of both nations. The Prime Minister Patrick Manning affirmed that the agreement will benefit more than just the two signing nations, but will also benefit the development of the entire region.

The new agreement for cooperation comes after what seemed to be a previous conflict between the two governments when Venezuela launched PetroCaribe, a subsidized oil program for the Caribbean nations. Under the program, Venezuela supplies oil to the nations of CARICOM with low-interest financing, allowing them to pay a portion of their oil bill over a period of 25 years. Most of the countries jumped at the deal as global oil prices have been a major blow to their small economies.

But Prime Minister Manning criticized the program last year, warning other Caribbean nations that they may no longer be able to count on his country’s oil supply if they signed the energy agreement with Venezuela. Trinidad and Tobago produces about 150,000 barrels of oil per day, a large portion of which supplies the Caribbean region.

Manning warned that his government would look for other buyers. “It is a question of cutting your own throat if you are not careful,” he warned at the time. Also, he warned that the PetroCaribe program would push multinational oil companies out of the region, since the Venezuelan government has agreed to only work with state-owned oil companies, discouraging the privatization of the region’s oil facilities.

Yesterday, however, Manning expressed his desire for cooperation, “not only in benefit of the citizens of our two countries, but also for the citizens and interests of the development of Latin America,” he said. “Our nations are very close neighbors and we must continue fomenting these relations and carry them to a higher level.”

In what seemed to be a reversal of policy, the Caribbean leader communicated his intention to collaborate with Venezuela in the PetroCaribe program. Apart from the energy agreement, the Prime Minister said the purpose of his trip was to “renew his friendship with President Hugo Chávez.”

He also expressed interest in joining the South American Organization of Gas Producers and Exporters, a recently created initiative being formed by Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia that is to act similarly to OPEC, but in the area of natural gas.

After the signing, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said that the agreement represents a huge step for Venezuela which is also a Caribbean nation, in addition to being an Andean and an Amazonian nation.

He also stated that his ministers of energy will be working hard with the objective of making more agreements for the joint exploitation of the reserves. Chávez noted that Trinidad and Tobago possesses an extraordinary capacity for processing hydrocarbons and placing them in the market. Both leaders expressed interest in furthering energy cooperation between their countries.

For Venezuela, the new agreement is another part of the policy of integration that the government of Chávez has been carrying out over the past few years. “This is a step in the direction of creating and articulating new and diverse mechanisms of working together” concluded the Venezuelan leader.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

>Red World: Haiti firmly attached to Havana-Caracas Axis; President-Elect Preval visits Cuba upon Castro’s request; Chinese police in Haiti

>Pictured here: Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro with his puppet, the neo-communist President of Haiti René Garcia Préval, former ally of “ex”-Catholic priest and liberationist Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haiti and Cuba restored full diplomatic relations on February 6, 1996, one day before then President Aristide completed his first term, which was interrupted by a military coup 10 months after his inauguration in 1991. During his second term, in July 2001, President Aristide visited Cuba, characterizing his trip as “an opportunity to nurture solidarity between Cubans and Haitians and explore the possibility of further bilateral cooperation.”

Republic of Haiti
Type of state: Republic with multiparty system featuring democratically elected neo-communist government
Independence: January 1, 1804 (from France)

Communist governments:
1) Fwon Lespwa (formerly faction of Fanmi Lavalas) in coalition with Struggling People’s Organization (formerly communist-organized Lavalas Political Organization, OPL), Fanmi Lavalas (formerly faction of communist-organized OPL), Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats, and two other parties: 2006-present
2) Fanmi Lavalas (formerly faction of communist-organized OPL): 2000-2004 (ousted in coup orchestrated by National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti)
3) Lavalas Political Platform, consisting of Struggling People’s Organization (formerly Lavalas Political Organization) and Movement for the Organization of the Country): 1997-2000
4) Lavalas Political Platform, consisting of communist-organized Lavalas Political Organization (formerly Lavalas political movement) and Movement for the Organization of the Country: 1995-1997
5) National Front for Change and Democracy, consisting of communist-organized Lavalas Political Organization and allies: 1994-1995 (reinstalled with US support)
6) Pro-communist military junta under leadership of pro-Aristide Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras, who temporarily appointed PUCH leader Rene Theodore prime minister, with support of Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti: 1991-1994
7) National Front for Change and Democracy, consisting of Lavalas political movement, with support of Cuba and high-ranking members of “defunct” United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH): 1991 (ousted in coup)

Other noteworthy governments:
1) Semi-fascist presidency of Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc,” son of Francois) with support of Voluntary Militia for National Security (Tonton Macoute, or Silver Shirts): 1971-1986
2) Semi-fascist presidency of Dr. Francois Duvalier (“Papa Doc”), who admired Benito Mussolini, with support of Voluntary Militia for National Security (Tonton Macoute), modeled on Italy’s Black Shirts, the paramilitary units of the National Fascist Party: 1957-1971

Communist insurgency:

1) Between 1986 and 1994 the United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH) and the organizations that the PUCH later infiltrated participated in several popular uprisings that first ousted President Jean-Claude Duvalier on February 6, 1986, and then attempted to establish a communist dictatorship. “. . . [I]t should come as no surprise,” Joel Schwartz and Bryan Ellison write in a July 1994 ATTAC Report article, “that the Haitian Communists have long plotted their seizure of power. For nearly three decades, the United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH) stood little chance of victory against the Duvalier family, which ruled the nation as strongmen. The PUCH was officially banned, forcing it to operate underground. But the patience of Communists is such that they gradually built the infrastructure of revolution, waiting for their opportunity.”

In June 1987 the PUCH orchestrated a general labor strike to manipulate the elections to be held later that year, which two communists, one overt, the other covert, contested. Gerard Gourgue, the closet communist, ran on the National Unification Front ticket, while party leader Rene Theodore ran on the PUCH ticket. Later Theodore gloated over the communist scheme in the July 1988 issue of World Marxist Review: “Gourgue himself could not be suspected by anyone either of anti-imperialist attitudes or sympathies for communism, but he was surrounded by people who held progressive views. Indeed, at one time, some of them even took part in the activity of the party of Haitian Communists.” By running against Gourgue,” Schwartz and Ellison explain, “Theodore helped disguise Gourgue’s Communist ties and virtually guaranteed that, regardless of who was elected president, the Communists would win.” The Haitian military discovered the communist deception and postponed the elections until 1988. In 2000 anti-Aristide forces, which rallied around the Democratic Convergence, recognized crypto-communist Gerald Gourgue as president of a provisional government.

Theodore, who died in 2003, granted an interview in 1986, cited in the ATTAC Report article above, in which he explained the communist party’s role in the overthrow of the Duvalier dynasty:

Neighborhood committees began to spring up as an important form in organizing the population. Mass organizations in Haiti are, first and foremost, the neighborhood committees, the traditional focus of activities by the Communists. We try to strengthen the labor organizations … Our line with regard to the trade unions is to give every possible support to those of them which take a consistent class stand. We are trying to help them in every way by assigning our activists to work in them. The Catholic church has played an important role in the struggle against Duvalier. It still takes a progressive stand, especially on the land reform issue, where its point of view is similar to ours. … In short, the present position of the Catholics, based as it is on the theology of liberation, provides a basis for cooperation with the Communists. The Communists were, of course, directly involved in the action in early 1986 that forced Baby Doc [Duvalier] to flee the country.

“The PUCH,” state Schwartz and Ellison in the November 1994 ATTAC Report, “had incited revolution through radio broadcasts from outside Haiti, while sending masses of unwitting people into the streets in protest. The whole circus provided rich material for Western television cameras, though the media buried any hint of Communist involvement.”

In May 1990 the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti” that noted: “Max Bourjolly, a member of the United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH) and his bodyguard were detained on September 20, accused of illegal possession of weapons. The accusation was apparently based on a decree dated March 23, which had not been published. Mr. Bourjolly was released two days later.”

In 1991, the “defunct” PUCH attained a partial victory by installing their frontman, defrocked Salesian Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, into the Haitian presidency. This victory was snatched away less than a year later by a military junta that recognized the communist threat, but under the auspices of the United Nations-backed US Armed Forces, communist lackey Aristide was reinstalled in 1994 and actually re-elected in 2000.

Schwartz and Ellison speculate that Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras, who led the military junta that governed Haiti between the ouster and restoration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1994), was secretly allied with Haiti’s communists. Cedras, they note, appointed Theodore as temporary prime minister. It is worth noting, too, that Cedras was reported to have been both a close friend of Aristide and married to the sister of leading Aristide advisor Rene Prosper. The latter was also a close friend of deposed prime minister and Aristide appointee Rene Preval, who is currently president of Haiti. Cedras did not participate in the coup, but pled for Aristide’s life when soldiers threatened to kill the president. Cedras also negotiated the accord that facilitated Aristide’s restoration of power.

Communist parties:

1) Effort and Solidarity to Build a National Popular Alternative/Popular Solidarity Alliance (ESCANP/ ESKANP): This party was founded in 1999.

2) Haitian Communist Party (PCH): Founded in 1934 by Jacques Roumain, this party was suppressed two years later and has been defunct since then. Roumain opposed the first US military occupation of Haiti, which occurred between 1915 and 1934. A heart attacked felled him in 1944, at the age of 37.

3) Haitian Revolutionary Movement: This party was founded in 2001.

4) Haitian Workers’ Party (PTA): Founded in 1966 this communist party is now defunct.

5) Initiative Committee for the Formation of the Haitian Communist Party (COIFOPCHA): This organization affiliates with the International Communist Seminar.

6) Internationalist Communist Workers’ League (LCIT): This party is Trotskyist in orientation.
National Popular Party (PPN): This radical left party was founded in 1987 as the National Popular Assembly (APN).

7) National Reconstruction Movement (MRN Mondestin): This party is a split from other MRN and operates under the leadership of Rony Mondestin.

8) National Reconstruction Movement (MRN Theodore): This party was founded in 1990 by members of the United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH), the leader of which is Rene Theodore.

9) New Communist Party of Haiti (NPCH): This party is Stalinist in orientation.

10) Popular Democratic Group (RDP): This alliance was founded in 2004.

11) Popular Socialist Party (PSP): Founded in 1946 the communist PSP operated under the leadership of Anthony Lespès, and then Étienne Charlier. The PSP contested the presidential elections of 1946, but was suppressed two years later and is now defunct. The party publication was La Nation.

12) Reflection Group to Prepare a Haitian Popular National Front: This alliance was founded in 2003.

13) Renewal Movement of Haiti (MRDH): Founded in 1996 in France and operating in Haiti since 1999, the MRDH affiliates with the International Communist Seminar.

14) Revolutionary Workers’ Organization (ORT): This Trotskyist party associates with the UCI.
Socialism, Identity and Freedom Collective (CSIL): This left socialist party was founded in 2001.

15) United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH): The Duvalier dictatorship banned communism during its reign between 1957 and 1986. Gerard Pierre-Charles organized the clandestine PUCH in 1959 but fled Haiti the following year. He settled in Mexico where he taught economics at the national university. He returned to Haiti in 1986 to participate in the popular uprising against the Duvalier dynasty. By 1990 Pierre-Charles had openly thrown his support behind defrocked Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a proponent of liberation theology, and Aristide’s political movement Lavalas (“flash flood”). In the wake of the December 1990 presidential election, in which Aristide triumphed, the 2,000-member PUCH was disbanded. After Aristide was deposed in September 1991 and sent into exile, the “ex”-communist Pierre-Charles organized Lavalas into a disciplined party called the Lavalas Political Organization (OPL). After Aristide returned to Haiti in 1994 to complete his first presidential term, Pierre-Charles allegedly fell out with the ex-Catholic priest and the OPL divided. One faction followed Pierre-Charles, but renamed the party as the Struggling People’s Organization, which used the same initials (OPL), while the second faction followed Aristide, who called his new party Fanmi Lavalas, or the Lavalas Family. During the period in which Aristide finished his first term (1994-1996) and later during his second presidential administration (2000-2004), Pierre-Charles became an outspoken opponent of the ex-Catholic priest. Aristide’s thugs responded by torching Pierre-Charles’ residence and the OPL party office. OPL joined an anti-Aristide coalition known as Democratic Convergence, which supported the 2004 military insurrection against President Aristide.

In 1967 Rene Theodore, then an active PUCH member, was also forced into exile. Theodore lived in France and then in the Soviet Union, where he anchored Radio Moscow’s Creole news broadcasts. Until 1979 Pierre-Charles was party secretary-general. In that year Theodore assumed this role, also returning to Haiti in 1986. Theodore established a wide following among young and poor Haitians before founding the Movement for National Reconstruction. While his fellow communist Pierre-Charles openly supported Aristide, Theodore unsuccessfully ran against Aristide in the December 1990 presidential election. The USA later supported Theodore’s failed 1992 bid to become prime minister and establish a working relationship with the Haitian armed forces. Certain elements of the military opposed this rapprochement and attempted to assassinate Theodore. US troops intervened in 1994 and restored Marxist Aristide to power. Theodore died in 2003, but not before exposing the communist role in the overthrow of the Duvalier dynasty and the years of political turmoil that ensued. Theodore is survived by his second wife, Sabine, their son and daughter, and two daughters he had with his first wife, a Soviet/Russian citizen.

16) Workers’ Fight: This radical left party was founded in 1994.

Crypto-communist parties:

1. Fanmi Lavalas (Haitian Creole: “Flash Flood,” Waterfall,” or “Avalanche” Family): Fanmi Lavalas is a leftist populist party founded by Jean-Bertrand Aristide (pictured here), a Roman Catholic priest who espoused liberation theology, a mixture of political Marxism and Catholic theology. Although the Vatican occasionally reprimands priests for embracing liberationism, Catholic social teaching does in fact advocate socialism and world government. Aristide first assumed office in February 1991 and was deposed in September of that year. In 1994 Aristide returned to Haiti from exile in Venezuela to complete his first term. Aristide dissolved the Haitian Armed Forces, which instigated the coup against him in 1991. The Haitian military then consisted of many officers trained at the School of the Americas, which is so reviled by leftists worldwide. Aristide created a civilian police force in the place of the military. Aristide’s mentor was Gerard Pierre-Charles, who founded the clandestine United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH) during the Duvalier dictatorship and returned to Haiti in 1986 to participate in the overthrow of that regime. By 1990 Pierre-Charles had reoriented his political activities from the PUCH to Aristide’s Lavalas movement. After President Aristide was deposed in September 1991, Pierre-Charles organized the Lavalas into a disciplined political party called the Lavalas Political Organization (OPL), from which several factions developed, including Front for Hope, which presently rules Haiti.

The nexus between the Lavalas and Haitian neo-communism was evident even during President Aristide’s first period of exile.

On June 6, 1992 soldiers arrested Gilles Danroc, a French priest and coordinator of the Roman Catholic Church’s Justice and Peace Commission in Haiti, and 14 followers at a religious meeting in La Chapelle. “Father” Danroc, Human Rights Watch reports, was accused of being a “Lavalas communist.”

On August 17, 1994 soldiers from the Miragoâne military barracks arrested Gardy Le Blanc at his home in Miragoâne, Grande-Anse Department, during a search of the man’s house. A piece of paper with President Aristide’s name on it was discovered. Gardy was reportedly taken to the barracks, beaten, and detained. Additional arrests were carried out in early August in the Miragoâne area, Jacmel, and Les Cayes. Five high school students, a United Nations report states, were accused of being communists and detained.

During the early 1990s the OPL promoted a policy of “growth with equity” based upon Caribbean and Western European social democratic principles. In 1996 Aristide defected from the OPL and formed Fanmi Lavalas for two reasons: 1) to consolidate his personal power over the Lavalas movement, and 2) to thwart the attempts by foreign NGOs, like the International Republican Institute, which is affiliated with the US Republican Party, to orient the Lavalas movement toward the economic austerity measures advocated by the International Monetary Fund. During his second administration, President Aristide invested in social programs, boosted the minimum wage, distributed cheap rice to the poor, demanded reparations from France, and opposed IMF privatization schemes. Aristide’s plans to communize Haiti were again thwarted by a coup orchestrated by former military officers. Following the 2004 coup over 10,000 members of Fanmi Lavalas were fired from government jobs, more than one thousand were jailed, and thousands more were killed by security and paramilitary forces of the interim government under Prime Minister Gerald Latortue. In October 2006 several thousand Fanmi Lavalas supporters demonstrated in Port-au-Prince, demanding that the government rehire those party members who were fired by the interim government of Gérard Latortue.

During the 2006 elections one faction of Fanmi Lavalas advanced the candidacy of Marc Bazin, while the party’s grassroots supported Rene Garcia Preval, who formed a new party Fwon Lespwa (“Front for Hope”). Fwon Lespwa and Fanmi Lavalas form part of the governing coalition under the leadership of Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis.

2) Fwon Lespwa (FL): FL is a political coalition headed by René Garcia Préval, who served as prime minister under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991 and as President of Haiti from 1996 to 2001. Fwon Lespwa means “Front for Hope” in Haitian Creole. FL includes many current and former members of Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas.

3) Lavalas Political Organization/Struggling People’s Organization (OPL): Initially a political movement, Lavalas was founded in the 1980s by Marxist ex-Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide to oppose the Duvalier dynasty. After the 1991 coup that deposed President Aristide, Haitian communist Gerard Pierre-Charles organized Lavalas into a disciplined party called the Lavalas Political Organization. In Haitian Creole Lavalas means “Flash Flood,” “Waterfall,” or “Avalanche.” The OPL was banned during the military dictatorship of Lieutenant General Rauol Cedras. After the USA sponsored Aristide’s restoration to power in 1994, the OPL formed a majority of the Haitian Parliament and nominated Rosny Smarth as prime minister. During this period the OPL moved to the right in its ideology, supporting privatization and economic austerity measures. In protest, Aristide defected from the party in 1996 and started a new organization called Fanmi Lavalas, to perpetuate the original socialist militancy of the Lavalas revolution. In 1997 the Lavalas Political Organization renamed itself as the Struggling People’s Organization which retained the same initials, OPL. After a poor showing in the 1997 legislative elections, the OPL denounced the results as rigged. The OPL joined the campaign to destabilize the second Aristide presidency (2001-2004). The party, along with Fwon Lespwa and Fanmi Lavalas, now forms part of the governing coalition under Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis.

According to Joel Schwartz and Bryan Ellison, writing for ATTAC Report in November 1994, the Lavalas political movement that preceded the formation of the OPL’s disciplined party organization was essentially a front for the Cuban-backed United Party of Haitian Communists: “The underground network of neighborhood committees, labor unions, and Liberation Theology organizations controlled by the United Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH) is now assuming control of daily life, even as the openly Marxist-Leninist Aristide and his Cuban-trained Lavala terrorists are capturing the government.”

In the August 1994 issue of ATTAC Report, Schwartz and Ellison write of Cuba’ sponsorship of the Lavala terrorists: “These mobs played a major role in bringing Aristide to power, and were central to his consolidation of dictatorship. Known as Lavalas, meaning “avalanche” in Creole, these loyal gangs were quietly sent by Aristide to Cuba for training in the methods of terrorism and the police state — “including block watch groups patterned after Fidel Castro’s ‘Committees of the Defense of the Revolution.’” Shocked Haitians learned of this constitutional violation only later, once Aristide had already added his networks to the existing Communist infrastructure of neighborhood committees.” Schwartz and Ellison also observe that in June 1991 the Lavalas attended the second conference of the Sao Paulo Forum in Mexico City. The forum had been founded only in the previous year. At the Mexican meeting were the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (El Salvador), Sandinista National Liberation Front (Nicaragua), and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, all of which pledged solidarity with the new but short-lived Aristide regime.

Notwithstanding its alleged rightward shift in ideology, the OPL holds observer status with the Socialist International and is a member of the Sao Paulo Forum. The OPL website also contains a link to a site eulogizing Haitian communist Pierre-Charles and a petition requesting US President George W. Bush to reject the results of the 2000 elections that brought Aristide to power again and, instead, recognize the provisional government of Gerard Gourgue. In a 1986 interview Haitian communist leader Rene Theodore revealed that Gourgue was a closet communist.

On that note, we wish to start by introducing ourselves. Attached are our names and addresses. We are representative support members of a 15 party opposition alliance group who is challenging the legitimacy of the Jean Bertrand Aristide’s parliamentary elections of May 21, 2000 and November 26, 2000 presidential elections. We are in support of Mr. Gerard Gourgue as provisional president to carry out the process of rectifying the problems associated with the above mentioned controversial elections and thus set the stage for general elections within two years.

Communist presidents of Haiti:
1) René Garcia Préval (Haiti’s second democratic elected president; National Front for Change and Democracy, including Lavalas political movement; Lavalas Political Organization/Struggling People’s Organization; Fwon Lespwa): February 7, 1996-February 7, 2001, May 7, 2006-present
2) Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Haiti’s first democratically elected president; ex-Catholic priest, liberationist; National Front for Change and Democracy, including Lavalas political movement; Lavalas Political Organization; Fanmi Lavalas): February 7-September 30, 1991, October 15, 1994-February 7, 1996, February 7, 2001-February 9, 2004

Communist prime ministers of Haiti:
1) Jacques-Edouard Alexis (Fwon Lespwa): May 17, 2006-April 12, 2008 (dismissed after week-long food riots; post vacant)
2) Yvon Neptune (Fanmi Lavalas): March 14, 2002-March 9, 2004
3) Jean-Marie Chérestal (Fanmi Lavalas): March 2, 2001-March 15, 2002
4) Jacques-Edouard Alexis (Struggling People’s Organization): March 26, 1999-March 2, 2001
5) Rony Smarth (Lavalas Political Organization/Struggling People’s Organization): February 27, 1996- October 21, 1997
6) Claudette Werleigh (Lavalas Political Organization): November 7, 1995-February 27, 1996
7) Rene Theodore (United Party of Haitian Communists, communist front National Reconstruction Movement, Lavalas political movement, Lavalas Political Organization): January 8-25, 1992 (prime minister-designate)
8) René Garcia Préval (National Front for Change and Democracy, including Lavalas political movement): February 13-October 11, 1991

Note: Given the political turmoil that Haiti experienced between 1991 and 2004, gaps in the chronology above indicate the presence of military-appointed prime ministers, non-partisan prime ministers, and periods where no prime minister was appointed. Lieutenant General Raoul Cédras was the de facto ruler of Haiti from October 1, 1991 to October 13, 1994. Between September 30, 1991 and October 15, 1994 the international community recognized Jean-Bertrand Aristide as the de jure president of Haiti. Former communist leader Rene Theodore was briefly prime minister-designate in January 1992. He was nominated by the Haitian Parliament, and supported by Aristide and the USA, but withdrew after soldiers beat Theodore and killed his bodyguard.

Presidential elections in neo-communist Haiti:
1) February 7, 2006: In this election pro-Aristide René Garcia Préval (Fwon Lespwa, or “Front for Hope”) won the presidency with 51.2% of the popular vote, while Leslie Manigat (Rally of Progressive National Democrats) obtained 12.4%, Charles Henry Baker (Respect) 8.2%, Jean Chavannes Jeune (Christian National Union for the Reconstruction of Haiti) 5.6%, Luc Mesadieu (Christian Movement for a New Haiti) 3.4%, Serge Gilles (Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats) 2.6%, Paul Denis (communist-organized Struggling People’s Organization) 2.6%, Evans Paul (Democratic Alliance Party) 2.5%, Guy Philippe (National Reconstruction Front, ousted Aristide in 2004) 1.9%, and Luc Fleurinord (Independent Movement for National Reconciliation) 1.9%. Other candidates participated but each won less than 1.0% of the popular vote.
2) November 26, 2000: In this election Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Fanmi Lavalas) won the presidency with 91.8% of the popular vote, while Arnold Dumas (independent) obtained 2.0%, Evan Nicolas (UNR) 1.6%, Serge Sylvain (independent) 1.3%, Calixte Dorisca (independent) 1.3%, Jacques Philippe Dorce (independent) 1.1%, and Paul Arthur Fleurival (independent) 1.1%.
3) In the 1995 presidential election pro-Aristide René Garcia Préval (Lavalas Political Organization) won the presidency with 87.9% of the popular vote, while Léon Jeune (independent) obtained 2.5%, Victor Benoît (KONAKOM) 2.3%, and others 7.3%.
4) In the December 1990 presidential election, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (National Front for Change and Democracy, including Lavalas political movement) won the presidency with 67.5% of the popular vote, Marc Bazin (National Alliance for Democracy and Progress, Duvalierist) 14.2%, L. Déjoie (National Agricultural and Industrial Party) 4.9%, H. de Ronceray (Mobilization for National Development) 3.3%, S. Claude (Christian Democratic Party of Haiti) 3.0%, Rene Théodore (Movement for National Reconstruction, communist front) 1.8%, T. Désulmé (National Party of Workers) 1.7%, V.R. Joseph (National Koumbite Movement) 1.3%, F. Latorture (Liberation Movement of Haiti/Revolutionary Party of Haiti) 0.9%, R.V. Jeanty (PARADIS) 0.8%, and F. Simon (independent) 0.6%.

Parliamentary elections in neo-communist Haiti:
1) February 7 and April 21, 2006: In these elections the Front for Hope (pro-Aristide) won 23 out of 99 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 13 out of 30 seats in the Senate, while Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats obtained 17 and 4 respectively, Christian National Union for the Reconstruction of Haiti 12 and 2, Struggling People’s Organization 10 and 3, Democratic Alliance Party 10 and 1, L’Artibonite in Action 5 and 2, Mobilization for Haitian Progress 3 and 0, Christian Movement for a New Haiti 3 and 0, Rally of Progressive National Democrats 1 and 1, Fanmi Lavalas (pro-Aristide) 1 and 2, National Reconstruction Front (Guy Phillipe, ousted Aristide in 2004) 1 and 0, National Reconstruction Movement (communist front) 1 and 0, Independent Movement for National Reconciliation 1 and 1, and KONBA 1 and 0.
2) In the 2000 parliamentary elections, Fanmi Lavalas (pro-Aristide) won 73 out of 83 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 26 out of 27 seats in the Senate, while MOCHRENA obtained 3 and 0 respectively, Space of Concerted Action 2 and 0, Koordinasyon Resistans Grandans 1 and 0, Struggling People’s Organization (formerly Lavalas Political Organization) 1 and 0, Open Doors Party (Lavalas splinter group) 2 and 1, and nonpartisans 1 and 0.
3) The 1997 parliamentary elections were declared fraudulent.
4) In the 1995 parliamentary elections, the Lavalas Political Platform (pro-Aristide) won 65 out of 83 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 17 out of 18 seats in the Senate, while the National Front for Change and Democracy (Aristide) obtained 2 and 0 respectively, National Congress of Democratic Movements 1 and 0, independents 3 and 1, Revolutionary Progressive Nationalist Party 1 and 0, G-MRN 2 and 0, Union of Patriotic Democrats 1 and 0, PROP 1 and 0, and National Koumbite Movement 1 and 0. Note: Leaders of all political parties except the National Congress of Democratic Movements disowned their deputies and boycotted these elections claiming that the military government was using them to foster its own legitimacy.
5) In the 1990 parliamentary elections, the National Front for Change and Democracy (pro-Aristide) won 27 out of 83 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 13 out of 27 seats in the Senate, while the National Alliance for Democracy and Progress obtained 17 and 6 seats, respectively, National Agricultural and Industrial Party 6 and 2, Christian Democratic Party of Haiti 7 and 1, Rally of National Progressive Democrats 6 and 1, Mobilization for National Development 5 and 0, National Party of Workers 3 and 1, Movement for National Reconstruction (communist front) 1 and 2, Liberation Movement of Haiti/Revolutionary Party of Haiti 2 and 0, National Koumbite Movement 2 and 0, and Independents 5 and 1.

Next general elections: Haiti’s next general elections are scheduled for 2010.

Pictured here: Shi Xuepeng (left), political commissar of the Chinese riot police unit in Haiti, accepts a certificate of honor from Graham Muir (right), Chief Superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and director of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti, in Port-au-Prince, August 1, 2006. With a little help from the Canadian Mounties, the UN, not surprisingly, is essentially propping up Haiti’s neo-communist Lavalas regime. Photo source: Xinhua.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (candidate), Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats, Struggling People’s Organization (observer)
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Struggling People’s Organization
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Since 2006 Haiti has been firmly attached to the Havana-Caracas Axis. Joel Schwartz and Bryan Ellison of ATTAC Report observed in a 1994 article: “The island of Hispaniola, divided between the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, sits squarely in the middle of Atlantic access to the Caribbean. The fall of Haiti to Communism would give the Soviets an important naval base to consolidate their hold on the area.” Haiti is also located across the Windward Passage from communist Cuba. Since the Communist Party of the Soviet Union disassembled the USSR only three years before, Moscow’s Leninist strategists probably reasoned that a communist coup d’etat in Haiti would go unnoticed. Such would be the case with South Africa’s capitulation to communism in 1995 and Venezuela’s in 1998. Upon first assuming the presidency of Haiti in 1991, Marxist Jean-Bertrand Aristide began the process of restoring full diplomatic relations with Cuba, which had been severed under the Duvalier dictatorship.

The restored ties between neo-communist Haiti and paleo-communist Cuba were briefly interrupted during the anti-communist military government between 1991 and 1994, but further cultivated between 1994 and 1996, when Aristide completed his first term, the first presidency of Aristide ally Rene Garcia Preval (1996-2000), and the second presidency of Aristide (2000-2004) which was again terminated by an anti-communist coup.

On April 12, 2006 President-Elect Preval visited Cuba in response to a request from communist dictator Fidel Castro. Preval had been been elected to a second, non-concurrent terms as president and was scheduled to be sworn into that office on May 14. The Communist Party of Cuba organ Granma reports:

THE president-elect of Haiti, René Préval, initiated a working visit to Cuba this April 12, in response to an invitation from President Fidel Castro.

Préval traveled with a delegation composed of various members of his future government and other Haitian figures, according to an official note published in Granma daily at the close of this edition.

His visit coincides with the arrival of a group of Haitian scholarship students, as well as patients from that country who are to receive medical attention in Haiti under Operation Miracle, a Cuban-Venezuelan project that offers free ophthalmological care to poor patients in the Third World.

According to the information, Préval and his delegation are to be received by President Fidel Castro and have a full agenda, including visits to places of scientific and social interest, as well as talks with other national authorities.

Préval, former president of Haiti (1996-2001) and in 1991 former prime minister in the government of Jean Bertrand Aristide, won the presidential elections on February 7 with an absolute majority that gave him the presidency in the first round.

The Cuban News Agency reported that Preval conferred with CPC Politburo members Carlos Lage, Jose Ramon Balaguer, and Yadira Garcia, as well as high-ranking communist officials, including Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Minister Marta Lomas, Interim Minister of Agriculture Maria del Carmen Perez, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yiliam Jimenez, and State Council member Carlos Valenciaga. Alejandro Gonzalez, Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Foreign Ministry, and Raul Barzaga , the Cuban ambassador to Haiti, were also in attendance. In view of neo-communist Preval’s meeting with high-ranking Cuban communists prior to officially assuming the post of president, one is strongly tempted to conclude that Haiti’s government is a Cuban puppet regime.

On March 14, 2007 the neo-communist dictator of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, visited Haiti where he met President Preval, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Jemenez, and the communist Vice President of Cuba Esteban Lazo. At that time, Chavez participated with Preval and Preval’s Cuban guests in a telephone conference call with Cuba’s communist dictator. In addition, Chavez presented the case to Preval for integrating Haiti into the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. A communist-controlled Cuban news source reports:

Cuba President Fidel Castro Telephones Chavez and Preval in Haiti

Havana, March 14, 2007 (RHC)—–On Monday evening, Cuban president Fidel Castro, participated in a joint meeting by telephone with his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez and Hatian president, Rene Preval.

Cuba’s Granma newspaper on Wednesday published a complete transcript of the phone conversation.

Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, was meeting in Port au Prince with the leader of Haiti, Rene Preval, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, Yilliam Jimenez and Cuban Vice President and Communist Party official, Esteban Lazo.

Chavez told Fidel that he was in the middle of the meeting and that the Cuban leader was interrupting it. Fidel apologized saying that he has always been meddlesome. Chavez agreed and told the Cuban leader that he was somehow responsible for the thousands of people gathered outside the Haitian Government residence.

Fidel said it was a pity not to have a live feed. He told Chavez he had been following his fast-paced tour through Latin America and the Caribbean. And, he asked Chavez to convey to the Haitian President the full support of the Cuban people and government in improving living standards in Haiti.

President Chavez said that since 90 percent of the Haitian population is young, they could organize social workers brigades to mobilize the society in a sister plan with Venezuela’s Miranda Front, in order to improve housing.

Chavez said that he had talked to President Preval about his country’s joining ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, to establish the foundation to launch all the cooperation projects they had discussed.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.” Since 2004 the People’s Republic of China has contributed a police force to the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti:

MORE CHINESE POLICE ARRIVE TO SERVE WITH UN MISSION IN HAITI

Press Release – UN News Center

Apr 13 2007

The United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti today announced the arrival of nearly 100 Chinese officers, including seven women, who are serving with a Formed Police Unit (FPU) in the Caribbean country.

The 95 new police, who joined a group of 30 FPU members of the same contingent that arrived last week on 4 April, brings the total number of Chinese officers in Haiti to 125.

China has contributed more than 1,000 officers in Formed Police Units since the Mission was established in October 2004 after an insurgency forced then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile. The latest contingent, replacing one which has rotated out, comes from Guandong Province. Prior to their deployment to Haiti, its members underwent a five-month training course covering language, shooting, driving and combat/defensive tactics.

>Red World: Cuba: Soviet base of subversion 90 miles south of Key West, Russia reactivates Cold War military-economic alliance with Havana

>With the loss of the ideological base of our ties, our relations deteriorated. I think that was incorrect, and I reiterate that Cuba is our traditional partner in the world and No. 1 in Latin America.
— Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, Havana, December 14, 2000

Republic of Cuba
Type of state: Paleo-communist single-party dictatorship
President of the Council of State: Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz (26th of July Movement, Communist Party of Cuba; younger brother of Fidel, age 76): February 24, 2008-present, July 31, 2006-February 24, 2008 (acting)
Political composition of national legislature: The last election for the National Assembly of People’s Power occurred on January 20, 2008. Up to 50 per cent of the assembly’s 609 candidates are chosen by municipal assemblies. Candidates are otherwise proposed by nominating assemblies consisting of representatives of workers, youth, women, students, farmers, and members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. The National Candidature Commission draws up final lists of candidates, after assessing criteria such as candidate merit, patriotism, and commitment to the Cuban Revolution.
Next general elections: Cuba’s next general election is scheduled for 2013.

Communist government:
1) Communist Party of Cuba (formerly United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution): 1965-present
2) United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (formerly Integrated Revolutionary Organizations): 1962-1965
3) Integrated Revolutionary Organizations, merger of 26th of July Movement (Fidel Castro), People’s Socialist Party (Blas Roca), and Revolutionary Directorate March 13th: 1961-1962
4) 26th of July Movement (Fidel Castro): 1959-1961
5) General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar with support of United Action Party and Progressive Action Party: 1957-1959 (communists withdraw support during this period)
6) General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar with support of United Action Party, Progressive Action Party, and People’s Socialist Party (formerly old Communist Party of Cuba): 1952-1957
7) General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar) with support of United Action Party and (old) Communist Party of Cuba: 1940-1944

Communist insurgency:

1) The initial shots of the Cuban Revolution were fired on July 26, 1953, the date on which Fidel and brother Raul Castro led one hundred poorly armed guerrillas against the Moncada Barracks, a symbol of General Batista’s authority. Many of the guerrillas represented the anti-communist reformist Orthodox Party, of which Fidel was then a member. The surviving guerrillas, including the Castro brothers, were captured afterwards. In the subsequent trial Fidel ended his four-hour self-defense with a statement oft quoted by leftists: “Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me.” Fidel Castro was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Raúl was sentenced to 13 years. During their imprisonment the Castro brothers developed a more radical ideology that drifted toward communism. Two years later, after capitulating to pressure from civic leader, his opposition, and the Jesuits who educated Fidel, Batista released all political prisoners, including the Moncada attackers.

The Castro brothers traveled to Mexico, where they organized more exiled Cubans into an army that would overthrow of Batista. During this period, Fidel joined forces with Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Alberto Bayo, a former Loyalist military leader in the Spanish Civil War, trained the guerrillas. On December 2, 1956 the Castro brothers and 80 insurgents returned to Cuba on a small yacht named Granma, after which the Cuban province and the Communist Party of Cuba’s official publication are named. The insurgents intended for their landing in eastern Cuba to coincide with urban uprisings and a general strike, fomented by the local wing of Castro’s 26th of July Movement. The yacht made landfall at the wrong location and the planned uprisings failed to materialize. The insurgents hiked into the Sierra Maestra, located in the southeastern part of the island, where they were attacked by the Cuban military, which numbered about 20,000 troops across the Army, Navy, and National Police. Between 10 and two dozen guerrillas, including the Castro brothers, Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos, survived to rebuild the guerrilla army.

On March 14, 1958 the USA imposed an arms embargo on the Batista regime which, coupled with the ineffective tactics of the Cuban military, forced the army to repeatedly retreat in the face of Castro’s attacks. The Cuban Air Force, moreover, was unable to maintain its aircraft in view of the embargo of parts for military equipment. By the middle of 1958, Castro’s guerrilla army, augmented to 200 men, achieved military control of the Sierra Maestra. Although not highly publicized in subsequent standard histories, certain, possibly pro-communist, interests in the US government decided to covertly support Castro’s insurgents with weapons. The 26th of July forces, therefore, received a regular supply of ammunition, ordnance, and communications equipment from locations in Florida and Louisiana. Most of the ordinary military stores were transported by air and sea from the armories of the Alabama National Guard. The last normally augmented the Central Intelligence Agency’s paramilitary operations in Latin America. Towards the end of the revolution, the US supplied a limited quantity of aircraft and armored vehicles to Castro’s insurgents directly from the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay. As a result, the early-model cast-hull M4A3 Shermans utilized by the Cuban Army confronted Castro’s M4 Shermans, which featured upgraded armor, high-velocity 76mm guns, and Horizontal Volute Spring Suspension.

In July 1958 the Cuban military launched Operation Verano with 12,000 soldiers against the 300 fighters of the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement. Between July 11 and 21, Castro’s forces captured 240 Cuban soldiers. However, on July 29 the regular army nearly wiped out the insurgents in the Battle of Las Mercedes. During two days of fighting one third of Castro’s men were killed. On August 1 Castro requested and was granted a temporary cease-fire, during which his forces quietly escaped from the surrounding army. By August 8 the 26th of July forces made their way back into the mountains. Operation Verano was a failure for the Batista regime.

On August 21 Castro’s forces carried out their own offensive by opening four fronts in Cuba’s “Oriente” province, capturing several towns, and winning a series of victories. Meanwhile, three columns under the command of Guevara, Cienfuegos, and Jaime Vega pressed westward toward Santa Clara, the provincial capital. The Cuban Army ambushed and destroyed Vega’s column. The other two columns reached the island’s central provinces, where they combined their forces with resistance groups not under the command of Castro. On December 30 Cienfuegos secured a key victory in the Battle of Yaguajay. The following day the forces of Guevara, Cienfuegos, and alleged CIA operative William Alexander Morgan, who commanded his own small force, captured Santa Clara. General Batista panicked at the news of the fall of this city and fled for the Dominican Republic on New Years’ Day, 1959.

Upon learning of Batista’s flight, Castro entered negotiations with the military commander of Santiago de Cuba, who on January 2 ordered his soldiers not to resist the entrance of Castro’s forces into the city. The columns under the command of Guevara and Cienfuegos arrived at Havana on the same day. The rebels met no opposition between Santa Clara and the national capital. On January 8, after a lengthy victory march, Castro entered Havana. He selected Manuel Urrutia Lleó as Cuba’s new president. US citizen Morgan was executed on March 12, 1961. Fidel reportedly commanded the firing squad that killed this mysterious mercenary.

Communist parties:

1) Communist Party of Cuba (CPC): The CPC was formed in 1965 by renaming the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which itself was formed by renaming the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (IRO) in 1962. The IRO, in turn, was formed in 1961 through the merger of Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, Blas Roca’s People’s Socialist Party, and Faure Chomón’s Revolutionary Directorate March 13th. Castro’s organization was named after the date of the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, while Chomón’s organization was named after the date of the attack on General Batista’s Presidential Palace on March 13, 1957.

According to the 1976 Cuban Constitution, only the Communist Party is permitted to exist and assumes a guiding role in the country. Article 5 of the constitution states: “The Communist Party of Cuba, a follower of Martí’s ideas and of Marxism-Leninism, and the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, is the highest leading force of society and of the state, which organizes and guides the common effort toward the goals of the construction of socialism and the progress toward a communist society.” An amendment to the Cuban constitution in 1992 legalized the right to form political parties. However, these parties are not permitted to campaign or engage in any public political activities that would otherwise challenge the monopoly of power exercised by the CPC. Banned parties include the Christian Democratic Party of Cuba, Cuban Socialist Democratic Current, Democratic Social-Revolutionary Party of Cuba, Democratic Solidarity Party, Liberal Party of Cuba, and Social Democratic Co-ordination of Cuba.

The CPC’s most significant international role was in Angola. There Cuban troops joined Soviet troops in support of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), enabling the MPLA in 1975 to seize the capital and repulse the South African-backed anti-communist UNITA forces. UNITA stands for National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, which today is a political party.

The CPC supports communist parties and other revolutionary movements throughout Latin America and, in turn, is admired by leftists worldwide. In the 1980s the CPC supplied weapons and training to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador, the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua, and the New Jewel Movement in Grenada. Since 1990 the CPC, along with the Workers’ Party of Brazil, has been a prime mover in the Sao Paulo Forum, Latin America’s alliance of communist parties and terrorist organizations.

As of 2006 the CPC is currently fostering close relations with the terrorist-sponsoring regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran and has dispatched thousands of “advisors” and “professionals” to Venezuela, where they are bolstering Hugo Chavez’s burgeoning communist regime. The Cuban General Intelligence Directorate (DGI), itself a creation of the KGB, is reported to now control its Venezuelan counterpart, the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP).

Since 1962 the DGI has trained a number of terrorist groups at the Camp Mantanzas training facility near Havana. From Latin America, the DGI has trained the National Liberation Army (Colombia), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Peru), Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (Puerto Rico), and Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (Venezuela). From Africa the DGI has trained the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). The EPLF, through its successor party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, has been the government of the single-party State of Eritrea since 1993. From Asia the DGI has trained the Palestine National Liberation Movement (PNLM) and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP, through its membership in the Palestine Liberation Organization, was the government of the Palestinian National Authority between 1994 and 2006. The Venezuelan-born PFLP terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (“Carlos the Jackal”), who is serving a life sentence in France, is reported to have trained at Camp Mantanzas as well. From Europe the DGI has trained the Irish Republican Army, and Basque Homeland and Freedom (Spain).

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Communist Party of Cuba
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: The Communist Party of Cuba, by virtue of its close relations with the Communist Party of China, Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and the restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union, is probably the most dangerous political organization in the Western Hemisphere. The CPC remains a major threat to the security of the few remaining non-socialist and non-communist countries in the Americas. During the famous Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the USA demanded that the USSR withdraw missiles from Cuba while the USSR demanded that the USA withdraw missiles from Turkey.

The article below reports that “cooperation between the KGB and Stasi-trained Cuban espionage services, one of the best in the world, could resume, if it ever stopped, with the Cubans providing special help to the Russians.” This information confirms Joseph Douglass’ thesis in Red Cocaine, namely, that the KGB maintains operational control over the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia which–since the publication of Douglass’ eye-opening book on Soviet narco-subversion in 1990–now maintains operational control over the Venezuelan Dirección de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención. In previous months we have suggested several times that Russian/Soviet intelligence may very well indirectly control President Chavez’s intelligence apparatus.

Cuba renews ties with old ally Russia
Miami Herald ^ Dec. 16, 2006
JAIME SUCHLICKI

In his first major policy initiative since assuming power, Gen. Raúl Castro signed a far-reaching military-aid agreement with Russia. In September, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, visited Cuba and signed an economic-aid pact providing Castro with $350 million in credits to upgrade Cuba’s armed forces, including the acquisition of Russian transportation equipment, air-navigation systems, industrial goods for the energy sector and financing of future Russian investments in Cuba, among other projects. Fradkov met with Raúl Castro in a climate described as ”cordial and friendly” by the Cuban press.

This accord with the Russians rounds out Cuba’s international alliances with key strategic countries. They include Venezuela, China and Iran. Whether the Russian deal was in the making prior to Fidel Castro’s surgery or developed as a more recent initiative, it reaffirms Raúl’s long-standing admiration and support for Soviet policies in the past and for Russian policies in the present.

Consolidating power

As a young man, Raúl traveled behind the iron curtain and became a member of Cuba’s Communist Party. Throughout the duration of the Soviet-Cuban relationship (1960-1990), Fidel and Raúl remained steadfast friends and supporters of Soviet policies, particularly in Africa, where several hundred thousand Cuban soldiers aided in bringing pro-Soviet and pro-Cuban regimes to power in the African continent. Raúl seems fascinated by the Soviet military and displays photos and statues of Soviet generals in his office.

It was only natural then that Raúl would turn to his old allies and friends for support as he consolidates power in Cuba. The Russians can provide his military dictatorship, in addition to weapons, with credits to purchase other Russian products. If the relationship with Venezuela were to sour or Venezuela decreases its oil shipments to Cuba, the Russians could step in and help. Much of Cuba’s nonmilitary equipment is Russian made and requires upgrading and replacement. Finally, Russian international positions, influence in the U.N. Security Council and increasing defiance of U.S. policies, fit Raúl’s world view and interests.

What can the Russians expect from a renewed relationship with Cuba? For starters the Russians haven’t given up on what they claim is Cuba’s debt from the Soviet era, approximately $20 billion. In 1991 I participated in a conference on Cuban-Russian relations in Moscow, and the Russian side, both academic and government officials, insisted that the Cuban debt should be paid. My response then was that, even if Cuba had the means, it would not recognize or pay that debt. Castro would always claim that Cuba’s sacrifices in support of Soviet policies throughout the world far surpassed Russian economic help to Cuba. The debt seems to have been off the official agenda during Frandkov’s visit.

Challenge to U.S. interests

The Russians also may be interested in resuming and expanding Cold War era espionage cooperation. The Soviet Union built the Lourdes electronic eavesdropping facility near Havana and used it to spy on U.S. military and technological secrets. It was closed by the Soviets following U.S. pressure in the 1990s, but could be recreated. The Chinese have established a similar facility in Bejucal, Cuba, and the Russians may look with envious eyes at the Chinese capacity to tap into U.S. military and civilian technology. Cooperation between the KGB and Stasi-trained Cuban espionage services, one of the best in the world, could resume, if it ever stopped, with the Cubans providing special help to the Russians.

It is yet too early to tell how far Cuban-Russian cooperation will advance or if it will represent a challenge to U.S. interests and security. Yet the new military-aid agreement and the new spirit of Russian-Cuban cooperation may indicate a continuous Cuban militancy and opposition to U.S. policies and a willingness to restart a relationship with an old, albeit much weaker and somewhat different, ally.

The restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union has yet to openly reassert itself on Russia’s political stage. However, on February 21, 2007, the potemkin parties that control the State Duma, namely, the crypto-Stalinist United Russia, crypto-communist Just Russia, and Communist Party of the Russian Federation, have all expressed their solidarity in an official resolution with the “Cuban Five,” five Cuban agents sentenced in June 2001 for conducting espionage in the USA. In January of that year World Net Daily reported that the Cuban spies were “engaged in a wide range of activities, including locating vulnerable points of entry into the state of Florida for the importation of arms and explosives, infiltration of the U.S. Southern Command, and the attempted subversion of anti-Communist organizations in the U.S.” The so-called Cuban “Wasp Network,” moreover, was “the largest espionage cell in the U.S. since the collapse of the Soviet Union, yet most of the establishment press–with the exception of the Miami Herald–has given scant coverage to the issue.” Ruling and non-ruling leftist parties throughout Latin America are united in their demand for the release of the Cuban Five, which consists of Rene Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez and Antonio Guerrero. Hernandez, the Wasp Network’s reputed spy master, is a captain in Cuban military intelligence.

The CPC remains a leading player in the communist-dominated Non-Aligned Movement today. The 14th Summit of the NAM occurred in Havana between September 11 and 16, 2006. The last time the NAM convened in Havana was 1979. Like the Communist Bloc, the NAM opposes “US imperialism and hegemony,” colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism, and Zionism. Raul Castro is the current Secretary General of the NAM. The leadership of the NAM has been dominated by Yugoslav, Latin American, African, and Asian communists and socialists, including Fidel Castro, Josip Broz Tito, Stjepan Mesic, Branko Kostic, Dobrica Cosic, Kenneth Kaunda, Robert Mugabe, Thabo Mbeki, and Nelson Mandela.

>Red World: Reggae star Bob Marley’s 1978 One Love Peace concert attempted to reconcile Jamaica’s warring parties; Manley a Cuban puppet

> Pictured here: At the One Love Peace Concert, held on April 22, 1978 at Kingston’s National Stadium, reggae star Bob Marley unites the hands of warring Jamaican politicians Michael Manley and Edward Seaga in a token gesture of reconciliation. Manley was ardently pro-Castro in his orientation. “Irie!”

Jamaica
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring two dominant social democratic parties
Independence: August 6, 1962 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Jamaica: Bruce Golding (Jamaica Labour Party): September 11, 2007-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Parliament’s House of Representatives, which occurred on September 3, 2007, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Jamaica Labour Party (conservatism, economic liberalism) 32 and People’s National Party (democratic socialism) 28.
Next general elections: Jamaica’s next general elections are scheduled for October 2013.

Communist government:
1) People’s National Party with support of pro-Castro Workers’ Party of Jamaica: 1972-1980

Communist insurgency:

1) Between 1976 and 1980 Jamaica was rocked by an escalation of political violence between supporters of the two dominant parties, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and People’s National Party (PNP). The PNP government of Prime Minister Michael Manley declared a state of emergency in June 1976. Approximately 500 people, including some prominent JLP members, were accused of attempting to overthrow Manley. Detainees were held without charges in a makeshift prison at a military base. After Edward Seaga’s JLP won the 1980 election the Worker’s Party of Jamaica, which supported the outgoing PNP government, fomented armed insurgencies in the Arnett Gardens and Greenwich Town districts of the national capital Kingston. The violence ended after an appeal from Manley for peace.

Reggae musician Bob Marley was widely perceived as a Manley sympathizer. Marley fans and supporters have accused the JLP of complicity in the attempted murder of Marley, his wife, and manager in December 1976. Marley held the One Love Peace Concert on April 22, 1978 at Kingston’s National Stadium, at which time he called Jamaica’s opposing parties to end their warfare. Manley and Seaga joined Marley on stage. The musician then joined the hands of the two politicians in a token gesture of reconciliation. Marley died of cancer in 1981.

Communist parties:
1) Workers’ Party of Jamaica (WPJ): Founded on December 17, 1978 by academic and Rhodes Scholar Trevor Munroe, WPJ was an ally of the ruling People’s National Party (PNP). During the late 1970s the WPJ prodded the PNP government into developing close relations with Cuba. The WPJ youth section was called the Young Communist League, which held membership in the World Federation of Democratic Youth. Today the WPJ is defunct and Munroe has allegedly renounced Marxism. The Workers’ Liberation League was the predecessor of the WPJ. Jamaica does not appear to have an active communist party.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: People’s National Party
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Prime Minister Manley became a personal friend of Cuba’s communist dictator Fidel Castro and championed the Non-Aligned Movement, in which Cuba has long played a guiding role. On October 18, 1977 Castro began a six-day official visit to Jamaica. Manley’s communist-inspired foreign policy annoyed the USA, which banked on the JLP achieving victory in the 1980 election. Later, Manley opposed, while his opponent Prime Minister Seaga supported, US-Caribbean intervention in Grenada in 1983. After Manley left office for a second time in 1992, he became an advisor to Castro and visited Cuba on a monthly basis. Manley died in 1997. Castro, pro-communist former US president Jimmy Carter, pro-communist former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan attended Manley’s funeral.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.” In 1998 and 2005 the previous prime minister of Jamaica Percival Noel James Patterson, who like his successor Portia Lucretia Simpson-Miller represents the People’s National Party, visited Beijing. On the latter occasion, the Communist Party of China’s People’s Daily reported, Patterson met with Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao and signed accords that will expand economic and technological ties between the two countries. Wen stated: “Jamaica has become China’s most important trade partner in the English-speaking Caribbean areas. Jamaica is a country with important influence in the Caribbean areas.” He also duly noted with approval Jamaica’s support for Beijing’s “one China” policy.

>Red World: Grenada’s Soviet/Cuban-backed communist dictatorship removed by US Operation Urgent Fury in 1983, Kremlin condemned invasion

>Pictured here: Communist dictators of Grenada and Cuba, Maurice Bishop and Fidel Castro, respectively. (Photograph presumably taken sometime in the early 1980s).

Grenada
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring failed communist dictatorship
Independence: February 7, 1974 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Grenada: Tillman Thomas (National Democratic Congress, pro-Cuban): 2008-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for Grenada’s House of Representatives, which occurred on July 8, 2008, the seats were distributed in the following manner: National Democratic Congress (liberal) 11 and New National Party (conservative) 4).
Next general elections: Grenada’s next general elections are scheduled for 2013.

Communist government:
1) Revolutionary Military Council: 1983 (deposed by US invasion)
2) People’s Revolutionary Government, under leadership of Marxist New Jewel Movement: 1979-1983 (deposed by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard)

Communist insurgency:

1) The Grenada Revolution occurred on March 13, 1979 when Maurice Bishop, who represented the Marxist New Jewel Movement, led a nearly bloodless coup d’etat against the corrupt and authoritarian government of Prime Minister Eric Gairy’s United Labour Party. At the time, Gairy was in New York City, addressing the United Nations.

Bishop was educated at the socialist London School of Economics and a devout student of the black power movement. Returning to Grenada, he became leader of the Marxist New Jewel Movement (NJM) in 1973. The NJM was formed through a merger of the New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL) and the Movement for Assemblies of the People. Bishop was elected to the House of Representatives where he led the parliamentary opposition against Prime Minister Gairy.

Upon seizing power, Bishop declared himself Prime Minister of Grenada and formed a People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). Bishop’s coup was welcomed by many Grenadians and leftists throughout Latin America. Bishop dissolved parliament and no new elections were held during his four-year rule. Influenced by communist dictators Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, the PRG/NJM established workers’ councils, formed collective farms, and nationalized various industries. Economic growth, however, stagnated. The PRG/NJM organized a People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA), which was the subject of human right complaints related to allegations of torture and the detention of dissidents without trial. All political power was vested in the NJM Politburo with the objective of transforming the tiny island state into a socialist republic along Soviet lines. To this end, Bishop established close relations with Cuba, the Soviet Union, and other Soviet Bloc regimes.

Within the PRG/NJM two factions coalesced, one moderate, led by Bishop, and the other radical, led by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. In the early part of his career Coard joined the Communist Party USA, Communist Party of Great Britain, Workers’ Liberation League in Jamaica and, finally, the NJM in his homeland. During the first week of October 1983 Stalinist Coard enlisted the support of PRA General Austin Hudson and ousted Bishop, who was placed under house arrest. Austin proclaimed a Revolutionary Military Council and proclaimed himself prime minister. On October 19 protestors released Bishop from captivity in the official prime minister’s residence. Coard’s henchman, however, re-captured Bishop later that day and executed the deposed prime minister and his cabinet at Fort Rupert in St. George’s, the island’s capital. Coard was himself overthrown less than a week later, on October 25, when the US military intervened against Grenada’s burgeoning communist dictatorship.

Conspirators Coard and Hudson were tried in August 1986. Former Deputy Prime Minister Coard was sentenced to death, but this sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in 1991. In September 2004 Hurricane Ivan damaged the prison in which Coard was imprisoned and, while many inmates fled, Coard elected not to escape. Austin is still in prison.

Communist parties:
1) People’s Labour Movement (PLM): The PLM was founded in 2002 through the merger of the Democratic Labour Party and the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement. Maurice Bishop was the communist dictator of Grenada between 1979 and 1983.

Pictured here: Propaganda poster depicting Castro, Bishop, and Nicaragua’s communist dictator Daniel Ortega as staunch opponents of US imperialism.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: In 1980 Deputy Prime Minister and Stalinist Bernard Coard led a delegation to Moscow to formalize relations with the Soviet Union. Three years later communist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop invited Cuban construction battalions to Grenada to build a new international airport. The Reagan Administration took a dim view of this development. Indeed, the White House rightly feared that the Soviet Union would use the new Cuban-built runway in Grenada to project military power over the Caribbean region. A 10,000-foot runway, President Ronald Reagan noted in a March 23, 1983 “Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security,” could readily accommodate the Soviet military aircraft.

On the small island of Grenada, at the southern end of the Caribbean chain, the Cubans, with Soviet financing and backing, are in the process of building an airfield with a 10,000-foot runway. Grenada doesn’t even have an air force. Who is it intended for? The Caribbean is a very important passageway for our international commerce and military lines of communication. More than half of all American oil imports now pass through the Caribbean. The rapid buildup of Grenada’s military potential is unrelated to any conceivable threat to this island country of under 110,000 people and totally at odds with the pattern of other eastern Caribbean States, most of which are unarmed.

The Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada, in short, can only be seen as power projection into the region. And it is in this important economic and strategic area that we’re trying to help the Governments of El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and others in their struggles for democracy against guerrillas supported through Cuba and Nicaragua.

In response to an appeal from Grenada’s governor general and a request for assistance from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), implemented Operation Urgent Fury. The White House, however, did not consult the island’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, British Commonwealth institutions, or other normal diplomatic channels. The object of Operation Urgent Fury was to rescue 600 US medical students, restore constitutional government, and halt the construction of a 10,000-foot runway in St. George’s, which more than 600 Cuban military personnel were actively supervising when the invasion started. Aiding the USA in Urgent Fury was the OECS, particularly, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Aiding Grenada’s communist dictatorship and the Cuban military units deployed in Grenada were military advisors from the Soviet Union, North Korea, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Libya.

On October 27, 1983, through Soviet propaganda mouthpieces TASS and Pravda, the Kremlin condemned the USA for its armed intervention in Grenada:

An armed intervention against Grenada, a sovereign independent state, was perpetrated on October 25. American troops landed on the island with the support of US combat ships. The intrusion was effected under the false pretext of ensuring the safety of American citizens in Grenada although it is well known–and this was directly stated by the Grenadan authorities–that nothing threatens them. At the same time Washington contends that is actions are supposedly motivated by concern for ‘human rights’.

What can be more cynical and hypocritical than such statements when under the pretext of concern for ‘human rights’ an attempt is being made to drown in blood the right of a whole people to free and sovereign existence! What is happening in reality is an outright armed aggression against a peaceloving people of a small country that is not threatening anyone with anything. The aim of this is to overthrow the social system existing there. This is an attempt to impose on the Grenadan people by means of force a system suiting Washington, to intimidate the other freedom-loving peoples of Latin America, and not only them.

By its actions in Grenada the government of the United States of America demonstrates its full disregard for the generally accepted norms of international law and tramples into the dirt the lofty principles of the United Nations Charter. This is direct evidence of the fact that for the sake of attaining its aims of conquest Washington does not intend to respect the right of peoples to independent development, and is openly and brazenly challenging the will of the peoples and world public opinion.

The bandit attack on Grenada shows with total clarity the danger posed to the cause of peace and the freedom of peoples by the course pursued in international affairs by the present American Administration.

TASS is authorised to state that the Soviet Union flatly condemns the United States aggression against Grenada and stigmatises it as a crime against peace and humanity. It is the duty of all states and peoples to come out against Washington’s arbitrariness and lawlessness, in defence of the Grenadan people.

The aggression against the people of Grenada must be stopped, the occupations must immediately clear out from that independent state.

Currently, the Russian Mafia appears to be taking advantage of Grenada’s corrupt politicians to thwart US oil exploration in the tiny island country. The following article reports that “Deputy Prime Minister Gregory Bowen and three Russians were sued for US$500,000.00 in a New York court by American oil investor, Jack Grynberg for allegedly conspiring to block his oil and exploration agreement signed with Grenada in 1996.”

Grenadian-Russian Held in Barbados
February 17, 2007

A Russian who bought a passport under the economic citizenship programme under the Keith Mitchell government in St. George’s was detained last Friday in Barbados for questioning by that island’s Police and Immigration.

Well-placed sources told GRENADA TODAY that the detained man is believed to be carrying the official name, Guorgios Simonenkov.

The Russian was travelling on an Air Jamaica flight that left the JFK International Airport for the Point Salines International Airport (PSIA) with a stop over at Sir Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados.

A passenger who was traveling on the same flight gave an account to this newspaper of what transpired at the airport on the neighbouring island. He said: “The Immigration and Police boarded the plane and asked this gentleman to accompany them off the plane. They brought him back a short while later. We were still on the ground but about thirty minutes later they came back and took him (the Russian) back off the plane.

“The pilot then made an announcement that there were some security concerns and we would have to proceed (to Grenada) without the passenger”, he added. The passenger said that the Russian man left a medical kit behind on the plane and it carried the name Guorgios Simonenkov.

Several Russians have reportedly purchased Grenadian passports under a scheme promoted by the Mitchell government to raise revenue. St. George’s was forced to scrap the programme when Canada imposed a visa restrictions on Grenadians because of security concerns over the number of questionable persons who might have ended up with Grenadian passports.

And a few weeks ago, the news broke on the island that Deputy Prime Minister, Gregory Bowen and three Russians were sued for US$500, 000.00 in a New York court by American oil investor, Jack Grynberg for allegedly conspiring to block his oil and exploration agreement signed with Grenada in 1996.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

>Red World: Saint Kitts and Nevis absorbed into neo-communist Venezuela’s Petrocaribe initiative; PM Douglas leads delegation to Caracas

> Pictured here: On March 1, 2007 Saint Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas visited Caracas where President Hugo Chavez presents his visitor with a statue of South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar. PM Douglas is also a recipient of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’s Order of the Liberator (First Class). We might safely conclude that the Caribbean island state is now firmly wedded to the Havana-Caracas Axis vis Venezuela’s Petrocaribe initiative.

Federation of Saint Christopher (Saint Kitts) and Nevis
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties
Independence: September 19, 1983 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis: Denzil Llewellyn Douglas (Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party): July 6, 1995-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the National Assembly, which occurred on October 24, 2004, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party (center-left) 7, appointed members 3, Concerned Citizens’ Movement (based in Nevis) 2, People’s Action Movement (conservative) 1, and Nevis Reformation Party (conservative) 1, and ex-officio member 1.
Next general elections: Saint Kitts and Nevis’ next general elections are scheduled for 2009.

Communist government: none
Communist insurgency: none
Communist parties: none

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party (consultative)
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

>Red World: Dominican Republic target of three failed communist coups before 1963 military dictatorship; Castro led 1947 attempt

>Pictured here: Juan Emilio Bosch y Gaviño (1909-2001), briefly President of the Dominican Republic in 1963 and founder of the social democratic Dominican Revolutionary Party and Dominican Liberation Party. Reportedly an anti-communist reformer, he nevertheless refused to ban communism. Bosch was deposed by a US-supported military coup and fled to Cuba. To this day Bosch is an anti-imperialist icon in the Dominican Republic. In this picture observe the framed photograph of Bosch and Fidel Castro above the bookcase.

In 1998 Castro visited the Dominican Republic where he met with Bosch and former President Joaquín Balaguer, a protege of dictator Rafael Trujillo. While failing to officially recognize communist Cuba, Balaguer nevertheless legalized communism in his own country and permitted Dominican businessmen to conduct covert trade with Havana. On April 16, 1998 the two countries restored full diplomatic relations for the first time since Cuba was expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962.

Dominican Republic
Type of state: Republic with multiparty system featuring communist party in ruling coalition
Independence: February 27, 1844 (from Haiti)
President of Dominican Republic: Leonel Fernández Reyna (Dominican Liberation Party): August 16, 1996-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Congress of the Dominican Republic, which occurred on May 16, 2004, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Progressive Bloc (consisting of Dominican Liberation Party (liberal), Institutional Social Democratic Bloc, Alliance for Democracy (left socialist), Christian Democratic Union, Dominican Workers’ Party (communist), and Liberal Party of the Dominican Republic) 96, and Grand National Alliance (consisting of Dominican Revolutionary Party (social democratic), Social Christian Reformist Party (conservative, formed by Joaquín Balaguer), National Unity Party, Quisqueyano Christian Democratic Party, Green Party of Democratic Unity, National Civic Veterans’ Party, Dominican Social Alliance, Popular Democratic Party, and Christian People’s Party) 82.
Next general elections: The Dominican Republic’s next presidential election is scheduled for 2008, while the next congressional election is scheduled for 2010.

Communist government:
1) Progressive Bloc (including communist Dominican Workers’ Party): 2006-present
2) Socialist presidency of Juan Emilio Bosch y Gaviño (Dominican Revolutionary Party) with alleged support of the Castroite June 14th Revolutionary Movement and other communists: February 27-September 25, 1963

Communist insurgency:

1) In the summer of 1947 Fidel Castro and Rolando Masferrer, operating under the auspices of the Caribbean Legion, attempted to overthrow the hopelessly corrupt dictator of the Dominican Republic Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina. Costa Rican businessman José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer organized the Caribbean Legion for the purpose of overthrowing the reformist president of his own country, Teodoro Picado Michalski. Although an anti-communist Figueres, strategically allied himself with other Latin American reformists and communists through the Pact of the Caribbean, around which the 700 guerrilla fighters of the Caribbean Legion were organized. The Legion pledged itself to overthrow the governments of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

2) In 1959 members of the Castroite June 14th Revolutionary Movement attempted to invade the Dominican Republic from the new communist state of Cuba, with the intent of ousting the dictator Trujillo. In 1961 Trujillo was finally assassinated by his own army, allegedly with on-the-ground support from the US Central Intelligence Agency, which hoped to head off a Cuban-style communist revolution in Santo Domingo.

3) Juan Emilio Bosch y Gaviño (Dominican Revolutionary Party, PRD, perredeistas) was elected president of the Dominican Republic on December 20, 1962. He assumed office on February 27, 1963. When Bosch refused to restrict the right of Dominican communists to travel to Cuba and elsewhere, General Elías Wessin y Wessin demanded that the president outlaw communism. Bosch refused and demanded Wessin y Wessin’s resignation. Alarmed that the president’s socialist policies, including land redistribution and the nationalization of certain foreign holdings, would facilitate the exportation of revolution from the young communist regime in Cuba, General Wessin instigated a military coup on September 25, 1963. “As far as I’m concerned,” proclaimed Wessin y Wessin, “Bosch is a Communist.” Bosch fled to Puerto Rico and communist activities were outlawed. The military-imposed government operated under the leadership of a triumvirate consisting of Emilio de los Santos, Ramón Tapia Espinal, and Manuel Tavares Espaillat. Donald Reid Cabral chaired the triumvirate from December 29, 1963 to April 25, 1965.

The May 7, 1965 issue of Time magazine reported that at least 65 Dominicans had been spotted in the Cuban port of Santiago boarding three boats bound for the Dominican Republic. “I reported the conspiracy to President Reid for 15 or 20 consecutive days,” stated Wessin y Wessin, “but he paid no attention to me.” On April 25, 1965 civilian and military supporters of Bosch, who referred to themselves as Constitutionalists, deposed President Reid and installed Rafael Molina Ureña as provisional president. However, the revolt provoked a counter-response from the military, who styled themselves Loyalists. Civil war erupted between the Constitutionalists, who were supported by the perredeistas and communists, and the Loyalists, who were supported by the country’s business oligarchy. On April 25, 1965 the Loyalists launched an assault, deploying both tanks and aircraft, against the Constitutionalists, but the latter retained power. In defense, the Constitutionalists organized armed gangs, known as “Los Tigueres.” Civilians were caught in the crossfire.

Assessing the situation in the Dominican Republic, US President Lyndon B. Johnson declared: “I will not have another Cuba in the Caribbean.” On April 28 the USA deployed 42,420 troops to the island state in Operation Powerpack. The extent of participation by Castroites, including the June 14th Revolutionary Movement, in the Constitutionalist camp is the subject of debate. President Johnson, however, justified the invasion based on his belief that the PRD was infiltrated with communists. The Time magazine article cited above reported that “the State Department released a list of 58 Communist agitators, many of them graduates of Red Chinese and Czechoslovakian political warfare schools, who were leading the street fighting. Some of the leaders: Jaime Durán, a Cuban-trained member of the Dominican Young Communists’ Party; José D. Issa, a Communist who received guerrilla training in Cuba, visited Prague in 1963, Moscow in 1964; Fidelio Despradel Roques, a Peking-lining Communist.”

Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñó was the de facto Constitutionalist president of the Dominican Republic between May 4 and August 30, 1965. After keeping a low profile for a number of years, in 1973 Caamaño landed a small group of rebels at Playa Caracoles, from where they hiked into the Cordillera Central. There Caamaño hoped to foment a peasant revolution to overthrow President Joaquín Amparo Balaguer Ricardo, a protégé of dictator Trujillo. After fighting the Dominican regular army for several weeks, Caamaño failed to secure support from the peasantry, was wounded, captured, and then executed. Twenty years later Dominican authorities honored Caamaño’s attempt to restore constitutional government by naming an avenue in Santo Domingo after him.

Communist parties:
1) Alliance for Democracy (APD): This left socialist party split from the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) in 1992, but remains allied with the PLD. The APD associates with the Sao Paulo Forum.
2) Anti-Imperialist Patriotic Union (UPA): Founded in 1978 this radical left party contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
3) Communist Labour Party (PCT): Founded in 1980 as a split from the Dominican Popular Movement, this Stalinist party associates with the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (Hoxhaist) and contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
4) Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (PC-ML): Founded in 1988 the PC-ML split from the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic. This Maoist party associates with the International Communist Seminar and contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
5) Communist Party of the Dominican Republic (Pacoredo): Founded in 1966 as a split from the Dominican Popular Movement, this party is Maoist in orientation.
6) Dominican Popular Movement (MPD): Founded in 1956 this party is Maoist in orientation and associates with the Sao Paulo Forum. Several parties have emerged from the MPD, including the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic (1966), Communist Labor Party (1980), and United Left Movement (1982).
7) Dominican Workers’ Party (PTD): Founded in 1979 this communist party operates under the leadership of José González Espinosa and associates with the Sao Paulo Forum.
8) Dominican Workers’ Party (Marxist-Leninist) PTD-ML: Founded in 1986 as a split from the PTD, this party operates under the leadership of Iván Rodríguez, associates with the International Communist Seminar and Sao Paulo Forum, and contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
9) Free People’s Movement (FPM): The FPM is a communist organization that advocates armed revolution and supports branches worldwide. In the USA the FPM organizes in New York, Connecticut, Maryland/Washington DC, Ohio, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida. The FPM also operates in Canada, the United Kingdom, Philippines, Dominican Republic, Solomon Islands, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Uganda. The FPM draws inspiration from Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Che Guevara. The FPM publishes two newspapers, The Free Press and ¡Ya Basta!, and a theoretical journal Liberation. The FPM branch in the Dominican Republic publishes Dominicano Libre. The FPM youth section is called Revolutionary Youth.
10) New Alternative Party (PNA) Founded in 1997 the PNA operates under the leadership of Ramón Almánzar and contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
11) Party of Dominican Identity (PID): This party operates under the leadership of Aulio Collado Anico and contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
12) People’s Unity (UP): This alliance was founded in 2002 by 11 leftist parties.
13) Political Workers’ Organization (OPT): This party is radical left in orientation.
14) Revolution Force (FR): Founded through a merger of the Dominican Communist Party and others in 1996, the FR contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
15) Revolutionary People’s Organization (ORP): This party is radical left in orientation.
16) Socialist Structure (ES) This radical left party operates under the leadership of Ismael Rodríguez.
17) Socialist Workers’ League (LST): Founded in 1982 as Movement for Socialism, the LST contests elections on lists of People’s Unity.
18) Solidarity Nation: This radical left party operates under the leadership of Alejandro Ortiz.
19) Unified Communist Party (PCU): This party was founded in 1986 as a split from the Dominican Communist Party before the latter merged into Revolution Force in 1996.
20) United Left Movement (MIU): Founded in 1982 as a split from the Dominican Popular Movement, this radical left party operates under the leadership of Miguel Mejía and associates with the Sao Paulo Forum.

Other important parties:
1) Dominican Liberation Party (PLD): Founded in 1973 by former president Juan Emilio Bosch y Gaviño, as a split from his earlier political project, the Dominican Revolutionary Party, the liberal PLD associates with the Sao Paulo Forum (FSP).
2) Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD): The social democratic PRD was founded in 1939 and associates with the Socialist International. The Dominican Republic’s first democratically elected president Juan Emilio Bosch y Gaviño founded and ran on the PRD ticket in 1963. Bosch was deposed in a military coup the same year. Two years later US troops invaded the Dominican Republic to end a civil war between supporters and opponents of Bosch. Bosch founded the Dominican Liberation Party in 1973. To this day Bosch is an anti-imperialist icon in the Dominican Republic. Goth the PRD and PLD claim to have inherited his ideology.
3) Institutional Social Democratic Bloc BIS): Founded in 1989 as a split from the Dominican Revolutionary Party, the BIS is allied with the Dominican Liberation Party.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community (observer), Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: Dominican Revolutionary Party
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Dominican Liberation Party
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

>Red World: Sao Paulo Forum exerts influence on US territory through Puerto Rico’s far-left separatist movement, Ojeda committed communist

>Pictured here: Puerto Rican communist terrorist Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, former asset of the Cuban General Intelligence Directorate and leader of the Boricua People’s Army, was killed in a shootout with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation on September 23, 2005. Following his death, Jorge Farinacci, spokesentity of the Puerto Rican Socialist Front, offered the following eulogy and insight into Ojeda’s ideology:

I worked with Filiberto. In the 1960s Filiberto represented the Pro Independence Movement’s (MPI’s) mission to Cuba. Filiberto lived in Cuba and was profoundly influenced by this socialist revolution. Filiberto was not just a nationalist leader, he was class-conscious and sympathized with the struggle of the workers for social justice and with socialism. He was also greatly influenced by anti-imperialist struggles of the period, especially the struggle of the Vietnamese people for their liberation. In the late 1960s Filiberto founded the Movimiento Independentista Revolucionario Armado (Armed Revolutionary Independence Movement). In 1976, Filiberto was a founding member of the Puerto Rican Workers’ Party (PRTP), which in turn organized Los Macheteros in 1978. Though he was humble and serene, he was very strong-willed and valiant, and very well-prepared regarding all aspects of the armed struggle.

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Type of state: Unincorporated organized territory of the United States of America
Independence: none
Governor of Puerto Rico: Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico, National Governors Association, Southern Governors’ Association, Democratic Governors Association): January 2, 2005-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Legislative Assembly’s lower chamber, the House of Representatives, which occurred on November 2, 2004, the seats were distributed in the following manner: New Progressive Party (centrist, advocates upgrading Puerto Rico’s status within USA to statehood) 32, Popular Democratic Party (center-left, advocates status quo, associates with US Democratic Party) 18, and Puerto Rican Independence Party 1.
Next general elections: Puerto Rico’s next general elections are scheduled for November 4, 2008.

Communist government:
1) Coalition, consisting of Republican Party (conservative) and Socialist Party: 1932-1940

Communist insurgency:

1) Boricua People’s Army (EPB): Also known as Los Macheteros (“Machete Wielders”) or Puerto Rican Popular Army, the EPB is a clandestine organization based in Puerto Rico, with cells in the USA and other countries. The Puerto Rican Workers’ Revolutionary Party, which campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from the USA, founded the EPB in 1978. The EPB became a separate organization in 1984. The vast majority of the Puerto Rican electorate, by contrast, favors a continuation or enhancement of the present Commonwealth status (50%) or statehood (46%).

The EPB can actually trace its origins to the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN). The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classifies the EPB as a terrorist group. The EPB has claimed responsibility for numerous armed robberies, bombings, and attacks against US military personnel since its inception. Until his death in 2005, during a shootout with the FBI, the leader of the EPB was fugitive terrorist Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. Since Ojeda’s demise, the EPB has apparently redirected resources toward supporting Puerto Rico’s broader independence and nationalist movement. The EPB’s active membership is alleged to number over 2,100, with an unknown number of sympathizers, collaborators, and informants.

The EPB’s most famous operation was the Wells Fargo depot heist of approximately $7 million in West Hartford, Connecticut on September 12, 1983. Ojeda faced charges related to this criminal act. The group’s code name for the robbery was “White Eagle.” After the robbery, in a dramatic gesture Los Macheteros tossed some of the stolen money into the air from a tall building and used the remaining amount to fund future operations. Reportedly, the EPB purchased several million dollars worth of weapons and explosives from Cuba. In the 1990s Los Macheteros claimed responsibility for the bombing of a small power station in the San Juan metropolitan area that produced limited power outages. In that decade, too, the EPB sabotaged a fleet of new vans and trucks parked at a government facility. As a “terrorist” group, however, Los Macheteros have claimed few civilian lives, unlike most other organized insurgent armies.

2) Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN): FALN was a clandestine organization that advocated Puerto Rico’s total independence from the USA. The FALN terrorists were responsible for more than 120 bomb attacks in New York City, Chicago, and other US targets between 1974 and 1983. The organization is now defunct, having passed the torch of militant Puerto Rican independence to the Boricua People’s Army. On August 11, 1999 President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 FALN members who had been convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery, bomb-making, and sedition, as well as firearms and explosives violations. The Clinton White House offered clemency, provided that the prisoners renounce violence. This followed an appeal from 10 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, former President Jimmy Carter, the Cardinal of New York, and the Archbishop of Puerto Rico on behalf of the convicted terrorists. Numerous individuals and organization opposed the commutation, including the US Congress, US Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Bureau of Prisons, survivors of FALN terrorist operations and, ironically, Hillary Clinton in her Senate campaign.

Active communist parties:

1) Hostosian National Independence Movement (MINH): Founded on May 6, 2004 by a merger of the National Hostosian Congress and the New Puerto Rican Independence Movement, the MINH is a leftist and pro-independence organization in Puerto Rico. The two groups that formed the MINH were organizational descendants of the defunct Puerto Rican Socialist Party. The MINH is named after Eugenio María de Hostos, an historical figure who advocated Puerto Rican independence. The official publication of the MINH is Red Betances. The MINH does not intend to enter electoral politics but, rather, will generate support for its program through community-level networking.

2) Puerto Rican Workers’ Revolutionary Party (PRTP): Founded by Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in 1976, the communist pro-independence PRTP in turn founded the Boricua Popular Army (EPB) in 1978. The EPB became a separate organization in 1984. The PRTP affiliates with the Socialist Front.

3) Socialist Front (FS): Founded on November 4, 1990 as a project of Socialist Workers’ Movement, the FS is a coalition of communist pro-independence political organizations in Puerto Rico. The FS includes non-partisan activists. The main spokespersons for the FS are Rafael Bernabe and Jorge Farinacci. Although the MST left the FS in 2006, the front continues to exist. Current affiliated groups include: Communist Refoundation, consisting of members of the defunct Puerto Rican Communist Party; Political Education Workshop, a Trotskyist cell; and the Puerto Rican Workers’ Revolutionary Party, formerly the political arm of the Boricua Popular Army. The FS participates in the Sao Paulo Forum and the World Social Forum. Supporters of Puerto Rico’s Socialist Front in New York City meet in the Working Group on Puerto Rico. In the 2000 Puerto Rican elections, the FS endorsed the Puerto Rican Independence Party, but boycotted the 2004 elections.

4) Socialist Workers’ Movement (MST): Founded in 1982 the MST is a revolutionary socialist party committed to the independence of Puerto Rico from the USA, “emancipation” of the Puerto Rican working class, and solidarity with communist parties worldwide. The two previously adversarial entities that formed the MST were the Maoist Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR) and the Guevarist-Marxist-Leninist People’s Socialist Movement (MSP). The MSP, in turn, was founded by Cuban exile Carlos Muñiz Varela, who was murdered in Puerto Rico in 1979. In 1984 a third entity, the Workers’ International League (LIT) joined the MST. The MST youth section is called the Union of Socialist Youth (UJS). The MST is a “multi-tendency” organization that harbors anarchists, anti-revisionists, communists, democratic socialists, revolutionary socialists, syndicalists, Maoists, and Trotskyists. The MST operates according to the cadre principle, which means that membership is closed to the general public.

Following the demise of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party in 1993, the MST picked up the torch of Puerto Rico’s communist-dominated independence movement. In 1990 the MST collaborated with the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers’ Party and Political Education Workshop to form the Socialist Front. The MST counts among its supporters Rafael Feliciano Hernandez, who has been twice elected leader of the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico; Victor Rodriguez, UJS spokesman at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras; and Pedro Colon Almenas, a student who was convicted of assaulting a US Reserve Officers’ Training Corp (ROTC) lieutenant at the previously mentioned campus, on April 30, 2001. (Click here for report sympathetic to Colon.) The MST newspaper is Bandera Roja.

5) University Pro-Independence Federation of Puerto Rico (FUPI): FUPI is a student organization at the University of Puerto Rico that is committed to the establishment of an independent socialist Puerto Rico. FUPI members have allegedly harassed and threatened US Army and Air Force ROTC cadets.

Defunct communist parties:

1) Puerto Rican Communist Party (PCP): The PCP was founded in 1934 by dissidents from the Free Federation of Workers, the union arm of the Socialist Party, not to be confused with the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. The PCP’s first Secretary-General was Ramón Mirabal. The party’s membership remained small, but it assisted in the formation of the General Confederation of Workers in 1940. The PCP motto “Pan, Tierra, y Libertad” (Bread, Land, and Freedom) was later used by one of Puerto Rico’s mainstream parties, the Popular Democratic Party. The PCP disbanded in 1991, but passed the torch of communist revolution to the Socialist Front.

2) Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP): The PSP was founded in 1959 by dissidents from the Puerto Rican Independence Party. The party was originally known as the Pro-Independence Movement (MPI) and its ideology was greatly influenced by the Cuban Revolution. Throughout the 1960s the PSP campaigned against the presence of US corporations in Puerto Rico. At the party’s Eighth General Assembly on November 28, 1971, the MPI adopted the name Puerto Rican Socialist Party and officially espoused Marxism-Leninism. The party named Juan Mari Brás as general secretary, while Carlos Gallisá Bisbal became party president.

The PSP affiliated with the US Progressive Labor Party. PSP branches opened in the Puerto Rican neighborhoods of New York City and Chicago. The PSP sponsored a pro-independence rally that attracted 20,000 people to Madison Square Garden on October 27, 1974. PSP members agitated against US involvement in the Vietnam War. PSP member Luis Gutierrez became a Chicago alderman in the 1980s and a US Congressman in the 1990s.

The PSP was the target of violence in the 1970s. Mari Brás’s son, Santiago Mari Pesquera, for example, was murdered in March 1976, while the offices of the PSP publication Claridad were bombed. Other party members survived assassination attempts.

Disputes with respect to the legitimacy of guerrilla warfare wracked the party. Consequently, the party’s membership and external support declined throughout the 1980s. The PSP formally disbanded in 1993. However, former party members continue to publish Claridad. In 2004 Mari Brás and other former PSP leaders joined the Hostosian National Independence Movement.

3) Socialist Party (PS): Founded in 1900 by labor organizer Santiago Iglesias Pantín, the PS originally operated as the political wing of the Free Federation of Workers, which was the Puerto Rican branch of the American Federation of Labor. The PS, in turn, affiliated with the Socialist Party of America. In Puerto Rico’s 1920 election the PS attracted 23.5 per cent of the popular vote. The party espoused statehood and collaborated with the pro-annexation Republican Party. The Socialists obtained seven seats in the Commonwealth’s constitutional convention, which gathered between 1951 and 1952. The PS dissolved before the 1956 elections. The party leadership instructed members to join the Popular Democratic Party.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations (via status as US territory)
Socialist International presence: Puerto Rican Independence Party
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Puerto Rican Nationalist Party (neo-fascist), Socialist Front, Hostosian National Independence Movement, University Pro-Independence Federation of Puerto Rico
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: The Latin American Red Axis has extended its influence onto US territory through Puerto Rico’s subversive, pro-independence, socialist parties, which hold membership in the narco-communist-terrorist Sao Paulo Forum.

>Red World: Dominica absorbed into neo-communist Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas; PM Skerrit adopts pro-Beijing stance

> Pictured here: On February 16, 2007 Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit welcomed– with an uncharacteristic “bear hug”–his ideological comrade Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Dominica. At the top of the agenda for these two leaders was Dominica’s integration with the Havana-Caracas Axis.

Commonwealth of Dominica
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties, including ruling pro-communist party
Independence: November 3, 1978 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Dominica: Roosevelt Skerrit (Dominica Labour Party): January 8, 2004-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the House of Assembly, which occurred on May 5, 2005, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Dominica Labour Party (social democratic) 12, United Workers’ Party (centrist) 8, and independents 1.
Next general elections: Dominica’s next general elections are scheduled for 2010.

Communist government:
1) Dominica Labour Party in coalition with Dominica Freedom Party: 2005-present
2) Dominica Labour Party: 2000-2005

Communist insurgency: none

Communist parties: none

Crypto-communist parties:
1) Dominica Labour Party (DLP): The DLP formed its first government in February 3, 2000, winning 43.1% of the popular vote and 10 out of the 21 seats in the House of Assembly. Roosevelt “Rosie” Bernard Douglas led the party to victory that year, even though many political observers considered his platform too left wing to be practical. Nevertheless, he formed a coalition with the centrist Dominica Freedom Party (DFP). Douglas, who was one of the “Four Musketeers,” a group of four notable Caribbean socialists, was prime minister of Dominica until his death on October 1, when he died of a heart attack at the age of 59 years. While studying in Canada as a young man, Douglas acquired notoriety for fomenting the Sir George Williams University Computer Riot in Montreal. (Sir George Williams University is now part of Concordia University.) Beginning on January 29, 1969 over 200 students, including Douglas, occupied the university computer lab. The reason for the occupation was the university’s mishandling of racism allegations against a professor. The otherwise peaceful occupation ended on February 11 when negotiations fell apart and riot police were ordered to disperse the students. Ninety-seven students, including Douglas, were arrested. A fire ensued, causing over $CN2 million in damage to the computer lab. Years later, after he entered politics, Douglas advocated radical socialism reform for Dominica’s political and economic system.

Upon Douglas’ death, Pierre Charles became prime minister. On January 6, 2004, Charles, who had been suffering from heart problems since at least 2003, also died of a heart attack. He became the second consecutive prime minister of Dominica to die in office of a heart attack. Foreign Minister Osborne Riviere became acting prime minister, but Education Minister Roosevelt Skerrit succeeded Riviere as prime minister and leader of the DLP. In the 2005 election the DFP again supported the DLP. Consequently, there was some discussion related to the possible merger of the two parties, which has yet to occur.

2) Dominica Progressive Party: This left socialist party was founded in 1983 as a split from the Dominica Labour Party.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: Dominica Labour Party (consultative)
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Dominica Labour Party
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: The current prime minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit has established close relations with communist dictators Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. The latter visited Dominica on February 16, 2007 to oversee the inclusion of the island state into the neo-communist political-economic bloc known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). Dominica’s membership in ALBA has resulted in that country receiving substantial aid from Cuba and Venezuela. Dominica’s role in the new Petrocaribe initiative, in particular, will be to store crude oil from Venezuela and then distribute that oil to other islands. The Chavez regime, furthermore, has channeled a US$10.1 million grant to Dominica for the expansion of the island’s Melville Hall Airport, as well as cancelled the island state’s US$1.5 million debt owed to Caracas. Lastly, Skerrit’s government has agreed to the construction of a $US80,000,000 refinery in Dominica, which has provoked opposition from environmentalists who contend that an oil refinery is incompatible with the island’s reputation as an eco-tourist destination.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

Prime Minister Skerrit has also established relations with the People’s Republic of China. In 2003 Skerrit, who was then Minister of Education, led a secret mission to the embassy of the PRC in Barbados, although at the time Dominica officially recognized the Republic of China, or Taiwan. In April 2004, shortly after becoming prime minister, Skerrit terminated his country’s relations with Taiwan in order to officially recognize Beijing. In response, the PRC directed an aid package of more than US$100,000,000 to Dominica.

Born in 1972, Skerrit is the second youngest head of government or state in the world. The 27-year-old Dragon King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, is the youngest.

>Red World: Red China’s container port facility in the Bahamas: Staging ground for Communist Bloc invasion of USA?

>Pictured here: Aerial shot of Red China’s Hutchison-Whampoa container port facility in Freeport, Bahamas, only 60 miles from Florida.

Commonwealth of the Bahamas
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties
Independence: July 10, 1973 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of the Bahamas: Hubert Ingraham (Free National Movement): May 4, 2007-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Parliament’s House of Assembly, which occurred on May 2, 2007, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Free National Movement (fiscal conservativsm, social liberalism) 23 and Progressive Liberal Party (populist liberalism) 18.
Next general elections: The Bahamas’ next general elections are scheduled for 2012.
Communist government: none
Communist insurgency: none

Communist parties:
1) Vanguard Party (VP): Founded in 1971 as the Vanguard Nationalist and Socialist Party, this Marxist party’s original members belonged to the youth organization of Progressive Liberal Party. The VP was inspired by the Black Panther Party in the USA but has not been successful at the ballot box. In 1979, for example, the party contested 18 seats but won only 173 votes. The VP maintains close relations with the Communist Party of Cuba. The party publication is The Vanguard. John T. McCartney was party president between 1979 and 1985. McCartney graduated from the University of Iowa with a PhD in political theory and is currently the Department Head and Associate Professor of Government and Law at Lafayette College, in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

Hutchison-Whampoa, the Chinese company that assumed operational control of the Panama Canal in 1999, also owns and operates an enormous container port facility in Freeport, The Bahamas. Hutchison-Whampoa controls 12% of all container port capacity in the world. “Red capitalist” La Ka Shing, the company’s CEO, is a Hong Kong billionaire who previously sat on the Board of Directors of the state-run China International Trust and Investment Company. In March 2007 Forbes described Li is the ninth richest man in the world, with an estimated wealth of US$23 billion. “The visitor logbook,” NewsMax.com reported in 2000, “indicates Chinese officials have visited the port more often than officials from any other country, including the United States. The logbook also shows that on June 2, 1999, the Cuban ambassador, Lazaro Cabeza, also paid a visit to the facility. Cuba is a strong ally of China’s.” Viewed strategically in the advent of war between the USA and the Communist Bloc, the PRC’s Bahamanian port facility, only 60 miles from Florida, could readily serve as a conduit for weapons of mass destruction, Sino-Soviet missile platform, staging ground for special forces penetration of the Continental USA through the “Sunshine State,” or logistical support base for a full-scale “Red Dawn” invasion of the USA as demanded by Soviet military doctrine and envisioned by Jeff Nyquist in Origins of the Fourth World War (1999).

>Red World: Sao Paulo Forum exerts influence in Barbados through Clement Payne Movement, widespread government corruption under former PM Arthur

>Pictured here: David Thompson, Prime Minister of Barbados as of January 16, 2008.

Barbados
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring two dominant social democratic parties
Independence: November 30, 1966 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Barbados: David Thompson (Democratic Labour Party): January 16, 2008-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Parliament’s House of Assembly, which occurred on January 15, 2008, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Democratic Labour Party (social democratic) 20 and Barbados Labour Party (social democratic) 10.
Next general elections: Barbados’ next general elections are scheduled for 2013.

Communist government: none

Communist insurgency: none

Communist parties:

1) Clement Payne Movement (CPM)/People’s Empowerment Party (PEP): The CPM is named in honor of Clement Payne, a trade unionist who led a 1937 uprising in Barbados, and operates under the leader of party president David Comissiong, who was also involved in the founding of the Pan-Caribbean Congress in 2003, and general secretary Bobby Clarke. Comissiong once served as head of the government’s Commission for Pan-African affairs. He is a trenchant critic of globalization, meaning capitalism, and “US hegemony.” The CPM’s ideology is to the left of the country’s two major social democratic parties, the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party. The CPM promotes pan-Africanism, and opposes the US-imposed interim government in Haiti and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The CPM maintains close relations with the Communist Party of Cuba through the Sao Paulo Forum and advocates normalized relations with Cuba. Founded in 2006 the People’s Empowerment Party (PEP) is the electoral wing of the Clement Payne Movement. The PEP, like the CPM, operates under the leadership of Comissiong. The party advocates public ownership of the means of production, or communism.

2) Pan-Caribbean Congress (PCC): Founded on April 27, 2003, under the auspices of the Clement Payne Movement, the PCC is a Caribbean-wide political organization that advocates a Caribbean Union with the full political integration of member states. The PCC motto is “One People, One Caribbean, One Destiny.” The original steering committee consisted of Bobby Clarke (Barbados), David Comissiong (Barbados), David Denny (Barbados) Mr. André Liverpool (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), and Courtwright Marshall (Antigua and Barbuda).

George Odlum (Saint Lucia) was appointed as senior advisor to the committee. Odlum (1934-2003) was a member of the Saint Lucia Labour Party and served as foreign minister of Saint Lucia (1979-1981, 1997-2001) and ambassador to the United Nations (1994-97). Odlum owned and edited a socialist newspaper called The Crusader. He was a colleague of deceased Grenadian dictator Maurice Bishop, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Among his alleged achievements was the establishment of relations between Saint Lucia and the People’s Republic of China. Odlum belonged to the “Four Musketeers,” a group of four prominent Caribbean socialists, which also included Dr. Ralph Gonsalves (current Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, born 1946-present), Roosevelt “Rosie” Bernard Douglas (former Prime Minister of Dominica, born 1941-2000), and Leonard Timoshenko “Tim” Hector (Antigua and Barbuda, born 1942-2002).

3) Workers’ Party of Barbados (WPB): The WPB is a Marxist party that was founded in 1985 by Dr. George Belle, Senior Lecturer in Political Science and Head of the Department of Government, Sociology, and Social Work at the University of the West Indies. Dr. Belle’s biography is posted at the university website with a photograph of the WPB founder wearing what appears to be a hammer and sickle necklace.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community
Socialist International presence: Barbados Labour Party
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Clement Payne Movement/People’s Empowerment Party
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.” In October 2006 the People’s Republic of China signed an investment protection agreement with Barbados.

Between September 1994 and January 2008 the prime minister of Barbados was Owen Seymour Arthur, who was a recipient of Cuba’s Order of Jose Marti. Under Arthur’s watch widespread corruption flourished in the Barbadian government, a fact that the island’s intimidated media consistently suppressed.

>Red World: Antigua and Barbuda absorbed into neo-communist Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas; Caribbean state haven for Red Mafiya

> Pictured here: Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Winston Baldwin Spencer visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas (apparently in 2006). On the occasion of Chavez’s second re-election to the presidency on December 3, the Caribbean politician congratulated the neo-communist dictator in the following statement: “Your institution of the Bolivarian Missions serves as a social model to the developing world, indicative of how to combat disease, poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy and other social ills. The model has the potential to lift millions of people in this hemisphere out of poverty.”

Antigua and Barbuda
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties, including ruling pro-communist party
Independence: November 1, 1981 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda: Winston Baldwin Spencer (United Progressive Party): March 24, 2004-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Parliament’s House of Representatives, which occurred on March 23, 2004, the seats were distributed in the following manner: United Progressive Party (UPP, socialist, pro-communist) 12, Antigua Labour Party 4, and Barbuda People’s Movement (allied to UPP) 1.
Next general elections: Antigua and Barbuda’s next general elections are scheduled for 2009.

Communist government:

1) United Progressive Party: 2004-present

Communist insurgency: none

Communist parties:
1) Barbuda People’s Movement (BPM): Based on the island of Barbuda, BPM is allied to the United Progressive Party.
2) National Labour Party: This party expresses solidarity with communist Cuba.
3) National Movement for Change (NMC): In February 2002 Alister Thomas, a former member of the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement, defected from the United Progressive Party in order to form the NMC.

Crypto-communist parties:

1) United Progressive Party (UPP): The UPP was formed in 1992 through a merger of the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM), Progressive Labour Movement (PLM), and United National Democratic Party. Founded in 1968 by Leonard Timoshenko “Tim” Hector (1942-2002), then PLM leader, the ACLM was a radical socialist and pan-African party. The ACLM’s ideology was inspired by Trinidadian Trotskyist Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989). ACLM maintained close relations with the Communist Party of Cuba and other leftist parties in the Caribbean, such as Grenada’s New Jewel Movement. Hector was a colleague of Marxist and former Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop (1944-1983). The ACLM platform supported the formation of a Caribbean Union and South Africa’s anti-Apartheid movement. The party organized Africa Liberation Day celebrations. In the 1980 election the ACLM obtained nine seats.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: The subversion of Western financial institutions and economies is a primary objective of the restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which employs drug money and a host of KGB/FSB-directed front companies. Terrorism, security, and intelligence expert Joseph Douglass addresses this issue in Red Cocaine (Atlanta: Clarion House, 1990). In 1996 US officials issued an international warning to the effect that Russian and Ukrainian “criminal elements” were actively laundering money through Caribbean financial establishments. In February 1997 the government of Antigua and Barbuda closed down four of these operations.

Among the Caricom states Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines recognize Taiwan, while the rest have diplomatic relations with China. A post at the unofficial Caricomblog.com admits: “The Chinese government has shown no reluctance to be active in the Caribbean, and officials in China would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to map out a joint strategy for China’s involvement in the region, as they have done in Africa.”

In November 2006 Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA oil company signed an agreement with the government of Antigua and Barbuda to lease a storage facility in the Caribbean island nation under the terms of the Petrocaribe initiative. The neo-communist regime in Caracas has also invested US$7.5 million into upgrades at Antigua and Barbuda’s VC Bird International Airport.

>Latin America File: President Correa and Ecuadorian Chavezistas revel in victory, more than 80% of voters endorse constituent assembly referendum

>Venezuelan Tyrant-in-Training Hugo Chavez and his henchentity, President Rafael Correa, will no doubt use the results of this (rigged?) popular referendum to clobber Ecuador’s anti-communist opposition into meek submission before socializing the country’s constitution.

Yes Vote in Ecuadorian Referendum Ratified
Quito, April 16 (Prensa Latina)

Official preliminary results confirmed the triumph of the “yes” vote for the installation of a Constituent Assembly in a referendum, said an official source on Monday.

The president of the Supreme Electoral Court, Jorge Acosta, emphasized that the people went well-organized to the polls, the survey centers announced their predictions, and the official data confirm the “yes” victory tendency.

Acosta foretold that after having counting the 58.58 percent of the voting papers, 81.51 percent, which means 3 million 164,896 Ecuadorian voters, was in favor of the full power Constituent Assembly.

So far, only 12.68 percent voters (492,519) has opposed the yes vote, while null votes has reached 5.06 percent and blank ballot paper has registered 0.75 percent.

Source: Prensa Latina

>USSR2 File: Russia formally requests extradition of Berezovsky after "coup" statements, Gorbachev condemns US report, anti-Putin "Marches of Dissent"

>Somebody wants to complicate the situation in the country and push for instability. We must learn our lesson, and tell those who arouse fear in society that it is unacceptable. He [Putin] has done a lot to turn the country towards modernization, I support Putin.
— Mikhail Gorbachev, Former Soviet President and General Secretary of Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Founder, Gorbachev Foundation, State of the World Forum, Green Cross International, Earth Charter Initiative; quoted by Novosti, April 17, 2007

The formal extradition of Komsomol billionaire exile/agent provocateur Boris Berezovsky is guaranteed to improve Anglo-Russian relations in the wake of the Kremlin-directed poisoning of FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko. At the same time, Russian authorities, citing their country’s constitution, refuse to extradite Litvinenko’s alleged killers Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun back to Britain. In Kremlin parlance, cooperation apparently only works one way. Incidentally, the Russian Federation Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, mentioned in the article below, is “ex”-CPSU, as we have documented before.

Russia officially requests extradition of Berezovsky from UK
04.16.07, 11:24 AM ET

MOSCOW (AFX) Russia today officially requested the extradition from Britain of exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky following his call last week for ‘direct action’ to overthrow President Vladimir Putin, news agencies reported.

‘Today I signed an international legal order in which we posed the question of the extradition of Mr. Berezovsky,’ Prosecutor General Yury Chaika told the Interfax news agency.

Chaika said he ‘drew attention to the unacceptable way he is using his status and adopted country as a base for provocative actions against Russia.

‘In the request, Russia asked for a ‘legal evaluation of the actions of Mr. Berezovsky and the withdrawal of his status as political refugee,’ Chaika said.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper on Friday, Berezovsky called for a revolution against the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin, although he later said he did not advocate violence.

‘Elections are not a viable means of ensuring democratic change in Russia. Therefore I do support using other methods to push for a change back towards democracy,’ Berezovsky said in the interview.

The British government — whose relations with Russia were seriously strained by former spy Alexander Litvinenko’s murder in London last year — immediately denounced the remarks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday called on Britain to take ‘relevant measures’ against the businessman.

Source: Forbes.com

Meanwhile, Comrade Czar Vladimir Putin’s role as frontman for the restored/continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union becomes very obvious as former Soviet dictator Mike (“I’ll Always Be a Communist”) Gorbachev offers his unqualified support for the Putinist-Chekist-Surkovist-Gryzlovist regime by condemning oppositionist protests and a US State Department report on the human rights situation in Russia. To think that the West’s shopping mall regimes have for nearly 20 years believed the lie that Gorby is a “reformer” who has discarded his totalitarian ways is truly appalling, but not surprising.

Gorbachev says “Marches of Dissent” undermine stability
17:13 17/04/2007

MOSCOW, April 17 (RIA Novosti) – Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, now head of a socioeconomic and political think tank, said opposition marches in Russia only undermined stability in the country.

Opposition protests, March of Dissent, were held in Russia’s two largest cities over the weekend. Rights groups, oppositionists and journalists have accused Russian police of abusing their power in dispersing the unsanctioned opposition demonstrations. A total of 250 and 170 people were detained respectively.

“Somebody wants to complicate the situation in the country and push for instability,” Gorbachev told a RIA Novosti news conference. “We must learn our lesson, and tell those who arouse fear in society that it is unacceptable.”

The first and the last U.S.S.R. president backed President Vladimir Putin, crediting him with the current stability in Russia.

“He has done a lot to turn the country towards modernization, I support Putin,” Gorbachev said.

In his comments on the U.S. State Department report on democracy and human rights in Russia, Gorbachev said the criticism should be taken normally, but warned against attaching paramount importance to the report.

“It is always possible to find reasons to criticize,” Gorbachev said. “The United States could also be criticized.”

“A sovereign country does not work when others fail to allow it to go through the transition from one system to another, assess everything and decide what should be taken from the past and how economic and political processes must be approached,” Gorbachev said.

Russian officials immediately reacted to the U.S. report. “The report is obviously politicized in its nature and fails to reflect the real state of affairs,” the Foreign Ministry said, adding the U.S. State Department published similar reports before the “color revolutions” in former Soviet republics.

Source: Novosti

In the midst of all this communist-scripted intrigue, Moscow patiently and cleverly builds its case against the “evil” intentions of the European Union, NATO, the USA, and the West in general.

>Red World: Deposed Panamanian dictator Noriega provided haven for Cuban intelligence, aided Soviet Bloc’s narco-subversion of USA

> Pictured here: Deposed Panamanian dictator and former CIA asset Manuel (“Pineapple Face”) Noriega’s mugshot, 1990. Noriega’s US prison sentence ended in September 2007. Pending the outcome of extradition requests by Panama and France, he remains in prison as of May 2009. In the late 1980s Noriega switched his loyalties from US to Cuban intelligence.

Republic of Panama

Type of state: Republic with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties and failed communist insurgency
Independence: November 3, 1903 (from Colombia)
President of Panama: Martín Erasto Torrijos Espino (son of Omar Torrijos Herrera; Democratic Revolutionary Party with support of People’s Party): September 1, 2004-July 1, 2009
President-Elect of Panama: Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal (Alliance for Change, consisting of Democratic Change, Panameñista Party, Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement, and Patriotic Union Party): July 1, 2009-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the National Assembly of Panama, which occurred on May 3, 2009, the center-right Democratic Change and its allies in the Alliance for Change won 37 out of 71 seats, while the center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party and other leftist groupings won 23 seats.
Next general elections: Panama’s next general elections are scheduled for 2014.

Pro-communist government:

1) General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno, commander of the Panamanian Defense Force and de facto ruler of Panama between 1983 and 1989, was initially a reliable ally of the USA and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency from the late 1950s to 1986. By the late 1980s, however, relations between Noriega and Washington became tense. During the US invasion of Panama, called Operation Just Cause, Noriega was overthrown, apprehended, transported to the USA, and convicted under federal charges of cocaine trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. Noriega’s trial began in April 1992. The prosecution’s case was completely reworked several times because problems developed with the witnesses, whose stories contradicted one another. Noriega remains imprisoned in a federal prison in Miami, Florida, where family members frequently visit. In December 2004, he was briefly hospitalized after suffering a minor stroke. The US Federal Bureau of Prisons website currently gives Inmate Noriega (ID# 38699-079) a projected release date of September 9, 2007.

During Noriega’s trial, US federal prosecutors negotiated deals with 26 different drug felons, including German-Colombian Carlos Lehder, who were given leniency, cash payments, and allowed to keep their drug earnings in return for testimony against Noriega. Lehder co-founded the Medellin cocaine cartel, for which Noriega acted as middleman. Lehder was allegedly active in the Quintín Lamé Movement, an indigenous guerrilla organization linked to Colombia’s defunct 19th of April Movement and the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Noriega used the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) as a means to launder his wealth. His personal banker, Amjad Awan, was a senior manager at BCCI, and then moved on to setup his own securities trading firm. Ultimately, BCCI’s collapse was in part because of Noriega’s laundering activities.

During the last few years of the Noriega dictatorship, probably after 1986, Cuban agents operated with impunity on Panamanian territory. While cocaine trafficking and money laundering were the official reasons that the US administration overthrew the Noriega regime, Joseph Douglass, author of Red Cocaine (Atlanta: Clarion Books, 1990), concluded: “When the United States finally intervened in Panama on December 20, 1989, it would seem that far more impetus was provided by the need to bring an end to the growing military presence of Cuba (and, hence, the Soviet Union) than by the assistance Noriega was providing to drug traffickers and money launderers. The drug business provided the rationale to remove Noriega; but more serious was the growing potential of Cuban and Soviet control mechanisms in Panama” (page 99). In short, during the late 1980s Noriega played a key role in the Soviet Bloc’s narco-subversion of the USA.

Communist insurgency:

1) During the 1970s and 1980s the two largest revolutionary groups in Panama were the Revolutionary United Movement (MUR) and the older Vanguard of National Action (VAN), both Maoist offshoots of the Moscow-affiliated People’s Party of Panama. In 1970 MUR and VAN merged to create the Popular Resistance Front. Upon absorbing additional smaller revolutionary groups, the front changed its name to MLN-20 the same year. Still another group, Revolutionary Student Front (FER-29), joined the MLN-20 as a youth group. As a result, the enlarged MLN added the date of Britton’s death to its name as well. The military regime aggressively extirpated the insurgents, so much so that some members fled into exile. Two supporters immolated themselves in front of the US embassy to protest both the regime and the USA. The military regime amnesty was declared, and many exiles returned in 1980. Throughout the 1980s the MLN-29 temporarily abandoned armed struggle in favor of disseminating Marxism throughout different industries, poor barrios, rural areas, schools, and professions.

The MLN-29 continued to train militarily in preparation for the return to armed struggle. Some members fought with the Sandinista National Liberation Front during the Nicaraguan Civil War and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front during the Salvadoran Civil War. In 1989 the MLN-29 tried to establish relations with the leftist tendency within the military regime’s ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party with the intent of establishing a communist state after the looming US occupation. When the USA executed Operation Just Cause, the MLN-29 and influential sympathizers organized the first protests. Since then, the MLN-29 has continued to agitate through Panama’s labor unions and public schools, and maintained links with Marxist revolutionaries throughout Latin America.

Communist parties:
1) Communist Party Marxist-Leninist of Panama (PC(ml)P): A Maoist political party in Panama, PC(ml)P was founded on January 9, 1980, by a group of militants of the Socialist Workers Front (marxist-leninist) (FOS(ml)). PC(ml)P published Nueva Democracía between 1980 and 2001.
2) November 29th National Liberation Movement (MLN-29): Founded in 1970, MLN-29 is a Marxist-Leninist party that is named after Panamanian communist leader Floyd Britton. MLN-29 was committed to the removal of the US military presence in Panama, as well as the standard Marxist opposition to the national “bourgeoise.” On October 11, 1968 a military coup assumed power in Panama and the new government arrested hundreds of leftists. Britton was one of the few communists who died during his incarceration. He was beaten to death on November 29, 1969. By 1970 most leftists had been released. Until the overthrow of General Noriega by the US invasion in 1989, MLN-29 was the primary communist insurgency to challenge Panama’s military dictatorship.
3) People’s Party of Panama (PPP): Founded as the Communist Party of Panama in 1930, this party should not be confused with the People’s Party, which is Christian democratic in orientation. PPP publishes Unidad.
4) Socialist Workers’ Front (Marxist-Leninist) (FOS(ML)): Founded in 1973 the FOS(ML) originated in the pro-Beijing “Proletarian Wing” of the People’s Party of Panama. FOS(ML) made its first public appearance on May Day 1973 and was especially active in the student movement. The party organized the Association of Friendship with the People’s Republic of China. FOS(ML) published Bandera Roja between 1974 and 1980. The FOS(ML) operated under the leadership of General Secretary Enrique Castillero. In 1980, FOS(ML) was dissolved following internal strife, while one section continued as the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist of Panama.
5) Workers’ Party (Marxist-Leninist) (PO(ML)): Founded in 1934 the defunct PO(ML) was a Trotskyist political party in Panama that operated under the leadership of Diógenes de la Rosa. PO(ML) briefly competed with the People’s Party of Panama over influence in the trade union, tenants, and other mass movements. Like most Panamanian leftists, PO(ML) opposed the US military presence in Panama.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Central American Parliament
Socialist International presence: Democratic Revolutionary Party (center-left)
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Until the US invasion in December 1989 the Soviet Bloc exercised its influence in Panama by way of Cuba, as Joseph Douglass, the author of Red Cocaine relates:

Besides Colombia, Cuba has also been closely linked with Panama and Nicaragua in drug trafficking and gun running. In the case of Panama, General Noriega was indicted on February 4, 1988. The indictment names 15 others and directly ties Noriega to Colombia’s Medellin Cartel. Following the indictment, the US government tried to force Noriega out of office. Suddenly, there emerged a flood of information on Noriega’s questionable activities. Drug trafficking was the first, not just recently, but extending back as far as 1970. Gun running was the second; and not just to democratic revolutionary forces, but to terrorists and communist revolutionaries. This data also extended back to the early 1970s.

But, the activity of greatest concern appears to have been growing links to Cuba and Cuban operations in Panama. Noriega had allowed Cuban intelligence to set up several hundred bogus corporations in Panama to circumvent the US trade embargo with Cuba. Panama was a conduit for the Soviet Bloc theft of US high technology. Even more serious was the growing Cuban military presence, which included weapons—automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, and ammunition—that Cuba was shipping into Panama, and often through Panama to revolutionary forces in other Latin American countries; special guerrilla and special forces training given to Noriega’s forces (referred to as “Dignity Battalions”); Cuban commando units that were reported to be conducting limited attacks on US military installations in Panama (for example, Howard Air Force Base was the target of an assault on April 12, 1988); and Cuban military advisors and intelligence support officials, whose numbers US officials estimate to be between thirty and fifty, while one defector has put the number at 3,000 (pages 98-99).

The importance of Panama is obvious. Panama occupies a geostrategic position of great importance, which may well explain the reason that Panama was one of the first targets for the Soviet-Czechoslovak-Cuban drug-trafficking expansion into Latin America (pages 99-100).

Following the overthrow of the Noriega regime and the transfer of ownership of the Panama Canal from the US to Panama in 1999, the People’s Republic of China has replaced Cuba as the most important communist agent of influence in this Central American country. The Beijing-linked Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing owns the global port management firm Hutchison-Whampoa, which controls the facilities at either end of the Panama Canal.

About 200,000 overseas Chinese live in Panama, constituting about 6.0% of the country’s total population. More ethnic Chinese live in Panama than any other country in Latin America. The first Chinese migrated in the 1850s to build Panama’s railroads. Panama City’s Chinatown is called Barrio Chino de Ciudad Panamá. Many Taiwanese and Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Guangdong province reside here too. Both the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China have attempted to influence Panamanian politics. General Noriega profited by selling travel documents to illegal immigrants from Mainland China. Under a 2001 accord, Panama will expand its economic cooperation with the People’s Republic of China, including the expansion of visits between entrepreneurs and traders from both countries. China sold approximately US$1.2 billion worth of goods in 2000 and its exports increased 33 per cent from the previous year. Representatives of both governments signed the accord on the eve of the opening of the 5th Economic and Commercial Expo of the People’s Republic of China, held in Panama City.

>Red World: Nicaragua still under communist control, neo-Sandinista regime reestablishes military links with USSR2

>Pictured here: The Moscow-Managua Axis personified: Stepashin the “letter boy” (see below) with Soviet client Ortega in Nicaragua, January 10, 2007.

Traditional relations of friendship have always been the foundation for the development of an equal dialogue between our states. We value your sincere desire to boost bilateral cooperation on the basis of our positive achievements of the past years. For our part, we are prepared to carry on constructive efforts to attain our immediate goals, notably to expand trade, resume economic, research, technological and cultural partnership, and strengthen the relevant legislation. We intend to promote constructive contacts with Nicaragua on the key issues of the global and regional agendas. In our opinion, closer cooperation in the struggle against modern challenges and threats, such as international terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking, meets the common interests of our countries and peoples. I am convinced that our concerted efforts will ensure progress in all spheres of Russian-Nicaraguan relations.
— Letter to President Daniel Ortega from Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, presented by Putin’s personal envoy, former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, on occasion of Ortega’s inauguration, January 10, 2007

Introduction

The Sandinista Comandante’s commitment to world revolution is still active. On December 1, 2006 then President-Elect Daniel Ortega attended ceremonies organized in Havana in honor of Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday. On that occasion, the state-run Cuban New Agency reports, Comrade Dan affirmed: “I wish to express my recognition to the man who has served as a source of inspiration and teacher for our movement to fight for justice and freedom. The exchange with Fidel turns us more sensitive each day, more humane, friendly and supportive, firm and determined to defend the noblest ideas of humanity.”

Here at Once Upon a Time in the West we are still waiting for reports of President Ortega’s first trip to the neo-Soviet Union and the East Bloc in more than two decades. Be assured, should that event occur, it will be eagerly analyzed here. While visiting Moscow in 1985 Ortega contrasted US versus Soviet policy toward Nicaragua in the following diatribe: “The Soviet Union has been cooperating with Nicaragua in support of life. What the U.S. has been doing is to send death to Nicaragua.”

Republic of Nicaragua
Type of state: “Post”-communist “multi”-party state under overt communist control, exercised through Sandinista National Liberation Front
Independence: September 15, 1821 (from Spain)
Type of installation: Communist insurgency; Nicaraguan, or Sandinista, Revolution, 1979
Neo-communist renewal: “Collapse of communism”; Sandinistas defeated in general election, 1990

Communist government:
1) Sandinista National Liberation Front (split from communist Nicaraguan Socialist Party): 2007-present
2) El Pacto, consisting of Sandinista National Liberation Front (split from communist Nicaraguan Socialist Party) and Constitutionalist Liberal Party (formerly Liberal Alliance): 1999-2007
3) Liberal Alliance, during which time FSLN controls military, police, and judiciary: 1996-1999
4) National Opposition Union (consisting of Communist Party of Nicaragua, Nicaraguan Socialist Party (communist), Social Democratic Party, Popular Conservative Alliance, Nicaraguan Democratic Movement, National Action Party, National Conservative Party, Democratic Party of National Confidence, Central American Integrationist Party, Liberal Party, Liberal Alliance, Independent Liberal Party), during which time FSLN controls military, police, and judiciary: 1990-1996
5) Sandinista National Liberation Front (split from communist Nicaraguan Socialist Party): 1985-1990
6) Junta of National Reconstruction, consisting of Daniel Ortega Saavedra (FSLN), Sergio Ramírez Mercado (FSLN), Moisés Hassan Morales (FSLN), Arturo José Cruz Porras (pro-FSLN Group of Twelve), Alfonso Robelo Callejas (Nicaraguan Democratic Movement), Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, and Rafael Angel Cordova Rivas: 1979-1985

Pictured here: The man who is still red, 20 years later.

Communist insurgency:

1) During the Nicaraguan, or Sandinista, Revolution in 1979, the Soviet- and Cuban-backed Sandinista National Liberation Front, which was dominated by communists, overthrew the Somoza dynasty that had ruled the country for more than four decades.

2) During the Nicaraguan Civil War that followed the revolution and which spanned the 1980s an ideologically diverse group of organizations known as the Contras endeavored to dislodge the Sandinista regime.

The first group of Contras included the Anti-Sandinista Guerrilla Special Forces, 15th of September Legion, and National Army of Liberation. Ex-members of Somoza’s National Guard dominated the core leadership of this group. Businessman José Francisco Cardenal, who initially supported the Sandinistas, went into exile and founded the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN). The Nicaraguan Revolutionary Armed Forces served as the UDN’s armed wing.

A second group of Contras, consisting of peasant militias led by former Sandinistas, was formed in Honduras between 1980 and 1981. These militias were initially known as MILPAS, but later organized themselves as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), which operated under the command of former National Guard Colonel Enrique Bermúdez and Jaime Irving Steidel, a Honduran-born field commander. Nicaraguan businessman and anti-Sandinista politician Adolfo Calero formed a joint political directorate for the FDN in February 1983.

A third group of Contras was organized in Costa Rica, in April 1982, by Edén Pastora (Comandante Cero), a former Sandinista, under the name Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE). The armed wing of ARDE was called the Sandino Revolutionary Front. Pastora opposed the increased influence of Soviet, East Bloc, and Cuban officials in the Managua junta.

A fourth group of Contras, the Misurasata, was organized among the Miskito, Sumo, and Rama aboriginal peoples of Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast.

Pictured here: Comandante Ortega’s red friends: Hugo and Evo.

Communist parties:
1) Communist Party of Nicaragua (PCdeN): Founded as the Socialist Workers’ Party (POS) on April 23, 1967, the PCdeN’s original leadership consisted of former members of the communist Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN): Juan Lorio, Augusto Lorío, Elí Altamirano, and Manuel Pérez Estrada. The PCdeN promoted armed struggle against the Somoza regime, a policy that the Moscow-allied PSN opposed. In 1970 the POS adopted its current name. In 1990 the party collaborated with the right-wing National Opposition Union to topple the Sandinista government.
2) Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN): Founded in 1944 by Dr. Mario Flores Ortiz, the PSN operates as Nicaragua’s official communist party. After the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which traces its origins to the PSN, seized power in 1979, the PSN was politically marginalized. In 1976 some PSN members split from the main party to form the Nicaraguan Socialist Party (de los Sánchez). In the late 1970s the PSN, reversing its earlier policy–which provoked some members to defect and form the FSLN and Communist Party of Nicaragua in the 1960s–created the Military Organization of the People (OMP) to carry out an armed struggle against the Somoza regime. OMP executed a few attacks against the regime. In 1990 the party collaborated with the right-wing National Opposition Union to topple the Sandinista government. The PSN still exists, but is no longer a communist party. The party organ is El Popular.
3) Revolutionary Unity Movement (MUR): Formed in 1988 MUR consists of defectors from the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua, Communist Party of Nicaragua, and Sandinista National Liberation Front. Ex-FSLN member Moisés Hassán, who was formerly Managua’s Sandinista major, founded the organization. Hassan contested the 1990 presidential election, while the party won one out of 110 seats in the National Assembly. As of 2004 the president of MUR is Francisco Samper.
4) Revolutionary Workers’ Party (PRT): Founded in 1971 as Towards a Popular Revolution, the PRT initially attracted students with Marxist and Trotskyist tendencies. The party joined the Trotskyist United Secretariat of the Fourth International in 1975 and restyled itself as the Marxist Revolutionary League. The PRT fought alongside the Sandinista National Liberation Front, but after the Nicaraguan Revolution the party remained illegal and its leaders were imprisoned for criticizing the new government. The party adopted its current name in 1984 and obtained legal status after the 1984 election.

Crypto-communist parties:
1) National Opposition Union (UNO): The UNO was a wide-ranging coalition of parties that opposed Sandinista President Ortega in the February 25, 1990 general election. Opposition candidate and former Ortega ally Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was elected as the new president. The UNO traced its origins back to the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinating Group (CDN), which was organized in 1982 by several opposition groups. At the time of the election, the UNO consisted of 14 political parties, including four conservative, seven centrist, and three leftist. In that the communist parties of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were then implementing the perestroika deception by abandoning their public monopoly of power, it is worth noting that the Communist Party of Nicaragua and the communist Nicaraguan Socialist Party aligned with their ideological enemies in the UNO to “oust” the Sandinistas, who were also Marxists, from the FSLN’s public monopoly of power. Astute scholars of communist deception should consider the distinct possibility that the FSLN executed a strategic withdrawal at this time from the international limelight so as to further consolidate its hold on Nicaragua without any notice by policymakers in Washington.

During her election campaign Chamorro pledged to end the military draft, promote reconciliation between the country’s warring factions, and stimulate economic growth. The administration of President George H.W. Bush Sr., moreover, warned that the USA would only resume aid to Nicaragua if the UNO was elected. In April 1989 the US Congress approved a package of $49.75 million in “nonlethal” aid to the Contras. Several months later, in June, the National Endowment for Democracy received $2 million from Congress, which was then diverted to fund the Contras’ pro-UNO publicity campaign. Before the election, according to some reports, the Contras threatened to murder Sandinista sympathizers if they voted for the FSLN. In the presidential election held on February 25, 1990, Chamorro won 55 percent of the popular vote against Ortega’s 41 percent. The UNO dissolved in the mid-1990s.

Violeta was the husband of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, owner of La Prensa, and an early supporter of the Sandinistas. Pedro was assassinated on January 10, 1978. President Anastasio Somoza Debayle insisted that a Cuban-American businessman had murdered Chamorro. Speaking about her husband to the participants of the 1998 World Congress of the International Press Institute in Moscow, Violeta stated: “During his whole life, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro was a tireless fighter for democracy in Nicaragua and against the dictatorship of Somoza. This cost him incarceration, torture, exile and finally death. He was warned many times that plans existed to assassinate him, yet no threat detained him from fulfilling his mission to impart the truth and preach democracy.” At this conference a number of prominent Russian communists and “ex”-communists presided, including Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin, State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Communist Party of the Russian Federation Chair Gennady Zyuganov, and Yukos Chair Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Presidents of communist and “post-communist” Nicaragua:
1) Daniel Ortega Saavedra (Sandinista National Liberation Front): January 10, 2007-present
2) Enrique Bolaños (Constitutional Liberal Party, Alliance for the Republic): January 10, 2002-January 10, 2007
3) Arnoldo Alemán (Liberal Party/Alliance, Constitutional Liberal Party): January 10, 1997-January 10, 2002
4) Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (National Opposition Union): April 25, 1990-January 10, 1997
5) Daniel Ortega Saavedra (Sandinista National Liberation Front): January 10, 1985-April 25, 1990
6) Junta of National Reconstruction, consisting of Daniel Ortega Saavedra (FSLN), Sergio Ramírez Mercado (FSLN), Moisés Hassan Morales (FSLN), Arturo José Cruz Porras (pro-FSLN Group of Twelve), Alfonso Robelo Callejas (Nicaraguan Democratic Movement), Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, and Rafael Angel Cordova Rivas: July 18, 1979-January 10, 1985

Results of last presidential election: In the last election presidential election, which occurred on November 5, 2006, former communist dictator José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (Sandinista National Liberation Front) won the presidency with 38.1% of the popular vote, Eduardo Montealegre (Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance) 29.0%, José Rizo Castellón (Constitutionalist Liberal Party) 26.6%, Edmundo Jarquín Calderón (Sandinista Renovation Movement, dissidents from FSLN) 6.4%, and Edén Atanacio Pastora Gómez (Alternative for Change) 0.3%.

Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the National Assembly of Nicaragua, which occurred on November 5, 2006, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (communist) won 38 out of 90 seats, Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC, liberal) 25, Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (liberal, dissidents from PLC) 22, and Sandinista Renovation Movement (communist, dissidents from FSLN) 5.

After the dissolution of the FSLN-Convergence alliance in 2005, the FSLN formed United Nicaragua Triumphs, which includes: Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka (YATAMA), a party of indigenous Nicaraguans from the Atlantic Coast; Christian Democratic Union; Christian Unity Movement; Popular Conservative Alliance; dissidents from the Constitutionalist Liberal Party and Conservative Party of Nicaragua; and a fraction of members from the Nicaraguan Resistance Party (founded by the Contras), and the Liberal Nationalist Party (founded by Somoza family).

In the 2001 election the FSLN won 46 seats, Constitutionalist Liberal Party (formerly Liberal Alliance) 43, and Conservative Party of Nicaragua 1.

In the 1996 election the Liberal Alliance won 42 seats, FSLN 36, Nicaraguan Party of the Christian Path 4, Nicaraguan Conservative Party 3, National Project 2, Nicaraguan Resistance Party 1, Sandinista Renovation Movement (communist, dissidents from FLSN) 1, Unity Alliance 1, Independent Liberal Party 1, National Conservative Action 1, and UNO-96 Alliance 1.

In the 1990 election the National Opposition Union (consisting of Communist Party of Nicaragua, Nicaraguan Socialist Party (communist), Social Democratic Party, Popular Conservative Alliance, Nicaraguan Democratic Movement, National Action Party, National Conservative Party, Democratic Party of National Confidence, Central American Integrationist Party, Liberal Party, Constitutionalist Liberal Party, and Independent Liberal Party) won 51 seats, FSLN 39, Democratic Conservative Party 3, Popular Social Christian Party 3, Marxist-Leninist Popular Action Movement 3, Revolutionary Unity Movement (communist) 1, and Social Christian Party 1.

In the 1984 election the FSLN won 61 seats, Democratic Conservative Party 14, Independent Liberal Party 9, Popular Social Christian Party 6, Communist Party of Nicaragua 2, Nicaraguan Socialist Party (communist) 2, and Marxist-Leninist Popular Action Movement 2.

As a result of the 2004 municipal election, the FSLN-Convergence controlled 87 out of 152 municipalities, Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) 57, Alliance for the Republic 4, Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka (FSLN ally) 3, and Nicaraguan Resistance Party (FSLN ally after 2006) 1.

Next general elections: Nicaragua’s next general elections are scheduled for 2011.

Pictured here: The Islamo-Marxist nexus personified: Iranian President Mahmoud (“Iwannajihad”) Ahmadinejad and Comrade Dan in Managua.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Central American Parliament, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
Socialist International presence: Sandinista National Liberation Front
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Sandinista National Liberation Front
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Before abandoning its public monopoly of power in 1990, the FSLN received military, intelligence, and logistical support from the Soviet Union and Cuba. In late October 2001, shortly after the 911 terror attacks in the USA, Russia signed an agreement to upgrade the Nicaraguan Armed Forces, but the deal was suspended and no shipments were made. Although the Sandinista People’s Army (EPS) is no longer referred to as such, the Nicaraguan Armed Forces are still under the control of the Sandinistas. After the Sandinistas lost the 1990 general election, a new law, enacted in April of that year, placed the EPS under the direct control of President Chamorro, who also held the defense ministry portfolio. Since 1990, however, Sandinistas have retained operational control over the allegedly depoliticized Nicaraguan National Army.

In spite of the president’s titular control over the armed forces, Sandinista General Humberto Ortega, Daniel’s brother, retained authority over promotions, military construction, and force deployments. Indeed, Sandinista officers remained at the head of all general staff directorates and military regions. The chief of the army, Major General Joaquín Cuadra Lacayo, for example, continued in his pre-Chamorro position.

Challenging international pressure from Washington, General Ortega refused to step down from his position until February 21, 1995, when Sandinista General Cuadra assumed Ortega’s position. Cuadra retired in 2000 and founded the National Unity Movement, which is aligned with the Sandinista Renovation Movement, itself a split from the FLSN. The current commander of the Nicaraguan military is Omar Halleslevens Acevedo, who assumed his post on February 21, 2005. General Halleslevens is a Sandinista. The previous commander, General Javier Carrion, was also a Sandinista. General Carrion visited Moscow in 2002 to confer with Anatoly Kvashnin, then Chief of the Russian General Staff.

A law enacted in 1998 is unclear with respect to the line of command from the army’s top brass to the president of the republic or to the president’s minister of defense.

On January 11, 2007, the day after FSLN executive Daniel Ortega was inaugurated as President of Nicaragua, Ortega signed an agreement with former Russian Federation Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who attended the ceremony as personal envoy for President Vladimir Putin.

The anti-Sandinista regimes that governed Nicaragua during the 1990s and early 2000s downgraded Managua’s relationship with Havana to the charge d’affaires level. After his January 10, 2007 inauguration President Ortega proclaimed his intention to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba. On March 20, on the occasion of receiving the new Cuban ambassador Luís Hernandez Ojeda, President Ortega reaffirmed Nicaragua’s solidarity with Cuba. The March 20 issue of La Voz del Sandinismo, the mouthpiece of the FLSN, exclaimed that Nicaragua would now offer “unrestricted support” for Cuba in international forums. “I am sure that this step which we are giving is in correspondence with the political, ideological, historical, and revolutionary bonds that unite us with the people of Cuba, with Fidel Castro, with his Revolution,” Ortega stated. “After 16 years, we again have an ambassador of socialist Cuba, free, heroic, in the land of Sandino,” he added, referring to the governments that existed between his two presidencies as aligning with US “imperialism.”

Under the auspices of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which is coordinated by the Havana-Caracas Axis and to which Managua came on board only one day after Ortega’s inauguration, Nicaragua is joining the left-leaning pan-Latin American television network teleSUR. The February 25, 2007 issue of Prensa Latina reported that Nicaragua and Cuba were “re-launching” cultural ties. Among other ceremonies, President Ortega awarded Cuba’s visiting Culture Minister Abel Prieto, a member of the Communist Party of Cuba’s Politburo, with the Ruben Dario Cultural Independence Order.

Committed to rescue cultural relations between Cuba and Nicaragua, Cuba’s Culture Minister Abel Prieto and his delegation returned to Havana on Monday, after a brief but intensive visit to the Central American nation.

The delegation fulfilled an intense agenda during their 24-hour stay in Nicaragua, from the moment of their welcome by President Daniel Ortega and his wife, poet Rosario Murillo.

The member of the Cuba Communist Party’s Political Board was awarded with the Ruben Dario Cultural Independence Order, a distinction given in the name of all cultural and academic institutions of the Caribbean island.

“This has been the first contact since the Sandinista National Liberation Front victory, and we must establish an extensive cooperation, above all in film production,” stated Omar Gonzalez, president of the Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industries.

The delegation was also made up of Afro-Cuban culture ethnologist and academic Rogelio Martinez Fure, Wilfredo Lam Center director Ruben del Valle and Tablas theater magazine director Omar Valillo.

A mixed commission will facilitate Nicaragua’s integration into the other elements of ALBA.

Cuba not only served as model for the first Sandinista regime’s Nicaraguan Literacy Campaign, but also Nicaraguan teachers and 2,000 primary and secondary students studied in Cuba, the tab of which was picked up by the host country. Previously, Nicaragua boasted a high rate of illiteracy, but the campaign lowered the rate from 50% to 12%. Under the neo-Sandinista regime, educational exchanges between Nicaragua and Cuba are again being implemented. Nicaragua and numerous other communist states in Latin America and elsewhere, as reported by the March 22, 2007 issue of Prensa Latina, are employing Cuba’s “Yes, I Can” reading and writing literacy program. “Venezuela, the first to massively apply the Cuban method,” exclaims the mouthpiece of Cuban communism, “was declared free of illiteracy on October 28, 2005, second in Latin America after Cuba which achieved such a feat in 1961, when over 1.5 million of its citizens learned to read and write.”

During the first Sandinista regime more than 1,500 Cuban doctors worked in Nicaragua where they assisted the Sandinistas in establishing a national health care system, eliminated polio, decreased the rate of measles, and lowered the infant mortality rate. Upon returning to the presidency in January 2007, Ortega is again welcoming Cuban doctors to Nicaragua. On January 31, 2007 Reuters reported: “Cuba plans to send doctors and medicine to Nicaragua, extending its so-called medical diplomacy to the new government of leftist President Daniel Ortega, a longtime ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Cuba’s top diplomat in Nicaragua, Manuel Guillot, said on Wednesday the doctors would work along the Caribbean coast, the most impoverished part of a country second only to Haiti as the poorest in the Americas.”

Nicaraguan patients are also traveling to Cuba where they are receiving free surgery and other health care, as reported by Prensa Latina on February 14, 2007: “A group of 41 Nicaraguans traveled today to Havana to receive free eye surgery as part of the Operation Miracle, a solidarity program boosted by Cuba and Venezuela.” The same article states: “Since last June, date when the Central American nation began to benefit from this program, over 1,650 Nicaraguans have been operated on free of charge in Cuba.” Nicaraguan patients are also traveling to Venezuela: “Another group of 600 were treated in Venezuela, said Marcos Lopez, of the Nicaragua Association of Democratic Mayors, [the] entity in charge of coordinating the trips and selecting the patients.” The March 21 issue of Prensa Latina reported that Cuba will establish three eye clinics in Managua, Puerto Cabezas, and Bluefields.

Between 1985 and 1990 Washington imposed a trade embargo on Nicaragua, which was forced to import new machinery from Cuba and send its workers to the island state in order to receive technical training. Nearly 3,000 Nicaraguans trained in Cuba for three- to six-month periods. Under the auspices of ALBA, the Cuban News Agency (ACN) reported on February 14, 2007, Cuban and Venezuelan technicians are currently installing and bringing online at least 25 electrical generators—gifts from Havana and Caracas—to aid energy-starved Nicaragua. The ACN quotes Cuban engineer and project manager Mario Gutierrez: “Gutierrez pointed out that work has been finished ahead schedule thanks to Nicaraguan technicians from the National Electric Transmission Company (ENTRESA) under the supervision of Cuban and Venezuelan experts.”

Lastly, Cuba was responsible for rebuilding Nicaragua’s infrastructure, including roads, schools, power plants, and sugar mills, destroyed during the revolution. In January 1985 Castro visited Nicaragua and personally opened the new Tipitapa-Malacatoya sugar mill, announcing that all debts incurred by the Sandinista regime for the project would be forgiven. The communist regime in Havana also tried to construct Nicaragua’s first overland route between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in order to expedite the release of the $1 billion in Soviet military aid to Cuba. The road was designed to traverse 260 miles of jungle, but the civil war with the Contras hindered completion of the project. During the 1990s Nicaragua’s proposed coast-to-coast highway remained one of many unfulfilled dreams of the Sandinistas. The neo-Sandinista regime, however, has resurrected the project. On January 22, 2007 the India Daily reported that Venezuela will assume the task of building the highway no later than 2013: “The Venezuelan army will build a 300-mile road in Nicaragua that will link the Pacific to the Atlantic region, El Universal reported Jan. 22. The construction, set to begin in a year and be completed in at least five years, will cost an estimated $350 million and will be financed by Venezuela as a donation.”

The FSLN also organized neighborhood groups similar to the Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, called Sandinista Defense Committees (CDS). In the early months of revolutionary Nicaragua, the CDS’s served as de facto units of local governance. The committees policed neighborhoods, apprehended remnants of the National Guard, and distributed food rations. Later, during the civil war with the Contras, the CDS’s also organized civilian defense efforts against Contra attacks and a network of intelligence systems in order to apprehend supporters. After the initiation of full-scale US military involvement in support of the Contras, the CDS was empowered to enforce wartime bans on political assembly and association with counter-revolutionary parties. The neo-Sandinista regime appears to be resurrecting its earlier practice of “citizen involvement” in the revolution by advocating a restructuring of the constitution whereby the president’s powers would be diminished and the national legislature’s increased. The February 20, 2007 issue of Prensa Latina reports: “The Sandinista deputies in the National Assembly will try to establish a participative democratic system in Nicaragua, as opposed to the current presidential system.”

Pictured here: Fidel Castro and his minion Daniel Ortega, more than 20 years ago.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front, the Cuban DGI, and the Soviet KGB

The FSLN acquired its name from Augusto César Sandino (1895–1934), who led the country’s communist-inspired nationalist rebellion against the US occupation of Nicaragua between 1927 and 1934. Following the Constitutionalist War, US Marines supervised the scheduled presidential election, contested by Nicaragua’s warring liberal and conservative factions, and remained for another six years to maintain order.

For some months the Soviet Union and the Communist International quietly and approvingly assessed Sandino’s guerrilla tactics against US soldiers and the Nicaraguan National Guard, which was trained and equipped by the US military. As a result, the Pan-American Anti-Imperialist League, which was coordinated by the South American Bureau of the Comintern, published several statements lauding Sandino’s rebellion of national liberation. The US chapter of the Comintern’s Anti-Imperialist League, in particular, played a pivotal role in opposing the US occupation. Sandino’s half-brother Socratés, who lived in New York, was a featured speaker at rallies organized by the League and the Communist Party USA. The Sixth World Congress of the Comintern, which convened in Moscow in the summer of 1928, released a statement “expressing solidarity with the workers and peasants of Nicaragua and the heroic army of national emancipation of General Sandino.” In China, the Beijing division of the Kuomingtang army, which was committed to non-communist social revolution, was named the Sandino brigade. In June 1929 Sandino dispatched a representative to the Second Congress of the World Anti-Imperialist League in Frankfurt. This conference was attended by Jawaharlal Nehru and Madame Sun Yat-sen.

The National Guard assassinated Sandino in 1934, enabling Anastasio Somoza García to consolidate his control of the country in 1936. Sandino’s “heirs,” the Sandinistas, overthrew the Somoza family in the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution.

The Sandinistas trace their origins to a cell of student activists at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) in Managua. This cell was committed to removing the Somoza regime by armed struggle. The FSLN, according to the party website, was formally founded in 1961 by Santos Lopez, KGB recruit Carlos Fonseca Amador, Silvio Mayorga, Tomás Borge Martínez, German Pomares Ordonez, Jorge Navarro, Julio Buitrago, Faustino Ruiz, Rigoberto Cruz, and Jose Benito Escobar Perez. Only Tomás Borge Martínez lived long enough to see the Sandinista victory in 1979. Originally known simply as the National Liberation Front, “Sandinista” was added in 1963 to create continuity with Sandino’s movement three decades before. The life and ideology of Augusto César Sandino subsequently became the cherished symbol of Nicaraguan communism.

Since Somoza’s National Guard possessed superior manpower and firepower, the FSLN’s Final Offensive consisted of dividing the enemy’s forces through urban insurrection and a general strike. By April 1979 the FSLN has established five guerrilla fronts, including one in Managua. Young Sandinistas fought National Guardsmen daily in cities throughout the country. The FSLN called the strike on June 4 and insisted that it would last until Somoza fell. Twelve days later a multiparty junta assembled in Costa Rica. The Junta of National Reconstruction consisted of Daniel Ortega Saavedra (FSLN), Sergio Ramírez Mercado (FSLN), Moisés Hassan Morales (FSLN), Arturo José Cruz Porras (pro-FSLN Group of Twelve), Alfonso Robelo Callejas (Nicaraguan Democratic Movement), Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, and Rafael Angel Cordova Rivas. By the end of June the FSLN controlled most of Nicaragua, except the capital.

On July 9 the provisional government in exile released a program that promoted a genuinely democratic regime, political pluralism, universal suffrage, a mixed economy, and a non-aligned foreign policy, and prohibited ideological discrimination, except for those supporting the return of the Somoza dynasty. Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigned on July 17 1979 and fled to Miami. On July 19 the FSLN army proper entered Managua, while the five-member junta followed the next day and assumed power. Approximately 50,000 civilians and combatants died in the revolution, while 150,000 Nicaraguans fled the country.

During the long insurgency against the Somoza regime, disagreements over strategy and tactics within the FSLN National Directorate led to the development of three factions:

1) The “prolonged popular war” faction supported a long-term “silent accumulation of forces” within the country’s large peasant population. Maoist, former Interior Minister, and current National Assembly deputy and ambassador to Peru Tomas Borge belonged to this faction.

2) The “proletarian tendency,” led by Jaime Wheelock, reflected an orthodox Marxist approach that sought to organize urban workers.

3) The “third way/insurrectionist” faction, led by Humberto and brother Daniel Ortega Saavedra, supported a rapid insurrectional strategy in alliance with diverse segments of society, including business owners, churches, students, middle class, unemployed youth and shantytown residents. The “terceristas” attracted popular and international support by sponsoring “the Twelve,” a group of prominent Nicaraguan professionals, business leaders, and clergymen who called for Somoza’s removal and organized a provisional government from Costa Rica. Ortega’s practice of forming ideologically diverse alliances continued to the 2006 general election, when the FSLN established the United Nicaragua Triumphs coalition.

Beginning in 1967 the Cuban General Intelligence Directorate (DGI) established links with Nicaragua’s revolutionary organizations. Three years later the DGI had trained hundreds of Sandinista guerrilla leaders and exerted considerable influence over the FSLN. In 1969 the DGI financed and organized an operation to free the jailed Sandinista leader Carlos Fonseca from a Costa Rican prison. Police recaptured Fonseca, but after Sandinistas hijacked an aircraft carrying United Fruit Company executives, Fonesca was released and fled to Cuba.

DGI chief Manuel “Redbeard” Piñeiro affirmed that “of all the countries in Latin America, the most active work being carried out by us is in Nicaragua.” For example, the DGI, with Fidel Castro’s personal approval, colluded with the FSLN in the failed assassination attempt on the US ambassador to Nicaragua Turner Shelton, a supporter of the Somoza dynasty. In another incident, the Sandinistas obtained several hostages and swapped them for safe passage to Cuba and a one million dollar ransom.

After the fall of the Somoza regime, DGI rapidly extended its tentacles of influence in the new Sandinista government expanded rapidly. A meeting in Havana on July 27, 1979, only weeks after the Nicaraguan Revolution, reestablished diplomatic relations between the two countries after more than 25 years. Well-known DGI agent Julián López Díaz was named ambassador to Nicaragua. The Cuban military and DGI advisors who accompanied the FSLN army rose to over 2,500 in number after the Sandinistas assumed the reins of power. Cuban military and intelligence personnel operated at all levels of the new Nicaraguan government. Sandinista defector Álvaro Baldizón alleged that Cuban influence in Nicaragua’s Interior Ministry, under the control of Maoist Borge, was more extensive than was widely believed at the time. Cuban “advice” and “observations” were accepted as commands. Cuban aid arrived in the form of educational assistance, health care, vocational training, and industry building. Once the Sandinistas assumed power, in fact, Cuba aid in the form of grants and unconditional loans became an essential component of Nicaraguan development strategy.

According to Cambridge University historian Christopher Andrew, who reviewed the Mitrokhin Archive, the FSLN represented one element in KGB Director Alexander Shelepin’s “grand strategy” of employing national liberation movements to advance communism in the Third World. In 1960 the KGB organized financing and training for twelve guerrillas that Fonseca handpicked to comprise the core of the new National Liberation Front (FLN). By 1963 Somoza’s National Guard practically exterminated the FLN, prompting the KGB to reassign the organization, now called the FSLN, to intelligence and sabotage operations in the USA. Andrew and former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin contend that in 1966 the KGB deployed FSLN members to the US-Mexican border. In the event of a hot war between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Sandinista saboteurs were tasked with attacking NORAD facilities in the border states and blowing up the oil pipeline running from El Paso, Texas to Costa Mesa, California. A support group, disguised as migrant farm workers, was tasked with smuggling arms caches into the USA.

In addition to Andrew and his source Mitrokhin, other official sources have testified of clandestine relations between the FSLN and Soviet Bloc intelligence agencies. These sources include US President Ronald Reagan (died 2004), US ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick (died 2006), and the director of East German foreign intelligence Markus Wolf (died 2006). President Reagan often cited intelligence reports on clandestine Soviet activity in Nicaragua when articulating his case for US intervention on behalf of the Contras.

>Red World: Honduran government’s effective counter-measures crushed insurgents, communists organized by Cuba, based in Nicaragua

>Pictured here: US President George W. Bush welcomes Honduran President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to New York City, September 18, 2006.

El Salvador’s communist FMLN extends its baleful influence throughout Central America by way of the Mara Salvatrucha gangs, which pose a serious security issue for the Honduran government.

Republic of Honduras
Type of state: Republic with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties and failed communist insurgency
Independence: September 15, 1821 (from Spain)
President of Honduras: Roberto Micheletti Bain (Liberal Party of Honduras): June 28, 2009-present (acting; installed by military coup)
Results of last presidential election: In the last presidential election, which occurred on November 27, 2005, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (Liberal Party of Honduras) won the presidency with 49.9% of the popular vote, while Porfirio Lobo Sosa (National Party of Honduras, conservative) obtained 46.2%, Juan Ángel Almendares Bonilla (Democratic Unification Party, communist) 1.6%, Juan Ramón Martínez (Christian Democratic Party of Honduras) 1.4%, and Carlos Sosa Coello (Innovation and Unity Party-Social Democracy, center-left) 1.0%.
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the National Congress of Honduras, which occurred on November 27, 2005, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Liberal Party of Honduras (liberal) 62, National Party of Honduras (conservative) 55, Democratic Unification Party (communist) 5, Christian Democratic Party of Honduras 4, and Innovation and Unity Party-Social Democracy (center-left) 2.
Next general elections: Honduras’ next general elections are scheduled for 2009.

Communist government:
1) Presidency of Carlos Roberto Reina (National Liberal Party, socialist, pro-Castro): January 27, 1994-January 27, 1998
2) Presidency of Dr. Ramón Villeda Morales (National Liberal Party, introduced welfare benefits and labor code that favored working class, supported US President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress): December 21, 1957-October 3, 1963 (term ended in coup, followed by 18-year military dictatorship)

Communist insurgency:
1) Based in revolutionary Nicaragua, the Morazanísta National Liberation Front (FMLH) was a clandestine politico-military group organized by dissidents from the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist of Honduras (PCMLH), later known as the Party for the Transformation of Honduras. Soon after the FMLH was created, the government in Honduras adopted repressive measures that effectively crushed the communist insurgencies that materialized in the early 1980s. As a result, many Marxist-Leninist leaders fled the country and led their movements in exile, with the aid of other leftist insurgencies in Central America. The 1980s Honduran leftists carried out only a few terrorist attacks, including the FMLH’s attack on a Tegucigalpa disco that injured numerous patrons. The disco attack is the only incident attributed to the FMLH. Named after Honduran hero Francisco Morazan, the FMLH is unrelated to the Morazanist Patriotic Front, a terrorist cell that targeted US soldiers stationed in Honduras until the mid-1990s.

Similarly, the Revolutionary Popular Forces Lorenzo Zelaya (FPRLZ) was a clandestine politico-military group organized in 1980 by dissidents from the PCMLH who were inspired by the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979. The organization maintained relations with El Salvador’s Popular Forces of Liberation (FPL) “Farabundo Martí” and then the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, which the FPL later joined. The FPRLZ, like the FMLH, was named after a Honduran peasant leader, Lorenzo Zelaya, who was murdered in 1965.

Due to the lack of support from Honduras’ conservative populace and the effective counter-insurgency measures undertaken by the Honduran government, the communist rebellion was quickly crushed. By the early 1990s, as the first Sandinista regime was voted out in Nicaragua and the FMLN was integrated into Salvadoran politics, popular support for the FMLH and other Honduran leftist groups dwindled. These external political shifts prompted the FMLH and FPRLZ to seek integration as well by forming the Democratic Unification Party.

2) The new civilian administrations of Honduras facilitated US President Ronald Reagan’s policy of opposing Central American communism, the so-called Reagan Doctrine, by providing the Nicaraguan Contras with a base of operations on Honduran territory. Between 1979 and 1985, under the direction of US ambassador John Negroponte from 1981 to 1985, military and economic aid to Honduras increased from $31 million to $282 million. In exchange for this aid, the government of Honduras offered its territory as a base for 15,000 Nicaraguan Contras, provided logistical and intelligence support, and joined the US military in joint exercises. Negroponte personally supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Contras trained. Argentina’s Batallón de Inteligencia 601 trained Contras at Lepaterique. The CIA and Argentine military co-trained Battalion 3-16, the Contras’ special intelligence unit that was implicated in the assassination of hundreds of people, including US missionaries. The Honduras Commission on Human Right later accused Negroponte, who is currently Director of National Intelligence, of human rights violations. In August 2001 investigators discovered 185 bodies, including those of two Americans, at the Aguacate base.

The Contras were comprised of several, ideologically diverse organizations. One group consisting of peasant militias led by former Sandinistas was formed in Honduras between 1980 and 1981. These militias were initially known as MILPAS, but later organized themselves as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), which operated under the command of former National Guard Colonel Enrique Bermúdez and Jaime Irving Steidel, a Honduran-born field commander. Nicaraguan businessman and anti-Sandinista politician Adolfo Calero formed a joint political directorate for the FDN in February 1983.

Communist parties:
1) Democratic Unification Party (PUD): Founded in 1992 the PUD represents a merger of Party for the Transformation of Honduras (formerly Communist Party Marxist-Leninist of Honduras), Honduran Revolutionary Party, Morazanísta National Liberation Party (formerly Morazanísta National Liberation Front), and Patriotic Renovation Party (PRP). Formed in 1990, the PRP, in turn, represented a merger of elements of the dissolved Communist Party of Honduras, Revolutionary Popular Forces Lorenzo Zelaya (FPRLZ), and assorted social democrats.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Central American Parliament
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Communist Cuba was responsible for organizing the communist insurgents of Honduras and elsewhere in Central America. Eileen Scully, reporting for the Heritage Foundation, stated that Cuba promised aid to Honduras’ major guerrilla groups on the condition that they unified under one military command.

Here Cuba also has been unifying the major anti-government groups: the Honduran Communist Party (PCE); the Popular Liberation Movement (MPH-Cinchoneros); the Lorenzo Zelaya Commando, the military arm of the Revolutionary People’s Front (FRP); the Morazanista National Liberation Front FMLH. As the prospective vanguard, Cuba seems to prefer the MPH-Cinchoneros-a group known to have close ties to the Salvadoran guerrillas. The indigenous Communist Party PCH which eschews violence, is helpful ‘to Cuba only to the extent that it very vocally opposes cooperation between Honduras and the U.S. in combating regional insurgency. As Honduras is considered not yet “ripe for revolution,” its present function is an arms and aid conduit to neighboring areas.

In January 1981, Honduran officials uncovered a large cache of arms earmarked for Salvadoran guerrillas. In November of that year, the Honduran government revealed the presence of a guerrilla safehouse outside the city of Tegucigalpa, containing an arsenal of automatic weapons and explosives and documents showing recent attendance in training courses in Cuba. Later that month, two additional safehouses were uncovered in La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula (“The Castro Doctrine Makes Gains,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #289, September 12, 1983).

>Red World: Three-decade red insurgency fails to take Guatemala by force, backs social democrat Colom; 2008 inauguration attended by Red Axis leaders

> Pictured here: Communist fraud Rigoberta Menchu (left) and fellow activist Nineth Montenegro in Guatemala City, February 21, 2007. Montenegro’s political party Encounter for Guatemala supported Menchu’s presidential candidacy in 2007. Menchu participated in the 1995 Montevideo conference of the narco-communist-terrorist Sao Paulo Forum.

Controversy surrounds the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize-winning autobiography of Quiche Mayan Menchu, an “icon” of the Student Left. According to David Horowitz, Menchu’s personal story not only contains gross lies, but also was ghostwritten by a French communist. “Published in 1982,” Horowitz explains, “I, Rigoberta Menchu was actually written by a French leftist, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, wife of the Marxist, Regis Debray, who provided the “foco strategy” for Che Guevara’s failed effort to foment a guerrilla war in Bolivia in the 1960s.” He concludes that Menchu is an agent of communism: “The fictional life of Rigoberta Menchu is a piece of Communist propaganda designed to incite hatred of Europeans and Westerners, and the societies they have built, and to organize support for Communist and terrorist organizations at war with the democracies of the West.”

Republic of Guatemala
Type of state: Republic with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties and failed communist insurgency
Independence: September 15, 1821 (from Spain)
President of Guatemala: Alvaro Colom (New Nation Alliance, communist infiltrated; National Unity of Hope, social democratic): January 14, 2008-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, which occurred on September 9, 2007, the seats were distributed in the following manner:
National Unity of Hope (social democratic) 48, Grand National Alliance (conservative) 37, Patriotic Party (conservative) 30, Guatemalan Republican Front (conservative) 15, Unionist Party (conservative) 8, Social Action Centre 5, Encounter for Guatemala (indigenous leftist) 4, National Advancement Party 4, Nationalist Change Union 4, Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (communist, former guerrilla) 2, and Democratic Union 1.
Next general elections: The next general elections are scheduled for 2011.

Communist government:

1) Crypto-communist presidency of Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera (associated with indigenous leftists in Guerrero, Mexico; Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit, Social Democratic Party, Guatemalan Christian Democracy, Guatemalan Republican Front): January 14, 2000-January 14, 2004
2) Socialist presidency of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán with support of National Renovation Party, Revolutionary Action Party (PAR, center-left), and communist Guatemalan Labor Party (formerly PAR faction): March 15, 1951-June 27, 1954
3) Socialist presidency of Professor Juan José Arévalo Bermejo with support of National Renovation Party, Revolutionary Action Party (center-left), and Popular Front: March 15, 1945-March 15, 1951

Communist insurgency:

1) The Guatemalan Civil War between 1960 and 1996 traces its origin to the overthrow of the country’s post-war socialist government. Between 1945 and 1954, during the so-called “Ten Years of Spring,” President Juan José Arévalo Bermejo and his defense minister and successor Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán socialized the Guatemalan economy. President Arbenz’s land reforms, in particular, threatened the United Fruit Company, in which US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, his brother CIA director Allen Dulles, and Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith held shares. During Arbenz’s presidency, moreover, four communist Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT) members sat in the 58-seat Guatemalan parliament, while other communists were employed in high-level positions in the civil service and educational bureaucracy. In May 1954 Czech weaponry arrived in Guatemala aboard a Swedish ship. The USA claimed this as definitive proof of Arbenz’s Soviet links. In 1954 a CIA-organized military coup overthrew Arbenz’s democratically elected communist-infiltrated government. Arbenz fled to Mexico, then Switzerland, Paris, Prague, Moscow, and finally Uruguay in 1957. In 1960, after the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro invited Arbenz to settle in Cuba, to which offer Arbenz readily agreed. However, Arbenz soon objected to Castro’s communism and moved to Mexico after his daughter’s suicide in 1965. He died there in 1971, under suspicious circumstances.

Rejecting the military dictatorship of General Ydígoras Fuentes, one of several since the overthrow of Arbenz’s civilian government, a group of junior officers, led by Luis Turcio Lima, Marco Antonio Yon Sosa, and Luis Trejo Esquivel, organized themselves as Revolutionary Movement 13th November and staged a revolt. When the rebellion failed, several members fled into hiding, where they were known as the Rebel Armed Forces, and apparently established relations with communist Cuba. From this nucleus of dissent originated Guatemala’s communist insurgency.

Communist parties:

1) Guatemalan Democratic Vanguard (VDG): Founded in 1947 the VDG was originally a faction of the ruling Revolutionary Action Party (PAR), which supported Presidents Juan José Arévalo Bermejo and Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. The VDG operated under the leadership of José Manuel Fortuny. In 1949 the VDG split from PAR and formed the Communist Party of Guatemala (PCG), which was renamed two years later as the Guatemalan Labor Party. The first Communist Party of Guatemala was founded in 1922 but was suppressed ten years later.

2)Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG): During the 1970s and 1980s Fidel Castro’s support for Latin American insurgents extended to the URNG, as well as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador, the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua, and the National Liberation Army in Colombia. Organized by communist Cuba, the URNG consists of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), Revolutionary Organization of Armed People (ORPA), Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), and Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT). The URNG laid down its arms in 1996 and was legalized as political party in 1998.

3) Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT): The PGT existed from 1949, when it succeeded the second Communist Party of Guatemala, to 1998, when it merged into the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity. The PGT supported the socialist reforms of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, while members, as noted above, were employed in high-level positions in the civil service and educational bureaucracy. In 1954 the presence of the PGT in the Revolutionary Action Party-led government troubled US policymakers who threw their support behind the Guatemalan military’s plan to overthrow President Arbenz. In June 1950 PGT began to publish a weekly newspaper called October, which developed a readership among the country’s workers, peasants and intellectuals.

The PGT later joined the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) in fomenting civil war against the government. During the course of the civil war various factions emerged within, defected from, and re-merged with the PGT and FAR. These factions included the Guatemalan Labor Party-Communist Party, Guatemalan Labor Party-January 6, National Directing Nucleus of the PGT (PGT-NDN), and others. On December 29, 1996 the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), into which the PGT had merged, signed a peace agreement with the government of President Álvaro Arzú. At this time the URNG’s Provisional Leading Junta included PGT member Ricardo Rosales as its secretary.

In October 2005 a group, professing to represent former members of the original PGT, PGT-NDN, FAR, Guerrilla Army of the Poor, and Patriotic Youth of Labor (JPT), founded a new party with the name PGT.
Guatemalan Revolutionary Workers’ Party (PROG): In 1950 trade union leader Víctor Manuel Gutiérrez led a faction out of the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT) and founded PROG, which made its first public appearance on July 1. Differences of opinions related to the social composition of the PGT’s Central Committee provoked the split.

4) Revolutionary Movement 13th November (MR13): Founded in 1960 by a group of dissident junior military officers with leftist leanings, MR13’s original leaders were Luis Turcio Lima, Marco Antonio Yon Sosa, and Luis Trejo Esquivel. In 1961 MR13 formed the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) and, in collaboration with the Guatemalan Labor Party and other leftists, instigated the Guatemalan Civil War, which finally ended in 1996.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Central American Parliament
Socialist International presence: Social Democratic Convergence
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: Communist Cuba was responsible for organizing the communist insurgents of Honduras and elsewhere in Central America. Eileen Scully, reporting for the Heritage Foundation, stated that Cuba promised aid to Guatemala’s four major guerrilla groups on the condition that they unified under one military command.

After signing an agreement on cooperation [in 1980], the Guatemalan representatives journeyed to Cuba where they met with Castro and again agreed to create a military command based in Managua. The resultant organization is called the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG) with a revolutionary directorate called the General Revolutionary Command (CGR). In February 1982, a group of prominent Guatemalan exiles in Mexico announced the establishment of the Guatemalan Committee for Patriotic Unity (CGUP). Members of this “unified political front” met in Havana the following day to celebrate the event.

Following these major steps towards opposition unification Cuba increased military supplies and training to Guatemalan guerrilla forces. Throughout 1981, arms were sent to Guatemala from Nicaragua via Honduras. These arms included 50 mortars, submachine guns, rocket launchers, and small arms. The guerrillas’ primary target has been Guatemala’s economic infrastructure; crop burning and activities to destroy the tourism industry are employed to create widespread dissatisfaction through swelling opposition ranks (“The Castro Doctrine Makes Gains,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #289, September 12, 1983).

El Salvador’s communist FMLN extends its baleful influence throughout Central America by way of the Mara Salvatrucha gangs, which pose a serious security issue for the Guatemalan government.

>Red World: Former Soviet/Cuban-backed guerrilla army FMLN wins presidential election in 2009, forms government first time since civil war

> Pictured here is a memorial to ethnic Palestinian Arab Schafik Jorge Handal (1930-2006), deceased leader of the Communist Party of El Salvador and its successor, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). In 2009 the FMLN finally took away the presidency from the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) for the first time since the Salvadoran Civil War ended in 1992. The FMLN also slightly increased the number of seats it holds in the Legislative Assembly, effectively placing El Salvador within Latin America’s Red Axis.

Republic of El Salvador

Type of state: Multiparty state with democratically elected communist government
Independence: September 15, 1821 (from Spain via Mexico)
President of El Salvador: Mauricio Funes (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front; married to Brazilian Vanda Pignato, co-founder of Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party): June 1, 2009-present
Vice President of El Salvador: Salvador Sanchez Ceren (Popular Forces of Liberation “Farabundo Marti”; Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, Commanding General, 1984-1992): June 1, 2009-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, which occurred on January 18, 2009, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (democratic socialist, communist faction) 35, Nationalist Republican Alliance (conservative) 32, National Conciliation Party (conservative) 11, Christian Democratic Party 5, and Democratic Change (center-left, ex-members of FMLN, Christian Democratic Party, and United Democratic Center) 1.
Next general elections: El Salvador’s next presidential election is scheduled for 2014.
Communist government:
1) Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front: 2009-present
2) Revolutionary Government Junta (broad coalition containing anti-communist leftists): 1979-1982

Communist insurgency:
1) During the Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992), the Communist Party of El Salvador, acting through the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), attempted to overthrew the Revolutionary Government Junta, as well as the democratically elected rightist governments that followed. After a peace accord ended the civil war, the FMLN entered the political process by contesting elections. While the FMLN has failed to secure the presidency in the last three general elections, in 2000 and 2003 the party obtained slightly more seats in the Legislative Assembly than the right-wing ARENA. The international narco-terrorist gang Mara Salvatrucha consists of “former” FMLN guerrillas. A brief history of the FMLN’s connections to the Soviet Bloc follows:

Salvadoran Rebels Anticipated Soviet Fall, Shifted Tack
by Frank Smyth, May 6, 1992

EL SALVADOR’S leftist guerrilla movement began moving away from Marxism-Leninism several years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, they and independent analysts say.

Since the FMLN was already in transition, the Soviet Union’s collapse “wasn’t like a bucket of cold water, but of water which was already warmed,” says William, a pseudonym for a high-ranking 15-year veteran of the Salvadoran Communist Party, one of five rebel organizations that make up the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) coalition.

On Feb. 1, El Salvador’s 12-year civil war came to an end as a result of UN-mediated negotiations.

With the FMLN now a legal entity openly participating in the political process, its members are willing for the first time to discuss previous clandestine relations with the Soviet Union and other countries.

“We’ve studied all the texts, Marxism-Leninism, Mao, and social democracy,” says Chano Guevara, a peasant who rose to become a top FMLN comandante in the rebel stronghold of Guazapa volcano.

“But if we had followed the socialist camp we wouldn’t exist now. We continue to exist [because of] the politically and economically rooted problems in this country.”

Despite their ongoing ties to Cuba, the FMLN is one of the largest leftist insurgencies in the world to accept democracy.

The decision to make reforms in advance of the Soviet Union’s collapse is a main reason the FMLN remains a viable political force in El Salvador, Western experts say.

“The age of the romantic revolutionary linked with Marxist-Leninist ideology is finished,” said Wayne Smith, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, who was the chief United States diplomat in Cuba in the early 1980s.

“[But] movements such as the FMLN, who champion the poor but who do it through electoral means, are going to have a growing place in Latin America.”

The FMLN’s transition began as a direct result of changes in the Soviet Union. Although by the late 1980s the FMLN was not dependent on the Soviet bloc to continue fighting, the insurgency would have needed direct foreign aid if they had ever taken power by force. But as early as 1986, the reform government of Mikhail Gorbachev communicated to the FMLN that it favored a negotiated settlement and would not finance a new leftist government, FMLN sources say.

Guerrilla leaders left secluded base camps in northern El Salvador to embark on a nine-country tour of Latin America in October 1988. FLMN leaders had always viewed themselves as within a broad vein of Latin American nationalism.

But on this tour, they received criticism from many governments considered allies, such as Mexico, Argentina, and Peru, all of whom encouraged the rebels to consider a negotiated settlement.

THE rebel leadership was especially influenced by the dramatic decline of the Nicaraguan economy in the late 1980s, which signaled that no revolution in Central America could survive in isolation, FLMN sources say.

FMLN leaders were also swayed by changes in Eastern Europe. Most, including the FMLN’s top comandante and strategist, Joaquin Villalobos, supported popular reform movements there.

Two months after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a January 1990 internal document was published, which praises the “social forces that demand more democracy and independence” in Eastern Europe and openly rejects a one-party state. “The people are removing the authoritarian, inept, and corrupt governments,” notes the document. “The masses feel … they must sweep out the mistakes of the parties in power, as well as their old and closed formulas.”

More than 1,000 Salvadoran revolutionaries received political and military training in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba, and Nicaragua, they and East German sources say.

“During the week we had classes in Spanish,” says William, who was in the Soviet Union for nine months in 1979-80. “On weekends, we all had military training.”

The Soviet Union, Cuba, and to a lesser degree Nicaragua provided funds, weapons, and training to the FMLN throughout the war, FMLN veterans here say. But the support was heaviest in the early 1980s, they say.

While Moscow began to distance itself from the FMLN in 1986, East Germany continued to train Salvadorans until the collapse of the Berlin Wall, according to an East German who worked with the FMLN there. In order to make up the aid shortfall, the FLMN developed new sources of weapons and funds from radical third-world countries including Vietnam and North Korea, and won substantial funding from church groups in the US and Western Europe, FMLN veterans say.

The Cubans, however, were the FMLN’s most consistent backers, providing specialized military training, as well as materiel and other support to the Salvadoran insurgency throughout the war, FLMN veterans say.

“We still have relations with Cuba, Vietnam and others,” says Ramon Medrano, a member of the FMLN’s top political commission, “and we have a right to.” The insurgency also received substantial funds from several social democratic Scandinavian countries, especially in the early 1980s, according to FMLN veterans.

This eclectic base of support boosted the insurgency, FMLN leaders say. Nonetheless, they insist that the insurgency itself was domestically rooted, and that degree of foreign support was always exaggerated by the US. Some Western experts agree. “I don’t think there’s any question the Cubans helped the FMLN,” said Dr. Smith. “[But] the movement would have continued without any outside help at all.”

FMLN units extorted war taxes – running as high as $ 60,000 from individual coffee growers during harvest season, rebel and coffee-producing sources here say. Throughout the war, these and other funds were used to buy weapons from the Salvadoran military, which ran a ubiquitous business in sales of US-provided weapons, according to FMLN operatives and civilians involved in arms transactions with Salvadoran military officers.

2) In 1932 the Communist Party of El Salvador staged a revolt under the leadership of Agustín Farabundo Martí, after whom the FMLN was later named. The revolution failed.

Communist parties:
1) Communist Party of El Salvador (PCES): On March 27, 2005 a group of Salvadoran communists organized a new PCES, seeking to perpetuate the heritage of the old party that merged into the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.
2) Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR): In 2004 and 2005 Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front members Ileana Rogel and Francisco Jovel defected from the party to form the FDR.
3) Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN): Organized in 1980 the FMLN was an insurgent army consisting of the: a) Communist Party of El Salvador with its armed wing Armed Forces of Liberation, b) Popular Forces of Liberation “Farabundo Martí,” c) Party of the Salvadoran Revolution with its armed wing Revolutionary Army of the People, d) Armed Forces of National Resistance, and e) Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers with its armed wing Revolutionary Army of Central American Workers. In 1992 the FMLN became a legal party and three years later the separate parties within the front disbanded in order to create a single entity. Between 1959 and 1994 Schafik Jorge Handal was General Secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador and afterwards leader of the FMLN. Handal, who was the son of Palestinian Arab immigrants, died on January 24, 2006.

In 1999 two organized tendencies emerged in the FMLN: the social democratic Renewal Movement (“Renovadores”) and the communist Revolutionary Socialist Current, of which Handal and Salvador Sanchez Ceren were leaders. The main leader of the Renovadores was Facundo Guardado, who was expelled from the FMLN before the 2003 general elections. The FMLN leadership now prohibits internal tendencies. The current secretary general is Medardo Gonzalez.

The FMLN hosted the 13th conference of the narco-communist- terrorist Sao Paulo Forum in San Salvador between January 12 and 16, 2007. Slightly more than one month later three ARENA deputies were brutally assassinated en route to the Central American Parliament in Guatemala City, where they represent El Salvador. The deputies included William Pichinte, Ramon Gonzalez, and Eduardo D’Aubuisson, the son of ARENA founder Major Roberto D’Aubuisson who is widely believed to have also founded the death squads that terrorized El Salvador during the 1980s. The killing of Eduardo and his colleagues occurred on February 19, on the 15th anniversary of the death of Major D’Aubuisson and only days after the FMLN vigorously opposed an ARENA resolution in the Legislative Assembly that would have awarded the elder D’Aubuisson with the title Honorary Son of El Salvador. The killings took place at a farm once frequented by Guatemalan anti-communists who supported Major D’Aubuisson.

Four police officers of Guatemala’s anti-gang unit were arrested on suspicion of allegedly carrying out the assassination. However, on February 25, one day before agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation were due to arrive to assist their Guatemalan counterparts, unidentified gunmen stormed the prison in which the policemen were located and shot dead the four alleged assassins. Members of the violent FMLN-connected Mara Salvatrucha gang were also inmates at the prison to which the police were transferred and rioted immediately after the killings.

In response to this series of obviously politically motivated murders, Salvadoran authorities accused the Guatemalan police forces of widespread corruption. Shortly thereafter, Daniel Ortega, the Marxist revolutionary and long-time leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) who was re-elected to the presidency of Nicaragua in November 2006, offered to host the Central American Parliament in Managua, citing security concerns. The FSLN, it should be noted, holds membership in the Sao Paulo Forum.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Central American Parliament
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: The Soviet Union provided arms to the FMLN during the early 1980s, East Germany provided training to FMLN guerrillas until 1989, and Cuba continued to provide arms and training throughout the course of the Salvadoran Civil War, which ended in 1992. The Sandinista regime in Nicaragua also provided political and military training to the FMLNistas. In the early 1980s the FMLN also received financial support from several social democratic governments in Scandinavia.

>Red World: Costa Rica’s stable political system established after 1948 communist uprising; President Arias despised by Latin American Left

> Pictured here: US President George W. Bush welcomes Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez to the White House, December 6, 2006.

Republic of Costa Rica
Type of state: Republic with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties and failed communist insurgency
Independence: September 15, 1821 (from Spain via Mexico)
President of Costa Rica: Óscar Arias Sánchez (National Liberation Party): May 8, 1986-May 8, 1990, May 8, 2006-present
Results of last presidential election: In the last presidential election, which occurred on February 5, 2006, Óscar Arias Sánchez (National Liberation Party) won the presidency with 40.9% of the popular vote, while Ottón Solís (Citizens’ Action Party) obtained 39.8%, Otto Guevara (Libertarian Movement Party) 8.5%, Ricardo Toledo (Social Christian Unity Party) 3.6%, Antonio Álvarez Desanti (Union for Change Party) 2.4%, Jose Manuel Echandi Meza (National Union Party) 1.6%, and Juan Jose Vargas Fallas (Homeland First Party) 1.1%.
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, which occurred on February 5, 2006, the seats were distributed in the following manner: National Liberation Party (social democratic) 25, Citizens’ Action Party (center-left) 17, Libertarian Movement Party 6, Social Christian Unity Party (Christian democratic) 5, National Union Party 1, National Rescue Party 1, Access without Exclusion 1, and Broad Front (including Alternative of the Left Movement) 1.
Next general elections: Costa Rica’s next general elections are scheduled for 2010.

Communist government:
1) Presidency of Teodoro Picado Michalski (National Republican Party) with support of communist Popular Vanguard Party and progressive Archbishop Víctor Sanabria: May 8, 1944-May 8, 1948
2) Presidency of Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (National Republican Party) with support of communist Popular Vanguard Party and progressive Archbishop Víctor Sanabria: May 8, 1940-May 8, 1944

Communist insurgency:
1) During the 44-day Costa Rican Civil War in 1948 the communist Popular Vanguard Party and Nicaraguan soldiers supplied by the Somoza regime supported the reformist administration of President Teodoro Picado Michalski. Businessman José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer opposed the Picado administration. Although an anti-communist Figueres strategically allied himself with other Latin American reformists and communists through the Pact of the Caribbean. The Caribbean Legion, as the group was called, pledged itself to overthrow the dictatorships of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Members of the Caribbean Legion included Cuban communists Fidel Castro and Rolando Masferrer. Through the pact Figueres secured weapons from the socialist President of Guatemala Juan José Arévalo. On April 17 the communists, under the leadership of Manuel Mora Valverde, sealed themselves in the capital of San Jose in order to resist Figueres’ National Liberation Army (NLA). On April 19, fearing intervention by US troops in neighboring Panama, the Costa Rican Army and the communist insurgents capitulated and the NLA marched into San Jose five days later. Picado fled into exile but refused to resign, completing his term in Nicaragua until May 8, on which date Figueres assumed the presidency. Unlike its Central American neighbors, Costa Rica has enjoyed political stability since its short civil war.

Communist parties:
1) Broad Front: This coalition includes the Alternative of the Left Movement.
2) Costa Rican People’s Party (PPC): Founded in April 1985 by a faction of the Popular Vanguard Party, the PPC is communist in orientation. The PPC’s founder was Eduardo Mora Valverde, who is presumably related to the deceased Manuel Mora Valverde. The current PPC leader is Pablo Morales Rivera. The PPC publication is Libertad.
3) Costa Rican Revolutionary Workers’ Party: This party is active in the movement opposing Costa Rica’s pending membership in the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Area. DR-CAFTA includes the USA, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
4) People’s Vanguard Party of Costa Rica (PVP): The PVP was founded in 1931 as the Communist Party of Costa Rica. Manuel Mora Valverde (1909-1994) led the party during the Costa Rican Civil War. The party publication is El Popular.
5) United People (PU): Founded in 1978 PU was originally an alliance between the Popular Vanguard Party (PVP), Costa Rican Socialist Party (PSC), and Revolutionary Movement of the People (MRP). The PSC and MRP later disbanded and the alliance became defunct. In 1995 the PVP revived the alliance. In the 2002 national legislature election, the PU and the Alajuelense Democratic Action formed Coalition Change 2000, which obtained less than 1.0% of the vote. This coalition was dissolved too.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, UN University of Peace
Socialist International presence: National Liberation Party (social democratic)
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Costa Rican People’s Party (communist)
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: In September 2006, as reported by the People’s Daily Online, Costa Rica and Russia revived a package of agreements on trade and energy. At the time Russian Federation Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak visited both President Oscar Arias and Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno. The Costa Ricans and Russians resolved to activate a reciprocal investment protection agreement that was signed in 1999 but never implemented. Russia currently imports US$17 million worth of Costa Rican products, slipping from a peak of US$34 million dollars in 1998. Kislyak expressed interest in the Costa Rica Consensus, an initiative of the Costa Rican government, in which countries that reduced their military expenditures would have their debts forgiven and education and health programs underwritten by the international community. “Many organizations and nations are trying to solve the disarmament problem,” Kislyak said. “We believe that before setting up working groups, there may already be areas where many states are in agreement. My country would be very interested in analyzing such a document.”

In March 2007 state-run Xinhua.net reported that the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel has assumed control of narco-trafficking route along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica by employing local fishermen. “Mexicans took the reins of international cocaine transport some years ago. This is worrying,” affirmed Gerardo Lascarez, Costa Rica’s deputy minister of public security. In 2003 Knight Ridder News Service journalist Susana Hayward reported that “former” KGB officials had infiltrated the Mexican drug cartels. Citing Steven W. Casteel, assistant administrator for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration, Hayward writes: “Casteel, whose agency declined to make him available for an interview, told lawmakers that the Russian mafia’s Mexican infiltration was consistent with the globalization of organized crime in recent years. Russians first showed up in Colombian cocaine cartels a decade ago. They have been spotted in Mexico since the late 1990s.”

In February 2007 the government of the Bolivarian/Socialist Republic of Venezuela announced the relocation of its aluminum plant from Costa Rica to Nicaragua. Although the neo-communist regime of President Hugo Chavez has denied that there is a political motivation behind that decision, President Arias, who supports DR-CAFTA, is widely perceived by the Latin American Left as a “neo-liberal” in league with “US imperialism.” In the July 17, 2005 issue of the Washington Post, Arias wrote an article in defense of the Washington-led initiative: “CAFTA would allow Central America to thrive by exporting goods through trade rather than exporting people through migration. Opportunities would open for consumers to acquire better and cheaper goods; for small and medium businesses to expand and diversify; for more private investment, access to new technologies and educational opportunities; for a qualitative and quantitative improvement in the job market; and for higher economic growth, government revenue and increased social spending.” Daniel Ortega, by contrast, has portayed himself, at least since winning Nicaragua’s November 2006 presidential election, as faithfully advancing the radicalism of his 1979 Sandinista Revolution.

>Red World: Belize: English-speaking paradise in Central America; locked into Hugo Chavez’s Petrocaribe initiative

>Over the next few days we will continue our “Red World” series, profiling communist influence in the Western Hemisphere. Fortunately, there’s only a small amount of red subversion in Belize. Great weather, super beaches, only one or two communists. I’m there!

Belize
Type of state: Monarchy with multiparty system featuring two dominant parties
Independence: September 21, 1981 (from United Kingdom)
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II: February 6, 1952-present
Prime minister of Belize: Dean Barrow (United Democratic Party): February 8, 2008-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for the National Assembly’s House of Representatives, which occurred on February 7, 2008, the seats were distributed in the following manner: United Democratic Party (social democratic) 25 and People’s United Party (Christian democratic) 6.
Next general elections: Belize’s next general elections are scheduled for 2013.
Communist government: none
Communist insurgency: none

Communist parties:
1) United Black Association for Development (UBAD) Educational Foundation: Founded in February 1969 by Evan Anthony Hyde, UBAD was a cultural organization that advocated “black power” and was accused of communism and racism by “establishment” parties such as the People’s United Party. Born in 1947, Hyde, who was also known as Evan “X” Hyde, was influenced by Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X. In October 1969 UBAD briefly merged with the People’s Action Committee, of which current Prime Minister Musa was once a member, to form the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). In February 1970 the merger fell apart and RAM was dissolved. On July 22, 1970 UBAD formed the Party of Freedom, Justice, and Equality (PFJE), which faltered in 1973 when half of its executive joined the newly formed United Democratic Party, which went on to become a governing party in the 1980s. Hyde dissolved UBAD and the PFJE in 1974, but resurrected the former in 1994 as the UBAD Educational Foundation. Hyde is chair of the current organization.

Hyde’s role model Carmichael was a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party. Carmichael advocated black nationalism and Pan-Africanism. SNCC began with an $800 grant from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). One of the principal founders of the SCLC, with which Martin Luther King Jr. was associated, was Bayard Rustin, an openly homosexual black who once held membership in the Young Communist League. Hyde’s other role model Malcolm X was a pro-Castro Nation of Islam clergyman. Malcolm X, who was assassinated in 1965 by three other members of his religion, also advocated black nationalism and Pan-Africanism.

2) Vision Inspired by the People: Founded in 2005, this party is apparently leftist since it advocates “social justice,” which is a code word for communism.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Caribbean Community, Petrocaribe S. A.
Socialist International presence: none
Sao Paulo Forum presence: none
Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: The Caribbean Net News reported on February 10, 2007 that the government of Belize might shift its recognition of Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China, with which it had relations prior to 1989. Godfrey Smith, the foreign minister, recently presented the case for maintaining relations with Taipei: “In terms of realpolitik, it boils down to which presents the heftier cooperation package. By current calculations, give or take some tens of millions, Taiwan has the clear and unmatched lead. Given that China has more than 140 diplomatic allies among whom to share its economic largesse, and Taiwan a mere 25 and dwindling, let’s take our chances with Taiwan.”

>Latin America File: Gunman explodes teargas in Ecuadorian Congress in advance of controversial referendum, legislator blames President Correa

>As reported below, Patriotic Society legislator Luis Almeida is probably correct: Thursday’s provocation was the work of President Rafael Correa, his henchentities, and other Ecuadorian Chavezistas. The teargassing of the Ecuadorian Congress occured three days before Sunday’s referendum that will institute a constituent assembly. The Prensa Latina article below reports that “the Assembly will be established in line with a decree seeking to eliminate serious injustices in the current political system.” Translated, this Cuban communist news source is actually stating that the new Ecuadorian constitution will be drafted along neo-communist lines specified by Comrade Rafael

Teargas grenade explosion halts Ecuador’s legislative session

UPDATED: 11:20, April 13, 2007

Ecuadorian Congress members were forced to cut short a session Thursday after a gunman exploded a teargas grenade near to where they were meeting.

Their session was postponed until next Tuesday as a result of the incident which happened in a cafeteria in another part of the Congress building.

The explosion made evident the opposition’s attempts to stop the legislative session, said deputy Gustavo Teran.

“This proves the 57 opposition parliamentary members dismissed on March 7 are trying to create an anarchy in the Legislature to thwart our sessions,” added Teran.

The Legislature’s bodyguard chief, Julio Cuevas, said that they had arrested a suspect called Diego Fermin Pena who was armed with a 9mm gun.

According to Cuevas, Fermin Pena is the bodyguard of Sociedad Patriotica legislator Luis Almeida. However, the legislator denied knowing Pena, and blamed the government of Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa for the attack against the Congress.

Even though the incident halted the normal process of the legislative session, the Congress, with the absence of social-Christian and Sociedad Patriotrica congressmen, approved a resolution that would pave the way to restructure the 18 legislative commissions.

Source: People’s Daily Online

Ecuador Reflecting on Assembly Vote
Quito, Apr 13 (Prensa Latina)

Ecuadorians have begun a period of reflection Friday, prior to the popular consultation on Sunday to set up a Constituent Assembly with full powers.

This stage began after an intense campaign for “Yes” involving social and political movements that on November 26 voted for President Rafael Correa s proposal for the change.

A lobbying prohibition will be in force in the country for the coming 48 hours, and the Electoral Supreme Court will finish delivering ballot papers and boxes for the 2,254 polling sites.

President Correa stated shortly before that the referendum responds to a popular claim during the last electoral campaign, adding that if supported by the people, the Assembly will be established in line with a decree seeking to eliminate serious injustices in the current political system.

The president also reiterated that when the Constitution is drawn up, it will be once again put to the vote through a referendum.

Source: Prensa Latina

>USSR2 File: Komsomol capitalist Berezovsky repeats plan to oust Putin, claims contact with Russian elite, parrots goal of restored CPSU leader Shenin

>We need to use force to change this regime. It isn’t possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure. There is no chance of regime change through democratic elections. If one part of the political elite disagrees with another part of the political elite–that is the only way in Russia to change the regime. I try to move that.
— Boris Berezovsky, exiled Russian oligarch and “ex”-Komsomol member; quoted in The Guardian, April 13, 2007

By depriving the people of an opportunity to participate in honest and free elections and blocking the way for opposition to be involved in the political process, the authorities make it impossible to correct a course leading this country to a disaster. People deprived of the right to choose can simply lose confidence in the authorities and at some point take the fate of the country in its own hands. Like they once did in the past.
— Gennady Zyuganov, Chair, Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Russian section of restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union; excerpt from letter to President Putin, 2006

Today the Soviet people encounter 2007 with an ever-more clear realization of the fact that in 15 years of its supremacy the counterrevolution destroyed the country, threw the Great Power [of the Soviet Union] under the feet of foreign monopolies, brought it down to the position of a colony. However, the chain of treacheries and crimes against its own people continues today. As soon as this is completely clear, the rapid crash “of the party of authority,” “United Russia”–united in the sense of the corporate stealing of public wealth within the framework of the caste of high-ranking officials–will follow. They are all leeches, that suck out the last vital juices of the working people. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union does not have a more important task. It is obvious that everything depends on the course of events in Russia. This is why the presidential elections of 2008 will be the last and only legal possibility for its peaceful solution.
— Oleg Shenin, Chair, Communist Party of the Soviet Union; excerpts from “New Year Appeal to the Soviet People,” December 26, 2006

Since last August we have documented the intentions of the reorganized Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), under the leadership of August 1991 coup mastermind Oleg Shenin (pictured above) and his comrade-in-arms Gennady Zyuganov, to remove the potemkin Putinist-Chekist-Surkovist-Gryzlovist regime in the Kremlin and restore the Soviet Union to its former “dysfunctional glory.” We have also documented similar threats from anonymous Stalinist Internet posters in the West, as well as from exiled oligarch, former Putin moneyman, and current Kremlin bugbear, Komsomol capitalist Boris Berezovsky.

No sector of the business world,” wrote Victor Yasmann in 1995, “illustrates the role of the Komsomol better than the banks. Most of the great commercial banks of Russia grew out of Komsomol enterprises called “centers for youthful scientific-technical creativity,” and the heads of these banks are all former Komsomol activists or had close associations with the Komsomol leadership. In this category we can list the following institutions and their chairman: Menatep (Mikhail Khodorovsky), Inkombank (Vladimir Vinogradov), Stolichnyi (Aleksandr Smolensky), Most (Vladimir Gusiinsky), Onexim (Vladimir Potanin), Olbi (Oleg Boiko), and Logo Vaz (Boris Berezovsky).

Lastly, we have documented KGB officer, FSB director, and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s personal connections to the “Vodka Putsch” conspirators. KGB chair Vladimir Kryuchkov, one of Shenin’s colleagues from the State Emergency Committee, which “deposed” Mike (“I’ll Always Be a Communist”) Gorbachev, attended Putin’s presidential inauguration in 2000.

In view of this convergence of declared intentions from, on the one hand, the hidden Leninist masters of Moscow and, on the other hand, the “friend” of murdered FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko, could one be faulted for considering the possibility that both forces are working hand in glove?

In January 2006 The Moscow News quoted Berezovsky, when he first announced his intention to stage a coup against President Vladimir Putin, as saying: “In the 1980s nobody could imagine the USSR would disintegrate. Putin’s regime is way less powerful than that of the Communists. Besides, it is deprived of ideology. The regime is doomed, and I want to see it collapse before Russia collapses.” Note the plug for Soviet communism, which Chairman Shenin would no doubt appreciate. Shenin did not hesitate to collude with Belgian-born billionaire and Bill Clinton chum Marc Rich to secrete the $US15 billion CPSU fortune into Swiss bank accounts before the stage-managed “collapse” of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day, 1991. There is, therefore, no reason why he would not collude with another businessman to advance the party’s long-range strategy of deceiving the West and restoring the party’s public monopoly of power.

The Guardian article below reports: “In his interview with the Guardian, however, Mr Berezovsky goes much further than before, claiming to be in close contact with members of Russia’s political elite who, he says, share his view that Mr Putin is damaging Russia by rolling back democratic reforms, smothering opposition, centralising power and flouting the country’s constitution.” The whole thrust of this blogsite has been to document that “Russia’s political elite,” that is, the real political elite with whom Berezovsky claims to be in contact, remains the collective leadership of the restored/continuing CPSU. Russia’s prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, the article also reports, has ordered a criminal investigation over Berezovsky’s remarks, even though the businessman resides in exile. We have documented that the Russian Federation’s current prosecutor general is “ex”-CPSU.

All of the key players on the Russian scene today, as the reader can see, are either current or “past” CPSU, Komsomol, or KGB/FSB members. KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn’s warnings in New Lies for Old (1984) and The Perestroika Deception (1995), therefore, are not far-fetched but, rather, accurate inside information concerning the CPSU’s long-range strategy. Berezovsky’s calculated residence in Britain, moreover, provides the Kremlin with additional ammunition against London for harboring an “enemy” of Russia.

Berezovsky denounces violence despite coup claims
Staff and agencies
Friday April 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Russia said today it was opening a criminal investigation into Boris Berezovsky after the exiled tycoon told the Guardian he is plotting the violent overthrow of President Putin from his base in Britain.

The multimillionaire claimed he was already bankrolling people close to the president who are conspiring to mount a palace coup.

“We need to use force to change this regime,” he said. “It isn’t possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure.” Asked if he was effectively fomenting a revolution, he said: “You are absolutely correct.”

Mr Berezovsky, with an estimated fortune of £850m, said he could not provide details to back up his claims because the information was too sensitive.

This afternoon, he issued a statement to “clarify issues” surrounding the interview, saying he did not support violence.

“I wish to see Russia become a free, democratic country. Under the current regime, freedom of expression is not respected, the media is not free from government control, political opponents are under threat and elections are neither free nor fair,” the statement said.

“Under those circumstances, elections are not a viable means of ensuring democratic change in Russia. Therefore I do support using other methods to push for a change back towards democracy.

“However, I wish to make very clear that all of these methods would be bloodless, with perhaps Georgia and Ukraine’s recent popular demonstrations and action being good examples.

“I do support direct action. I do not advocate or support violence.”

Russia’s prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, said he had ordered a criminal investigation over the remarks, even though Mr Berezovsky is outside the country’s jurisdiction.

“I’ve already given an instruction to the relevant authorities to open a criminal case,” Mr Chaika was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.

The foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told a press conference that Moscow would ask Britain to revoke the tycoon’s refugee status.

“It is a question for the British authorities,” he said. “They know perfectly well what this person is up to.”

It is not be the first time the British government has faced such accusations from the Kremlin.

When Mr Berezovsky told a Moscow radio station last year that he wanted to see Mr Putin overthrown by force, Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, told the Commons that “advocating the violent overthrow of a sovereign state is unacceptable” and warned the tycoon he could be stripped of his refugee status.

Russian authorities subsequently sent an extradition request to London. That failed, however, when a district judge ruled Mr Berezovsky could not be extradited as long as he had asylum status.

In his interview with the Guardian, however, Mr Berezovsky goes much further than before, claiming to be in close contact with members of Russia’s political elite who, he says, share his view that Mr Putin is damaging Russia by rolling back democratic reforms, smothering opposition, centralising power and flouting the country’s constitution.

“There is no chance of regime change through democratic elections,” he says. “If one part of the political elite disagrees with another part of the political elite – that is the only way in Russia to change the regime. I try to move that.”

While declining to describe these contacts – and alleging that they would be murdered if they were identified – he maintained that he was offering his “experience and ideology” to members of the country’s political elite, as well as “my understanding of how it could be done”. He added: “There are also practical steps which I am doing now, and mostly it is financial.”

Mr Berezovsky said he was unconcerned by any threat to strip him of his refugee status. “Straw wasn’t in a position to take that decision. A judge in court said it wasn’t in the jurisdiction of Straw.”

He added that there was even less chance of such a decision being taken following the polonium-210 poisoning last November of his former employee, Alexander Litvinenko. “Today the reality is different because of the Litvinenko case.”

Mr Berezovsky, 61, a former mathematician, turned to business during the Yeltsin era and made his fortune by capturing state assets at knockdown prices during Russia’s rush towards privatisation.

Although he played a key role in ensuring Mr Putin’s victory in the 2000 presidential elections, the two men fell out as the newly elected leader successfully wrested control of Russia back from the so-called oligarchy, the small group of tycoons who had come to dominate the country’s economy.

A few months after the election, Mr Berezovsky fled Russia and applied successfully for asylum in the UK after Mr Litvinenko, an officer with the KGB’s successor, the FSB, came forward to say he had been ordered to murder the tycoon.

The Foreign Office said it had nothing to add to Mr Straw’s comments of last year.

Source: The Guardian

In conclusion, we should note that former Soviet dictator and current roving CPSU pointman Gorbachev’s foreknowledge of the potemkin “Vodka Putsch” and his repeated endorsements of Putin’s policies, sprinkled with a few criticisms, only strengthens the contention that “Russian politics” is a communist-scripted farce. The October 14, 2003 issue of CPRF organ Pravda reports: “To win the favor of the incumbent president, Mikhail Gorbachev is highly praising Vladimir Putin everywhere he goes. He says that today’s Russian president is energetic, brave but cautious. When he is asked too many questions, Mikhail Gorbachev as usual resorts to his categorical imperative manner and says: ‘Putin is a good president; I am the only person here who has been the president once and I know what I say.'” The same article reports the chummy relationship between United Russia and Gorby’s pet party, the Social Democratic Party of Russia (SDPR). Notwithstanding the ideological convergence between Russia’s “party of authority” and master communist deceiver Gorbachev, the Russian Federation Supreme Court’s April 13, 2007 decision to ban the SDPR, along with other bogus Russian parties, advances the CPSU agenda to brand the United Russia regime as an evil, Washington-controlled entity that must be destroyed.

>USSR2 File: Former Soviet dictator, master communist deceiver Gorbachev and "pro-Western" Ukrainian President Yushchenko denounce US missile defense

>Deployment of U.S. missile-defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic is an attempt by the U.S. to control Europe. It is all about influence and domination in Europe. I believe it is wrong that America did not even bother to consult its NATO allies. Time will show how Russia responds to these plans.
— Mikhail Gorbachev, Former Soviet President and General Secretary of Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Founder, Gorbachev Foundation, State of the World Forum, Green Cross International, Earth Charter Initiative; quoted by Novosti, April 12, 2007

Ukraine has never considered and will not consider the deployment of U.S. missile defenses on its territory.
— Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko; quoted by Interfax, April 12, 2007

Twenty-two years after the collective leadership of the still-active Communist Party of the Soviet Union pushed its frontman onto the world stage, “Smilin’ Mike” Gorbachev is still deceiving the West, even though his condemnation of the USA rings loud and clear. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s “pro-Western” frontman President Viktor Yushchenko parrots the communist party line.

The Soviet communists have skilfully laid their trap for the USA and its sleepwalking shopping mall regime allies. At least leftist lesbian television celebrity Rosie O’Donnell “feels the pain” of the aggrieved Kremlin leadership. On March 28, 2007 she aided the Moscow-Tehran Axis by posting the following propaganda at her blogsite: “False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. the british did it on purpose into iranian waters as US MILITARY BUILD UP ON THE IRANIAN BORDER we will be in iran before summer as planned come on people u have 2 c i know u can.”

>Breaking News/Grey Terror File: Suicide bomber penetrates checkpoints, kills 3 MPs at Iraqi parliament; truck bomb destroys Baghdad bridge, 7 killed

>Today’s bombings at the Iraqi parliament building and Baghdad’s Sarafiya Bridge (pictured here) occurred one day after a car bomb blew up the office of the Algerian prime minister, and two days after Moroccan police killed three suicide bombers. Al Qaeda and the global Islamo-Marxist revolution are alive and well. The Iraqi insurgency, in particular, consisting of clandestine Ba’athist cells and Islamic revivalists, can trace its line of command to Tehran, Damascus, and Moscow.

Suicide bomber kills 3 MPs at Iraq parliament
April 12, 2007
By Dean Yates

A suicide bomber killed three Iraqi lawmakers at a cafe in the parliament building on Thursday in the most serious breach of security in the heavily fortified Green Zone since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Witnesses said dozens had been hurt in the blast, which tore through the restaurant as many lawmakers were having lunch. Police said 10 people were wounded.

How explosives and the bomber were smuggled into the Green Zone, a sprawling compound that is surrounded by U.S. and Iraqi checkpoints, will be the focus of investigations. The zone houses parliament, government offices and the U.S. embassy.

Earlier, a truck bomb killed at least seven people on a main bridge in northern Baghdad, destroying most of the steel structure and sending several cars plunging into the River Tigris below, police said.

The blasts come amid a U.S.-backed security crackdown in Baghdad that is regarded as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq’s plunge into all-out sectarian civil war.

Iraqiya state television said three lawmakers had been killed. Officials have named one as Mohammed Awadh, a member of the Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni bloc in parliament.

A security official confirmed Awadh had been killed and said another parliamentarian was missing and presumed dead. Two other lawmakers were critically wounded, the official said.

“Suddenly we heard a huge blast inside the restaurant. I saw a lot MPs wounded and bleeding,” said Fouad al-Massoum, leader of the Kurdish bloc in parliament.

He said security officials, fearing there might be a second explosion, ordered everyone out of the building. But no one, including lawmakers, was allowed to leave the area straight after the blast so they could be questioned, officials said.

The Iraqi security official said the bomber was wearing a belt packed with explosives. Recently, the U.S. military said two suicide vests had been found inside the Green Zone.

Militants have rarely managed to penetrate the various checkpoints and carry out attacks inside the zone, although they frequently fire mortars and rockets into the area.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attack was carried out by those “who wish to stop the Iraqi people having a future that would be based on democracy and stability.”

She said the Baghdad security plan was in its early stages and “we have said there will be good days and bad days.”

“BALL OF FIRE”

A Reuters witness said the blast took place at the cashier’s register in the cafe, which is near parliament’s main assembly hall. Parliament was in session on Thursday.

“I saw a ball of fire and heard a huge, loud explosion. There were pieces of flesh floating in the air,” said the witness who was lightly wounded in the arm.

Iraqi security guards seized a television camera from a Reuters journalist and refused to give it back.

One of Iraq’s vice presidents survived a bomb attack at a government ministry outside the Green Zone in February. A deputy prime minister was wounded last month in a suicide bomb attack at a prayer hall in his compound in the capital.

Two main sections of the Sarafiya bridge, a main artery linking east and west Baghdad, collapsed into the river after the truck bomb exploded just before the morning rush hour.

One army officer on the scene said explosive charges might have also been used to bring down a bridge that local residents said was built by the British in the early 1900s.

Among the dead were four policemen who drowned after their car toppled into the river’s muddy waters, police said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a security crackdown in the capital two months ago that has reduced death squad killings, but car and truck bombs still kill and wound scores.

The destruction of the bridge will cause major disruption in northern Baghdad. Two other bridges across the Tigris in that part of the capital are shut for security reasons while another is regarded by many residents as too dangerous to use.

“There is a conspiracy to isolate the two halves of Baghdad,” parliament Speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani, an outspoken Sunni politician, told lawmakers.

A dozen bridges cross the Tigris in Baghdad, linking the east and west of the city.

Police said seven people had been killed in the bridge blast. They said up to 22 people were wounded. At least five cars had fallen into the river, including the police vehicle.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Ahmed Rasheed, Yara Bayoumy, Ross Colvin and Aws al-Rubaie)

Source: YahooNews.com

>Africa File: Al Qaeda car bomb targets Algerian prime minister’s office, police station, 23 killed, 160 injured; Moroccan cops kill suicide bombers

>We thought the years of terrorism were over. We thought that everything was back to normal. But now, the fear is coming back.
— Fayza Kebdi, lawyer, in response to April 11 bombings in Algiers

Abdelaziz Belkhadem, the prime minister of Algeria since May 24, 2006, who escaped death and injury in today’s bombing in Algiers, represents the country’s still dominant party, the socialist National Liberation Front (FLN). While the FLN has long been a reliable ally for Moscow, the transformation of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria into a full-blown “workers’ state” or Islamic republic is unquestionably preferred by the Kremlin’s Leninist masterminds.

23 Killed, 160 Injured in Two Bomb Attacks in Algeria’s Capital
Wednesday, April 11, 2007

ALGIERS, Algeria — Bombs ripped through the Algerian prime minister’s office and a police station Wednesday, coordinated terror attacks that Algerian authorities said killed at least 23 people and wounded 160 others.

The bombings were a devastating setback for the North African nation’s efforts to close a violent chapter in its history— an Islamic insurgency that has killed 200,000 people.

The explosion at the government building at about 10:45 local time (0945 GMT) caused windows to rattle at least half a mile away. A charred, wrecked car lay on the pavement about 100 feet from the gates of the building — a modern white, block-like high-rise that also houses the Interior Ministry.

An affiliate of Al Qaeda, which has launched a series of recent attacks in the oil- and gas-rich nation, claimed responsibility, the Al-Jazeera television station reported.

The station said it received a telephone call from a spokesman for Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa claiming responsibility for both attacks. The station gave no further details.

The group was formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat — known by its French abbreviation GSPC — but changed its name when it announced its alliance with Al Qaeda in January.

Algeria’s main militant group recently changed its name to Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa and began targeting foreigners — signs that the country’s dwindling ranks of Islamic fighters were regrouping. Military crackdowns and amnesty offers had turned them into a ragtag assembly of fighters in rural hideouts. For several years, the government appeared to have them basically under control.

But the Algiers attacks, especially on the prime minister’s office, showed that the militants are far from beaten, even though experts say that they number perhaps no more than several hundred people. Witnesses said at least one of the attacks appeared to have been a car bomb. The attacks were the deadliest to hit the Algiers region since 2002, when a bomb in a market in a suburb killed 38 people and injured 80.

Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem — who was not hurt Wednesday and had not been in the building when the attack occurred — called the bombings a “cowardly, criminal terrorist act” as he spoke to reporters outside his wrecked offices. Parts of six floors of the building were ripped away, and the iron gates outside were bent by the force of the blast.

Witnesses said they saw a red car drive toward the building, that police opened fire to try to force it to stop, and that the car then exploded. Their accounts could not immediately be corroborated officially.

The bombings came just one day after three suspected terrorists in neighboring Morocco blew themselves up as police were closing in, and a fourth was shot and killed by police while he appeared to be preparing to detonate his explosives.

Although there was no immediate apparent link between the violence in Morocco and Algeria, the back-to-back events illustrated how North African nations are struggling to contain Islamic extremism. Experts and intelligence officials are concerned that militants could extend their attacks across the Mediterranean to Europe.

In Algeria, the official APS agency, quoting Algerian authorities, said at least 23 people were killed and 160 injured in the two attacks, but gave no breakdown. The other bombing targeted the police station of Bab Ezzouar, east of the capital, Algiers, on the road to its airport.

Fayza Kebdi, a lawyer who works in an office opposite the government building, said the blast shattered her windows and blew her husband clear across the room.

“We thought the years of terrorism were over,” she said. “We thought that everything was back to normal. But now, the fear is coming back.”

Algeria’s insurgency broke out in 1992, after the army canceled legislative elections that an Islamic party appeared set to win.

Ensuing violence, attacks and massacres left an estimated 200,000 dead — civilians, soldiers and Islamic fighters — according to the government. Algeria’s military led a crackdown on militants hiding out in the country’s brush and mountains, while the government tried to reconcile the nation with several amnesty offers to militants willing to turn in their weapons.

The prime minister expressed bitterness at insurgents who refused the amnesty offers.

“The Algerian people stretched out a hand to them, and they respond with a terrorist act,” he said.

Large-scale violence died down in the late 1990s, but skirmishes have surged again in recent months as Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa — the new name for the Salafist Group for Call and Combat — carried out bomb attacks. Several targeted foreign workers.

A March 3 bombing of a bus carrying workers for a Russian company killed a Russian engineer and three Algerians. A December attack near Algiers and targeting a bus carrying foreign employees of an affiliate of Halliburton killed an Algerian and a Lebanese citizen.

Source: FoxNews.com

Across the border in Morocco, yesterday police shot dead one suicide bomber. The terrorist’s fellow bombers, however, detonated their explosives before reaching innocent civilian targets. Shortly thereafter, the two terrorist wannabes discovered that instead of 72 virgins there was only a place of eternal torment called hell.

>USA File: Russia’s intel ops target US decision makers; Duma resolution: "new cold war"; Angleton’s Soviet deception loop theory vindicated

>The geography of the deployment doesn’t give any doubt the main targets are Russian and Chinese nuclear forces. The US bases represent a real threat to our strategic nuclear forces.
— General Vladimir Belous, Russian anti-ballistic weapons expert; quoted at The Guardian, April 11, 2007

We feel ourselves deceived. Potentially we will have to create alternatives to this but with low cost and higher efficiency.
— Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesentity; quoted in The Guardian, April 11, 2007

Cold war thinking has prevailed, especially on the western side. Russia has been deeply disappointed by what has happened after 1991. Nato started to expand, and the US started to think it had won the cold war. We had hoped for a partnership. But it didn’t happen.
— Yevgeny Myasnikov, senior research scientist, Centre for Arms Control, Moscow; quoted in The Guardian, April 11, 2007

Aldrich Ames provided the Soviets with enough information about U.S. officials to “decapitate” America’s leadership in the event of war.
— Joel Brenner, US National Counterintelligence Executive; quoted by Reuters, March 29, 2007

Edward Jay Epstein is one of the few well-known Western journalists who acknowledges the reality of continuing communist deception. In Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989) he relates James Jesus Angleton’s Soviet deception loop theory. Angleton was the much-maligned director of counter-intelligence at the US Central Intelligence Agency between 1954 and 1974. Angleton was maligned because, unlike his colleagues in the US and British security and intelligence establishment, he believed KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn’s warnings about Soviet strategic deception. Angleton died in 1987. As far as we know, Golitsyn is still alive, probably living in deep cover somewhere in the United Kingdom, and would be 81 years old. No doubt, he views current events in Russia with great interest.

The revelation from US officialdom, cited below, that Russian spies are collecting information on “the upper echelon of U.S. decision-making” and not merely stealing technological secrets fully vindicates the Angletonian worldview. Epstein summarizes Angleton’s thesis below:

Angleton, like Sun-tzu, based his theory of deception on the vulnerability of the very agencies that were supposed to be proof against it, the intelligence services. He had learned this lesson early on in the Philby affair. “Deception begins and ends with intelligence,” he said quietly but with real conviction; he had been pondering the problem, when he spoke about it in 1985, for over a third of a century. Over these years, he had drawn Sun-tzu’s “threads” into an elegant, if nooselike concept which he called simply “the loop.”

It consisted of two lines of communications that hooked up rival intelligence services–one perpetrating the deception; the other the victim of it. The deceiver uses one set of lines to pass messages to its opposition. In practice, this means that its intelligence service must establish channels, whether human or electronic, that connect it to its adversary’s intelligence service. And these must be channels that the victim relies on for its secret information. They can be false defectors, double agents, diplomatic chatter at embassy dinners, inspection trips by military attaches, or even the swathes of territory photographed by enemy satellites.

The deceiver uses the second set of lines to get a fix on the victim’s reactions to the messages. At the end of these lines, there have to be moles or microphones in the enemy camp with access to the evaluators of its messages. This feedback, which Angleton had gone into at length earlier, was essential to building up the adversary’s intelligence service’s commitment to the sources in the disinformation part of the loop. Without it, the deceiver is working in the dark. He can never be sure whether he is tricking the opposition or is being tricked himself. With it, he can amplify and reinforce the parts of the story the opposing intelligence service is prone to believe, and eliminate or revise those that are doubted (pages 106-107).

The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun-Tzu (544–496 BC), cited above, stated: “All warfare is based on deception.” This point becomes obvious in the two additional criteria necessary to establish a perfect deception loop:

First, the victim’s leadership has to be in a state of mind to want to accept and act on the disinformation it receives from its own intelligence. This might not happen unless the disinformation fits in with the adversary’s prevailing misconceptions or interests–which is, at least in the case of the United States, not difficult to determine. Angleton suggested that Lenin showed he understood this principle when he instructed his intelligence chief in 1921, in craftnig disinformation, to “Tell them what they want to hear.”

Second, the victim has to be in a state of mind in which he is so confidence of his own intelligence that he is unwilling to entertain evidence, or even theories, that he is or can be duped. This kind of blanket denial amounts to a conceit, which Angleton claimed could be cultivated in an adversary, that one’s rival lacks the wherewithal and competence to hide its activities, organize disinformation, and penetrate its ranks. If it proved wrong, it left a nation defenseless against deception (pages 108-109).

During the Reagan and Bush Sr. presidential administrations (1981-1993), the American state of mind was that of winning the Cold War. The Soviets obliged. Communism “died.” The East Bloc “folded.” However, the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union either retreated into the shadows, such as Oleg Shenin, or assumed new roles, such as “Global Green” Gorby. Meanwhile, communism advanced elsewhere in the world, including in the Western Hemisphere.

The Soviet deception loop is also discussed in Richard Deacon’s work British Secret Service (London: Grafton Books, 1991). There Deacon, writing during the highwater years of glasnost-perestroika makes the following observations regarding the establishment of Soviet trade missions and front companies in the West:

At the end of 1988 it was made clear by all intelligence and security chiefs that Soviet espionage in the United Kingdom was on the increase and there was formidable evidence even a year later that the Czechs, Poles and East Germans were still operating spy networks under Soviet control, despite political changes in the direction of greater freedom in those conditions. Indeed, one of the dissident leaders in Eastern Europe [Lech Walesa? Vaclav Havel?] is himself suspected of being a member of such a network.

. . . [T]he sudden U-turn of Eastern European states had left them [the West] somewhat perplexed. It was all so sudden that the more cautious among them wanted to know what has behind it all. Was it a ploy to weaken the West’s defenses while cleverly attempting to win financial aid to bolster their own corrupt, inefficient and almost derelict economices? How genuine could such a dramatic switch in policy be? Even some of the Third World states began to wonder whether the support given by the Eastern Bloc to their guerrilla movements might suddenly dwindle. The need to know exactly what was really happening on all sides became greater among the world’s intelligence services.

To some extent the Russians had embarked on a new exercise in intelligence-gathering, something that was separate from the KGB, yet indirectly linked to it. The Soviet Chamber of Commerce or the Special Reserve are its code-names. It was originally organized by Yevgeniy Pitranov, deputy chairman of the Soviet Chamber of Commerce. It extends its influence by setting up Chamber of Commerce offices in all the main capitals, including London, employing traders, bankers and salesmen. Much of this undercover espionage is targeted towards obtaining technological secrets, but equally the aim is to get an accurate, overall picture of how other countries are reacting to glasnost (pages 469-470).

Deacon’s last point is crucial: Soviet embassy officials and businessmen stationed in foreign capitals are tasked, in addition to their putative responsibilities, with ascertaining how Westerners are reacting to Kremlin tactics and strategy. There is no reason to believe, for example, that entities like the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which maintains offices throughout the world, serve a different purpose today.

Thus, while the Kremlin in 2007 portrays itself as the deceived and injured party, and accuses the USA of disabling one of its “research” satellites and starting a “new cold war” which, in reality, is not new, but a continuation of the one that supposedly ended in 1991 . . .

Russia threatening new cold war over missile defence
Kremlin accuses US of deception on east European interceptor bases
Luke Harding in Moscow
Wednesday April 11, 2007

Russia is preparing its own military response to the US’s controversial plans to build a new missile defence system in eastern Europe, according to Kremlin officials, in a move likely to increase fears of a cold war-style arms race.

The Kremlin is considering active counter-measures in response to Washington’s decision to base interceptor missiles and radar installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move Russia says will change “the world’s strategic stability”.

The Kremlin has not publicly spelt out its plans. But defence experts said its response is likely to include upgrading its nuclear missile arsenal so that it is harder to shoot down, putting more missiles on mobile launchers, and moving its fleet of nuclear submarines to the north pole, where they are virtually undetectable.

Russia could also bring the new US silos within the range of its Iskander missiles launched potentially from the nearby Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, they add.

In an interview with the Guardian, the Kremlin’s chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow felt betrayed by the Pentagon’s move. “We were extremely concerned and disappointed. We were never informed in advance about these plans. It brings tremendous change to the strategic balance in Europe, and to the world’s strategic stability.”

He added: “We feel ourselves deceived. Potentially we will have to create alternatives to this but with low cost and higher efficiency.” Any response would be within “existing technologies”, he said. As well as military counter-measures, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, also wanted “dialogue” and “negotiations”, he added.

The Bush administration says the bases are designed to shoot down rogue missiles fired by Iran or North Korea. Its proposed system would be helpless against Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, it says.

But this claim has been greeted with widespread incredulity, not just in Russia but also among some of the US’s nervous Nato allies. They include Germany, where the Social Democrat leader, Kurt Beck, warned last month that the US and Russia were on the brink of another arms race “on European soil”.

Defence experts say there is little doubt that the real target of the shield is Russia. “The geography of the deployment doesn’t give any doubt the main targets are Russian and Chinese nuclear forces,” General Vladimir Belous, Russia’s leading expert on anti-ballistic weaponry, told the Guardian. “The US bases represent a real threat to our strategic nuclear forces.”

The threat of a new arms race comes at a time when relations between Russia and the US are at their worst for a decade. In February Mr Putin accused the Bush administration during a speech in Munich of seeking a “world of one master, one sovereign”. On Friday Russia’s duma, or lower house or parliament, warned that the US’s plans could ignite a second cold war. “Such decisions, which are useless in terms of preventing potential or imaginary threats from countries of the middle and far-east, are already bringing about a new split in Europe and unleashing another arms race,” the declaration – passed unanimously by Russian MPs – said.

The same day Russia ruled out cooperating with the US over the shield. “Despite certain signals received in recent days from the US side … I see no political foundation for it,” said Sergei Ryabkov, a foreign ministry spokesman. Moscow now had little choice but to take the bases “into account in our strategic planning”, he said.

Analysts said there was a common feeling in Russia that the US had reneged on an agreement after the collapse of the Soviet Union to abandon cold war politics. “Cold war thinking has prevailed, especially on the western side,” Yevgeny Myasnikov, a senior research scientist at Moscow’s Centre for Arms Control, told the Guardian. “Russia has been deeply disappointed by what has happened after 1991. Nato started to expand, and the US started to think it had won the cold war. We had hoped for a partnership. But it didn’t happen.”

Source: The Guardian

. . . Russian spies penetrate the “upper echelons of US decision-making” to find out what White House “strategists” are thinking with respect to Moscow’s current utterances and deployments. In so doing, the Kremlin can adjust its own tactics accordingly in order to prosecute her strategy, which remains communism’s total domination of the world. The article above quotes Yevgeny Myasnikov, senior research scientist at Moscow’s Centre for Arms Control. With typical communist deceit Myasnikov exposes the Kremlin’s preference for peaceful convergence between East and West, but nevertheless paints the USA as the guilty party for thinking it won the Cold War. The same article notes that Kremlin officials admit the presence of Russian missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave.

Russia poses Cold War-scale intel threat: official
Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:17AM EDT
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Russian efforts to obtain secrets on U.S. political and military decision-making have reached levels not seen since the Cold War, the top U.S. counterintelligence official said on Thursday.

Joel Brenner, the Bush administration’s National Counterintelligence Executive, said a new intensive assault by Moscow is intent on gaining insights into “the upper echelon of U.S. decision-making” rather than stealing secrets about sensitive U.S. technology.

“The Russians are back to Cold War levels in their efforts against the United States,” he said in a speech to the American Bar Association. Brenner, whose job is to oversee counterintelligence strategy and policy for U.S. intelligence czar Mike McConnell, did not provide details about suspected Russian intelligence operations in the United States.

Sensitive counterintelligence activities are classified. But he said Moscow appears less interested in U.S. commercial and military technology than other countries including China, which U.S. officials have described as the greatest counterintelligence threat facing the United States.

Brenner’s remarks come at a time when Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin have become more openly confrontational about U.S. policy such as Washington’s plan to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

Putin, himself a former KGB official, accused the United States of trying to dominate the world in a February speech. U.S. officials and independent analysts view Russia as a country determined to return to great power status it enjoyed during the Cold War, largely through its oil wealth and the reconstitution of its military and intelligence capabilities.

McConnell also warned the Senate last month that Russia was taking a step backward in its democratic progress and could be heading for a controlled succession to Putin. Moscow responded by describing his remarks as “outdated assumptions.”

The U.S. government has suffered several embarrassing security breaches at the hands of Russian and Soviet intelligence moles, including former CIA case officer Aldrich Ames and former FBI agent Robert Hanssen.

Brenner said Ames provided the Soviets with enough information about U.S. officials to “decapitate” America’s leadership in the event of war. But Moscow intelligence does not now appear interested in posing a physical threat to American leaders. “It’s not a strike threat they’re after. I don’t want to give that impression,” Brenner said.

Source: Reuters

Brenner, of course, is wrong in his assessment that Moscow is no longer interested in carrying out a military decapitation strike against the US leadership. It’s not that difficult. Think 911, open borders, Chinese military delegations at NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain operations no longer 24/7 . . .

>USSR2 File: Kremlin dispatches Duma delegation to resolve Ukrainian crisis; ex-Komsomol Gryzlov: Yushchenko decision "infringement" on democracy

>To the untrained eye that denies the reality of continuing communist deception, Moscow might appear anxious to keep Kiev within its orbit. However, the script testifies of organized chaos and managed democracy. The script readers, moreover, are all communists or “ex”-communists. The primary audiences are the neo-Soviet Union’s citizen-slaves and the West’s sleepwalking shopping mall regime. The Ukrainian Constitutional Court has announced that it will pass no ruling on the constitutionality of President Viktor Yushchenko’s early election call until April 17. The Russian delegation arrives in Kiev tomorrow. How convenient for Moscow and pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Still, we must ask: Will the Russian delegation “fail” in its task of mediation between the “two Viktors” and the drama escalate into another Hungarian Revolution, complete with Soviet tanks, albeit this time in the Ukraine, 50 years later? Be assured, the answers will not be found in the MSM.

Russian MPs head to Ukraine to mediate crisis – speaker
14:21 10/04/2007

MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – A senior member of Russia’s lower house of parliament said Tuesday a State Duma delegation would travel to Ukraine to help the ex-Soviet state tackle the ongoing confrontation between the president- and prime minister-led factions.

Ukraine’s parliament voted Monday to ask for international mediation following President Viktor Yushchenko’s order to dissolve it and hold early elections after accusing the majority parliamentary coalition of usurping power.

“A delegation of 20 members of the State Duma and a group of Russian political analysts will visit the Supreme Rada early April 11,” said the press service of Alexander Lebedev, who heads a group on ties with Ukraine, adding that they would meet with Ukrainian lawmakers and Cabinet ministers in Kiev.

Russia’s State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said earlier Tuesday he had discussed possible assistance with his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksandr Moroz, Monday, when they reached agreement on the Russian delegation’s trip to Ukraine.

Gryzlov also called Yushchenko’s decision to disband the Supreme Rada over the defection of 11 lawmakers to the ruling coalition as unconstitutional and an “infringement on democracy.”

Yushchenko’s meeting with Moscow-friendly Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych Tuesday brought no solution to the crisis that has persisted since August, when the former presidential hopeful returned as premier under a power-sharing deal.

“Yushchenko is positive a compromise between the political forces is only possible on condition of early elections to the Supreme Rada, as they would help overcome the crisis,” the president’s secretariat said.

Ukraine’s defiant legislature, dominated by Yanukovych’s supporters, demanded Monday simultaneous presidential elections and a referendum on accession to NATO, a goal set by the Western-leaning Yushchenko. The pro-presidential bloc Our Ukraine said the decisions were illegitimate.

Thousands of coalition supporters have been rallying in the capital waiting for a Constitutional Court decision on the matter, fueling the ex-Soviet state’s worst crisis since the 2004 “orange revolution.” The pro-presidential bloc Our Ukraine has promised to launch massive protests Wednesday.

Yanukovych’s Party of Regions said Tuesday, with reference to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe reporter on Ukraine, Renata Wohlwend, that the premier would also raise the crisis to a PACE session next week.

Yushchenko, who has refused to ask for foreign assistance, saying the crisis is an internal Ukrainian matter, will meet with the country’s senior security officials and with U.S. Ambassador William Tailor later Tuesday.

Meeting with security chiefs last week, the president said their involvement in the political conflict was unacceptable.

Source: Novosti

>USSR2 File: Ukrainian Pres. Yushchenko calls "ex"-CPSU PM Yanukovich’s govn’t "illegitimate," both rally supporters; "ex"-CPSU Rada speaker in Beijing

>Communists are skilful manipulators of chaos. They used two world wars and endless “wars of national liberation” to advance across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Will more chaos on the streets of Kiev and in the chambers of the Supreme Rada lead to “pro-Western” President Viktor Yushchenko’s ouster? Out of chaos communism. Pictured here: Supporters of “ex”-CPSU Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich descend on Kiev with Ukrainian and Soviet flags. Yanukovich’s National Unity Coalition consists of the pro-Moscow Party of Regions, Communist Party of Ukraine, and “ex”-communist Socialist Party of Ukraine.

Ukraine on brink of civil confrontation.
29.03.2007, 21.17

KIEV, March 29 (Itar-Tass) — Ukraine is on the brink of civil confrontation, as the leaders of the opposition and of the ruling coalition have decided to bring thousands of their supporters to the streets of Kiev in the days ahead. The first rehearsal of mass protests took place on Thursday in front of the parliament building and the presidential residence. Activists of the opposition blocs organized the protests.

President Viktor Yushchenko has essentially supported the staging of mass protests in Kiev to dismiss Viktor Yanukovich’s cabinet. In his address to the people, he described the work of the parliamentary majority “unconstitutional“ and the government’s activity “illegitimate.”

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported that police task forces would be brought into the capital from a number of regions to ensure law and order during mass rallies. The ministry cannot give the exact number of police to be involved. “Police does not know yet how many organizations will take part in mass actions, as there has been a very large number of applications,” press secretary of the Interior Ministry Konstantin Stogniy said. He said, “Police will form a live shield to prevent clashes.”

Leaflets are circulated, urging people to participate in rallies in Kiev’s central square on Saturday. The People’s Self-Defence movement that initiated protests distributes leaflets.

The plan of the opposition’s actions for Saturday has become known. After the congress of Our Ukraine Party, its participants, together with the president, who is the party’s honorary chairman, will head for the central square to proclaim the cabinet and parliament illegal.

The Party of Regions and its youth league also plan mass rallies for the timeframe from March 29 to April 3.

Reports from regional centres of Yulia Timoshenko Bloc say that many delegations cannot reach Kiev because of checks on roads.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Protesting President Yushchenko’s decision to call an early election, Prime Minister Yanukovich walked out of an April 5 meeting designed to resolve the dispute. As the following article reports, the president has “ordered Yanukovych’s government to allocate funds on the election campaign and threatened criminal liability for ignoring the order.”

Ukraine PM walks out of security session as tensions mount
15:19 05/04/2007

KIEV, April 5 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s prime minister has left an emergency session of the national security council the president convened amid spiraling political tensions, the premier’s press spokesman said Thursday.

Denis Ivanesko said the session was addressing the current political crisis fueled by the presidential order Monday to dissolve parliament and hold early elections. He said Viktor Yanukovych would issue a statement at 3.30 p.m. Moscow time (12.30 p.m. GMT).

Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, who earlier Thursday refused to backtrack on his decree, ordered Yanukovych’s government to allocate funds on the election campaign and threatened criminal liability for ignoring the order.

Yushchenko also reiterated his appeals to the security bodies to stay out of the conflict with the premier-controlled parliamentary coalition, which has defied the order to dissolve and continued work pending a Constitutional Court ruling.

“Law enforcement bodies must not be involved in political confrontations,” Yushchenko said, also warning against pressure on court officials.

Source: Novosti

Meanwhile, following hard on the heels of Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao’s visit to strategic partner Russia between March 26 and 28, Alexander Moroz– “ex”-CPSU, leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, and Speaker of the Ukrainian Supreme Rada–visited Beijing on March 29. Is Comrade Alex playing the role of courier for the Kremlin masterminds? Pictured here: Moroz and Hu in Beijing.

China, Ukraine vow to boost bilateral ties
www.chinaview.cn 2007-03-29 20:48:01

BEIJING, March 29 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Thursday that China will enhance pragmatic cooperation with Ukraine to lift bilateral relations to a new level.

China sees Ukraine as a faithful friend and reliable partner, and will work with Ukraine to deepen cooperation and enhance coordination in international and regional affairs to facilitate bilateral relations, said Hu.

China respects the development path Ukraine has taken in accordance with its own situations and policies it followed, Hu said while meeting with Ukraine’s Parliament Speaker Oleksander Moroz.

Hu expressed his appreciation for Ukraine’s adherence to one-China policy and spoke highly of the contribution made by the Ukraine parliament to developing bilateral relations.

Moroz, who is making his first China visit beginning on Wednesday, said Ukraine attaches great importance to relations with China and is ready to boost cooperation between the two countries on such areas as trade, culture, high-technology, energy and transportation.

Ukraine will also learn from China, which has maintained rapid economic growth for years, said Moroz.

Also on Thursday, Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top advisory body, met with Moroz.

Jia said the CPPCC and Ukraine’s parliament will further enhance exchanges to help boost bilateral relations.

Source: Xinhua.net

>MISSILE DAY ALERT: Kremlin accuses USA of disabling Russian research satellite in March, will deploy S-400 air defense system around Moscow in August

>That the USA either has developed or is in the process of secretly developing anti-satellite technology is a very credible assertion. Nor should Washington be blamed for pursuing such a path in view of the hostile machinations of the Moscow-Beijing Axis. A May 2006 report by The New York Times takes the position that US killer satellite R&D is ongoing: “The Bush administration is seeking to develop a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would use beams of concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit.”

The Kremlin’s brazen accusation that the USA intentionally disabled one of its research satellites in March 2007 is not only a provocation, but also obscures the fact that the Soviets deployed their own anti-satellite killer technology during the First Cold War (1945-1991). Bill Gertz reported in the January 17, 2007 edition of The Washington Times: “Russia developed anti-satellite weapons during the Cold War, and U.S. officials think the Russian military is continuing work on the weapons, which include both anti-satellite missiles and ground-based lasers. Both Russia and China deny that they are building space weapons and have sought to curb U.S. space defenses through a proposed international ban on weapons in space.”

Russian Experts Say U.S. Destroyed Russian Research Satellite
Created: 05.04.2007
MosNews

Russian space experts believe that the Untied States may have used an anti-satellite weapon last month to destroy a small Russian research satellite, the Interfax news agency reports.

The satellite was a small spacecraft built and launched for Moscow State University to monitor space radiation. The probe, nicknamed Universitetsky or Tatiana, was launched as a payload in January 2005 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

“According to some Russian experts, chances are high that the satellite fell victim to U.S. experiments in ray influence on spacecraft,” an unnamed Russian expert was quoted as saying.

The speculation is based on the timing of the satellite’s failure. The satellite stopped functioning on March 7, and the United States was conducting a military experiment at about the same time.

It is reported that Tatiana stopped sending signals suddenly. In addition, the satellite failure did not involve an actual breakup of the spacecraft.

Another space expert said that the sudden failure of the satellite could be connected with the missile launch from the U.S. territory on March 7.

U.S. military officials immediately dismissed the claim that the Pentagon intentionally crippled the satellite.

Source: Moscow News

The People’s Republic of China, the other half of the Moscow-Beijing Axis, conducted its first killer satellite test in January of this year by destroying one of its own aging weather satellites. With typical communist doubletalk, however, the Chinese Foreign Ministry declared: “As the Chinese Government, our principle stand is to promote the peaceful use of space. We oppose the militarisation of space. In the past, in the present and in the future, we are opposed to any arms race in space. Of this everyone can be confident.”

Timing is everything in communist strategy. If a US killer satellite whacked a Russian research satellite in March, then why did the Kremlin take so long to accuse the White House of this alleged act of war. The Chief of the Russian General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, has also warned the USA not to attack Russia’s nuclear-tipped client state Iran. The Russian military, the article below notes, is boosting its air defense capability around Moscow.

S-400 air defense systems to be deployed in August – top brass
14:38 05/04/2007
MOSCOW, April 5 (RIA Novosti)

New S-400 Triumf air defense missile systems will be put on combat duty around Moscow in late August, a senior air defense commander said Thursday.

“We are expecting to receive S-400 systems in July-August, and put them on combat duty to protect the airspace around the capital at the end of August,” said Colonel-General Yury Solovyov, commander of the Air Defense Forces Special Command (former Moscow Military District Air Defense Command).

The S-400 Triumf (NATO codename SA-21 Growler) is a new air defense missile system developed by the Almaz Central Design Bureau as an upgrade of the S-300 family.

It has been designed to intercept and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles), or twice the range of the MIM-104 Patriot, and 2.5 times that of the S-300PMU-2.

The general said that the system could be also used for limited purposes in missile and space defense, but that it is not intended to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles.

However, he said the system is highly capable of destroying stealth aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with an effective range of up to 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) and a speed of up to 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) per second.

The Russian Air Defense Forces currently deploy more than 30 regiments equipped with S-300 missile complexes, which will be gradually replaced with S-400 systems.

Source: Novosti

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and his cabinet, consisting of communists and “ex”-communists, is fomenting a political crisis with “pro-Western” President Viktor Yushchenko. In September 2004 President Vladimir Putin insinuated that the USA orchestrated the Beslan school massacre: “Some want to cut a juicy morsel from us. Others are helping them. They are helping because they believe that, as one of the world’s major nuclear powers, Russia still poses a threat to them, and therefore this threat must be removed. And terrorism, of course, is only a tool for achieving these goals. This is a challenge to the whole of Russia, to the whole of our people. This is an attack on our country. It would appear that we have a choice of resisting them or agreeing to their claims, surrendering or allowing them to destroy and split Russia . . .”

The restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union attributes the “collapse” of the old Soviet Union to a CIA plot and cynically portrays its puppet Putin as the West’s “fascist marionette.” As Missile Day approaches, expect the rhetoric from the Kremlin to approach Cold War fervor.

>EU File: Northern Ireland’s new govn’t takes shape under DUP and IRA’s political wing, Paisley to become First Minister; Irish reds applaud decision

>For years Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley cried “Never, never!” with respect to forming a government with the Marxist Sinn Fein. North Ireland’s unionists have changed their tune and it might not be the best for the province since the Irish Republican Army’s political wing is well plugged into Europe’s Red International, as we have documented in past weeks. It is not surprising, too, that Britain’s Labour Party government has encouraged such a power-sharing arrangement. Prime Minister Tony Blair has committed himself to the dismemberment of the United Kingdom by way of Northern Irish, Scottish, and Welsh devolution. For the most part, British Conservatives have fought devolution.

Pictured above at Belfast’s Stormont, March 26, 2007 are Paisley, third from left, and Sinn Fein leader, putative terrorist, and Castro chum Gerry Adams, at Paisley’s right. Pictured below, Comrade Adams visits Cuban Tyrant Castro in Havana, in 2001.

With a hat tip to blog New Zeal, we should add that the Communist Party of Ireland has welcomed the new power-sharing arrangement between the DUP, Sinn Fein, and the other Northern Irish parties. A March 27, 2007 CPI statement declares: “The Communist Party of Ireland welcomes the decision to establish an Executive as a major step forward in building peace and reconciliation. While we recognise that the delay may be necessary, any further delays must be resisted. The re-establishment of a functioning Assembly and Executive must become the focal point for resistance in relation to the continuing attacks on public services, the introduction of water charges, and exorbitant rates increases.”

New assembly cabinet takes shape

Last Updated: Monday, 2 April 2007, 17:17 GMT 18:17 UK

The leaders of the four main Northern Ireland parties have announced how the ministerial portfolios will be shared in the new power-sharing executive.

When it meets on 8 May, Sinn Fein will assume the education ministry – for the second time – along with regional development and agriculture.

The DUP are taking finance, economy, environment and culture.

The Ulster Unionists take health and employment and learning, while the SDLP take social development.

Secretary of State Peter Hain described the dealings at Stomont as further evidence of the very positive approach that the parties are taking to the restoration of devolved government.

Ulster Unionist party leader Sir Reg Empey said taking on the health portfolio was a huge challenge.

“It is – if you like – something that’s vital and important to everybody in the community,” he said.

“There was a lot of criticism the last time that people had run away from the issue, and the way the selections were made it would be difficult to not come to that conclusion.

“The Ulster Unionist Party is not going to tun away from a challenge and we realise this is going to be difficult.”

Earlier on Monday, Sinn Fein announced its ministerial team for the new assembly: Martin McGuinness, Conor Murphy, Michelle Gildernew, Caitriona Ruane and Gerry Kelly.

Mr Murphy said that it would be some time before his party revealed which person would be in which ministry.

“Today was simply a matter of getting the departmental choices. What we’ll do now is match people to that,” he said.

Mr McGuinness had refused to commit his party to the education department in a news conference before the departments were picked, although he said they were very interested in the issue.

“The whole issue of education is obviously a huge challenge for whoever takes the position there is a lot of unfinished business to be dealt with,” he said.

There are two main thorny issues facing a new minister – the future of selection for post primary schools and the prospect of naming hundreds of schools for closure because of a shortage of pupils.

Sammy Wilson of the DUP said there are many battles ahead for Sinn Fein in education, but he said his party had ensured safeguards were in place to prevent “any rogue education minister” implementing policies that the DUP does not support.

DUP leader Ian Paisley had the first pick of the departments under the d’Hondt formula, which uses assembly seats won by parties to calculate ministerial entitlement.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams had second choice.

December 1999 was the last time the party leaders agreed to select their departments.

Secretary of State Peter Hain has promised to give ministers-in-waiting access to their departments.

At the weekend he also agreed to a request from Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness to hand over offices at Stormont Castle.

Last week, in a ground-breaking meeting at Stormont, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams agreed to share power in a restored NI Assembly on 8 May.

Source: BBC News

>USSR2 File: Ukrainian President Yushchenko dissolves Rada, pro-Moscow PM Yanukovich boycotts election, Russia’s ex-PM Chernomyrdin offers to mediate

>Ukrainian poilitics, like Russian politics, is a communist-directed farce. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (pictured right), who is an ex-KGB Border Guard, ex-Soviet apparatchik, and Kuchma appointee, plays the not-so-convincing role of pro-Western reformer. The dioxin-induced scars on Yushchenko’s face are a constant sticky note to himself that if he steps out of line the Russian Federation Federal Security Service (FSB), or its minions in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), will either force him into early retirement or a six-foot-deep hole in the ground. Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich (pictured left) is “ex”-Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Since 2006, moreover, the Ukrainian government has consisted of Yanukovich’s pro-Moscow Party of Regions, Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), and Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU). Petro Symonenko’s CPU is a part of the restored CPSU, while the leader of the SPU, Alexander Moroz, was formerly a member of the old CPSU. Indeed, since the supposed collapse of communism in 1991 the Communist Party of Ukraine has belonged to every government formed in that country’s Supreme Rada, or Council (“Soviet”).

If Ukraine’s Constitutional Court rules in favor of President Yushchenko’s election call, the communists and crypto-communists will no doubt use the early vote to fortify their majority in parliament.

Ukrainian PM Boycotts Presidential Decree to Dissolve Parliament
Created: 04.04.2007
MosNews

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich increased pressure on Ukraine’s president on Wednesday, boycotting the campaign for a poll ordered by a leader, the Reuters news agency reports.

Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko this week brought to a head months of confrontation with his premier over Ukraine’s future direction, dissolving the parliament backing him and calling a May 27 election.

At a five-hour meeting on Tuesday, Yushchenko told the Moscow-friendly premier he defeated in 2004 after weeks of “orange” protests that his decree was irreversible. Yanukovich had earlier dismissed it as a “fatal error.”

Under Ukrainian law, the campaign opened on Wednesday. But Yanukovich vowed he would have nothing to do with it until the Constitutional Court ruled on the president’s decree.

“Until the Constitutional Court examines this issue, we will engage in no preparations for any elections,” he told ministers. “Given that the country is in such a tense situation, we must ensure that state institutions function … and cut short any action, or indeed any talk, of an early election.”

Yanukovich accused the president’s staff of putting pressure on state institutions, including the constitutional court.

The chairman of parliament, Oleskander Moroz, an ally of the prime minister, said the court’s chairman had resigned, but court officials refused to comment.

The prime minister’s allies in parliament have asked the court to rule on the decree’s legality. No ruling can be expected from the court for about a month.

Yushchenko’s victory over Yanukovich in the 2004 election prompted hopes among liberals that Ukraine, a country of about 47 million which was part of the Soviet Union, could move towards the West and join the European Union and NATO.

But the president’s supporters were disillusioned by rows among ministers, his powers were cut by constitutional change and his personal ratings sank to single figures.

Addressing Western ambassadors in Kiev, Yanukovich repeated a call for talks to end the standoff. But he said he was not afraid of going to the polls.“We should extend a hand to each other. We must look to the future, not return to the past and reopen old wounds,” he said. “The question of an early election should be removed from the agenda. People do not want a new election. But we are not afraid of an election. We are certain of victory.”

Central Kiev remained void of any sign of political tension. In Independence Square, focal point of the 2004 protests, several hundred supporters of the prime minister sang patriotic songs and set up a stage in a bid to recreate some of that upheaval.

Yanukovich, humiliated in the 2004 election, made a remarkable comeback in Ukraine’s last parliamentary election, barely a year ago and Yushchenko nominated him to his post when his own ”orange“ allies proved unable to form a government.

The two men have since sniped continuously, with parliament chipping away at the president’s powers and authority.

Yushchenko, disfigured by an attempt to poison him during the 2004 campaign, said he had dissolved parliament to ”preserve the state.“ He has accused Yanukovich of illegally enlisting allies to expand the coalition backing him in parliament.

Opinion polls suggest a new election may not significantly change the make-up of parliament, with the prime minister’s Regions Party in the lead, followed by the bloc of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Source: Moscow News

Moscow is obviously anxious about the stability of its largest junior partner in the “Commonwealth of Independent States.” The state-run Voice of Russia reported today that former Russian PM Victor Chernomyrdin (“ex”-CPSU) has offered to mediate Ukraine’s political crisis: “He says he is prepared to step in even before any ruling by the Ukrainian Constitutional Court.” The Voice of Russia also reports that “tens of thousands” of opponents of President Yushchenko (pictured here) have taken to the streets of Kiev to protest his policies. At propitious times, the communists can always call upon their rent-a-mobs. The Voice of Russia is siding with PM Yanukovich, characterizing Yushchenko’s election call as a “coup”: “Ukrainian Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich has proposed a compromise in which President Yushchenko cancels a decree to dissolve Parliament and the legislature rescinds measures to bloc the dissolution. The latest such measure is a resolution to interpret the President’s moves as an attempted coup.” That being so, Yushchenko’s “coup” will very likely provoke a communist-orchestrated “counter-coup” that will remove their puppet entirely from the political scene.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian communists are using Washington’s proposal to deploy missile defense in Central Europe and the Caucasus to present themselves as the nation’s savior against Western intervention in the “not-so-post” Soviet sphere. Note “ex”-communist PM Yanukovich’s tidbit of information regarding Russia and Ukraine’s joint use of the space tracking systems deployed on the latter’s soil. Ukraine’s military constitutes an important element in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which binds Kiev firmly to Moscow and prohibits any deployment of US assets in the not-so-former Soviet republic.

Ukraine government to report on missile shield to parliament
15:02 19/ 03/ 2007
KIEV, March 19 (RIA Novosti)

Ukraine’s parliament is planning Wednesday to hear reports by the Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry about the possible deployment of missile-defense systems on Ukrainian soil, a deputy parliament speaker said Monday.

“The Supreme Rada will hear a situation report concerning the possible deployment of elements of a missile-defense system. We will discuss the issue and make a decision,” Adam Martynyuk said.

The government report was initiated by the parliamentary faction of the Communist Party.

Ukraine’s prime minister said Monday the issue of deploying a US missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic should be decided at the negotiating table.

Viktor Yanukovych said even the NATO member states do not have a consensus on the issue yet, adding, however, Ukraine would be ready to take part in such negotiations.

“We are also ready to sit down at the negotiating table, and we do have something to offer. We have space tracking systems positioned on Ukrainian soil, which, incidentally are being used jointly with Russia,” he said.

He said last week his country opposed unilateral decisions on global security systems and wanted to discuss the issue with the United States.

Viktor Yanukovych’s statement followed Washington’s announcement in January that it would build a radar installation in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland in the next five years to counter possible attacks from Iran or North Korea.

Moscow has strongly opposed the U.S. plans, saying the missile shield threatened Russia’s national security.

The Ukrainian premier’s proposal to the U.S. could upset Russia even further, considering the ongoing struggle for influence in former Soviet nations between Moscow and Washington.

In an attempt to strike a balance between the two powerful partners, Yanukovych called on the U.S. to consult countries in the region, including Russia, about its security intentions.

The U.S. caused further security concerns in Russia when a senior Pentagon official said Washington “would like to place a radar base in the Caucasus”. The announcement aroused suspicions in Moscow that Georgia could be a possible site. Georgian officials denied the possibility.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have been strained since West-leaning authorities came to power in the South Caucasus nation in 2003.

Source: Novosti

In a related development, the Ukrainian Supreme Rada has voted against President Yushchenko’s decision to permit NATO and other foreign troops to conduct wargames in that country. Clearly, anti-Western sentiment remains a potent force in the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine.

Supreme Rada votes against foreign troops in Ukraine -1
17:2504/ 04/ 2007

KIEV, April 4 (RIA Novosti) – The Ukrainian parliament voted Wednesday against the president’s decision to allow foreign troops to participate in multinational military exercises in Ukraine in 2007.

Only five out of 256 deputies who attended today’s session of the 450-seat parliament supported a draft law proposed by President Viktor Yushchenko March 6.

The bill envisions the participation of four Russian aircraft in upcoming five-day bilateral air defense exercises, and 270 Belgian troops with weapons and military hardware for 20 days in May-July in bilateral tactical exercises.

In addition, it permits the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian territory during the Rapid Trident, the Sea Breeze and the Combined Effort exercises this year.

In 2006, Ukraine’s parliament also banned foreign troops from participating in military exercises in the country and the defense ministry had to cancel several joint exercises with the United States and NATO.

Source: Novosti

>Breaking News: Chief of Russian General Staff Baluyevsky warns USA against attacking Iran; America will lose superpower status

>If the U.S. goes to war with Iran as well, the world may see America decline as the world’s mightiest and most powerful state.

— Yuri Baluyevsky, Chief of Russian General Staff, April 3, 2007

A friendly warning from Moscow: Don’t touch our Islamic proxy states. The neo-Soviet Union bares its fangs and flexes it claws.

U.S. must think twice before striking Iran – Russian brass
13:5003/ 04/ 2007

MOSCOW, April 3 (RIA Novosti) – Washington needs to think twice before launching a military campaign against Tehran as such an attack would have global implications, a senior Russian military official said Tuesday.

Yury Baluyevsky, the head of the armed forces’ General Staff, said: “Inflicting damage on Iran’s military and industrial potential might be realistic, but winning [the war] is unachievable – its reverberations would be heard across the world.”

Baluyevsky said that when making a decision on Iran, U.S. leaders should bear in mind the negative experience in other countries of the region.

“Our strategic partners have already got bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

He warned that if the U.S. goes to war with Iran as well, the world may see America decline as the world’s “mightiest and most powerful state.”

The U.S. Administration sees Iran as a “rogue state” belonging to what President George W. Bush has termed “an axis of evil,” and is determined to stop the Islamic Republic – diplomatically or otherwise – from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It now plans to deploy a national missile defense shield in Central Europe, which it says will help protect its own security and that of its European allies against potential missile strikes from Iran, suspected by the West of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program.

Source: Novosti

>Latin America File: Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution advances to full-blown communism with official announcement of land nationalization

>In his DVD What Are “Dead” Communists Doing in Today’s World?, a lecture delivered shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Pastor John Stormer, an expert on the history of communism, predicted that Venezuela’s Tyrant-in-Training Hugo Chavez would become the “new Fidel Castro” of Latin America. Upon moving into his third presidential term, Comrade Hugo has accelerated the communization of Venezuela, including the nationalization of major industries and the proposal to establish a one-party state. The nationalization of land and agriculture comprises the subject of his latest announcement. The government confiscation of land represents the first plank in The Communist Manifesto (1848): “Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.” Soviet Tyrant-Madman Joseph Stalin imposed land nationalization/collectivization on the hapless farmers of Ukraine, resulting in the famine-induced deaths of more than three million people. Have no lessons been learned from the past? Is this the future of Venezuela and other countries where neo-communism is consolidating its gains?

Stormer’s five-year-old prediction has been fully vindicated. His best-selling expose of communism, None Dare Call It Treason (1964, 1990), is linked in this blogsite’s right column. The entire Communist Manifesto is also reprinted there too.

Pictured above: Child victim of the Ukrainian “Holodomor” (hunger and plague) in the 1930s.

Hugo Chavez Announced Land Nationalization
Havana, March 26, 2007 (ACN)

“The agrarian revolution is one of the biggest internal challenges facing the country,” said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday as he announced the nationalization of 300,000 hectares (741,313 acres) of idle farmland, marking the beginning of a war on huge landholdings, Granma daily reported.

The land seized by the State involves 16 estates, Chavez explained during his Alo Presidente television and radio program broadcast from Barinas in western Venezuela.

“The agrarian revolution, agrarian socialism to be more precise, is one of the biggest internal challenges facing the country,” said Chavez. “It’s about ending the huge estate and recovering these lands under the guidelines of the law to put them to use to breed cattle for beef and milk production,” he added.

Later in the program Chavez said, “This land becomes social property as of today, which is what it always should have been […] Social property and production, and satisfying the people’s needs,” are the strategic cornerstones of the revolution taking place in Venezuela.

Source: Cuban News Agency