Catholic Church Protests Support for Gay Rights

Cuba's Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday protested the communist government's growing support of gay rights, including a daylong event raising awareness against homophobia and a law allowing sex-change operations.

"Respect for the homosexual person, yes," said an editorial in Palabra Nueva, the monthly magazine of the Archdiocese of Havana. "Promotion of homosexuality, no."

The editorial signed by magazine director Orlando Marquez referred to activities held May 17 by Cuba's Sex Education Center, which is directed by Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raul Castro.

The center also announced this month that the health ministry has approved a law authorizing government-paid sex changes for 28 people who have undergone extensive study after requesting the surgery.

Prejudice against homosexuals remains deeply rooted in Cuban society, as in much of Latin America. But the government has steadily moved away from the intolerance of the 1960s to the 1990s, when homosexuals hid their sexuality for fear of being fired from work or even imprisoned.

Cuba's parliament also is studying proposals to give gay couples the same benefits as married couples.

OK getting fired or arrested for being Gay is a bit extreme and against the law in most civilized countries but after all these years of oppressing Gays in Cuba in the name of some kind of socialist morality the communists now want to change their image as champions of Gay rights. Well it may impress the world's liberals but not the vast majority of the Cuban people or the Cuban Catholic Church. both of whom still retain their conservative values and freedom for them does not mean allowing José or Carlos getting free sex change operations. The bottom line is that the communists may no longer be putting people in prison for being Gay they still however are imprisoning Cuban citizens for practicing free speech....forget the Gay rights for a minority and replace that with Human rights for everyone. Patricio 25 June 2008

Cuba to Offer Citizens Free Sex Changes.

This development is the latest in a series of so-called reforms in state policies since Raul "El Chino" Castro succeeded his brother Fidel in February. Health officials in Havana said the country's health minister, Jose Ramon Balaguer, has already signed the resolution allowing the operations. Under the new regulations, the procedure will be offered by the country's universal health service.

I'm sure this is one of the freedoms the Cuban people have been waiting almost fifty years for, right? Now a man in chains can get an operation and become a woman in chains....now that's real progress.
Let's see, since February Cubans can buy cell phones they don't have money for, computers they don't have money for, amd now free sex-changes that most Cubans don't want. What Cubans want and need are...more food, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and free elections. Patricio 08 June 2008

Remarks by the President in Recognition of Cuba Independence Day

THE PRESIDENT: Siente se. (Laughter.) Bienvenidos a la casa de todos que -- quien viven en nuestra grande pais. Welcome to the White House.

Mr. Secretary, you were an easy pick. (Laughter.) There's no question you'd do a fabulous job on behalf of America. Thank you for taking the assignment. (Applause.)

Another member of my team who is here who helps us have a strong and certain foreign policy is Senorita Condoleezza Arroz. (Applause and laughter.) That means rice. (Laughter.)

Senator Graham, thank you for being here. We're honored by your presence. I know you're a strong friend of Cuba's. (Applause.) And, of course, too -- and it's great that Ileana and Lincoln are with us, as well. Thank you. (Applause.)

I noticed when Gloria sang the Cuban Anthen, that the first two people on their feet were the two Congresspeople from South Florida. And, Lincoln, I did notice that you were braced at attention, too, I might add. Proud. So it's great to have you all here.

Gloria, thank you very much. Sorry you brought your husband -- no. (Laughter.) We love Emilio. He's a good man. (Applause.) And, Gloria, thank you for coming and bringing tu nanita. Thank you all for being here. We love your music. Your husband has been such a good friend of me and my family, and so have you.

The great poet -- man, you must be a strong person, with a beautiful heart, and a wonderful, artistic touch. Angel, welcome to the White House. (Applause.) And Lizebet, thank you for coming. I don't think many in America know your story, that you were picked up on a raft, and you played The National Anthem on your violin when you were picked up. That's beautiful. (Applause.)

And finally -- por fin -- "la voz" -- (laughter) -- John Secada. Thank you, John for being here. I appreciate you very much. Glad you're here. (Applause.)

It's a great honor for me to welcome you all to the White House to celebrate May 20th, Cuban Independence Day. It's a day when we honor the warm family ties, the faith, the history and heritage that unite our two peoples.

As Angel and Lizebet and so many others remind us, it is a day when we pay thanks to the magnificent contributions of Cubans to our national life. They enrich every field, from science to industry, to the arts, including my favorite performing art --baseball. (Laughter and applause.) But mostly, today is a day when we reflect on the greatnesses of Cuba's far-too-distant past and the brightness of its future; of how, together, we can hasten that future's arrival.

Just last month I returned from the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. Thirty-four democratic nations committed ourselves to building a hemisphere of freedom. But one nation was not there, because that nation has a leader who has no place at the democratic table. Indeed, his nation is not free, but enslaved. He is the last holdout of the hemisphere, and time is not on his side. (Applause.)

The Cuban independence we celebrate today was the product of the enormous courage of the Cuban people and the statesmanship of leaders such as Jose Marti. The tyranny that rules Cuba today stands as an insult to their sacrifices. But we're confident in one fact, Cuban courage is more powerful and enduring than Castro's legacy and tyranny.

Our nation has an economic embargo against Castro's regime. But today, of all days, it is important for us to remember that our goal is not to have an embargo against Cuba; it is freedom in Cuba. (Applause.)

The United States welcomes the opportunity to trade with Cuba when there are entrepreneurs who are free to trade with us. We welcome the opportunity to build diplomatic relations with Cuba when the Cuban government is a democracy, when the Cuban people can be free from fear to say what they think and choose who shall govern them.

The sanctions our government enforces against the Castro regime are not just a policy tool; they're a moral statement. My administration will oppose any attempt to weaken sanctions against Cuba's government until the regime -- (applause) -- and I will fight such attempts until this regime frees its political prisoners, holds democratic, free elections, and allows for free speech.

The policy of our government is not merely to isolate Castro, but to actively support those working to bring about democratic change in Cuba. (Applause.) And that is why we will support legislation like the Cuban Solidarity Act, and the Cuban Internal Opposition Assistance Act. (Applause.) History tells us that forcing change upon repressive regimes requires patience. But history also proves, from Poland to South Africa, that patience and courage and resolve can eventually cause oppressive governments to fear and then to fall.

One of the surest ways to foster freedom is to give people unlimited access to unbiased information. The strongest walls of oppression can't stand when the floodgates of modern telecommunications are opened. We must explore ways to expand access to the Internet for the average Cuban citizen. And we must strengthen the voices of Radio and TV Marti, with strong leadership. (Applause.) And we will strengthen those voices with strong leadership and new direction.

Today -- today I say this to Mr. Castro: If you are confident your ideas are right, then stop jamming the broadcasts of those whose ideas are different. (Applause.) And until you do, we will look for ways to use new technology, from new locations, to counter your silencing of the voices of liberty. (Applause.)

Last month, the U.N. Human Rights Commission called on Castro's regime to respect the basic human rights of all its people. The United States leadership was responsible for passage of that resolution. (Applause.) Some say we paid a heavy price for it. But let me be clear: I'm very proud of what we did. (Applause.) And repressed people around the world must know this about the United States: We might not sit on some commission, but we will always be the world's leader in support of human rights. (Applause.)

Today, all our citizens are proud to stand with all Cubans, and all Cuban Americans who love freedom. We will continue to stand with you until that day, hopefully not in the too-distant future, when all Cubans breathe the heady air of liberty. (Applause.)

We are proud to stand with those Cubans who, today, enrich our nation with their energies and industry. We're proud to stand with the farmers and workers of Cuba who dream of liberty's blessings. We are proud to stand, too, with those who are suffering and dying in jails because they had the courage to speak the truth.

Y aqui en este Casa Blanca, estamos feliz de cultivar "una rosa blanca en Julio como en Enero." (Applause.) Y por fin, viva Cuba libre. (Applause.) Thank you all. 20 May. 2008

A New Cuba Will Remember Her Friends

President Bush chastised most other countries Friday for "a sad and curious pattern" of doing little to speak out against human rights and political abuses in Cuba. "Unfortunately, the list of countries supporting the Cuban people is far too short and the democracies absent from that list are far too notable," Bush said at the White House.

The "small band of brave nations" speaking out for freedom in Cuba include, Bush said, his own administration as well as nations that were in the Communist bloc but are now democratic such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

"The United States has not been silent, nor will we be silent," he said. "When a new day finally dawns for Cubans, they will remember the few brave nations that stood with them, and the many that did not." 08 Mar. 2008

The New Cuba which one day will come must not forget those who spoke out for freedom and against the Stalinist regime of the Castro mob and these are the countries who should get preferential treatment from a democratic Cuba. The countries who supported the tyranny that enslaved our people for a half century should be in the bottom of the toilet and maybe Cuba should even have an embargo against them but at the very least they should receive least favorable status. Patricio

Cubafact: Cubans still live on rations and cope with chronic shortages of staples like beef. Salaries average about $12 a month, and most people spend three-quarters of their income on food 22 Feb. 2008

Fidel Castro Resigns As Cuba's President

Fidel Castro’s decision to step down as Cuba’s ruler brings the country one step closer to a democratic transition. Could it also be one step closer to an economic transformation? Vietnam said Castro made an "extremely great contribution to the cause of building and protecting Cuba over nearly the past five decades". Vietnam, a staunch ally of fellow-communist Cuba, praised Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Tuesday after he resigned as president for "building and protecting" his country. 19 Feb. 2008

Resign can mean a lot of things in Cuba but one thing is certain old Fidel can no longer function as a leader. I take this resignation to mean that the Castrator of Cuba has resigned to the fact that he is going to die soon and he is hoping that his half-brother Raul will carry on the revolution as it was intended personally I don't see that happening. Changes will begin to happen very soon and Raul knows as well as many others do that Cuba is going to have to allow some Capitalism in one form or another to be instituted probably along the lines of Red China. Will that mean freedom for the Cuban people? Eventually, yes! Capitalism brings freedom and Capitalism with oppression will not last long, you can have one or the other but together it won't work for long. Capitalism is economic liberty and once the people have that and begin to appreciate its benefits the other freedoms will follow. How long will it take? That depends on how fast prosperity sets in but it will come as sure as the sun rises in the east.

Now to address the comment from Viet Nam. Fidel Castro "building and protecting" Cuba is about the most preposterous thing I've heard in a long time, if one looks at Cuba today they can see the crumbling buildings, the potholed roads and streets that haven't been paved in decades, power and phone lines hung from trees, people using horses, mules and chivichanas to travel from one place to another, not to mention the lack of amenities the Cuban people lack. Do you call that building? And the only thing Castro has protected is his failed Socialist Revolution and the power of the Communist oppressors who have kept the Cuban people in a modern dark age. When one sees a compliment like this handed to a brutal dictator one also has to look at the source from which that compliment came. The only way Cuba can truely build itself up is through Capitalism and the only way it can truely protect Cuba is through Liberty, anything else is Slavery!

A Man, A Poet, A Hero, A Martyr
by Patricio Puentes

On this date of January 28th in 1853 José Julián Martí Pérez known commonly worldwide as just José Martí. This man was no ordinary soul but a man of great vision, talent, passion, and genius he is considered by all as the father of Cuba. Picture for a moment how Americans would feel today about George  Washington had he died in battle during the Revolutionary War instead of surviving and becoming the first President of the United States. This is how Cubans feel about José Martí.

José came from a large Catholic family, attended public school as a child and in 1867 enrolled in Havana's prestigious Professional School for Painting and Sculpting he had hoped to become an artist but destiny had something else in store for him. While in school he began writing nationalist patriotic verses and when the Spanish authorities closed his school before he had a chance to graduate he resented it, that resentment sparked a fire within him that would later turn into a raging passion to see his island of Cuba free. Free from the Spanish oppressors, free from the institution of slavery, and free from any interference from other outside powers who wanted to place Cuba under their heel.

In 1869 at the young age of sixteen the Spanish arrested him for sedition and placed him in prison and sentenced to six years after his trial several months later. His parents tried fervently to get his sentence rescinded because he was a minor even under Spanish law.  When he became very ill in the Havana prison he was released, some say due his father's influence, and sent to the Isle of Pines sixty miles off the southwest coast of Cuba, feeling that he was still too close to home they later exiled him to Spain.

Never one to neglect his education he studied law and continued his writing on the Spanish abuses back home which included "The Political Prison in Cuba". In 1877 after obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree in civil law he returned to school and received his Doctorate of Philosophy. He traveled to France and under the cover of the alias Julián Peréz he returned to Cuba where he obtained a job as a history professor. He married a Cuban woman, Carmen Zayas Bazán, and they had a son José Francisco. He was arrested again in 1879 only to be deported once more to Spain leaving his wife and son behind in Havana.

 In 1880 this persistent patriot went to the United States to rally the Cuban exile community from New York to Florida around the banner of independence from Spain and formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party. Throughout these years José Martí never stopped writing, he wrote so much that one must wonder when he ever had the time for politics. Aside from his patriotic essays he penned poetry, children's books, plays, magazine and newspaper articles not to mention personal letters to his family, friends and compatriots. 

In 1895 José along with Máximo Gómez who was another leader in the Cuban Nationalist movement they published the Montecristi manifesto which called for independence from Spain and war against all those who stood in the way of this goal. Sometime between 10:30 and 11:30 that stormy night of April 11th, 1895 José Martí, General Máximo Gómez and and a small band of other Cuban nationalists landed on a beach near Guantánamo bay, Cuba. José Martí and his fellow freedom fighters received a enthusiastic welcome from the local populace. Word spread like wildfire that the apostle of Cuban freedom had returned and thousands of Cubans who had weapons stashed away began retrieving those tools of revolution, cleaning and oiling their guns and sharpening their machetes, the time had come for the patriots to make their move to once and for all break the shackles that had enslaved them for so many long and tortuous years.

On May the 4th after walking for fourteen days José Martí, now a Major General, and Máximo Gómez met up with General Antonio Maceo who had an outpost on a different part of the island. The meeting took place in La  Mejorana where they discussed military strategy and it was at this meeting that José was made the supreme political leader of the revolution and although he stated that he wanted no political post after the revolution was successful. This new position he was thrust into in effect made him the president of the Cuban people however unofficial that post was.

Not knowing it at the time May the 18th 1895 José Martí would write his last letter and in it he spoke of how he envisioned a free Cuba which would a barrier to any spread or advancement of a new American "Manifest Destiny" which at the time was a strong movement that permeated the political scene in the United States. On this same day near the town of Jagua with General's Gómez and Maceo standing by his side José Martí gave a passionate speech to thousands of Cuban patriots assembled at Maceo's encampment their thunderous cheers resounding throughout the surrounding countryside as his oratory inspired and filled their hearts with hope and fervor for independence and freedom.

The following day was to be one of the saddest days in Cuban history. It was a Sunday and the hot Cuban sun was directly above those assembled to battle, the Spanish on one side, the Cuban nationalists on the other. José Martí sat on his white horse like a knight without fear and as he went forward to engage the enemy he was ambushed by Spanish troops. After being shot and falling off his horse José lay on his back wounded, the Spanish finished off his life with machetes hacking away at the now defenseless patriot. The man, the poet, the hero, and now the martyr lay bloodied on the Cuban soil with his face to the Cuban sun. He died as he had once poetically and prophetically written "I am good, and as a good man, I will die facing the sun."
Posted: 01.28.08    

Author Exposes Cuban Healthcare Myths

Before Katherine Hirschfeld went to Cuba for post-graduate studies, she read dozens of academic research papers on the country's healthcare system. All were glowing reports about how the Castro government offered good care for everyone, and that's what she expected to find. Then she went to Santiago de Cuba for an extended stay and saw the system for herself, including three days in a hospital when she came down with dengue fever. The result is a highly critical book -- Health, Politics and Revolution in Cuba since 1898 -- which she will discuss Thursday night at the University of Miami.

Her stays were mostly in Santiago, from 1996 through 1998, when she was a graduate student at Emory University and Cuba was in the midst of a dengue fever epidemic that the government tried to hush up. When she experienced the symptoms -- aching joints, fever, nausea, sore throat -- she was taken to a Santiago hospital and placed in a large ward guarded by a man with a gun. She asked to make a phone call to tell people where she was. The guard said there were no working phones.

"Oh my God,' I thought to myself. 'This place doesn't exist,'" at least not officially, because the epidemic was a state secret. During her stay, she says she never saw a doctor. She was given one pill -- a vitamin. Fortunately, she had a mild case. Because there were few nurses, she and other patients who were able did what they could for the sickest, especially those who were bleeding or vomiting.

Now an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, Hirschfeld says living with a family in Santiago while doing her research made a big difference in her viewpoint. 'Most academic work about Cuba is based on little or no field research,'' Hirschfeld said. U.S. academics often rely on official government studies or do short stays on the island, spending perhaps two weeks, sleeping in government-approved facilities.

She found women in Santiago gravitated to the kitchen, where she learned that even preparing a meal was revealing about the economy. ''Lunch is sometimes a counter-revolutionary event,'' because of how the family had to scramble outside the rationing system to find enough to eat. Hirschfeld found even more basic public health problems, such as a lack of running water in the city. Residents compensated by catching rain water in barrels -- breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which transmit the dengue virus. Cubans who needed treatment often used social networks or bartered favors to have doctors see them outside the official clinic settings. If people had to go to the hospital, they tried to prepare in advance, getting surgical thread and bandages on their own, even obtaining drugs from the United States if they could.

When she finished her doctorate dissertation about the problems in Cuba's healthcare, she says it was not initially well received by her review committee, which pointed out that most other academic researchers disagreed with her. She believes her unusual views delayed her getting her doctorate by at least a year.

Since Hirschfeld did her research, most experts say Cuban healthcare has gotten worse, primarily because 36,000 doctors and other healthcare professionals are now working overseas, many of them in Venezuela, according to official figures. A dissident doctor in Havana, Darsi Ferrer, told The Miami Herald last year that because of the shortage, ``One doctor now has to take care of four or five offices.'' The situation has become so bad that last month the vice minister of public health, Joaquín García Salaberría, took the highly unusual step of admitting on Cuban television that there were shortages of doctors and nurses. 'It's not guaranteed that doctors and nurses will remain in the doctors' offices, as had been promised,'' García said. Posted: 01.10.08

I'll be willing to bet a bottle of Mantusalem that Michael Moore won't be commenting on this revelation. The inmates in American prisons get better health care than our brothers and sisters in Cuba and now it appears that the Venezuelans are getting the health care which rightfully belongs to Cubans but the Castro commie brothers have to pay Hugo Chavez something for the oil he is shipping to Cuba and since they have no money they send doctors and nurses instead. How much more can the Cuban people take at the hands of their socialist masters? Surely there are more people praying for Fidel's death than are praying for him to live...so why doesn't the "Hijo de Perra" die already? Maybe things won't get better with his death but can they get worse? Even his death would be a change of some sort on that island prison.  

American Traitor Dies in Cuba

HAVANA - Former CIA agent Philip Agee, a critic of U.S. foreign policy who infuriated American intelligence officials by naming purported agency operatives in a 1975 book, has died, state media reported Wednesday. He was 72.

Agee quit the CIA in 1969 after 12 years working mostly in Latin America at a time when leftist movements were gaining prominence and sympathizers. His 1975 book “Inside the Company: CIA Diary,” cited alleged CIA misdeeds against leftists in the region and included a 22-page list of purported agency operatives.

Granma, Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper, said Agee died Monday night and described him as “a loyal friend of Cuba and fervent defender of the peoples’ fight for a better world.” Bernie Dwyer, a journalist with state-run Radio Havana, said in a Tuesday message posted to a Cuba e-mail group that Agee’s wife called him to say he had died after ulcer surgery in a hospital where he has he been since Dec. 15. “He had several operations for perforated ulcers and didn’t survive all the surgery,” Dwyer wrote, adding that Agee was cremated Tuesday and that friends planned a memorial ceremony for him Sunday at his Havana apartment.

Agee’s U.S. passport was revoked in 1979. U.S. officials said he had threatened national security. After years of living in Hamburg, Germany, occasionally underground, fearing CIA retribution, Agee moved to Havana to open a travel Web site.

The site, cubalinda.com, is designed to bring U.S. tourists to Cuba, offering package tours and other help that is largely off-limits to Americans because of the U.S. trade embargo. Agee opened the site in 2000 with European investors and a state-run travel agent as his partners. There was no mention of Agee’s death on the site Wednesday. The author of several other books besides “Inside the Company,” one of Agee’s last essays was published in Granma International newspaper in 2003 and came shortly after a Cuban government crackdown led to the arrest of 75 leading dissidents and political activists.

“To think that the dissidents were creating an independent, free civil society is absurd, for they were funded and controlled by a hostile foreign power and to that degree, which was total, they were not free or independent in the least,” he wrote. Agee has been accused of receiving up to $1 million in payments from the Cuban intelligence service. He denied the accusations, which were first made by a high-ranking Cuban intelligence officer and defector in a 1992 report. Posted: 01.09.08

When they say he didn't survive all of the surgery does that mean he survived some of it? So much for superior Cuban health care which makes me wonder that if Michael Moore needed an operation would he go to an American hospital or a Cuban one? I think we all know the answer to that one. Now let's look at the statement that Agee was “a loyal friend of Cuba and fervent defender of the peoples’ fight for a better world.”?? What a load of mierda...he was friend of the Cuban communists only and not a friend of Cuba or the Cuban people, there is a difference.  As for fighting for a better world he could have better served that purpose by staying in the United States and working for democracy but instead he went over to the forces of darkness and the embodiment of evil which is Fidel Castro and his communist storm troopers. I feel nothing but gladness with the passing of this traitor and I say good riddance you commie loving bastard!

CIA honors Bay of Pigs vets at its art gallery

Alabama: The Bay of Pigs invasion has been a low point for the U.S. government since its failure more than forty years ago. Now, the men who volunteered for the mission were remembered at an art gallery at the CIA, which plotted the clandestine operation.

Veterans of the ill-fated attempt to topple Fidel Castro -- Cuban exiles, CIA contract pilots and the families of four Alabama Air National Guardsmen who died in Cuba gathered Thursday October 18th 2007 at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Ala. There, an oil painting was unveiled that depicts one of the successes of the covert operation: an April 1961 aerial attack on Castro's forces that took out an estimated 900 soldiers.

''It has been viewed as an embarrassment, but the modern world is recognizing it's part of our history. That's all there is to it,'' said Jorge Del Valle, 63, who was 15 when he walked into a CIA recruiting office in Miami to sign up for the venture. "We have gained acknowledgment worldwide.''

The painting, commissioned by a North Carolina man with an interest in honoring the lost-to-history covert operators who were trained by the CIA, will be donated to the Central Intelligence Agency. It will go on permanent display at agency headquarters in Langley, Va., in a new art gallery that gives a tip of the hat to the secret agents who worked for the agency and its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services.

The gallery is not open to the public, but visitors to the CIA building are allowed to visit the art gallery and a museum, which contains artifacts of CIA missions, including a matchbox camera.

''We venerate our leaders with fine art portraits, our historical moments with paintings,'' said Jeff Bass, the Pensacola artist who spent a year interviewing pilots and Bay of Pigs veterans to create the piece. "But while we tend to commemorate those in uniform, the clandestine services haven't gotten that kind of recognition.''

That's beginning to change, thanks to Erik Kirzinger, of Madison, N.C., whose uncle died in a covert operation in China in 1952. Kirzinger helped get his uncle's remains repatriated to the United States and during that time visited the Pentagon and other government agencies, where he saw art commemorating various operations. ''I got to thinking, there's nothing like that at the CIA,'' he said. Calling it his ''passion,'' Kirzinger got in touch with the curator of the CIA's museum to gauge interest. He found a receptive audience.

Kirzinger, who works with private individuals and corporations to raise money for the arts, said the agency has suggested it is open to illustrating any chapter in its history -- if it's declassified.

The Bay of Pigs painting, paid for by Compass Bank in Alabama, will be the fifth to hang at the CIA gallery and Bass's third; he did a portrait of Virginia Hall, a World War II spy, and a painting that depicts agents who died flying supplies to French forces in Indochina in the 1950s. (Bass also painted former Gov. Jeb Bush's official portrait, showing him with a Bible and a BlackBerry.)

A CIA spokesman said it welcomes art ''related to the work of the agency'' -- even work that illustrates not-so-successful chapters in its history.

''The fact that the overall [Bay of Pigs] operation didn't achieve its objectives in no way diminishes the lasting example of courage of those who risked -- and in some cases gave -- their lives to support it,'' agency spokesman George Little said of the Bay of Pigs painting.

Titled Lobo Flight, the 40- by 30-inch painting shows a vintage B-26 twin engine bomber flown by Connie Seigrist -- the lead pilot of a convoy of B-26s painted to look like Cuban aircraft -- dropping bombs onto a column of Cuban troops heading to the beach, where a group of CIA-trained Cuban exiles had landed to attempt to overthrow Castro.

The air flights succeeded, but President John F. Kennedy's support for the operation, tepid from the beginning, weakened further and Cuban forces quickly crushed the invasion. It would go down in history as one of the United States' biggest strategic blunders.

But for the Cuban exiles who volunteered for the mission, the two CIA contract pilots, Seigrist and Doug Price, and the families of four Alabama Air National Guard members who trained the exiles on the B-26s and who were killed during the invasion, the portrait is sweet, if long-delayed recognition.

'You always hear of the Bay of Pigs, 'Oh that was a fiasco,' '' said Janet Ray Weininger of South Florida, whose father, Thomas ''Pete'' Ray, was one of the pilots shot down, his body desecrated and put on display in a Havana morgue for 18 years before it was shipped back to his family. "That's not what it was. It was a tragedy, especially for those who fought and their families.

''But for the agency to embrace something that has negative connotations for them, it means a great deal,'' said Weininger, who helped to organize the ceremony and was bringing nearly 20 exiles to Birmingham. "It means a lot to have the agency embrace its history.'' Posted: 01.08.08

It was a long time coming but late is always better than never. For forty years I've stated that we invaded the wrong place at the right time that we should have went for the Isle of Pines and not the mainland. We cannot change the past and now we can only honor those fine patriotic Cubans and Americans who struck a blow for liberty. One day in the not too distant future there will be a museum and memorial in a free, democratic Cuba dedicated to the 2506 Brigade. Let us remember these brave fighters and their families in our prayers as well as in their memorials. ¡Viva Cuba Libre!

Cuban revolution victims listed online

The last time Juan Mario Gutiérrez spoke to his grandfather, the 10-year-old held up a homemade fishing rod fashioned from a tree branch and promised to catch a whopper of a fish during his refugee crossing from Cuba to Miami.

The boy died shortly afterward in a clash with the Cuban Coast Guard just eight miles from Havana Bay, his 1994 death becoming case No. 8500 in a newly released database of victims of the Cuban revolution.

Juan Mario shares space with 9,093 other people who lost their lives fighting for, battling against -- or simply fleeing -- the Cuban revolution.

After more than a decade of painstaking research by two Cuban exiles with the nonprofit group Cuba Archive, for the first time their results are available in a searchable database on the Web. The Truth and Memory Project database at www.cubaarchive.org  was launched Jan. 1, thanks to a $52,000 grant from Freedom House, an advocacy organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt.

''This is one more way to shed light on something a lot of people do not know about,'' said Juan Mario's grandfather, Jorge A. García Mas, who arrived here from Cuba in 1999. ``The first thing I did was look for my family's names. How is it not going to hurt to see their names on there?''

García lost several members of his family in July 1994, when the tugboat 13 de Marzo, loaded with would-be refugees, was rammed and sank. The database includes García's son, four in-laws, five nieces and nephews, and three cousins.

It also chronicles the deaths of people shot by firing squad, killed in prison, drowned at sea, killed by terrorist bombs and other causes.

''The nature of the crimes is horrifying,'' said Maria Werlau, executive director of Cuba Archive. 'You don't need to say anything. You don't need to editorialize. Here it is. It's like that news network that says: `We report it. You decide.' ''

PROJECT'S INCEPTION

The database was born more than a decade ago, when economist Armando Lago was struck by paralyzing strokes. 'I thought, `What am I going to do with the rest of my life from this wheelchair?' '' said Lago, a former champion swimmer. ``I found what I could do.''

He started combing newspaper archives, history books and Cuban media for documentation of anyone ever killed in the name of Fidel Castro's revolution. He said his work is different from other such lists because he insists on two sources of documentation.

Lago's tally begins with fighting between Castro supporters and forces loyal to dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The list includes 300 killed by anti-Castro forces, 4,090 executed by Castro's firing squads, 13 who died by hunger strikes and 196 rafters killed by Cuban forces while trying to flee.

The original list Lago compiled was much larger, but some categories such as combat deaths in Africa were eliminated due to lack of specific information.

''My fear is that this work will never end,'' he said.

THE PARTNERSHIP

Lago, 69, refuses to use the Internet (he's afraid of viruses), does not have e-mail and uses a computer so old he doesn't have Microsoft Excel.

He joined forces with Werlau, a New Jersey-based former business consultant whose father died in the Bay of Pigs invasion, and who worked on the project full-time for four years to secure the funding needed to create a usable database open to the public.

She said between her time and Lago's, the project was worth at least $500,000.

''It's very important everyone have access to this,'' she said. ``It's not just names on a list.'' Posted: 01.04.08

It's pretty much a given that this work will end when freedom returns to Cuba. The problem at hand is Fidel Castro, he's still alive folks and I have no doubt that the Cuban communists will use electric motor implants, embalming fluid, and whatever else it takes to keep this mummy walking. Why doesn't someone just give him a lethal injection and put him out of our misery.