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Tag: Castro

  • Trump, Castro and the new world order

    It is an amazing coincidence that Donald Trump is coming on board as the President of the US just as Fidel Castro of Cuba packed up and was cremated. That really is the stuff of history and comparative political analysis. Here are two people quite powerful in their own ways and convictions and quite defiant of the odds and the status quo in their numerous achievements in leadership and ideological orientation.

    You may say Trump is untested but he has already made history in the unconventional campaign he conducted to win the presidency of the US in the 2016 presidential elections. If you remember that President Obama was given the Noble Prize for peace as an untested leader at the outset of his presidency which is ending with Trump winning the presidency on a slogan of making America great and safe again, you will realize that kudos can be earned by world leaders for both tested and potential capabilities.

    Anyway the core of any comparison between Trump and Castro will have to be on their comparative achievements on the ideologies of the Cold War between Socialism and Capitalism which each amply represents respectively. This may sound like a tall order but it is a comparison that I find fascinating and which also can be quite elucidating. At Castro’s death, Cuba’s economy was in shambles and he had handed over power to his trusted Brother Raul who put in place some economic and capitalistic reform without abandoning socialism the political creed of Castro which has been largely castrated by globalization.

    Indeed when the former Soviet Union collapsed and dissolved into its constituents states the fate of Cuba’s economy was sealed and Cubans lived on subsistence and some fled their nation risking their lives on the high seas to get to Miami in Florida, US. Very much like the migrants crisis on the Mediterranean with Arabs fleeing wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghans risking their lives to get a better life in Europe.

    Ironically that situation contributed in no small measure to Donald Trump’s success at the US elections. Just as it contributed in no small measure earlier to the loss of Castro’s grip on power in Cuba as globalization stretched the practice of socialism to its limit in terms of the optimum utilization of available resources. Nevertheless Castro left a credible legacy acknowledged by even his opponents and detractors in the US on education and health. Cubans are known to be some of the best doctors on earth and Cubans have good health facilities. Also Cuban doctors have been exported as it were to help the health and education systems of many nations in the developing world.

    This is in spite of the dwindling economic resources of Cuba and the economic embargo of the US on that nation which the Obama Administration tried to redress albeit as a lame duck presidency which was also quite belated. More importantly though Castro was a revolutionary who stayed in power for almost 50 years. When he started out to wipe out the corrupt Baptista regime he together with his colleagues were idealists who wanted to spread socialism in Latin America. Indeed his most famous colleague my idol Che Gueverra a doctor was killed while trying to bring socialism to another Latin American nation but even Che himself was an Argentine and not Cuban.

    So while Castro and his colleagues of yore were trying to establish Socialist International, the advent of globalization created borderless nations and made the world a small village in terms trade and the mobile movement of labor goods and services and the exchange of information, knowledge and ideas globally. This then is the bizarre meeting point between the collapse of Castro’s socialist Cuban economy and Donald Trump’s grouse with globalization and his determination to scuttle all international trade agreements.

    Trump has promised to bring jobs back to US soil as he has started doing by making a deal with the global giant Carrier to make 1000 jobs available in the US rather than taking them to Mexico as the US company was planning to do. Here again lies the historical and insightful nature of the emergence of Donald Trump on the US and global political and economic scene. Clearly Trump was underrated by the US political class in both the ruling Democratic Party and his own Republican Party as a novice in politics who will fail because he did not want to be politically correct. But that rating was a great mistake just as the polls which Trump never acknowledged as correct and in which his success at the polls have proven him right.

    I say again that the American establishment and media erred in treating the US most colorful billionaire controlling about 500 brands as unlettered and uneducated in the politics of the US where he made his huge wealth. Now he is creating a cabinet of his wealthy peers and those who hold very conservative views that reflect Republican American values and those who scoffed at his campaign and presidential credentials are about to laugh at least for the next four years with the other side of their mocking mouths.

    In effect then,one can safely say that while Trump will not allow American jobs to go overseas on the altar of globalization he has learnt something from the way that the same globalization eclipsed some of Castro’s socialist dreams and achievement in Cuba. In addition Trump has promised that it would be America first and he will make America great again. On that score he should be careful not to make history repeat itself too soon and I will illustrate with two presidents before him, Richard Nixon of the Watergate scandal and Trump’s outgoing predecessor Barak Obama.

    Undoubtedly the Watergate scandal marred the Nixon presidency but out of office Nixon whose National Security Adviser and Secretary of State was Henry Kissinger was a very brilliant writer on global affairs and diplomacy. In one of his writings he observed that any US president who focused on domestic affairs at the expense of foreign and international relations would pay a very steep price later in terms of the cost of redress of looking inwards. That opinion is best illustrated in the way the Obama Administration came into being promising and winning the presidential elections on a slogan of bringing US troops back home on a global peace agenda.

    Eight years and two terms later the Obama Administration coaxed or coerced Hillary Clinton to campaign on the Obama legacy especially on foreign policy in the Middle East and the Democratic Party lost power decisively. Hillary was defeated by a crafty billionaire who changed the topic from the traditional issues of the economy and domestic issues to foreign policy, migration and security and assured Americans that America will be great again and Americans will feel safe under his leadership.

    In addition the slogan of peace that brought Obama to power has also fanned the rapid growth of Islamic terrorism and militancy and has cost the French President Francois Hollande his presidency mainly as a result of the terrorist attacks on French soil especially Paris and Nice. That discredited peace slogan too made Donald Trump credible to the US electorate in the last presidential election which saw him emerge as president elect. So the onus is on Donald Trump to know which lessons he will learn.

    The US has a crucial rendez vous with world politics, given its role on globalization and the promotion of human rights and democracy globally. Definitely Donald Trump cannot shut that down merely to put America first or make America great again.

    The fact that he has chosen a general who was sacked for criticizing the Obama foreign policy on terrorism as National Security Adviser and another general called Mad Dog as his Defence Secretary and his Attorney General once tried to stop a conference of gay people means that has his ideas on confronting ISIS and in dealing with gay rights both strong legacies of the Obama government. Trump now has the authority to do whatever conforms with the values of the electorate that gave him his mandate. Nothing however should make him keep the world waiting because he wants, first, to put his American house in order. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria

  • The fear of padding

    Never before was a budget so embroiled in controversy like that of 2016. For sure, what happened during the processing of the budget must have happened before. The only difference is that whatever it was, it was kept away from us. Unknown to us, a cabal had always been at work in the preparation of the budget. In the days of the military, those in the Ministry of Finance, the Budget Office and the National Planning Commission (NPC) just gave us figures which we lapped up.

    The bureaucrats in the civil service know how to doctor (read as pad) a budget. Ministers who do not know their onions do not stand a chance with them. The more they looked the less they saw whenever these bureaucrats came with their abracadabra when computing the figures. Any minister of finance must be a step ahead of them in order to beat them in their own game. But they know how to win those ministers to their side.

    They tell them stories of how things were done in the past with everybody smiling home at the end of the day. ’’Oga, abi you come count bridge for here’’, they will tell a gullible minister. In no time, he will join them and become a pawn in their hands. They will commit all sorts of atrocities in his name and he will not be able to call them to order. The preparation of the budget was and may still be a means of stealing public funds. If we did not know in the past, we now know that budgets were never prepared with the best of intentions, at least going by the 2016 standard

    All those involved in the process had their own agenda and that was what is in it for them. What happened during the preparation of this year’s budget during this time last year was an eye opener. Being the first budget of the Buhari administration, the government did all it could to come out with a budget that will pass the integrity test, but the cabal still had its way. Even before the estimates were sent to the National Assembly, we had started hearing about padding here and there. The various ministries which were to forward their proposals to the Ministry of Budget, which is the clearing house, had doctored the figures to suit their own  needs.

    They put in irrelevances and allocated money to them, which they expected to cash once the National Assembly approved the budget. The assembly too has since become wiser to the ways of civil servants. Its members know how to handle such matters and can even beat the civil servants at their own game. They know what the civil servants had done in compiling the budget. So, they wait for them at the budget defence stage. By the time they ask one or two questions, the ministers and their coterie of aides will be looking askance. Then, they will be told to go back and take another look at the estimates, which is euphemism for them to go and add the lawmakers’ cut, if they have not done so. This thing has been on for ages and those involved have been doing it to the detriment of our collective will, while they have been smiling to the banks.

    The harm done to the budget by these padders is enormous because the money allegedly allocated to some projects is not eventually seen. The projects just appear on paper while the money ends up in the pockets of individuals. The most painful is that of the lawmakers, who are expected to protect the people’s interest. They too are on the take having been brought on the groovy train by unscrupulous bureaucrats. The lawmakers have perfected the act of making money with the budget. Since, according to them, they did not come to Abuja to look at the Eagle Square, they have found it profitable to pad the budget than to make appropriate funds for the people’s needs.

    We have heard from former House of Representatives Appropriations Committee Chairman Abdulmumin Jibrin how the lawmakers padded this year’s budget for their own gain. Jibrin was not saying anything new. It had for long been in the public domain that our lawmakers are corrupt. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said so many times while in office, but we did not listen to him. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to see the end of Jibrin’s allegations as his colleagues hurriedly suspended him before he could release more details about budget padding and corruption generally in the House. But the nation has learnt a big lesson from it all. Once beaten, they say, twice shy. With the benefit of hindsight, President Muhammadu Buhari has warned that he would not allow next year’s budget to be padded. Apparently still smarting from what happened to this year’s budget, he said in Abuja last weekend that he would prevent the padding of the 2017 Budget.

    ‘’I am waiting for the 2017 Budget to be brought to us in Council. Any sign of padding anywhere, I will remove it. I have been in government since 1975, variously as governor, oil minister, head of state and chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). Never did I hear the word ‘padding’ till the 2016 Budget’’, he said, adding that such would never happen again under his watch. Well said sir, but what did we do to those who padded this year’s budget beyond relieving them of their jobs? They should be brought to book to deter others who may wish to toe the same path.  If we do not do that, it will amount to paying lip service to the anti-corruption crusade.

     

    Cuba after Castro

    Cuba’s strongman, the irrepressible Fidel Castro, died last weekend at the age of 90. His death marked the end of an era in that island nation. Castro was a communist to the core. Even when communism was dying worldwide, he remained committed. He ruled his country with iron hand and called the bluff of many world powers, including the United States (US), which he railed against for years.   The Bay of Pigs episode will forever define his sour relations with the US. Cuba gave the US a bloody nose in that bitter enterprise following the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to topple him between April 17 and 19, 1961. Since then, Cuba and the US have been fighting a cold war. There is no doubt that Castro loved his country, but he loved power more. This is why he did not allow democracy to thrive. He ran a one-man government and when he became ill few years ago, he handed the reins to his younger brother, Raul. The younger Castro, who was his elder brother’s defence minister and head of the armed forces, has been running the show for eight years now. At 85, age is not on his side. With his brother gone, he should be thinking of what Cuba will look like when he too eventually goes the way of every mortal.  The Castros have done their best for Cuba, but their best legacy for their country will be to leave it in the hands of capable people after they are gone. This is now the task of Raul Castro. Will he let go and allow the country to rediscover itself and chart a new course before the end comes?

  • Celebrating Castro at 90

    SIR: Ex-Cuban leader and a revolutionary, Fidel Castro turned 90 Saturday, August 13. His life has been one of struggle against imperialism.  As a law student in Havana University, Cuba, he joined revolutionary movement and was jailed in 1953 for attacking a military post. After his release from prison, he went to the US and came back to Cuba in 1956 to organize a successful revolution which overthrew President Baptista in 1959. He thereafter became president of Cuba and spent 49 years in power before old age forced him to relinquish power to his blood brother and a co-revolutionary, Raul Castro, who is in power till date.

    As the president, Castro jettisoned capitalist economy of his predecessor and restructured Cuban economy along socialist line. His reform centered on central planning of economy, healthcare and education. His anti-western policies drew the ire of the West, particularly the United States against his government. This led to economic blockade by the US, instigation of counter-revolution against his regime and assassination plots against him. Consequent upon the economic blockade, he entered into friendly relations with the defunct USSR and even allowed Moscow to install her nuclear armed missile in Cuba, just some miles from US. The standoff nearly led to war until the missile system was dismantled. He was later to support anti-colonialist movements in the Caribbeans and especially in Africa. He sent Cuban mercenaries to aid Angola, Namibia and South Africa in their war of independence. He was also a brain behind the Non Aligned Movement.

    It was an act of God that Castro survived the plots by the US to get rid of him. Even when USSR collapsed in the late 80s, Cuba weathered the storm. Contributory factors to Castro’s success are tenacity of purpose, uncommon courage and selfless leadership and most importantly, he did not betray the confidence reposed on him by the hapless Cubans. These are factors or virtues lacking in many African and indeed Third World Leaders which have deepened our underdevelopment and dependency on the capitalist west.

    We should bear in mind that the mainstay of Cuban economy when Castro came to power was sugarcane. With proper planning and focused leadership, Cuba under Castro became the largest producer of sugarcane in the world, through which she earned foreign exchange with which Cuban economy was transformed to the level it is today. Castro would be remembered for leading Cuba from a 3rd world and appendage of the US to a nation self-sufficient in her needs, with highest level of literacy in the world, and exporter of medical doctors. It is therefore heart-warming that President Obama had seen the futility of continuing economic embargo on Cuba and after about half a century, lifted economic blockade and renewing friendly ties with Havana. No wonder, in spite of his opprobrium against US and President Obama, in the speech to mark his birthday, Obama has led other world leaders to congratulate the nonagenarian revolutionary at 90. Castro is a leader that African leaders including Nigeria’s should understudy and emulate if we want to get out of the wood.

     

    • Adewuyi Adegbite,

    ayekooto05@gmail.com

  • CASTRO IS NOT DEAD, SAYS KAYWA

    CASTRO IS NOT DEAD, SAYS KAYWA

    ONE of Ghana’s finest beat makers, Kaywa, has said that Ghanaian hiplife artiste, Castro, is not dead. He made this statement in an interview with Blakk Rasta, on the Taxi Driver show on Hitz FM Tuesday, March 24.

    Reacting to speculations that he is still mourning Castro, the sound engineer was quick to set the record straight. “Castro is not dead,” he said.

    “We are going to release his song very soon. Anybody who says Castro is dead is a liar, we are still waiting for Castro and he will come,” he added.

    Castro, whose real name is TheophilusTagoe, and his friend, Janet Bandu, got missing on Sunday, July 6, last year while jet skiing on the Volta River.

    Kaywa joins the likes of Akoo Nana, BB De Boywonda, D Black and DJ Ames who believe Castro is still alive despite being missing for more than eight months.

    Kaywa is the brain behind hit songs like Where My Baby Dey by Samini, Do Da Dance by Castro and Asamoah Gyan, and Bye Bye by Asem, featuring Kwabena Kwabena.

    Kaywa also won Best Producer of the Year two years in a row at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.

  • Cuba builds first church since Castro came to power

    A neglected, weed-strewn field in a small Cuban town where there are more horses than cars seems an unlikely setting for a major shift in government policy.

    But in the isolated town of Sandino, Cuba’s first Catholic Church since the 1959 revolution took power is set to be built.

    “There is money to start, there is the construction material to start, there are the permissions to start, so everything is ready,” said Bishop Jorge Enrique Serpa Pérez, who oversees the diocese where the new church will be built.

    The Sandino church has been 56 years in the making, ever since Fidel Castro took power and Cuba became an officially atheist state.

    Religious people fell under suspicion by the new revolutionary government, but none more so than those who belonged to the Catholic Church, which was seen as being overly sympathetic to the Batista regime that Castro had driven from power.

    In the first years of the revolution, thousands of Catholic priests were jailed or forced into exile, and church property, including the Jesuit school that Castro attended, was seized by the Cuban government.

    Only with the visit in 1998 of Pope John Paul IIto the island did relations between the Cuban government and Catholic Church begin to thaw. Christmas again became a national holiday, and Cubans faced less official discrimination for practicing their faiths.

    In December, Cuban President Raul Castro thanked Pope Francis for his role in the secret talks that led to a prisoner swap between Cuba and the United States and the start of negotiations to restore full diplomatic relations.

    In 2015, church officials said requests to build new churches that had long been ensnared in red tape began to receive government approval.

    While church officials said several new Catholic houses of worship are in the works, the first will be built in Sandino, a remote town at the end of a pothole-cratered road in Cuba’s westernmost province.

    The Rev. Cirilo Castro drives that road to Sandino once a week to officiate Mass in a converted garage in the back of a house the church rents. He has lost count of the miles he has put on his green Russian Lada as part of his ministry to towns throughout the province.

    When the new Catholic church is built — the first in Sandino’s history — Castro said he would move to minster there full time.

    “I hope the church doesn’t stay within the four walls,” he said “That it will go farther than that. That with the building of the new church, there will be more people of faith,” Castro said.

    The Cuban Catholic Church desperately needs more followers in Cuba, where in recent years the syncretic religion Santeria, that mixes African religions with Catholicism, has exploded in popularity.

    The church in Sandino will take about two years to build and when completed will hold 200 people, Castro said.

    Most of the $50,000 collected so far for the new church comes from fund-raisers held by the St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Tampa, Florida.

    “Much of Tampa’s history and culture comes from Cuba,” said the Rev. Tom Morgan, St. Lawrence’s vicar. “It’s absolutely fantastic they are building a new church, and I hope to be able to visit one day.”

    Morgan said he was optimistic that recent changes in U..S Treasury Department regulations would make it possible for his church to send supplies and building materials to Cuba to help with the construction of the new church.

    As she makes her way down a path to attend Mass in Cirilo Castro’s converted garage, Digna Martinez said she has waited more than five decades for a church to be built in Sandino.

    Martinez said she, her husband and two children were those relocated to the town during early 1960s when a triumphant Fidel Castro was still battling what he called “bandits,” holdouts against his revolution waging guerrilla warfare in the countryside.

    While there is no official tally, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people suspected of plotting against the revolution were shipped to Sandino to live in a form of internal exile.

    “It was a process to make a community for political prisoners,” Martinez said. “They took our farm away and brought us here.”

    A lifelong Catholic, Martinez said one of the most devastating things about being forced to move 500 miles away from her home to a town she had never heard of was that there was no church.

    “Having a church is very important,” she said. “Many of the people here were brought up Catholic and need a church. We were baptized and prayed when we went to bed and woke up, just like our parents and grandparents taught us.”

     

    •Culled from CNN

     

     

  • Ghana meets Naija this month

    Ghana meets Naija this month

    THE fourth edition of the music concert tagged Ghana meets Naija is set to hold on Saturday, May 24. Slated for the Accra International Conference Centre, the concert features performances from seasoned musicians, including Sarkodie, Castro, Guru, Davido, Kcee and Wizboy, among others.

    The 4th edition of GHANA meets NAIJA is sponsored by telecommunication network, MTN, with support from Unibank, official sponsors of the Black Stars, Smirnoff, Africa World Airlines, Oak Plaza Hotel.