Fidel Castro Exposed by Former Bodyguard
May 11, 2015
Communism is a ruse which allowed Fidel Castro to force
ten million Cubans to work for $20-30 a month in the name of
socialism while he amassed $900 million from drug trafficking
and corruption. Cuba was the Spain of the New World.
But after the revolution, it was frozen in time; Havana a city in decay.
Why do US liberals idolize this evil and ruthless dictator?
Ex-Bodyguard Exposes Castro's Drug Dealing etc.
by William Jasper
A private luxury island estate with yacht, palatial home and top-of-the-line amenities. A royal lifestyle. Mistresses and illegitimate children. A drug empire. Murder of loyal subordinates for political expediency. These are some of the revelations in a new book, The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Lider Maximo by Juan Reinaldo Sanchez. Published in France last year, it is being released in English on May 12 by St. Martin's Press.
For the better part of six decades, communist dictator Fidel Castro (shown) has been the darling of the Hollywood glitter set, the tenured radicals of academia, and the establishment media gallery. Even when forced by unavoidable facts to acknowledge his despotic tendencies and the oppressive nature of his regime, Castro's apologists have always sought to soften all criticism by claims that "El Jefe" (The Chief) is a "man of the people," a "beloved leader," a "tireless worker," a true son of the revolution. A central part of that scripted myth is that the selfless "Lider Maximo" (Maximum Leader), now 88 years old, lives an austere lifestyle, in solidarity with the economic hardships endured by the Cuban people in their Castro-imposed socialist sinkhole.
Now, as the Obama administration prepares to normalize relations with Cuba, the book by Sanchez is shedding new light on the dark shadows and hidden corners of the totalitarian regime run by Fidel and Raul Castro, including the typical double standard that has been the hallmark of all Communist Party-led "People's" regimes: luxury and privilege for the Party leaders -- privation and squalor for the people.
The book by Sanchez appeared first in French last year and is appearing in a English edition to be released by St. Martin's Press (an imprint of publishing giant Macmillan) on May 12. The New York Post published pre-release excerpts from the book on May 3.
(Crumbling capital, Havana) In the chapter on Castro's drug trafficking, Sanchez relates the cold-blooded manner in which Fidel sacrificed two of his most trusted lieutenants, Generals Arnaldo Ochoa and José Abrantes, in order to cover up his own role in the narcotics trade.
"In 1986, when economic aid from Moscow was starting to dry up," Sanchez reported, "Castro founded the MC Department (for moneda covertible, or 'covertible currency'), which traded in goods -- illegal and legal -- for hard currency from third parties, principally Panama. The MC Department soon acquired another nickname: the 'Marijuana and Cocaine Department.'"
"But the Americans became suspicious of Cuba's drug dealing, and scandal loomed," Sanchez noted.
According to Castro's former bodyguard:
Fidel decided to take action to nip any possible suspicion about him in the bud. He used the official daily paper, Granma, to inform its readers that an inquiry had been opened. Among the arrested were the respected revolutionary general Arnaldo Ochoa and the minister I had overheard talking to Castro, José Abrantes.
The Machiavellian Fidel, while declaring himself "appalled" by what he pretended to have discovered, claimed that "the most honest imaginable political and judicial process" was under way.
Obviously, the reality was completely different. Comfortably installed in his brother Raúl's office, Fidel Castro and Raúl followed the live proceedings of Causa No.1 and Causa No. 2 on the closed-circuit TV screens. Both trials were filmed -- which is why one can today see large sections of it on YouTube -- and broadcast to every Cuban home, though not live: The government wanted to be able to censor anything that might prove embarrassing.
"Fidel even had the means to alert the president of the court discreetly," says Sanchez, "via a warning light, whenever he thought a session should be interrupted. And during breaks, the president of the court, the public prosecutor and the jury members would swarm out onto the fourth floor of the ministry to take their instructions from Fidel, who, as usual, organized and ordered everything, absolutely everything."
General Ochoa, who had served Castro faithfully, was executed. The execution was recorded on videotape.
"Castro made us watch it," Sanchez records. "That's what the Comandante was capable of to keep his power: not just of killing but also of humiliating and reducing to nothing men who had served him devotedly."
Gen. Abrantes was sentenced to prison, where he died under suspicious circumstances two years later. According to Sanchez, the trial and execution of Gen. Ochoa caused Raul Castro to plunge into "the worst bout of alcoholism of his life. He had taken part in the assassination of his friend."
But, according to Sanchez there was an additional factor responsible for Raul's descent into alcoholism: fear. "Having watched the elimination of his counterpart, Abrantes, Raúl could logically fear that he, too, would be hounded from his position of defense minister."
Sanchez says he witnessed Fidel admonishing his younger brother to stop the drunkenness and assured him that if he pulled himself together he would not suffer the same fate as Ochoa or Abrantes. The aged tyrant stepped down as "president" in 2006, citing health reasons, and formally handed over power to Raul (age 83) in 2008. Fidel had not appeared in public for more than a year, when he emerged on March 30 of this year to meet a delegation of fellow Marxists from Venezuela.
LUXURY LIFE STYLE
"Contrary to what he has always said, Fidel has never renounced capitalist comforts or chosen to live in austerity. Au contraire, his mode de vie is that of a capitalist without any kind of limit," Sanchez writes. "He has never considered that he is obliged by his speech to follow the austere lifestyle of a good revolutionary."
Sánchez, now 66 and living in America, says Castro enjoyed a private island -- Cayo Piedra -- which he describes as a "garden of Eden" where Fidel entertains foreign celebrities and political dignitaries.
Castro's other choice properties, he notes, include a huge estate in Havana boasting a medical center, rooftop bowling alley, basketball court, and luxury bungalow with private marina on the coast.
In an extended interview on French television, Sanchez provided much additional information about Castro and his regime that clashes sharply with the rose-colored propaganda dispensed by the Fidel-friendly U.S. media choir.
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Related
Makow- Che! The West's Fatal Embrace of Communism
But Sánchez, now 65 and living in America, claims Castro enjoyed a private island - Cayo Piedra, south of the Bay of Pigs, scene of the failed CIA-sponsored invasion of 1961 - describing it as a "garden of Eden" where he entertained selected guests including the writer GabrÃel Garcia Márquez, and enjoyed spear-fishing.
The former bodyguard says Castro sailed to the island on his luxury yacht, the Aquarama II, fitted out with rare Angolan wood and powered by four motors sent by the Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev.
"Castro would sit in his large black leather director's armchair ... a glass of Chivas Regal on the rocks (his favourite drink) in his hand," writes Sánchez.
Other presidential properties, he writes, included an "immense" estate in Havana complete with rooftop bowling alley, basketball court and fully equipped medical centre, and a luxury bungalow with private marina on the coast...
Sánchez says Castro's dolce vita was a "crazy privilege" while Cubans suffered serious hardship in the 1990s as the economy "collapsed like a house of cards" after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and eastern bloc with which Havana had done almost 80% of its foreign business.
His compatriots, he says, were also unaware of their leader's complicated love life, his womanising and subsequent tribe of at least nine children, not least because Cuban media was forbidden to mention them.
The Cuban leader kept a gun at his feet when travelling in his Mercedes and never went anywhere without at least 10 bodyguards, including two "blood donors". At home he would get up late, and start work around midday "after a frugal breakast".
He recalls how Castro bugged everyone, including Hugo Chávez, and insisted his bodyguard jot down everything he did in a notebook "for history".
Sánchez says for nearly two decades he saw more of Castro than his own family. "He was a god. I drank all his words, believed all he said, followed him everywhere and would have died for him," he writes. He claims he finally realised that Castro considered Cuba "belonged" to him.
"He was its master in the manner of a 19th century landowner. For him wealth was above all an instrument of power, of political survival, of personal protection."
Recalling how Castro kept Angolan diamonds in a Cohiba cigar box, he writes: "Sometimes, Fidel had a little of the mentality of a pirate of the Caribbean."
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A said (May 11, 2015):
I am certain that there are many things one could criticize a communist regime for, least of which is poor maintenance of infrastructure, but this guy ? Really?
All of his "revelations"are nothing more than unproven allegations aimed at a public all too willing to demonize a gut they have been told is a bad guy for decades.
What this looks like more than a tell-all expose is an ex-pat with an axe to grind and the foresight to be able to capitalize on a bogey man.
IF there was such a large scale drug running operation why is his book the first anyone has heard of it ? If, in fact, Fidel had been lavishly living while his country was in squalor don't think for a nano moment that the CIA would not have been dropping photographic proof of this all over Cuba in order to foment internal strife and their favorite rite of "regime change".
In my OPINION this book is a work of fantasy and should be promoted as such, instead of some sort of AH HA moment "exposing" the life of a guy that is at the end of his run, just so that this is the only legacy the world will remember.
Most people do not realize that communism and capitalism are the same when the dust clears; the few at the top control everything while those at the bottom make do with whatever is left over.
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A
You're a pathetic asshole and fool. I have been to Cuba and there is no doubt Communism has been a human catastrophe. How you can defend a totalitarian dictatorship makes me sick.
henry