How can you get your worst enemy to refinance your country’s failing economy?

Impossible, you say.

Not so, says Fidel Castro, one of the most durable and shrewd statesmen/autocrats the West has ever seen.


To his people’s great consternation he admits that his Cuban economic model is not working. Then he tries to recant, claiming

that his remarks were misinterpreted. Too late. His brother, Raul, is forced to announce that the government is planning to lay off up to one million civil servants because the State can no longer afford the expense of their salaries.

This negates the recantation and creates great uncertainty because the soon-to-be-laid-off workers realize they will not find future employment anywhere in Cuba. They have no choice but to start planning to establish small, privately-held businesses that can, according to Cuban law, employ up to four people in addition to the owner. But where would the would-be owner find the capital necessary to start his business? The State cannot lend it to him because the State is broke.

No problem. Most of the to-be-affected workers have relatives in the US whom they will ask to finance their budding enterprises and who will not refuse to help them because the concept of ‘family’ is sacred to Cubans!

The result?

The Cuban economy will flourish, stimulated by the creation of many initially small enterprises that are bound to expand with time – and the economic model will slowly cease to be centrally controlled, its conversion financed indirectly by Uncle Sam.

Bravo Fidel. Pure genius.

Pero ojo – watch out! People with money don’t like to be told what they can and cannot do.

I've been very busy during these last three weeks:

> First I was a guest in Montreal for an hour on CJAD's Suburban Week-end radio show during which my host, Beryl Wajsman, kept reading erotic
passages from Havana Harvest to prove that Montrealers know how to write about lust and passion because our city provides a vey sensuous environment to its inhabitants.


Yes, that's me in the studio, smiling, although feeling somewhat embarrassed.

> Then came the launch of Havana Harvest at Books & Books 's Coral Gables store. The event received wide media coverage that yielded an exciting bonus: I met the gutsy Cuban-American Journalist, Olga Connor, who writes for the New Miami Herald's Spanish Language Digital Edition. She and I hit it off right from the getgo: our views about what was happening in Cuba coincided to a T.

> After that I flew to George Town, capital of the Cayman Islands, where I did a book signing at the Book Nook. According to the staff on duty, over a thousand people visited the store on the day I was there of whom over two-thirds were paying customers. I sold out the entire Havana Harvest store inventory by the end of the day.


> Wendy Lauer, an old friend who lives in the Caymans, held a modest reception at her friend Pam Donough's house in my honour. The cocktail party, called for 6:30 pm, was expected to last for an hour and a half. It ended when the last guest left at midnight.

> When I got back to Montreal I completed a virtual interview with Kathleen Jones, a British Book Blogger who has recently visited Cuba and who wanted to find out more about me, my book and my connection with the Castro Regime. You can find her blog at www.kathleenjonesauthor.blogspot.com

Writing To Fidel

Before going to the launch in Montreal of my latest book, HAVANA HARVEST, I grabbed a copy and went to the post office where I learned that it was not possible to send registered letters to Cuba. “What’s the next quickest, surest thing?” I asked. “Send it as a small package via Air International,” the clerk answered.

After writing “To Fidel: I hope to see you again soon. Happy 84th Birthday and enjoy the read,” on the inside front cover of the book I slid it into a padded envelope and sent it on its way.
It cost me $44.03 in Canadian funds. I doubt he’ll thank me for the present, let alone read my book. No matter: I have a copy of the front of the envelope and a receipt which I will show my friends whenever the opportunity arises.

Then I went to the launch, where, as you can see from these photos, a good time was had by all and many books sold.

I also feel good about an interview with Sebastian Del Marmol who is with the Miami New Times which resulted in a neat mention of my activities in that paper.

The Story Behind the Story - How I Came to Write 'Havana Harvest'

I would never have written HAVANA HARVEST, my latest novel, had I not met Dania. It was she who had introduced me to the higher ups of the Cuban revolutionary government and it was she who had told me the story about a General Ochoa whom the Cubans had executed in 1989.

Dania and her husband were tasked by Fidel in December 1958 to start a clandestine revolutionary movement in Havana, but Batista’ secret police captured them a few days before the dictator fled the country. She gave birth to her baby in prison. Her husband was badly tortured and later committed suicide.

Ochoa’s case is much discussed of late in Latin American circles, so I decided to call Dania whom I had met in Havana shortly after the so-called triumph of the Castroite Revolution. She had fought in the Sierra Maestra with Fidel and Raul and Che. In fact she had been Raul’s secretary while the rebel army was encamped in the mountains of south-eastern Cuba.

I asked Dania (who lives in the States now and with whom I had kept in touch) what she thought: was Ochoa really guilty of dealing in drugs on his own without Fidel having specifically ordered him to do so, or was he just the fall guy who took the rap for the Castroites once the world learned that the Cubans were helping the Medellin Cartel?

Her answer was laconic: Google Lieutenant Colonel Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, watch his YouTube videos and then make up your own mind about Ochoa.

I’ll let you know next week what I was able to find out.

Books About Cuba - Mine and Fidel's

I am thinking seriously of preparing a set of lectures entitled ‘Understanding the Cuban Revolution’ because I feel that my existing contacts with certain Cubans and the time I spent in that country from 1959 to 1968 allow me to offer useful insight into the mindset of the people who lived through the tumultuous events of that decade. My acquaintances are still in contact, one way or another, with this beautiful island whose population has been going through such a difficult time for so many years.

Some of my contacts were intimately connected with the revolutionary movement either as fighters or as members of the clandestine movement organized by the revolutionaries in their efforts to overthrow the dictator Batista.

Fidel Castro has now decided to publish a book about his revolution’s early days. Once it’s out I propose to devote a number of future blogs to my reaction to the book and my take on its content. I am especially interested in finding out about how Fidel will tackle the subject of his early associates’ desertion or disappearance or ‘treason’ or suicide or corruption.

HAVANA HARVEST, my latest novel, is an effort to shed light, in a highly fictionalized manner, on at least one such happenstance: the trial and execution of Brigadier General Arnaldo Ochoa.

Havana Harvest

my new book Havana Harvest has been published and will be in stores on Sept. 1, 2010