TOTALITARIAN IMAGES

DECREE 288: HOUSING LAW IN CUBA

2011-11-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

One of the earliest promises of the Cuban Revolution was an immediate solution to the housing crisis as stated in Fidel Castro's platform during the History Will Absolve Me speech. Indeed, forceful eviction of peasants or "desalojos" were presented in  revolutionary propaganda as the quintessential image representative of  the Batista regime. More than half a century later, lack of housing remains as the main social conflict that more than a million ordinary Cubans or 'Cubanos de a Pie.'

It is in this context and perhaps in response to a possible threat of a rebellion from bellow given the chronic lack of housing that affects Cubans that the government recently decreed a new ‘Housing Law’.This law has been praised in certain media outlets without proper analysis is mined with discrimination and an archaic definition of what constitutes property in Cuba. Under the new law, Cubans for the first time since the Castro regime conquered political power in January 1, 1959 will be allowed to buy and sell their houses. But as the saying goes “the devil is in the details.” The law of course does not occur in a vacuum or due to a government interest in the welfare of the people. One needs to understand that lack of housing is the main social issue that impacts most Cubans today and as such it has the potential for a popular explosion against the regime. 

For example, Cubans who abandon the country can sell their properties or bequeath them to relatives, but they cannot keep their houses while living permanently in another country without a government permit. The state on the other hand investigates the “legitimate” origin of those who buy a house as a condition for the sale to go through or be prohibited. With a totalitarian regime controlling the politics and the economy of an entire society it is very difficult to prove the “legitimacy” (according with government definition) of your money. Only government officials can be benefited by measures of this type. The rest of society would have to find ways (as usual) to trick the government bureaucracy, bribe a few people in the process, and get what they want. The most questionable part of DECREE 288 is Article 110 that entrusts the Council of Ministries and its President ( Raúl Castro) with ample powers to decide over properties located in certain areas of the country. In other words, this means that the properties located in the best neighbourhoods (Vedado, Nuevo Vedado, Miramar, Siboney, Tarará, Varadero, etc) are reserved for the government elite.

Article 110: The Executive Committee of the Council of Ministries or his President can decide in reference to households located in certain areas of the country …. Source: Decree 288

There is of course the issue of ‘legitimacy’ in proving the origin of your money. In a totalitarian state where the government controls all political, cultural, social and economic activity how can anyone other than a limited number of state official of the highest rank, certain musicians and a bunch of professionals who travel and receive revenue in US dollars can prove that their money is legitimate?  Certainly, this excludes the ordinary Cubans who receive remittances from relatives abroad but cannot prove the “authenticity” (according to state perceptions) of their money as the agency or networks they use is in most cases not connected with the Cuban government.  The rest only leaves us with those that thrive under the ‘Illegal” economy and in Cuba the state deems illegal most economic activities.

Graphic Evidence that proofs how the Cuban government evicts people from their houses.

A family with 4 children, a pregnant mother in the province of Holguin, Cuba living on the side of the highway as the government evicted from their house with the excuse that "their houses were illegally constructed." Pictures from The Real Cuba (April, 2008). History repeats once again. The forceful eviction or "desalojos" that were harshly condemned in revolutionary propaganda, is now recurrent image in present day Cuba.

Prior to the issuing of Decree 288, there were other similar laws that equally gave the Cuban government ample powers over houses and even small villages settled in places the regime "deemed of interest."

For example this document is a copy of 'Notification of Forceful Expropriation' handed to Enrique Dominguez Gutierrez of Las Morlas, Varadero, Cuba by the corporation ALMEST a subsidiary of Cuba's Armed Forces. The document orders Dominguez and his family to abandon the location as it is of "state interest." Source: The Real Cuba January 16, 2008.

The Village of Las Morlas, Varadero, Cuba. January, 2008

A tractor demolishing Las Morlas

Police surveillance built in the entrance of this village to prevent former inhabitants of this location from entering again. Source The Real Cuba, January 16, 2008

REFERENCES:

Castro Internet Archive, History Will Absolve Me

Gaceta Oficial de Cuba, November 2, 2011: CE Decreto-Ley No. 288; BCC R. No. 85/11; INV RC. 01/11; Rs. Nos. 342, 343/11; MFP R. No. 351/11; MINJUS R. No. 270/11.

The Real Cuba

Wikipedia, Fulgencio Batista

Yoanis Sanchez, The Starting Line, Generation Y

FORBIDDEN MUSIC IN THE USSR

2011-11-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

Evidence shows that totalitarian regimes approach certain type of music as a threat to power and ideology. It turns out that oppressive governments fear the effect certain music creates on the people and how this impacts the relationship between subordinates and those in power. Those of us who grew up in Cuba understand the meaning of music censorship as the Cuban government adopted a similar anachronistic mentality when censoring music throughout the past decades, from the Beatles to Porno para Ricardo. The author of this blog for example was reprimanded with a note on the 'Student File/Expediente Acumulativo' that pointed to 'ideological deviation/diversionismo ideologico for writing the name of rock bands in my class notebook.

Browsing through the web in search of similar blogs on totalitarianism I came across this interesting post from a Blog titled 'The Weirdo's Dairy' by alias Fuzz (a.k.a Simona Jareckaite) from Birzai, Lithuania.

The post reproduces a 1985 document extracted from the Soviet archives that shows important evidence about music censorship in the former Soviet Union. The document compiles a list of musicians and groups that government representatives in the Nikolayev regional of Ukraine considered "harmful" to Soviet ideology. Eventually these ideological bureaucrats ordered the Konsomol (Communist Youth in the Soviet Union) to prohibit reproduction of this music in discotheques.

Translation of the document by Simona Jareckaite
“Group Name and Type of Propaganda” - Extracts
For a complete list see: Forbidden freedom: Rock music in the USSR and Soviet Lithuania

6. Kiss - neofascism, punk, violence

9. Iron Maiden - violence, religious obscurantism

10. Judas Priest - anticommunism, racism

11. AC/DC - neofascism, violence

13. Black Sabbath - violence, religious obscurantism

14. Alice Cooper - violence, vandalism

16. Scorpions - violence

19. Pink Floyd - distortion of Soviet foreign policy ("Soviet aggression in Afghanistan")

24. Donna Summer - eroticism

25. Tina Turner - sex

26. Junior English - sex

29. Ramones - punk

30. Van Halen - anti-Soviet propaganda

31. Julio Iglesias - neofascism

34. Village People - violence

For the complete 3 parts document please click this link to redirect your browser to the Weirdo's Dairy, Forbidden freedom: Rock music in the USSR and Soviet Lithuania

FACES OF HATE

2011-10-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

Terror is an essential part of every totalitarian regime. Along with the Secret Police, organized snitching and other coercive methods used by repressive states, 'Hate Mobs' have played a fundamental role as disguised members of the spontaneous masses who allegedly repress dissidents on their own initiative. The term 'Mob' has been widely used by historians to describe the events that led to the French Revolution and the terror that followed. A form of organized collective violence, 'Hate Mobs' members are hand picked and organized by oppressive governments. Their existence is a calculated move by those in power to intimidate the citizenry and play with outside image and propaganda. By having a group of supposed "civilians" (rather than men and woman in uniform) repressing human rights activists, independent journalists, bloggers, dissidents, a government can later on claim not being responsible for the actions of these mobs. Note that whereas some of the examples shown here correspond to government use of mobs against political opponents, in other cases mob violence originates in the totalitarian spirit of certain groups in society due to political, racial, ethnic, nationalistic and religious intolerance. Besides the common government involvement in certain dictatorial/tyrannical regimes, the existence of mob violence occurs also as a result of anarchy, inability/unwillingness of the police to operate at a particular moment or due to the chaos that occurs in civil wars, popular revolts, revolutions, etc.

CUBA: QUICK RESPONSE BRIGADES/BRIGADAS DE RESPUESTA RAPIDA

Whereas the name 'Brigadas de Respuesta Rapida or 'Quick Response Brigades' is a name given to state organized mobs in Cuba since 1988-1989, the Castro regime has organized since 1960 mobs of this type against those the state considered their "enemies" - political dissidents, independent journalists, human rights activists, artists, intellectuals, homosexuals, prostitutes, religious people, those leaving the country, etc.

Hate Mobs in Cuba, 1980-2011.

A collage of pictures compiled by the author of this Blog as the Logo for 'El Archivo del Chiva' or 'The Snitch Archive'. These faces correspond to state organized hate mobs in Cuba. These mobs do not constitute in most cases the "spontaneous acts of the people" against those that dissent against the state as the Cuban government claims. They are hand picked members from Interior Ministry, Communist Youth, Federation of University Students, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Blas Roca Brigades, and other ideological organizations. Note that it takes a certain kind of evil human being to commit despicable acts of this type. The original photos were taken by foreign news correspondents in Cuba (AP, AFP, Reuters) as well as brave dissidents, bloggers, independent journalists and anonymous Cubans.

Weapons used by 'Quick Action Brigades/Brigadas de Respuesta Rapida' in Cuba to repress dissidents. Source: Photo sent from Cuba by political dissident Luis Felipe Rojas and published in his Blog Cruzar las Alambradas on May 29, 2011.

This is a written evidence that proofs the Cuban government encourages and organizes Quick Action Brigades. This is a 2 page document extracted from a government board in the province of Holguin, Cuba. It delineates instructions given by the regime to his followers on how to create Brigades in government enterprises (Overwhelmingly most enterprises in Cuba belong to the government), the amount of members for each brigade, the type of "rustic" weaponry to be used by squadrons, the ideological leader, etc. Source: Document sent from Cuba by Luis Felipe Rojas and published in his Blog Cruzar las Alambradas on May 29, 2011

Quick Response Brigades/Brigadas de Respuesta Rapida en Cuba armed with maces to repress dissidents. Placard in the back reads: "Socialism Here." Original source for this photo is unknown to the author of this Blog.

December 10, 2007. International Day for Human Rights. A picture of Dr. Darsy Ferrer (blue jeans and jacket/with his wife) As every year on this day Dr. Darsy Ferrer leads a group of protesters in Havana to publicly condemn discrimination and human rights abuses in Cuba. In response, the Cuban regime deployed the Quick Response Brigades and the State Security Police (visible and invisible with police dressed in uniform and civilian clothes) to end the protest by force. Photo from AP/El Nuevo Herald

What follows compiles pictures of the Quick Response Brigades against Dr. Ferrer's protest on Dec 10, 2007. Approximately 100 government organized brigades were sent by the regime to the site of the protest.

Regime followers accused dissidents of being "mercenaries" "scum" and "traitors." Photo from AP/El Nuevo Herald.

Collective Hysteria and extremism is what every totalitarian regime encourages among his most devoted followers. Photo from AP/El Nuevo Herald.

Cult of personality reflected in the 'Quick Response Brigades' shouts and hurrahs to their rulers: 'Long live Fidel' 'Long Live Raúl'. Photo from AP/El Nuevo Herald.

A leading thug in the Quick Response Brigades. He participated in state repression against Dr. Darsy Ferrer in 2006 and 2007. The level of 'screaming' 'hate' and 'extremism' makes this a reenactment of 'The Two Minutes of Hate' in George Orwell's 1984 novel? All previous photos from AP/El Nuevo Herald.

Another important target of government repression in Cuba is against The Ladies in White/Damas de Blanco, created soon after the 'Black Spring/Privamera Negra' del 2003 when the Cuban government arrested hundreds of human rights activists, independent journalists and dissidents. In response to the wave of repression launched by the Cuban regime, a group of women established the Ladies in White in the Spring of 2003. For the past decade, these brave women have led public protests through the streets of Havana, Santiago de Cuba and other provinces in demand for the liberation of all political prisoners in Cuba. 'Quick Response Brigades' have been sent by the government to repress Ladies in White since their inception as an organization.

March, 2011. House of Laura Pollán in Havana surrounded by Quick Action Brigades. A Lady in White harassed by hate mobs. Government Brigades are attempting to block the march of the Ladies in White. Source: Rolando Pujol / EFE / El Nuevo Herald

April, 2010. Quick Response Brigade members attempt to mocker the Ladies in White without understanding the effect of these photos as demonstrations of extremism and hatred by organized followers of the Castro regime towards dissidents and human rights activists. Original sources for the previous 5 photos is unknown to the author of this Blog.

August, 2011. Violence against a member of the Ladies in White by Quick Response Brigades. This picture shows a female member of the Cuba's State Security applying a Judo choke technique to arrest this brave dissident and disable her capacity to speak. This is a common repressive method in Cuba aimed to prevent dissidents from shouting for freedom while been arrested. Photo from El Nuevo Herald.

December 10, 2009. Laura Pollán (1948-2011) (white T-shirt with the number 75 which is the number of political prisoners arrested in 2003 0 and a flower in her hand) founder/leader of the Ladies in White led a street demonstration during the International Day for Human Rights. In the picture she is surrounded by Quick Response Brigades who offend her and the Ladies in White. Photos from El Nuevo Herald.

December 10, 2009. Note that this thug (yellow/brown blouse) is a common face in the Quick Response Brigades. Photo from El Nuevo Herald.

Carrying mazes camouflaged with folded newspapers, a Quick Brigade member prevents the mobility/pushes back Berta Soler (Co-founder of the Ladies in White) 10 Dec, 2009. Photo from El Nuevo Herald.

10 Dec, 2009. A hysterical member of the Quick Response Brigades shouting all sorts of insults against Ladies in White. Most likely this old lady is a leading member of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) in her neighborhood. Photo from El Nuevo Herald.

5 March, 2011. A member of the Ladies in White forcibly arrested and thrown to the floor by female members of the State Security.

Arrest of Reina Luisa Tamayo mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo who was murdered by the Cuban state as a result of police brutality while incarcerated. In this picture, a female member of the State Security arrested Reina Luisa Tamayo who led numerous protests in memory of her murdered son and for the freedom of Cuba. Photo from El Nuevo Herald.

20 November, 2009. Photo of Reinaldo Escobar (middle) arrested by State Security Agents. When Cuban blogger and independent journalist Reinaldo Escobar publicly challenged a state security agent in charge of blogger/dissident surveillance (Agente Rodney) to a public debate, the government responded with force rather than reason. The regime sent the 'Quick Action Brigades' to the site where Escobar was and organized a Repudiation Act against him. State security agents kidnapped Escobar and transported took him to one of the most marginal towns in Havana where they released him late at night. Objective? To encourage that common delinquents assaulted and kill Escobar. Source: Batalla Contra las Ideas, Blog Del Compañero via Fotos desde Cuba Hoy (original links from Fotos desde Cuba/El Nuevo Herald no longer exist).

April-May, 1980. Brutal beating in Cuba by state organized 'Hate Mobs' against former political prisoners lining up in the Official Interest Section in Havana the in April-May, 1980 during the period known as the 'Mariel Exodus .' Picture from Cuban State Television.

April-May, 1980. Hate mobs in Cuba with placards quoting words from a speech by Fidel Castro given on May 1, 1980. The pogroms were directed against Cubans who decided to exit the country: In the placards it says: "Cuba for Workers: Get out all those who live from the sweat of our work." "The scum has to leave the country"

April-May, 1980. Hate mobs in Cuba with placards that stated: "Out with the scums" "Out with anti socials."

PANAMA: DIGNITY BATALLIONS - NORIEGA DICTATORSHIP

WorldPress photo. Arrest of Billy Ford by Dignity Batallions

Manuel Antonio Noriega and Fidel Castro.

Dignity Batallions were created at the end of Manuel Antonio Noriega's dictatorship. Noriega was a corrupt dictator with links to drug trafficking, terrorist/drug groups such as the FARC and several drug Cartels from Colombia and the the Fidel Castro regime who inundated Panamá with spies and laundry money operations. Most likely Noriega imitated the idea of the Dignity Batallions from Castro. Batalloneros or Dignity Batallion members were followers of Noriega's dictatorship from the lower classes (farmer and peasants) trained to represspolitical opponents who complained about government fraud in the elections of 7 May 1989. Opponents were followers of the political candidate for president Guillermo Endara. The picture shows the arrest of Guillermo 'Billy' Ford the running mate of Endara for the vice presidency. Ford eventually became vide president under the Endara presidency after the US led invasion and subsequent return to democracy in Panamá. Photo appeared in 1989 in the cover of Time Magazine and Newsweek. Ford eventually became vice president after the overthrow of the Noriega dictatorship in December, 1989. Photo also shown in Noriega's Panamá.

Batalloneros or Dignity Batallion members in the Santa Fe Plaza in Panama City on 10 May, 1989. Source: Noriega's Panamá.

THAILAND: PRO GOVERNMENT MOBS - SUNDARAVEJ REGIME

September 3, 2008. State of Emergency in Thailand. Pro-Government mobs in Bangkok, Thailand brandished weapons to break an opposition march. Opponents demanded that Prime Minister Amak Sundaravej quit from office. Photograph: Wason Wanichakorn/AP/The Guardian

VENEZUELA: BOLIVARIAN CIRCLES - CHAVEZ REGIME

With 2.3 million members nation wide in Venezuela, The Bolivarian Circles/Circulos Bolivarianos are rank and file organizations created by the Hugo Chavez government to spread the ideas of the so called Bolivarian Revolution among the population at large, specially the lower classes. opposition members in Venezuela have criticized these "circles" as violent hordes used to repressed those that dissent against the Chavista regime.

The 'children's division of the Bolivarian Circles/Circulos Bolivarianos. Source: Reportero 24 The use of minors for political purposes, indoctrination and extremist tendencies is a major human rights violation. Bolivarian Circles Logo - Source: Google Images

Armed members of the Bolivarian Circles in Venezuela. Source: Google Images

INDIA - HINDUTVA MOBS

An extreme form of ultra nationalism and alleged Hindu superiority is practiced by the Hindutva Mobs in India. Their doctrine is based on hate and violence against 'Non-Hindu' minorities. Source/Photo from Axis of Logic: Shahid Siddiqi, A Story of Hate & Terror

UNITED STATES - ANGRY WHITE MOBS AND RACIAL SEGREGATION

Even at the heat of a free nation there are certain groups that preach totalitarianism. Behind every extremist attitude there is a totalitarian mentality in action. There is exception to this rule in the case of certain groups in the United States up to the 1950s and 1960s when certain groups persisted in maintaining racial segregation in the South. Actions resulting from this mentality resulted in angry white mobs physically attacking and repressing Afro Americans, specially those in the Civil Rights Movement. The picture shows the use of violence by white mobs against an Afro American in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Source: Bilgrimage

INDIA: FLASH MOBS, POLICE INACTION AND RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

September 7, 2011. Religious intolerance in the city of Karnataka in Southern India. A violent mob physically attacked to Jehovah Witnesses who were peacefully speaking about the Bible. Source: Press Review Online: JW News, Inaction of Police Emboldens Mob Violence in Southern India

ANTI SEMITIC VIOLENCE

Mob Violence against Jews in 1881 during the rule of Tsar Alexander III in Russia. (Newspaper illustration)
"From Russian погром "a wreaking of havoc" Source: Listen Vanessa

1896 - Switzerland. Anti-Semitic outpouring unleashed by Dreyfus trial.
"Reporting on the trial for a Viennese newspaper, journalist Theodor Herzl notes the anti-Antisemitism rampant in the very cradle of Jewish emancipation. He concludes that full acceptance of Jews in Europe is impossible."
The newspaper reports mobs shouting: "Death to the Jews! Death to the traitors!"
Source: Listen Vanessa

JAMAICA: HOMOPHOBIC MOBS

February 15, 2007: An angry homophobic mob of 2,000 gathered around a pharmacy in St. Andrew, Jamaica because 3 men whom they had branded as homosexuals were hiding inside. The police was called to the scene to rescue the 3 "visibly terrified men." The police had to fire tear gas to the crowd to escort the men into their vehicles. Source: Towleroad, Angry Mob of 2,000 attacks, Stones Gays in Jamaica.

These photos were initially taken from El Nuevo Herald/AP/AFP/Reuters and other foreign correspondents in Cuba. They were also taken by courageous bloggers, independent journalists, dissidents in Cuba and sent abroad. Most of these pictures have widely circulated on the Internet and are also available in various websites on Cuba. In many cases the URL (original source) to the initial links where I obtained the pictures no longer exist as websites such as El Nuevo Herald newspaper leave only certain news available for a brief period of time to non-members and then the photos/links/news are removed from accessibility. This Blog in any way claims authorship for any of these photos. My intention is absolutely non profit. The objective of 'Totalitarian Images' is merely educational and condemnatory. I aim publish on this Blog information, analysis and historical facts on totalitarian regimes as well as make visible violence and human rights violations to those interested on the topic. In most cases the author of this Blog will refer to other websites that have also published these pictures.

Interested on this topic? Here are some educational references:

Ann Coutler, Demonic (A book that describes the psychology of mobs)
Gustave Le Bon, The crowd : a study of the popular mind
Gustave Le Bon, The psychology of the people
Williand D. Carrigan, ed., Lynching reconsidered: New perspective in the study of mob violence
Mobs during the French Revolution. Gallery of Images
Mobs during the Russian Revolutions. Gallery of Images

WHERE THERE IS POWER, THERE IS RESISTANCE

2011-10-26T06:12:00.000-07:00

This photo shows a political opponent (opositor) in Cuba arrested in the province of Santa Clara by Cuba's Revolutionary National Police (PNR). Image from STR/AFP/Getty via El Nuevo Herald who published this picture on October 26, 2011 in a post titled "Denuncian Acoso de Opositores en Cuba."

As the saying goes: Where there is power, there is resistance. This is the case in today’s Cuba where political opposition has expanded throughout the island. In the past, the core of political opposition lived mostly in the capital city Havana but in the past years the political spectrum in Cuba has changed considerably, particularly after the creation of the Coalición Central Opositora or Oppossition’s Central Coalition. This group operates in the province of Villa Clara and throughout different towns in the central region of the island. The Cuban government finds this group particularly threatening for diverse reasons. Their members are mostly young with a heavy representation of Afro Cubans and women and their resistance is open and public through street demonstrations in rural areas that in the past did not know or saw open signs of political dissidence. The Coalición is integrated by ordinary Cubans or cubanos de a pie across race, gender, class and generations. They call for “the end of impunity, the end of police aggression against opponents and the end of dictatorship in Cuba” They demand a thorough investigation on the death of one of their members Juan Wilfredo Soto who died of pancreatitis days after he was the target of a brutal police beating in a public park in his native city of Santa Clara. As with most things related to politics in Cuba, the Coalición takes inspiration from previous history and martyrs such as Pedro Luis Boitel, a university student leader sentenced to 10 years in prison for opposing the revolution’s disregards for personal liberties and its communist adoption. He was tortured, beaten and died in a hunger strike while incarcerated.

More information on Juan Wilfredo Soto and the Central Opposition Coalition:

Cuban Democratic Directorate: "Protest in Cuba to demand whereabouts of detained and beaten activists."

The Miami Herald: "Cuba Police Says it did not beat dissident."

Along the Malecón: "Dissident’s death sparks alarm in Cuba."

Babalu Blog: "Cuban opposition members in Santa Clara under siege."

Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter: "Is this the Start of a Bleak Cuban Autumn?"

LEADER OF CUBAN WOMEN'S DISSIDENT GROUP DEAD

2011-10-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Photo of Laura Pollán. Laura Pollan with a broken arm and a cast. Her injury was the result of a police beating in reprisal for her demand to liberate all political prisoners in Cuba. In the picture, taken days before her hospitalization, Pollán is leading a street demonstration while signalling the 'L' for 'libertad/freedom.' For the past 3 years, Pollán suffered almost constant harassment campaign of Hate Mobs, organized by the Cuban government. Picture also referred in news blog: 'Notica de Noticias'

Last Friday night, Laura Pollán a dissident leader and founder of the group Ladies in White died of a “heart attack” in the Calixto Garcia hospital in Havana. The Ladies in White were founded in the spring of 2003. They protest the incarceration of hundreds of Cubans for political reasons during the so called “Dark Spring” of 2003. Over the past years, Pollán had been at the forefront of popular protests throughout the streets of Havana pressuring the Raul Castro regimen to liberate all political prisoners as well ending the laws and institutions responsible for putting disaffected Cubans under bars. Pollán was hospitalized with a “rare” respiratory disease. In the process of her hospitalization she was diagnosed with Dengue and 8 days latter was report by Cuban authorities to have died of a “heart attack.” Her husband Hector Maceda (a political prisoner) declared his intention to investigate his wife’s death and any possible government involvement in it.

Since late February, 2002, Orlando Zapata and Wilfredo Soto, two Cuban political opponents have died as a result of brutal police beatings.

Source: Miami Herald, Pollán, founder of the Ladies in White, dies of heart attack

DUVALIER: SUPERSTITON, TERROR AND POWER

2011-01-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

In recent days the former dictator of Haiti Jean Claude Duvalier (AKA 'Baby Doc') from 1971 to 1986 returned to his country. He was greeted by a group of supporters and an inefficient legal system that barely laid mediocre charges (corruption) rather than holding him accountable for the thousands of killings during his regime.

Most likely the intentions of the former dictator are returning to power. Duvalier escaped Haiti in 1986 in the midst of a popular rebellion against his regime. Duvalier is rresponsible for the imprisonment, torture and killings of thousands of Haitians during his regime.A peculiarity of his dictatorship was the ‘voodoo’ witchcraft’ as a means to intimidate a nation predisposed towards superstitions and with the highest levels of illiteracy and poverty world wide.

What follows is a photo gallery with the most onerous aspects of the Duvalier dictatorship and what can Haiti expect if this thug returns to power:

Photo taken from Latin American Studies

The 'Tonton Macoutes' or Secret Police were the main force used by Jean Claude Duvalier to intimidate political opponents. This terror militia was created during the regime of Duvalier's father 'Papa Doc' Duvalier in 1959 and renamed 'MVSN' or Volunteer Militias of National Security. They were modelled on the Italian fascist 'Blackshirts' and in Haitian creole the term 'Tonton Macoute is the equivalent of 'bogeyman.'

Tonton Macoute members wore dark glasses, wielded machetes, and left their victims hanging in public places as a warning to others. They cultivated the image of being voodoo demons or zombies. They often had firearms but resorted to machetes and blades to inflict severe and grievous bodily harm to victims.

In the international media the story circulated that Tonton Macoute kidnapped political dissidents and exposeed them to voodoo rituals in which a certain substances were given to prisoners to provoke brain damage. Popularly these was known as ‘turning people into zombies”

A Tonton Macoute brandishing his 'machete.' Photo taken from Latin American Studies

Photo taken from Boom 3

The 'machete' became a weapon used by the Tonton Macoutes and pro Duvalier groups to terrorize the populace and slash political opponents into pieces in public.

Francois Duvalier and Jean Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier. Photo taken from Webster.edu

- Dictator of Haiti from 1971 - 1986
- Became dictator at age 19 through dynastic succession as he inherited political power from his father, also dictator 'Francois Duvalier'
- Presided over a corrupted government and he personally accumulated a wealth of hundreds of millions of dollars by exerting a monopoly on the tobacco industry – the Régie du Tabac (Tobacco Administration) and later extended to other government enterprises.
- Married Michèle Bennett, a mulatto divorcée in a wedding that had a cost of $3 million in one of the most impoverished nations on earth
- Brought to power a new ‘mulatto elite’ and alienated to old ‘black middle’ class that had supported his father Francois Duvalier.
- A regimen characterized by high levels of inequalities which motivated popular protests nation wide.
- The Duvalier regime responded to dissidence by closing independent radio stations, and repressing political opponents through the use of terror and his private militia the Tonton Macoutes.

Source: Quick reference on Jean Claude Duvalier from Wikipedia

POGROMS IN CUBA BY HATE MOBS

2011-01-19T11:35:00.001-08:00

Two representatives of Cuba's Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) rally on the streets of Havana demanding the freedom of all political prisoners and face extremist mobs organized by the Cuban government who insult and use all forms of repressions against this courageous women.

To the left (Belinda Bargaza (wearing glasses) and Berta Soler (with a white cap) face pro extremist pro government supporters most likely from Communist Youth Union (UJC) who shout insults and attempt to make public mockery of the Ladies in White. This is the type of extremists groups organized by the Cuban government against independent journalists, human right activists, bloggers , dissidents, political opponent and other supporters of democracy in the island.

POPULIST DEMOCRACY

2011-01-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

This is the type of "thoughtful" and “credible” excuse that the authoritarian ruler of Venezuela Hugo Chavez Frias invokes when he wants to "justify" a state of emergency, censorship of the press, cancellation of individual liberties and accumulation of powers through the so-called "Ley Habilitante."

Presently Hugo Chavez has absolute legislative powers and oversteps the function of the National Assembly in which the people of Venezuela elected a significant representation of the oppositionist parties.

BROTHERLY LEADER

2010-02-20T08:02:00.000-08:00

Name: Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi
Country: Libya
Birthday: 1942
Died: 21 October, 2011, captured and allegedly killed by Libyan rebels
Dates in Power: 01 September 1969- current
How Leader Came into Power: military coup
Classification: military dictator
Nuclear Capability: yes (probably)
Major Achievements: infamous dictator known for supporting many terrorist groups- these days appears to have grown somewhat more moderate

GADDAFI`S DICTATORSHIP IN A NUTSHELL

- Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was born in 1942
- De facto leader of Lybia since 1969
- `Informal Dictator. Officially he holds no public office or title but is is referred to as "Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" or "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official press.
- Comes from a nomadic Bedouin peasant family in the desert region of Sirte.
- Gaddafi began his involvement in conspiratorial politics early during his years in preparatory school in Fezzan from 1956 to 1961.
- Inspired on Gamal Abdel Nasser then President of Egypt and his message for Arab unity, Gaddafi and a small group of friends established the core leadership of a militant revolutionary group that eventually seized power in Lybia.
- After graduation as a lawyer in the Law School at the University of Libya he entered the Military Academy in Benghazi in 1963 where he and he and a select circle of fellow militants organized a secretive group dedicated to overthrowing the pro-Western Libyan monarchy.
- After graduation in 1965 Gaddafi was sent to the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, Great Britain returning to Lybia in 1966 as a commissioned officer in the Signal Corps.
- On September 1, 1969, a small group of military officers led by Gaddafi staged a coup d'état against King Idris I, while he was in Turkey for medical treatment.
- Unlike other military dictators, Gaddafi did not promote himself to the rank of general upon seizing power, but rather accepted a ceremonial promotion from captain to colonel and has remained at this rank for the last thirty-seven years.
- His new regime was a blend of Arab nationalism, aspects of the welfare state and what Gaddafi termed "direct, popular democracy."
- He called this system "Islamic socialism" and while he permitted private control over small companies, the government controlled the larger ones. Welfare, "liberation" and education were emphasized.
- Based on his ``Green Book`` published in 1976 Gaddafi imposed aystem of Islamic morals, outlawing alcohol and gambling to reinforce the ideals of this socialist-Islamic state.
- Gaddafi`s form of government utilizes systematic terror as he has responded and responds to domestic and external opposition with violence.
- Thorough his `Revolutionary Committees` Gaddafi called for the assassination of Libyan dissidents living abroad in February 1980, with Libyan hit squads sent abroad to murder them.
- After Nasser`s death on September 28, 1970, Gaddafi attempted to take up the mantle of ideological leader of Arab nationalism by proclaiming the "Federation of Arab Republics" (Libya, Egypt and Syria) in 1972, hoping to create a pan-Arab state, but the three countries disagreed on the specific terms of the merger.
- In 1974 he signed n agreement with Tunisia's Habib Bourguiba on a merger between the two countries, but it failed.
- Gaddafi became a strong supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which ultimately harmed Libya's relations with Egypt when in 1979 Egypt pursued a peace agreement with Israel.
- As Libya's relations with Egypt worsened, Gaddafi sought closer relations with the Soviet Union. Libya became the first country outside the Soviet bloc to receive the supersonic MiG-25 combat fighters, but Soviet-Libyan relations remained relatively distant.
- Notable in his open support for liberation movements, in most cases Muslim groups, by the 1970s Gaddafi`s regime won a reputation for ubversion and terrorist activities in both Arab and non-Arab countries.
- By the mid-1980s, he was widely regarded in the West as the principal financier of international terrorism.
- The west has accused Gaddafi as been the major financier of the "Black September Movement" which perpetrated the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, and was accused by the United States of being responsible for direct control of the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 200, of which a substantial number were U.S. servicemen. He is also said to have paid "Carlos the Jackal" to kidnap and then release a number of the Saudi Arabian and Iranian oil ministers.
- Tensions between the United States and Lybia reached a peak during the Ronald Reagan administration, which tried to overthrow Gaddafi.
- he Reagan administration saw Libya as an unacceptable player on the international stage because of its uncompromising stance on Palestinian independence, its support for revolutionary Iran in its 1980-1988 war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq (see Iran-Iraq War), and its backing for "liberation movements" in the developing world. In March 1982 the U.S. declared a ban on the import of Libyan oil and the export to Libya of US oil industry technology; Europe did not follow suit.
- Libya's involvement with and support for terrorism were confirmed in late 1987 when a merchant vessel, the MV Eksund, was intercepted. Destined for the IRA, a large consignment of arms and explosives supplied by Libya was recovered from the Eksund.
- For most of the 1990s, Libya endured economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation as a result of Gaddafi's refusal to allow the extradition to the United States or Britain of two Libyans accused of planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
- In August 2003, two years after Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. Gaddafi agreed to pay compensation of up to $2.7 billion – or up to $10 million each – to the families of the 270 victims.
- From the mid-1990s, Gaddafi managed to improve his connections among Middle Eastern nations and is today considered by some a more moderate and responsible leader in the Arab world than previously. Regarding the Palestinians, he has begun pushing the concept of a binational single-state solution – "Isratine" – a combination of the words Israel and Palestine.
- Simultaneously, Gaddafi has also emerged as a popular African leader. As one of the continent's longest-serving, post-colonial heads of state, the Libyan dictator enjoys a reputation among many Africans as an experienced and wise statesman who has been at the forefront of many struggles over the years.
- Gaddafi also appeared to be attempting to improve his image in the West. Two years prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Libya pledged its commitment to fighting Al-Qaeda and offered to open up its weapons program to international inspection.
-There are many explanations for the change of Gaddafi's politics. The most obvious is that the once very rich Libya became much less wealthy as oil prices dropped significantly during the 1990's. Since then, Gaddafi has tended to need other countries more than before and hasn't been able to dole out foreign aid as he once did.
-Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by US forces in 2003, Gaddafi announced that his nation had an active weapons of mass destruction program, but was willing to allow international inspectors into his country to observe and dismantle them. US President George W. Bush and other supporters of the Iraq War attempted to portray Gaddafi's announcement as a direct consequence of the Iraq War by claiming that Gaddafi acted out of fear for the future of his own regime if he continued to keep and conceal his weapons. I
- On May 15, 2006, the US State Department announced that it would restore full diplomatic relations with Libya, even after Gaddafi declared Libya's weapons of mass destruction programs.
- In October 1993, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Gaddafi by elements of the Libyan army. Eight months later, Libyan troops were withdrawn from Chad thus ending a territorial dispute which dated back to 1973.

- There are a number of political groups opposed to Gaddafi:

* National Conference of the Libyan Opposition
* National Front for the Salvation of Libya
* Committee for Libyan National Action in Europe

THE FAMILY OF A TYCOON DICTATOR

- Gaddafi has eight children, seven of them sons.
- His oldest son, Muhammad Gaddafi runs the Libyan Olympic Committee.
- The next eldest Al-Saadi Gaddafi, runs the Libyan Football Federation, plays for Italian Serie A team Udinese Calcio, and produces films.
- The third eldest, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a painter, runs a charity which has been involved in negotiating freedom for hostages taken by Islamic militants, especially in the Philippines.
- His only daughter is Ayesha Gaddafi, a lawyer who has joined the defense team of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
- In January 2002, Gaddafi purchased a 7.5% share of Italian football club Juventus for USD 21 million, through Lafico ("Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company").
- Though Gaddafi is an avid football fan, this more importantly continued a longstanding association with the late Gianni Agnelli, the primary investor in Fiat. Gaddafi has also become involved in chess: in March 2004, FIDE, the game's world governing body, announced that he would be providing prize money for the World Championship, held in June-July 2004 in Tripoli.
- In November 2002, he hosted the Miss Net World beauty pageant, a first for Libya and as far as is known, the world's first to be held on the internet.
- Gaddafi's personal bodyguard, the Amazonian guard, is composed of beautiful African women who are martial arts experts and highly-trained in the use of weapons. The Amazonian guard accompanied him on his 2004 visit to Brussels.

TOTALITARIANISM FROM THE INSIDE: LYBIA

- A repressive legal framework in place
- Ability of Government Security Forces to act with impunity against dissidents
- Many trials, particularly those before the State Security Court, still fail to meet international due process standards.
- Unjustified limits on free expression and association remain the norm, including penal code provisions that criminalize "insulting public officials" or "opposing the ideology of the Revolution."
- Freedom of expression remains severely restricted by the Libyan penal code.
- There is no freedom of association in Libya because the concept of an independent civil society goes directly against Gaddafi’s theory of governance by the masses.
- Law 71 still criminalizes political parties, and the penal code criminalizes the establishment of organizations that are “against the principles of the Libyan Jamahireya system.”
- Law 19, "On Associations," requires a political body to approve all nongovernmental organizations, does not allow appeals against negative decisions and provides for continuous governmental interference in the running of the organization.
- Libya has no independent nongovernmental organizations
- Attempting to set up a human rights organization is a risky venture with the potential for harassment by Libyan security and also criminal prosecution
- The Internal Security Agency retains full control over two prisons in Libya, Abu Salim and Ain Zara, which are notorious for the arbitrary detention of political prisoners.
- In late June 1996 an estimated 1200 prisoners were killed in Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison. For years the authorities denied this had taken place. Until late 2008, the vast majority of the families of the prisoners who were killed had received no information about them.
- Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, police and security forces arrested hundreds of Libyans who opposed, or who the authorities feared could oppose, the new system. Authorities labeled critics “stray dogs” and rounded up academics, lawyers, students, journalists, Trotskyists, communists, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and others considered “enemies of the revolution,” imprisoning or subjecting them to enforced disappearance.
- No form of dissent was tolerated and Libya openly espoused a policy of assassinating Libyan dissidents abroad
- The past five years have witnessed a gradual opening of a new, still vulnerable but nevertheless measurable, space for freedom of expression. The government retains control over most of the media in Libya and monitors and censors the new private media.
- These changes have occurred in spite of the continued repressive legal framework and take on more significance when viewed in that context because journalists take significant risks by writing critically of government policies and abuses. The 1969 Constitutional Proclamation on December which guaranteed some rights, such as the right to work, health care and education, provides for freedom of opinion only “within the limits of public interest and the principles of the Revolution.
- Article 178 of the Libyan penal code orders life imprisonment for the dissemination of information considered to “tarnish [the country’s] reputation or undermine confidence in it abroad.”
- Article 207 imposes the death penalty for “whoever spreads within the country, by whatever means, theories or principles aiming to change the basic principles of the Constitution or the fundamental structures of the social system or to overthrow the state’s political, social or economic structures or destroy any of the fundamental structures of the social system using violence, terrorism or any other unlawful means.” There are still political prisoners imprisoned under these provisions which criminalize free speech, such as the case of Abdelnasser al-Rabbasi discussed below in Section VII.

Sources:
Truth and Justice Can`t Wait: Report on Lybia by Human Rights Watch: December, 2009
Dictator of the Month
Wikipedia

CUBAN STUDENT EXPELLED FROM UNIVERISTY

2010-02-06T12:08:00.000-08:00

Evidence of how Cuban education is closely related to ideological conformity with the regime. Darío Alejandro Paulino Escobar, founder/administrator of the Grupo de la Facultad de Comunicación de la Universidad de La Habana at Facebook was suspended for two years from the Faculty of Journalism at the University of Havana for making public a meeting of Cuba's Communist Youth (UJC) on the web

TORTURES IN CHAVEZ-VENEZUELA

2010-02-06T11:05:00.001-08:00

For over 11 years Venezuela has been ruled by the regime of Hugo Chavez Frias. Human rights violations, persecution of student dissidents and tortures perpetrated by that regime have been widely documented by independent sources such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, web sites as well as other avenues such as Human Rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

The following corresponds to recent protests by Venezuelan democratic students and the repression by the Chavez regime.

The iron claw/la garra de hierro is a medieval instrument used by the 'Chavista' police in Venezuela to brutally grab students protesting on the streets

A Venezuelan student protester impacted by 'bullets' from the regime

Source:

Venezuela’s Chavez Denies Protesters Were Tortured

TORTURES IN CUBA

2010-02-06T10:26:00.000-08:00

Drawings of tortures against political prisoner Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco at the Canaleta Prison in the Ciego de Avila Province in Cuba.

This is a replica of the cell where political prisoner Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is confined for 25 years at the Combinado del Este Prison in East Havana.

A typical cell from 'El Morro Castle Prison' where tens of thousdans of political prisoners were confined during the 1960s and 1970s.

"The infamous mud-wall cells (celdas tapiadas) at Combinado del Este Prison in East Havana, where hundreds of political prisoners are still being tortured and held in complete isolation."

This type of cell is known as 'La Gaveta'/The Drawer. Political prisoners are confined here for extended and brutal periods. The dimensions of the cell force them to lie down all the time. Prisoners cannot stand up as the ceiling is too low.

La Gaveta in the Manzanillo Prison. "Between 10 and 15 political prisoners were kept in cells like these for six or more months.The space between the small wall and the back of the cell was used by the prisoners to defecate and urinate since there were no toilet facilities in these cells."

Guillermo Fariñas, a Cuban independent journalist, brutally beaten by the Cuban state security police for demanding Cubans' free access to the Internet.

Yuri Martinez Sanchez had a tattoo that said 'USA' on his forehead. In retaliation Cuban authorities forcefully burned the tattoo in cold blood.

Dr. Aldo Consuegra Martínez brutally beaten by Castro's organized paramilitary group just for expressing his desire to leave the country.

Nancy González García brutally beaten by Castro's mobs for her membership in the organization of 'independent librarians'

Sources:
The Real Cuba
Cubaverdad
Biscet Blog

CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN CUBA: THE UMAP

2010-02-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

This corresponds to a "criminal profile" of Emilio Izquierdo according to the cuban regime. It explains why Izquierdo was sent to the UMAP camps. profile literally reads:
"This individual is a catholic and thus he is negative to the revolutionary process. His father was in prison for a crime against the power of the state. He is currently under police investigation as he is a friend of "negative elements" from his social class that visit him frequently after work. This investigator believes that this individual can be called to the 'Plan UMAP SMO' since he cannot serve the regular military service.”
Source: La UMAP: El Gulag Castrista

Forced to wear uniforms and work on the cane fields of the Camaguey province in Cuba for 12 hours day, Christian pastors of different denominations were sent to the UMAP camps as punishment for their beliefs. Picture of September 21, 1966. It shows Orlando Colás (Baptist), Joel Ajo (Methodist); Serafin (Pentecostal); Orlando (Methodist); Rigoberto Cervantes (Baptist); Orlando González (Baptist).
Source: La UMAP: El Gulag Castrista

One of the thugs leading the UMAP camps was Commander Casillas seen in this picture (right)
Source: El Mundo, 1966

THE UMAP: CASTRO'S CONCENTRATION CAMPS

To eliminate and punish those deemed unfit for his revolution while using them for free labor, Fidel Castro presided over a closed-door meeting within the regime’s hierarchy. The resulting plan was to create a network of concentration camps to intern the thousands of "unfit." First it was named "Plan Fidel." But Castro, cunningly, wanted his name out of it. It was to be called UMAP (Military Units to Help Production).

Castro ordered that his agents - at night - go house to house to apprehend at gun point all the males that fit the profile of what he called, "the scum of society," for example: gays, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other Protestant religions.

Castro's thugs went through every city, neighborhood and city block, arresting thousands of men (17 years old and up). The arrested were taken to police stations with the excuse of checking their personal ID cards – cards that all citizens of Castro's Cuba are required to carry.

At the police station, they were thrown into overcrowded cells and later taken to secret police facilities, movie houses, stadiums, warehouses, etc. In those detention centers they were photographed, fingerprinted and forced to sign under duress a confession declaring themselves the "scum of society," in exchange for their release. The ones who signed were released until they were summoned to the dreaded concentration camps. Those who refused to sign remained in jail and endured physical and psychological torture until they did sign.

The concentration camps were built in isolated areas of the province of Camagüey. They were like Hitler's camps, but without crematoriums. They have the electrified barbed wire fences, guards with machine guns and police dogs, etc. Something never seen before in Cuba's history.

Beginning in November 1965, people already classified were summoned to the camps. They arrived by train, bus, truck and other police and military vehicles. And so began the humiliation, suffering, torture and hard labor for those thousands of unfortunate men and boys. Many committed suicide while others died as a result of hunger and disease - with no medical attention - torture and execution. Many suffered solitary confinement, beating, rape and mutilation. The traumatized survivors remember that in the UMAP, "they never received humane treatment."

In July 1968 the name "UMAP" was erased from the camps. Castro's regime cosmetically transformed them into "Military Units." And all the paperwork associated with the UMAP was destroyed. New plans were created to continue confining young men discontent with Castro's communist revolution, selecting people for the same reasons as before. But this time they would receive a pitiful salary for their long and harsh working hours while living under very difficult and inhumane conditions – Castro’s lame attempt to satisfy international pressure.

This network of concentration/hard labor camps continues today as a way to repress and intimidate people, and to obtain cheap labor. Castro’s gulag network of camps and prisons is estimated at over 200 - before 1959, Cuba had just 4 prisons.

In a broadcast by the Cuban government’s Radio Progreso on March 6, 1997, sexology expert, Celestino Alvarez, officially recognized that the approximately 400,000 Cuban gays (according to Castro's regime) didn't have the same rights as heterosexual citizens. The broadcast did not go so far as to describe the government’s treatment of gays. A 1997 survey by the Communist Youth Organization in three Cuban provinces showed that gay discrimination was rampant.

Contrary to what many believe, gay persecution never ceased in Castro's Cuba. In September 1997, famous Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar, Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, French designer Jean Paul Gaultier and 40 other foreigners reported a raid on gays which took place at El Periquiton discotheque in Havana. All were videotaped by Cuban police. They were shocked by their experience as well as by the harsh treatment of Cuban gays involved in the incident.

The Castro regime’s flair for propaganda is very effective at giving a distorted view of reality to the gullible international community that flocks to his “paradise” with US dollars that keep him in power. For example, last year the regime held an international transvestite convention, while travel agencies in the US and elsewhere organize tours of Cuba, paradoxically, for gays.

The international community ignores those who died or suffered torture, mutilation and are still bearing deep psychological traumas as victims of Castro’s genocide plans. They blindly adore Castro as he parades through the world with impunity.
Source: Agustín Blázquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton
REVISTA GUARACABUYA

SERVILE TO THE SOVIETS UNTIL HIS DEATH

2009-08-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

Name: Todor Khristov Zhivkov
Country: Bulgaria
Dates in Power: 04 March, 1954- 10 November, 1989

Tyrant's Profile

- Rose to positions of power crushing others on his path. Became the leader of the Sofia Police through a coup on September 9, 1944.

- As Chief of Police, Zhikov participated in the campaign of extrajudicial murders and large-scale arrests intended to eliminate the opponents of the Bulgarian Communist Party in the capital - Sofia.

- His achievements in the field of repression and murder led him to a promotion to full membership in the BCP Politburo in 1951.

- In 1956 Zhivkov replaced Vulko Chervenkov as a General Secretary of the BCP.

- Like Stalin, Zhikov outmaneuvered his intra-party rivals and by the early 1960s established himself as the undisputed leader of the BCP and the country.

- As a ruler, Zhikov was known as the most servile and ardent supporter of the Soviet system.

- Hostile to the notion of political liberalization Zhikov a massive wave of political purges and repressions whenever he deemed that necessary, most infamously in the 1980s when he launched a brutal assimilationist campaign against Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish minority.

- Zhikov created a vast network of 'agricultural camps' (concentrations camps) that inspired his colleague and friend Raúl Castro in the early 1960s to establish along with Fidel Castro the Military Units for the Aid of Production (UMAP) where tens of thousands of homosexuals, dissidents, priests, jehova witnesses, rockers and young people who deviated from the ideal of the New Man.

- Openly hostile to Gorbachev's Perestroika

- Forced to resign on November 10, 1989 when he was expelled from the Bulgarian Communist Party.

- Arrested in January 1990, convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to seven years in prison

- Due to his frail health Zhikov was allowed the justice he never dispensed to his opponents and died under house arrest of pneumonia in 1998.

Sources:
Global Museum on Communism
Dictator of the Month
Enrique Ros, La UMAP: El Gulag Castrista

THE BOSS

2009-07-07T13:32:00.001-07:00

Full Name: Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina. AKA 'El Jefe' (the chief), AKA 'El Chivo' (the goat), AKA 'Chapita' (bottle top).
Dates in Power: 1930-1937, 1942-1952
Country:Dominican Republic.
Repression: Around 20,000 Haitians killed in 1937. (Estimates of the number of Haitians killed vary from several hundred to 30,000.) An unknown number of Dominican dissidents and opposition figures killed during his 31-year reign.
Distinguishing Aspects of Trujillo: Cult of Personality, caudillo mentality, anticommunism, extreme nationalism and sexual displays as a means of attracting popular support.
Brief Biography in Wikipedia
Chronology and Biography in Killers and Heroes of the 20th Century
Biography in Colonial Zone

Poster that reads: The Domincan Party: Rectitude, Liberty and Work. From its the The Dominican Party was established by dictator Trujillo to serve his own interests. Through fear and psychological pressure this became the only party in the Dominican Republic where (ironically) even the most fervent opponents of the regimen were members

Trujillo Stamp. Cult of Personality became one of the most significant aspect of the Trujillo regime as well as the use of history to justify his dictatorship. The dominican people were made to believe that they needed a superman and a Mesiah like Trujillo to guide their destinies.

In official photos Trujillo appeared surrounded by women (either his wife and daughters) as a means to portray the macho characteristics of the dictator and a way to appeal for support. For more information and research on this fascinating topic see book by Lauren Derby titled 'The Dictator's Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo'

See Photo Gallery and biography of Trujillo in Spanish

LONGEST PERIOD IN POWER FOR A TOTALITARIAN RULER

2009-07-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

QUESTION IN RECENT POLL:
¿Which of the following totalitarian rulers have governed for the longest period?

1 - Fidel Castro 50 years in power and 'unfortunately' still counting ...
2- Kim Il Sung: 46 years
3- Joseph Stalin: 32 years
4- Mao Tse Tung: 27 years
5- Benito Mussolini: 21 years
6- Pol Pot: 16 years
7- Adolph Hitler 11 years

RESPONSE: Fidel Castro wins the contest as the longest tyrant of the 20th and 21st century. He has opressed the cuban people for the past for fifty years. Congratulations to all participants, specially to the the 14 voters that answered the question correctly.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz.

Fifty years in power and still counting...

Castro has been in office accumulating a great deal of power as Commander in Chief, Prime Minister, General Secretary of the Communist Party, First Secretary of the Council of State and Council of Ministers and self proclaimed "president" of the republic since January 1, 1959. Although he renounced his post as Commander in Chief and President after falling ill on 31 August of 2006, he is still the Communist Party of Cuba's First Secretary and rules the nation from behind the curtain.

Kim Il Sung.
President of the "Democratic" Republic of Korea (46 years in power)
In power as Prime Minister, President and General Secretary of the Worker's Party from the founding of the nation in 1948 until his death in 1994.

Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, (born Iosef Besarionis dze Jughashvili) in power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 3 April, 1922 until his death in 5 March, 1954.

Mao Zedong (Simplified Chinese:
Mao Tse-tung (Wade-Giles)

1st Chairman of the Communist Party of China since 1945.
In power as Chairman of the Party since the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949 until his death on 18 September, 1976.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini,
In power from October 31, 1922 until July 25, 1943.

Saloth Sar or Minh Hai widely known as Pol Pot.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea
Political party: Khmer Rouge
In office from 1963 until 1979

Adolf Hitler
Führer of Germany
In office from 2 August 1934 until 30 April 1945
Political party: National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)

Source: Wikipedia

AUGUSTO PINOCHET: THE MYTH OF THE HONEST DICTATOR

2009-06-10T09:37:00.001-07:00

Justifications abound among fanatic followers who attempt to set "their" dictator from the rest. In fact, all dictators have mythology that surrounds their figure and their regime. In the case of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet one of such myths was the idea that he unlike other Latin American rulers he was a model of "honesty."

Recent historical evidence provided by the National Security Archive in Washington DC however proved otherwise. In fact, the so called "honest" dictator had over 133 secret bank accounts and used 10 false names.

Pinochet (Ugarte), Augusto
Born , Nov. 25, 1915, Valparaiso, Chile

Leader of the military junta that overthrew the Marxist government of President
Salvador Allende of Chile on Sept. 11, 1973. He subsequently headed Chile's military government from 1974 to 1990.

Pinochet's objective was to extirpate leftism in Chile and to reassert the primacy of free market policies in the country's economy. His junta was widely condemned for its harsh suppression of dissent at the same time that its reversal of the Allende government's socialist policies resulted in a lower rate of inflation and an economic boom in the period from 1976 to 1979. A modest political liberalization began in 1978, after the regime announced that, in a plebiscite, 75 percent of the
electorate had endorsed Pinochet's rule.

A new constitution went into effect in March 1981. Under its terms, the military junta's candidate for president, Pinochet, would serve as president for another eight year term, and in 1989 the military's candidate would be submitted to a national referendum for either approval or rejection by a majority of the voters. During Pinochet's 1980-88 term, his free market policies were generally credited with maintaining a low rate of inflation and an acceptable rate of economic growth despite a severe recession in 1980-83.

Pinochet continued to maintain tight controls over the political opposition, but he fulfilled his constitutional obligation to hold the plebiscite scheduled for 1989. The actual plebiscite, held in October 1988, resulted in a 'no' vote of 55 percent to a 'yes' vote of 43 percent for Pinochet's continuation as president. Thus rejected by the electorate.

Pinochet remained in office until after free elections installed a new president, the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin, on March 11, 1990.

Pinochet died in Santiago de Chile in 2006 at the age of 91 after more than a decade of unsuccessful attempts by the victims of his regime to bring him to justice.

Source: Brief description and profile from the website: Augusto Pinochet

Source: National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 149

Washington, D.C., March 15, 2005 - Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive tonight posted key documents released on March 15 by the Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs showing conclusively that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had used multiple aliases and false identification to maintain over 125 secret bank accounts at the Riggs National Bank and eight other financial institutions in the United States. In a review of banking records, Senate investigators found ten false names used by Pinochet to disguise his accounts, among them Daniel Lopez, A.P. Ugarte and Jose Pinochet. Records obtained from the Riggs Bank and Citibank showed that Pinochet presented falsified passports under the names of Augusto Ugarte and Jose Ramon Ugarte for account identification.

Source: National Security Archive

See an extensive compilation of articles on the life of Pinochet in the Latin American Studies Website

THE FALSIFICATION OF OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHS IN TOTALITARIAN REGIMES

2009-06-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

One of the most systematic practices of totalitarian regimes is the systematic falsification of official documents to fit into the ruler's particular agenda.

Stalin and Yezhov.

Stalin - Yezhov erased.

Stalin's bloody reign is not without certain irony. Nikolai Yezhov, the young man strolling with Stalin, is shot in 1940. It seems only fitting that when Yezhov is removed from the photograph he is replaced by the waters of the Moscow-Volga Canal. Yezhov was commissar of water transport.

Lenin and Trotsky celebrate the second anniversary of the Russian Revoloution in Red Square.

Lenin Celebrates, but Trotsky has been airbrushed out.

Trotsky and Lenin (top center of stairs) in 1919 photograph of a Red Square celebration is of the anniversary of the revolution. To make it suitable for a 1967 book of Lenin Photos, Trotsky is removed.

Source: 'The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs in Stalin's Russia

TOTALITARIAN ART

2009-06-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

Communist Realism

"The more than half the century of the communist ideology's domination in Russia brought about the most dramatic experience to which art was exposed in the past century. It is difficult today to encompass in ones mind that great space of events and facts which either destroyed or deformed the model of artistic life which had been worked out in the USSR. More particularly so because it was not limited to Russia's geographical borders but, after 1945, included all of Central Europe and part of Germany. That model, exported together with blueprints of a socialist revolution, made its mark on the cultures of many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The tragedy of the situation in which Russian creative artists found themselves was that - in contradistinction to Italy or Germany - due to the internal entanglement and dilemma posed by the belief in the possibility of achievement of an avant-garde utopia by the participation of art in the revolutionary changes and the existing realities of the "most progressive political system." All avant-garde circles not only supported the communist revolution, but took an active part in bringing it about. The questions raised by the revolution frequently led artists into specific creative activity, generating concepts and questions regarding it. This was so, intra alia, in the case of Russian constructivism in its radical creative phase. The artist of that school voiced the death of art and declared belief in the coming "culture of work." On the pages of the periodical "Lef" (1923-1925), edited by Majakowski, appeals were made for a final dissociation from all froms of artistic activity. It was proclaimed that the artists are producers "serving their class, their social group." As Majakowski formulated it: "the goal of our group is communist art (hail com-culture and com in general!)" For this circle of artists, communism was synonymous with artistic radicalism, modernity of the language of expression and work on the formulation of new esthetic needs of the community."
Source: Excerpt from Sztuka a systemy totalitarne (Art in a totalitarian system) by Waldemar Baraniewski. Totalitarian Art

20 TIANANMEN LATER

2009-06-04T04:47:00.000-07:00

Those who refer to the “efficiency” and “productivity” of the fastest growing economy of the world often forget that the Chinese state is grounded on the most cruel pillars of repression and human rights violations. Today, those of us, believers in freedom and not in economic statistics that often erase the human experience, remember with pride and sadness those days of June 1989 when Chinese university students spontaneously, out of an official refusal to mourn the remains of a reformist party official, led one of the most brave and honourable resistance movements of the 20th century – The Tianannmen Square Rebellion.

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For a brief description of events see: June 4, 1989: Tiananmen Square massacre takes place - The History Channel

I express my opposition to Google's complicity with the Chinese regime in helping them act as 'Great Brothers' of information.

24 January 2006
"Google Agrees to Censor Results in China," Associated Press, January 24, 2006.

Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market. Although China has loosened some of its controls in recent years, some topics, such as Taiwan's independence and 1989's Tiananmen Square massacre, remain forbidden subjects.

Graphic Memory and Captions: Tiananmen Square, 1989 The Declassified History

A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The man, calling for an end to the recent violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. The Chinese government crushed a student-led demonstration for democratic reform and against government corruption, killing hundreds, or perhaps thousands of demonstrators in the strongest anti-government protest since the 1949 revolution. Ironically, the name Tiananmen means "Gate of Heavenly Peace". (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

A Beijing University student leader argues with a policeman about the students' right to march as they are told not to march when emerging from their campus in Beijing, China, on April 27, 1989. Students from more than forty universities march to Tiananmen Square in protest of the April 26 editorial in the Communist Party newspaper despite warnings of violent suppression. (AP Photo/Mark Avery)

Calling for freedom and democracy, demonstrating students surround policemen near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, Thursday afternoon on May 4, 1989. Approximately 100,000 students and workers marched toward the square demanding democratic reforms. (AP Photo/Sadayuki Mikami)

The bodies of dead civilians lie among mangled bicycles near Beijing's Tiananmen Square early June 4, 1989. Tanks and soldiers stormed the area overnight, bringing a violent end to student demonstrations for democratic reform in China. (AP Photo)

A rickshaw driver fiecely peddles the wounded people, with the help of bystanders, to a nearby hospital Sunday, June 4, 1989. PLA soldiers again fired hundreds of rounds towards angry crowds gathered outside Tiananmen Square at noon. (AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing)

Local residents loaded the wounded people on a rickshaw flatbed shortly after PLA soldiers opened fire on a crowd in this June 4, 1989 photo. On Friday, it will be 10 years since the military assault that killed hundreds and ended seven weeks of protests centered on Tiananmen Square.(AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing)

PLA soldiers locked in arms try to march past a human blockade of students outside of the Great Hall of People in this June 3, 1989 photo. Soldiers were reported to resort to teargas and amunitions. On Friday, it will be 10 years since the military assault that killed hundreds and ended seven weeks of protests centered on Tiananmen Square. (AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing)

Beijing residents ask soldiers what they were going to do with the machine gun on their dashboard as they surround and stop a carload of chinese soldiers on their way towards to Tiananmen Square in this June 3, 1989 photo. Friday June 4, 1999 is the 10th anniversary of the military assault on pro-democracy protesters who had occupied the square for seven weeks. Hundreds died in the early hours of June 4, 1989 when troops shot their way through Beijing's streets to retake the square. (AP Photo/Mark Avery, File)

A student from Beijing Normal University reads a pro-democracy statement to Chinese troops trapped by Beijing residents after being stopped on their way to Tiananmen Square in this June 3, 1989 photo. Friday June 4, 1999 is the 10th anniversary of the military assault on pro-democracy protesters who had occupied the square for seven weeks. Hundreds died in the early hours of June 4, 1989 when troops shot their way through Beijing's streets to retake the square. (AP Photo/Mark Avery)

huge crowd gathers at a Beijing intersection where residents used a bus as a roadblock to keep troops from advancing toward Tiananmen Square in this June 3, 1989 photo. Friday June 4, 1999 is the 10th anniversary of the military assault on pro-democracy protestors who had occupied the square for seven weeks. Hundreds died in the early hours of June 4, 1989 when troops shot their way through Beijing's streets to retake the square. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

A student protester puts barcades in the way of an already burning armored personnel carrier that rammed through student lines during an army attack on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in this June 4, 1989 photo. Friday June 4, 1999 is the 10th anniversary of the military assault on pro-democracy protesters who had occupied the square for seven weeks. Hundreds died in the early hours of June 4, 1989 when troops shot their way through Beijing's streets to retake the square. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

A man tries to pull a Chinese soldiers away from his comrades as thousands of Beijing citizens turned out to block thousands of troops on their way towards Tiananmen Square in this June 3, 1989 photo. On Friday, it will be 10 years since the military assault that killed hundreds and ended seven weeks of protests centered on Tiananmen Square. (AP Photo/Mark Avery)

Bicycle commuters, sparse in numbers, pass through a tunnel as above on the overpass military tanks are positioned in Beijing, China, two days after the Tiananmen Square massacre,on Tuesday morning, June 6, 1989. The slogan on the wall at left reads, "Strike down martial law." (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

A Chinese couple on a bicycle take cover at an underpass as tanks deploy overhead in eastern Beijing, China, June 5, 1989. Chinese troops crushed a pro-democracy demonstration held by students and other demading democratic reform in Tiananmen Square on June 4. (AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing)

Chai Ling, a Chinese dissident who led the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989, is shown during a news conference she held with her husband, Feng Congde, in Paris, France, Wednesday, April 18, 1990. Chai warned China's communist rulers that their days are numbered and said resistance in the country is growing daily. Chai and Feng spent ten months on the run in China before reaching France earlier this month. (AP Photo/Michel Lipchitz)

This is a May 27, 1989 photo of student leader Wang Dan in Tiananmen Square Beijing calling for a city wide march. (AP Photo/Mark Avery)

Chinese dissident Wang Dan meets reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday May 6, 1998. Wang, leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests, was released from jail 17 days ago. (AP Photo/William Philpott)

FILE--This March 4, 1994 file photo shows the guard tower at the Liaoyuan prison in northwest China's Liaoning province, the place where Chinese Tiananmen Square democracy movement dissident Liu Gang was held for six years. Gang has now escaped to the United States where he is seeking asylum. (AP Photo/Charlene Fu)

Chinese dissident Chen Ziming is seen in this September 1989 file photo at an unknown location. China released the ailing dissident Wednesday, November 6, 1996, just weeks before the expected arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher on a visit to improve ties. Chen, one of the organizers of the pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen Square in 1989, was freed on medical parole and arrived home Wednesday, his younger brother Chen Ziping said. (AP Photo)

pro-democracy activist wearing a headband with the words ``Don't Forget June 4 '' and holding a lighted candle raises his fist during a candlelight vigil Tuesday, June 4, 1996 by thousands of people at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to mark the seventh anniversary of the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Chinese dissident Wang Dan is seen in his family's home in Beijing in this March 8, 1994 photo. In a secretive trial lasting less than four hours, China Wedensday convicted the leader of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests of trying to overthrow the Communist government. Wang, 27, was found guilty of "conspiring to subvert the Chinese government" and sentenced to 11 years in prison, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

FILE--Chinese senior leader Deng Xiaoping, left, shakes hands with officers of the People's Liberation Army in Beijing June 9, 1987 while former President Li Xiannian, left, looks on. In this file photo, Deng praised the military suppression of the pro-democratcy movement in an address to the officers in his first public appearance after the Tiananmen Square incident. Deng, 92, died Wednesday night, Feb. 19, 1997 in Beijing. (AP Photo/File, Xinhua News Agency)

The portrait of Mao Tse-tung overlooking Tiananmen Square faces off a statue erected in the square May 30, 1989. The statue was dubbed "The Goddess of Democracy" by students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, who modeled it after the Statue of Liberty. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

Chinese human rights activists and former political prisoner Harry Wu gestures while talking to the media during a rally in San Francisco's Chinatown, Sunday, June 1, 1997, during a memorial program for the victims and survivors of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. Off to the left is the "Goddess of Democracy" statue memorializing of the Tiananmen Square incident. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Demonstrators carry a banner depicting the Goddess of Democracy during a march through a Hong Kong street Sunday, June 1, 1997 to remember those killed in the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in China eight years ago in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

A masked protester waves a copy of a Chinese newspaper featuring the Tiananmen military massacre by Chinese soldiers in Hong Kong after its handover Tuesday, July 1, 1997. Britain returned Hong Kong to China after 156 years of colonial rule and the Chinese People's LIberation Army entered the city. (AP Photo)

A Chinese man wearing a T-shirt with protest slogans is tackled by a military policeman after he threw leaflets in Beijing's Tiananmen Square Friday, June 4, 1999, the 10th anniversary of the bloody military assault on pro-democracy demonstrators. The man, who claimed to be a Beijing University student, was protesting official corruption, a key complaint of the 1989 protesters. Hundreds died when troops shot their way through the city streets on June 4, 1989, to retake the square from student led demonstrators who had occupied it for seven weeks. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

A plain clothed policeman, with a two-way radio wrapped in a newspaper, keeps watch in Beijing's Tiananmen Square Friday, June 4, 1999, the 10th anniversary of the bloody military assault on pro-democracy demonstrators. Security was increased in the square Friday in an attempt to prevent any public commemorations of the bloody crackdown. Hundreds died when troops shot their way through the city streets on June 4, 1989, to retake the square from student led demonstrators who had occupied it for seven weeks. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

China's banned sect Falun Gong protesters, sitting in center, are picked up by police officers as they meditate in Tiananmen Square on Wednesday September 29, 1999 in Beijing. Taking no chances with disgruntled unemployed workers and the recent crackdown on Falungong meditators, security is tight in the capital as the city prepares for National Day celebrations this Friday, October 1. (AP Photo)

DEMAND FREEDOM FOR CUBA

2009-06-01T03:03:00.000-07:00

I join the universal voice of justice and human rights in demanding for Cuba:

- Freedom to all political prisoners in Cuba
- Freedom to enter and exit the country
- Freedom to access Internet

For more information about Human Rights Violations in Cuba see - Anmesty International Report on Cuba

Cuba: Five Years Too Many, New Government Must Release Jailed Dissidents

Prisoner of Conscience in Cuba: LIST

Cuba: General Information on Human Rights Violations and Reports from Anmesty International

THE CUBAN DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet in a gesture of great courage shouts 'Long Live Human Rights!" in front of the police and a large crowd at the time of his arrest in Havana City the Spring of 2003. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for defending Human Rights

These photos correspond to the Ladies in White/Las Damas de Blanco - a movement of brave and honest cuban women who are wives, daughters, mothers and relatives of political prisoners in a brave manifestations in pro of the release of all political prisoners in Havana

Dr. Darsi Ferrer, his wife and a group of dissidents marching through a Park in Havana demanding freedom for Cuba and an end to government discriminations against nationals at the Human Rights Day in Dec 10, 2008

This is a hankerchief written from a Cuban prison by political prisoners

CHILDREN OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

Giordano G. Gonzalez holds a picture of her mother Adianes Jordan imprisoned for her political ideas.

Child prostitution is one of the most detestable realities of cuban society today.

A picture of a Cuban child murdered by the Cuban regime in the 13 March Tugboat Massacre in 1994.

General Raul Castro reacts to the blogger action!

THE FARC OF COLOMBIA: TOTALITARIAN NARCO TERRORISTS

2009-05-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

Totalitarianism does not necessarily exist in the form of a government. Totalitarian practices are also found in other forms of organization such as in guerilla groups. Here I compile pictures of one of the most brutal narco terrorist groups of the modern world - the FARC of Colombia.

May 27th marked the 45 anniversary of its foundation. Although in their beginnings in the early 1960s the FARC was a Marxist guerilla, this changed drastically after the fall of communism in 1989 when they stopped receiving funds from Cuba and other governments and turned into the biggest known army of drug dealers and terrorists in the world. With connections to the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez, links to the IRA, ETA, the Russian mafia and even terrorist groups in the Middle East, this group of narco terrorists of 15,000 actively works on drug cultivation and production, attacks civilizan populations, and sistematically kidnaps minors, forcing them to subhuman conditions, rapes and forced labor. Whereas they still play the political card, in reality kidnapping and drug dealing are the biggest source of finance and objective of the FARC. they argue that they fight for socialism but that is only a mascarade for their crimnal activities.

The FARC are considered a terrorist group by all international groups. Throughout their existence they have been responsible for the assassination, torture and kisnapping of hundred of thousands of Colombians.

One of their most detestable practices is the forced kidnapping of minors and sexual enslavements of adolescent girls. Under captivity these girls are raped by the FARC "chiefs" and then forced to abort.

This colombian child was brutally murdered by the FARC after an attack of that group to a civilizan population

Members of the 'Front 27' of the FARC decapitated this child, engaging in a typical act of barbarity. They accused this minor of not sharing their ideals and refusing to join them. After murdering they filled his body with explosives and send him in a gift wrap to the Colombian army. With the body came a letter in whcih they openly assumed responsibility for the crime and to make things for tetric they made "fun" of their actions. His crime was committed in the department of Meta.

This is the note of the FARC found in the body of the murdered child. In it the FARC recognize responsibility.

At the Municipality of Santander de Quilichao Department of Cauca. September 13, 1997. Narco Terrorists of the Jacobo Arenas (6th Front of the FARC) found themselves surrounded by the army and in retaliation opened fire without caring for the presence of civilians in the area. As a result, Gloria Lorenza Esperanza Guetio Ipia, aged 10 was killed. Three other little girls: MARIA ANTONIA IPIA POSCUE, AMALIA YULE IPIA, LAURA MARCELA IPIA (niña) were wounded.

Torture and assassination of Rodrigo Paraquive by the FARC. May 19, 1993. Municipality of Florián, Department of Santander. Piraquive died as a result of a brutal torture that involved burning his face with sulfuric acid, then decapitated and shot in the head.

Massacre of young Afro Colombians in the city of Buenaventura. April 1st, 2005.

These are the FARC 'Concentration Camps' where the group confines those that are kidnapped in brutal conditions reminesenct of Auswitch. Prisioners are kept in 'cages' as slaves and forced to cruels and degradant tretments.

13 year old adolescent kidnapped by the FARC.

A FARC 'Soldier Boy' October 2, 2007.

Human Rights Organization clearly condenm and prohibit the use of minors in armed conflicts.

A disturbing picture. As a trophy of war this picture captures the moment in which these children and adolescents are kidnapped and FARC members celebrate.

According to statistics over 649 minors have been victims of mined fields planted by the FARC and the ELN (another guerilla group in Colombia).

A study reveled that between 1980 and January 1, 2008 - 140 girls, 498 boys and 11 adolescent under 18 were known victims of crafted mines designed by the FARC. The study revealed that in the departments of ntioquia, Cundinamarca, Santander, Boyacá, Cauca, Nariño, Tolima, Bolívar, Norte de Santander and Meta present numerous mined camps without yet exploting. Today, over 688 municipalities in 31 of the 32 departments of Colombia are planted with personal mines. This means that 62% of Colombian territory is planted with mines. For this reasons the Colombian army in the past years have actively send their anti explosive squads to actively engage in the essential and yet dangerous task of cleaning Colombia of mines.

Sources:

BBC Mundo, Colombia, Liberen a los Niños (16 de Mayo del 2003)

CAMQ, Es Necesario Quitarle Los niños a la guerra

DEUTSCHE WELLE, Niños soldados: victimas y victimarios

Flickr from Yahoo, FARC Kids - Los niños de las FARC - Enfant Soldats

Human Rights Watch, "You'll Learn Not to Cry": Child Combatants in Colombia" (September, 2003)

HubPages, "Not a Pretty Picture: The FARC in Fotos"

Isla Information Services. Latin America: Special Reports, Testimony of Luis Guilberto Murillo-Urrutia, Former Governor of Choco State, Colombia before House Committee on Foreign Affairs (April 24, 2007)

Latin American Studies, FARC Women and Children Guerrillas

Victims of Terrorism Foundation: Colombia, Indiscriminate Attacks

NORTH OF TOTALITARIANISM

2009-05-27T22:20:00.001-07:00

Repression against political opponents in North Korea is extensive to the entire family across generations.

North Korea is probably the most totalitarian and repressive regime of our time. Under the Juche ideology, persecution of dissidents include consequences for the entire family and descendants. This means that if the grandfather committed a political "crime" in 1955, their offspring in the 21st century are still pointed "as enemies" of the government and sent to concentration camps.

In North Korea a crime could be something as extreme as not bowing properly in front of the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il

The Juche Tower in Pyonyang

The Juche Tower (officially referred to as the Tower of the Juche Ideology) is a monument situated in Korea's capital Pyonyang. Its construction was finished in 1982 and it is located across from the Kim Il Sung Square. The geographical coordinates of its location are 39°1'3.52"N, 125°45'48.05"E. Construction of the tower was commissioned by the state on the occassion of the 70th birthday of Kim Il Sung. It is rumored the tower was designed by Kim Il Yung's son - the current ruler Kim Jong Il

Linked to the tower is a sculpture of 30 meters height represented by three figures: A hammer, an ox and a pen representing workers, peasants and intellectuals.

The name of the tower comes from the Juche Ideology developed by Kim Il Sung through a combination of anarchy, auto dependence, Korean traditionalism and socialism.

Concentration Camps

The approximate number of camps is as follows: Four death camps and 17 forced labor camps:

- Three caps for women((Kaechon [S. Pyong-an] [2], Sinuiju [N. Pyong-an])
- Four camps for pregnant women subjected to forceful aborts and infanticide (Nongpo/Chongjin City [N. Hamgyong], Onsong [N. Hamgyong], Oro [S. Hamgyong], Yodok [S. Hamgyong])
- Two camps for women with children(Bukchang [S. Pyong-an], Hwasong [N. Hamgyong])
- In the camps there are 13 places designed for tortures, one of them in (Hamju-kun [S. Hamgyong])to torture women exclusively

Death Camps

- Danchun [Province S. Hamgyong] (Prisoners are forced to work in gold mining, death by hunger and subhuman conditions are prevalent)
- Haengyong [Province N. Hamgyong] (Prisoners are forced to work in coal mining and farms are labored by men, women and children. Mass muurder by gas chamber is reported here
- Jeonger-ri [Province N. Hamgyong] (Prisoners are forced to work in copper mining and iron as well as logging, brick production and farm work. Many are deliberately murdered in gas chambers and forced to die of starvation. Images that bring back the worst of Nazism

Selling Images to the World

North Korea like other totalitarian states is known for its famous grandiose "celebrations" and mass rallies.

Pioneer Camps

Indoctrination of children and youth is brutal in North Korea, even worst than in Cuba. The leader of the Communist Youth is the son of Kim Il Jong, future successor to the totalitarian throne.

Among other things if a child comes out of a classroom and passes through a hall with the portrait of Kim Il Jong (common in all schools) it has to praise the great leader in loud voice.

The existence of intellectuals in North Korea is a mere joke. Rather than independent thinking their role is to memorize the complete works of Kim Il Sung. Artists are prohibited to use any form of abstract paining: all has to be 'Socialist Realism.

Children in this picture are probably in a 'Pioneer's Camp.' As ironic as this might seem those who are here are the "lucky" ones as they are the family of the elites, the only ones authorized to live in the capital Pyonyang. Beyond the capital lies the vast country side where starvation and living conditions are brutal.

Kindergarten

Note how the spontaneity of these children is discouraged. They cannot freely ride, they have to do so strictly under the "marked lanes."

Probably raising their hands as an ode to the "Dear Leader" Kim Il Jong,

Sources: Images about North Korea were compiled from the website: Korea-DPR.com
A list of all sources used i this post are 'coming soon'

A NEW BLOG CHRONICLING THE IMAGES OF TOTALITARIANISM

2009-05-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

Alina Stefanescu, a fellow blogger with an excellent and instructive website on totalitarianism (Totalitarianism Today) had the courtesy to write about birth of this blog. She also also interviewed me:

A new blog chronicling the images of totalitarianism.

May 21, 2009
Alina Stefanescu
Totalitarianism Today

In my web wanderings, I discovered a wonderful blog which conveys the history of totalitarianism through images. The blog's author, who will heretofore be known as "El Companero" agreed to answer a few questions for me. The image to the right, which I discovered at his blog, reads "Fidel truly carries forward Christ's principles. Save us Fidel from the false priests..." The extent to which propaganda in Cuba made use of religious imagery is explored on El Companero's blog.

Alina: Why did you decide to create your blog, Totalitarian Images? Was there any particular inspiration? A reason why it went from idea to actuality?

El Companero: I strongly believe in the preservation of historical memory across generations, particularly from events and ideologies that were destructive, exclusionists and divisive. To this end I thought of a blog as a powerful tool to articulate ideas, particularly when they are accompanied by images. Since we live in a media based society I thought of focusing on the ‘image’ as an essential communication device to send information and hopefully communicate with others.

My blog is opened to any one interested in the meaning and implications of totalitarianism, particularly the uninformed ones. I refer to those born after the fall of the Berlin Wall totalitarianism could seem like a distant thing extracted from cold war propaganda. Some of them, immersed in different political causes might be confused with images about Che Guevara and certain ideologies without really understanding the implications of supporting political systems that step over individual freedoms and in the name of particular ideals and an alleged “equality”.

Alina: Yes, the young American hipsters are terribly fond of Che Guevara. I've always wondered how he would feel about their iPhones and paraphenalia. Strange the form self-loathing takes these days... But back to your inspiration...

El Companero: My inspiration was nurtured on my personal experience living in a totalitarian society. As a native of Cuba I was born and raised witnessing first hand the damaging effects of power, tyranny, polarization and extremism. I witnessed the so called ‘Repudiation Acts’ in Cuba and saw how neighbors, friends and even family rejected, humiliated and discriminated each other only for thinking differently and being on different sides of the political spectrum.

Alina: I should note that you maintain another blog as well-- a blog about Cuba. Given the extent to which information we receive about Cuba constitutes propaganda for either side of the political spectrum, I was excited to discover this highly personal contribution to the public conversation about Cuba. Did you start blogging about Cuba from some sense of personal interest or duty?

El Companero: My personal interest comes from being a Cuban native, a feeling an internal desire more powerful than myself to inform the world about what is happening inside my country. As you probably know in Cuba the newspapers, radio and TV stations are a property of the government and an instrument for apology and triumphalism, not a mechanism to criticize and inform about the real social, economic and political conflicts of society. My blog is only a grain of sand in a bigger ocean of bloggers, part of a virtual community of Cuban forums and websites that convey information reported from democrats and independent journalists inside the island. My objective is not to consider my blog or my information an absolute truth, but only a part of it with the aim that people around the world informed themselves from different sources (mine, the official reports from Cuba, and many other newspapers and sites) and then reached their own conclusions.

Alina: How would you describe your political perspective (i..e. anti-communist, socialist, independent, Arendtian, post-post-modern, you name it:) Tell me how you got there.

El Companero: I am a strong believer in Human Rights as the basis of modernity. I do not have anything against socialist systems as long as are the result of democratic elections, part of a government based on the rule of law, divisions of power, and utmost respect for individual liberties and divisions of power. In Cuba I hated socialism as I equated it with oppression, but later on as I lived in a democratic system I realized that despotism has many disguises, it could be in the form of socialism, revolution, nationalism and militarism. Thus, now I am a critic of any form of dictatorial government regardless of its ideology.

Alina: Excellent point. Militarism and nationalism seem a particularly dangerous pair in the current environment. But let's talk about abstractions and other things we find in books. Latin American books are sorely missing on my Top 100 Books About Totalitarianism Project. What books would you add?

El Companero: It is not possible to comprehend totalitarianism in its entirety without an analysis of Latin American and Caribbean history. This hemisphere provided an interesting manifestation of totalitarianism in the form of ‘caudillism’. Since its independence from Spain in 1824 Spanish America has lived more time in dictatorship than in democracy. This certainly makes Latin America a case study to understand more about the different manifestations of totalitarianism. The totalitarian influences in Latin America come from strong Spanish patriarchal traditions and African heritage as well as from other ideologies imported from abroad.

John Lynch, Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas, 1829-1852
John Lynch, Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800-1850
Steve Stein, Populism in Perú: The Emergence of the Masses and the Politics of Social Control
Carlos Alberto Montaner, Journey to the Heat of Cuba: Life as Fidel Castro
Lauren R. Derby, "In the Shadow of the State: The Politics of Denunciation and Panegyric during the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1940-1958" Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol 83, No 2 (May, 2003), 295-344
Lauren R. Derby, "The Dictator's Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle During the Trujillo Regime" Callaloo, Vol 23, No. 3 (Summer, 2000), 1112-1146.
Robert H. Dix, "Populism: Authoritarian and Democratic" Latin American Reserach Review, Vol 20, No. 2 (May, 1998), 29-52
Paul H. Lewis, Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America: Dictators, despots and Tyrants
Herando Muñoz, The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet

Alina: Beautiful. I'm going to add the books to my "extras" section on the top 100 totalitarian books page. Obviously, the internet provides a critical tool for you in your blogging about Cuba and totalitarian images. What websites do you find particularly useful and why?

El Companero The blog of Yoanis Sanchez who lives in Cuba where Internet is inaccessible for Cubans and writes a blog that chronicles daily life in the island. Her perspective as a young Cuban is essential to understand what happens in the island from the point of view of someone from the 1980s generation which has been called the Y Generation given that most of them have names that being with ‘Y’.

Latin American Studies In my view this is the best historical web site for documents and history of Cuba and Latin America.

Penultimos Dias This website is from Cuban exiles but its attraction is that it updates very fast on events happening in Cuba.

Cubanalisis Excellent site with books, political comments and resources on Cuba.

The Real Cuba Presents visual evidence and denunciation of human rights violations in Cuba.

CineCuba Unique place that has a collection of most Cuban films/documentaries of all times. One can actually view most of these films, some are subtitled in English.

Cuba Humor The latest caricatures on Cuban politics.

Alina: Okay, finish me off with a favorite quote-- one that reflects where you come from and where you want to go.

El Companero: “Freedom is the right of every man to be honest, and to think and speak without hypocrisy.” José Martí

Comments

Ludwik Kowalski said...

El Companero wrote:"My inspiration was nurtured on my personal experience living in a totalitarian society."

Me too. But it was in Eastern Europe. It is our obligation to share what we know.

Ludwik Kowalski, Professor Emeritus,

whose new book–”Tyranny to Freedom: Diary of a Former Stalinist,” and its reviews, are now available at

www [dot] amazon [dot] com

THIS IS NOT A COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING. 100% ROYALTIES AUTOMATICALLY GO TO A SCHOLARSHIP FUND.

Comments will be appreciated, either at the above website or in private. Thank you in advance.

kowalskiL@mail.montclair.edu

P.S.

The first chapter is online at

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/chapter1.html

EFFEMINATE CAMARADERIE

2009-05-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

A curious Soviet stamp that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Red Army 1918-1968.

From the Website 'English Russia'

THE HARMONY BOYS

2009-05-19T07:57:00.001-07:00

All totalitarian regimes share similarities. Regardless of their disguise as Revolutionaries, Socialists, Fascists, Nazis and Nationalists they all persecute targeted groups (Jews, homosexuals, Jehova Witnesses, gypsies, bourgeoisie, political dissidents, etc) and establish terror, propaganda, cult of personality and the secret police are essential means to workings of these regimes. In general all totalitarian rulers reject and disdain liberal or parliamentary democracy. One has to remember that during World War Two Adolf Hitler chose to make a pact (not with a western democratic government) but with a relative totalitarian regime as it was the case with the non aggression pact signed with the Soviet Union.

The Harmony Boys
By David Low.
First published on 2nd May 1940.

Personalities (from L-R)
Mussolini, Benito
Franco, General Francisco
Stalin, Joseph
Hitler, Adolf

Bibliography:
University of Kent: Centre for the Study of Propaganda and War

ESTONIA: SINGING FOR FREEDOM

2009-05-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

Not many think on the relationship between singing and freedom. But song was an essential weapons of the Estonians between 1987 and 1991 when they marched on the streets singing forbidden patriotic songs and rallied for independence from Soviet occupation. What happens when 20,000 people sing for freedom?

'The Singing Revolution'

CASTRO'S CUBA

2009-04-12T07:29:00.001-07:00

Since January 1st, 1959 and for the past 50 years Cuba has had the longest lasting totalitarian regime in the history of the 20th century. Whereas the revolution came to power with the ideal of liberty and to rid the nation from tyranny, within months the revolutionaries turned into censors and jailers. By April of 1961, Fidel Castro had turn Cuba into a totalitarian state with socialized access to health care and education and egalitarianism but accompanied with the systematic repression of dissidents, cancellation of all civil liberties such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to organize political parties, freedom to travel and invest. The two main elements of a totalitarian state were therefore born: propaganda and repression.

Graphic Images and icons that represent totalitarianism in Cuba.

The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution with a message to stop "counterrevolutionary" rumours or bolas. The CDR is an unpopular organization among Cubans as they are the ones in charge of daily snitching, including checking background identifications for all those leaving the country or even for revolutionaries going abroad to an internationalist mission. It says: "rumor is provocation."

Political Advertisement from the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). It says: "Your duty is to maintain every blcok clean."

In violation of Article 13 of the Declaration of Human Rights which grants all citizens the right to free travel, the Cuban government imposes permissions to tis own citizens (reglardless of whether they were granted a visa abroad or not) through bureaucratic 'forms' like this one. A totalitarian mechanism for the state to control citizens as if they were slaves.

The third form shows how the Cuban regime has denied "permission" to leave the country on two occasions the Cuban blogger Yoanis Sanchez. This form is evidence of such official prohibition.

ALMEST a subsidiary of the Armed Forces of Cuba (FAR) ordering the eviction of a Cuban family. According the official discourse of the Cuban government the revolution did not "evict" any of its citizens. Here there is evidence that points otherwise.

This reads: "Fidel truly carries forward Christ's principles. Save us Fidel from the false priests..."

"We will be like Che/Seremos como el Che" It is the slogan pioneers in Cuba shout every day from kindergarten to 9th grade. He is praised by many around the world, but not all those who wear his picture in their T-shirt know who he really was. do you really want to be like Che? Lets history speak for itself: Here is a look at the victims

Each student in Cuba from the first grade to university carries a 'File/Expediente Acumulativo Escolar' in which school officials write about the students's acacemic performance but most significantly about ideological integration, participation in political activities, and all "qualities" related to militants. If information in this file is not satisfactory from the ideological stand point then the student is rejected acceptance at the university or college. A student can be scholarly ahead but if is not fully integrated into the system, then it is not accepted into university. In Cuba the educational system is conditioned on loyalty to the state and ideological conformity. The resulting product of the educational system is a not a student who think on his/her own, but one trained in the art of double morale, critical for surviving in Cuba.

This is a notification for every pioneer watch over his/her neighborhood every April, 4th on the anniversary of the establishment of the Pioneer's Union. Even pioneers follow on the footsteps of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR's)

Fidel Castro included in Eastern European and Asian posters linking his regime with the socialist camp.

Betwen 1965 and the 1970s the province of Camaguey acquired a draconian significance tens of thousands of Cubans were sent there to work in agriculture and compensate for the demographic imbalance. It is in this province where most of the infamous UMAP camps (forced labor camps) were established between 1965 and 1968. This poster is from 1971 and was designed by Rene Mederos.

Cuban Posters on Internatinal Themes

The newspaper 'Granma' Official Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In Cuba all mediums of communication belong to the state and the Communist Party. The press in a totalitarian society such as Cuba is not a means to inform nor criticize those in power, but an instrument of the state to justify its actions. Apology and triumphalism has characterized Granma since it was first published in October of 1965. An edited version of Cuba rather than helping the nation identify its true problems free from dogmatism and censorship disinform the people and does not allow Cubans to become aware of their own nation. Without criticism there is no progress.

The black market is an essential part of a totalitarian society such as Cuba where the state controls all the means of production and the economy. In Cuba everything is sold through complex networks that operate through the black market. Corruption is so wide spread that even the PNR (Revolutionary National Police) takes part.

This is the business card from an "illegal" peddler by the name of Andy. He is close to being 40 years of age and belongs to a generation of Cubans that in the midst of poverty and lack of opportunities do anything to survive, considering that in Cuba all forms of entrepreneurship by native Cubans are forbidden and negatively depicted in the official press. Andy purchased his own apartment (even when Cubans are now allowed to do so). He took advantage of legal loopholes in the old 'Ley de la Vivienda'/Housing Law' was in place. He offers merchandise from the state stores, he rents movies, and soap operas which he records from his clandestine satellite system hidden inside a water tank. He is a well rounded businessman,who either sales mattresses, toasters, living rooms and air conditioned or fulfills demands from customers who want action films with lots of sex and little politics. He warns that he only provide what the state does not offer or sales at high prices.

This card was handed by Andy to Yoanis Sanchez outside a store in Havana.

Cuba's educational system is closely link to indoctrination or political socialization. These cards evaluate primary and secondary schools for their participation in ideological activities and the fulfillment of 'emulation/la emulacion' meaning a form of socialist competition in which the winner is the most faithful follower of state directives.

Cartoons had been an instrument for propaganda in Cuba since the inception of the current regime. The examples are various.

Here I include pictures from Pedrito El Policia/Peter the Policeman. This was a cartoon from Hungary during the socialist period. The role model is Peter a policeman who is surrounded by TV sets. In the cartoon Peter kept a vigilant eye on everything that happened. When he spotted "trouble" he got there to solve it with its loyal dog. In each cartoon there was a kid who admired Pedrito and his police effectiveness. Trough Pedrito the infalible policeman he purpose was to inspire children to work for the police and particularly the state security

Guaso y Carburo was made in Cuba in the 1980s. In the cartoon the counter-revolutionaries were represented by two rats interested in destroying the Pioneer's garden. Then the two loyal dogs (named Guaso and Carburo, the loyal revolutionaries) mobilized to catch the counterrevolutionaries and threw them in prison. Enemies of the state are demonized as "lousy rats/ratas inmundas." Intolerant values were inculcated in children who were taught to hate those who were different and considered "enemies of the state."

After 2005 came 'Casos y Cosas del Cabo Cason'/Things from Cape Cason. The idea was to ridicule James Cason the Chief of the US Interest Section in Cuba. Each cartoon lasted for a few minutes. It presented the Cuban people with the official government version of what the island would be like in a democracy. By using Cuban style humor and satire the cartoon appealed to the people, particularly the younger generations. There were 9 episodes made of this Cartoon: 1- The Vaccine; 2- Human Rights; 3- Social Security; 4- Literacy; 5- Ghost Television; 6- Elections; 7- Housing; 8- Agriculture; 9- Peasantry.

THE INTEGRALIST MOVEMENT AND THE ESTADO NOVO IN BRAZIL

2009-04-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

Throughout the first decades of the twentieth century Latin America entered in a period called 'populism.' By this term history refers to a form of government particular to a specific time. Populists were those rulers who relied on a newly formed constituency of enfranchised workers to conquer political power. Populist’s politicians in Latin America throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s were dictators, nationalists, fascists or military men in charge. As a style of rulership, politicians used the recently created radio to advertise their message and appealed to the common people for support.

Among the most iconic populists Latin American rulers of the time was was President Getulio Vargasof Brazil who ruled between 1930 and 1945 and later between 1951 and 1954. He conquered political power based on the support of the 'Integralists' an organization composed significantly by pro fascists who adapted the symbols of Nazism to the nationalist realities of Brazil, without the racial discrimination that characterized Nazi Germany. Vargas presided a quasi dictatorial state called the 'Estado Novo'because it shifted the balance of power from the countryside to the cities, from the coffee dominated Brazil to the urban industrial areas.

The Vargas regime had some benefits to the workers, but it came accompanied by a strong authoritarianism on behalf of the state with prohibition of independent unions and a very strong hand against opposition. Massive rallies, anticommunism, religion, nationalism, the use of systematic propaganda and indoctrination characterized the Vargas government.

Images from the Frente Integralista Brasileira or Integralist Front during the first government of Getulio Vargas' era in Brazil between 1930-1945:

The letter Sigma from the Greek Alphabet was used as a symbol in the Integralists' uniforms, and adaptatin of the Nazi Swastica.

Indoctrination of Children in Getulio Vargas' Brazil.

Brazilian native girls salute the Brazilian flag. Nationalism and cultural integration was part of the ideology of Integralism and the Estado Novo.

Women in the Integralist Movement.

Control over fashion is part of any form of totalitarianism. Here is a depiction of the authorized forms of clothes for the 'Integralist' women.

The native in the poster is a metaphoric representation of Brazil. The hand that stops communism is the green arm of the Integralist Front and the knife depicts communist treason as there were elements from the left who had also being part of the integralist movement before it divided in two factions.

The Fascist Aesthetic. Benito Mussolini saluting his followers in Naples. 1934

An imitation of the Fascist Aesthetic in Brazil. Plinio Salgado the Integralist leader saluting his followers in the city of Blumenau. 1935

Miguel Reale, one of the integralist leaders in a Mussolini like pose and with a similar fascist uniform.

A military parade with Plinio Salgado the leader of Integralists. People salute them as the y pass by, a reminder of Fascism in the 1930s

Integralists and the People in a massive rally.

God, fatherland and family. Religious nationalism was part of the propaganda presented by Integralists.

A religious images that attempts to relate Jesus Christ to Integralist nationalism. The legend that goes with it says "The Estado Novo is essentially a state inspired in Christ."

Integralists with Brazilian President Getulio Vargas.

Integralists on their way to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War

Graphic Sources:
1-Revista Brasileira de Historia. Vol. 24. No. 50. Sao Paulo. July/Dec, 2005
2- Frente Integralista Brasileira