Oswaldo Payá

Columbia University, at its 2006 Commencement held yesterday, awarded an honorary doctorate degree to Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, organiser of the Varela Project, a Christian non-violent movement seeking the liberation of Cuba.

Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger mentioned Castro’s refusal to allow Osvaldo Payá to travel to New York to receive the award, and read the citation:

I am supposed to have the duty of presenting Oswaldo Payá, to whom the Trustees have awarded an honorary doctor of laws. Unfortunately, his chair here is empty. Mr. Payá could not join us on this occasion because the Government of Cuba has not granted him an exit visa to be here. We were prepared to confer the degree, but Mr. Payá has written us to ask that Columbia’s leadership allow him to receive the degree in person when he is free to travel. We all look forward to that day. For the present, this is what we would have read to you about him:

Engineer, journalist, activist, tireless campaigner for human rights and advocate for the people of Cuba, you represent the aspirations of millions around the world yearning for freedom and democracy. Based on the Cuban constitution itself, your Varela Project—a peaceful civic initiative to gather signatures across Cuba for the establishment of a free and democratic citizenry — is a model of civic activism. At great personal sacrifice and despite nearly constant surveillance and harassment, you have remained committed to nonviolent dissidence and political change. You embody a life of principle in practice and we are proud to celebrate your extraordinary dedication to peaceful, democratic values by conferring on you the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.

Iranian mullahs in the city of Qum have invited Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to convert to Islam.

Why not? His Communism was only ever an opportunistic justification for him to operate as a brigand. And he’s already got the beard.

Today is the 45th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which could have effectuated the liberation of Cuba, but failed due to the inexcusable cowardice of one American official. Cuba has lived under tyranny, and the United States has lived with shame, ever since.

Babalu Blog has published a must-read tribute for the occasion. Every conservative blogger should read it, and link it.

In it, Robert Molleda quotes Humberto Fontova’s book Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant:

Fontova mentions that Brigade 2506 was outnumbered by Cuban troops by almost 40 to 1! Two-to-one, or three-to-one are staggering enough odds, but forty-to-one? Nevertheless, it took the Soviet-backed Cuban forces three entire days to defeat a group of 2,000 men, and this was only after they ran out of ammunition. If only Kennedy would have provided the air support as he had promised, there would have been no Missile Crisis, no brutal dictator 90 miles to our south, and no author of this post (my parents met in the U.S.).

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Hat tip to Gaius Arbo.

Helena Houdova

Dean Esmay links Val Prieto’s coverage of the aftermath of last week’s arrest in Cuba of Czech Supermodel Helena Houdova for photographing the real Cuba.

Houdova, Miss Czech Republic 1999, spoke to journalists today after returning from Cuba.

“The revolution’s watchmen rose up because I was taking pictures of something they do not like,” said the top model, referring to the fact that the Communist regime of Fidel Castro denies the existence of slums on the island.

Houdova went to Cuba to find out whether her Sunflower foundation could assist the local children – orphans, the handicapped or those afflicted with AIDS. She pointed out that it is almost impossible to provide any assistance through official means because the Communist authorities refuse to admit anything in their country does not work.

However, Houdova personally ascertained the pathetic situation in several Cuban hospitals.

Houdova was arrested along with psychologist and fellow model Mariana Kroftova. The two women spent 11 hours in police custody.

The Cuban police confiscated the roll of film that was in the Czech women’s camera. However, Houdova managed to conceal the memory card of her digital camera inside her brassiere.

[she] told journalists today that she will display the pictures she took at an exhibition portraying the island not only as a tourist paradise but also as a land of political oppression.

Maria Kroftova, the partner-in-crime