2005 Article on Guevara Fad

Did you catch Carlos Santana's grand entrance at the Oscars?

Well, the famed guitarist couldn't contain himself. He stopped for the photographers, smiled deliriously and swung his jacket open. TA-DA! There it was: Carlos' elegantly embroidered Che Guevara T-shirt. Carlos' face as the flashbulbs popped said it all. "I'm so COOL!" he beamed. "I'm so HIP! I'm so CHEEKY! So SHARP! So TUNED IN!"

Tune in to this, Carlos: In the mid 1960s Fidel and your charming T-shirt icon set up concentration camps in Cuba for, among many others, "anti-social elements" and "delinquents." Besides Bohemian (Haight-Ashbury, Greenwich Village types) and homosexuals, these camps were crammed with "roqueros," who qualified in Che and Fidel's eyes as useless "delinquents."

A "roquero" was a hapless youth who tried to listen to Yankee-Imperialist rock music in Cuba. Comprende, Carlos? Do you see where I'm going with this, Carlos?

Yes, Mr. Santana, here you were grinning widely – and OH-SO-hiply! – while proudly displaying the symbol of a regime that MADE IT A CRIMINAL OFFENSE TO LISTEN TO CARLOS SANTANA MUSIC! You IMBECILE!!

True, you didn't hit it big till Woodstock in 1969, at a time when Che had already received a heavy dose of the very medicine he had gallantly dished out to hundreds of bound and gagged men and boys, some as young as 14. This means the first inmates of his concentration camps were probably guilty of the heinous crime of listening mainly to the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, etc. But the regime Che helped set up kept up the practice of jailing "roqueros" well past the time when you were hot on the rock charts, Carlos.

Lest we get carried away with merely laughing at your stupidity, I'll pass along the thoughts from Cuban music legend Paquito D'Rivero. He wrote his recent letter to you in Spanish. "My command of English wouldn't allow me to fully express my indignation" at your cheeky Oscar gig, he explained.

Seems that Mr. D'Rivera had relatives among those your T-shirt icon jailed, tortured and murdered. In closing, Mr. D'Rivera wishes you good luck in your professional endeavors. He says you'll need it, considering that you'll soon be playing a gig in Miami. A Cuban gentleman named Pierre San Martin was also among those jailed by the gallant Che. A few years ago he recalled the horrors in an El Nuevo Herald article.

"Thirty-two of us were crammed into a cell," he recalls. "Sixteen of us would stand while the other sixteen tried to sleep on the cold filthy floor. We took shifts that way. Actually, we considered ourselves lucky. After all, we were alive. Dozens were led from the cells to the firing squad daily. The volleys kept us awake. We felt that any one of those minutes would be our last.

"One morning the horrible sound of that rusty steel door swinging open startled us awake and Che's guards shoved a new prisoner into our cell. His face was bruised and smeared with blood. We could only gape. He was a boy, couldn't have been much older than 12, maybe 14.

"'What did you do?' We asked horrified. 'I tried to defend my papa,' gasped the bloodied boy. 'I tried to keep these Communist sons of b**tches form murdering him! But they sent him to the firing squad.'"

Soon Che's goons came back, the rusty steel door opened and they yanked the valiant boy out of the cell. "We all rushed to the cell's window that faced the execution pit," recalls Mr. San Martin. "We simply couldn't believe they'd murder him! Then we spotted him, strutting around the blood-drenched execution yard with his hands on his waist and barking orders – the gallant Che Guevara."

Here Che was, finally in his element. In battle he was a sad joke, a bumbler of epic proportions (for details see "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant"), but up against disarmed and bloodied boys he was a snarling tiger.

"Kneel Down!" Che barked at the boy.

"ASSASSINS!" We screamed from our window. "MURDERERS!! HOW CAN YOU MURDER A LITTLE BOY!"

"I said, KNEEL DOWN!" Che barked again.

The boy stared Che resolutely in the face. "If you're going to kill me," he yelled. "you'll have to do it while I'm standing! MEN die standing!"

"COWARDS! MURDERERS! Sons of B**TCHES!" The men yelled desperately from their cells. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" HOW CAN ...?!"

"And then we saw Che unholstering his pistol. It didn't seem possible. But Che raised his pistol, put the barrel to the back of the boy's neck and blasted. The shot almost decapitated the young boy.

"We erupted. We were enraged, hysterical, banging on the bars.'MURDERERS! ASSASSINS!' His murder finished, Che finally looked up at us, pointed his pistol, and BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! emptied his clip in our direction. Several of us were wounded by his shots."

To a man (and boy) Che's murder victims went down in a blaze of defiance and glory. So let's recall Che's own plea when the wheels of justice finally turned and he was cornered in Bolivia. "Don't Shoot!" he whimpered. "I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

This swinish and murdering coward, this child killer, was the toast of the Oscars.

HIV drugs used as recreational narcotics

Getting high on HIV drugs in S Africa

Anti-retrovirals are for boosting the immune system of people with HIV

Anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV/Aids are being bought and smoked by teenagers in South Africa to get high.

Reports suggest that the drugs are being sold by patients and even healthcare staff for money.

Schoolchildren have been spotted smoking the drugs, which are ground into powder and sometimes mixed with painkillers or marijuana.

Aids patients themselves have been found smoking the drugs instead of taking them as prescribed.

Anti-retrovirals are used to boost the immune system of people with HIV and to suppress the virus in the blood.

"I couldn't believe it. I was shocked at first, these were school boys in their school uniforms," documentary-maker Tooli Nhlapo told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

"They take a pill and grind it, until it is a powder. Some also mix it with painkillers and others mix it with marijuana," said Ms Nhlapo. "They showed me how they roll it and smoke it."

Hallucinogenic

When the South African Broadcasting Corporation documentary-maker first investigated the story, she was told to wait until school finished, so she could actually see how young some of the users were.

The pills are crushed and mixed with other ingredients, like marijuana

"I thought I was going to go to a tavern and see older drug addicts doing this, but I was shocked when I saw school children," she said.

"One who spoke to me very frankly was only 15 and the oldest person I spoke to was 21, but it's mainly youngsters, teenagers."

Smoking the pills has a hallucinogenic and relaxing effect.

"When I asked them why they like doing it, they said it helps them relax and forget about their problems," said Ms Nhlapo.

"When you look at them, just a few seconds after taking it, they are in another world," she added.

The children do not know where they are and they stop making sense.

The young users that Ms Nhlapo spoke to get access to these drugs from HIV patients or healthcare workers.

They know when the individual patients go to collect the drugs and buy them, or if they do not have any money, they steal them.

"When I was doing the story, many HIV patients were complaining that they don't get the drugs and that queues are long and it was taking a long time to access them," said Ms Nhlapo.

Widespread problem

Dr Kas Kasongo, who advises on an anti-retroviral drugs panel in South Africa, feels that there needs to be some measure of accountability or a system to be able to track the usage of drugs.

"We need pharmacists and good administrators but again it is a social problem," he said.

"I don't think our role as doctors should be to just dish out drugs. We have to make sure that these drugs are taken as recommended."

When Ms Nhlapo first came across this new drug phenomenon, she thought it was just happening in one area, among a small group of people.

"I went back to the township and then I discovered that it was something that was known in the entire township," she said.

It had now become a national problem in South Africa, she added.

Dr Kasongo continued: "Not taking the optimum dose as recommended will not suppress the virus and the CD4 count will be destroyed massively and that's what we are trying to prevent by giving anti-retroviral medication."

Side-effects

Most anti-retroviral drugs can be given to both children and adults, Dr Kasongo said. But there was one exception.

"There is one that is being abused that should only be used above the age of three or four years," he added.

"Remember we are giving anti-retroviral drugs to those infected with HIV, who will eventually develop Aids.

"So, people who are healthy, that are taking this medication are exposing themselves to potential side-effects of these drugs," he added.

No matter how high they are, they do not tell you who is giving them the drugs Tooli Nhlapo

HIV patients are exposing themselves to huge risks by not taking the prescribed drugs as they should, he warned.

"We don't have more than 20 anti-retroviral drugs on the market and remember, they have to be used in a cocktail of at least three or four," said Dr Kasongo.

"Therefore, abusing a particular drug, whichever it is, is a concern because it can give rise to resistance to drugs within that same group," he added.

Dr Kasongo stressed that it will take a huge team effort, involving the government, social workers and education authorities to combat the problem.

"It is well organised, no matter how high they are, they do not tell you who is giving them the drugs," said Ms Nhlapo.

Hitler was a good boss

History has condemned him as the megalomaniac who brought death and misery to millions.

But for one woman, the name Adolf Hitler evokes a smile not a shudder.

She is Rosa Mitterer, who worked as a maid for the Fuhrer at his mountain retreat in Bavaria in the 1930s.

Rosa is 91 and until now has kept a vow of silence about her experiences. She has chosen to break it after realising she is the last survivor of the circle who served the tyrant in the years before he launched the Second World War.

91-year-old Rosa Mitterer is the sole survivor of those who served Adolf Hitler in the years before the Second World War

And her verdict on her former master: 'He was a charming man, someone who was only ever nice to me, a great boss to work for. You can say what you like, but he was a good man to us.'

Rosa's remembrances of life at the court of the tyrant make gripping reading. She saw leading Nazis come and go. Himmler, the evil party secretary; Bormann, whom she described as a 'dirty pig'; and the club-footed, sexually-obsessed propaganda minister Goebbels.

Rosa went into Hitler's service at the age of 15 in 1932 when she was Rosa Krautenbacher. Her sister Anni had worked as a cook at Hitler's Berchtesgaden retreat since the late 1920s.

'She said he needed a housemaid and I would fit the bill,' Rosa recalled. 'I remember so clearly the first day I spoke to him in the kitchen. I said I was Anni's sister and that made him smile, because Anni was his favourite. I only ever knew Hitler as a kindly man who was good to me.'

A photo taken at Rosa's sister's wedding, which Hitler attended

His former housekeeper was Geli Raubal, with whom it was rumoured he had a love affair. 'She shot herself in September 1931 and I was told as soon as I went to work for him that he was not to be approached on the anniversary of that day,' said Rosa.

'My sister and I shared a room that was directly over Hitler's. We could hear him crying.'

For a long time she and Anni were the only servants in the home, known as Berghof.

Recalling her first direct request from her master, she said she was drying some porcelain cups when he came down the stairs.

'Hello,' he said softly. 'Sorry to trouble you, but could you make me some coffee and bring some gingerbread biscuits to my study?'

Coming into such close proximity to Hitler made her feel faint, she said, but she soon became accustomed to life at Berghof.

'I rose at 6am every day and put on a red-green dirndl with a white apron. My first task was to feed his dogs - he had three German shepherds at the beginning called Wolf, Muck and Blondi.

Charmer: Adolf Hitler, 'the perfect boss'

'In those days, Hitler slept in his study. In it was an iron bed, one wardrobe, one table, two chairs and a shoebox. It was very modestly furnished. Beside the bed hung a picture of his mother.'

She added: 'I didn't have to be a Nazi party member or anything. After a while I relaxed a bit. Apparently it was Hitler's orders that Anni and I be taken to church every Sunday because he thought this would be "good for us".

'Another time he came into the kitchen, saw me and said, "Ahh, I see our little one has grown a little plumper!".'

Part of her duties involved sorting out the fan letters and presents that were delivered in their thousands to the house.

'There were cigars, jars of jam, flowers, pictures,' she recalled. 'We gave most of them away to poorer peasant families nearby on Hitler's orders.'

Her time in service also allowed her to see at close quarters the woman Hitler kept secret from his people throughout his rule - Eva Braun. 'She was not so pretty close up,' Rosa recalled.

'Himmler was always there too, thinner than what he looked like in the photos, and Goebbels.

'And Bormann, I didn't like him at all. He was a dirty pig.' By the end of 1934, the house was surrounded by minefields and SS checkpoints. Rosa said. 'I felt like a prisoner instead of an employee.'

In 1935 she fell in love with local businessman Josef Amorts and handed in her notice. She was told she could leave immediately..

'I only met Hitler once more, on December 10, 1936, when Anni married Herbert Doehring, manager of the Berghof. He came to the wedding and was nice to me, saying he missed me.'

Rosa married in 1939 and had three daughters. She later remarried. A great-grandmother, she now lives in Munich. After the war she had to confront the reality of the man for whom she had worked so willingly. And in particular the reality of the Holocaust.

'That he had ordered such terrible things, I just couldn't believe it,' she said. 'Even now, I prefer to remember the charming facets of his personality.'

Music as torture

Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.


MSN NEWS (AP)

Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.


"Stains like the blood on your teeth," Trent Reznor snarled over distorted guitars. "Bite. Chew.
"

The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the U.S. military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal.


The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock.
"

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.


A campaign being launched Wednesday has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave and is now on a solo tour. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals, said Chloe Davies of the British law group Reprieve, which represents dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and is organizing the campaign.


At least Vance, who says he was jailed for reporting illegal arms sales, was used to rock music. For many detainees who grew up in Afghanistan - where music was prohibited under Taliban rule - interrogations by U.S. forces marked their first exposure to the pounding rhythms, played at top volume.


'Plenty lost their minds'

The experience was overwhelming for many. Binyam Mohammed, now a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, said men held with him at the CIA's "Dark Prison" in Afghanistan wound up screaming and smashing their heads against walls, unable to endure more.


"There was loud music, (Eminem's) 'Slim Shady' and Dr. Dre for 20 days. I heard this nonstop over and over," he told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith. "The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night for the months before I left. Plenty lost their minds.
"

The spokeswoman for Guantanamo's detention center, Navy Cmdr. Pauline Storum, wouldn't give details of when and how music has been used at the prison, but said it isn't used today. She didn't respond when asked whether music might be used in the future.


FBI agents stationed at Guantanamo Bay reported numerous instances in which music was blasted at detainees, saying they were "told such tactics were common there.
"

According to an FBI memo, one interrogator at Guantanamo Bay bragged he needed only four days to "break" someone by alternating 16 hours of music and lights with four hours of silence and darkness.


Ruhal Ahmed, a Briton who was captured in Afghanistan, describes excruciating sessions at Guantanamo Bay. He said his hands were shackled to his feet, which were shackled to the floor, forcing him into a painful squat for periods of up to two days.


"You're in agony," Ahmed, who was released without charge in 2004, told Reprieve. He said the agony was compounded when music was introduced, because "before you could actually concentrate on something else, try to make yourself focus on some other things in your life that you did before and take that pain away.


"It makes you feel like you are going mad," he said.


'Sesame Street' tunes used for interrogation

Not all of the music is hard rock. Christopher Cerf, who wrote music for "Sesame Street," said he was horrified to learn songs from the children's TV show were used in interrogations.


"I wouldn't want my music to be a party to that," he told AP.


Bob Singleton, whose song "I Love You" is beloved by legions of preschool Barney fans, wrote in a newspaper opinion column that any music can become unbearable if played loudly for long stretches.


"It's absolutely ludicrous," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times.
"A song that was designed to make little children feel safe and loved was somehow going to threaten the mental state of adults and drive them to the emotional breaking point?"

Morello, of Rage Against the Machine, has been especially forceful in denouncing the practice. During a recent concert in San Francisco, he proposed taking revenge on President George W. Bush.


"I suggest that they level Guantanamo Bay, but they keep one small cell and they put Bush in there ... and they blast some Rage Against the Machine," he said to whoops and cheers.


Some musicians, however, say they're proud that their music is used in interrogations. Those include bassist Stevie Benton, whose group Drowning Pool has performed in Iraq and recorded one of the interrogators' favorites, "Bodies.
"

"People assume we should be offended that somebody in the military thinks our song is annoying enough that played over and over it can psychologically break someone down," he told Spin magazine. "I take it as an honor to think that perhaps our song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that.
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The band's record label told AP that Benton did not want to comment further. Instead, the band issued a statement reading: "Drowning Pool is committed to supporting the lives and rights of our troops stationed around the world.
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Tactics to make men go mad

Vance, in a telephone interview from Chicago, said the tactic can make innocent men go mad. According to a lawsuit he has filed, his jailers said he was being held because his employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents. The U.S. military confirms Vance was jailed but won't elaborate because of the lawsuit.


He said he was locked in an overcooled 9-foot-by-9-foot cell that had a speaker with a metal grate over it. Two large speakers stood in the hallway outside. The music was almost constant, mostly hard rock, he said.


"There was a lot of Nine Inch Nails, including 'March of the Pigs,"' he said. "I couldn't tell you how many times I heard Queen's 'We Will Rock You.
"'

He wore only a jumpsuit and flip-flops and had no protection from the cold.


"I had no blanket or sheet. If I had, I would probably have tried suicide," he said.
"I got to a few points toward the end where I thought, 'How can I do this?' Actively plotting, 'How can I get away with it so they don't stop it?"'

Asked to describe the experience, Vance said: "It sort of removes you from you. You can no longer formulate your own thoughts when you're in an environment like that.
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He was released after 97 days. Two years later, he says, "I keep my home very quiet.
"