Review: Our Man in Havana – by Graham Greene

Graham Greene delivers here a classic espionage novel, fiction, set in Cuba around the time of the revolution, Greene writes in his knowledgeable subject area of expertise a comedy account of a chance vacuum salesman being recruited by Mi6 as their ‘Man in Havana.’ Struggling lone parent Wormold runs a little enterprising vacuum franchise and looks after his blooming teenage daughter, Milly. It is his spoiling her with a horse that he kind of seizes on the opportunity of becoming a spy, reasoning with himself solely really that he is in it for the extra cash. Hawthorne is the Mi6 officer who recruits Wormold and he is to and for between Cuba, Jamaica and London head office reporting on the growing successful mission of Our Man in Havana. Wormold delivers in what he sees as the safest way possible a series of critical intelligence to the British government. He has photographs of military installations in the Cuban Sierra (not dissimilar to the Russian / Soviet military installations of the later Cuban Missile Crisis), a string of local agents infiltrating and influencing critical areas of Cuban society. He is creating much excitement and hover in London they are well pleased. He collects his enhanced expenses and the bosses decide to expand the operation and send out an assistant and also the lovely young spy/secretary, Beatrice. Wormold’s secret, however, is that he’s actually fabricating all the intelligence with a keen imagination. The military installations are just a state of the art vacuum cleaner that’s been taken apart. The agents are fictitious people or people he has never even met. Yet the reports seduce the bigwigs back in Blighty. The farce grows more and more out of control until it actually becomes a real spy adventure with mishaps including the assassination of his German drinking buddy and best friend, Dr Hasselbacher and he is under a lot of scrutiny by the dirty old corrupt abusive brutal police chief, Captain Segura. Captain Segura wants the freshfaced teen Milly to be his bride and isa a bit lenient on our man, Wormold, as result of seeking the bride’s hand in marriage. Things get totally FUBAR and Wormold ends up shooting a suspected enemy agent and is forced to finally flee the Caribbean Island and head back to the safety of the United Kingdom. His charade is exposed but incredibly despite all the fake evidence, the actual real spy stuff that he accidentally does and to avoid embarrassment leads to him being retained by the intelligence service and ultimately he cops off with secretary Beatrice in a pleasant romantic twist to a wild old tale of Cold War era espionage gambits.

Review: Gangster Warlords – Drug Dollars, Killing Fields and the New Politics of Latin America – by Ioan Grillo

This is the second of Ioan Grillo’s books that I have read and I found this volume equally as good as my first encounter with this talented British journalist. Gangster Warlords focuses on 4 separate crime gangs across the Americas. For each group we identify leaders, politics, often brutal and horrendous crimes and a link to the out of control trade in Narcotics across Latin America and the Caribbean that gives rise to the conditions necessary for Gangster Warlords to thrive. The first part looks at the Comando Vermelho or Red Commando of Brazil, focussing on a biography of the ‘brain’ of the guerrilla / criminal gang, William da Silva Lima. From open bocas selling drugs on the streets of the Rio favelas, to political indoctrination in the fusion of leftwing political prisoners and armed robbers in Brasilian jails, this story is eyeopening and violently disturbing. The second part covers Jamaica’s Shower Posse with the rise and fall of its President, Christopher Michael Coke or ‘Dudus’. The impact one man’s crimes can have upon an entire political system that reaches deep into the depths of global cities with their yardie drug gangs highlights how uneasy a relationship is struck between warlords and governments. Third up we have coverage of the gangs of the Northern Triangle – Honduras and El Salvador with its imported from Los Angeles headlining crime group the Mara Salvatrucha. The brutal murder rate of these guys strikes fear into even the hardiest of Latin American gangs with the MS-13 being recruited by powerful Mexican cartels such as Sinaloa to do their dirty work. The global reaches of violent criminal empires is apparent. Lastly there is a focus on Nazario Moreno, El Chayo – El Más Looa – The Maddest One. and his Knights Templar. This NarcoSaint formed from the nucleus of the La Familia Michoacana a devoted following based around the medieval style religious teachings and devotion of the holy warrior monks of the Middle Ages. He faked his death at one stage until he was finally put into his grave by the fierce war with autodefensas who in vigilante justice were the only solution to his expansive Crystal Meth and Marijuana empire. The whole book encompasses many of the same themes. Recurrent violence, cocaine smuggling and distribution internationally, political unrest and inadequate government coping strategies. In his conclusions Grillo identifies possible solutions to the War on Drugs, highlighting a changing shift in drug legalisation policies and improved political coping strategies combined with education. It’s fantastic, griping page-turner of a book which I regard as a five star read, perfect for anyone with an interest in the international politics and crime of the Narcotics world.

Review: Kanaval – Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haïti – by Leah Gordon

Kanaval

Leah Gordon is a former punk artist from London. She is also a photographer and this book reflects upon her experiences of Kanaval on the streets of Jacmel in Haïti between 1995 and 2010. Haïti was the first black republic in the Western hemisphere, a black slave nation that overthrew the yolk of its French European masters. A core component of the revolution’s power was the African-inspired Vodou belief system and intertwined with politics the Kanaval (Creolisation of Carnival) traces its routes to the clandestine slave gatherings in the upland forests of the island. Gordon takes powerful black and white images of the key Kanaval characters and interviews these characters, capturing a series of oral histories from the poor local inhabitants who invest their energy effortlessly, creating characters, making costumes, designing props, organising dance routines and applying makeup, to create this pre-Lentern annual orgy of street theatre and fiesta. We meet the Lanse Kòd (The Rope Throwers), Jwif Eran (Wandering Jew), Papa Sida (Father of AIDS), Oungan (Vodou Priest), St Michel and also the Satanic Zel Maturin (The Wings of Maturin). These characters act out a fight of good versus evil, they challenge the audiences to raise small amounts of money and to reflect upon the political realities of Haïtian life. There is a series of critical essays throughout the book from key researchers of Haïti, that reflect upon the essence of Leah Gordon’s work. The book is enlightening and the images, that can be very disturbing, project an exoticism and spirituality that gives the reader a true taste of the Kanaval performers’ messages and allows the reader a glimpse of the post-colonial ‘Other’ that is the Caribbean.

Review: The Repeating Island – The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective – by Antonio Benítez-Rojo

The Cuban author offers a postmodern view of the Caribbean. It is a sociocultural study that encompasses aspects of history, economics, sociology, cultural anthropology, psychoanalysis, literary theory, and non-linear mathematics, incorporating chaos theory. The book’s aims and theories are laid out in a flowing introduction whereby Benítez-Rojo’s notion of the ‘repeating island’ is explored, through the lens of polyrhythms and meta-archipelagoes. Benítez-Rojo sees in all of the Caribbean a repetitive streaming of ideas, of resistance to slavery, of Plantation culture of postcolonialist discourse. The book focuses on a series of Caribbean authors and poets, from Gabriel García Márquez to the author’s poet of preference, the Cuban Guillén. Critical essays explore how a multitude of creative characters have interpreted their lives in the Antilles, and recurring themes of the cult of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre or of the sacrificed slave Mackandal, reverberate in the author’s dissections of West Indian culture. This book gives a valuable postmodernist insight into the supersyncretic culture that comprises the Caribbean.

Review: Cocaine Nation – How The White Trade Took Over The World – by Tom Feiling

This is an enthralling, well-researched book, that reveals many unknown new facts about the global cocaine industry. The book opens with a chapter focussing on the USA, the biggest market for the Cocaine industry, where 66% of Cocaine users exist. We then enter into the producing and transit phase of the drug and examine Colombia, Mexico and the Caribbean in detail. Colombia has the infamous Medellín and Cali cartels, much responsible for the initial production of Cocaine. The role of the FARC, AUC and the Colombian Civil War is documented and the political difficulties with America’s Plan Colombia and the extreme bribery involved in Colombian political life. In Mexico, we see how the various cartels such as Sinaloa, Juárez, Gulf and Tijuana have gone to war, recruiting the services of such paramilitaries as Los Zetas. The Caribbean covers Jamaica in detail and also Cuba, Haiti and the various tax haven islands. In Jamaica we see how politics have heavily influenced the gang culture and the rise of the Shower Posse is documented. In all of the Western producer country sphere, the USA and its policies is never far from the forefront. The ‘War on Drugs’ in force from many successive administrations at the White House, often focuses on producer and transit countries and is totally supported by draconian United Nations international legislation. The European market, in particular the United Kingdom is the second largest market for Cocaine and some countries here have introduced decriminalisation. In places such as Holland and Portugal, drug use is not penalised. The author explores how users are affected by the drug and explores addiction, in particular the problems of crack cocaine. In the final part of the book we look at possible legalisation solutions although, despite Feiling’s enthusiasm for this to happen, I fear it will be many generations before this becomes politically possible. Perhaps with potential cannabis decriminalisation and legalisation on the agenda, it will open up the doors for other narcotics to follow suit? I enjoyed the book and it really does go into detail on what is an interesting subject and a truly global industry.