Happy Birthday Rafaelmartel.com, Baby!

Today is our one-year anniversary! As I wrote not too long ago, this site was the idea of Frances Martel. I’ve been publishing my work for more than 25 years and I thought it was a good idea to just keep my work offline. I never imagined I would end up writing almost non stop since May 30th, 2007, much less reaching almost 100,000 people from all over the world- we are very close to our first 100,000. Frances and I will like to thank our readers, the blogs and the people behind them that gave us a hand at the beginning and I Hope they still do:

Enrique from AbajoFidel, Val and Henry from Babalu as well as the rest of the gang; a special Thank You to Pinceladas de Cuba who was kind enough to recognize this site with two awards, 90 Miles Away, José at Cubanology, a man who does great work monitoring all Cuban American sites, Varela, who’s always been willing to send a message through his many e mails, José A Buergo, a kind and honest man who exercises the First Amendment Right without fear and has become our correspondent in Los Angeles, a man who I am proud to be called his friend, Brian P. Stack, and always supported our efforts in our lifelong pro democratic struggle for a Free Cuba, Jay Martinez, who recently published in his great site one of our articles, Guillermo Millán Reyes, a great Cuban, who has always supported our efforts from the beginning linking our blog to his. Reyes is one of those patriots who, living in Sweden, has contributed tremendously to balance the control and manipulation the Castro regime had in the internet. Many thanks to Al Godar from Blogs sobre Cuba, who really doesn’t discriminate anyone and always included us in his list. Thank you MirandoaCuba Blog and to our great friend Tomás Landa who has spread the word ands is always willing to help. Thank you Ahmed Martel from NetforCuba, and Dick Morris from DickMorris.com. Four special mentions must go on record: Mario Fernandez, Silvio Acosta, Issac Hernández, and Armando Alvarez, four personal friends who have spread the word and more.

Mario Fernandez has been the only sponsor this site ever had. Fernández has been an advocate, a fighter for the Freedom of Cuba for a lifetime. There isn’t an initiative for the democratization of Cuba he has said no to. Mario has been instrumental in my career as an editor since 1989 when he sponsored Leiram Magazine, Stet Magazine and The Political Reporter. I know he reads and promotes this site every day: God Bless you Mario! You are the Best! We’d like to thank our Venezuelan friends for providing valuable information and keep in contact with us through out this year. Thank you Frances: you are the Light of my Life! Most of all we Thank God for making it all possible!