Cuba's Fidel Castro, former president, dies aged 90

Well, there rolls away another of the world's Cold war dictators. Good riddance as when alive he asserted influence on Cuban politics. He has a legacy, but it has not favoured Cuba as a nation nor its oppressed people.

Let's hope Cuba can now grow and begin to rid itself of the shackles of the "Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party state" government so beloved of people like him. Let's celebrate his passing by releasing from gaol all the political prisoners and journalists.

The Cuban government continues to repress dissent and discourage public criticism. It now relies less on long-term prison sentences to punish its critics, but short-term arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders, independent journalists, and others have increased dramatically in recent years. Other repressive tactics employed by the government include beatings, public acts of shaming, and the termination of employment.

Human Rights Watch

a reply to: Kettu

My good friend escaped Cuba when Castro took over,he took his baby nephew,he said the boat they were on was being shot at by machine guns,older Cuban's call Castro the Ass****,no love for him thats for sure

originally posted by: WUNK22
If true I know he's going to a nice warm place. A long stay with other communist leaders!

My understanding is that many? Cubans liked Castro so I have no idea why he would be going to a warm place??, The Bahamas maybe???...
But it is a subject that brings a mixed message..

For every leader in the world there is a outside agency be it news or Government that is trying to discredit and misinform.

Regardless of my own personal views it is the peoples view that live under their rule that count, similar situation in the Philippines at the moment with Duterte and his 91% approval rating. Assad in Syria where every Syrian I have ever meet said he is a good leader etc..

There is far more than what people in the west are told..


RA

originally posted by: slider1982
Regardless of my own personal views it is the peoples view that live under their rule that count,

Well,when you control the press, the message, and repress all dissent, it is unsurprising that dictators and autocrats have such high approval ratings.

I'm going to act like I didnt see or hear about this story. I'm 37 and I thought the man was already dead yeeeeeaarrrrrsssss ago.

originally posted by: hutch622
Free health and education , does America have that . A good effort considering the USAs attempts to destroy them with boycotts .

You seriously have no idea what in the world you are talking about. Free healthcare in Cuba?... The regular hospitals for Cubans lack the necessary items... Two of my sisters needed to have an operation, and we had to help them by bribing doctors in Cuba to get them those operations, otherwise they would be dead. Cubans that don't have people helping them from outside Cuba simply die because no one is there to help them meanwhile ignorant people like yourself proclaim "healthcare is free in Cuba"...

The only good hospitals in Cuba are those that only tourists and the castro regime top thugs can use. That video that idiot of Moore published claiming the hospital he videotaped is for regular Cubans is a lie. There are several videos of REAL Cuban hospitals that have been smuggled out of Cuba... Just do yourself a favor and search for them on youtube to find the real hospitals Cubans have to use...

Heck, if you are lucky enough to have dollars, which most Cubans don't since they are paid in CUC (Cuban pesos) you still have to buy your own bed sheets, pillows, etc to stay in those hospitals... After paying doctors what most Cubans only earn in a year, after paying everything they have to pay which is not free, you still have to get the medications and you most certainly won't get them unless you have family outside of Cuba who can get those medications for you...

As for "free education"?... You obviously don't write to your family in Cuba often to know how bad their education is, and it's not because they didn't want to study...

a reply to: slider1982

It is called "propaganda"... When you control the only political party allowed under socialism, and when the socialist goal always puts "the revolution" before any human rights everyone is repressed except those who are part of the dictatorship.

The disinformation comes from those who claim people who escape Cuba "are only a few and they work for the U.S. government." It's the same old BS propaganda from socialists from around the world... Over 2 million Cuban expats living outside from Cuba and most of them would tell you the truth about Cuba.... It is why most Cubans in south Florida voted for Trump because we knew from the start what Obama's policies for Cuba were going to do... If you think those are the only Cubans who suffer/suffered you should check how many Cubans have died trying to get out of that hell hole of a dictatorship. Cubans brave shark infested seas in inflatable rafts to escape not because "Cuba is great"... Many, many Cubans have died trying to get out...

This money the Cuban regime gets now from U.S.'s businesses and policies will only help the dictatorship keep control over Cuba for longer... Again, there are plenty of videos that have been smuggled out of Cuba showing what happens to dissidents in the island...

After all, Marx himself said:

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. Karl Marx

Read more at: www.brainyquote.com...

What that means is that under socialism all opposition has to be suppressed by force. Which is why every damn socialist regime always turns into a dictatorship.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

That is a horrible thing to write.

Castro will be remembered as a great leader. Despite the US's efforts to starve out Cuba, they managed to survive. He meant well for the Cuban people.

Cuba is the strongest country and most advanced country in the Caribbean.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Mostly criminals were repressed, those were the ones who were trying to make it the US.

It was the US, the blockade, the economic sanctions that kept Cuba poor.

CUC are the tourist currency, the official exchange rate is $1 for 0.87 CUC. The local currency is worth about 1/20 CUC but the purchasing power is much stronger.

The US has used propaganda and disinformation to give the impression that Castro was an evil dictator. History will view Castro as a great revolutionary who wanted Cuba and the Cuban people to thrive.

a reply to: Kettu

as long as one comedy fan draws breath-marxism will never die-groucho invictus

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

All the Cubans I know that voted Trump, which was most of them, all hated Castro and felt Clinton talked more like him than Trump did.

One thing they don't talk trash about to me though, is their healthcare. I have only heard them praise the quality of care back home and gripe about how crappy and expensive it is to get basic service here in the USA.

Maybe your sisters were considered political enemies?? Seriously, I am in Florida, the city which used to be cigar capital of the world, and none of the Cubans I have met have had bad things to say of their healthcare access or quality..

Now if Bush Sr, Kissinger, and Soros can just hurry up and cross over, that would pretty much be the end of most of the latter half of the 20th centuries problem starters and we get to start fresh.

a reply to: jrod

The US has used propaganda and disinformation to give the impression that Castro was an evil dictator. History will view Castro as a great revolutionary who wanted Cuba and the Cuban people to thrive.

My family would beg to differ.

a reply to: Kettu

Fake news. Russia has taken over Cuba so as to hack us in closer proximity.

Castro is alive and well. He is being kept alive on advanced Russian life support systems.

a reply to: jrod

wow... what a bunch of propaganda BS, but it had to come from you... Only a dumbed down moron would claim every Cuban who has tried to escape, or escaped, or those repressed are criminals when the majority of Cubans are repressed and millions of Cubans have either escaped, or tried to escape Cuba and died, or were captured and then sent to prison, as an example, or they lost their jobs or any possibility of ever getting a job in Cuba for trying to escape...

I am guessing jrod thinks that Cuban writers who dare dream of freedom, Cuban human rights activits, and the regular Cuban who dares dream of living in a country free means we are criminals... You are only embarrassing yourself and showing once again that you talk a lot from your rear end without knowing anything of what you talk about.

Cuba Human Rights
Civil and political rights continue to be severely restricted by Cuban authorities.

Government critics continue to be imprisoned; many report that they were beaten during arrest. Restrictions on freedom of expression is widespread. The government curtails freedom of association and assembly. The US embargo against Cuba remains, despite increasing opposition to it within and outside the USA.
...

www.amnestyusa.org...

Cuban dissidents report being attacked by government security forces

This is the truth of what has been happening to the Cubans living in the island who happened to be part of the lgbt community.

Hiding Cuba’s crimes behind gay rights lies

BY
James Kirchick
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 6:00 AM

On December 7, 1990, Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas ended his life. Forced into exile because of his political dissidence, and dying slowly of AIDS, he could no longer withstand the physical and mental torment of the disease. His brief suicide note, expressing contentment for a life well lived, nonetheless conveyed a sense of burning rage. “Persons near me are in no way responsible for my decision,” wrote Arenas, whose life Julian Schnabel portrayed elegiacally in his adaptation of Arenas’ memoir “Before Night Falls.”

“There is only one person I hold accountable: Fidel Castro.”

Like countless other gay Cubans, many of whom were executed or rounded up into concentration camps and worked to death in the name of Socialist revolution, Arenas was persecuted for his sexuality. So one can only imagine how he would react to the recent spectacle at the New York Public Library, in which a roomful of gay activists warmly welcomed a high-ranking representative from that despicable regime.

On May 29, Mariela Castro Espin, the niece of Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro and the daughter of its present leader, Raul, delivered a talk at an event organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Back in Cuba, Castro (who is heterosexual) heads something called the National Center for Sex Education and is a prominent supporter of gay marriage. Asked about the regime’s interment of HIV-positive people, Castro “seemed to talk around the issue,” according to Gay City News. Nonetheless, she received a standing ovation.

In isolation, Castro’s support for gays is laudable. But her campaign for gay rights, such as it is, must be seen within the context of the repression that the Castro regime has inflicted upon the Cuban people for five decades.

The Castro brothers are wise enough to read international political currents; revolutionary machismo isn’t in vogue like it was in the 1960s. They know that a sure way to warm the hearts of progressives is to pledge support for some nebulous concept of “gay rights.” Never mind Cuban gays — like all citizens of Cuba save high-ranking members of the Communist Party — do not enjoy basic liberties like freedom of speech or religion. They cannot join an independent labor union or vote. When it comes to gay life in Cuba, “Not much has changed since Reinaldo Arenas’ time.”
...

www.nydailynews.com...

But hey apparently to brainwashed jrod the majority of Cubans are simply criminals... Of course, even showing videos of what really happens in Cuba, and what happens to even tourists who try to show the truth about Cuba, to jrod "all those people are lying when the only lying brainwashed people are those who claim "Cubans who do not tow the communist party line are criminals"...

BTW jrod... the cuc is the attempt by the Cuban regime to devaluate the dollar, and it is the money used by Cubans these days. When my family and myself send money to our family in Cuba we have to change it through an agency into cuc.

It wasn't the U.S. embargo which imposed the "rationing" in Cuba... The same type of rationing that has been imposed in Venezuela was implemented by the Cuban regime even before the U.S. embargo was put in place... It is this "rationing" which has been starving people... It was the same type of "rationing" that Stalin put in place, and it is the same type of rationing that the communist Chavez, and Maduro have put in place in Venezuela...

a reply to: jrod

That is a horrible thing to write.

It's easy to take an overview and pick a side. It's a whole different story when the situation affects you personally.

You say it's mostly criminals who are happy about this? Why is that a perfectly acceptable thing to write? My parents and I aren't criminals, nor did we enter the country by washing ashore in Florida. And I'm sure you'd be the first to tell me not to be judgmental of Syrian refugees entering the country...

You have no idea what you're talking about.

a reply to: projectvxn

He is not only claiming that, he is claiming that criminals are the only people being repressed in Cuba... He is calling every Cuban who has escaped as a "criminal"... You have got to wonder in what world jrod lives....

I lived through all, and was in the service through the back-end, of the cold war. The CMC and BoP were big deals, and I always thought that Fidel was more manipulated into hosting those missiles than purposefully wanting them. Be what it is, one thing about him is he was fairer to his people than most communist leaders or dictators. He is stubborn, and certainly gave the US a run for the money.

The US government wanted him dead on a few occassions, but he luckily outsmarted the stupid agents that took those assignments. The mob certainly had issues with him as well.

I wonder what would have resulted, if we could have just tried to maintain a peaceful relationship with him, if that would even have been possible at all.

R.I.P. Fidel Castro, a man of his word.

Here are some videos showing some of the "real hospitals in Cuba that regular Cubans have to use".

You have to turn on subtitles in English.

Hospital Calixto Garcia in Habana, Cuba



Of course the left wants to claim all these videos are lies, when the lies comes from the left that claim Cuban healthcare is great...



No subtitles on this one, but the video speaks for itself.

Ambrosio Grillo hospital, Santiago de Cuba.



Hijas de Galicia, Luyanó in Habana, Cuba.



Cuban pediatric hospital La Balear on the Municipal district San Miguel del Padrón.



The left, around the world, would only show Cuban hospitals which can only be used by tourists, or the Cuban regime like the hospital "Comandante Almejeira", "El Clinico Cirurgico", Cuban Hospital "Dukhan,Qatar", The "Cimex", or hospitals in the "country club" (a rich section in Cuba) which are some of the best hospitals which are reserved for tourists or for the communist regime top dogs and their families. There are Cuban hospitals that have closed sections which are shown only to "tourists", meanwhile the rest of the sections of these hospitals are falling apart.

Here is the report from another Cuban expat who lives in Argentine and tells her experience in a real Cuban hospital.

Inside the Cuban Hospitals That Castro Doesn’t Want Tourists to See
By: Belén Marty - @belenmarty - Oct 6, 2015, 8:17 am

By the time I climbed the steps of the emergency room entrance in San Miguel, Havana, I could already tell that the supposed first-class health care provided in Cuba was a myth. Hospitals in the island’s capital are literally falling apart.

Friends told me to dress “like a Cuban” and not to speak while inside, since my Argentinean accent would give me away the moment I said hello. A member of the opposition Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) party came along to guide me in my journey to the core of communist-style medicine.
...
The scarce equipment available gave the building the appearance of a makeshift medical camp, rather than a hospital in the nation’s capital.

I stood up and continued my tour. Two nurses stared at us but didn’t say a word as we entered an intensive-care unit, where the facility’s air-conditioned area began.

My guide — a taxi driver for tourists who don’t get to see this part of town — told me that all the doctors working the night shift are still in school. Indeed, none of them appeared to be older than 25.

The only working bathroom in the entire hospital had only one toilet. The door didn’t close, so you had to go with people outside watching. Toilet paper was nowhere to be found, and the floor was far from clean.

I saw biological waste discarded in a regular trash can. The beds had no linen, and the only equipment around was the bag of IV fluids hanging above them. All doctor’s offices had handwritten signs on the doors, and at least four patients waited outside each room. The average wait time for each was around three hours.

Orderlies were also nowhere to be seen. A young man had to push his mother on a stretcher until he reached the line of those waiting for an ambulance.
[adrotate group=”8″]
I left the hospital after a couple hours. Once outside, puzzled by the large bags the people entering the hospital were carrying, I asked my friend to explain.

“Well, they have to bring everything with them, because the hospital provides nothing. Pillows, sheets, medicine: everything,” he said.
...
However, Hilda Molina, a Cuban neurosurgeon who turned against Castro, explained in an interview with El Cato that the whole sector is under tight government control, which shuts downs private alternatives or independent organizations.

“These arbitrary measures, aside from many other negative consequences, had a terrible impact, ethically: the sacred doctor-patient relationship was replaced with an impersonal government-patient dynamic. When patients are forced to seek care from government-sanctioned doctors and facilities, they suffer distress, whether consciously or unconsciously, immersed in a deep sensation of insecurity,” she said.

“The regime has neither provided Cubans with equality nor fairness in health care. The ruling elite, their relatives and friends, get better service than the rest,” Molina lamented.

Translated by Adam Dubove.
...

panampost.com...

Now if only Soros would follow suit.

a reply to: charlyv

Do tell us... have you ever lived as a Cuban to claim that "castro has been fairer to Cubans than most communist leaders or dictators"? (btw all communist leaders are dictators in case you didn't know)

As for "what would have resulted if the U.S. didn't impose sanctions"... heck, can you tell us what is happening, and has been happening to Venezuela, a country which embraced the "Marxist/Leninist communism of Cuba?... Venezuelans have to even resort to crossing into other countries on Venezuela's borders to get food, and other necessities when they can...

castro wasn't "manipulated" into hosting the missiles from the U.S.S.R... if it had been up to him he would have used those missiles.

You want to see "what would have happened to Cuba without U.S. sanctions"? Just look at Venezuela and that's your answer.