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

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Have you ever been to Cuba?

I have, my father was there in the late 1970's, I have friends who have frequently traveled there for decades.

Our story, our experiences with the people of Cuba paint a much different picture than your distorted opinion.

Fidel Castro was not a villan to the Cuban people.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

The CUC is their 'convertible' currency. CUC can be exchaged. The 'libre' or dinero national is only for residents and cannot be exchanged for other currencies, though i was able to collect several tres peso pieces with Che Guevara on it.

a reply to: jrod

I was born in Cuba and lived part of my life in Cuba... Still half of my family lives in Cuba including two sisters, a grand-mother, aunts, uncles, cousins etc.

Last time I was in Cuba was in the year 2000, and lived with my family and not staying in hotels for rich tourists like your father did in the 70s. Still have contact with my family frequently both in Cuba, and in Spain. Most of my other family live in Spain and some live in the U.S. There are 4 cousins of mine who left Cuba in the last few years and came to the U.S.

Pretty certain that qualifies projectvxn and my statements more than the claims from some non-Cuban who had a father who visited Cuba in the 1970s as a tourist and wants to claim that all Cubans that have left the island, and people who want to leave are criminals...

originally posted by: jrod
Fidel Castro was not a villan to the Cuban people.

Unless you are one of the thousands of people thrown into prison, tortured and repressed, or their families etc... Cuba;s human rights record is - and has been - shocking and depressing.

Cuba under Castro was (and remains) a dictatorship. If anyone thinks people living under a dictatorship are well served by their self-serving leaders then please provide the evidence.

PS for those who have bitten into the lie about Cuban healthcare, do a bit of research on Cuban mental health hospitals and how they are used as an extension for the treatment of political prisoners. It's all basically torture painted as psychiatric care and all very disturbing.

One great deed Castro accomplished with Cuba, was to give free medical and dental to all people. His services are state of the art. Hope it remains for the people. a reply to: Kettu

a reply to: akaSAM

Not going to diminish the achievement Cuba's healthcare system, although it has flaws and is not all that it is played up to be if you look outside of the show case clinics and hospitals. However, wonder how many imprisoned and tortured political opponents have access to half decent heath care, but suspect they are deprived of such necessities.

Cuba also has high literacy rates, but nothing much to read with the levels of censorship. For example, there is only one national newspaper, and that’s just dictator propaganda.

a reply to: paraphi

The claims that Cubans have free medical and dental healthcare is a lie. One of my cousins was a dentist in Cuba, she and her daughter left Cuba. in my stay in Cuba in the year 2000 one of my fillings fell off, and my cousin took me to her office to see if they had any fillings. They didn't. For the three months or so I stayed there there were not fillings. If you were to check the smile of Cubans, except those who are blessed with good teeth, the majority have bad teeth.

Cubans can't get braces for their teeth. There is a lack of any good toothpaste because you can only choose to buy between the really bad toothpaste made in Cuba or a bar of soap a month per person. Most Cubans brush their teeth with the soap, and take showers with their soap when the government allows the water company to send water to Cuban's homes. like in Venezuela, and like in other communist regimes, the government also rations electricity.

Don't fall from the lies of pro-socialists/pro-communists who claim the healthcare in Cuba is great. That's a lie. For crying out loud, in this thread i showed some of the real hospitals regular Cubans have to use.

When you need an operation as a regular Cuban, even if you have appendicitis, or like one of my sisters had stones in her kidney and also an infection because the quality of the water in Cuba is worse than the quality of the water in Mexico. Even with the infection the doctor was going to put her in a wait list for 2-3 years to get treated and operated on. We, the family in the U.S., had to bribe the doctor first to move her up in the list because she would have died if they waited that long, and then had to pay the doctor in U.S.D. (which was change din CUC over there) to do the operation.

My other sister in Cuba needed to have her gall-bladder removed because she had 30 stones in it. She had been in pain for months and we had to bribe her doctor also to get her operation done earlier, otherwise she would have died waiting 2-3 years. Then we had to pay for the doctor in U.S.D. (which was changed to CUC over thee) to operate.

While at the hospital my sisters needed to bring to the hospital "everything" from the bed sheets, the pillow, to the medicine which we bought in the U.S. and sent to Cuba.

The only hospitals that are fully stocked and with the latest in medical technology are hospitals for tourists, and for the top communist regime thugs and their families. Regular Cubans cannot get access to these hospitals.

There are dozens and dozens of videos that have been smuggled out of Cuba showing the real conditions of hospitals in Cuba.

The claim that healthcare, education, dental hygiene etc in Cuba is great is a lie, a myth made up the regime and a myth swallowed like kool-aid by the left around the world...