Fidel Castro Resigns 728
Smordnys s'regrepsA writes "Fidel Castro, the leader of the island nation of Cuba has declined the possibility of keeping his seat as President, after the February 24th National Assembly election. "I neither will aspire to nor will I accept — I repeat — I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief," Castro wrote almost 19 months after a severe illness caused him to hand power temporarily to his brother Raul."
nothing to see here (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yawn... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not arguing for the embargo, but I just think it is wise not to paint Cuba as some super free haven that has the best health-care and education in the world. It is not as bad as the neo-cons paint it nor is it as good as the far left paints it. Hopefully Castro's resignation will spark a multi-party democracy.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Idea (Score:5, Informative)
Now I don't approve of the Castro dictatorship, even though it is better than the US-backed Batista dictatorship. However, I acknowledge how difficult it would have been to have a socialist democracy in Cuba without the US subverting the whole thing very quickly. They almost succeeded quite recently in Venezuela during the failed coup in 2002 and they are also supporting opposition groups in Bolivia right now. The governments in Central and South America are really quite sick of the US trying to control them all of the time and there is a real backlash taking place.
Re:So does this mean (Score:5, Informative)
Ironically, the end of the embargo will probably make it harder for Americans to get genuine Habanos, at least for a while. As of now, it isn't difficult to have Cubans cigars delivered to the USA from an authorized Habanos SA [habanos.com] retailer. However, the demand for Cuban cigars already exceeds the supply (unless you're interested in the infamous Glass Top Cohibas [cigaraficionado.com]), so the influx of Americans interested in trying these forbidden cigars will result in shortages around the world. The newly-legal cigars will also be met by large numbers of fakes [www.cbc.ca], making it even more difficult to get the real thing.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's illegal for an American to go under any circumstances (other than "educational" trips and a few exceptions like that), though it is rarely enforced. So yes, plenty of people go through another country, but you can't tell the guys at customs and immigration you were there on your return or you may find yourself getting fined.
Re:Cool (Score:2, Informative)
The expat's what? And which expat are you referring to?
Or do you simply not know when and wnen not to use an apostrophe [angryflower.com]? Go see Bob, he'll fix you [uncyclopedia.org] up.
-mcgrew
(Eye muss bee knew hear?)
Re:Thorn in the Side? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
Something I found funny last year... Poland, as a former communist nation has enjoyed tourism to Cuba for decades. It is a popular vacation spot. Hunting for an exotic vacation, we visited several travel agencies, and kept getting pushed deal to go to Cuba.. it was quite shocking for them to hear that as US Citizens we weren't allowed to go there. Remember, we're quite still allowed to go to all kinds of other states, including but not limited to Russia, Belarus, Iran, and China.
Re:Cool (Score:4, Informative)
Er, no.
The Cubans who migrated to Florida are absolutely nothing like the Kurds, Palestinians or Albanians. The latter were all either invaded, occupied or attacked by an external force and currently live under occupation. The Cubans who fled after the revolution were by and large supporters of the corrupt Batista Government, wealthy and couldn't handle the idea of a socialist Cuba so they ran away to the United States where they could indulge in capitalism to their hearts content.
They, unlike the Kurds or Palestinians, don't face constant military harassment, shellings, occupations, interventions, assassinations or kidnappings. They relax in their condo's and bitch about how bad Cuba has gone while sipping on mojito's.
Re:Ironic statement (Score:4, Informative)
That link also points out that Unita were allied with (apartheid) South Africa, also being financed by the US under Reagan and Bush. S Africa's support ended when Nelson Mandela was elected. At one point the MPLA offered free, supervised elections, when Unita lost them they started fighting again. The war finally ended when Unita's leader Joseph Savimbi [blogspot.com] died and Unita fell apart. Estimates of the numbers killed vary from 500 000 to 1 500 000, basically to satisfy Savimbi's ego.
As African governments go, the MPLA are reasonable.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Informative)
Hey now. Batista and those international businesses (US mafia) were no saints. Most of those companies were run by the Mob and Batista took bribes all the time when it came to business practices while squandering the Cuban people's money he collected through taxes and the state lottery.
Yeah, Castro was no saint either, but the amount of corruption and totalitarianism by Batista and his cohorts is almost the same. (Heck Batista overthrew elections several times).
Had the US simply accepted Castro and opened relations with him as a legitimate government he would not have turned to the Soviets for aid. Remember... The world almost went nuclear over the fact we wouldn't just acknowledge that we could work together or at least stop Batista while we had a chance when he over threw the elections and installed a dictatorship.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yeah, Mission accomplished, watch W take credit (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of executions but mainly during the first 15 years of his rule. Since then it seems to mostly be arbitrary prison terms and allowing the prisoners to be abused (physically and sexually). However, this also happens in American Prisons and America incarcerates its own citizens at a higher rate- we just make everything illegal so we do not have to use bogus crimes like "insulting the president" to put someone away for seven years. OTH, you better not say anything mildly threatening or your fate will be similar. Of course, America has become a lot more of a fascist dictatorship than it was in 1960. And, of course, any good discussion needs to point out that Cuba was a dictatorship and 3/4 of it's property was not owned by its own citizens (conditions ripe for revolution by *someone* and a lot of revolutions were occuring- castro was just the successful one).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro#Human_rights_record [wikipedia.org]
Human rights record
Main article: Human rights in Cuba
Thousands of political opponents to the Castro regime have been killed, primarily during the first decade of his leadership.[135][136] Some Cubans labeled "counterrevolutionaries", "fascists", or "CIA operatives" were also imprisoned in poor conditions without trial.[137][138] Military Units to Aid Production, or UMAPs, were labor camps established in 1965 to confine "social deviants" including homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses to work "counter-revolutionary" influences out of certain segments of the population.[139] The camps were closed in 1967 in response to international outcries.[140] Professor Marifeli Pérez Stable, a Cuban immigrant and former Castro supporter has said that "There were thousands of executions, forty, fifty thousand political prisoners. The treatment of political prisoners, with what we today know about human rights and the international norms governing human rights
Castro acknowledges that Cuba holds political prisoners, but argues that Cuba is justified because these prisoners are not jailed because of their political beliefs, but have been convicted of "counter-revolutionary" crimes, including bombings. Castro portrays opposition to the Cuban government as illegitimate, and the result of an ongoing conspiracy fostered by Cuban exiles with ties to the United States or the CIA.
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k2/americas5.html [hrw.org]
Re:Thank God (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yeah, Mission accomplished, watch W take credit (Score:3, Informative)
And don't forget that before Castro's revolution, Cuba was ruled by Batista - a dictator propped up by the US government. Batista killed up to 20000 people, mostly political prisoners and many were tortured.
Batista staged a military coup when it was clear he was going to lose an election. Casto was leader of one of the opposition parties and was jailed as a result. So gee - I wonder why Castro was a bit pissed at the US?
Re:If you want to see the real Cuba, go now... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not even going to respond to the rest of your post. You are so far beyond clueless I cannot believe you recieved a +5 moderation. I don't think there is even one sentence in your entire post that is not completely wrong. Just a heads up to anyone reading that. I lived there for 14 months. I know what I am talking about and every single statement that applekid has made is factually incorrect. He knows absolutely nothing about the place. When you don't know anything about a topic how about it if you just STFU instead of spreading misinformation. Try talking about something about which you actually have a clue.
Re:Castro's bum rap (Score:3, Informative)
no US citizens != no political prisoners (Score:3, Informative)
Presented: a contra-view to your assertion that because no US citizens are being held at Guantanamo, there are no political prisoners there.
Can you please provide a reference for "As political prisoners are invariably citizens of the detaining state" ?
Because I can't find anything, in dictionaries or Wikipedia. Political prisoners are those who (someone claims) are imprisoned for their political views. The term was used a lot to refer to Soviet dissidents (meeting your definition). However, it is often currently used to refer to those who are imprisoned for violence against a government that they were fighting against. In that case, they are usually NOT citizens of the detaining state. Their view that is that they were legitimately resisting a foreign government, and are thus are prisoners of politics, not of crime.
Another description of Political prisoner [wikipedia.org] from Wikipedia: "A political prisoner can also be someone that has been denied bail unfairly, denied parole when it would reasonably have been given to a prisoner charged with a comparable crime, or special powers may be invoked by the judiciary. Particularly in this latter situation, whether an individual is regarded as a political prisoner may depend upon subjective political perspective or interpretation of the evidence."
I would think that for a significant number of observers, the people in Guantanamo meet this definition. Disregarding the ultimate factual actions of the detainees, a lot of people believe that the people in Guantanamo are being held without due process of law, outside of an independent review by a court of competent jurisdiction. Based on decisions made by a government for seemingly political ends, as opposed to judicial or criminal needs.
Not that they didn't commit some real crime. But they are currently prisoners 7 years later because of politics, not because they've been convicted of anything. How many enemy combatants have been tried by a reasonably independent tribunal 7 years after being detained? (CSRTs don't count) Convicted?
How long can a state keep a non-citizen locked up without a conviction, or even a trial, before they are considered political prisoners?
I should reply with the exact counter-argument, but then I'd be back in law school arguing both sides.
Re:Property (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry 'assassinated' was probably too strong a word - should have been 'illegally overthrown'.
In 1953 the US government helped overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran, setting up the previous pro-American monarch the Shaw. He was then eventually overthrown in 1979 and you get the middle-east mess you get now with religious nutbars ruling the country.
How about 1989 when the CIA invaded panama to overthrow Noriega who dictator of Panama and on the CIA payroll since the early 70's. The CIA backing likely helped his rise to power and his defacto takeover of the Panamanian government.
And what about Regan funding the anti-government Contras in Nicaragua, funding it through drug trade and illegal weapons deals with Iran?
Lets not forget the funding and training of the anti-government Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan (now the Taliban) against the Soviet government.
Basically point to any trouble spot today and you can find US meddling in the recent past.
Re:Property (Score:3, Informative)
Read my post above then recomment. All the US 'lesser sins' are in the past 50 years and have really made a mess of world politics. And now your country is near bankrupt trying to fund multiple wars with they started and are responsible for! Nice going.
Re:Property (Score:2, Informative)
Thank you, US.
Re:Property (Score:5, Informative)
*but* US should say out of Cuban politics for *many* reasons that have nothing to do with policeman of the world.
1. Cold War is over
2. Communism is not a "threat" - it is a political/economic system that doesn't work
3. Cuba's communism is not as bad as many gov'ts that US has put in place because the countries in question had *democratically* *elected* socialist governments. Peru is an example. Panama. Nicaragua. The perpetual war in Colombia largely because of the "no talk with FARC" bullshit (and now FARC is very radicalized because of that policy over the last few decades).
4. China? China's communism and nationalism is a much larger threat than Cuba ever was
5. Don't bring up the "Cuban Missile Crises" - was it OK for US to put missiles in Turkey on USSR border first? Does US really keep grudges for half a century?
6. Batista was a corrupt ass and US in fifties were bunch of racists - Cuba's revolution was the natural outcome of US's corrupt influence there at the time.
7. Castro wasn't a commie from the get go - US stance to support Batista during the revolt and even after it alienated Castro and USSR took the opportunity.
8. Iraq? - lesson to stay out of internal affairs of other countries
9. Priorities?? see Darfur/Sudan, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Zionist/Palestine insanity, China, Global Warming, scientific research, space, etc. All more important than Cuba *ever* was.
Re:Property (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Thank God (Score:1, Informative)
Great cropland for tobacco and sugar, excellent launching point for anyone attacking the US, fantastic vacation property for politicians, and large recently discovered oil reserves. Cuba has all kinds of things that would appeal to the US.