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."
Thank God (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank God (Score:4, Interesting)
In Cuba, they're typically better educated and most, if not all, Latin American countries. Cuba also has a higher literacy rate than even the United States. There are plenty of good doctors that come from Cuba. As you already mentioned, Florida is full of Cuban politicians and lawyers. There are plenty of Cuban actors (Andy Garcia, Cameron Diaz, and more), singers (Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, and more), song writers (Emilio Estefan, and more) here in the U.S. as well, which makes them well represented.
Like you mentioned, unlike most the Hispanic population Cuban-Americans typically vote Republican. Why? Maybe because we're generally more conservative? Maybe because many Cuban-Americans are businessmen? Maybe it's because Republicans have done more for Cuban-Americans than Democrats? Cubans are pretty vocal and you can almost say fanatical about politics. You can almost say that the Cuban community is even tighter than most Hispanic communities. Maybe that is because there's so few of them here. Cuban-Americans are actually a very small population when compared to other Hispanic communities (i.e. Mexican-Americans).
Anyway, for all we know this whole resignation thing is probably because Castro is already dead and has been dead for a while. Who knows. No one has seen him in public in quite some time.
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:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Thank God (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Thank God (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
So did Mexico. So did Venezuela.
Then they became Soviet puppets.
Pretty much all of Europe east of Austria, a third of Latin America, half of Africa and most of Asia. We left the first reasonably well alone, but we fought direct wars all over the second and proxy wars everywhere else, but the worst we can muster with Cuba is, what, the Bay of Pigs? Hell, we killed Ghaddafi's daughter with a cruise missile and now we're toasting his health. What gives?
Various acts like supporting leftist guerrillas or shooting down Cessnas with MiGs continued to earn them international contempt.
We never removed diplomatic relations from Russia, we established it long ago and never rescinded it with China, even though we were fighting a half dozen proxy wars in Africa and Asia funded by both of them (think: Iran-Contra and the other war in Afghanistan, and a little tiff we call 'Vietnam' for starts), and we recently restored it with freakin' Libya--which is, from the American point of view at least, a terrorist sponsoring socialist dictatorship in the habit of not bringing down Cessnas, but, with Pan Am 103, like the Soviets with KAL007, bringing down 747s. But, then again, in their eyes, so are we, what with blasting Iranian Air 655 out of the sky, incinerating about 300 civilians in the process, for which we paid $60 million and refused to apologize. We milked Libya for $2 Billion and made them grovel in order get back on the party invite list.
It is not as bad as the neo-cons paint it nor is it as good as the far left paints it.
The "far left" is more in the habit of pointing out the cozy relationships neo-cons and democrats alike have been more than happy to have with regimes FAR more out of line than Cuba. I mean, honestly, the PRI, Pinochet and Noriega were best buddies but Castro was Satan incarnate? Are we kidding here? The point of it is we could AFFORD to isolate Cuba (or, say, Chile) for having dirty little socialist tendencies in order to make a shining example of our not allowing other forms of government in our hemisphere. When countries like Mexico or Venezuela pull the same thing, we wag our fingers in their general direction, shrug, and let the container ships and oil tankers roll into port on schedule. The "far left" looks at that and puzzles why it's A-Okay to blow your kids' college fund in Moscow, Beijing, Triploi, Tehran, Panama or Saigon--hell, you can lunch in Pyongyang with no trouble from the Feds and we're technically still at war with them--yet it's a crime worthy of imprisonment to smoke a stogie in Havana?
Because Florida is a Swing State (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass political murder was good enough for Pinochet, the PRI and Noriega -- and they were all good enough for us...and only one of those three was even vaguely socialist.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Back at 'ya. What's so disturbing about all the various atrocities that have been committed by dozens of countries that are apparently a-okay, even while at the height of executing said atrocities, yet when performed on a far lesser scale (and often factually questionable to any degree) make Cuba supremely evil and worthy of banning American citizens effectively from so much as setting foot there? You could travel to and spend money in the Soviet Union during the cold war, we had full diplomatic relations the entire time, and they were "the Evil Empire" supposedly hell-bent on the complete annihilation of our entire way of life under hair-trigger threat of nuclear hellfire sufficient to wipe out every city with a population exceeding fifty, yet some old coot with a cigar and a fleet of '56 Chevys is worthy of total blockade? Hell, the worst he's done is let the Russians plant three nukes on his island. For godssakes, FRANCE has more firepower pointed at us than every commie in the Western Hemisphere combined.
Come on...
Super-free haven? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stating that "the left" has some rosy idea about Cuba makes people say, well, nobody has the right answer, both sides are equally bad. That isn't the case.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually the US saw an opportunity when Cuba was striving for independence from Spain. The resistance in Cuba was wary of US offers of help because they were worried that once in, the US would never leave. However, the US gave assurances that would not be the case (e.g. Teller Amendment) and went in to help the resistance. Once the Spanish-controlled government was overthrown, the US (predictably) refused to leave. General Samuel B.M. Young expressed the opinion... "a lot of degenerates...no more capable of self-government than the savages of Africa,".
Eventually US forces did leave, but they laid down conditions for withdrawal, known as the Platt Amendment. The Cubans had to agree to a US Naval Base (the now infamous Guantanamo Bay) and to never transfer any Cuban land to a power other than the US. The terms also allowed the US to intervene in Cuban affairs when the US deemed necessary. Under US pressure, the terms were even embedded into the Cuban constitution. Eventually this repressive and imperialistic amendment was repealed in 1934 under Roosevelt's "Good Neighbour policy" but the US refused to give up Guantanamo bay and it can only be removed with the consent of both parties (an unlikely occurrence to say the least). Of course, it was ok for the US to give up these powers in 1934 because Fulgencio Batista was already the de facto ruler of Cuba. With this US-backed dictator in place, the Platt Amendment wasn't really necessary.
Eventually this nice little arrangement ended in 1959 when Castro toppled Batista. That is the source of US anger ever since. It is the anger of losing control of Cuba. All the rest of it is just excuses. It was the fear of invasion from the US (which was being planned) that drove Castro into an alliance with the USSR. Eventually there was an invasion attempt (bay of Pigs) but fortunately for Castro it was totally pathetic, possibly bordering on a US attempt at humour.
Although there was no successful invasion, the US conducted a long terrorist campaign against Cuba including the destruction of crops and what we would regard today as Al Qaeda-style bombings. Right now the US is harbouring Possada Carriles who is widely believed to have been behind the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people. The US denies involvement in the bombing, but refuses to extradite him to Venezuela citing fears that he might be tortured. Since the US government does not believe that waterboarding is torture, I can only assume they fear he may be subjected to something worse than waterboarding.
The US government will always claim that hostility towards Cuba is for one reason or another but the truth is that it wants control of Cuba and always has. Being a democracy is no guarantee that the US will leave you alone as the case of Venezuela amply demonstrates. The US teaches some unfortunate lessons. It teaches that if you have an open democracy, and you are not a government liked by the US (e.g. a socialist one), the US will use that openness against you, even going as far as coup attempts as was the case in Venezuela, Guatemala etc. If some future leader of Cuba does want to make a transition to democracy, he will no doubt have second thoughts after looking at US subversion in Venezuela and elsewhere.
Re:Property (Score:5, Insightful)
The US should stay the hell away from the internal affairs of other sovereign countries.
Re:Property (Score:5, Funny)
as to your sig:
"Hold on Dad, I'll go." - Jesus
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:5, Insightful)
Do you have any idea what your government does with its foreign policy?? How about assasinating democratically elected leaders (Iran, most of central America, etc), providing weapons to terrorists (to the Taliban in Afghanistan against USSR, Iran against Iraq, Iraq against Iran, etc), setting up puppet governments (Panama, Cuba, etc), and keeping detainees on foreign soil for years without trial or any charges (Guantanamo, facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc). Shall I go on?
In short - clean up your own crap before you go finger pointing at other countries.
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:5, Interesting)
Sure, the dual economy is wrecking them on an international market, but hopefully the increased presence globally will help with that. As a building technologist who has worked in Cuba (Canada and Cuba get along great, I can actually buy Cuban cigars at the Hasty Mart down the street from my house) I can tell you that Cuba is doing the best they can with a bad starting position, and it's really quite pleasant down there. A poor economy != unhappy population.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Property (Score:4, Insightful)
But you're right, you have no reason to believe me. Having two sides to a story just muddles things up.
But I have to ask.... do you need electricity to have a good life? Or do you, maybe, just need a different routine? They don't watch much TV down there. The families I talked to all spent time with eachother. They played sports. They did laundry with hand-operated machines, or at laundromats. They danced to music on the radio. Above all, they were smiling through all these "hardships" and in spite of their poor "standard of living".
Re:Property (Score:5, Interesting)
I talked to several, notably skilled engineers, lawyers, and the "poor people" the water treatment plant was going to be supplying water to. Better?
Re:Property (Score:5, Insightful)
The Cubans do a pretty decent job with not many resources, and they still find the means to send a bunch of doctors to help even poorer people. I'd rather be poor in Cuba than in any other Latin American country. At least in Cuba someone would be looking out for me when I couldn't help myself.
What many in the US cannot understand is that most Cubans genuinely like Fidel. They don't necessarily look at the US and wonder why they aren't like them, but rather look at countries like Mexico, Jamaica and Colombia and thank God that they aren't like them.
Re:Property (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Property (Score:5, Insightful)
As to Batista's friends who held that property...they deserved much worse. Land grants by a dictator are a poor basis for claims to recompense when someone else comes to power. (Is Castro a dictator? I don't know. Definitely not to the same extent that Batista was. Batista was vile.
Re:Property (Score:5, Interesting)
As bad as Communism was, and as necessary as I think Containment was, the US was never sophisticated enough to realize that it wasn't fighting an ideology, it was fighting an expansionist imperial power. They bought into the Leninist-Marxist line just as much as the Russians did, and didn't recognize the historical trends that had been taking place ever since the Muscovite princes had cast of the Tatars and had began building a Eurasian empire. Just because the top bananas that replaced the Romanovs liked to spout nonsensical political theory didn't fundamentally mean that their goals were one iota different.
That's the problem with the US. I think it suffers from a case of pathological idealism. Because it was founded on high ideals, it tends to assume that its enemies and allies must be of a similar vein, that somehow revolution always represents some vast dividing line between past, present and future. In reality, the Russian and Chinese revolutions (the latter of which was really a century-long conflict to boot out the Great Powers) made huge changes, but ultimately created new governments that in many ways simply modeled themselves on old ones.
In Russia, the leadership moved into the Kremlin, the gentry were replaced by Communist party members, and Peter the Great's revolution to modernize and industrialized Russia continued, every bit as recklessly as it ever had been. In China, Mao took on the airs of the emperors of old, behaving in many ways like them, isolating himself and creating a god-like aura that invoked, without coming out and saying it, the Mandate of Heaven. In fact, after Mao's authority began slipping, and ever since then, the old court ideals of Confucianism have been reborn as the new generation of leaders attempts to combat the age-old Chinese problem of a corrupt bureaucracy.
Communism is simply a state religion. Every once in a while, someone like Mao or Lenin will come along and actually take them seriously, but for the most part it's simply a ritual, a sort of cross in the sky that the faithful are supposed to follow, while in reality it's just the same old empire-building and power centralization that has dominated human affairs since we settled down to form civilizations. If the US had understood this during the Cold War, it would have been much more likely to co-operate with Communist China and Cuba, recognizing that guys like Mao and Castro were just the same-ol' with a different jive talk. Imagine the world today if Latin America and China, who had long had respect for the United States and its earlier, more neutral position, had been embraced, regardless of the political stripes of their leadership. Imagine if Mao and Castro hadn't had to fling themselves at the Soviets, or a Latin America where there weren't tragedies like Chile? The short-sighted and mistaken goals of Containment continue to haunt the US to this day.
Re:Property (Score:4, Interesting)
But that doesn't mean that the US should treat them in the same way. New religions intolerant religions like Communism have a need to spread. And Communism was a much worse system than the ones it replaced. E.g. Russia before the revolution had secret police and prison camps, this is true. But after the revolution the death rate due to political violence rose astronomically. Someone worked out that the Tsar killed a few hundred people for political crimes. But the Russian communists killed many millions. And the old regimes in Russia and China were not expansionist in the sense that they wanted to spread their system around the world. E.g. Russian communism came very close to engulfing all of the US's allies in Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe. Communism in Asia actually managed it. The whole world could quite easily have ended up resembling Orwell's 1984. This is something which US foreign policy, like its UK counterpart absolutely cannot let happen because of the danger of being completely surrounded by countries which are essentially hostile slave states.
The old state religions in China and Russia were also not monotheistic - they each tolerated Buddhism and Christianity (and Islam in places) in their empires. Lastly, both of them had started to liberalise. If the Communists hadn't hijacked the process, it's quite possible that they would have ended up as something much more liberal.
So whilst it's true to say that their is a degree of continuity the post revolutionary powers were a lot more threatening than the pre revolutionary ones. And it seems like US foreign policy should be about strangling new murderous monotheisms if possible, not accepting them as a permanent fixture.
Re:Property (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think China and the US would ever have been fast friends. China was too bruised by a century of domination by foreign powers (including the US) for that. But the US completely fucked it up by rejecting Mao and hanging their socks on a washed up tyrant; Chang Kai-shek and his utterly routed Nationalists. It forced Mao completely into the Soviet sphere (though that lasted a little over a decade), because Mao needed someone's help.
The fact is that Chinese Communism was not the same as Stalinism, though in the 1950s, with the disasterous Great Leap Forward, it certainly became much worse. Maybe the US could have done nothing about that even if it had built ties with Mao, but by essentially treating the PRC as some sort of alien inhabiting government, it lost all capability. It also violated one of the key notions of international diplomacy, that one must remain pragmatic in all things. It was a reality-defying leap of stupidity that only made sense within the context of domestic US politics at the time. It certainly made no sense within the contexts of diplomacy, international relations, international law and within the long-term interests of the US in the Far East, and ultimately the world. Nixon's normalization, while the right thing to do, has put the US in an even trickier situation as per Taiwan, which it treats as a defacto state, while all the while trying to play it with the PRC. If the US had simply admitted that Chang Kai-shek was a spent force and recognized Mao, this awkard position could have been avoided.
As to Cuba, rejecting Castro is only a lesser blunder because Cuba is a smaller and less important nation. Still, once again, the Red Fever created a situation in which reality was denied and a Communist government was forced into bed with the Soviets.
Re:Property (Score:5, Insightful)
> saying if you place nukes there we will consider it an act of war and respond in kind
actually, it was more like Kennedy said "OK, you've called our bluff. We'll remove our missiles from Turkey like you want, and you give up on putting yours in Cuba. And we'll get our newspapers to report it as if we forced you to back down, and you can get your newspapers to do the same for you".
>But when Castro was in power, he was a threat to the security of the US
don't be ridiculous. Castro was never any kind of a threat to U.S. security. He's just an embarrassment because he kicked out Batista and the other U.S.-backed gangsters in the fifties and took away the playground where U.S. Senators and Congressmen and businessmen could mingle with Mafia figures outside of the public eye. He's also an embarrassment because Cuba actually functions reasonably well as a socialist state, even despite the U.S. trade embargoes and other sanctions, and the assassination attempts and the various failed invasions. Castro never broke no matter what they did to him and to Cuba....that, they'll never forgive.
Worst of all, Castro committed the crime of demonstrating that a South American state could exist without the malicious influence of the U.S. propping up dictators, backing fascists, and overthrowing democratically-elected socialist or socialist-leaning governments as they've done repeatedly for many decades - e.g. in Chile in the 70s or Nicaragua in the 80s, and as they'd like to do to Chavez now.
U.S. Private Ownership? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the U.S. could do it if they tried. The old money in the U.S. has too much political clout and personal interest in carving up Cuba for themselves. Cubans would be worse off than the Florida ghettos if the U.S. touched them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution [wikipedia.org]
Cuba needs communism. They should probably follow China's lead and open up the borders culturally and keep a tight stranglehold on passports, but the land is the property of the people, managed by the government.
Poor Cuba. I hope they get a good leader. Else they're screwed.
Re:U.S. Private Ownership? (Score:5, Insightful)
They already are.
They already have it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Property (Score:4, Interesting)
Effecting lasting vestment by the people is a matter of a functioning ongoing system more so than a matter of initial distribution. You bring up the Russian example. Russia actually had one of the most successful programs ever instituted to privatize their industry by giving it to the people.
Look at section 1.2.2 here [www.fipc.ru] and at this article from Reason [reason.com].
Russia gave every citizen a voucher that could be used in auctions to bid upon state enterprises being privatized. There was a free market in these vouchers. Any group of people could band together to pool their vouchers to buy their portion of previously state-run industry and own it privately. Or they could sell their vouchers and get significant real value for them, and use that for whatever they needed it for. Either way, everyone got their share. The division of state run enterprises went very well for a while. Sure, too many enterprises were dolled out directly to the powerful and connected and bypassed the voucher auctions, but otherwise, it was a pretty good system.
The reason it didn't end up working was due to a lack of rule of law and to corruption, not a failure to give the property to the Russian population. Many foreign investors flocked to Russia to capitalize on their underpaid but highly educated population. Many people used their voucher money to start their own small businesses. Groups of people who pooled their vouchers tried to run the industries they bought.
But people in power took it all away; from the foreign investors, and from the local Russian population. If you wanted to get your raw materials imported, or keep your electricity on, or get work permits, or pass inspections, or have access to markets- it all required too many bribes to stay in business. In some instances, people with guns just came in and took everything. You can't have functioning capitalism if you don't have free competition, but instead have thugs come and take the profits from anyone who's successful.
A fair initial distribution of property in the privatization process is important, but as Russia has shown us, it is far from sufficient to ensure any kind of equality or lasting vestment for the people. The most important thing for giving people a fair shot is to weed out the corruption and follow rule of law.
You can hire any reputable consulting firm to have a bunch of economists and MBA's draw up a relatively efficient and equitable market based allocation program for privatizing state resources to the people. Unfortunately, it is much harder to take a system riddled with endemic corruption and full of powerful people used to ruling like czars and transform that into a system dominated by honesty and law. There is no easy prescription for this transformation; weeding out corruption is riddled with tricky political, psychological, social, and economic dilemmas to which there is no straight-forward solution.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Remind me again... why is the U.S. mad at them? France has pulled worse shitball stunts against you than Cuba has.
Well, agreeing to host Soviet missiles around 1960 would qualify as a seriously shitball stunt. Still, that was 40-some years ago. You want the real reason? It all started when Castro pissed off the mob who ran the casinos in Havana, who just happened to be Kennedy's buddies. Lately, there's a certain amount of face-saving that prevents normalization of relations with Castro, as well as the exceptionally strong agriculture lobby in the US which really doesn't want to see a flood of cheap rice on the US market.
Nevermind France, how the shit have we gotten more friendly with *Qaddafi* in Libya? (replace with spelling of your choice).
Mission accomplished! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mission accomplished! (Score:5, Funny)
The only thing that ever beat Duke Nuke'm Forever in terms of a release date.
Re:Mission accomplished! (Score:5, Funny)
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: (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?
Ironic statement (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny... he said something very similar when he and his revolutionaries kicked out Batista in the first place.
Re:Ironic statement (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point, it's not about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
So, does this mean (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to see the real Cuba, go now... (Score:5, Insightful)
For those of you that have never been to Cuba, it really is a unique place.
Not for much longer, I fear.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cuba is only unique in that the destruction caused by communism is so apparent everywhere. The crumbling buildings. The antiquated automobiles. The authoritarian presence. The warning to tourists to stay in designated tourist zones. The many desperate women offering their daughters as prostitutes.
If you have truly been there, I cannot understand how or why you
Re:If you want to see the real Cuba, go now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they can look up to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvidor, Honduras, Guatemala, etc as a testament to the triumph and prosperity of capitalism and democracy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Cuba is the final testament of the failure of commercial interventionism - USA embargo is also included here
Re:If you want to see the real Cuba, go now... (Score:4, Interesting)
When have you been in Cuba? I was there in the middle '90s (the periodo especial, when the economy was at its worst), and found out that most scaremongering about Cuba was just that—scaremongering. The news blabbered about continuous power outages, with electricity being available only a few hours a day. Funny enough, Havana's lights were on all night long (not just our hotel, the whole city).
Never seen this kind of military presence. The only military I saw were at Matanzas airport (duh, fair enough), and three grunts (including one gruntess) marching on a country road that we drove by.
Funny, I saw no particularly crumbling buildings to speak of. No beggars either. People in Havana and elsewhere we travelled (from Pinár del Rio to Santa Clara) looked like they were not rich, but lived with dignity. Then again, a certain American subculture may consider any historically significant building as "crumbling"...
Well, I for one did not receive any such warning. In fact we could go around freely. My father saw a street concert improvised by some locals in Havana, where the police intervened—lo and behold—to pick up broken bottles of beer so people would not hurt themselves.
Have you truly been there, to pass that kind of judgements?
The Bloqueo is America's version of the Berlin Wall. They tell you that it's against the enemy, while in fact what its ideators conceived it as a cultural divide, so idea would spread from Cuba to the mainland. Guess what would happen if someone made a movie about 9/11 rescue workers who cannot afford medical care in the US and get cured in the free-for-all Cuban system...
Sure, Cuba has its share of problems: corruption, impediments to free speech, same leadership for too much time. However, looking at how these problems were tackled in the countries recently "liberated" by the US, I doubt the Cubans will be any better off with a US-sponsored regime change.
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:If you want to see the real Cuba, go now... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are NO parts of Cuba where foreigners are not allowed. Just because you may have chosen to stay in the tourist zones doesn't mean you had to. There are no entry checks for residency cards (carnets) to get into the slums. You want to go there, fine, go there. I lived in Cerro, one of Havana's "zonas marginales" -- marginal, aka impoverished areas -- for over a year. The opposite, however, is true: there are places in Cuba, like the main tourist beaches of Varadero, where foreigners are allowed but Cubans without tourist jobs are excluded.
Yes and no. It's true that internet access is shamefully restricted in Cuba. So Cubans do what they've always done, they rely on friends and family to get around the barriers. Those who have access (like I did, though it cost me plenty) got to play mailman: every time I dialed in, I had several messages to send out and several to receive for the people I knew.
Nope. I did most of my shopping at the agropecuario, the same farmer's market that Cubans use. Except for rum. Domestic (peso) rum was awful. And the export-quality (dollar) rum was sooooo good.
Wow that's off base. I caught an eye infection while in Cuba and had to have minor eye surgery. I didn't go to the tourist hospital (Clinica Cira Garcia, the one in Michael Moore's film), I went to the national one. The doctor was very professional, the clinic was clean, the medications were current. After I came back to the US I had follow-up with a local doctor and he concurred with the treatment I'd been given. Official cost to me: 0. Actual cost to me: $20. Being an American, with the resources I had and knowing what it would have cost me in the US, I just couldn't leave without giving the doctor something. So I gave her $20. She was embarrassed but took it. My Cuban hosts understood but thought I should have given only $10.
Real or staged Cuba? (Score:3, Interesting)
Castro and his ilk did far more damage to Cuba than any corporate entity could manage, let alone get away with. His country started falling apart once it was no longer propped up by the Soviets. He is a study in the strength of personality and
Did he really? (Score:5, Interesting)
there is a good argument to be made (Score:5, Insightful)
however, also consider the recent vote a few months back in venezuela [wikipedia.org]. chavez, to his credit, asked the venezuelan people if they would let him alter the constitution to dramatically extend his powers. rather than just take those powers by force, like we hear about time and time again in the world. the venezuelan people rejected his power grab, even in the poor parts of venezuela that enthusiastically support chavez otherwise. and chavez, again to his credit, accepted their decision
however, in cuba, you have those authoritarian despotic powers that castro weild. does he have that right? no, he certainly does not. and i think if you asked the average cuban, who benefitted the most from the enforced socialist policies that castro enacted, why they couldn't also have more democratic freedoms, i think that cuban would probably have the same opinion of castro as those poor venezuelans do about chavez: yes to castro's policy, no to castro's absolute power
so socialism for the poor: yes. despotic autocracy: no. in such a way, you can criticize castro without rejecting the policies that benefitted the cuban poor
and btw, frankly, as an american, hugo chavez can talk about constant phantom cia threats on his life, how the evil imperialistic america is about to invade caracas at any moment, etc., blah blah blah. zzz. be as big a fearmongering demagogue gas bag as he wants, i don't care. as long as he uses petrodollars to aid venezuelan poor, and he doesn't abuse his powers and destroy venezuelan democracy, chavez has my support 100%
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You can fly into Havana and get a 30-day tourist visa just like any country in the world. This includes US citizens. I am one, and I've done it. There's no "confinement" to a "staged" Cuba. And the only "risks" involved in doing something other than an all-inclusive vacation tour (it sounds like that was your route) are to your comfort zone. If you've never travelled in the third world, it might be a bit shocking. But no state security is going to come knocking on your door just because you w
irony? (Score:4, Funny)
The "Roadrunner" of Despots (Score:4, Insightful)
Just remember the whole sovereignty thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Thorn in the Side? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bay of Pigs was really the fault of Kennedy. So other than the Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't recall Cuba doing anything significantly irritating. I don't think one incident qualifies Cuba for "thorn in paw" status. Perhaps someone more historically enlightened could explain this to me?
Re:Thorn in the Side? (Score:4, Informative)
nothing to see here (Score:5, Informative)
Is it sad... (Score:3, Funny)
Castro's bum rap (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In spite of all our debates about whether or not Castro is good/bad/indifferent, I look to the fact that people are willing to die or go to prison as a reliable indicator of the quality of life there.
I might agree that he is not as bad as Kim Jong-il, but that is hardly a compliment, is it?
And why the qu
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I saw we temporarily drop the embargo for 2 months (Score:5, Interesting)
(ie: people enjoying $$$ influx, will demand that it continues)
Some facts about Cuba Healthcare (Score:5, Interesting)
My advice to Senior R. Castro (Score:4, Insightful)
Do not start with political freedoms, start with economic ones...
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
Nerds everywhere are that much closer to being possibly able to touch a boobie.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
No really, please.
Ohh god...I want to know a woman before I die....
*whipmer*
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Funny)
That costs extra...
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
Beyond that, why complain when genuine news hits the front page? Did you complain when Slashdot was holding up the internets when the towers fell?
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
some of us want to visit Cuba, like everyone else in the world can.
some of us would love an opportunity to live in a Caribbean island nation while working to bring their network infrastructure up to international standards.
He's already dead. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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:5, Interesting)
The Miami crowd has too much to lose to allow that to happen. And they have enough political influence to prevent someone from dismissing them any time soon, despite a willingness by the American public to adopt a new perspective, keen interest by big business, and numerous attempts over the years by legislators and other interested parties who consider the current policy a long and drawn out failure to change the situation.
Besides, who in Cuba do you think is, or is going to be, running things?
On a side note, the term "expats" (no "s" needed, thankyou) I would reserve for someone like the English hanging out in the bars of Santa Monica, CA, watching football and drinking Guiness. The Miami crowd, on the other hand, will carry their memories, resentments and feelings forward for generations to come. Think of the Kurds in Iraq, the Palestinians in Israel, and both the Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, among countless other examples, and you'll get the idea.
Tourists, cigar afficionados and late 50's model car enthusiasts will have to wait.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)
The political lobbying by the Cubans in Florida had the exact opposite affect from the one the wanted.
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:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
Did you mean to use the plural there?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (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: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Funny)