"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Vaclav Havel,
a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime
was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the
source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of
everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began
to lose control of it."
The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fail to
take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the
lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen to remember.
"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and
recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of
blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten.
First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human
being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is
these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's
freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc,
and thus the background of our own newfound freedom."
The
number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take
into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath
to the present day. The late Czech president explained it in the same address.
"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We
fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different
from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore
one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love,
friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and
dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological
peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient
times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."
The
destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union
over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That
hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system
that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do
otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence
on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy.
Criminally, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.
This is why Ukraine is celebrating the end of the Soviet Union over social media this Christmas.
On this day in 1991, the Soviet Union finally ceased to exist. A moment that went down in history as a triumph of liberty.
Its dissolution ended a regime built on repression, censorship, political terror, genocidal famines, mass deportations, and the systematic erasure of… pic.twitter.com/4xVa7YhpYe
People of goodwill should join them in celebrating the end of this evil regime.
Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of
China, remains in power and with
the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea,
Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The Chinese Communist Party
celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a
tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.
People of goodwill must also continue to work for and pray for
the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of
communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.
"A single idea, if it is right, saves us the labor of an infinity of experiences." - Jacques Maritain
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and President Václav Havel in Prague (2002)
Twenty three years ago on December 17, 2002 Oswaldo Paya
addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg at a ceremony awarding
him the the Sakharov Prize where he outlined his nonviolent vision for
change in Cuba.
"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred.
Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You
are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me
by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose
yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together.’"
Václav
Havel passed away fourteen years ago today, on December 18, 2011. His nonviolent
resistance and dedication to truth in successfully resisting
totalitarian rule in Czechoslovakia remain powerful legacies and
examples that are relevant today. In 2002, President Vaclav Havel addressed the Cuban people and offered words that should be heeded now:
"Our world, as a whole, is not in the best of shape and the direction it
is headed in may well be quite ambivalent. But this does not mean that
we are permitted to give up on free and cultivated thinking and to
replace it with a set of utopian clichés. That would not make the world a
better place, it would only make it worse. On the contrary, it means
that we must do more for our own freedom, and that of others."
Nonviolence requires recognizing these extreme injustices and the justifiable anger
that it generates but at the same time channeling it into creative and
productive means to end the injustices. Some would argue that one must
remove their anger, as one takes off a back pack, but that is profoundly
mistaken. Martin Luther King Jr. offered a different approach that has proven more powerful:
"The supreme task [of a leader] is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force."
Mohandas Gandhi spoke in 1920 of learning "through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to
conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even
so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move
the world."
This is not hating but harnessing a powerful spiritual energy and channeling it productively.
Blowing up and screaming at someone is a waste of that energy that can
be channeled into creative solutions to end the injustice. Nonviolence theoretician Gene Sharp also recognizes that there is a moral dimension
that cannot be ignored without dire consequences (as efforts to normalize relations with the Castro regime in Cuba demonstrated): "It
is unreasonable to aim for a 'win- win' resolution. Brutal dictators
and perpetrators of genocide do not deserve to win anything."
Today we mark the anniversary of the passing of Václav Havel, the president who led Czechia back into the community of free nations and whose name continues to be respected around the world. pic.twitter.com/VuCGIN9BzG
Nonviolent
thought can be divided into two general categories: strategic
nonviolence and principled nonviolence but although emphasizing
different perspectives they need not be in conflict. Strategic nonviolence takes a pragmatic approach that is based on being more effective then violence.
Non-violent resistance is an armed struggle but its weapons are not deployed to do violence or kill. These arms are psychological, social, economic and political weapons. Gene Sharpargues with much evidence
"that this is ultimately more powerful against oppression, injustice
and tyranny then violence. Historical studies are cited that demonstrate
the higher success rates
of nonviolent movements when compared against violent ones.
University Academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict"
compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance
campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns
have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under
half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns. Finally there
study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than
violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.”
Principled nonviolence looks at the spiritual dimension, and the power
of an individual to change and in doing so impact the world. Mohandas
Gandhi described it as follows on September 8, 1913 in Indian Opinion:
"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world
are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves,
the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own
nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is
the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of
our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do."
The advantage of principled non-violence and taking it up as a daily
practice in ones life is that it gives one the strength to resist
provocations and builds up the character of the practitioner that assists in carrying out a strategic nonviolent plan.
Critics
of nonviolence often argue that nonviolence works well against
democracies but not brutal regimes, often citing the Nazis. Nevertheless in 1943 in Germany on Rosenstrasse
street German wives married to Jewish men, who had been taken to
concentration camps, organized a series of strikes and protests that
forced the Nazis to return their Jewish husbands back from the death camps.
Those men survived the Holocaust thanks to their wives courageous and
nonviolent action.
The disturbing questions that should arise are: What would have
happened if instead of the violent Antifa movement, that fought the Nazis in street battles throughout the 1930s that escalated violence, opponents of the Nazis had followed Gandhi's advice
at the time and resisted them nonviolently? What would have happened if
the Weimar Republic instead of attempting to silence the Nazis by
repeatedly prosecuting them for violating hate speech laws had
challenged their evil ideas in the court of public opinion?
Since the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights
in 1976 there has existed in overall terms a general strategy of change
that can be summed up as: " Carrying out a nonviolent struggle in
defense of human rights for the freedom of Cuba."
Looking at another definition of strategy that divides it into three
parts gives a better idea of the challenges facing the democratic
opposition in Cuba:
1. Diagnostic: A totalitarian dictatorship with dynastic elements with the political will to hang on to power.
2. Guiding policy: nonviolence
3. Action plan: There exist different areas of emphasis by the
opposition and civil society that is also something found in nonviolent
struggles.
Strategic nonviolence takes a pragmatic approach that is based on being more effective then violence:
Non-violent resistance is an armed struggle but its weapons are not deployed to do violence or kill. These arms are psychological, social, economic and political weapons. Gene Sharpargues with much evidence "that this is ultimately more powerful against oppression, injustice and tyranny then violence."
The
reason for the greater success rate of nonviolent resistance is that it
is easier to mobilize large numbers of people to take nonviolent action
than to engage in violent action. Success is not only defined by
overthrowing the existing regime, but having a transition that ends in a
democratic regime. The methods used in nonviolent struggle translate
better to democratic practices then violent resistance because they
involve nonviolent discipline, the mobilization of large numbers and the
encouragement of civic virtue.
Furthermore the use of humor is not to be underestimated. Václav Havel in an address to the Central European University on June 24, 1999 at a difficult moment on the international scene made the case for laughter.
"The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an
ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to
laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything
that calls out for parody in this world."
Following his death in 2011, every year on the anniversary of his passing admirers of Václav Havel the world over wear short trousers in his memory.
On December 18th roll up your trousers to honor Vaclav Havel
The “Short Trousers for Václav Havel” initiative started in 2012 to
honor the memory of Václav Havel with a gesture that was unique,
memorable and easily achieved by supporters of this exceptional person
in modern Czech and European history. Short Trousers is a reference to
Havel stepping into political life in 1989 and his inauguration to the
presidency in visibly short trousers. He explained vainly that rather
than a tailor’s mistake it was his habit to pull his pants up at every
dramatic situation. To this, one might say global mythology of his short
trousers, he added with a smile: "I must say that I am glad of it, more
or less. From my point of view it’s a pretty gentle way of mocking
myself." An effort to honor such a respectable person by a gesture that
points to this humorous episode might appear, at first sight, as a
contradictory act. But the opposite is true. We believe that rolled up
trousers on the anniversary of the death of Václav Havel is a gesture
which is Czech, slightly satirical and which can be easily joined by
anyone who wants to honor the memory of the last Czechoslovak and the
first Czech president Havel in a cheerful way.
SPEECH DELIVERED BY MR. OSWALDO PAYÁ UPON ACCEPTING THE SAKHAROV PRICE FOR FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
Strasbourg, December 17, 2002
English translation below: First
of all, I should like to express my thanks to Mr. Pat Cox, President,
and to this Parliament in which the many peoples of Europe are
represented.
You have awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize to
the people of Cuba. I say “the people of Cuba” because they are the
ones who so richly deserve such an award. I say it without excluding any
of my fellow countrymen, irrespective of their political stance,
because rights have no political, racial or cultural hue. Nor have
dictatorships any political color: they are neither right-wing nor
left-wing, they are merely dictatorships. In my country there are
thousands of men and women who are fighting in the midst of persecution
for the rights of all Cubans. Hundreds of them have been imprisoned
solely for having proclaimed and stood up for those rights, and this is
why I am receiving this award on their behalf.
I
say that this prize is for all Cubans because I believe that, in
awarding it, Europe wishes to say to them: “You too are entitled to
rights.”
This
is something which we have always firmly believed, but there are times
when this truth has seemed to be less than self-evident to many of the
world’s people.
I
have not come here to ask you to support those who oppose the Cuban
Government or to condemn those who persecute us. It is of no help to
Cuba that some people in the world side with the country’s government or
with the latter’s opponents on the basis of an ideological standpoint.
We want others to side with the Cuban people - with all Cubans – and
this means upholding all their rights, supporting openness, supporting
our demand that our people should be consulted via the ballot box
regarding the changes we are calling for. We are asking for solidarity
so that our people can be given an opportunity to speak through the
ballot box, as proposed in the Varela Project.
Many people have linked this prize to the Varela Project,
and rightly so, since the thousands of Cubans who, in the midst of
repression, have signed the petition calling for a referendum are making
a decisive contribution to bringing about the changes which Cuba needs.
Those changes would mean involvement in cultural and economic life,
civil and political rights, and national reconciliation. That would
constitute a genuine exercise in self-determination by our people. We
must reject the myth that we Cubans have to live without rights in order
to support our country’s independence and sovereignty.
Father Felix Varela has
taught us that independence and national sovereignty are inseparable
from the exercise of basic rights. We Cubans – whether we live in Cuba
or in the diaspora – are a single people and we have both the
determination and the ability to build a just, free and democratic
society, without hatred and without the desire for revenge. In the words
of José Marti, ‘With everyone and for everyone’s benefit’.
We
have not chosen the path of peace as a tactic, but because it is
inseparable from the goal for which our people are striving. Experience
teaches us that violence begets more violence and that when political
change is brought about by such means, new forms of oppression and
injustice arise. It is our wish that violence and force should never be
used as ways of overcoming crises or toppling unjust governments. This
time we shall bring about change by means of this civic movement which
is already opening a new chapter in Cuba’s history, in which dialogue,
democratic involvement, and solidarity will prevail. In such a way we
shall foster genuine peace. Cuba’s civic combatant heroes – the ordinary
people who have signed the Varela Project – carry no weapons. Not a
single hand is armed. We walk with both arms outstretched, offering our
hands to all Cubans as brothers and sisters, and to all peoples of the
world.
The
first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence
we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are
my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by
fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose
yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas addressed European Parliament in 2002
There
are still those who perpetuate the myth that the exercising of
political and civil rights is an alternative to a society’s ability to
achieve social justice and development. They are not mutually exclusive.
The absence of any civil and political rights in Cuba has had serious
consequences such as inequality, the poverty of the majority and
privileges of a minority and the deterioration of certain services, even
though these were conceived as a positive system to benefit the people.
In this way, although many Cubans have for years worked out of love and
in good faith, the situation as regards civil and political rights is
now serious, quite apart from a widening inequality and the
deterioration in the quality of life of the majority of the population.
Among other things, the freedom of action of the citizens of Cuba has
been limited, which has neutralized their huge potential for creativity
and productiveness and is the main reason for the country’s poverty.
This
state of affairs cannot be justified by saying that the Cuban people
have adopted this system out of choice. You all know that none of the
peoples represented in this Parliament, and no people in the world,
would ever give up the right to exercise their fundamental freedoms.
It
is becoming increasingly apparent that well-being and economic and
social progress are the fruits of being able to exercise one’s rights.
In the same way, a democracy is not genuine and complete if it cannot
initiate and sustain a process that raises the quality of life of all
its citizens, because no people would freely vote for the kind of
poverty and inequality that results in the masses becoming disadvantaged
and marginalized. The peoples of Latin America are calling for a
genuine democracy which will enable justice to be established. It is
scandalous that methods intended to overcome a crisis and end poverty
can be applied in the name of efficiency when in reality they threaten
to obliterate the poor. I cannot claim to herald new positions or
propose new models, but the people of Cuba have lived and suffered under
various political and economic systems.
We
now know that any method or model which purportedly aims to achieve
justice, development, and efficiency but takes precedence over the
individual or cancels out any of the fundamental rights leads to a form
of oppression and to exclusion and is calamitous for the people. We wish
to express our solidarity with all those who suffer from any form of
oppression and injustice, and with those in the world who have been
silenced or marginalized.
The
cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the
world are a single people. The talk today is of globalization, but we
must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights
but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized. If there is no
solidarity between people we will be unable to preserve a fair world in
which it is possible to continue living as human beings. I therefore
humbly believe that rather than new models, both for societies and for
relations between countries, what we need is a new spirit.
This
new spirit, which should find expression in solidarity, cooperation,
and justice in the relations between countries, will not impede
development, because if policies and models are made secondary to
personal realization and the establishment of justice and democracy, and
if policies are humanized, we will bridge the gulfs that divide peoples
and will become a true human family.
We
bring from Cuba a message of peace and solidarity for all peoples. The
people of Cuba accept this prize with dignity and in the hope that we
can rebuild our society with love for all, as brothers, and as children
of God. Cubans are straightforward people and want nothing more than to
live in peace and progress in our work, but WE CANNOT, WE DO NOT KNOW
HOW TO, AND WE DO NOT WANT TO LIVE WITHOUT FREEDOM.
We dedicate this prize and our hopes to the Lord Jesus, born in a lowly manger.
There are over a thousand political prisoners currently in Cuba’s prisons today.
Jose Daniel Ferrer was a member of the Christian Liberation Movement
that sought through the existing legal system to pursue change through the Varela Project.
Brothers to the Rescue was an effort by Cubans and Cuban Americans to
save the lives of Cubans in the Florida Straits. Because they were
nonviolently engaging with the dissidents on the island the regime felt
it was unacceptable and they sent out MiGs that blew two civilian
planes out of the sky in international airspace.
However that is not our focus today but the harm Havana has done to
U.S. national security, and the role the Cuban dictatorship has played
in destabilizing the Western Hemisphere.
This is not true. We now know thanks to the Soviet archives after the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the initial contacts with the
KGB and the Castro brothers was in 1953.
Early contacts with the KGB (1953)
Leonov (c). On his right, R. Castro. To his left, Bernardo Lemús
“The KGB’s leading Latin American expert, Nikolai Leonov, who was the
first to make contact with [Raul] Castro, wrote later, ‘Cuba forced us
to take a fresh look at the whole continent, which until then had
traditionally occupied the last place in the Soviet leadership’s system
of priorities.’- The charismatic appeal of Castro and ‘Che’ Guevara
extended far beyond Latin America,” wrote Christopher Andrew and Vasili
Mitrokhin in The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the the Third World – Newly Revealed Secrets from the Mitrokhin Archive published in 2006.
Raul Castro and Nikolai Leonov first met in 1953, and struck up a relationship that would endure for 69 years, until Leonov’s passing in 2022. On March 11, 2016, Leonov was interviewed on official Cuban television in the Mesa Redonda program about his supposed first encounter with Raul Castro on a trans-Atlantic voyage. Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992, offers a different report obtained from classified files.
Leonov and Raul Castro “became ‘firm friends’ in Prague in 1953 and
then worked together with Fidel from 1956 and after he took power in
1959.”
The U.S. Arms Embargo on Batista
At the same time that the United States was placing an arms embargo
on Fulgencio Batista in early 1958, and receiving representatives of
Fidel Castro’s July 26th Movement in Washington DC, the Soviet KGB
already had a firmly established relationship with the Castro brothers.
On March 17, 1958 Fidel Castro’s future candidate for provisional president, Manuel Urrutia, along with a delegation of other supporters in exile of the July 26th movement,
met with officials at the State Department. They successfully lobbied
the U.S. government arguing that arms shipments to Cuba were for
hemispheric defense, and they claimed that Batista using them against
Cuban nationals was in violation of the conditions agreed to between the
two countries.
Batista’s regime presented to the U.S. Embassy in Havana a formal note protesting
the delay in the shipment of M-1 rifles to the Cuban Army, and warned
that it would weaken the Cuban government and lead to its possible
downfall.
The United States placed an arms embargo on the Batista dictatorship in March 1958.
On March 26, 1958 in another telegram
from the State Department to the U.S. Embassy in Havana the view was
expressed how the arms embargo could lead to the fall of Batista’s
regime:
“Department has considered the possibility its actions
could have an adverse psychological effect on GOC and could
unintentionally contribute to or accelerate eventual Batista downfall.
On other hand, shipment US combat arms at this time would probably
invite increased resentment against US and associate it with Batista
strong arm methods, especially following so closely on heels of
following developments:
Government publicly desisted from peace efforts.Government suspended
guarantees again.Batista expressed confidence Government will win
elections with his candidate and insists they will be held despite
suspension guarantees but has made no real effort to satisfy public
opinion on their fairness and effectiveness as possible means achieve
fair and acceptable solution.Batista announced would increase size arms
and informed you he would again undertake mass population shift Oriente,
and otherwise acted in manner to discourage those who supported or
could be brought to support peaceful settlement by constructive
negotiations.”
The United States would continue to pressure Batista to hold free
elections and leave office for the remainder of 1958. Earl E. T. Smith,
the U.S. ambassador to Cuba, on December 17, 1958 delivered a message
from the State Department to Fulgencio Batista that the United States
viewed “with skepticism any plan on his part, or any intention on his
part, to remain in Cuba indefinitely.”
The U.S. government had dealt the Batista regime a mortal blow, and fourteen days later the Cuban dictatorship fell.
Fulgencio Batista fled into exile on January 1, 1959, and the United
States quickly recognized the revolutionary government of the Castro
brothers.
The Castro brothers’ newly established Cuban government was
acknowledged by the U.S. on January 7, 1959. The new regime was
recognized in a mere seven days. Comparatively, after Fulgencio
Batista’s March 10, 1952 coup, it took the US seventeen days to recognize his government.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara, representing Fidel Castro’s new regime, visited Gaza in June 1959, and encouraged Palestinian refugees to “continue the struggle to liberate their land” “through resistance to occupation,” according to the publication Palestine Land Society.
He asked, “where are the training camps? Where are the factories to
manufacture arms? Where are people’s mobilization centers?” … According
to the publication Palestine Land Society, “Guevara was accompanied by General Caprera, an expert in Guerilla warfare. Caprera met with community leaders to advise on methods of resistance.”
Soviet Vice Premier Anastas Mikoyan visited Havana in February 1960. The Soviet Vice Premier arrived in Cuba on February 4, 1960.
Regime insider Carlos Franqu in his book Family Portrait with Fidel described the visit as follows.
In the early days of February, Anastas Mikoyan,
vice-prime minister of the Soviet Union, came to Cuba. Fidel Castro,
Raúl, Che Guevara, and President Dorticós met him at the Havana airport.
He was given a huge reception and an extended tour of the island-with
Fidel at his side-which lasted for weeks. A major topic was the Soviet
Union’s purchase of Cuban sugar and our purchase of Russian oil.
Castro diplomatically recognized the Soviet Union on May 8, 1960.
To say that the United States pushed the Castro brothers into the
arms of the Soviet Union is absurd. The Castro brothers had already been
conspiring with Moscow for six years in 1959.
Breaking news. Lying communist thug and tyrant Fidel Castro is still dead.
Fidel Castro: Cuba's tyrant turned power over to his brother
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
Cuba, President of the Council of State of Cuba, President of the
Council of Ministers of Cuba, Prime Minister, and Secretary-General of
the Non-Aligned Movement, Comandante Fidel Castro is still dead.
Nine years ago, on a Black Friday that fell on November 25, 2016, Cuban
tyrant Fidel Castro died at the age of 90 never having had to answer for
his many crimes against humanity both in and out of Cuba. From Nicaragua, to Ethiopia, to Venezuela,
and in many other places Fidel Castro assisted tyrants and
dictators to take power, hold on to it, and consolidate their rule while terrorizing and murdering dissenters. One day later in a blog post I predicted what would come next.
"Predictably over the next few weeks inside Cuba the world will see spectacles organized by the totalitarian dictatorship to "mourn the great leader." The regime has already started with nine days set asidefor
official mourning. This will not be the first time that monsters are
mourned by an oppressed people through different methods of command,
control and manipulation. The world has witnessed it before in the
Soviet Union in 1953 and more recently in North Korea with the Kim dynasty. The death of Stalin as dramatized in the film "The Inner Circle" is recommended viewing for those about to follow the circus in Cuba in the wake of Fidel Castro's death. Meanwhile in Cuba as the regime prepares its state funeral the Castro dictatorship's secret police begin to make threats, round up and take dissidents to undisclosed locations and commit acts of violence."
Nine years later the fans of the late Cuban dictator are out trying to
defend his legacy and repeating the lies to maintain him in a positive light in Leftist circles.
These apologists of the dictator are silent on the role played by the United States government and The New York Times in undermining Fulgencio Batista's rule and helping to bring Fidel Castro to power.
IN TODAY’S MIAMI HERALD: When Cuban leader Fidel Castro died, exiles flooded Miami’s streets, unloading complicated emotions at the news that the man responsible for the upheaval of their lives was gone. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/cMls3NPcUP
On this ninth anniversary of the tyrant's death it is a good time to remember some of his more memorable statements.
Relationship with the truth
Fidel Castro in the 1950s repeatedly claimed that
he was not a communist because he knew that advocating a communist revolution would
lead Cubans to abandon him. On December 2, 1961 he explained his reasoning.
"If we had paused to tell the people that we were Marxist-Leninists
while we were on Pico Turquino and not yet strong, it is possible that
we would never have been able to descend to the plains."
On March 26, 1964, after announcing that he had always been a Marxist Leninist, Castro explained:
"I conceive the
truth in terms of a just and noble end, and that is when the truth is
truly true. If it does not serve a just, noble and positive end, truth,
as an abstract entity, philosophical category, in my opinion, does not
exist."
Jose Ignacio Rasco,
who knew Fidel Castro from school and afterwards concluded that the
Cuban revolutionary had been a committed communist by 1950.
Denied universality of human rights
Fidel Castro in the above interview in Havana in 1986 divided freedoms
i.e. rights as one set being revolutionary liberties and another being
bourgeois liberties and claiming that there are two different concepts
of liberty he is rejecting the Latin American tradition which was best
expounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that there are
basic human rights that are universal and not separated by
political/ideological or as in the Islamic claim by religious
differences but are the same for everyone.
In 1961 in a speech that became known as "Words to intellectuals" Fidel Castro labeled dissenters "counterrevolutionaries" and explicitly stripped them of their rights.
What are the rights of writers and artists, revolutionary or non-revolutionary?Within the Revolution, everything;against the Revolution, no right (applause).And this is not some special law or guideline for artists and writers.It is a general principle for all citizens. It is a fundamental principle of the Revolution.
Counterrevolutionaries, that is, the
enemies of the revolution, have no rights against the revolution,
because the revolution has one right: the right to exist, the right to
develop, and the right to be victorious." ... "In other words: Within
the revolution, everything; against the revolution, nothing."
This is not an original statement, but an echo of speeches and writings made by other tyrants. A close parallel is found in Benito Mussolini's 1935 speech: "Everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State."
Consequences of this policy in Cuba were seen internationally in the Padilla Affair in 1971.
Homophobic: Put Gays into forced labor camps
We would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the
conditions and requirements of conduct that would enable us to consider
him a true revolutionary, a true communist militant.” ... A deviation of
that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant
communist should be.” - Fidel Castro, 1965
On March 13, 1963 Fidel Castro gave a speech were he openly attacked “long-haired
layabouts, the children of bourgeois families,” roaming the streets
wearing “trousers that are too tight,” carrying guitars to look like
Elvis Presley, who took “their licentious behavior to the extreme” of organizing “effeminate shows” in public places. The Cuban dictator warned: “They should not
confuse the Revolution’s serenity and tranquility with weaknesses in
the Revolution. Our society cannot accept these degenerates.”
Both Gays, and rock n rollers were sent to forced labor camps.
"In
Cuba, the exploitation of man by man has disappeared, and racial
discrimination has disappeared, too." - Fidel Castro, quoted in Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel By Lee Lockwood, 1967
“Of the 256 Negro societies in Cuba, many have had to close their
doors and others are in death agony. One can truthfully say, and this is
without the slightest exaggeration, that the Negro movement in Cuba
died at the hands of Sr. Fidel Castro.” … “Yet this is the man who had
the cynical impudence to visit the United States in 1960 for the purpose
of censuring American racial discrimination. Although this evil
obviously exists in the United States, Castro is not precisely the man
to offer America solutions, nor even to pass judgement.”
Between 1898 and 1959 the relationship between Black-Americans and
Black-Cubans was based on their being part of an international black
diaspora. This relationship ended when the Castro regime ended
autonomous black civil society in 1962, and consolidated totalitarian
rule. It was replaced by Castro and his white revolutionary elite allying with
Black elites in the United States, and Africa while criticizing racism
in the United States.
For decades, the Castro regime expected Black Cubans to be obedient, submissive, and grateful to
the white revolutionary elite, and this was reflected in official
propaganda with racist tropes. Black Cubans who think for themselves are punished.
On Walls and border controls
Castro encouraged East German border guards in their deadly work
Fidel Castro visited Berlin in 1972 and encouraged the border guards to
continue shooting Germans trying to flee to freedom by crossing the
Berlin Wall. At Brandenburg gate on June 14, 1972 in the afternoon (pictured above) he addressed the men charged with shooting East Germans fleeing to West Germany as "the courageous and self-denying border guards of the GDR People's Army who stand guard in the front line of the entire-socialist community." Castro addressed the Nikolay Bezarin Barracks in East Berlin:
"It is very important to know that the people of the GDR have great
confidence in you, that they are truly proud of you. The comrades of the
party and the citizens of socialist Berlin have told us with great
satisfaction about the activity of the border troops, speaking with
great admiration for you and for your services."
On November 5, 1975, 30,000 Cuban troops were dispatched to Angola in
what was called Operation Carlota, and today pro-Castro sympathizers
over social media are celebrating this anniversary with excerpts of a speech the Cuban dictator gave announcing the move at the time. Cuban troops, beginning on May 27, 1977, took part in a massacre in Angola following a split in the governing Communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party. Amnesty International cites reports that 30,000 Angolans "had disappeared" in the purge; other sources place the number at 80,000 killed.
There was a racial component, with those massacred being young, black revolutionaries, and those in power who Castro allied with: mixed race and white Angolans and Eurocentric, although they were Marxist-Leninists so it was not a problem for Leftists, including those in power in Portugal. The definitive account of this massacre in English is found in Lara Pawson's 2014 book, "In the Name of the People: Angola's Forgotten Massacre." A 2017 review of the book by Fernando Arenas published in Luso-Brazilian Review provides the following summary.
In the Name of the People offers major insights regarding the history of May 1977, including the key role played by Cuban military forces, who defended Agostinho Neto and the ruling MPLA against the attempted coup, in defiance of the Soviet Union, while committing atrocities against Nito Alves's supporters. It also highlights the centrality of racial politics in Nito's movement against the perceived political dominance of mixed race and white Angolans in the MPLA to the exclusion of the majority poor black population, emphasizing the movement's rejection of endemic corruption within the MPLA and its betrayal of the socialist revolution.
"Mengistu strikes me as a quiet, serious, and sincere
leader who is aware of the power of the masses. He is an intellectual
personality who showed his wisdom on February 3. […]
The prelude to this was an exuberant speech by the Ethiopian president
in favor of nationalism. Mengistu preempted this coup. He called the
meeting of the Revolutionary Council one hour early and had the rightist
leaders arrested and shot. A very consequential decision was taken on
February 3 in Ethiopia. […]Before it was only possible to support the leftist forces indirectly, now we can do so without any constraints."
Ramiro Valdez, Raul Castro and Fidel Castro with Mengistu Haile Mariam
Amnesty International concluded that
"this campaign resulted in several thousand to perhaps tens of
thousands of men, women, and children killed, tortured, and imprisoned."
Sweden's Save the Children Fund lodged a formal protest in early 1978 denouncing the execution of 1,000 children, many below the age of thirteen, whom the communist government had labeled "liaison agents of the counter revolutionaries."
Advocating for and actively trying to start a nuclear holocaust
Castro freaked out Khrushchev with call for a first strike
If an aggression of the second variant
occurs, and the imperialists attack Cuba with the aim of occupying it,
then the danger posed by such an aggressive measure will be so immense
for all humanity that the Soviet Union will in circumstances be able to
allow it, or to permit the creation of conditions in which the
imperialists might initiate a nuclear strike against the USSR as well.
Thankfully,
Kennedy and Khrushchev reached a peaceful outcome, but the Castro
regime continued to protest and was unhappy with their Soviet allies for
not launching the intercontinental ballistic missiles that would have started a
thermonuclear war.
Comandante Castro ordered students to the streets to chant "Nikita, mariquita, lo que se da no se quita" ("Nikita, little queer, what you give you don't take away").
The Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.
Dan Rather:-The incident of the Brothers to the Rescue
aircraft…But you gave the order.It was
not your brother Rául or a general.
Fidel Castro:-I gave the order to communicate to the Air
Force that what happened on the ninth and thirteenth could not be permitted
again.But these operations are very
quick.They enter in a matter of
minutes and leave.It is very difficult
to establish a mechanism of communication and consultation.They had the general order of not permitting
them…They acted with full awareness that they were following the order.At that moment there was not…The air force
had the responsibility.As a rule they
can communicate with each other, but everyone is not always there.In fact, they had the authority to do it,
and I assume the responsibility.I am
not trying to elude the responsibility in the least, because they were
instructions given in a moment of really great irritation.They were given to the pilots, I believe, if
I remember correctly, on the 14th of January.
Detailed investigation into the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown available here.
Alliances with Fascists and Nazis
Fidel Castro in 1962 when Otto-Ernst Remer was selling him weapons
In the early 1960s the Nazi who saved Adolf Hitler's Third Reich in 1944, Otto-Ernst Remer, had contacts with and assisted Fidel Castro in Cuba with the purchase of weapons. Ernst-Remer along with Ernst Wilhelm Springer sold the Cuban dictator 4,000 pistols. The German
foreign intelligence agency, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), reported
that "evidently, the Cuban revolutionary army did not fear contagion from
personal links to Nazism, so long as it served its objectives."
The Cuban autocrat was friendly with his Spanish counterpart
Francisco Franco, and declared days of mourning when the Generalissimo,
Prime Minister, Head of State, and Caudillo died on November 20, 1975.
In the picture below is Fidel Castro with Argentine foreign minister Nicanor Costa Mendez, one of the planners of the Falkland's invasion, of the Argentine military junta that extra-judicially executed and disappeared as many as 30,000 Argentinians between 1976 and 1983 in the Dirty War meeting in Havana at the Non-Aligned Movement gathering. He died of lung cancer on August 3, 1992.
Whereas Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
sought to expose and end the Dirty War, as well as later document the
crimes committed and demand justice on behalf of the victims, the Cuban government did everything
possible at the time to obstruct efforts to investigate the
disappearances from their perch at the United Nations Human Rights
Commission.
What have joint anti-drug operations with Cuba, and sharing intelligence done in concrete terms for US citizens? In 1999, the year when Washington intensified these efforts 3,186 U.S. citizens died of cocaine overdoses. In 2021, after 22 years of this "cooperation" 23,513 Americans died in 2021.
Anti-Semite
Cuban Jewish family targeted by the Castro regime for being Jewish.
From 1959 through 1973, Havana maintained diplomatic relations with Israel while supporting terrorism against Israelis. Castro hailed the establishment of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1965 and established ties with the Palestinian Fatah in Algiers and Damascus. Castro introduced PLO members at the Tri-Continental Conference in Havana in January 1966.
This conference backed revolutionary and terrorist organizations across
Europe, the Americas, and Asia with the objective of changing the world
order in an authoritarian direction.
Fidel Castro compared Israel to Nazi Germany on October 15, 1979.
“From the bottom of our heart, we repudiated the merciless persecution
and genocide that the Nazis once visited on the Jews,” he said. “But
there is nothing in recent history that parallels it more than the
dispossession, persecution and genocide that imperialism and Zionism are
currently practicing against the Palestinian people.”
The Cuban dictatorship’s hostility to Israel was not limited to
rhetoric and its assistance to terrorists. Cuba also involved itself in
direct military action.
Castro severed diplomatic ties with Israel on September 10, 1973, just
days before the Yom Kippur War began. During that war, 3,000 Cuban soldiers participated in the attack on Israel, alongside forces from
Egypt and Syria, and expeditionary forces from Saudi Arabia, Algeria,
Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Kuwait, Tunisia, Morocco, and North Korea.
Until
his death in 2016, Fidel Castro was a consistent enemy of democracy and
human rights. He had many titles, including First Secretary of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, President of the
Council of State of Cuba, President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba,
Prime Minister and Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement, and
Comandante, but tyrant is the most appropriate. Fidel Castro, Cuba's
despot, is still dead, and good riddance.
May the death cult that has formed around this tyrant soon join him.
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