Fidel Castro Dead at 90...

[007]

Fidel Castro sank the 13 de Marzo tugboat killing Cuban women and children

Fidel Castro is lauded and appreciated by many who don’t know the truth about his 50+ year dictatorship in Cuba. One of the most reprehensible crimes committed by his regime was the sinking of a tugboat loaded with 72 potential escapees from the tropical gulag that is Cuba.

In 1994 Cuba was at the height of “the special period”. This was Fidel Castro’s euphemism for the austerity resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union that had been subsidizing Cuba since the early 1960s. Food was scarce, times were extremely tough and Cubans were desperate to escape the dictatorship taking to sea in whatever would float. Here’s a first person account of what life was like:

The collapse of the Soviet Union, our sugar daddy, had led to an economic crisis in Cuba. Twelve or more hours of daily power outages harassed neighborhoods without mercy. Hoarding water became a nightmare for those who did not have enough reservoirs. At some kitchen tables, steaks changed into grapefruit steaks; soap sometimes substituted for toothpaste…


Fidel Castro's greatest atrocities and crimes - Part 2 | Babalú Blog

 

[007]

Chicago? Detroit? Philidelphia? or El Paso?

Yeah it is kinda hard to tell it apart from a democrat run city cess pool.

 

[007]

The impression I am under is that you're a real cock sucking commie lover.

You are a sexually insecure man pussy

Didn't take much to get under your skin, you pathetic little ass licker.

 

[aaronleland]

Fidel Castro created International Medical School to train Doctors for the Third World

US created International Torture School of the Americas to train murderers and torturers for the Third world

 

[007]

Fidel Castro’s shoot down of American civilian aircraft killing 4 people including 3 American citizens

By February of 1996 the Cuban rafter crisis that began during Cuba’s “special period” of austerity and shortages had been largely mitigated. The United States had agreed to accept 25,000 Cuban refugees annually via a visa lottery and Fidel Castro’s government had agreed to prevent rafters from from fleeing. But during the height of the rafter crisis a Miami-based humanitarian organization called “Brothers to the Rescue” made up of Cuban exile pilots had been spotting rafters, dropping water and other supplies to them and coordinating Coast Guard rescues. Now their humanitarian role had greatly diminished since the U.S. had agreed to repatriate any Cubans interdicted on the high seas.

So Brothers to the Rescue began more overtly political sorties and occasionally flew into Cuban airspace to drop leaflets. February 24, 1996 was not one of those occasions but that did not stop Cuban Airforce MIG jets from shooting two unarmed civilian aircraft out of the sky over international waters killing all four aboard.

This short film (in Spanish with English subtitles) contains actual recordings of radio transmissions between Castro’s Cuban Air Force pilots and their superiors on the ground. You can hear them begging for authorization to shoot down the unarmed propellor aircraft and their glee when the planes disintegrate upon impact of their missiles:

Fidel Castro's greatest atrocities and crimes - Part 3 | Babalú Blog

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Cuba's "Operation Miracle" celebrated throughout Latin America
Under Operation Miracle, Cubans and Venezuelans alike have benefited from surgical eye care. Tens of thousands of foreign nationals have traveled to Cuba for ophthalmology care. And Cuban ophthalmologists serving in Venezuela took the lead in establishing 26 eye care centers there. Staffed by eye surgeons, nurses, technicians, and other physicians, centers cropped up throughout Venezuela. They serve Venezuelans but also vision-impaired people from 17 Latin American countries plus Italy, Portugal, and Puerto Rico. Then Operation Miracle organizers established centers in 14 Latin American and Caribbean nations. Ten years after its start the program operates in 31 countries, some in Africa and Asia.

The program serves people denied eye care because of poverty and/or geographic inaccessibility. By far the most common cause of reduced vision the teams deal with is cataract. They also provide treatment for glaucoma, strabismus, retina problems, and abnormal growths. Corrective lenses are provided. These far-flung ophthalmology services are available for patients at no personal cost. So too are the transportation and accommodations they utilize.

According to one report, Operation Miracle has improved or restored vision for 3.4 million individuals. That measure of the project’s effectiveness takes on additional meaning through World Health Organization data showing that 39 million people in the world are blind. These figures are actually within reach of one another, especially because most visual impairment – 80 percent – is preventable or curable. It seems that two formerly colonized, dependent nations have taken giant steps toward addressing a major cause of human disability.

 

[007]

Fidel Castro’s Cuban forced labor camps, the UMAPs
During the mid 1960s Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba created a system of labor camps euphemistically called “Military Units in Aid of Production,” known better the Spanish acronym UMAP. By this time considerable opposition to the Cuban Revolution had developed and Castro, in order to maintain the stability of his rule, needed a mechanism whereby he could neutralize undesirables.

Internment in a UMAP could be precipitated by any of the following actions: refusing to engage in “volunteer” work on behalf of the Revolution, being homosexual, being a Jehovah’s Witness, being a Seventh Day Adventist, refusing collectivization. Additionally, among those also rounded up and sent to the UMAPs were members of the Catholic and Protestant clergy.

The Interamerican Commission for Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) estimated in a report on Cuba that at one point there were 30,000 Cuban citizens interned in the UMAP system.

Fidel Castro’s greatest atrocities and crimes – Part 5 | Babalú Blog

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Cuba's "Operation Miracle" celebrated throughout Latin America
Under Operation Miracle, Cubans and Venezuelans alike have benefited from surgical eye care. Tens of thousands of foreign nationals have traveled to Cuba for ophthalmology care. And Cuban ophthalmologists serving in Venezuela took the lead in establishing 26 eye care centers there. Staffed by eye surgeons, nurses, technicians, and other physicians, centers cropped up throughout Venezuela. They serve Venezuelans but also vision-impaired people from 17 Latin American countries plus Italy, Portugal, and Puerto Rico. Then Operation Miracle organizers established centers in 14 Latin American and Caribbean nations. Ten years after its start the program operates in 31 countries, some in Africa and Asia.


The program serves people denied eye care because of poverty and/or geographic inaccessibility. By far the most common cause of reduced vision the teams deal with is cataract. They also provide treatment for glaucoma, strabismus, retina problems, and abnormal growths. Corrective lenses are provided. These far-flung ophthalmology services are available for patients at no personal cost. So too are the transportation and accommodations they utilize.

According to one report, Operation Miracle has improved or restored vision for 3.4 million individuals. That measure of the project’s effectiveness takes on additional meaning through World Health Organization data showing that 39 million people in the world are blind. These figures are actually within reach of one another, especially because most visual impairment – 80 percent – is preventable or curable. It seems that two formerly colonized, dependent nations have taken giant steps toward addressing a major cause of human disability.

 

[frigidweirdo]

“A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” — Castro in 1959.

Too bad nobody put a bullet in the bastard's head back then

Too bad you are a moron ...

Too bad that.... actually nvm, good for you that you never had to live under Castro's atrocities. Sad that you seem to think those atrocities were a good thing.

Were they worse than Bush's?

Can you name any Bush "atrocities"?

Sure.

Invading Iraq.
Torturing prisoners.
Causing a political vacuum which led to the deaths of possibly a million or more people and the rise of ISIS which has spread.

There's enough.

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

The impression I am under is that you're a real cock sucking commie lover.

You are a sexually insecure man pussy

Didn't take much to get under your skin, you pathetic little ass licker.

I am living under your skin lil boy

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Fidel Castro’s greatest atrocities and crimes – Part 5 | Babalú Blog

28 years ago today - Iran Air Flight 655 massacre, US navy murder ...
On July 3, 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) was shot down by USS

 

[The Great Goose]

Cuba's Fidel Castro, former president, dies aged 90 - BBC News

Fidel Castro, Cuba's former president and leader of the Communist revolution, has died aged 90, state TV has announced.

It provided no further details.

Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost half a century before handing over the powers to his brother Raul in 2008.

His supporters praised him as a man who had given Cuba back to the people. But his opponents accused him of brutally suppressing opposition.

In April, Fidel Castro gave a rare speech on the final day of the country's Communist Party congress.

He acknowledged his advanced age but said Cuban communist concepts were still valid and the Cuban people "will be victorious".

Damn. Now we need to find a new world leader to hate for some reason. Who's running things in Canada right now?

don't worry we already hate that guy.

 

[007]

The impression I am under is that you're a real cock sucking commie lover.

You are a sexually insecure man pussy

Didn't take much to get under your skin, you pathetic little ass licker.

I am living under your skin lil boy

Not very original there, skippy. Your little pea brain freezing up or what?

 

[007]

Castro and Communism in Cuba
Meanwhile, an example of communist tactics was being unfolded in Cuba, within 90 miles of the U.S. southeastern shoreline. Early in 1959, after battling for several years,

Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro succeeded in overthrowing the government of Cuban dictator
Fulgencio Batista. Mindful of Batista's cruel record of repression, the U.S. government and the American public in general welcomed Castro's rise to power as a victory for democracy.
American sympathy rapidly evaporated, however, when Premier Castro began to act and sound like a communist dictator. He failed to hold the free elections he had promised the Cuban people. He put to death hundreds of his former political enemies in hasty trials intended more as propaganda than as judicial proceedings. Then he proceeded to fill Cuba's jails once more with political critics, including many of Castro's former comrades, anti-communist labor leaders, and other veteran opponents of the Batista regime. The press was placed under strict censorship. Foreign-owned property was expropriated arbitrarily without fair compensation, and in many cases without any compensation at all. Only the communists emerged unscathed from Castro's repressive and vindictive actions.


Castro and Communism in Cuba < America in the Modern World < History 1963 < American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and beyond

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Havana's Medics Work Around The World - Cuba Exports Health (8/06)
Cuba's extraordinary global medical record shames the US blockade ...
Dec 3, 2014 - Seumas Milne: From Ebola to earthquakes, Havana's doctors have saved ... But, as the World Health Organisation has insisted, what's most ... The first Cuban doctor to contract Ebola has been treated by British medics, ... It would also be a boon for millions around the world who would benefit from a Cuba ...

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

"Cuba has been condemned for not allowing its people to flee the island. That so many want to leave Cuba is treated as proof that Cuban socialism is a harshly repressive system, rather than that the U.S. embargo has made life difficult in Cuba. That so many millions more want to leave capitalist countries like Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, El Salvador, Philippines, South Korea, Macedonia, and others too numerous to list is never treated as grounds for questioning the free-market system that inflicts such misery on the Third World."

Michael Parenti

 

[francoHFW]

aaronleland how in the world did you hear this first?! My entire family's been waiting for this news, some literally for 5 or 6 decades, and here on some random internet forum some stranger was the one who my family finally heard it from. There are people who were fast asleep that are awake and partying in Miami right now thanks to you Leland.

I just recently downloaded the CNN app because I had to work until 2 AM on election night, and wanted to keep up on the coverage. It's done me good since then. I've received breaking news notifications quite a few times before most media outlets are reporting them.

CNN is fine. Not tough enough on the New BS GOP but fine, relatively. He's very popular in Cuba and elsewhere. Fought the Great Satan, not so great in some venues lol.

When was that? They did the same with Trump at times...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

[GLASNOST]

The US didn't need to "come to Castro."

Yes, they did if the US wants to join the rest of the world in Cuba's future.

As usual, the American politicians are "Johnny come lately" but eager to pretend to be in the leading roll. Reagan said "Tear down this wall" as the wall was already being demolished. Obama pretends to be leading the world in "cleaning up the atmosphere" when in actual fact the US was the only industrial nation that refused to cooperate until the last minute.

And now the US realizes that Cuba has had excellent diplomatic and economic relations with Europe (and the rest of the world) so they want to put on a good face. We (in Europe) have had frequent charter flights to Cuba for decades while the US forbids its' citizens from travelling there. Cuba is on the upswing and the US is running itself frantic trying to cash in on as much as it can before it is too late.

So yes ...." the US had to come to Cuba" because Cuba is slowly becoming less interested in American dollars.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Looks like there's a job opening for Obama.

 

[007]

The US didn't need to "come to Castro."

Yes, they did if the US wants to join the rest of the world in Cuba's future.

As usual, the American politicians are "Johnny come lately" but eager to pretend to be in the leading roll. Reagan said "Tear down this wall" as the wall was already being demolished. Obama pretends to be leading the world in "cleaning up the atmosphere" when in actual fact the US was the only industrial nation that refused to cooperate until the last minute.

And now the US realizes that Cuba has had excellent diplomatic and economic relations with Europe (and the rest of the world) so they want to put on a good face. We (in Europe) have had frequent charter flights to Cuba for decades while the US forbids its' citizens from travelling there. Cuba is on the upswing and the US is running itself frantic trying to cash in on as much as it can before it is too late.

So yes ...." the US had to come to Cuba" because Cuba is slowly becoming less interested in American dollars.

No.