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I read with great interest in the media various views about Fidel Castro who passed away on 25 November 2016. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and then served as President from 1976 to 2006 when his brother Raul took over.

There is no denying that Castro assisted in the fight against apartheid, but I find it interesting because of this fact, other important facts are conveniently ignored by many.

Before discussing these facts, let me present some home truths about Fidel, the man. Castro’s personal wealth is vast but is top-secret so that the image of a humble man was maintained to the public. Legends were created in Cuba of a poor Fidel fighting for his fellow peasants. However, the facts tell us the opposite. Fidel Castro was son of Ángel Castro y Argiz, who was originally from Galicia in Spain. Fidel’s father was a very wealthy sugar cane farmer in Birán in the Cuban Oriente Province, where Fidel was born.

Castro was thus sent to the very exclusive privately funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago and then to the even more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana. He then studied law at the University of Havana. As a man that obtained the very best of private education, it is interesting that under his regime no private education has ever been permitted in Cuba. The fact is that Fidel Castro has known nothing but the monied and good life right until his death

In the Castro debate in Parliament, the ANC and the EFF made a great deal about the Cuban education system, what they don’t mention is that the education system was designed as a tool for political indoctrination and even for the monitoring of students who were suspected of being opponents to the Cuban communist regime. Acceptance to the University in Cuba is based on how well the student integrates Marxist ideology. The Cuban policy document for children, the youth and the family explicitly states that a parent who teaches ideas contrary to communism can be sentenced up to three years imprisonment.

The other issue often swooned over is the Cuban health system. What is seldom mentioned is the fact that no patient has a right to privacy when it comes to his or her body or any medical records. Doctors or hospitals may not be sued for any malpractice.

Until the 1990s Cuba did not allow Cubans to worship as they wished. Shortly after the Cuban revolution took place all property held by the Church was confiscated without compensation. Clergy, including bishops, were permanently deported from the island.

Castro’s regime jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror. He murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six! Mass executions without trial are common place in Cuba. When asked about them, Castro explained that, “We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it.”

Concentration camps were common practice within the Castro government, a practice that started when it overthrew the corrupt Batista regime. Numerous human rights organisations have reported on this. Records reflect how thousands of Jehovah Witnesses and courageous dissidents were placed in these camps and were even “re-educated” and tortured. Gays were also placed in concentration camps as these “maricones” (or “faggots”) were suspected of being agents of imperialism. No one has been able to explain how such an illogical conclusion was reached.

According to the human rights group Freedom House, 500 000 Cubans, of all ages and genders, have passed through Castro’s prisons- and concentration- camps. This puts Fidel Castro political imprisonment rate right up there with Stalin’s, his hero.

A façade of racial harmony in Cuba has consistently been created however, black Cubans in exile tell a different story. Anyone in Cuba daring to highlight the race question is immediately locked up without trail, as is the case for anyone active in any civil rights activities or movements. Afro-Cuban human rights and democracy activist, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez who was jailed for 17 years is just one example of thousands. 

Cuba continues to be one of the countries with the most restrictions on media and information dissemination. There simply is no media freedom and all communication is state controlled. In the 1960s Castro introduced his “Revolutionary Social Hygiene Programme” which prevented any “anti-revolutionary” writings and also “cleansed” the arts. Some male dancers were locked up as were men with long hair!

Although Castro claimed to drive a freedom agenda all his life, when he was a student, he was quite content to accept a trip to Bogata, Colombia in 1948 that was sponsored by the fascist supporting Argentinian President Juan Peron. Hypocritically, as an anti-imperialist, Castro also had no problem in touring the United States in 1955 searching for wealthy capitalists who would be sympathetic to his cause.

For those who admire Castro, perhaps they could explain why over twenty times as many people have died trying to escape Castro’s Cuba compared to the number of people who had died trying to escape East Germany. Yet prior to Castroism, Cuba received more immigrants per-capita than almost any nation on earth; more than the United States. Perhaps they could explain to me that, if Cuba is heaven in Earth why is no one trying to risk life and limb to get into Cuba?

It is clear from much of the mainstream media that the excellent Castro propaganda machine has borne great fruits. As far back as in 1959, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro’s side-kick said that, “Much more valuable to us than military recruits for our guerrilla army were recruiting American reporters to export our propaganda.”

Despite all the facts in front of everyone’s noses, so many have fallen for the clever Castro propaganda and shrewd indoctrination given to the world by the Castro government.

Issued by DA