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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

To follow the above suggestion is not always easy.

On November 25, 2016 Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz died in Santiago de Cuba, at the ripe age of 90.
Fidel Castro, as he was known to the world, ruled his country with an iron communist fist for 47 years from 1959 to 2006.
He and his rag-tag group of revolutionaries, after a long struggle, defeated Cuba's dictator,
Fulgenico Batista in 1959.
Here was Fidel's chance to change the fortune of his country for the better.
Unfortunately, for his people, he blew it, setting up another, this time a communist dictatorship.

His supporters, including current Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, will tell you what a great man he was, bringing health services and education to his country.
What they will not tell you is that, in order to achieve this the country and his people paid a heavy price.
In his earliest days as the head of Cuba he called himself a Marxist and a Leninist and set himself squarely against his close neighbor, the United States of America.
Within Cuba he established a repressive system of Government, depriving its citizens of basic human rights, incarcerating tens of thousands and executing thousands.
This is his real legacy: over 7000 dissenters killed, 9 billion dollars worth of property confiscated, and causing over 1.5 million Cubans fleeing to Florida, and sending his troops far afield to assist fomenting revolutions.

So what is it with Mr Trudeau, when he calls Fidel Castro a great leader and friend of the Cuban people? He brought the misery of Communism to a country which deserved to be freed from a brutal and corrupt dictator Batista, but then should have been led to the prosperity of a democracy.
President Obama showed his diplomacy when he said:  ... history will judge him.

Bertstravels
always a bit hasty
makes his judgement today.

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