Castro: Cuba is Heaven on Earth

[August1991]

Castro called Cuba a heaven on earth and says his message to George W. Bush is that Cubans "prefer to die in heaven this way. This country is heaven in the spiritual sense of the word, and I say we prefer to die in heaven than to survive in hell."

CBC

Prefer to die "this way"? This guy will be forgotten within months of his death (he'll be 78 this year). Who remembers any of the leaders of Eastern Europe now?

At most, it'll be like Duplessis. An underling (Raul?) will replace him for a short while and then the whole thing will unravel.

After Castro, Cuba will quickly resemble other Caribbean islands and most people will prefer to forget this long, strange episode. Castro's efforts will be completely in vain, a tragic waste of time.

[WageSlave]

While I am dissapointed in the Castro regime, to call it a "waste of time" is cold and ignorant.

Cuba has one of the best education systems in the world and zero homelessness. I'll agree that "free speech" is a problem there, but would you rather have it that way, or would you rather they have the "freedom" to starve and shoot at eachother?

Hasta la Victoria siempre!

[caesar]

And Cuba has a very low aids population and good medical. The people are quite happy and I have friends that visit there several times a year because the people are so friendly and happy. Fidel forgotten; not likely.

I would feel safer visiting Cuba than the USA these days.

It is the USA government that I am extremely disappointed in and mistrust.

[August1991]

And Cuba has a very low aids population and good medical. The people are quite happy and I have friends that visit there several times a year because the people are so friendly and happy.

And Cuba has a statistical agency that just makes up numbers too.

I'll agree that the weather and beaches are great. And many Cubans happily work in the tourist business because of the extras.

When a country has the same leader for over 40 years and the leader takes all the decisions, you don't think something is probably wrong? Maybe the locals don't exactly tell the truth about what they honestly feel? (Imagine if Diefenbaker were still chief honcho in Canada.)

[Hugo]

Cuba has one of the best education systems in the world

Nonsense. The only supporting evidence comes from the Cuban government, which cannot be trusted because it habitally invents figures and murders people. Castro declared a war on illiteracy, and several years later declared it won. What he claimed is not even possible,

and zero homelessness.

Also nonsense. Larry Solomon wrote of how he recently visited Cuba and was accosted by an old, homeless woman at a restaurant who asked for his chicken bones. She survived by begging bones from restaurant patrons and gnawing the remaining scraps of meat off them.

The Cuban government assigns each typical Cuban a wage of 50 cents a day, which is not enough to live on, even in Cuba. Each month, each citizen gets 2.5 kilograms of rice, 1 kilogram of fish, 1/2 kilogram of beans, 14 eggs, 30 bread rolls, half a bar each of hand soap and laundry soap. Children are theoretically entitled to fresh milk, but right now the only people who can get any dairy products are Communist Party apparatchiks. The average working Cuban has a more miserable existence than the average homeless Torontonian.

I'll agree that "free speech" is a problem there

You say it as though it's simply an irritation. Twenty-year prison sentences, institutionalised rape and torture, and execution without trial are hardly irritations, and all are handed out on a very regular basis by the Cuban state to anyone with the audacity to criticize them.

would you rather they have the "freedom" to starve and shoot at eachother?

Here's the thing. In America, you have the "freedom to starve and shoot at each other." In Cuba, you are forced to starve, and forced to accept the government shooting at you. Which would you rather have?

And Cuba has a very low aids population and good medical.

Also a myth. Cuba exports most of its medical services in order to buy foreign currency so that Castro can buoy up his primitive economy. The most common thing beggars in Cuba ask for is food for children and the second most common, medical treatment. The only pharmacies that actually stock any medicines are in hotels for foreigners. There are lots of doctors, but they don't have painkillers, penicillin, insulin or anything else, so Cuban medicine is pretty much where we were in the 18th century. Unless you're a Communist official or a Western tourist, of course.

Google "Dr. Hilda Molina". She was the founder of Havana's International Center for Neurological Restoration, and she returned all the medals that Castro had given her and resigned in disgust because Cuban citizens were being systematically denied medical care so that it could be sold to foreigners instead.

Whatever medical system Cuba has, Castro isn't even responsible for it. Under Batista, Cuba had one physician per 960 patients (ranked 10th by the World Health Organization) and Latin America's lowest infant mortality rate, comparable to Canada's and better than France's, Japan's and Italy's. Castro has basically been coasting off Batista's legacy and hasn't really improved anything medically. However, he has caused Cuba's per capita food consumption to fall from third highest in Latin America to dead last.

The people are quite happy and I have friends that visit there several times a year because the people are so friendly and happy.

I'm getting tired of making this point to you, Caesar. Of course they are friendly and happy. Cubans who fail to put on a happy face for foreigners risk imprisonment, torture and execution.

Castro's efforts will be completely in vain, a tragic waste of time.

No, I believe they will serve as yet another warning about the greatest horror in human history: communism.

[Digby]

I sailed to cuba last year , actually i was on my way to curacao ,but I stopped in cuba for 8 days .

It certainly was an experince ! I spent my time in real cuba away from the fancy tourist resorts .

Cuban people mostly are very good hearted people ,but poorer then I ever seen before . One told me their average wage was 10 dollars a month. I gave a bartender a tip of 1.50 once and she almost fainted ,it was in a small cuban bar for locals.At least they had beer in that bar.I was in one that only sold local moonshine with no mix ,and the cups was disposables they had to keep.

Toilet paper and toothpaste was prized possesions there i actually gave alot of both away and beleave me they appreciated it.

I was inside many traditional cuban homes as they would invite me in for coconut milk fresh from their trees . One was a fisherman all he had for gear was hooks so rusty the barbs was gone ,i loaded him up in new hooks .

The children appeared to be mostly healthy . but alot of young girls and young woman would solisite tourist trying to sell sex if they could get you in isolated place .As sex was about all most of them had to sell . I heard some was offering themselves for 1.00 -5.00and i also heard rich men was paying ladies to be their home away from home . you could get a lady to be yours for 30-40 dollars a month and rent her a house for you to visit for almost nothing .

At one point a cuban couple that we had become friends with ,we asked to go to a marina (tourist one) . Cuban police came and took them away as they are not aloud in these resterants .

On the most part though the cubans was good hearted pleasant people . Even the members of the comunist party where nice to us .

When we arrived they searched our boat with about 20-30 different people from different goverment branches .

They quareented our fridge(the department of vetenarians) because we had canadian beef in our fridge and they was scared of mad cows. A doctor came aboard first to check usall for plages it was almost fun being searched as They use Canadians almost like royalty . I think if a Canadian and a cuban got in a fight they would put the cuban in jail no questions asked as they don't do nothing to affect the flow of canadian tourist dollars.

I joked to members of the communist party (security police) that the best thing could happen to them would be if america invaded them as how could it get worse . They just lauphed at me as i was Canadian.

They searched our boat almost as hard when we left,looking for cubans trying to escape i suspect.

If you go take lots of tooth paste and toilet paper as its in very short supply there .

The cuban people are very good hearted people though its worth going there just to meet them.

The tourist resorts are not cuba , its not the real thing.

And if you go by Boat ,make sure you got screens on your windows . The fly bites ruined my trip. I had to get a doctor give me oitment . Doctors are easy to find there .

[Digby]

I do agree cuba is safe , i only had one guy call me a gringo and put his finger up like it was a gun and make beleave he was shooting me .

Most cubans welcome you with open arms even when nobody is looking .They are taught to like Canadians.

I just spent 2 months in LA and i agree american citys are more dangerous by far.

I think american citys are as dangerous as any where on earth . My brother sailed in freetown seira leoone why they was a civil war and he said it was safer there then american citys ,he walked the streets alone at night no problem.. He had soldiers with machine guns come and go off his boat steady but they never bothered him.

LA was terrible , drug addicts every where ,we did not dare to walk the streets alone at night .

I sailed to new york 3 years ago ,it wasn't too bad as it was right after guliano had the place cleaned up , i felt safer there then LA .

[caesar]

Nonsense. The only supporting evidence comes from the Cuban government, which cannot be trusted because it habitally invents figures and murders people. Castro declared a war on illiteracy, and several years later declared it won. What he claimed is not even possible,

Just as bad as Bush and the USA and the bogus, fraudulent and forged evidence it hands out to the media hmmmmm

[caesar]

And Cuba has a statistical agency that just makes up numbers too

Sorry the numbers are by a USA CIA. The CIA has been known to fudge numbers and facts but not in Cuba's defense.

Whatever medical system Cuba has, Castro isn't even responsible for it

Gee, I guess that his being in power for around 50 years; makes no difference. It was someone else's work. geesh get real. Who do you think has maintained that system despite sanctions from the USA???? Get real. Denial of anything good just because it doesn't fit your little propagandized picture.

[August1991]

Sorry the numbers are by a USA CIA. The CIA has been known to fudge numbers and facts but not in Cuba's defense.

The CIA does not collect data in Cuba. For that, it must rely on Cuban sources.

You made the claim that Cuba has apparently a low rate of AIDS. It is not hard to imagine that for a variety of reasons, such a rate would be underreported.

In any case, how does a low AIDS rate indicate anything about the Cuban government?

LA was terrible , drug addicts every where ,we did not dare to walk the streets alone at night .

LA is an extremely large city. Do you really mean that you saw drug addicts everywhere? Were all the streets dangerous at night?

I have always been struck by the distinct neighbourhoods of American cities.

[caesar]

The CIA does not collect data in Cuba. For that, it must rely on Cuban sources.

Nonsense; for countries where they cannot confirm figures they put NA. Tee hee. Cleopatra; queen of denial

[jccc]

How come the US does not do business with Cuba??

Just curious

Jim

[Hugo]

Gee, I guess that his being in power for around 50 years; makes no difference. It was someone else's work. geesh get real.

So you are telling me that Castro's main achievement has been to make no progress in some areas, and actually go backwards in all the others. What a legacy!

Who do you think has maintained that system despite sanctions from the USA????

This is a myth, and like all myths a few facts will quickly disprove it.

Firstly, Canada does a lot of trade with the USA and a US embargo would be a disaster for the Canadian economy. However, the USA never actually did that much trade with Cuba. Even under Batista, US trade was a tiny fraction of the Cuban economy. Cuba's principal trading partner was always the USSR, and after it collapsed the Cuban economy took a predictable nosedive.

The trouble is that a socialist economy is not self-sustaining. The Cuban economy could only exist with largesse from the USSR, and the USSR did not get largesse from anybody, which was why it collapsed. Now that Cuba has no patron state, it will collapse soon as well, probably after Castro's death, much as reform in China had to wait until after the death of Mao.

Secondly, there are only two countries in the entire world that refuse to trade with Cuba: the USA and Israel. Are you telling me that these two countries control all the resources and money of the entire world, so that any country that does not trade with either but with others (say, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea) is doomed to economic failure? I don't think so!

Denial of anything good just because it doesn't fit your little propagandized picture.

Why would you level such a charge when it can just as easily be made against you?

I notice, for instance, that you don't have any facts to support your argument. Where I have presented facts, you have just tried to twist them around. You haven't even bothered to verify them! I can only conclude that you know nothing about Cuba and are buying into leftist propaganda, so, right back at you with brass knobs on.

Oh, and riddle me this: of all the illegal human traffic on rafts and inner tubes between Cuba and Florida, how many were going south?

[caesar]

I notice, for instance, that you don't have any facts to support your argument. Where I have presented facts, you have just tried to twist them around. You haven't even bothered to verify them! I can only conclude that you know nothing about Cuba and are buying into leftist propaganda, so, right back at you with brass knobs on

You presented evidence??????? Must have missed that. thought you were just denying the reliability of the facts as presented by the CIA of the USA.

Literacy: 

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 97%

male: 97.2%

female: 96.9% (2003 est.) 

[caesar]

Oh by the way; the torture chambers and prisons holding illegal prisoners in Cuba is at

Quatanama bay and is being run and controlled by the USA. Cuba/ Castro wants them gone; does not collect the rent. I think Cuba has grounds for eviction. Go home Yankees.

[Stoker]

caesar, why are all those Cubans risking their lives to come to America, through Shark infested waters on poorly made rafts?

Since Cuba is "safer" and has "public Healthcare", why would they go to America?

Here's an intresting sight you should read before you continue to make an ass of yourself:

Facts on Cuba

[Stoker]

caesar, are you quoting numbers giving by the CIA world fact book

Your quote:

caesar Posted on Feb 6 2005, 04:04 PM

QUOTE 

Literacy: 

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 97%

male: 97.2%

female: 96.9% (2003 est.) 

From the CIA world fact book

Literacy: 

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 97%

male: 97.2%

female: 96.9% (2003 est.) 

Word for word...........Didn't you say:

caesar Posted on Feb 5 2005, 08:14 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUOTE 

And Cuba has a statistical agency that just makes up numbers too

Sorry the numbers are by a USA CIA. The CIA has been known to fudge numbers and facts but not in Cuba's defense.

But the CIA is handy when you want to prove a point eh?

[August1991]

This is what the CIA Factbook provides for North Korea:

Infant mortality rates:

total: 24.84 deaths/1,000 live births

male: 26.59 deaths/1,000 live births

female: 23 deaths/1,000 live births (2004 est.)

Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 99%

male: 99%

female: 99%

My point is that the CIA relies entirely on North Korean authorities for that information. (No one else collects or can verify that kind of data.)

I suppose the Factbook's reasoning is that any information is better than no information. Their FAQ has this:

What is The World Factbook’s source for a specific subject field? The Factbook staff uses many different sources to publish what we judge are the most reliable and consistent data for any particular category. Space considerations preclude a listing of these various sources.

But I prefer the old line: "Lies, damn lies and statistics."

Where data from Cuba or North Korea (for example) are concerned, I am certain the data is doctored for public consumption. Such regimes control information very tightly. Imagine how Ottawa would be without an Opposition and without a prying press.

[Hugo]

You presented evidence??????? Must have missed that. thought you were just denying the reliability of the facts as presented by the CIA of the USA.

I think other people in this thread have debunked these figures. Suffice it to say that totalitarian regimes usually fudge the numbers, when China was suffering one of the worst famines in history the Communist Party was posting figures of bumper harvests.

Oh by the way; the torture chambers and prisons holding illegal prisoners in Cuba is at

Quatanama bay

It's spelled "Guantanamo", and this is more of what I'm talking about: woeful ignorance.

Anyway, the fact is that there are a lot more people being held without fair trial in Cuban prisons than at Guantanamo Bay. For example, there are a lot of teachers and journalists currently serving >20 year prison terms for criticizing Castro or talking to foreign journalists. Che Guevara's signature appears on about 1,500 death warrants, and Guevara admitted publicly that none of those people had even had a trial. Look up Sosa Chabau, who had documented the mass tortures committed by Castro's henchman Eriberto Mederos, known to Cubans as "El Enfermero" (the nurse).

Armando Vallederes, a Cuban poet and UN human rights commissioner, testified to the UN Human Rights Commission in 1988. These are some extracts:

I had many friends in prison. One of them, Roberto López Chávez, was just a kid. He went on a hunger strike to protest the abuses. The guards denied him water, Roberto lay on the floor of his punishment cell, agonizing, deliriously asking for water. water… The soldiers came in and asked him: "Do you want water?"… The they took out their members and urinated in his mouth, on his face… He died the following day.

...they kept me in a punishment cell, naked, with several fractures on one leg which never received medical care; today, those bones remain jammed up together and displaced. One of the regular drills among the guards was to stand on the steel mesh ceiling and throw at my face buckets full of urine and excrement.

He was 12 years old when they arrested him. A captain in the political police had left his gun in his open car. When he returned to the car he saw the child playing with it. He slapped Robertico and took him into custody. The child was sent to an adult prison in Havana, where he was condemned to spend the rest of his youth. He would not be released until he reached the age of 18.

Robertico was sent to a galley with common criminals. Within a few days, those soulless prisoners raped him. He spent several days in the hospital for treatment of rents and hemorrhages as a result. By the time he was released, his file had been stamped "homosexual" and he was taken to the prison area reserved for this classification. Robertico was so slender that his body fit through the bars of the cells. One night he slipped out to watch cartoons on the guard's television. When he was discovered, he was sent to the punishment cells. He was taken out of those cells three times a week for injections because he was suffering from a venereal disease. A guard told me he was so young he did not even have pubic hair.

Many other Americans seem to believe that even if savage things once happened under Fidel Castro, the situation has now changed. Yet the same dictatorship, which sanctioned the abuse of Robertico and has tortured thousands of political prisoners, is still wielding absolute power over the Cuban people. Fidel Castro has never recanted or apologized for the atrocities that have been reported by those who have escaped his grasp. And there is a stream of evidence that the brutality and repression continues. Last month the United Nations Human Rights Commission condemned Cuba, for the eighth time, for its systematic violation of human rights. Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department have done the same.

I think Cuba has grounds for eviction. Go home Yankees.

Castro will never evict the Americans, and for them to lift the embargo would be his worst nightmare. The USA gives him a scapegoat for his economic failures, without them, he has to admit to the Cuban people that socialism has failed them. All Communist regimes find bugbears to blame for their problems, whether it's Trotsky or Kai-shek.

[Black Dog]

All Communist regimes find bugbears to blame for their problems, whether it's Trotsky or Kai-shek.

Er...Kai-Shek wasn't a Communist.

Following his defeat at the hands of the Communists in 1949, Chiang and the remnants of his party and army fled to Taiwan where they established a developmentalist party-military dictatorship committed to the ultimate goal of retaking the mainland.

In any case, there's no disputing Castro is not the snow-white do-gooder that some would make him out to be. Like so many others of his ilk his revolutionary ideals lasted only until he tasted the ambrosia of power. But let's not kid ourselves either as to what the post-Castro future holds.

[Hugo]

Er...Kai-Shek wasn't a Communist.

No, he was a Communist scapegoat, like Trotsky.

[Black Dog]

Ah, gotcha.

I thouht those were odd choices for examples of Communist regimes.

[Digby]

LA is an extremely large city. Do you really mean that you saw drug addicts everywhere? Were all the streets dangerous at night?

Of course I was not every where in LA , but i did see alot of it and most of it in my opinion was not safe . as i feel safe in most places . Long beach was not bad .

I was docked in san pedro and there around the water front the drugs was bad . almost 1/2 local men i met there was doing speed . It was so bad they was stealing every thing off our boat . we had a truck parked on the warfe ,the tires got punctured and nails taken to the paint. most locals warned us not to walk the streets at night alone .

I spent a week in miami last winter on our way to curacao too, we was warned there not to go near some neibourhoods.American citys from what ive seen are not the best places to hang , but then im use to small town Nova Scotia ,where most don't even lock their doors .

While in cuba , we met a older english man that had sailed across the atlantic alone . On his aproach to Cuba he fell asleep at the helm and put his boats on the rocks .

The boat was not damaged that bad and the guy never had insurance . Sence we had a bigger boat with some horse power he came an asked us if we could assist him in salvageing his boat . We told him no problem and we walked to the beach site to look things over ,before we sailed our boat there to tow him off . while there prepareing his boat so we could tow it off (had to patch a small hole) a cuban police type guy came and asked through a translator what we was doing . When we told him we was working to save this mans boat . He warned us that what we was doing was illeagal . He said we was working in cuba without work permits . We went on to tell him it was all volenter and there would be no money changeing hands . He said it did not matter we was still working with no work permit and had to stop .

We was not aloud to help the guy save his boat .

The guy was extreemly angry as he figgured it was a plot by the cubans to get his diesel engine .

So we ended up haveing to leave his boat to beat up on the rocks ( i don't know if the cubans got the motor or not) I know this English man never thought much of Cuba after that . We let him stay on our boat till he found a way to get to Havanah so he could go home . He lost about 30-40,000 dollars because of cuban red tape,as im sure we could of saved the boat if they would of let us.

I think if it wasn't for banana trees and coconut trees alot of cubans would be going hungry , id say the communism is not working .

[Cameron]

caesar, why are all those Cubans risking their lives to come to America, through Shark infested waters on poorly made rafts?

Since Cuba is "safer" and has "public Healthcare", why would they go to America?

Here's an intresting sight you should read before you continue to make an ass of yourself:

Facts on Cuba

That's what I was going to say. Good point.

[caesar]

Here's an intresting sight you should read before you continue to make an ass of yourself:

Why would I want to read the same propaganda as you??? I have friends (police officer) and my brother (a rancher) who have been to Cuba in the last year or two. The majority of people are quite happy. So what if a few criminals try to escape Cuba's justice system and go to the USA.

Keep a civil finger on your keyboard eh. You are the one that is brain washed.