Fidel Castro stepped down Tuesday morning as the president of Cuba after a long illness, ending one of the longest tenures as one of the most all-powerful communist heads of state in the world, according to Granma, the official publication of the Cuban Communist Party.
In late July 2006, Mr. Castro, who is 81, handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raúl Castro, 76, and a few younger cabinet ministers, after an acute infection in his colon forced him to undergo emergency surgery. Despite numerous surgeries, he has never fully recovered but has remained active in running government affairs from behind the scenes.
Now, just days before the national assembly is to meet to select a new head of state, Mr. Castro resigned permanently in a letter to the nation and signaled his willingness to let a younger generation assume power. He said his failing health made it impossible to return as president.
“I will not aspire to neither will I accept ”” I repeat I will not aspire to neither will I accept ”” the position of President of the Council of State and Commander in chief,” he wrote.
I have so many Cuban friends — I can’t tell you what a free Cuba would mean to them.
I know this probably means great weeping and gnashing of teeth at 815, but it’s another (small) step toward freedom.
For all the talk in the U.S. about change, let’s have a little of that — cambio — in Cuba.
coverage on the net:
http://www.babalublog.com/
Sic Semper tyrannis
Maybe Cuba will be free again someday.
My ‘Uncle’ George Kendall , my father’s best friend, was a senior official in IGE and had dealings with Latin America.
I can remember him warning me during a visit to his home in 1959, before Castro announced his communism and while his son was attending boarding school in the USA, that Castro was a very dangerous man who should be closely watched.
Later, while reading some history, I discovered that before Castro overthrew Batista’s government in Cuba, that Castro and Che Guevarra had been paid employees of the Soviet run COMINTERN (or its equivalent) and that they had worked as a team assassinating anti-communist union officials in Colombia.
Castro was an evil man before his rule of Cuba and he was evil in his rule of Cuba.
We can take this as an indication that he has already been dead awhile. Yasir Arafat had a similarly-delayed official death, while his vassals haggled & jockied.
I don’t think his retirement will change anything; Raúl is still in charge and everything will pretty much run as it has for the past eighteen months.
As for President Bush’s offer of to help Cuba in its “transition to democracy” is concerned, perhaps the Cubans would like to wait until someone who actually understands and respects democracy is president of the U.S.A.
Reply to #5.
Padre Mickey,
Just what is your concept of democracy?
A good way to bring change is to change our economic policy. What’s pretty clear is that what we’ve been doing never worked. Compare what happened to the Soviet Union or other countries where we negotiated and traded.
Why would 815 care about who is in power? Those at 815 have opposed the embargo, but who has supported dictatorship? Manicheanism does run strong with these sorts of issues, alas.
Many people from all religions and political parties have both opposed the embargo and opposed dictatorship in Cuba. What purpose has the embargo served over the past 40-some years? To bring democracy to Cuba? Why not enact an embargo against China?
[blockquote]perhaps the Cubans would like to wait until someone who actually understands and respects democracy is president of the U.S.A.[/blockquote]
How sophomoric can you get, Padre Mickey?
If Castro and company had led a revolution in any other hemisphere Nixon would have been trading ping-pong players with them in the seventies. The embargo has been a national tragedy for Cuba and should be looked back on (at least when it’s lifted) with shame by the people who imposed it. The Americans had nothing but thugs and Mafiosi to offer the Cubans in the past. What they have to offer in the future remains to be seen.
No, #7, Democracy is when the democrats always win.
So if you win it’s a fair election and democracy, if you lose it’s fraud and not democracy, eh Mickey? How’s sixth grade treating you?
When the old murderer officially stops wasting perfectly good oxygen, I predict that there will be a movement to include Fiddy in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts. After all, the Episcopalians had glowing things to say about Yasser Arafat when that genocidal thug bought the farm.
#5
We’re a republic, not a democracy. You’re an Anglican – you ought to have the brains to be able to handle that and value it.
Andrew,
Sorry that this is off topic, but your comment remided me of a conversation in the wonderful movie [i]Support Your Local Sheriff[/i]:
[i]Pa Danby[/i]: Now I’m gonna take a little trip tomorrow and I want you two to behave yourselves while I’m gone. I don’t want nobody to make no martyr out of this here sheriff.
[i]Tom Danby[/i]: What’s a martyr?
[i]Pa Danby[/i]: Oh, I’m sorry. They didn’t use words like that in the third grade, did they?
[i]Tom Danby[/i]: Well, how would I know? I didn’t get that far. …
[i](to his brother)[/i]You remember all those years I spent stuck in the second grade!
RE: “. . . perhaps the Cubans would like to wait until someone who actually understands and respects democracy is president of the U.S.A.”
Looks as if this coming election won’t provide that. They’ll have plenty of choices, though, of nice Marxist fascists to choose from.
; > )
RE: “Democracy is when the democrats always win.”
Yep — spoken like a real liberal Episcopalian. “A fair election is when I or my fellow Dear Comrades win.”
LOL.
Sheesh, I wrote “democrats” not “Democrats.” Too subtle for you lot.
[blockquote]Why would 815 care about who is in power? Those at 815 have opposed the embargo, but who has supported dictatorship? [/blockquote]
As I recall, both Griswold and Schori have seen fit to travel to Gulla-Gulla-Gulag to denounce US policy against Cuba whilst on the island, never uttering a peep of protest about the police state run by Fidel and his goons. I don’t know about you, John, but going to a sworn enemy’s land and mouthing his propaganda against your nation is pretty good evidence of support, no? Perhaps we could ask Lord Haw-Haw his view…
Jeffersonian, we chose to make him the sworn enemy. The consequence, all the money is going to Europe and Canada.
It’s easy to go to another country, blame the political leaders, and let your friends on the ground pick up the slack. Harder to critique your own political leaders. They were justified in doing so. Especially as lots of Americans – businessmen, young Cubans and the like are tired of a policy that doesn’t work.
“mouthing propaganda” is an easy charge. Seems like you’ve been ingesting our own country’s propaganda as well. Don’t put me in the box of supporting Castro, however.
Note: it doesn’t take a political scientist to note his difference (for most Latin Americans) between Castro and Pinochet, or Castro and Somoza, or Castro and Maxamiliano Martinez or Duvalier or whatever dictator we thought was justified. We got what we deserved, unfortunately. It could have been much worse: they could have been breeding terrorists. Instead, we [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/national/09exile.html?hp&oref=login]decided to.[/url]
Hey – I’d love to see a democracy in Cuba. But it seems to me that if you really believe that free trade works, you believe it all the time, and not when politically convenient.
Harder to blame your own political leaders?? That borders on the delusional, John. The Left has honed it to an absolute science when it comes to Bush. What’s so “hard” about it? There is precisely no substantive price to be paid for it, indeed one can expect to be feted by the wet set as a result (see also: Joe Wilson and Val Plame). And if Griswold and Schori weren’t parroting Castro’s propaganda, what were they doing?
OTOH, we’re sure of the price to be paid by those who question the policies of the Castro regime. Best not to be provocative with those who can be provoked.
Castro was in the Soviet pocket from the get-go…please don’t insult our intelligence and yours that “we made him our enemy.” Castro implored Kruschev to nuke the US during the October missile crisis…not exactly the mark of a good pal.
I do believe in free trade and I do think our Cuban embargo is counterproductive. Unlike our hard-to-port Presiding Plaintiff, I have to laugh at the idea that it is even remotely to blame for the pathetic state of Castro’s dilapidated satrapy. He trades freely with every nation in the world, the lack of trade from the US makes little difference. We should trade with him just so his pathetic excuse is shown to be just that.
Um – where did Castro first visit? The Soviet Union? Look it up. He came to the US. Then we sent terrorists after him and tried to assassinate him.
By far the biggest trading partner would be with the US. Just with sugar alone. But we don’t really know, do we? We’ve been imprisoned by the politics of angry Cubans ever since.
Why should Cuban Episcopalians pay for our self-righteousness. Second, what happened to Plame and Wilson? Doesn’t seem like they’ve had it very easy ever since. Perhaps you could state what the “propaganda” was. Then we’d compare it to fact. I’m willing to be wrong on this.
I’m no fan of Castro.
How do you say “Good riddance!” in Spanish?
Sarah, No. 17: In all humility and crashing ignorance, would you kindly tell me the meaning of LOL? Not knowing, increasingly, has been a real blogging and email handicap. Thanks and Best. Dick
sarah
[b]L[/b]augh [b]O[/b]ut [b]L[/b]oud
Dear Richard,
It is indeed important to know these things.
LOL is quite ancient [in Internet years, that is] and in the spirit of helping you flourish a few acronyms, here is a little handy tool for the next generation of acronyms.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/the-next-generation-of-online-shorthand/
I hope this helps.
I myself made up this little acronym some time ago: JFOMCLSH
Just Fell Off My Chair Laughing So Hard