How was Castro any more of an evil despot than Batista?

[CatWoman]

I'm here to learn.......

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. Slight correction: It's Batista with an "a". Other than that I'm not touching this one w a 40ft pole

[CatWoman]

5. thank you very much for the correction

:)

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

7. Any time my lady. n/t

[malaise]

2. Nothing but glowing tributes in our parliament today.

This morning 86 more Jamaicans headed to Cuba for a variety of eye operations. Cuba has been a great neighbour and friend. I don't give a flying fuck what those who hate him say. Whenever he dies I will be heading to Cuba -check his letter to the Cuban people.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Castro wanted Khrushchev to nuke the U.S. ....

the U.S. actually did not support Batista. He was horrifically corrupt and a revolution in the making.

Castro was very popular in the states and was on the Jack Paar show.

[MADem]

20. Yep--kinda fucks up that eternal "At Each Other's Throats" paradigm.

Castro had a blast in Harlem, too. The popular rum and coke drink was called "Cuba Libre" in honor of Cuba's freedom from tyranny.

Castro and Malcolm X


Fidel and Ed Sullivan


At the UN with Kurt 'Nazi' Waldheim (before that news came out)


Arriving in Washington in 1959


Laying a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial


Ice Cream at the Bronx Zoo
http://image.guim.co.uk/Guardian/news/gallery/2007/sep/24/internationalnews/[e-mail]

On edit--with Trick Dick:

[GirlinContempt]

46. The US did not support Batista?

Are you for serious?

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/batista.htm
On January 14 1934, Batista forced provisional president Ramón Grau San Martín to resign, and he appointed Carlos Mendieta to the presidency. Within five days, the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government.

Batista was well liked by American interests, who feared Grau's liberal social and economic revolution and saw him as a stabilizing force with respect for American interests. It was in this time period that Batista formed a renowned friendship and business relationship with gangster Meyer Lansky that lasted over three decades.

For a price, Batista handed contracts to dozens of U.S. corporations for massive construction projects, such as the Havana-Varadero highway, the Rancho Boyeros airport, train lines, the power company and a strange plan to dig a canal across Cuba.

Due to popular unrest, and to appease his U.S. friends, Batista held a mock election in which he was the only legal candidate. He won, becoming president of Cuba in 1954. Cubans, however, had learned not to trust him, and were demanding new, legitimate elections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista#Term_as_President_.281940-44.29
During his presidency, trade relations with the U.S. increased, and a series of war taxes was imposed on the Cuban population. Following Grau's election in 1944, Cuba experienced its first peaceful transfer of power in two decades.

On March 10, 1952, almost twenty years after the Revolt of the Sergeants, Batista took over the government once more, this time against elected Cuban president Carlos Prío Socarrás. The coup took place three months before the upcoming elections that he was sure to lose. Also running in that election (for a different office) was a young attorney named Fidel Castro. On March 27 Batista's government was formally recognised by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

[ananda]

4. The Reep/neocon talking heads are all demonizing ..

.. both Castros and Cuba.. along with Chavez.

Why?

Free(trade)dom and Demockrasie.

[bryant69]

6. This makes a nice contrast to the post directly above it

But Castro's record on free speech is pretty terrible.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[AlphaCentauri]

65. There have been some demostrations of free speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_vg9L-u72I

[Hardrada]

8. I know someone who was captured at the Bay of Pigs

and was from the old Cuban upper class but he bore no animosity toward Castro. Apparently he had been treated OK in captivity. He said he'd been swapped for a tractor!

[Mika]

63. Ssshhhh. Castro is supposed to have murdered everyone who opposed him.

Don't ask questions!

[SteppingRazor]

9. He wasn't. But two wrongs don't make a right.

The fact that Castro, a one-party-rule dictator, replaced Batista, a one-party-rule dictator, doesn't make him better or worse. Both men carried out extrajudicial executions. Both men imprisoned dissidents. Both men ruled over an island with a government that offered the barest lip service to anything approaching actual representative democracy. People like to talk up Cuba's healthcare system, especially since Sicko, and they've got a point -- for an island its size with its resources and facing the U.S. embargo, Cuba has a remarkably advanced healthcare system. But when you've been to the island and realized the scope of poverty there, healthcare seems like a very poor consolation prize. Granted, given the dire straits of many other Caribbean nations (Haiti comes immediately to mind, but many of the smaller islands are in the worst possible economic situation as well), you can't really look at Cuba's poverty and assume it's caused by communism, the embargo, or any other one cause that doesn't also affect other nations in the Caribbean area. But it's equally a fallacy to pretend that Cubans enjoy the "workers' paradise" that Castro lauds in his weekly diatribes in Granma.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. Castro was a communist.

This country has supported Pol Pot in its fight against communism.

[panader0]

11. My opinion: The Mafia controlled Cuba when Batista was in power

The mafia gave him his power because they were making a fortune gambling. Castro had seen first-hand what the US could do. See United FRuit Company and their control over the so-called "banana republics". Castro LIBERATED Cuba. The US embargo, like our embargoes in other countries such as Iraq, only hurt the common man and woman.

[Sebass1271]

16. What an irresponsible statement to make

Castro did not liberated cubans. Yes, maybe from the Batista regime, but once he took power did the same thing as batista or worse. JFK knew from the begining Castro was a bad roach man and a communist... reason why he wanted to take Castro out.. but failed.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

33. No more so than most of the complete BS spewed by corporate media!

Batista would NEVER have advanced public education or housing or health care, EVER! Batista was an ELITIST TYRANT oppressing the majority of Cuban people for the benefit of a few. Whereas, Castro was a POPULIST TYRANT oppressing the elitist few for the benefit of the majority of people.

Moreover, the poster's 'guesstimate' isn't completely responsible since part of the U.S. elitists were mafioso-types that held profiteering interests in Cuba. So, it's not any more as far-fetched as what you proffer.

[NashVegas]

54. What a Truthful Statement to Make

Batista had a 30-year relationship with Meyer Lansky. There's nothing irresponsible about pointing that out.

[Joe Chi Minh]

60. It's not your opinion. It's fact. Why be apologetic?

[Sebass1271]

12. both are similars..Castro has had more time

on his hands due to his power. He has killed and tortured more innocent Cubans than Battista ever did. He has been in power for 50 years without holding free elections and torturing and jailing any opposition party that has ever tried to form.

You tell me if that is called Democracy. NO free elections. No other policial or opposition party. Castro is a murderer and I only Hope that if Obama wins, can take the power away from his -murderder brother- Raul.

[Warpy]

13. That depended on who you were.

If you were a wealthy white person with a great deal of property, Batista was a perfect leader for you, keeping the peasants down with an iron fist while he encouraged mob investment in the island and Havana became a glitzy alternative to Las Vegas.

If you were a sugar cane worker or any other worker, he was dreadful. You got poor wages, worse food, and no health care if you got sick or injured.

When Castro came in, he was a disaster to the rich. He immediately nationalized all their businesses and kicked the mob out. The rich whites grabbed everything they could turn into dollars and ran.

The poor of Cuba saw their lot improve greatly, even with the embargo. With nationalized industries, the wealth got shared. Their health care became a model for the third world, guaranteed to every citizen and providing the very best in care with very limited resources. They got better food and better wages and more humane treatment. Castro enjoyed his greatest support among the ordinary workers in Cuba, especially workers of color, the lowest on the Batista food chain.

To outsiders, he's been a mixed bag. He has ruthlessly repressed dissent. He has rounded up and incarcerated anyone with HIV. He has prevented the country to moving to a mixed economic system, undoubtedly keeping it poorer than it should be by now. However, he has managed to feed, educate and provide health care for his entire population throughout the US embargo.

I hope much of his reforms survive him but with reforms on top of them leading to a mixed economy and freedom of expression. His legacy is worth preserving, but it's certainly not perfect.

[shrdlu]

19. Thank you for this even-handed appraisal of Fidel...

I hope the U.S. will allow the Cubans space to evolve a system to theirr own liking...

[CatWoman]

21. I need to eroll in Warpy's College

:hi:

Take Castro 101 :)

[yardwork]

14. The U.S. does business with most of the world's evil despots.

As far as I can tell, we singled out Cuba to punish because (1) Cuba wasn't willing to make lucrative trade deals with the U.S. and (2) the bat-shit-crazy Cuban expatriates in south Florida are a reliable voting bloc but mostly (3) Communism was a very convenient evil boogey-man to get Republicans like Jesse Helms reelected term after term, and Castro was our Communist poster boy.

[malaise]

15. No because Cuba refused to defend US interests

over the long term development of her own people particularly in health and education.

[yardwork]

51. That's the part about "not doing business with the U.S."

The U.S. is run by corporations. Castro refused to deal.

[bobbolink]

17. Ummm, cuz Castro isn't in the hip pocket of the U.S.?

:shrug:

the dictators we place are ever so much better than the dictators who get their on their own....*especially* if they have the temerity to displace a dictator we placed....

[yardwork]

52. It boils down to that, yes, I totally agree.

Our dictators = okay with us, no matter how horrible.
Dictators who oppose U.S. corporatist interests = axis of evil.

[malletgirl02]

18. thank you CatWoman for asking this question

I always wanted to know more about the Cuban government prior to Castro. I heard that Batista's government was corrupt, but I'm not sure on the details.

[CatWoman]

22. Thanks Malletgirl

:hi:

I saw this disturbing documentary about Castro/Battista on PBS.

However, I needed a more personal perspective :)

[Disturbed]

23. Batista was a corrupt Tyrant supported by the RWing of America.

Fulgencio Batista - Biography

A series of strikes, riots and university protests resulted in Batista's government growing even more repressive, and many opposition figures were beaten ...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0061145/bio

[icnorth]

26. If interested mg02 you may want to check out this site.

http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/index.shtml

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

24. Two dictators: one protecting corporate interests, the other protecting basic human interests.

Which is more evil?

Depends upon who you ask, I guess: a corporacrat or a poor fellow needing health care.

[Kitty Herder]

27. good answer. nt

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

28. Too bad our power-balancing system fails to protect basic constitutional rights,...

,...against a dictator serving elitists' interests, huh.

I've thought long and hard about our own predicament and arrived at a couple conclusions:
(1) Two parties simply aren't enough; and
(2) One president isn't enough, either.

We need more of both to encourage MORE power-sharing and balance of powers. Of course, I could be wrong but what we have is being manipulated far beyond what the founders were trying to prevent.

[Recursion]

25. I'm not a Castro-demonizer, but I seem to recall some missiles

Actually I dig a lot about Castro.

[Joe Chi Minh]

29. Hilarious interview with George Galloway on UK TV's Channel 4 tonight.

He laid straight into the young news anchor, excoriating him for his "Fox News propaganda" type questions. He then highlighted what Fidel had done for his country's inhabitants in terms of free and equal health care for all, admirable education for all, a superior infant survival rate than in the US (cited in their website as "equal" to it!), etc, etc. Why is it the MSM seem incapable of telling the truth for the length of a whole sentence?!?!

On their website, you'll notice they talk about the SUFFERING of the Cuban people under his regime! As if the poorer folk the regime extended its care to, as well, didn't exist! Only monied malcontents and their "know-nothing" teenage sprogs apparently have opinions - at least on politics!

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

35. Because, NO tyranny tolerates nuances,...not even our own.

The "monied malcontents and their 'know-nothing' teenage sprogs" are more threatened than ever.

[KoKo]

30. Cuba was one of our "Early Evil Empires" because United Fruit and Sugar Cane Industry

were ABUSING THE CUBANS....like we ABUSE EVERYONE WHO WON'T '''GIMMEEE...GIMMEE...or I'll Shoot yer FUCKING BRAINS OUT TO GET WHAT I WANT!!!

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

41. That would make US the most evil of tyrants, wouldn't it?

Making deals with any devil who's willing to enslave his people for money, for economic deals?

Yes, KoKo. Ours has been quite evil,...no matter how successful they are at spreading vitriolic rhetoric at those who take a stand against their abuses.

Oh, by the way, the Cuban people may get access to healthcare but they don't get the best,...like the elites among us (and that argument actually flies in our country). Hell, the infant mortality rate is greater than ours but BUT uh,...free speech is oppressed (like free speech isn't COMPLETELY OPPRESSED BY CORPORATE DOMINANCE here in the U.S.Corporacrats). AAANNNND,...who cares if public education flourishes in Cuba when they can't have a corporate job in America?

Castro had/has his faults, without a doubt. However, he better protected the equality necessary to build a democracy than this nation ever did. He better protected "the people" than this government ever aspired. His ideology wasn't about "communism" as much as it was fighting against oppression WHICH IS PRECISELY WHAT DEMOCRACY WAS SUPPOSE TO DICTATE: A NATION OF/BY/FOR PEOPLE PROTECTED AGAINST OPPRESSION!!!

[dflprincess]

42. Didn't the Bush and Dulles families both have connections to United Fruit?

Small world. :sarcasm:

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. Apparently, under Batista, young girls were openly pimped at the

top hotels. That's how squalid it was, under its Batista and the Mafia, who ran much of its business.

[CatWoman]

36. I have this video expose of the Mafia

and they describe those "acts" in gruesome detail.

If the women didn't go along (live sex shows, etc.), they would be either hideously maimed or killed :scared:

[Joe Chi Minh]

59. But you meet a better class of people, they say... Was it Jimmy the Horse who said it?

[GOPisEvil]

32. Q - What do we call terrorists we like? A - Freedom Fighters.

The answer is all about your perspective. Batista was the despot we liked; Castro the despot we didn't.

Of course this is the "royal we" you know. :)

[CatWoman]

37. Hi David

always nice to see you :)

:hi:

[GOPisEvil]

38. Nice to be seen.

I have to throw off those that think I only post in the Lounge. :hi:

[TreasonousBastard]

34. I was pretty young then, but I remember Castro being...

given the red carpet treatment when he came here after throwing Batista out. He was treated as a hero, at first. When he wasn't known as a Communist.

He had a lot of fascinating quirks, like wearing his beard "until Cuba is free," and staying in the Hotel Teresa in Harlem in solidarity with our own "oppressed." Roasting chickens in the hotel hallway was one of his neater tricks. Remember, this was just after WWII and Korea and we were in hero worship mode, and Castro was just wacky enough to be interesting, but not too scary. I should look up the timing of the Kefauver hearings 'cause this guy throwing the Mob out of Cuba had to be a good part of the backstory.

He wouldn't stay in favor forever, though, because he made the fatal mistake of playing us against the Soviets. As soon as Ike heard he was talking to Moscow he dropped Fidel so fast no one knew what happened. Then Fidel, who could have been a bridge between us and the Soviets, became the most hated character in the Western world. His nationalizing of legitimate US businesses and harassing legitimate Cuban businesses out of the country certainly didn't help his popularity at all. Nor did those Russian missiles that almost got planted there. Nor did the Cuban Army stirring shit in Africa on behalf of the Soviets.

Since the missile crisis, and the Bay of Pigs, nothing has changed significantly, except that he's had trouble replacing Soviet aid that kept him afloat for years. He's run Cuba further into the ground, but we helped him far too much by engineering boycotts around the world and denying him hard currency and investment.

Two idiots staring each other down for 50 years. It's time for some new blood to change things.

[robcon]

39. What kind of bottom-feeding standard is Batista???

At least Mao (who only killed 23 million people) didn't kill the Jews of Europe.
:sarcasm:

Castro is a mass murderer.

[Alexander]

40. They were both autocrats, Batista for the rich, Castro for the poor.

I don't care for autocrats, but the attention Castro gave to the impoverished was a slight improvement over Batista.

[robcon]

44. More attention has been paid to himself than to the poor, apparently

Castro took care of Number 1 pretty well...

Fidel Castro President/Cuba
$900 million
Age: 79

Comandante since 1959. We estimate his fortune based on his economic power over a web of state-owned companies including El Palacio de Convenciones, a convention center near Havana; Cimex, retail conglomerate; and Medicuba, which sells vaccines and other pharmaceuticals produced in Cuba. Former Cuban officials living in U.S. assert that he has long skimmed profits. Castro insists his net worth is zero.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/04/rich-kings-dictators_cz_lk_0504royals.html

[ThomWV]

43. After the revolution, if you had been in Miami, you would have seen the executions

I remember it vividly as a kid in Miami, about a year after the revolution, or maybe it was as early as the following spring, the local news started showing the executioins, nightly. They were all done by firing squad, they would show half a dozen of them a night. They didn't do that during Batista's time.

That's what I most remember about it.

[GirlinContempt]

49. No, Batista did it in secret.

Much more civilized.

[RebelOne]

53. I lived in Miami at that time and I do not remember any executions in Cuba.

[Mika]

55. Many of those films shown on Miami TV were of Batista's firing squads.

The RW spin was that those executions were post revolution executions by the revolutionary gov.

You were a kid, probably not aware of the US psyops at the time.

Plus, many of the Cuban exiles in Miami who continue make the claims of Castro's/Che's firing squads and murders were children at the time (like, for example, Ileana Ros Lehtinen recounts similar stories that she remembers clearly when she lived in Cuba - she left Cuba when she was 3 years old, but remembers clearly who, what, when, and where, as long as its anti Castro). They were witnessing the brutal Batista government thugs and death squad crackdowns/murders of supporters of the revolutionaries in the mountains, that were being attributed by the Batista media (pre Jan 1959) as executions performed by the revolutionaries and by US psyops (post Jan 1959).

:hi:

[ThomWV]

71. You may be right - but I certainly have no way of knowing that

All I know is that local news on Miami stations were showing firing squads executing people in Cuba after the revolution. You are correct, I was young - about 12 at the time. This was before the big Cuban inflow to south Florida and the prejudices hadn't risen yet; we had close family friends who were Cubans so we kept up with the revolution pretty close. The thousands of refugees that started arriving at about that time would seem to confirm the harsh conditons on the island, and that doesn't have anything to do with how old I was or some supposed plots by Eisenhower's CIA - does it.

[AlertLurker]

69. After the revolution, if you had been in ALBANY, you would have seen the executions

...in 1783, when my family had to leave their homes and farms and come to Canada to avoid being executed. I don't remember it, but my family have handwritten accounts - it's pretty brutal and matter-of-fact stuff...

I live for a day that the USA demands reparations for property seized during the Cuban Revolution. There's 1000 acres in NY State that I would dearly like to evict some 230-year squatters off of.

[Mika]

72. The Godfrey-Milliken Bill - A Canadian response to the Helms-Burton Law

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/080.html

FORT YORK, TORONTO -- MP John Godfrey (Don Valley West) and MP Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands) have announced their intention to introduce the Godfrey-Milliken Law as a private members bill in the House of Commons. Godfrey-Milliken follows the precedent established by the Helms-Burton Law in the United States enabling the government and citizens of one country to seek restitution from the government and citizens of another for the alleged trafficking in confiscated property.

The Godfrey-Milliken Bill would permit descendants of the United Empire Loyalists who fled the United States in the years following the 1776 American Revolution to reclaim land that is rightfully theirs and was confiscated unjustly and illegally by the American government and its citizens.

Furthermore, the Bill would enabled Canada to exclude corporate officers, or controlling shareholders of companies that engage in "trafficking", as well as the spouse and minor child of such persons from entering Canada.

The Bill, to be known as "The American Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Loyalty) Act", is consistent with the new moral standard in international commerce set by Helms-Burton. Descendants of the 80,000 American Loyalists who fled the future United States of America and whose property was confiscated by self-constituted revolutionary courts should be equally entitled to prosecute U.S. citizens who now benefit from or enjoy seized Loyalist estates.

Half of the Loyalists settled in Canada and their descendants now number three million Canadians. On the Helms-Burton principle, those Canadians with proven lines of descent would be entitled to restitution, compensation, and interest. The value of their alienated property can be measured in the billions of dollars.

What makes the claims of Canadian Loyalists even stronger than those of the former American owners of Cuban property is that the United States has already accepted the obligation to compensate victims of its revolutionary confiscations and assaults on property and capital. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 between Britain and the new United States, ratified by the United States Congress, provided in Article V for: "the restitution of all Estates, Rights, and Properties, which have been confiscated." Not only did the U.S. Government fail to carry out this commitment, but several states continued to persecute adherents of the crown. Exiles who returned home to exercise their treaty right to their old properties and to recover debts were abused and driven off.

Senator Jesse Helms' own state of North Carolina was notorious for vindictiveness. Amongst the many claimants for restitution in North Carolina, for example, are the descendants of Thomas McKnight, of Currituck County, who was plundered by revolutionary rabble of his plantation, houses, furniture, ships, merchandise, and outstanding debts owed him.

John Godfrey and Peter Milliken are both of Loyalist descent and represent communities where Loyalists settled. With the passage of the bill, John Godfrey intends to press the American government for recovery of his family house, Carter's Grove, in Virginia. Peter Milliken intends to press for return of his ancestor's property in the lush Mohawk Valley in New York State.

The Loyalists were not foreigners but Americans who only differed from their rebellious countrymen in political opinion. Thus the logic of the Helms-Burton Act should spur American legislators to compensate Loyalist descendants for property appropriated by revolutionary governments and retained by U.S. citizens, in defiance of an international agreement. By doing so, they will confirm their right to the moral leadership asserted by the Helms-Burton Act.

Some Canadians suggest we burned the White House in the War of 1812 to keep Americans from meddling in our affairs, and we just might have to do it again!

-

[Freddie Stubbs]

45. He oppressed the Cuban people for a longer period of time

[Seeking Serenity]

47. Y'know, I get kind of tired

Y'know, I get kind of tired of this "Batista was extremely bad, so a fortiori, anything Castro did had to be good" kind of black and white, either/or thinking. Or the mindset that says, "Castro gave the Cuban people free health care and improved education, so what a few denied civil liberties among compadres?"

Yes, Castro generally improved the lot of the majority of the Cuban poor, which is admirable, but he also headed a one-party state, generally suppressed dissent, among other civil liberty violations.

Was he more or less evil than Batista? Who cares? It certainly doesn't matter to the dead.

Would we put up with a one-party state and the same kind of denial of civil liberties here so long as we got free health care or education? Although I'm sure some here would make that bargain, most of us would not.

Let's put Castro in his rightful place -- a smart man who liberated his country from a corrupt dictatorship and improved the overall well-being of his country but failed to secure to his people their unalienable rights, life, liberty, property, the freedom of his people to truly and freely elect their leaders without fear of reprisals, unfettered freedom of speech or of the press, the right to dissent without fear of imprisonment, etc.

Was he perfect? No. Was he better than what they had? In some ways, yes; in other ways, there was little difference.

Just my $0.02.

[GirlinContempt]

50. Property is not a right.

[Joe Chi Minh]

61. "Was he more or less evil than Batista? Who cares? It certainly doesn't matter

to the dead."

Yes, but we're here, don't you see? It matters a great deal to those inhabiting the land of the living.

And indeed it does matter enormously to the dead, at least to the deceased martyrs, as is made clear in Revelations, when they ask God when the souls of those martyred in the Great Persecution will be avenged.

[Mika]

48. Ha!

Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/185.html

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

Castro is an evil dicktater who forces universal health care and universal education on an unwilling population, because we know .. no free people want these things. Castro's dicktatership prevented the masses from organizing against health care and ed. :sarcasm:



-

[aikoaiko]

56. When I talked to Cubans who live in Cuba, they expressed something complex

As you know many of the Cubans who still live in Cuba are really different from the Cubans who now live in S Florida.

They did not love Castro and they did not really want him to be in charge any longer, but recognized that he would probably have to die for a change to occur. When Castro was out of power there would be changes and moves to capitalism, but not American style capitalism. They said they wanted to create Cuban style capitalism.

I always loved that phrase -- Cuban style capitalism.

[LostinVA]

57. He wasn't even as bad as Batista

[robcon]

58. Not as bad as Hitler either. What's the point?

n/t

[CatWoman]

62. what's your's?

[Mika]

64. That Forbes magazine is a reliable source re: Castro.

:rofl:

[robcon]

67. I agree. Castro enriched himself by controlling personally what he nationalized.

Like King Leopold of Belgium, he stole from his own government.

[robcon]

66. Point: he was the most despotic leader of the Western Hemisphere.

He didn't commit as many offenses as Batista (per year, at least) or Hitler, but he has been a scourge on the Cuban people for 49 long years. Ran an awful Gulag. Murdered his enemies,sent those who initiated the Varela Statement to 20+ year terms in prison.

Short and sweet: a monster.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

68. He wasn't. But, Batista was OUR evil despot ...

not Moscow's evil despot.

:rofl:

just kidding, sorta. I don't know why we made such a permanent "fuss" about Castro. We have established political and economic relations with other "communist" nations: China, Russia, Vietnam, etc. So why not trade with Cuba? Why not open tourism to Cuba? I have no idea.

[JVS]

70. I doubt he was