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Fidel Castro, Longtime Dictator of Cuba, Has Died

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Under the Castroit regime Cubans have experienced the deterioration of practically all health indicators, from sanitation to housing. The increase in infectious diseases in the island like dengue, cholera, leptospirosis (rat fever) and other viruses, does not correlate with the life-expectancy statistics of the regime.

Life expectancy at birth in Cuba:

1931: 43.8 years, among the best in the world. See Chart. http://migratio.cesga.es/article.php3?id_article=41

1957: 64.2 years, 32th in the world. See Table 1.http://www.ascecuba.org/c/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/v22-stusser.pdf

2014: 78.22 years, 59th in the world. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html)

In Latin America these countries rank above Cuba: Puerto Rico 48th; Chile 52nd; Panama 56th, and Costa Rica 58th.

The life expectancy ranking of Cuba under Castroism had slip backwards. Seems that the so call “experts” missed those statistics.
 
There are a total of 70,000 Cuban doctors. According to MINSAP 30,000 Cuban doctor’s work overseas and another 13,000 have left Cuba. The actual numbers of doctors in Cuba is around 27,000. Of those 10% quit their profession to work in more lucrative jobs, leaving only 24,300 working in their profession. The regime has acknowledged that there is a shortage of doctors and nurses in Cuba. On December 2007 the vice minister of public health, Joaquín García Salaberría, took the highly unusual step of admitting on Cuban television that there were shortages of doctors and nurses. The real per capita of doctors in Cuba is one doctor per 469 people. This would rank Cuba in 57th place in physician density per population.
 
The Castroit regime has for many years been treating the health care personnel as “exportable commodities.” It is a modern day version of trafficking in human beings, a multibillion dollars form of international crime, a violation of human rights. In 2013 the regime earned $10.4 billion exporting professional services, especially in the health sector, to other countries, the same amount brought by total exports, tourism and remittances all together in 2013 (Service exports minus tourism, Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas de Cuba).

Financially, "doctor diplomacy" is an outstanding source of income for the Castroit regime economy since MINSAP pays doctors and other personnel only a small fraction of the millions of dollars that are received by the regime.
 
I've been to Cuba. I've driven down a long back road through farm country and seen a farmhouse beside the road with a big red cross painted on the wall. A doctor lived there and anyone from around could just walk in to his clinic. I've talked to labourers with university degrees and school kids come from all over to a week-long basketball tournament. I've spent days in private houses with suites for tourists, 'casas particulaire', and eaten meals in private homes with tables for twelve paying guests, 'paladares'. I've been down streets and alleys all over Havana and never saw a beggar or hooker or drug dealer or shabby homeless person. here's hitch-hikers everywhere and it's against the law for someone with a government plate to pass them by.
Obviously it's not the ideal society, but obviously the average Cuban is far better off than the average Jamaican or Dominican. And a long way better off than before the revolution. If there had never been a US embargo Cuba wouldn't have had to turn to the Soviet Union to sell sugar and history would have been different.
You saw what you paid to see.
 
Cuba has had one of the most literate populations in Latin America since well before the Castro revolution. Cuba national illiteracy rate was 18% in 1958, ranking third in Latin America. Cuba was the Latin American country with the highest budget for education in 1958, with 23% of the total budget earmarked for this expense. This data is found in the archives of Cuba's Ministry of Education.
 
The female percentage, in relation to the total student population, was the highest in the Western Hemisphere including the US. The United Nations Statistics Division yearbook of 1959 shows Cuba having 3.8 university students per 1,000 inhabitants, well above the Latin America median of 2.6. Cuban texts books were exported to several Latin American countries, bringing $10 million revenue in 1958. UNESCO (1960) recognized Cuba as the only Latin-American country which since 1940 reached the goal that all the teachers possessed a title of normal school or university pedagogy title.
 
Under the Castroit regime has been a big decrease in the number of rural schools. In 2014 there were 4,729 rural schools for a population of 11.2 million, and in 1958 there were 4,889 rural schools for a population of 6.5 million. It is striking that the population increases and the number of rural schools decreases.
 
Castros less visible legacy On “anthropological damage”
https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/15/15631448/cuba-opinion-fidel-castro-anthropological-damage

By Sebastian Arcos
May 15, 2017

A short drive through the streets of Havana is all it takes to realize that Fidel Castro’s most obvious legacy is the devastation of Cuba’s infrastructure. The city that for centuries was one of the most important capitals of the Western Hemisphere lies in ruins, as if it had suffered the ravages of a protracted civil war. The city that once prospered despite pirate raids, a British occupation, two wars of independence, and two popular revolts against domestic tyrants, could not withstand the wanton neglect and sheer incompetence of Castro’s regime.

As bad as it is, the physical devastation is not the worst legacy of the Castro regime. Europe’s recent history shows that infrastructure can be rebuilt in a decade or so. There is a far more pervasive and ominous legacy left by almost 60 years of Castroism, one that cannot be easily perceived by the casual traveler, one that has left an indelible imprint on the Cuban psyche, values, and behavior. Dagoberto Valdes, the sophisticated leader of the Centro de Estudios Convivenciain Western Cuba, has labeled this invisible legacy as the “anthropological damage.”

“Anthropological damage” refers to the long-term behavioral changes caused in the population caused by a fundamentally immoral, pervasive and long-lasting regime. This is not exclusive to Cuba or Castroism, but common to all totalitarian regimes. Vaclav Havel, the renowned Czech dissident intellectual, made numerous references to the “loss of the ethical compass” developed by people under communism.
Lack of maintenance has been the main cause for the deterioration of the structures built before 1959. After 1959, several other factors like poor construction quality and upkeep, use of voluntary workers who lack the necessary skills and defective construction practices have contributed to the deterioration of the housing stock.

Case in point are the 4 and 5 story multifamily buildings of concrete block bearing walls and pre-fabricated floors and roof, built by the microbrigadas in the 1970s in the Alamar Neiborghood. About 75% of the buildings are affected by rainwater seepage through the roof slab and leaks in the walls which have cause their rapid deterioration (corrosion of reinforcement, concrete spalling, electrical fittings damage, etc.), due to poor workmanship, and lack of roof and waterproofing maintenance.
 
Fidel Castro was a psychopath and has always been one, His sadistic ego alone destroyed Cuba, and he didn't live in the ruins, but became a ruin. He deserves his long journey into the night, cause by senile dementia, crumbling down piece by piece as the ruins created by his calculated neglect.
 
Spent some time with Cuban refugees. Most are probably no doubt rejoicing, and I lift a glass of rum to them. Some had fled Cuba only to be mistreated in immigration custody here.

One Cuban I worked with years ago had a comment that stayed with me through the years -- ironically, his name was also Fidel (no, not named after him) -- said he hated Castro, but "the US got what it deserved in Cuba." Also ironically but not surprisingly, while opposing Cuba, the US supported nearby dictatorships that were far more brutal. When Anastasio Somoza was killed after causing so much death in Nicaragua, Managua looked like Little Havana with all the rejoicing.

Fidel was a pretty merciless tyrant, with political prisoners sentences matched in length only in China and on Taiwan (years ago). I wonder how things would have worked out if there were no Soviet Union, no Cold War. No excuses for Fidel, however. The Nicaraguans did their revolution better. Not that Reagan noticed.

But as I suggested above, Paraguay had a dictatorship of equal length and brutality, as did Guatemala. Things were shorter in Argentina, but the country was medieval in its abuse of dissidents. Difference between communist dictatorship and anti-communist ones, like the difference between horse poop and dog poop.
 
Fidel was a pretty merciless tyrant, with political prisoners sentences matched in length only in China and on Taiwan (years ago). I wonder how things would have worked out if there were no Soviet Union, no Cold War. No excuses for Fidel, however.
But you do not need to wonder how things have work out with Fidel Castro tyrannical regime.

Excerpt from the article above.
A short drive through the streets of Havana is all it takes to realize that Fidel Castro’s most obvious legacy is the devastation of Cuba’s infrastructure. The city that for centuries was one of the most important capitals of the Western Hemisphere lies in ruins, as if it had suffered the ravages of a protracted civil war.
According to the Cuban National Housing Institute the house deficit is estimated at1.6 million units. Of the existent units 75% are over 40 years old, and 60% are in bad or average condition.

This video shows the city of Hiroshima 65 years after the atomic blast obliterated the city, and through images compares it to the city of La Habana nowadays. It teaches us that in the long run the consequences of the Castroit regime are more devastating that the weapons of mass destruction.

hiroshima-habana


The crumbling buildings look like a war zone. However, these ruins were not created by war, but by deliberate neglect. The decrepit state of the buildings in Havana after five decades of neglect by the Castroit tyranny, keep causing the death of Cuban living in condemned building.

Fidel Castro unchecked power has been responsible for the economic disaster of the island and devastation of Havana, one of the oldest and beautiful city in the American continent.
 
But you do not need to wonder how things have work out with Fidel Castro tyrannical regime.

Excerpt from the article above.
According to the Cuban National Housing Institute the house deficit is estimated at1.6 million units. Of the existent units 75% are over 40 years old, and 60% are in bad or average condition.

This video shows the city of Hiroshima 65 years after the atomic blast obliterated the city, and through images compares it to the city of La Habana nowadays. It teaches us that in the long run the consequences of the Castroit regime are more devastating that the weapons of mass destruction.

hiroshima-habana


The crumbling buildings look like a war zone. However, these ruins were not created by war, but by deliberate neglect. The decrepit state of the buildings in Havana after five decades of neglect by the Castroit tyranny, keep causing the death of Cuban living in condemned building.

Fidel Castro unchecked power has been responsible for the economic disaster of the island and devastation of Havana, one of the oldest and beautiful city in the American continent.


In fairness to Fidel, his priorities didn't include preserving Havana. The attention went to the countryside, for good or for ill.
 
Fidel Castro unchecked power has been responsible for the economic disaster of the island and devastation of Havana, one of the oldest and beautiful city in the American continent.

Pure unadulterated USA bull****. Cuba is how it is because of the well over a century of USA war crimes and terrorism. You folks know diddly squat about your own country's vicious war crimes and terrorism.

For the last quarter century, the entire world, the UNGA, has been condemning the US for its terrorism against Cuba by votes of 198 to 2. Guess who the two is, USA and its war criminal partner, Israel.

Castro had to maintain a firm grip because your terrorist CIA and your war criminal governments were always in there trying to regain control of Cuba so the USA could install another of its vicious right wing dictatorships - does Batista ring a bell for any of you sharp historians, to continue stealing Cubans' wealth.
 
Pure unadulterated USA bull****. Cuba is how it is because of the well over a century of USA war crimes and terrorism. You folks know diddly squat about your own country's vicious war crimes and terrorism.

For the last quarter century, the entire world, the UNGA, has been condemning the US for its terrorism against Cuba by votes of 198 to 2. Guess who the two is, USA and its war criminal partner, Israel.

Castro had to maintain a firm grip because your terrorist CIA and your war criminal governments were always in there trying to regain control of Cuba so the USA could install another of its vicious right wing dictatorships - does Batista ring a bell for any of you sharp historians, to continue stealing Cubans' wealth.

Utterly false, as usual. Your knee jerk support for brutal dictatorships is always amusing, but your constant shrieking of "war crimes" without any shred of evidence helps torpedo your case exceptionally quickly. Keep up your work helping us laugh at what fools CTers are.
 
In fairness to Fidel, his priorities didn't include preserving Havana. The attention went to the countryside, for good or for ill.
During the last 50 years the construction of new houses has been dismal. The regime statistics in the construction of new houses are cooked. This suspicion is validated by Former Vice-Minister Carlos Lage who near the beginning of 2009 revealed that less than half of the 111,300 housing units claimed built in 2006 were in fact built. Beside the 2002 census data show that of the new housing units built between 1990 and 2002, close to 50,000 were bohíos and adobe structures (primitive countryside dwellings with palm bark or adobe walls, earthen floors and palm leave roofs). Those can’t be classified as adequate housing.
 
During the last 50 years the construction of new houses has been dismal. The regime statistics in the construction of new houses are cooked. This suspicion is validated by Former Vice-Minister Carlos Lage who near the beginning of 2009 revealed that less than half of the 111,300 housing units claimed built in 2006 were in fact built. Beside the 2002 census data show that of the new housing units built between 1990 and 2002, close to 50,000 were bohíos and adobe structures (primitive countryside dwellings with palm bark or adobe walls, earthen floors and palm leave roofs). Those can’t be classified as adequate housing.

Just to add some balance, where would you be safer walking at night: Havana or Mexico City? Holguin or Tampico ?
 
According to a Juventud Rebelde report in April 2008, in the city of Havana alone, 28,000 people resided in buildings about to collapse. The expansion of slums (cuarterias shanty towns, shelters) in the city has increased 50%, housing as many as 450,000 inhabitants, 20% of the city 2.2 million. It is very common that 3 generations live in a single house. This is the fundamental reason why the people occupy terraces, balconies, porches, sidewalks, and build mezzanines, to gain space. This has created a grave social problem for the regime.
 
Due to the housing crisis the regime planned the construction of no less than 100,000 housing units per year starting in 2006. But since 2007 has been a steady decline in the number of units built, reaching only 33,900 units in 2010, Cuba National Statistics Office (ONE). The housing construction, a little more than 40,000 per year, not only are not enough to solve the housing deficit, but not even to replace those lost by various causes. Like the King Midas in reverse everything the Castroit regime touch turn it into a disaster.
 
The 1953 census reported 1.256 million housing units in existence. It was estimated that 45,000 new homes per year were required to meet the population grow. Claes Brundenius* estimated at 1.764 million housing units in existence on 1958. From 1953 to 1958 about 500,000 housing units were built, equivalent to 83,333 units a year, close to double the number of required units per year, a remarkable feat. Make your own conclusions.

* Claes Brundenius: Economic Growth, Basic, Needs and Income Distribution in Revolutionary Cuba, University of Lund, Malmo, Research Policy Institute; 1981 Housing and Population Census, Havana, December 1981.
 
Farewell to Cubas brutal Big Brother
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...efa856caf2a_story.html?utm_term=.49380ab70e61

2016-05-01T170356Z_01_AMX04_RTRIDSP_3_CUBA-MAY-DAY-272.jpg

People carry a picture of Fidel Castro during a May Day rally in Havana on May 1, 2016. (Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

By Carlos Eire November 26, 2016

Carlos Eire is an author and the T.L. Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University.

One of the most brutal dictators in modern history has just died. Oddly enough, some will mourn his passing, and many an obituary will praise him. Millions of Cubans who have been waiting impatiently for this moment for more than half a century will simply ponder his crimes and recall the pain and suffering he caused.

Why this discrepancy? Because deceit was one of Fidel Castro’s greatest talents, and gullibility is one of the world’s greatest frailties. A genius at myth-making, Castro relied on the human thirst for myths and heroes. His lies were beautiful, and so appealing. According to Castro and to his propagandists, the so-called revolution was not about creating a repressive totalitarian state and securing his rule as an absolute monarch, but rather about eliminating illiteracy, poverty, racism, class differences and every other ill known to humankind. This bold lie became believable, thanks largely to Castro’s incessant boasting about free schools and medical care, which made his myth of the benevolent utopian revolution irresistible to many of the world’s poor.
Click link above for full article.
Carlos Eire excellent op, single out 13 historical facts that could be etched on Castro’s tombstone. Lefties gave Fidel Castro a free pass in all these facts, facts that they refuse to admit up to this day.

Fact #1. “He turned Cuba into a colony of the Soviet Union and nearly caused a nuclear holocaust.”

President Eisenhower publicly announced on January 26, 1960, that the United States would observe a policy of nonintervention, refrain from reprisals and respect Cuba's right to undertake a social revolution.

On February 13, 1960, the Castro regime signed a trade pact with the Soviet Union, by which the Soviets agreed to purchase 425,000 metric tons of sugar during the year 1960, committed itself to buy a million tons a year during the next four years, and the regime to buy Soviet crude oil and industrial machinery, and also granted a $100 million loan. The regime became increasingly dependent economically and militarily of the Soviet Union, becoming the facto a colony of it.

Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest the world had ever come to nuclear war, in October 26, 1962 wrote in his “Armageddon letter” to Khrushchev: “If the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow the circumstances in which the imperialists could launch the first nuclear strike against it.

I tell you this because I believe that the imperialists' aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of Cuba -- a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law – then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other.”


Khrushchev response in October 30, 1962, “In your cable of October 27 you proposed that we be the first to launch a nuclear strike against the territory of the enemy. You, of course, realize where that would have led. Rather than a simple strike, it would have been the start of a thermonuclear world war.”

No other world leader is known to have recommended the use of even a single nuclear warhead since 1945. Castro forgot a minor detail, to get the consent of 6.6 million Cubans that would be annihilated in a nuclear war.
 
Still, from a purely military, asymmetrical warfare point of view, he accomplished an immense task.

But...like so many others, once he won, queue the slaughtering of the loosers.
That was the one thing the American revolution did that few others did. We did not slaughter the loosers.
Heck, some of the British even stayed here afterwards. Visit the eastern shore of Virginia, and they all speak with a not-so-slight British accent.
They were fishermen and knew a good thing when they saw it.
 
A very interesting source of information about/from Cuba today, is the online newsletter, The Havana Times., especially the debates in its comments section.
 
Still, from a purely military, asymmetrical warfare point of view, he accomplished an immense task.

But...like so many others, once he won, queue the slaughtering of the loosers.
Fidel Castro came short, he had the intent but not the full capability to wage asymmetric warfare against the U.S., as demonstrate by the actions taken by Khrushchev. Sergei Khrushchev*, Nikita’s son, relate that when his father was told of Castro’s letter, said: “That is insane. We deployed missiles there to prevent an attack on the island, to save Cuba and defend socialism. But now not only is he ready to die himself, he wants to drag us with him.” Whatever doubts Father might have had about his decision to remove the missiles had vanished completely. “Remove them, and as soon as possible.-Before it’s too late. Before something terrible happens....Allow no one near the missiles. Obey no orders to launch and under no circumstances install the warheads.”

* Sergei Khrushchev, "How My Father And President Kennedy Saved The World", American Heritage, Volume 53, October 2002.
 
Fidel Castro came short, he had the intent but not the full capability to wage asymmetric warfare against the U.S., as demonstrate by the actions taken by Khrushchev. Sergei Khrushchev*, Nikita’s son, relate that when his father was told of Castro’s letter, said: “That is insane. We deployed missiles there to prevent an attack on the island, to save Cuba and defend socialism. But now not only is he ready to die himself, he wants to drag us with him.” Whatever doubts Father might have had about his decision to remove the missiles had vanished completely. “Remove them, and as soon as possible.-Before it’s too late. Before something terrible happens....Allow no one near the missiles. Obey no orders to launch and under no circumstances install the warheads.”

* Sergei Khrushchev, "How My Father And President Kennedy Saved The World", American Heritage, Volume 53, October 2002.

Very insightful. Thank you. Now I have another book to order and throw in my travel bag.
 
Very insightful. Thank you. Now I have another book to order and throw in my travel bag.
Here is another book that you can throw in your travel bag.

In “The Fog of War” by Errol Morris, McNamara, in a meeting chaired by Fidel Castro in January 1992 in Havana, asked three questions to him, “Number one: did you know the nuclear warheads were there? Number two: if you did, would you have recommended to Khrushchev in the face of an U.S. attack that he use them? Number three: if he had used them, what would have happened to Cuba?"

Castro said: “Number one, I knew they were there. Number two, I would not have recommended to Khrushchev, I did recommend to Khrushchev that they be used. Number three, 'What would have happened to Cuba?' It would have been totally destroyed."

The Fog of War: Transcript, Errol Morris: Film
 
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