December 7, 2016
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O PINION
There Will Never be Another Fidel Castro
Few were as
controversial as
Cuban leader
h arry C. a lford
Born (Aug. 13,
1926) out of wedlock
on his father’s sugar-
cane farm in the third
world nation of Cuba,
Fidel Castro grew up
to attend and study law
from the University of Havana. It
wasn’t long before he became a
radical and soon drifted into so-
cialist rebellion.
He participated in foreign re-
bellions in the Dominican Repub-
lic and Columbia. Courageous, he
returned to Cuba to attack a mil-
itary barracks. That landed him
in prison for one year. With his
brother, Raul, and close friend Che
Guevara, he journeyed to Mexico
to thoroughly form his revolution-
ary agenda. It was called the 26th
of July Movement. Landing by sea
from Mexico in 1955 he formed
an army and began revolution
against the government of Cuba.
by
By 1959, he led the demise of dic-
tator Fulgencio Battista. This was
the beginning of Fidel Castro, the
President of Cuba which became a
socialist government.
It wasn’t long before the world
considered Cuba to be a Com-
munist state. Fidel was ruth-
less to his opposition. Thou-
sands faced his firing squads.
When he allowed a national
election for the country, no
opponents stepped forward.
The United States considered
this too close of a threat and sanc-
tioned through the CIA to assassi-
nate him. The dozens of attempts
failed. He became increasingly
intolerant. When President John
Kennedy became equally intoler-
ant of Fidel, he authorized an in-
vasion made up of Cuban exiles
from Florida and CIA agents. The
invasion was a miserable failure.
Countering these threats Fidel
sold the Soviet Union on collab-
orating with Cuba. Knowing the
United States managed missiles
in Turkey along the Soviet Union
border, he convinced the Soviets
to have payback by placing in-
tercontinental missiles in Cuba,
90 miles from our Florida Coast.
They both underestimated the
resolve of President Kennedy.
He demanded their removal and
placed an embargo around Cuba.
Eventually, the Soviets backed
down and removed their missiles.
By the way, the US removed their
missiles from Turkey as a conces-
sion.
This made Fidel Castro one
of the most feared leaders in the
world. Through the help of the So-
viet Army, the Cuban Army was
trained as a fighting force. Fidel
and Soviet Union’s became close
allies and Cuba’s government was
fully converted to a one-party,
pro-socialist state under the Com-
munist Party rule. The nation also
began relationships with other
communist states.
Eventually, we would find out
that Cuban military forces were
going to various communist linked
third world nations. Soviet leader
Khrushchev kicked off the pro-
gram with an official visit to Mos-
cow by Fidel and then kicked off a
14-city tour. After that we would
notice Cuban military in nations
like Angola, Grenada, Ethiopia,
Somalia, Algeria, Chile, North
Vietnam, etc. With Soviet mon-
ey Cuba was becoming a militant
force in the Third World. Cuba
even sent 4,000 troops to Libya to
help fight in the Yom Kippur War
against Israel. They even brought
Viet Cong to Cuba for formal gue-
rilla training.
Soon this brazen program
would end. The Soviet Union
was going bankrupt! It formally
reorganized itself and changed its
name back to Russia and liberat-
ed the seized states of the 1940’s.
It also cut Cuba out of its budget.
This was a very crippling blow
to Castro’s Cuba. The attempted
spread of communism via military
activity would soon end.
Castro would start steering
Cuba towards humanitarian pro-
grams. The famous medical de-
livery program that Cuba touts
started replacing tanks and troops.
They have aided millions of sick
people over the years and all over
the world. Castro has even offered
to send doctors to US impover-
ished Mississippi Delta. The na-
tion is 30 percent black but there
is no sickle cell anemia. Every
citizen gets a six-month physical
exam. Their medical system is
free.
Cuba became equally proficient
in infrastructure programs. They
now build bridges, highways,
hotels all over the world. I have
seen Cuban contractors building a
5-star hotel in Paris. It is amazing!
Fidel Castro stepped down as
President in 2008. The last years
were spent as a figure head while
his brother Raul took the reigns
as a virtual leader until his death.
There are few individuals in mod-
ern history that became as contro-
versial as Fidel Alejandro Castro
Ruz. Love him or hate him, his in-
fluence on our world was definite.
After 90 years, there is no more
Fidel Castro.
I predict Cuba will become
more capitalistic and at peace with
the United States. My mentor, the
late Arthur A. Fletcher predicted,
“One day Cuba will become the
Hong Kong of the Caribbean.”
That appears to be happening.
Harry C. Alford is the co-found-
er and president of the National
Black Chamber of Commerce.
Fidel Castro: A Legend Loved and Loathed
A towering
figure of the
20th century
M arC h. M orial
Since
the
an-
nouncement of his
death, the signifi-
cance and impact of
Fidel Castro’s legacy
has been subjected to
heated and polarized
debate.
Castro’s admirers will rightly
point to his unprecedented reforms
in healthcare and education on the
island-nation of Cuba—nearly
eradicating illiteracy and reaching
record lows in infant and maternal
mortality rates—as the work of
a leader devoted to the well-be-
ing of his people. His detractors
will rightly point to his denial of
basic political freedoms and hu-
man rights abuses—including
suppressing free speech and the
torture and executions of political
opponents—as the work of a ruth-
less dictator concerned only with
power and its preservation.
Whether history will ultimate-
ly absolve or condemn this man,
it is clear that Castro was a tow-
by
ering figure of the 20th century.
His place in the pages of history
is secured and his political and
social justice influence in Cuba,
the Caribbean, Latin America,
Africa and beyond, can neither
be denied nor—for better or
worse—forgotten.
The course of Cuban
and world history changed
forever in 1959 as Castro,
thronged by rebel fighters
and cheered on by the Cuban
people, rode into Havana af-
ter overthrowing the brutal
military dictatorship of Fulgencio
Batista. During his 49-year reign,
Castro oversaw dramatic changes
in Cuban society. With his rev-
olution came important accom-
plishments and advances in racial
equality, housing, education and
healthcare for Cubans—but the
revolution did not stop at Cuba’s
borders. Castro exported his rev-
olution and Cuba’s material and
intellectual resources to other
parts of the world—injecting it-
self into the world’s disasters,
emergencies and conflicts.
Shortly following his release
after 27 years spent in jail as a po-
litical prisoner, Nelson Mandela
made a trip to Havana to express
his gratitude to Castro. Cuba un-
der Castro opposed apartheid and
supported the African National
Congress, Mandela’s political
organization. Cuba was the only
country in the world to send sol-
diers to fight in the anti-apart-
heid struggle. In stark contrast,
the United States supported the
South African apartheid govern-
ment, placing Nelson Mandela
and the ANC on a terrorist watch
list until 2008; refused to im-
pose sanctions on the apartheid
regime; and in 1986, President
Reagan vetoed the Anti-Apart-
heid Act.
At the time, I was a leader in
New Orleans of the Free South
Africa movement that advocat-
ed for comprehensive economic
sanctions and succeeded in lob-
bying Congress to override Presi-
dent Reagan’s veto.
It is no wonder that Mande-
la described Castro’s revolution
as “a source of inspiration to all
freedom-loving people.” Cuba
was an ally in many African in-
dependence movements and, de-
spite its country’s poverty and
U.S. backed sanctions, managed
to provide resources, including
doctors and teachers, to poor
countries in need.
Castro’s revolution also failed
in many respects. His strides in
social policy were woefully un-
matched in the political arena.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas
director at Amnesty Internation-
al, described Castro as “a pro-
gressive but deeply flawed lead-
er.” Human rights were trampled
under his leadership. Early-revo-
lution promises of free elections
were never kept; free speech was,
and continues to be, suppressed;
political opponents were execut-
ed; and thousands were jailed or
forced into exile.
Castro erased illiteracy and
tuberculosis in Cuba—an unat-
tainable feat in better-resourced
nations. But, Castro summarily
denied the people of Cuba their
basic political and human rights.
That is the paradox of Fidel Cas-
tro—a paradox that can, and will,
teach us all valuable lessons for
decades to come.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of the
National Urban League.