BREAKING: Fidel Castro resigns UPDATE: More blog reactions

Castro Is Dead, From Other Blogs, Media, Politics, Raul Castro 2 Responses »
Feb 192008

File this one in the “a half century late, a few billion dollars, thousands executed and imprisoned and millions of Cubans tormented short” category: Fidel Castro has resigned as dictator of Cuba:

An ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when parliament meets Sunday.

The end of Castro’s rule—the longest in the world for a head of government—frees his 76-year-old brother Raul to implement reforms he has hinted at since taking over as acting president when Fidel Castro fell ill in July 2006. President Bush said he hopes the resignation signals the beginning of a democratic transition.

“My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath,” Castro wrote in a letter published Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma. But, he wrote, “it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer.”

For those who think this means change and freedom in Cuba, it doesn’t. Not until the entire Castro cabal is out. Sure, there will be some so-called “reforms” under Raul, but they will be nothing but meaningless window dressing, as they have been since Fidel “temporarily” handed power to his brother.

Some blog reactions:

Babalu

Michelle Malkin

Uncommon Sense

My Pet Jawa

Kill Castro

Captain’s Quarters

Gateway Pundit

Fausta’s Blog

UPDATED: More blogs react

Hot Air

Jammie Wearing Fool

Neocon News

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 9:26 am

Wait for the quid pro quo, it’s coming

Cuban Dissidents, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
Feb 152008

So Spain made the grand announcement that Cuba is releasing seven political prisoners, and the MSM rejoices and makes Raul sound like the second coming of Ghandi:

Cuba will free seven of 59 dissidents imprisoned since 2003, a move that opponents of ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said reflects a “climate of change” under his brother’s rule.

The first releases of jailed dissidents since August were negotiated by Spain on health grounds and announced by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Friday.

“The decision was made unilaterally by the Cuban authorities and we are very satisfied,” Moratinos told Spanish radio from the city of Cordoba, noting that the move came after dialogue with Cuba.

Dialogue with Cuba, huh? I wonder what exactly was discussed. Look for new exclusive business deals for Spain in Cuba during the next few months.

Meanwhile, the credulous MSM fails to ask the obvious questions:

  • -Why does Cuba have ANY political prisoners in the first place?

    • AND…

  • -WHen are you going to release the rest of them?

And then there’s this little tidbit buried near the end of the article I linked to above:

The Cuban government does not allow the International Red Cross access to its prisons.

And of course, this begs yet another couple of questions that remain unasked by the MSM:

  • -Why not let the Red Cross visit political prisoners? What are you trying to hide, Raul and Fidel?
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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 8:41 pm

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye…

Media Comments Off
Feb 152008

…but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Cuba rejects “the violation of human rights, unjust incarceration of prisoners held there (Guantanamo) without charges, and their appearance in courts without guarantees and in which they are convicted in advance,” (Castro’s Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque) told reporters, without directly referring to the case of six detainees facing charges that carry the death penalty.

Yep, you know a lot about “violation of human rights,” “unjust incarceration” and people “convicted in advance” since you engage in this just about every single day, Ratfink.

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 8:30 pm

Castro’s Bizarro world

Media, Miscellaneous Comments Off
Feb 122008

Only in Castro’s Cuba would this kind of BS pass for normal:

A Cuban student who appeared in a video last week grilling a top Cuban official is denying reports that he was arrested afterward, and maintains that his questions were aimed only at bettering socialism.

In the video CNN obtained and aired last week, Eliecer Avila was seen grilling Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly, about low wages and why Cubans are banned from tourist hotels and from traveling abroad.

The student’s questions came during a meeting between Alarcon and students at the University of Computer Science in Havana. Students who gave CNN the tape said they wished to remain anonymous.

In a new video, the Cuban government says it is responding to “manipulation” by the overseas press and “media terrorism.”

In the new tape, Avila says his questions were meant to improve socialism. When asked by an interviewer about reports that he was arrested over the weekend, Avila acknowledges that while his absence from the university might have seemed mysterious to some, “At no point was it an arrest. My family is completely calm. There is no problem.”

Frank Kafka would be proud. Or mortified.

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 10:28 pm

Castro “playful?!?!?” WTF?!?!?

Castro's Fellow Travelers, Media Comments Off
Jan 152008

Just when I thought I’d heard it all, comes this MSM fawnfest for Castro:

Fidel Castro looked frail but alert and even playful in a series of official photographs taken during a meeting with Brazil’s president on Tuesday, the first images of the ailing Cuban leader released in about three months.

Playful?!?!? Fidel Castro PLAYFUL?!?!? WTF, is this a reference to the urban legend about Castro trying out for the Washington Senators?

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 11:27 pm

Just in time for Code Pinko’s Miami protest

Anti-Communism, Luis Posada Carriles, Media 1 Response »
Jan 132008

against Luis Posada Carriles, Salon.com publishes a hit-piece that makes it sound as though Miami is awash in terrorists.

In Greater Miami, home to the majority of the nation’s 1.5 million Cuban-Americans, the presence of what could credibly be described as a terrorist training camp has become an accepted norm during the half-century of the anti-Castro Cuban diaspora. Alpha 66 and numerous other paramilitary groups — Comandos F4, Brigade 2506, Accion Cubana — are so common they’ve taken on the benign patina of Rotary Clubs with weapons.

Later–much later in the article–you get the admission that a lot of these so-called terrorists have either been tried and acquitted, or have actually completed serving their sentences.

The article brags that “Research support was provided by the Puffin Foundation Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.” Google the Nation Institute and the resulting description tells you where they’re coming from:

A liberal-left independently funded and administered organization, committed to a just society and the principles of the First Amendment.

Meanwhile, you rarely here the “liberal-left” complain about left-wing terrorists–and I’m referring to those whose attacks took place here in the United States, not other countries–walking free in the US. In fact, they tend to get glowing profiles in major newspapers like the New York Times–on September 11, 2001:

No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen

By DINITIA SMITH
Published: September 11, 2001

”I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. ”I feel we didn’t do enough.” Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970′s as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings. And he still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure in the radical student movement.

Now he has written a book, ”Fugitive Days” (Beacon Press, September). Mr. Ayers, who is 56, calls it a memoir, somewhat coyly perhaps, since he also says some of it is fiction. He writes that he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. But Mr. Ayers also seems to want to have it both ways, taking responsibility for daring acts in his youth, then deflecting it.

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 11:53 pm

And after that, I want to interview Satan

Castro's Fellow Travelers, Media, Useful Idiots Comments Off
Jan 112008

It’s not enough that stupor-model-turned-useful-idiot Naomi Campbell interviewed Hugo Chavez. Now she wants to interview Fidel Castro:

Having interviewed Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for GQ magazine, supermodel-turned-journalist Naomi Campbell is now making her best efforts to land one-to-one talks with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Better hurry, Naomi. Fidel is knock-knock-knocking on hell’s gates–if he’s not already there. Oh, and be sure to bring a copy of Granma with you so he can wipe himself afterwards (or maybe you’d like to do the wiping?).

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 8:56 pm

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet calls Castro apologists at UN to account

Castro's Fellow Travelers, Cuban Dissidents, From Other Blogs, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
Dec 192007

Well, in a hypothetical post by Henry Gomez of Babalu Blog, anyway, the Useless Nations and the media are called to account for their tacit–and in some cases, wide open–support of Castro’s regime. Here’s a choice snippet:

But this body is not just guilty of inaction when confronted with deplorable crimes. Sadly it’s much worse than that. As a medical doctor I always attempted to live by the dictum of “first do no harm” but this body could not abide by even that most basic of principles. On the contrary, it enabled the criminals that misgoverned my country for close to half a century in the commission of their crimes. Unbelievably the Castro regime was rewarded for its decades of human rights abuses with a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 8:32 am

BREAKING NEWS: Castro hints at retirement

Castro Is Dead, Media, Miscellaneous Comments Off
Dec 172007

The news comes, oh, about 48 years too late, but it nevertheless is there. Fidel Castro dropped hints he might be retiring soon, according to Reuters:

“My elemental duty is not to hold on to positions and less to obstruct the path of younger people,” the 80-year-old Castro said in a letter read on Cuban television.

Gee, why didn’t he think of this in 1959 and spare an entire nation nearly five decades of misery?

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 9:20 pm

Int’l Human Rights Day marches in Cuba, Miami, elsewhere

Friends of Cuban Freedom, From Other Blogs, Human Rights, Media Comments Off
Dec 102007

Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty (BUCL) and Babalu Blog are reporting a number of protest marches today–which is International Human Rights Day–in support of freedom for Cuba.

Some of the marches will take place in Miami and Los Angeles. Some are scheduled to take place in Cuba. Naturally, the Castroite dictatorship is trying to prevent these marches in Cuba (and if they had their way, in Miami and LA, too). BUCL put out a press release (we’ve copied it below but if you follow the link above you can read it as well) on the issue. As I write the post, Google News showed only 10 hits for the release and the story. That’s unbelievably pathetic and just shows you where the MSM stands on Cuba.

Anyway, listed below is the the full release from BUCl and also a graphic of their “Cambio” (Change) poster, which you can buy at BUCL.org for just $15.


Cambio en Cuba (Change in Cuba)

For Immediate Release

BUCL.org Joins Dr. Darsi Ferrer to Protest Apartheid-Like Policies in Cuba

Protest marches are scheduled Monday December 10 in Havana and cities around the world

Miami, FL December 7, 2007 — Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty (BUCL) extends its support and solidarity to the Cuban Dissident Dr. Darsi Ferrer on International Human Rights Day Monday, December 10. To commemorate this day, protest marches are being held to denounce what protestors are calling the immoral and illegal segregationist policies imposed by the Cuban government.

“In Cuba, apartheid is not racial, but political,” says Henry Gómez of BUCL. “The political system keeps foreigners and Cubans separate. For instance, many public accommodations that are open to tourists and high-level Communist bureaucrats are off limits to everyday Cubans.”

Protest marches will be held in Havana at the park on Calzada between D and E (Vedado), in Miami at the Graham Center at Florida International University (FIU), and in Los Angeles at 202 West First Street. The marches will begin at 11:00 am EST (8:00 am PST).

Regarding Cuba’s current system, Dr. Ferrer states, “The current constitution supposedly recognizes the rights and freedoms of the Cuban people. The penal code characterizes apartheid as a felony. In practice, both are systematically violated by the established public policy.” Dr. Ferrer continued, “People around the world were horrified with the ghettos of South Africa. It is time to condemn the apartheid suffered by the Cuban people.”

“The vast majority of Cubans crave change,” says Dr. Ferrer. “We’ve endured more than four decades of stagnation while the tyranny has failed in the political, economic and social arenas. It is time to put an end to so much suffering. We advocate change in order to live in freedom and democracy.”

Dr. Darsi Ferrer is the Director of the Juan Bruno Zayas Center for Health and Human Rights in Havana, Cuba, whose mission is to ensure the policies of international agencies that guarantee health-related rights of all persons, are recognized and adhered to in Cuba.

Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty is a confederation of Blogs and websites that pool resources and ideas for use in campaigns to raise awareness of the Cuban reality.

Contact:
Henry Gómez
305-788-4766
hgomez@bucl.org

###

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Posted by Castro Death Watch at 8:29 am
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