Jorge Grieves For His Fellow Infidel, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz

Remember Elian Gonzalez.

Elian Gonzalez was seized at the orders of the late pro-abortion Catholic Janet Reno, then the Attorney General of the United States of America, at gunpoint on the morning of Holy Saturday, April 22, 2000. He became, of course, a committed Communist (see htElian Gonzalez Returns to Public Eye to Praise Fidel Castro), and it is precisely the “education” that he received upon his forcible return to Cuba that the likes of Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro and Valerie Jarett, among so many other professional statists, including most so-called journalists, have praised.

A careful look at the Communist Cuban constitution of 1992 will reveal that its “educational” program has great similarity to that desired by professional “educators” in the United States of America, including many of my one-time colleagues of college teaching in institutions that are, for all intents and purposes, instruments of indoctrination and brainwashing:

a) the state bases its educational and cultural policy on the progress made in science and technology, the ideology of Marx and Martí, and universal and Cuban progressive pedagogical tradition;

b) education is a function of the state and is free of charge. It is based on the conclusions and contributions made by science and on the close relationship between study and life, work and production.

The state maintains a broad scholarship system for students and provides the workers with multiple opportunities to study to be able to attain the highest possible of knowledge and skills.

The law established the integration and structure of the national system of education and the extent of compulsory education and defines the minimum level of general education that every citizen should acquire;

c) the state promotes the patriotic and communist education of the new generations and the training of children, young people and adults for social life.

In order to make this principle a reality, general education and specialized scientific, technical or artistic education are combined with work, development research, physical education, sports, participation in political and social activities and military training;

d) there is freedom of artistic creation as long as its content is not contrary to the Revolution. There is freedom of artistic expression;

e) in order to raise the level of culture of the people, the state foments and develops artistic education, the vocation for creation and the cultivation and appreciation of art;

f) there is freedom of creation and research in science. The state encourages and facilitates research and gives priority to that which is aimed at solving the problems related to the interests of society and the well-being of the people;

g) the state makes it possible for the workers to engage in scientific work and to contribute to the development of science;

h) the state promotes, foments and develops all forms of physical education and sports as a means of education and of contribution to the integral development of citizens;

i) the state defends Cuban culture’s identity and sees to the conservation of the nation’s cultural heritage and artistic and historic wealth. The state protects national monuments and places known for their natural beauty or their artistic or historic values;

j) the state promotes the participation of the citizens, through the country’s social and mass organizations, in the development of its educational and cultural policy.

ARTICLE 40. The state and society give special protection to children and young people.

It is the duty of the family, the schools, the state agencies and the social and mass organizations to pay special attention to the integral development of children and young people.  (1992 Communist Cuban Constitution.)

This reads like a curriculum manifesto issued by a state board of “education” in the United States of America, and it has a whole lot in “common” with “common core” as well, and the goal of “integral development of children” has a great deal in common with Jacques Maritain’s “integral human development” that has become one of the great building blocks of conciliar “theology.”

Indeed, the outgoing administration of Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro has tried its very best to mandate a “national curriculum” by means of the aforementioned “Common Core,” something that prompted columnist George Will, who does not understand ultimate root causes, of course, in 2012:

Meanwhile, the Education Department is pretending that three laws do not mean what they clearly say. This is documented in the Pioneer Institute’s report “The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers” by Robert S. Eitel, Kent D. Talbert and Williamson M. Evers, all former senior officials in the Education Department.

The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) — No Child Left Behind is its ninth iteration — intruded the federal government into this traditionally state and local responsibility. It said that “nothing in this act” shall authorize any federal official to “mandate, direct, or control” a state’s, local educational agency’s or school’s curriculum. The General Education Provisions Act of 1970, which supposedly controls federal education programs, stipulates that “no provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize” any federal agency or official “to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction” or selection of “instructional materials” by “any educational institution or school system.”

The 1979 law establishing the Education Department forbids it from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum” or “program of instruction” of any school or school system. The ESEA as amended goes further: No funds provided to the Education Department “may be used . . .. to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in” kindergarten through 12th grade.

However . . . .

What authors Eitel, Talbert and Evers call the Education Department’s “incremental march down the road to a national curriculum” begins with the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS). It is an initiative not of any state legislature but of a governors association, state school officials and private foundations. This push advanced when the Race to the Top Fund (RTTT, part of the 2009 stimulus) said that peer reviewers of applications for money should favor those states that join a majority of states in developing and adopting common standards. The 11 states and the District of Columbia that won Race to the Top funding had adopted or indicated an intention to adopt the CCSS, which will require changes in curricula.

An Education Department synopsis of discussions with members of the public about priorities in competition for RTTT money says “the goal of common K-12 standards is to replace the existing patchwork of state standards.” Progressives celebrate diversity in everything but thought.

The Obama administration is granting conditional waivers to states chafing under No Child Left Behind’s unrealistic accountability requirements. The waivers are contingent on each state adopting certain standards “that are common to a significant number of states,” or the state may adopt standards endorsed by its institutions of higher education — if those standards are consistent with the Education Department’s guidelines.

We have been warned. Joseph Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare in the Carter administration, noted that “in its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas.” (George Will, Those Pesky Things Called Laws.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Obama/Soetoro have no problem whatsoever with the national control of ideas if those “ideas” promote “diversity,” perversity, moral relativism, statism, evolutionism, environmentalism, population control, pantheism, feminism, and religious indifferentism. The “people” need “experts” to “guide” them, of course.

Unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who expressed a bit of muted disagreement with the Cuban state agenda of education in a book of his that was published in 1989, Dialogues Between Pope John Paul II and Fidel Castro, Pope Pius XI was unstinting in his criticism of the Communist system of education. Here is what our second-to-last true pope thus far wrote in Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937:

Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.  (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

Anyone who calls Fidel Castro an “esteemed dignitary” and who can ignore the facts of the indoctrination of children in Communism, no less the repressive nature of the Castro regime, while in Cuba from Saturday, September 19, 2015, the Feast of Saint Januarius, to Tuesday, September 22, 2015, the Feast of Saint Thomas Villanova, is an enabler of an ideology that was condemned as follows by Pope Pius XI in Divini Redemptoris:

See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

This condemnation of any kind of cooperation with Communism was reinterred by the Holy Office on July 1, 1949, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, under the pontificate of our last true pope, Pope Pius XII:

This Sacred Supreme Congregation has been asked:  

1. whether it is lawful to join Communist Parties or to favour them;
2. whether it is lawful to publish, disseminate, or read books, periodicals, newspapers or leaflets which support the teaching or action of Communists, or to write in them;
3. whether the faithful who knowingly and freely perform the acts specified in questions 1 and 2 may be admitted to the Sacraments;
4. whether the faithful who profess the materialistic and anti-Christian doctrine of the Communists, and particularly those who defend or propagate this doctrine, contract ipso facto excommunication specially reserved to the Apostolic See as apostates from the Catholic faith.

The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Fathers entrusted with the supervision of matters concerning the safeguarding of Faith and morals, having previously heard the opinion of the Reverend Lords Consultors, decreed in the plenary session held on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday), June 28, 1949, that the answers should be as follows:

To 1. in the negative: because Communism is materialistic and anti-Christian; and the leaders of the Communists, although they sometimes profess in words that they do not oppose religion, do in fact show themselves, both in their teaching and in their actions, to be the enemies of God, of the true religion and of the Church of Christ; to 2. in the negative: they are prohibited ipso iure (cf. Can. 1399 of the Codex Iuris Canonici); to 3. in the negative, in accordance with the ordinary principles concerning the refusal of the Sacraments to those who are not disposed; to 4. in the affirmative.

And the following Thursday, on the 30th day of the same month and year, Our Most Holy Lord Pius XII, Pope by the Divine Providence, in the ordinary audience, granted to the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Assessor of the Sacred Office, approved of the decision of the Most Eminent Fathers which had been reported to Him, and ordered the same to be promulgated officially in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Given at Rome, on July 1st, 1949. (As found at Decree Against Communism.)

These words are completely unequivocal. Yet it is that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has shown the same respect for Fidel Castro in death as he did in life. It was just fourteen months, eight days ago that the false “pontiff,” whose revolutionary program is, of course, far more dangerous than even Communism no matter how much it is allied with it in various aspects, offered the following words about Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz upon his arrival in Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba, on Saturday, September 19, 2016, the Feast of Saint Januarius:

I thank, too, all those who worked to prepare for this Pastoral Visit. Mr President, I would ask you to convey my sentiments of particular respect and consideration to your brother Fidel. I would like my greeting to embrace especially all those who, for various reasons, I will not be able to meet, and to Cubans throughout the world. (Antipope Jorge rrives in Cuba, encourages reconciliation.)

Respect for Fidel Castro?

Respect for an avowed Marxist-Leninist?

Respect for a mass murdering atheist?

Respect for a man who personally sanctioning the execution of “counter-revolutionaries” before he overthrew the government of the corrupt military dictator named Fulgencio Battista on January 1, 1959, and who regularly imprisoned, tortured and imprisoned political dissidents?

Respect for a man who made atheism the official policy of the island discovered by none other than Christopher Columbus?

Silvia Poggioli, NPR: I would like to ask you, in the decades of the power of the state of Fidel Castro, the Church in Cuba has suffered much. In your meeting with Fidel, did you get the impression that [he] may be a bit regretful?

Pope Francis: Regret is a very intimate thing, and it’s a thing of conscience. I, in the meeting with Fidel, I spoke of the stories of known Jesuits, because in the meeting I brought a gift of a book, from Fr. Llorente, also a good friend of his, who is also a Jesuit. And also a CD with the conferences of Fr. Llorente and I also gave him two books from Fr. Pronzato [sic] which I’m sure he’ll also appreciate. And we talked about these things. We spoke a lot about the encyclical, Laudato si'. He’s very interested in the issue of ecology. It was a not-so-formal, rather spontaneous meeting. Also his family was present there. Also those who accompanied me, my driver, were present there. But, we were a bit separated from his wife. They couldn’t hear, but they were in the same place. But we spoke a lot on the encyclical because he is very concerned about this. About the past, we didn’t speak.

(inaudible question from Poggioli)

Pope Francis: Yes! About the past, the Jesuit college. And how the Jesuits were and how they made him work. All of that, yes.

“About the past, we did not speak.” (Full Transcript of Bergoglio's Inflight Interview from Cuba to the United States of America.)

The “past” to which Bergoglio referred is very much the present of Cuba in its Communist captivity as the dissidents who wanted to meet with him were rounded up while he remained silent about the Castro regime’s brutality during his visit or to denounce the arrests of the dissidents thereafter.

I wrote the following over fourteen months to provide my own belief about Bergoglio's behavior in Cuba:

I believe that there is a reason for this that transcends Bergoglio’s personal support for the way in which Communist regimes have provided “social justice,” including universal health care supposed “income equality,” to the masses: he wants to make it clear to the murderers of Beijing that they can invite him to Red China and be assured of the fact that he will validate the so-called Catholic Chinese Patriotic Association, thus putting the final nail in the coffin of the brave underground Catholics who have suffered so much for the past sixty-five years. Although the Chicom leadership is a wary bunch of murderers and spies, they might just take the chance of inviting the lay Jesuit to do for them with their dissidents what he did for those in Cuba (and what he has done for those who oppose the unconstitutional, immoral, illegal and unjust policies of Obama/Soetoro in the United States of America).

It did not take any kind of particular expertise to believe that this was the case as, despite the advancing years, my memory is still decent (although not as good as once was, especially when it comes to short-term memory), and I have followed and written about the conciliar Vatican's plan to sell out the suffering underground Catholics in Red China for over twenty years now. This sell out is almost complete, and it will be the coup de grace of Bergoglio's embrace of the most monstrous regime on the face of this earth at this time (see Still Selling the Rope After All These Years, part two.)

Indeed, the former conciliar "cardinal archbishop" of Hong Kong, Joseph Zen, is warning that Bergoglio's forthcoming rapprochement with the Chicom-created "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association," would be a betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (The article about "Cardinal" Zen is to be found in Appendix B.) This is true, but it would be only the latest of a series of betrayals that stated with the "election" of the Communist appeaser named Angelo Roncalli as "Pope John XXIII" on October 28, 1958, and includes, of course, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's own sellout of the suffering Catholics in the underground Catholic Church in Red China (see A Betrayal Worthy of the Antichrist and Red China: Still A Workshop For The New Ecclesiology.)

Just as the hideous human being and figure of Antichrist from Buenos Aires, Argentina, ignores the past of the mass murdering baby-killer named Emma Bonino, who is called the “Margaret Sanger of Italy,” by praising her work in behalf of “migrants” and inviting her to speak at the Vatican in its conciliar imprisonment, so did Jorge Mario Bergoglio ignore the “past,” which is very much Cuba’s present, when he met with Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz on Sunday, September 20, 2016, and he is doing so in the days after his death. This is all quite diabolical as it disspirits "conservative" Catholics who believe that the counterfeit church of concilairism, and it reaffirms Protestants and all other non-Catholics who are opposed to the moral evils of the day, including abortion and Communism, that the papacy was not founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that what they think is the Cahtolic Church is indeed the "whore of Babylon."

Ladies and gentlemen, wake up! This is the Great Apostasy. We are seeing it with our very own eyes. I am sixty-five years of age now, and it would have been unfathomable for me to think these things possible in the 1950s when the Reverend Sisters of Mercy woud gather us in the basement of Saint Aloysius School in Great Neck, New York, during air raid drills while we prayed Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary for the conversion of Russia and for the fulfillment of Our Lady's Fatima Message. What more proof of a counter-church does one need?

Moreover, one may remember that Jorge Mario Bergoglio said "the past must be forgotten" when he "congratulated" the Marxist-Leninist in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, on Wednesday, September 23, 2015, the Feast of Pope Saint Linus and the Commemoration of Saint Thecla, and the Marxist-Leninist in Havana, Raul Castro, on the rapprochment that he, Bergoglio, helped to broker nearly two years ago now, meaning that it is necessary to forget about these images of the wonderful Castro brothers and their guerillas at work to terrorize those they deemed guilty of various anti-revolutionary activities or thoughts:

Once again, given the constraints of time and recognizing that there is no need to prove the obvious, permit me to provide just a few facts concerning Castro's muderous, represssive ways (the facts below are to be found in the final link below and date back to 2007):

Fidel Castro questioning a Cuban farmer who was later executed.The woman behind Castro is Celia Sánchez, Castro’s mistress during his time at the Sierra Maestra and sitting next to him is Camilo Cienfuegos.Even before the triumph of the Revolution, Castro and his gang were prone to murder those who disagreed with them.In the photo below, taken while still in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul, is seen getting ready to shoot a young rebel soldier who disobeyed orders.

And more than fifty years after the above photos were taken, Castro and his gang of murderers continue to send to the firing squad, those Cubans who oppose his betrayal of the Revolution.

Priests Juan Miguel Aldaz and Jose Luis Garrigoitia,  pray with prisoner Ramon Reytor, minutes before he was executed in the town of Manzanillo, Oriente province.

Fathers Aldaz and Garrigoitia with the prisoners moments before they were murdered

Prisoners were taken to the town cemetery and they would have to wait in line and witness the other executions, before they themselves were shot.

Col. Cornelio Rojas, chief of police of Santa Clara, is shown here in a jail cell before che Guevara ordered him to be shot to death without a trial.

The photos above show the brutal murder of Col. Rojas, who was shot to death on orders of Guevara, without the benefit of a trial.

A letter from Barbara Rangel, granddaughter of Col. Rojas:  

My name is Barbara Rangel, granddaughter of Colonel Cornelio Rojas, Chief of Police in Santa Clara in the 1950’s. He was a national policeman before Batista came to power.  

He earned his military status of Colonel and was involved in revolutionary activities in the 1930’s.  

He was a man who always fought for the freedom of Cuba, in the 1930’s he was fighting against dictator Gerardo Machado at Gibara. 

His father and grandfather: Colonel Cornelio Rojas Escobar and Brig. General Cornelio Rojas Hurtado, had fought prominently in Cuba’s War of Independence from Spain.  

I would like to clarify and educate, if I may, those who are ignorant of the truth.  

My grandfather was arrested and murdered by the godfather of modern terrorism, Che Guevara, and another murderer, Fidel Castro, for the only purpose of creating terror among the population. 

They wanted to eliminate my grandfather because he was a man of great courage, a descendant of Generals who had fought for Cuba’s independence.  

My granddad was a beloved pillar in his community, well known for his public service and philanthropy. 

He was executed on national television without the opportunity of a trial, therefore violating his human rights (Article #10 & #11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).  

Che Guevara had sent a message to my family informing them that no harm would come to my granddad, but it was a lie, as he had already murdered him by the time my family received it. 

After his execution, he was buried in a mass grave, Che Guevara didn’t even give us the solace of a funeral or allowed his family to put a cross or flowers atop my murdered granddad’s grave. 

My family suffered tremendously, it was very traumatic; especially for my mom, Blanca Rojas, who was pregnant when my grandfather was murdered. 

Imagine seeing your dad being murdered on national television! She immediately went into labor.  

By then, Che’s goons had surrounded our family house, and didn’t allow my mother to go to a hospital. A midwife had to be called to assist her with the labor. My brother, Silvio Gonzalez, was born on the same bed that belonged to my granddad. 

What is a person supposed to do? Rejoice for the birth of her son, or weep for the murder of her father? 

How can anyone ever forget or forgive such horrific acts by these mass murderers, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro? 

Yet, some ignorant celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Carlos Santana, Gisele Budchen, Johnny Depp, Mike Tyson have tattoos of the mass murderer Che Guevara.

I find this absolutely unbelievable, and it shows the ignorance of those who idolize che Guevara. 

My grandfather never killed anyone, and he died like brave men are supposed to die.  

His last words were: “There’s the revolution, take care of it” and then he ordered the soldiers who were going to murder him: “Get ready, aim, fire.” 

Only a brave man with military blood and courage would die like this! I am so proud of him, and my ancestors. 

What a difference with Che Guevara who begged for his life when he was captured in Bolivia, a country he invaded trying to export communism. 

He died like the coward that he was. His last words were “Don’t shoot me, I am worth more alive then dead.” 

Those were certainly the words of a coward!  

For those ignorant persons out there who still idolize this murderer coward: Che Guevara murdered hundreds of persons, including 3 or 4 teenagers and a pregnant woman. Their names are publicly documented. 

The good thing is that there is a higher court that one day will do justice! 

Thank you for the opportunity to write. Truly yours,

Barbara Rangel

The Cuban Memorial displayed at Tamiami Park, Miami, Florida: Each cross bears the name of a victim of Castro the brothers’ genocide against the Cuban people (See The Infamous Firing Squads.)

Other Sources:

The "Truth Recovery Archive on Cuba"

February 19, 2008 Update on Findings

This work documents loss of life and disappearances of a political or military nature attributed to the Cuban Revolution. Each documented case is available for review at www.CubaArchive.org and substantiated by bibliographic/historic data and reports from direct sources. Due to the ongoing nature of the work and the difficulty of obtaining and verifying data from Cuba, the following totals change as research progresses and are considered far from exhaustive. Cuba Archive is currently examining additional cases –most are expected to be added to this table. Experience has shown that as additional outreach efforts are undertaken, many more cases are likely to be uncovered.

Non-Combat Victims of the Castro Regime:

January 1, 1959 to December 31, 2007

Work-in-progress

Documented Cases
Firing squad executions	4,074
Extrajudicial killings not in prison	1,334
Missing and disappeared	219
Other, including deaths in prison(1)	2,215
	7,842
Estimate
"Balseros" (estimate to 2003) (2)	77,833
Total	85,675

(1) Deaths in prison include assassinations, suicides, and deaths resulting from medical negligence or from accidents or alleged natural causes probably precipitated by prison conditions.

(2) The estimated number of victims was derived in 2003 by Dr. Armando Lago from data in studies by the Oceanographic Institute of the University of Miami and the University of Havana and reports by the U.S. Coast Guard. The actual number of rafters who have perished at sea is very difficult to corroborate. Deaths from 2003 to the present have not been estimated.

Combat Deaths
At least 16,282 additional deaths in combat or missing in action can be directly attributed to the Cuban Revolution, of which Cuba Archive has documented 1,392. 1,289 combat deaths are documented from anti-Castro military operations (Bay of Pigs expedition, the internal insurgency, and infiltration missions). Losses by the Castro government in military operations are estimated at 14,953 at the Bay of Pigs, fighting the insurgents in the rural war inside Cuba, and killed in the military intervention in Angola. In addition, 40 persons were killed in the accidental explosion of a civilian aviation plane (Cubana de Aviación) in Nicaragua used by the Cuban government to transport arms to the Sandinistas).

Other Deaths
Thousands of foreign nationals, both military and civilians, have been killed in Africa and Latin America in Cuba’s internationalist wars and its support of subversion. These are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
 

See: http://cubaarchive.org/home/images/stories/downloads/2.19.08_update.doc

Also see: Los Muertos de Castro

"The revolution's toll"

In the book-in-progress The Human Costs of Social Revolutions:  The Black Book on Cuba by Dr. Armando Lago that will be published in 1999, he is making an attempt to list Castro’s deaths since 1959.  With Castro in power, obtaining information is very difficult, but so far the deaths of 97,000 persons have been named, each confirmed by at least two sources.  Some 30,000 executed by firing squad, 2,000 extra-judicial assassinations, 5,000 deaths in prison due to beating by guards and denial of medical care and 60,000 deaths while trying to escape Cuba by sea.

    http://www.nocastro.com/archives/gohome.htm

R.J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii, list the "median" number of 73,000 as victims of  the "democide" of the Castro regime on his site.

"The greatest source of post-war democide was communism (see the communist death toll). During and after the war communists seized power, or came to power with the help of Soviet military might, as in Eastern Europe. In addition to the USSR, Mongolia, Eastern European regimes, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, communist regimes eventually also included China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Grenada, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and South Yemen, or 26 regimes in all. These communist governments and the communist guerrillas they supported in other countries account for about 66,000,000 of the 76,000,000 murdered since the war, or about 87 percent. Clearly, of all regimes, communist ones have been by far the greatest killer. During these years it has been mostly death by Marxism than more generally by government."  http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POSTWWII.HTM

Little has been written in English on the democide in other totalitarian states. Attempts to determine the how, when, and why of democide in, say, communist North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba, Ethiopia, Laos, or Eastern Europe, or Fascist Italy, fundamentalist Moslem Iran, and elsewhere is a matter of digging out of conventional histories and political studies bits and pieces or digging into relevant newspaper and news magazine articles and specialized pieces.  http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/CHARNY.CHAP.HTM

       The data he provides lists a range from 35,000 to 141,000 people killed (1959-1987)   http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF

But today, Armando Lago, a Ph. D. in Economics from Harvard University, continues working on his book "CUBA: The Human Cost of Social Revolutions. The Black Book of Cuban Communism," documenting the deaths caused by Castro's regime from 1959 to the present. According to Dr. Lago's ongoing research, the total currently ranges between 90,827 and 102,722 deaths (much higher than the 3,000 attributed to Chile's Augusto Pinochet).

                http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y03/jul03/11e6.htm

This well documented web sites post various sources (including the Cuban government) with estimates ranging from 2,000 to 119,000 deaths. The website is ironically called "minor atrocities of the 20th century". The site refers to recognized authors like: Mario Lazo (Dagger in the Hear: American Policy Failures in Cuba 1968) and Thomas Skidmore. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm#Cuba59 (As found at Cuba Verdad.)

"Grief" over the death for Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz?

Consider this retrospective on the death of the the mass murdering tyrant as found in yesterday's Washington Post, of all places:

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.

Many intellectuals, journalists and educated people in the First World fell for this myth, too — though they would have been among the first to be jailed or killed by Castro in his own realm — and their assumptions acquired an intensity similar to that of religious convictions. Pointing out to such believers that Castro imprisoned, tortured and murdered thousands more of his own people than any other Latin American dictator was usually futile. His well-documented cruelty made little difference, even when acknowledged, for he was judged according to some aberrant ethical code that defied logic.

This Kafkaesque moral disequilibrium had a touch of magical realism, for sure, as outrageously implausible as anything that Castro’s close friend Gabriel García Márquez could dream up. For instance, in 1998, around the same time that Chile’s ruler Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London for his crimes against humanity, Cuba’s self-anointed “maximum leader” visited Spain with ample fanfare, unmolested, even though his human rights abuses dwarfed those of Pinochet.

Even worse, whenever Castro traveled abroad, many swooned in his presence. In 1995, when he came to New York to speak at the United Nations, many of the leading lights of that city jostled so intently for a chance to meet with him at media mogul Mort Zuckerman’s triplex penthouse on Fifth Avenue that Time magazine declared “Fidel Takes Manhattan!” Not to be outdone, Newsweek called Castro “The Hottest Ticket in Manhattan.” None of the American elites who hobnobbed with Castro that day seemed to care that he had put nuclear weapons to their heads in 1962.

If this were a just world, 13 facts would be etched on Castro’s tombstone and highlighted in every obituary, as bullet points — a fitting metaphor for someone who used firing squads to murder thousands of his own people.

●He turned Cuba into a colony of the Soviet Union and nearly caused a nuclear holocaust.

●He sponsored terrorism wherever he could and allied himself with many of the worst dictators on earth.

●He was responsible for so many thousands of executions and disappearances in Cuba that a precise number is hard to reckon.

●He brooked no dissent and built concentration camps and prisons at an unprecedented rate, filling them to capacity, incarcerating a higher percentage of his own people than most other modern dictators, including Stalin.

●He condoned and encouraged torture and extrajudicial killings.

●He forced nearly 20 percent of his people into exile, and prompted thousands to meet their deaths at sea, unseen and uncounted, while fleeing from him in crude vessels.

●He claimed all property for himself and his henchmen, strangled food production and impoverished the vast majority of his people.

●He outlawed private enterprise and labor unions, wiped out Cuba’s large middle class and turned Cubans into slaves of the state.

●He persecuted gay people and tried to eradicate religion.

●He censored all means of expression and communication.

●He established a fraudulent school system that provided indoctrination rather than education, and created a two-tier health-care system, with inferior medical care for the majority of Cubans and superior care for himself and his oligarchy, and then claimed that all his repressive measures were absolutely necessary to ensure the survival of these two ostensibly “free” social welfare projects.

●He turned Cuba into a labyrinth of ruins and established an apartheid society in which millions of foreign visitors enjoyed rights and privileges forbidden to his people.

●He never apologized for any of his crimes and never stood trial for them.

In sum, Fidel Castro was the spitting image of Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel “1984.” So, adiós, Big Brother, king of all Cuban nightmares. And may your successor, Little Brother, soon slide off the bloody throne bequeathed to him. (Farewell to Cuba's Brutal Big Brother.)

Leaving aside the commentator’s obvious support of the lavender agenda, this is quite a thorough summary of Castro’s bloody legacy that the false “pontiff” should not be discussed given how much supposed “good” that the monstrous Communist dictator did for his country.

Here is yet another commentator’s assessment of the “good” that Castro did:

The tyrant is dead.

I have to say it to believe it.

Al fin.

Finally, the guerrilla leader who rose to power on a promise of social justice but instead separated families, executed and persecuted opponents, and unleashed unprecedented misery on the Cuban people no longer exists on this earth.

I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment.

Finally, the traitor whose Communist rule uprooted me from all I knew and loved and brought me to these shores with a broken heart is gone.

The tyrant is dead.

I have to repeat it to believe it.

I was born the same year the Cuban Revolution triumphed. I was 10 years old when I left Cuba on a Freedom Flight in 1969 with parents who paid dearly for my freedom and future. I’m a grandmother now. That’s how long Fidel Castro has maintained his grip on Cuba, first as self-anointed despot, then after he ceded the throne to his brother, as symbol.

This is an iconic moment. Generations of Cubans, Cuban-Americans and our children in Miami, capital of exiles, are celebrating his physical erasure with an ardor reserved for World Series and NBA titles. Behold this hashtag on social media: #myabuelitosarehavingapartyinheaven.

Don’t judge us harshly. Give us this moment. Our exile is his doing. There’s no RIP from us for the embodiment of evil in our collective and personal histories.

"Satan, he’s all yours," said in Spanish a sign held by a man on Calle Ocho in the dawn hours of Saturday after brother Raúl announced Fidel Castro’s death on Cuban television.

During the six decades of the Castro brothers totalitarian rule, more than two million Cubans fled their beloved island, taking solace in the words of Cuba’s most famous exile, poet and independence hero José Martí: "sin patria, pero sin amo," without a homeland, but without a master.

Countless met their deaths in the attempt to cross the seas and now trekking through the jungles of some seven countries to reach the U.S. border. One of Castro’s most heinous crimes was the massacre of 41 men, women and children attempting to flee Cuba on a tugboat on July 13, 1994. Cuban authorities sprayed the vessel with water hoses, rammed and sank it. This is not something I read. I interviewed survivors at the Guantanamo Cuban refugee camps months later. The Cuban Coast Guard refused to rescue the drowning, they told me.

There were so many other crimes and human rights abuses, largely ignored or benignly viewed by a world that gave Castro the benefit of the doubt, and only slapped him on the wrist occasionally at some forums like the United Nations.

Fidel Castro, myth and legend to the international left, has died without being brought to justice for his crimes against his people — the passing of the torch and title of president to his brother in 2006 challenged only by brave dissidents who are beaten and detained daily. The Castros have installed their children and grandchildren in government roles, an indication they plan to sustain the family dynasty beyond Raúl’s promised retirement in 2018.

There’s joy, excitement — and hope — at the news of Fidel Castro’s death at 90. I’m skeptical. Castro didn’t govern alone. He had accomplices. They’re mourning him today, planning to bury his ashes near Martí’s resting place in Santiago de Cuba, an honor he doesn’t deserve.

Still, it won’t be the same without the patriarch. With his death, it feels as if an evil curse — the heaviest of weights — has been lifted on a nation whose children are scattered all over the world.

The bogeyman is gone.

At the break of morning, the streets of Havana were deserted. People were told to stay inside, refrain from playing music, close their doors.

Miami never went to sleep, some of the arteries that run through its Cuban heart closed so that people could express the accumulation of 58 years of loss and separation, of disillusionment and never-ending hope.

Cuba sí, Castro no more.

There will be no farewell comandante from us, only a good riddance. (Al Fin: The Tyrant Is Dead. Other documentary information may be found in  Appendix A below.)

Although the writer’s glee at the death of the monster named Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is understandable, nothing will change in Cuba as the Castro brothers have helped to “educate” most Cubans in the ways of Marxism-Leninism.  

Moreover, there are many fellow travelers around the world, including here in the United States of America who are filled with praise for the tyrant, including the man who will become the fifth living former President of the United States of America at noon on January 20, 2017, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, who issued the following statement after the death of Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz:

At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. We know that this moment fills Cubans - in Cuba and in the United States - with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him. 

For nearly six decades, the relationship between the United States and Cuba was marked by discord and profound political disagreements. During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us, pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends - bonds of family, culture, commerce, and common humanity. This engagement includes the contributions of Cuban Americans, who have done so much for our country and who care deeply about their loved ones in Cuba.

Today, we offer condolences to Fidel Castro's family, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Cuban people. In the days ahead, they will recall the past and also look to the future. As they do, the Cuban people must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States of America. (Statement on the "Passing" of Fidel Castro.)

Notice that Obama/Soetoro referred to the "passing" of Fidel Castro. Protestants, not that he is any kind of even a heretical Christian, that is, and naturalists cannot refer to death by its proper name, well, at least not in most instances. Protestants and naturalists must anesthetize the reality of death, and those who adhere to the false opposite of the naturalist "left" can never admit that their dead heroes did anything wrong, a reality that calls to mind the following words of the late Dr. Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn in his commencement address at Harvard University on June 8, 1978:

The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism's crimes. And when they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them. (A World Split Apart.)

Yup, the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro continue to refuse to see communism's crimes as though they never occurred or just had to be committed in order to build the "new socialist man" thirty-eight and one-half years after Solzhenitsyn delivered his address at Harvard University, which some graduates, including those in positions of worldl influence today, actually booed as the translator spoke them in English.

In all of this, though, the greatest tragedy is that a baptized Catholic, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, has lost his soul for all eternity. A man whose name means "faithful" reject the Faith and rebelled against It, letting loose a torrent of torture, terror, and blood that never disturbed his conscience in the slightest. A soul made in the image and likeness of the Most Blessed Trinity and redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is now suffering in the flames of hell. 

While it is true that only a genuine mystic knows the fate of soul at the moment of his Particular Judgment, and I do not claim to be a mystic of any kind, it is also true that a man who spent his entire adult life terrorizing and killing others who did not subscribe to his intrinsically evil belief system, Communism, and who lived a life of moral debauchery and decadence was not in good shape, shall we say, at the moment of his Particular Judgment. This is a tragedy beyond all telling.

Indeed, the infidel named Fidel Castro excommunicated himself from Holy Mother Church precisely because of his support for Communism and his acts of terror, although it was not for this reason that Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII issued a decree of conciliar excommunication against him on January 3, 1962:

On this day in 1962, Blessed John XXIII excommunicated Cuba’s “maximum leader,” supposedly on the basis of a 1949 decree by Pope Pius XII forbidding Catholics from supporting communist governments.

A couple of years back, Andrea Torinella of Vatican Insider wrote about the genesis of the excommunication, finding it to be somewhat of a “mystery” that may not be related to the 1949 decree.

Archbishop Dino Staffa, who at the time was a member of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and wrote the decree, alleged the reasons were not related to supporting Castro’s support of communism, but to having committed or collaborated in acts of violence against the Catholic hierarchy.

Indeed, months prior to the excommunication, Bishop Eduardo Roza Masvidal and 135 priests had been expelled from Cuba. In his declaration, Archbishop Staffa made reference to this and to various other problems existing at the time with regard to the Catholic Church in Cuba.

Torinella wonders whether the declaration, which coincided with a broader message John XXIII send to Castro, was an attempt to balance the effect of the Pope’s words could have–which some considered too expansive–while also reminding other Catholic political leaders what canon law had in store for those who would conspire against or bring harm to the Catholic hierarchy.

As a result, Castro never received an ad personam excommunication and neither did Blessed John XXIII make any decisions in this regard. (Roncalli Excommunicated Castro for Attacking the Church, Not For Being A Communist.)

So much for Pope Pius XI's Divini Redemptoris and for the reiteration of its prohibition by the Holy Office in 1949 under the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.  Ah, it must be remembered that Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII was a fellow traveller, so much so that he agreed to silence about Communism at the "Second" Vatican Council in exchange for the "privilege" of having Russian Orthodox "observers" present (see "He Speaks Like A Leftist".)

Fidelity to Communism does not make one an infidel in the eyes of the conciliar revolutionaries. It is thus only natural for Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz's fidelity to Communism while demonstrating infidelity to the Catholic Faith should not matter to a Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who is the most notorious infidel on the face of the earth.

The Castros are the greatest scourges that Cuba, which had been evangelized by Our Lady of Guadalupe herself, has known. They are the very  fulfillment of Saint Anthony Mary Claret's prophetic warning to the people of Cuba as to what would happen in they persisted in the sort of wanton immorality that Jorge Mario Bergoglio just shrugs off as meaning nothing as long as one “serves the poor":     

On Christmas Day God infused into me the love of persecution and calumnies. . . . I dreamed I was imprisoned for a crime of which I was innocent. . . . To one who would have defended me, as St. Peter wished to defend Our Savior, I said: 'Shall I not drink the chalice my Father has given me?'

"On January 6, 1859, Our Lord made known to me that I am like the earth . . . which is trampled upon, yet doesn't speak. I, too, must be trodden underfoot and say nothing. The earth suffers cultivation. I must suffer mortification. Finally, to produce anything, the earth needs water; I, for the performance of good works, divine grace."

How consoling it must have been to hear Jesus promise him divine love, while tenderly addressing him as: "My little Anthony"--on April 27, 1859! And how he strove, ever harder, to obey his Redeemer's injunction, given at 4:25 a.m., on September 4, of that same year: "You have to teach your missionaries mortification, Anthony," to which, a few moments later, Our Lady added, "Thus will you reap fruit in souls, Anthony!"

And, now conditioned to receive supernatural messages in precise words and audible tones, and when they were precepts, to obey perfectly, he was ready for the most glorious promise and the most portentous revelation of all. "At 7:30 on the morning of September 23, Our Lord told me: 'You will fly across the earth . . . to preach of the immense chastisements soon to come to pass.' And He gave me to understand those words of the Apocalypse: 'And I behold and heard the voice of one eagle flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a a loud voice: Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth; by reason of the rest of the voices of the three angels who are yet to sound the trumpet.' this meant that the three great judgments of God that are going to fall upon the world are: 1) Protestantism and Communism; 2) the four archdemons who will,in a truly frightful manner, incite all to the love of pleasure, money, reason and independence of will; 3) the great wars with their horrible consequences."

Can we read this prophecy, set down for us a century ago, just when our world was entering upon the "golden age" of industry and commerce, of the scientific achievement that our grandfathers were assured was destined to create a life so good for all peoples that war would be banished forever, and doubt from whence it came? And do we dare to trace it from the Protestant Reformation to the curse of Communism; from the conquest of materialism to the deification of poor weak human reason and self-determination into "the great wars and their horrible consequences"! Upon the clean tablet of Anthony Claret's selfless spirit Our Lord engraved the warning His servant was to spell out for us" the incredible but inevitable graph of the "progress" of one century--our century! (Franchon Royer, The Life of St. Anthony Mary Claret, published originally in 1957 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, pp. 211-213.) 

Americans brought Protestantism with them in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and thereafter. Communism followed in its wake sixty and one-half years later.

Oh, and just by the way, Saint Anthony Mary Claret received Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's promises as to what would happen to Cuba and the rest of the world took place in 1859, precisely one hundred years prior to the infidel Castro's bloody takeover of Cuba, noting that "soft" Communism exists in this country as well, which was founded upon Protestant and Judeo-Masonic principles and whose politics and social life are defined by "love of pleasure, money, reason and independencce of will." This characterizes both major organized crime families of naturalism that are called "political parties" but are really agents of Judeo-Masonic naturalism, and that is the antihesis of the Catholic Faith and the Social Reign of Christ the King.

Our Lady herself called upon Saint Anthony Mary Claret to be the new Saint Dominic of his time in order to spread devotion to her Most Holy Rosary:

On various other occasions during that perplexing year [1857] which had brought him home to Spain, he had been blessed by direct messages--in words--from the Blessed Mother. In October: "Now you know; be sorry for the sins of your pat life, and watchful in the future. . . . Do you hear me, Anthony? Be watchful in the future. This is what I have to say to you." And later: "You must be the Dominic of these times in propagating devotion to the Rosary."  (Franchon Royer, The Life of St. Anthony Mary Claret, published originally in 1957 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, p. 211.)

To the Immaculate Heart of Mary we turn in these trying times as we keep close to this Heart from which the very Sacred Heart of Jesus was formed by means of praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medeal, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Catherine Laboure, pray for us.

Appendix A

More Documentation on Castro's Crimes

Consider just a brief excerpt from a very fine scholarly essay on the subject of a man named "Faithful" (Fidel)'s murderous, repressive ways:

From 1898 until the 1930’s, the U.S., to the discomfort of Cuba’s independent-minded nationalists, exercised strong political and economic control over Havana. Cuba’s economy – heavily reliant on sugar, foreign companies, and tourism – was closely linked to the U.S. market. Experiments in Cuban democracy deteriorated into dictatorships such as that of Gerardo Machado (1925-1933) and Fulgencio Batista (1952-1959). Cubans tended to blame the U.S. for the failures of their democracy and for U.S. willingness to “prefer” the stability of a strong man over the disorder and uncertainty of democracy. Nevertheless, by 1959, Cuba was one of Latin America’s best educated, most prosperous nations.

Credit for the success of the revolutionary movement and building Cuban communism belongs to Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz. Son of a Spanish immigrant who owned 10,000 acres and employed 500, Castro was born in 1926 and was educated in Cuba’s elite schools. As a law student in the 1940’s, Fidel demonstrated a restless intellect coupled with the instincts of a strategist and a street fighter. At an early age, he discovered radical politics and the utility of political violence.

On July 26, 1952, Fidel helped lead a bloody, unsuccessful assault on Batista’s troops garrisoned in the Moncada Barracks in Santiago. Captured after the attack, Castro converted his trial into a propaganda victory. After less than two years in prison, Castro received an amnesty and traveled to Mexico where he recruited a small revolutionary army. Founding members included brother Raúl (b. 1931) and the Argentine doctor, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, (1928-1967). The guerrilla band landed in Cuba on the yacht Granma in December 1956. After several bloody clashes a handful of survivors disappeared into the Sierra Maestra Mountains.

Like many other Communist leaders, a ruthless but pragmatic Castro set as his primary objective the overthrow of the Batista regime and the armed seizure of power. Putting aside divisions over ideology, he forged broad alliances with historic opposition parties, organized labor and radical elements in the cities.

The press often portrayed Fidel and his band as young idealists fighting a corrupt, unpopular tyranny. Castro promised a “democratic Cuba,” restoration of the Cuban constitution, free elections, and claimed to harbor “no animosity toward the U.S.” A positive image of the rebels coupled with repugnance for Batista’s strong-arm methods, led the U.S. to impose an arms embargo on the Batista regime.

By late 1958, the Batista government began to crumple. On New Year’s Eve, Batista escaped to the Dominican Republic. On January 9, 1959, Fidel Castro arrived in Havana to tumultuous acclaim. Within weeks, Castro commenced maneuvering against liberals and democrats, breaking alliances and power sharing deals to solidify personal power and set Cuba on the path to communist dictatorship.

Frictions swiftly developed between the U.S. and Fidel. The U.S. challenged the use of summary “people’s courts” proceedings and firing squads that executed hundreds of former Batista officials and soldiers. Fidel defended “revolutionary justice,” explaining that moral conviction had replaced legal precepts as a guiding rationale. A system of prisons expanded as Fidel took over Batista’s old prisons and built new ones. Thousands passed into Fidel’s “tropical Gulag.” In the coming years, millions of Cubans believed themselves to be trapped in an immense, open air prison.

To try to leave the island without government permission became a criminal offense. Nonetheless a massive diaspora of Cubans was underway by 1960 to the benefit of the U.S. It is estimated that more Cubans were killed by fellow Cubans while trying to escape than the number of Germans killed by East German border guards manning the Berlin Wall.

Although Castro promised democratic elections, none were ever held. The free press was muzzled; judicial independence was lost. Nationalization and confiscation of foreign and domestically-owned property shifted wealth and power from the city and the middle class to the peasants and the working class. Agrarian reforms targeted large private and foreign-owned estates, paving the way for the creation of cooperatives. State planning and bureaucratic controls became omnipresent in all aspects of economic life.

Starting from a relatively advantaged position, the Cuban revolution sought to combat illiteracy, broaden health care coverage, and reduce extreme want. The key debate to this day focuses on the terrible costs paid in the curtailment of individual freedoms and the regimentation of daily life, especially when one recalls that Cuba in 1959 stood on an economic par with a Portugal or Spain.

The utopian aspirations of Cuba’s revolution reflected a promise to establish a just society on earth and create what “Che” Guevara called a New Man, a politically-conscious individual free from the taint of bourgeois materialism and personal ambition. Foreign policy would put Cuba at the service of anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism throughout the world, which meant close collaboration with the Kremlin leadership. While experts quibbled whether socialism or communism was practiced on the island, Fidel left no doubt that he was committed to the same trail blazed by Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

With the U.S. always just over the horizon, Fidel gambled on replacing ties with the U.S. with a new geopolitical protector, the Soviet Union. In February 1960, Cuba and the Soviet Union signed a multi-year contract for the purchase of Cuban sugar and massive credit. In the next two decades, Soviet military trainers and equipment converted Cuba’s military into a formidable expeditionary force. Economic dependency on the U.S. yielded to economic vassalage to the Soviet Union.

In 1961, the U.S. backed an ill-fated attempt by Cuban exiles to overthrow the new Castro regime. The Bay of Pigs was a major foreign policy fiasco for President John F. Kennedy and allowed Fidel to crack down on all internal opposition. Henceforth fear of invasion and equating opposition to Cuban communism with acts of treason were essential weapons in Castro’s political arsenal. They remain so today. On May 1, 1960, Fidel proclaimed Cuba a socialist state; less than a year later, he swore allegiance to Marxism-Leninism, forever.

Under Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviets gambled in 1962 on a shift in the correlation of international power as they attempted to station nuclear missiles and 22,000 Russian troops in Cuba. The missile crisis of October 1962 carried the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict. Fidel urged a preemptive strike against the U.S. and announced he was ready to sacrifice Cuba for the global triumph of socialism. Khrushchev did not give Fidel a chance for nuclear self-immolation. The U.S.-Soviet deal resulted in the removal of Soviet missiles in exchange for a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba.

While his leadership style blended elements of nationalism, utopianism, and anti-Americanism, Fidel constructed a Leninist-style dictatorship. The central institutional pillars include the Cuban Communist Party, serving as the vanguard of the people; the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, which embody a commitment to defend and advance the revolution; and a world-class intelligence and security service able to protect the leadership from all enemies and ferret out any organized opposition. Mass organizations such as the Committees for Defense of the Revolution (CDR) served as conduits for top-down leadership and a means to preserve revolutionary consciousness within the masses.

For decades, Fidel relied heavily upon creating conditions of psychological bondage, where the highest social values are political conformity, loyalty to the system, the denial of individualism, and the rejection of critical or independent thought. (History | Cuba Exhibit | Global Museum on Communism.)

Former news reporter Bonnie Anderson, who worked for the National Broadcasting Company television network's news dvision and for the Cable News Network, provided her own personal testimony of the murderous ways of the man chosen by God to be an instrument of "peace" and "justice on earth, the "greatest Latin-American of all time, Fidel Castro:

It is deeply wrenching to witness a week of lavish celebrations honoring Fidel Castro's birth when most likely every day, somewhere in the world, anguished families quietly mourn the death of a loved one at the hands of this heartless, evil man. That Fidel, himself, may be dying is not much comfort to me. I believe in justice and while he will be judged by God when he dies, he has yet to be judged on Earth for his crimes against humanity.

My father, Howard F. Anderson, was only one of 20,000 people tortured and executed by Fidel Castro. Before my Dad's execution by firing squad, he had most of his blood drained from his body to be used for transfusions for the revolutionary troops. Other political prisoners who watched the execution from their cells told me years later that my father refused a blindfold. And he whistled as the bullets tore into his body. One of the few memories I have, since I was only 5 years old at the time, was that my Dad whistled when he was angry. With the ''ready, aim, fire'' order, I, too, was wounded forever more. This ruthless dictator robbed me of a lifetime with my father, a lifetime of fatherly advice, a lifetime of memories.

So no, I don't want to see him die this way, of natural causes, or at this time. I have always hoped the world would recognize him for what he is and that Fidel Castro would be judged, convicted and sentenced for his crimes against humanity in an international court of law. A death from old age is far, far too lenient a punishment for a man who has killed so many people, destroyed the lives of literally millions.

As a journalist, I refrain from generalities. But I do believe there are few Cubans on the island and even fewer Cuban exiles who have not had a family member either executed or imprisoned by this megalomaniac. What I fail to understand is why there seems to be little national compassion for the pain that Cuban exiles have experienced. Americans show compassion for cancer survivors, for DUI and rape victims, for people suffering from depression, physical and mental abuse. We show compassion for famine victims in Africa; as an NBC news correspondent, I broke stories about genocide in Ethiopia, and the world -- but especially the United States -- responded with millions of dollars of money, but most important, with compassion. Organizations have sprung up to defend and champion the victims of all these issues, and rightly so. There is public acceptance that these people have suffered and have been wronged. It is morally right. So why, I ask, are Cuban exiles not afforded the same support and compassion?

I was a CNN network executive when the Elián González issue was a major story. I was horrified by the coverage by my network and all others. It pained me deeply to see sound-bites by people who said about the Cuban-Americans in this country, ''Why don't they just get over it? It happened so long ago.'' I spoke up to my superiors at CNN. And I'm no longer there. What I told them was this: Would anyone dare tell a Holocaust survivor, or the sons, daughters and grandchildren of the Holocaust to ''just forget about it'' because it happened so long ago? Of course not. Castro did not kill as many as Hitler did, and I would never diminish the horror and huge dimensions of the Holocaust, but Castro was -- and is -- our Hitler in Latin America.

BORN IN CUBA

Despite my Anglo name, I was born in Cuba. My mother was born there. Her parents are buried there. My father was buried there until Castro was so ticked off by an article I wrote in 1978 as a Miami Herald reporter that he had my father's remains dug up and thrown out. I am most proud of being Cuban American. And I want the rest of the world to understand our pain. It is part of our daily lives, no matt er where we live. It is the ache of losing a country, but it is more than that, too. It is a loss we feel in our blood and in our bones. It is also clearly an emotional demise in many ways -- a void in our pasts which continues to the present and will continue through the future. You can't make up for years of lost family experiences -- normal, human experiences that most other people enjoy. These are memories that have been stolen for all time. For myself, I have only two memories of my father and what saddens me is that I can't be absolutely certain that they truly are recollections or whether I've simply grasped onto scenes from the few home movies we managed to smuggle out of Cuba and morphed them into memories. When I think of this, it provokes a deep, dark cutting sadness in me.

Cuban exiles can't expect others who have not experienced what we have to actually know our pain and understand our passion for wanting to address the wrongs done us. Rape victims can't expect that. Neither can the parents of children who have been killed by drunk drivers, or family members who have lost loved ones in the current Iraq conflict. Or family members of the victims of Columbine, or 9/11. The people who survived the genocide in Ethiopia and in so many other places can't expect anyone to truly know their pain. Our pain is part of our spirit. The most we can hope for is compassion. The day that Castro's illness was first reported, I woke up very early and was watching CBS. On their early morning shows, they repeatedly said that ''Castro is considered a ruthless dictator by some in Miami.''

I fired off an e-mail to CBS President Sean McManus. What I wrote, in short, was this: If a man who murdered 20,000 people, imprisoned for decades hundreds of thousands of others, caused countless hundreds of thousands to flee the country (many losing their lives in desperate attempts to reach freedom on flimsy rafts) and has repressed a nation for nearly five decades - - denying them the most basic of human rights -- is not considered a ruthless dictator by all, who the hell is? I haven't heard back from him. I don't expect I will. In fact, I suspect he, and other network executives, will continue to cozy up to the Cuban government (whoever leads it) in order to make sure that when Castro dies, their networks have access to the coverage. That's the way it is in the corporate news world. But I have faith in my fellow American citizens. And I know, in my heart and spirit, that when the truth is known, those of us who have suffered at the hands of Fidel Castro will finally receive the compassion we are due.

IN MOURNING

While Fidel is celebrating a birthday, my brothers, sister and I are mourning the death not only of our father but also of our mother, Dorothy Stauber Anderson McCarthy, who died less than two months ago. She was 39 years old when Fidel made her a widow. She struggled to raise us and give us a new life, and she was most successful. But her greatest triumph was to instill a sense of right and honor in us, to teach us strength and morality. A month after her death, a New York judge ruled that we should receive millions of dollars of the frozen Cuban assets held in this country because of Fidel Castro's murder of my father. It is a very welcome decision but very bittersweet. Fidel Castro is alive and he knows he has been tried, convicted and sentenced to pay for his heinous act. But the fact that my mother isn't alive to see this final measure of justice is a soul-deep wound that I will live with for the rest of my life. I weep for her. I weep for us, and I weep for all who have been the victims of Fidel Castro. Happy Birthday? Please.

Bonnie M. Anderson is a 27-year veteran of print, radio, Internet and television journalism in English and in Spanish. She has worked on camera for local, national and international news organizations, including two decades with NBC News and CNN. Anderson won se ven Emmy Awards, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has been nominated for the María Coors Cabot Lifetime Achievement Award, which is sponsored by Columbia University. Capt. Anderson is now following a family tradition and is running a charter fishing operation out of Culebra, Puerto Rico. (Fidel Castro has yet to face justice )

Droleskey postcript: Fidel Alejandro Casto Ruz has faced Divine Justice.

To quote Sergeant Preston, "King, this case is closed."

Appendix B

"Cardina" Zen Warns Jorg About Rapprochement With Chicoms

The most senior Chinese Catholic has slammed a potential rapprochement between the Vatican and Beijing, saying it would be “betraying Jesus Christ”, amid a thaw in more than six decades of bitter relations.

Talk of a deal between the two sides has been building for months, with some saying the diplomatic coup for Pope Francis would be resolving the highly controversial issue of allowing China’s Communist government to have a hand in selecting bishops.

But Cardinal Joseph Zen, the 84-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong, has been an outspoken critic, saying any agreement where Beijing would have a hand in approving clergy would be “a surrender”.

“Maybe the pope is a little naive, he doesn’t have the background to know the Communists in China,” Zen said at the Salesian school in Hong Kong where he still teaches. “The pope used to know the persecuted Communists [in Latin America], but he may not know the Communist persecutors who have killed hundreds of thousands.”

Chinese Catholics are free to go to mass and attend government-sanctioned churches, but barred from proselytising. The state-controlled China Catholic Patriotic Association controls the church and appoints bishops, currently without any input from the Vatican.

An “underground” Catholic church exists, with some estimates saying it is larger than the official one, and its members and clergy have faced persecution by authorities.

Protestant Christians also face similar challenges, and a recent campaign by authorities in eastern China has seen more than 1,200 crosses removed from buildings and churches demolished.

Zen complained that most supporters of the deal did not truly know China, lacking first-hand experience with the state of the church under the Communists. He spent seven years frequently teaching in cities across China in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that was followed by severe tightening of freedom of expression and religion.

One motivation for the Vatican is the relatively small number of Catholics in a country filled with people who are increasingly searching for meaning in their lives. There are roughly 10 million Catholics, just a 10th of the overall number of Christians in the country.

The people sooner or later will see the bishops are puppets of the government

With “fake freedom” under a proposed deal, priests could more easily preach and more churches would open, Zen predicted, but “it’s only the impression of freedom, it’s not real freedom, the people sooner or later will see the bishops are puppets of the government and not really the shepherds of the flock.”

“The official bishops are not really preaching the gospel,” Zen added “They are preaching obedience to Communist authority.”

Francesco Sisci, an Italian scholar and journalist who is based in Beijing, said “a very wide-ranging agreement” appeared to be on the horizon but that it remained unclear exactly when the deal would be unveiled. No observers expected it to lead to full diplomatic relations.

“The church doesn’t want crusades … and doesn’t want to start a new one with China,” he said.

The Italian academic said he believed the pope thought the church could play “a crucial role in helping China move into the modern world, to become a modern society”.

“He may be naive but it is his job being naive, being a man of faith,” Sisci added.

But that naivety could harm the Catholic church in China for decades to come, according to Zen, and a perception is building that the pope is pushing a pact he may not fully understand.

“You cannot go into negotiations with the mentality ‘we want to sign an agreement at any cost’, then you are surrendering yourself, you are betraying yourself, you are betraying Jesus Christ,” Zen lamented.

“If you cannot get a good deal, an acceptable deal, then the Vatican should walk away and maybe try again later,” he added. “Could the church negotiate with Hitler? Could it negotiate with Stalin? No.”

Ordinary Catholics who attend the government-controlled church welcome the negotiations as any deal would legitimise what is essentially a schismatic church.

Chinese society needs faith right now

“If they could really strike a deal, not only would us Catholics be happy, but all of the Chinese people should rejoice,” said Zhao, 36, who has been a Catholic for 20 years and works at the oldest Catholic church in China, close to Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He declined to give his full name because of the sensitivity of discussing religion.

“Chinese society needs faith right now,” he added, saying a warming of ties would increase the number of Catholics, “which is a benefit to all society”.

But Zen warned that gains, diplomatically and in the number of faithful, could be short-lived.

In the long run people would leave the church as they became disillusioned with the “fake” institution, Zen said, adding “the clergy need to side with the people, the poor and the persecuted, not to government”.

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of new Christians,” Zen said. “If that blood is poisoned, how long will those new Christians last?”