Human Rights Watch said thousands were jailed in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated and that entire generations were denied political freedoms, a system based on abuses which felt increasingly anachronistic. He hounded critics, scorned elections and ran a police state — facts which impressive statistics about literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy cannot erase.
The newly victorious rebels executed hundreds — some say thousands — after seizing power in Over ensuing decades Castro used threats, jail and banishment against critics, including intellectuals, journalists and former allies. The streets of Miami, Florida, were full last weekend as crowds gathered to celebrate the death of Cuban revolutionary and former leader Fidel Castro. He died on Friday aged But many do not share the delight , and hail his many achievements, especially with his work around improving health and education.
We asked Cuban Americans to tell us how they felt. Are there mixed feelings? What does the future hold? Here is a selection of opinions.
The death of Fidel Castro has brought some relief. He and his brother represent a hammer and sickle lodged into the gears of social and economic progress. As long as they live, reforms will be a metre wide and an inch deep. Even with the death of Fidel, his brother and the ageing communist elites will continue to stop the country opening up.
They know their only means of survival will be to improve conditions before the veil comes off. The Fernandez side of my family were from Artemisa, Cuba. We can trace our roots to the construction of the railroad in the s. My great-great-grandfather came over from Spain to assist in its construction and stayed. The decision was a sound one — other land owners and dissidents were among the first victims of Fidel Castro.
They wanted to re-enter the workforce as engineers and chemists. My grandfather was the youngest and became a chef, working for members of the Detroit Club and other private groups. The accolades that western leaders and pseudo-intellectuals are heaping on this despot are sickening.
Fidel Castro has been and will continue to be one of the most controversial leaders of the 20th century and as we continue national dialogue on the different perspectives of his leadership, we must avoid martyrdom as well as vilification.
Just as we condemn the suppression of dissent in Cuba and discuss the demographic makeup of the Cuban prison population, we must also acknowledge the active role Cuba played in the decolonization of Africa and the Caribbean, the training of professionals from these areas and efforts of Cuban medical and educational professionals throughout the Global South over the past 50 years.
Nana Brantuo is an educator, researcher and writer. A doctoral student, she centers her academic interests on the mobility, migration and the educational experiences and trajectories of African and African descendant peoples. Her academic work has taken her to various states and countries around the world with her most recent travels taking her to Cuba and Haiti.
Support Provided By: Learn more. Wednesday, Nov The Latest. World Agents for Change. Health Long-Term Care. His brother Raul, right, was commander in chief of the armed forces. During a visit to New York in , Fidel Castro spends time with a group of children.
American talk-show host Ed Sullivan interviews Castro on a taped segment in That month, a group of about 1, Cuban exiles, armed with US weapons, made an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Castro. Castro announces general mobilization after the announcement of the Cuban blockade by President John F Kennedy in October Castro raises arms with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during a four-week visit to Moscow in May Castro in July Castro plays baseball in Castro addresses thousands of Cubans in Havana in Castro visits Paris in March It was the first papal visit to Cuba.
Castro is helped by aides after he appeared to faint while giving a speech in Cotorro, Cuba, in June He returned to the podium less than 10 minutes later to assure the audience he was fine and that he just needed to get some sleep. In July , Castro talks with Elian Gonzalez, the young boy who was the focus of a bitter international custody dispute a couple of years earlier.
He held tightly to his belief in a socialist economic model and one-party Communist rule, even after the Soviet Union's end and most of the rest of the world concluded state socialism was an idea whose time had passed. Castro, left, and his brother Raul attend a session of the Cuban parliament in July Castro speaks in Havana in February Castro in Havana in September Several surgeries forced him to relinquish his duties temporarily to younger brother Raul in July That July, it was announced that Castro was undergoing intestinal surgery.
Castro resigned as President in February , and his brother Raul took over permanently. Castro smiles before delivering a speech in Havana in September He had remained mostly out of sight after falling ill in but returned to the public light that year. Castro visits with 19 cheese masters on Friday, July 3, , in a rare trip outside his Havana home.
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