Fidel Castro, que acaba de fallecer a los 90 años de edad, gobernó a Cuba con poderes absolutos durante 57 años. Cuando enfermó en el 2008, cedió el mando solo parcialmente a su hermano menor Raúl, ahora de 85 años de edad.
Bastaría este hecho, su perpetuación en el poder sin consenso popular, para merecer el repudio universal. Pero su muerte ha merecido elegios directos e indirectos por ejemplo del líder del mundo líder, Obama o de la Iglesia Católica, el Papa Fracisco y de otros como Trudeau, de Canadá.
Dirigentes minúsculos, como Rafael Correa, han calificado a Fidel como “otro grande” que se nos va y a Donald Trump de “ignorante” porque dijo él con su habitual desparpajo que ese individuo era un “dictador brutal” que ha asesinado, encarcelado, empobrecido y dividido a su pueblo.
Todos se alegraron de que Fidel Castro hubiese triunfado en la revuelta que terminó con la dictadura de Fulgenico Batista en 1959. Pero lo que se esperaba de él es la restauración de la democracia, para vigorizar la economía de la Isla y restaurar y consolidar sus instituciones en libertad.
Inicialmente lo prometió así, pero sus verdaderas intenciones no tardaron en traslucirse. Implantó una dictadura socialista/marxista supuestamente para lograr la “justicia social”, esto es, la redistribución del ingreso, para lo cual suprimió las libertades individuales, incluído el derecho a la propiedad privada.
Las prósperas haciendas y las fincas menores productivas se parcelaron y “colectivizaron”, al tiempo que se confiscaban las empresas extranjeras y nacionales, produciéndose un colapso en la producción general que indujo a los racionamientos. Las iglesias, conventos y bienes raíces de propiedad de la Iglesia Católica siguieron igual destino y cundió el pánico.
Toda resistencia, toda protesta fue acallada con la cárcel, la tortura y los fusilamientos en los “paredones”, esto es las murallas exteriores de las cárceles de algunas de las grandes propiedades convertridas en prisiones. Hay datos confiurmados del fusilamiento de 9.240 ciudadanos civiles, militares, hombres, mujeres y niños pero los investigadores dicen que la cifra podría multiplicarse por 10.
El 7 de abril de 1967, el Comité Interamericano de Derechos Humanos de la OEA dió cuenta de que el 27 de mayo de 1966, 166 cubanos civiles y militares fueron ajusticiados, luego de que se les extrajera la sangre para venderla ese año a los Vietcong, a razón de 50 dólares por pinta (medio litro).
Eso se relata en el artículo que Mary Anastasia O´Grady publicó en el 2005 en el The Wall Street Journal, al conmemorarse el 47 aniversario del Movimiento 26 de Julio en Cuba. Se incluyen datos de otras víctimas de la tiranía castrista: campesinos de Sierra Maestra, de la fincas que confiscó, de los cubanos que intentaron fugar de la Isla pero fueron frustrados por la metralla de la armada cubana.
Cuba pre Castro era próspera comparativamente. La mortandad infantil era la menor de América Latina y se ubicaba tercera en número de médicos y dentistas y en consumo de calorías, así como con alto grado de alfabetos. Todos esos logros fueron pulverizados por Fidel y sus exportaciones son ahora menores que las de Haití.
La economía castrista sobrevivió por el subsidió soviético, primero y luego con el subsidio de la Venezuela de Chávez. Con la economía venezolana de Maduro en escombros, la boya salvavidas de la tiranía fue lanzada esta vez por Barack Obama, igual que la lanzada para rescatar a la tiranía agonizante de Irán.
Con Donald J. Trump en la Casa Blanca desde el 20 de enero próximo, ese esquema de supervivencia ya no funcionará. Trump ha advertido que los acuerdos de Obama en favor de los Castro se cancelarán a menos que haya certeza de que el régimen libere a los presos políticos, restituya las libertades, convoque a elecciones, extradite a criminales.
Puesto que ello no ocurrirá de manera espontánea con Raúl Castro y su séquito, Donald ha prometido confirmar el embargo a la Isla, lo que implica prohibición de comerciar e invertir e incluso de hacer turismo. La razón es simple: el potencial flujo de dólares no beneficiará al pueblo sino a la pandilla civil/militar que lo controla todo.
Fidel, según testimonio de su guardaespaldas por 17 años, Juan Reinaldo Sánchez (en su libro “La Vida Oculta de Fidel Castro”, 2014) hizo fortuna a través de múltiples empresas, inclusive las de narcotráfico, acumulando las ganancias en cuentas cifradas bajo el nombre “El Jefe Comandante” en bancos extranjeros. Según la revista Forbes, la fortuna de Fidel, que heredarán Raúl y familia, es de 800 millones de dólares (en el 2005).
Si el clan Castro se asfixia por falta de ingresos con el cerco Trump y si paralelamente se desarrollan otros medios de estímulo a la insurgencia interna, es posible que el régimen tiránico se desmorone antes de que Raúl ceda el mando a dedo en el 2018 a alguien, a su hijo o a su yerno, como lo hizo Fidel con él y que “algo bueno” ocurra antes en Cuba.
Los cubanos en el exilio han celebrado jubilosos la muerte de Fidel en las calles de Miami, concretamente en la cubanísima Calle Ocho y esperan, con Trump, que finalmente lleguen los días de una Cuba libre sin las traiciones de último momento de Kennedy con el plan Bahía de Cochinos o la reciente capitulación de Obama.
Las marchas en la Calle Ocho traen a la memoria las imágenes de las calles de Roma de la gente marchando frente a los postes de luz de los que pendían, boca abajo, los cadáveres de Mussolini y su amante. Y de las imágenes de Ceausescu y su mujer, ajusticiados por un pelotón de fusilamiento tras un juicio breve que duró una hora.
¿Qué tal si Fidel Castro hubiera corrido esa suerte en los albores de 1960, cuando traicionó las promesas de una Cuba en libertad? Cuánta sangre, terror y miseria se habría evitado.
(A continuación se publica el artículo de O´Grady y luego el análisis del WSJ sobre el significado de 57 años del castrismo en Cuba)
(A continuación se publica el artículo de O´Grady y luego el análisis del WSJ sobre el significado de 57 años del castrismo en Cuba)
Counting Castro's Victims
"On May 27, [1966,] 166 Cubans -- civilians and members of the military -- were executed and submitted to medical procedures of blood extraction of an average of seven pints per person. This blood is sold to Communist Vietnam at a rate of $50 per pint with the dual purpose of obtaining hard currency and contributing to the Vietcong Communist aggression.
"A pint of blood is equivalent to half a liter. Extracting this amount of blood from a person sentenced to death produces cerebral anemia and a state of unconsciousness and paralysis. Once the blood is extracted, the person is taken by two militiamen on a stretcher to the location where the execution takes place."
-- InterAmerican Human Rights Commission, April 7, 1967
This weekend marks the 47th anniversary of the triumph of the "26th of July Movement," which many Cubans expected would return their country to a constitutional government. Fidel Castro had other ideas of course, and within weeks he hijacked the victory, converting the country into one of the most repressive states in modern history.
Waiting for Fidel to die has become a way of life in Cuba in the past decade. Conventional wisdom holds that the totalitarian regime will hang on even after the old man kicks the bucket. But that hasn't stopped millions from dreaming big about life in a Fidel-free Cuba.
Cuban reconciliation won't come easy, even if Fidel's ruthless, money-grubbing little brother Raul is somehow pushed aside. One painful step in the process will require facing the truth of all that has gone on in the name of social justice. As the report cited above shows, it is bound to be a gruesome tale.
The Cuba Archive project (www.cubaarchive.org) has already begun the heavy lifting by attempting to document the loss of life attributable to revolutionary zealotry. The project, based in Chatham, N.J., covers the period from May 1952 -- when the constitutional government fell to Gen. Fulgencio Batista -- to the present. It has so far verified the names of 9,240 victims of the Castro regime and the circumstances of their deaths. Archive researchers meticulously insist on confirming stories of official murder from two independent sources.
Cuba Archive President Maria Werlau says the total number of victims could be higher by a factor of 10. Project Vice President Armando Lago, a Harvard-trained economist, has spent years studying the cost of the revolution and he estimates that almost 78,000 innocents may have died trying to flee the dictatorship. Another 5,300 are known to have lost their lives fighting communism in the Escambray Mountains (mostly peasant farmers and their children) and at the Bay of Pigs. An estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Fidel's revolutionary adventures abroad, most notably his dispatch of 50,000 soldiers to Angola in the 1980s to help the Soviet-backed regime fight off the Unita insurgency.
The archive project can be likened to the 1999 "Black Book of Communism," which documented the world-wide cost of communism, noting that "wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established it quickly led to crime, terror and repression." The Castro methodology, Cuba Archive finds, was much like that used in Poland and East Germany, less lethal than Stalin's purges, but equally effective in suppressing opposition.
In the earliest days of the revolution, summary executions established a culture of fear that quickly eliminated most resistance. In the decades that followed, inhumane prison conditions often leading to death, unspeakable torture and privation were enough to keep Cubans cowed.
Cuba Archive finds that some 5,600 Cubans have died in front of firing squads and another 1,200 in "extrajudicial assassinations." Che Guevara was a gleeful executioner at the infamous La Cabaña Fortress in 1959 where, under his orders, at least 151 Cubans were lined up and shot. Children have not been spared. Of the 94 minors whose deaths have been documented by Cuba Archive, 22 died by firing squad and 32 in extrajudicial assassinations.
Fifteen-year-old Owen Delgado Temprana was beaten to death in 1981 when security agents stormed the embassy of Ecuador where his family had taken refuge. In 1995, 17-year-old Junior Flores Díaz died after being locked in a punishment cell in a Havana province prison and denied medical attention. He was found in a pool of vomit and blood. Many prison deaths are officially marked as "heart attacks," but witnesses tell another story. The project has documented 2,199 prison deaths, mostly political prisoners.
The revolution boasts of its gender equality, and that's certainly true for its victims. Women have not fared much better than men. In 1961, 25-year-old Lydia Pérez López was eight months pregnant when a prison guard kicked her in the stomach. She lost her baby and, without medical attention, bled to death. A 70-year-old woman named Edmunda Serrat Barrios was beaten to death in 1981 in a Cuban jail. Cuba Archive has documented 219 female deaths including 11 firing squad executions and 20 extrajudicial assassinations.
The heftiest death toll is among those trying to flee. Many have been killed by state security. Three Lazo children drowned in 1971 when a Cuban navy vessel rammed their boat; their mother, Mrs. Alberto Lazo Pastrana, was eaten by sharks. Twelve children -- ages six months to 11 years -- drowned along with 33 others when the Cuban coast guard sank their boat in 1994. Four children -- ages three to 17 -- drowned in the famous Canimar River massacre along with 52 others when the Cuban navy and a Cuban air force plane attacked a hijacked excursion boat headed for Florida in 1980.
The horror of that event cost one more life: After visiting survivors in the Matanzas hospitals, the famous revolutionary guerrilla Haydée Santamaría, already in despair over the massive, inhumane boat exodus from the Port of Mariel, killed herself. That was a tragic admission of both the cost and failure of the revolution. The only riddle left is how, 25 years later, so-called "human rights" advocates like Argentine President Nestor Kirchner still embrace the Castro regime.
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Cuba's former president Fidel Castro, pictured in 2003, has died at age 90. Photo: Zuma Press
Fidel Castro’s legacy of 57 years in power is best understood by the fates of two groups of his countrymen—those who remained in Cuba and suffered impoverishment and dictatorship, and those who were lucky or brave enough to flee to America to make their way in freedom. No progressive nostalgia after his death Friday at age 90 should disguise this murderous and tragic record.
Castro took power on New Year’s Day in 1959 serenaded by the Western media for toppling dictator Fulgencio Batista and promising democracy. He soon revealed that his goal was to impose Communist rule. He exiled clergy, took over Catholic schools and expropriated businesses. Firing squads and dungeons eliminated rivals and dissenters.
The terror produced a mass exodus. An April 1961 attempt by the CIA and a small force of expatriate Cubans to overthrow Castro was crushed at the Bay of Pigs in a fiasco for the Kennedy Administration. Castro aligned himself with the Soviet Union, and their 1962 attempt to establish a Soviet missile base on Cuba nearly led to nuclear war. The crisis was averted after President Kennedy sent warships to intercept the missiles, but the Soviets extracted a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba again.
The Cuba that Castro inherited was developing but relatively prosperous. It ranked third in Latin America in doctors and dentists and daily calorie consumption per capita. Its infant-mortality rate was the lowest in the region and the 13th lowest in the world. Cubans were among the most literate Latins and had a vibrant civic life with private professional, commercial, religious and charitable organizations.
Castro destroyed all that. He ruined agriculture by imposing collective farms, making Cuba dependent first on the Soviets and later on oil from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. In the past half century Cuba’s export growth has been less than Haiti’s, and now even doctors are scarce because so many are sent abroad to earn foreign currency. Hospitals lack sheets and aspirin. The average monthly income is $20 and government food rations are inadequate.
All the while Fidel and his brother Raúl sought to spread their Communist revolution throughout the world, especially in Latin America. They backed the FARC in Colombia, the Shining Path in Peru and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Their propaganda about peasant egalitarian movements beguiled thousands of Westerners, from celebrities like Sean Penn and Danny Glover to Secretary of State John Kerry, who on a visit to Havana called the U.S. and Cuba “prisoners of history.” The prisoners are in Cuban jails.
On this score, President Obama’s morally antiseptic statement Saturday on Castro is an insult to his victims. “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,” Mr. Obama said. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.” Donald Trump, by contrast, called Castro a “dictator” and expressed hope for a “free Cuba.”
Mr. Obama’s 2014 decision to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations has provided new business opportunities for the regime but has yielded nothing in additional freedom. Americans can now travel and make limited investment in Cuba but hard-currency wages for workers are confiscated by the government in return for nearly worthless pesos. In 2006 Forbes estimated Fidel’s net worth, based on his control of “a web of state-owned companies,” at $900 million.
The hope of millions of Cubans, exiled and still on the island, has been that Fidel’s death might finally lead to change, but unwinding nearly six decades of Castro rule will be difficult. The illusions of Communism have given way to a military state that still arrests and beats women on their way to church. China and Russia both allow more economic freedom. The regime fears that easing up on dissent, entrepreneurship or even access to the internet would lead to its inevitable demise.
Castro’s Cuba exists today as a reminder of the worst of the 20th century when dictators invoked socialist ideals to hammer human beings into nails for the state. Too many Western fellow-travelers indulged its fantasies as long as they didn’t have to live there. Perhaps the influence of Cuba’s exiles will be able, over time, to reseed the message of liberty on the island. But freedom starts by seeing clearly the human suffering that Fidel Castro wrought.
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