At 89, Castro’s lies are still alive

Last week brutal autocrat, human rights abuser and beloved revolutionary hero to morons everywhere, Fidel Castro, celebrated his eighty ninth birthday. Fidel of course celebrated in the way he loves best, by jailing some ninety pro-democracy protestors; mostly from the dissident group ‘The Ladies in White’, earlier in the week. That’s one dissident for each birth year with a bonus one thrown in, presumably for a lucky extra beating.  

Joining the Castro birthday party was Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who took time away from the ongoing economic catastrophe unfolding in his home country, to pay tribute to the man whose socialist ideology inspired it. Presumably it was also an excellent opportunity for Maduro to get his hands on some toilet paper. 

Castro for his part celebrated his birthday the old fashioned way, by playing that great game of lies: 'Pin All of Cuba’s Problems on the Cuban Embargo'. Writing a babbling nonsensical rant in a local newspaper, Castro stated that the United States owed “numerous millions of dollars” to Cuba as a result of the embargo. As to exactly why this is so, Fidel didn’t say. But hey, one of the perks of being a tyrannical ruler is that you don’t need to explain or justify your nonsensical ramblings. 

For decades now, Fidel and his brother Raul, have blamed the poor, miserable and decaying state that is Cuba on the embargo. The Castro’s corrupt autocratic regime fuelled by failed socialist polices, of course, have had nothing to do with it. According to socialist illogic, the embargo imposed by those American capitalist pigs have prevented Cuba from becoming a full socialist paradise. Currently, Cuba’s mass unemployment, decrepit living conditions and hordes of people living in desperation means it's just half of a socialist paradise.  

For decades, CARICOM leaders, 'Caribbean intellectuals' and morons at UWI have mindlessly repeated this lie about the Cuban embargo, portraying it as a truth that needn’t be questioned. But debunking this lie is remarkably easy to do. First of all the United States only imposed this embargo when Castro and his cronies seized and nationalised American companies in Cuba in the 1960’s. The estimated worth of these seizures is six billion dollars. None of which has ever been repaid. 

Secondly, the glaring truth about the Cuban embargo is that is has been an abysmal failure. It has never prevented Cuba from trading and doing business with whosoever it pleases. Cuba has always traded with Europe, Japan and Latin America. Despite the embargo, Cuba has had access to international credit, borrowing billions from countries such as Argentina, Spain, France and Japan. Even before recent moves by the United States to end the embargo, the Unites States has been for decades Cuba’s fifth largest trading partner. 

Interestingly the embargo has also never prevented Fidel Castro from amassing a personal fortune estimated by Forbes magazine to be nine hundred million dollars. The reason that Cuba is still impoverished has nothing to do with the embargo and everything to do with the fact that’s it’s a kleptocracy run by gangsters. 

What has been truly fascinating to watch is how the cheerleaders, sympathisers and slobbering sycophants of the brutal dictatorship in Havana have reacted to President Obama’s move to 'normalise' the United States’ relationship with Cuba. To these idiots the United States have capitulated to the will of the Castros. 

No mention has been made of Cuba’s concessions to the Americans in this new ‘normalisation’. Like them promising to release 53 political prisoners (there are hundreds more still locked up by the way), allowing the international Red Cross and UN human rights observers back on the island and removing some restrictions on internet censorship. To Castro’s loyal idiots, human rights abuses, political freedom and the freedom of expression of Cubans has never been of any concern. 

The lie about the Cuban embargo isn’t the only lie that Castro’s apologists love to spread though. There is also the lie about the great Cuban educational system. Where schools without pencils and paper, teaching students that the Apollo moon landing was faked is part of the official curriculum and is supposedly a model for the rest of the Caribbean. 

And of course there is the great lie about the Cuban health care system. Where hospitals without basic medicines, anesthesia, or bed sheets are supposedly the envy of the world, and where doctors are indentured servants, to be rented out to other countries. 

At eighty-nine Fidel Castro surely doesn’t have many more years left. He might take some consolation that through mindless ideologues across the region; his lifetime of lies and propaganda looks set to live on.