Castro attends Pope funeral Mass

[Menydh]

Castro attends Pope funeral Mass

BBC News
April 5, 2005

President Fidel Castro has made a rare visit to the Catholic cathedral in Cuba's capital Havana to attend a funeral Mass for Pope John Paul II.

He praised the Pontiff as a "tireless fighter for friendship among peoples" and a friend of the poor.

He said the Pope would be remembered by Cubans for speaking out against the US trade embargo of the island.

Cuba, which was officially atheist until 1992, has begun three days of national mourning.

'Unforgettable'

Wearing a dark suit instead of his usual military uniform, Mr Castro was accompanied by members of Cuba's ruling Communist Party.

It was one of his first visits to the cathedral in decades, said Church officials.

Thousands of mourners filled the cathedral and the adjoining square to follow the service led by Cuba's most senior prelate, Cardinal Jaime Ortega.

Correspondents say Cuba's communist-led government surprised some by encouraging the population to reflect on the life of John Paul II.

"Rest in peace, tireless fighter for friendship among peoples, enemy of war and friend of the poor," Mr Castro wrote in the condolences book at the Vatican's mission in Havana.

"Your departure pains us, unforgettable friend, and we fervently wish your example is lasting," he wrote.

Mr Castro said John Paul would be remembered for taking a stand against the US blockade of Cuba during a visit in 1998.

"This earned you the gratitude and the affection of all Cubans forever," he said.

Cuba's National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon will head his country's delegation to the Papal funeral at the Vatican on Friday.



[source]

[Rusalka]

You gotta love the old man, especially when he's so anti-USA.

[Menydh]

See Rusalka, many don't consider Castro a real Communist. He was a burgeoise colonial student of Spanish descent. Like many they saw how the US interference in Cuba since 1898, when it achieved its independence from Spain, had corrupted the country. With Batista Cuba became the brothel of the US.

Being one of the last posessions of Spain in The Americas, most Cubans of Spanish descent resented the corruption and degeneration that the yankees brought with them. As if they could bring anything else..

I know one top Cuban Health official, friend of my father, who has visited us on a few occasions. A very well educated perfect Spanish gentleman and a man of principles. Such a person cannot be a Communist nor an American. But, what chance did they have at the time?

They did what any decent person would have done, throwing the American filth out of Cuba. And their only hope to survive against the US was to get as much help as they could, the USSR.

I remember once that Anglo-American Jewess of Madeleine Albright making an easy joke about Castro saying that things were not done with cojones (for those who don't know, "bollocks"). Whatever.. the truth is that Castro's cojones have kept a giant well away from such a small island as Cuba, and what the Americans have done about it is adding more infamy to their name (as if more was possible) by blockading a small defenseless island and forcing starvation and lack of medicines on the population.

Well, fuck them. I may not get to see it, but I am hopeful that with all the evil and hatred that they have spread around the entire world, the US will one day pay dearly for all of their evilness and infamy.

[Bianca]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

He praised the Pontiff as a "tireless fighter for friendship among peoples" and a friend of the poor.

Socialist hypocrisy. Never liked the old man, never will.

[AlmaLusíada]

It has often been said in right-wing circles that Castro is part Jewish. Then again, the same was also said about Francisco Franco, Franklin D. Roosevelt and others. The official story is that his father, a Galician named D. Angel who owned a sugar plantation in Eastern Cuba, married one of his former maids who became Castro´s mother. The Jewish conspiracy claims that his mother was of Sephardic extraction from Turkey.

[Menydh]

Nonesense. Fidel Castro's father was a soldier who arrived to Cuba to fight against the insurrection of the 'Mambises', who had rebelled against Spain [on behalf of the US I may add]. After the war he returned to Spain, but the Spanish-American War and the lost of the last colonies left as a consequence a much harsh economical state. So he returned back to the now 'Neo-Colonial' Republic of Cuba where he worked hard until he could buy some land. He worked the land until he turned it into a respectable estate.

Fidel Castro was born into a rich [post-]colonial family. His mother was a Cuban of Canarian and Andalusian descent.

The accusation of him being Jew, or of Jewish descent, is ludicrous, as it is that against General Franco. If you notice, pointing some historical figure as a Jew usually has two possible sources:

1. by Jews to give undeserved credits to themselves on account of historical figures of relevance;
2. by American WNs to discredit historical figures based on the most oustanding ignorance, which is what characterizes the WN/WWPW 'movement'.

Seems as something that all those who share the beliefs of being a chosen people (Jews on the one hand, and WNs via their Neo-Judaic origins in the New World Protestants on the other) have in common: lying.

Bianca, with such background Castro could hardly be a Socialist. He was most surely anti-American and the corruption and degradation that the U.S. neo-colonialism brought in the island turned him to join the revolution. After the war, he could only stand a chance against the US by allying to another power. And so he turned to the USSR.

I would be very wary of any [mis-]information coming from both the anti-castrists (US backed) and the castrist official propaganda.

He must be rejected for many things, but keeping a giant like the US at bay from such a small and powerless island has its merits.

[Bianca]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Bianca, with such background Castro could hardly be a Socialist. He was most surely anti-American and the corruption and degradation that the U.S. neo-colonialism brought in the island turned him to join the revolution. After the war, he could only stand a chance against the US by allying to another power. And so he turned to the USSR.

I would be very wary of any [mis-]information coming from both the anti-castrists (US backed) and the castrist official propaganda.

He must be rejected for many things, but keeping a giant like the US at bay from such a small and powerless island has its merits.

He is a self-declared communist and his politics do not show otherwise. I am definitely NOT criticising his anti-US stance, but he was undoubtedly wrong when he severed all ties with the US, something which is inconceivable as that would mean a political suicide, or let me say, an economic suicide. Let us admit that it is the US which makes the world go round. I am a conservative and I do not take example from him, as a liberal person of lose morals, after decades and decades of repressing the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings under his COMMUNIST regime, coming up with all that fanfare on John Paul II would make me label him as a hypocrite yes! Is he repenting now? I mean look at the state of Cuba today!

[Menydh]

I'm afraid that there is an oversimplification of the facts. The state of Cuba today is pitiful, yes, but not just because there is Castro in power. It is because there is Castro and because the US exist. The US has tried to suffocate Castro's regime for long years through strangling the Cuban people. And all because they want Cuba to be, again, the prostibule, the brothel of the US that it was before Castro. Look at The Philippines. Philippino women have lived a sub-culture where they were raised to be the cheap whores of the US troops and tourists there.

And, didn't Bush --the leader of a people who are accountable for the most horrendous crimes against humand dignity-- attended John Paul II's funeral, and further went to portray himself as a friend of John Paul II?

Fair. The US have not repressed the Catholic Church. Instead they have brought their corrupted system of values to all Catholic countries and communities. Be sure that the damage here is far superior and evil that the damage done by Cuba.


As for the rest, the long years of extremely harsh blockades and isolation have turned Castro into some sort of self-styled Communists, sure. But please, do tell me which other chances he stood. And I mean real chances, not petty, temporal way-outs.

By the way, Castro was "wrong when he severed all ties with the US"? Do you honestly believe that the US would have settled for anything less than having him out and the island turned once again into their private brothel?

[Bianca]

I honestly do not believe Cuba can be anything else but a brothel. What is worse now is that since Castro has severed all ties with the US, it made Cuba not only and American brothel but also a European and a Canadian one. They have to get the money from somewhere, since they banished the Americans from their territory. Cuba has no one homogeneous people, it is a melting pot of different people who automatically have diverging interests, in fact, declaring an Argentinian as national hero who died for a cause other than the Cuban one is the ultimate example of what I am saying. So an island of the sort situated a few miles away off the coast of Miami is bound to be an American brothel. Malta passed through that phase, my grandma recalls Strada Stretta in La Valletta, which was referred to by the British as "the gut" - but the Maltese resisted that mainly because we are one common Latin people with a common heritage, who had one goal, that of National Independence and National Unity.

[Menydh]

Bianca, before going any further let me tell you that I, for one, am anti-Communist, and that is something that I can attest through years of political and personal involvement.

However, if you ask me what can be worse for Cuba than its current situation, I must in all honesty answer that the army of hungry vultures waiting from Miami to disembark and to feast with the spoils of the Cuban people.

And while it is true that Cubans are not an homogenous people, the long presence of Spain in the Island left a print which I can assure you from first hand experience that it is still alive in many Cubans of Spanish descent, and which neither the US first nor Castro later have managed to completely destroy. You tell me about the resistance of the Maltese. What do you think that Cubans have been doing all these long years?

You probably haven't seen the images of fervent Cubans attending the mass since Castro allowed some freedom of cult, have you? I suggest that you do before thinking that, after Castro, the next best thing for Cuba will be America.

No matter what they are, they have suffered much and now they do not deserve to be sodomized by America. No people on earth does.

[Rusalka]

I personally have great respect for Cuba's stand against the USA. One can be for or against it, but before the revolution, one has to own that Cuba was a brothel (then) completely owned by drug lords, foreign money, American mafia, etc. I think Castro have had a very significant importance in our times, to show that a country can stand up against a major world power. The USSR has been gone for more than a decade, Castro is still standing. I think it should give the peoples of other lands an idea: one does not have to take all that shit.

[Menydh]

Thank you, Ikbal Rusalka to help make my point better understood. Your promotion may come sooner than expected.

Also say that yes, Fidel has long gone nuts and that shows in his speeches and public appearances. But Bianca, you might understand it better if the entire European continent turned evil and depraved, and did to Malta the same that the US has done to Cuba. As we say in Spanish, you would hold yourself to a burning nail.

I am at this moment translating a text for the History forum about the Spanish-American War in Cuba and The Philippines. It is striking reading that..

"The United States wanted to control Cuba, among other reasons, for the strategical position of the Island in front of the Gulf of Mexico, and they were resolved to purchase it or to fight for it. But they were going to justify their military intervention, with much hypocrisy, on humanitarian grounds: they wanted to avoid sufferings to the Cuban people."

The truth today in Cuba is that people starve and go through much hardships. And all because the Americans want Castro out and themselves in. And yet, they don't lose their sense of humour when they try to offer themselves to a tourist to show around the town, and the tourist rejects them, and then they offer to sell them some smuggled cigar from the factories, and the tourist rejects it, and finally the Cuban tells the tourist: how about a picture of me when I was fat? (the joke here is that it is them, the Cuban people, who are suffering the embargo imposed by America).

Not to mention that as an excuse to declare war on Spain, they went as far as to sinking their own battleship in the harbour of Havana, the Maine, killing with the explosion 266 of their own crewmen only to blame Spain for it.

Soon there will be an act to honour the Spanish Heroes of Cuba and The Philippines. Although I feel no sympathies for the American dregs, I feel it too sad that not even willing would the Americans be able to honour those 266 Americans because they were assasinated by their own people, there is no honour in hypocrisy, and those 266 men will never be honoured because they belonged to a people without honour.

[etoile noir]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

However, if you ask me what can be worse for Cuba than its current situation, I must in all honesty answer that the army of hungry vultures waiting from Miami to disembark and to feast with the spoils of the Cuban people.

agree completely. been there and seen it with my own eyes.

You probably haven't seen the images of fervent Cubans attending the mass since Castro allowed some freedom of cult, have you? I suggest that you do before thinking that, after Castro, the next best thing for Cuba will be America.

ditto above. so many people have the misconception that cuba is simply about hand rolled cigars.

cuba, and cubans are known for castro and cigars, but there is so much more to that land and its people.

and whether castro is communist or not, he at least stands up to america. and americans happily go there to illegally buy cigars to take back home!

i dont know whether Bush smokes cigars, but if he does you can be 100% sure he smokes cuban ones.

[Ederico]

I do believe Fidel Castro is somewhat a hypocrite in relation to his person, the Pope, and Roman Catholicism. I cannot be put in a position to trust a person that proclaims himself a Socialist and a Communist irrelevant of the fact whether he is a true one or not. Even the mere fact of using such ideologies as a superficial means to an end seems to be lacking integrity in my opinion. A case of opportunism, whether self-interested opportunism or opportunism for Cuba is beyond my level of knowledge on the question.

Standing up against America is commendable, I'm certainly not a friend of America's effect on the world, but if the proposed theory is correct one must remember that to do so he sided with the Soviet Union. The question would now be: Is it worthwile to side with the Soviet Union so as to avoid America? The worse solution would be subjective, in both cases I see a loser.

I am not that informed on Castro's Cuba, but Castro sounds somewhat like an opportunist in the whole story. One wonders whether that is a Leftist trait in particular, or one that is characteristic to every man of influence. If he truly was not a Socialist/Communist, then I truly have to conclude that he was an opportunist.