Article...Exposing Castro’s cruelty and journalistic hypocrisy...
An open letter to Elaine Canty from *Dr Aaron Oakley
newaus.com.au
During the 1930s, journalist Walter Duranty lied about Stalin’s horrors, for which he, and his paper the New York Times, received the Pulitzer prize. He sanitised, with his paper's full cooperation, Stalin’s reign of terror, ignoring the regime’s genocidal famines, turning a blind eye to its mass murders, its vast network of death camps, the massive and systematic torture and it crushing totalitarianism. Why? Because socialism, the dream, not the bitter reality, was more important to Duranty than journalistic integrity.
Today in Australia we have our own Water Durantys. In my opinion Elaine you are one of them. Reading your grovelling homage to Fidel Castro’s totalitarian regime (The case for Cuba, The Age, Jan 11), I can honestly state that I have never seen a greater debasement of journalistic standards. Since you did an excellent job of condemning yourself with your own words I shall quote you extensively:
“EVERYONE in Cuba, from President Fidel Castro to the earnest young man pedalling his rickshaw taxi, called it “The Kidnapping". I arrived in Cuba with my husband on the day Castro launched his propaganda campaign demanding the return to Cuba of six-year-old Elian Gonzales, plucked from the Florida Straits after his mother, stepfather and nine others had drowned attempting an illegal crossing to the United States.”
I noticed how quickly you fall into using terminology describing the Elian tragedy favourable to the Cuban regime, parroting Castro’s line that Elian’s mother didn’t rescue her son from a totalitarian state, she “kidnapped him”. It was almost breathtaking for you to approvingly describe their escape as “illegal”. In what way, Elaine? Why didn’t you speak plainly and state that it is forbidden for Cubans to leave their own country? That they are prisoners on their own island? Why didn’t you tell us that Castro’s tyranny has made scores of thousands of his subjects willing to risk destruction at the hands of his gun boats to escape. Why did you not condemn Castro for making criminals out of people who risk death to reach liberty? And why, Elaine, is a mother who sacrifices her life to rescue her child from tyranny a kidnapper? What are you, Elaine? A journalist, or one of Castro’s ideological lap dogs?
Your reference to the rickshaw driver was unconsciously ironic. In 1958 under Batista, Havana had motorcars instead of rickshaws. Not any more. After corrupt-ridden governments undermined Cuban ‘democracy’ and severely destabilised the economy, Batista Dissolved congress and immediately implemented reforms. By 1957 its per capita income was 90 per cent of Italy’s and greatly exceeded Japan’s, making Cuba one of Latin America’s richest countries. From 1950 to 1958 real wages rose by 10 to 30 per cent, and increasing numbers of workers genuine medical and accident insurance for the first time in their lives.
Castro took one of the richest countries in Latin America and turned it into a socialist slagheap where people have been reduced to using rickshaws while the communist elite travel in cars.
“Day after day, thousands of Cuban workers and schoolchildren were brought by bus to the square opposite the American Interests building in Havana, to demonstrate in front of the world's television cameras for the return of Elian to his father in Matanzas.
“OK, the demonstrations were shamelessly orchestrated by Castro for his own complex political agenda, but there was no doubting the sincerity of the Cuban people in their belief that Elian's proper place was indeed with his father, Juan Gonzales, by all accounts an attentive and loving dad."
How many of those “protestors” would suffer harassment if they did not participate in these state orchestrated “protests”, Elaine? And what 'qualities' do you use to judge their sincerity, since you are apparently oblivious of the terror these people live under? This “loving dad” is, like the rest of his fellow citizens, a prisoner in his own country. Mananzas has none of the rights as a father that he would enjoy in Australia, and like Mananzas, his son is a possession of the Cuban state, and will be brought up as the state sees fit. But in your role as apologist and mouthpiece for Cuba’s monstrous totalitarian regime, say that Elian will be better off in Cuba:
“Complicating what should have been a relatively straightforward custody case has been the unchallenged assumption in the United States that young Elian, or anyone else for that matter, would be infinitely better off growing up in Florida than in communist Cuba. Until quite recently, because Cuba is a poor country and the United States is rich and powerful, I would have made the same easy assumption. But what do we mean by "better off"?
The sentiments you expressed in support of Castro’s Cuba reveal that your commitment to Castro’s socialist dictatorship is far more important to you than the truth. If “better off” means living under a sadistic drug-running despot, with continuous shortages of all necessities and with no hope of relief in sight then I guess you must be right.
The following statement reveals that your hatred of Australia and the US has blinded you to the hideous truth about Castro’s Cuba:
“I spent much of December travelling in Havana and rural Cuba talking to students, academics, workers, athletes and politicians, including the Vice-President of the Cuban Cabinet. It has become clear to me that it is much better to be poor in Cuba than poor in the United States or Australia.”
Apparently it didn’t occur to you that you saw only what the government wanted you to see? Were you too stupid to do some research instead of swallowing the official line of Cuban poverty? It would have taken a minimum research effort to uncover that all Cubans (except, of course, the communist elite) suffer shortages of everything including such basics as food, soap, sanitary towels, bandages, detergents, clothing and so on. And what of Cuba’s homeless? No doubt they were swept out of the way so that you and your fellow dupes would not see them. Or perhaps that is something else to which you turned a blind eye, just as Lenin’s “useful idiots” turned a blind eye to Soviet tyranny, Mao’s mass killings, Hanoi’s barbarism, North Korea’s atrocities. Need I go on?
Let us do what you failed to do and expose the plight of some of Cuba’s homeless, the Havana divers, for example. These “divers” have nothing to do with being underwater. They are forced to “dive” into garbage bins to find sustenance, food and rags. Are you going to seriously argue that these pathetic victims of Castro’s socialist ‘experiment’ better off than Australia’s poor, Elaine? People like the divers quickly disappear into the left’s Orwellian memory hole, don’t they?
You said:
“For a start, the Cubans have excellent free health and dental care. In 1959, when Castro came to power, there were 6000 doctors in Cuba. The Museum of Revolution records that 3000 of them immediately left "in search of bourgeois democracy and liberty in the US”. Public health became a priority of the new regime.
“Now there are 21 medical schools in a country with a population of 11 million, and one doctor for every 100 families. As we cycled through villages, the doctor's house was easy to spot. It was always the only two-storey dwelling. The doctor lives upstairs and consults below.”
If I didn’t know better I’d swear you had black a sense of humour. Excellent health care, Elaine? Cuba’s health care is certainly free — it is also practically non-existent! Most medicines and equipment are perpetually in critically short supply, and people constantly die from preventable diseases. The personnel may have been trained, if you believe communist propaganda, but have no medicine and no equipment! (Of course, Castro and his communist aristocracy do not suffer from any of these inconveniences).
Dr. Hilda Molina, a world-renowned neurosurgeon and a former member of Castro’s phony parliament has been denied permission to travel abroad. Her crime: she denounced the regime for reserving the best of its medical facilities for dollar-paying foreigners. Now that’s what I call putting profit before people. Last September two Cuban doctors defected to the US, accusing Castro of supplying health care to tourists and the communist elite while the mass of Cubans go without basic medicines. As one of these doctors said: “You have to be a member of Cuba's communist hierarchy to get top health care services, including the best medicines.”
“In the Cuban education system, teachers are respected members of the community - and there are plenty of them, one for every 83 Cubans. Education is free and universal through to university. We called, unannounced, at several country schoolhouses where classes were in session. In a country where transport is a problem, there is a primary school for every community.”
Let us get one thing clear. Cuban children do not get so much education as they get Marxist indoctrination. They are taught to hate the USA, love the marvels of the revolution, and love comrade Castro. Yet they go home at night to experience cramped quarters and food shortages. Some dissident parents tell their kids “Everything that they taught you in school today is a lie”. Teachers as well classmates harass kids who ask “difficult questions” or drop out of the countless political activities at school. And Elian-aged children are taken from their parents to work on labour and indoctrination camps for months at a time. But I guess the Cuban government failed to show you these places. On the other hand, perhaps you think forced child labour is a jolly good thing in a socialist state. Tell me, Elaine, of what use are high literary rates if the government literally decides what you can read and what you cannot (and will arrest you if you if you defy it)?
Cubans parents have no choice about their children’s education. Private schooling is not forbidden but children are the property of the state by law — Castro’s law, that is. At least in Australia you have some say in how schools are run. Not so in Cuba. And if you dared question the regime’s wisdom in this matter, you would quickly find yourself in nasty little cell. Castro systematically violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including Article 26: “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” But you don’t want these facts to get in the way of your fairytale vision of Castro’s Marxist paradise, do you, Elaine?
“On one occasion, there were only four students sitting at ancient little desks, the colour of the scarves around their necks indicating what grade they were in. In the afternoon, another six students would take their place. There are obviously no economic rationalists in the Ministry of Education. Physical education and sport in the schools is compulsory for all students unless they have a medical certificate exempting them.”
You sneering contempt for “economic rationalism” reveals only serves to reveal your utter ignorance of economics. Do you not care that Marxism ruined the economy and impoverished all but the ruling elite? Or that the “free” and “universal” education and health care is a sham?
“And then there is personal safety. There are more criminals among the one million Cuban expatriates in Miami than there are in Cuba, thanks to Castro's release of prisoners in 1980, many of whom headed for America. Cuba is the safest country in Latin America.”
Safest country in Latin America? What about the criminals and thugs that are the Cuban government? What about those “disappeared”, tortured and murdered by the government? Swallowed up by your Orwellian memory hole? From 1959 through to the late 90s, some 100,000 Cubans experienced life in prison camps. Between 15,000 to 17,000 were murdered. According to Amnesty international’s Cuba 2000 report.
“Dissidents, who included journalists, political opponents and human rights defenders, suffered severe harassment during the year. Several hundred people remained imprisoned for political offences, some of whom were recognized by AI as prisoners of conscience. Some trials of prisoners of conscience took place which did not conform to international standards. New legislation was introduced to combat dissent and widen the use of the death penalty. At least 13 people were executed and at least nine people remained under sentence of death. There were some reports of ill-treatment. Prisoners were sometimes subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
I dare say these people don’t share your impression of safety, Elaine. I wonder what Armando Valladares, who spent 22 years in Castro's Gulag would have to say about being safe in Cuba. Here is part of his story, as published in Against All Hope:
“I remember Estebita and Piris dying in blackout cells, the victims of biological experimentation; Diosdado Aquit, Chino Tan, Eddy Molina, and so many others murdered in the forced-labor fields, quarries, and camps. A legion of specters, naked, crippled, hobbling and crawling through my mind, and the hundreds of men wounded and mutilated in the horrifying searches . . . Eduardo Capote's fingers chopped off by a machete. Concentration camps, tortures, women beaten, soldiers pushing prisoners' heads into a lake of shit, the beatings of Eloy and Izaguirre. Martín Pérez with his testicles destroyed by bullets. Robertico weeping for his mother.
“And in the midst of that apocalyptic vision of the most dreadful and horrifying moments of my life, in the midst of the grey, ashy dust and the orgy of beatings and blood, prisoners beaten to the ground, a man emerged, the skeletal figure of a man wasted by hunger, with white hair, blazing blue eyes, and a heart overflowing with love, raising his arms to the invisible heaven and pleading for mercy for his executioners.”
“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.' And a burst of machine-gun fire ripping open his breast.”
Oh well. At least you felt safe, Elaine. But then, you engaged in grovelling, obsequious servitude to the regime instead of questioning it, didn’t you? All in all, you claims about the safety of Cuba are hollow when you consider that hundreds of thousands of Cubans have been willing to risk death to escape. Obviously they felt that –despite the indoctrination and brainwashing programmes of the Cuban government- that life in the USA would be better.
And what of Castro’s move of putting dangerous hardened criminals — many of them mentally ill — on boats and sent them on their way? Can you imagine such a policy being adopted in Australia? I don’t think even you would advocate such a policy.
“But there are millions of disadvantaged Americans, some of Them third-generation welfare recipients, who, if they knew what is supplied to all citizens of communist Cuba, might wonder who really is living in the Land of the Free.”
The only way you could possibly have reached this conclusion, Elaine, is by burying your head in the sand and swallowing the official Cuban government propaganda hook, line and sinker and then completely shutting down your investigative and critical faculties. Are you really stupid enough to believe the Cuban government? Is the fairytale Cuba of your imagination more important to you than telling the truth about Cuba? Do you think that the shortages of everything in Cuba (except state sponsored terror) is a figment of the imagination? Or maybe you’ve been smoking something illegal when you wrote this obnoxious drivel.
Allow me to point out that poor Americans and Australians are infinitely better off than the great mass of terrorised Cuban. It is possible through hard work for poor Americans and Australians to escape poverty — and many do. This is not an option for Cubans. A state in which people are not free to work where they choose, not free to question or speak out against a government that attempts but fails dismally to deliver goods and services to the people is not my idea of a paradise for the poor. Moreover, poor in the US means rich and free compared with the vast mass of mankind, including Cubans.
I think you should put your money where your mouth is, Elaine, and do liberty a favour by emigrating to Cuba. I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to do so. Living in Australia and sneering at economic rationalism while simultaneously gobbling up its fruits (thanks to your job at the taxpayer funded ABC) is more in line with what you are about. Here are some destinations you might consider for your next Cuban sojourn:
Prison Kilo 5.5 is 3.5 miles from the Pinar del Rio freeway. Common criminals and political prisoners are kept here. Cells intended for two house seven or eight people. Most of them sleep on the floor. The disciplinary cells are called tostadoras (toasters), because of the terrible heat. You will be pleased to know that there are separate quarters for women.
The G-2 Centre in Santiago de Cuba, possesses cells with extreme temperatures (cold and hot). As part of the regime of psychological torture, prisoners are awakened two or three times per hour, and inmates are kept naked and totally cut off from the outside world. This sort of treatment can continue for several months. Some of the inmates are left with permanent psychological damage by the treatment.
El Manbu is Cuba largest concentration camp. Disgusting living conditions and food are provided to the inmates, and escapees are hunted with German shepherd dogs. In the ‘80s, 3000 people were imprisoned there.
In the Potosi camp, more than 3,000 women were imprisoned for juvenile delinquency, prostitution and political crimes.
You might want to be careful though, Elaine. Female inmates in Cuban prisons are vulnerable to acts of sadism. Women in Guanajay Prison were forced to undress in full view of the guards and subjected to beatings. This is how Dr Martha Frayde described conditions in the Nuevo Amanecer prison:
“My cell was six meters by five. There were twenty-two of us sleeping there on bunk beds of two or three layers. Sometimes there were as many as forty-two of us. Sanitation was dreadful. The basins we had to wash in were filthy, and it became impossible for us to wash at all. We were often short of water. It became impossible to empty the toilets, which filled up and overflowed. A layer of excrement formed, invading our cells. Like an irresistible wave it reached the corridor, then flowed down the stairs and into the garden. The political prisoners made such a fuss that the prison authorities brought a water truck. We managed to sweep away some of the excrement with the pressure hoses, but there still wasn’t enough water, and we had to live with this vile layer for another few days.”
So Elaine, do I need to relate to you any more of the horrors of this unfortunate country where you claim the poor fare better than in Australia and America? I do hope you reconsider your views on Cuba the next time you feel the need toady to Castro’s egomania.
Note: Castro is well-known for his vindictive persecution of homosexuals. As Canty is a leftwing journalist and an employee of the homosexual-friendly ABC, I marvel at her sheer nerve in ignoring the homophobic Castro’s attempts to stamp out homosexuals. Another case of leftwing double standards? |
