Oh, there are so many folks in and outside of Latin America who would never dream of uttering those two names in the same sentence, nor in the same conversation: Castro and Pinochet. Both were controversial leaders, each made lasting impacts on their respective countries, each died in their nineties, each was a dictator, neither one was democratically elected, both had buckets and buckets of human blood dripping from their hands. Shouldn`t that be enough in common?
Oh, but Fidel was a socialist and Pinochet was a fascist. Fidel gave the Cuban people free universities and health care and took away their freedom; Augusto gave the Chilean people a robust free market economy and took away their freedom. Both men killed thousands of their own people while sending hundreds of thousands into global exile. They didn't much like people who didn't agree with them.
I have listened to some pretty absurd defences for both these dictators. One Chilean expat had the absolute crass gall to presume to tell me that the summary tortures and executions ordered by Pinochet were necessary to rescue the poor disabled Chilean economy. Even to the point of killing people who didn't agree with him? I asked. He replied that the economy had to be saved. This man was a professed Christian by the way and he didn't appear to be at all troubled about endorsing wholescale murder. I have clashed with similar fatuous idiots about Fidel and Che. Many had moved to this country as Chilean exiles. Under Allende they enjoyed the very freedoms that Castro had robbed his own people of. In Canada they could still enjoy the same freedoms, blissfully unaware of really how little in common the alleged Marxist governments of the two countries had with each other. Pinochet, like Castro, killed his enemies and oppressed his people. But to the Chilean exiles Castro and Allende were ideological twins. Salvador Allende never would have dreamed of implementing the repressive violence in Chile that Castro employed to keep the Cuban Revolution alive.
They had absolutely no idea. If they were told about the human rights crimes of Castro and Che they would reply about the human rights crimes of Pinochet and the right wing fascist regimes de jour throughout Latin America during the seventies and eighties and their support from the American government, military and CIA. They didn't exactly argue or debate the subject. They simply distracted and smoke screened the crimes of their heroes with the equally egregious crimes of their ideological enemies. No dialogue.
Canada's own little white Obama, Justin Trudeau, is now in international hot water for praising Fidel as a hero since his death last Friday without mentioning his many crimes. I would go so far as suggest that Castro was a war criminal and really should have faced justice in the Hague, as should have Pinochet with whom he is now likely roasting marshmallows in hell.
It doesn't matter whether it is revolutionary violence or reactionary violence, leftwing or rightwing. It is still violence and once the heroes of the resistance resort to shedding the blood of their enemies they have disgraced their cause and converted themselves and their followers into criminals. Unfortunately history, and our present time, and sadly, our future, are full of these fallen heroes, fallen not on the sword, neither the bullet or bomb, but on the murder they have inflicted on others, innocent or not, to advance their cause and enshrine their insatiable egos.
As for the death of Fidel Castro, these are my final words: he was ninety.
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