Fidel Castro’s Obama-Bashing Gets Response From White House
Fidel Castro didn’t see President Obama when he visited Cuba, but he said his piece.
In a blistering commentary following Obama’s historic visit, the former dictator let fly in an open letter riddled with sarcasm, basically telling the President of the United States not to let the door hit him on the way out.
Castro had been the leader of Cuba for decades, before deferring to his brother Raul in 2008. He has been ill and was not well enough to meet with Obama in person last week.
Huffington Post said that Fidel Castro was known for his “hours-long, all-encompassing speeches.” His letter was similarly loquacious.
“We do not need the empire to give us any presents.”
‘We don’t need the empire’: Fidel Castro blasts Barack Obama’s Cuba visit https://t.co/WH3UKWBVUu pic.twitter.com/u5Z1nrjVwS
— CBC News (@CBCNews) March 28, 2016
Fidel Castro, now 89-years-old, had witnessed a string of U.S. presidents, beginning his relationship with Richard Nixon in 1959.
Obama, he said, was born in 1961.
“In 1961, just one year and three months after the triumph of the Revolution, a mercenary force with armored artillery and infantry, backed by aircraft, trained and accompanied by U.S. warships and aircraft carriers, attacked our country by surprise. Nothing can justify that perfidious attack which cost our country hundreds of losses, including deaths and injuries.”
He proceeded to critique Obama’s speech line by line, giving particular attention to comments that he thought were shortchanging the native Cuban people.
“Native populations do not exist at all in the minds of Obama. Nor does he say that racial discrimination was swept away by the [Cuban] Revolution; that retirement and salary of all Cubans were enacted by this before Mr. Barack Obama was 10 years old.”
I’d love to hear your take on Castro’s letter to Obama: https://t.co/feqm15mkru
— Larry King (@kingsthings) March 28, 2016
He did manage to acknowledge some of Obama’s attributes, but it was in the form of a back-handed compliment.
“In a certain way, I hoped Obama’s behavior would be correct. His humble origin and natural intelligence were evident. Mandela was imprisoned for life and had become a giant in the struggle for human dignity. One day, a copy of a book narrating part of Mandela’s life reached my hands, and—surprise!—the prologue was by Barack Obama.”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest commented today about Castro’s thoughts, the Washington Times reported.
“The fact that the former president felt compelled to respond so forcefully to the president’s visit is an indication of the significant impact of President Obama’s visit to Cuba.”
Earnest brought up the ground-breaking, if awkward, press conference held by Obama during his Cuba visit, in which a visibly uncomfortable Raul Castro was interviewed by a group of American journalists.
“That’s the kind of thing that’s never happened before. And there’s no denying that creates some additional pressure on the Cuban government.”
An article in the Free Beacon said Earnest indicated that without Obama’s physical presence, the issue of human rights would have never come up.
“The kind of engagement that President Obama was able to pursue in the context of his visit is the kind of engagement that would not have been possible had he not made the trip. The president was able to go to Cuba and urge President Castro in person about the importance of human rights. The president was able to stand before a news conference of the assembled global media and make a forceful case for the Cuban government to protect universal human rights.”
In today’s New York Times, Jim Rutenberg described what that encounter was like.
“You could watch in real time as Mr. Castro came to terms with the idea that this was actually happening. He stammered and got himself into a muddle over how this whole news conference deal works, anyway.”
Considering the age of these dictators, and the embittered history, it isn’t surprising that there is some resistance to the evolution of foreign relations and human rights. But it appears the old guard is stepping down. Or, perhaps they are being dragged out, kicking and screaming.
Rutenberg said that during the conference with Raul Castro, President Obama smiled at the journalists and winked.
[Image via Michal812/Shutterstock]
