Cuba's New and Improved Tyrant

By Humberto Fontova
FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/27/2008

With Raul Castro's ascent to power in Havana, the news media have dutifully presented him as a potential Gorbachev. The Chicago Tribune headline blares, "Cubans Hope Raul Castro Brings Reform." True, the Associated Press reporter acknowledges, Raul has been a hardliner by his brother Fidel's side for five decades; however, he also introduced small farmers markets into the Cuban hinterlands! The AP gushes Raul "encouraged Cubans to open a fearless and critical debate, as long as they remember that the final decisions will be made by the island's Communist leaders." However, the story also mentions in passing that the younger generation set to replace Raul is so fervently Communist that they call themselves, "Young Talibans."

One would think after the media's sorry track record with the Castros, they would not resort to lionizing Fidel's murderous brother.

In 1956, when Fidel Castro's motley band of 82 guerrillas were training in Mexico for their "invasion" and "liberation" of Cuba from Batista, a trainee named Calixto Morales, suffering from a recent injury, was forced to briefly hobble away from one particularly strenuous training session. He was trussed up, dragged in front of what a guerrilla leader called a "court martial," and quickly sentenced to death by firing squad.

Fortunately the "maximum" guerrilla commander showed up in time and ordered his brother to rescind his hasty death sentence. Morales, after all, had the proper "revolutionary" attitude and had merely suffered an unfortunate accident.

Raul Castro had done the hasty sentencing. His big brother Fidel had ordered the pardon.