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people seem unable to explain why he was bad.
I think it was probably our latest election that did the mangy old cur in. He died laughing that America chose Trump!...yes liberals, it's true. You won't have old FiFi to putz around with anymore because he's STILL DEAD!
Yet he who laughs last laughs best, and we are all laughing at you loons.I think it was probably our latest election that did the mangy old cur in. He died laughing that America chose Trump!...yes liberals, it's true. You won't have old FiFi to putz around with anymore because he's STILL DEAD!
Not everyone in the chamber took part. U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer described the honoring of “human rights abuser Fidel Castro” as “despicable” and said that his non-governmental organization “stayed seated.” In an official U.N. webcast, a member of the Israeli delegation, seated behind Venezuela’s representatives, can be seen walking out as Venezuelan ambassador Jorge Valero asked members to honor Castro. The United States is not currently a member of the HRC – it will return next year after a mandatory one-year break – but U.S. Ambassador Keith Harper tweeted that the HRC “should not be honoring gross and systematic #Humanrights violators with moments of silence.”
Spokesmen for the HRC Secretariat and for U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein did not respond by press time to queries about the appropriateness of the minute’s silence for the leader of a communist regime with a grim human rights record. “On the 25th of November,” Valero told the gathering, “late at night on Friday, we heard the news of the passing away of the historic leader of the Cuban revolution, the comandante and head leader of the revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz.”
Praising Castro’s “constant fight for the peoples of the third world,” the Venezuelan ambassador called him a leader of “international stature” whose “influence went beyond the borders of his country.” “My delegation would like respectfully to ask all delegations to, together, observe a minute’s silence in his honor.” The Venezuelan delegation then stood, followed by others across the chamber. After about half a minute of silence, Valero thanked the Human Rights Council, and delegates took their seats.
The outgoing HRC president, Choi Kyong-lim of South Korea, then gave the floor to a Cuban representative, who thanked Venezuela and the council for the gesture at a “time of deep pain for the Cuban people.” She spent several moments praising Castro, calling him “the father of the Cuban revolution,” “a paradigm of the fight for social justice” and “an inspiration for many dignified men and women who fought and still fight today to defend the principles of independence, sovereignty and equality.” The Cuban delegate added that that fight was also a fight for development, peace, “solidarity between human beings and between all nations of the world,” and a “fight to achieve a world without inequalities in which we can all enjoy all of our human rights.”
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Supporters insist that he was a good man, and no one could have done better under the circumstances. Who is right? Ironically a classic Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," provides the perfect idea to settle this debate. Just as George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, wishes he had never been born as a means of making things better, one can similarly wonder what if Fidel Castro had never lived.
Actually, we can do more than just wonder. We can look at a pair of countries, in a similar situation, with some similar characteristics, to see whether one leader made a difference, compared to another ruler. When Nelson Mandela passed away, I compared all of his great accomplishments to what happened in nearby Zimbabwe with their tyrant, Robert Mugabe. With such a comparison, one can see how valuable Mandela was to South Africa, and the world.
Was Fidel Castro a force for good, or against it? To answer this, I looked at another small Central American/Caribbean country where a social democratic revolution took place after World War II. I am comparing Castro's Cuba to Costa Rica, where a revolutionary regime emerged that applied some tenets of socialism while resisting the urges of authoritarianism.
Typically, geographers and political scientists rate islands as being more conducive for political and economic development. But that's not the case in this comparison. Cuba's GDP per capita is $5,382.82, ranking nearly 100th in the world for that category, according to NationMaster. It's a much better situation in Costa Rica, where the GDP per capita is $9.396.45, good enough for 63rd in the world, according to NationMaster.
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people seem unable to explain why he was bad.