"As Castro Turns 83, Cuba Caught Between Past, Future," announces an August 13 headline for the CBSNews.com World Watch blog.
The 10-paragraph entry by Havana-based news producer Portia Siegelbaum amounted to an electronic birthday card for the Communist dictator.
No Castro critics, domestic or foreign, were cited in the story, although Siegelbaum made sure to note how a "U.S.-based religious group, Pastors for Peace" got to hang out on Wednesday with the aging despot.
Yet Siegelbaum failed to note the leftist political bent of Pastors for Peace, describing it merely as "an anti-embargo organization." The Web site for Pastors for Peace, a project of the Interreligious Foundation for -- wait for it -- Community Organization (IFCO), insists that its purpose is:
Story Continues Below Ad ↓...to advance the struggles of oppressed people for justice and self-determination. For almost 40 years, IFCO has assisted the poor and disenfranchised in developing and sustaining community organizations to fight human and civil rights injustices. This work includes education about the realities of the poor in the US and the third world.
Of course, Cubans under the Castro regime have been perpetually disenfranchised from free and fair elections, not to mention human rights and civil freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion, and bearing of arms.
But don't look to Siegelbaum to question whether the Pastors for Peace are putting blind faith in wolves [the brothers Castro] in sheep's clothing:
Several members of the group, including Harlem Rev. Lucius Walker met with Castro on August 1 in Havana. In the waist-up photo (seen above), Castro, wearing a blue baseball cap and a white windbreaker with blue trim, is standing with his arms around his American visitors, wearing a grin and appearing more robust than in earlier photos.
Of course, Fidel is in retirement from the dictating biz. That's up to younger brother Raul now. As Siegelbaum noted in closing:
Clearly Castro is depending on his brother Raul to salvage the situation even if it means restructuring the economy and the two seem to be on the same page as to what their end goals are. Raul Castro told parliament at the beginning of this month that he had not been elected president to restore capitalism in Cuba nor to hand over the revolution.
"I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism, not destroy it," he said.
No doubt that is what Fidel Castro wishes for as he blows out the candles on his birthday cake.
Photo by IFCO/Pastors for Peace, via CBSNews.com.
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
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Comments Policy
These liberals should read
August 13, 2009 - 17:03 ET by Radical1979These liberals should read "Waiting for Snow in Havana". It's not an anti-Castro book. It's the story of a boy who grew up in Cuba and was sent to the U.S. after Castro took over. He wasn't a kindly old gentlemen then. He was a sadistic bastard who destroyed a country and many families. Just because he's old doesn't mean he's reformed.
Fidel Castro is murdering
August 13, 2009 - 19:51 ET by jdhawkFidel Castro is murdering thug bastard who ought to be put brought to room temperature as soon as possilbe. The United States ought to have brought charges against him at the World Court for crimes against humanity.
Meanwhile, the Cubans are in such dire straights because of this dirt bag, that there are running out of toilet paper. Here is the story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6001005/Cuba-runs-out-of-lavatory-paper.html
Jdhawk, don't you know that
August 13, 2009 - 22:50 ET by Carl KolchakJdhawk, don't you know that Cubans get free medical insurance? Therefore the concentration camps and political oppression that goes on in Cuba really doesn't matter to the human rights activists who wear Che shirts. Don't you know little school kids in Cuba have to recite praises to Che each morning? If little school kids love Che, then you know Che and Castro aren't thugs.
I wonder if Fred Phelps is
August 13, 2009 - 22:40 ET by Carl KolchakI wonder if Fred Phelps is with the Pastors for Peace, as it appears he is a supporter of Castro. From the link below.
"Phelps has also repeatedly championed Fidel Castro for Castro's stance against homosexuality; in 1998 Harper's magazine published a letter Phelps sent to Castro in which he praised Castro and lambasted the US. In 2004, when a pro-homosexual Cuban refugee announced plans to travel to Cuba, Phelps sent another letter to Castro "warning" him of the man's plans and requesting travel visas for a group of WBC congregants so that they could follow the refugee around Havana with signs bearing anti-US and anti-homosexual slogans"
http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/Fred_Phelps#Affiliations_with_Saddam_Hussein_and_Fidel_Castro
I wonder if Phelps has an autographed Che shirt. Wouldn't that be something if Phelps wears Che shirts like all the other Castro supporters?
Peace-mongers in love with
August 14, 2009 - 10:58 ET by mattmPeace-mongers in love with a guy that pointed enough nuclear weaponry at us to wipe out this country, oppressed millions, supported wars in Africa and Central America, and lives like a king while his people live like paupers.
Why does the left love people like this? Because they are like this.
His birthday is a day of mourning to anyone who cares about freedom.