Raul Castro meets with Iranian president Ayatollah Seyed Ebrahim Raisi in June 2023
The Center for a Free Cuba issued a statement condemning Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7th. This major terrorist attack against Israel began on Saturday, October 7th at 6:30am (local time) that resulted in at least 900 Israelis killed, nearly 2,400 wounded, and over a 100 civilian hostages taken, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The number of casualties continues to climb.
Yesterday, reports emerged that Israeli soldiers continued to battle Hamas terrorists in the streets of southern Israel, while Hezbollah terrorists launched operations against Israel in northern Israel, sparking worries of a larger clash.
The Center for a Free Cuba condemned this barbaric act of terrorism against the Israeli people, mourn and pray for the victims, and those taken hostage. CFC stands in solidarity with Israel, and calls on the international community to take stronger actions against these terrorists.
This major terrorist strike on Israel occurred half a century after the beginning of the Yom Kipppur war in which Cuba was involved, that killed 2,656 Israelis and wounded 9,000.
October 6th of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, a war of aggression by Syria and Egypt, with expeditionary forces from eight Muslim states. Three thousand Cuban troops supported Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War inflicting heavy casualties on Israeli forces. Cuban tank crews fought with Syrian troops. 180 Cubans were killed and 250 were injured.
Cuban official media spokespersons, Leticia Martinez, head of communications for Miguel Diaz-Canel, and “El Necio” posted statements celebrating a “Free Palestine” and justifying the terrorist attacks over their social media. He retweeted the People’s Forum’s genocidal call for the end of the Israeli State with the slogan: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!.”
In the midst of this barbarism and evil, Castro Regime spokesman "El Necio" cites Che Guevara visit to Gaza as inflection point that turned Palestine into a world cause, and posts photos of the Argentine guerilla with Middle East leaders during a visit there at the start of the Cuban dictatorship. He lies about Israel calling it a "Zionist colonization" without recognizing Jewish people as indigenous to this their ancestral lands. He claims that Guevara is the inspiration for the "resistance" i.e. terrorist barbarism taking place today, and concludes his rant with "Che Lives."
The only truth of what El Necio argues in his social media post is the role that Che Guevara plays in inspiring barbarism and cruelty against the innocent.
Guevara's claim to celebrity was the role he played alongside Fidel and Raul Castro in installing a totalitarian communist dictatorship using violent means, including terrorism, in Cuba then attempting to spread this model using violent means to Africa and Latin America. His efforts failed.
Castro executed thousands of Cubans, locked up hundreds of thousands of Cubans, built a police state, with the assistance of the KGB and the East German Stasi, and imposed revolutionary terror to consolidate power. Credible and conservative estimates of the Castro regime’s death toll against Cuban nationals ran from 35,000 to 141,000, with a median of 73,000. In the beginning executions were televised in Cuba to terrorize the populace.
The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations yesterday issued a statement blaming the “impunity of Israel” calling the Jewish state an occupying power and the United States historically complicit.
Dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Dictator Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua , President and former M-19 terrorist Gustavo Petro in Colombia refused to condemn the terrorist attacks on Israel, while calling for the end of the "illegal occupation of Palestine."
Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad revealed to the BBC that several countries had assisted Hamas, not just Iran.
The Cuban dictatorship has waged war against Israel. Havana continues to support and engage with both Hamas and Hezbollah. This includes allowing Hezbollah to set up a base in Cuba. This sponsorship, and harboring terrorists by Havana must not be ignored.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara captured in Bolivia in October 1967.
October 9, 2023 marks the 56th death anniversary of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and communist networks were aggressively attempting to defend his legacy. Joseph Bouchard and Garion Frankel in The Federalist, earlier today challenged this narrative asking, "Can Leftists Really Not Find A Better ‘Icon’ Than Che Guevara?". They reveal Guevara's take on nuclear Armageddon. "When the Soviets removed the missiles, Che “urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear strike, now, against US cities.” His targets? Los Angeles, New York, or Washington. He spent the rest of his life claiming he would have pressed the nuclear button if he had been in charge. Truly a man of peace."
BabaluBlog observed the Argentine's death anniversary in the entry "On This Date in History: Murderous psychopath Che Guevara’s reign of terror comes to an end" with an image of Guevara made up of his victims. So as some on the left mourn "the death of a murderous psychopath known as the “Butcher of La Cabaña,” we mourn and honor the hundreds of innocent victims the Marxist coward killed during his bloody reign of terror."
Below is the Center for a Free Cuba's October 7th statement:
Center for a Free Cuba, October 8, 2023
Statement condemning terrorist attacks against Israel
The Center for a Free Cuba strongly condemns the terrorist attacks carried out against Israel by Hamas and calls on all democratic nations to unite in opposing this latest outrage by the terrorist international.
Not only Hamas, but Iran’s Islamic Republic, and Cuba's Communist dictatorship are allies in terrorism against Israel. They have a long history of conducting terrorist acts against the Jewish state.
The Castro regime has been an open enemy of Israel since Havana severed diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973.
October 6th of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, a war of aggression by Syria and Egypt, with expeditionary forces from eight Muslim states. Three thousand Cuban troops supported Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War inflicting heavy casualties on Israeli forces. Cuban tank crews fought with Syrian troops. 180 Cubans were killed and 250 were injured.
This hostility towards Israel did not end when Cubans left Syria in 1975, but the Havana regime continued to aid and train terrorists in the Middle East, and allowed Hezbollah to set up a base in Cuba.
Today, Cuba directly and through Venezuela continues to provide intelligence to Hamas as it has for decades.
In February of 2023 a Hamas delegation visited the Cuban Ambassador in Lebanon. On June 15, 2023 Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met with Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana. Raisi had visited Cuban client states Venezuela and Nicaragua prior to arriving in Cuba.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards fund Hamas to attack Israel, and at the same time is sending drones to Putin to kill Ukrainians.
The Cuban communist dictatorship provides intelligence to Hamas to attack Israel, and at the same time is sending soldiers to Putin to kill Ukrainians.
Terrorists are united, but democracies are not. The European Union refuses to place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards or the Communist Party of Cuba on the list of terrorist organizations. Moreover, the EU is one of the main aid providers and trade partners of the Cuban communist dictatorship. This should be a wake up call for democratic nations to unite and take stronger actions against this terrorist axis.
The Federalist, October 9, 2023
Can Leftists Really Not Find A Better ‘Icon’ Than Che Guevara?
By Joseph Bouchard and Garion Frankel
October 9, 2023
Oct. 9 will mark 56 years since the death of Cuban guerrilla Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Apparently, it does not matter that he helped the Castros create an authoritarian regime that now supports the oppression of hundreds of millions of people around the world, because clueless college students at Syracuse University in New York still elevate Che as a representative of liberation and “free” thinking.
But this ignorant reverence is much more pervasive than a mural on display at a particular university — Che remains a popular and venerated figure despite his rightfully infamous reputation. College students all over the Americas (often from wealthy families) use his image to LARP as communist revolutionaries. They have worn their Che T-shirts proudly, fancying themselves the saviors of the poor and oppressed, despite the fact that most of these T-shirts are made in sweatshops in Central America.
Graffiti commemorating Che is plastered all over towns and universities in Latin America, Mexico, Colombia, and Bolivia, where Che was killed by Bolivian special forces with the help of the United States. Prominent left-wing newspapers and outlets like Jacobin, Current Affairs, and Democracy Now! have written and produced fawning fluff pieces about Che’s legacy in the developing world. In 2004, NPR commemorated the 30th anniversary of Che’s death by reporting on his legacy as an “icon.”
We have even experienced this idol-like treatment of Che Guevara firsthand in our own college and university settings. In one Spanish-language class at the University of British Columbia, people read Che’s books and articles with great fervor, some even citing him as a role model. Someone showed up to class in full Che cosplay once, touting his famous quote, “Better to die standing than to live on your knees.” In another Spanish-language class at the ESEADE Instituto Universitario in Buenos Aires, a large portrait of Che welcomed all students to class every morning.
The anniversary of Che’s death will likely usher in another wave of left-wing puff pieces depicting him as noble or misunderstood. Or, at the very least, crowds of students and self-proclaimed intellectuals celebrating his legacy. The truth, however, is that Che Guevara was a ruthless tyrant. His true legacy consists of the millions who have suffered under his regime.
The Cuban government Guevara helped cultivate harvested political dissidents’ blood before their executions, tortured and murdered civilian noncombatants, and confiscated properties and businesses for the sake of “agrarian reform.”
Che also helped execute and set up firing squads for members of the political opposition in Cuba, including those with ties to the previous government. Cuban writer David Mitrani, one of Che’s friends from youth, said Che became an “effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machine” when in power. He did indeed become a “killing machine.” When in charge of the Sierra Maestra prison, Che also said, “At the Sierra Maestra, we executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty.”
In the early 1960s, Che urged the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. While Soviet strategists and some in the Castro regime saw this as a defensive mechanism to slow U.S. weapon development and prevent a potential U.S. nuclear first strike, Che saw this as an opportunity to start a nuclear war with the United States.
When the Soviets removed the missiles, Che “urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear strike, now, against US cities.” His targets? Los Angeles, New York, or Washington. He spent the rest of his life claiming he would have pressed the nuclear button if he had been in charge. Truly a man of peace.
Moreover, Che was no democrat, but an authoritarian ideologue. When his army seized power in Havana, he declared, “All right, it is dictatorship.” Che viciously armed and trained violent groups around the world, hoping to turn them into far-left dictatorships. These countries included Bolivia, Angola, Congo, and, of course, Cuba.
Che also helped inspire terrorist groups with a leftist bent, including the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Southern Mexico, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, all of which have added to their respective countries’ instability, conflict, and polarization. The Irish government even has a Che stamp in commemoration of his death.
Successful government revolutionaries, including Mao Zedong in China, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Kim Il Sung in North Korea, and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, commended Che. The respect was mutual, as Che quoted Mao in his writings and praised Kim Il Sung in interviews and speeches. Their regimes killed millions and built systems of oppression that last to this day.
Some revolutionaries who fought alongside Che wanted a European-style social-democratic system in Cuba, but Che dismissed them outright. Maybe he would’ve preferred to put them in state-sponsored labor camps, which were reminiscent of Soviet gulags.
Che Guevara was not a hero, a freedom fighter, or a tortured soul who “did what he had to do” when faced with back-breaking poverty or American imperialism. He was evil; it’s as simple as that. No self-respecting freeman should wear a T-shirt with Che’s likeness plastered all over it.
Nothing he did is worth celebrating, and no anniversary related to him is worth honoring.
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/09/can-leftists-really-not-find-a-better-icon-than-che-guevara/
Babalu Blog, October 9, 2023
On This Date in History: Murderous psychopath Che Guevara’s reign of terror comes to an end
On October 9, 1967, Che Guevara’s reign of terror finally came to an end in Bolivia. When it came down to it, the left’s “heroic communist revolutionary” went down as a whimpering coward begging for his life. There was no hail of bullets in a gallant fight against imperialist enemies, but a yellow-bellied coward who surrendered without firing a single shot from his fully-loaded rifle and pleaded with his captors to spare his life.
So as the left mourns the death of a murderous psychopath known as the “Butcher of La Cabaña,” we mourn and honor the hundreds of innocent victims the Marxist coward killed during his bloody reign of terror.
Read more of the truth of this racist, homophobic, and murderous coward at Notes from the Cuban Exile Community.