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Caveat on Nelson Mandela
Townhall.com ^ | December 7, 2013 | Humberto Fontova

Posted on 12/07/2013 6:58:37 AM PST by Kaslin

A Martian visiting earth this week, coasting TV channels and perusing papers, would have to conclude that among the items that most interest this planet’s news bureaus is the plight of former political prisoners, especially black ones.

Well, many Cubans (many of them black) suffered longer and more horrible incarceration in Castro’s KGB-designed dungeons than Nelson Mandela spent in South Africa’s (relatively) comfortable prisons, which were open to inspection by the Red Cross. Castro has never allowed a Red Cross delegation anywhere near his real prisons. Now let’s see if you recognize some of the Cuban ex-prisoners and torture-victims:

Mario Chanes (30 years), Ignacio Cuesta Valle, (29 years) Antonio López Muñoz, (28 years) in Dasio Hernández Peña (28 years) Dr. Alberto Fibla (28 years) Pastor Macurán (28 years) Roberto Martin Perez (28 years) Roberto Perdomo (28 years) Teodoro González (28 years.) Jose L.Pujals (27 years) Miguel A. Alvarez Cardentey (27 years.) Eusebio Penalver (28 years.)

No? None of these names ring a bell? And yet their suffering took place only 90 miles from U.S. shores in a locale absolutely lousy with international press bureaus and their intrepid “investigative reporters.” From CNN to NBC, from Reuters to the AP, from ABC to NPR to CBS, Castro welcomes all of these to “embed” and “report” from his fiefdom.

This fiefdom, by the way, is responsible for the jailing and torture of the most political prisoners (many black) per-capita of any regime in the modern history of the Western hemisphere, more in fact than Stalin’s at the height of the Great Terror. But the Martian would only learn that it provides free and fabulous healthcare and is subject to a “cruel” and “archaic” embargo by a superpower.

Here are some choice Mandela-isms:

"Che Guevara is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom."

"The cause of Communism is the greatest cause in the history of mankind!"

"There's one place where (Fidel Castro’s) Cuba stands out head and shoulders above the rest – that is in its love for human rights and liberty!"

Here are a few items the Martian would probably never learn regarding Nelson Mandela or the Stalinist regime he adored:

South Africa's apartheid regime was no model of liberty. But even its most violent enemies enjoyed a bona fide day in court under a judge who was not beholden to a dictator for his job (or his life.) When Nelson Mandela was convicted of "193 counts of terrorism committed between 1961 and 1963, including the preparation, manufacture and use of explosives, including 210,000 hand grenades, 48,000 anti-personnel mines, 1,500 time devices, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate," his trial had observers from around the free world. "The trial has been properly conducted," wrote Anthony Sampson, correspondent for the liberal London Observer. "The judge, Mr Justice Quartus de Wet, has been scrupulously fair." Sampson admitted this though his own sympathies veered strongly towards Mandela. (Indeed, Sampson went on to write Nelson Mandela's authorized biography.)

In sharp contrast, when Ruby Hart Phillips, the Havana correspondent for the flamingly Castrophile New York Times, attended a mass-trial of accused Castro-regime enemies, she gaped in horror. "The defense attorney made absolutely no defense, instead he apologized to the court for defending the prisoners," she wrote in February 1959. "The whole procedure was sickening." The defendants were all murdered by firing squad the following dawn.

In 1961 a Castro regime prosecutor named Idelfonso Canales explained Cuba's new system to a stupefied "defendant," named Rivero Caro who was himself a practicing lawyer in pre-Castro Cuba. "Forget your lawyer mentality," laughed Canales. "What you say doesn't matter. What proof you provide doesn't matter, even what the prosecuting attorney says doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what the G-2 (military police) says!"

A reminder:

According to Anti-Apartheid activists a grand total of 3,000 political prisoners passed through South Africa’s Robben Island prison in roughly 30 years under the Apartheid regime, (all after trials similar to the one described above by Anthony Sampson.) Usually about a thousand were held. These were out of a South African population of 40 million. Here's what Mandela's "jail cell" looked like towards the end of his sentence.

"N*gger!" taunted my jailers between tortures. “recalled Castro’s prisoner Eusebio Penalver to this writer. “We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!" they laughed at me. “For months I was naked in a 6 x 4 foot cell That’s 4 feet high, so you couldn’t stand. But they never succeeded in branding me as common criminal, so I felt a great freedom inside myself. I refused to commit spiritual suicide,continued the late Mr Penalver.

According to the Human Rights group, Freedom House, a grand total of 500,000 political prisoners have passed through Castro’s various prisons and forced labor camps (many after trails like the one described by R.H Phillips above, others with none whatsoever.) At one time in 1961, some 300,000 Cubans were jailed for political offenses (in torture chambers and forced-labor camps designed by Stalin's disciples, not like Mandela's as seen above.) This was out of a Cuban population in 1960 of 6.4 million.

So who did the world embargo for "injustice?" and "human-rights abuses?" (Apartheid South Africa, of course) And who currently sits on the UN’s Human Rights Council? (Stalinist Cuba.)

In brief, none of the craziness Alice found after tumbling down that rabbit hole comes close to the craziness Cuba-watchers read and see almost daily.


TOPICS: Cuba; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: anc; castro; communism; communist; cuba; humanrights; mandela; nelsonmandela; nelsonmandella; southafrica
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1 posted on 12/07/2013 6:58:38 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Shades of Hitler incarcerated in Landsberg Jail.


2 posted on 12/07/2013 7:05:12 AM PST by Mr Ramsbotham (If you liked the website, you'll LOVE the healthcare!)
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To: Kaslin

burn in hell Mandela


3 posted on 12/07/2013 7:13:06 AM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: Kaslin

The 4th estate is more like a 5th column.


4 posted on 12/07/2013 7:15:51 AM PST by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: Kaslin
Situational ethics and moral relativism are usually the purview of the left, but it seems since the death of Mandela, there are plenty on the right, and here on FR either implying, or openly stating that apartheid wasn't all that bad because other regimes are worse.

Apartheid was evil. Period.

If hypothetically, the DNC, New Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, etc. somehow consolidated their political power and the black minority in the US became the ruling elite, and instituted the very same apartheid laws to be used against whites that were used against blacks in SA, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a FReeper who would say, "Well, these laws aren't all that bad. Things are a lot worse in Cuba."

5 posted on 12/07/2013 7:23:44 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: Don Corleone
amen!


6 posted on 12/07/2013 7:24:37 AM PST by MeshugeMikey ( Visit http://icantenroll.com/ In Glitch We Trust....;o})
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To: Joe 6-pack

Mandela was an imperfect hero. How many perfect heroes are there? What he did saved South Africa from becoming Zimbabwe. It may still get there, but that would be the work of his successors who did not learn the lessons that he did.


7 posted on 12/07/2013 7:29:51 AM PST by Daveinyork (IER)
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To: Daveinyork

Mandela was no saint to be sure, but nor was he the only party in SA with bloody hands.


8 posted on 12/07/2013 7:32:10 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: yldstrk

Truth is seldom popular, and therefore hard to find.


9 posted on 12/07/2013 7:36:11 AM PST by LucianOfSamasota (Tanstaafl - its not just for breakfast anymore...)
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To: Kaslin
Caveat on Nelson Mandela

It's funny how the lefties are allowed to continue to repeat lies about murderers, terrorists, rapists, etc. that they deem as their "heroes" (Bubba Klinton among them), so that the lies become pseduo truth.

The SAD thing is how many that profess to be conservative, not only allow them to get away with it, but perpetuate those lies (I saw a LOT of this on the anniversary of JFK's death!)

10 posted on 12/07/2013 7:38:08 AM PST by The Sons of Liberty (Who but a TYRANT shoves down another man's throat what he has exempted himself from?)
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To: Joe 6-pack

I’m not sure what your definition of a saint is. My religion doesn’t have them, but what hero was perfect? certainly not the founding fathers of the US, yet, look what they accomplished. In the end, Mandela defied his own nature. If his nature was to be a terrorist, it wasn’t terrorism that won the day, it was his appeal to the conscience of the civilized world, which was the same sort of appeal made by Martin Luther King.


11 posted on 12/07/2013 7:39:23 AM PST by Daveinyork (IER)
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To: Kaslin

According to Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the Weather Underground, the Columbia University professors and sympathizers who Bill Ayers hung around with planned to divide America up between Russia, China, Viet Nam, and Cuba once the revolution was completed.

Bill Ayers’ family is who helped foreign-born Obama through Harvard, according to what Mrs. Ayers told the mailman when she introduced him to Obama. The funding was supplied by the Saudi prince, according to Percy Sutton. Bill Ayers has visited the White House multiple times since it’s been occupied by the Obamas, which makes sense since Ayers and his wife babysat the Obama girls when they were little and hosted Obama’s political debut in Chicago.

That makes at least one VERY CLOSE political chum of Obama’s who PLANNED to hand part of the US over to Cuba, after placing resistors in re-education camps and then exterminating the anticipated 15 million or so people who wouldn’t accept their “re-education”.

What has happened in Cuba has been PLANNED to happen here, by Obama’s closest friends. And the IRS, NSA, FBI, EPA, and all the other alphabet agencies are well on their way to implementing Castro-style “intimidation” that with increased “flexibility” can easily become full-fledged Castro-style tyranny.

Americans need to wake up and realize that a communist-Islamist alliance has illegally put Obama into our White House, and the rise of our communist and Islamist enemies under Obama is no accident. He has always sided with tyrants both Islamist (see the rise of Muslim Brotherhood and sharia in Libya, Egypt, and his intended-but-thwarted plans in Syria...) and communist (see Venezuela and the Obama regime’s response to Hondurans stopping a communist coup).

IOW, what we see in the Islamist countries is what we can expect Obama to usher in here in America. And what we see in the communist countries is what we can expect Obama to usher in here in America. When we see these stories we are being given a warning of what is to come if we fail in the quest to preserve freedom, like Frodo’s glimpse in the reflecting waters with Galadriel in “The Lord of the Rings”

If we fail we WILL see the communist and Islamist Uruk-hai, trolls, and wargs take over this place. And they will do what Uruk-hai, trolls, and wargs always do. Open war is upon us whether we would risk it or not.


12 posted on 12/07/2013 7:40:10 AM PST by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)
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To: Joe 6-pack

I don’t know much about apartheid. How does it compare to Eric Holder’s DOJ?


13 posted on 12/07/2013 7:42:03 AM PST by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)
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To: butterdezillion
"I don’t know much about apartheid. How does it compare to Eric Holder’s DOJ?"

Holder would love to have some of the apartheid tools at his disposal. Here are a few examples:

Population Registration Act, 1950

Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 (I know the title of this act sounds very appealing, 'til you "pass it to find out what's in it.")

Terrorism Act, 1967

14 posted on 12/07/2013 7:49:36 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: Daveinyork
What he did saved South Africa from becoming Zimbabwe.

Heh. Try being a white landowner in South Africa and then tell me all about how wonderful and non-Zimbabwe-like it is (presuming you haven't been set on fire yet). It's the same thing in slow motion. The end of Arpartied is leading, as feared by the white minority at the time, directly to genocide. The pogrom is happening now, and it's a direct result of one Nelson Mandela.

I could go on about how Mandela himself was, but at the moment the world is in the "OMG, he walked among us!" swoon phase, and observations of his being an unrepentant terrorist will be lost on people. The fact that his wife Winnie was one of the most vicious murderers to walk the earth will be lost as well.

15 posted on 12/07/2013 7:52:16 AM PST by Cyber Liberty (H.L. Mencken: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.")
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To: Joe 6-pack

The NSA is spying on everything we do. The newly-revealed seal of the National Reconnaisance Agency boasts that “nothing is beyond our reach”. The satellite focused in on simply observing everything we do is larger than anything else we’ve got. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3099008/posts . Do you honestly believe that this regime isn’t using that information to classify Americans into who needs to be searched, audited, killed (drone strikes on Americans on US soil is considered by this regime to be fine), taxed, fined, put out of business, or denied healthcare? That’s what this regime has been up to for the past 6 years - putting into place in the alphabet agencies the ability to know everything about us and to punish us any way they desire, if we fall into the wrong “category”.

And Holder has said that he won’t prosecute “his people”. That’s the easiest way to openly declare that it’s open season on anybody who is not in the class of “his people”. Is anybody surprised that the knockout game is happening, or that feral “youths” have been forming “flash mobs” to rob businesses? Holder has said that blacks are not capable of committing racial or hate crimes; he’s not going to prosecute them. Some in the FBI reported to Stratfor (IRIC) shortly after the FBI caught 5 black Muslim converts trying to blow up someplace in the East (I’ve forgotten the details), that Holder had said the FBI had to stop investigating potential terrorist connections with black Muslim converts. Shortly after that the black Muslim convert killed the military recruiter in Arkansas, and Nidal Hasan was “inspired” to make his jihad attack as a result of seeing how the Arkansas shooting was handled.

I only looked at the first link you gave, so far, but the only major practical difference I see between the Population Registration Act of 1950 and what we’ve got in the US now under Eric Holder is that the US now doesn’t even pretend to be obeying its laws and yet allows the uninformed and media (redundant, I know) to pretend that laws matter to this regime.

Just to be clear, I am not trying to say that apartheid was fine. I’m trying to say it is NOT fine - when it was done in South Africa OR when done here by the lawless, tyrannical regime of the foreign enemy combatant who illegally occupies our White House. I’m not all that interested in figuring which is worse - apartheid, Cuba, or the current lawless regime in the US. They are ALL bad, bad, bad, and need to be opposed by freedom-loving people.


16 posted on 12/07/2013 8:09:02 AM PST by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)
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To: Kaslin

The naked truth is the whites of S. Africa are the only thing that keeps S.Africa separate from a typical black-run sub-Saharan, African bloody corruptocracy. It appears their numbers and their rights are rapidly diminishing. Then we’ll see what Mandela’s legacy will have done for S. Africa when the “evil” whites are all gone.


17 posted on 12/07/2013 8:09:39 AM PST by driftless2
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To: butterdezillion
"I’m not all that interested in figuring which is worse - apartheid, Cuba, or the current lawless regime in the US. They are ALL bad, bad, bad, and need to be opposed by freedom-loving people."

That was the whole point of my first post on this thread, re: moral relativism. Evil is evil.

18 posted on 12/07/2013 8:12:02 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: Joe 6-pack

Then I agree.

I think the author may have been trying to build on the world empathy with Mandela’s life experiences, to say that there are people suffering worse and longer right under our noses and the media (and our current regime) overlooks it. The hypocrisy is deafening.

And I also agree with that.

I believe the regime overlooks it because Obama’s puppet-masters have always intended to make America another Cuba or Iran, and the media folks overlook it because they are either communist-sympathizing lapdogs who self-censor or threatened into silence.


19 posted on 12/07/2013 8:18:12 AM PST by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)
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To: Joe 6-pack
Apartheid is of course an evil, and abolishing it is a good thing. I'm all for equality. But what we've got going on in most democracies around the world today isn't equality; it's favortism of minorities. It's becoming a situation of having the productive members of society providing for a population increasingly becoming even more demanding of favors, idle, violent, and purveyors of cultural and religious values that will destroy western civilization.

So yeah, Mandala had something to do with ending apartheid, I'll give him that. But before prison he was a terrorist thug who deserved to be in prison and after he seems to have set up a vision that will cause South Africa to deteriorate to its least common cultural and law denominator. JMHO

20 posted on 12/07/2013 8:18:23 AM PST by grania
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