Castro: Socialism Will Survive in Cuba, as he celebrated Elian's 10th Birthday
President Fidel Castro insisted Friday that his socialist system will survive him, as he celebrated the 10th birthday of Elian Gonzalez - the shipwrecked boy who was the center of a fierce international custody battle.
Fidel Castro, Cuban President, left, helps Elian Gonzalez-the shipwrecked boy who was the center of a fierce international custody battle four years ago- center, blow out the candle on a cake, during a party to celebrate the 10th birthday of Elian in Cardenas, about 140 km at East of Havana on Friday December 5, 2003, in Matanzas, Cuba. The party was celebrated in the Elian's school. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera)
Thanks so much for the picture and post!!
Not even Castro defends Chávez***Revolutions are ugly affairs. You have to make them in the dark and by dint of the whip. What a shame that, in more than three years of government, only a few dozen covert murders were committed and 95 percent of the media remains in the hands of a bourgeoisie that kowtows to the United States. That's no way to do it.
In Cuba almost half a century ago, a few months before the nation's leaders joined the glorious socialist camp, they cranked up the firing squads, confiscated the media and jailed or exiled a good number of journalists. After that, life was a piece of cake.
Chávez defends himself as best he can from these charges of revolutionary incompetence, or ''pussyfooting,'' as Cuban Col. Lázaro Barredo -- a policeman who pretends to be a journalist -- likes to say.
Of course, Chávez would love to shoot at dawn 400 Venezuelan enemies of the people. How could anyone question his Leninist instincts? Didn't he leave some 500 lifeless bodies on the streets during his raid on Miraflores Palace in 1992? The problem is that he's impotent. He has no strength. His enemies do not fear him.
He also does not enjoy the trust of his own army. His political party, the Fifth Republic Movement, is a sack filled with scrawny cats. His legislators lack experience. Three quarters of the power structure devote themselves to plundering the public treasury.
Chávez would have loved to cancel the ''re-signing,'' but how could he do it with such a weak government? Nobody would have joined him in that adventure, not César Gaviria (head of the Organization of American States) or former President Jimmy Carter. In fact, not even President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who has indicated that the legalities must be observed. ***