you either are beaten, you either are facing a firing squad, you re either facing 25 years in political prison for wanting freedom, or you re not. and so i think that it s important to kind of put it all in perspective. there are things to discuss. whether fidel castro was good for, i don t know, foreign revolutionary movements, certainly, what you d see, the farc in colombia would say that they were very benefited by fidel castro and his government. i think that you would see the tupac amaro group in peru who would say that they certainly received support. and there were a lot of people throughout the world who feel what fidel castro did vis-a-vis the united states is something they look up to. but whether he killed people or not, that s not a peeling back the onion. and by the way, no one said that that was a peeling back no, you did! you did! we are absolutely when you mention afro cubans, you don t have the right to not mention those other afro cubans who have given the
who are currently facing jail. you and i are in agreement. jose, give her we only have a little time here. you and i are in agreement. good. good. my mother left cuba. my relatives got on boats to flee cuba. all i m trying to do is explain to people who are trying to understand fidel castro as a hero to some people, to help them understand some of the contradictions. that is i am absolutely the biggest contradiction is that he promised elections within six months. that was his political posture. we are in agreement. we are in agreement. soledad, i want to ask you this. uninterrupted now, i want to give you a thought here. i think people would say, cuban people would say he was a nationalist. is that true? was he a cuban nationalist? i think he looked out for the interest of fidel castro and the castro brothers. i think ultimately, and my mother who s afro cuban would say, he destroyed her country, he brought terrible things to her country. i don t think he s a
castro left behind him a nation that does not in any public space mourn or even acknowledge the 5,600 cubans who is died in front of castro s firing squads or the 1,200 murdered in extra judicial assassinations or any of those who were jailed, tortured, or died escaping his regime. soon, i hope, the cubans will be given the freedom to understand their path, to commemorate their dead, to begin to undo the damage wrought by decades of silence. i m joined right now by jose diaz balart as well as soledad o brien, ceo of star fish media group. it s good to see you. i haven t seen you in a long time. you know, i grew up older than you two guys. i grew up during this thing. i never liked castro. we all liked him when he first came on the stage. we all rooted for him. he was going to overthrow the corrupt batista and then he
and former ambassador to the united nations, bill richards. soledad, part of your family fled cuba under castro s reign. what does it mean to you? for me, it was more what did it mean to my mom, who grew up under batista and when she was older, was under the castro regime. i think she was glad that he s dead, like many cubans. i mean, like really glad he was dead, but also understood the nuance in the difference of how many afro-cubans feel about fidel castro and what he brought to the island in addition to being horrific dictator, he also made some big social changes. and i think that she, like many people, sort of get caught up in this nuance in a discussion where many people think of fidel castro as very binary. he was evil or he did this. there s sort of both things to consider if you want to fully understand what he did in cuba and why some people still even as they dislike him, appreciate
the way afro cubans and angelo cubans are experiencing the death of fidel castro or are they united on him? they re united. he was a brutal dictator. i think adolph hitler is the only one who comes to mind where a man has single handedly destroyed a country. that s what fidel castro did. it doesn t matter he gave free healthcare and literacy to a population that was imprisoned. it s no accident that no one tries to go to cuba. everyone tries to leave cuba. young people, the number one desire for their future is to leave cuba. that s not much of a legacy for a totalitarian dictator. i thought justin trudeau s comments were at odds to what fidel castro has done to the people. he s not once allowed for