Solidarity media statement
Trade union Solidarity said today that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa should remove his ideological spectacles and evaluate Fidel Castro appropriately: a murderous, intolerant dictator who restricted freedom.
This follows after Ramaphosa said yesterday during a memorial service for Castro held in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, that South Africa needed a leader such as Fidel Castro who would place the interests of his country before his own interests. He described the Cuban leader as one of the greatest revolutionaries of our time.
According to Dr Eugene Brink, senior political researcher at the Solidarity Research Institute, South Africa already has enough Castros who are basically only serving their own interests under the guise of socialism. Castro placed an ideology – and with that his own interests – before his country and thousands of people paid for that with their lives, Brink said.
Castro was indeed principled and actually applied the wrong principles with a rock solid attitude and an iron fist. He managed to distribute poverty equally among the population, thereby driving talented people out of the country, Brink said.
Also read: Cosatu backing Ramaphosa; battle for presidential succession warms up
Brink furthermore argued that democratic values and principles such the right of association, the right to organise and protest, freedom of speech and labour freedom have been severely violated since Castro came to power and that gross human rights violations are still prevalent today. This is totally out of keeping with South Africa’s political culture, Brink said.
Ramaphosa has tunnel vision of Castro’s relative successes in the health and education sectors and he is not seeing the displacement, repression and murders that took place under Castro’s rule. Between 1959 and the late 1990s, approximately 100 000 Cubans were imprisoned for political reasons. Violence was used against everyone who dared to criticise.
Isn’t that the type of thing against which the ANC fought?
What is the use of receiving free medical care if you have to wait in queues for days on end, and waste your working time – which is supposed to pay for the medical care? It is also of no use to train engineers and medical practitioners just so that they are compelled to immigrate if they want to make something of their lives and careers.
