Castro — a despot who enslaved an island

YOUR editorial on Castro was appalling (February 20). You say de Valera, Lemass, Lynch, Cosgrave, Haughey, FitzGerald, Reynolds and Bruton “all came and went, proposed policies, lost elections and changed their country for better or worse, and all the while Cuba’s leader of nearly half a century endured”.

Er, yes, they did. And Castro’s endurance is explained precisely because those who came and went had to win or lose elections. You know, those things that Castro sort of didn’t bother about.

You say “whether he is reviled as a despot or admired as the saviour of an impoverished and enslaved island it cannot be denied that he made history and really excellent copy”.

He was a despot who, in fact, impoverished and enslaved an island and he made excellent copy because the media fawns over dictators. Heard of Che? Another mass murderer who gets good press. You say his proudest achievements are Cuba’s “literacy levels and health system, and his country’s very survival”.

Well, he was financed by the USSR. No great achievement here. And his country would have survived regardless. And you express the hope that Cuba can continue its development “without recourse to the violence and suppression that undermined the idealism and legacy of one of the last century’s most iconic and colourful leaders”.

Unbelievable. I suppose Hitler could be described as idealistic, iconic and colourful, too.

Frankly, your editorial reads like it was written by a college student who thinks ‘revolutionaries’ like Castro and Che are cool.

James McGrath

Birchgrove

Hollyford

Co Tipperary