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Castro's only crime was to stay true to beliefs

Salim Lamrani is a French writer and journalist specialising in relations between Cuba and the US. He has published Double Morale. Cuba, l'Union européenne et les droits de l'homme (Paris, Editions Estrella, 2008).

Fidel Castro has left an indelible mark on Cuban history. In half a century he has transformed his country, which was under the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship and the US yoke, into an independent nation respected for its courage and its altruism.

Despite the economic sanctions to which it is subjected Cuba has freed itself from underdevelopment.

International organisations, from the UN to the World Bank, recognise that Cuba is alone in the Third World in obtaining a level of human development comparable to that of the most advanced countries. Since 1962 Cuba has also given care to poor people throughout the world. Cuba is often stigmatised by Washington over human rights. Unlike the rest of the continent there has been no case of assassination or torture reported in Cuba since 1959. You need only look at Amnesty International reports to realise that neither the US nor the EU have moral authority to give lessons to Cubans.

Cuban soldiers also helped to eliminate apartheid. As Nelson Mandela said: “What other country can claim to have been as altruistic as Cuba in its relations with Africa?”

Castro's only crime of lèse-majesté is to have refused to have bowed to the powerful, to have stayed true to his principles and believe that another, less cruel world is possible.

Catro's cruelty was masked by a veil of revolution

Ramon Saul Sanchez, 52, was born in Cuba and sent to the US at the age of 10 after Castro seized power. He took part in anti-Castro sabotage missions. He is now the head of Movimiento Democracia, a Miami-based exile group that campaigns for Cuban democracy.

In Fidel Castro, we are talking about a man who has ruled the country for 50 years without anybody on the face of the Earth being able to run in democratic elections against him. One man, self-appointed, deciding the fate of 11 million people for five decades.

Twenty per cent of Cuba’s population resides in exile today because of his policies and 250,000 people have been sent to prison for their political views. Cuba is the country with the largest number of journalists incarcerated for independent reporting. It has carried out at least 40,000 political executions in 50 years. And who knows how many thousands have perished in the Straits of Florida trying to reach freedom?

This has been a very, very cruel regime. But Castro has been able to mask that cruelty under the veil of social revolution that has destroyed the country and created a caste of people who live in a privileged minority while the vast majority are marginalised. Ordinary people struggle for food, they are denied basic human rights. Tourists in Cuba see nice hotels and beautiful beaches that are reserved just for them, and for members of the Government.

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