If I said that chaos prevails in the United States it would be considered an overstatement; it would be said that that country is a democracy where there is justice, respect for human rights and a division of powers based on the principles of Montesquieu and the Philadelphia Declaration.

Of course, I’m not referring to Cheney’s spirited defense of the right to torture or to Bush’s remarks in Toronto while hundreds of protesters claimed for his impeachment as a war criminal.

But you would be amazed to look at the bulletin with press dispatches. Several news agencies have reported that a judge granted an over 1 billion dollar compensation in damages on the part of the government to a Cuban American involved in the capture and death of revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, on account of the suicide of the man’s father in 1959.

“Judge Peter Adrien from the Miami Dade Circuit said on Friday that he wanted to send a message to the Cuban people.

“The magistrate’s ruling responded to a lawsuit filed by Gustavo Villoldo who blamed Guevara, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and others for his father’s suicide in Cuba in 1959. The family escaped to the United States and subsequently Villoldo took part in the Bay of Pigs invasion and in Guevara’s capture in Bolivia.

“Villoldo’s father took his life with an overdose of barbiturates on February 1959, that is, shortly after Fidel Castro, Guevara and other guerrillas took power in Cuba. Villoldo senior was a prominent Cuban businessman. He was also an American citizen, and the owner of a major General Motors concession, a 13,000 hectare farm (33,000 acres) and other properties.

“Villoldo junior later joined the U.S. Armed Forces and the CIA. A few years down the road, he was with the group that captured Che in Bolivia in 1967. Subsequently, Guevara was executed and buried in the South American nation.”

Another press dispatch reads that: “The compensation is the largest granted so far in lawsuits brought against the Cuban government after a $253 million one accorded to the children of Cuban Rafael del Pino Siero who died in jail after he separated from the Castro regime.” It doesn’t say a word about the traitor sentenced to prison for selling Granma’s secrets for 35,000 dollars --the equivalent of almost a million dollars now— risking the lives of the 82 members of the expedition.     

“A compensation of 187 million dollars was also paid to the families of three pilots. These were the members of the exile group ‘Brothers to the Rescue’ whose aircrafts were shot down in 1996 by Cuban planes in international waters.”  They were real pirates who used military aircraft bought after the Vietnam War to break into our air space and fly at low altitude over the capital of the country.

Just three days ago it was reported that, under pressure from Dan Burton and other anti-Cuban lawmakers, the Mayor of New York had ordered a statue of Che --by German artist Christian Jankowski-- to be taken away from Central Park. This was on display as part of a traveling exhibition called “Live Sculptures” which included the figure of the man whose assassination was dictated by the government of that country. Such is justice in the United States!


Fidel Castro Ruz
May 30, 2009
4:15 p.m.