Re: Forsey and Castro

Sean M. Maloney | Dec 07, 2016

Helen Forsey’s gushing tribute to El Commandante and praise for Trudeau II’s supposed “guts” is emblematic of the naïveté that results in mass graves-or ignores them when they are being dug. Since she values truth, let’s talk about truth. While Ms. Forsey was ‘finding herself’ with CUSO in Latin America, Castro was complicit in genocidal activities in Africa as part of the same ‘Revolution’ she supported then (and clearly supports now). As documented by American journalist Robert  D. Kaplan and also by French Marxist Stephane Courtois, Cuban involvement in Ethiopia during the 1970s and 1980s contributed to the Ogaden War and subsequent destabilization and famine in Somalia which later prompted UN intervention in 1992-93. Similarly, over 15 000 Cuban troops and their supporting aircraft were part of the effort to suppress the legitimate non-Communist national aspirations of the people of Eritrea, resulting in a drawn out bloody war involving dramatic human rights abuses. Most importantly, however, Fidel Castro’s representatives directly supported an Ethiopian regime that used the withholding of food from uncooperative populations and employed Cuban logistical personnel in forced resettlement operations. These two counterinsurgency weapons, deployed against a helpless civilian population, significantly contributed to the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s. Remember that one? It was all done to John Lennon vocals: “So This is Christmas…and What Have You Done?” These events cannot be disconnected from the concurrent destabilization and later famine in the Sudan.  Cuban troop levels in Africa during this period were around 53 000, or roughly the size of today’s Canadian Armed Forces. There were hundreds of Cuban police training personnel to ensure that the police forces of Ethiopia and Angola used the whole panoply of torture techniques against ‘counter-revolutionary elements.’ There were also numerous Cuban political and economic advisors: the extent of their contribution to the horrible state of African economies has yet to be measured. Scholar Alex Van Der Waal estimates that that 400 000 people died in the Ethiopian famine, with hundreds of thousands more displaced into neighboring Sudan, thus precipitating further destabilization, violence, and famine. These conditions led to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization establishing itself in Sudan and Somalia in the 1990s. And we haven’t even got to discussing Angola yet.

Still think Castro is merely “controversial and legendary”?