Plan B Forum

In Miami, celebrations break out after Fidel Castro's death

MIAMI — Carolina Nunez Plasencia was sound asleep early Saturday morning when she got the call from her daughter telling her the news: Fidel Castro was dead.

"Is it real?" Plasencia asked. "Is it confirmed?"

Once Plasencia turned on the TV and realized that it was not another rumor, she raced to Little Havana to join the thousands of other Cuban-Americans who took to the streets to celebrate the day they had all waited so long for.

In every corner of this Cuban-American city, people waved Cuban flags, honked their horns, banged their pots and pans and hugged each other late into the night. Police departments blocked off roads to allow people to have their moment.

There were Cubans who left the island shortly after Castro took power in 1959, expecting that his rule would be short-lived and they'd be back home soon. There were Cubans who have poured out of the island in the decades since, fleeing political persecution and economic ruin.

"It's the first step on the road to change," said Valencia, 59, an architect and former U.S. Army pilot who left Cuba when he was 13. "The change could be fast, it could be slow, but this is the start."

Luis Iznaga, 77, watched quietly as jubilant people bounced past him. The Havana native who left the island in 1972 said he struggled with the idea of celebrating any man's death.

But Iznaga said Castro deserved a different kind of treatment. He listed off his friends who were forced to flee the communist island. He talked about other friends who couldn't get out, forced to stay and survive there. He spoke of friends who left their parents behind, never to see them again.

"This is different because Castro affected so many people," Iznaga said. "There's so much misery and sorrow that he created. Pain accumulates. It must be released."

Joe Guy wrote:I was watching CNN's series, 'The 70s' when they came in with "Breaking News,"

Langley, VA – A decades-long plot to get Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to pass away peacefully in his sleep has come to fruition, according to a statement from the CIA.

“We are proud to announce that our 53 years of patience have finally paid off,” said CIA spokesperson Ryan Trimarchi. “It seems silly in retrospect, but when President Kennedy first approved the plan there were many detractors who said it would fail.”

First hatched in 1963, so-called “Operation Sit-Back-And-Let-It-Happen” was one of many CIA plots intended to end the life of the Communist revolutionary and the only one to succeed. The mission’s completion was formally declared after Cuban State television announced Castro’s death at the age of 90.

“It’s just a shame that JFK didn’t live to see it,” Trimarchi added. “Or Johnson. Or Nixon. Ditto Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. They all would’ve been real proud.”

The CIA’s announcement has been met with praise by Cuban-Americans, including policy advocate Mauricio Diaz.

“I give the CIA a lot of credit for being willing to play the long game in bringing down this oppressive dictator,” said the lobbyist and director of the Cuban Liberty PAC. “Until now no one in Cuba realized that ‘failures’ like the Bay of Pigs and all those assassination attempts were just a great cover for this master plan.”

“Now all we need to do is wait 5 or 6 years for Raul to have an aneurysm and we can finally bring Democracy to the Cuban people,” added Diaz.

The top secret plot is considered the longest continuous operation in CIA history. When the Cuban President outlived the operation’s initial target date of 2003, George W. Bush approved an additional 15 years of funding to send agents to hang around Havana. When Castro’s health led him to abdicate power in 2008, the CIA focused their efforts on deploying SR-71 Blackbirds daily to take pictures and confirm whether he was “still moving”.

“Some felt the program was wasteful, but there’s no denying it didn’t work,” said Trimarchi.

“And now, thanks to these efforts, Fidel Castro is no longer a threat to our democracy,” he concluded.

liberty wrote:... Who can understand the ways of God... I have no proof, but I will always believe that Castro had something to do the assassination of President Kennedy. I doubt the world will ever know now; I can‘t see it having been documented by the Cuban Government and most of that generation is dead now.

Fidel Castro, who has died aged 90, was a "huge figure in our lives", Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said.



Mr Corbyn praised the former Cuban president's revolutionary "heroism", his presence on the world stage and Cuba's health and education systems.

Mr Corbyn, a long-time supporter of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign - which campaigns against the blockade on, and foreign intervention in, Cuba - described Mr Castro as a "huge figure of modern history, national independence and 20th Century socialism".

He said: "From building a world-class health and education system, to Cuba's record of international solidarity abroad, Castro's achievements were many.

"For all his flaws, Castro's support for Angola played a crucial role in bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa and he will be remembered both as an internationalist and a champion of social justice."

He acknowledged "there were problems and there are problems of excesses by all regimes" but "we have to look at the thing in its totality" and Mr Castro had "seen off a lot of US presidents".

Former Labour London mayor Ken Livingstone called Mr Castro an "absolute giant" of the 20th Century.

Former Labour MP George Galloway tweeted a picture of himself with Mr Castro, writing: "You were the greatest man I ever met Comandante Fidel. You were the man of the century."

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Fidel Castro had been a "historic, if controversial figure".

Mr Johnson expressed the UK's condolences to the government and people of Cuba, and said Mr Castro's death marked "the end of an era for Cuba and the start of a new one for Cuba's people".

He added: "The UK will continue to work with the government of Cuba on a wide range of foreign policy priorities, including on human rights."

liberty wrote:The Cuba Archive which documents deaths and disappearances resulting from Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution has documented 3,615 firing squad executions conducted by the Cuban state since Castro took over on January 1, 1959.

wesw wrote:don t leave it on me to rebut all the dishonest bullshit.

someone else should grow a set and call Bargain Bill on his crap.