DUELING COLUMN: Bernie’s Comments On Castro Are Offensive To Cubans

Damielys Duarte/Staff Writer

Cuba’s dictatorship has always been a sore spot for politicians, especially those trying to cater to hispanic demographics. On Sunday, Feb. 23, Senator Bernie Sanders made some comments that may have cost him the latin vote after he naively defended certain programs introduced by the Castro Regime, to the horror of Cuban Americans across the nation.

In a “60 Minutes” interview, Sanders spoke with Anderson Cooper about multiple subjects of his Presidential campaign and defended some controversial comments he made about Cubans in the 1980’s, saying “[Fidel Castro] educated their kids, gave them health care, totally transformed the society, you know?

Harvard-trained economist and Vice President of the Cuba Archive Project Armando Lago has spent years studying the cost of the revolution and estimates that almost 78,000 innocent Cubans died trying to flee the authoritarian dictatorship. This is in addition to the 5,600 who died thanks to firing squads and 1,200 who were killed in “extrajudicial assassinations.”

And while Castro did implement universal education and healthcare, Cuban immigrants have testified that the system was not at all as shown on paper. 

Having grown up in an entirely Cuban household, I was constantly privy to the hardships my family endured in their motherland and the many reasons for their escape to America.

I remember morning breakfast talks with my parents who recounted their experience with Cuba’s educational system. How children were forced to attend boarding schools where they were distanced from their parents for 15 days at a time with only a weekend in between to travel home and back. They slept in large dormitories where many young men and women were sexually abused at night by fellow students and even staff. In the mornings the children had to farm the fields, learn military drills and learn to shoot rifles. In the afternoon they would trudge to class, tired from the morning’s work. My aunt still remembers the day she almost severed off her finger with a hatchet in order to be sent home and see her family.

And although students were highly literate, the communist indoctrination in the educational  system sorely misled and uneducated its populace. Entire chapters of history and nations were erased from textbooks and children had to swear fealty to the communist party in order to pass classes and even pick their collegiate careers.

The medical system, while free, is not sustainable under Cuba’s current economic status, as it relies on foreign countries to supply everything due to Castro bringing down all industrialized markets in the nation. The lack of government funding for the healthcare system continues to result in doctors and medical staff being sorely underpaid. As a result, many steal medicine from their jobs in order to make ends meet and the medical black market has flourished. 

Limited funding and internal fraud means the most basic medical procedures are oftentimes difficult to perform because of lack of resources, and hospital hygiene is an urban legend, with each needle, glove and surgical suit reused on multiple patients. 

So yes, society was reformed, but certainly not for the better. Many of the Cubans who fled in the night on stolen ships and airplanes to make a better life for themselves in America are deeply disturbed and offended by Sanders’ comments.

After all, how can he have so much input when at the end of the day he did not live the dictatorship he is approving of? He did not see all the strings attached to universal education and healthcare. For the Cuban people it meant political subjugation and loss of personal liberties. 

Hearing an American politician making light of the suffering of the millions of Cuban immigrants in our nation has justifiably resulted in severe backlash and will hopefully cut Sanders’ socialist run for the ballot.

Featured photo by Elvert Barnes on Flickr.

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