Fidel Castro has yet to
face justice
By Bonnie Anderson, Posted
on Sun, Dec. 03, 2006 in The
Miami Herald.
It is deeply wrenching to witness a week
of lavish celebrations honoring Fidel Castro's
birth when most likely every day, somewhere
in the world, anguished families quietly
mourn the death of a loved one at the hands
of this heartless, evil man.
That Fidel, himself, may be dying is not
much comfort to me. I believe in justice
and while he will be judged by God when
he dies, he has yet to be judged on Earth
for his crimes against humanity.
My father, Howard F. Anderson, was only
one of 20,000 people tortured and executed
by Fidel Castro. Before my Dad's execution
by firing squad, he had most of his blood
drained from his body to be used for transfusions
for the revolutionary troops. Other political
prisoners who watched the execution from
their cells told me years later that my
father refused a blindfold. And he whistled
as the bullets tore into his body. One of
the few memories I have, since I was only
5 years old at the time, was that my Dad
whistled when he was angry.
With the ''ready, aim, fire'' order, I,
too, was wounded forever more. This ruthless
dictator robbed me of a lifetime with my
father, a lifetime of fatherly advice, a
lifetime of memories.
So no, I don't want to see him die this
way, of natural causes, or at this time.
I have always hoped the world would recognize
him for what he is and that Fidel Castro
would be judged, convicted and sentenced
for his crimes against humanity in an international
court of law.
A death from old age is far, far too lenient
a punishment for a man who has killed so
many people, destroyed the lives of literally
millions. As a journalist, I refrain from
generalities. But I do believe there are
few Cubans on the island and even fewer
Cuban exiles who have not had a family member
either executed or imprisoned by this megalomaniac.
What I fail to understand is why there
seems to be little national compassion for
the pain that Cuban exiles have experienced.
Americans show compassion for cancer survivors,
for DUI and rape victims, for people suffering
from depression, physical and mental abuse.
We show compassion for famine victims in
Africa; as an NBC news correspondent, I
broke stories about genocide in Ethiopia,
and the world -- but especially the United
States -- responded with millions of dollars
of money, but most important, with compassion.
Organizations have sprung up to defend
and champion the victims of all these issues,
and rightly so. There is public acceptance
that these people have suffered and have
been wronged. It is morally right.
So why, I ask, are Cuban exiles not afforded
the same support and compassion? I was a
CNN network executive when the Elián
González issue was a major story.
I was horrified by the coverage by my network
and all others. It pained me deeply to see
sound-bites by people who said about the
Cuban-Americans in this country, ''Why don't
they just get over it? It happened so long
ago.'' I spoke up to my superiors at CNN.
And I'm no longer there.
What I told them was this: Would anyone
dare tell a Holocaust survivor, or the sons,
daughters and grandchildren of the Holocaust
to ''just forget about it'' because it happened
so long ago? Of course not. Castro did not
kill as many as Hitler did, and I would
never diminish the horror and huge dimensions
of the Holocaust, but Castro was -- and
is -- our Hitler in Latin America.
BORN IN CUBA
Despite my Anglo name, I was born in Cuba.
My mother was born there. Her parents are
buried there. My father was buried there
until Castro was so ticked off by an article
I wrote in 1978 as a Miami Herald reporter
that he had my father's remains dug up and
thrown out.
I am most proud of being Cuban American.
And I want the rest of the world to understand
our pain. It is part of our daily lives,
no matter where we live. It is the ache
of losing a country, but it is more than
that, too. It is a loss we feel in our blood
and in our bones. It is also clearly an
emotional demise in many ways -- a void
in our pasts which continues to the present
and will continue through the future. You
can't make up for years of lost family experiences
-- normal, human experiences that most other
people enjoy. These are memories that have
been stolen for all time.
For myself, I have only two memories of
my father and what saddens me is that I
can't be absolutely certain that they truly
are recollections or whether I've simply
grasped onto scenes from the few home movies
we managed to smuggle out of Cuba and morphed
them into memories. When I think of this,
it provokes a deep, dark cutting sadness
in me.
Cuban exiles can't expect others who have
not experienced what we have to actually
know our pain and understand our passion
for wanting to address the wrongs done us.
Rape victims can't expect that. Neither
can the parents of children who have been
killed by drunk drivers, or family members
who have lost loved ones in the current
Iraq conflict. Or family members of the
victims of Columbine, or 9/11. The people
who survived the genocide in Ethiopia and
in so many other places can't expect anyone
to truly know their pain.
Our pain is part of our spirit. The most
we can hope for is compassion.
The day that Castro's illness was first
reported, I woke up very early and was watching
CBS. On their early morning shows, they
repeatedly said that ''Castro is considered
a ruthless dictator by some in Miami.''
I fired off an e-mail to CBS President Sean
McManus. What I wrote, in short, was this:
If a man who murdered 20,000 people, imprisoned
for decades hundreds of thousands of others,
caused countless hundreds of thousands to
flee the country (many losing their lives
in desperate attempts to reach freedom on
flimsy rafts) and has repressed a nation
for nearly five decades -- denying them
the most basic of human rights -- is not
considered a ruthless dictator by all, who
the hell is?
I haven't heard back from him. I don't
expect I will. In fact, I suspect he, and
other network executives, will continue
to cozy up to the Cuban government (whoever
leads it) in order to make sure that when
Castro dies, their networks have access
to the coverage. That's the way it is in
the corporate news world.
But I have faith in my fellow American
citizens. And I know, in my heart and spirit,
that when the truth is known, those of us
who have suffered at the hands of Fidel
Castro will finally receive the compassion
we are due.
IN MOURNING
While Fidel is celebrating a birthday,
my brothers, sister and I are mourning the
death not only of our father but also of
our mother, Dorothy Stauber Anderson McCarthy,
who died less than two months ago. She was
39 years old when Fidel made her a widow.
She struggled to raise us and give us a
new life, and she was most successful. But
her greatest triumph was to instill a sense
of right and honor in us, to teach us strength
and morality.
A month after her death, a New York judge
ruled that we should receive millions of
dollars of the frozen Cuban assets held
in this country because of Fidel Castro's
murder of my father. It is a very welcome
decision but very bittersweet. Fidel Castro
is alive and he knows he has been tried,
convicted and sentenced to pay for his heinous
act. But the fact that my mother isn't alive
to see this final measure of justice is
a soul-deep wound that I will live with
for the rest of my life.
I weep for her. I weep for us, and I weep
for all who have been the victims of Fidel
Castro.
Happy Birthday? Please.
Bonnie M. Anderson is
a 27-year veteran of print, radio, Internet
and television journalism in English and
in Spanish. She has worked on camera for
local, national and international news organizations,
including two decades with NBC News and
CNN. Anderson won seven Emmy Awards, was
a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has
been nominated for the María Coors
Cabot Lifetime Achievement Award, which
is sponsored by Columbia University. Capt.
Anderson is now following a family tradition
and is running a charter fishing operation
out of Culebra, Puerto Rico.
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