This is not an invitation to get into The Cuba Discussion, but it is good when any world leader looks back on a nation’s past misdeeds against LGBT people and says, “You know what? That was wrong.”
Fidel Castro this week admitted responsibility for the persecution of homosexuals in Cuba in the 1960s, calling their internment in forced-labor camps “a great injustice.”
In the second installment of an interview with the editor of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Castro said that the revolutionary government’s actions represented “a great injustice – a great injustice! – whoever committed it. If we committed it, we committed it. I am trying to limit my responsibility in all that because, of course, personally I don’t have that type of prejudice.”
The interviewer paraphrases him as saying that “everything came about as a spontaneous reaction in the revolutionary ranks that came from the nation’s traditions. In the old Cuba, blacks were not the only ones discriminated against; there was discrimination against women and, of course, homosexuals.”
Was the Communist Party to blame, the interviewer asks.
“No,” Castro responds. “If anyone is responsible, I am. True, at that time I couldn’t concern myself with the subject. I was deeply and mainly involved in the October Crisis, the war, the political issues.
Joe points out that Fidel Castro’s niece, Mariela, has been the de facto leader of the Cuban gay rights movement, and likely deserves some of the credit for this.
Glad to see this. Leaders who take responsibility for past persecution of GLBTs and who admit it was wrong should be encouraged and yes, praised for seeing the light. I say, you GO, Fidel!
If only Ken Mehlman and George W. Bush would make such an apology…
This is as much a non-apology as I have every read. Castro was supreme dictator and had complete control.
His actual words are full of excuses and hedging. He is not sorry for putting people in forced labor prison camps for disagreeing with state policy, only that persecuting LGBT people was one of those policies.
The most amazing thing about this is that Castro is still alive. Maybe a vampire bit him or something.
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It is a solid step and good news to hear. We are seeing positive steps happening throughout the world.