It’s the measure of a leader when he stimulates such passionate debate

WE join internationalists everywhere in sending a loving embrace to the Cuban people. We join our tears with yours. We share your pride that your greatest son, Commandante Fidel Castro, led and guided the Cuban revolution for five decades, and inspired generations to fight for and transform their own societies.

From the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 under your unwavering leadership, Cuba taught the world the meaning of international solidarity.

Whether in achieving universal literacy, reducing infant mortality and providing comprehensive quality health care to every citizen, or with with free education from crèche to university, the Cuban Revolution under your guidance became a beacon of light for the whole world.

As South Africans, we can never forget how you led Cubans to willingly shed their blood for our freedom.

You audaciously built socialism within sight of US imperialism and succeeded despite every attempt by the US to kill you.

With your towering intellect, moral vision and iron resolve, you never wavered in building a more humane and just society for all Cubans, and taught the world what is possible. Your life and example inspires us as it will for generations to come.

We are Fidel. Fidel is us. Father Michael Lapsley Friends of Cuba Society

IN April 1961, I was part of a US Ranger outfit in Florida, which was on 12-hour standby to invade Cuba. Fortunately for me, and probably for Cuba, the US decided to send the CIA instead of the rangers. The outcome was the debacle known as the Bay of Pigs.

I have always been somewhat bemused by the US demonisation of Castro (last week, the London Times described him as “the curse of the West”, or words to that effect), as well as his deification by the Cubans. Both points of view are extreme.

Castro was an exceptional man, and I cannot understand why Americans are so anti-him, other than still being inspired by a McCarthy-ist fear of communism, now widely accepted as largely unjustified.

However, people who remained in Cuba under Castro’s rule seem to have been mostly content. Living conditions improved, jobs increased, and even the police state was applied with a light hand when compared to America’s handling of Communists.

Surely if one is to judge a ruler, the people to listen to are those who are ruled rather than those who have, for whatever reason, gone into voluntary or enforced exile? The problem today is that we have political power groups who are hell-bent on telling other people what to do. The fact that Guantánamo Bay is allowed to even exist on Cuban soil is one indication of this.

Many members of the old SADF give the Cubans credit for being good fighters, though not as good as the SADF. We have also benefited from Cuban doctors.

Politicians seem to be judged on their legacy these days. Of how many can it be said that they left their country in better order than when they took it over?

Seems to me Castro was a man who simply did his best. He deserves credit for that. David Christie Atlanta, Paarl

THE Pan Africanist Congress of Azania salutes the progressive leadership of the Cuban people in its decisive role against the hegemony of the Western powers under its revolutionary icon, Fidel Castro.

Cuba has acted in favour of the oppressed of the world in international affairs despite the many years of economic sanctions and geopolitical isolation by the United States administration and its allies, with Fidel Castro providing a crucial and revolutionary leadership role.

Nearer home, Cuba was a power broker in the peaceful settlement of the Angolan civil war as it stemmed the aggression of apartheid securocrats from destabilising the frontline states of Southern Africa.

Cuba played a central role in the implementation of the UN resolution to make Namibia independent and free.

Cuba has continued to support SA in peace times with the training of doctors and development of health workers to service communities of the rural poor.

The African people are grateful for this selfless international service of the Cuban people under the guidance of Fidel Castro.

With the announcement of Fidel Castro’s passing on November 25, 2016, the PAC expresses its condolences to his family, friends and comrades; and to the people of Cuba and Latin America, and to the progressive world at large. Kenneth Mokgatlhe PAC Spokesperson

WE can’t – as the proverbial saying goes – have it both ways. In his sincere homage to Fidel Castro, Aneez Salie writes: “It is perhaps one of the greatest paradoxes of our time that someone so overwhelmingly popular among his own people would forsake an open, multi-party democracy.” But, and by the writer’s own admission, the US presidential election has seen the coming to power of “a racist, misogynist, Islamophobe…” And this is precisely one of the fundamental dangers Fidel Castro, throughout his reign, sought to warn the world about: that the liberal/bourgeois multi-party system is by no means the magic wand that would or could address the needs and aspirations of ordinary, struggling people. If anything, South Africa’s present situation is ample proof of this. Clive Kronenberg Lansdowne

THE National Association of Democratic lawyers (Nadel) is greatly distressed at the news of the passing of Cuban revolutionary leader, Comrade Fidel Castro.

The pivotal role that Castro played in defeating the apartheid regime in South Africa, and in emancipating Africa, can never be underestimated, and for that, we remain eternally grateful.

Death has a way of humbling us and reminding us that all, no matter how great, are subject to it. Death, however, has never had, nor will it ever have the power to kill the ideals and influences of giants like Castro. Though his body may be without life, his memory and vision of a truly emancipated world lives on in our hearts and minds. While we deeply mourn, we also celebrate the life of this great icon.

Nadel salutes, and is in awe of this gallant fighter who fought along Che Guevara. Indeed, it is proper to say “Hasta la Victoria Siempre” (Always for victory). Inspired by his example, we remain committed to true emancipation of the poor and marginalised.

We send our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to the people of Cuba, their government and to Mr Castro’s family; your loss is our loss, and your pain our pain. Memory Sosibo Publicity Secretary, Nadel Executive Committee

IN the wake of the ferocious opposition to Brexit and to Trump, the eulogy for departed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, headed “A liberator extraordinaire”, while not surprising, is indeed ironic (Cape Times, November 28).

What is extraordinary is that proponents of democracy and human rights manage to gloss over Castro’s tyranny: one-party state repression, firing squads and gulags for opponents and dissidents, the flight of one million Cubans into exile, and the arrested state of Cuba’s development.

To hold Castro up as a “liberator” is a monumental untruth given the fact that he kept Cubans in virtual captivity whilst he lived the life of a billionaire playboy with mistresses, debauchery and every luxury. This was attested to by Juan Sanchez, who was his personal bodyguard for 17 years (see the New York Post, November 27).

How do those who attempt to romanticise this tyrant account for him banning the celebration of Christmas between 1969 and 1998? Where was there liberation when he ordered the massacre of 37 women and children in the Florida Strait on July 13, 1994 as they tried to escape his tyranny?

It is also nonsense to claim that Castro played a key role in ending apartheid and bringing the ANC to power. His poverty-stricken, aiddependent island was battling to survive in 1991 when its key service provider, the USSR, collapsed.

Anyone who has read Niel Barnard’s book, Secret Revolution, or Hermann Giliomee’s The Last Afrikaner Leaders will know that the National Party negotiated itself out of power, hence the title of Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley’s book, The Negotiated Revolution. Dr Duncan Du Bois Durban