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No, it was not Brazil's right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro who had homosexuals locked up in labor camps.

So far he has limited himself to spreading defamatory and discriminatory insults against gays and lesbians.

Cuba's legendary socialist revolutionary heroes Che Guevara, Fidel and Raul Castro were of a completely different caliber.

They set up internment camps in Cuba for homosexuals, religious groups, effeminate men and other “undesirables”. The idea came from Fidel Castro personally, inspired by a visit to the Soviet Union. Raul Castro carried out the plan in the 1960s, who a few days ago at the age of 89 resigned as head of the all-powerful party, because it was the only party allowed in Cuba. It is the end of a revolutionary career that has allowed the international left to get away with even the most serious crimes.

The brutal treatment of homosexuals is still having an impact today: Immediately before the corona pandemic, an independent LGBTI march was attacked by security forces because it was not officially approved.

In Havana mind you, not in Rio de Janeiro.

Cuba gays, lesbians and transgender people did not want to submit to the system.

What always happened followed: arrests, beatings and an ice-cold ignorance of the left in Berlin, Brussels and Brasilia.

Castro is recognized as a reformer

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Despite torture, extrajudicial executions, the prohibition of any opposition work, and mysterious car accidents by opposition politicians, Castro is recognized by large parts of the western media landscape as a pragmatist and reformer. There are reasons for that. Cuba's human rights violations are accepted and tolerated by the global left to this day. This, for example, distinguishes the Social Democrats and the Greens from the Left Party: the categorical no to shoot-order socialism, in which murder, torture, repression and mass displacement are priced in with approval.

While activists try to save African boat refugees in the Mediterranean Sea, thousands of Cuban boat refugees have drowned while trying to escape to the USA.

Lonely, anonymous, forgotten, sometimes defamed by the Castros as a work-shy rabble.

How many, nobody knows, and nobody cares.

What socialist politicians in the Bundestag or in the European Parliament would never accept for the refugees in the Mediterranean, namely an immediate deportation without an asylum procedure by the coast guard to their homeland, is made possible by a pact between Washington and Havana.

Tolerated by an ice-cold ignorance of the international left.

And why?

Because it benefits socialism.

Che Guevara was idolized

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This is helped by the grace of the late birth, the most brutal and deadly time of the Cuban revolution was a long time ago. At some point in their six decades in power, the Castros apologized for their brutal gay hatred. Was not meant like that. A legal reappraisal? Nothing. No plaintiff, no judge. A second reason is the open tolerance of renowned left personalities and movements. Guerrillas like Che Guevara, marketed to excess, are idolized, the raped, tortured and buried victims ignored.

If moderate left-wing politicians like Brazil's ex-president Lula da Silva still openly acknowledge Cuba's dictatorship and let themselves be photographed with Castro beaming with joy, then it can't be that bad. When Lula was in Cuba a few months ago, dozens of Afro-Cubans, activists, artists and bloggers were arrested again in Havana. Lula is silent, the German and European left are silent.

A not inconsiderable part of the media is silent because Cuba makes it more difficult and difficult for them to get this information than to document the terrible deforestation in the Amazon.

In the country of the Cuban ally Nicaragua and his brutal Ortega clan, young environmental activists and students who fight against the slash and burn of nature reserves die lonely and anonymously.

In Venezuela, the most important Cuban oil sponsor, indigenous nature conservation activists who rebel against the ecologically devastating mining industry are murdered.

And again: icy silence on the left.

“Fridays for Future” is fully occupied with Bolsonaro.

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The tolerance for the Castro dictatorship is fed by a deep hatred of the USA. The CIA blood trail in Latin America, their unspeakable role and support for right-wing military dictatorships, their assassination and invasion attempts have always strengthened the Castros in Cuba. The Castros presented themselves as Washington's opponents, which was enough for many leftists, regardless of who paid the price.

The US embargo against Cuba's communists has existed in various forms since 1960. It was actually supposed to bring the Castros to their knees. But it only harmed the Cuban population and the reputation of the USA in Latin America. On the other hand, it was used by the Castro dictatorship, which blames the economic blockade for everything that goes wrong in the Cuban economy. The fact that Cuba still has a comparatively good health and education system is one of the Castros' propaganda triumphs.

For the prominent Brazilian liberation theologian Frei Betto, this is not why Hitler or the brutal extermination of indigenous peoples in Latin America by colonial oppressors are the worst of all enemy images. He sees the US as the cruelest and most powerful empire in all of human history, he said in a recent interview. Cuba has successfully defied the empire for over six decades - at the expense of its people. The battle cry “Gringo go home” bundles this hatred of American politics throughout Latin America, which sometimes has racist undertones.

That is why, says Pope's friend Betto, the prominent left in Latin America is still in solidarity with the Cuban revolution. Catholic priests and artists in Cuba, left to their own devices, risk their freedom and health if they are once again exposed to the sticks of the Cuban state security. So far they have been waiting just as in vain for a sign of solidarity from Rome, Berlin or Brussels as the beaten Afro-Cuban activists from “Black Lives Matter”.

And so Raul Castro can leave the stage unmolested. His perfectly functioning machinery of repression, from global lobbyists to the German Bundestag to paid “angry citizens” on behalf of the Cuban domestic secret service, who also like to devastate the homes of regime critics, is of no interest to anyone. Because it's about a good cause.