by Humberto Fontova
“My nation is hardly perfect in human rights. A very large number of our citizens are incarcerated in prison, and there is little doubt that the death penalty is imposed most harshly on those who are poor, black, or mentally ill. For more than a quarter century, we have struggled unsuccessfully to guarantee the basic right of universal health care for our people. …but Cuba has superb systems of health care and universal education.”
Thus did Jimmy Carter, in a May 2002 speech at the University of Havana that was broadcast throughout Cuba, prostrate himself before a regime that has jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin and murdered (in absolute numbers) more political prisoners in its first three years in power (out of a population of 6.4 million) than Hitler murdered in its first six years (out of a population of 70 million.) Not to mention that President Carter’s host, Fidel Castro, insulted his nation as “a vulture preying on humanity” and came within a hair of nuking it.
