\u201cIt is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba\u2019s longest serving President. Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation. While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro\u2019s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for \u201cel Comandante\u201d. \u00a0<\/em>(You can read the entire statement\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n His warm words have sparked parodies on Social Media<\/a>, mockingly praising Hitler and Osama Bin Ladin. For example, \u201cOsama Bin Laden was certainly a controversial figure, but his contribution to airport security is unparalleled\u201d, and \u201cToday we mourn the death of Jeffrey Dahmer, who opened his home to the LGBTQ community and pushed culinary boundaries.\u201d One of my favorites is \u201cWe mourn the passing of Henry VIII: A man who always kept his head, while all around were losing theirs\u201d.<\/p>\n In slight contrast, President Obama\u2019s words<\/a> were more measured, but still a far cry from a realistic appraisal of the monstrosity of Castro\u2019s\u00a0communist dictatorship:<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that this moment fills Cubans \u2013 in Cuba and in the United States \u2013 with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In Miami, home to much of the Cuban population in exile, those \u201cpowerful emotions\u201d were joy and celebration:<\/p>\n It did not matter that it was the middle of the night, or that it began to drizzle. When this city\u2019s Cuban-American residents heard the news, they sprinted to Little Havana. They banged pots and pans. They sang the Cuban national anthem and waved the Cuban flag. They danced and hugged, laughed and cried, shouted and rejoiced.<\/em> (Read more at New York Times<\/a>).<\/p>\n These Cubans recall \u201cel Commandante\u201d with a bit less than fondness, after all. \u00a0It is estimated by historian Thomas Skidmore that 550 people<\/a> were summarily executed in the first 6 months of Castro\u2019s reign. Over the years spanning 1959 \u2013 2012, at least 3615 people are documented to have died in firing squads, and 1253 in \u201cextrajudicial killings\u201d, according to Cuba Archive<\/a>. The Black Book of Communism<\/em> (available in its entirety at Archive.org<\/a>) estimates the number of political killings at\u00a015,000-17,000.\u00a0Between 1950 and 1980 over a million Cubans fled the island<\/a>, mostly to the United States. \u00a0In 1964, Castro admitted holding over 15,000 political prisoners<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Washington Post opinion piece<\/a> summarizes some of the disaster brought upon Cuba by this \u201clegendary\u00a0revolutionary\u201d:<\/p>\n It began with mass summary executions of Batista officials and soon progressed to internment of thousands of gay men and lesbians; systematic, block-by-block surveillance of the entire citizenry; repeated purges, complete with show trials and executions, of the ruling party; and punishment for dissident artists, writers and journalists. Mr. Castro\u2019s regime learned from the totalitarian patron he chose to offset the U.S. adversary \u2014 the Soviet Union, whose offensive nuclear missiles he welcomed, bringing the world to the brink of armageddon. Mr. Castro sponsored violent subversive movements in half a dozen Latin American countries and even in his dotage helped steer Venezuela to economic and political catastrophe through his patronage of Hugo Ch\u00e1vez.<\/em><\/p>\n Castro should also be remembered as a relentless persecutor of Christianity. \u00a0Cuba is officially an atheist state. When he seized power, almost immediately he shut down 400 Roman Catholic schools<\/a> for teaching \u201cdangerous beliefs.\u201d \u00a0Christians were initially denied membership in the Communist Party. \u00a0Due to restrictions in building churches, many people met in homes. \u00a0Christians were, of course, among the purged. The\u00a0dissident Armando Valladares, who was locked in a pitch-dark Cuban prison cell for eight years while stripped naked, has recently given his recollections in a Washington Post editorial<\/a>:<\/p>\n Antagonizing believers is a particular specialty of the Castro regime. To them, faith is especially dangerous, because it kindles the conscience and keeps it burning when enemies advance. \u201c\u00a1Viva Cristo Rey!\u201d were the last words of so many of my friends who were dragged to the shooting wall. Eventually, the government realized this was a battle cry for freedom, one that came from the deepest part of the men they were killing, and one that was only inspiring more men to die faithful to their consciences and to something greater than Fidel Castro. Their executioners realized that an expression of faith was more powerful than the explosion of a gun. So eventually, they gagged them.<\/em><\/p>\n