The world woke up to Breaking news last Friday: Fidel Castro dies at the age of 90.

And what followed were two starkly different pictures. While my twitter time line was flooded with good words and praises for the “great revolutionary”, I also saw images of Cuban-Americans celebrating a tyrant’s death in Miami- Libertad! Libertad!! If you look closer, you’ll see how those who never stayed in Cuba were mourning while the Cubans were rejoicing. Yes, that’s the legacy that Fidel Castro has left behind, revolutionary to some and a merciless dictator to others.

Quoting from a politico.com report: One Cuban-American said “Words can’t express how I feel right now. My parents died waiting for this day, and here I am celebrating for them”. A crowd of Cubans, old and young were ecstatic waving the Cuban flag in the streets of Miami, home to more than one million Cubans.

How should I mourn a cruel dictator and an evil man?

Fidel Castro indeed left behind a legacy which was full of bloodshed and human rights abuses, yet to the world he was a revolutionary. To an extent, he did succeed in ousting and combating American Imperialism but yes, he did love his Adidas jackets and Rolex watches too.

I describe him as that rich kid who reads Marx and suddenly develops the need to change the world, He starts a movement but eventually gets corrupted by power, so much so that he crushes dissent and people associate him with terror, mass executions, media censorship, denying citizens the right to vote and numerous other human rights violations, which were a part of his definition of revolution. His own sister Juana Castro describes him as “the monster”.

Fidel Castro’s dictatorship saw approximately 30,000 executions by firing squads, and he held over 15000 political prisoners. Castro had formed CDR- Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, whose main job was spying on his own citizens and reporting it back to him. Anyone found guilty of even criticizing Castro was jailed and subject to torture. There have been reports where it is said that he would order doctors to inject mercury into their patients if they criticized the free but poor medical and health facilities in Cuba. Castro’s regime forced over 3 million Cubans to flee their country, fearing persecution.

Castro lived in Cuba during the reign of Batista, who was known for his brutality and who was supported by the American Govt. Batista was known for his cruelty and as the man who literally converted Cuba into a land of brothels and casinos for rich American industrialists, land of illiterates, poverty stricken with low life expectancy and high infant mortality. Castro’s revolution started from there. As a young lawyer, Castro tried to remove Batista through legal means but failed and was imprisoned, later exiled to Mexico.

Castro later returned to Cuba with his guerrilla army and finally overthrew Batista on the New Year’s Day in 1959. After his takeover, the first thing Castro did was to kick out all US companies and implement land reforms. This obviously didn’t go down well with America and it not only tried to wage a war but also tried to assassinate Castro numerous times. Castro within no time became the de facto dictator of Cuba. He started prosecuting old regime people and people were killed without any trial.

He also created concentration camps for anti-Communists, gays and anyone who would dare to criticize him or his regime. In the year of 1976 Castro changed the entire constitution of Cuba and made it into a purely communist constitution. Media was heavily censored during his reign, and not just TV channels and radio channels but also books, movies and music were censored. Foreign journalists who could work in Cuba were state selected. Media worked under Communist Party’s Department of Revolutionary Orientation which would develop and coordinate propaganda strategies, much like North Korea.

Foreign journalists are taken around and shown hospitals boasting of best of facilities but truth is an ordinary Cuban goes to hospitals where he has to carry his own bed sheet and towels, lacking even the basic minimum facility that any hospital should have. Most Doctors leave Cuba and work overseas and the Cuban Govt earns $2.5 billion every year from these doctors. School children are made to worship Fidel Castro, they are taught what state wants them to know.

Universities are state sponsored cradles to create future bureaucrats and entry is restricted to students related to existing bureaucrats. After graduating, a person has to work for the regime for a stipulated period drawing a wage of $9 per month. His list of tyranny and barbarism is too long to put together in one piece. It’s also believed that Castro betrayed his own friend Che by not sending him the support that he had promised in Bolivia.

I might not agree with Trump always but I agree with him when he says “Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and denial of fundamental human rights”.

Castro took over from a cruel dictator but he has left Cuba far worse in almost every way than the one he took over. My only hope is, someday Cubans throw out Communism and Cubans get a taste of real freedom.