In Mexico City, two icons of Cuban repression are banished
Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Yet even after all these years, they are still celebrated as
Advertisement
When Castro and Guevara came to power in Cuba in 1959, they quickly consolidated their control through terror. Political opponents were hauled before kangaroo courts and executed at what became known as 'el paredón,' the wall where executions took place. Those they killed, recounted '
At the Havana fortress of La Cabaña, Guevara personally oversaw mass executions. 'A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate,'
Even after the revolution's early days,
This month — July — evokes a particularly
On July 13, 1994, more than 70 Cubans crowded onto an old tugboat, the '13 de Marzo,' and set out from Havana under cover of night, desperate to reach Florida.
Seven miles off the Cuban coast, they were intercepted by government vessels. The security boats rammed the tug repeatedly, smashed its hull, and trained high-pressure hoses on the passengers —
Advertisement
The tugboat massacre is only one entry on the long list of
A row erupted after the sculpture was removed from the park in Cuauhtémoc last week. Among those complaining was Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who insisted that the 'historic moment' represented by the statues merited a public tribute of memory. As the Mexican journalist Carlos Bravo Regidor
Symbols matter. Statues and monuments help shape a society's collective memory, and to enshrine Castro and Guevara in bronze was to enshrine the lies they told and the suffering they caused. Their sculptures on a bench in the heart of Mexico's capital was a declaration that their partnership was something admirable and worthy of commemoration, perhaps even something to emulate. In reality, it was a partnership in despotism, and it brought misery to millions.
Rojo de la Vega's order to cart away the monument was an act of moral hygiene. May the removal of the statues in Mexico City be only a prelude to the removal of their dictatorship in Havana — and to the day when the Cuban people can finally breathe free.
Advertisement
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Trump seeks trade deals with deadline approaching
Trump suggested Monday that any nation that refuses to strike a deal with the U.S. would face a tariff between 15 and 20 percent. 'We're going to be setting a tariff for essentially the rest of the world, and that's what they're going to pay if they want to do business in the United States. Because you can't sit down and do 200 deals. But we made the big ones,' he said. Here are some of the top trading partners that have not struck deals with the U.S. China: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterparts held talks this week in China and Stockholm this week, which marked the third round of talks between the two nations. The talks led to another possible extension in the trade deal that was announced in May, without details about the timing of that extension. Canada: Negotiations between the Trump administration and Canada have stalled, Trump said last week. 'We haven't really had a lot of luck with Canada. I think Canada could be one where they'll just pay tariffs. It's not really a negotiation,' Trump said on Friday. Mexico: The president also threatened to impose a 30 percent tariff on goods from Mexico in a letter, citing the flow of fentanyl across the southern border that was the original basis for a 25 percent tariff he imposed on Mexican goods earlier this year.
NBC News
3 hours ago
- NBC News
Marine Corps vet's wife released from ICE custody after advocacy from GOP Senator's office
A Marine Corps veteran's wife has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump's hardline immigration crackdown. Until this week, Mexican national Paola Clouatre had been one of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody as the Trump administration continues to press immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kennedy's office said Friday that it put in a request for the Department of Homeland Security to release her after a judge halted her deportation order earlier that week. By Monday, she was out of a remote ICE detention center in north Louisiana and home in Baton Rouge with her veteran husband Adrian Clouatre and their two young children. Kennedy's constituent services representative, Christy Tate, congratulated Adrian Clouatre on his wife's release and thanked him for his military service. "I am so happy for you and your family," Tate wrote in an email to Adrian Clouatre. "God is truly great!" Kennedy's office proved "instrumental" in engaging with the Department of Homeland Security, according to Carey Holliday, the family's attorney. Kennedy's office did not provide further comment. Another Louisiana Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also intervened recently with the Department of Homeland Security to secure the release of an Iranian mother from ICE detention following widespread outcry. The woman has lived for decades in New Orleans. Kennedy has generally been a staunch supporter of Trump's immigration policies. "Illegal immigration is illegal — duh," Kennedy posted on his Facebook page on July 17, amid a series of recent media appearances decrying efforts to prevent ICE officers from making arrests. In April, however, he criticized the Trump administration for mistakenly deporting a Maryland man. Senator's office requests mother's release from ICE custody The Department of Homeland Security previously told The AP it considered Clouatre to be "illegally" in the country. An email chain shared by Adrian Clouatre shows that the family's attorney reached out to Kennedy's office in early June after Paola Clouatre was detained in late May. Tate received Paola Clouatre's court documents by early July and said she then contacted ICE, according to the email exchange. On July 23, an immigration judge halted Paola Clouatre's deportation order. After Adrian Clouatre notified Kennedy's office, Tate said she "sent the request to release" Paola Clouatre to DHS and shared a copy of the judge's motion with the agency, emails show. In an email several days later, Tate said that ICE told her it "continues to make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case" and had received the judge's decision from Kennedy's office "for consideration." The next working day, Paola Clouatre was released from custody. "We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers," Tate said in an email to Adrian Clouatre. "If you need our assistance in the future, please contact us." Back with her children Paola Clouatre had been detained by ICE officers on May 27 during an appointment related to her green card application. She had entered the country as a minor with her mother from Mexico more than a decade ago and was legally processed while seeking asylum, she, her husband and her attorney say. But Clouatre's mother later failed to show up for a court date, leading a judge to issue a deportation order against Paola Clouatre in 2018, though by then she had become estranged from her mother and was homeless. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clouatre's release. Adrian Clouatre said he wished the agency would "actually look at the circumstances" before detaining people like his wife. "It shouldn't just be like a blanket 'Oh, they're illegal, throw them in ICE detention.'" Reunited with her breastfeeding infant daughter and able to snuggle with her toddler son, Paola Clouatre told AP she feels like a mother again. "I was feeling bad," she said of detention. "I was feeling like I failed my kids." It will likely be a multiyear court process before Paola Clouatre's immigration court proceedings are formally closed, but things look promising, and she should be able to obtain her green card eventually, her attorney said. For now, she's wearing an ankle monitor, but still able to pick up life where she left off, her husband says. The day of her arrest in New Orleans, the couple had planned to sample some of the city's famed French pastries known as beignets and her husband says they'll finally get that chance again: "We're going to make that day up."
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
US accuses Venezuelan regime of narco-terrorism over alliances with Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa Cartel
The U.S. government has named the Cartel de los Soles, a Venezuela-based criminal group led by President Nicolás Maduro, a global terrorist organization. Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, is being sanctioned by the U.S. for providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, including the violent Tren de Aragua and Sinaloa Cartel, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. "Today's action further exposes the illegitimate Maduro regime's facilitation of narco-terrorism through terrorist groups like Cartel de los Soles," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. "The Treasury Department will continue to execute on President Donald Trump's pledge to put America First by cracking down on violent organizations, including Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel and their facilitators, like Cartel de los Soles." Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, is involved in a range of criminal activities, including human smuggling and the illicit drug trade. The Sinaloa Cartel, a violent and powerful Mexican cartel, is responsible for trafficking drugs like fentanyl into the U.S., according to the Treasury Department. In an X post, the Drug Enforcement Administration wrote that it is seeking information leading to the arrests and convictions of Maduro, Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace Diosdado Cabello Rondón and Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino López. In January, the U.S. increased an reward to $25 million for information leading to Maduro's arrest and/or conviction. The U.S. has not recognized Maduro as the Venezuelan president since 2019. In May, the U.S. advised citizens to avoid traveling to Venezuela and its borders. According to the U.S. Department of State, citizens were warned not to travel to Venezuela due to severe risks, including wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest and poor health infrastructure.
