Zoe Williams (Forget Fidel Castro’s policies. Above all, he was a dictator, 28November) bases her judgment of Castro on a frighteningly simplistic division of states into democracies, by implication multiparty ones, and dictatorships, by implication any state that is not multiparty. She then makes a blanket assertion that the latter are so inherently bad that their actual record of government is irrelevant. This is to ignore all the complex details of political structures by which a population can be oppressed or empowered. For us, from a practical point of view, the worst danger of such thinking is to exaggerate the benefits of our political system.

While Castro may be rightly criticised for executing Batista supporters, even those guilty of torture and multiple murder, it may be salutary to remember that back then, in 1959, Britain executed people accused of a single murder. It was also a time when British forces were imprisoning and torturing Kenyans, and those of the French multiparty democracy were torturing and killing Algerians. Even those crimes pale before the horrors the US multiparty democracy was shortly to unleash on Vietnam.

Turning to the present day and the issue of political freedoms, it is fair to condemn Cuba if people are being arrested for oppositional comment but important to bear in mind that the distinction between criticism and treachery is controversial, as illustrated by the fate of Chelsea Manning. It is reasonable to argue that a single-party state lacks effective mechanisms for kicking out an unpopular government, but we should also wonder whether the convergence of mainstream parties behind austerity and the increasingly low turnouts at elections in the UK are a sign that our mechanisms have ceased to be effective.

Margaret Dickinson

London

• While UK press coverage of Fidel Castro’s death has been largely hostile, my own views and memories are mixed, as I was “our man in Havana” for Reuters from 1960 to 1962, a period spanning the Bay of Pigs debacle and the Cuban missile crisis.

Dictator Castro did have a human side.

In July 1962, well after midnight, I, my wife Olivia and Gavin Young of the Observer were walking near the Hotel Nacional when we saw a large car and a familiar silhouette. Gavin rashly stuck his hand in at the car window, introduced himself and said: “Come and have a drink with us, Dr Castro.” He reluctantly agreed to join us “for a quarter of an hour”.

At the nearby Club 21, Castro sat with the three of us for over two hours – something of a scoop for us, though he gave little away. At one point he said: “Señora Bland, you have a little boy, yes? Does he receive his milk ration?” Olivia told him: “Actually, no.” Shortly afterwards our son got his regular milk.

Two months later, the missile crisis blew up. I drove past a Soviet missile site taking photos of sinister 60-foot-long cylinders under tarpaulins, then was chased off by the secret police, the G2.

Two days later they arrested me and took me to G2 headquarters. Reuters gallantly interceded directly with Castro, so I spent only six days in jail and was deported, very conveniently, to Jamaica, where my wife had recently given birth to our second son. The guards’ treatment was cold but civil; I heard no stories of torture or beatings.

John H Bland

Divonne-les-Bains, France

• Richard Gott (Obituary, 28 November) is right to say that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were boundless in their admiration for Fidel Castro, at least to begin with, and the two were guests of the revolution from 22 February to 21 March 1960. But in 1971, in part because of the imprisonment of the Cuban poet Heberto Padilla, both severed links with Castro and the Cuban regime. Sartre died in 1980 and Beauvoir in 1986, and did not return to the Castro fold.

Bruce Ross-Smith

Oxford

• Richard Gott does not explain how Fidel Castro managed to retain power for over half a century. He could have mentioned the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR), set up to spy on the Cuban populace and identify potential dissidents. Each adult Cuban was expected to belong to the local CDR, which was in turn required to keep a file on each of its members. The CDR network was organised with the friendly assistance of the East German Stasi, and based on the system operating in East Germany. The latter was merely a refinement of the Blockleiter system set up in 1935 to control the population of Nazi Germany. Interestingly, the regimes in Nazi Germany, East Germany and Cuba all believed in elections with only one candidate for each seat, and in securing massive voter turnout. Hitler, Honecker, Castro: it really does seem that great minds think alike.

Jim Ford

Newcastle upon Tyne

• If the people of St Vincent want to honour the memory of Fidel Castro, surely it is appropriate for the representative of their monarchy to respect their wishes without interference from the British (‘Awkward moment’ for Prince Harry in minute’s silence for Fidel Castro, theguardian.com, 27 November). The attitude of many in Britain has more than a whiff of colonialism.

Alison Curtis

Gooderham, Canada

• Zoe Williams’ usually excellent judgment has let her down when she says of Fidel Castro that “What matters is that he was a dictator”, because she forgets the context of a Latin America in the 1950s dominated by rightwing despots, with every effort to replace them with progressive governments being ended by military force. This would continue well into the 1980s, and even in the last decade we have seen two elected, progressive leaders fall to rightwing coups.

How does she think a peaceful transformation from revolution to democracy should be secured? Here in Nicaragua, the 1979 revolution was followed by an election in 1984 which was not recognised by the US because it gave the “wrong” result. It was not until 1990, when the electorate correctly chose capitalism, that the US accepted the ballot as valid. It then took 16 years to restore a left-of-centre government, which is now again under threat of US sanctions.

Nowhere in Latin America has suffered the baleful influence of US intervention more than Cuba, for reasons of history and geography. The Batista regime was one of the most barbarous in the continent, with its corruption accentuated by the mafia’s control of Havana’s main businesses, yet it was unflinchingly supported by successive US governments. Castro had to defend the revolution’s achievements against the threats both of the US government itself and of the Miami-based terrorist groups who bombed Cuban planes and hotels with impunity, well into the 1990s. Nor has any other country so dependent on US commerce seen its economy strangled by a 50-year embargo, which applies not to just to US firms but to any firm that trades with the US.

What was Castro supposed to do, meekly hold elections on terms acceptable to the US, in which millions of dollars would have poured into the country to ensure the “right” result? And then see Cuba return to the oligarchs who still control countries like Honduras and Guatemala? He was well aware that even the mildest leftwing government wouldn’t have been acceptable to the US in a country only 100 miles from its borders. By not acknowledging that, Zoe, you ignore 60 years of US intervention in Central America and the Caribbean.

John Perry

Masaya, Nicaragua

• Reference is rightly made to the fine role Cuba played in supporting opposition to apartheid and also in support of liberation struggles in Angola and Mozambique. I’ve not seen comment on Cuba’s support for Mengistu Haile Mariam when Ethiopia was invaded by the Somali forces of Siad Barre. What is the judgment? Mengistu eventually ousted (to sanctuary in Zimbabwe), Siad forced out and dead; Somalia in a very sorry state and Ethiopia again in some turmoil after a period of relative contentment.

Robin Le Mare

Allithwaite, Cumbria

• Like Zoe Williams, I too was in Cuba in the 90s. In 1993 I returned for the first time since 1960 when, during the euphoric early days of the revolution, I spent two months with an international work brigade on the construction of a rural residential school. By contrast, 1993 was a truly terrible year for Cuba. Most supposedly informed observers confidently predicted the imminent collapse of the economy and thought that Cuba would follow the USSR and the eastern European states into oblivion.

It is inexcusable to deplore the conditions of extreme hardship endured by the Cuban people without referring to their causes. On top of the US economic blockade of Cuba – which was accurately described by Noam Chomsky as the harshest in the world (harsher than the sanctions imposed on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion), and which in 1993 had already been in place for 33 years – in 1992 Cuba also had to contend with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the overnight loss of 75% of its foreign trade. No other country has had to endure an economic calamity of such proportions. To not only have survived but to have provided its people with a free education and public health system renowned throughout the world for their excellence is an achievement without parallel.

There is nothing comparable to the 57-year-old relentless, punitive hostility with which the greatest superpower has treated a small, poor third-world country.

Mike Faulkner

London

• I didn’t recognise Zoe Williams’ caricature of Cuba under Fidel Castro. Yes, Havana may look a little dowdy – but what a relief not to be bombarded with advertising, and the painstaking, carefully planned restoration of the old city (hardly likely under capitalism) has earned it Unesco world heritage site status.

If Zoe Williams had ventured a little away from the modestly stocked shops – unsurprising given the devastating US economic boycott, which has also depleted the “elegantly appointed” pharmacies she mocks – she would have found a vibrant musical and cultural life savoured by the Cuban people.

It’s true that prostitution – virtually eliminated prior to the fall of Soviet communism – made a comeback with the need to promote international tourism. But given a choice between a country that values every one of its citizens and nurtures their abilities, and one where food banks and beggars on street corners are in danger of becoming the norm, is there really any contest?

Peter Godfrey

Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides

• We have just returned from Cuba, which we have visited regularly over the last 20 years, and we don’t recognise the country described by Zoe Williams and by the media generally. Cuba is a third-world country because it has been hammered by over 50 years of the illegal US blockade. Nor do we recognise the label of dictator. Cuba has a democracy. Members of its government do not need to be wealthy. They are farmers and shopkeepers; doctors and taxi drivers. In other words, they are citizens selected and elected by their peers. They choose their ministers, who then choose their leader. This is a very different model of democracy to ours. There are no political parties and no political campaigns. Compare that with the US, where $2.6bn was spent, resulting in the election of Donald Trump!

Castro walked the streets of Havana safely despite over 500 attempts on his life by the CIA. He is revered by his people – even the BBC in a report on Sunday acknowledged that the young people in Cuba think favourably of him. Perhaps Cuba’s achievements in the fields of free education and healthcare have some bearing on this. This so-called dictator lived in a relatively humble home on the outskirts of Havana and sought no financial gain for himself, only a better life for his fellow citizens.

Castro challenged the western world, and that is why it despised him and why the western media portrayed him in the way that they did. The pity is that so many people believe that Cuba has been, and is being, oppressed by its leaders. Our visit this month confirmed our belief that in Cuba, despite the hardships that the people have to endure, the majority of the population are cheerful, friendly and content with the egalitarian system that Castro introduced.

Pam and Rog Wortley

Sunderland

• The Castro apologism from many on your letters page (28 November) is shameful. We can discuss US politics, blockades, education, literacy and socialism all we want, but we would be missing the point. It is painfully ironic that those who claim to be progressive are so willing to throw these aims out the window when it comes to brutal dictators who oppress and murder anyone who thinks differently to them. Perhaps it tells us what the left’s true aims are. Not equality for all but a vicious hatred of the United States. If standing against the US means throwing gay rights under the bus, then so be it. If standing against the US means throwing religious freedom under the bus, then so be it. If standing against the US means supporting a vicious, brutal, uncompromising, murderous dictator then, it seems, so be it.

It is about time the left took a long hard look at themselves. The moral hypocrisy and arrogance is breathtaking and disgraceful. I am ashamed and they should be too.

Raphael Levy

Cambridge

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