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“Speaking at an event honoring the late Nelson Mandela ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth… former president Barack Obama lamented the rise of “strongman politics” and “the utter loss of shame” among political leaders who repeatedly lie… during a speech Tuesday in South Africa that was widely seen as aimed in part at his successor (Trump) (WaPo).

And speaking of “strongmen”-- let’s survey some of Nelson Mandela’s most heartfelt proclamations:

“Che Guevara is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom.”

“The cause of communism is the greatest cause in the history of mankind!”

“There’s one place where Fidel Castro stands out head and shoulders above the rest – that is in his love for human rights and liberty!”

Just for fun, let’s now review some observations by the man who so “inspired” Nelson Mandela:

“The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and drink, the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent…The Negro has maintained his racial purity by his well known habit of avoiding baths.” (Che Guevara.)

“Mexicans are mostly a rabble of illiterate Indians.” (Che Guevara)

Just for fun, let’s now review some observations by the man who so inspired Barack Obama:

“If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America! They don't care for human beings! (Nelson Mandela, 2003.)

The man Nelson Mandela hugs in this clip (Fidel Castro) jailed and tortured political prisoners at over TEN TIMES the rate as South Africa’s apartheid regime.

And the totalitarian movement Mandela hails with a raised fist and was a loyal member of for years (communism) jailed, tortured and murdered at triple the rate of the Nazis. By the way, can you imagine someone who once stood in front of a swastika with an outstretched arm –ever being forgiven for it by “enlightened” opinion?

Many Cubans (many of them black) suffered longer and more horrible incarceration in Castro’s KGB-designed dungeons than Nelson Mandela spent in South Africa’s (relatively) comfortable prisons, which were open to inspection by the Red Cross. Castro never allowed a Red Cross delegation anywhere near his real prisons. Now let’s see if you recognize some of the Cuban ex-prisoners and torture-victims:

Mario Chanes (30 years), Ignacio Cuesta Valle, (29 years) Antonio López Muñoz, (28 years) in Dasio Hernández Peña (28 years) Dr. Alberto Fibla (28 years) Pastor Macurán (28 years) Roberto Martin Perez (28 years) Roberto Perdomo (28 years) Teodoro González (28 years.) Jose L.Pujals (27 years) Miguel A. Alvarez Cardentey (27 years.) Eusebio Penalver (28 years.)

No? None of these names ring a bell? And yet their suffering took place only 90 miles from U.S. shores in a locale absolutely lousy with international “press” bureaus and their intrepid “investigative reporters.” From CNN to NBC, from Reuters to the AP, from ABC to NPR to CBS, the Castros have always welcomed all of these to “embed” and “report” from their family fiefdom.

I mean you can’t swing a dead cat in Havana without hitting a “feisty and intrepid investigative reporter!” or a “diligent academic!” or a “fact-finding” gaggle of U.S. politicians.

So what are the actual “facts found” by all these “diligent investigators?” For some peculiar reason--and for going on 60 years now—their “findings” all dovetail nicely with the “facts” issued by the Stalinist regime’s propaganda ministry.

Easily and methodically DEMOLISHING this historic litany of lies with thorough documentation can be fun, however.

The Castros and Che Guevara, by the way-- in the process of converting a nation with a higher standard of living than half the nations of Europe and a yuuuge influx of immigrants into a vast prison, slum and sewer that repels even Haitians—jailed and tortured the most political prisoners (many black) per-capita of any regime in the modern history of the Western hemisphere.

For all its faults, in its record of repression, Apartheid South Africa couldn’t hold even a teenzy-tiny candle to the regime co-founded by Mandela’s idols Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

Mandela himself provides the perfect proof. You’d never guess it from the international hoopla regarding his imprisonment, but before his imprisonment (for communist terrorism,) Mandela enjoyed a bona-fide day in court with civilized standards of jurisprudence and under a judge who was not beholden to a dictator for his job (or his life.)

When Nelson Mandela was convicted of "193 counts of terrorism committed between 1961 and 1963, including the preparation, manufacture and use of explosives, including 210,000 hand grenades, 48,000 anti-personnel mines, 1,500 time devices, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate," his trial had observers from around the free world. "The trial has been properly conducted," wrote Anthony Sampson, correspondent for the liberal London Observer. "The judge, Mr Justice Quartus de Wet, has been scrupulously fair." Sampson admitted this though his own sympathies veered strongly towards Mandela. (Indeed, Sampson went on to write Nelson Mandela's authorized biography.)

In sharp contrast, when Ruby Hart Phillips, the Havana correspondent for the (flamingly Castrophile) New York Times, attended a mass-trial of accused Castro-regime enemies, she gaped in horror. "The defense attorney made absolutely no defense, instead he apologized to the court for defending the prisoners," she wrote in February 1959. "The whole procedure was sickening." The defendants were all murdered by firing squad the following dawn.

A reminder:

According to Anti-Apartheid activists a grand total of 3,000 political prisoners passed through South Africa’s Robben Island prison in roughly 30 years under the apartheid regime, (all after trials similar to the one described above by Anthony Sampson.) Usually about a thousand were held. These were out of a South African population of 40 million. Here's what Mandela's "jail cell" looked like towards the end of his sentence.

According to the Human Rights group, Freedom House, a grand total of 500,000 political prisoners have passed through the Castros various prisons and forced labor camps (many after trials like the one described by R.H Phillips above, others with none whatsoever.) At one time in 1961, some 300,000 Cubans were jailed for political offenses (in torture chambers and forced-labor camps designed by Stalin's disciples, not like Mandela's as seen above.) This was out of a Cuban population in 1960 of 6.4 million. Do the math, Castro and Che groupies.