Castro’s Cuba

I found it refreshing to read the article by Harriet C. Babbit (“Poet’s Voice Provokes the Lider Maximo,” Commentary, Jan. 1). The article articulates the hypocrisy and ruthlessness of one of Earth’s most totalitarian regimes, Castro’s Cuba. The courage of poet Marie Elena Cruz Varela can only be fully appreciated if one understands that in Cuba the slightest evidence of dissent is swiftly and brutally suppressed.

It has been disconcerting that during the last 33 years so many Latin American and North American artists and intellectuals have presented Cuba to the world as an example of social justice, and have celebrated Castro as a Latin American liberator, while at the same time their colleagues in Cuba have been forced either to become apologists for the system or have been subjected to naked oppression.

Castro’s time is finally up. No sickness can last for a hundred years. Although I fear a blood bath, I have faith that my compatriots will have the self-discipline to avoid acts of hate and of revenge. I am certain that Cruz Varela, waiting inside her prison cell, shares the same hope.

CALIXTO DIAZ

Huntington Park