Posted by
Silvio Canto, Jr. on Friday, August 11, 2006 10:05:46 AM
Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking official ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. On Christmas Day of 1989, Romanian Dictator Ceausescu and his wife were sentenced to death at the end of a trial where most of the accusations had come almost word-for-word out of Pacepa’s book Red Horizons.
Today, Pacepa wrote "Who Is Raúl Castro?A tyrant only a brother could love". This is how Pacepa remembers Raul Castro:
"Raúl was always under the influence — of alcohol and self-importance.
Raúl is generally perceived as a colorless minister of defense, but he has also been the brutal head of one of Communism’s most criminal institutions: the Cuban political police. I met him in that capacity. He was cruel and ruthless. Fidel may have conceived the terror that has kept Cuba in the Communist fold, but Raúl has been the butcher. He has been instrumental in the killing and terrorizing of thousands of Cubans, and there is no question in my mind but that he would fight tooth and nail to preserve his powers. Otherwise, sooner or later Raúl would have to account for his crimes, and I do not know him to be suicidal.
In 2005, Fidel was furious when Forbes Magazine estimated his fortune at $500 million. This year, the magazine upped his worth to $900 million.Particularly in view of Cuba’s penury, this amount is surely more than enough for Raúl to bribe his political cronies and buy any new allies he needs.
Raúl may try to also portray himself as a peaceloving angel. But Andropov’s age of secrecy is gone. I pray that others who know Raúl as well as I knew Ceausescu will come forward and disrobe the Cuban tyrant, allowing the world to see him naked, the way he truly is: an assassin and international terrorist who made a fortune from the illegal sale of arms, drugs, and human beings."
This is a remarkable article. It confirms my own view that Raul won't last long.