ALVIN Williams continues to argue that Fidel Castro's support for the African National Congress during the war to overthrow apartheid in South Africa somehow makes the Cuban dictator's own abysmal human-rights record off-limits to criticism.

But Castro's regime is actually far closer to the regime overthrown by Nelson Mandela and his followers than today's South Africa with its multi-party system, free press and independent labour unions.

Does Mr. Williams know that most Cubans in prison are black? Does he know that blacks are seriously missing from the upper ranks of Castro's government? That Cuban blacks remain among the most destitute Cubans? That Castro would not allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Cuba's political prisoners and that a growing number of Cuba's democratic opposition is black?

And what about Castro's own insidious form of apartheid? The hotels, beaches and restaurants that tourists patronise are off-limits to Cubans. Shouldn't Mr. Williams be insisting that Cubans be given the same rights granted to foreigners?

Mr. Williams should be concerned about these other issues: Cubans are not allowed to organise independent labour unions. Strikes are banned. Foreign investors do so in joint ventures with the regime, not with Cuban entrepreneurs. Foreign companies cannot hire their own workers. Investors pay the government about $10,000 a year per worker, and the regime then pays the worker $180 per year. Anyone who asks about collective bargaining is fired and reported to the police.

If all of this reminds you of South Africa's apartheid, it should: Despotism is the same everywhere, and no rhetoric about "anti-imperialism'' can mask its deeds.

Mr. Williams should add his voice to the growing international chorus that condemns Castro's human-rights violations. Those living in freedom should never forget the men and women suffering unspeakable repression in that country.

Years ago, many apartheid apologists argued that the United States had to ignore Pretoria's repression because South African soldiers had died on the Allied side during World War Two. It was wrong then, as it is now, to claim that defending freedom in one place excuses supporting tyranny elsewhere.

Quite why an island with a majority black population and strong democratic traditions and institutions like Bermuda ? now led by a Progressive Labour Party which took a highly principled stand against the apartheid regime in South Africa ? is now trying to move Bermudians closer to Fidel Castro, I cannot for the life of me begin to understand.

Apartheid is apartheid wherever it takes place. Dictatorship is dictatorship.

So why the hypocrisy, Bermuda? Why the double-standard when it comes to Castro and his own Caribbean forms of authoritarianism and apartheid?

Premier's hypocrisy

AFTER reading Alex Scott's tribute to the late Coretta Scott King, I was immediately struck by his hypocrisy and that of his Government. When Mrs. King picked up the mantle of her slain husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she did so with an absolute and unconditional commitment to the proposition that men and women are created equal.

So in her capacity as the unofficial First Lady of the US civil rights movement, Mrs. King was a long-time and outspoken champion of gay rights ? even at a time when such advocacy did not go down well in America (particularly in black America).

However, Mrs. King never allowed the disapproval of others to sway her from her course. She always spoke out for ? and worked towards ? justice and equality for gay folks. Some of her comments bear repeating ? particularly given the Scott Government's repeated and cowardly failure to address the question of enshrining equality before the law for gays in Bermuda Human Rights Act.

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice," she said. "But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere'."

"I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people." ? Reuters, March 31, 1998.

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanise a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.", April 1, 1998.

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be," she said on frequent occasions, quoting her husband.

"I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy." ? , April 1, 1998.

"For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Georgia and St. Augustine, Florida, and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said.

"Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions." ? , April 1, 1998.

"Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination. "? Creating Change conference of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, Atlanta, Georgia, November 9, 2000.

"I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible. Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others." ? Press conference on the introduction of ENDA, Washington, DC, June 23, 1994

Castro is waiting . . .

I WATCHED Alex Scott's new best friend in the Caribbean, the increasingly irascible Fidel Castro , making one of his long-winded televised speeches at the weekend. This time Fidel was supporting Iran's "right" to produce an arsenal of nuclear weapons ? an arsenal that Iran's leaders have already said will be used not as a deterrent but rather to wipe Israel from the face of the map (since nuclear weapons are not known for their pinpoint accuracy, I imagine most of the Palestinian Territories and the Palestinian people will be wiped out as well should Iran's proposed attack on the Jewish State ever come to pass).

Just a few nights before catching Fidel's latest exercise in verbal (and logical) diarrhoea, I happened to see Alex Scott on VSB. Although he at first attempted to put distance between Bermuda and Cuba's political system, he went on to sing Castro's praises and said that Bermuda had much to learn from Cuban "culture".

Cuba is a totalitarian state. The officially sanctioned "culture" that exists there is actually an extension of the monolithic political system: the politics and the culture are one and the same. And one aspect of that "culture" involves Castro oppressing all religious freedoms at home (given Bermuda has a healthy diversity of religions and encourages religious tolerance, I cannot think what Mr. Scott thinks we can learn from this particular aspect of Cuban society). But so desperate is Castro for international allies that although he is a Communist and so, by definition, an atheist, he is willing to embrace a fundamentalist madman in Iran who believes that a nuclear holocaust will help to usher in some sort of Islamic "paradise".

The lunatic in charge of hoodwinking the world about Iran's now 18-year-old secret nuclear programme believes the apocalypse will happen in his own lifetime.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age five.

His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

"The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being (the 12th Imam), who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one."

He reckons the return of the Imam, missing for 11 centuries, is only two years away.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the creation of chaos on Earth". He has fired Iran's most experienced diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.

The Iranian leader's finger on a nuclear trigger would be disquieting under any circumstances. Truly terrifying would be a nuclear weapon in the hands of a man who believes a pre-emptive aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will hasten the return of the missing Mahdi. Such an attack presumably would trigger anti-Western mayhem and warfare throughout the Middle East ? ushering in the chaos that will supposedly precede the return of the Mahdi.

When he became Iran's sixth president since the 1979 revolution last summer, Mr. Ahmadinejad decided to donate $20 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the faithful can drop their missives to the "Hidden Imam" in a holy well. Tehran's working-class faithful are convinced the new president and his Cabinet signed a "compact" pledging themselves to precipitate the return of the Mahdi ? and dropped it down Jamkaran's well with the Mahdi's zip code.

Ahmadinejad's ideological mentor and spiritual guide is Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who heads the ultraconservative acolytes who believe the 12th Imam's return is "imminent." He was a member of Iran's notorious Revolutionary Guards at a time when dissidents and "counterrevolutionaries" were executed by the thousands.

The Bush administration is anxious to clear the decks in a democratic Iraq before facing the Islamist fundamentalist. President Bush says all options are on the table. But, perversely enough, the military option is probably the one the "Twelvers" would actually look forward to the most.

One would have to be irredeemably myopic not to see that Iran has an active nuclear weapons programme, one intended to provoke ? rather than pre-empt ? war. For unlike the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction that kept the peace between the US and the USSR throughout the Cold War and which now keeps the peace between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan now, the Iranian leader would welcome a nuclear conflagration.

Iran has next to no supporters in the international community except for Castro. Castro has next to no supporters in the world except for Iran and the radical regimes in Venezuela and Bolivia ? and now Bermuda. Would someone please tell me what the hell they put in the water at the Cabinet Office these days? One hundred percent Cuban rum? They must do because something is very, wrong down there.

Fidel Castro does not conduct foreign policy based on purely rational factors or else he would not be interested in Islamic Iran let alone a capitalist Bermuda. But Cuba's careful cultivation of relations with Iran since the 1979 revolution that toppled the Shah illustrates that, with Castro, ideology and long-term political objectives ultimately trump all other considerations. In this regard Islamist Iran and Communist Cuba are birds of a feather.

Driven by a lifelong hatred of the "Yankee empire" and its free-market values, Castro's dream is to help slay the capitalist dragon and bring America to its knees. It's known he has shared Cuban biotechnology research with Iran, a terrorist state. Now he is celebrating Iran's nuclear programme. His support for Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction ? be they biological or nuclear ? follows on logically from Castro's worldview.

So why is Castro now interested in Bermuda? And, more importantly, why is Bermuda's Government interested in him? How does Bermuda figure into Castro's grand strategy? Is it, in fact, an Independent Bermuda that he is waiting for, one he can send Cuban "advisers" and "foreign aid" to in coming years? Will there be aCuban colony in the North Atlantic if Alex Scott achieves his dream of bringing about a Bermuda that is Independent from Britain?

A godless hell

GREETINGS from Jamaica in the name of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie, King of kings, Lord of lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Root of David. Know this Alvin Williams: To we, the Rastafarian people, who accept His Imperial Majesty as Jahweh (Jah's) representative on Earth, Fidel Castro is the anti-Jah.

The glee that filled Fidel Castro's heart on hearing that his wicked soldiers in Ethiopia put Haile Selassie I to death is an historical fact ? as is the fact that not one African (black) has ever been allowed to hold any high position in his heathen-Marxist government. I am amazed at people like you, Alvin Williams, who revere Fidel Castro.

Castro would love to control your country and eradicate freedom of expression and put thousands into prisons, just as he does in Cuba. He also tried to do this in Jamaica in the 1970s at the same time he was sending troops to Mother Africa to kill and enslave her people for Moscow.

Castro's actions in Ethiopia are among the most wicked things I can think of. There were countless numbers of Ethiopians killed by his soldiers' hands after the coup in 1974 that Moscow and Castro supported.

There were countless numbers of Somalis and Eritreans and Angolans who Castro also slaughtered with his guns and aircraft and bombs. And why? He was not there to liberate them. No, he was there to enslave them and their minds for his false heathen-Marxist "religion".

Fidel Castro a liberator? Well, Alvin Williams, it would seem some would embrace Satan if he came to their defence, not knowing his real intentions ? to create a godless hell. You say Castro helped to liberate South Africa. Castro only wanted to liberate South Africa from apartheid so it would then become a Soviet state in Africa like Ethiopia and Angola. He wanted it to remain a slave state. He just wanted to change South Africa's master. Castro was the Devil in Ethiopia. He would have been the Devil in South Africa. Know this, Alvin Williams, that the Communist Joe Slovo of the African National Congress and the Soviets and the Cubans planned to turn South Africa into a Marxist Soviet state. This too is an historical fact. They were almost successful in fulfilling their ambition. If they had been, you would never have heard of Nelson Mandela again! He would have "died in captivity" like His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie ? or just "disappeared".

The Communists do not share power when they go somewhere: they take it all. They would have no more put up with Mandela in South Africa than they did with the reformer Dubcek in Czechoslovakia. Plenty of the ANC leadership was fervently Marxist and anti-God. They would have conspired with the Cubans and the Soviets to eliminate Mandela. To me it is sadly funny that so many African blacks now have the godless white German Karl Marx as their rallying cry. You say Fidel Castro will always be respected by Africans and the children of slaves in the West. Why is that? All he wants is to an enslave their minds so that he can then achieve his godless Marxist aims. I know about what he has already done in Cuba, along with his foreign entanglements.

Alvin Williams, you may stand with whom you wish and think that Castro is your "friend". Rather, he is a godless, aggressive opportunist who would love to control Bermuda and turn it into a human rights mess like Cuba is today.

Castro only "liberates" African peoples so that his godless Marxist hell can take over. I know what I am talking about. I am quite familiar with Ethiopian history under the heathen-Marxists (1974-1991). l have been to Ethiopia: I have seen the scars Castro left on the land there and the places where his soldiers watered the earth with the blood of Mama Africa's children.

I have been to Cuba and I have seen not just the suffering he inflicts on the African and Rastafarian people there ? I have seen the suffering he inflicts onof the people there. I saw what he tried to do to my own home, Jamaica, when he falsely extended the hand of friendship ? a hand that held the slavemaster's whip! You talk of Castro's "good works" in the Caribbean, Alvin Williams? You are naive. His health programmes are not about helping people. They are tentacles into free sovereign island nations, the same policy he has in Central America and South America. Castro's aim is to create a Marxist, Godless Bondage Hell. No individual thought and freedom! That is Castro!

It's so easy to see how Satan himself will gain power in this selfish world. People are willing to look beyond the murders and oppressive system and because of Castro's "support" are willing to give praise to a mass murderer ? a true enemy of God Almighty! Which camp are you in, Alvin Williams? I'm in Jah's camp. Castro is in the complete opposite camp.

The Rastafarian community of Jamaica will never accept or deal with Castro, the anti-Jah force of heathen-Marxist doctrine in the Caribbean.

Alvin Williams, you worship your dead white German god Karl Marx and his wicked agent Fidel if you want to. I will worship His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie as the personification of God's glory on earth.