Paging Jesse Ventura - Fidel

Paging Jesse Ventura - Fidel Castro, alarmed at the number of Cubans who are willing to resort to violent means to leave his island paradise (they have national health care, you know!), has executed three men who tried to hijack a ferry to the US. The executions were carried out after a drumhead kangaroo trial, according to the WaPo.

The men were prosecuted Tuesday in summary trials for "very grave acts of terrorism" and given several days to appeal their sentences, according to a statement read on state television.

However, the sentences were upheld both by Cuba's Supreme Tribunal and the ruling Council of State, and were carried out at dawn Friday, the statement said.

Castro must be alarmed; this seems to be becoming an epidemic:

The Baragua was hijacked a day after a Cuban passenger plane was hijacked to Key West, Fla., by a man who allegedly threatened to blow up the aircraft with two grenades. The grenades turned out to be fake.

Ten of the Cubans aboard that flight opted to remain in the United States and 19 others asked to go home.

Another Cuban plane was hijacked to Key West less than two weeks earlier.

Can you imagine this - over half the people who were on a random airplane (let's assume they weren't in on the plot until we know better) decide, on the spur of the moment, to defect to a foreign country on the drop of a hat, when a plane is hijacked.

Now...wasn't this the same country that our former Governor was sucking up to?

Ventura, for his part, says he was struck by Castro's seemingly good health.

"For his age, he looks in pretty good physical shape. And if our policy is is we're going to wait until he's gone, I would say we may be waiting a long time," Ventura said.

Ventura has publicly called for normalizing relations with Cuba sooner rather than later, and he discussed the point during an afternoon meeting with Cuba's minister of agriculture.

The governor says he and Minnesota agriculture commissioner Gene Hugson discussed what hot commodities Cuba might sell to Minnesotans if U.S. laws were relaxed to allow importation of Cuban goods. Ventura says he expects Cuban coffee and, of course, cigars, would be popular.

Yeah, I thought so.

Let's not forget - however badly you want your cigars and cheap vacation havens, Fidel Castro is a murderous thug and dictator. He's sponsored terror. He's sent troops around the globe to terrorize other people. The man is a worm.

Not that we need to invade them or anything. But normalizing relations without the sort of human rights improvements that would involve Fidel Castro sitting in solitary confinement is utterly wrong.

Posted by Mitch at April 12, 2003 08:27 AM