When news broke Friday night of the death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, dissidents celebrated in the streets of Miami. And when the White House offered sympathies Saturday morning, President Obama faced sharp backlash.
“We extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people,” Obama wrote Saturday, before offering his “condolences to Fidel Castro’s family” as well as his “thoughts and prayers” to the communist nation.
Over the last two years, Obama has renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba and started to lift a decades-old embargo on the island nation.
“During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us,” Obama wrote, “pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends.”
That legacy may be temporary. President-elect Trump’s comments contrast starkly with those of his outgoing predecessor.
The incoming executive bluntly tweeted that “Fidel Castro is dead!” early Saturday. And later in an official statement, he described Castro’s legacy as “one of firing squads” and “the denial of fundamental human rights.”
Later Republicans piled on Obama, accusing the administration of sympathizing with communists.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio slammed Obama for issuing “a pathetic statement on the death of dictator Fidel Castro with no mention of the thousands he killed and imprisoned.”
Trump adviser Newt Gingrich tweeted that “under no circumstance should President Obama or [Vice President] Biden or [Secretary of State] Kerry go to Cuba for Castro’s funeral. He was a tyrant.”
And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father fled Cuba, called for remembrance of the victims rather than Castro. “Today we remember and honor,” Cruz wrote on Facebook, “the brave souls who fought the lonely fight against the brutal Communist dictatorship he imposed on Cuba.”
Across the globe, reactions seemed to break down according to old, ideological East-West divisions.
From the former USSR, Russian President Vladimir Putin remembered Castro as a “strong and wise man” according to a statement released by the Kremlin.
“He embodied high ideals of a politician, citizen and patriot, and was sincerely convinced of the rightness of the cause, to which he gave his whole life,” the Russian leader wrote. “His memory will live forever in the hearts of Russian citizens.”
In the West, French President Francois Hollande was not as generous. “Fidel Castro was a towering figure of the 20th century,” Hollande wrote. “He incarnated the Cuban revolution, in both its hopes and subsequent disillusionments.”
