Madam, - S.P. Mac Aonghusa takes me to task (January 5th) for calling Fidel Castro a thuggish dictator, because he "was last returned to parliament as an ordinary member by a majority of those who voted in his constituency on April 19th, 2003".
Actually he was one of 609 pro-government candidates who were elected (in January 2003, not April) by 97 per cent of Cuban voters. Not a single opposition candidate ran. This election was as credible as those which returned Stalin, Brezhnev et al in the Soviet Empire days.
Mr Castro has been in power for 46 continuous years, running a prison state whose citizens are forbidden to leave the country. He denies free speech, political opposition, and freedom of religion.
He has wrecked Cuba's economy (GDP $3,000 per capita), and has killed over 72,000 of his own people so far by executions, camps, and the deaths of refugees (boat people) trying to escape.
If this is not the behaviour of a thuggish dictator, what is? It is Mr Castro who disrespects the Cuban people, not I. If only it were possible to ask them. - Yours, etc,
TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.