February 19, 2008 - 11:23am
News

Menendez reacts to Castro news

Senator Bob Menendez said that Fidel Castro’s resignation as Cuban President isn’t great news, but he hopes the Cuban people will take to the streets to peacefully protest the Castro regime.

“This is not the cause for celebration that some would believe. This does not represent the replacement of totalitarianism with democracy,” said Menendez. “Instead, it is the replacement of one dictator with another.”

Menendez’s parents left Cuba in 1953, during the reign of Fulgencio Batista, the dictator who was soon ousted by Castro. Menendez was born in the United States shortly after, and is one of two Cuban-Americans in the Senate.

Menendez said that since Castro’s brother, Raul, has been the Defacto ruler of Cuba since Castro took ill, it’s no surprise that he’s officially taken the reins.

“Just because the dictator is now named Raul instead of Fidel, it doesn’t mean that the regime’s repressive rule will automatically change.”

But Raul Castro, Menendez added, “does not have the same relationship with the Cuban people as Fidel, and now is the time to challenge him.”

West New York Mayor and former Assemblyman Sal Vega, who immigrated from Cuba as a child, agreed with Menendez's sentiments.  This, he said, was a way to prepare the Cuban people for Castro's death and avoid a power struggle afterwards.

"It’s just passing power from one tyrant to the other," he said.

 

 

Matt Friedman is a PolitickerNJ.com Reporter and can be reached via email at matt@politicsnj.com.

Comments

These comments from the biggest Socialist in the Senate


Bob's jealous.  He wants the same kind of big government leftism here in America and he's working hard every day to make our country's economy and government more like Cuba's.  Every bill he sponsors is designed to make our country less like America and more like a Third World dictatorship.  Fortunately, his ilk doesn't have 60 votes in the Senate -- at least not yet.

02/19/08 2:43 pm

What???


Mountaintop that's the stupidest thing I have EVER seen anyone post.

02/19/08 4:50 pm

When can we celebrate in New Jersey?


Hopefully, we in New Jersey will be free of the socialist policies that Menendez along with his buddies, Corzine and Lautenberg shove down our throats.  

"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything."
                --Theodore Roosevelt--

02/19/08 6:55 pm

Menendez


Can you say ILLEGAL ALIEN……………….

02/19/08 10:37 pm

Resignation of President Castro??


This guy was a brutal dictator and a tyrant nothing more. Both Menendez and Corzine elavated this scum to the level of president in their press releases. Interesting

02/20/08 8:54 am