Dear James Franco

Dear James Franco

A letter to the actor recently cast as Fidel Castro in a new film, on behalf of the truth.

Painting by Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez on Facebook

Dear James Franco,

The very first role I saw you play was Franco in General Hospital. Admittedly, I watched GH for a solid 20 years. But for those readers who may not be familiar with Franco, I will succinctly describe him in one sentence. Franco was GHs serial killer artist who could fool people with his charm.

So, when I heard that you were playing the role of a person whom I was born knowing to be the devil himself, I thought, ‘Wow! James Franco could pull this one off if only he can channel the evil core essence of GH’s Franco character.’

On behalf of the Cuban exile community, I am compelled to enlighten you on the numerous atrocities committed by the person whose evil essence you will soon portray. To the entire global Cuban Exile community and awakened Cubans on the island who can’t speak out against the regime for fear of imprisonment, the man you will portray is the epitome of evil on earth.

This man has single-handedly destroyed a rich and once flourishing culture born of the will of a people to be free over several centuries. In the process, he slowly erased its history for one he fabricated himself. You ask a Cuban today and they will tell you they only read and learned one history book in school as they illustrate with their hands how thin the book was.

The Mambises, the name Cuban Creole soldiers gave themselves in the 1830s during their fight for freedom against the Spanish crown all over the Western Hemisphere, are the original freedom fighters not to be confused by the name Fidel stole and masked himself with.

Painting by Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez

James, this is a big role you’re about to portray that, if not done properly could offend and dishonor the life experiences and suffering of millions of Cubans around the world over the course of 62 years. Worse, it could offend the memories of the parents and grandparents (like mine) whose property and assets, however small or limited, were stolen by Fidel Castro; whose hearts were forever broken from the suffering they endured from being separated from their families - mothers and fathers separated from their children for decades through exile or imprisonment; and the heartbreak they died with from never seeing their loved ones again. Brothers and sisters the same, so many forever separated by water and divided by differences in ideology fueled by the intolerance and hatred they were and still are encouraged to display by the Cuban regime.

So as you prepare for this role, I urge you to please not buy into the propaganda and external romanticism he created to fool the non-Cuban world.

Here are a few things you must know about Fidel.

Painting by Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez on Instagram

Fidel was a Murderer with No Conscience

Like the Franco I remember, Fidel was a murderer with no conscience. Often times he was too smart and manipulative to do the dirty work himself so he would recruit fools capable of being manipulated to carry out the dirty work of murder for him.

Che was his murder puppet. Che, a non-Cuban, loved to murder Cubans. He is documented to have murdered 216 Cubans within just two years, 1957–59, most by way of firing squad executions — a fate my grandfather was lucky enough to escape. And Che murdered children too. Here is an account of Che killing a 14-year-old boy in the back at the Cabana prison.

“Several men who survived La Cabana prison recall a night when a 14-year-old boy was shoved into their holding cell.

When asked what he did, he gasped that he had tried to defend his father from the firing squad, but was unsuccessful.

Moments later, guards dragged the boy out of the cell, and Che Guevara himself ordered the boy to kneel down.” (Allison Aldrich)

The jailed men screamed “assassins!” and watched out of their cell window as Guevara took out his pistol, put the barrel to the back of the boy’s neck, and fired.

Please make no mistake, all the Cuban bloodshed by Che and the Revolution’s many puppets and assistant puppeteers are all on Fidel’s hands.

Fidel established himself by Cuban law as the highest moral authority. So it’s no wonder that he would arrange the killing of anyone who stole the spotlight from him like Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, and many more. He made them martyrs to deflect his part in those killings.

So here in this article about Che’s killing, it says that the undercover CIA operative that found him dead never wanted him killed. Cubans all know whose work this was. Like the criminal that he is, he saw an opportunity to get his dirty work done in a manner where he could get away with it by blaming another party.

Fidel eliminated Che after using him because the pretty boy was getting too popular and that was at odds with Fidel’s master grand plan — to become the land’s “highest moral authority;” I kid you not.

Fidel Was a Pathological Liar

Nothing that he ever said was true. Fidel lied to all the Cuban people and the world when he said he was not a Communist providing these three reasons why, as translated from the image above.

“I am not communist for three three reasons and I tell you this to put your spirit as ease. First, because communism is a dictatorship of solely one class and I have fought all my life against dictatorships and I will not fall into a proletarian dictatorship. The second reason; because communism signifies hate and the struggle of (social) classes and I am completely against this philosophy. And the third, because communism fights against god and the church.” (Fidel Castro)

The truth is actually hidden behind this big lie — these were in fact his reasons for being a communist.

He spoke with so much conviction I could see how people believed him, especially foreigners. He lied to the world when he said he brought free education to Cuba; that law had already been passed in 1952.

Painting by Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez 

He lied to the Cuban people when he said he and only he was the highest moral authority. He prohibited religion from being practiced by the Cuban people; an intentional act to destroy the very essence of the Cuban culture.

He lied to the Black Panthers and African Americans when he said he was not a racist. Every Cuban knows that Fidel brought racism to Cuba. Prior to the Revolution, Afro-Cubans were free. There was no legal segregation in Cuba. Cubans identified culturally with one another, not racially. In fact, the Ladies of Havana’s generous donation collection that financed General George Washington’s Battle of Yorktown in 1781 was made, as they inscribed, “So American Mothers’ Sons are not born as slaves” (The Ladies of Havana).

He lied to Cubans when he said that the CIA pays all Cuban exiles to speak against him. I have recently been accused of this myself and I find it so ridiculous. His scripted lies are still found in school textbooks when they learn that evil American Yankees are eager and desperate to attack and invade them.

Historical documentation supports Fidel’s terrible lying habit was emergent even at the early age of 14 in this letter he wrote to U.S. President FDR on November 6, 1940, the same year of the last amended constitution of Cuba before the Revolution.

Unsurprisingly Fidel lies about his age in this letter; he tells FDR that he’s twelve years old when in fact he was already fourteen. I personally think he lies to deflect suspicious intent in his next written statement to FDR.

In a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “If you want iron to make your ships I will show to you the bigest (minas) of iron in the land. They are in Mayorí, Oriente, Cuba.” (14-year-old Fidel Castro, Nov. 6, 1940)

No doubt he was goading the President with this invitation for information. You can imagine how Fidel would have distorted and used such a response to further his future anti-American smear campaign. I have to ask, why in the world would a teenage Fidel entice the US President into exploiting Cuba’s natural resources if he didn’t have ulterior motives? He obviously had wet dreams about his conquest long before he could grow that awful disgusting beard that I know will transform you into his evil essence.

Painting by Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez on Instagram

Fidel Built His Personal Wealth from Stealing

Did you know Fidel was the biggest capitalist in Cuba? In fact, he and his kids and family were the only people who could capitalize on just about anything they wanted.

At his death, Fidel had an understated net worth valued at $900 Million now enjoyed by his many offspring and grand-offspring. His favorite grandchild has a $300 Million yacht. If the thought of this elitism doesn’t sicken you, consider the audacity of the Castro’s to taunt their riches and privileges in this way while the people of Cuba starve, die in crumbling buildings, and risk their lives daily to escape so they can make money in exile to send to their families in Cuba via remittances and provide them with some means to help them meet their basic needs so they don’t starve.

Painting by Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez on Instagram

Fidel Hated Cubans

I’m sure you know by now that Fidel was only half-Cuban. Fidel’s father was born in Galicia, Spain; was recruited into the Spanish military as a teenager; and fought against Cubans and Americans in the Spanish American War during Spain’s defeat in 1898. If this fact alone doesn’t wave red flags and major insights into whose national interests Castro had all along, I don’t know what will.

Fidel’s father later has the gall to emigrate to Cuba in 1905, the country he fought to continue oppressing. Fidel describes his father to have been “infuriated of the American control of the former Spanish colony,” according to Wikipedia (from Fidel’s documented remarks in an interview). If you know Spanish history, you will know the blow this defeat was to Spain and how it forever changed the social landscape of Spanish society.

What’s worst is that Fidel was one of the illegitimate children born of the Spanish wealthy man and his maid turned mistress. It doesn’t take a shrink to figure out Fidel grew up in the epitome of familial dysfunction, the kind that could drive a person to madness just to gain a father’s love and acceptance. In Fidel’s case, it’s possible his madness was driven by his father’s hate for Americans along with Fidel’s ultimate desire to seek revenge on his father’s behalf. What better way to gain his father’s acceptance than to serve to him on a silver platter the very country he tried to defeat?

So James, understand that Castro had no love or remorse for the country he stole or the people he stole the country from. How else do we know Fidel hates Cubans? Of course by the manner in which he crushed their human spirit through repression, lack of everything, and constant hunger to name a few.

Cubans are not allowed to fish from Cuban waters, plow and sow on fertile Cuban soil. To do so without working on behalf of the Cuban regime will get you arrested. Cubans that work for the government benefit from association with a higher class and enjoy more privileges and freedoms than normal Cubans as long as they comply with the enforcement of the regime’s repressive laws. If Cubans so much as think and speak in any way that opposes the Cuban government, they end up jailed without fair due process; many mothers included.

Painting by Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez on Instagram

So James Franco, now that you’ve read my letter and have witnessed the powerful artistic expressions of Fidel’s evil essence through the artistry of Cuban painter Alexey Camilo Meriño Tellez, and given the James Franco hate trend I’ve seen on social media as a result of your shenanigans with Amber Heard, I am positive that you will succeed in the portrayal of the most evil and broken man to have ever lived. Remember to tap into your inner Franco character from General Hospital and always remember that the words you will speak from your script have zero genuinity unless spoken as an act of repudiation.

   Sincerely,

   Michelle Marie Writes on Medium, on behalf of all the Cuban people who seek freedom.