Sister Honors Fidel Castro by Insulting Trump

By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 28, 2016 8:51 AM CST
Castro's Sister: I Forgive Him
Juanita Castro in Miami in 2009.   (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

Juanita Castro hadn't spoken to her brother in 52 years and previously called him a "counter-revolutionary worm," per the Times, but with his death, she feels as though "something is missing." Castro—who initially supported Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba but began working against his Communist regime before escaping to Mexico, and then to Miami where she opened a pharmacy in the 1960s—"never changed my position, even though I had to pay a high price for the pain and isolation," she tells the New York Times from her South Florida home. "I live with pain in my heart, but I accept my destiny," adds Castro, who won't travel to Cuba for Fidel's funeral. "I forgive everybody, including my brother."

Asked about the US presidential election, she even appeared to give him a compliment. Comparing Donald Trump and her brother, she said, "the only difference is that [Trump] may have millions, but the other had a brain." She adds parties that broke out in Miami with news of Fidel's death were hurtful and in poor taste. "I do not rejoice over the death of any human being, much less when that person is someone with my blood and surname," she tells the Telegraph. At the same time, however, Juanita Castro, 83, recognizes the importance of her brother's death, reportedly due to a heart attack. Now "I hope that we can find, not a way toward confrontation and hatred, but toward one that finally binds all Cubans," she says. (See what Elian Gonzalez said about Castro's death.)

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