OJ's Corner- REFLECTIONS

MONEYED MARXIST

Forbes Magazine has come out with the list of latest richies. Fidel Castro, 79, President of Cuba, is one among the moneyed class.

Of course, Forbes has given a separate list for sundry dictators and tyrants in which Fidel Castro figures. His fortune is a mere $900 million, reportedly stashed in Swiss banks.

Forbes.com says: "Controversial dictator Fidel Castro has economic control over a web of State-owned companies, a convention center near Havana, Climex, a retail conglomerate, Medicuba, which sells vaccines and pharmaceuticals produced in Cuba."

He has skimmed profits from all these ventures.But Castro defiantly says his personal net worth is zero.

His initial reaction amounted to a challenge for suing Forbes magazine. One does not know where the suit can be filed. Of course, Cuba lies in the backyard of the US. But then, who can drag the magazine honchos from the US?

There is the general list of billinaires in which William Gates ( that is Microsoft's Bill Gates) remains atop. He has been on top of the world's richest for the last 12 years.

Poor Castro, among the tyrants, dictators and sundry kings, is only a millionaire in dollar terms!

Now he has asked the United States to prove that he is a millionaire. He would, then, quit on the dot.

The source of income for Gates and others is recorded as self-made. What about Castro? It may also have been self-made. He can just ask the companies. They would do his bidding. Otherwise?

This does not mean that international Communists have been amassing money. Ho Chi Minh, Che Guera and the like who lived frugal lives cannot have made a farthing.

Many leaders who operated world affairs in the Cold War era have been richies. We remember Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, Idi Amin of Uganda and others.

Remember Amin had driven out hundreds of Indians who made it big in Uganda and they had to flee for their lives. It is a sleight of hand of the fate that Amin had to abandon Uganda with his huge baggage of wives and children to Saudi Arabia where he breathed his last unwept, unknown. Amen.

That is not the case with Marxists and Socialists spiriting away money in dark alleys and preaching equality for all in public. People take particular notice of them because they stand for the world's poor and the marginalised.

Capitalist crooks have always been there. They have no qualms about riches. Only thing is they have to be careful about unwholesome gains, as some vigilantes would drag them to court.

It has been found that, in practice, the end result of socialist and capitalist policies is the provision of enormous personal fortunes to dictators and dictatorial regimes, and their associates at the expense of citizens in developing and developed world.

Let all the banks reveal the fortunes left with them in hiding, the world's economy would burst with a bang. With that the woes of have-nots can be removed at one stroke.