In a 2010 interview with Mexican newspaper "La Jornada", Castro called the persecution of homosexuals while he was in power "a great injustice, great injustice!" Taking responsibility for the persecution, he said, "If anyone is responsible, it's me... We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death. In those moments, I was not able to deal with that matter [of homosexuals]. I found myself immersed, principally, in the Crisis of October, in the war, in policy questions." Castro personally said that the negative treatment of gays in Cuba arose out of the country's pre-revolutionary attitudes toward homosexuality.