Murderous Monster Castro's Cuba
It was a place to flee from at great peril, with Castro's lackeys killing those they could -- ramming boats and drowning children trying to escape to freedom. From the WSJ's Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
The Cuba Archive project (www.cubaarchive.org) has already begun the heavy lifting by attempting to document the loss of life attributable to revolutionary zealotry. The project, based in Chatham, N.J., covers the period from May 1952 -- when the constitutional government fell to Gen. Fulgencio Batista -- to the present. It has so far verified the names of 9,240 victims of the Castro regime and the circumstances of their deaths. Archive researchers meticulously insist on confirming stories of official murder from two independent sources.Cuba Archive President Maria Werlau says the total number of victims could be higher by a factor of 10. Project Vice President Armando Lago, a Harvard-trained economist, has spent years studying the cost of the revolution and he estimates that almost 78,000 innocents may have died trying to flee the dictatorship. Another 5,300 are known to have lost their lives fighting communism in the Escambray Mountains (mostly peasant farmers and their children) and at the Bay of Pigs. An estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Fidel's revolutionary adventures abroad, most notably his dispatch of 50,000 soldiers to Angola in the 1980s to help the Soviet-backed regime fight off the Unita insurgency.
The archive project can be likened to the 1999 "Black Book of Communism," which documented the world-wide cost of communism, noting that "wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established it quickly led to crime, terror and repression." The Castro methodology, Cuba Archive finds, was much like that used in Poland and East Germany, less lethal than Stalin's purges, but equally effective in suppressing opposition.
In the earliest days of the revolution, summary executions established a culture of fear that quickly eliminated most resistance. In the decades that followed, inhumane prison conditions often leading to death, unspeakable torture and privation were enough to keep Cubans cowed.
Cuba Archive finds that some 5,600 Cubans have died in front of firing squads and another 1,200 in "extrajudicial assassinations." Che Guevara was a gleeful executioner at the infamous La Cabantilde;a Fortress in 1959 where, under his orders, at least 151 Cubans were lined up and shot. Children have not been spared. Of the 94 minors whose deaths have been documented by Cuba Archive, 22 died by firing squad and 32 in extrajudicial assassinations.
...The heftiest death toll is among those trying to flee. Many have been killed by state security. Three Lazo children drowned in 1971 when a Cuban navy vessel rammed their boat; their mother, Mrs. Alberto Lazo Pastrana, was eaten by sharks. Twelve children -- ages six months to 11 years -- drowned along with 33 others when the Cuban coast guard sank their boat in 1994. Four children -- ages three to 17 -- drowned in the famous Canimar River massacre along with 52 others when the Cuban navy and a Cuban air force plane attacked a hijacked excursion boat headed for Florida in 1980.
The horrible story of that here. Pictures of the victims at the end -- like Juan Mario Gutiérrez García, age 10:
His aunt and uncle took him with them to the "13 de Marzo" while his mother was gravely ill in the hospital, without her knowledge. He was an only child and she was devastated when she was finally told what happened.She remembers Eliecer as a joyful, affectionate, and friendly child, loved by all. They were very close, he would tell her everything, and he helped a lot around the house when she was sick.
Imagine the sort of horrible place an aunt and uncle secretly pack a 10-year-old off from, while his mother is lying "gravely ill." This says everything about the place Cuba was under Castro.
From Twitter:
The worst thing you could say about Fidel Castro is that he was marginally less shitty than half of our last dozen presidents
Oh, and about that supposedly fabulous Cuban health care -- its reputation comes from scamming visitors to Cuba. In actuality, citizens have to bring their own bandages and pillows to the filthy, crumbling hospitals.
The line of the gullible and the apologists is long. For example, Irish President Michael D. Higgins:
"I have learned with great sadness of the death of Fidel Castro..."
Sadly, he wasn't around to lament the passing of Stalin or Pol Pot.
You can not help thinking "If I had a boat ..." when you see/hear people talking about how awful America is compared to __________________ .
You can't even discuss things w/them due to their lack of general knowledge/history, their bias, and their ignorance of human mores around the world.
Perspective, def. a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view, is a terrible thing to waste.
Bob in Texas at November 26, 2016 6:26 AM
I've waited 57 years for this morning.
Crid at November 26, 2016 7:40 AM
Meanwhile on Twitter:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CyL8sN6UUAADzYl.jpg
Sixclaws at November 26, 2016 7:53 AM
Where's his grave? I need to take a piss.
Wut? oh, right, secret police.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 26, 2016 7:55 AM
Canada's Prime minister on Fidel's passing:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fidel-castro-trudeau-condolences-1.3869280
Sixclaws at November 26, 2016 7:56 AM
Praise Fidel.
Under his rule, Cuba received from the U.S.S.R. aid equal to the value of 10 Marshall Plans, and created poverty and an island prison. This contributed materially to the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union, and thereby the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and peaceful liberation of millions in Eastern Europe. (His brother is following the same path with Venezuela.) Even bloody leaches have benefits.
Wfjag at November 26, 2016 8:27 AM
Obama's statement on Fidel Castro:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/26/statement-president-passing-fidel-castro
Sixclaws at November 26, 2016 9:17 AM
And here's Trump's:
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-fidel-castro-dead-death-2016-11
Sixclaws at November 26, 2016 9:20 AM
This is, on paper, the worst day your Lefty friends have ever had.
But you owe them no comfort, no succor.
Enjoy this hour.
crid at November 26, 2016 12:03 PM
I've heard that only the good die young.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 26, 2016 4:16 PM
No special hurry.
Crid at November 26, 2016 4:55 PM
Trudeau - too naïve to know history.
Obama - too afraid to say anything except "history will judge" because that is exactly what will happen to him; history will judge and find his presidency "wanting."
Castro - Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and a host of others are welcoming him to hell! All his supporters will be there too.
My experience in dealing with those on the left is that they all talk a good talk about "diversity" and being "multi-cultural" but, they don't care one iota about folks who aren't first-world, upper-class white, except when they can use them for a "cause." The ordinary folks in Cuba are no different to them than any other group they can use - the left doesn't care one bit about the horrors of Castro's Cuba.
charles at November 26, 2016 7:45 PM
I hate this so very, very much: He was a symbol of this, he was a symbol of that.
As if, you loathsome shitbunny, moral judgment could ever consist of, or itself be graded by, the manipulation of symbols.
Castro was a symbol of whatever you like; he was a symbol of Santa Clause playfully shaking his penis at Canadian Justin Beeper on the fourth of July during a tornado at the McDonald's drive-thru.
But in reality he was an indisputably murderous and corrupt force in world affairs, a source of regressive insularity and abject debasement for Cubans and uncounted millions of others around the globe.
Dear "Dr." Jill Stein: I keep a symbol here, in my pants.
Would you like to see it?
Crid at November 26, 2016 9:10 PM
Just to play devil's advocate here, Castro must have done something right. He held power longer than any other dictator I can think of. Communist sympathizers in other countries continued to admire him long after they'd repudiated his Soviet counterparts.
As for Cuban poverty, did Castro create that, or inherit it from Batista (who from all accounts was no prize himself)?
Rex Little at November 27, 2016 8:17 AM
What the fuck are you yammering about?
> He held power longer than any
> other dictator I can think of.
What's "right" about that?
Rex Little, brighten your monitor as necessary; turn off radios and and televisions and silence distracting conversation from those nearby; clear your mind, compose an answer to the following question, and type it into your keyboard:
I really, really need someone to explain what "devilry" is being "advocated" here.Because the these defenses of this monster don't convey any kind of rationality or insight which I can decode.
They are rather explications of moonbarking stupidity and reprehensible moral degeneracy.
Crid at November 27, 2016 8:27 AM
I mean, Rex Little, are you a monster too?
Crid at November 27, 2016 8:27 AM
Shit.
To describe poverty as something that was merely "inherited" by the generations of Cubans whom Castro tormented with hunger, prostitution, drownings, warfare and imprisonment is cocksuckingly despicable.
The Cubans who made it to Florida and the rest of the United States are among the most industrious, productive and enriched people this planet, let alone our dear nation, has ever welcomed.
What the fuck is happening to people in the United States of America? To people who ought to know better?
Crid at November 27, 2016 8:34 AM
Please don't slough this off as 'Well, golly, I guess we just have a difference of opinion.'
I can't even imagine what your opinion is. To say the things that people have said in admiration of Castro
etc etc etc
What piece of this puzzle am I missing? Someone, anyone, please explain.
(But it would be best to hear it from Rex Little at November 27, 2016 8:17 AM.
Crid at November 27, 2016 9:04 AM
Take deep breaths, Crid. Deeep, calming breaths. Wipe your mouth. Do it again, there's still a bit of foam in the corner.
1. "Playing devil's advocate" means presenting arguments with which one does not necessarily agree.
2. "Doing something right" in this context means avoiding mistakes which would have brought him down. I'm not talking about Right in the moral sense.
3. Communist sympathizers are not monsters, by and large, just misguided idealists. They withdraw their support from Communist dictators when their human rights abuses become too great to ignore. Castro either committed fewer such abuses than other Communist leaders, or kept them better hidden.
4. My question about Cuban poverty was a question, not a statement. It wasn't rhetorical. I know that Cuba was poor before Castro and poor while he ruled, but I honestly don't know whether it got better or worse after he took over.
Rex Little at November 27, 2016 9:35 AM
1. "Playing devil's advocate" means presenting arguments with which one does not necessarily agree.
2. "Doing something right" in this context means avoiding mistakes which would have brought him down. I'm not talking about Right in the moral sense.
"3. Communist sympathizers are not monsters, by and large, just misguided idealists. They withdraw their support from Communist dictators when their human rights abuses become too great to ignore. Castro either committed fewer such abuses than other Communist leaders, or kept them better hidden."
This is rich. It wasnt hidden at all, but the American press has a long history of being bootlickers, and apologists for dictators especially the ones who say they are socialists.
"4. My question about Cuban poverty was a question, not a statement. It wasn't rhetorical. I know that Cuba was poor before Castro and poor while he ruled, but I honestly don't know whether it got better or worse after he took over.
Rex Little at November 27, 2016 9:35 AM"
Much poorer. No middle class (the productive classes) left. It was and still is like a Carribean version of North Korea but with better weather, and hence a slightly better opportunity to keep yourself alive through fishing, and gardening.
Their GDP is lower than Haiti for Christ sake.
Interestingly enough a girl I knew in college said she lived next fo Fidel and his family in Cuba as a small child. Her parents got out while the getting was good. No one thought Castro would last much longer in 1974 when we both were freshmen at CSU, but Cuba was too useful a tool to poke the US in the eye with, so Russia, and then Venezuela kept it going.
It also seems to be a major destination for Canadian pedophiles.
Isab at November 27, 2016 10:27 AM
> Take deep breaths
I don't think you're a very bright guy.
> presenting arguments with which
> one does not necessarily agree.
See, actually, it was about canonization, specifically, the nuanced morality of those to be sainted. If there's a moral argument for your yammering, it's nowhere in evidence...
> I'm not talking about Right
> in the moral sense.
Your bogus capitalization flags an entirely worthless posture. What other "Right" could you be speaking of, besides "the moral sense"? Who, outside of your own masturbatory daydreams, could imagine that Castro's acquisition of predatory authority over the lives of millions of others could be a "Right" which might be defended? You perhaps presume (childishly) that all of us aspire to savage command of the lives of others. We do not.
> Communist sympathizers are not
> monsters, by and large, just
> misguided idealists.
I don't think so. Their "idealism," like yours, tends towards telling vast numbers of distant strangers whatever is necessary that they live with no greater happiness, effort or achievement than you do.
> I honestly don't know whether
> it got better or worse after
> he took over.
Then you know far too little about our hemisphere's history, and world affairs generally, to speak in such cuntly glibness.
Grr.
Crid at November 27, 2016 11:21 AM
Keep an eye on Twitter.
Every time someone posts an old B/W photo of a relative who was executed in Cuba, there's bound to be at least one person negating their grief with something within the line of So what? The American government kills people too.
Sixclaws at November 27, 2016 12:07 PM
Rex Little: To answer your devil's advocate question - What did Castro do "right" to stay in power so long?
Nothing. It was more an accident of geography.
It wasn't anything he did or didn't do; it was because he was anti-American, on America's doorstep. The left always loves to be on the side of those who are anti-American. And Castro did it right next door. THAT's the reason the left loved him so much.
So many ignored his crimes against humanity and embraced him because he was thumbing his nose at the US right next door. The left loves that!
charles at November 27, 2016 12:31 PM
Why do the media always act surprised to discover dictators living a life of luxury while their people starve? It's almost a cliche at this point.
Conan the Grammarian at November 27, 2016 4:39 PM
Listen, imagine a kid born in the middle class in Coral Gables in 1964. Then imagine a kid born in San Nicolas de Bari, Cuba, 235 miles away, also in 1964.
Imagine the circuitous aggregating multiples of wealth that have accumulated in the life of the American kid in the short decades since then... In EVERY context: Dentistry! Health care! Nutrition! Convenience! Air conditioning! Protection from weather! Literacy!
Can anyone seriously, seriously contend that the deficit in the life of the Cuban kid (presuming that his president's navy didn't ram and sink his boat as his family sought to escape) was "inherited"?
No.
No, someone did that to him.
The billionaire Fidel Castro did that to him.
Crid at November 27, 2016 7:10 PM
A young Facebook friend asked, "Was he all bad?" My response: "In the 1980s, I spent a lot of time among the Cuban expat community in Miami. Hardly any of them didn't have at least one desaparecido among their family. Yeah, he was all bad."
Rex, the main reason that Castro remained in power so long was due to Key West being just over the horizon, and the Curley Effect. The people that might have posed the most effective opposition to Castro, had they remained in the country, all wound up in Miami instead. Anyone with any ambition at all wanted out. As for Bastita, I also understand that he wasn't exactly King Arthur, but under him Cuba did have a booming tourist trade. A lot of postwar American culture came from Cuba: music, dancing, food, fashion. The history of television would probably not be the same had Desi Arnaz not come to the United States when he did.
Cousin Dave at November 28, 2016 6:44 AM
I think you're right, Dave. Ironic really, since Castro did his damnedest to keep those people from escaping.
Rex Little at November 28, 2016 10:51 AM
> under him Cuba did have a
> booming tourist trade.
Yes; and according to a piece I read today, perhaps linked by you or by someone else here, there were even more tourists from Cuba in the States than vice versa. There was a proficient and competent middle class in Cuba.
Butchaknow, "Devil Advocacy," etc.
Crid at November 28, 2016 5:23 PM
Ah yes, it was the mighty Totten's piece linked by Lastango
Crid at November 28, 2016 5:31 PM
"Ironic really"...
Crid at November 28, 2016 5:46 PM
Not just Ironic, really, but Ironic really with no comma, because sometimes sophistication is a tragically impatient enterprise.
Right? Right, "advocates"?
Crid at November 28, 2016 8:15 PM
A story about one of the Cubans I worked with in Florida. She, her two brothers, and their parents escaped from Cuba by way of an uncle who had escaped previously. He flew a small plane from Key West and landed on a deserted beach late at night and picked them up. They departed with nothing but the clothes on their backs, but with six people on board, the plane was overloaded. On takeoff, they just barely cleared rocks at the end of the beach. Flying back to Key West, they flew at wavetop level, without lights, because the airplane couldn't climb. The engine overheated and they just barely made the runway at Key West before it quit. It frightened her so badly that, fifteen years later, she still cried whenever she told the story.
Cousin Dave at November 29, 2016 7:06 AM
One of my neighbors growing up escaped from Cuba too. She had stories about jumping from roof top to roof top to escape the police. Which was always a bit confusing as a child since she was ~250-300 lbs by the time I met her. I assume she was much more svelte back then. She always hated Castro with a passion. But also claimed that communism was the solution. It just hadn't been implemented right. I wasn't dumb enough to ask her what it would take to implement it right given how it had failed every single time.
Ben at November 29, 2016 5:37 PM
@Rex Little:
Just to play devil's advocate here, Castro must have done something right. He held power longer than any other dictator I can think of.
He held power the same brutal way Stalin and Mao Zedong kept their power until they died. If Castro ruled longer, it was because he took power relatively young (33) and lived longer than most (90 at death; 82 when he passed his power to his brother.
How did he hold that power, where the brutal and corrupt Batista couldn't? Batista's police and military apparently murdered hundreds; Castro's regime murdered thousands, if not tens of thousands.
Communist sympathizers in other countries continued to admire him long after they'd repudiated his Soviet counterparts.
Because leftists only care about brown lives when using their deaths in an attack on the opposition. (Remember that Castro was a "white Hispanic", and Cuba is still a deeply racist country.)
As for Cuban poverty, did Castro create that, or inherit it from Batista (who from all accounts was no prize himself)?
Batista was a brutal and corrupt dictator. No torture or execution ever invented by mankind could come close to what he deserved. But he never stole enough to cripple the Cuban economy, which benefited from it's nearness to the USA as well as from having most of the island covered with some of the world's most fertile soil. Cuba was wealthier than most of Latin America when Batista fell. Under Castro, it became poorer than any Latin American country except Haiti. It went from a major exporter of agricultural products to having to import food. It received much more aid from the USSR than the USA spent to rebuild western Europe's economy under the Marshall Plan - and yet it's desperately poor.
markm at December 3, 2016 6:13 AM
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