The Downside to Castro

1. The Downside to Castro Revolutionary Hero? Socialist Visionary? Communist Despot? Brutal Dictator? Elitist Parasite?

2. 600 executions… • It has been estimated that in his seven-year reign, Batista's regime had murdered over 20,000 Cubans. • Those involved in the murders had not expected to lose power and had kept records, including photographs of the people they had tortured and murdered. • Castro established public tribunals to try the people responsible and an estimated 600 people were executed. • Although this pleased the relatives of the people murdered by Batista's government, these executions shocked world opinion.

3. Suspension of rights… • In 1959, Fidel Castro and his forces succeeded in displacing Batista from power. • In the immediate aftermath of Batista's downfall, the revolutionaries held numerous trials without due process. • These show trials would often culminate in the summary execution of the accused by the infamous paredones the suspension of habeas corpus and the executions of suspected Batista co-conspirators.

4. 550 executions… • Various estimates have been made to ascertain the number of political executions carried out on behalf of the Cuban Government in Cuba since the revolution. • Latin American historian Thomas E Skidmore, assessed that there had been 550 executions in the first six months of 1959. • Among those executed were former Batista regime officials and members of the "Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities" (a unit of the secret police know by its Spanish acronym BRAC).

5. 5,000 executions… • British historian Hugh Thomas, in his extensive study Cuba or the pursuit of freedom alleged that "perhaps" 5,000 executions had taken place by 1970, whilst The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators assertained that there had been 2,113 political executions between the years of 1958-67.

6. 18,000 executions… • Cuban American emigrant sources place the number of executions in a far higher bracket. The Cuban American National Foundation alleges that since the revolution 12,000 political executions have taken place. • Dr. Armando Lago, of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, a group of academics whose board of directors is almost entirely comprised of Cuban exiles, claim that between 15,000 and 18,000 Cubans were executed for counterrevolutionary activities since the revolution.

7. Disappearing… Assassinations… • Dr. Lago alleges that 250 Cubans disappeared during the period, 500 died in prison for lack of medical attention, 500 were killed in prison by guards and there were 150 extrajudicial assassinations of women. • Lago calculated these numbers "using old news accounts, U.S. and Organization of American States records and family histories.“ • Lago's study relies heavily on records of the US State Department and the Organization of American States.

8. 17,000 executions… • The Black Book of Communism gives an estimate of 15,000-17,000 people who were executed.

9. “An axe to grind…” • The author of the Historical Atlas, an online personal compilation of various sources claims: "The dividing line between those who have an axe to grind and those who don't falls in the 5,000-12,000 range."

10. 141,000 deaths… • The highest estimates are given by R.J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii. • He gives the number of 73,000 as the mid-point estimate of victims of the alleged democide by the Castro administration. • His low and high estimates are 35,000 and 141,000 respectively. • One important reason his numbers are higher than those from other sources is because he counts the estimated deaths of refugees trying to flee and for example drowning as democide.

11. US relations… • Some of Castro's new laws also upset the United States. Much of the land given to the peasants was owned by United States corporations. So also was the telephone company that was nationalized. • The United States government responded by telling Castro they would no longer be willing to supply the technology and technicians needed to run Cuba's economy. • When this failed to change Castro's policies they reduced their orders for Cuban sugar.

12. Refugees… • In the three years that followed the revolution, 250,000 Cubans out of a population of six million left the country. • Most of these were from the upper and middle-classes who were financially worse off as a result of Castro's policies.

13. Democracy…? • Of those who stayed, 90 per cent of the population, according to public opinion polls, supported Castro. • However, Castro did not keep his promise of holding free elections. Castro claimed the national unity that had been created would be destroyed by the competing political parties in an election.

14. Sacked… • Castro was also becoming less tolerant towards people who disagreed with him. • Ministers who questioned the wisdom of his policies were sacked and replaced by people who had proved their loyalty to him. • These people were often young, inexperienced politicians who had fought with him in the Sierra Maestra.

15. Dissention… • Politicians who publicly disagreed with him faced the possibility of being arrested. • Writers who expressed dissenting views and people he considered deviants such as homosexuals were also imprisoned.

16. Revolution and Bay of Pigs… • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D22Nv6nnfAI

17. Revolution and Bay of Pigs… • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imiZapfY0y0

18. Cuba’s Economy… • At home, Fidel Castro has overseen the implementation of various economic policies, leading to the rapid centralization of Cuba's economy, land reform, collectivization and mechanization of agriculture, and the expropriation of leading Cuban industries. • Some opponents claim that these changes have had disastrous consequences and transformed Cuba into a third-world slum. • Others blame the U.S. embargo for Cuba's shortcomings. Still others attribute the shortcomings to a mix of these factors.

19. Infrastructure declines… • Under Castro, Cuba has experienced a severe housing shortage and a decline in the quality of its public works.

20. Inside information… • In 1986 a Tribunal on Cuba was held in Paris to present testimonies by former prisoners of Cuba's penal system to the international media. The gathering was sponsored by Resistance International and The Coalition of Committees for the Rights of Man in Cuba.

21. Torture, violence, experiments… • The testimonies presented at the tribunal, before an international panel, alleged a pattern of torture in Cuba's prisons and "hard labor camps". These included beatings, biological experiments in diet restrictions, violent interrogations and extremely unsanitary conditions.

22. A Hero? • The jury concurred with allegations of arbitrary arrests; sentencing by court martial with neither public audience nor defense; periods in hard labour camps without sufficient food, clothes and medical care; and the arrests of children over nine years old.

23. Civil and Political Rights… • Cuba officially adopted the civil and political rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. One of the key principles in the declaration was the insistence on Freedom of expression and opinion.

24. Freedom of Expression? • In 1976 the new Cuban constitution adopted the following articles. Article 53: “ "Citizens have freedom of speech and of the press in keeping with the objectives of socialist society. Material conditions for the exercise of that right are provided by the fact that the press, radio, television, cinema, and other mass media are state or social property and can never be private property. This assures their use at exclusive service of the working people and in the interests of society. The law regulated the exercise of those freedoms." ”

25. Political Rights? • Article 62 of the Cuban constitution states: “ "None of the freedoms which are recognized for citizens can be exercised contrary to what is established in the Constitution and by law, or contrary to the existence and objectives of the socialist state, or contrary to the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism. Violations of this principle can be punished by law." ”