PrintJanuary 4, 2009
'Dictators' to the Right of me, 'Presidents' to the Left
From the AP to Reuters and from the New York Times to the Washington Post the MSM stories on the Cuban Revolution” 50th anniversary all mention a “dictator”-- but his name is Batista. The Castro brothers invariably appear as “Presidents.” Fidel Castro has ruled (unelected) longer than Hitler and Stalin combined and mandates what his subjects, read, say, earn, eat (both substance and amount), where they live, travel or work. No matter. He's a “president”
You will search these stories in utter vain for any mention of mass-murder and jailings or torture—on the part of the Castros that is. Yet mass-repression started on day one of the Castroite triumph and kicked into highest gear in the mid 60's, precisely at the apex of the Castro/Che popularity with western politicians, celebrities and “intellectuals.”
In April 1959, three months after his triumph, Castro toured the US to thunderous acclaim. At the time of his delirious, deafening, foot-stomping receptions at Harvard Law School and the National Press Club (most of whose members oppose capital punishment), his firing squads had slaughtered 1,168 men -- and boys, some as young as 15.
By the time Norman Mailer (another opponent of capital punishment) was hailing Fidel Castro as "the greatest hero to appear in the Americas!" his hero's firing squads had piled up 4,000 corpses and one of 18 Cubans was a political prisoner, an incarceration rate that surpassed Stalin's.
By 1975, when George McGovern (another opponent of capital punishment) was calling Castro a "very shy and sensitive, a man I regard as a friend," the bullet-riddled bodies of over 10,000 Cubans lay in unmarked graves, and Cuba still held the most political prisoner as a percentage of population on earth, easily surpassing Nazi Germany's prewar rate. But this record does not besmirch, as evidenced by the following tributes:
By the time Norman Mailer (another opponent of capital punishment) was hailing Fidel Castro as "the greatest hero to appear in the Americas!" his hero's firing squads had piled up 4,000 corpses and one of 18 Cubans was a political prisoner, an incarceration rate that surpassed Stalin's.
By 1975, when George McGovern (another opponent of capital punishment) was calling Castro a "very shy and sensitive, a man I regard as a friend," the bullet-riddled bodies of over 10,000 Cubans lay in unmarked graves, and Cuba still held the most political prisoner as a percentage of population on earth, easily surpassing Nazi Germany's prewar rate. But this record does not besmirch, as evidenced by the following tributes:
"Viva Fidel! Viva Che! Long Live our cry of Freedom!" --Jesse Jackson.
"Castro is very selfless and moral. One of the world's wisest men." --Oliver Stone."Cuba's Elvis." -Dan Rather.One Helluva Guy!--Ted Turner"If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, you have no choice but to support Fidel Castro!" -Harry Belafonte."A genius." --Jack Nicholson."Fidel, I love you. We both have beards. We both have power and want to use it for good purposes." --Francis Ford Coppola."Socialism works. I think Cuba might prove that." --Chevy Chase."Castro has done some good things for Cuba"—Colin Powell
The identical pattern characterized adulation for the Soviet Union and Red China by Western dingbats (and/or scoundrels.) The Soviet Union was never as popular with leftist “intellectuals” as during Stalin's blood-drenched reign. China was the leftists' showcase Shangri-La precisely during Mao's mass butcheries of the Cultural Revolution.
Figures from the human rights group Freedom House show that in the 1960's and 70's Cuba had the highest political incarceration rate on earth (higher than the Soviet Union's.) Castro and Che's firing squads were piling up thousands of corpses a year--it was at that very time that Western college kids like Christopher Hitchens, Bernadine Dohrn and the Venceremos Brigadistas made a fetish of flocking to Castroland to help with sugar cane harvests and worship at the altar of the Maximum Leader (among other activities in the case of Dohrn). In similar fashion, Stalin and Mao got the loudest cheers and the most panties thrown on their stage precisely at the height of their butchery of millions.
“In one week during 1964 we counted 400 firing squad blasts from our cells," recalled former Cuban political prisoner and freedom-fighter Roberto Martin Perez to this writer. On April 7, 1967 The Organization of American States Human Rights Commission issued a detailed report on an overlooked facet of “President” Castro's much-lauded health-care:
"On May 27 1966 from six in the morning to nightfall political prisoners were executed continuously by firing squad in Havana's La Cabana prison. One hundred and sixty-six men were executed that day and each had 5 pints of blood extracted prior to being shot.
Extracting this amount of blood often produces cerebral anemia and unconsciousness so that many had to be carried to the execution wall on stretchers. The corpses were then transported by truck to a mass grave in a cemetery outside the city of Marianao. On that day, the truck required seven trips to deliver all the corpses. On 13th street in Havana's Vedado district, Soviet medical personnel have established a blood bank where this blood is transported and stored. This blood is sold at fifty U.S. dollars per pint to the Republic of North Viet Nam."
Extracting this amount of blood often produces cerebral anemia and unconsciousness so that many had to be carried to the execution wall on stretchers. The corpses were then transported by truck to a mass grave in a cemetery outside the city of Marianao. On that day, the truck required seven trips to deliver all the corpses. On 13th street in Havana's Vedado district, Soviet medical personnel have established a blood bank where this blood is transported and stored. This blood is sold at fifty U.S. dollars per pint to the Republic of North Viet Nam."
Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro's theft of their humble family farm.
On Christmas eve 1961 Juana Diaz spat in the face of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. They'd found her guilty of feeding and hiding "bandits" (Cuban rednecks who took up arms to fight Castro and Che's theft of their family farms. Farm collectivization was no more voluntary in Cuba than in the Ukraine. And Cuba's kulaks had guns—at first anyway. Then the Kennedy-Khrushchev pact left them helpless against Soviet tanks and flame- throwers.) When the blast from that firing squad demolished her face and torso Juana Diaz was six months pregnant.
Traditionally, firing squads have only or two of its members with loaded guns. The rest shoot blanks. Not Castro and Che's. In these, all ten members shot live ammo -- all ten bullets ripped into the staked hero or heroine. This incorporated more members into Castro's criminal organization, more members to resist desperately any overthrow of the system, with the consequent settling of accounts.
Cuba's population in 1960 was 6.2 million. According to the human Rights group Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans (young and old, male and female) have passed through Castro's prison and forced-labor camps. At one time during 1961-62, 300,000 Cubans were jailed for political offenses islandwide. I repeat: this makes Castro's political incarceration rate higher than Stalin and pre-war Hitler's. According to the scholars and researchers at the Cuba Archive, the Castro regime’s total death toll -- from torture, prison beatings, machine gunning of escapees, drownings, etc. -- approaches 100,000.
But, again, you will search the 50th Anniversary MSM stories in utter vain for the slightest mention of any of the above unpleasantness. Now let's look at how they treated Augusto Pinochet, head of a regime accused of 3000 deaths (including collateral damage) when it thwarted Castroism in Chile. Many of these dead, by the way, keep climbing out of their graves much like the dancers in Michael Jackson's Thriller. see
From the Washington Post 12/10/06 : “Gen. Augusto Pinochet, 91, the former Chilean dictator whose government murdered and tortured thousands during his repressive 17-year rule, died yesterday.
From the New York Times 12/11/06: “Augusto Pinochet, Dictator Who Ruled by Terror in Chile, Dies at 91 Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the brutal dictator who repressed and reshaped Chile for nearly two decades and became a notorious symbol of human rights abuse and corruption, died yesterday at the Military Hospital of Santiago.
These consist of the very first sentences of these MSM stories on Pinochet.
I apologize for taking up your time illustrating something so glaringly obvious as mainstream media and celebrity bias, stupidity and swinishness.
Humberto Fontova is the author of four books including Exposing the Real Che Guevara. Visit hfontova.com.
Humberto Fontova is the author of four books including Exposing the Real Che Guevara. Visit hfontova.com.
