How many did castro kill

The guerrillas held their ground, launched a counterattack and wrested control from Batista on January 1, Castro arrived in Havana a week later and soon took over as prime minister. At the same time, revolutionary tribunals began trying and executing members of the old regime for alleged war crimes. In , Castro nationalized all U.

This prompted the United States to end diplomatic relations and impose a trade embargo that still stands today. Their plans ended in disaster, however, partially because a first wave of bombers missed their targets and a second air strike was called off.

Ultimately, more than exiles were killed and nearly everyone else was captured. Castro publicly declared himself a Marxist - Leninist in late Ostracized by the United States, Cuba was becoming increasingly dependent on the Soviet Union for economic and military support. After a day standoff, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the nukes against the wishes of Castro, who was left out of the negotiations.

In return, U. President John F. Kennedy publicly consented not to reinvade Cuba and privately consented to take American nuclear weapons out of Turkey.

After taking power, Castro abolished legal discrimination, brought electricity to the countryside, provided for full employment and advanced the causes of education and health care, in part by building new schools and medical facilities. But he also closed down opposition newspapers, jailed thousands of political opponents and made no move toward elections.

Moreover, he limited the amount of land a person could own, abolished private business and presided over housing and consumer goods shortages. With political and economic options so limited, hundreds of thousands of Cubans, including vast numbers of professionals and technicians, left Cuba, often for the United States. From the s to the s, Castro supplied military and financial aid to various leftist guerilla movements in Latin America and Africa.

Meanwhile, relations with many countries, with the notable exception of the United States, began to normalize. Two years later, in , he permanently resigned. In , U. Verdicts, quickly reached, were as quickly carried out.

In a Mass Grave. A bulldozer ripped out a trench 40 ft. At nearby Boniato prison, six priests heard last confessions. Before dawn buses rolled out to the range and the condemned men dismounted, their hands tied, their faces drawn.

Some pleaded that they had been rebel sympathizers all along; some wept; most stood silent. One broke for the woods, was caught and dragged back. Half got blindfolds. A priest led two of the prisoners through the glare of truck headlights to the edge of the trench and then stepped back.

Six rebel executioners fired, and the bodies jackknifed into the grave. Two more prisoners stepped forward, then two more and two more—and the grave slowly filled. Enrique Despaigne, charged with 53 murders, got a three-hour reprieve at the request of TV cameramen, who wanted the light of a full dawn. When his turn came, Despaigne was allowed to write a note to his son, smoke a final cigarette and—to show his scorn and nerve—to shout the order for his own execution.

On a hill overlooking the range, a crowd gathered and cheered as each volley rang out. I have a pain in my soul. By noon 70 prisoners had died. The Santiago rebels also sentenced ten men to ten-year jail terms and acquitted Almost all were followed by a coup de grace—two. Havana jails held accused men; the government estimated that, in all, 2, would stand trial.

The world looked on, tried to understand the provocation, boggled at the bloodshed. Senator Wayne Morse, all protested. We will make trenches in the streets. No Cuban voices rose in protest, though there were doubtless many private misgivings.

Sticking up for calm justice might be misinterpreted as sticking up for the tyrant Batista—a dangerous practice in Cuba today. Overwhelming public opinion, especially among women, urged the firing squads on. As he walked with his entourage through the lobby of the Havana Hilton last week, Castro stopped to talk with two old women, who blubbered a request that their murdered sons be avenged.

A Special Moral Climate. The spectacle of Cuban killing Cuban and calling it justice was nothing new to history. Men still alive today saw the carnage of Spanish rule, and their sons died in the streets in the massacre.

Capable of high idealism and warm generosity, Cubans are also endowed to the full with the Latin capacity for brooding revenge and blood purges.

Two wrongs, in many Cuban minds, do make a right. This set of mind fed, under Batista, on a rich diet of police terrorism, often starkly visible. Many of the Batista cops who faced the firing squads last week were proved killers whose twisted minds drew pleasure from pain.

To extract secrets from captured rebels, they yanked out fingernails, carbonized hands and feet in red-hot vises. Castration was a major police weapon. Bodies were left in sun-speckled streets as police warnings. Other rebels were forced to watch their wives raped by cops. But reporters trying to run down atrocity stories often found them to be rumors or plants. Habitual Corruption.

Political morality under Batista, while conforming to a half-century of practice, hardly lived up to the idealistic constitution. Brothels, such as the Mambo Club, with chic girls, matronly overseers and a consulting physician, catered to U.

Cheaper cribs along Virtues Street enticed Cubans. There were 10, harlots and as many panderers. Payoffs from prostitution and gambling ran into the millions and were efficiently organized, e. But in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela, the army, while shucking its dictator-boss, remained nearly intact and moderated the transition to free elections.

In Cuba, as in the Mexico of , the people rose to smash the army. Living on Euphoria. Fidel Castro himself is egotistic, impulsive, immature, disorganized. A spellbinding romantic, he can talk spontaneously for as much as five hours without strain. He hates desks—behind which he may have to sit to run Cuba.

He sleeps irregularly or forgets to sleep, living on euphoria. Wildly, he blasted U. Officials heavily censored books, newspapers, radio, television, music and film, stunting discourse even while promoting arts and culture.

Only a few Cubans were trusted with full internet access. Peaceful attempts at democratic reform, such as the Varela project, triggered swift crackdowns, including the so-called Black Spring in More than a million Cubans took to leaky boats and risked drowning to flee poverty, stagnation and a sense of claustrophobia which most blamed on Castro, not the US embargo.

Detractors called it tyranny. You see that in many of the declarations of presidents calling him a revolutionary icon.