Is President Apologist Still Kissing Commie Ass In Havana?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara#La_Caba.C3.B1a.2C_land_reform.2C_and_literacy

To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959).[105] Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against those considered to be traitors, chivatos (informants) or war criminals.[106] Serving in the post as commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process.[9] The tribunals were conducted by 2–3 army officers, an assessor, and a respected local citizen.[107] On some occasions the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing squad.[108] Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, has argued that the death penalty was justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands, as happened twenty years earlier in the anti-Machado rebellion.[109] Biographers note that in January 1959, the Cuban public was in a "lynching mood",[110] and point to a survey at the time showing 93% public approval for the tribunal process.[9] Moreover, a January 22, 1959, Universal Newsreel broadcast in the United States and narrated by Ed Herlihy, featured Fidel Castro asking an estimated one million Cubans whether they approved of the executions, and was met with a roaring "¡Si!" (yes).[111] With thousands of Cubans estimated to have been killed at the hands of Batista's collaborators,[112][113] and many of the war criminals sentenced to death accused of torture and physical atrocities,[9] the newly empowered government carried out executions, punctuated by cries from the crowds of "¡paredón!" ([to the] wall!),[102] which biographer Jorge Castañeda describes as "without respect for due process".[114]
 
Although there are varying accounts, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara's jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña ranging from 55 to 105 (see reference).[116] Conflicting views exist of Guevara's attitude towards the executions at La Cabaña. Some exiled opposition biographers report that he relished the rituals of the firing squad, and organized them with gusto, while others relate that Guevara pardoned as many prisoners as he could.[114] What is acknowledged by all sides is that Guevara had become a "hardened" man, who had no qualms about the death penalty or summary and collective trials. If the only way to "defend the revolution was to execute its enemies, he would not be swayed by humanitarian or political arguments".[114] This is further confirmed by a February 5, 1959, letter to Luis Paredes López in Buenos Aires where Guevara states unequivocally "The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people."[117]
 
Rightist propaganda has somehow managed to turn this event in which Guevera put bullets in the heads of some worthless traitors, torturers, rapists, and war criminals at the unanimous demand of the Cuban people into an event where some sadistic monster shot totally innocent pregnant women for no reason. What a farce. Stop reading such brain rotting drivel, Tom.
 
"I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed 'an innocent'. Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason or crimes such as rape, torture or murder. I should add that my research spanned five years, and included anti-Castro Cubans among the Cuban-American exile community in Miami and elsewhere."
— Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, PBS forum[115]
 
Patriotic American said:
"I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed 'an innocent'. Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason or crimes such as rape, torture or murder. I should add that my research spanned five years, and included anti-Castro Cubans among the Cuban-American exile community in Miami and elsewhere."
— Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, PBS forum[115]
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Yes well he obviously didn't look every far as both Ernest Hemingway and George Plimpton, editor of the Paris Review, knew what he was doing. I do find it deliciously ironic how Lefties like Waterstain will rail against waterboarding and keeping prisoners without trial in Guantanamo yet starts jizzing over Guevara and his psychotic murder lust.

We know from Ernest Hemingway – then a Cuban resident – what Che was up to. Hemingway, who had looked kindly on Leftist revolutions since the Spanish civil war, invited his friend George Plimpton, editor of the Paris Review, to witness the shooting of prisoners condemned by the tribunals under Guevara's control. They watched as the men were trucked in, unloaded, shot, and taken away. As a result, Plimpton later refused to publish Guevara's memoir, The Motorcycle Diaries.

There have been some 16,000 such executions since the Castro brothers, Guevara and their merry men swept into Havana in January 1959. About 100,000 Cubans who have fallen foul of the regime have been jailed. Two million others have succeeded in escaping Castro's socialist paradise, while an estimated 30,000 have died in the attempt.

There is little mention of this in the deification of Castro's Cuba among the West's liberal classes. The glorification of Guevara in Che and the earlier The Motorcycle Diaries film conveniently ignores it. Nor has the BBC found room, in marking the revolution's half-centenary this week, to expose the reality behind the rhetoric.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...-time-that-Che-Guevara-is-seen-as-a-hero.html
 
Patriotic American said:
What the hell? 16k executions? There were at most a hundred or so. I have to stop reading.
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You can stop breathing as well if you like!! Guevara was the head of the secret police and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Luckily the Human Rights Foundation has no illusions about him!! Another fact for you to think about is that you wouldn't even be around to post this bilge if Guevara had his way. He stated that if the missiles had been under his control they would have been fired at the USA!!

An Open Letter to Urban Outfitters Regarding Their Che Guevara Merchandise


Ted Marlow
CEO, Urban Outfitters
30 Industrial Park Blvd.
Trenton, SC 29847

Dear Mr. Marlow,

The Human Rights Foundation recently became aware of the sale of merchandise at Urban Outfitters emblazoned with the image of communist leader Che Guevara, at times accompanied by the word “revolución.” As a nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense of human rights, we would like to bring your attention to Guevara’s bloody and anti-democratic legacy.

Although Guevara’s image has appeared on countless items for consumption over the last few decades as a symbol of change for the better, Guevara’s actual record is that of a brutal tyrant who suppressed individual freedom in Cuba and murdered those who challenged his worldview. Guevara undoubtedly played a key role in the overthrow of the dictatorial Batista regime in January of 1959. However, despite promises of a new democratic government, within a few months he and Fidel Castro had designed and installed a full-blown police state that deprived the overwhelming majority of Cuban citizens of democracy and human rights.

From 1959 to 1960, the new government carried out summary executions of at least 1,118 people by firing squad. Guevara himself presided over the notorious La Cabaña prison, where hundreds of the executions took place. For comparison’s sake, the Batista regime was responsible for 747 noncombatant deaths between 1952 and 1959. The Cuban revolution under the direction of Guevara also saw the rise of forced labor camps which gave way a few years later to full-scale concentration camps. These were filled with dissidents, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Afro-Cuban priests, and anyone else who had committed “crimes” against the new moral revolution.

Despite the mountain of evidence for these abuses, much of which comes directly from Guevara’s own meticulous journals, popular culture still largely views him as a revolutionary of the people. Urban Outfitters is certainly not the only company to take advantage of Guevara’s fame to sell merchandise. We urge you to consider that the image of Guevara represents tyranny and repression for the millions of people who have suffered under communism.

Fifty-three years after Guevara’s rise to power, Cuba is still ruled by the Communist party, while all alternative political parties and dissenting civil society groups are outlawed. Any expression of dissent is considered a subversive act, a free press does not exist, and the government regularly imprisons those who speak out. Mr. Marlow, the Cuban government of today, a legacy of Guevara, is the most repressive regime in the Western hemisphere.

These facts forced Polish lawmakers to recently propose a ban on t-shirts with Guevara’s image, as part of a previous law banning fascist and totalitarian propaganda. HRF does not advocate the banning of an image — no matter how offensive. Freedom of expression is a human right, and of course Urban Outfitters is free to choose how to design its merchandise.

However, HRF does question the motives of Urban Outfitters in lionizing a murderer who did not even make an attempt to hide his bloody ideology. In a speech in front of the United Nations in 1964, Guevara proudly admitted that “yes, we have executed, we are executing, we will continue to execute.” He boasted of murdering Eutimio Guerra, bragging in his diary how he “ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain.” He believed in doing anything it took to achieve “the greater good” he envisioned for Cuba — including nuclear annihilation of the United States.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Guevara favored engaging in nuclear war to “build a better world.” After the crisis was averted he lamented Soviet inaction, stating that if the missiles had been under Cuban control, he would have fired them. There is evidence that Guevara was involved in a November 1962 terrorist plot to use 1,200 pounds of TNT to blow up Macy’s, Gimbels, Bloomingdale’s, and Grand Central Station on the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year. “At every stage of his adult life,” one historian noted of Guevara, “his megalomania manifested itself in the predatory urge to take over other people’s lives and property, and to abolish their free will.”


Is this really someone that Urban Outfitters wants to emblazon and celebrate on its products? For the sake of thestill living under the yoke of communist rule, for the sake of the thousands who perished in the Cuban revolution, and for the sake of the 11 million Cubans who still endure a totalitarian system, we hope Urban Outfitters will reconsider its marketing strategy and set a moral example for the apparel industry.

Sincerely yours,
Thor Halvorssen
President
Human Rights Foundation

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thor-halvorssen/an-open-letter-to-urban-o_b_1895353.html
 
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Different sources cite differing numbers of executions attributable to Guevara, with some of the discrepancy resulting from the question of which deaths to attribute directly to Guevara and which to the regime as a whole. Anderson (1997) gives the number specifically at La Cabaña prison as 55 (p. 387.), while also stating that "several hundred people were officially tried and executed across Cuba" as a whole (p. 387). (Castañeda 1998) notes that historians differ on the total number killed, with different studies placing it as anywhere from 200 to 700 nationwide (p. 143), although he notes that "after a certain date most of the executions occurred outside of Che's jurisdiction" (p. 143). These numbers are supported by the opposition-based Free Society Project / Cuba Archive, which gives the figure as 144 executions ordered by Guevara across Cuba in three years (1957–1959) and 105 "victims" specifically at La Cabaña, which according to them were all "carried out without due process of law". Of further note, much of the discrepancy in the estimates between 55 versus 105 executed at La Cabaña revolves around whether to include instances where Guevara had denied an appeal and signed off on a death warrant, but where the sentence was carried out while he traveled overseas from June 4 to September 8, or after he relinquished his command of the fortress on June 12, 1959.
 
The fact is that the Castro's and others who led the Cuban revolution will soon be leaving power, when that happens America needs inroads to the Cuban establishment to be able to directly influence its direction. The end of the Castro grip on power will not come in a quick of violent revolution as many Cuban Americans had long hoped... it will come as they fade into history.

I am glad the United States is opening the possibility that Cuba will move more toward becoming an American ally instead of toward Venezuelan style government.
 
The Human Rights Foundation is a rightist organization founded in 2005 by some rich Venezualan rightist in order to disingenously use the banner of Human Rights to promote rightist neoliberal policies. It cannot be taken seriously.
 
Look at this ridiculous speech by the founder:
In 2014, during the inaugural lecture at Francisco Marroquín University, Thor Halvorssen stated the following regarding public perceptions associated with the organization: “HRF criticizes equally harshly the Chilean dictatorship of Pinochet as well as the Cuban dictatorship of Fidel Castro, even though the first one gave more economic freedom to his citizens than the latter. HRF criticizes equally harshly the Chinese dictatorship of Deng Xiaoping (and its current successors) as well Mao Tse Dong’s dictatorship, even though the first one gave more economic freedom to its citizens and allowed for 140 million Chinese to escape poverty in less than twenty years, while a few years before that millions had starved to death as a result of Mao’s Great Leap Forward… HRF criticizes just as harshly the competitive authoritarianisms in Malaysia and Singapore, as well as the competitive authoritarianisms in Burma and Venezuela, even though the first two have had success promoting national and international investment, economic growth, and that, in turn, it has allowed for the free functioning of the price system, unlike the latter.”
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Yeah, we criticize these two regimes just as harshly, but here's a long list of reasons for why the more capitalistic of the two was the better one.
 
Moonflower said:
So are you saying that the Cubans did it?
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Are you considering migrating to Cuba? Or you might do the tourist route like you did in nam. You'll find the Cubans are living in squalor and nobody in their right mind wants to move and live there.

The tourist dollars you spend there will go directly to the government just like they did in Nam. Slave labor forces don't live in middle class communities.

And yes, besides your link, Cuba has been and is a terrorist sponsored state and Castro's jails are occupied by political prisoners.
 
Jarod said:
The fact is that the Castro's and others who led the Cuban revolution will soon be leaving power, when that happens America needs inroads to the Cuban establishment to be able to directly influence its direction. The end of the Castro grip on power will not come in a quick of violent revolution as many Cuban Americans had long hoped... it will come as they fade into history.

I am glad the United States is opening the possibility that Cuba will move more toward becoming an American ally instead of toward Venezuelan style government.
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Opening up relations with the communist totalitarian government of Cuba WILL NOT help eradicate that government and you know it. Better relations will mean foreign aid in the millions of tax dollars and all of those will go directly to Castro's government and most of it will be diverted to the Cuban military.

Once again, you liberals want to solve problems by throwing tax money at the problem while you continue to admire Castro's island paradise.
 
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