Cuba's New and Improved Tyrant
By: Humberto Fontova
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Humberto Fontova has dedicated his life to exposing the full extent of oppression, brutality, and kleptomania visited upon Cuba by Fidel Castro's regime, a task often performed at significant risk to his personal safety and always over the droning din of the leftist media. Castro's seizure of power could never have come about without the hagiographic coverage of the New York Times in the 1950s. Although the realities of post-Castro life have become well-known, the hemisphere's only full-blown Marxist dictatorship remains a beacon for many in the entertainment industry, the media, leftist religious associations, and far-Left pressure groups. Below, Fontova reveals why his successor should not receive the same benefit of the doubt given to his brother 50 years ago.-- FPM Editors.
With Raul Castro's ascent to power in Havana, the news media have dutifully presented him as a potential Gorbachev. The Chicago Tribune headline blares, "Cubans Hope Raul Castro Brings Reform." True, the Associated Press reporter acknowledges, Raul has been a hardliner by his brother Fidel's side for five decades; however, he also introduced small farmers markets into the Cuban hinterlands! The AP gushes Raul "encouraged Cubans to open a fearless and critical debate, as long as
they remember that the final decisions will be made by the island's
Communist leaders." However, the story also mentions in passing that the younger generation set to replace Raul is so fervently Communist that they call themselves, "Young Talibans."
One would think after the media's sorry track record with the Castros, they would not resort to lionizing Fidel's murderous brother.
In
1956,
when
Fidel
Castro's
motley
band
of
82
guerrillas
were
training
in
Mexico
for
their
"invasion"
and
"liberation"
of
Cuba
from
Batista,
a
trainee
named
Calixto
Morales,
suffering
from
a
recent
injury,
was
forced
to
briefly
hobble
away
from
one
particularly
strenuous
training
session.
He
was
trussed
up,
dragged
in
front
of
what
a
guerrilla
leader
called
a
"court
martial,"
and
quickly
sentenced
to
death
by
firing
squad.
Fortunately
the
"maximum"
guerrilla
commander
showed
up
in
time
and
ordered
his
brother
to
rescind
his
hasty
death
sentence.
Morales,
after
all,
had
the
proper
"revolutionary"
attitude
and
had
merely
suffered
an
unfortunate
accident.
Raul
Castro
had
done
the
hasty
sentencing.
His
big
brother
Fidel
had ordered
the
pardon.
Two
years
later,
the
anti-Batista
"guerrilla
war"
(occasional
shoot-outs
and
skirmishes
that
the
Cripps
and
Bloods
would
shrug
off
as
a
slow
week)
was
chiefly
centered
in
Cuba's
eastern
province
of
Oriente
and
consisted
of
two
"fronts."
One
was
commanded
by
Fidel
in
the
Sierra
Maestra
mountains;
the
other
was
commanded
by
Raul
in
the
Sierra
Cristal
mountains
slightly
north
of
Fidel's
group.
One
day,
a
teenage
rebel
soldier
named
Dariel
Alarcon
overheard
Fidel
sputtering
complaints
to
his
assistant
Celia
Sanchez
about
the
northern
front.
Raul's
zeal
for
firing
squad
executions
of
"informers,"
"spies,"
counter-revolutionaries"
etc.,
where
he
often
applied
the
coup'd
grace
himself,
was
hampering
progress
on
what
Fidel
had
always
treated
as
the
"war's"
primary
front.
This
primary
front,
of
course,
was
the
media
front:
the
almost
effortless
bamboozling
of
the
swarms
of
gaping
reporters
who
queued
up
to
interview
him.
Thanks
to
these
"gallant
crusaders
for
the
truth"
(as
Columbia
School
of
Journalism
hails
its
students)
the
stirring
tale
of
Cuba's
Thomas
Jefferson/Robin
Hood/Richard
the
Lion
Hearted/Saint
Thomas
Aquinas--all
in
one
heroic
package,
sporting
a
beard
and
combat
fatigues--was
thrilling
audiences
from
New
York
to
Paris.
The
New
York
Times
ignited
the
process
in
February 1957
with
Fidel
Castro
on
its
front
page.
Soon
a
conflagration
raged,
in
both
print
and
video.
CBS
soon
ran
"The
Story
of
Cuba's
Jungle
Fighters,"
a
breathtaking
news-drama
that
ran
on
prime
time.
Look
Magazine,
The
Chicago
Tribune,
Boys
Life
(honest,
even
they
braved
the
horrendous
battlefield
perils
for
a
Castro
interview)
all
added
to
the
blizzard
of
B.S.
Every
hair
on
every
one
of
these
reportorial
heads,
by
the
way,
enjoyed
a
curious
immunity
to
the
slightest
ruffling
by
the
beastly
police
and
army
of
the
unspeakable
Batista
regime
whose
barbarities
(especially
against
the
exercise
of
free
speech)
these
same
reporters
repeatedly
described
in
their
blood-
curdling
stories
and
broadcasts.
Two
years
later,
when
these
reporters'
hero
held
office,
the
treatment
of
reporters
who
reported
on
Cuban
regime
brutalities
would
differ
drastically.
The
stories
leaking
out
regarding
the
"Revolutionary
justice"
practiced
in
Raul's
front,
though
completely
ignored
by
the
foreign
media
throng,
were
causing
a
bit
of
grumbling
in
the
Cuban
press. Fidel requested that
Raul
please
cut
down
on
the
firing
squad
bloodbaths, as it
could
hurt
the
image
Fidel
was
so
expertly
crafting of
their
"humanistic
rebellion,"
with
the
eager
help
of
media
dupes
and
acolytes.
Raul's
response
is
what
caused
Fidel's
sputtering
to
his
assistant.
"Got
your
message
and
will
take
immediate
corrective
measures,"
Raul
responded
to
his
brother.
"No
more
bloodbath.
From
now
on
we'll
start
hanging
the
counter-revolutionaries."
Agustin
Soberon
was
a
reporter
for
Cuba's
Bohemia
magazine
(
a
combination
Time/Newsweek)
and
was
the
first
Cuban
reporter
to
interview
the
Castro
rebels
while
in
the
hills.
"Raul
was
very
much
like
Che
Guevara,"
he
says.
"I
had
never
interviewed
anyone
with
as
cruel,
arrogant
and
despotic
a
nature
as
Ernesto
Guevara."
Not
that
Che
was
unforthcoming
or
discourteous
with
Soberon.
"When
I
visited
his
camp,
Guevara
motioned
me
over.
They
were
trussing
up
and
blindfolding
a
teen-aged
boy
to
the
firing
squad
stake. 'Revolutionary
justice'
had
somehow
found
the
boy
guilty
of
being
a 'counter-revolutionary
informer.'
Che
wanted
me
to
view
the
execution
with
him.
I
declined
and
left.
I'd
seen
and
heard
plenty
enough.
Raul
operated
in
much
the
same
manner."
Shortly
after
Soberon's
visit
to
Guevara,
Raul
Castro
ordered
the
kidnapping
of 50
Americans
then
residing
or
traveling
through
his
Northern
Front.
Most
were
Marines
and
Navy
men
on
leave
from
Guantanamo.
A
few
were
civilian
workers
from
a
U.S.
mining
company
headquartered
nearby.
Most
of
these
were
on
a
bus
on
their
way
to
a
local
town
for
the
weekend
when
Raul
Castro
and
a
band
of
his
guerrillas
hijacked
them
at
gunpoint.
Raul's
plan
was
to
use
them
as
"human
shields"
against
the
Batista
army
and
air
force's
desultory
campaign
against
them.
And
it
worked.
Now,
for
fear
of
an
errant
bomb
or
bullet
provoking
(an
even
bigger)
hullabaloo
in
the
New
York
Times
and
CBS
against
him,
Batista
ordered
a
ceasefire
in
the
area.
Fidel
Castro,
most
say,
was
not
overly
fond
of
this
scheme.
The
CIA,
State
Department, and the
U.S.
media
were
all
lending
his
July
26
Movement
a
very
helpful
hand.
Raul's
little
ploy
just
might
backfire.
Fidel
should
have
known
better
by
then.
A
"crisis"
was
also
brewing
in
Lebanon
that
summer
of 1958.
Oddly,
it
involved
militant
Sunni
Moslems.
They
threatened
violence
and
mayhem
against
the
elected
(but
Christian
and
pro-Western)
president
of
Lebanon,
Camille
Chamoun.
President
Eisenhower
dispatched
5,000
Marines,
and
the
crisis
abated.
Raul
Castro
released
his
American
hostages
the
very
week
our
Marines
were
splashing
onto
the
shores
of
Tripoli.
Coincidence?
Whatever
the
motivation,
Fidel
Castro's
heroic
image
survived
intact,
along
with
the
U.S.
State
Department-inspired
arms
embargo
against
Batista.
The
world's -- certainly
the
hemisphere's
-- first
terrorist
airplane
highjacking
came
two
months
later
on
the
orders
of
Raul
Castro.
His
guerrillas
highjacked
a
Cubana
Airlines
prop-jet
bound
for
the
U.S.
and
tried
to
force
it
down
near
Raul's
guerrilla
headquarters.
"That
landing
strip's
too
short!"
gasped
the
pilot.
The
gun
was
shoved
a
little
closer
to
his
nose.
"I'm
tellin
ya --
you're
crazy!"
yelled
the
desperate
pilot
at
the
Castroite
terrorist.
"Can't
be
done!"
The
gun
was
cocked.
"The
plane
crashed
with
few
survivors.
The
hijackers
were
not
among
them."
says
the
St.
Petersburg
Times
story
from
November
1958.
When
Agustin
Soberon
visited
Che's
guerrilla
campsite,
Cuba's
liberation
by
the
Castroites
was
only
a
year
away.
According
to
a
study
by
the
U.S.
Information
Agency
that
Cuban
"guerrilla
war"
that
raged
in
the
Cuban
countryside
for
two
years,
as
reported
by
the
New
York
Times,
had
actually
cost
184
deaths
on
both
sides,
about
half
New
Orleans'
annual
murder
rate.
Following the
"liberation,"
the
bloodbath
started
in
earnest.
The
leftist
mantra
during
the
Vietnam War
had
it
that
withdrawing
U.S.
troops
would
promptly
"stop
the
killing."
Yet
from
the
Russian
Civil
War
to
the
Cuban
rebellion
to
Vietnam -- the
pattern
is
identical:
the
killing
cranks
into
high
gear
only
after
the
Communist
triumph.
Cuban-American
scholar
Dr.
Armando
Lago, who
with
Maria
Werlau
run
the
Cuba
Archive
Project
that
meticulously
attempts
to
document
the
tally
of
Castro
regime
murders,
has
documented
278
executions
in
Oriente
province
on
Raul's
orders
within
the
very
first
week
of
the
Revolutionary
triumph
on
January
1,
1959.
Potential
contras
lurked
from
one
end
of
Cuba
to
the
either.
So
Raul
rolled
up
his
sleeves,
spit
on
his
hands,
and
got
to
work
as
eastern
Cuba's
version
of
Cheka
chief
Feliks
Dzerzhinski,
while
his
bosom
friend
Che
Guevara
handled
the
matter
in
western
Cuba
by
converting
Havana's
La
Cabana
fortress
into
a
tropical
Lubyanka.
Dr.
Lago
has
documented
550
executions
on
Raul's
direct
order
by
mid-1959.
Eyewitness
defectors
report
that
Raul
gleefully
administered
the
coup'grace
to
at
least
78
of
these.
Raul's
chum
Che
Guevara
was
breathing
down
his
neck
in
the
competition,
however.
Dr.
Lago
documents
1,168
executions
islandwide
by
that
time.
The
best
man
at
Che's
first
wedding
in
1955
in
Mexico
City
was
Raul
Castro. Maybe
there
was
some
friendly
competition
involved.
The
media
dutifully
branded
these
murdered
men
and
boys
as
"Batista
War
Criminals."
How
a
guerrilla
war
with
184
deaths
on
both
sides
could
produce
1,168
war
criminals
on
one
side
none
of
those
"gallant
crusaders
for
the
truth"
cared
to
investigate.
Their
crusading
journalistic
zeal
of
a
year
before
(with
Cuba
under
Batista)
seemed
to
dissipate
dramatically
with
Cuba
under
the
Castro's.
Read
recent
CNN,
AP,
and
Reuters
dispatches
from
their
Havana
Bureaus
and
you'll
see
that
absolutely
nothing
has
changed -- except
towards
more
sniveling
servility
to
Castroism
by
the
media.
In
fact,
vengeance,
much
less
justice,
had
nothing
to
do
with
the
Communist
bloodbath.
Vengeance
--
much
less
justice
--
had
nothing
to
do
with
the
Che
ordered
bloodbath
in
the
first
months
of
1959.
Che's
murderous
method
in
La
Cabana
fortress
in
1959
was
exactly
Stalin's
murderous
method
in
the
Katyn
Forest
in
1940.
Like
Stalin's
massacre
of
the
Polish
officer
corps
in
the
Katyn
forest,
like
Stalin's
Great
Terror
against
his
own
officer
corps
a
few
years
earlier,
Che's
firing
squad
marathons
were
a
perfectly
rational
and
cold-blooded
exercise
that
served
their
purpose
ideally.
His
bloodbath
decapitated
--
literally
and
figuratively --
the
first
ranks
of
Cuba's
Contras.
Cuban
Communists
differed
from
their
Bolshevik
mentors
and
suitors
mainly
in
the
speed
with
which
the
Cuban
Revolution
began
devouring
its
own
children.
Rebel
leader
Huber
Matos
boasted
the
rank
of
comandante
and
actually
arrived
in
Havana
atop
a
tank(which
had
never
fired
a
shot)
with
Fidel
Castro
in
January
1959.
By
October
of
that
year
Matos
was
overheard
grumbling
about
"Communist
influence"
in
the
Revolutionary
regime
and
he
finally
offered
to
resign.
He
was
quickly
arrested
and
put
before
a
kangaroo
court
where
both
Raul
and
Che
demanded
his
prompt
execution
by
firing
squad.
Fidel,
with
his
expert
grasp
of
publicity
matters,
probably
didn't
want
to
create
a
martyr
and
kindly
suggested
a
20
year
prison
sentence,
of
which
Matos
served
many
in
solitary
confinement.
Matos'
trial
and
sentence
was
the
final
straw
for
most
of
Cuba's
Mensheviks.
Most
went
into
the
resistance,
either
in
Cuba
or
in
exile.
Stalinist
type
purges
of
Cuba's
military
have
continued
sporadically
for
decades.
"In
one
week
during
1963
we
counted
400
firing
squad
blasts
from
our
cells,"
recalls
former
political
prisoner
and
freedom-fighter
Roberto
Martin
Perez.
Most
of
these
were
junior
officers
accused
of
being
disloyal
to
the
regime.
Much
more
highly
publicized
was
the
Stalinist
show
trial,
confession
and
execution
in
1989
of
General
Arnaldo
Ochoa
and
the
attendant
purge
of
any
military
man
even
rumored
as
his
friend
or
supporter.
Arnaldo
Ochoa
was
the
Cuban
General
widely
credited
with
Cuba's
victories
in
both the
Angolan
Civil
War
and
in
Ethiopia's
early
crushing
of
the
Eritrean
rebellion.
"Every
officer
in
the
Cuban
armed
forces
admired
Ochoa,
"
according
to
Cuban
defector
General
Rafael
Del
Pino,
who
was
close
to
Ochoa
both
personally
and
professionally.
They
say
he
was
a
soldiers'
general,
who
always
showed
genuine
interest
in
the
welfare
of
his
men
and
so
had
the
respect
and
admiration
of
the
lowliest
troops.
Ochoa
was
on
especially
close
and
friendly
terms
with
Raul
Castro,
whom
Ochoa
always
affectionately
called
"Jefe."
In
the
dawn
hours
of
July
13,
1989,
General
Arnaldo
T.
Ochoa
was
executed
by
a
firing
squad
outside
Havana.
A
sickening
trial
and
confession
had
preceded
his
execution,
all
of
it
on
camera.
Raul -- not
Fidel --
Castro
was
the
main
instigator
of
the
Ochoa
trial
and
execution.
Cuban
defector
Rafael
Del
Pino
who
once
headed
Cuba's
Air
Force
explains
that:
"Ochoa
was
a
pragmatic
man
who
was
flexible
enough
to
recognize
the
sense
behind
Gorbachev's
reforms
of
the
time.
Even
worse,
Ochoa,
like
many
other
Cuban
military
officers,
was
trained
in
the
Soviet
Union
and
had
close
ties
to
the
Soviet
leaders
then
involved
in
the
reforms
with
whom
they
had
served
in
Africa."
That
Glasnost
and
Perestroika
stuff
could
be
contagious.
Yet
media
and
scholarly
wizards
keep
telling
us
it's
Raul
himself
who
will
inspire
"an
opening"
in
Cuba.
By
now,
however,
Raul
Castro's
high-ranking
military
cronies
are
fat
and
happy.
Essentially,
they
run
Cuba. If
anyone
craves
this
successful
succession
to
Raul's
rule,
it's
these
high-rolling
graduates
of
Cuba'
Military
Academy,
and
not
just
because
of
fiduciary
considerations.
Tito
Rodriguez
Oltmans,
a
former
Cuban
freedom-fighter
and
political
prisoner,
watched
many
of
these
men,
as
young
cadets,
perform
one
of
the
requisites
for
graduation
from
Cuba's
military
academy
of
the
time.
"They
were
all
armed
with
Belgian
.308
caliber
FALs
as
they
lined
up
for
the
firing
squad"
recalls
Mr
Rodriguez
,
a
prisoner
in
La
Cabana
prison
in
the
early
1960's.
"Every
evening
the
cadets
would
be
bused
in
from
the
Military
base
in
Managua
and
the
naval
Academy
in
Mariel.
As
darkness
fell
the
condemned
patriot -- shirtless
and
gagged --
would
be
dragged
to
the
execution
wall
and
bound.
The
cadets
would
line
up
only
four
meters
in
front
of
the
patriot
and
all
had
loaded
weapons.".....
FUEGO!
I
could
proceed
with
the
"fuegos!'
All
the
way
to
14,000
executions,
the
equivalent,
given
the
relative
populations,
to
3.5
million
executions
in
the
U.S.
The
figure
comes
from
The
Black
Book
of
Communisn,
written
by
French
scholars
and
published
in
English
by
Harvard
University
Press,
neither
an
outpost
of
the
vast
right-wing
conspiracy
nor
of
Miami
maniacs.
"The
facts
and
figures
are
irrefutable.
No
one
will
any
longer
be
able
to
claim
ignorance
or
uncertainty
about
the
criminal
nature
of
Communism,"
wrote
the
New
York
Times
(no
less!)
about
the
Black
Book
of
Communism.
"The
Black
Book
is
enormously
impressive
and
utterly
convincing,"
seconded
The
New
Republic.
A
brief
aside:
historically
and
almost
universally,
most
members
of
a
firing
squad
shoot
blanks,
to
assuage
their
conscience.
But
such
assuaging
would
contradict
the
Cuban
firing
squads'
most
vital
purpose,
secretly
named
"El
Compromiso
Sangriento"
(the
Blood
Covenant).
This
tried
and
true
Soviet
scheme
was
presented
by
Soviet
GRU
agent
Angel
Ciutah
to
Che
Guevara
just
days
after
he
and
Fidel
entered
Havana
in
January
1959.
Every
candidate
for
officer,
suggested
Ciutah,
would
take
his
place
in
a
firing
squad
and
pull
the
trigger
with
live
ammo.
Raul
had
a
KGB
handler
named
Nikolai
Leonev
since
1953
when
he'd
visited
behind
the
Iron
Curtain.
So
we
can
well
imagine
that
he
"got
behind"
the
scheme
with
a
loud
whoop
and
a
high-five
to
Che.
The
point
of
the
Blood
Covenant
was
to
bond
the
murderers,
especially
those
in
line
for
future
leadership,
with
the
murderous
regime.
The
more
shooters
the
more
murderers.
The
more
murderers
thus
manufactured,
the
more
people
on
hand
to
resist
any
overthrow
of
their
system.
After
those
14,000
murders
Cuba's
officer
corps
was
plenty
"bonded"
to
the
regime.
The
fanatical
and
suicidal
resistance
by
Hitler's
SS
troopers
against
the
advancing
Red
Army
to
the
bitter
end
saw
the
same
theme
at
work.
These
SS
troops
knew
they
were
fighting
the
sons
and
fathers
of
people
they'd
murdered
in
places
like
Babi
Yar.
Cuba's
current
rulers,
besides
their
multi-
millionaire
status,
find
themselves
in
a
similar
spot.
Yet
we
keep
hearing
that
they're
"pragmatists"
who
will
"open
up"
Cuba.
Despite
the
rotten
egg
splattering
the
faces
of
the
MSM's
pet
"Cuba
Experts"
after
last
weeks
Cuban
"elections"
Cuba
(where
the
hardest
of
the
hard-line
Stalinists
prevailed)
stay
tuned
for
their
next
expert
prognostications.
After
all,
those
who
correctly
predicted
the
Stalinist
results
are
all:
"anti-communist
crackpots!
and
revanchists!'"
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