Word: batista
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Nothing will convince me that democracy has at last arrived on the Cuban scene. Fidel Castro and his entourage of pinko opportunists are only adding another act to the Cuban tragedy. Batista and Prio were not much as practitioners of freedom, but I'm sure most Cubans and Americans were shocked to hear dictatorese spout from the hirsute hermit so soon...
World opinion in general and that of the United States in particular, was shocked during the past two weeks when the headlines glared with the ominous news of the execution of more and more of Batista's henchmen. The understandable reaction of many, if not most American editorial columns was one of disapproval and disappointment. Indeed, I went to Havana with such an attidue, but my mind was soon changed. On the basis of what I have personally seen and heard, I have no doubt but that the executions are deserved...
Those who have been tried and executed so far have not been the one or two shot assassins. They have been the most notorious and sadistic of Batista's henchmen, some of whose individual acts of cruelty number in the hundreds. They have been men like Jesus Sosa Blanco, recently condemned killer, who allegedly took the lives of 108 persons, and whose name has become synonymous with cruelty throughout Oriente province...
Most of those who have been tried and punished have been members of SIM (Servicio de Intlligencia Militar), probably the most powerful arm of Batista's huge police and espionage force, similar in their operation to Hitler's Gestapo. Often SIM officials would work in conjunction with informers who in return for their services would sometimes be paid a salary or in other cases be allowed to operate certain illegal activities within a particular geographical area...
...instances. Stories of additional, and perhaps more egregious acts of cruelty are pouring into Havana every day. In the little town of Minas de Bueycito in Oriente Province, 450 persons were reported found in an abandoned mine shaft. Early estimates of the number of persons killed or tortured by Batista's men are now thought to be too conservative, and Castro predicts that the final figure will approach...