Word: batista
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With jubilation and bloody revenge, Cuba's new government stepped off toward its uncharted, uncertain future. Rebel Fidel Castro came to Havana, the age-old smile of the conqueror on his face. He pushed through screaming Havana mobs to Camp Columbia, stronghold of ex-Dictator Fulgencio Batista's army. The march of los barbudos, the bearded rebels who toppled Batista after two dogged years of guerrilla warfare, was complete...
...tracks by crushing crowds in every city. Castro himself was folksy, eloquent and tireless. "How will we enter Havana?" he asked. "Let me see, we will go along the Malecon and then we will turn up that avenue-what is it called-General something?" The crowd roared "General Batista!" and Castro bent double laughing...
...before any perfect peace set in, the rebels were determined to allow themselves a wave of revenge against the conquered foe. Last week some 28 lesser Batista officials, left behind when the top dogs fled, were convicted in kangaroo courts and shot; another nine were executed without benefit of trial at all. Typical victims: Santiago's Maritime Police Chief Alejandro Garcia Olayón, Santa Clara's Police Chief Cornelio Rojas (see cuts). After one execution drew a crowd of 3,000, the rebels ruled that spectators would henceforth be barred-but allowed to inspect the bodies afterward...
...Matanzas, rebels grabbed one Juliana Muñoz Garcia, 42, the mother of two sons. The charge: that for $15 a week she had been a Batista informer, betraying at least two teen-age rebels to killer cops. When she screamed that she had only pointed out the house where the boys lived, the rebels hissed "Chivata!" (little goat that bleats, i.e., stool pigeon). Terrified, she awaited trial...
...rebels held more than 2,000 captives. Urrutia declared that they would be tried by revolutionary courts "in the same manner as war criminals were tried in Germany." About 300 others, Batista supporters, including the former boss of organized labor, Eusebio Mujal, crowded into Havana embassies. Urrutia said that Cuba would respect political asylum and allow the refugees to leave...