State Dept. Official Hails Che Guevara as Symbol of Freedom

[darkflower]

Blockheaded is defending batista Cuba as some sort of paradise. The workers were impoverished, nearly half were illiterate, hardly any schools. Any high standard of living could only be the result of skewing by a handful enjoying super wealth. The revolution was widely popular and supported by the people who wanted better than a dictator like batista could offer, a dictator himself who had 20,000 murdered for opposing him. Also blockheaded is blaming Che for everything that happened after the revolution even long after he had died. I think it is interesting that there is such vitriol for him and think it is precisely because some imperialists are deathly afraid that David can beat Goliath and so they demonize David. They want nobody to stand against Goliath.

[jackbp]

No Hooty....we were talking about presiding over "Firing Squads"....and Che presided over 26,000 of them.....then you posted some excellent copy and paste work from Google that had absolutely ZERO to do with the topic at hand.....of course peppered with your tourettes vulgarity illustrating your superior higher education....GUFFAW!!

[sweetwater5s9]

Many Cubans have documented Che's delight in executions and torture.   He was a sick man but you can go ahead and defend him if you like as many do other mass murderers.

[darkflower]

Che killed 26000? From what I read it was a few hundred. batista was the one with 20000. You people have your mass murderers backwards.

And I have to repeat this. Hypocrits. Talking trash about a guy long dead while supporting much worse going on today. You are the ones who are supporting mass murderers who are still mass murdering.

Oh, and the people Che had killed were convicted war criminals and traitors.

[darkflower]

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).[93] 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.[94] Serving in the post as commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process.[11] On some occasions the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing squad.[95] 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.[96] Biographers note that in January 1959, the Cuban public was in a "lynching mood",[97] and point to a survey at the time showing 93% public approval for the tribunal process.[11] Moreover, a January 22, 1959, Universal Newsreel broadcast in the U.S. 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).[98] With 20,000 Cubans estimated to have been killed at the hands of Batista's collaborators,[99] and many of the war criminals sentenced to death accused of torture and physical atrocities,[11] the newly empowered government carried out executions, punctuated by cries from the crowds of "¡paredón!" (to the wall),[90] which biographer Jorge Castañeda describes as "without respect for due process."[100]

Although there are differences between different accounts, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed
nationwide during this time, with estimates for Guevara's jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña ranging from 55 to 164.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara

[August West]

They not only support mass murderers,they actually voted for one in 2004 knowing that he killed tens of thousands.