CHE with an AK
10th November 2010, 01:42
- Americans owned 70 % of the arable land
- 1% of the population controlled 46 % of the wealth
- Batista's goons and secret police killed 20,000 Cubans (tortured even more)
- 40 % of the population were illiterate
- 50 % of the population lived in Bohio shacks
- Dissidents were hung and left to dangle in the streets as a warning sign
- The Mafia (Meyer Lansky & Co) ran Havana and used Cuba as a whorehouse for rich gringos from the U.S.
.... These are the conditions that allowed Fidel and Che to rise to power
Even the U.S. (and President Kennedy) acknowledged this ...
"Brothels flourished. A major industry grew up around them; government officials received bribes, policemen collected protection money. Prostitutes could be seen standing in doorways, strolling the streets, or leaning from windows. One report estimated that 11,500 of them worked their trade in Havana. Beyond the outskirts of the capital, beyond the slot machines, was one of the poorest, and most beautiful countries in the Western world."
— David Detzer, American journalist, after visiting Havana in the 1950s
"Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years ... and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state - destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista - hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend - at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections."
— U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, October 6, 1960
"I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear."
— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963
- 1% of the population controlled 46 % of the wealth
- Batista's goons and secret police killed 20,000 Cubans (tortured even more)
- 40 % of the population were illiterate
- 50 % of the population lived in Bohio shacks
- Dissidents were hung and left to dangle in the streets as a warning sign
- The Mafia (Meyer Lansky & Co) ran Havana and used Cuba as a whorehouse for rich gringos from the U.S.
.... These are the conditions that allowed Fidel and Che to rise to power
Even the U.S. (and President Kennedy) acknowledged this ...
"Brothels flourished. A major industry grew up around them; government officials received bribes, policemen collected protection money. Prostitutes could be seen standing in doorways, strolling the streets, or leaning from windows. One report estimated that 11,500 of them worked their trade in Havana. Beyond the outskirts of the capital, beyond the slot machines, was one of the poorest, and most beautiful countries in the Western world."
— David Detzer, American journalist, after visiting Havana in the 1950s
"Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years ... and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state - destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista - hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend - at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections."
— U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, October 6, 1960
"I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear."
— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963