Political executions
Various estimates have been made to ascertain the number of political executions carried out on behalf of the Cuban Government in Cuba since the revolution. According to Amnesty International, death sentences from 1959-87 numbered 237 of which all but 21 were actually carried out.[19] The Cuban Government justified such measures on the grounds that the application of the death penalty in Cuba against war criminals and others followed the same procedure as that seen in the trials by the Allies in the Nuremberg trials. Some Cuban scholars maintain that had the Government not applied severe legislation against the torturers, terrorists, and other criminals employed by the Batista regime, the people themselves would have taken justice into their own hands.[20]
Latin American historian Thomas E. Skidmore says there had been 550 executions in the first six months of 1959.[21] British historian Hugh Thomas, in his study Cuba or the pursuit of freedom[22] stated that "perhaps" 5,000 executions had taken place by 1970,[21] whilst The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators ascertained that there had been 2,113 political executions between the years of 1958-67.[21] The author of the Historical Atlas, an online personal compilation of various sources, concludes: The dividing line between those who have an axe to grind and those who don't falls in the 5,000-12,000 range.[21] The Cuban American National Foundation states that since the revolution 12,000 political executions have taken place.[21] Dr. Armando Lago, of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, a group of academics whose board of directors is almost entirely Cuban exiles,[23] states that between 15,000 and 18,000 Cubans were executed for counterrevolutionary activities since the revolution. He also says that 250 Cubans disappeared during the period, 500 died in prison for lack of medical attention, 500 were killed in prison by guards and there were 150 extrajudicial assassinations of women.[24]
Forced labor camps and abuse of prisoners
In 1986 a "Tribunal on Cuba" was held in Paris to present testimonies by former prisoners of Cuba's penal system to the international media. The gathering was sponsored by Resistance international and The Coalition of Committees for the Rights of Man in Cuba. The testimonies presented at the tribunal, before an international panel, alleged a pattern of torture in Cuba's prisons and "hard labor camps". These included beatings, biological experiments in diet restrictions, violent interrogations and extremely unsanitary conditions. The jury concurred with allegations of arbitrary arrests; sentencing by court martial with neither public audience nor defense; periods in hard labour camps without sufficient food, clothes and medical care; and the arrests of children over nine years old.[26]
The number of reported executions in Cuba declined during the 1970s and by the 1980s were restricted to rare high-profile cases, notably the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa in 1989. Ochoa, once proclaimed "Hero of the Revolution" by Fidel Castro, along with three other high-ranking officers, was brought to trial for drug trafficking. This offense carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, but Ochoa and the others were convicted of treason and promptly executed, largely on the basis of secret evidence.[citation needed] Opponents of the Castro government outside of Cuba expressed skepticism about the legitimacy of Ochoa's arrest and execution. In the opinion of former Brigadier-General Rafael del Pino, who had been a close personal friend of Ochoa since the early days of the revolution, the arrest and execution was an attempt to keep a different high-ranking Cuban official from defecting.[citation needed] Del Pino himself defected from Cuba in May 1987.
Complete Article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_r...cal_executions
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