Fidel Castro’s firing squads in Cuba

Fidel Castro is often portrayed as the “benevolent” dictator of Cuba, such portrayals are unarguably wrong. The evidence of his bloodthirsty and murderous nature is unequivocal and available for anyone who wants to know the truth. Unfortunately such evidence is rarely discussed by the news media and at schools. There’s perhaps no more grizzly atrocity committed by Fidel Castro than the firing squads which he implemented. Beginning as a rebel, before he would eventually take power in Cuba, Fidel Castro used firing squad executions to enforce discipline, punish followers deemed disloyal or intimidate potential opposition. At the beginning of the Castro regime there was a reign of terror typical of revolutions in which the firing squad was used prominently but the executions continued for decades.

The Cuba Archive which documents deaths and disappearances resulting from Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution has documented 3,615 firing squad executions conducted by the Cuban state since Castro took over on January 1, 1959.

Opponents of the death penalty should be horrified at the amount of death Fidel Castro and his accomplices have directly caused. It’s important to note that in Revolutionary Cuba there are none of the due process guarantees found in a western-style democracy. Most of Castro’s firing squad victims were afforded only a perfunctory show trial the outcome of which was predetermined, some didn’t even get that. Ernesto “Ché” Guevara is a popular culture icon, his face adorns posters and t-shirts around the globe. Most people don’t realize that he was Fidel Castro’s chief enforcer and had a personal hand in at least 100 firing squad executions, often delivering the coup de grace personally. In response to questions about Castro’s firing squads Guevara once said, “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”

Film of a Castro show trial and execution during the reign of terror below:

In addition to the firing squad executions 1,253 extrajudicial killings have been attributed to the Castro regime.

Below is a photograph of a firing squad victim being blindfolded by a young Raul Castro. It’s important to note that Raul the current Cuban dictator who is often touted as a soft-hearted and pragmatic man has as much blood on his hands as his older brother, Fidel.

More ghastly photographs of Castro’s firing squads are available at TheRealCuba.com and LatinAmericanStudies.org.

Here is film of Colonel Cornelio Rojas being executed by a Castro Firing Squad.

More about the mob atmosphere surrounding the trials and executions available in an archival newsreel here.

The Castro brothers have also used firing squads more recently. In the summer of 1989 the Castro regime arrested Cuban Army General Arnaldo Ochoa and several other officers. They were charged with drug trafficking. Within a few weeks Ochoa and three others were dead at the hands of a Castro firing squad. The trial was a farce in which Ochoa was forced to confess (video here). Many believe the real crime committed by Ochoa and others charged was disloyalty since Cuba was a known transshipment point for illegal drugs for years and it is highly unlikely that the Castro brothers were unaware of it and not profiting from it.

In April 2003 Fidel Castro’s government executed 3 men who hijacked a ferry boat in an attempt to escape Cuba. They were sentenced to death and killed by firing squad less than two weeks after the alleged crime was committed.

Introduction -Fidel Castro’s greatest atrocities and crimes

1. Fidel Castro’s firing squads in Cuba

2. Fidel Castro sank the 13 de Marzo tugboat killing Cuban women and children

3. Fidel Castro’s shoot down of American civilian aircraft killing 4 people including 3 American citizens

4. Fidel Castro’s Cuban political prisoners

5. Fidel Castro’s Cuban forced labor camps, the UMAPs

6. Fidel Castro’s religious repression against Cubans

7. Fidel Castro separates Cuban families

8. Fidel Castro restricts the movement of Cubans

9. Fidel Castro’s foreign interventions resulting in thousands of deaths

10. Fidel Castro’s espionage