Remembering some of the victims of Cuban communism: two Cubans executed for anti-Castro propaganda and sabotage

"Whoever destroys a single life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world." - Mishnah  (1135-1204) 

Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin put it more succinctly: "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." In the case of Cuba the communist regime has killed tens of thousands, and many have become numb in the face of this horror. Therefore on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first communist regime in Russia, that caused so much harm around the world, will focus on an infinitesimal sampling of some of the victims of Cuban communism.  

The twelfth entry remembers Armando Hernández González, who along with his brother-in-law Ramón Toledo Lugo were shot in La Cabaña on October 1, 1982. They had been arrested on August 23, 1980.

Previous entries in this series were about Cubans trying to change the system nonviolently, Cubans who tried to leave the island, a student shot to death for walking down the wrong sidewalk in Havana, a young Ethiopian woman murdered in a red terror in her homeland for unknown reasons in 1978, and the eleventh entry three young black men executed by firing squad in 2003 for having hijacked a ferry in an effort to reach the United States.

On page 130 of the Amnesty International Report 1983, that covered the period of January to December 1982 reported that a large number of Cuban prisoners were terminated. "On October 1, 1982, 29 Cubans accused of the attempted assassination of President Fidel Castro were reportedly executed. Among them were Ramon Toledo, 40, and Armando Hernández González, 29. It was reported that they were executed in La Cabaña prison."

On Sunday, January 1, 1984 columnist Jack Anderson wrote a column "Castro in power 25 years" in which he provided more details on what happened to Armando.

My sources tell me that 29 Cubans were executed last year for allegedly plotting Castro's death. One of them was 29-year-old Armando Hernandez Gonzalez - a toddler when Castro took power. In a scrawled note to his family, smuggled out of prison before his execution, Hernandez wrote: "When I die, I want the flag as my roof, the earth as my mother and for air - liberty." Hernandez and some relatives were charged with "conspiring against state authority." They had pasted up anti-Castro posters in their town and spread nails on the road to puncture tires of the trucks that came to pick them up for obligatory "volunteer" labor on Sundays. These "counterrevolutionary offenses" earned them the death sentence. 

Remembering some of the victims of Cuban communism: Three young black men executed by firing squad in 2003

"Whoever destroys a single life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world." - Mishnah  (1135-1204) 

Lorenzo Enrique Copello, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla and Jorge Luis Martínez

Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin put it more succinctly: "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." In the case of Cuba the communist regime has killed tens of thousands, and many have become numb in the face of this horror. Therefore on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first communist regime in Russia, that caused so much harm around the world, will focus on an infinitesimal sampling of some of the victims of Cuban communism.  

The eleventh entry remembers three young black men executed by firing squad in 2003 for having hijacked a ferry in an effort to reach the United States.

Previous entries in this series were about Cubans trying to change the system nonviolently, Cubans who tried to leave the island, a student shot to death for walking down the wrong sidewalk in Havana, and thetenth entry was a young Ethiopian woman murdered in a red terror in her homeland for unknown reasons in 1978.

Three men, Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, were among a group who hijacked a Cuban ferry with passengers on board on April 2, 2003 and tried to force it to the United States. The incident ended without bloodshed, after a standoff with Cuban security forces. They were executed nine days later, following a summary trial, by firing squad.

Eleven individuals attempted to hijack the small ferry “Baraguá” that covered a route between Havana and the neighboring town of Casablanca with the goal of arriving in the United States, but it ran out of gas. Officials were able to retake the vessel without loss of life or injury to the fifty passengers on board. Within a week the three men were condemned to death for committing "acts of terrorism" in a summary trial that lasted less than a day.

They did not have a political agenda. Their only goal was fleeing Cuba to the United States.  Questions were raised at the time that if they had been white and not black they would not have been executed.

ID of defense attorney Jorge R. Betancourt Ortega

 Defense attorney's testimony
In October of 2014 Jorge R. Betancourt Ortega, one of the government appointed defense attorneys of the executed men, spoke of the irregularities surrounding the case including that the three men had been executed before the defense received the result of their appeal to the Supreme Court affirming that "there was no time," in an exclusive interview with El Nuevo Herald.

"The trial was Tuesday, April 8th and the appeal, Wednesday the 9th. I didn't go to work on Thursday and on Friday arrived at the Supreme Tribunal and the secretary told that they had a sentence. I swear to you I never imagined that they would do that. I went quickly to look for the decision and it was the ratification of the death sentence, something strange because death sentences need to be ratified by the Council of State," told Betancourt who was an attorney of the Collective Law firm of Old Havana and assigned to the case "ex officio" to El Nuevo Herald's Nora Gámez Torres in 2014.

Betancourt continued: ""I went crazy, I almost got hit by a car. When I arrived at the office, I told the director 'today is Friday and look what they have given me here. This is a bomb, what am I going to do now? Do I call the relatives? I'm not going to send the relatives to the office because it would generate a conflict here 'and he said' do not worry much, they shot them at dawn.'"

Ramona Copello mourns the execution of her son Lorenzo Enrique in 2003

 Mother of one of the men executed spoke out
On April 12, 2003 the Spanish newspaper El Pais  published an interview with Ramona Copello, the mother of Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, who affirmed that she had not been able to speak to her son before his execution. "I felt tremendous feelings for the Comandante, I even loved him, but I do not love him anymore because he murdered my son," she told several foreign journalists at her home in the Mantilla neighborhood. She added that she had been told that her son was already buried. "They gave me a card with the number of the vault so I know where he is buried," she added. "I was revolutionary and now I'm not," said Ramona, who said she was "willing to do everything for my son that they shot." Lorenzo Enrique was 31 years old and left behind a widow and an 11 year old daughter, who last saw her dad on April 10, 2003. He worked as a caretaker in a health center.

Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla executed in 2003

Disturbances and police mobilized
El Pais also reported in the same article on how another family reacted. "According to eyewitnesses, in the neighborhood of Central Havana, where Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla lived, who was 21 years old, some incidents were recorded when the execution was reported to his family. Sevilla's mother suffered a nervous breakdown upon hearing the news and went out of the house shouting against the government and crying, to which dozens of neighbors joined. The police arrived to control the situation and kept the area cordoned off all day long."

On April 25, 2003 Fidel Castro appears on television to defend the three executions, and show trials against nonviolent dissidents that had taken place in parallel. The official transcript leaves out unscripted comments by the old dictator who referred to the three executed men as the "tres negritos" which translates into English as the "three pickaninnies."

Rights violations under Fidel Castro: What Amnesty Int'l and Human Rights Watch left out

“We must say here what is a known truth, which we have always expressed before the world: firing squad executions, yes, we have executed; we are executing and we will continue to execute as long as is necessary. Our struggle is a struggle to the death." - Ernesto "Che" Guevara, UN General Assembly, 1964



Reading two press releases released by prestigious international human rights organizations on November 26, 2016 analyzing Fidel Castro's record on human rights in Cuba some glaring omissions are found in both that ignore some of the most grievous human rights violations committed by the Castro regime over the past 57 years.

37 victims of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre on 7/13/94

Some of what was omitted
Amnesty International released a press release titled "Fidel Castro: A progressive but deeply flawed leader" and Human Rights Watch released one that read "Cuba: Fidel Castro’s Record of Repression Misguided US Embargo Provided Pretext for Abuse". Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International address the lack of freedom of expression, harassment, intimidation and possible prison for speaking out against the Castro government but also go out of their way to praise the dictatorship with claims that are at best questionable.

However there is no mention in either report of the political show trials that fell short of international standards that sent thousands of Cubans before firing squads or that this method of execution would continue until at least 2003. Amnesty mentions that Fidel Castro's provisional government carried out "hundreds of summary executions" in 1959 but doesn't mention that thousands more followed. There is no mention of how prisoners in the 1960s had their blood extracted prior to being placed before the firing squad.  Nor is their mention that family members of the condemned had to donate blood to see their loved ones. This practice was documented by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in its 1967 Country Report on Cuba.

There is no mention of the extrajudicial execution of opposition leaders with Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante on July 22, 2012 being two high profile examples. There is no mention of the methods of torture used by the regime against prisoners of conscience including the denial of medical care. Nor the games played by the Castro regime to invite the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture in order to get positive media coverage but then not follow through. This is a curious oversight because in the past Amnesty International has reported on these practices. There is no mention of the massacre of refugees by agents of the Castro regime for the sole crime of trying to flee Cuba although Amnesty International had reported on it in the past.

When nuance crosses the line
Amnesty International made no mention of the "abysmal prisons" as Human Rights Watch did but their Americas Director, Erika Guevara-Rosa praised the departed leader while recognizing some of his flaws as follows:

"There are few more polarising political figures than Fidel Castro, a progressive but deeply flawed leader. Access to public services such as health and education for Cubans were substantially improved by the Cuban revolution and for this, his leadership must be applauded. However, despite these achievements in areas of social policy, Fidel Castro’s 49-year reign was characterised by a ruthless suppression of freedom of expression. The state of freedom of expression in Cuba, where activists continue to face arrest and harassment for speaking out against the government, is Fidel Castro’s darkest legacy. Fidel Castro’s legacy is a tale of two worlds. The question now is what human rights will look like in a future Cuba. The lives of many depend on it.”

Guevara-Rosa also mentioned "an unprecedented drive to improve literacy rates across the country" and described this as an improvement in human rights in Cuba. This ignores that Cuba had the fourth lowest illiteracy rate in Latin America in 1953 with an illiteracy rate that was 23.6%. Costa Rica's at the time was 20.6%, Chile's was 19.6%. and Argentina's was the lowest at 13.6%.  She praises the improvement in literacy as if it were something exceptional but much of the rest of Latin America would show similar or greater gains without sacrificing civil liberties as can be seen in the table below. 

The decline of Cuba's education system on Fidel Castro's watch

There are also great concerns about the Cuban educational system. First the issue of a system of education being transformed by the Castro dictatorship into a system of indoctrination and secondly following the collapse of Soviet subsidies the material decline of the entire system along with shortages of teachers.

The Slovak-based People in Peril conducted a study between 2005 and 2006 that generated a 77 page analysis, What is the future of education in Cuba?, gathers criticism,  suggestions and proposals for a future educational reform. According to Eliska Slavikova in an interview with El Nuevo Herald on October 23, 2007 observed ''Cuban education is destroyed, with grave problems like the deterioration of the schools, the predominance of ideology over teaching  and the bad preparation of teachers.'' The study made the following findings: 

• There's been a ''pronounced'' departure of teachers to other jobs because of low salaries and the lack of social recognition.
• Many teachers also left their jobs because of the government's growing ideological pressures. The primary objective of education is the formation of future revolutionary communists.
• The great majority of schools lack the equipment and installations needed to provide a good education.
• High school graduates have been put to teach after only an eight-month special course. But much of the teaching now is done through educational TV channels.

More recent analyses of the Cuban educational system in 2014 and 2015 arrive at the same conclusions on lack of quality, resources and continued politicization of the curriculum. 

Hospital bed in Cuba under the Castro regime

 The Castro regime's healthcare claims and the dismal reality today

Totalitarian regimes often times make outlandish claims of great successes in particular areas in order to justify or rationalize repression and political terror elsewhere. It is true of North Korea and it is also true of Cuba. The only difference being that Cuba has a much more effective propaganda apparatus than their counterparts in Pyongyang and they have invested heavily in their education and healthcare claims.

Katherine Hirschfeld, an anthropologist, who wrote the book:  Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898 described in it how her idealistic preconceptions about the Cuban healthcare system were dashed by 'discrepancies between rhetoric and reality,' she observed a repressive, bureaucratized and secretive system, long on 'militarization' and short on patients' rights. There is a health care system in Cuba which is decent for regime elites in good favor and tourists with hard currency and another one for everyday Cubans that is a disaster. With regards to the public health system the priority is the good image of the dictatorship not the well being of Cubans or visitors. 

However Amnesty International should already have an institutional memory with regards to Cuba. In 1997 when a Dengue epidemic broke out in Cuba the dictatorship tried to cover it up. When a courageous doctor spoke out he was locked up on June 25, 1997 and later sentenced to 8 years in prison. Amnesty International recognized Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison under condition he go into exile in December of 1998. The regime eventually had to recognize that there had been a dengue epidemic. The same pattern repeated itself in 2012 with a cholera outbreak, but this time it was an independent journalist jailed for breaking the story on mishandling of medical aide by Cuban officials. Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias was recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience and the organization described how: 

"He had been investigating allegations that medicine provided by the World Health Organization to fight the cholera outbreak (which began in mid-2012) was being kept at the airport instead of being distributed. Since then, he has been detained in various detention centres. He has been held at Combinado del Este prison since November 2012." 

If you have to lock up journalists and doctors to cover up problems in your healthcare system then its probably not a great healthcare system and outsiders should be a little more skeptical with official claims. 

Human Rights Watch also cites as evidence that the Castro regime has achieved much in social, economic and cultural rights that UNESCO had concluded that there was "near-universal literacy"in Cuba, but one should also recall that this UN body is terribly politicized. For example on June 18, 2013 UNESCO added “The Life and Works of Che Guevara” to the World Registrar. UNESCO is providing funds to preserve Che Guevara’s papers. Guevara in addition to promoting communist ideology, is best known as an advocate for guerrilla warfare who viewed terrorism as a legitimate method of struggle against an enemy. 

The Embargo: Otherwise known as "the elephant in the room"

The firing squads in 1959 had nothing to do with the Embargo because it did not yet exist nor with U.S. subversion because the Eisenhower Administration quickly recognized Castro's provisional government and hoped for normal relations. The repression was a classic tool to impose revolutionary terror and prepare the population for a communist dictatorship while wiping out all resistance and dissent in order to install a totalitarian regime and then export it to other countries.

Following the failures to overthrow the Castro dictatorship that Human Rights Watch quickly outlined and the dangerous nuclear confrontation in October of 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis the decision was made to push for a policy of isolation and making it more expensive for the Castro regime to export its revolutionary project to other countries, and it did work. 

However the Carter Administration's dismantling of sanctions and opening of Interests Sections in Havana and Washington DC ended the political isolation and the Castro regime was able to project itself more successfully in Latin America. The end result was the Sandinista regime taking power in 1979. Ronald Reagan enters the White House in 1981 rolling back the Carter policy changes and isolation was able to reassert itself. 

The Clinton Administration in the 1990s sought a rapprochement with the Castro regime believing that with the collapse of the Soviet Union the regime's days were numbered and by 1999 Castro ally Hugo Chavez was taking power in Venezuela and the Cuban dictatorship had a new lease on life. In 2000 despite a horrid number of human rights atrocities committed by the Castro regime Bill Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro and a short while later opened cash and carry trade between US companies and the Castro regime. Now Obama has taken things further and the human rights situation, predictably has deteriorated and the dictatorship gotten more aggressive. Once again the tide is going out for democracy in Latin America. 

Furthermore, as Venezuela has demonstrated, getting rid of economic sanctions in Cuba will only mean a change in language to defend maintaining the totalitarian nature of the regime intact by whatever means necessary.

Speaking truth to power can save your life in Cuba

"What’s past is prologue" - William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I

 @RosaMariaPaya Angel is in danger. Will the world once more accept the rules of the Cuban government?

There are important lessons to be drawn from the past 53 years of totalitarian rule under the Castro brothers but despite this people of good will fail to see the patterns or learn the lessons of history. Our friends in Europe who co-existed with these type of regimes and had in their midst men of the caliber of Václav Havel who understood the power of the truth against a system built on lies.

In the case of Cuba the power of the truth was able to shake the regime from the its very beginnings while going along with the regime’s lies would destroy the complicit liar. It is not easy to hold on to the truth when one has been subjected to the techniques of interrogation, manipulation, torture and blackmail that Cuban state security are experts in. Even democratic governments can be duped into thinking that remaining silent and going along with the lie will benefit an imprisoned citizen or subject.

They could not be more mistaken.

Cuban history provides two parallel examples in which high ranking military officials in the regime were told that if they went along with the lie and pleaded guilty to the charges made against them that they could go home.

Towards the end of 1959, less than a year into the Castro regime, as it was still consolidating power and holding mass executions by firing squad the regime wanted to eliminate Huber Matos. Matos was one of the Commandants of the revolution who had entered Havana at Fidel Castro’s side but he was a fervent anti-communist who had fought Batista’s regime to re-establish democracy in Cuba not install a communist dictatorship. He had tried to resign his position but was repeatedly refused by Fidel Castro. Until the moment came to accuse Huber Matos of conspiracy and treason and set up a summary military trial in order to have him speedily executed. While being held in custody Fidel Castro sent a messenger to Huber Matos to tell him that if he confessed to everything that he had been accused of over the proceeding days and remained silent during the trial that he would not be executed and could go home.


Huber Matos in the above video describes how they asked him to go along with the lie to save himself

Huber Matos rejected the offer and said he would defend himself. He went on to do so at his military trial and was able to shift the opinion of military officers in the room who applauded his courage during the trial. The Castro brothers had planned to execute him but instead, fearing they would make him a martyr, sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Monsignor Agustin Roman in an important essay on the importance of the Cuban dissident movement in Cuba described the role that the truth played in its genesis:

The concept of nonviolent civil resistance is introduced into the history of Cuba. Take the truth as a weapon, placing it in practice in the civic field, what Scripture proposed in the spiritual realm: "the truth shall make you free". Hence its importance at that time and its transcendence for the future of Cuba.

If the truth shall make you free then what does the lie offer? The Ochoa case offers a dramatic answer. Nearly 30 years later in June of 1989, General Arnaldo Ochoa is arrested. He had been declared a “Hero of the Revolution” by Fidel Castro in 1984 but was deemed too dangerous by the dictatorship because he had been contaminated with ideas of Glasnost and Perestroika while visiting the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev era. He was also popular within the ranks of the military due to his exploits in Africa. As was done with Huber Matos he was slandered and accused of conspiracy and treason this time tied to drug smuggling and corruption. He was also approached with the offer that if he confessed to everything he had been accused of and did not mount a vigorous defense that he could go home into retirement.


Confession of General Arnaldo Ochoa during military trial 

Unlike Huber Matos he went along with the lie and pled guilty in an abject fashion reminiscent of the 1930s Stalinist show trials and was executed days later by firing squad on July 13, 1989.

These are two high profile and historic examples but there are many others in which the families of political prisoners have been told that if they remain silent and behave that their loved ones would be sent home to them.

Years and in some cases decades would go by before the family would understand that it was a lie. At the same time those who organized international campaigns and spoke out were able to obtain improved conditions for their imprisoned relatives and in many cases an early release. The most high profile examples of this practice are the Ladies in White. Their husbands, fathers and sons had unjust prison sentences that ranged up to 28 years yet thanks to their efforts all were out of prison within eight years.

The obvious questions raised by the previous examples outlined are why is the truth uttered by an individual so powerful and how can it possibly protect an individual instead of going along with the regime’s desire that one lie?

Václav Havel in his 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless which he dedicated to the memory of Jan Patocka explained the power of confronting the lies with the truth saying:

As long as appearance is not confronted with reality, it does not seem to be appearance. As long as living a lie is not confronted with living the truth, the perspective needed to expose its mendacity is lacking. As soon as the alternative appears, however, it threatens the very existence of appearance and living a lie in terms of what they are, both their essence and their all-inclusiveness. And at the same time, it is utterly unimportant how large a space this alternative occupies: its power does not consist in its physical attributes but in the light it casts on those pillars of the system and on its unstable foundations.

Living in truth is a powerful shield of protection within a totalitarian regime but it doesn’t mean that one is still not in danger. Jan Patocka, a great Czech philosopher and dissident and Charter 77 signatory, that Havel dedicates his essay to, died after an 11 hour interrogation at the hands of state security in his country on March 13, 1977.

However, once one goes along with the lie their life is in greater danger because as long as the one who has gone along with the lie lives they can still recant and for the dictatorship it is more convenient to silence them. They have the video confession giving their version of events and no one to contradict it.

This is why when Rosa Marie Paya tweets that Angel [Carromero] is in danger she is telling the truth.