Moncada at 70: From Bad (Batista) to Worse (Castro)

 Transition from authoritarian to totalitarian dictatorship 

#WeAreContinuity #TheyAreDictators

Early this morning, the Castro regime, its fellow travelers and agents of influence continued the lie that something positive occurred on July 26, 1953.  The only way that they can accomplish this exercise is by rewriting and omitting history. 

Here are some of the facts they won't tell you.

July 26, 1953 was a tragic day when Cubans killed Cubans in a failed attempt to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista with an attack on the Moncada Barracks.

Aftermath of the July 26, 1953 assault on the Moncada Barracks

Between 1902 and 1952 with moments of great glory and great shame the Cuban Republic transited through 17 democratically elected presidents. One of them, Gerardo Machado elected in 1925, despite constitutional prohibitions, he had the constitution modified and ran for re-election in 1928. Like Hugo Chavez decades later in Venezuela he became a despot, and was removed from office by force in 1933. This led to a return to democracy. 

Some accomplishments of Republican Cuba that the Castro regime has tried to keep memory holed.

McGuire and Frankel in their paper “Mortality Decline in Cuba, 1900-1959: Patterns, Comparisons, and Causes” found: Cuba led all Latin American countries at raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality between 1900 to 1960 during the Republic.  From 1960 to 1995, by contrast, it came in fourth and fifth respectively.” In Cuba's history two doctors ( Carlos Finlay & Agustin Walfredo Castellanos ) were nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine for their work in pre-Castro Cuba.

In 1959, the island already had decent education, according to U.N. statistics, and its rising literacy rates tracked with the rest of Latin America. Costa Rica achieved the same results without dictatorship and firing squads.

“According to the 1953 Cuba census, out of 4,376,529 inhabitants 10 years of age or older 23.6% were illiterate, a percentage lower than all other Latin American countries except Argentina (13.6%), Chile (19.6%), & Costa Rica (20.6%) ... Factoring only population 15 years of age or older, the rate is lowered to 22.1%.” This means that 77.9% of Cubans fifteen years and older were literate six years prior to the Communist takeover.

In addition to its successes on the healthcare and education front the Republic had advanced human rights on the international front through the Organization of American States and the recently created United Nations.

Tragically, this democratic republic was brought to an end on March 10, 1952 by Fulgencio Batista. Batista was a military man who had entered the presidency in free and fair elections in 1940 ( in coalition with the communist party) and left office in 1944. He returned to Cuba under the presidency of Cuba's last democratically elected president, Carlos Prio and within days of the next presidential elections carried out a successful coup against the democratic order that had existed from 1902 - 1952.


Was the Republic perfect? No it was not, but then what country is? Was it a country that was able to feed its own populace? Yes. Did it have a vibrant civil society that resisted the Batista dictatorship? Yes.

No doubt, regime apologists will dismiss these claims because they come out of the Cuban exile quarter. However, would they dismiss what Fidel Castro said at his trial on October 16, 1953 and became known as the "“History Will Absolve Me” speech?

“Let me tell you a story: Once upon a time there was a Republic. It had its Constitution, its laws, its freedoms, a President, a Congress and Courts of Law. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom." …"Public opinion was respected and heeded and all problems of common interest were freely discussed. There were political parties, radio and television debates and forums of public meetings. The whole nation pulsated with enthusiasm.”

The promise made by the July 26 Movement was to restore the pre-existing democratic order along with reforms. The Castro revolution ended a seven year authoritarian dictatorship, and replaced it with a communist dictatorship that has ruled over Cuba for 61 years and counting.  The Castro dictatorship was not a break from Batista but a continuity into more profound tyranny that continues to kill Cubans and has already, at a conservative estimate, killed tens of thousands of Cubans.

Remembering Cuban opposition leaders, Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, both murdered by Castro regime on July 22, 2012

The Cuban government imprisons, forcibly exiles, or kills those who advocate for nonviolent reform within the existing constitutional framework in support of human rights. The Castro regime has also engaged in and sponsored terrorism for 64 years, but before spreading terror around the world, the Castro brothers won power in Cuba through a campaign of bombings, killings, kidnappings, and hijackings in the 1950s.

On July 22, 2012, Castro's secret police murdered Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante, two heroes for democracy in the Americas. 

Last month, following a ten year investigation, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirmed that the two human rights defenders were killed by Cuban government agents.

Oswaldo Payá  was sixty years old when he was assassinated by Castro regime agents on this day 11 years ago. 

Oswaldo was a family man and lay Catholic from Havana, an engineer who, in September 1988, founded the Christian Liberation Movement with fellow Catholics in the El Cerro neighborhood, and over the next 23 years would carry out important campaigns to support human rights and a democratic transition in Cuba. 

He would speak out against human rights breaches and demand victims' dignity, even if it meant denouncing the United States for mistreating Al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base prison in 2002.

Oswaldo was a consistent defender of human rights.

Harold Cepero  was 32 years old when he was assassinated alongside Oswaldo. He was from the town of Chambas in Ciego de Ávila.  Harold began studying at the University of Camaguey when he was 18 years old, and in 2002, he and other students signed the Varela Project. It was a legal measure inside the existing Cuban constitution sponsored by the Christian Liberation Movement.

Despite this, Harold and other students were expelled from the university for signing it and sharing it with others. The secret police would organize a mob to "judge", scream at, insult, threaten and expel the students who had signed the Varela Project. Following his expulsion on November 13, 2002, Harold wrote a letter warning that "those who steal the rights of others steal from themselves. Those who remove and crush freedom are the true slaves."  

Expelled from university for signing the Varela Project alongside other students. He enrolled in a seminary and began studies for the priesthood before leaving to join the Christian Liberation Movement and becoming a human rights defender.  

Why did the Cuban dictatorship seek revenge against Oswaldo and Harold?  The Varela Project demonstrated to the international community that thousands of Cubans were not satisfied with the status quo, and wanted human rights to be respected, and multiparty democracy to return to Cuba. This contradicted the official narrative. 

On May 10, 2002, Oswaldo, along with Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez of the Christian Liberation Movement, turned in 11,020 Varela Project petitions, and news of the petition drive was reported worldwide.

Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez were sentenced to long prison sentences in March 2003 following show trials, along with 73 other Cuban dissidents. Many of them had taken part in the Varela Project and, nearly eight years later, were forced into exile as an alternative to completing their prison sentences.

In spite of the crackdown, Oswaldo would turn in another 14,384 petition signatures with Freddy Martini on October 5, 2003. He would spend the next eight years campaigning for the release of his imprisoned compatriots and continuing campaigns to achieve a democratic transition in Cuba.

Ten years, two months and twelve days after turning in the first Varela Project petitions while traveling with two international visitors in Eastern Cuba on a Sunday afternoon on July 22, 2012, Oswaldo and Harold were killed. Cuban state security bumped into the car they were driving, and when the vehicles stopped, with everyone still alive in the car, they approached the driver, striking him in the temple with the butt of a pistol. Within hours, the lifeless and brutalized bodies of both men would appear.

 

Today, Cuba has over 1,000 political prisoners, with many more imprisoned under the Orwellian statute known as "precrime." The mere potential that you will constitute a threat in the future is enough to lock you up. 

Oswaldo Payá, when awarded the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought on December 17, 2002, spoke prophetically when he said: "The cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a single people." "The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized."

In the midst of the darkness, it is important to remember the rays of light that provide a route to freedom and the full exercise of human rights in Cuba and around the world.

Oswaldo Payá, Harold Cepero, and others, both living and dead, laid the framework for the nonviolent nature of the large nationwide protests that began on July 11, 2021, which established a new before and after in Cuban history.  

Remembering some of the Cubans murdered by the Castro regime.

AMIA: 29 years later still no justice for victims of terrorist attack that killed 85 people

29 years of impunity in Argentina 

AMIA cultural center bombed in Buenos Aires in 1994

Within the span of a week in July of 1994 two acts of terrorism murdered more than 122 Latin Americans. Thirty seven Cubans were murdered by agents of the Cuban government on July 13, 1994 in what amounted to an act of state terrorism and eighty five Argentinians, many but not all Jewish, in an act of terrorism carried out by Hezbollah  five days later on July 18, 1994. Over the past week much has been written about the victims of the "13 de Marzo" massacre but today on the 29th anniversary of the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association  (AMIA ) building in Buenos Aires the fact that justice has still not been achieved requires speaking out. 

What happened?
A siren sounded at the precise time the bomb exploded on July 18, 1994 at 9:53am (1253 GMT) and reduced the seven-story Jewish-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) community centre in Buenos Aires to rubble reported the BBC.

85 people were murdered ranging in age from 5 years old to 67 years old and more than 300 hundred wounded. 29 years later those responsible for this act of terrorism remain at large. A movement to pay homage to the victims of this crime continues to remember and demand justice two decades later.

Photos of AMIA victims

 The names of the 85 victims:

Silvana Alguea de Rodríguez, Jorge Antúnez, Moisés Gabriel Arazi, Carlos Avendaño Bobadilla, Yanina Averbuch, Naum Band, Sebastián Barreiros, David Barriga, Hugo Norberto Basiglio, Rebeca Violeta Behar de Jurín, Dora Belgorosky, Favio Enrique Bermúdez, Romina Ambar Luján Boland, Emiliano Gastón Brikman, Gabriel Buttini, Viviana Adela Casabé, Paola Sara Czyzewski, Jacobo Chemauel, Cristian Adrián Degtiar, Diego De Pirro, Ramón Nolberto Díaz, Norberto Ariel Dubin, Faiwel Dyjament, Mónica Feldman de Goldfeder, Alberto Fernández, Martín Figueroa, Ingrid Finkelchtein, Leonor Gutman de Finkelchtein, Fabián Marcelo Furman, Guillermo Benigno Galarraga, Erwin García Tenorio, José Enrique Ginsberg (Kuky), Cynthia Verónica Goldenberg, Andrea Judith Guterman, Silvia Leonor Hersalis, Carlos Hilú, Emilia Jakubiec de Lewczuk, María Luisa Jaworski, Analía Verónica Josch, Carla Andrea Josch, Elena Sofía Kastika, Esther Klin, León Gregorio Knorpel, Berta Kozuk de Losz, Luis Fernando Kupchik, Agustín Diego Lew, Jesús María Lourdes, Andrés Gustavo Malamud, Gregorio Melman, Ileana Mercovich, Naón Bernardo Mirochnik (Buby), Mónica Nudel, Elías Alberto Palti, Germán Parsons, Rosa Perelmuter, Fernando Roberto Pérez, Abraham Jaime Plaksin, Silvia Inés Portnoy, Olegario Ramírez, Noemí Graciela Reisfeld, Félix Roberto Roisman, Marisa Raquel Said, Ricardo Said, Rimar Salazar Mendoza, Fabián Schalit, Pablo Schalit, Mauricio Schiber, Néstor Américo Serena, Mirta Strier, Liliana Edith Szwimer, Naum Javier Tenenbaum, Juan Carlos Terranova, Emilia Graciela Berelejis de Toer, Mariela Toer, Marta Treibman, Angel Claudio Ubfal, Eugenio Vela Ramos, Juan Vela Ramos, Gustavo Daniel Velázquez, Isabel Victoria Núñez de Velázquez, Danilo Villaverde, Julia Susana Wolinski de Kreiman, Rita Worona, Adehemar Zárate Loayza.

Over the past twenty nine years much has been written about this crime and on the 20th anniversary interviews, articles and events  were carried out to recall that terrible day on July 18, 1994 and the need for truth and justice. Below is a playlist of videos related to the July 18, 1994 AMIA terror attacks.

Please share this with others and join in remembering and demanding justice.

 

Remembering Celia Cruz: 20 years after her death the Queen of Salsa's music still banned in Cuba

 "Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is remembering without pain." - Celia Cruz 

Celia Cruz: Barred from Cuba for wanting to live and sing in freedom

20 years ago today on July 16, 2003 Cuban music and freedom icon Celia Cruz passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 77 years old.  Special Masses are being held in memory of Celia, her mausoleum has been opened today for visitors, and the New York Cuban and Hispanic Parade will honor her today. Next year she will be appearing on U.S. currency.

She had started singing in Havanas's cabaret's in 1947, and recorded her first song in 1948 after joining the Las Mulatas de Fuego (The Fiery Mulattas), a group founded by Roderico Rodney Neyra, who would become known as the choreographer of the Tropicana Cabaret.  Her breakout into stardom took place in 1950 when she joined the Sonora Matancera, and recorded her first songs with them. She would become an international star singing with this group over the next 15 years. She also met her husband Pedro Knight at the first rehearsal of the Sonora Matancera. She had her first gold record in the United States with the song  "Burundanga" in 1957.

Celia made the decision to live and sing in freedom, and in order to do that she had to leave Cuba during the Castro dictatorship. When her mom, Catalina Alfonso, was ill she tried to return to see her in 1962, but was barred from entering the country by the regime. When her mother died Celia was blocked by the dictatorship from attending her funeral. 

The above story is familiar to many, but the details are not, and are worth knowing.

On January 1, 1959 the Cuban revolution took power in Cuba, and despite their claims to be restoring democracy, immediately set out to impose a communist dictatorship, but needed to capture cultural icons and turn them into mouthpieces of the new regime.

Fidel Castro tried to create a situation that forced the salsa singer to pay him homage, but Celia refused. Salserísimo Perú, a site created in Peru by three journalists to share information on salsa and tropical music have reported on it.. Below is an excerpt of Celia Cruz's first "encounter" with Fidel Castro.

    "In the early months of 1959, Celia Cruz was hired to sing with a pianist at the house of the Cuban businessman Miguel Angel Quevedo.  Quevedo owned the magazine Bohemia, the most influential in Cuba and who had supported the revolution in the last few years.  The guerrilla movement with a certain Fidel Castro in front proclaimed in Santiago the beginning of the revolution. For the Guarechera, Fidel was ending free expression and the arts in her country.  The night of the show in the home of Quevedo, Celia was singing standing next to the pianist, when suddenly the guests started to run to the front door of the house. Fidel Castro had arrived.  Neither she nor the pianist moved and continued singing. Suddenly, Quevedo approached Celia and told her that Fidel wanted to meet her because in his guerrilla days, when he cleaned his rifle, he was listening to Burundanga. Celia replied that she had been hired to sing next to the piano, and that was her place. If Fidel wanted to meet her, he would have to come to her.  But the commandant did not do that."

This is totalitarianism. It is not enough not to oppose the dictatorship, but you must actively support it to avoid punishment.

She left Cuba on a flight to Mexico on July 15, 1960

Since Celia Cruz refused to bow to the new dictator, and wanted to continue to live the life of a free artist, she had to leave Cuba. Because she was not an active supporter of the regime, her music was banned in Cuba and she was punished by not being able to see her mom.

 

Celia's relationship with the Sonora Matancera ended in 1965, and in 1966 she began what would be a five album collaboration with Tito Puente. In 1974 both Tito Puente and Celia Cruz signed with Fania Records. Celia would continue that relationship until 1992.

 

The vindictive cruelty of not allowing her to return to her home town in Cuba to see her mother fueled Celia's distaste for the Cuban dictatorship. When she went to the Guantanamo Naval Base three decades later she picked up some Cuban soil, a piece of home, to take back with her into exile. This 1990 trip to the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base would not be forgotten in official circles of the communist dictatorship.  

 

Celia continued to make hit music, and release new albums in the 1990s, and won both American and Latin Grammys for her work. One of her most famous songs "La vida es un carnaval."  Her last collaboration with Tito Puente was on her album Celia Cruz and Friends: A Night of Salsa, recorded in 2000 for which she received a Latin Grammy.

 On May 19, 2001 at the reopening of the Freedom Tower in Miami Celia Cruz sang the prophetic song "Por si acaso no regreso" [ In case I don't return]. In 2002, Celia released the album, La negra tiene tumbao, for which she won her third Latin Grammy and second Grammy.

 

Celia passed away on July 16, 2003 after a long battle with cancer, and per her request was entombed with soil she had brought back from her 1990 visit to Guantanamo.

Celia in Guantanamo in 1990 collecting Cuban soil she would take home.

 

The world mourned her death in 2003, except in Cuba where the official media printed a small note on her passing recognizing Cruz as an “important Cuban performer who popularized our country’s music in the United States,” it went on to say that “during the last four decades, she was systematically active in campaigns against the Cuban revolution generated in the United States.” 

Rolling Stone Magazine on September 15, 2021 placed Celia Cruz's, 'La Vida Es un Carnaval' as the 439th greatest song of all time.  Below is the image and text provided by the publication.

20 years later Celia Cruz's music is still banned on Cuba's official airwaves, and in death she remains an unperson in official circles of the Castro regime that continue to have monopoly control over radio. 

According to the 2004 book Shoot the singer!: music censorship today edited by Marie Korpe there is concern that post-revolution generations in Cuba are growing up without knowing or hearing censored musicians such as Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations. This process has been described as a  Cuban cultural genocide that is depriving generations of Cubans of their heritage. 

However, every where else in the world, and especially in Miami, she is remembered as the Queen of Salsa and her musical legacy endures.

The July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre: 29 years demanding justice

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera.

Three Cuban families totaling about 70 persons looking for a better life away from the regime boarded the Cuban tugboat "13 de Marzo" in the early morning hours of July 13, 1994. The captain of the tug was among those who wanted to depart. Despite their best efforts, an informant had already reported them to State Security..

On July 12, 1994, around 6:00 p.m., Cuban state security knew that the "13 de Marzo" tugboat was going to be taken and had nine hours to prepare their response. What happened on July 13, 1994, was planned ahead of time.

They left the port at 3:00am on July 13, 1994 and almost immediately were being pursued by other tugboats, also of the Maritime Services Enterprise of the Ministry of Transportation. Seven miles from the Cuban coast line at a location known as "La Poceta" the “13 de Marzo” tugboat was confronted by the tugboats. Amnesty International in their 1997 investigation reported that the vessels which attacked the “13 de Marzo” were Polargo 2”, “Polargo 3″ and “Polargo 5″ and identified as belonging to the Ministry of Transport. According to the IACHR report the attack did not appear improvised:

"Polargo 2," one of the boats belonging to the Cuban state enterprise, blocked the old tug "13 de Marzo" in the front, while the other, "Polargo 5," attacked from behind, splitting the stern.  The two other government boats positioned themselves on either side and sprayed everyone on deck with pressurized water, using their hoses.

The Amnesty International report mentions another vessel that "appeared to be directing operations was believed to belong to the Cuban Coast Guard, which is part of the Ministry of the Interior.”

Despite the “13 de Marzo” tugboat stopping and passengers attempting to surrender while mothers held up their children begging for mercy the other tugboats continued to ram the tug and use high pressure hoses to blast them overboard. Following this the attackers began to circle the wreckage with the aim of creating a whirlpool effect to ensure that all would drown. Sergio Perodin, one of the survivors who lost his wife and young son during the incident, explained how the massacre stopped in the Nightline program:

"We saw in the distance a boat with a Greek flag that appeared to be what stopped them. lt looked like the boat was watching what they were doing, the murder they were committing. So they stopped and decided to pick us up."

It was then and only then that the attack was suspended and the survivors were picked up by the Cuban Coast Guard.

On August 5, 1994 Fidel Castro made a speech to the official news media justifying the incident and praising the men on the ships that attacked and sank the "13 de Marzo"tugboat:

"The workers' behavior was exemplary, there's no denying it, because they tried to stop them from stealing the boat.  What are we to say to them now, let them steal the boats, their livelihood?  The actions of the Coast Guard crews were irreproachable, they saved 25 lives.  So, this is what happened and as soon as information became available, more details were given. 

Within three years of the crime, the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1995, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 1996, and Amnesty International in 1997 all issued findings based on the facts available at the time. The report prepared by the IACHR was the most detailed. Human Rights Watch emphasized the importance of the IACHR report in their 1999 report "Cuba's Repressive Machinery: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution" in the chapter on impunity:

 On October 16, 1996, the commission approved a public report concluding that on July 13, 1994, Cuba violated the right to life of forty-one people who died when Cuban government boats rammed, flooded, and sank the 13 de Marzo, a hijacked tugboat loaded with civilians fleeing Cuba. The report also found that Cuba violated the right of personal integrity of the thirty-one survivors of the sinking, and violated the rights to transit and justice of all of the seventy-two persons who attempted to leave Cuba. The report provides shocking survivors' testimony of the Cuban government's deliberate attempts to sink the boat. Statements by President Castro and the Interior Ministry regarding responsibility for the incident provide a disturbing counterpoint to the victims' experiences. Clearly, the government's effort was to exculpate itself from responsibility, rather than conduct a serious investigation and punish those responsible for this incident.

Following the massacre, family members expected their loved ones' bodies to be returned to them. The authorities set up rapid response brigades to prevent anyone from entering their homes. The Cuban government used armed individuals to intimidate survivors and victims' families.

Jorge García who lost several family members in the July 13, 1994 attack sat down and spoke on camera about what he had learned about the actions of the Cuban government  both before and after the massacre.  He had been detained and interrogated on several occasions by state security. His longest detention was for 15 days. His daughter, María Victoria García, was one of three of his family who survived the massacre and spoke out but it nearly came at a great cost according to Jorge, "[t]hey tried on several occasions to kill my daughter, because she was the first to speak out and contradict the regime’s official narrative. Jorge and his daughter are now exiled in Miami. During a question and answer session at Florida International University on July 13, 2004 he explained his need for justice:

''There are those who think that we should be full of rancor and a thirst for vengeance but I don't want revenge. I feel sorry for the people who assassinated my family. I can never be compensated for my loss. I will never be happy again with my family surrounding me. There will always be a tinge of sadness but I do want there to be a trial so that this situation can serve as a lesson and that these people or others like them in other parts of the world, don't do this kind of thing again. Not in Cuba. Not anywhere.''

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was murdered on July 22, 2012 by state security agents, addressed the significance of this crime.

"Behind the Christ of Havana, about seven miles from the coast, "volunteers" of the Communist regime committed one of the most heinous crimes in the history of our city and of Cuba." ... "Let the silenced bells toll. But let them toll for all the victims of terror that in reality is only one sole victim: the Cuban people that without distinctions, suffers the loss of each one of their children."

The following persons were executed extrajudicially by the Castro regime on July 13, 1994, in the "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre.

Helen Martínez Enríquez ( 5 months)
Cindy Rodríguez Fernández (age 2)
José Carlos Nicole Anaya (3)
Angel Rene Abreu Ruiz ( age 3)
Yisel Borges Alvarez (4)
Caridad Leyva Tacoronte (age 5)
Juan Mario Gutiérrez García (age 10)
Yousell E. Perez Tacoronte (age 11)
Yasser Perodin Almanza (age 11)
Eliecer Suarez Plasencia ( age 12)
Mayulis Mendez Tacoronte (age 17)
Miladys Sanabria Cabrera ( age 19 )
Odalys Muñoz García (age 21)
Yuliana Enríquez Carrazana (age 22)
Yaltamira Anaya Carrasco (age 22)
Lissett María Álvarez Guerra (age 24)
José Gregorio Balmaceda Castillo (24)
Joel García Suárez (age 24)
Ernesto Alfonso Loureiro (age 25)
María Miralis Fernández Rodríguez (age 27)
Pilar Almanza Romero (age 28)
Leonardo Notario Góngora ( age 28)
Jorge Arquímides Lebrijio Flores (age 28)
Rigoberto Feut Gonzáles (age 31)
Omar Rodriguez Suarez (age 33)
Lázaro Enrique Borges Briel (age 34)
Julia Caridad Ruiz Blanco (age 35)
Martha Caridad Tacoronte Vega (age 36)
Eduardo Suárez Esquivel ( age 39)
Martha M.Carrasco Sanabria (age 45)
Augusto Guillermo Guerra Martínez ( age 45)
Rosa María Alcalde Puig (age 47)
Estrella Suárez Esquivel (age 48)
Reynaldo Joaquín Marrero (age 48)
Manuel Cayol (age 50)
Amado Gonzáles Raices (50)
Fidelio Ramel Prieto-Hernández (51) 

This is a heinous crime, but the purpose behind it is much more disturbing. Milan Kundera, a Czech-born novelist who grew up under communism and understood its true nature. His observation regarding communist regimes in Eastern Europe is applicable to communist Cuba as well.

"Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: The criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers."

 

Requiescat in pace Milan Kundera.and the 37 victims of the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre.