Yes, kinda like what’s happening today in another failed Marxist country, Venezuela.įinally the accusations that these casinos exploited workers – really? For many casino workers these jobs were the first substantial incomes they ever earned.Ĭharge Four: Batista allowed Bell Telephone to come into Cuba and set up a monopoly. For many women, the meager food rations and allowances afforded them, under Castro’s failed Marxist policies, forced them to prostitution. There were and are plenty of prostitutes under the Castro dictatorship – still today. If so, what harm did they do? Prostitution you say? Since the dawn of man, there have been prostitutes. Organized crime you say? Wow, I’m glad there’s none of that in America. The casinos never measured up to Las Vegas but, they were great and, when combined with the pristine beaches and natural beauty of Cuba, they drew millions of tourists who injected nearly a billion dollars into the Cuban economy – a lot of money in the 1950s. Really? Those casinos, hotels and clubs filled the tax coffers of the Cuba government and helped provide a largely unskilled Cuban workforce with tens of thousands of jobs.
What can I say? The point goes to Batista – an easy call.Ĭharge Three: Evil Batista allowed the establishment of large casinos, hotels, night clubs which a) brought in organized crime b) encouraged prostitution, and c) exploited the workers. However, these were for horrific criminal acts and ordered by courts of law and not by Batista himself- no mass murder (such as was ordered by Castro) to be found here. Batista himself disliked the death penalty which is why he spared Castro, and those like him, the first time for trying to overthrow his government – a death penalty offense even in the United States.įurther, the court’s system in Cuba worked quite well under Batista and yes, on rare occasions, people were executed in Cuba while Batista was President. I don’t know, point to Batista on this one. Oh, I almost forgot, Fidel was also a dictator who, unlike Batista, had never been elected to so much as the office of Dog Catcher. Yes, although first elected, he did later refuse to step down but he was also fighting a subversive revolutionary force. So, let’s examine the charges against Batista – shall we? The previous fact is undisputed and documented in numerous studies and comparative economic reports from the era. Before he was illegally ousted from office in a revolution marked by a bloodbath of mass executions, Cubans enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Latin America. That alone, as much as anything, represents the stark differences in styles of governance between Batista and Fidel Castro.īatista, after winning election in 1940, established a constitution and attracted industries which created jobs for Cuban workers. In fact, feeling sorry for the young Fidel and his brother, Batista commuted their sentences and they ended up spending less than two years in prison.
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Later, Castro would summarily (that means without due process of the law) execute people who had done only a fraction of what the Castro brothers themselves had done years earlier. Exhibit “A,” when the Castro Brothers led their first unsuccessful revolution to overthrow the Batista government, they were sentenced to prison. In fact, Batista was rather lenient in dealing with revolutionaries. He was not – unfortunately for the majority of people living in Cuba. Perhaps if Batista had been as brutal as his successor, Castro, he might have remained in power and ultimately, the people of Cuba would have benefited. Wait a minute…hold on…now, I remember…no, no, no – actually it was Batista’s successor who did all of those things and his name was Fidel Castro.
#Batista y eisenhower free
He murdered peasants he suspected of disloyalty, ordered mass public executions of thousands of his opponents, dragged long-haired youth off the street and sent them off to work camps, banned free speech and filled the prisons with thousands of those political opponents of his that he didn’t murder outright and his name was Fulgencio Batista? Right? Fulgencio Batista made the cover of Time Magazine after his being elected President of Cuba in 1940