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> Unable to continue finding work, and fearing for the safety of his fellow El Mundo workers, Prohías, unable to speak a word of English, headed for New York.

by wtbob 10y ago

> Unable to continue finding work, and fearing for the safety of his fellow El Mundo workers, Prohías, unable to speak a word of English, headed for New York. It's important to note, for those whose only knowledge of the Cuban Revolution is the iconic Che Guevara portrait, that 'fearing for their safety' didn't mean Prohias thought his co-workers might be beaten up: it meant that he was worried that they (and possibly their families) might be shot.

ocschwar 10y ago
Shot because Guevara had a thing for shooting people.
dghughes 10y ago
Yeah I've read Che wasn't a fan of musicians and artists. So many college students don't believe it. And I guess the suits the two spies wears are suits popular in Cuba or the time, it explains a lot.
coldtea 10y ago
>that 'fearing for their safety' didn't mean Prohias thought his co-workers might be beaten up: it meant that he was worried that they (and possibly their families) might be shot. Not sure where the parent got this supposedly superior "information" from -- right wing circles/books, for which every non-right regime change is an anathema? As far as mass movements and revolutions go, this was one of the least bloody ever. Of course for an cushy westerner in 2016 it's difficult to fathom a movement killing even 10 or 100 persons (of course those are way less than what the police kills in a year in some countries), but for people that live in places with actual turbulent history and bad governments that were toppled (were left or right wing) those things are par for the course. There are a lot of collaborators with the previous order, people the masses hate, ex-police -- including some generally innocent people caught in the comment. That's true whether it's Romanians rising against Ceausescu or Cubans rising against the Batista regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba#Political_executions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba#Political... >"According to Amnesty International, death sentences from 1959–87 numbered 237 of which all but 21 were actually carried out. (...) One estimate from The Black Book of Communism is that throughout Cuba 15,000–17,000 people were executed." So here you have both a low estimate, and the extravagant numbers from the well known anti-communist cold-war style book. >"The vast majority of those executed following the 1959 revolution were policemen, politicians and informers of the Batista regime accused of crimes such as torture and murder, and their public trials and executions had widespread popular support among the Cuban population. Scholars generally agree that those executed were probably guilty as accused, but that the trials did not follow due process."

by wtbob 10y ago

ocschwar 10y ago

Shot because Guevara had a thing for shooting people.

dghughes 10y ago

Yeah I've read Che wasn't a fan of musicians and artists. So many college students don't believe it. And I guess the suits the two spies wears are suits popular in Cuba or the time, it explains a lot.

coldtea 10y ago

>that 'fearing for their safety' didn't mean Prohias thought his co-workers might be beaten up: it meant that he was worried that they (and possibly their families) might be shot. Not sure where the parent got this supposedly superior "information" from -- right wing circles/books, for which every non-right regime change is an anathema? As far as mass movements and revolutions go, this was one of the least bloody ever. Of course for an cushy westerner in 2016 it's difficult to fathom a movement killing even 10 or 100 persons (of course those are way less than what the police kills in a year in some countries), but for people that live in places with actual turbulent history and bad governments that were toppled (were left or right wing) those things are par for the course. There are a lot of collaborators with the previous order, people the masses hate, ex-police -- including some generally innocent people caught in the comment. That's true whether it's Romanians rising against Ceausescu or Cubans rising against the Batista regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba#Political_executions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba#Political... >"According to Amnesty International, death sentences from 1959–87 numbered 237 of which all but 21 were actually carried out. (...) One estimate from The Black Book of Communism is that throughout Cuba 15,000–17,000 people were executed." So here you have both a low estimate, and the extravagant numbers from the well known anti-communist cold-war style book. >"The vast majority of those executed following the 1959 revolution were policemen, politicians and informers of the Batista regime accused of crimes such as torture and murder, and their public trials and executions had widespread popular support among the Cuban population. Scholars generally agree that those executed were probably guilty as accused, but that the trials did not follow due process."