Fidel's Executioner (Part III)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19823
By Humberto Fontova
October 14, 2005
To give them credit, most of Castro's comandantes knew their Batista war had
been an elaborate ruse and gaudy clown show. After the glorious victory,
they were content to run down and execute the few Batista men motivated
enough to shoot back (most of these were of humble background), settle into
the mansions stolen from Batistianos, and enjoy the rest of their booty.
British historian Hugh Thomas, though a leftist Labour Party member who
sympathized with Castro's revolution, studied mountains of records and
simply could not evade the truth. His massive and authoritative historical
volume Cuba sums it up very succinctly: "In all essentials Castro's battle
for Cuba was a public relations campaign, fought in New York and
Washington."
Che Guevara, himself, possessed an immense capacity for self-deception. On a
state visit to Czechoslovakia in 1960 his Cuban companions pointed out the
numerous prostitutes on the streets and in the very hotel where they stayed.
Che nodded wearily. Back in Cuba when one of them winked and brought up the
prostitutes Che flared indignantly. "I didn't see any prostitutes there!"
[12]
The Cubans looked at each other shrugging but knew better than to press the
issue. Che didn't want to remember the sight of prostitutes. He wanted to
convince himself that such a thing was impossible in a glorious Socialist
nation, a sister republic.
That gift for self-deception probably led him to believe the guerrilla war
fable. And while trying to duplicate it in Bolivia he paid for his
obtuseness and wishful thinking with his life. In Cuba, Che couldn't find
anyone to fight against him. In the Congo, scene of another of his guerrilla
forays, he couldn't find anyone to fight with him. In Bolivia he finally
started getting a tiny taste of both. In short order he was betrayed by the
very peasants he set out to liberate (but who didn't see it quite that way),
brought to ground and killed.
Shortly after entering Havana with the revolutionary forces, Che was already
advising, equipping and dispatching guerrilla forces in an attempt to
duplicate the Cuban Revolution in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Panama,
Nicaragua and Venezuela. Every one of those guerrilla forces (which were
Cuban Communist-led and staffed) was wiped out in short order, usually to
the last man. Rafael Trujillo and Luis Somoza weren't about to follow
Batista's example of pussyfooting against guerrillas.
A few years later Che equipped, advised and sent more guerrillas to
Argentina and Guatemala. Again they were stamped out almost to a man. These
guerrilla expeditions cost the lives of two of Che's fatally credulous
friends: the Argentine Jorge Masseti and the Guatemalan Julio Caceres.
Leftist "scholars" complain about The Bay of Pigs invasion as "Yankee
intervention" (though every single invader, including the commanders was
Cuban) against an innocent nationalist revolution that wished only to be
left alone. They might revisit the documentary evidence. In fact Castro and
Che launched five of their own versions of the Bay of Pigs invasions before
the U.S. had even started contingency planning for theirs.
Castro seemed to know these invasions to spark revolutions were futile. But
for Castro they still had a handy rationale. "These foreigners are nothing
but troublemakers," he told a Cuban rebel named Lazaro Ascencio right after
the revolutionary triumph. "Know what I'm going to do with Che Guevara? I'm
going to send him to Santo Domingo and see if Trujillo kills him." [14]
How serious was Castro? We can only guess. But found a way for Che to earn
his keep and stay of trouble in Cuba by assigning him as commander of La
Cabana, the fortress where political prisoners were held and killed.
Che's role in "Imperialism's First Defeat!" as Castro refers to the Bay of
Pigs invasion merits mention. The American invasion plan included a ruse in
which a CIA squad dispatched three rowboats off the coast of western Cuba in
Pinar Del Rio (350 miles from the true invasion site) loaded with time
release Roman candles, bottle rockets, mirrors and a tape recording of
battle.
The wily Guerrilla Che immediately deciphered the imperialist scheme. That
little feint 300 miles away at the Bay of Pigs was a transparent ruse, he
determined. The real invasion was coming in Pinar Del Rio. Che stormed over
to the site with several thousand troops, dug in, locked, loaded and waited
for the "Yankee/mercenary" attack. They braced themselves as the sparklers,
smoke bombs and mirrors did their stuff offshore.
Three days later the (literal) smoke and mirror show expended itself and
Che's men marched back to Havana. Somehow Che had managed to wound himself
in the heated battle against the tape recorder. The bullet pierced Che's
chin and excited above his temple, just missing his brain. The scar is
visible in all post April '61 pictures of Che (the picture we see on posters
and T shirts was taken a year earlier.)
Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante, a Fidelista at the time,
speculates the wound may have come from a botched suicide attempt. Che
hagiographers John Lee Anderson, Carlos Castaneda and Paco Taibo insist it
was an accident, Che's own pistol going off just under his face.
Jorge Castaneda in his Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara cannot
resist giving Che some credit for "Imperialism's First Defeat." The Mexican
author (and recent foreign minister) writes that Che's role was "crucial,"
explaining that Cuba's 200,000 man militia played a "central role in the
victory." The training of these militia had been in the hands of Che since
1960. "Without Che" Castaneda gushes, "the militias would not have been
reliable."
Here's a summary of the Battle of the Bay of Pigs, and the militia's
performance: 51,000 Castro troops and militia with limitless Soviet arms,
including tanks and planes and batteries of heavy artillery met 1400 mostly
civilian exile freedom-fighters most with less than a months training. These
men carried only light arms and one day's ammunition. The Che-trained
militia hit them, then immediately halted and fled hysterically.
They were ordered back, probed hesitantly again, got mauled again and
retreated in headlong flight again. They marched back again, many at
gun-point, and rolled in battery after battery of Soviet 122 mm Howitzers.
They rained 2000 rounds of heavy artillery into lightly-armed men they
outnumbered 50 -1. ("Rommel's crack Afrika Corps broke and ran under a
similar bombardment," explains Bay of Pigs historian Haynes Johnson.) Then
Castro's unopposed air force strafed the invaders repeatedly and at will.
The invaders stood their ground to the last man and the militia was forced
to probe yet again -- and retreat again in headlong flight. They eventually
stopped and brought in reinforcements. (50-1 was not enough.) They rained
another Soviet artillery storm on the utterly abandoned and hopelessly
outnumbered freedom fighters and finally moved in to overwhelm them -- after
three days of effort in which the invaders hadn't eaten, drank or slept, and
had run out of ammunition. Castro's forces took 5200 casualties in the
process. The freedom fighters suffered 114. [14]
Che did show up at the battle site, but the day the shooting ended. He
walked into a building strewn with captured and wounded freedom-fighters and
looked around with his wry Argentine smile. "We're going to execute every
one of you," he barked. Then he turned on his heels and walked out. [15] As
usual, Castro had a much shrewder plan for the prisoners. His regime reaped
a propaganda windfall and 62 million American dollars when JFK ransomed them
back.
In fact, Castro was fuming at his Militia's performance. A week after the
battle he visited some of the freedom-fighters in their Havana prison cells.
One had been an old acquaintance from college. "Hombre, If I had 20,000 men
like you guys," Castro beamed to his old friend. " I'd have all of Latin
America in my hands right now!" [16]
--
Jim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Western_Nationalist
Unite Against Multiculty
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