From wikipedia entry on Human Rights in Cuba:
Latin American historian Thomas E. Skidmore says there had been 550 executions in the first six months of 1959.[22] According to Che Guevara: A Biography, Che Guevara alone said that he was responsible for "several thousand" executions during the first year.[23] British historian Hugh Thomas, in his study Cuba or the pursuit of freedom[24] stated that "perhaps" 5,000 executions had taken place by 1970,[22] whilst The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators ascertained that there had been 2,113 political executions between the years of 1958-67.[22] The author of the Historical Atlas, an online personal compilation of various sources, concludes: The dividing line between those who have an axe to grind and those who don't falls in the 5,000-12,000 range.[22] The Cuban American National Foundation states that since the revolution 12,000 political executions have taken place.[22] Dr. Armando Lago, of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, a group of academics whose board of directors is almost entirely Cuban exiles,[25] states that between 15,000 and 18,000 Cubans were executed for counterrevolutionary activities since the revolution. He also says that 250 Cubans disappeared during the period, 500 died in prison for lack of medical attention, 500 were killed in prison by guards and there were 150 extrajudicial assassinations of women.[26]
The Black Book of Communism estimates that 15,000-17,000 people were executed.[27] R.J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii states the number of 73,000 as the mid-point estimate of victims of the alleged democide by the Castro administration. His low and high estimates are 35,000 and 141,000 respectively. One important reason his numbers are higher than those from other sources is because he counts the estimated deaths of refugees trying to flee and for example drowning as democide.[5]
[edit] Refugees
From 1959 through 1993, some 1.2 million Cubans (about 10% of the current population) left the island for the United States[28], often by sea in small boats and fragile rafts.
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en.wikipedia.org
Had not so many escaped to the US, the Cuban death toll to communism would have been much higher. |
