The Cuban revolution's blood tally

The bottom-line cost of the Cuban revolution, as measured in the blood of Cuban people, 50 years after Fidel Castro stole power?

• More than 8,200 executions, extrajudicial killings and disappearances, many at the hand of security forces under the direct command of current dictator Raúl "Little Brother" Castro.

• More than 77,000 lives lost at sea by Cubans seeking to escape their island gulag.

• More than 200 Cubans murdered by security forces while trying to flee the country.

Maria C. Werlau, of the Cuba Archive has the details:

Fidel Castro has enjoyed generally favorable worldwide treatment, which stands in sharp contrast with what most tyrants typically get. This is more remarkable given that he is responsible for the bloodiest chapter of Latin America’s republican history and that his regime of terror has lasted five decades. In fact, Fidel Castro has staged one of the most successful propaganda campaigns of all times. The key to this masterful manipulation has been the effective concealment of his worst crimes and a pervasive unawareness of the large cost in lives of the Castro dynasty. This largely explains the persistent ignorance of the bloody and ruthless nature of the regime and the tendency to justify it on the basis of so-called principles of equality and social justice. But, mounting evidence of brutality will make it increasingly difficult to sustain this false legitimacy. When the truth finally comes out, Castro’s singular ability to fool so many, so much, and for so long will be nakedly exposed.

Since the end of the 1990s, Cuba Archive has been confronting the vast Cuban propaganda machine by focusing on its bloody trails. It has created a comprehensive registry of deaths that makes it harder to ignore the worst crimes of the Cuban regime as well as the magnitude and present-day character of the tragedy.

To date, Cuba Archive (www.CubaArchive.org) has documented more than 8,200 fatalities or disappearances caused by the Castro Communist government since January 1st 1959.

Read the whole thing here.