Protesters gathered outside of the White House on Thursday evening to urge President Joe Biden to act in support of the protests ongoing in Cuba this week told Breitbart News the mainstreaming of Castro regime mass murder Ernesto “Che” Guevara in America undermines the suffering of those he killed.
Guevara, a wealthy Irish-Argentine communist who participated in Fidel Castro’s seizure of the island nation in 1959, presided over the organization of firing squads to eliminate people who disagreed with Castro and pioneered the use of concentration camps in Cuba. He wrote openly that he “really loved to kill” and particularly enjoyed killing religious people and suspected LGBT Cubans, but his legacy in the United States has somehow morphed into that of a “revolutionary” representing the downtrodden. A famous portrait of the killer has become a popular t-shirt in America and the West generally.
A man identifying himself as Gianni, a Cuban protester at the White House, waved a Cuban flag emblazoned with an image rejecting Guevara. He told Breitbart News that those who admire Guevara have “the wrong information” and urged them to become better acquainted with his true legacy.
“People think he was great and a revolutionary. What no one tells you is that he used to kill gays in Cuba. His great idea was concentration camps for gays,” Gianni explained. “He used to kill Christians. He used to kill people that didn’t agree with him just because they wanted freedom and they didn’t want to be communist.”
Guevara was responsible for helping Fidel Castro implement what were known as “Military Units to Aid Production” (UMAP), concentration camps nominally used for agricultural labor to enrich the country – already Latin America’s wealthiest in the immediate period prior to 1959 – but in reality used to kill and repress “undesirable” Cubans. Anyone suspected of homosexuality, known to belong to Christian groups like the Seventh-Day Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses, dissident writers, journalists, and others seen as a threat to communism found themselves toiling in the UMAP. Reports indicate that overwork and intentionally dangerous situations created on the ground at the UMAPs were intended to kill their inmates.
“Fuck Che Guevara, he was a fucking terrorist,” another man attending Thursday’s protest who did not identify himself told Breitbart News. “That man killed a lot of people, you know what I’m saying? He killed a lot of motherfucking people. People in the world have a wrong impression of Che Guevara … He was in charge of killing people in Cuba.”
A third protester who identified himself as Amilkal told Breitbart News of Guevara, “He said ‘we are going to kill people and we will continue to kill people if we need it. People against the revolution, we’re going to kill them.'”
Amilkal appeared to be referencing a famous speech Guevara delivered before the United Nations General Assembly in 1964.
“We have to say here what is a well-known truth, that we have always expressed before the world: firing squad executions, yes, we have executed,” Guevara told the world on that occasion. “We execute and we will keep executing so long as it is necessary. Our struggle is a struggle to the death.”
“We know what the result of a lost battle would be and the maggots [anti-communists] must also know what the result of their lost battle is today in Cuba,” Guevara continued.
The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO celebrated Guevara’s birthday – and this particular speech – with a public statement last month.
The protesters organized outside of the White House on Thursday did so in solidarity with Cubans on the island who took the streets in dozens of cities across the county on Sunday and, reports indicate, continue to openly protest for freedom. The protests followed months of swelling unrest against communism, largely fueled by the discontent of young Cubans who have never known any other political system.
The Castro regime responded to the protests by issuing an “order of combat” demanding that civilians take the streets and violently attack the protesters, despite the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protests on Sunday. The regime also shut down the internet, making it more difficult for protesters to share videos of either protests or of the subsequent repression and making reports of ongoing manifestations difficult to confirm from abroad.
The White House protesters told Breitbart News repeatedly that the Biden administration should prioritize helping restore internet access for the average Cuban person and allowing Cubans in America to return to the island and help fight the regime.
“We’re going to do it. If you don’t want to do it, no military intervention, we’re going to do it,” one protester told Breitbart News.
The protesters also expressed panic regarding reports of police engaging in door-to-door raids, shooting and possibly killing unarmed protesters in their homes, in front of their families. At least one video smuggled out of the country this week showed police opening fire on a protester in his living room, in front of his toddler children and his wife. The man’s health condition remains unknown at press time.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.