Human Rights in Cuba - History

History

During Spanish colonization, the oppression of the indigenous populations was chronicled at length by clergyman Bartolomé de las Casas. The subsequent transportation of African slaves to the island, which lasted over 300 years, led to British military intervention and a determination "to put a stop to these abuses". Since Cuba achieved independence in 1902, successive Cuban governments have been criticised and condemned by various groups, both within Cuba and internationally, for human rights violations on the island. During the latter part of the Spanish colonial era in Cuba, human rights on the island became a particular international concern. After a visit to the region in 1898, U.S. Senator Redfield Proctor estimated that that up to 200,000 Cubans had died from starvation and disease within "Spanish forts", essentially concentration camps. The concern was a contributory factor in garnering support for the Spanish-American war in the U.S.

After independence, and following a sustained period of instability, the 1924-33 government of Gerardo Machado proved to be authoritarian. Machado extended his rule until a student led uprising deposed him in 1933. According to Hugh Thomas, the post-Machado period was marked by violent reprisals, mass lynchings and a deterioration towards corruption and gansterismo throughout the island.

From 1940, Cuba had a multiparty electoral system until Fulgencio Batista (President from 1933–1944) staged a coup with military backing on March 10, 1952.

In 1958, Time magazine wrote : "Cuba's fanatic, poorly armed rebels last week tried to smash President Fulgencio Batista with the ultimate weapon of civilian revolutions: the general strike. Fulgencio Batista got ready for the strike by offering immunity to anyone who killed a striker and by threatening to jail any employer who closed shop." During the strike, militants and youths stole guns, and threw bombs (one of which may have set up a gas-mains fire), after which some people were killed in clashes.

The strike was short-lived : "With the upper hand, Batista drove boldly around the city while his cops proceeded to make their supremacy complete. When a patrol car radioed that it had clashed with rebels and had "a dead man and a prisoner," the dispatcher ordered: "Shoot him." At midafternoon, cops burst into a boardinghouse, grabbed three young men who were leaders of Cuba's lay Catholic Action movement, which sympathizes with Castro. Two hours later their stripped, tortured and bullet-torn bodies were turned over to relatives. Total dead: 43."

In 1959, Fidel Castro and his forces succeeded in displacing Batista from power. At that time there were fundamental changes in the judicial and political process. During this transitional period there were some concerns voiced about due process.

The "Cuban National Reconciliation movement", a U.S.-based organisation that claims to act as a forum for discussing Cuban society, has detailed what it believes are complex variables when analysing human rights immediately after the revolution. In the 1960s, violent confrontations known as the Escambray Rebellion between the Cuban government and armed opposition were ongoing, but had declined by the early 1970s. The group asserts that by the time international human rights movements flourished in the 1970s, the most severe period of repression was over, making non-partisan retrospective assessments of the period difficult. The reconciliation movement also cite the difficulties in assessing accounts of abuses that are commonly split upon partisan lines. According to the group, Cuban exiles who were often the first to denounce the Cuban government, largely shared an anti-Communist ideology and overlooked violations committed by other regimes, whilst many left leaning observers did not give the claims of Cuban victims due consideration.