Crosses honor Castro's foes
Thousands of white crosses resembling a war cemetery have gone up at
Tamiami Park in memory of Cubans killed as a result of Fidel Castro's
revolution.
Posted on Fri, Feb. 15, 2008
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
Forty-six years later, José Crúz says he still vividly remembers the
dreaded sound of the firing squads that executed thousands of Fidel
Castro opponents in the early years of the Cuban revolution.
'I can still hear the firing squad commanders yelling `ready, aim,
fire!' and then, just before the volley, the defiant cries of the
victims, 'Long live Christ the King!' and 'Long live free Cuba!,' ''
said Crúz, 71, a former Cuban political prisoner.
He was among a dozen volunteers who on Thursday worked late into the
night setting up neat rows of 10,000 white foam crosses -- a symbolic
''war cemetery'' in south Miami-Dade evoking the memory of people who
have died at sea or been killed by firing squad as a result of actions
blamed on the Cuban government.
The sixth annual Cuban Memorial ''honoring victims of the Castro
regime'' will formally open Friday and be on display to the public until
Sunday at Tamiami Park, 11201 SW 24th St.
THREE-DAY EVENT
Organizers plan a news conference and ceremony at noon Friday to
dedicate the memorial. Visitors can walk among the crosses, each bearing
a name, from noon to 9 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, and 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
No one knows for sure how many people have died as a result of the Cuban
communist government's direct or indirect actions, but some exile
activists include those who were executed, those who have died
attempting to leave Cuba by crossing the Florida Straits or those who
have been killed in action fighting the Cuban government or who died in
prison.
The nonprofit group Cuba Archive, www.cubaarchive.org, has documented
9,074 cases of people who have died fighting against the regime or
trying to escape the island since the Cuban revolution in 1959. Maria
Werlau, the group's executive director, said many more people have died
but their deaths have yet to be documented. New names are added to the
database all the time, she said.
Other experts cite higher estimates but that's because they include more
than 11,000 Cuban soldiers killed in foreign deployments ordered by
Castro such as in Angola, and higher estimates of Cuban migrants drowned
at sea.
The number of Castro foes executed by firing squads has been estimated
at more than 4,000 by the Cuba Archive program.
VERIFIED NAMES
Emilio Solernou, one of the Tamiami Park memorial organizers, said the
crosses his group has put on display bear the names of verified deaths
as a result of executions, or who have died in prison or attempting to
cross the Florida Straits.
Crúz, a former anti-Castro militant in Havana in the 1960s, was locked
up for 18 years as a political prisoner. He was 24. He remembers an
intensification of executions at the infamous La Cabaña prison in Havana
immediately after the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.
''One evening I heard eight executions and another evening nine,'' Crúz
recalled as he set up crosses at Tamiami Park. ``It was horrible. I
heard the discharge of several rifles and then the single coup de grace
shot each time.''
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