SOUTH CIRCUIT PRESENTS
Case #1
A MASS EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD IN SANTIAGO CITY
January 12, 1959: 72 people were executed.

The revolutionaries at first also denied repeatedly that they were Marxists. This dishonesty was publicly admitted in a speech of dictator Castro on December 2, 1961. He recognized: "I am a Marxist-Leninist and I will always be one until the day I died." Then he added in the same speech: "If we had said we were Communists before we would have never come down from the Sierra alive."

It was late at night on Monday, January 11, 1959 and the Communists in Santiago as well as in other cities were celebrating the victory of the revolution. None detected a line of vehicles crossing the city of Santiago in route to the firing range in the valley of San Juan. This was the prelude to the somber drama,

When they arrived to the firing range a group of armed men got the prisoners off the trucks. The men were armed with different weapons some had San Cristobal rifles, others Thompson machine-guns and others M-1. The men were dress in olive green uniforms with beards and long hair. The prisoners had their hands tied in the back. In less than two hours another group of vehicles arrived with more prisoners. The time was now 2.30 in the early morning January 12. There were over sixty prisoners and about two hundred armed custodies. In the distance you could distinguish the silhouette of a bulldozer.

Two hours passed by and only God knows what could have been going on in any of those prisoners mind. Suddenly several military Jeeps appeared and more men dressed in green descended from the vehicles. Among those there was one who did not have a beard but had long hair in a ponytail. One of the custodies murmured to the one next to him: "that young one is the brother of the Commander-in-Chief. In effect it was Raul Castro the second in Command, the brother of Fidel the Commander of the revolution. Within fifteen minutes after the order was given, they all began to walk towards the bulldozer in the distance. When they arrived near the bulldozer the prisoners did not have any doubt they were going to be executed. In front of them the machine had excavated a deep ditch 40 meters long.

Rapidly the custodies lined them up with their back towards the ditch. Most of them were standing, some knelt to pray. The shooting squad, the new patriots that were supposed to hold the justice and peace, lined up in front of the prisoners. They were going to use thirty militiamen carrying different weapons. The others, the new Cuban "liberators," were there just there to watch. It was 4.30 in the morning and without waiting any more there was the command voice fire. The firing was loud and mortal. These prisoners had not received justice. They had been convicted in a second trial without regards for double jeopardy. A cloud of smoke emanated from the firing squad marking the barbaric crime committed in that place. Condemning and executing innocent people without proper judicial procedures would be the pattern of this sinister Communist age Cubans had to go through.

THIS IS A PARTIAL LIST OF THOSE WHO DIED IN FRONT OF THE SHOOTING SQUAD IN SANTIAGO CITY:
 January 12, 1959: Abreu Pedroso, Eladio ---- Alvarez, Antonio ---- Alvarez Díaz, Fernando ---- Aragón, Fidel ---- Balboa López, Angel Luis ---- Barrero Silva, Antonio ---- Bautinal Bell, Juan ---- Bravo Montalvo, José ---- Bocaña Collaso, Rafael ---- Calá de la Rosa, Leonel ---- Castillo Ramírez, Pedro ---- Castro Lora, Victor M. ---- Chacón Santa Cruz, Emerico ---- Coso Pérez, René ---- De la O, Arístides ---- De la Rosa Beltran, Evelio ---- Despaigne Moret, Enrique ---- Diaz Rodríguez, Fernando ---- Diaz Zamora, Raúl ---- Duarte Anaya, Raúl ---- Durán Matos, Facundo ---- Estrus Clavijo, Arturo ---- Fernández Valdés, Ernesto ---- Fernández Valverde, Ernesto ---- Ferrán, Alonso ---- Gil, Alfredo Raimundo ---- González Guillot, Manuel de Jesús ---- Gutiérrez García, Juan ---- Gutiérrez Valdés, Antonio ---- Hernández Morales, José ---- Heredia, Ramón ---- Herrera Duque, Eliodoro (Eliotón) ---- Leiva, Ángel ---- López Despaigne, Aristonico ---- Martín Céspedes, Alberto ---- Montero, Armando Martín ---- Novas Hernández, Nicolás ---- Odio, Israel Arencibia ---- Oliu Cordero, Federico ---- Oduardo, Eraclio ---- Olea Gross, Domingo ---- Olea Gross, Miguel Ignacio ---- Palencia, General ---- Portuondo Rodríguez, Luis A. ---- Ramírez Caballero, Antonio ---- Reitor, Antonio ---- Roque del Toro, Benigno ---- Rodríguez Pérez, Pedro ---- Saavedra Pinedo, Celso ---- Saavedra Romero, Francisco ---- Soler Fusté, Alcides ---- Torres del Toro, Benigno ---- Torres López, Filiberto ---- Torre Martínez, Juan José

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