CONTACTO Magazine. October 12, 1996.
CONTACTO (c) 1996 All Rights Reserved
Special Report:
by JESUS HERNANDEZ CUELLAR
(translated by Jose J. Valdes)
"On his own cheek should every true man feel
the blow to the cheek of any other man."
-- Jose Marti
The men, women and children who tried to flee from Cuba aboard the tugboat "13 de Marzo" watched in amazement as two other similar vessels, property of the island's government, set about deliberately trying to sink them by using high-pressure hoses and ramming their vessel--right before the eyes of the crew of a Cuban Coast Guard boat--near the Bay of Havana. In little time, the "13 de Marzo" was making water and broke in two as a result of the blows from the other vessels. One of them climbed up its stern so as to cause it to sink faster. It was the early morning of July 13, 1994. The toll was 40 dead, among them 23 minors. The Cuban government accused the victims of irresponsibleness. No measures were taken against the victimizers, who were government officials and employees.
Three years earlier, the poet Maria Elena Cruz Varela had been attacked in front of her own house by a mob apparently made up of civilians. A lieutenant from State Security, who presumably led the "operation," shouted: "Hit her hard, hard; until she bleeds from the mouth." They forced her to swallow a declaration of principles she had written in opposition to the policies of Fidel Castro. Cruz Varela was not protected by the authorities. On the contrary, following the violent ritual, she was arrested, processed and sentenced to prison for spreading "enemy propaganda."
During the early afternoon hours of February 24, 1996, two civilian airplanes of the humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue were hit, over the Florida Straits, with air-to-air missiles fired from MIGs of the Cuban Air Force. Their pulverized remains fell into the sea a few miles away from the tourist cruise ship "Majesty of the Seas." When the missiles hit the fragile planes, Castro's pilots shouted out: "We busted their balls!" The toll was four dead civilians whose bodies will never be recovered.
According to data released by the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), Cuba presently has a penal population totalling 289,000 men, women and children in 241 prisons and concentration camps distributed throughout the island. 54,000 people have died for political reasons in Cuba--among them 12,486 executed by firing squads--in the last 37 years. 39,200 women are incarcerated in 27 prisons. 56,500 minors have been confined in 73 prisons.
During the last four years, Cuba has been condemned by the Human Rights Commission of the UN, which convenes in Geneva, Switzerland. This organization even named a special investigator, embassador Carl Johan Groth, whom the Cuban government has never permitted to enter the island. The special investigator has had to perform his work from abroad, with the help of testimonies and facts reported by human rights defense groups.
The 1976 Constitution prohibits all forms of association, assembly and expression which are not under the control or in the service of the socialist State. It confers upon the Communist Party the role of "rector" of society, thereby preventing the legalization of other parties, even when it is not the intent of the latter to challenge the communists' hold on power through elections.
The press as well as the means for artistic and literary expression, including newspapers, radio and TV stations, publishers, cinemas, theaters, concert halls, galleries for the exhibition of visual and other forms of art, are all property of the State.
Computers and fax machines are in the hands of the State organizations, and it is almost impossible for an individual to have one of them in his or her home. It is even dangerous for Cuban citizens to be caught by the authorities with a fax machine or a computer in their homes.
The violations of human rights on the part of the government of Fidel Castro "are institutionalized as criminal offenses within the Penal Code itself and include 'insolence,' 'enemy propaganda,' 'illicit association,' and 'dangerousness,' among others," states Ariel Hidalgo of the Information Bureau on Human Rights in Cuba, a non-profit organization located in Miami. "The legal decrees relating to the first two are meant to curtail freedom of expression. The one regarding 'illicit association' aims to do away with the rights to assemble and to associate freely with others. The one regarding 'dangerousness' serves to conceal the numerous arbitrary detentions and gives the government impunity to incarcerate, without having to show prior just cause, any citizen that it wants to take out of circulation," adds Hidalgo.
How the Internal Opposition is Treated
In October of 1995, the Cuban Council (Concilio Cubano) was formed. It is a coalition of some 140 opposition organizations--not officially recognized--that advocate a peaceful transition toward democracy. Towards the end of February, both before and after the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes, the repressive forces of the government carried out a wave of arrests among the leaders of the Cuban Council with the intent of breaking up the organization. It is reported that during the days prior to the downing of the planes, about 80 members of the coalition were arrested. Many of them were released some days later.
It has been noted that, presently, the Cuban government has changed its policy of imposing long prison sentences. In its place, it employs "low profile" tactics, handing out shorter sentences than the 20- to 30-year jail terms which it used to impose while at the same time threatening internal activists with going to jail unless they leave the country.
A new measure that is very commonly used is to forbid opposition members living in the interior of the island from visiting Havana. Those involved in organizations that defend human rights are deported--Soviet-style--to the provinces. The internationally-recognized human rights organization Amnesty International has stated that it is "especially concerned about the new tactic of the Cuban government of sentencing dissidents to internal exile."
This was the case with University of Havana students Radames Garcia de la Vega and Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina. In June, they were sentenced, for the offense of "insolence," to five years of confinement within their birth cities of Palma Soriano and Baracoa, respectively. In addition, Garcia de la Vega was sentenced to house arrest for six months and Rodriguez Lobaina to 12 months of the same. The crime committed by these two young men was to found a youth group that advocates democracy.
Thirty two-year old attorney Leonel Morejon Almagro, a delegate and founder of the Cuban Council, was greatly surprised this past March 8 when he found out, after having appealed a six-month jail sentence, that he had been sentenced to an additional nine months of incarceration. His crime: "resistance" and "insolence." Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience.
Amnesty International believes that there are some 600 prisoners of conscience in Cuba, but other groups estimate that the number is much higher, probably some 3,000. Among them are those who have received sentences for political offenses and those who are in jail serving time for non-political offenses but whose sentences were politically motivated. These prisoners, according to Amnesty International, have been jailed solely for having peacefully exercised their right to freedom of expression, association and assembly, or for trying to leave the country.
"The trials in all political cases are far below international standards," states Amnesty International in one of its most recent reports about the Cuban situation. The same report also states that its offices continue to receive frequent reports of "prisoners that are beaten by prison guards, even though Cuba ratified with its signature, in May 1995, the United Nations Agreement against Torture and Other Cruel, Degrading, and Inhuman Forms of Treatment."
According to representatives of the Cuban Council, the island at present has one of the largest prison populations in the world, for a country of 11 million inhabitants. The estimates of the Council are very similar to those given by CANF regarding prisoners of all types. "Spain, to cite an example, has in its jails about 40,000 inmates and is considered the country with the largest prison population among European countries. However, Spain has 40 million inhabitants", states Rodolfo Gonzalez Gonzalez of the Cuban Council Support Group--an organization headquartered in Miami--in an article entitled "Within the Island of Bars," distributed through the Internet by CubaNet. "Cuba, with only 11 million inhabitants, has in its jails more than 275,000 inmates, almost equal to the prison population of the whole of Europe," adds Gonzalez Gonzalez.
[Ariel] Hidalgo points out, with regard to prisoners of conscience, that it is very difficult to know their exact number because "the Cuban government does not recognize the existence of political prisoners and mixes them in with common prisoners throughout the numerous prisons of the country. Moreover, State Security invents charges that do not correspond to the true reasons for their arrests," he adds. It has been reported that in Villa Maristas alone--the headquarters of Cuban State Security--between four and five thousand cases are processed annually.
Human rights advocates indicate that before being sentenced to prison, the detainees suffer "physical and psychological tortures," of the type that used to be applied by the Soviet KGB. This occurs in the detention centers of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR [in Sp.]), the Technical Investigations Department (DTI [in Sp.]), and the State Security Administration (DSE [in Sp.]), all branches of the Interior Ministry of Cuba. The KGB was in charge for many decades of training the officers of Cuban State Security.
"Following the period of 'investigation' at the facilities of the DTI , the PNR, or the DSE, the vast majority of the accused are sent to jail in very bad physical and mental condition. Upon their arrival at the bivouacs or prisoner "depositories," the detainees look like ghosts and remind one very vividly of the survivors of the fascist concentration camps of World War II," according to Gonzalez Gonzalez.
"When I interviewed Cuban political prisoners in May (of 1995), I met men condemned to five, eight and ten years of prison for such trivial things as having written letters critical of the government, handing out political pamphlets or painting "Long Live Democracy!" on walls," reports the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch/Americas, Jose Miguel Vivanco. "If Cuba were seriously committed to reform its abusive practices, these people would be set free and the laws under which they were convicted would be nullified," Vivanco added.
Human Rights Watch/Americas, a non-profit organization dedicated to watching over the observance of human rights throughout the world, indicated after its last trip to Cuba that the Cuban government should "amend or nullify laws that define political crimes, the existence and application of which violate established international legal standards, including such juridical constructs of its penal code as "insolence," "clandestine publications," and "enemy propaganda."
According to a document of this organization, the regime "should also nullify the decrees regarding 'dangerousness,' that allow the authorities to order the preventive arrests of persons suspected of having the intention of committing crimes."
It is expected that Cuba will once again be condemned at the next session of the Human Rights Commission of the UN.