Notes from the gulag, 7/7/08

The Castro gang is a secretive bunch, all the better to hide its many crimes. But the information blockade is not absolute, not even in the dictatorship's dungeons, from where prisoners, political and otherwise, are able to report to the world on the deplorable conditions found in the gulag.

Marti Noticias today has two more examples of the reality of life in Cuban prisons, thanks to the bravery of two political prisoners:

• Via telephone, political prisoner Eduardo Díaz Fleitas reports that despite suffering from various ailments, it has been a year since he has seen a doctor. Diaz, a farmer and human rights activist, was arrested during the "black spring" of 2003 and sentenced to 21 years in prison. But as his complaint reveals, he actually is serving a de facto death sentence imposed by a dictatorship that hopes that with its cruelty and ignorance, can sap the life out of this brave man.
• One of the gulag's more notorious prisons is the Combinado de Guantánamo prison. While the world holds the United States accountable for its treatment of suspected terrorists at the U.S. Naval Base at Gitmo — and rightfully so — it ignores the abhorrent conditions in prisons in the part of Cuba that is not free. At Combinado de Guantánamo, most prisoners are housed under crowded, inhumane conditions, according to a report from political prisoner Ernesto Durán Rodríguez. The hygiene is horrible, and the food is insufficient. It would not be overstating it to call CDG a death camp.

Men like Eduardo Díaz and Ernesto Durán run the risk of reprisals for reporting on what they have witnessed inside the gulag.

The least the world could do is to pay attention.