Guillermo "Coco" Fariñas
Cuban independent journalist/freedom activist Guillermo Fariñas, a true giant of the Cuban opposition, has thrice been an inmate in the Castro gulag, but he is willing to return to prison in order to save the life of political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya.
In a letter last week, Fariñas offered Raúl Castro a proposed prisoner exchange: Let Sigler, who is critically ill, go, and Fariñas will take his place in jail.
Fariñas made the offer after attending the funeral last week for Sigler's mother, Gloria Amaya. The authorities allowed a wheelchair-bound Sigler to also attend; Fariñas told Castro that he appeared be a "nothing but a corpse who could talk."
"I have the hope that there remains in you a sense of "magnanimity," wrote Fariñas, a Cuban army veteran who fought in Angola and received training in the former Soviet Union, "that I will one day be proud to have been in your service."
The offer is another example of the selflessness that is a hallmark of Fariñas' personal struggle against the Castro dictatorship. For example, in 2006, Fariñas went on a lengthy hunger strike, after the dictatorship's censors barred him from using the Internet to transmit his stories after the Miami Herald quoted him as criticizing the regime. Fariñas quickly expanded his protest to demand that all Cubans have unfettered access to the Internet. Fariñas ended his protest before the dictatorship gave in to his demands, but he was successful in raising awareness about how the dictatorship's repressive ways had extended attempts to control the Internet.
Fariñas' offer to exchange himself for Sigler is likely to be ignored — why would the dictatorship risk the public relations hit such a deal would bring? — but that does not diminish the admiration and awe he deserves for making it.
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