Uncommon Sense

Nelson Aguiar Ramírez, Political Prisoner of the Week, 12/31/06

UPDATED Oct. 20, 2009 — Nelson Aguiar has been released from prison, apparently in a gesture aimed at Spain.

The surest, most indefatigable witnesses to the crimes committed by the Cuban dictatorship against its political prisoners are the Damas de Blanco, or "Ladies in White." Each Sunday, these women — the wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and other relatives of Cuban prisoners of conscience — attend Mass in Havana and then march quietly through the city streets, testifying with a quiet fortitude that their loved ones will not be forgotten.

One of the more active members of the group is Dolia Leal Francisco, the wife of Nelson Aguiar Ramírez.

Aguiar, 61, the president of the Orthodox Party of Cuba, was arrested during the "black spring" crackdown of March-April 2003. An electrician by trade, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Like other political prisoners, he has suffered from various health ailments that are only exacerbated by conditions in prison and the indifference of his jailers, all the way up to Fidel Castro.

In the past three years, Aguiar's wife, Dolia, has written numerous letters to Castro and other officials, imploring them to release her husband because of his declining health. In 2004, she complained to Castro about guards beating her husband.

In doing so, Dolia asked the dictator questions that he has never dared to answer about his tyrannical rule.

"How can such an ill, peaceful and defenseless individual be brutally beaten? Why such terror? Is having him in such inhumane conditions not enough? They want to kill him too? Why so much abuse against peaceful people?"

One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of more than 300 political prisoners. To illustrate that reality, Uncommon Sense each week profiles one prisoner. There also is a Political Prisoner archive on the left sidebar. To suggest a prisoner for a profile, send me an e-mail.

For profiles of imprisoned Cuban journalists and related information, read the March 18 Project.

Dreaming in Cuban

Forty-eight years tonight, Cuba's nightmare began.

And so did the story of my family in America.

The things that have defined the latter — namely, education, good careers and most importantly, freedom — drive me to do whatever I can to help break the grip of the former, whether it is working on Uncommon Sense or some other chapter in my life still to come.

An horrific dictatorship, whose latest crimes against humanity I try to document here, came to power 48 years ago tonight. And, in part, because of a compliant world purposefully blind to that horror, the dictator and his cronies continue to terrorize their own people. No one in the world, even in America, can consider themselves entirely free, as long as Cubans are enslaved. To remain silent, only magnifies that crime.

For my part, I pledge in 2007 to continue Uncommon Sense, both exposing the truth about the dictatorship and telling the stories of the brave Cuban men and women — the political prisoners, the independent journalists and librarians, the human rights activists, etc. — who stand up to the regime, in the name of freedom for their fellow citizens, and for the whole world.

I think that is what my grandfather, Raimundo Masferrer, and his brothers, Rolando and Kiki, would want me to do. I cannot help but think that these three brave men — who fled Havana for Key West 48 years ago tonight on Rolando's boat — would be proud of my efforts. They, especially Rolando, aka "El Tigre," were men of action, moreso than I have ever been, not afraid to take up a gun to defend themselves and their nation. But one of Rolando's many careers — in addition to lawyer and politician — was as a journalist. He knew the power of the written word to change the world, which I, too, have tried to do as a journalist, for newspapers and on this blog.

My grandfather was the first of my immediate family to reach American shores after Fidel Castro's defeat of the previous Cuban dictatorship. My father, then 15 years old, could have been on that boat, with his father and uncles, but he had to stay in Cuba, to take care of his mother and younger sister. The family would reunite later in America, to begin their American dream.

But they, and their children and grandchildren — each of us American and Cuban, to our cores — have not forgotten the nightmare that is life in Cuba today. Most of us may not fixate about it as much as I do on this blog, but always in the back of our minds is the realization of the sacrifices our parents and grandparents made — They were forced to flee their homes! — so we can have the freedom we enjoy today.

At least this first-generation American of Cuban descent, understands that I will not be truly free until the same liberties I enjoy in my family's adopted home, are shared by my brothers and sisters on the island.

I have faith that one day, perhaps in 2007, that dream will come true.

Wouldn't it be nice ...

... to see this in 2007?

What have YOU done for Cuban prisoners?

Juan Herrera

I agree with Cuban dissident leader Oswaldo Paya: Hunger strikes and other similar demonstrations — such as imprisoned journalist Juan Carlos Herrera's decision to sew his mouth shut — should be avoided, because they put the lives of the protesters at risk. Regardless of the brutality of their jailers, protest by suicide, or self-mutiliation, is not acceptable.

Paya, according to a story posted at BosNewsLife.com, said he pleaded in October with Herrera to not sew his mouth.

Oswaldo Paya

"I asked him not to do it — I am not ashamed to say that I begged it of him — telling him that it is us who still have the opportunity to speak out," Paya said. "I warned him that I was not going to support that (and) that this decision is against the will of all his brothers and that he does not have to go to such extremes ... (Because) we would denounce the violations that he and many other prisoners are suffering."

But Paya did not condemn Herrera, and cautioned others to not judge the prisoner for the extreme of his protest. Instead, people need to examine their own consciences, Paya said.

"(B)efore daring to judge him, (Christians and others) should ask themselves: 'What have I done in the face of this horror that so many human beings live through day to day in Cuban jails?'" (emphasis added)

May they soon reunite

Undated photo, via Newsday.com

Ill journalist is returned to prison

Normando Hernández

The health of political prisoners is of no concern to the Cuban dictatorship. The jailers and prison doctors do just enough to keep them alive, in order to spare the regime the embarassment, and possible international scrutiny, that might come if a prisoner of conscience were to die in jail. They'll do whatever it takes to prevent that, including releasing a prisoner. It happened this year with Hector Palacios, and it has occurred before.

Apparently, the regime believes there is no chance that imprisoned journalist Normando Hernández González, who earlier this month was moved to a hospital, will die soon. Journalist Tania Maceda Guerra is reporting that Hernández on Wednesday was returned to his cell at the Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey.

In another ringing endorsement for Cuban health care, Hernández, who suffers from a variety of gastrointestinal and other ailments, reported via telephone that doctors at the Amalia Simoni provincial hospital in Camagüey told him "that in the hospital the conditions do not exist that his delicate health requires," according to Maceda's story, which is posted at Payo Libre.

Hernández told officials with the non-governmental Cuban Foundation for Human Rights that his hospital room was nothing more than a prison cell, and that his guards denied him the food required to restore his health.

The cruelty of the Cuban gulag never ceases.

But it will never be a match for the courage displayed every day by Normando Hernández González and other political prisoners.

Hernández, 37, director of the School of Independent Journalists of Camagüey, was arrested during the "black spring" crackdown of March-April 2003, and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The case against the Castros

Saddam Hussein is dead, executed for crimes against humanity.

The Castro brothers are no less guilty, and perhaps no less deserving of a similar demise.

Writing at Babalú, Ziva presents a powerful piece of evidence: A January 1959 Time magazine account of the bloodletting that took place, completely at Fidel Castro's behest, in the weeks after his band of killers entered Havana.

The executioner's rifle cracked across Cuba last week, and around the world voices hopefully cheering for a new democracy fell still. The men who had just won a popular revolution for old ideals — for democracy, justice and honest government — themselves picked up the arrogant tools of dictatorship. As its public urged them on, the Cuban rebel army shot more than 200 men, summarily convicted in drumhead courts, as torturers and mass murderers for the fallen Batista dictatorship. The constitution, a humanitarian document forbidding capital punishment, was overridden.

The only man who could have silenced the firing squads was Fidel Castro Ruz, the 32-year-old lawyer, fighter and visionary who led the rebellion. And Castro was in no mood for mercy. "They are criminals," he said. "Everybody knows that. We give them a fair trial. Mothers come in and say, 'This man killed my son.' " To demonstrate, Castro offered to stage the courts-martial in Havana's Central Park — an unlikely spot for cool justice but perfect for a modern-day Madame Defarge.

In the trials rebels acted as prosecutor, defender and judge. Verdicts, quickly reached, were as quickly carried out. In Santiago the show was under the personal command of Fidel's brother Raul, 28, a slit-eyed man who had already executed 30 "informers" during two years of guerrilla war. Raul's firing squads worked in relays, and they worked hour after hour. Said Raul: "There's always a priest on hand to hear the last confession."

In a Mass Grave. The biggest bloodletting took place one morning at Santiago's Campo de Tiro firing range, in sight of the San Juan Hill, where Teddy Roosevelt charged. A bulldozer ripped out a trench 40 ft. long, 10 ft. wide and 10 ft. deep. At nearby Boniato prison, six priests heard last confessions. Before dawn buses rolled out to the range and the condemned men dismounted, their hands tied, their faces drawn. Some pleaded that they had been rebel sympathizers all along; some wept; most stood silent. One broke for the woods, was caught and dragged back. Half got blindfolds.

A priest led two of the prisoners through the glare of truck headlights to the edge of the trench and then stepped back. Six rebel executioners fired, and the bodies jackknifed into the grave. Two more prisoners stepped forward, then two more and two more — and the grave slowly filled. Lieut. Enrique Despaigne, charged with 53 murders, got a three-hour reprieve at the request of TV cameramen, who wanted the light of a full dawn.

When his turn came, Despaigne was allowed to write a note to his son, smoke a final cigarette and — to show his scorn and nerve — to shout the order for his own execution. On a hill overlooking the range, a crowd gathered and cheered as each volley rang out. "Kill them, kill them," the spectators bellowed. As the death toll reached 52 and the pit was halfway full, one rebel muttered: "Get it over quickly. I have a pain in my soul."

In 48 years, the killings and other crimes by the Castros and their cohorts have only continued.

For more about the blood on the Castro brothers' hands, read The Real Cuba.

Not a good year for dictators

Pinochet and Stroessner are dead.

Castro is dying.

And Hussein is about to swing from the end of a rope.

Freedom has not come for the people formerly or currently under these despots' thumbs. Some are still waiting. But the demises, natural or otherwise, of these dictators illustrate that the only think inevitable about tyranny is that it cannot survive in the face of brave men and women willing to fight for their liberty.

And if the world is fortunate, tyranny and despotism cannot survive Mother Nature.

Chavez targets the free press

If you want to be a real dictator, you have to do away with a free press. If you want to dictate and oppress and repress, you can't stand to have some pesky journalist reporting and questioning every move you make. Otherwise, the populace might get the idea that you are, well, a dictator.

Wannbe-dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has learned that lesson well.

From the Associated Press:

CARACAS - Venezuela will not renew the license of an opposition-aligned TV station when it expires next year, President Hugo Chávez said Thursday, accusing the broadcaster of backing plots to topple him.

Chávez, who was reelected by a wide margin Dec. 3, said in a speech to troops that the head of Radio Caracas Televisión, Marcel Granier, was mistaken in believing ``that concession is eternal.''

''The television concession runs out on him in March,'' Chávez said. ``So he had best start packing his bags and seeing what he's going to do after March. There will be no new concession for that coup-plotting television channel named Radio Caracas Televisión.''

The channel, also known as RCTV, is among a number of private TV and radio networks that in recent years have strongly criticized Chávez's government and favored the opposition.

''No media outlet will be tolerated here that is at the service of coup-ism, against the people, against the nation, against national independence, against the dignity of the republic,'' said Chávez, wearing a red beret and fatigues in his year-end speech to troops.

'I'm announcing it before the date arrives so that they don't keep on with their little story that `No, that it's for 20 more years,' '' Chávez said.

Cuba Idiot Alert: Ken Livingstone

2009 could be a big year in London, for commies and their useful idiot allies.

In January, at the behest of Mayor "Red Ken" Livingstone, there will be a "massive festival" to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the start Fidel Castro's communist dictatorship, complete with street parties and other events.

No, I am not making this up.

Showing his true color — red — and his idiocy, Livingstone said:

"We've got the backing of the Cuban government for a massive festival to celebrate 50 years of justice in Cuba."

Fifty years of justice?

Tell that to these folks, you idiot.

Nothing is confirmed yet, but in the following June, rumors are that Livingstone will lead a celebration commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the "justice" it brought to China.

(H/T to Babalú.)