Uncommon Sense

Clinton, Obama would keep wet foot, dry foot

A candidate survey by the Cuban American National Foundation reveals that Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama support the contiuation of the the abhorrent wet foot, dry foot policy, for Cuban refugees.

The policy is inhumane and un-American, but at least they answered the question and others posed in the survey. Their Democratic rival, John Edwards, did not respond, and the Republicans who answered — Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney — sent back only general comments about their views on Cuba.

As for Clinton and Obama, they did differ on a few other of the questions.

— Clinton supports funding for both Radio Martí and TV Martí; Obama said he supports Radio Martí but that TV Martí is a waste because of jamming by the Cuban authorities.

— Clinton would not negotiate with Raul Castro after Fidel Castro dies; Obama said he would, as part of a "aggressive and principled bilateral diplomacy."

— Clinton would require the Cuba to release political prisoners and allow a free press before starting negotiations; Obama would not.

Read the whole thing here.

(H/T Cuba Triangle.)

Bush meets Biscet's wife

The best known Cuban political prisoner is Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, whom President Bush last year honored with the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

On Thursday, Bush met in the Oval Office with his wife, Elsa Morejon.

"I want to thank President Bush for inviting me to this meeting today," Morejon said. "And I would like to speak to the international community and exhort them to work for the release of all political prisoners, along with my husband, to obtain their immediate and unconditional release from Cuban prisons."

To read what all of what Bush and Morejon had to say, go here.

Arroz Con Frijoles, 1/24/08

A few notes from the tropical gulag known as Cuba:

— The Christian Liberation Movement (MLC) has renewed its plea for the international community to demand the release of political prisoner Antonio Diaz Sanchez. I received an English translation of MCL president's Oswaldo Paya's statement, via e-mail:

Antonio has been prescribed a specific nutritional diet by the doctors, which he only partially receives from the prison authorities. For instance, in the last twenty days Antonio was not able to eat breakfast for eleven days because he was not given the food that his rigorous diet requires for his illness. More information can be found on www.oswaldopaya.org.

Antonio Díaz Sánchez declared that the only civic and peaceful recourse that he can take to defend his right to life is his own life and that is why he has decided to not accept any more of the medication that the doctors have prescribed and that many times he receives incompletely and irregularly and he will also refuse any more consultations with a specialist, in protest against the arbitrariness of the court that should have already sent him a medical report many months ago to decide whether the alleviation or cure of his illness is incompatible with his remaining in prison. It is evident that unjust imprisonment and the conditions in which he is under confinement are the most direct cause for his illness worsening.

Antonio has announced that he will begin to take increasingly more drastic peaceful acts of protest against the inactivity of the court that is condemning him in this way to an early death.

Obviously, and for good reason, Diaz is desperate for the world to come to his aid.

You can read the whole statement below the fold.

— The Council of Human Rights Investigators has added two names to its list of prisoners of conscience on the island. They are:

— Juan Bermúdez Toranzo, vice president of the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights, who was arrested Nov. 21 while participating in a fast in support of Cuban political prisoners.
— Vladimir Alejo de Miranda, president of the Miguel Tamayo Pro-Human Rights Popular Movement, who was arrested Dec. 2, while demanding that officials return an identity card to a fellow dissident.

Neither Bermúdez nor Alejo de Miranda has been charged with a crime, according to a report by independent journalist Tania Maceda Guerra, posted at Payo Libre.

— You can add coughing up blood, to the list of ailments suffered by political prisoner Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta.

— At the Combinado de Guantánamo prison, political prisoners Alexander González Quintana and Aurelio Antonio Morales Ayala were punished, after they refused to attend, as ordered, a prison concert by Cuban folk singer/Castro propagandist Silvio Rodríguez. Doing some of the guards' dirty work was another prisoner, according to a report by journalist Maceda.

— In a bit of good news, Yanci Ruiz Martínez, 26, a member of Balseros for Human Rights Association in Santa Clara, was released from prison after serving 1 year on a charge of being a "social danger," according to Payo Libre. Unfortunately for the dictatorship, the punishment didn't take, as Ruiz vowed to continue opposing the regime.

NYC school's trip to Cuba still under review

A couple of New York newspapers, the Sun and the Daily News, report the latest on the investigations into an apparently unauthorized trip to Cuba taken by students at the Beacon School.

The most interesting tidbit is that the trips may have been organized and funded by the notoriously pro-Castro Pastors for Peace/Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization.

The Sun reports:

The Interreligious Foundation is headquartered on West 145th Street. The group's Web site says the American government "says you can't go to Cuba and see things for yourself. We say you should!"

As part of a court settlement in 2000 with the Treasury Department, the Interreligious Foundation agreed it would not be eligible to receive authorization to provide services in connection with travel to Cuba.

The city's investigation into the trips was stalled when the Interreligious Foundation went to court to oppose subpoenas it had received from the city's special commissioner of investigation for New York City public schools, Richard Condon.

Last week, a judge, Judith Gische of state Supreme Court in Manhattan, upheld the city's subpoenas.

Those subpoenas request information including permissions slips, itineraries, and payments or contributions received from students and educators, the decision said.

In court papers, the foundation has not confirmed that it was involved in arranging the school trips.

The Beacon School's Web site was on the blink, so it could not be determined whether Nathan Turner, the idiot teacher whose students took the trip, is still on the faculty.

(H/T to Babalú and Cuban Triangle.)

In Cuba, MLK matters

At the same time Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were taking time out of their Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to rip each other apart, about 20 Cuban dissidents gathered in Havana to pay true homage to the slain civil rights leader. Who was truly honoring King's legacy, is not in doubt after reading independent journalist Carlos Serpa's account of a devotional service attended by several former political prisoners and other dissidents.

Former political prisoner Margarito Broche Espinoza, president of the Council of Human Rights Investigators, described what King means to those fighting for liberty in Cuba:

The pacifist resistance movement he founded is a model for those struggling for freedom around the world. The historical legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. ... who was following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, is present today in Cuba. The physician Oscar Elias Biscet, condemned to 25 years in prison, is a faithful proponent of this legacy in José Martí's fatherland.

Broche is right, King is the perfect model for those in Cuba trying to build a better country, and should continue to be so.

However, this vigil, which should be emulated around the island, reminds how so many people in the United States who claim to be inspired by King, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, fail to properly recognize the ongoing struggle for freedom in Cuba. It is one and the same fight, like in South Africa in the 1980s, that King fought in the American South.

Instead, patriots and heroes like Oscar Biscet and other Cuban dissidents are ignored.

I can't help but wonder on which side Martin Luther King Jr. would stand: the pretenders to his throne, or those, no matter where they are, who struggle to build and live what he preached.

(Cross-posted at Babalú.)

Arroz Con Frijoles, 1/23/08

Just a few morsels from the island you might have missed, amidst all the noise about the Cuban "elections":

— Víctor Alpízar Díaz, 19, of Ciego de Avila, was threatened with being declared as a "pre-criminal social danger," because of good relations with members of a dissident group, the November 30 Democratic Party. Eduardo Blanco Tamayo, a captain with the National Revolutionary Police, delivered the warning, according to a dispatch posted at Plantados.org.

— Georgina Noa Montes, president of the Martiana Civic League, reported that police threatened her with jail if and other members of her group continued with their weekly meetings at a Havana church, according to a report posted at Misceláneas de Cuba.

— Police raided the Holguin home of dissident Pedro González Rodríguez, ostensibly because he had been accused of hoarding and illegally selling cement. Police didn't find anything but they warned González, a member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Movement, to stop his "subversive activities," according to a report posted at CubaNet.

— Homosexuals in the city of Santa Clara complained that police in Santa Clara harass them for gathering in a park, and fine them between 20 and 90 pesos for wearing "inappropriate" clothes — a type of short pants made popular by Haila, a Cuban torch singer, according to another dispatch posted at CubaNet.

— And from the gulag, political prisoner Iván Hernández Carrillo reported that the "re-education" officer at the Guamajal prison in Santa Clara, a lowlife named Juan Quilarte, has launched a new campaign to indoctrinate prisoners. Hernández, an independent journalist before he was jailed in 2003, said prison officials are constantly trying to erode his freedom of thought and his defense of human rights, according to a report posted at Bitácora Cubana.

A proud son of Antilla

The town of Antilla, in the eastern Cuban province formerly known as Oriente but now called Holguín, is home.

I have never even visited, and considering how the "old horse" refuses to die, I may never get there.

But Antilla is home, on the Gulf of Nipe on northeastern coast of the island, is where my father was born more than 64 years ago.

It is my home.

So I was more than a little prideful when I read this report from Cuban Democratic Directorate about a protest in Antilla on Wednesday, and the courage of a dissident leader who refuses to be intimidated into silence:

On January 22, stickers with the slogan I Do Not Cooperate with the Dictatorship appeared in various parts of the municipality of Antilla in the province of Holguin. According to statements from Eliecer Consuegra Rivas, President of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, the stickers were placed in public places along with other stickers called “Caballo Viejo” or “Old Horse”, which satirically represent Dictator Fidel Castro.

This same day, Consuegra Rivas was arrested at 2 p.m. by the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) and taken to the municipality of Banes, in the province of Holguin, where he remained arbitrarily detained for four hours. Authorities took samples of his hair, scent, photographs, and created an Official Warning under the supposed crimes of “habitual laziness and having contacts with anti-social elements.” Consuegra Rivas was also threatened with imprisonment if he did not leave the municipality of Banes in 10 minutes after his release, and threatened with a 20-year sentence under Law 88, also known as the “Gag Law."

Eliecer Consuegra Rivas was expelled from his workplace for being a human rights activist and promoting democratic change in Cuba.

If Cuba had a few more "anti-social elements," and people overseas to support them, my chances of making it to Antilla would improve.

(Cross-posted at Uncommon Sense.)

Cuban teaches all journalists a lesson

Juan Mario Rodríguez Guillén

For all our griping about low pay and long hours, American journalists have it easy. After all, very rarely do the words we write, buy us the threat of prison time.

If only we were so bold, then we would be justified in calling a journalist like Juan Mario Rodríguez Guillén our colleague.

Rodríguez Guillén was arrested last week, after police officers caught him distributing copies of an article in which he denounced national "elections," this past Sunday, according to Misceláneas de Cuba.

Rodríguez, a correspondent for the Sweden-based Web site, was detained on Jan. 18.

"They sent me to a cell, where for four hours they took my fingerprints and my picture. A State Security official subjected me to an interrogation, interested in knowing if I had been directed by any foreign embassy to distribute copies of the article," Rodríguez told his colleage, independent journalist Carlos Serpa Maceira. "I was threatened that if I continued my work as an independent communicator, I would be jailed.

"I reaffirm that I will continue writing, and pay whatever price."

The role of a journalist, whether in a free society like ours or in a totalitarian state like Cuba, is to speak truth to power — to question, to cajole, to challenge those in charge, on behalf of our readers, of our fellow citizens. In the United States, the First Amendment guards us, although not always absolutely, a protection that reflects our importance to the republic.

In Cuba, brave men and women like Rodríguez, have no such protections. The words they write — at any times, on the whim of a police captain or someone above him in the food chain — could be their ticket to jail. They know the risks — more than two dozen of their colleagues are already imprisoned — yet they persist.

They question, they cajole, they challenge the illegitmate powers who for almost 50 years have enslaved their country — whatever the price.

They labor in relative obscurity but in many ways, their work is much more honorable than what is produced by many journalists in the United States, journalists who have forgotten that the most valuable privilege of our profession is that we get to speak to truth to power.

To learn how it's done right, all we have to do is to look to our Cuban colleagues.

John McCain on Cuba

Candidates on Cuba has published a few comments from John McCain about Cuba, including this:

The U.S. should continue to pressure the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally and to hold free and fair elections with international supervision. Unless these conditions are met, lifting the economic embargo would only serve to strengthen the Castro dictatorship and delay Cuba’s inevitable transition to democracy. John McCain has stated that the Department of Justice should also look at the evidence on an indictment of Raul Castro and other members of the regime for the murder of U.S. citizens in international waters in 1996. John McCain also strongly favors U.S. Government funding for political prisoners and their families, human rights activists, and others seeking a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.

Here are some of my previous posts about John McCain and Cuba:

Presidential candidates on Cuba: How they voted

Presidential candidates on Cuba

McCain backs wet-foot, dry-foot

Giuliani and Cuban refugees

In his frequent visits to Miami's Little Havana this campaign season, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has stoked the Cuban Americans crowds with tough rhetoric about Fidel Castro and his dictatorship.

What he hasn't said, might be more revealing.

The Village Voice reports in a story about Giuliani's record on immigration, that he has not always been so friendly to Cubans arriving in this country, starting in 1981 when he was associate attorney general in in Ronald Reagan's Justice Department and had to manage the after-effects of the Mariel boatlift a year earlier:

The Carter administration had promised to grant resident status to Mariel Cubans (minus the criminals). But Reagan put a temporary stop to that: Instead, the INS categorized the Mariel refugees as "entrants" for more than three years, an uncertain status that deprived them of family unification and other rights.

The INS (under a statute overseen by Associate Attorney General Giuliani at the DOJ) also ordered the deportation of a Cuban refugee who had stowed away on a freighter that arrived in Florida from Argentina in December 1981 — the first time that a Cuban had been barred from entering the U.S. since Castro came to power. When another stowaway was flown directly back to Cuba a month later by the Reagan administration, 5,000 Cubans protested in Miami, and one prominent Hispanic columnist proclaimed it "the end of an era." (emphasis added)

Besides implementing White House policies, Giuliani also ran the detention camps where thousands of the Mariel refugees — some criminal and some not — were held. In response to inquiries from the president about why 950 of the Mariel Cubans were still being detained at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas a year and a half after the Reagan administration had taken office, Giuliani wrote a June 6, 1982, memo explaining that the Cubans "have problems that prevent their release into the community." Since none were criminals, Giuliani listed their problems as: "250 mentally ill and retarded; 400 antisocial; 100 homosexuals; 100 alcoholics or drug users; 100 women, babies, elderly and handicapped." Why gays (a crime in Castro's Cuba) or women with babies, among others, had to be detained was not explained. Giuliani was also in charge of the 1,050 Cubans jailed in an Atlanta prison — many of whom were serious criminals, including murderers and rapists. But a federal judge ruled in 1983 that the Justice Department could not hold the aliens indefinitely without establishing on a case-by-case basis that their continued detention was justified—an indictment of Giuliani's actions. (That decision was ultimately reversed by an appeals court that found the Cubans had no rights.)

In late 1984, Castro and the Reagan administration reached an agreement that permitted the repatriation of the worst of the criminals who had come to America as part of the boatlift. But until then, and throughout the years that Giuliani oversaw Cuban-refugee matters, the Reagan administration had refused to allow up to 23,000 Cubans whose immigration to the U.S. had been approved by Castro. This included 1,500 ex–political prisoners whose entry had been approved by the Carter administration. Over the protests of U.S. officials in Havana who had arranged the transfer of the political prisoners and others who had families in the U.S., Reagan broke off talks with Castro for years.

Maybe Giuliani was only following orders.

If so, what does that say about his boss, long thought of as a patron of Cuban liberty?

(Cross-posted at Babalú.)