Uncommon Sense

Witnesses to the revolution

Many Cuban political prisoners are not just quietly doing their time, waiting for a miracle. Instead, prison is just another front in their struggle against tyranny and for freedom, theirs and their country's.

Refusing to succumb to the oppression of the regime, they fight back against their captors by bearing witness to the horrors they witness in the Castro gulag and reporting back to their colleagues and compatriots so that the world knows the true evil of the Castro revolution.

Here are a couple of examples of what they are reporting this week:

• Political prisoner Brian Rafael Gómez Gómez reports from Canaleta prison in Matanzas that prisoners who complain about the bad food and poor medical care are being subjected to various physical and psychological pressures. Gómez also reported that government officials replaced the leadership of the prison after receiving numerous complaints from prisoners' relatives. However, the new regime has been just as merciless with beatings and other human rights violations, according to a letter from Gómez to independent journalist Álvaro Yero Felipe.

• Political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer García reports from Las Tunas Provincial Prison that abuses by guards drove prisoner Ángel Fernández de la Rosa to suicide by hanging.

The dictatorship refuses to release its political prisoners because, well, that's not what dictatorships do — unless they feel they have something to gain.

But whether the Castro dictatorship realizes it or not, by continuing to imprison prisoners who oppose the revolution at its very fundamental level, it is creating a legion of correspondents to tell the truth of the horrors they have witnessed.

It is a truth that one day will set them, and their country, free.

Notes from the gulag, 1/26/09

The Castro dictatorship — specifically, its prison guards — is never lacking for ways to turn up the torture of those imprisoned because of their political beliefs. Here are a few examples:

• Political prisoner Fabio Prieto Llorente, an inmate at the El Guayabo prison on the Isle of Pines, was denied a visit by his granddaughter. His daughter and niece were allowed to see Prieto, but prison officials allow only two people to visit a prisoner every two months. Prieto, who suffers from a variety of health ailments, is constantly harassed and threatened by guards and common prisoners doing their bidding.

• Political prisoner Alexander García Lima, an inmate at the Agüica prison in Matanzas, was denied his supposed right to use a prison telephone.

• Political prisoner Osvaldo González Montesino, an inmate at the youth provincial prison in Santa Clara, reports that guards use their full repertoire of repression — bad food, bad medical care, limited access to sunlight and worst of all, regular beatings delivered by the prison's "re-educators."

The guards are only doing the dirty work ordered by the Castro brothers and their dictatorship. But they, too, one day soon will be held to account for their crimes against their fellow Cubans, and against humanity.

Rafael Ibarra Roque, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 1/25/09

The malignant neglect of the Castro dictatorship is costing Rafael Ibarra Roque his eyesight.

The guards at the Combinado del Este prison in Havana are not sticking a knife in his eyes. But there would be no difference between that, and how his captors are blocking Ibarra from receiving proper medical attention for glaucoma. Ibarra is not getting the care he needs because of a shortage of doctors — although the dictatorship's pimping of its doctors to pay for Venezuelan oil might be a problem.

Ibarra is not getting the care he needs because as his captors see it, it's all part of their evil plan. Ibarra is serving a 20-year sentence handed down in 1994, but in fact, like other political prisoners, he is serving a de facto death sentence the Castro dictatorship hopes Ibarra and other political prisoners, aided by their malignant neglect, take to their logical end.

Independent journalist Francisco Chaviano González reported last week that for several months, prison officials had not allowed Ibarra to see an opthamologist. When a specialist finally arrived at the prison, he failed to bring the equipment needed for the examination.

Adding to the insult, Chaviano wrote, the dictatorship continues to imprison Ibarra even though he has done enough time to qualify for an early release.

Ibarra was first profiled as a prisoner of the week in August 2007.

The dictator and the dingbat

I wonder who has more powder on their nose ...

New Cuban independent library opens

On the island of tyranny that is Cuba, there are scattered bastions of liberty known as independent libraries. Not only are they repositories of books and pamphlets and other documents, they are places where like-minded Cubans — Cubans who struggle for freedom for themselves, and for Cuba — can gather for fellowship and support.

This week, some of those supporters gathered in the town of Regla to mark the opening of the St. Thomas More Independent Library.

Library director Rafael Martínez Ferreira said he wants the library to be a place where people can gather to feel closer "to the truth and teachings of God," according to independent journalist Iván Sañudo Pupo.

That makes St. Thomas More a perfect namesake for the library.

"St. Thomas More," Sañudo wrote, "was a man of great wisdom who was born in London in 1477, graduated from the University of Oxford in law. He spent his life writing, especially in defense of the church. He was beheaded on July 6, 1535, for not wanting to bow to the mandates of the king. In the gallows for his execution, St. Thomas More told the people gathered there that died as a 'good servant of the king, but first of God."

A perfect role model for freedom fighters in Cuba, and around the world.

Castro dictatorship arrests Obama supporter

Barack Obama, meet Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez." The man is worthy of your support, and then some, especially after he was arrested while traveling to Havana to watch your inauguration as a guest of the U.S. Interest Section.

Cuban Democratic Directorate reports:

Peaceful opposition activist and former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” was arrested and transported to an unknown location on the afternoon of Monday, January 19th. He was intercepted by the Castro regime’s repressive forces as he traveled to Havana to watch the inauguration of President Barack Obama as a special guest of the United States Interest Section.

Early on January 19th, Antúnez made the following statement by telephone to the Cuban Democratic Directorate: “I want to say that since the early hours of the morning today, my house has been surrounded by political police officers […] there is a visible presence on both corners of my house. I am here with my half brother and fellow human rights activist Loreto Hernández García. We may be arrested at any moment.”

Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, president of the Rosa Parks Civic Movement for Civil Rights, and wife of Antúnez, stated that “It is shameful that today, during the inauguration of a black president in the United States, my husband, who is also black, has been arrested by the political police, and that on top of everything, he has been disappeared. I do not know if my husband is alive or dead. I do not know if my husband has been beaten, because I have had no news of him. I am holding the Cuban government responsible for whatever may happen to my husband.”

Antúnez was held arbitrarily and without charge until the following Wednesday, January 21.

The Directorate also has the details on other recent detentions.

Cuban independent journalist arrested

Here's a question for President Barack Obama:

Will you and your diplomats remain silent each time a Cuban dissident is arrested while leaving an event sponsored by the U.S. Interest Section in Havana?

Oscar Mario González Pérez,a former political prisoner and an independent journalist looking to the United States to help improve his skills, would appreciate a response.

The good news, this time, is that González was released after 4 hours, but only after being warned to stay away from the U.S. Interest Section. He had been participating, via teleconference, in a journalism seminar presented by Florida International University.

Somehow, some way, Obama must find a way to stand with Cubans like González looking to the United States for help in their struggle for freedom.

Political prisoner completes sentence

It is tempting to get excited every time a political prisoner is released from the Castro gulag. But more often than not, the good news is not a reflection of any goodwill on the part of the dictatorship but only an acknowledgement that the prisoner has completed his sentence. Nothing less, and nothing more.

Just the same, congratulations to Diagzán Saavedra Prat, who was released from prison Jan. 13, after completing a 1-year sentence for being a "pre-criminal social danger."

Based on his post-release comment, Saavedra plans on continuing his "dangerous" ways on behalf of a free Cuba, vowing to keep working on behalf of human rights.

Obama recognizes the enemy in Cuba

One certainty about the next four years, no matter how he might plan otherwise, is that President Obama will have to deal with the unexpected. Somewhere, sometime, a crisis will erupt, and he will be called to show quick judgement and order quick action.

I predict one such unexpected moment, sooner than Obama might plan - if you could ever plan for such moment - will come in Cuba.

Fidel Castro will die. Cubans will take to the streets. Or to the rafts. The pressure will be on for the United States to lift the embargo and begin a new era of U.S-Cuban relations.

The thought of Obama being in charge of American policy on Cuba scares the hell out of many Cuban Americans; one even inexplicably has been silenced by the notion.

But if you take Obama at his word - and today of all days, we should take him at his word - you shouldn't fear that when it comes to Cuba, Obama is about to sell the store. Just because he plans to take the sensible, humanitarian step of loosening limits on travel and remittances to the island by Cuban Americans, does not mean is betraying American values or the Cuban people.

Just consider what he said Sunday in an interview with Univision:

Lifting the limits "is a good place to start," Obama said. "It doesn't eliminate the embargo, but it sends the message that we are open to new talks if Cuba is seriously prepared to allow personal freedoms."

Obama is not giving up the fight for Cuban freedom. He is not forgetting about Cuban political prisoners just so American college students have a new beach to visit for spring break.

He is just taking the fight to a new front.

American policy on Cuba should be judged on whether it has helped free the Cuban people. For 50 years, we have tried one strategy, which even on the best days has failed. That Obama, who clearly understands the nature of the enemy in Havana, wants to try something else does not mean he or the U.S. have given up the fight.

Ciro Pérez Santana, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 1/18/09

UPDATED, Oct. 22, 2010 — Ciro Pérez was released from prison in October 2010 and forced into exile in Spain.

|———|

Still not convinced that the Castro dictatorship is a scourge on all humanity, especially the Cuban people?

Consider this: Cubans who try to leave the country without the government's permission — Cubans like Ciro Pérez Santana — risk lengthy prison terms, if caught.

In May 1994, Pérez was caught and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Not much is available on the Internet about Pérez. In 2001, he went on a hunger strike to protest his treatment by prison officials. And in 2007, he was the source of information about how a mentally ill prison had slashed himself with a knife.

The circumstances of Pérez's incarceration may not meet the common perception of a "political prisoner," but that is what he is. He grew up under Castroism and decided he had had enough and tried to leave. In Cuba, few "crimes" are more serious.