"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Showing posts with label Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Show all posts
23 years and five days on May 10, 2002 Oswaldo José
Payá Sardiñas, Regis Iglesias Ramirez and Antonio Ramón Diaz Sánchez of the Christian Liberation Movement
(from left to right in above picture) turned in 11,020 signed Varela Project petitions to the Cuban authorities demanding reforms that would see human rights respected in Cuba
and fundamental freedoms restored.
Both Regis Iglesias Ramirez, Antonio Ramón Diaz
Sánchez and dozens of other activists involved in the Varela Project
were imprisoned in the March 18, 2003 crackdown known as the end of the Cuban
Spring and spent seven long years in prison and now suffer exile.
Oswaldo José
Payá Sardiñas was assassinated on July 22, 2012 by Cuban government agents together with Harold Cepero Escalante, the Chirsitian Liberation Movement's youth leader.
Totalitarians may terrorize and murder but those who live on have an
obligation to remember and rescue both the facts and the truth. Please
assist in this effort by spreading the word.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo
and Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, Oswaldo José
Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante were killed for exercising their
fundamental rights as human rights defenders in Cuba.
At the same time it is important
remember that the Varela Project shook the foundations of the Castro
regime and continues to live on today as an example of the power of the powerless.
Project Varela was one of the projects Orlando Zapata Tamayo worked on, and his death impacted a Canadian rock band I.H.A.D.who wrote and sang the song "Orlando Zapata" in his memory.
"As we inaugurate this new
international observance, let us recognize the indispensable role of
the truth in upholding human rights – and let us pledge to defend the
right to the truth as we pursue our global mission of human rights."
Honor the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights
violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and
justice;
Pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to,
and lost their lives in, the struggle to promote and protect human
rights for all;
Recognize, in particular, the important work and values of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero,
of El Salvador, who was assassinated on 24 March 1980, after
denouncing violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable
populations and defending the principles of protecting lives, promoting
human dignity and opposition to all forms of violence.
It
also seems appropriate today to honor and pay tribute to Father Jerzy
Popiełuszko, of Poland, who was kidnapped, tortured and assassinated on
October 19, 1984 by sharing an excerpt from his February 28, 1982 sermon:
"The
church always stands on the side of truth. The church always stands on
the side of people who are victimized. Today the church stands on the
side of those who have lost their freedom, whose conscience is being
broken. Today the church stands on the side of Solidarity, on the side
of the working people, who are often placed in one line along with
common criminals. Dedication to freedom is tightly knit with human
nature and with mature national awareness. This dedication is
intertwined with the law and duty. It is intertwined with the law, and
thus every man and every nation must experience the suppression of
freedom as painful and unjust."
Both Archbishop
Romero and Father Popiełuszko were victims of gross and systematic human
rights violations and sadly over the past forty five years there have been
many more:
In February of 1996 four men were murdered in international airspace by Cuban government agents as they sought to save the lives of Cuban rafters in the Florida Straits;
15 years, one month and one day ago Cuban prison officials announced the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo
at 3:00pm. He had suffered beatings, torture, and years added to his
unjust prison sentence because Orlando continued to denounce human
rights abuses in prison. He refused to look the other way and remain
silent. The secret police and prison guards drove him to the last
recourse of a non-violent activist: the hunger strike. Even there the
regime sought to torture and humiliate denying him, a man on a water only
hunger strike, water. It is believed that act of torture contributed
to the failure of his kidneys and to his death. Oswaldo Payá said that Orlando died for the dignity of all Cubans. Following his death the dictatorship and its apologists continued to attack and smear this human rights defender. It is for that reason that especially on this day that Orlando Zapata Tamayo be remembered.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo, tortured and denied water, while on hunger strike murdered on Feb 23, 2010
Oswaldo Payá was sixty years old when he was assassinated. He was a family man and lay Catholic from Havana, an engineer who, in September 1988, founded the Christian Liberation
Movement with fellow Catholics in the El Cerro neighborhood, and over
the next 23 years would carry out important campaigns to support human
rights and a democratic transition in Cuba. Oswaldo would speak out against human rights breaches and demand victims'
dignity, even if it meant denouncing the United States for mistreating
Al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base prison in 2002. Oswaldo was a consistent defender of human rights, but not the only one.
In Miami, on March 28, 2025 starting at 6 p.m., a march will begin at the Brigade 2506 Monument, at the corner of 8th Street and 13th Avenue in Little Havana, and will travel down 13th Avenue to the Museum of the Cuban Diaspora. The idea is to hear the names of all the remaining political prisoners on the island along the trajectory of the march.
We must remember both the dead and the living, not for revenge, but for truth, memory, and justice.
It is a
long known fact recorded in history by the great Roman statesmen
Marcus Tullius Cicero that "The hope of impunity is the greatest
inducement to do wrong."
Exposing the truth about these crimes and
defending the dignity of the victims while seeking to hold those
responsible accountable both under the rule of law and by the judgment
of history will provide the greatest amount of justice that humanity can
provide limiting impunity and the repetition of these crimes.
"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so
that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*
On Feb 23, 2010, prison officials tortured Orlando Zapata to death.
Fact #1 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was murdered by Cuban government officials on February 23, 2010.
Both Abel Lopez Perez and Reina Luisa Tamayo charge that Cuban prison
officials denied Orlando Zapata Tamayo water in an effort to break his
spirit. Reina Luisa Tamayo in an interview with Yoani Sanchez, hours
after her son’s death denounced that officials had denied him water.[1]
Abel Lopez corroborates the charge stating: “Before Zapata was checked
into the hospital, he was regularly taking some vitamins. He was in a
weak state of health. A military chief known as ‘Gordo’, who was the one
responsible for ordering all of Zapata’s things to be taken out of the
cell and to stop giving him water, also took his bottle of vitamins and
poured all the pills down a drain. He told him, ‘Those who are in
protest here don’t drink vitamins. I think those are pills sent to you
by the Yankees so you can continue your hunger strike.’ Those were the
exact words said to him, I verified them. His vitamins were taken away,
as were any other medications. And they stopped giving him water for a
while.”[2]
This type of practice was also documented in the 1966 death
of another Cuban hunger striker, Roberto López Chávez.[3], [4] Denying
water to a man on water only hunger strike is cruel and inhuman
treatment that contributed to his death.
Fact #2 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was recognized as an Amnesty International (AI)
prisoner of conscience on January 29, 2004 a designation given only to
nonviolent activists after careful examination.[5] On January 29, 2004
Amnesty International outlined Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s past arrests:
“He has been arrested several times in the past. For example he was
temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November
2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central
Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were
reportedly arrested and later released. He was also arrested on 6
December 2002 along with Oscar Elías Biscet[6], but was released on 8
March 2003. Most recently, he was arrested on the morning of 20 March
2003 whilst taking part in a hunger strike at the Fundación Jesús Yánez
Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the
release of Oscar Biscet and other political prisoners.”[7]
Orlando Zapata Tamayo appeared photographed in the Cuban government’s
own publication Los Disidentes, in photos prior to his 2003 arrest and
was then recognized by Cuban officials as a dissident. The Spanish
newspaper El Mundo carried a photo the day after the Cuban regime
announced the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo with prominent Cuban
dissidents.[8]
Fact #3 Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s hunger strike was an act of non-violent self-defense
Orlando Zapata Tamayo had been beaten and tortured on more than one
occasion by prison guards and state security along with other prisoners.
His body was scarred and his health in decline. For example Amnesty
International reported that, on "October 20, 2003 [Orlando Zapata] was
dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials
after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of
lacerations."[9]
Cuban political prisoner Abel Lopez Perez transferred
to the same prison in Camaguey as Orlando Zapata Tamayo on December 3,
2009 briefly saw him and heard from other prisoners “that a few days
before being taken away, Zapata stood up and shouted, ‘People, don’t let
yourselves be lied to. Don’t believe anything that they tell you. I’m
not demanding a kitchen or any of the things they took away from me. I’m
demanding an improvement of treatment for all prisoners, and so you all
know, I am going to die for it.’”[10]
The case of Ariel Sigler Amaya,
another Cuban prisoner of conscience, is instructive. He had to threaten
a hunger strike, although already emaciated and crippled, to obtain
medical treatment to save his life.[11]
The hunger strike was not an act
of suicide but rather a tactic of self defense within the arsenal of
nonviolent options.
Fact #4 Between 1966 and 2010 at least six Cuban political prisoners
died while on hunger strike: Roberto López Chávez , Carmelo Cuadra
Hernández , Pedro Luis Boitel, Olegario Charlot Pileta, Enrique García
Cuevas and Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
Roberto López Chávez, 25 years old, died on December 11, 1966 in Isla de
Pinos prison on hunger strike without medical assistance.[12] Armando
Valladares, in his prison memoir, Against All Hope described the
circumstances surrounding his death: “When Roberto López Chávez, went on
a hunger strike to protest the abuses in the prison, the guards
withheld water from him until he became delirious, twisting on the floor
and begging for something to drink. The guards then urinated in his
mouth. He died the next day.”[13], [14]
Carmelo Cuadra Hernández, died in La Cabaña prison in April of 1969 on
hunger strike, after suffering mistreatment and torture over eight and a
half months, without receiving medical care and was the third political
prisoner that has died on a hunger strike.[15], [16]
Pedro Luis Boitel died on hunger strike on May 25, 1972.[17],[18]
Olegario Charlot Pileta, died in the famous "Escaleras" (staircase) of
the Boniato prison, in of January 1973 during a hunger strike, without
medical assistance and is described in documents as a “black youth.”
[19],[20]
Enrique García Cuevas died on a hunger strike, without receiving medical
care, in cell No. 4 of the new Provincial Jail of Santa Clara, on June
24, 1973.[21]
Two of the four outlined above died on hunger strikes after Pedro Luis
Boitel and there are partial estimates that place the number identified
to have died while on hunger strike at twelve including both Boitel and
Zapata. Since the death of Pedro Luis Boitel there are partial lists
identifying six political prisoners dead on hunger strikes between May
25, 1972 and February 23, 2010.[22]
3. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of
Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from
(1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379
4. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48
11. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of
Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from
(1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379
12. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48
18. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 6TH REPORT ON THE
SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA: CHAPTER III: AN ANALYSIS OF
CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL CASES SUBMITTED TO THE IACHR 14 December 1979 http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba79eng/chap.3.htm
"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so
that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*
Orlando Zapata Tamayo May 15, 1967 - February 23, 2010
Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his 1861 book, The House of the Dead
that "the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering
its prisons." What does this say about the Cuban government that has
barred the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting Cuba's prisons for decades?
Many
Cubans have died over the past 64 years suffering cruel treatment at
the hands of communist prison officials in the Castro dictatorship.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a human rights
defender who was unjustly imprisoned in the Spring of 2003 and was
tortured by Cuban prison officials and state security agents over the
next six years and ten months. He was killed on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike, during which prison guards repeatedly refused him water over 18 days causing his kidneys to fail. He is a martyr of Cuban communism.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas with photocopy image of Orlando Zapata Tamayo
Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was murdered by agents of the Cuban dictatorship on July 22, 2012, issued a statement
the same day that Orlando died and appeared in a photograph holding up a
photocopy of the martyred human rights defender name and image.
"Orlando
Zapata Tamayo, died this afternoon, February 23, 2010, after suffering
many indignities, racist slights, beatings and abuse by prison
guards and State Security. Zapata was killed slowly over many days and many months in every prison in which he was confined. Zapata
was imprisoned for denouncing human rights violations and for daring to
speak openly of the Varela Project in Havana's Central Park.
He was not a terrorist, or conspirator, or used violence. Initially he
was sentenced to three years in prison, but after successive
provocations and maneuvers staged by his executioners, he was sentenced
to more than thirty years in prison."
A brief biography of Orlando Zapata Tamayo
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born in Santiago, Cuba on May 15, 1967. He was by vocation a brick layer and also a human rights activist, a member of the Movimiento Alternativa Republicana, Alternative Republican Movement, and of the Consejo Nacional de Resistencia Cívica, National Civic Resistance Committee. Orlando gathered signatures for the Varela Project, a citizen initiative to amend the Cuban constitution using legal means with the aim of bringing Cuba in line with international human rights standards.
Amnesty International
had documented how Orlando had been arrested several times in the past.
For example, he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002.
In November of 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in
the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government
opponents were arrested and later released. He was also arrested on December 6, 2002 along with fellow prisoners of conscience Oscar Elías Biscet and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo.
Dr. Biscet just released from prison a month earlier had sought to form a
grassroots project for the promotion of human rights generally and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights more specifically, called "Friends
of Human Rights." State security prevented them from entering the home
of
Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata Tamayo,Virgilio
Marante Güelmes and 12 others held a sit-in in the street in protest and
chanted "long live human rights" and "freedom for political prisoners."
They were then arrested and taken to the Tenth Unit of the National
Revolutionary Police, Décima Unidad de La Policía Nacional
Revolucionaria (PNR)
Orlando Zapata Tamayo
was released three months later, on March 8, 2003, but Oscar Elias
Biscet, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo remained
imprisoned. On the morning of March 20, 2003 whilst taking part in a fast at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of
Oscar Biscet and the other political prisoners. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters.
He was moved around different prisons, including Quivicán Prison,
Guanajay Prison, and Combinado del Este Prison in Havana. According to Amnesty International on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations. Orlando managed to smuggle a letter out following another brutal beating that was published in April of 2004:
"My
dear brothers in the internal opposition in Cuba. I have many things to
say to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink, because I
hope to go to you one day when our country is free without the Castro
dictatorship. Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so
that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that
are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]."*
Even though it
has been fourteen years, the martyred Cuban human rights defender is
still remembered. The dictatorship tried from the start to put down and
stifle protests and acts of remembrance for him, but they were
unsuccessful. Last night in Washington DC outside of the Cuban Embassy activists gathered to demand justice for Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and others martyred by the communist dictatorship in Cuba.
On September 30, 2010 the Canadian punk rock band I.H.A.D. released a
song linking what happened to Orlando Zapata Tamayo to the indifference
of Canadian tourists visiting Cuba asking the question: Where were you
the day Orlando Zapata died? On May 10, 2012 the Free Cuba Foundation
published a video accompanying the song, after receiving the band's
permission, with images and song lyrics.
Cuban Historical Political Prison and the United Exile Now on Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 2:00pm at the headquarters of Cuban Historical Political Prison located on 140 SW 13th Avenue in Miami, Florida will pay homage to Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so
that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*
Orlando Zapata Tamayo tortured and killed by prison officials on February 23, 2010
Fact #1 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was murdered by Cuban government officials
Both Abel Lopez Perez and Reina Luisa Tamayo charge that Cuban prison
officials denied Orlando Zapata Tamayo water in an effort to break his
spirit. Reina Luisa Tamayo in an interview with Yoani Sanchez, hours
after her son’s death denounced that officials had denied him water.[1]
Abel Lopez corroborates the charge stating: “Before Zapata was checked
into the hospital, he was regularly taking some vitamins. He was in a
weak state of health.
A military chief known as ‘Gordo’, who was the one
responsible for ordering all of Zapata’s things to be taken out of the
cell and to stop giving him water, also took his bottle of vitamins and
poured all the pills down a drain. He told him, ‘Those who are in
protest here don’t drink vitamins. I think those are pills sent to you
by the Yankees so you can continue your hunger strike.’ Those were the
exact words said to him, I verified them. His vitamins were taken away,
as were any other medications. And they stopped giving him water for a
while.”[2] This type of practice was also documented in the 1966 death
of another Cuban hunger striker, Roberto López Chávez.[3], [4] Denying
water to a man on water only hunger strike is cruel and inhuman
treatment that contributed to his death.
Fact #2 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was recognized as an Amnesty International (AI)
prisoner of conscience on January 29, 2004 a designation given only to
nonviolent activists after careful examination.[5] On January 29, 2004
Amnesty International outlined Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s past arrests:
“He has been arrested several times in the past. For example he was
temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November
2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central
Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were
reportedly arrested and later released. He was also arrested on 6
December 2002 along with Oscar Elías Biscet[6], but was released on 8
March 2003. Most recently, he was arrested on the morning of 20 March
2003 whilst taking part in a hunger strike at the Fundación Jesús Yánez
Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the
release of Oscar Biscet and other political prisoners.”[7]
Orlando Zapata Tamayo appeared photographed in the Cuban government’s
own publication Los Disidentes, in photos prior to his 2003 arrest and
was then recognized by Cuban officials as a dissident. The Spanish
newspaper El Mundo carried a photo the day after the Cuban regime
announced the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo with prominent Cuban
dissidents.[8]
Fact #3 Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s hunger strike was an act of non-violent self-defense
Orlando Zapata Tamayo waz beaten and tortured on more than one
occasion by prison guards and state security along with other prisoners.
His body was scarred and his health in decline. For example Amnesty
International reported that, on "October 20, 2003 [Orlando Zapata] was
dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials
after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of
lacerations."[9] Cuban political prisoner Abel Lopez Perez transferred
to the same prison in Camaguey as Orlando Zapata Tamayo on December 3,
2009 briefly saw him and heard from other prisoners “that a few days
before being taken away, Zapata stood up and shouted, ‘People, don’t let
yourselves be lied to. Don’t believe anything that they tell you. I’m
not demanding a kitchen or any of the things they took away from me. I’m
demanding an improvement of treatment for all prisoners, and so you all
know, I am going to die for it.’”[10] The case of Ariel Sigler Amaya,
another Cuban prisoner of conscience, is instructive. He had to threaten
a hunger strike, although already emaciated and crippled, to obtain
medical treatment to save his life.[11] The hunger strike was not an act
of suicide but rather a tactic of self defense within the arsenal of
nonviolent options.
Fact #4 Between 1966 and 2021 at least nine Cuban political prisoners
died while on hunger strike: Roberto López Chávez , Carmelo Cuadra
Hernández , Pedro Luis Boitel, Olegario Charlot Pileta, Enrique García
Cuevas, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Wilman Villar Mendoza, and Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros.
Roberto López Chávez, 25 years old, died on December 11, 1966 in Isla de
Pinos prison on hunger strike without medical assistance.[12] Armando
Valladares, in his prison memoir, Against All Hope described the
circumstances surrounding his death: “When Roberto López Chávez, went on
a hunger strike to protest the abuses in the prison, the guards
withheld water from him until he became delirious, twisting on the floor
and begging for something to drink. The guards then urinated in his
mouth. He died the next day.”[13], [14]
Carmelo Cuadra Hernández, died in La Cabaña prison in April of 1969 on
hunger strike, after suffering mistreatment and torture over eight and a
half months, without receiving medical care and was the third political
prisoner that has died on a hunger strike.[15], [16]
Pedro Luis Boitel died on hunger strike on May 25, 1972.[17],[18]
Olegario Charlot Pileta, died in the famous "Escaleras" (staircase) of
the Boniato prison, in of January 1973 during a hunger strike, without
medical assistance and is described in documents as a “black youth.”
[19],[20]
Enrique García Cuevas died on a hunger strike, without receiving medical
care, in cell No. 4 of the new Provincial Jail of Santa Clara, on June
24, 1973.[21]
Two of the four outlined above died on hunger strikes after Pedro Luis
Boitel and there are partial estimates that place the number identified
to have died while on hunger strike at twelve including both Boitel and
Zapata. Since the death of Pedro Luis Boitel there are partial lists
identifying six political prisoners dead on hunger strikes between May
25, 1972 and February 23, 2010.[22]
Cuban dissident Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros died on August 7, 2020 in Cuba while in police custody following
a 40 day hunger strike. He had been jailed on false charges in the Kilo
8 prison of Camagüey. His body was quickly cremated by the
dictatorship. [25]
3. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of
Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from
(1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379
4. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48
11. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of
Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from
(1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379
12. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48
18. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 6TH REPORT ON THE
SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA: CHAPTER III: AN ANALYSIS OF
CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL CASES SUBMITTED TO THE IACHR 14 December 1979 http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba79eng/chap.3.htm
Diaz-Canel spouts disinformation at the UN General Assembly on Sept 19th.
Miguel Diaz-Canel began his address to the UN General Assembly on September 19, 2023 by quoting Che Guevara in a speech he gave in “this very room almost 60 years ago” referencing the “exploited and the humiliated” of the South. He left out the Argentine guerilla’s more honest appraisal of what the Cuban Revolution was doing on December 11, 1964.
"We must say here something that is a well-known truth and that we have always asserted before the whole world: Executions? Yes, we have executed people; we are executing people and shall continue to execute people as long as it is necessary."
Diaz-Canel rejected Cuba being a State Sponsor of terrorism claiming there were no grounds to the charge. Ignoring the 1966 Tricontinental gathering in Havana bringing terrorists, and guerrillas from around the world to engage in systematic violent attacks against Western democracies over several decades.
Che Guevara at the UN General Assembly on Dec 11, 1964.
Or that Cuba was placed on the list in 1982 because Havana was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democracy.
M-19 members stormed Colombia’s Palace of Justice in November 1985. Eleven of Colombia’s 25 Supreme Court justices were among the hostages killed. Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s current president, was an M-19 member in the 1980s.
The Castro dictatorship, with decades of experience in terrorism, torture and genocide around the world, is expert in war, terrorism and the use of extrajudicial killings, and executions as methods of control to stay in power. Conservative estimates of the Castro regime’s death toll against Cubans run from 35,000 to 141,000, with a median of 73,000. In the beginning executions were televised in Cuba to terrorize the populace.
Lorenzo Enrique Copello, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla and Jorge Luis Martínez
Executions and Extrajudicial killings were common practice beginning in 1959, and continue to the present day. Well documented episodes such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo'' tugboat massacre that claimed the lives of 37 of men, women and children and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down that murdered four human rights defenders are known because of survivors.
Fifteen years after the "13 de Marzo" tugboat incident on July 13, 2009 human rights defender Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, reflected on what had happened that day:
“Behind the Christ of Havana, about seven miles from the coast, "volunteers" of the Communist regime committed one of the most heinous crimes in the history of our city and of Cuba.
In the morning, a group of seventy people in all, fled on a tugboat, led by the ship's own crew; none was kidnapped, or there against their will. They came out of the mouth of the Bay of Havana.
They were pursued by other similar ships. When the runaway ship and its occupants stopped to surrender, the ships that had been chasing them started ramming to sink it. Meanwhile, on the deck, women with children in their arms begging for mercy, but the answer of their captors was to project high pressure water cannons against them.”
The Wasp spy network infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue; and provided information that led to the extrajudicial killings of Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales on February 24, 1996 when Cuban MiGs searched for three civilian planes in international airspace. They fired two air to air missiles destroying two of the civilian planes, while the third fled north.
Like the murders of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, these two events were investigated and reports on the merits released in 1996, and 1999 respectively finding Cuban government agents responsible for these killings.
In 2006 when Fidel Castro became sick and turned power over to his brother Raul, a new and disturbing pattern emerged. In the past well known activists would be jailed for 20 to 30 years, but under Raul Castro they were killed.
On October 7, 2006, independent journalist and librarian Hector Riverón Gonzalez, 48, was found dead near a taxi at the taxi stand in the City of Las Tunas. His body was found dead under a tree, with his shoes clean and dry although it had rained all night, and handcuff marks. The journalist had been threatenedseveral times by State Security.
Manuel Acosta Larena, an activist in the Democracy Movement, died under suspicious circumstances while in detention on June 24, 2007 and appears to have been a victim of police brutality.
"Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died this afternoon, February 23, 2010, after suffering many indignities, racist slights, beatings and abuse by prison guards and State Security.
Zapata was killed slowly over many days and many months in every prison in which he was confined. Zapata was imprisoned for denouncing human rights violations and for daring to speak openly of the Varela Project in Havana's Central Park.
He was not a terrorist, or conspirator, or used violence. Initially he was sentenced to three years in prison, but after successive provocations and maneuvers staged by his executioners, he was sentenced to more than thirty years in prison."
On January 31, 2011 Mercedes Talavera López died after being run over by
a car in the city of Cárdenas in Matanzas. This was followed by the
death of human rights defender Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia on May 8, 2011
just three days after a brutal beating by regime agents.
The suspicious deaths of Laura Pollan on October 14, 2011 by what an independent doctor described as "purposeful medical neglect", and of prisoner of conscience Wilman Villar Mendoza on January 20, 2012 while on hunger strike are examples that demand a thorough investigation.
Hansel Ernesto Hernández shot in the back by police in 2020.
On June 24, 2020 in Guanabacoa, Cuba 27 year old unarmed black Cuban, Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano was shot in the back and killed by the police. The official version claims that he was stealing pieces and accessories from a bus stop when he was spotted by two Revolutionary National Police (PNR in Spanish). Upon seeing the police Hansel ran away and the officers pursued him nearly two kilometers. PNR claimed that during the pursuit Hansel threw rocks at the officers. Police fired two warning shots and a third in his back killing him. Hansel's body was quickly cremated.
Cuban dissident Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros
Cuban dissident Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros died on August 7, 2020 in Cuba while in police custody following a 40 day hunger strike. He had been jailed on false charges in the Kilo 8 prison of Camagüey. His body was quickly cremated by the dictatorship.
On July 12, 2021 Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, (age 36) was shot in the back by second lieutenant Yoennis Pelegrín Hernández in the town of La Güinera on the outskirts of Havana. The same officer injured at least five other demonstrators in addition to killing Diubis on day two of nationwide protests in Cuba. The total number killed in the 11J protests remains unknown. Video emerged over Twitter on July 15th of the aftermath of Diubis being shot in the back.
Christian Díaz, age 24, disappeared after joining the 11J protests. Relatives on July 12 reported him missing to the PNR in Cárdenas. Police told his father that Christian was jailed in Matanzas. On Aug. 5, officials informed his family he’d drowned in the sea and was buried in a mass grave. His family is convinced he was beaten to death.
Cuban political prisoner Pablo Moya Delá died on August 26, 2021 at the Clinical Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba. He was jailed on October 23, 2020 for protesting socioeconomic conditions and overall repression. Beaten, mistreated for months, weakened following a hunger strike and released on probation, after destroying his health, earlier in August 2021 near death.
The Cuban military dictatorship's well documented record of killing fleeing Cuban refugees, and this includes the October 28, 2022 purposeful ramming and sinking of a boat carrying Cuban refugees by the Cuban border patrol that killed eight, including a two year old girl, continues to the present day.
The failure to hold Cuban officials strictly accountable raises the possibility of more mass killings in the future. This is why we need to call on the members of the UN General Assembly to expel Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council, and why we have called on the Biden Administration to apply Magnitsky Sanctions against Miguel Diaz-Canel for giving the order of combat on July 11, 2021 generating violence and killing of Cubans.
Posts
