Orlando Zapata Tamayo was murdered by the Castro regime 10 years ago today, but his legacy lives on

"Long live human rights! With my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery that we of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement] are subjected to and are victims of." - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*

Today at 3:00pm at our Lady of Charity in Miami, better known to Cubans as "La Ermita de la Caridad," a nun read out names of those who had died, including Bishop Agustín Román and Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and asked parishioners to pray for them.

Father Fernando E. Hería during his Homily at the 3:00pm Mass reflected on the nonviolent doctrine of the Church and the martyrdom of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, ten years ago on February 23, 2010. 
A 24 x 36 inch poster of Orlando Zapata Tamayo was on display in the front pew of the Church.

It is necessary to revisit the last eight years of Orlando Zapata's life to understand why his death made such a profound impact inside and outside of Cuba, and is remembered today. The following chronology is based on a 2010 handout by the Cuban Democratic Directorate, that documented Orlando's case closely.

It was ten years ago at 3:00pm on February 23, 2010 that it was announced that Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died. This humble bricklayer who became a human rights defender, spent nearly seven years being mistreated and tortured by the Castro regime.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas holds up a flier with Orlando Zapata Tamayo's photo

He had worked alongside both Oscar Elias Biscet, and Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas on projects that sought to advance the cause of human rights in Cuba with Biscet's human rights circles and Payá's Varela Project.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arbitrarily detained by the secret police on December 6, 2002 together with other activists, including Dr. Biscet, to stop them participating in a human rights workshop at the home of human rights defender Raúl Arencibia Fajardo. Three months later on March 8, 2003 Orlando was released.

Twelve days later on March 20, 2003 Orlando Zapata was re-arrested in the midst of the Black Cuban Spring when over 75 activists and independent journalists were jailed during a crackdown and sentenced to long prison terms. He had been taken part in a fast and vigil demanding the freedom of Dr. Biscet, who had remained jailed since the December 6, 2002 arrest.

Orlando Zapata photographed with prominent dissidents

Amnesty International reported that 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 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 of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement] are subjected to and are victims of."*

Orlando would remain jailed without charges or a trial.  On May 18, 2004 Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo were each sentenced to three years in prison for contempt for authority, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a one-day trial.

This did not silence him. When prison officials chose to attack his human dignity, and engaged in acts of physical and psychological torture, Orlando Zapata would respond with nonviolent defiance. He carried out hunger strikes within the prisons he was transferred to. The regime's response to his nonviolent defiance was to pile on prison years to his sentence. Between May 2004 and December 2009 they carried out nine trials without due process guarantees for a total sentence of 25 years and six months.

What we know is a partial accounting of what he suffered. On July 26, 2008 in the Holguin Provincial Prison he was brutally beaten, on the orders of the prison director, Major Orelvis Miraldea, and Orlando's body was covered in bruises, but especially suffered blows to the head that caused a intracranial hematoma in the lower part of his brain, and a year later he needed to be operated on for this brain injury. 

Despite this, because of his refusal to be re-educated and silenced, the beatings continued on August 29, 2009, September 24, 2009, and a more severe beating on November 26, 2009.

Reina Luisa Tamayo, with her son's blood stained shirt

On December 3, 2009 he is transferred to Kilo 8 in Camaguey, a maximum security prison. Upon his arrival the food that his mother had turned into him the day before was confiscated, and they wanted to force him to wear the uniform  of a common prisoner. Orlando refused and begins his last hunger strike.

Major Filiberto Hernandez Luis, director of Kilo 8 prison, retaliates placing him in isolation without clothes and sleeping on the floor. Over 18 days they deny him water in an effort force him to end his hunger strike, and break his spirit.  On January 3rd and again on January 6th he is taken to Amalia Simoni Hospital  and undergoes intravenous rehydration and is returned to his isolation cell.

On January 21, 2010 he is transferred to the Amalia Simoni Hospital prison ward where he is kept under strong air conditioning unit with a thin blanket that causes him to develop pneumonia, aggravating his health situation. At the same time on several occasions members of the political police film Orlando Zapata in his hospital bed.

On February 16, 2010 he is transferred to Havana in a military operation, and his mother is not allowed to accompany him in the ambulance. This is the last time that she sees her sons conscious.

On February 20, 2010 after strong protests by his mother to the secret police, she is able to see Orlando at the Combinado del Este prison ward, but he unconscious and intubated.

On February 22, 2010 she is called to a late night meeting with doctors, where she is filmed without her knowledge. There she is told for the first and only time that her son is alive thanks to an artificial  respirator.  ( However, in a later article in the official newspaper Granma it is reported that he had been on a respirator for days.)

On February 23, 2010 around mid-day, the secret police and military doctors in form Reina Luisa Tamayo, Orlando's mother, that he is being transferred to Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital in a critical state. He dies three hours later at 3:00pm according to the information by the political police to his mother.

Castro regime book “The Dissidents” mentioned OZT as an opponent.

Following his death the Castro regime sought to destroy Orlando's reputation and went as far as to deny that he had been a dissident. This campaign failed, because even the dictatorship's own propaganda had recognized his activism, published a picture of him with other activists and attacked him years earlier.

This extrajudicial killing turned out to be a very costly one for the regime. Ten years later protests were carried out at the Embassy in Washington DC, in Miami, and in Cuba. It is most likely not a coincidence that the hacking of the University of Havana home page by Anonymous was carried out on the ten year anniversary of the death of this Cuban human rights defender.

They killed his body, but they did not obtain his obedience, and his spirit of defiance lives on.

Where were you the day Orlando Zapata Tamayo died? Please write down what you remember in the comments section.

The Nation Project of the Lawton Foundation by Dr. Oscar Biscet

The following is Alberto de la Cruz's translation of a statement from the Lawton Foundation by its president Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet.

THE NATION PROJECT OF THE LAWTON FOUNDATION

Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet
President of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights
Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner
lawtonfoundation@lawtonfoundation.com

In 1997, the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights decided to put into practice the theoretical fundamentals of non-violent civic struggle, and chose the event that would take place at the Jose Marti Civic Plaza where Pope John Paul II offered a homily to the Cuban people as its stage. The objective of our non-governmental organization is to promote among Cuban citizens the idea that it is possible to liberate themselves from the tyrannical regime of the Castros through non-violent political defiance with minimal cost in terms of suffering for the Cubans themselves.

An hour before the Pope made his entrance into the Havana plaza, the members of the Lawton Foundation had already raised a banner with the inscription “Remember the prisoners and those who suffer,” and on the backside of the banner it stated “Liberty for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.” This last phrase was accompanied by a list of prisoner names, among them those from “The Nation Belongs to Everyone.”

Five minutes before the entry of leader Fidel Castro, we were violently removed from the premises. Thanks to the protection of some French priests and two journalists from Fox News, we were able to leave the plaza very worried but without major injuries.

Since then, the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights has operated with decorum, intelligence, altruistic love, and perseverance for the respect of the lives of unborn children and the human rights of the Cuban people.

The merits of the beautiful and intense work done by the Foundation have brought national and international recognition. Nevertheless, the majority of its work has been conducted in silence and without publicity, and untainted by self-promotion. For that reason I congratulate all its members and encourage them to continue carrying out this worthy cause.

We propose to promote the strategy of non-violent resistance as the most suitable weapon that should be used by the opposition democratic movement in search of respect for human rights and liberty for our people. And the valiant, loving, wise, and patriotic words of the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Pedro Meurice, have filled us with an intense patriotic love, which inspires us to challenge the terror imposed on this unfortunate nation by the state. Those words were:

“[…] Cuba is a country that has a profound calling to solidarity, but throughout its history it has seen its spaces for association and the participation of civil society dismantled or run aground in a way that I present to you the soul of a nation that yearns to reconstruct fraternity based on liberty and solidarity.
“I want to present in this Eucharist all of those Cubans and citizens of Santiago who cannot find sense in their lives, who have not been able to choose and develop a life project because of the road to depersonalization, which is the fruit of paternalism.
“In addition, I present a growing number of Cubans who have confused country with political party, the nation with an ideology. They are Cubans who upon rejecting everything at once without discernment, they feel rootless, rejecting what is from here and overvaluing everything foreign.”

A decade later, our people feel inspired by the internal examples of the peaceful opposition, and by the external examples of non-violent paradigms provided by the peoples of North Africa and the Middle East. The Cuban people, under the direction of the democratic opposition movement, have consolidated behind non-violent civic struggle as the strategic and tactical method to obtain its liberty and create a State with democratic rights in our country.

According to Nathan Sharansky, dictatorial regimes such as that of the Castro brothers are fearful societies, and “they are characterized by an inexorable process of stagnation, regression, and subsidence that the only way to defeat them is with external help.” For that reason I have over the years vehemently condemned those civilized and developed countries who continue to prop up the communist dictatorship.

According to Sharansky, the socialist system in Cuba is in its final phases. Fearful societies that are in the terminal stage are identified by the increase in state terror and the growing number of duplicitous individuals. If we add to this the lost ideology of the system, the regime is even weaker because of the fact it is a post-communist state whose ideology has failed in an emphatic way. This is the ideal moment to put an end to the Castro dictatorship through massive, non-violent political defiance and not offer it any support whatsoever, which might provide it with political legitimacy and with financial and economic resources both internally and externally.

Many ideas come to our minds, but they serve little purpose if we do not put them into practice out of our own free will. The dictatorship, in order to avoid allowing liberating ideas to develop in our daily lives, blocks our will through fear and depersonalization, in the same way it eliminates our self-esteem in order to convert us into instruments of their design.

In order to get out of this apathetic and weak state, it is necessary to open the internal sources of our own free will. This is only possible through healthy and pure activism, as the Pope described to the young people when he said: “be protagonists of your own personal and social history.” That is why I tell the Cuban people to resist those who are tired, who have failed, whose love of country is weak, who are devoid of hope and self-love, who are traitors, and to be protagonists of their own history in order to be a free people.

The hour has arrived for Cubans to topple the communist dictatorship that for more than fifty years has destroyed our economy, our educational and religious structure, our morality, and our ethics for civilized coexistence. Let us not allow ourselves to be deceived by the false proposal of change within the same government that has enslaved us for more than half a century regardless of the institution, group, or person who presents it. It is very difficult for the Communist Party to initiate profound changes when in the last five years it has purged from its ranks its most moderate thinkers. The communist orthodoxy persists at all levels of leadership, and they use democratic centrism, or better said the subordination of all its members with no respect for the minorities.

Nevertheless, let us presume for a moment the utopia that the communist regime will voluntarily accede and grant profound transformations. What should they be?

• Ratify the international human rights pacts, especially those dealing with civil and political rights.
• Preemptively put into practice inalienable rights.
• Repeal Article Five of the Communist Constitution.
• Allow the entry, exit, and permanence of all Cubans on the island with a full guarantee of their rights.
• Guarantee the direct participation of every Cuban in exile in all the processes of democratic change in their country.
• The resignation of all current members of the Council of State and of the government, and those linked to crimes against humanity.

By putting into practice these indispensable requirements, they would become the preamble to recognizing, analyzing, and debating the process of change towards a transition of the country to a democracy and towards liberty. Without these requirements there is nothing to talk about.
On another front, it is necessary to be on guard because the Castro government has immense political and economic power to conduct policies of subversion. The classic example can be found in how from the island the regime has been able to subvert the social order of Venezuela, Nicaragua, has strong influence in Bolivia, and great potential in Honduras. If they can accomplish this in foreign lands, there is nothing they cannot do here.

For example, they have the capacity, which they have demonstrated, to infiltrate with their intelligence agents the leadership of democratic organizations, to destroy opposition organizations, and to perpetrate extrajudicial assassinations of the true leaders committed to the liberty of their nation.

Because of this, the wisest thing to do is not to trust the government, or those who want to prolong its existence and who forget the many years of failure and cruel tyranny. It is better to place our trust in the Biblical God and in our own efforts, supported by our own people, organizing and training them in the methods of non-violent civic struggle in order to strengthen them. That is the only way to obtain a quick and lasting victory.

A fearful society is kept that way with state terror combined with scientific methods to unleash psychological and psychiatric disorders in the population. Among them is post-traumatic stress disorder and learned helplessness disorder. These mental processes do not disappear overnight or immediately with liberty; in fact, there should be prolonged medical treatment or the reinforcement of democratic institutions so that the people can begin to trust in them and start feeling fulfilled and free.
This is why I am left astonished and incredulous when I hear proposals to carry out plebiscites or general elections under the control of the dictatorship, or recently liberated from it. The triumphant allies in Nazi Germany, Afghanistan, and Iraq prudently waited for a time to reestablish the self-confidence of every free citizen.

The period of transition in Cuba should begin with reestablishing the historic memory of the nation through the applicable clauses of the 1940 Constitution, with a balance of independent powers and a provisional government made up of all the democratic forces in the country. Once the country is stable, within that transition period, a provisional democratic constitution should be instituted as a basis for local and regional elections, and a democratic transitional government in preparation for general elections and the founding of the Free Republic of Cuba.

An independent judiciary, from the beginning of the transition period, will determine the integration of the Superior Electoral Tribunal, which will guarantee the organization and transparency of elections under the supervision of international bodies. It is important that Articles 184 and 185 of the 1940 Constitution be reviewed. In the communist Constitution there exists the constitutional atrocity that the judiciary is subordinate to the Legislative Assembly and the Executive power.

I believe also that it is of vital importance that the future Free Republic of Cuba is organized as a secular state where the market economy is predominate and the plenitude of fundamental liberties of every citizen is respected. In addition, I think that the republic should be constructed beginning now with responsibility and intense public and professional debate in all branches of knowledge, including the political sciences. In conclusion, I aspire to promote the triad of Livingstone: Christianity, commerce, and civilization. Remembering that we are part of the western world, the one with a Socratic civilization and a Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian culture.

I conclude with the enduring words of the much loved and admired Monsignor Pedro Meurice:
“Over the years this country has defended the sovereignty of its geographic borders with true dignity, but we have forgotten the point that independence should sprout from the human beings who sustain from below every project as a nation.”

Original statement in Spanish can be found here.

U2 Rocks Miami: Bono's love song for a free Cuba and shout out to Oscar Elias Biscet

Oscar Elias Biscet and U2 Concert in Miami on June 29, 2011

"Now I would like you to do something we've never done before. A beautiful man, a doctor who has spent his time in the prisons of Cuba. He is also released. His name is Dr. Biscet. I want you to hold him up. Let everyone in Cuba know that he is special to us and we are watching WE ARE WATCHING. Hold him in your thoughts. Hold him in your prayers." - Bono at Sun Life Stadium on June 29, 2011

“As you read me what he said, I was shaking with happiness because it showed it’s good when one is chosen as a symbol of his people. He’s praising not me but all my people, all Cubans, and I agree that Cuba will be free, if people like Bono join the cause” of human rights on the island. - Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, Havana, Cuba on June 30, 2011 to El Nuevo Herald, which first told him of Bono’s comments.

There wearing this Biscet t-shirt preparing to toss a spare one brought for if the opportunity presented itself during the show at the Sun Life Stadium and progressing steadily to the front row in the outer ring of the field area. All of a sudden Bono begins talking about a free Cuba and dedicates a song from their 2009 album No Line on the Horizon with the title "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" which contains the following lyrics :

Every generation gets a chance to change the world
Pity the nation that won't listen to your boys and girls
Cos the sweetest melody is the one we haven't heard
Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear?
The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear
Oh, but a change of heart comes slow

Further on in the song "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight":

It's not a hill, it's a mountain
As we start out the climb
Listen for me, I'll be shouting
Shouting to the darkness, squeeze out sparks of light

"I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" with intro

The song pleads for the nation to listen to the new generations and about the power of love to drive out fear. Towards the end of the song the words indicate the height of the challenge and the need to speak up to denounce the darkness and struggle for light. A beautiful anthem and a love song for a free Cuba.

This was followed by "Sunday Bloody Sunday", a song originally about the troubles in Northern Ireland but relevant today too so many places where people struggle in the midst of conflict. The color green dominated during the song in honor of the Green Movement in Iran. The song is a rejection of violence.

Last part of If I go Crazy followed by Sunday Bloody Sunday

From previous encounters with U2 any fan would know that the song "Walk On" was written for and dedicated to former prisoner of conscience and human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma. It also meant that there was a second opportunity for the band to make a statement on Cuba. They did not disappoint. U2 began playing "Scarlet" which lyrically is the word "rejoice" repeated and on this evening was dedicated in honor of Suu Kyi's recent release from prison. The band transitioned into "Walk On" with Bono giving a shout out to Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, who was also recently freed, when Amnesty International walked around the stage with the glowing symbol of the organization. At that moment realized whether or not the spare t-shirt reached the stage the message had been given. The words of "Walk On" are powerful and apply to all prisoners of conscience:

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

"Walk On" from the U2 concert in Miami on June 29, 2011 at Sun Life Stadium


U2 ended Walk On with a snippet of "You'll Never Walk Alone" a 1945 show tune from Rogers and Hammerstein that has been covered by Frank Sinatra, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Judy Garland, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Doris Day. An excerpt of the lyrics reveal words of inspiration and encouragement for anyone facing adversity:

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone.

An excerpt from U2.com's report on the Miami show North Star Over Miami:

A shout- out to Lebron James - who is here and gets a mighty reception - and also to Carl Willner, the father of producer Hal, a longtime friend of the band. Carl has recently published a remarkable book, Carl's Story; The Persistence of Hope, a memoir of how as a teenager he survived the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau.

'Unos, dos, tres...'

'Are you ready to take the roof off... if we had a roof?' By Vertigo everyone was ready and the roof we didn't have was duly removed. 'Crazy' became ' a love song to Cuba - one day Cuba will be free' and as Walk On arrived, Bono invited everyone to remember Cuban human rights activist Dr Oscar Elias Biscet. Dr Biscet endured many years in prison in Cuba for opposing the government and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush in 2007. 'Let everyone in Cuba know he is special to us and we are watching... we are watching.'

After four decades U2 is still on top form musically and still manages to do the unexpected. Looking forward both to their next album and concert.

The Miami Herald has a good breakdown of the concert. The Associated Press has more information about the shout-out in Miami to Cuban human rights activist Dr. Biscet. Below is the song set list (hyperlinks are to original or concert videos of the songs) :

Even Better Then the Real Thing

The Fly

Mysterious Ways

Until the End of the World

I Will Follow

Get on Your Boots

Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For/ The Promised Land (snippet)

North Star

Beautiful Day/Space Oddity (snippet)

Elevation

Pride (In the Name of Love)

Miss Sarajevo

Zooropa

City of Blinding Lights

Vertigo

I’ll Go Crazy / Discotheque / Psycho killer (snippet)

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Scarlet

Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)

One/Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (snippet)

Where The Streets Have No Name

========

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

With or Without You

Moment of Surrender/Jungleland (snippet)

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez back home after more than 8 years of unjust imprisonment

"To love one's neighbor is also to love one's enemy. Although in reality that qualifier-'enemy' does not exist in my vocabulary. I recognize that I only have adversaries and I have acquired the capacity to love them because in this way we do away with violence, wrath, vengeance, hatred and substitute them with justice and forgiveness." - Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez (1999)

“I’ve never stopped fighting since I took this road. I’ve followed the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King and applied them in prison too.” - Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez (2011)


In the midst of such a heart braking day in which untold numbers have perished in the worse earthquake in Japanese history and Tsunamis threaten lives throughout the Pacific rim there is a precious sliver of good news. Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez back home after more than 8 years of unjust imprisonment.



In the new millennium, Wilfredo Cancio observed that Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet has only known 37 days outside of prison. Neverthless he has always been a free man. Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and also a former prisoner of conscience unjustly imprisoned for many years explained this truth stating "It is ironic, I say, that in an authoritarian state it is only the prisoner of conscience who is genuinely free. Yes, we have given up our right to a normal life. But we have stayed true to that most precious part of our humanity--our conscience."

This sentiment can offer some context to the statement's made by Dr. Biscet after being released from prison:

Reached by telephone, Biscet told AFP, "I am fine, very happy to be reunited with the family."

"It goes without saying that I will continue in the opposition because even in jail I did not give up my questioning attitude toward this government and the abuses it commits," he said.

An excerpt from the BBC report and EFE on Biscet:

“I’ve always lived in Cuba and I’m from Cuba. I haven’t done anything bad to anyone. I’ve always given love, a lot of love, and for giving love they came down hard on me, especially the government,” he said.

He told reporters gathered at his home that he had never stopped fighting and that he had never strayed from the path of non-violent resistance, not even in prison.

Then there were 3

Three remain imprisoned from the group of 75 that should have never been imprisoned in the first place and that supposedly after the July statement made by the Cuban regime they should have all been released by November 6, 2010. Also we cannot forget that scores of other political prisoners remain behind bars and deserve to be free.

José Daniel Ferrer García

Librado Linares García

Félix Navarro Rodríguez

Embrace Symbols that Celebrate Nonviolence & Reject Violence

"Anger is the enemy of ahimsa (nonviolence) and pride is a monster that swallows it up." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

"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’." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas




Events in Libya over the past few weeks have underlined the importance of nonviolent civic resistance and its moral and strategic advantage over violent resistance especially when confronting extremely brutal regimes.

Gene Sharp of The Albert Einstein Institution in an interview with the BBC on February 21, 2011 offered concrete steps on the path to a nonviolent revolution against a dictatorship:

* Develop a strategy for winning freedom and a vision of the society you want
* Overcome fear by small acts of resistance
* Use colors and symbols to demonstrate unity of resistance
* Learn from historical examples of the successes of non-violent movements
* Use non-violent "weapons"
* Identify dictatorship's pillars of support & develop a strategy for undermining each
* Use oppressive or brutal acts by the regime as a recruiting tool for your movement
* Isolate or remove from the movement people who use or advocate violence

The marketing of Che Guevara as a symbol of rebellion has had a serious downside. The ideas behind his image are the antithesis of the nonviolent philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and are summed up in two quotes by the Argentine revolutionary at the UN General Assembly in 1964: “We must say here what is a known truth, which we have always expressed before the world: firing squad executions, yes, we have executed; we are executing and we will continue to execute as long as is necessary. Our struggle is a struggle to the death."
and in Havana on April 16, 1967: "Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy."

This is an ideology born of violence, in the service of violence and terror with no mercy for the adversary nor recognition of that adversary's humanity. It inspired guerrilla and terrorist movements around the world and led to military juntas to combat them just as brutally. This is the opposite of a principled nonviolent philosophy and must be rejected if humanity is to have a future.

Today is the 52nd anniversary of the national Tibetan uprising. On March 10, 1959 thousands of Tibetans marched to the Dalai Lama's palace in response to the threat that Chinese Communists would arrest him and the Lhasa uprising began. Those heads of state denouncing alleged "colonial designs "on Libya and defending Qaddafi while denying the atrocities his regime is committing are silent about China's half century long colonization & military occupation of Tibet. 52 years later the Dalai Lama has become a disciple of Gandhi and with regards to nonviolence says: "[T]he very root of respect for human rights and nonviolence is love and kindness to others."

Today, March 10, 2011 also coincides with the announcement that another Gandhian disciple of non-violence Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet shortly will be freed after a decade of unjust captivity in Cuba during which he has maintained his commitment to nonviolence.

Now is the time to end the marketing of Che and the cult of violence and promote Gandhian nonviolence and a culture of love and truth.

Cuban Prisoner of Conscience Oscar Elias Biscet's Message to Americans

Oscar's Cuba Filmmaker Jordan Allott talks with Dr. Oscar Biscet from his Havana prison on January 20, 2011.

Join the Continuing Call to Nonviolent Action

"Action for one’s own self binds, action for the sake of others delivers from bondage." - Mohandas Gandhi


They were born 32 years and 748 miles apart. The man born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929 would grow up to be a Baptist minister and civil rights leader. While the man born in Havana, Cuba on July 20, 1961 would grow up to be a medical doctor and human rights leader. They never met because an assassin shot the 39 year old Baptist minister in the head on April 4, 1968 at 6:01pm. The older of the two grew up in the Jim Crow South while the younger grew up in communist Cuba under the dictatorship of the Castro brothers. Despite the distance in both time, geography, and language they are brothers. Both are Christians and disciples of Mohandas Gandhi's teachings on nonviolence.

Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Oscar Elias Biscet would spend time in prison defending human rights and human dignity accepting imprisonment as a necessary sacrifice to expose and challenge injustice with the goal of ending it through nonviolent means and loving their enemies. In a speech he gave in St. Augustine in 1964 the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described both this kind of love and the impracticability of violence:

"Its difficult advice and in some quarters it isn't too popular to say it...Let us recognize that violence is not the answer. I must say to you tonight that violence is impractical...We have another method that is much more powerful and much more effective than the weapon of violence...Hate isn't our weapon either...I am not talking now about a weak love it would be nonsense for an oppressed people to love their oppressor in an affectionate sense I'm not talking about that too many people confuse the meaning of love when they go to criticizing the love ethic. ...I am talking about a love that is so strong that it becomes a demanding love. A love that is so strong that it organizes itself into a mass movement and says somehow I am my brothers keeper and he is so wrong that I am willing to suffer and die to get him right and to see that he is on the wrong road."

In July of 1999 Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet ending a 40-day fast in Havana at a residence in Tamarindo 34 spoke to other activists who had joined him in the fast and international media gathered explained:

“To love one's neighbor is also to love one's enemy. Although in reality that qualifier-'enemy' does not exist in my vocabulary. I recognize that I only have adversaries and I have acquired the capacity to love them because in this way we do away with violence, wrath, vengeance, hatred and substitute them with justice and forgiveness.”

They are neither willing to idly stand by as injustice is being committed nor are they willing to commit new injustices to remedy the old and both suffered and in Dr. Biscet's case continues to suffer the consequences. Imprisoned in harsh conditions since November 1999, save for a month in 2002, Oscar Elias Biscet continues to denounce injustice and advocate nonviolence for example in an open letter to all Cubans in August of 2006:

“The people of Cuba have been suffering the scorn of a totalitarian tyranny, Communism, throughout four decades. Due to this inhumane treatment whereby the decorum of a people is violated, many Cubans are indignant and have risen up to pray and fast, beseeching the God of the Bible,…we must expedite the achievement of these basic rights through civil disobedience and by putting into practice all methods to obtain our humanitarian aim. Here, in this dark jail where they force me to live, I will be resisting until the freedom of my people is obtained."

There are those who view this kind of approach as noble but ineffective preferring violence. They are profoundly mistaken. Oscar Elias Biscet in a letter to his wife in July of 2009 reflected on those who ridiculed his adherence to Gandhian principles of non-violence:

"I remember when I started preaching about Gandhi and Thoreau some said I would walk through the streets of Havana with a loin cloth like Gandhi. When I learned of these words spoken about me in a derogatory manner I just smiled because I knew I would be in these conditions but not in the streets of Havana. Rather in the infinite captivity that I would have through suffering. They had not been mistaken those who had made the joke to humiliate me. Because from the humiliation of a man in loincloth highlights the reflection of human dignity over barbarism."

Martin Luther King Jr. while imprisoned in a Birmingham jail wrote an open letter on April 16, 1963 to moderate clergy men who had criticized his non-violent approach. Rev. King outlined the context in which this struggle was carried out which has numerous parallels to Cuba in 2011:

"I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible 'devil.' I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest."

Reverend King's insight that both doing nothing to resist the evil of segregation and embracing the hatred and despair of the black nationalist would not achieve the end of the system. In the United States the disciples of Martin Luther King Jr. ended up in Congress; leading non-governmental organizations; and created the terrain in which an African American could be elected president. On the other hand many of the black nationalists embraced political violence and killed people. Some of them are still fugitives from justice today and share a measure of responsibility in the culture of violence that gripped segments of the African American Community and which is still a problem today. On the other side those who criticized the sit-ins and actually profited from institutionalized racism would argue that passivity and polite negotiations was the way to gradually end the system of segregation. Those voices are also heard in 2011 in the debate over how to deal with the Cuban regime. Reverend King's response in 1963 reverberates today in the Cuban context:

" 'Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?' You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth."

If you are up against a regime that refuses to negotiate because it believes that it has no reason to engage in dialogue then non-violent direct action creates the "constructive, nonviolent tension" that Rev. King refers to above and forces dialogue. This was done in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s ushering in a Civil Rights era. In Cuba, since 1976 with the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, a nonviolent movement for human rights and democratic change has emerged and grown. In 2010 the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the marches of the Ladies in White and the hunger strike of Guillermo Fariñas combined with international scrutiny to create a non-violent moment that exposed the injustice of the Cuban regime.

These moments put the oppressor on the defensive and as in the case of the racial segregationists in the 1950s and 1960s and the communist dictatorship in the 1990s and 2000s forced them to resort to moments of restraint and nonviolent tactics and propaganda to discredit their adversaries. Reverend King described the practice in in 1963:

"Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

In the Cuban context today it is seen in the cynical practice of coercing prisoners of conscience imprisoned since 2003 ( or before) with the choice of immediate exile or continue to rot in prisons where torture and mistreatment are commonplace and describing this process as "freeing political prisoners." Doctor Oscar Elias Biscet speaking on the phone from prison in December of 2010 after having spent over a decade in prison, in which he has lost many of his teeth, declared:

“I've always refused to leave the country permanently, because I believe that I must cooperate in the welfare of my people and that welfare can only be achieved when we live in freedom, because only freedom leads to peace … This is a government plan to try to crush it the opposition and that no voice be raised by the vanguard, but they made a mistake, because there are at least 12 of us that are willing to stay here in prison, that want to stay here in Cuba, to live in Cuba, together with our relatives here in Cuba and with our friends and brothers.”

Doctor Biscet has referred to Martin Luther King Jr. on numerous occasions as a great teacher of nonviolence and in June 2003 described what motivated him and kept his morale high while in prison:

"My inspiration is alive: God and the great teachers of nonviolence, present today now more than ever. As Martin Luther King said: "If a people can find among their ranks a 5% of men willing to voluntarily go to prison for a cause they consider just then there is no obstacle that can stop them."

Although you reading this most likely are not in Cuba there is still much that you can do to support this continuing call to nonviolent action in defense of human rights and dignity. On January 15, 2010 the world will observe the 82nd birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. and on Sunday, January 16, 2010 at Our Lady of Charity [La Ermita de la Caridad] located at 3609 South Miami Avenue Miami, FL at 2:00pm EST Winnie Biscet, the daughter of Oscar Elias Biscet is organizing a vigil for the freedom of her father and other Cuban prisoners of conscience followed by a special Mass at 3:00pm. She is asking that those in attendance wear black and carry a white flower.


You have heard that it was said, 'Love (agape) your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love (agape) your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
—Matthew 5:42-44

2010 in Cuba: The year of the Martyr Orlando Zapata Tamayo

Lets prevent 2011 becoming the year of the Martyr Agustín Cervantes

Agustín Cervantes & Orlando Zapata risking & risked all for Cuban dignity

Over ten months ago on February 23, 2010 Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after a prolonged hunger strike during which prison officials denied him water for over two weeks. The Cuban regime did not expect the international outcry over Orlando Zapata's death but initiated an intense effort to re-write his life story and slander his memory but it failed.

This extrajudicial killing of Orlando combined with the brutalization of the Ladies in White a month later on the seventh anniversary of the Cuban Black Spring created a situation combined with an economic crisis that led the Cuban regime to the negotiating table. The result of this negotiation mediated by the Catholic Church was a commitment by the regime to release all the prisoners of conscience imprisoned during the March 2003 Black Cuban Spring.

The prison conditions and attacks against the dignity of these prisoners continue. Sadly, so do prisoners going on hunger strike.



On September 7, 2010 when Agustín Cervantes García refused to wear the uniform of a common prisoner he was tied up and beaten up by prison guards at Aguadores prison and transferred to Boniato prison. In the youtube video above Agustín describes from prison (in Spanish) the abuses he has been subjected to and the possibility that he would have to begin a hunger strike to defend his dignity and fundamental rights as well as those of his captors:

"Our nonviolent struggle is for everyone. The same guards who lacerated my body and mistreated me. I’m fighting for them to be free, because they themselves do not know, do not have knowledge of what liberty is. They are real victims of a system that has taught them nothing other than torture, mistreatment and degradation of humans.”

On December 14, 2010 he began a hunger strike demanding that his rights and dignity as a human being be respected. One year earlier in December of 2009 Orlando Zapata Tamayo initiated a hunger strike for the same reasons. Despite the pleas and calls for media attention by high profile dissident leaders such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas at the time there was minimal press coverage for Orlando Zapata. Now it appears that this horrific cycle of indifference is repeating itself with Agustín Cervantes. On December 24, 2010 Oswaldo issued a call to save his life describing the outrages surrounding his unjust arrest, trial and imprisonment:



Agustín in addition to demanding an end to the cruel and degrading treatment by prison officials is also demanding that the remaining 11 prisoners of conscience arrested during the 2003 Cuban be released without having to go into exile.

They were supposed to have all been freed by November 7, 2010 but the regime has failed to honor this commitment. Instead Reina Luisa Tamayo, the mother of Orlando Zapata has suffered beatings and death threats.



Another Christmas came and went in which these non-violent prisoners of conscience were separated from their families. The Ladies in White on Twitter on Christmas Eve tweeted to the world that "Eleven dissidents of the Black Spring of 2003 remain in prison, today is December 24 FREE THEM so they can celebrate Christmas!" They are still there on December 30, 2010.
The Cuban regime would prefer to release political prisoners that have allegedly committed violent acts into exile then free these 11 prisoners of conscience who are non-violent.

Meanwhile as Agustín Cervantes's health deteriorates and international media remain indifferent to his plight has led Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas on December 28 to ask him to end the hunger strike so as not to sacrifice his life or become so incapacitated that prison guards can "assist" in ending his life and blame it on the hunger strike. Payá has also denounced the repeated transfers of Agustín from one prison to another while in such a fragile state of health.

According to independent journalist Ana Aguililla on December 30, 2010 the home of Agustín's family was under siege by political police and paramilitary elements harassing and brutalizing his family.

Remember Agustín Cervantes and all of Cuba's prisoners of conscience in your prayers and make sure the world does not forget about them; the brave Ladies in White who stand up for them and Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Pray as if it all depended on G-d and work to raise awareness on their plight as if it all depended on you because it does.

"I am convinced that publicity is the sole effective means of combating the evil and lawlessness which is rampant in my country today." - Anatoli Marchenko

Stand with Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and the Cuban People

Campaign for the release of the Cuban Gandhi

Eight days away from Christmas 2010 and Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet will be spending his eleventh Christmas behind bars. The last Christmas Winnie Biscet, his daughter, spent with her father was in 1998. His supposed crime? A human rights defender and disciple of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. he wants to see Cuba transformed through nonviolent means into a free and democratic society.



Imprisoned in November of 1999 for holding a press conference he was released on October 31, 2002 and rearrested on December 6, 2002 while holding a human rights seminar at another dissident's home. He was imprisoned without trial until March of 2003 when he was sentenced to 25 years in prison during the Cuban Black Spring in which 75 Cuban prisoners of conscience, including Biscet, were sentenced to long and unjust prison sentences. All of them were recognized by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience.

Below is the official video from the Free Biscet Campaign:



Three things that you can do right now:

1. Sign the petition the Free Biscet campaign is circulating and tell your friends about it who you think would sign at http://www.gopetition.com/petition/39867.html

2. Let others know about the above video and if you have a youtube account subscribe to the channel and share the video with others.

3. As Christmas is approaching please take a moment to record your own message calling for Dr. Biscet's freedom and that of all Cuban prisoners of conscience. Additionally print out the poster below and photograph yourself with it and e-mail the digital image to freecubanow@hotmail.com it will be used in a special video that will highlight the plight of Dr. Biscet and Cuban political prisoners.

With the efforts of people of goodwill around the world perhaps Dr. Biscet's family will soon be spending Christmas with their father, son, and husband at home. Please help.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo & the Nonviolent Uprising in Cuba

"The Cuban regime murdered my friend and brother, Orlando Zapata Tamayo. It did so in a vile, cowardly, premeditated and deliberate manner. They underestimated the stature of this man, who was tried and sentenced to death for the color of his skin and the color of his ideas. Orlando Zapata has loomed large. He has marked a before and an after. I think it is a light that was turned on in the midst of a dark tunnel." -Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, prisoner of conscience deported to Spain

"We will never give up our protest. The authorities have three options — free our husbands, imprison us or kill us. - Laura Pollan, spokeswoman for Ladies in White









Nine months ago today on February 23, 2010 Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after a prolonged water only hunger strike during which prison officials denied him water for 18 days contributing to his death. The death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo marked a nonviolent moment that shook the dictatorship and exposed its brutality to the world.



A lot has happened since then, and the video above attempts to place it in context. One can debate the analysis or what may or may not have been left out in nine minutes, but the facts remain that the brutal treatment of Cuban prisoners which amounted to torture led Orlando Zapata to respond with the only nonviolent means at his disposal: the hunger strike.

The dictatorship's response which was to try to break Orlando denying him water for 18 days exposed the regime's sadistic nature to an international audience. This combined with the public and violent mistreatment of the Ladies in White generated a public outcry that caught the Cuban regime by surprise and eventually forced them to the negotiating table in an effort to white wash their tarnished image. Nine months later Zapata's legacy continues to challenge injustice in Cuba and leads to the observation that Orlando Zapata Tamayo Vive!

Open Letter from Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet to his Excellency Dalai Lama

Eleven years ago Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet wrote this open letter to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama when he visited Miami in 1999. In honor of the Dalai Lama's visit in 2010 the letter is reproduced below. Since then Dr. Biscet spent 10 of the past 11 years in prison as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. Oscar Elias is one of 13 prisoners of conscience who have rejected exile demanding freedom in Cuba. Please sign the petition calling for his freedom.















H.H. 14th Dalai Lama Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet

Havana, Cuba. April, 1999.


Your Excellency Dalai Lama:

I greet you respectfully with profound admiration, unable to conceive the ideal words that could express all the love and devotion I profess towards you and your people.

Your visit to Miami vivifies the desire for freedom of a people forced into exile during the last decades. Your story and that of your people are one and the same with outs. Tibetans and Cubans, geographically distant, yet, close as they bear a suffering imposed by a common adversary: communism, usurper of our homelands.

A large number of Cubans support the independence and freedom of Tibet. In your struggle, you may count on the support of the members of The Lawton Foundation who recognize your authority as Tibet's head of State. We call on the nations of the world to officially recognize this exemplar for the good of humanity in its struggle to obtain universal respect for the inalienable rights of man.

The great work of the prince Gautama Buddha is today a reality. His heart reflects the true light that leads to the path of uprightness and a life full of God, as he leads his people to a level of superior peace through the use of nonviolent means of resistance.

Contemporary of Siddhartha, the “Illuminated", was the prophet Isaiah who, in his book of divine wisdom, stated: " Pay attention to Me, O My people, And give ear to Me, O My nation; For a law will go forth from Me, And I will set My justice for a light of the peoples." (Isaiah 51:4)

The acceptance of these words by Buddha, would complement our existence: "A heart, already free, has eliminated all desire."

I remain, sincerely yours,

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet
Lawton Foundation for Human Rights
Havana, Cuba