Requiescat in pace, Armando Sosa Fortuny 1943 - 2019, Cuban political prisoner

The Castro regime condemns Armando Sosa, but celebrates Fidel Castro for doing the same thing in the struggle against Fulgencio Batista.

Political prisoner Armando Sosa Fortuny was born on March 5, 1943 and died on October 28, 2019 at the Amalia Simoni provincial hospital in Camagüey, as confirmed by relatives and activists. Sosa Fortuny spent 43 of his 76 years in Cuban prisons.

Sosa Fortuny was jailed twice for fighting for the freedom of Cuba. His first sentence was served from 1960 to 1974, according to a report from El Nuevo Herald. (Other sources place his release date as 1978.)

According to 14ymedio, Armando Sosa left Cuba clandestinely at age 18 for the United States. In October 1960 he returned with the intention of overthrowing the dictatorship, at which time one of his companions died in combat and ten others were shot by firing squad, including three Americans.

After being released, he came into exile in the United States but did not give up his struggle to see a free, democratic and prosperous Cuba.

On October 15, 1994 Armando Sosa Fortuny returned to the island, along the coast of Caibarién, Villa Clara, with Lázaro González Caraballo, Pedro Guisao Peña, José Ramón Falcón Gómez, Jesús Manuel Rojas Pineda, Miguel Díaz Bouza and Humberto Real Suárez to continue fighting for freedom. They belonged to the National Unity Party (PUND) a militant organization.Their plan was to establish themselves in the Escambray mountains, to create guerrilla groups and carry out military actions to overthrow the Castro dictatorship. Following their clandestine landing he was captured, arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The Cuban dictatorship called him a "terrorist". One of the members of this group, Humberto Real was accused of killing Arcilio Dionisio Rodríguez García.

Press accounts identified Mr. Rodríguez García as a police man or guard.

Humberto Real Suarez: Then and now

Armando Sosa Fortuny was not an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience because like Fidel Castro he took up arms against a dictator in an armed assault that failed then was imprisoned, left for exile and returned in an armed incursion that was also crushed by forces of the dictatorship.
The Castro regime condemns these actions carried out by Mr. Sosa Fortuny, but celebrates the same kinds of actions carried out by Fidel Castro on July 26, 1953, and on December 2, 1956 but on a larger scale with a greater loss of life.

In the early morning hours of July 26, 1953 a group of approximately 150 young Cubans led by Fidel Castro assaulted the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Approximately, 18 pro-government officials were killed and 28 wounded in the attack. 27 rebels were killed and 11 wounded. 51 of the surviving 99 rebels were placed on trial. It was a failed coup. Fidel Castro turned himself in after seeking guarantees for his safety and was also put on trial. He was sentenced to a fifteen year prison sentence, but was pardoned after 22 months, and went into exile in Mexico. Castro raised money in Miami, and plotted his return to Cuba.

On December 2, 1956 Castro and 81 others land in Cuba on the yacht “Granma.” Most were killed by Batista's troops, but 12 survived, including Castro, his brother Raul Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. They regrouped in the Sierra Maestra mountains where they launched their guerrilla war.

There are some differences between Sosa Fortuny and Castro that need to be highlighted. First Armando Sosa Fortuny spent fourteen years in prison and was not pardoned, like Fidel Castro was. Secondly, when he returned to Cuba in 1994 Armando Sosa was captured and spent another 25 years in prison and died while in custody.

Lastly, there are two more fundamental differences between Armando Sosa Fortuny and Fidel Castro. Armando Sosa did not seek to become dictator of Cuba, and he confronted a much more effective, brutal and totalitarian dictatorship constructed by Fidel Castro than the authoritarian dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista faced by the young guerrillas in the 1950s.

Violent resistance by an internal indigenous movement has a much lower chance of success than a nonviolent one.  University Academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict" compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns. Finally there study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.”

The sad lesson of Cuba is that violent resistance succeeded in overthrowing Fulgencio Batista's authoritarian dictatorship in 1959 and replaced it with a far more cruel and brutal totalitarian dictatorship of Fidel Castro. Armed resistance failed to overthrow the Castro regime, and many brave men like Armando Sosa Fortuny were killed or jailed for decades under inhumane conditions without access to the International Red Cross. 

Armando Sosa Fortuny, Requiescat in pace

How the ANC's armed struggle prolonged Apartheid in South Africa

"Violence sometimes 'works,' that is, forces a particular change, but in the long run leads to more misery and disorder." - Michael N. Nagler, Six Principles of Nonviolence  

It was the United Democratic Front and Nonviolence that ended Apartheid

Michael Nagler on page 43 of his important book "The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action" offers the following analysis of the decision to embrace violence in South Africa and its consequences:

“When sixty peaceful demonstrators were shot dead at Sharpeville, South Africa, in 1960, the African National Congress leaders decided that nonviolence was not enough to overcome the apartheid regime. They subsequently lost nearly thirty years trying to fight the regime with acts of violence before Nelson Mandela was released from prison and they regained their nonviolent momentum.”

It was not the African National Congress and the armed struggle that brought the Apartheid regime to the negotiating table but the United Democratic Front (UDF) and mass civic nonviolent action combined with international sanctions. 

Let me be clear that I've been to South Africa and met with members of the African National Congress (ANC) and engaged some of them in civil discussions on the nature of the Castro regime and found differences of opinions within the ranks. However, the open letter by the ANC to the Cuban Communist Party released last week that re-writes South African history and the end of Apartheid ignoring that it was the nonviolent struggle that freed Nelson Mandela and brought the racist regime to the negotiating table raises great concerns. Mandela's greatness, in my opinion, is that he presided over a nonviolent transition and left office after serving out a full term as president following a free election.

Unfortunately, the legacy of violence that did not succeed in defeating Apartheid may in the end destroy South African democracy by embracing a legacy of bloody violence and a regime such as the one that exists in Cuba.  In the long run violence leads to more misery and disorder.

Civic resistance actions ended Apartheid in South Africa

Sadly, the glorification of violence is not a phenomenon unique to South Africa. Embracing violence while ignoring or trivializing successful nonviolent actions is all too common a practice around the world. In a twitter exchange with professor Cynthia Boaz on October 11, 2011 when I asked her about this she replied that these were:  "Meta frames, i.e. deeply-held hardened beliefs about perceived efficacy of violence & the misconception that violence = power."Continuing the discussion I asked her how one could go about breaking down these "meta frames" and her response was that she didn't have an answer although her opinion was "that it requires truly grasping the power of nonviolent action by engaging in it."

At the same time that doing trumps talking when breaking through the meta-frames having access to the history of what actually took place is also helpful. In the case of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa the people who led the non-violent resistance are still around and telling their story. Let us listen to them and their courageous victories for freedom. One of these leaders is Mkhuseli Jack who is recognized by the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory as a key figure in dismantling Apartheid can be heard below.