"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)
Reuters reports that the Castro regime has freed Ariel Ruiz Urquiola on parole from his unjust
imprisonment in Cuba. He had engaged in a hunger and thirst strike placing his life at risk. A hunger and thirst strike is a brutal protest
that will leave the health of the striker scarred. I pray that Ariel was
freed in time and makes a full recovery.
Sadly Dr. Eduardo Cardet Concepción remains jailed in Cuba. He is also a prisoner of conscience. Furthermore he may be suffering
from cancer. Regime officials refuse to tell him, or his loved ones, the
medical test results following an examination of a possible malignant tumor or allow him to receive visitors. He was also stabbed in prison in late December 2017 in an attack engineered by regime agents. He has been unjustly imprisoned since November 30, 2016.
Last week the U.S. State Department called for the freedom of Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, Dr. Eduardo Cardet, and the rest of Cuba's political prisoners.
Amnesty International recognized both as prisoners of conscience and continues to campaign for the release of Dr. Eduardo Cardet. Amnesty has also denounced that Dr. Eduardo Cardet's family has been denied visits to see him.
There are at least 120 identified political prisoners in Cuba. The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported in June 2018 that there were 120 political prisoners in Cuba with some the longest serving in the Western Hemisphere. Twenty one of them have served between 15 and 27 years in prison.This does not take into account the far larger number of Cubans arrested for social dangerousness.
"I hope that I
will be the last victim of China's endless literary inquisitions and
that from now on no one will be incriminated because of speech." - Liu Xiaobo, I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement 2009
The nonviolent dissident, scholar and prisoner of conscience was arrested on June 23, 2009 and charged
with “inciting subversion of state power” for co-authoring Charter 08, a
declaration calling for political reform, greater human rights, and an
end to one-party rule in China. Still imprisoned from the June 2009 arrest he was sentenced to 11 years in prison on December 25, 2009 following a political show trial.
Liu Xiaobo was told by prison authorities on October 9, 2010 that he had won
the Nobel Peace Prize. When his wife Liu Xia visited him in prison the prisoner of conscience told her: “This is for the lost souls of June 4th.” Dedicating the prize to the demonstrators killed in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Liu Xia was placed under house arrest
after returning home from visiting her jailed husband Liu Xiaobo, and communications and visitors curtailed. Activists that wanted to gather and celebrate Liu Xiaobo’s award were also detained.
Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia in happier times
Less than a month ago Chinese communist authorities made public that he had been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer but his access and movement continue to be restricted. His wife, Liu Xia said that her husband, according to The Guardian,
"cannot be given surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy," allegedly
"because the cancer is so advanced." Chinese Human Rights Defenders
had reported that individuals in custody, like Liu Xiaobo, have been denied
medical treatment and that this is a life threatening form of torture. The NGOcalled for him to be freed and allowed to choose doctors and treatment. Liu Xiaobo had wanted to obtain medical care for his cancer outside of China but his request was denied by regime officials.
Upon hearing the news of the late cancer diagnosis and the possible use of the denial of medical treatment as punishment for dissent the case of Cuban human rights defender Sebastián Arcos Bergnes came to mind. Although Beijing is 7,913 miles from Havana with a very different language, culture and history both share something in common: they are communist dictatorships. Both Liu Xiaobo and Arcos Bergnes were nonviolent dissidents, the Cuban activist had also played a historic role in the Cuban revolution but quickly grown disillusioned with the failure to restore democracy following the end of the Batista regime.
In 1982 at the Combinado de Este prison Gustavo Arcos Bergnes and his younger brother, Sebastián Arcos Bergnes,
joined the Cuban Committee for Human Rights. The brothers had been
imprisoned in 1981 for trying to leave the country illegally. The two
brothers had fought alongside Fidel Castro in the 1950s against the
Batista dictatorship. Gustavo had participated in the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada military barracks and
was wounded during the assault, an injury that plagued him for the rest
of his long life. Shortly after his release from prison in 1988, Gustavo
Arcos succeeded the committee’s founding executive director, Dr.
Bofill, who was forced into exile in 1987.
On January 13, 1992 the executive board of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights again issued a statement
reaffirming their commitment to nonviolence and calling for dialogue:
"Violence is not and cannot be the solution to our problems... We will
not tire from insisting that the only possible solution is civilized
discussion of our differences. This is an appeal to Cubans for wisdom
and common sense... No act of violence is justified... Let us say no to
violence and learn to live in peace."
Two days later, Sebastián Arcos Bergnes, his brother Gustavo and another Cuban Committee for Human Rights activists were arrested at their homes in Havana. The others were released after approximately 24 hours. Sebastian Arcos Bergnes was charged with "enemy propaganda" and "inciting rebellion," he was
sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. Sebastian was transferred to Ariza
Prison in Cienfuegos Province,
more than 130 miles from Havana, where he was imprisoned alongside
dangerous criminals and systematically denied medical attention. In 1993 the regime offered Sebastian a deal: He would be released
immediately if he only agreed to leave the island for good. Sebastian
rejected the deal, choosing
prison in Cuba over freedom in exile.
After an international campaign that included his designation as an
Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and a request by France Libertés, the organization founded by former French first lady Danielle Mitterrand,
Sebastian Arcos was released in 1995. A few weeks after his release,
Arcos was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the rectum, for which he had previously been denied medical care
in prison. After a Cuban doctor was fired from his post for diagnosing
Arcos, he traveled to Miami for further care. In 1996, Sebastián Arcos Bergnes testified before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland:
My name is Sebastián Arcos Bergnes, and I am the Vice-president of the
Cuban Committee for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization founded
in Cuba in 1976 to observe the respect for the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights in the island.
On the 15 of January 1992 I was arrested in my home by the Cuban political
police; the second time in ten years. On October of that year I was
sentenced to 4 years and eight months in prison for the sole crime of
reporting to this Commission the violations of human rights committed by
the government of my country. The labor of those volunteers of this
Commission inside of Cuba are considered by the government as "enemy
propaganda."
I will not enter into the details concerning the multiple irregularities
of the judicial process always against me, nor about the conditions that I
had to tolerate for more than three years. I will refer solely to one
aspect of this my last experience in Cuban prisons.
When I was arrested in January of 1992, I enjoyed excellent general health
for a man my age, 60 years then. I weighed around 170 pounds, and ran 5
to 6 kilometers every morning. Eight months later, when after a campaign
of denunciations of my family I was transferred finally to a military
hospital, I'd lost over 30 pounds and suffered from multiple ailments.
My stay in the hospital was not long. In December of 1992 I was
transferred to the Prison of Ariza in the Province of Cienfuegos, over 300 km from my home and my relatives. All of the medical treatments
indicated by specialists of the military hospital were immediately
suspended. During the next 30 months that I spent in Ariza my state of
health worsened considerably, and I was systematically denied access to
the medications that my family sent me.
During those 30 months only occasionally did I see inexperienced
doctors that gave me incomplete medical exams and additionally lacked the
medication to prescribe me. I have in my possession a detailed chronology
of my repeated denunciations concerning the abandonment of my health by
the Cuban authorities.
In February of 1994, in an attempt to refute my denunciations, the Cuban
government presented before this Commission a strip of video filmed
without my knowledge, in which I appeared to be undergoing a medical exam.
That was the second and last time that I was taken to the hospital, that
time for a cardiological exam which had been ordered with urgency on three
previous occasions.
In mid - 1994 I commenced to suffer pains in my left leg, which later
spread to the rest of my extremities. After a rapid examination, a doctor
in the prison determined that I suffered from polineutritis -a deficiency
illness very common in the Cuban jails, and he prescribed treatment with
vitamins. The pain continued with me for nearly a year later when I was
liberated as a result of a gesture of the humanitarian organization France
Liberte.
A few days after being liberated the pain worsened suddenly. Many weeks
later I had to be urgently admitted to the hospital, were a doctor
(friend) discovered that I had a malignant tumor in the rectum.
Finally I had to leave Cuba to receive medical treatment in Miami, where
my children live. The medical team which examined me in Mercy Hospital
diagnosed a rectal tumor of 8 cm of diameter, with more than a year and a
half of growth, with metastasis in the bones of the pelvis. At only 4 cm
from the anal sphincter, the tumor could have been easily detectable with
a simple feel of the area which is included in a basic medical exam for
any man over 50 years old. Attached here are medical diagnosis which
confirm what I've been saying.
These conclusions put the Cuban government in a difficult juncture. Or the
Cuban government didn't know of the existence of the tumor, and in that
case they recognize that they did not give me adequate medical
assistance; or I'm lying and the Cuban government did know about the tumor
and hid that knowledge for more than a year.Or the Cuban government
recognizes itself guilty of criminal negligence in my case, or it
recognizes itself guilty of an attempted premeditated homicide against my
person.
Mr. President:
Before I finish, I would like to make clear that mine is not an isolated
case, but only an example of the regular practice of Cuban authorities in
their treatment of prisoners of conscience. Out of the group of 6
political prisoners liberated by the Cuban government after the requests
of France Liberte, only two enjoyed good health. In addition to my own
case, Reinaldo Figueredo has cancer in his vocal chords, Luis Enrique
Gonzalez Ogra has pancreatic cancer, and Ismael Salvia Ricardo is nearly
blind. Terrible nutrition, crowded and unsanitary cells, housing with
common violent criminals, violent repression, and reluctant medical
assistance - if any- are the norm and not the exception in Cuban
prisons.
Because of all this, Mr. President, it is urgent that this Commission
demand of the Cuban government that it permit without restriction the
International Red Cross to all the Cuban prisons, and that Cuba comply
with the international statutes about prisoners and the treatment of
prisoners. This is the least we can do in the short run to avoid that
cases like mine be repeated, in which medical assistance
came-tragically-when it was already far too late.
Thank you very much,
Sebastián Arcos Bergnes
Sebastián Arcos Bergnes died in Miami surrounded by relatives on December 22, 1997, but in the two years he lived abroad, his life prolonged thanks to state of the art medical care at the time, he was able to give his testimony and expose the criminal nature of the Castro regime and document it on the record. It is known that Cuba and China have a close working relationship and share "worse practices" and it would not be a surprise that the lessons learned from the Arcos Bergnes episode would have led Chinese commissars to decide against his release, preferring the short term bad press to having the possibility of Liu Xiaobo traveling the world for a couple of years, or more, with all measures taken to prolong his life and providing testimony as the Cuban human rights defender did between 1995 and 1997, while battling a terminal cancer. Nevertheless both men were victims of politically motivated medical neglect, a despicable practice shared by these two communist regimes.
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