"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)
Right now the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy. - Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy Address to the US Congress (16 March 2022)
Cubans and Ukrainians suffered under communist regimes. In
Cuba today, a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship continues in power. Last
year on July 11th, tens of thousands of Cubans took to the streets
demanding freedom, and were met with deadly repression across the
country. The aftermath? Political show trials, militarized streets, new
censorship laws, and hundreds of new political prisoners. Despite this,
sporadic protests continue.
It is also important to mention that in three days we will be
observing the day 10 years ago when Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante were
murdered by the secret police in Cuba. You can learn about Oswaldo in this
building at the Museum of the Victims of Communism.
I want to review some lessons from what has happened in Ukraine, and not just over the past few months, but over the longer term.
Lesson #1Appeasement encourages more aggression
On January 16, 2022, in an OpEd co-authored by myself and Frank Calzon titled "
Flashback to 1962, but Vladimir Putin is no Nikita Khrushchev, Joe Biden is no John F. Kennedy,"
in which we called on the Western world not to wait for an invasion,
but to apply tough sanctions to avoid war. We return to an earlier
lesson given by Winston Churchill following the Munich Agreement, when
Western democracies believed they had achieved peace by giving Hitler
parts of Czechoslovakia.
Abandoning Ukraine in the short term may appear to guarantee peace,
but the words of Winston Churchill following the 1938 Munich betrayal should
give today’s policymakers pause; "You were given the choice between war
and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war. "
Lesson #2Words must be backed by actions.
"People
don't really believe in words. Or rather, people believe in words only
for a stretch of time. Then they start to look for action." - Volodymyr Zelensky (2020 on joining the EU).
President Volodymyr Zelensky
President Zelensky's observation, made in 2020 with reference to
Ukraine's relations with the European Union, applies today with Western
promises of support for Kiev following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Prior to the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea, Ukraine did believe in words from the West.
When negotiations between Ukraine and Russia broke down on removing
nuclear weapons from Ukraine in September 1993, Washington engaged in a
trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. Yes, Ukraine had nuclear weapons in the 1990s. This resulted in the January
1994 Trilateral Statement. Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear
warheads to Russia. In exchange, Ukraine received security assurances
from the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
The failure of the West to restrain Russia from invading Ukraine in
2014 and expanding the war of conquest in 2022 gives a lesson to captive
nations and others that giving up nuclear weapons in exchange for
security guarantees is a foolish bargain. Putin's war in Ukraine is a
blow against nuclear disarmament.
By 2019, with regards to Russia and the West, President Zelensky observed in a Time interview: " I don’t trust anyone at all."
Many Cubans understand that statements condemning the actions of the
Cuban dictatorship after July 11th without specific actions by the
international community to hold the regime accountable will not end the
ongoing repression by the dictatorship in the same manner that Vladimir Putin's aggression was not met with strong resolve, and stopped.
The Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Payá's movement that still exists in Cuba, offered an eleven point action plan to the international community to isolate the Cuban dictatorship, but the international community has failed to take action and the Cuban regime continues to go forward with its repressive practices.
Lesson #3We must not confuse the dictatorship with the people.
I know that they [the Russian state] won’t show my address on Russian
TV, but Russian people have to see it. They need to know the truth, and
the truth is that it is time to stop now, before it is too late. And if
the Russian leaders don’t want to sit with us behind the table for the
sake of peace, maybe they will sit behind the table with you. Do
Russians want the war? I would like to know the answer. But the answer
depends only on you, citizens of the Russian Federation.” - President Zelensky, February 23, 2022
Ukraine also provides an important lesson in distinguishing between the Cuban dictatorship and the Cuban people.
Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzheppar
Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzheppar, on February 27, 2022,
tweeted:
"The MFA of Ukraine in a diplomatic note expresses its strong protest
against the statements of the Government of Cuba in support of Russia's
aggression against Ukraine and calls on Cuba to urge Russia to put an
end to this aggression."
Free Cubans in Cuba, in contrast, were, and are, demonstrating their solidarity
with Ukraine, criticizing the Castro regime's support for Putin's
actions, leading to arrest by the political police.
Many Cubans rejected (and continue to reject) the war on social media
and in messages to the Ukrainian Embassy in Havana. The volume of the
calls was so "extraordinary," the Ukrainian embassy in Havana said, that
it asked Cubans to send their messages of support to a dedicated email
address to clear the phone lines.
"Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is remembering without pain." - Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz October 21, 1925 – July 16, 2003
Edited version taken from Center for a Free Cuba's CubaBrief. Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso, better
known as Celia Cruz, died 19 years ago on July 16, 2003, she was 77 years old,
and across the world millions mourned her passing. Waves of grief were especially felt in Miami, Florida and Hoboken, New Jersey, both containing
large Cuban exile communities.
I too mourned her passing, and grieved
that she had never been able to return to her homeland because of a
cruel and despotic dictatorship.
Although she was a resident of New
Jersey Celia spent a lot of time in Miami, and I had seen her around
town over the years, and when I graduated from FIU in 1992 she was
awarded an honorary degree along with President George H.W. Bush.
Celia Cruz, President Bush, and Modesto Maidique at FIU graduation in 1992
Will
never forget President Bush's look of surprise when she grabbed him in a
bear hug or how the crowd of students went wild when she shouted
"Azucar" in the midst of the graduation ceremony. She had also received honorary degrees from Yale and the University of Miami.
Mourning for Celia was nearly universal, except in her
homeland Cuba where official media printed a small note on her passing
recognizing Celia as an “important Cuban performer who popularized our
country’s music in the United States,” it went on to say that “during the last
four decades, she was systematically active in campaigns against the Cuban
revolution generated in the United States.”
Sadly, the reason for the Castro regime's hostility towards
Celia Cruz, her refusal to bow to Fidel Castro, her legacy defending freedom of
expression, and the high price she paid is absent from a March 5, 2020 video by
the Smithsonian Institution titled "Why Is Celia Cruz Called the Queen of Salsa? #BecauseOfHerStory."
Ariana A. Curtis, curator at the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of African American History and Culture is interviewed by a student
identified as Mincy that omits key parts of Celia's history conflating her with
the immigration experience in America, when she was a Cuban Exile barred by the
Castro dictatorship from returning to her homeland, and her music banned to the
present day in Cuba. This is the portion of the interview that describes her
departure from Cuba:
"Ariana A. Curtis: Because especially during the early 1960s when
she left, that was right after the Cuban Revolution, you know. And so, Cuba was
in the news a lot about politics, and about socialism, and about military
things. But she really wanted to be able to show this "other side" of
Cuba, right. The arts and culture side. And so, she definitely used her style,
sort of like satin dresses with the ruffles, and like these long trains. Mincy: People migrate here and they tend to change their names and
change who they are so that they can get jobs or so that they can get opportunities.
So, they hide that part of themselves in order to like grow in this country,
it's so important that we have an example that Celia Cruz did not hide
herself."
This omits much of Celia's history, and does something that
the Queen of Salsa never did, and that is hide who she really was. And this
process did not begin with this interview, but stretches back several years.
Fidel Castro had tried to create a situation that forced the
salsa singer to pay him homage, but Celia refused. Salserísimo Perú, a site
created in Peru by three journalists to share information on salsa and tropical
music offers a more complete and accurate history than the Smithsonian
Institution. Below is an excerpt of Celia Cruz's first "encounter"
with Fidel Castro.
"In the early
months of 1959, Celia Cruz was hired to sing with a pianist at the house of the
Cuban businessman Miguel Angel Quevedo.
Quevedo owned the magazine Bohemia, the most influential in Cuba and who
had supported the revolution in the last few years. The guerrilla movement with a certain Fidel
Castro in front proclaimed in Santiago the beginning of the revolution. For the
Guarechera, Fidel was ending free expression and the arts in her country. The night of the show in the home of Quevedo,
Celia was singing standing next to the pianist, when suddenly the guests
started to run to the front door of the house. Fidel Castro had arrived. Neither she nor the pianist moved and continued
singing. Suddenly, Quevedo approached Celia and told her that Fidel wanted to
meet her because in his guerrilla days, when he cleaned his rifle, he was
listening to Burundanga. Celia replied that she had been hired to sing next to
the piano, and that was her place. If Fidel wanted to meet her, he would have
to come to her. But the commandant did
not do that."
Since Celia Cruz refused to bow to the new dictator, and
wanted to continue to live the life of a free artist, she had to flee Cuba.
However, when her mom was ill, she tried to return to see her in 1962, but was
barred from entering the island by Castro. When her mother died Celia was again blocked from attending the funeral. Because she was not an active supporter of
the regime, her music was banned in Cuba.
Celia is in good company. Other major Cuban artists who have
had their music banned in Cuba are Olga Guillot, Rolando Lecuona, Paquito
D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, Israel Cachao López, Ramón "Mongo"
Santamaría, Mario Bauza, Arsenio Rodríguez, Willy Chirino, and Gloria Estefan.
According to the 2004 book, Shoot the singer!: music
censorship today edited by Marie Korpe there is increasing concern that
post-revolution generations in Cuba that are growing up without knowing or
hearing these censored Cuban musicians could lead to a loss of Cuban identity
in these and future generations.
Tragically, Chinese are mourning Chinese Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and human rights defender Liu Xiaobo who died five years ago
on July 13, 2017 at the First Hospital of China Medical University, in Shenyang, China after being unjustly imprisoned from December 8, 2008 until his untimely death nearly 10 years later.
Liu Xiaobo
was one of the authors of Charter 08 and signed it along with more than
three hundred Chinese citizens. The Charter is a manifesto that was
released on December 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the adoption of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It calls for more freedom of
expression, human rights, more democratic elections, the privatization
of state enterprises and economic liberalization and would collect over
10,000 signatures.
Charter 08 is reminiscent of the Varela Project that was initially
signed by 11,020 Cubans in May of 2002 calling on the Cuban government
to respect international human rights norms and engage in the same kind
of reforms. Both were inspired by Vaclav Havel and Charter 77. Lamentably, the author of the Varela Project, Oswaldo
Payá Sardiñas, founding leader of the Christian Liberation Movement and
a youth leader of the same movement, Harold Cepero Escalante were both
extrajudicially executed ten years ago on July 22, 2012 in a crash engineered by the Cuban dictatorship's agents.
The demand for justice remains unfulfilled in all these cases, but we must not despair.
We bear witness embracing truth and memory in defiance of the attempt to whitewash and forget. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel explained the importance of doing this in his 1986 Nobel Lecture on why it is important to remember:
"To
forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't
prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a
second death." ... "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent
injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
In 2017, I was present at a candlelight vigil
in Washington, DC on July 17th organized by the Victims of
Communism Memorial Foundation to pay my respects for Liu Xiaobo and
demonstrate my solidarity with Chinese human rights defenders.
On Monday, July 11, 2022 I was in front of the Cuban embassy in a
vigil in solidarity with Cubans jailed for taking to
the streets in over 50 towns and cities across Cuba, in remembrance of Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, and Christian Barrera Díaz during the 11J protests, for the37 victims of the July 13, 1994 "13 de
Marzo" tugboat massacre and in remembrance of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante both killed by the secret police on July 22, 2012. Together with
scores of others we lit candles and said prayers for these victims of
communism, their loved ones, and for justice.
We continue to remember, and demand justice.
July 11, 2022 Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, Age: 36 Christian Barrera Díaz, Age: 24
July 13, 2017
Liu Xiaobo, Age: 61
July 22, 2012
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Age: 60
Harold Cepero Escalante, Age: 32
Take the truth as a weapon, placing it in practice in the civic
field, what Scripture proposed in the spiritual realm: "the truth shall
make you free". Bishop Agustín Román,December 16, 2006
Cubans march under a banner declaring "Down with dictatorship" and "Patria y Vida"
Tens of thousands of Cubans marched in over 50 cities and towns in the island nation beginning on July 11, 2021 and were met with threats, violence, mass arrests, and deadly force that brought these nationwide protests to an end on July 13, 2021, , but sporadic protests continue in Cuba despite the regime's efforts to shut them all down. In one week, a year will have passed.
How did it begin?
A protester from San Antonio de los Baños told BBC Mundo that
the initial protest was organized on Saturday[July 10, 2021] through
social networks for Sunday [July 11, 2021] at 11:30 AM (local time). Reuters on August 9th reported in more detail on the social network used,
and its background confirming the initial reporting by the BBC. On Sunday July 11, 2021 in the
late morning hundreds of Cubans took to the streets of San Antonio de
los Baños and were soon joined by thousands more.
Thinking that this would be a replay of the August 5, 1994 Maleconazo
the Castro regime sent out its repressive forces to quell the protest in San Antonio de los Baños, and President Miguel Diaz-Canel arrived to the
protest site to claim that all had returned to normal, but it was
too late, the protests had been seen through social media and multiplied
across Cuba.
The non-violent protests continued and spread across Cuba with Cubans chanting "the streets belong to the people", "Homeland and Life", "Freedom", "We are not afraid", and "Down with Communism."
Why did it start?
First, protests in Cuba are not a rare phenomenon. Nationwide or mass protests involving thousands and tens of thousands are rare due to the lack of communication, regime surveillance, repression and the right to peaceful assembly is not recognized in Cuba. Havana on August 5, 1994 had a social explosion with large numbers of protesters and they were met with an extremely violent response from the dictatorship.
Secondly, this time was different. Fidel Castro was dead five years, and Raul Castro, who turned 90 in 2021, is a shadow of his former self. Sixty two years of communist dictatorship had millions of Cubans desiring change.
There were or other aggravating factors.
Let Cubans die to advance "home grown vaccine" claim
Tîcö Äwö Ôrümîlä, buried grandmother in mass grave in the Juan González
cemetery in Santiago, Cuba. (Facebook)
The Cuban government's decision not to get foreign vaccines for Cubans in order to claim that Cuba was the first country in the world to vaccinate their entire population with homegrown vaccines caused many deaths.
Official regime journalist Leticia Martinez Hernandez over Twitter on May 18, 2021 bragged that "Cuba will be the first country in the world to vaccinate
their whole population with their own vaccines. Live to see!"
Havana's foreign ministry on June 9, 2021 repeated the same campaign theme: "Cuba could be the
first country to immunize its entire population with its own vaccines.
The population wants and trusts the vaccine candidates, our science, and
the country's experience in vaccine development."
Officials rejected using alternative vaccines over the six months that they
were available, because their first "homegrown vaccines" had not been ready
for clinical trials until May 2021 in Havana, and in the rest of the
island until June 2021.
Cuban official statistics on COVID-19 infections and deaths are not reliable. Professor Duane Gubler of the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore in the January 8, 2019 New Scientist report, "Cuba failed to report thousands of Zika virus cases in 2017", stated matter of factly that "Cuba has a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious." Doctors and journalists have been jailed in Cuba for speaking truthfully on past disease outbreaks.
Thousands of Cubans did not live to see the home grown vaccines, and died by the score.
Following July protests in Cuba,
officials in August 2021 accepted China's sinopharm vaccine and
began providing it to Cubans. This was at least nine months after it
had already started to be distributed in the rest of Latin America.
Havana used the pretext of the pandemic to tighten monopoly control over distribution of assistance with zero transparency, and refused to allow farmers markets. Cubans are resentful of this internal blockade placed on them.
The Castro regime seized and collectivized properties, and prohibited farmers selling their crops to non-state entities, in the early years of the revolution. The Cuban government established production quotas and farmers were (and are) obligated to sell to the state collection agency, called Acopio. Most recent law on agriculture in Cuba ( Decreto Ley 358 de 2018) continues to prohibit private sales of agricultural products to non-state entities. 50% of crops rot waiting on Acopios to collect them. During prior crises in the 1980s and 1990s officials had allowed farmers markets, temporarily to emerge and sell their produce directly to Cubans to alleviate hardship then shut them down after the crisis. This practice was not permitted during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Between 70% and 80% of Cuba's food is imported. Since 2000, much of
the food purchased by Havana has been imported from the United States, but the only legal importer is the Cuban government that price gouges Cubans with 400% and higher price markups.
On July 14, 2021 the Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero appeared on television and announced that the dictatorship would "temporarily lift restrictions on the quantity of food and medicine incoming travelers could bring into Cuba."
How did the 11J protests end?
President Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a public address on July 11, 2021 threatened:
"They [protesters] would have to pass over our dead bodies if they want
to confront the revolution, and we are willing to resort to anything."
"We are calling on all the revolutionaries of the country, all
the communists, to take to the streets and go to the places where these
provocations are going to take place today from now on, and in all these
days and face it decisively, firmly, with courage."
The Castro regime's president concluded declaring, "the order of combat is given, revolutionaries take to the streets."
Unarmed protesters beaten, shot and killed by regime agents.
Videos emerged of Cuban officials firing on fleeing unarmed protesters
in Cuban neighborhoods, and other footage emerged of Cuban protesters
showing where the bullets had passed through their bodies.
Havana officially recognized one Cuban killed on July 12th during the continuing protests, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, (age 36). He was shot in the back by regime officials on day two
of nationwide protests in Cuba. Reports have been received that family
members of those killed have been threatened to remain silent.
Christian Díaz,
age 24, disappeared after joining the 11J protests. Relatives on July
12, 2021 reported him missing to the PNR in Cárdenas. Police told his
father that Christian was jailed in Matanzas. On August 5, 2021
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.
Christian Díaz,
age 24, disappeared during 11J protests.
Cuban
protesters were met with extreme violence by the dictatorship, but
continued to take to the streets over three days before the extreme
repression, and militarization of all Cuba shut them down.
On Saturday, July 17 the regime held their official rally, and even there they could not obtain unanimity and violently dragged out an unknown protester who screamed "Freedom."
Dayron Martín sentenced to 30 years of prison for filming protests (Photo: Claudia Peiro)
On January 13, 2022, France24 reported on the plight of Dayron Martín Rodríguez (age 36) who was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was "detained in La Güinera. Dayron went out "to buy food for his pigeons when he ran into the rally," said his mother, Esmeralda Rodríguez (age 63), who added that"he
started recording to send his father the video." He felt the stones
hitting him, he fell and lost his phone. Video emerged during the 11J
protests of police throwing rocks and firing on unarmed protesters.
Esmeralda Rodríguez, "suffered a pre-infarction when she found out in
Ecuador, where she emigrated.eight years ago" that her son had been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Regime
officials are doing everything possible to terrorize Cubans into silence with long
and unjust prison sentences, and a continued militarized presence on
Cuba's streets. It is important to note that the worse punishments were meted out not to protesters, but to those who recorded the protests, and shared it over social media.
More draconian laws
Following the 11J protests on August 18, 2021 Havana brought Decree-Law 35 into force. Human Rights Watch
reported that "the decree, which has the stated purpose of 'defending'
the Cuban revolution, requires telecommunications providers to
interrupt, suspend, or terminate their services when a user publishes
information that is 'fake' or affects 'public morality' and the 'respect
of public order.'
On May 15, 2022 the Cuban dictatorship issued a new penal code that punishes with "penalties of 10 to 30 years – in extreme cases even death" for "those who give information to international organizations, associations or even people who have not been authorized by the government." Insulting or attacking officials or civilians doing their “citizens’ duty” can jail you for up to five years. Five years in prison if you “incite” against the socialist order, and 10 years if you use communications media to do it.
The political show trials continue in Cuba, and so does the repression combined with the uncertainties around the new repressive laws, and penal code.
Call to action
On the evening of July 11, 2021 I was outside of the Cuban Embassy
in Washington DC with others protesting the repression of the
dictatorship, and in solidarity with Cubans on the island demanding
freedom, but we had long planned the protest to remember the victims of
the July 13, 1994 "13 de marzo" tugboat sinking and the martyrdom on
July 22, 2012 of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante by the secret police.
Last year, we were at the Cuban Embassy protesting repression, remembering victims, and martyrs. We will be there again on July 11 at 7:00pm.
The United Nations
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), defines "torture" as "any act by which severe pain or
suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a
person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person
information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third
person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or
intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based
on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted
by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a
public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does
not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or
incidental to lawful sanctions."
Cuba
With regard to reports of harassment, arbitrary arrests, intimidation,
imprisonment, and reprisals against human rights defenders, the
Committee urged Cuba to end these practices. The Committee also emphasized the importance of an independent and impartial judicial
system.
Concerning the crackdowns on the social protests in July 2021, the
Committee urged Cuba to promptly and thoroughly investigate arbitrary
detentions, excessive use of force and ill-treatment, and punish those
responsible. The Committee also called for Cuba to establish a national
human rights institution and an independent mechanism to conduct regular
unannounced visits to all places where people are deprived of their
liberty.
Civil society groups presented a report on torture practices of the Cuban government that is available online, and was presented to UNCAT. Below are some cases of torture in Cuba that stretch back 17 years. This is not an exhaustive list.
Prisoner of conscience forcibly injected with HIV in 2018
Sister and Brother: Omara Ruiz Urquiola and Ariel Ruiz Urquiola
In May 2018, Ariel Ruiz Urquiolawas
arbitrarily detained, sentenced and jailed from early May to early July
2018. He was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment during his
imprisonment when Cuban officials forcibly injected him with HIV. The International Society for Human rights has provided
evidence that substantiates the charge, and below is his testimony before the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2020.
Lady in White mistreated by prison doctors, left near death (2018 - 2020) .
Dr. Alfredo Melgar, a specialist in Internal Medicine and lead doctor treating Xiomara Cruz Miranda, in a May 2020 interview, believes that she was exposed while in the Cuban prison to"various
chemicals." Cuban doctors in the island, at varying times, told her she
was either suffering from Tuberculosis or lung cancer as her condition
continued to worsen. Dr. Melgar affirms that these substances had possibly caused irreversible lung damage.
Over the course of one year in custody of the Cuban government her health radically declined. Rashes appeared on her body in June 2019 that Cuban medical doctors in Ciego de Ávila claimed to be unable to diagnose.
She was able to finally obtain medical care in the United States in
January 2020 when she was near death, and spent seven months in
intensive care in Jackson Memorial Hospital, and was finally well enough to continue her treatment as an outpatient.
Cuban dissident subjected to a machete attack, denied adequate medical care as punishment. (2015)
Sirley Avila Leon: Before and after the 2015 machete attack.
Sirley Ávila León
was a delegate to the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power
in Cuba from June 2005, for the rural area of Limones until 2012 when
the regime gerrymandered her district out of existence. Cuban officials
removed her from her position because she had fought to reopen a
school in her district, but been ignored by official channels and had
reached out to international media. Her son, Yoerlis Peña Ávila, who had
an 18 year distinguished career in the Cuban military was forced out
when he refused to declare his mother insane and have her committed to a
psychiatric facility.
Sirley joined the ranks of the democratic
opposition and repression against her increased dramatically. On May 24,
2015 she was the victim of a brutal machete attack carried out by
Osmany Carriòn, with the complicit assistance of his wife, that led to
the loss of her left hand, right upper arm nearly severed, and knees
slashed into leaving her crippled.
This attack, she believes, was done on the orders of the secret police. Following it she did not
receive adequate medical care and was told quietly by medical doctors in
Cuba that if she wanted to get better that she would need to leave the
country.
Medical mistreatment of Cuban political prisoner left him permanently disabled (2005).
Omar Pernet Hernández August 15, 1945 - October 7, 2017
Cuban dissident and former prisoner of conscience Omar Pernet Hernández
passed away in Louisville, Kentucky on October 7, 2017. Beginning in
1965 at age 18 he was
imprisoned for the first time in Cuba for political reasons.
Years later in an interview
he would sum up his life in Cuba: "I was tortured in Castros' jails in
four processes since 1965, when I was going to turn 19 years old." During his final imprisonment he described how doctors engaged in
malpractice against him following a car accident while he was being
transferred from one prison to another that left him crippled.
Omar Pernet: Look, the meaning of this, is that this type of boot that
you see here....I will show it to you again. This boot was fitted for me
in Cuba and it began to damage my hips because one, the left, is longer
than the right. Then, one hip went like this 0:30
(shows the way hip is going up). Then, here in Spain, they said I
couldn't go on wearing those boots, and they asked me to cut them down,
and told me to make the ones I'm wearing. These I'm wearing now are
stabilizing my hips.
INT: "How is it possible, since the Cuban doctors are so excellent
normally, at least that's what the Cubans say, and promote throughout
the world. That they should be so wrong? And hurt you so much? How many
months did you stay that way in Cuba?"
OP: Well, in 2005, on the 5th of April, I began to wear these boots
until the 17-18. I stayed like that until the 3rd of March of 2008 using
those boots. These I'm wearing now are different, from Spain. "
Stands up, 2:06,
shows.
"The only thing they did was to slap a cast on. They had me on a cast
from the tips of my toes up to my neck for 18 months. The doctors here
[in Spain] say they don't find any logic to it. That it was intolerable,
the amount of time I spent in those conditions. The cast was removed
twice, and each time it was to break my leg again."
Omar Pernet Hernández was 72 years old when he passed away, a victim of cancer. He had spent 22 years in Castro's prisons
for defying the communist regime and lived in forced exile for the
final nine years of his life.
.png)
Posts
