Tuesday, July 30, 1996

MORAL OBLIGATIONS: Aftermath of the Rubalcaba Affair

Published July 30, 1996 in the Miami Herald Pg. 5 Sec. E

MORAL OBLIGATIONS

Our struggle against Fidel Castro is a struggle for the future of the Cuban nation. Do we want a future Cuba in which the freedom to speak, to work, and to pray are controlled by the state or are do we want these freedoms to be the foundation of a free and prosperous nation? Over the past three decades we have called for freedom in Cuba throughout the four corners of the world, but we have not always practiced what we preached here in Miami.

If we limit the freedom of artists in pursuit of our political ends, in this case a free Cuba, then we are committing the same crime as Fidel Castro and hurting our own cause for freedom. In 1959 when Castro promised freedom and elections he delivered censorship and summary executions.

Most Cubans supported the executions without a fair trial of Batista's supporters. Both freedom and the rule of law were sacrificed on the alter of revenge and ambition. Fidel Castro sacrificed freedom in Cuba to advance his own Fidelismo. If we use the same means as Fidel Castro, then we will be led once again to the same end. In short, we are helping Fidel Castro when we attack freedom in the name of freedom. The Cuban Exile is part of the Cuban nation, and it must be the beacon of freedom and tolerance for those who have lived in the darkness and oppression of Castro's tyranny for these past 37 years.

We are for liberty and justice, not repression and injustice. This is why we struggle against Fidel Castro. Many in this community have suffered torture, the death of loved ones, decades of unjust imprisonment and the separation of families. They have good reason to hate Castro, and his supporters, but for the good of the Cuban nation (inside and outside of Cuba) they must overcome their hatred. In the words of Jesus Christ they must love their enemy. They must save the Cuban nation from the evils committed by this enemy, and not add to them out of a thirst for revenge. Leave revenge to God for that is to whom it belongs.

The true test of respect for freedom of expression and of thought is how do we react to what we strongly disagree with. I believe that we have a moral obligation to criticize what we think is wrong in a civil manner, but we also have a moral obligation to protect those we disagree with from violations of their civil and political rights.

John Suarez

FREE CUBA Foundation

Miami


Thursday, July 18, 1996

Cuban Dissident Sebastian Arcos Bergnes addresses the UN Human Rights Commission

Address to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland

 April 18, 1996

Sebastián Arcos Bergnes in front of his home on May 31, 1995

Mr. President: Members of the Commission:

My name is Sebastian 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 kilometers 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,

Sebastian Arcos Bergnes

Reference summarizing his speech: UN