"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986
Ideas have consequences, often rooted in actions that continue to have ripple effects across time. The Brothers to the Rescue nonviolent constructive program that began in 1991, saving thousands of lives in the Florida Straits, is still having positive impacts today.
Resisting injustice often comes at a cost, and Cubans and Cuban-Americans have suffered for their defense of human rights. This cost is raised when international solidarity declines and the dictatorship believes that it can operate with impunity.
Mario de la Peña, Carlos Acosta, Armando Alejandre and Pablo Morales were blown out of the sky by two missiles launched by a Cuban MiG at 3:21pm and 3:27pm on February 24, 1996 on the orders of Raul Castro that destroyed two Brothers to the Rescue planes engaged in search and rescue of Cuban rafters in international airspace in the Florida Straits.
This took place while the Clinton Administration sought to improve relations with the Castro regime and began in 1994 regular contacts between U.S. and Cuban military, including joint military exercises.
Despite the danger, Brothers to the Rescue would continue its search and rescue missions for another seven years, ending in 2003. Jose Basulto in 2010, who was in the lone plane that returned on the day of the shoot down, remained committed, “today we are sharing a message that people can solve their own problems. You also can be Brothers to the Rescue and create your own help organizations.” Basulto estimates that Brothers to the Rescue "saved some 4,200 rafters fleeing Cuba during the 1990s," and he added, "the experience of saving someone in the Straits of Florida was something that stays with you – we were hunting to save lives.”
This civic movement was engaged in what Mohandas Gandhi described as a constructive program. The Metta Center, an organization that provides educational resources on the safe and effective use of nonviolence, says that "it describes nonviolent action taken within a community to build structures, systems, processes or resources that are positive alternatives to oppression. It can be seen as self-improvement of both community and individual."
Brothers to the Rescue created a community structure where pilot volunteers representing 19 different nationalities flew over the Florida Straits searching for Cuban rafters for over a decade.
Fourteen years separate these five martyrs joined together in their nonviolent resistance to injustice in Cuba, and the positive defense of human rights combined with moments that U.S. outreach to the dictatorship, along with a distancing from Cuban democrats, led to their murders by the Castro dictatorship.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was by vocation both a brick layer and a human rights activist. He gathered signatures for the Varela Project, a citizen initiative to amend the Cuban constitution with the objective of bringing Cuba in line with international human rights standards. Orlando was repeatedly arrested for his human rights activism on July 3, 2002, October 28, 2002 and in November 2002.
Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet sought to promote human rights organizing "Friends of Human Rights" teach-ins. State security blocked them holding one at the home of Raúl Arencibia Fajardo on December 6, 2002. Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata, Virgilio Marante and 12 others held a sit-in in the street in protest and chanted "long live human rights" and "freedom for political prisoners." They were all arrested.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was released on March 8, 2003, but Biscet, Marante Güelmes, and Arencibia Fajardo remained jailed. On the March 20, 2003 while taking part in a fast at the Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of his three colleagues. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters and remained jailed for the rest of his life.
The Castro regime announced on February 23, 2010 that Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died in their custody. Imprisoned since 2003 he had suffered physical and psychological torture over seven years, and while on his final hunger strike was denied water by prison officials contributing to his death. The Global Nonviolent Action Database described what happened in greater detail:
Worse yet this failure of solidarity with Cuba's democratic opposition over the next two years would claim the lives of national opposition leaders Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, of the Ladies in White (2011) and Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante, of the Christian Liberation Movement (2012). Both had mourned and protested the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010.
On February 3, 2015, Rosa María Payá testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicted the indifference of the US government and the international community: "The Cuban government wouldn’t have dared to carry out its death threats against my father if the U.S. government and the democratic world had been showing solidarity. If you turn your face, impunity rages."
However the power of nonviolence is so great that even without the support of Western democracies Cubans "can solve their own problems" and create their own help organizations that save thousand of lives and through an act of nonviolent resistance force the dictatorship to respond to Zapata's demands.
Cuban human rights defender Orlando Zapata Tamayo's hunger strike in 2009-2010 placed a national and international focus on human rights in Cuba that within two years led to the release of 75 other Cuban prisoners of conscience arrested along with him in March of 2003.
Sadly there have been others before and after Orlando Zapata Tamayo: a partial list includes Roberto López Chávez (1966), Luis Alvarez Ríos (1967), Carmelo Cuadra Hernández (1969), Pedro Luis Boitel (1972), Olegario Charlot Pileta (1973), Reinaldo Cordero Izquierdo (1975), José Barrios Pedré (1977) and Wilmar Villar Mendoza (2012).
Non-violence is a method of struggle that requires both strategy and tactics. Cuba's dissident movement over the years had improved its capacity to carry out non-violent actions beginning with the Cuban Committee for Human Rights (1976) and reaching a high point with the Varela Project ( 2001-2004) and in the Cuban diaspora with Brothers to the Rescue (1991 - 2003).
However the Castro regime is not a static entity and it responds with violence, and misinformation to cover up its misdeeds, crush dissent, and it is relentless. This is why it is important for human rights defenders and advocates of a free Cuba to be persistent, protest on important anniversaries, remember the martyrs, and let others continue to know what happened.
In 1996, the regime tried to destroy Brothers to the Rescue in an act of state terrorism, mobilizing spies in South Florida, and at least one high ranking spy in the US government (Ana Belen Montes) to conduct in influence operation prior to the attack to gather and intelligence, and to spin a story favorable to the dictatorship in the press to blame the victims.
Brothers to the Rescue continues to maintain a website with documented information on the February 24, 1996 shoot down and on the history of the organization. Jose Basulto continues to demand truth and justice. International human rights organizations provided reports on the February 24, 1996 shoot down.
The families of Mario de la Peña, Carlos Acosta, Armando Alejandre and Pablo Morales sued the Castro regime in the courts, denounced the freeing of Gerardo Hernandez in 2014 who was serving a life sentence for his role in the murder conspiracy that cost these four men their lives, and continue to observe at Florida International University on February 24th a silent vigil between 3:21pm and 3:27pm, the times both planes were shot down and hold Mass in their memory.
In 2010, the dictatorship tried to rewrite Orlando Zapata Tamayo's past denying that he was a dissident. This necessitated erasing their own propaganda attacks again him in prior years.
The civic nonviolent resistance recognizing this pushed back. When Brazilian president, and Castro ally, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva referred to Orlando as a common criminal Cuban exiles occupied the Brazilian Consulate in Miami in protest. Fact sheets were prepared and documentaries about Orlando Zapata Tamayo prepared and disseminated.
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel explained in his 1986 Nobel Lecture 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." This is why on Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 7:00pm there will be a vigil in memory of Orlando Zapata Tamayo on the 10th anniversary of his untimely death and the four Brothers to the Rescue members, Mario de la Peña, Carlos Acosta, Armando Alejandre and Pablo Morales, killed 24 years ago.
Truth and memory for those killed in defiance of the attempt by the dictatorship to whitewash and forget.
Resisting injustice often comes at a cost, and Cubans and Cuban-Americans have suffered for their defense of human rights. This cost is raised when international solidarity declines and the dictatorship believes that it can operate with impunity.
Mario de la Peña, Carlos Acosta, Armando Alejandre and Pablo Morales were blown out of the sky by two missiles launched by a Cuban MiG at 3:21pm and 3:27pm on February 24, 1996 on the orders of Raul Castro that destroyed two Brothers to the Rescue planes engaged in search and rescue of Cuban rafters in international airspace in the Florida Straits.
Despite the danger, Brothers to the Rescue would continue its search and rescue missions for another seven years, ending in 2003. Jose Basulto in 2010, who was in the lone plane that returned on the day of the shoot down, remained committed, “today we are sharing a message that people can solve their own problems. You also can be Brothers to the Rescue and create your own help organizations.” Basulto estimates that Brothers to the Rescue "saved some 4,200 rafters fleeing Cuba during the 1990s," and he added, "the experience of saving someone in the Straits of Florida was something that stays with you – we were hunting to save lives.”
This civic movement was engaged in what Mohandas Gandhi described as a constructive program. The Metta Center, an organization that provides educational resources on the safe and effective use of nonviolence, says that "it describes nonviolent action taken within a community to build structures, systems, processes or resources that are positive alternatives to oppression. It can be seen as self-improvement of both community and individual."
Brothers to the Rescue created a community structure where pilot volunteers representing 19 different nationalities flew over the Florida Straits searching for Cuban rafters for over a decade.
Fourteen years separate these five martyrs joined together in their nonviolent resistance to injustice in Cuba, and the positive defense of human rights combined with moments that U.S. outreach to the dictatorship, along with a distancing from Cuban democrats, led to their murders by the Castro dictatorship.
Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet sought to promote human rights organizing "Friends of Human Rights" teach-ins. State security blocked them holding one at the home of Raúl Arencibia Fajardo on December 6, 2002. Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata, Virgilio Marante and 12 others held a sit-in in the street in protest and chanted "long live human rights" and "freedom for political prisoners." They were all arrested.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was released on March 8, 2003, but Biscet, Marante Güelmes, and Arencibia Fajardo remained jailed. On the March 20, 2003 while taking part in a fast at the Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of his three colleagues. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters and remained jailed for the rest of his life.
Orlando toured Cuba's jails, including Quivicán Prison, Guanajay Prison, and Combinado del
Este Prison in Havana. Amnesty International reported that on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by officials, leaving his back full of lacerations because he had requested medical attention.
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. Orlando Zapata Tamayo would maintain his commitment to non-violent resistance while jailed. He suffered numerous beatings and new charges of disobedience and disrespect adding decades to his prison sentence in eight additional trials.The Castro regime announced on February 23, 2010 that Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died in their custody. Imprisoned since 2003 he had suffered physical and psychological torture over seven years, and while on his final hunger strike was denied water by prison officials contributing to his death. The Global Nonviolent Action Database described what happened in greater detail:
"To further discourage Tamayo, the prison director, Major Filiberto Hernández Luis, denied him water for 18 days, taking away his only sustenance. The forced dehydration induced a kidney failure, and Tamayo was taken to Amalia Simoni Hospital in Camaguay where he was fed intravenously against his will. Tamayo’s condition worsened when he developed pneumonia in the hospital bed and was transferred to a hospital at Combinado del Este prison, which did not have the capacity to treat him."It happened while the Obama Administration sought to improve relations with the Castro regime, refused to meet with Cuban dissidents in 2009, and did not make the release of Alan Gross, an American taken hostage in Cuba in December 2009, a priority. This signaled to the Castro regime that Orlando Zapata Tamayo could die in 2010, and it would not effect US-Cuba relations, and sadly they were right.
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| Laura Pollán marches with Orlando Zapata's mom Reina Luisa Tamayo in Cuba |
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| Oswaldo Payá remembered Orlando Zapata Tamayo in February 2010 |
However the power of nonviolence is so great that even without the support of Western democracies Cubans "can solve their own problems" and create their own help organizations that save thousand of lives and through an act of nonviolent resistance force the dictatorship to respond to Zapata's demands.
Cuban human rights defender Orlando Zapata Tamayo's hunger strike in 2009-2010 placed a national and international focus on human rights in Cuba that within two years led to the release of 75 other Cuban prisoners of conscience arrested along with him in March of 2003.
However the Castro regime is not a static entity and it responds with violence, and misinformation to cover up its misdeeds, crush dissent, and it is relentless. This is why it is important for human rights defenders and advocates of a free Cuba to be persistent, protest on important anniversaries, remember the martyrs, and let others continue to know what happened.
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| DIA analyst and Cuban mole Ana Belen Montes |
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| Friends of Armando, Carlos, Mario, and Pablo mourn their murders. |
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| Vigil will be held again at Florida International University at 3pm on February 24th |
In 2010, the dictatorship tried to rewrite Orlando Zapata Tamayo's past denying that he was a dissident. This necessitated erasing their own propaganda attacks again him in prior years.
The civic nonviolent resistance recognizing this pushed back. When Brazilian president, and Castro ally, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva referred to Orlando as a common criminal Cuban exiles occupied the Brazilian Consulate in Miami in protest. Fact sheets were prepared and documentaries about Orlando Zapata Tamayo prepared and disseminated.
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel explained in his 1986 Nobel Lecture 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." This is why on Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 7:00pm there will be a vigil in memory of Orlando Zapata Tamayo on the 10th anniversary of his untimely death and the four Brothers to the Rescue members, Mario de la Peña, Carlos Acosta, Armando Alejandre and Pablo Morales, killed 24 years ago.
Truth and memory for those killed in defiance of the attempt by the dictatorship to whitewash and forget.
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