Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas born 70 years ago: Honoring Cuba's Consistent Human Rights Defender

"In Cuba we are being prohibited from preparing that future, working now at night for the following morning, because someone has said that the night will not end. But the night will not be eternal, it is ending." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Our Lady of Charity, 3609 S Miami Ave, Miami FL, 2/28/22 at 8pm

 

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas was born 70 years ago on February 29, 1952 and was extrajudicially executed in Cuba by Castro's secret police on July 22, 2012 along with Harold Cepero.

A mass will be held in Miami today at Our Lady of Charity (La Ermita de la Caridad) at 8:00pm to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Oswaldo Payá on the seventieth anniversary of his birth. 

This morning at 10:41am Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo Tweeted an invitation to "Join us, this Tuesday 6:30 PM at Cubaocho Museum & Performing Arts Center" and ended it with the hashtag #PayáVive.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 at 6:30pm at Cubaocho Museum and Performing Arts Center (1465 SW 8th Street)  a short documentary "The Truth About the Murder of Oswaldo Payá" will premier along with a special performance by Cuban artist Eliecer Márquez Duany better known as "El Funky." 

Embedded below is Rosa's tweet from today. 

Acompáñanos, este Martes 6:30PM en Cubaocho Museum & Performing Arts Center#PayáVive pic.twitter.com/6G3okgi0p5

— Rosa María Payá A. (@RosaMariaPaya) February 28, 2022

Twenty years earlier, Oswaldo Payá along with other members of the Christian Liberation Movement in May 2002 turned in thousands of signatures from the Varela Project, a petition that called for human rights to be respected in Cuba, and that the matter be debated before the National Assembly.

Today, one of the men who walked alongside Oswaldo Payá to deliver the petition in 2002, Regis Iglesias Ramírez Tweeted a birthday greetings to the leader of his movement who he affectionately called Bapu.

In December of 2002, thanks to lobbying and pressure from Spain, Oswaldo Payá was able to travel to Strasbourg, France to receive the European Union's Sakharov Prize and address the chamber.

In 2011, seven Norwegian members of parliament nominated Oswaldo Payá for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Václav Havel had also twice nominated Oswaldo Payá ).

Following the untimely deaths of Oswaldo and Harold, the Cuban opposition leader's family was subjected to death threats and heightened surveillance by state security.  

 Ten years later and his legacy lives on in Cuba, in the diaspora, and with his family. In 2019 his book "The Night Will Not Be Eternal: Dangers and Hopes for Cuba," and  a new digital edition was made available in December 2021. 

On June 21, 2022 David Hoffman's new book on Oswaldo Payá, "Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba" will be available for purchase. It is already available for pre-order.

Today, let us also remember and pray for the soul of this good man, who sacrificed all for the freedom of the Cuban people.

It is also a moment to share with others how others looking from outside the Cuban experience viewed this human rights defender and Cuban patriot. Below are observations made by Norwegian members of parliament in 2011 when they nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Norwegian members of parliament nominated Oswaldo Payá for Nobel Peace Prize in 2011

 

Norwegian MPs nominate Oswaldo Payá for Nobel Peace Prize

Source: Christian Liberation Movement

A group of 7 Norwegian Members of Parliament has nominated the Cuban Oswaldo Payá for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. – The Nobel Prize to Cuba’s most important oppositional leader would be an important contribution to peace and democracy for a people who have been denied their fundamental human rights for far too long, the MPs write in their nomination letter.

Through nearly two decades Oswaldo Payá has been the leading figure in a peaceful struggle for basic human rights in Cuba. Oswaldo Payá represents all Cubans who want a peaceful change based on reconciliation and dialogue.

– We believe the Nobel Peace Prize would send a strong signal to the Cuban government that it is time for change, says Dagrun Eriksen, MP, deputy leader of the Christian Democratic Party and one of the signatories.

Oswaldo Payá has built his work on the conviction that all human beings have inviolable rights. He believes that the right to freedom of speech is the basis on which to solve all other problems in society. Only when the people themselves can express their concerns, Cuba will be able to find its own way out of the country’s challenges.

- Oswaldo Payá recognizes that freedom of speech and respect for fundamental human rights is a precondition for a peaceful development, says Jan Tore Sanner, MP, deputy leader of the Conservative Party and one of the other signatories.

Oswaldo Payá has consistently tried to work within the frames of Cuban law, through petitions calling for the respect for basic human rights. When the Varela project succeeded in collecting enough signatures to set of a referendum in 2002, the Cuban regime’s response, however, was to arrest 75 oppositional leaders, in what became known as the Black Spring.

Last spring, Mr Sanner and Mrs Eriksen took the initiative to form a support group for Cuban political prisoners in the Norwegian Parliament, including MPs from all the Norwegian parties. Following the release of more than 40 prisoners into forced exile last summer, 19 of them wrote a letter to the group, proposing that they nominate Oswaldo Payá for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

- The support from the former prisoners of conscience shows how Oswaldo Payá has succeeded in gathering different groups of dissidents in dialogue and peaceful resistance, says Dagrun Eriksen.

Jan Tore Sanner was one of the nominators behind last year’s winner Liu Xiabo.

- Oswaldo Payá represents the same peaceful struggle for human rights as Liu Xiabo, says Mr Sanner.

Payá has continued to call for unity and dialogue between all Cubans, in and outside the country. His National Dialogue program and All Cubans Forum, have involved thousands of Cubans in discussions on proposals for a peaceful change towards democracy. Payá is now again calling for a referendum on basic human rights.

- Oswaldo Payá would be a worthy winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, say Dagrun Eriksen and Jan Tore Sanner.

 

Moral compromises: Cuban national Anamely Ramos again denied the right to return to her homeland by the Castro regime and American Airlines.

"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." - Václav Havel, Letter to the overthrown Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubček (August 1969)

Anamely Ramos González, twice refused her right to return home to Cuba.

Earlier this morning, Anamely Ramos González tried to board a return flight to Cuba, but was told she could not return home. 

This time she received a document from American Airlines that it was the Cuban government that had blocked her from returning.

Eleven days earlier it happened to her for the first time.

On February 16, 2022, Anamely Ramos González, with her documents in order and plane ticket in hand, was told by a representative of American Airlines she could not board the flight home on instructions from the Cuban government. 

Anamely after being told by American Airlines she couldn't board flight home on 2/16/22

Anamely Ramos is an artist and nonviolent Cuban dissident who resides in Cuba.

She traveled abroad in January 2021 to pursue a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the Universidad Iberoamericana de México. 13 months later, in February 2022 she was twice denied entry into Cuba by American Airlines personnel on the instructions of Cuban government officials.

"'Right now I have no country, nowhere to return to, no residence in any other country in the world, no visa to anywhere and here I am,' said [ Anamely Ramos González ] in an interview with the Miami Herald outside Versailles restaurant in Little Havana," reported Nora Gámez Torres after she was turned away on February 16th. 

These were not the first two incidents of a Cuban national being arbitrarily denied the right to return home by the Castro dictatorship.

Estimates range between 70,000 to 300,000 Cubans banned by the Cuban government from returning to their homeland reported The Miami Herald on August 15, 2011 in the article titled "Many Cuban expatriates can't go home again". Despite claims made by both Havana and Washington in 2013 that the Cuban government had liberalized travel to the island, the cases of cruel family separations remain a constant.

223 Cubans have been identified that have been either denied the right to leave or enter Cuba. There are many more, but many are afraid to defy the dictatorship and have their families in the island suffer further reprisals by going public.

Anamely after being told by American Airlines she couldn't board flight home on 2/27/22

This policy of the Castro regime to divide families has a long history, and an ideological foundation. Carlos Eire, a professor at Yale University, a Cuban exile, and former Pedro Pan child in Babalu Blog on January 2, 2020 wrote how he "once had the opportunity of asking one of Fidel’s closest associates, Carlos Franqui, why the top brass of the Castro regime intentionally prevented thousands of Cuban parents from reuniting with their Pedro Pan children in the U.S.. Franqui, who served as a propaganda minister to Fidel before being purged, responded to my question with a huge smile on his face: 'We did it because anything that would destroy the bourgeois family was good for us.'"

These are violations of two fundamental human rights. 

 Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: 

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: 

"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

Havana has systematically violated these universal human rights over 60 years. Until 2013, Cubans who stayed abroad over 11 months lost their right to return. 

In 2013 Cuban law increased the amount of time Cubans could spend overseas without losing their residency rights from 11 months to two years, but in the case of Anamely Ramos she is being denied her right to return. She has been out of the country for 13 months.

Anamely Ramos with Sirley Avila Leon

Denying Anamely Ramos her right to return to her home and be reunited with her family is not only a violation of Articles 12 and 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but violates existing Cuban law, demonstrating the tyrannical nature of the Cuban government, and the decades long internal blockade erected against Cubans by the Castro regime. 

Until recently, Cubans would fly to Cuba, and be turned around at customs. Now, American Airlines is carrying out the instruction of the Cuban government barring Cuban nationals from boarding their flights home. 

But the dictatorship is not a reliable partner.  

On February16th American Airlines did not provide any documentation indicating why Anamely could not travel, but a verbally told her the Cuban government had denied her right to return.

Consequences of @AmericanAir impeding re-entrance of @AnamelyRamos in Cuba, following orders by #Cuba's regime:

➡️Violation of Art. 13 of the #UDHR
➡️Violation, as signatory, of the #UNGlobalCompact@AmericanAir has responsibilities

➡️Now Cuban TV acuses @AmericanAir: pic.twitter.com/BH20XOb1ys

— Prisoners Defenders (@CubanDefenders) February 18, 2022

Two days later on social media Prisoners Defenders released an excerpt from a Cuban government television program called "Al Filo" [ To the point] in which the spokeswoman said it was not Cuba but American Airlines that had barred Anamely from flying.

We (Cuba) know so far the same as she and the journalists, who were apparently waiting for her behind the check in table: that the airline does not allow her to travel because they allege that Cuba prohibits her entry. Just that, without further details. And although until now the most direct and objective refusal was not given by us, the media have a culprit, of course, because as always "Miami confirms it." 

This placed American Airlines in the hot seat. Their "partner government" had thrown them under the bus and claimed it was the U.S. company denying Anamely Ramos the right to travel. They have been a lot of bad press with headlines such as "American Airlines Caves to Authoritarian Communist Regime."

There is a petition underway calling American Airlines to account for this new relationship with the Cuban dictatorship, and its complicity in denying her human right to return home to her country that is found under Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and calls them out for violating the UN Global Compact on Human Rights, Labor, Environment, and Anti-corruption.

"According to your letter to the United Nations Secretary General, H.E. Antonio Guterres, dated February 15th, 2021, American Airlines adhered to the 10 Principles of the UN Global Compact on human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption." ...

"By not allowing Ms. Ramos González to go back to her country of residence, your company’s officers violated article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, basically the right to freedom of movement. This rights is included in Principle 1 of the Global Compact stating: 'Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights.'"

"At the same time, by following a protocol and orders by the migratory authorities of the totalitarian government of Cuba with no legal standing, you have violated Principle 2 of the Global Compact that states: 'Business should make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.'"

The world is witnessing now the havoc that normalized relations that economically empowered totalitarian dictatorships ( Communist China's role in covering up and contributing to a world wide pandemic), and authoritarian dictatorships (Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine and threatening nuclear war) is threatening tens of millions of lives, but it all began with small moral compromises out of the mistaken belief that the ends justify the means.

The trouble with morally compromising with these regimes is that there is no bottom. Below is a Tweet by a Cuban government agent of influence that has images that border on racism.

Czech dissident, playwright, and president Václav Havel believed that moral actions, no matter how small or futile they may appear at the time can have profound consequences for both freedom and a just society. It is because the world is not a puzzle to be solved but incredibly much more complex that decisions of right and wrong made by each person have such great importance.

The New York Times in their October 13, 2009 issue in an article titled Vaclav Havel, Still a Man of Morals and Mischief: reported that in an interview that was supposed to be about the revolutions that overturned communism 20 years earlier that President Havel raised the question asking if it was true that President Obama had refused to meet the Dalai Lama? Havel replied:

“It is only a minor compromise,” Mr. Havel said of the nonreception of the Tibetan leader. “But exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones, the real problems. “This is actually the first time I really do mind something Obama did,” Mr. Havel said. He minded it “much more” than Mr. Obama’s recent decision not to station elements of a missile-defense system in the Czech Republic, a move that several Central European politicians criticized but that Mr. Havel noted was ultimately “an internal American decision.”

These compromises were also seen with regard to normalizing relations with Cuba. 

Carnival Cruise Line signed an agreement with Castro regime officials on March 21, 2016 to sail to Cuba from the United States. In order to conduct their core mission Carnival had to agree to enforce the Castro dictatorship's policy that bans all Cubans from traveling into the island by water. It did not matter if Cubans born on the island were now citizens of another country.  ( Obama's Treasury Department on July 7, 2015 had signed off on the Carnival Cruise Line - Castro regime alliance ignoring that an entire class of Americans would be discriminated against based on their national origin.).

Today, American Airlines provided a Cuban government document identifying the Cuban official, representing the dictatorship in writing that Anamely Ramos would not be allowed to enter Cuba. The document is titled, "Notification to airlines of inadmissible passengers in national territory" and is signed by Lieutenant Colonel Néstor Morera.

Sadly, to obtain this information required eleven days of protests, and demands of transparency combined with the Castro regime denying the verbal statement made by American Airlines, and placing all the blame on the American carrier.

Anamely Ramos, and other Cuban dissidents, are observing that Cuba is not becoming more like the free world with normalization, but the free world is becoming more like Cuba.  Time to end normal relations with abnormal regimes, while we hopefully still can. 

Anamely Ramos shows Cuban government document provided by American Airlines.

 

Below was a live video program Anamely held on Facebook after she left the airport today and returned to the outskirts of Versailles, and further down is an excerpt from a statement she released today exposing the moral compromise made by American Airlines with Havana.

"Today I tried again to board an AA [American Airlines] flight to my country. 

Cuba reissued a notification informing the airline that I am not admitted within the national territory and that, therefore, they "recommend" AA not to board me.

I want to be explicit with this: the decision not to admit is from the Cuban State, the decision to abide by that decision and not let me get on the plane is from American Airlines. They are two different responsibilities and it is Cuba who is most interested in making them one, so as not to have to make an official pronouncement. They act with AA as they do with people who are going to do an act of repudiation of an opponent.

It is not the State Security agents who shout and appear on camera, they are the ones who softly tell people "from the town" to shout and not let other citizens out. The notification received by AA, and which was delivered to me today, is signed by a Lieutenant Colonel, a more than clear sign of who is behind a flagrant violation of human rights.

It was very convenient for Cuba that this whole operation was kept in the shadows. The agreement or protocol that AA cites all the time as the norm that they cannot violate is not public.

 Maybe it doesn't even exist in writing. Maybe it's just an oral agreement. An agreement that collides with the Global Pact that AA signed in 2021 and that speaks of respect for human rights (in this case the right to return) of people - clients."

 #RightToReturn #DerechoARegresar

The Brothers to the Rescue shootdown 26 years later: Continuing the struggle for truth, justice, and memory

 #TruthJusticeMemory

Mario de la Peña, age 24; Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, both 30, and Armando Alejandre Jr., 45 were murdered in international airspace on February 24, 1996 at 3:21pm and 3:27pm by heat-seeking air-to-air missiles launched from a MiG-29 UB piloted by Lorenzo Alberto Peréz Peréz that destroyed the two planes the men were onboard. Mario, Carlos, Pablo and Armando were members of the humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue.

This was a premeditated act of state terrorism carried out by Mr. Peréz Peréz on the orders of both Fidel and Raul Castro and through the chain of command issuing the unlawful order that killed these four men.

Cuban spies obtained the information on flight times, and were told not to fly on February 24th, and if they did have to fly to signal the MiGs with a motion while in flight to avoid the fate of the others.

This was a premeditated killing over international airspace. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) concluded that the two planes "were shot down miles away from Cuba’s boundary having never entered or touched it on that day and the planes had been in contact with the Cuban tower throughout the flight."

They failed to destroy a third plane with Sylvia Iriondo, Andrés Iriondo, Jose Basulto, and Arnaldo Iglesias on board. 

There is no statue of limitations on murder and state terrorism.  There is much more in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reports on the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, and worth reading.

Over the past 26 years friends, and family have continued to demand truth, respect memory and demand justice through protests, petitions, and law suits. 

Later today they will be hosting a silent vigil at Florida International University at 3:15pm in remembrance of their loved ones.

 

 

 

Twelve years ago on February 23, 2010 prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on hunger strike in Cuba

"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*

Orlando Zapata Tamayo May 15, 1967 - February 23, 2010

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his 1861 book, The House of the Dead  that "the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." What does this say about the Cuban government that has barred the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting Cuba's prisons for decades?

Many Cubans have died over the past 63 years suffering cruel treatment at the hands of communist prison officials in the Castro dictatorship.

Tomorrow marks the death of one more. His name was Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a human rights defender who was unjustly imprisoned in the Spring of 2003 and was tortured by Cuban prison officials and state security agents over the next six years and ten months. He died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike, aggravated by prison guards refusing him water in an effort to break his spirit. He is a victim of Cuban communism.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas with photocopy image of Orlando Zapata Tamayo

Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was killed under suspicious circumstances on July 22, 2012, issued a statement the same day that Orlando died and appeared in a photograph holding up a photocopy of the martyred human rights defender name and image. 

"Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died this afternoon, February 23, 2010, after suffering many indignities, racist slights, beatings and abuse by prison guards and State Security. Zapata was killed slowly over many days and many months in every prison in which he was confined. Zapata was imprisoned for denouncing human rights violations and for daring to speak openly of the Varela Project in Havana's Central Park. He was not a terrorist, or conspirator, or used violence. Initially he was sentenced to three years in prison, but after successive provocations and maneuvers staged by his executioners, he was sentenced to more than thirty years in prison." 

Remembering Orlando Zapata

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born in Santiago, Cuba on May 15, 1967. He was by vocation a brick layer and also a human rights activist, a member of the Movimiento Alternativa Republicana, Alternative Republican Movement, and of the Consejo Nacional de Resistencia Cívica, National Civic Resistance Committee. Orlando gathered signatures for the Varela Project, a citizen initiative to amend the Cuban constitution using legal means with the aim of bringing Cuba in line with international human rights standards.

 

Amnesty International had documented how Orlando had been arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November of 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were arrested and later released. He was also arrested on December 6, 2002 along with fellow prisoners of conscience Oscar Elías Biscet and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo.  

 
Dr. Biscet just released from prison a month earlier had sought to form a grassroots project for the promotion of human rights generally and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more specifically, called "Friends of Human Rights." State security prevented them from entering the home of Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata Tamayo,Virgilio Marante Güelmes 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 then arrested and taken to the Tenth Unit of the National Revolutionary Police, Décima Unidad de La Policía Nacional Revolucionaria (PNR)

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was released three months later on March 8, 2003, but Oscar Elias Biscet, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo remained imprisoned. On the morning of March 20, 2003 whilst taking part in a fast at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and the other political prisoners. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters.

He was moved around different prisons, including Quivicán Prison, Guanajay Prison, and Combinado del Este Prison in Havana. According to Amnesty International on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations. Orlando managed to smuggle a letter out following another brutal beating that was published in April of 2004:

"My dear brothers in the internal opposition in Cuba. I have many things to say to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink, because I hope to go to you one day when our country is free without the Castro dictatorship. Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]."*

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 continue his rebelliousness and his non-violent resistance posture while in prison and suffer numerous beatings and new charges of disobedience and disrespect leading to decades added to his prison sentence in eight additional trials. 

 

Protests for Orlando Zapata Tamayo continue
Twelve years have passed but the martyred Cuban human rights defender is not forgotten. From the beginning the regime sought to put down and silence protests and acts of remembrance for him, but failed. 

In March of 2010 at the second Geneva Summit for Human Rights former prisoner of conscience Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo testified to what had happened to Orlando Zapata. 

In Norway, regime agents became violent and created international controversy after a Cuban diplomat bit a young Norwegian-Cuban woman for trying to record her mom engaged in a protest remembering Orlando Zapata Tamayo in front of the Cuban Embassy in Oslo in May of 2010.

On September 30, 2010 the Canadian punk rock band I.H.A.D. released a song linking what happened to Orlando Zapata Tamayo to the indifference of Canadian tourists visiting Cuba asking the question: Where were you the day Orlando Zapata died? On May 10, 2012 the Free Cuba Foundation published a video accompanying the song, after receiving the band's permission, with images and song lyrics. 

Rosa María Payá Acevedo remembers Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2016.

On February 23, 2016 at the 8th edition of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy Rosa María Payá gave the last presentation in which she remembered and honored the memory of Orlando Zapata Tamayo on the sixth anniversary of his passing.  

On 2/19/2018 twenty activists remember Orlando Zapata Tamayo

Four days prior to marking eight years to the day that Orlando Zapata died, activists inside Cuba took to protest in the streets with banners remembering the  martyred human rights activist. The Castro regime continues to do all it can to eliminate the memory of this humble and good man, but the dictatorship has failed.

On May 21, 2021 Cuban feminist Ileana Fuentes in an essay published in Cubanet titled "Let it be known: Black Lives Do Not Matter in Cuba" brought together the cases of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo y Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara (Fotos: Internet)

Tomorrow, we will once again honor and remember the brick layer and human rights defender by writing about him, organizing a vigil and protest outside the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC, and continuing his work for human rights in Cuba, and signing petitions demanding the freedom of hundreds of Cuban political prisoners today inside the Castro regime's prisons, and that the International Committee of the Red Cross be granted access to all the jails in Cuba. 

Following his example, and Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we will also join in the demand to recognize and advocate for Anamely Ramos's right to return home to Cuba.

The legacy of Orlando Zapata Tamayo continues in the nonviolent resistance to injustice inside and outside of Cuba's prisons, and in mid-July 2021 the dictatorship was surprised to learn that there are tens of thousands continuing his legacy of defending human rights, and calling for an end to the dictatorship.

Special Mass for Orlando Zapata Tamayo at Our Lady of Charity on February 23, 2020

*Source: "Queridos hermanos míos de la oposición interna de Cuba", escribió Zapata en su misiva, "tengo muchas cosas que decirles, pero no he querido hacerlo por papel y tinta, pues espero ir a ustedes un día cuando nuestra patria sea libre y sin dictadura castrista. Vivan los derechos humanos, con mi sangre les escribí, para que la guarden como parte del salvajismo de que somos víctima el presidio político Pedro Luis Boitel". - "Golpiza y celda tapiada para Orlando Zapata"  La Habana, 22 de abril 2004 (María López, Lux Info Press / www.cubanet.org )

Fact Sheet on February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shoot down

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”― John Adams, Boston Massacre trial (1770)

February 24, 1996 shoot down was an act of state terrorism that blew two civilian aircraft out of the sky with air to air missiles while in international airspace after regime planned the act months beforehand with its espionage network in the United States.
 
 FACT 1: By definition: Terrorism is the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear)
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=terrorism  


FACT 2: Cuba is responsible for violating the right to life (Article I of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) to the detriment of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre, who died as a result of the direct actions of its agents on the afternoon of 24 February 1996 while flying through international airspace.

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights September 29, 1999 Report on the Merits http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/99eng/Merits/Cuba11.589.htm

FACT 3: Cuba is responsible for violating the right to a fair trial (Article XVIII of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) to the detriment of the relatives of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre, in that to date the Cuban authorities have not conducted an exhaustive investigation with a view toward prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators and have not indemnified those same relatives for the damage they suffered as a result of those illicit acts.

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights September 29, 1999 Report on the Merits http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/99eng/Merits/Cuba11.589.htm

FACT 4: In Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba, 996 F.Supp. 1239 (S.D.Fla. 1997), a federal district court awarded the families of three of the four occupants of the “ Brothers to the Rescue” planes shot down by Cuba in 1996 a total of $187.7 million in damages against Cuba.

Lawsuits Against State Supporters of Terrorism: An Overview by Jennifer K. Elsea  
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RS22094.pdf

FACT 5: WASP spy network was involved. One of the “illegal officers” (Gerardo Hernandez) was convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder based on his role in the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft in international airspace by Cuban Air Force jet fighters, which resulted in the deaths of four people, three of them U.S. citizens.

Department of Justice on Obama Commutations
http://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-commutations#dec152014

FACT 6: Brothers to the Rescue had spotted and saved thousands of rafters in the Florida Straits and was engaged in such a mission on that day. The one plane that skirted the boundary briefly was the only one to return. The other two were shotdown miles away from Cuba’s boundary having never entered or touched it on that day and the planes had been in contact with the Cuban tower throughout the flight.

ICAO Resolution on February 24 shootdown 
http://www.icao.int/icao/en/nr/1996/pio199606_e.pdf

FACT 7: On July 26, 1996 the United Nations Security Council: "Noting that the unlawful downing of two civil aircraft on 24 February by the Cuban Air Force violated the principle that States must refrain from using weapons against airborne civil aircraft, the Security Council this afternoon condemned such use as being incompatible with the rules of customary international law "

ICAO Resolution on February 24 shootdown 
http://www.icao.int/icao/en/nr/1996/pio199606_e.pdf

FACT 8: Ana Belen Montes, the US intelligence community's top analyst on Cuban affairs had throughout a sixteen-year career at the Defense Intelligence Agency sent the Cuba intelligence service sensitive and secret information and helped to shape US opinion on Cuba. Investigation against her was triggered by her odd behavior before and after the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. On September 21 2001 Ana Belen Montes was arrested and subsequently charged with Conspiracy to Commit Espionage for the government of Cuba. Montes eventually pleaded guilty to spying, and in October, 2002, she was sentenced to a 25-year prison term followed by 5 years of probation.

True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy http://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Inside-Investigation-Capture/dp/1591141001

FACT 9: On December 27, 2010 and again in a January 19, 2011 clarification the defense of Cuban spy-master Gerardo Hernandez acknowledged that "there was overwhelming evidence that the 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes occurred in international airspace, not Cuban territory."

The Miami Herald: Cuban spymaster now claims Brothers to the Rescue shooting was outside Cuban airspace by Jay Weaver December 27, 2010  https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2010-12-27-fl-cuba-spy-20101227-story.html

FACT 10: On December 17, 2014 President Barack Obama commuted Gerardo Hernandez’s two life sentences and returned him along with two other spies jailed for crimes in the United States to Cuba where they were received with a hero’s welcome in what is an immense propaganda victory for the Castro regime.

Department of Justice on Obama Commutations
http://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-commutations#dec152014  

 

Fact Sheet on Orlando Zapata Tamayo

"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*

 

 Orlando Zapata Tamayo tortured and killed by prison officials on February 23, 2010

Fact #1 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was murdered by Cuban government officials 

Both Abel Lopez Perez and Reina Luisa Tamayo charge that Cuban prison officials denied Orlando Zapata Tamayo water in an effort to break his spirit. Reina Luisa Tamayo in an interview with Yoani Sanchez, hours after her son’s death denounced that officials had denied him water.[1] Abel Lopez corroborates the charge stating: “Before Zapata was checked into the hospital, he was regularly taking some vitamins. He was in a weak state of health. A military chief known as ‘Gordo’, who was the one responsible for ordering all of Zapata’s things to be taken out of the cell and to stop giving him water, also took his bottle of vitamins and poured all the pills down a drain. He told him, ‘Those who are in protest here don’t drink vitamins. I think those are pills sent to you by the Yankees so you can continue your hunger strike.’ Those were the exact words said to him, I verified them. His vitamins were taken away, as were any other medications. And they stopped giving him water for a while.”[2] This type of practice was also documented in the 1966 death of another Cuban hunger striker, Roberto López Chávez.[3], [4] Denying water to a man on water only hunger strike is cruel and inhuman treatment that contributed to his death.


Fact #2 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was recognized as an Amnesty International (AI) prisoner of conscience on January 29, 2004 a designation given only to nonviolent activists after careful examination.[5] On January 29, 2004 Amnesty International outlined Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s past arrests:

“He has been arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were reportedly arrested and later released. He was also arrested on 6 December 2002 along with Oscar Elías Biscet[6], but was released on 8 March 2003. Most recently, he was arrested on the morning of 20 March 2003 whilst taking part in a hunger strike at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and other political prisoners.”[7]

Orlando Zapata Tamayo appeared photographed in the Cuban government’s own publication Los Disidentes, in photos prior to his 2003 arrest and was then recognized by Cuban officials as a dissident. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo carried a photo the day after the Cuban regime announced the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo with prominent Cuban dissidents.[8]


Fact #3 Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s hunger strike was an act of non-violent self-defense

Orlando Zapata Tamayo had been beaten and tortured on more than one occasion by prison guards and state security along with other prisoners. His body was scarred and his health in decline. For example Amnesty International reported that, on "October 20, 2003 [Orlando Zapata] was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations."[9] Cuban political prisoner Abel Lopez Perez transferred to the same prison in Camaguey as Orlando Zapata Tamayo on December 3, 2009 briefly saw him and heard from other prisoners “that a few days before being taken away, Zapata stood up and shouted, ‘People, don’t let yourselves be lied to. Don’t believe anything that they tell you. I’m not demanding a kitchen or any of the things they took away from me. I’m demanding an improvement of treatment for all prisoners, and so you all know, I am going to die for it.’”[10] The case of Ariel Sigler Amaya, another Cuban prisoner of conscience, is instructive. He had to threaten a hunger strike, although already emaciated and crippled, to obtain medical treatment to save his life.[11] The hunger strike was not an act of suicide but rather a tactic of self defense within the arsenal of nonviolent options.

Fact #4 Between 1966 and 2010 at least six Cuban political prisoners died while on hunger strike: Roberto López Chávez , Carmelo Cuadra Hernández , Pedro Luis Boitel, Olegario Charlot Pileta, Enrique García Cuevas and Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Roberto López Chávez, 25 years old, died on December 11, 1966 in Isla de Pinos prison on hunger strike without medical assistance.[12] Armando Valladares, in his prison memoir, Against All Hope described the circumstances surrounding his death: “When Roberto López Chávez, went on a hunger strike to protest the abuses in the prison, the guards withheld water from him until he became delirious, twisting on the floor and begging for something to drink. The guards then urinated in his mouth. He died the next day.”[13], [14]

Carmelo Cuadra Hernández, died in La Cabaña prison in April of 1969 on hunger strike, after suffering mistreatment and torture over eight and a half months, without receiving medical care and was the third political prisoner that has died on a hunger strike.[15], [16]

Pedro Luis Boitel died on hunger strike on May 25, 1972.[17],[18]

Olegario Charlot Pileta, died in the famous "Escaleras" (staircase) of the Boniato prison, in of January 1973 during a hunger strike, without medical assistance and is described in documents as a “black youth.” [19],[20]

Enrique García Cuevas died on a hunger strike, without receiving medical care, in cell No. 4 of the new Provincial Jail of Santa Clara, on June 24, 1973.[21]

Two of the four outlined above died on hunger strikes after Pedro Luis Boitel and there are partial estimates that place the number identified to have died while on hunger strike at twelve including both Boitel and Zapata. Since the death of Pedro Luis Boitel there are partial lists identifying six political prisoners dead on hunger strikes between May 25, 1972 and February 23, 2010.[22]


Sources:

1. Sanchez, Yoani “Orlando Zapata Tamayo's Mother Speaks After Her Son's Death” The Huffington Post February 24, 2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/orlando-zapata-tamayos-mo_b_475006.html

2. Felipe Rojas, Luis “Abel Remembers the Last Days of Zapata in a Prison of Camaguey” Crossing the Barbed Wire November 24, 2010 http://cruzarlasalambradaseng.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/abel-remembers-the-last-days-of-zapata-in-a-prison-of-camaguey/

3. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from (1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379

4. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48

5. Amnesty International “CUBA Newly declared prisoners of conscience” January 29, 2004  
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR25/002/2004/en/

6. Quintero, Tania “CUBA | Llorando a un amigo ¡Así te voy a recordar, Orlando!” El Mundo February 24, 2010 http://www.elmundo.es/america/2010/02/24/cuba/1267020583.html

7. Amnesty International “CUBA Newly declared prisoners of conscience” January 29, 2004 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR25/002/2004/en/

8. Felipe Rojas, Luis “Abel Remembers the Last Days of Zapata in a Prison of Camaguey” Crossing the Barbed Wire November 24, 2010 http://cruzarlasalambradaseng.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/abel-remembers-the-last-days-of-zapata-in-a-prison-of-camaguey/

9. Rodriguez, Eliott “Paralyzed Former Cuban Prisoner Arrives In Miami” CBS4 July 28, 2010

10. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “Annual Report 1975: 1805 Cuba” http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/75eng/Cuba1805.htm

11. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from (1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379

12. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48

13. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA (1976) http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba76eng/chap.1.htm

14. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights SEGUNDO INFORME SOBRE LA SITUACIÓN DE LOS PRESOS POLÍTICOS Y SUS FAMILIAS EN CUBA May 7, 1970 http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Cuba70sp/cap.1b.htm

15. Amnesty International “CUBA Newly declared prisoners of conscience” January 29, 2004 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR25/002/2004/en/

16. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “Annual Report 1975: 1805 Cuba” http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/75eng/Cuba1805.htm

17. Tamayo, Juan O. “Jailed Cuban activist Orlando Zapata Tamayo dies on hunger strike” The Miami Herald February 23, 2010 https://newcentrist.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/jailed-cuban-activist-orlando-zapata-tamayo-dies-on-hunger-strike/

18. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 6TH REPORT ON THE SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA: CHAPTER III: AN ANALYSIS OF CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL CASES SUBMITTED TO THE IACHR 14 December 1979 http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba79eng/chap.3.htm

19. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights CHAPTER I SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA (1976) http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba76eng/chap.1.htm

20. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “Annual Report 1975: 1805 Cuba” http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/75eng/Cuba1805.htm

21. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights CHAPTER I SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA (1976) http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba76eng/chap.1.htm

22. Corzo, Pedro “El calvario de las prisiones cubanas” El Nuevo Herald March 13, 2010 https://democraciaparticipativa.net/foro/iberoamerica-y-espana-latin-america-spain/3038-el-calvario-de-las-prisiones-cubanas