"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)
"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
On June 12, 2023 the IACHR published their report on the merits that found Cuban government agents responsible for the deaths of the two pro-democracy leaders and Christian Liberation Movement leaders
Twenty two 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.
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.
On February 24, 1996, at 3:21 and 3:27 PM, heat-seeking air-to-air
missiles fired from a MiG-29 UB piloted by Lorenzo Alberto Peréz Peréz
that destroyed the two planes the men were onboard, and killed
Mario de la Peña, age 24; Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, both 30, and
Armando Alejandre Jr., 45. 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 murdered these four men.
Cuban spies
learned the flight schedules and were instructed not to fly on February
24 and, if they had to, to alert the MiGs with a motion while in flight
to save them from suffering the same fate as the other planes.
Twenty eight years later, and we are just learning that Ambassador Manuel Roche, a high level spy for Havana, who in 1996 was the principal deputy of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, and may have played a role in assisting the Cuban dictatorship minimize its accountability in this act of terrorism it committed against U.S. civilians in international airspace.
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 report on the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.
Over
the past 28 years friends, and family have continued to demand truth,
respect memory and demand justice through protests, petitions, and law suits.
Family members held a silent vigil for their loved ones on February 23rd, gathering at 3:15 pm at Florida International University, with the vigil starting at 3:21pm and ending at 3:27pm. On February 22nd a vigil was held in Washington DC outside of the Embassy of Cuba.
Today at 10:30am at Opa-locka airport, where Brothers to the Rescue had their hangar, Jose Basulto, and other survivors of the February 24, 1996 shoot down will gather together to hold a vigil.
"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 64 years suffering cruel treatment at
the hands of communist prison officials in the Castro dictatorship.
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 was killed on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike, during which prison guards repeatedly refused him water over 18 days causing his kidneys to fail. He is a martyr of Cuban communism.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas with photocopy image of Orlando Zapata Tamayo
Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was murdered by agents of the Cuban dictatorship 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."
A brief biography of Orlando Zapata Tamayo
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]."*
Even though it
has been fourteen years, the martyred Cuban human rights defender is
still remembered. The dictatorship tried from the start to put down and
stifle protests and acts of remembrance for him, but they were
unsuccessful. Last night in Washington DC outside of the Cuban Embassy activists gathered to demand justice for Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and others martyred by the communist dictatorship in Cuba.
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.
Cuban Historical Political Prison and the United Exile Now on Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 2:00pm at the headquarters of Cuban Historical Political Prison located on 140 SW 13th Avenue in Miami, Florida will pay homage to Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
“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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 "
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.
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."
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.
FACT 11: Netflix
settled a defamation lawsuit in brought by Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue, who accused the streamer of falsely portraying him as a
terrorist and drug trafficker in Olivier Assayas’ political spy thriller
Wasp Network.
"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 waz 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 2021 at least nine Cuban political prisoners
died while on hunger strike: Roberto López Chávez , Carmelo Cuadra
Hernández , Pedro Luis Boitel, Olegario Charlot Pileta, Enrique García
Cuevas, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Wilman Villar Mendoza, and Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros.
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]
Cuban dissident Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros died on August 7, 2020 in Cuba while in police custody following
a 40 day hunger strike. He had been jailed on false charges in the Kilo
8 prison of Camagüey. His body was quickly cremated by the
dictatorship. [25]
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
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
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
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