Demanding freedom for artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez on International Artist Day

 

International Artist Day was launched 19 years ago in 2004 "to honor the contribution artists make to society."

Amnesty International chose to spotlight the situation of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez, two Cuban prisoners of conscience who are also artists, this year.  The posts were made in Spanish and French.

 Here is the English translation of their post demanding freedom.

#Cuba: We demand freedom for artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez, also known as “Maykel Osorbo”, prisoners of conscience of the government of Miguel Diaz-Canel. Raise your voice for a Cuba without repression and without censorship. #FreeArtists #InternationalArtistsDay

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested when he tried to go out and join nonviolent protesters on July 11, 2021. On July 10, 2023 in the Miami Herald, a letter of his was published as an opinion piece titled 'Cuba’s Authorities Have Stolen My Youth Just For Speaking My Mind’ in which he describes the prison conditions he is enduring.

"I’m imprisoned in Guanajay, a maximum-security penitentiary southwest of Havana. Many of my fellow prisoners are serving life sentences for murder. The authorities have separated me from other political prisoners. I share a cell with three others. I’m allowed to talk to other inmates in the hallway, but I’m only taken out to the yard when other prisoners are gone. I should be allowed to spend an hour outside every day, but I’m only let out occasionally at the whim of the guards.  I’ve lost weight because of the scarcity of food and poor quality of meals. I’m often afraid to eat because the food looks rotten. After I was sentenced in June 2022, the rules for visiting me changed. Now my family can only visit me once a month, instead of twice. No one else is allowed. Even my beloved uncle is banned because of his involvement in activism."

Following bios were taken from Amnesty International, and adapted to the present day.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is an artist and member of the San Isidro Movement, a group that mobilized initially in opposition to a law which stands to censor artists. He was detained on 11 July around 3pm in Havana, after posting a video saying he would join the protests. It is believed he is being held at Guanajay prison, but the charges against him are unclear. Amnesty International has named him a prisoner of conscience on three prior occasions.   

Maykel Castillo Pérez,known by his stage name Maykel Osorbo, is a Cuban musician and human rights activist. He is one of the authors of “Patria y Vida”, a song critical of the Cuban government that has been adopted as a protest anthem. On 4 April 2021, Maykel was walking in Havana when police officers questioned him and attempted to arrest him but desisted in the face of complaints from other passersby who considered the action unjust. On May 18, 2021, security agents arrived at his home and arrested him. He was held at the Pinar del Río Provincial Prison under charges of “assault”, “resistance”, “evasion of prisoners and detainees” and “public disorder.”

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez were sentenced to five and nine years in prison respectively by the Castro regime on June 24, 2022. They are currently serving out their unjust prison sentences.

Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara 

Observing Black History Month in Cuba

Gelet Martinez Fragela and Norges Rodriguez in The Washington Times today published an OpEd titled "Celebrating Black History Month with Cuba’s racist oppressors disgraceful" that condemns  the U.S. Embassy in Havana disrespecting the people of Cuba "by celebrating Black History Month with the Cuban Ministry of Culture and Cuban Institute of Music, two communist regime agencies responsible for targeting and censoring Black artists and dissidents."

The U.S. Embassy's invitation was tone deaf, and the date selected to announce it, February 23rd, problematic. 

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a human rights activist and black Cuban prisoner of conscience was subjected to systematic physical and psychological torture between 2003 and 2010. Denied water by prison officials during a hunger strike, contributed to his death. Following his killing on February 23, 2010, Orlando was subjected to a campaign of vilification by Cuba's Communist authorities. 

Today, the plight of political prisoners such as Virgilio Mantilla Arango, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo Pérez (Osorbo), and their health status raise great concerns in the international human rights community. It is also no coincidence that all are black Cubans. 

We are deeply concerned with the plight of political prisoners such as Virgilio Mantilla Arango, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo Pérez (Osorbo), and their health status. It is also no coincidence that all are black Cubans. https://t.co/64fdPROhgh 9/ pic.twitter.com/BjwEUksNlX

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) November 21, 2021

These and other cases raise questions on the racist nature of the Castro regime.

In his book Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba, Mark Q. Sawyer, a professor of African American Studies at UCLA, describes encounters with members of the Ministry of Interior that reveal the paradox of revolutionary racism. Since Fidel Castro ended systemic racism and capitalism in Cuba, so these government officials claim - any difference in outcomes between black and white Cubans - according to them - is due to "black deficiency."

Based on the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, according to the January 13, 2020 article by EuropaPress, Cuba today has the largest per capita prison population in the world. Although official data is unavailable, it is known that a disproportionate number are Black Cubans.

On March 22, 1959 Fidel Castro declared that racism no longer existed in Cuba, to question that was to be a counter-revolutionary. The regime claimed over the next six decades that there is no racism in Cuba while poverty disproportionately impacts black Cubans with 95% having the lowest incomes compared to 58% of white Cubans, after six decades of communism, and independent black voices continue to be silenced. 

Decades imprisoned for defying Castro regime

 

Eusebio Peñalver opposed the Batista regime and fought with the rebel army to restore Cuba's constitutional democracy."But when Castro hijacked the revolution for himself, Peñalver broke ranks rather than 'sell my soul to the same devil that here on earth is Castro and communism,’”wrote Mary O'Grady in 2013 and quoted him. He took up arms against Castro's military in the Escambray Mountains, he was captured in October 1960. He spent 28 years in Cuban prisons and was banished from the island upon his release in 1988. "From exile in Los Angeles he wrote about the 'naked brutality' and round-the-clock beating and harassment that he had endured: 'They made the men eat grass, they submerged them in sewage, they beat them hard with bayonets and they hit them with fence posts until their bones rattled.’" Eusebio passed away in 2006 still banished from Cuba. 

Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" served 17 years and 38 days in prison for calling for democratic reforms in a public space in Cuba in 1990. 

In August 1999 Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet was beaten and burned with a cigarette when police detained him at a provincial station in Matanzas. In November 1999 he was imprisoned for three years after holding a press conference where he was accused of displaying the Cuban flag upside down.  

Oscar was freed for 36 days on October 31, 2002 after serving a three year sentence and then arbitrarily imprisoned again on December 6, 2002, only to be subjected during the 2003 Black Spring crackdown, to a show trial and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Oscar Elías was released on March 11, 2011 after a total of more than 12 years in prison.On both occasions he was considered a prisoner of conscience.

Died or executed by Castro regime

Three black men executed by firing squad for trying to leave Cuba

 

Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, were shot by firing squad following a speedy "trial" on April 11, 2003 for trying to leave Cuba. On April 2, 2003 eleven Cubans hijacked a ferry traveling to Regla from Havana with 40 people on board with the intention of traveling to the United States of America but ran out of fuel 28 miles off the Cuban coast and were towed back to the island. Despite verbal threats made against the safety of the passengers to maintain control of the vessel, the situation, according to the authorities, ended without violence and that “all of those who had been on board were rescued and saved without so much as a shot or a scratch.” They were captured, tried and executed in nine days. 

Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano

On June 24, 2020 in Guanabacoa, Cuba 27 year old unarmed black Cuban, Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano was shot in the back and killed by the police. The official version claims that he was stealing pieces and accessories from a bus stop when he was spotted by two Revolutionary National Police (PNR in Spanish). Upon seeing the police Hansel ran away and the officers pursued him nearly two kilometers. PNR claimed that during the pursuit Hansel threw rocks at the officers. Police fired two warning shots and a third in his back killing him. Hansel's body was quickly cremated.

This prevented an independent autopsy to verify official claims, or a proper funeral. When activists attempted to organize to protest the death of Hansel, secret police preemptively shut them down surrounding homes, and detaining scores of activists. The Castro regime launched a Heroes of the Blue ( #HeroesDeAzul ) campaign at the national level and social media in Cuba to portray their police positively to counter negative feelings after the killing. 

Yosvany Arostegui died on hunger strike on August 7, 2020

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. 

Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, (age 36) was shot in the back by regime officials on July 12, 2021 during nationwide protests in Cuba. Video emerged on July 15th of the aftermath of Diubis being shot and killed and posted over Twitter. 

 

Christian Díaz, age 24, disappeared after joining the protests. Relatives on July 12 reported him missing to the PNR in Cárdenas. Police told his father that Christian was jailed in Matanzas. On Aug. 5, officials informed his family he’d drowned in the sea and was buried in a mass grave. His family is convinced he was beaten to death.

Pablo Moya Delá died on August 26, 2021 at the Clinical Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba. He was jailed on October 23, 2020 for protesting socioeconomic conditions and overall repression. He was beaten, mistreated for months, weakened following a hunger strike and after destroying his health released on probation earlier this month near death. His plight had drawn international attention.

Pablo Moya Delá: Before Oct 23, 2020 jailing and after being "probation" Aug 2021.

The Castro regime has sought to create a negative narrative of the Cuban Republic on all fronts, including race, but as in other matters, the record of the regime is worse than what preceded it.

The Spanish Congress of Deputies on January 19, 1880 voted to abolish slavery in Cuba. The last vestiges of slavery ended in Cuba by royal decree on October 7, 1886. Juan Gualberto Gómez Ferrer, a free Cuban black, and leader of the independence struggle defended the rights of Black Cubans for his entire career.  

Cuban statesman and founder of Directory of Colored Societies

Between 1886 and 1892 in Cuba, free black people were able to organize into a network of societies formally founded by Gómez Ferrer in 1892 in the “Directory of Colored Societies” to press for black social, economic and political advancement in Cuba. Gómez Ferrer represented Havana in the Cuban House of Representatives (1914–1917) and Senate (1917–1925). The Central Directory of Societies of Color would spend the next seventy six years pushing for Black advancement in Cuba. 

The Spanish Congress of Deputies on January 19, 1880 voted to abolish slavery in Cuba. The last vestiges of slavery ended in Cuba by royal decree on October 7, 1886. Juan Gualberto Gómez Ferrer, a free Cuban black, and leader of the independence struggle defended the rights of Black Cubans for his entire career. 

Between 1886 and 1892 in Cuba, free black people were able to organize into a network of societies formally founded by Gómez Ferrer in 1892 in the “Directory of Colored Societies” to press for black social, economic and political advancement in Cuba. Gómez Ferrer represented Havana in the Cuban House of Representatives (1914–1917) and Senate (1917–1925). The Central Directory of Societies of Color would spend the next seventy five years pushing for Black advancement in Cuba. 

L to R: Gobardo Pérez Oliva, Marta Sarduy Vargas; Conrado Pérez Oliva, Antonia Armenteros at Bella Unión Society, Santa Clara, Las Villas.

Cuba during the later colonial period, and during the Republic wrestled with the legacy of slavery, and racism, but it was part of the public discussion – with its high and low points. Ugly periods in the early Cuban Republic, such as the 1912 race war, and private discrimination persisted, but so did black agency to advocate for each other.

Political leaders had to answer to these black societies, and provide patronage to them, and in a vibrant free press, and in publishing houses debates on race, and racism, and the need for redress took place. 

Some of the more prominent clubs that are still remembered are the Sociedad Buena Vista ( Buena Vista Social Club), Amantes del Progreso, Unión Fraternal, Progreso, Nueva Era, and El Club Atenas. 

The Central Directory of Societies of Color succeeded in lobbying for the 1940 Constitution to address racism in Articles 10, 20, 74, and 102, and in labor legislation to provide greater inclusion for black Cubans over the next 20 years. 

All of this came crashing down with Castro’s communist revolution. Cuban black nationalist Juan René Betancourt in his essay "Castro and the Cuban Negro" published in the NAACP publication The Crisis in 1961.

“Of the 256 Negro societies in Cuba, many have had to close their doors and others are in death agony. One can truthfully say, and this is without the slightest exaggeration, that the Negro movement in Cuba died at the hands of Sr. Fidel Castro.” … “Yet this is the man who had the cynical impudence to visit the United States in 1960 for the purpose of censuring American racial discrimination. Although this evil obviously exists in the United States, Castro is not precisely the man to offer America solutions, nor even to pass judgement.”

Between 1898 and 1959 the relationship between Black-Americans and Black-Cubans was based on their being part of an international black diaspora. This relationship ended when the Castro regime ended autonomous black civil society in 1962, and consolidated totalitarian rule.

Juan René Betancourt: Forced into exile

Castro and his white revolutionary elite replaced it by allying with Black elites in the United States, Africa, and condemning American racism. For 64 years, black agency in Cuba was put to an end. Instead, a policy based on deference, submission, and appreciation to the white revolutionary leadership was implemented, and this was represented in state propaganda using racist tropes. 

Castro regime's publication Verde Olivo 1, no. 29 (October 1, 1960)

The elimination of Afro-Cubans from this dynamic by the new communist revolutionary elite turned racism into a political tool outside of Cuba to advance the Castro regime's communist agenda, but turned it into a taboo topic by "ungrateful" blacks, labeled counter-revolutionaries by the dictatorship.

Cuban blacks today that would have been political leaders in the 1940s and 1950s are dissidents persecuted, hunted and killed by the secret police.

Call to action for a Christmas without political prisoners in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua

Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering."- Hebrews 13:3

Enjoying the holidays with family and friends? Getting ready for the New Year's celebrations? Please take a moment from the festivities and think of those locked up and mistreated for exercising their fundamental human rights.  

#SOSVenezuela #SOSNicaragua #SOSCuba

Navidad sin presos políticos en #Cuba, #Venezuela y #Nicaragua.#NavidadSinPresosPolíticosEnCubaVenezuelaYNicaragua.
Volantes en las calles de Montevideo, #Uruguay.
Hacé los tuyos y repartí. pic.twitter.com/6yXUvcVUIw

— Profesor Antonio Romero Piriz, Orejano Oriental. (@NOABOLCHES) December 15, 2022

Partial lists provided by internal human rights groups indicate that there are at least 1,034 political prisoners in Cuba, 235 political prisoners in Nicaragua, and 274 political prisoners in Venezuela spending the holiday season behind bars. At a minimum 1,543 fellow humans are arbitrarily detained and being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for matters of conscience.

This has been going on in the Americas for over sixty years, and for too long it has been normalized.

Let us show our solidarity with those who are unjustly imprisoned on account of their political convictions. The late Vaclav Havel, interviewed by Amnesty International in 2011, understood the need for persons of goodwill to take action. "It's up to all of us to try, and those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses."

Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed.

These are three cases, one for Venezuela, one for Cuba and one for Nicaragua.  

Venezuela

"Javier Tarazona, Director of local NGO FundaREDES, was arbitrarily detained on July 2, 2021 after attempting to report harassment from security officers at the Attorney General’s Office in the city of Coro (Western Venezuela), and charged with inciting hatred, treason and “terrorism”. His pre-trial hearing took place on December 16, 2021, after more than five months of delays. Javier Tarazona is a prisoner of conscience, having been arbitrarily detained for his human rights work. Tarazona’s health has seriously deteriorated due to lack of medical treatment."  Source: Amnesty International. He remains imprisoned, and his family and colleagues continue to campaign for his release.

Cuba

"Maykel Castillo Pérez, more commonly known by his artistic name: 'Maykel Osorbo,' is a Cuban musician and member of the San Isidro Movement. He is also one of the co-authors of the son “Patria y Vida”, that has become a protest anthem for its critical view of the Cuban government. The musician has been subjected to constant harassment by authorities and has been arbitrarily detained on many occasions. On 18 May 2021, state security agents detained the musician at his home, and for the 10 days following his arrest, refused to provide information on his whereabouts to family and loved ones. On 19 August 2021, Amnesty International named Castillo Pérez a prisoner of conscience, along with other Cubans detained in the context of the protests of 11 July 2021. 

On 24 March 2022, the organization issued a press release calling authorities to allow it and other human rights observers access to the country to monitor the trials. On 26 May 2022, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Castillo Pérez, ahead of the start of his trial. Cuba remains the only country in the Americas that does not permit Amnesty International to visit to carry out human rights monitoring work." Source: Amnesty International He was condemned to nine years in prison six months ago on June 24, 2022, and remains in poor health.

Nicaragua

 

"Three weeks after his arrest by the regime of President Daniel Ortega made international headlines, one of Nicaragua’s most renowned intellectuals, Oscar René Vargas, has been indicted by the government with “conspiracy to undermine national integrity” and other trumped-up charges. Vargas is the latest high-profile prisoner of conscience in Nicaragua. He is being held at the notorious El Chipote prison outside of Managua, where he joins some 200 other political prisoners."

"The 77-year-old Vargas had been living in exile in Costa Rica since 2018, where he was forced to flee after the regime issued an arrest warrant because he had criticized the government's repression of mass protests that year. After learning that his sister had become seriously infirm, Vargas returned to Nicaragua on November 22. Within minutes of arriving at his sister’s house in the Bolonia neighborhood of Managua, several dozen police and state security agents raided the house, bursting in with machine guns and dragging him away. For the next 48 hours, the regime forcibly concealed Vargas until petitions by the family and the Center for Human Rights in Nicaragua (CENIDH), and international pressure forced the government to acknowledge his arrest."

Vargas, considered the dean of Nicaraguan sociology, is one of the most prominent and well-respected academic voices in the opposition. He is the author of 56 books and over 1,000 articles on Nicaragua, Latin America, and world affairs. Vargas began his political life in the 1960s, participating in the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship. In 1967 he hid Daniel Ortega from Somoza’s state security, thus saving his life. He participated throughout the 1970s in the struggle against the dictatorship, and from 1979-1990 he served as an advisor to the nine-member National Directorate, the highest decision-making body of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)." Source: NACLA 

Please join us in speaking up for these and other political prisoners. Please remember the words of the great Czech dissident Václav Havel who explained back in 1990 that "[t]he salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility."

It begins with you. Will you do your part?

1. Please  ask your pastor, rabbi, or priest to pray for the freedom of political prisoners during their religious services during this holiday season.

2. Please write letters to religious leaders in your community to request that the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua free their political prisoners.

3. Please use the following hashtags to spread this message.

#LiberenLosYa
#FreeThemNow
#FreedomForPoliticalPrisoners
#LibertadParaLosPresosPoliticos
#CubaNicaraguaVenezuela
#NavidadSinPresosPolíticosEnCubaVenezuelaYNicaragua. #ChristmasWithoutPoliticalPrisonersInCubaVenezuelaAndNicaragua  

4. Please sign the petition to expel the Castro regime from the UN Human Rights Council.
 

With all due respect, Cuban leaders in Cuba and Miami have been sitting down to talk for decades and have made great progress.

National dialogues in Cuba

Cuba's democratic nonviolent opposition has repeatedly engaged in dialogues, including national dialogues, in order to mobilize and coordinate Cubans to reflect on our homeland’s future. 

Gustavo Arcos Bergnes and Sebastian Arcos Bergnes called for dialogue in 1990.

In 1990, against the protests of many Cuban exiles, Gustavo Arcos issued a statement to Castro asking him to convene a "National Dialogue," which would include all segments of Cuban society, on the island and in exile. During his address to the Worker's Congress on January 28, 1990, Castro issued his response noting that "the Cuban people" will take care of those activists. On March 5, 1990, government sponsored mobs attacked Sebastian Arcos's home. On March 8, another mob, led by future Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina, attacked Gustavo's home.

Oswaldo Payá throughout his life called for unity and dialogue between all Cubans, in and outside the country. His National Dialogue program and All Cubans Forum in 2005- 2006, involved over 15,000 thousand Cubans both inside and outside of Cuba in discussions on a proposal for a nonviolent change towards democracy. I proudly participated in this dialogue that sought a transition from the existing laws of the dictatorship to the rule of law in a restored democratic order. Payá near the end of his life called for a referendum on basic human rights. He was murdered, together with his movement's youth leader, on July 22, 2012.

Oswaldo Payá shows tentative program for a national dialogue in Havana on Feb 17, 2005.

In November 2020, the San Isidro Movement, a movement of artists founded in 2018 to protest Decree 349 that increased censorship in the arts in Cuba, engaged in a series of escalating nonviolent protests, demanding the release of their colleague Denis Solís González unjustly jailed on November 9, 2020, and in response to increasing regime repression against them for protesting for his release. On November  26, 2020 the San Isidro Movement's headquarters was raided and artists protesting inside taken by the secret police.

Activists under siege at the Isidro Movement headquarters in Havana, Cuba

The Castro regime ended up with a much larger problem than 14 protesters in a small space in the San Isidro neighborhood in Havana. Young people, mostly artists and academics, began gathering throughout the day of November 27, 2020 outside the Ministry of Culture. 

Young Cubans gathered outside the Ministry of Culture on November 27, 2020

Their numbers continued growing into the evening demanding the Minister meet with protesters to negotiate terms for a dialogue.  Thirty representatives, elected by the hundreds gathered, went in and met with officials. 

They emerged with a commitment to dialogue and to consider the points raised by the protesters. Meanwhile the dictatorship sent truckloads of plainclothes security to surround the demonstrators, and to intimidate them. They also closed off the path to the Ministry of Culture, and began using tear gas and physical force to prevent others from continuing to join the protesters. Instead of following through with a dialogue to resolve the differences that had generated the protests the regime launched a media assault against the San Isidro Movement against the protesters.

Today, San Isidro Movement leaders Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez are prisoners of conscience serving five and nine year prison sentences in Cuba. Other members of the San Isidro Movement, such as Anamely Ramos González and Omara Ruiz Urquiola, were exiled by the Castro dictatorship and are not allowed to return home.

The Center for a Free Cuba in April 2021 hosted a conversation titled "The San Isidro Movement: Nonviolent Resistance, Power and Dialogue" with Professor Jorge Sanguinetty and Cuban artists Kizzy Macias and Eligio Perez Merino. It is available on YouTube in Spanish. It was moderated by Sebastian Arcos Cazabon.

Do not confuse the dictatorship with the Cuban people

On March 22, 2016, President Obama did the wave with dictator Raul Castro

The United States Institute of Peace published a Peace Brief on October 23, 2015 by Susan Stigant; and Elizabeth Murray titled "National Dialogues: A Tool for Conflict Transformation?" that highlights both the opportunities and risks in adopting this tool.

"National dialogue is an increasingly popular tool for conflict resolution and political transformation. It can broaden debate regarding a country’s trajectory beyond the usual elite decision makers; however, it can also be misused and manipulated by leaders to consolidate their power."

The Cuban dictatorship's Miguel Díaz-Canel claims that they "want to strengthen [their] relationships with the United States, regardless of ideological differences,” but this is not the main problem. The main problem is the abusive relationship between the Cuban dictatorship, and the Cuban people.

The Castro regime has not indicated a desire to dialogue with the Cuban people, but to dialogue with the United States. This is not the first time that has happened, and it is not a game changer, but a tactic to prolong the dictatorship. It has been successfully carried out before.

Lessons for Cuba from the experience in Romania

President Richard Nixon and President Jimmy Carter met with Ceasescu 

The United States made this mistake before in Eastern Europe with their "successful" embrace of the Nicolae Ceasescu regime in Romania.

Out of all the countries of Eastern Europe, the United States had the closest diplomatic relations with Romania. This was due to the Nixon administration seeking to exploit differences between Romania and the Soviet Union. Nicolae Ceasescu denounced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and continued diplomatic relations with Israel maintaining an independent foreign policy from the Soviet Union.

Richard Nixon visited Romania in August of 1969. In 1972 Romania became eligible for U.S. Export-Import Bank credits and in 1975 was accorded most favored nation status. In 1978 Nicolae Ceasescu and his wife visited Washington, DC on a state visit and was hosted by President Jimmy Carter who welcomed the dictator and described him in the following glowing terms:

"I've enjoyed being with him. He's a very good adviser. He's a man who in the past has suffered greatly, imprisoned, tortured, but because of his courage and because of his belief in the future of his own country, notable achievements have been brought to the people who have confidence in him. It's a great pleasure for me again to express my welcome to him to our country, and I would like to propose a toast to a great leader, President Ceausescu, and to the brave and friendly people of Romania. Mr. President, to you and your people."

Despite having the worse human rights record in Eastern Europe it was not until 1988 that to preempt congressional action, Ceausescu renounced MFN treatment, calling Jackson-Vanik and other human rights requirements unacceptable interference in Romanian sovereignty. Secretary of State Schultz had warned Ceausescu in 1985 to improve his human rights behavior or lose favorable trade status. The Heritage Foundation argued in 1985 that the previous twenty years of U.S. engagement with the regime in Romania had coincided with deteriorating human rights standards.

Ceasescu's regime was one of the nastier dictatorships of the East block. In addition to the typical accoutrements of a Stalinist regime this "American ally" managed to reach new lows. Imagine for a moment being born and placed in a cage as a newborn washed via a hose with cold water and never experiencing human touch.

10,000 Romanian babies infected with HIV through dirty needles.

Fed like animals and contracting HIV, hepatitis, and other diseases through dirty needles used to inject the children with vitamins. This was done by Ceausescu's communist regime in Romania. The regime decided it needed to increase its population and in 2013 Scientific American explained how this crime was systematically planned out and its aftermath in the article Tragedy Leads to Study of Severe Child Neglect.

Nicolae Ceausescu decreed in 1966 that Romania would develop its “human capital” via a government-enforced mandate to increase the country's population. Ceauşescu, Romania's leader from 1965 to 1989, banned contraception and abortions and imposed a “celibacy tax” on families that had fewer than five children. State doctors—the menstrual police—conducted gynecologic examinations in the workplace of women of childbearing age to see whether they were producing sufficient offspring. The birth rate initially skyrocketed. Yet because families were too poor to keep their children, they abandoned many of them to large state-run institutions.

 Hundreds of thousands of children were subjected to this. This was the country that US taxpayers subsidized with US Export-Import Bank credits. Romania under Ceausescu inspired Margaret Atwood to write The Handmaid's Tale.

Romania, the country with the closest diplomatic and economic relationship with the United States in Eastern Europe, saw the rule of  Nicolae Ceasescu end in a violent blood bath. The dictator and his wife executed in a show trial on Christmas day and scores of innocent Romanians shot by the state security services. More than a thousand people were killed. The communists in power under Ceasescu remained in power until 1996 in a system marked by continuity until democrats were able to wrest control from them nonviolently.  

Relations between the United States and Communist Romania were "great", but the relation with the Romanian people was horrid, and that defined how things would end - not U.S. - Romanian relations. Furthermore, the good relations between the perverse regime in Romania and the United States, is a stain upon the honor of America.

Lessons from Poland

Thankfully, Ronald Reagan took a different approach in Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe.

Ronald Reagan entered office on January 20, 1981 and on December 13, 1981 the communist regime in Poland had declared martial law and was cracking down on the Solidarity movement. 10,000 people were rounded up and about 100 died during martial law. Ronald Reagan in his Christmas Address on December 23, 1981 denounced the crackdown (beginning at 4 minutes into the above video) and outlined economic sanctions against Poland while demanding that the human rights of the Polish people be respected. He didn't call on Poles from the diaspora to represent American interests in normalizing relations with the Polish Communist regime while Polish dissidents were being rounded up and killed. The United States took a stand recognizing the sovereignty of the Polish people.

The Reagan Administration revoked most-favored-nation (MFN) status in response to the Polish Government's decision to ban Solidarity in 1981. The outcome in Poland was a nonviolent transition led by the Polish solidarity movement in a national dialogue between the government and the opposition that ended in free elections in 1989. 

The approach being advocated in Cuba, by some policy makers, pursues the approach pursued in Romania, and will likely have a similar, bloody outcome to the shame of those who have advocated it.

We need a real national dialogue in Cuba, and that does not mean the United States siding with the dictatorship in Cuba, downplaying its crimes against the Cuban people as Washington did in Romania under three presidencies. It means recognizing the dictatorship for what it is, and not what you'd like it to be and side with the Cuban people, not their oppressor. 

This is my first contribution to the current dialogue.

Cuban artist and prisoner of conscience Maykel Castillo Pérez a.k.a. Osorbo turns 39 in prison for his music.

Maykel Castillo Pérez a.k.a. Osorbo

Cuban artist and musician Maykel Castillo Pérez turned 39 years old today in a Cuban prison. He was born on August 20, 1983. 

Cuban prisoner of conscience Maykel Castillo Pérez “Osorbo” was sentenced to nine years in prison by the Castro regime on June 24, 2022. He was already arbitrarily detained for over a year at the time. 

Amnesty International offered the following background information on this prisoner of conscience on August 19, 2021.  

"Maykel Castillo Pérez,known by his stage name Maykel Osorbo, is a Cuban musician and human rights activist. He is one of the authors of “Patria y Vida”, a song critical of the Cuban government that has been adopted as a protest anthem. On 4 April 2021, Maykel was walking in Havana when police officers questioned him and attempted to arrest him but desisted in the face of complaints from other passersby who considered the action unjust."

Eight days later on April 12, 2021 Maykel was the victim of a physical assault engineered by the secret police. Maykel was assaulted in Havana by strangers as state security agents filmed the assault. Maykel Castillo denounced the incident on a live broadcast through Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara's social media where Maykel stated, "I'm a tough black," he said. "Not even a thousand beatings are going to make me cross my arms and close my mouth," he warned. He underscored the danger facing him, and the possible escalation of violence by the dictatorship, and his commitment to nonviolence. “If you break a bone, it stays broken. If I die for that, the fault will be yours, because you are a murderer, " he said, addressing the government. 

"On 18 May [2021], security agents arrived at his home and arrested him. He is being held at the Pinar del Río Provincial Prison under charges of 'assault', 'resistance', 'evasion of prisoners and detainees' and 'public disorder.'"

Maykel Castillo in the midst of a protest in San Isidro on April 4, 2021

This is not his first time he was jailed for a matter of conscience. On September 21, 2018 Cuban rapper Maykel Castillo Pérez, "El Osorbo" protested against Decree 349/2018 during a show in Cuba. Three days after the concert, he was detained by the Cuban secret police, and kept jailed. 

On March 20, 2019 Maykel was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, and learned of his sentence on April 22, 2019. He was released on October 23, 2019. Decree 349 is a law that further restricts artistic freedoms in Cuba.