"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)
Cuba urged to end campaign against mother of dead hunger striker
Loudspeakers were used to shout slogans against Reina Luisa and the Ladies in White
17 August 2010
The Cuban authorities must act to end the harassment of the mother of a prisoner of conscience who died following a hunger strike to push for the release of other prisoners, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in February this year, told Amnesty International she has been repeatedly harassed by the authorities and government supporters during the regular marches she carries out in the town of Banes, in memory of her son.
"Reina Luisa Tamayo is simply paying tribute to her son who died in tragic circumstances, and that must be respected by the authorities," said Kerrie Howard, Amnesty International's Americas Deputy Director.
Every Sunday Reina Luisa Tamayo, who is usually accompanied by relatives and friends, walks from her home to the church of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, to attend mass, from where they march to the cemetery, where Orlando is buried.
On Sunday, government supporters arrived early in the morning and surrounded her house, Reina Luisa Tamayo told Amnesty International, preventing her and her relatives and friends from marching and attending mass at the church.
Ahead of the march, Cuban security forces also allegedly detained some of the women due to attend in their homes for up to 48 hours, without any explanation being given for the measure.
Reina Luisa told Amnesty International that six loudspeakers were installed near her house and were used to shout slogans against her and the Ladies in White, an organization of female relatives of prisoners of conscience campaigning for their release.
On 8 August, Reina Luisa Tamayo was confronted by government supporters, who blocked her path and, according to her recount, beat relatives and friends of the family. She said a police patrol was parked nearby watching the events, but failed to intervene.
Amnesty International has also expressed its concern at a series of recent detentions by the police of independent journalists and dissidents.
Writer Luis Felipe Rojas Rozabal was detained by the police at 7am on Monday, at his home in the town of San Germán, province of Holguín.
Luis Felipe's family is unaware of the reasons of his arrest, but they have said they suspect this might be related to his criticism of the government. He has been arbitrarily detained on several previous occasions in similar circumstances.
Several members of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, a network of political dissident organizations, have also been detained.
"At a time when the Cuban government has begun to release prisoners of conscience, the campaign of harassment against Reina Luisa Tamayo and the arbitrary detention of journalists and dissident figures shows that the authorities are yet to make significant progress on human rights," said Kerrie Howard.
In March 2003, Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arrested and, a year later, sentenced to three years in prison for "disrespect", "public disorder" and "resistance".
This was the first of a series of convictions for "disobedience" and "disorder in a penal establishment".
Orlando was one of dozens of prisoners of conscience adopted by Amnesty International in Cuba at the time. The majority were among the 75 people arrested as part of the massive March 2003 crackdown by authorities against political activists.
In early December 2009, Orlando started a hunger strike to campaign for the release of prisoners of conscience held in Cuba. He died on 23 February 2010.
Currently there are at least 30 prisoners of conscience in Cuba's jails. Amnesty international calls for their immediate and unconditional release.
This is the 200th blog entry of Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter and is only fitting that it be a re-post of an Amnesty International press release for Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger and Cuban dissidents harassed by the regime on the island.
Document - Cuba: Mother harassed for marching for dead son: Reina Luisa Tamayo
UA: 174/10 Index: AMR 25/012/2010 Cuba Date: 11 August 2010
URGENT ACTION
MOTHER HARASSED FOR MARCHING FOR DEAD SON
The mother of a Cuban prisoner of conscience who died after hunger striking has been repeatedly harassed and intimidated in an attempt to stop her from organizing marches to commemorate her son's death. The next march is planned for 15 August.
Reina Luisa Tamayo is the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a prisoner of conscience who died on 22 February 2010, having spent several weeks on hunger strike whilst in prison. Since her son’s death, Reina Luisa Tamayo has organized weekly marches on Sundays in the town of Barnes, Holguin Province, Cuba, to honour her son's memory.
Relatives and friends accompany Reina Luisa Tamayo on these weekly marches from her home to attend mass at the Nuestra Señora de la Caridad Church, in Barnes and from there to the cemetery where Orlando Zapata Tamayo is buried. Last Sunday, 8 August, the group reported that as soon as they tried to leave Reina Luisa Tamayo’s house to start their march, they were confronted a few metres away from the house by hundreds of government supporters who blocked their way and beat some of the participants. They were pushed back to the house and followed into the house’s garden. The participants tried twice more to leave the house and resume the march but they were again violently confronted by the government supporters, who stayed outside the house until late in the afternoon. According to Reina Luisa Tamayo, during all this time a police patrol was close to her house watching as the events unfolded and failing to intervene.
The group have reported how prior to 8 August, they have also been confronted by government supporters and state security officials who have gathered around Reina Luisa Tamayo's house and prevented them from marching, sometimes preventing them from reaching the church, the cemetery, or both. They have also reported how state security officials and police officers have set up check points on the routes to Reina Luisa Tamayo’s house on the day prior to the march to prevent people from reaching the house and joining the march.
Video taken on August 1, 2010 at Reina Luisa Tamayo's home of mob organized by state security (posted by Yoani Sanchez)
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in Spanish or your own language:
Calling on the authorities to ensure an immediate halt to the harassment and intimidation of Reina Luisa Tamayo by government supporters, and that of her relatives and friends and any other citizens who seek to peacefully exercise their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association;
Calling on the authorities to permit Reina Luisa Tamayo and others to march peacefully as is their right on Sundays.
Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +53 7 8333085 (via Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
+1 2127791697 (via Cuban Mission to UN) Salutation:Su Excelencia/Your Excellency
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
URGENT ACTION
MOTHER HARASSED FOR MARCHING FOR DEAD SON
ADditional Information
Reina Luisa Tamayo is one of the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), a group of women relatives and friends of prisoners detained during a major crackdown on government critics in March 2003. In 2003, over several days, the Cuban authorities arrested 75 men and women for their peaceful expression of critical opinions of the government. They were subjected to summary trials and were sentenced to long prison terms of up to 28 years. Amnesty International declared the 75 convicted dissidents to be prisoners of conscience, 32 of them remain in prison.
Damas de Blanco organizes peaceful weekly marches in Havana where they distribute flowers and call for the release of their relatives and friends. In March 2010 Damas de Blanco organized a daily march for a week to mark the seventh anniversary of the arrest of their relatives. On 17 of March 2010, their march was forcibly broken up by Cuban police, who briefly detained several women. Some of the women claimed that they were beaten by the police.
UA: 174/10 Index: AMR 25/012/2010 Issue Date: 11 August 2010
“Ms Campbell's testimony reminds us of the damage that can be done by power-hungry individuals who illegally exploit their country's natural resource wealth to wage campaigns of violence and brutality against civilians. The Taylor trial is an important moment in the history of international justice, when the survivors of his regime may finally see some reparation.” Oliver Courtney, Global Witness spokesperson.
Charles Taylor is now on trial for war crimes committed while he was president of Liberia. Ms. Campbell has testified denying that she knew that the former Liberian president and mass murderer Charles Taylor had sent her blood diamonds. Now other witnesses, among them her friend Mia Farrow and Carole White, her former agent are now contradicting her testimony.
On 1 December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, unanimously, a resolution on the role of diamonds in fuelling conflict, breaking the link between the illicit transaction of rough diamonds and armed conflict, as a contribution to prevention and settlement of conflicts (A/RES/55/56). In taking up this agenda item, the General Assembly recognized that conflict diamonds are a crucial factor in prolonging brutal wars in parts of Africa, and underscored that legitimate diamonds contribute to prosperity and development elsewhere on the continent.
The story is still developing, and offers an insight into the relationship between economic sanctions and attempting to improve the human rights situation in a regional context. Below on the Colbert Report, although humorous, makes a serious point about human rights and economic interests looking at business practices in China followed by the Naomi Campbell controversy.
Over five decades one of the tactics used by the regime is distraction
Yesterday in Banes agents of the dictatorship organized a mob to harass and assault Reina Luisa Tamayo, mother of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died on hunger strike on February 23, 2010
Recalling as far back as Mariel in 1979-1980 when something goes horribly wrong and the dictatorship is up against the ropes they need to create a distraction to give them time to extricate themselves. During Mariel it was emptying the prisons and insane asylums and mixing them into the general exodus of refugees along with their agents of influence who manipulated others and began dividing the Exile community between Marielitos and everyone else. Fidel Castro had denounced all those who wanted to leave as undesirables aand mixed in a few to taint the exodus, and organized acts of repudiation to dirty the hands of those who might have tried to separate themselves from the regime.
Another time was the August 5, 1994 Maleconazo when Cubans rose up demanding freedom and mass demonstrations engulfed portions of Havana for several hours and the aftermath of the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre of which the regime was complicit hung over the tyrant like an albatross.
The regime used the threat of another Mariel opening all the ports and telling Cubans to leave that led to tens of thousands of Cubans fleeing on rafts and shifted the focus from the internal dynamics of a country that was imploding to the US/Cuba relationship and immigration. It legitimized the regime having the United States at the negotiating table not only with the international community but with internal actors in the dictatorship itself.
Then came the distraction of distractions. The Cuban dissident movement had made great inroads between 1994 and 1996 with the formation and build up of the Cuban Council that on October 10, 1995 formally requested permission of the Cuban regime to meet on February 24, 1996 amongst themselves to discuss the future of Cuba. The regime's response refuse the request close to the date of the meeting round up and detain the organizers and as many participants as possible, and then on February 24, 1996 carry out an act of state terrorism in which two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down in order to distract attention from the internal repression and refocus on US-Cuba relations over the international incident involving the shoot-down. However they failed in not shooting down Jose Basulto's planes that had all the recordings of the encounter along with eyewitness testimony from others present in the area.
Between 1996 and 1999 the opposition again regrouped and began to grow and carry out new actions. The Homeland Belongs to All, a document challenging the 1997 Cuban Communist Party version of Cuban history was a blow to the dictatorship that led to the authors' arrest and imprisonment. In the summer of 1999 Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet launched a 40-day fast for human rights and democracy in Cuba that spread from a home in Havana at the address Tamarindo 34 to fasting centers around the entire island. Towards the end of the year the Ibero-American Summit was held in Cuba and became the Dissidents summit. Oscar Elias Biscet was arrested for holding a press conference and sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Then came the Elian Crisis which shifted international attention away from what was happening in Cuba with the dissident movement and refocused it on Miami and on the custody battle over Elian. Meanwhile with the cameras occupied the repression and beatings against the opposition were brutal. After the Elian crisis was resolved and the opposition was able to regroup and carry out new actions the regime was placed on the defensive with the Varela Project which gathered 11,020 signatures and turned them in at the time of former President Jimmy Carter's visit to Cuba in May 2002 raising the profile of the opposition and putting the dictatorship against the wall, and the regime would continue on the defensive until March 18, 2003.
The Cuban dictatorship used the eve of the US invasion of Iraq when world attention was focused on the start of the war to carry out one of the worse crackdowns in over a decade combined with summary trials and long prison sentences for nonviolent dissidents and for the speedy execution of three hijackers who, although they had not killed anyone, had sought to flee to the United States by commandeering the boat with weapons.
The opposition dusted itself off after what the regime claimed was the destruction of the opposition and continued to work. Less than two weeks after the crackdown the Ladies in White would form, the wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers of the prisoners of conscience for the most part not politically active now became committed to their loved one's freedom. That combined with international pressure and horrific conditions in the prisons that drove these prisoners of conscience to defend their dignity taking recourse in the most extreme of nonviolent actions: the hunger strike.
The regime is desperate to distract attention from this entire dynamic and out of nowhere appears Fidel Castro, in what I believe and hope is a false flag operation along with agents of influence in the United States, to distract attention from Cuba's internal problems and refocus on the United States, Iran, the nuclear threat, and US/Cuba relations try to generate friction were ever possible. Meanwhile as the international focuses on why Fidel Castro is wearing his olive greens instead of his track suit and if there is anything to all his talk of Armageddon they are distracted. Meanwhile in Banes, with no international media to cover what is happening, Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger, her family, and activists are regulary harassed and physically brutalized by government agents and mobs.
The two pictures below were taken today at her home and posted on Yoani Sanchez's twitpic page. For the purposes of getting the news out as fast as possible I've copied and pasted the photos here. Wihtout international attention and reporting these government thugs operate with greater impunity beating up on these Ladies in White.
Government organized mobs surround the home hurling insults and the occasional physical blow against Reina and the activists in an act of repudiation.
Last week the military cordon below blocking Reina from attending Mass and marching in remembrance of Orlando Zapata Tamayo could not have been more explicit.
I close by pleading first with my friends let us maintain our focus on what is happening to Reina and the democratic opposition in general there is a crackdown underway, these are tough times, but they will get tougher if we abandon them to join in the speculation of what the devil is going on in Fidel Castro's head. Secondly, I plead with human rights organizations and the international media: to the first denounce what his happening their lives depend on you and to the second the news media don't ignore a good story because you've been sucked into the speculative universe of a false flag operation. Don't follow Castro's path of ignoring Cuba while speculating on international affairs. Its bad journalism and is also bad for the future of Cuba.
The embedded video below is the first part of a 1996 five part documentary Burma - Land of Fear by John Pilger exposing the brutal nature of the military junta in Burma.
Please sign the letter located at http://3freedoms.amnesty.org/ and use your freedom to help the people of Burma. Takes less than a minute.
"Please use your freedom to promote ours." - Aung San Suu Kyi, prisoner of conscience since 1990
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