Cholera, Dengue and Totalitarianism in Cuba

A dangerous combination especially for dissidents.

Castro's Ministry of the Interior and a Cholera bacterium

Heavy rains over Cuba and reports over twitter of a dengue outbreak and the usual lack of official channels providing adequate information makes evident the need for a free press to report on what is actually happening with regards to the outbreak of contagious diseases.

The record of the current dictatorship in Cuba demonstrates that it is willing to cover up epidemics and even lock up doctors trying to warn of rising body counts as was done to Dr. Desi Mendoza in 1997 during a Dengue epidemic.

In October of 2011, although Dengue is a well known disease in Cuba, it was supposedly misdiagnosed in the case of Ladies in White leader Laura Pollán and was a contributing factor in her unnecessary death.

Now in the midst of a Cholera outbreak in the interior of Cuba one of the most prominent dissidents in the island Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was killed on July 22, 2012 along with youth leader Harold Cepero under circumstances that Oswaldo Paya's family say are far from clear. They are demanding that an international organization conduct a transparent investigation to arrive at the truth. Oswaldo and Harold were traveling with two foreigners into the area where the cholera outbreak had occurred most likely to learn what was really happening when the supposed "accident" happened.

Cholera and Dengue on their own are terrible killers but when combined with a secretive totalitarian dictatorship, that claims health care as one of its achievements, the danger is multiplied. Not only do doctors, victims, and seekers of the truth have to worry about contagious diseases but also the state security apparatus imprisoning or murdering them.

For the dictatorship some secrets are worth killing for especially if it impacts their international legitimacy that is in part based on the propaganda fabrication that their health care system is one of the best in the world.

It is dangerous combination of factors for those in Cuba seeking to report the truth.

Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet launches online news magazine

"You have learnt how it was said: 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.' But I say to you, Offer the wicked man no resistance. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; if a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him." Matthew 5.38-41

Dr. Óscar Biscet  launches online news magazine Revealing Cuba [Revelando Cuba] on August 8, 2012 with interviewing Baptist pastor and blogger Mario Félix Lleonart who is a resident of Taguayabon, Cuba. Inspired by the Bible he proposes a Christianity that liberates from all that oppresses and overwhelms. He also cites Dietrich Bonhoeffer as one of his influences. Bonhoeffer was a twentieth century exemplar of Christian nonviolence.




Video above has subtitles in English.

Communiqué from the family of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

On August 1, 2012 the family of  Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas issued the following statement to the press. It was written by his widow Ofelia Acevedo.  Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero died on July 22, 2012 in a car accident under circumstances that have generated concern that it may have been a premeditated act by State Security. Below is an English translation.

Ofelia Acevedo and her late husband Oswaldo Payá

Havana, August 1, 2012

Communiqué from the family of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas.



Today is 10 days past the event that killed my husband, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, National Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement and the young Harold Cepero Escalante, a member of that movement.
The event was explained over national television in Cuba, which is something unusual in that fatal traffic accidents happen every day and have never been given this television coverage.

I will not go into detail about the technical analysis done according to the official version. I'm not an expert, although one does not need to be one to question it. I want to clarify that I learned on television of how the event occurred because I had only had a very brief verbal version of the event given by a criminologist, Major Sanchez, when he turned over my husband's body. I expressed to him that I did not believe in that version and needed to interview the surviving witnesses. I was never informed by any authority of the death of my husband. Yesterday, July 31 at 8: 45 pm, 10 days after the death of Oswaldo and Harold, I was visited by two officers of the Centre for Criminal Investigation and Operations with a subpoena in my name for today at 11am, with the aim to "ventilate issues of civil liability derived from the accident."


Video statement by Ofelia Acevedo on July 27, 2012 (In Spanish)

I as the wife of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in representation of the family living inside and outside of Cuba, want to declare.

We do not accept the explanation of the event televised because:

1. It is presented by the same organs of State Security of the government that have threatened to kill him multiple times through their agents over the years in which they have defamed, insulted, watched, discredited with television campaigns inside and outside of Cuba, the same ones that have placed microphones over our bed in telephone boxes, the same ones knowing that her mother had cancer, visited to cowardly intimidate her, and did not allow their children who live outside of Cuba to visit, which forbade my oldest son , a 24 year old student from visiting his aunt on holiday in Spain last year.
They do not allow anyone from our family to exit or enter Cuba. They are the same ones who intimidate our neighbors, my husband’s co-workers, my brothers in the Christian community, and those who I need to hire to make repairs in my house. That go to the centers of study of my children to alert their peers to avoid relating to them. They are the same ones that break into hospitals, intimidate doctors every time my children have any health problems. They are the same ones that have attacked my house with mobs that they bring in from other places, painted the facade of my home with offensive slogans, and have stained my door with red paint simulating blood. They have surrounded the walls of the neighborhood with signs full of phrases of threats and hate.
They are the same ones who on several occasions have loosened the nuts on the wheels of our car while parked and knowing that the whole family and even friends were traveling. Only last June 2 while he and I were traveling in our car (1964 VW station wagon), to my mother's house in La Lisa traveling on the road of El Cerro and having practically surpassed the intersection of Rancho Boyeros Avenue were impacted by an old American car in the rear right wheel of our vehicle with such force that rocked our car, my husband could not control it and after sliding with only two wheels on the left side turned on the opposite path being trapped inside and covered with broken windshield glass. Oswaldo was wounded in the left arm by the elbow and nothing happened to me.

They are the same ones that have bullied and threatened to kill members of the Movement and their families. Today they have imprisoned Yosvany Melchior [the young son of Rosa María Rodríguez, a member of the Movement] , serving twelve years in prison for a crime he did not commit. All of this in order that they leave the Christian Liberation Movement.

I do not believe the official version:

1. Because my husband Oswaldo Payá was distinguished by his sense of responsibility without limit towards all people, especially those associated with him. He would never let the chauffeur driving the car that they were traveling in to be speeding. His friends and those who know him know that I speak the truth when I say this. He knew the risk to his life each day in Cuba.

2. Because I received the news from Madrid of the supposed car accident that my husband was traveling at three eighteen on the afternoon of Sunday, July 22 where they communicated with me, "carrying four people, only three in the hospital, we do not know about one. Two friends, one of them unconscious. They were hit and removed from the road. Do you know who the other two where? The whereabouts of one of them is unknown. "

3. Why was I not allowed to meet with the Swedish boy and still have not allowed me to meet with the Spaniard who were survivors of the event.

4. For all these antecedents and information that has come to us about what happened in Granma, my family requests to international institutions an investigation independent of the Cuban government on the facts about what happened.

5. I want to say that I'm very proud to have shared 26 years of life with an extraordinary man and of the family that we founded. He had the sorrow of not having been able to devote to his family all the time that he wanted but his dedication to service led him always to work for the common good. All his intelligence, intellectual ability was in constant search for ways for the people to ascend to their rights, he said: Neither the state nor the market can dominate society, or be above the people's decisions, or of the freedom and dignity of persons.

Now we must try to direct our life without the physical presence of Oswaldo. It will be very hard, but for those who live by the faith we know that he will continue to protect us, to always be in our midst.

Thanks for listening.

Take action by signing the petition requesting a transparent and independent international investigation into the deaths of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero. The regime in Cuba has a long track record of this type of behavior. Others such as Lech Walesa have joined the call for getting at the truth of what happened.

We will not be silenced, and we will not stop seeking the truth

"When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete." - Vaclav Havel


The following statement was read by Oswaldo Paya's daughter in a press conference in Cuba on August 1, 2012. It has been translated to English below and offers important information and new questions surrounding the deaths on July 22, 2012 of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.

Rosa María Payá Acevedo and her mother Ofelia Acevedo

Words read at press conference by Rosa María Payá Acevedo

I do not intend today to give another version of what happened. We are not at this moment accusing anyone. The facts that I will continue to relate were read by Captain Fulgencio Medina, criminal instructor, in a room at Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Hospital in Bayamo on the evening of Sunday July 22. I will not make clarifications on how these reports have come into our hands. We do not want to subject to the pressures of state security, the people who in solidarity with our family have sent us this news.

As we have been told, Captain Fulgencio Medina, criminal instructor, reading the witness statements of the events that took the life of my father, and of Harold, told the following to everyone in one of the halls of the hospital:

The captain said he would tell how it happened, reading the statements of the witnesses, saying:

Witnesses of the bike and of the tractor said that there was a red Lada traveling parallel to the wrecked car.

In a moment the wrecked car goes ahead of all, the bicycle, the tractor and the red Lada and at that moment comes the change of pavement, of the pavement to the embankment.

The cyclist says he only sees the dust when the car drops (but it seemed normal).

The individual in the tractor comments that it seems that something happened. The officer says that another tractor was coming from the front but apparently the road was wide enough and the tractor was far enough to cause any reaction in Angel. There was no danger of impact.

Those in the red Lada come to the rescue, in the words of the witnesses on the bicycle and in the tractor.

The officer said that witnesses say that when the persons in the Lada approached to help the Spaniard , he reacted saying: Who are you and why are you doing this? First they take out the Spaniard and there was one complaining (which apparently was Harold), but he had a very sore leg and was touching his chest, as if it hurt a lot. With the other they do not do anything because they say they touched him and realized he was dead.

They first removed the two foreigners, and the red Lada takes out a cell phone that they had and say: send an ambulance over here there has been an accident. At that moment a blue van arrives and some of the injured are placed on it and leave for the hospital.

Receive a call from the girl and say they don’t know who the cell phone belongs to because everything was a mess. First attended by a traffic officer and then by a legal doctor.

Fulgencio Medina said he knew the daughter had called because the legal doctor who had been in the ambulance answered.

This ends the information that has come to us about what Captain Fulgencio Medina said that evening in that room with other officers and all others who were there.

It seems to us very strange:

1. That a legal doctor would arrive in the ambulance.

2. That in none of the official versions is this red Lada mentioned and the people traveling in it.

3. But for the people traveling in the red Lada who could then have called the ambulance.

4. The reaction, according to witnesses, Angel had at the time of being rescued.

5. Who and how was the premature diagnosis of the death of my father made.

We have received other information, including:

We have information that the ambulance was requested by a lieutenant colonel and that in an ambulance they took Harold to the hospital, but first made a stop in a children's hospital.

We have also information that the doctor who attended Harold (called ¨ The Kid ¨, son of Dr. Perez Profet) expressed contempt for him. And he told the other doctors and nurses that these people were bringing drugs to Santiago and to plant bombs.

This raises questions about the care my friend received in that hospital.

We have been informed that Angel arrived at the hospital accompanied by an officer who said he was an eyewitness to the accident, and that there Angel said twice that the car had been rammed from behind.

I ask myself, if this officer was a witness:

What was he doing there?

Why not transfer the injured in his car?

If it was he who called, how did he know the hospital phone?

Would he be one of those in the red Lada?

I also have doubts regarding the technical condition of the car carrying my father and Harold.

To our friends, people who represented us that day in the hospital until my mother could get there, they would not let them see the body of my father until after 8 pm. They told us that the corpse had a syringe placed at the top of the leg, a shirt, … and shoes and that at that time the body was still without treatment, storage, or refrigeration.

About Harold’s state, a physician told them that the boy was going to die because he was brain dead. This data, the latter, does not coincide with the official version of the cause of death of Harold Cepero and is also very strange because witnesses say they saw Harold conscious according to information we received about the words read by Captain Fulgencio Medina.

Our friends did not have access to the survivors until after Angel was sedated so that they could never talk to him. With Aron they could barely identify themselves because they do not speak English.

Aron, Angel and I met Friday afternoon and talked, as three young people converse with social concerns without interfering agendas and money involved.

My father faced the power of a state, a totalitarian state with 53 years experience. And that state is dropping all its force against a family, my family for many years now. Once more I fear for the lives of my brothers, my mother and my whole family. I reiterate that I hold the government responsible for the physical integrity of the members of my family.

We have the support of many within and outside Cuba, we thank you deeply. On the other hand, we know that these events have become a matter of state and we know that sometimes between states there are pacts and silence, but while others remain silent we will not be silenced, and we will not stop seeking the truth even if it means remaining alone. My father, the Christian Liberation Movement and my family have seen ourselves alone before. We do not fear solitude. We know, because we seem to have been touching it in recent days, that only evil fears the truth.

August 1, 2012

Original Spanish text available here. Take action by signing the petition requesting a transparent and independent international investigation into the deaths of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero. The regime in Cuba has a long track record of this type of behavior. Others such as Lech Walesa have joined the call for getting at the truth of what happened.

Amnesty International calls on Castro regime to end harassment of human rights defenders

Amnesty International issued an Urgent Action for José Daniel Ferrer García on August 1, 2012 following his detention on July 30, 2012. He was released a day later on August 2nd. Below is Amnesty's analysis of what is taking place and demand for change.

Cuba must stop ‘cat-and-mouse game’ with political activists

José Daniel Ferrer García has been detained on  numerous 

occasions for his peaceful activism in Cuba. © UNPACU

 by Amnesty International

 The Cuban authorities must end their ongoing harassment of political and human rights activists, Amnesty International said today after a former prisoner of conscience was released following his latest arrest and detention in a police station for 36 hours.

José Daniel Ferrer García, coordinator of the organization Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unión Patriótica de Cuba, UNPACU), was set free on Wednesday, two days after police arrested him in the eastern province of Holguín.

He was not charged with any crime. His family had no idea of his whereabouts until he was returned home by the authorities on Wednesday afternoon.

Ferrer’s latest arrest follows three days he spent in detention after being arrested in Havana in February 2012 and a 27-day detention for “public disorder” in Santiago de Cuba two months later. These repeated, short detentions are in line with a pattern of harassment by the Cuban authorities against UNPACU members and other political dissidents.

“The latest arrest and short-term detention of José Daniel Ferrer García continues the Cuban authorities’ cat-and-mouse game with political dissidents and human rights activists,” said James Burke, Campaigner on the Caribbean at Amnesty International.

“This practice – used as a form of harassment and intimidation to repress legitimate, peaceful activism and freedom of expression – must come to a halt.”

UNPACU was formed in mid-2011 as an umbrella group of Cuban dissident organizations in and around the province of Santiago de Cuba who seek democratic change by non-violent means.

Since its creation, the Cuban authorities have used arbitrary detention and other measures to harass and intimidate its members. One member, Wilman Villar Mendoza – whom Amnesty International named a prisoner of conscience – died last January on a hunger strike to protest his four-year prison sentence after a summary trial.

UNPACU coordinator Ferrer García served eight years of a 25-year jail sentence for his political activism before being granted conditional release in March 2011.

He was among 75 Cuban dissidents arrested during the so-called “Black Spring” crackdown in March 2003. Amnesty International adopted all 75 as prisoners of conscience after they were jailed for the peaceful expression of critical opinions of the government.

Ferrer García was among those targeted in part for his participation in the Varela Project, which called for a national referendum on democratic reforms in Cuba.

Following his conditional release last year, police in Santiago de Cuba re-arrested Ferrer García on 2 April 2012 along with 42 other activists – most of them UNPACU members.

All the rest were set free, but police held Ferrer García on a “public disorder” charge for a further 27 days, before releasing him on the condition that he renounce his political activism.

Following his release, José Daniel Ferrer García told Amnesty International that the authorities had arrested him to prevent him from travelling to the capital, Havana where he had planned to hold meetings with other government critics who are peacefully seeking greater respect for civil and political rights in Cuba.

He said the ongoing campaign of harassment would not deter him or his colleagues from continuing with their activism: “Our goal in Cuba is to establish true rule of law in Cuba where freedom of expression, freedom of association – all fundamental freedoms – are respected, and until we do so, we will continue our peaceful struggle.”

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/cuba-must-stop-cat-and-mouse-game-political-activists-2012-08-02