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NEWS
Posted on Wed, Oct. 29, 2003
CUBA
Political prisoners hunger for justice
BY OSWALDO PAYA
HAVANA -- Tony Díaz Sánchez, of the Liberation Christian Movement, is
imprisoned at Holguín, 1,000 miles from his hometown, Marianao. To see
him, his wife, Gisela, daughters Yeni, 16, and Lázara Massiel, 4, and
his brother Carlos must make a long trip, filled with the difficulties
of the Cuba of the poor.
The visits occur every three months, and on Oct. 14, the family carried
''the basket'' -- a bag of sugar, a bag of powdered milk, a little oil,
a powdered beverage, but no proteins, because prison officials do not
permit them. The officials allow only 30 pounds of food every 90 days,
and that includes the containers' weight.
Bear in mind that these prisoners live in cages where they cannot take
three steps in a straight line or stretch their arms out to the side
because they'll hit the walls. Once a day, they are allowed to collect
water in a container, and they are given a small portion of food, often
in bad condition, spoiled. It's the torture of physical hunger. Some of
those reading this article have never had that experience: being hungry
all day long and having nothing to eat.
Many Cubans, hundreds of thousands, have been imprisoned and know what
we're talking about. But this is an extreme case. It is torture. It is a
means of reducing a prisoner to the minimum of his physical and mental
abilities.
This near-annihilation is completed by sensory isolation, a cloud of
mosquitoes and, in many instances, rats and mice. Arbitrarily, guards
confiscate inmates' correspondence and deny them their medicines, even
those brought by relatives, because in prison -- according to the guards
-- ''they lack nothing.'' The prison provides only pain, humiliation and
rations of modus muriendi.
The family of Díaz Sánchez, a Varela Project coordinator, must take him
what's called ''the toiletries'': soap, deodorant, sheets, a coat and
anything else that he might need. From prison officials, the prisoners
receive only cruelty, not basic supplies for survival.
When the family handed the guards the 30 pounds of food and
''toiletries,'' the guards said that the toiletries weighed 21 pounds. A
prison official said that weight had to be subtracted from the food's
weight, which meant that the prisoner could have only nine pounds of
food. But that's not accurate either, because the weight of the
containers is included.
In all, Díaz Sánchez would have a scant eight pounds of food for the
next three months. That's not even 1.5 ounces a day. But this is not an
article on statistics; it's a denunciation of torture.
Díaz Sánchez rejected the food package, because he considered such
treatment to be degrading. He told the guards: ``I'm imprisoned here for
defending the rights of all Cubans, and I'm not going to accept this
violation.''
The warden told the relatives to leave through a back door and ordered
two common prisoners to throw the bag with the food out on the road,
which they did. Díaz Sánchez told his wife, daughters, and brother not
to touch it. It just lay there. His wife told me that she felt very sad
as she walked away and saw the package -- which she had put together
with such sacrifice -- lying on the road. But she knew that at most one
quarter of its contents would have reached him.
Meanwhile, I've heard from José Daniel Ferrer, who is at the Pinar del
Rio prison known as Kilometer 5 ½. He tells me about the prisoners'
suffering and constant hunger. His brother Luis Enrique -- who
challenged the judges to sign the Varela Project and thus was handed the
longest sentence, 28 years -- is now in a punishment cell. When normal
conditions are torture, imagine what a punishment cell must be like.
What's remarkable, what history will record as the truth, is the love of
Cuba's political prisoners for their people and for freedom. It's the
kind of unlimited courage that confuses their jailers. It's the
fortitude of their spirit while at total disadvantage, their inner peace
in the face of those who have only power, tyrannical power, and
compensate for the strength of the powerless ones by inflicting pain
upon them.
The prisoners of the Cuba spring and all other political prisoners in
Cuba are sustained by their faith and the prayers and solidarity of all
sensitive people inside and outside our island. But this should not be a
spectacle for Cubans. Every drop in the torrent of pain that flows from
these prisoners and their relatives is shed by every Cuban -- every
elderly person and poor child, every disheartened youth who plunges into
the sea, every family that suffers anguish and oppression and even by
those who talk and only talk, complain or dwell on the subject but give
no support.
Each drop of that suffering is shed by you. Don't pity the prisoners,
because if they suffer hunger and thirst, they are blessed because they
hunger and thirst for justice. There are no blessings, however, for
those who show no solidarity because they don't want to get in trouble.
Oswaldo Payá heads the Liberation Christian Movement, which launched the
Varela Project for human rights and democracy in Cuba.
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