Orlando Zapata Tamayo

August 17, 2010 By Fausta

Easing travel restrictions to Cuba?

I just got a press release from Amnesty International calling on Cuban Authorities to End the Harassment of the Mother of Deceased Prisoner of Conscience. The press release reads,

(Washington, D.C.) 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 today.

Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in February this year, told Amnesty International she has been repeatedly harassed by authorities and government supporters during the regular marches in memory of her son that she carries out in the town of Banes.

“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 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 and then they march to the cemetery, where Orlando is buried.

On Sunday August 15, government supporters arrived early in the morning and surrounded her house, 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 in their homes some of the women due to attend for up to 48 hours, without any explanation for the measure.

Tamayo 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 August 8, Tamayo was confronted by government supporters, who blocked her path and, according to her account, 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. “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 Howard.

Writer Luis Felipe Rojas Rozabal was detained by the police at 7 a.m. on August 16, at his home in the town of San Germán, province of Holguín.

Rozabal’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.

As you may recall, yesterday I posted on how the Communist regime has been harassing Mrs. Tamayo.

While Tamayo, Rozabal, Yoani Sanchez and others are cruelly repressed, the NY Times has an article on U.S. Said to Plan Easing Rules for Travel to Cuba

The Obama administration is planning to expand opportunities for Americans to travel to Cuba, the latest step aimed at encouraging more contact between people in both countries, while leaving intact the decades-old embargo against the island’s Communist government, according to Congressional and administration officials.

The officials, who asked not to be identified because they had not been authorized to discuss the policy before it was announced, said it was meant to loosen restrictions on academic, religious and cultural groups that were adopted under President George W. Bush, and return to the “people to people” policies followed under President Bill Clinton.

Alberto de la Cruz points out,

Conspicuously missing from the New York Times article, however, is any mention of what, if any, positive effects those academic and cultural exchanges during the 1990s had. As far as I can remember, none of those visits helped the enslaved people on the island achieve freedom and democracy. While all those American artists and academics were hobnobbing with the members of Castro’s elite in Havana during the Clinton days, the Cuban people continued to be repressed and brutally subjugated by the dictatorship. Also missing from the article is any speculation on how people-to-people contacts would be any different this time.

Perhaps these pesky realities were purposely omitted due to the fact that these “exchanges” do nothing to help the Cuban people. They do make the liberal elite feel good though, and in the end, that is all that really matters; who cares about the enslaved Cuban people–somebody has to make the mojitos and roll the cigars.

The repression continued, Cubans continue to be slaves of their government, and the easement from the EU has had no positive effect.

Any questions?

(post re-edited to add omitted links)

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August 2, 2010 By Fausta

The exiled Cuban political prisoners Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmer Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. I dedicate this week’s Carnival to the courageous men and women who have resisted the oppressive Communist regime in Cuba. Here is Mary O’Grady’s column in today’s Wall Street Journal:
Zapata Lives
Castro forces dissidents to accept exile as the price of release from his dungeons.

Zapata’s passing sparked international outrage, and on July 7 the regime yielded to the pressure. It agreed to release the independent journalists, writers and democracy advocates who had been jailed during the 2003 crackdown on dissent, known as the Black Spring.

Yet only the naïve could read Castro’s forced acquiescence as a break with tyranny. It is instead a cynical ploy to clean the face of a dictatorship. It is also an effort to reclaim respectability for the world’s pro-Castro politicians, including Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos. No one understands this better than the former prisoners.

Those sent to Spain have not hidden their joy about getting out of Cuban jails. “There are no words to fairly describe how amazed and excited I was when I saw myself free and next to my wife and daughter again,” Normando Hernández González told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a telephone interview. But Mr. Hernández, an independent journalist, hasn’t minced words about Cuban repression either.

In a telephone interview with Miami’s Radio Republica, he talked about his “indescribable” time in jail. “It’s crime upon crime, the deep hatred of the Castro regime toward everyone who peacefully dissents. It is a unique life experience that I do not wish upon my worst enemy.”

The regime tried to spruce up the former prisoners by dressing them in neatly pressed trousers, white shirts and ties. But they brought tales of horror to Spain. Ariel Sigler, a labor organizer who went into prison seven years ago a healthy man but is now confined to a wheel chair, arrived in Miami on Wednesday.

These graphic reminders of Castro’s twisted mind have been bad for Mr. Moratinos’s wider agenda, which is to use the release of the prisoners to convince the European Union to abandon its “common position” on Cuba. Adopted in 1996, it says that the EU seeks “in its relations with Cuba” to “encourage a process of transition to pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as a sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people.” Mr. Moratinos’s desire to help Fidel end the common position is a source of anger among Cuban dissidents.

The former prisoners also resent their exile, after, as Mr. Hernández puts it, “being kidnapped for seven years.” He explained to Radio Republica: “The more logical outcome would be, ‘Yes, you are freeing me. Free me to my home. Free me so I won’t be apart from my sister, from my family, from my people, from my neighbors.’” Instead he says he was “practically forced” to go to Spain in exchange for getting out of jail, and to get health care for his daughter and himself.

Cuba’s horrendous prison conditions are no secret. In his chilling memoir “Against All Hope” (1986, 2001), Armando Valladares cataloged the brutality he experienced first hand as a prisoner of conscience for 22 years. A steady stream of exiles have echoed his claims. But another bit of cruelty is less well understood: For a half century the regime has let political prisoners out of jail only if they sign a paper saying they have been “rehabilitated” or, when the regime is under pressure, if they agree to leave the island. Getting rid of the strong-willed, while being patted on the back for their “release,” has been Castro’s win-win.

Now some prisoners are refusing to deal. Ten of the 52, including Óscar Elías Biscet, famous for his pacifism, say they will not accept exile as a condition of release. These brave souls remain locked up.

Read a few reports from the Miami Herald:

RELEASE OF THE POLITICAL PRISONERS | STORIES OF ABUSE
The hardest life: surviving Cuban jail
During their seven years in Cuban prisons, former prisoners say they were confined to tiny windowless cells, fed inedible food and abused psychologically.

Political prisoners in Spain confronted with maze of immigration rules
Cuban ex-political prisoners in Spain face an uncertain immigration status and can be caught in a maze of rules.

Safe in Spain, Cuban dissidents vow to continue struggle
Seven dissidents freed by the Cuban government arrived in Spain, promising to continue their struggle against the Castro regime. Ten others still in jail say they will not leave Cuba.

11 Cuban prisoners, expatriated to Spain, are weary, ailing, defiant and free
After years in windowless cells, they find themselves reunited with family but deprived of their homeland.

At Marc Masferrer’s blog, Guido Sigler Amaya, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 8/1/10

Babalú interviews Ariel Sigler Amaya (translated into English at Babalu):

ARGENTINA
Argentine football
The Diego show
Why fans forgave their team’s early exit

BOLIVIA
Morales priest arrested on cocaine charge

BRAZIL
Brazil’s Lula is Ignoring Rebel Threat in Venezuela, Colombia’s Uribe Says

Brazil’s presidential campaign
Vice squad
The stakes are high for the hapless running-mates

Brazil’s Bolsa Família
How to get children out of jobs and into school
The limits of Brazil’s much admired and emulated anti-poverty programme

TV crime show host who ordered killings to boost ratings dies
A former Brazilian television crime show host and state legislator accused of orchestrating murders to boost ratings has died.

CHILE
Proyecto de Reforma para Transantiago

COLOMBIA
Colombia-Venezuela dispute unresolved in meeting of South American leaders

Marcela Sanchez: Farewell to Alvaro Uribe

Wayuu, an Arawak nation

CUBA
Is Cuba Inching Away From Socialism? Very Doubtful

Who’s the boss?

Car Museum

ECUADOR
Ecuador’s leftist strife
Spearheading dissent
Indigenous groups accuse a radical president of selling out

HAITI
Haiti’s earthquake
Frustration sets in
The presidential election is a chance to rebuild ties between Haiti’s struggling government and its discouraged donors

HONDURAS
Wonderfultastic: 42% of Honduran Loans are for Consumption

Honduras’ dispensazo scandal

MEXICO
Mexico: Where Is Your Shame?

Mexico: The Death of a Cartel Leader (by subscription)

Kingpin Strategy

PANAMA
Hola Corregiduria

Playing Panama Canal’s Expansion via Bladex

PERU
Peru denies espionage accusations

Four presumed members of FARC guerrilla arrested in Peru

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico to Host Biggest Solar Park in Latin America, h/t Dick.

VENEZUELA
What to do with Hugo Chávez?

Oliver Stone, Tariq Ali, Marc Weisbrot and Larry Rohter

Bolívar’s exhumation
TB or not TB
Venezuela’s president buries bad news by disinterring a national icon

PDVAL Math

Venezuela takes opposition TV owner’s farm

Lealtad chavista hacia las FARC

The week’s posts and podcasts:
In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern: Monica Showalter
Chavez sends troops to Colombia border
Colombia proves again that Venezuela is harboring FARC terrorists UPDATED
The Chavez bailout
The cartels kidnap 4 who reported on the jail hitmen
Venezuela: Haven For Terrorists?
Mexican cartels expand into Central America

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March 23, 2010 By Fausta

Ros-Lehtinen speaks in support of Cuba’s “Ladies in White”

Here is the text of the speech,

Madam Speaker, last week the Cuban tyranny sunk to an all new low as the communist thugs brutally attacked a procession of mothers, daughters, and wives of Cuban political prisoners collectively known as the “Ladies in White.”

Their crime? Walking to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the dictatorship’s March 2003 crackdown against human rights and pro-democracy activists—a grim event known as the Black Spring.

Many of those imprisoned at that time continue to languish in squalid jail cells and endure unspeakable suffering at the hands of their oppressors.

The procession of the “Ladies in White” was led by Reyna Luisa Tamayo, whose son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died only a few weeks ago at the hands of the Castro regime.

Carrying flowers and wearing their white clothing as symbols of peace, they were suddenly and viciously confronted, beaten, and some, temporarily detained, by agents of the dictatorial regime.

Reyna described the confrontations, explaining: “They dragged me, I am all bruised. They beat me…They cannot be forgiven.”

Further reports indicate that nearly a third of the Ladies in White marching that day had to seek hospital treatment for the attacks.

The cowardice of the regime’s agents could not be more obvious in the wake of this attack.

Confronting the nonviolent actions of these women in such a vicious and hateful manner makes it clear: The dictatorship fears these women because the regime officials fear the truth.

The repression by the regime knows no boundaries.

Now, they are even attempting to deny the people of Cuba the right to mourn the loss of their loved ones.

For anyone who had doubt, these attacks make it clear – the regime has no conscience.

There is no limit to its abuse and indecency.

I was pleased however to see the European and Chilean Parliaments deliver strong statements of condemnation and reproach following the regime’s actions last week.

However, responsible nations must do more.

The newly inaugurated President of Chile understands this moral obligation.

He recognizes the suffering of the Cuban people must come to an end and free nations must lead the charge.

President Sebastian Piñera said: “The government of Chile will do everything it can…so that in Cuba there is a process of peaceful recovery of democracy and a full restoration of respect for human rights and individual freedoms.”

But where is the rest of the world?

Why are regional leaders silent on the Cuban regime’s gross human rights violations and the abuses of power?

Where is the Organization of American States?

On the wrong side of history.

It was almost a year ago when the OAS voted to reincorporate the Cuban tyranny into the Inter-American system.

The U.S. made a mistake then by shepherding such an effort.

But it’s not too late to do the right thing by the Cuban people and take up the cause of freedom for the island nation.

The U.S. Ambassador to the OAS should immediately call for consideration of a resolution condemning the Cuban tyranny’s attack on the Ladies in White and demanding that all political prisoners be immediately released.

The U.S. should call on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to immediately convene a meeting to hear testimony on the systematic violations of human rights and universal freedoms by the Cuban dictatorship.

The U.S. must request an investigation by the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression in the Western Hemisphere on the assaults against independent journalists.

It is time for the world to admit the full brutality of the butchers in Havana and provide the people of Cuba the solidarity and support they deserve.

It is time for the people of Cuba to have the rights and liberties they deserve and for which they fight everyday.

Let this Congress pave the way.

I ask my colleagues to support H.Con.Res. 252—a resolution I introduced to recognize the life of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and calling for a renewed focus on the promotion of human rights and democracy in my native homeland of Cuba.

Thank you, Madame Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this important cause.