A rchive Date
[ 08-04-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Cuba ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/goldstein_apr8.html
In Cuba, free speech is still a crime
While the world concentrates on the war in Iraq, Castro imprisons Cuban dissidents
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN -- Toronto Sun
April 8, 2003
With the world's attention focused on Iraq, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has launched the worst crackdown on human rights in his communist island nation in a decade.
Since March 18, almost 80 leading Cuban dissidents have been rounded up and are now being sentenced to lengthy prison terms following one-day, closed-door, show trials.
The Havana courtrooms in which they're being tried are filled with Communist party members and security agents.
By contrast, these non-violent dissidents - poets, writers, journalists, politicians, librarians and volunteers for the Varela Project, a pro-democracy petition drive - are allowed to have only three close relatives with them in court.
There has been no mention of the trials in Cuba's state-run media and since western journalists and foreign diplomats are barred from the courtrooms they have been getting much of their information from the wives of the accused.
They have told reporters their husbands were unable to consult with lawyers prior to their trials and knew nothing about the prosecution's case before arriving in court.
"The trial was unfair," said Claudia Marquez, wife of dissident Osvaldo Alfonso, sentenced yesterday to 18 years.
"He met with his lawyer five minutes before it started and had no time to study the charges."
Six others were also sentenced yesterday to jail terms of up to 25 years for "working with a foreign power (the United States) to undermine the government." One of them was Raul Rivero, 57, Cuba's most famous opposition writer, poet and journalist. He was sentenced to 20 years.
"This is so arbitrary for a man whose only crime is to write what he thinks," said his wife, Blanca Reyes. "What they found on him was a tape recorder, not a grenade."
While the Havana tribunal rejected life sentences sought by prosecutors for some of the accused, these terms were reportedly only reduced after some defendants, realizing the hopelessness of their situation, confessed to the charges and testified they had been manipulated by U.S. diplomats.
Trials for 71 other defendants continue this week, an obvious attempt to intimidate pro-democracy forces. Cuba has been condemned by international human rights groups, the European Union, the White House and the U.S. State Department, which described the trials as "kangaroo courts".
Even former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who supports ending the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba and visited the island nation last year, has criticized the crackdown.
"The fact that this wave of repression coincides with the war with Iraq is surely no accident," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. "It is truly shameful that the Cuban government is opportunistically exploiting the world's inattention in trying to crush domestic dissent."
U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker accused Castro of "retreating into Stalinism," calling the communist regime's actions, "the most despicable act of political repression in the Americas in a decade."
Ironically, the crackdown comes after a long period of relative calm, where Cuban-American relations had been improving, with growing support in the U.S. Congress for easing the decades-old U.S. trade embargo.
However, tensions have been rising since last year with the arrival in Cuba of James Cason, chief of the U.S. interests section in Havana. (Cuba and the U.S. have "interests sections" in each other's capitals as opposed to full embassies.) Cason, consistent with U.S. President George Bush's policies toward Cuba, has been a sharp critic of Castro's regime and an active supporter of the Cuban opposition, which often met in his residence.
According to news reports from Havana, a journalist who led one of the dissident meetings at Cason's home has now revealed himself to be a Cuban state security agent, and is testifying against some of the accused along with other infiltrators.
Last month, Castro charged Cason with turning the U.S. mission to Cuba into an "incubator of counterrevolution," although he did thank him for publicly discouraging the common practice in the communist dictatorship whereby Cuban nationals hijack planes and boats to escape to the U.S.
At any rate, given the recent oceans of ink and angst expressed in Canada by our ruling Liberal elite - and liberal media - over the alleged mistreatment of al-Qaida terrorist suspects at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, perhaps our chattering classes could spare a thought for these jailed Cuban dissidents.
Finally, what do you think the chances are of our "anti-war" protesters taking a moment or two out of their busy schedule of hurling abuse at the Americans to march in solidarity for these wrongly jailed Cuban dissidents?
Or of trendy Hollywood celebrities doing the same?
Somewhere between slim and none, shall we say?
After all, Castro is a left-wing tyrant, so it wouldn't be fashionable to denounce him.
Lorrie can be reached at (416) 947-2212, by fax at (416) 947-3228 or by e-mail at lorrie.goldstein@tor.sunpub.com. Or visit his home page. Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA]
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