By Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz.
The Washinton Post. Sunday, April
1, 2001; Page B07.
HAVANA -- When each one of us human rights defenders in Cuba makes the
decision to become an activist, we can see the hardships we will have to put up
with: repression, intimidation, threats, imprisonment, sometimes even physical
abuse -- all perpetrated or orchestrated by State Security.
Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leyva can't see it coming, though: He is blind. When
four State Security agents beat him on Jan. 16 in the city of Sancti Spiritos,
took away his cane and ID papers and left him alone in some bushes, he could not
even see those who kidnapped him. He managed to find his way to the main road,
only to be once again grabbed by State Security agents and taken on a confusing
ride in a jeep before being abandoned somewhere else.
At age 35, Gonzalez is one of the youngest in our tiny family of human
rights fighters, but in spite of his youth and his disability he could easily
give us lessons in courage and persistence. Even State Security seems to
appreciate his strength: This latest attack was only one of many Gonzalez has
suffered since co-founding in 1998 the Fraternity of the Independent Blind of
Cuba as well as the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights.
I myself have paid with imprisonment lasting more than eight years for my
independent activity. My house has many times been the object of "acts of
repudiation" (those supposed cases of "mob aggression," all of
them orchestrated by authorities), and members of my family often have problems
obtaining permits to travel out of Cuba, even for personal or health reasons.
But none of these repressive tactics comes close to the sheer cruelty of
physically abusing a disabled person. One has to be a beast to beat a blind man.
It is possible that the ferocity of these latest attacks has something to do
with the visit to Cuba by two Czech citizens, presumably on behalf of Freedom
House, an international pro-democracy group. Our press informed us that the two
were planning to meet with "counterrevolutionary elements," which in
our Orwellian vocabulary means providing aid to civil society. In other words it
is probable that the Czechs -- who themselves were detained for more than three
weeks in the State Security prison of Villa Marista here -- were planning to
visit Gonzalez while they were in Cuba. (They were released last month and left
this country.)
According to the report that our commission prepared on the state of
political prisoners in Cuba as of Jan. 1, 10 percent of the 300 prisoners had
been put behind bars for having tried to exercise their right to freedom of
opinion. Perhaps two dozen of them are members of human rights organizations and
groups that support prisoners and civil society activists.
One positive development is that Jesus Joel Diaz Hernandez, an independent
journalist and a friend of Gonzalez, was recently freed from prison. He had been
there since Jan. 18, 1999, serving a four-year sentence that did not even carry
a charge; he was being held under a measure that virtually allows punishment
before a crime. This is the sort of thing one finds in countries where the
guiding spirit of "law enforcement" is: "Give me the man and I
will find the article to charge him with."
The writer is president of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and
National Reconciliation.
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