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Political
prisoners hunger for justice
By Oswaldo Paya. Posted
on Wed, Oct. 29, 2003 in The
Miami Herald.
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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