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Don't reward Castro for
releasing prisoners
Carlos Alberto Montaner.
Posted on Tue, Dec. 07, 2004 in The
Miami Herald.
Fidel Castro has just released writer Raúl
Rivero from prison. Wonderful. Rivero is
Cuba's foremost living poet. Along with
him, Castro released several valuable prisoners
of conscience from a group of 75 who, in
the spring of 2003, were sentenced at his
command to terms of up to 28 years for publishing
critical articles abroad, lending books
that were forbidden by the censors and demanding
a referendum -- sanctioned by the nation's
laws -- through what became known as the
Varela Project. Those were the alleged crimes
that were severely punished by the Cuban
dictatorship.
It is likely that many of the hundreds
of political prisoners in the country, recognized
as such by groups like Amnesty International
and the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights, will emerge from the island's prisons,
a few at a time. Some of those captives
have spent several years behind bars under
awful conditions. This is therefore the
moment to ask ourselves two key questions:
o Why is Castro relenting at this time?
The answer is obvious: Because, after the
crackdown of 2003, the weight of international
rejection and isolation demolished the already-insignificant
amount of prestige left to the West's last
communist tyranny. Castro was left practically
alone. He needed help to get out of the
mousetrap, and that help came in the form
of a timely request from Spanish Prime Minister
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
to dispense some releases.
Castro relented because of the constant
denunciations of the Inter-American Press
Association; the condemnation of the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights; the demands
from the left, led by Portuguese Nobel-winning
author José Saramago; the sanctions
imposed by the European Union, spurred on
by the European Parliament; and the overwhelming
and mounting efforts of the International
Committee for Democracy in Cuba led by Vaclav
Havel.
o What should the international community
do now that Castro has given ground? The
answer was given by Socialist Javier Solana,
who happens to be the high representative
of the European Union for Foreign Policy
and Security: "The European Union has
nothing to give Cuba for correcting an injustice.''
That's a fact. It would be a huge mistake
to reward Castro for pausing in the commission
of a crime. For half a century, the Comandante
has learned that the simplest way to achieve
his ends is to mistreat the Cubans or harm
any unfriendly society and then ''sell''
to his adversaries a halt to his dastardly
behavior.
Now he's trying to get the European Union
to lift certain sanctions that it imposed
on his government because of the lack of
democracy in Cuba and, in exchange, proffers
the release from prison of people who never
should have been incarcerated.
In 1994 -- he has done this three times
in the past many years -- Castro unleashed
on the United States an invasion of rafters,
which he halted only after Washington rewarded
him with 20,000 visas per year. His objective
was to create an exhaust valve to relieve
the internal pressure, and he achieved that
objective by blackmailing his baffled neighbor
with a mob of 40,000 illegal immigrants.
It is very important that the pressure
against the dictatorship should continue.
Even if there were not a single prisoner
of conscience, the Cuban political model
would be just as censurable because of the
total absence of freedoms Cuban society
has endured for almost half a century.
There are some very clear symptoms of demoralization
at the apex and base of Cuba's nomenklatura.
To other countries have departed the sister-in-law
of Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez
Roque, a grandson of Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara
and 50 musicians and dancers in a touring
show. Stealthily, generals and ministers
send their children abroad. On the island,
corruption is rampant.
We musn't forget the psychological component
of this battle for freedom. That climate
of defeat and frustration is due, in great
measure, to the horrendous image projected
abroad by the revolution and its representatives.
That circumstance favors a transition. Those
who know they're perceived as scoundrels
are always the ones who bid for change.
To be wicked -- and to know one is wicked
-- is a very painful thing.
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