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Lyndonville man talks about
being imprisoned in Cuba
By Helen J. Simon, Free
Press Staff Writer. The
Burlington Free Press, June 11, 2006.
Rick Schwag of Lyndonville and his nonprofit
organization, Caribbean Medical Transport,
have, over the past decade, helped send
to Cuba 18 40-foot containers filled with
medical equipment, supplies and pharmaceuticals.
He has visited the communist island more
than 20 times and has extensive contacts
in Cuban government, health and religious
circles.
He was, therefore, shocked when Cuban authorities
jailed him for eight days during a visit
to Havana last fall. They never told him
why he was being detained, never gave him
a chance to confront his accusers and never
allowed him to contact anyone outside the
prison. And as unexpectedly as he was imprisoned,
Schwag was told to buy his airline ticket
and leave the island.
Although he was not mistreated physically,
he said, the lack of information and due
process were akin to abuse. "For me,
it's a psychological torture, not knowing
what's going on."
In retrospect, Schwag, 53, thinks he might
have run afoul of high-ranking Cuban officials
who might have helped "divert"
costly anesthesiology machines he was transporting
to the island from doctors at Johns Hopkins
University. He will never be sure, because
everyone he has contacted in Cuba and the
United States claims ignorance.
Schwag pledges to continue his mission,
worried that those who will suffer from
his experience may be the Cubans who desperately
need the catheters, wheelchairs and diagnostic
equipment his group has helped provide.
He delayed discussing his situation until
now in hopes he might be able to return.
Now, however, that seems impossible and
he wants to warn others of the potential
risk.
"I don't know my status, but I take
eight days in jail as a warning," he
said, "and it was a very effective
warning."
Schwag believes the high level of tensions
between Cuba and the United States contributed
to his being detained. The Bush Administration,
whose stated goal is to hasten the end of
the Castro regime, has tightened restrictions
under the four-decade Cuban embargo.
Meanwhile, the economy of the island of
11.2 million people is struggling to deal
with lower remittances from Cubans abroad,
a catastrophic decline in the sugar industry
and the after-effects of a major hurricane.
President Fidel Castro, in his 47th year
as Cuba's chief, keeps a tight control over
political opposition.
Laura Tischler, a spokeswoman for the Bureau
of Consular Affairs of the U.S. State Department,
said the department can't comment on Schwag's
case due to privacy reasons, "though
it may very well be what happened."
The road to Havana
The path from growing up in a Philadelphia
suburb to a Cuban prison may have been circuitous
but not unexpected, Schwag said. He said
his parents spent their lives helping others:
His father was a founder and president of
the Mainline Reform Temple Beth Elohim in
Havertown, Pa.; his mother, an active proponent
of tzedaka -- charitable work.
Schwag studied philosophy and religion
in college. In 1980 he moved to Lyndonville,
where he bought 16 acres, built a house
and tended bees. He later began selling
real estate. Today he has enough money to
live frugally without working.
Schwag made his first trip to Cuba in 1994
and was instantly smitten, he said. During
his second visit he met his future wife
and began to acquire an insider's understanding
of the island.
He saw the suffering caused by shortages
of medical supplies and began collecting
donated goods and shipping them to Cuba.
First they went in 80-pound duffel bags,
then by 40-foot containers.
Schwag estimates CMT, which holds U.S.
commerce and travel licenses required for
humanitarian work under the embargo, has
helped collect and ship some 90 tons of
medical goods valued in the millions of
dollars to Cuba.
At the end of August, Schwag flew to Havana
to conduct CMT business and oversee four
containers of relief supplies shipped to
Santiago de Cuba in the wake of Hurricane
Dennis. About 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 3,
he was at the airport preparing to board
a plane to Santiago when a uniformed immigration
official ordered Schwag to accompany him
to a car where two others were waiting.
Someone wanted to ask him some questions,
Schwag was told.
He was taken to an immigration office.
After waiting an hour he was taken to an
official who peered into a small manila
envelope and told him he had been denied
entry into the country. He was weighed and
fingerprinted and taken to one of 10 four-man
cells in the facility.
Over the next eight days, Schwag would
meet 40 to 50 foreigners, about half of
whom were jailed for what appeared to be
minor infractions: a Honduran who was robbed
by thugs and then arrested by police for
having no money when he reported the crime;
a Spanish tourist who was detained for being
barefoot after giving away his Adidas sneakers
and allegedly being disrespectful to police;
and a Jordanian whose passport was torn.
Schwag estimates about a third of the prisoners
did not know why they had been detained,
and that fewer than a third were picked
up for real offenses. Most of the foreigners
were held four days to a week.
"As far as I could tell, there was
no investigation, no accusation, no charges,
no interviews, no process, no procedures,"
Schwag said. "This is a holding tank
for people who are going to be put on a
plane and sent back to wherever they came
from."
Although the uncertainty was torturous,
Schwag said the physical conditions in the
jail "were not terrible." The
guards were indifferent but not cruel. The
food was adequate nutritionally but "awful."
A slender man to begin with, Schwag lost
almost 15 pounds during his internment.
On his sixth day in jail, Schwag was told
he had permission to leave and was driven
to the airport to buy a ticket for the first
flight he could get to Montreal. Two days
later, guards drove him to the airport and
personally escorted him onto the plane.
Schwag later learned that when he failed
to arrive in Santiago, his ex-wife's family
called her in Lyndonville. She called a
cousin in Havana who is a policeman and
was able to learn his whereabouts. About
the fifth day of his confinement, his former
wife was able to call the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana to report that he had
been jailed.
Missing equipment
Schwag thinks he was imprisoned because
he tried to track down three anesthesiology
machines worth $125,000 that he had shipped
to Cuba for use by the William Soler Children's
Hospital at the request of doctors in the
Johns Hopkins' Cuba Exchange Program.
After shipping the equipment, Schwag said,
he received an e-mail from officials at
the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Investment
saying the machines had been denied entry
into the island because they did not comply
with government regulations.
He does not know where the machines ended
up.
Wayne Smith, director of the Cuba Exchange
Program and former head of the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana during the Reagan administration,
said he understood the machines had arrived
at the customs office in Havana, but that
officials from the children's hospital had
not been allowed to retrieve them.
"What happened to the machines, I
have no idea," he said.
Schwag said he remains committed to sending
medical aid to Cuba and has established
safeguards so others can continue working
there without endangering themselves.
Still, he is making arrangements for the
possible day when he can no longer help
the island. He recently spent three months
in Colombia, laying the groundwork for sending
medical supplies there in the future.
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