HAVANA, APRIL 21 (Tania Diaz Castro, Grupo Decoro) - The psychological abuse of a prisoner by the police so he will confess his crime is habitual in this world. But it is not habitual to psychologically abuse a peaceful defender of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights with the sole purpose
of morally destroying him/her.
I lived these experiences in my own flesh after being arrested in my home in the pre-dawn hours by several of Fidel Castro's political police, to the astonishment of my two small daughters, a shock they have never been able to get over. After a thorough search of my archives which lasted hours,
I was taken to a cell at State Security. All the documents that were confiscated had been sent by me, one by one, to accredited press agencies in Cuba.
Among all the documents the most bothersome one referred to a letter addressed to the ex-political prisoner Armando Valladares, congratulating him for his work at the United Nations in defense of human rights in Cuba. I was told that I would remain in a cell for having written that letter.
As the "interrogations" proceeded, made by Mayor Rodolfo Pichardo in his tiny room, refrigerated to the maximum, I was not able to notice that there my self-esteem was being undermined. Sometime later, a long, long, time after I was there, where I was held for six months and four days,
I was able to understand how those interrogations had one final objective, the purpose which was to unbalance my self-image, to transform it to the point that I began to think about suicide.
This devastating experience is unforgettable, but very useful when we are able to analyze it objectively, after having healed from this psychological abuse. It was beneficial because in the end, I feel capable of facing a similar situation now, with a better armed heart.
In those interrogations there was everything, from verbal insults, continuous discrediting, defamation, criticism and threats. They spoke of executing me by firing squad and I believed them. Had they not executed a "hero of the fatherland" months earlier? In these interrogations, the
detained feels himself to be the worst in this world, and abject self, inferior to his accusers who are always recently-bathed, well-clothed, well-fed, serene and with something that overwhelms anyone: the truncheon of power in his hands.
I remember calling upon a thousand resources to save my self-esteem, but all failed. The instructor was an expert in unbalancing minds, a technique learned from the KGB. His specialty: intimidation to achieve submission, accommodation, servility. Particularly in persons unable to withstand
strong pressures, unable to defend themselves before unknown political sophistries.
It was useless to try to feel oneself honest, ethical, with a moral sense of responsibility. In fact, this perhaps made it worse.
How to forget my state of depressive exhaustion, my frustration as poet, as journalist, as a human being? Sometimes I reacted favorably, I demanded courage, valor and control over myself. But the aggressor always defeated me with a cynical smile and an inscrutable look.
In atrocious isolation, my body and mind disappeared little by little until I became ashes. In this state it isn't easy to see the maliciousness of the aggressor, his cold rationality. Was his chief success my spiritual weakness?
When I was released from Fidel Castro's jails I did not stop being afraid. Had this poison been injected in my muscles and veins with a long-term effect? I submerged myself in Fidel Castro's vineyard, and there I have remained, perhaps forever. For everything had been said by my executioner: the
vineyard belongs to master Castro, and my purpose and that of all who defend human rights was to separate ourselves from it all, so that, as Diogenes said, we should not take so much as one ray of sun from the master.
Versión original en español
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