The struggle to
defend political prisoners in Cuba
Yolanda Huerga Cedeño.
IHT, Wednesday,
March 17, 2004.
HAVANA - Thursday is a very sad day for
me and for many other Cuban families. It
marks a year since my husband, Manuel Vázquez
Portal, and 74 others - opposition activists,
independent journalists and librarians -
were taken from their homes by agents of
Fidel Castro's regime. Manuel was charged
with exercising one of the basic human rights
- the right to express his own opinion.
In Cuba this is a crime. He was sentenced
to 18 years in prison.
Manuel is being held in the province of
Santiago de Cuba, at the other end of the
island, 800 kilometers, or 500 miles, from
our home in Havana, where I live with our
10-year-old son, Gabriel.
My husband is considered a maximum security
prisoner, kept in solitary confinement,
though one does not know whether this is
worse than being with others, because some
of these political prisoners were put together
with dangerous criminals.
His fellow prisoners from another prison
protested the lack of medical attention
and the detention conditions by going on
hunger strike. Manuel joined them in solidarity.
When Manuel stopped his protest, he told
me he could have held out longer, but I
do not know if this is true: His weight
had dropped to a little more than 45 kilograms,
or 100 pounds.
A month ago I received a smuggled message
from him that started:
"I received a visit that was somewhere
between merry and threatening. For its utter
lack of subtlety, I suppose I would describe
it as more threatening than anything else.
For now, of course, it is impossible for
me to share the details with you. I'll just
take this opportunity to repeat what I told
you at the very start: I take full responsibility
for anything that you might say or do. If
anyone tries to use your words against you
or fault you for anything, they will soon
discover what I am truly capable of. This
game of cultural trifles would become a
bloody war without end."
I can hardly imagine what are the additional
pressures and threats used against Manuel.
He and the 74 other victims of the crackdown
last March are already suffering sufficiently
from the fact of being imprisoned without
any justification. The conditions in the
prisons are unbearable, the hygiene is nonexistent,
the food is inedible, rats and mosquitoes
infest most of the cells. People outside
do not know about it because for many years
now no group - not even the International
Red Cross - has been allowed to visit those
dungeons. And now he tells me about new
threats. I thought it could not get any
worse.
In order for our men not to die from hunger
or infections, we take them food, medicine
and personal hygiene products. With visits
permitted only four times in a year, it
needs to be nonperishable food. This is
not easy either, because some of us are
not allowed to take in more than 13 kilograms,
or 30 pounds, of food, and no canned items
are accepted. It makes feeding of our dear
ones also extremely costly: I spend $150
for the things I carry him every three months,
and he was the one who provided income in
our family.
We wives of Cuba's political prisoners
are trying to stand up in defense of our
men. We cannot do much. We march every Sunday
in Havana outside the church of Santa Rita
- the patron of lost causes - on Fifth Avenue
in our white dresses to prevent the fate
of our men from being forgotten. Government
security agents also come every Sunday,
to watch us, photograph us and intimidate
us. Some of us are called in for interrogations
or "talks." One of the wives was
picked up by the police for several hours
and asked repeatedly whether she really
loved her little son.
Manuel tells me to be brave and not to
stop speaking up in his defense. I try to,
but will anyone listen?
In Cuba everybody is simply busy finding
enough to feed their families - with salaries
at $10 a month this is not an easy task.
Meanwhile, in the United States, people
interested in Cuba are busy discussing the
maintaining or lifting of the trade embargo
on their exports to our island and the travel
bans for their citizens wanting to come
on vacation to our island.
I will continue to defend my husband because
I cannot do otherwise. He wrote to me: "Your
crime is to love me, my crime is not to
have given you, when I should have, a homeland
where it is not a crime to defend love."
Yolanda Huerga Cedeño is the
wife of Manuel Vázquez Portal, a
political prisoner sentenced to 18 years
in prison who was awarded the 2003 Press
Freedom Award by the New York-based Committee
to Protect Journalists.
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