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Excerpts from
Human Rights in Cuba Since the Papal Visit

Note from Keith:   These are only excerpts. The complete report for this INS report can be found at http://worldpolicy.org/americas/carib/cuba99.html.   I have boldfaced what I consider important points about repression in Cuba.   Note that, even though this is not a statement of government policy, it originates from the INS, the same government body that wants to deport Elian back into slavery.

October 1999 (addressing country conditions through March 1999)

by Douglas Payne

Perspective Series [PS/CUB/00.001]

INS Resource Information Center
425 I St NW (Ullico Building, 3rd floor)
Washington DC  20536

Disclaimer

...The inclusion of this paper in the Perspective Series compiled by the Service does not constitute an endorsement of the information in the paper. The views expressed in the paper, therefore, do not necessarily represent statements of policy of the United States Government, nor does this paper reflect foreign policy concerns of the United States Government.

This report assesses human rights developments in Cuba from November 1997 to March 1999, updating the Perspective Series report Cuba: Systematic Repression of Dissent issued in December 1998.

I. OVERVIEW

The visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba on January 21-25, 1998 opened new, though limited, space for the Cuban Catholic Church.¹ However, the Cuban government of President Fidel Castro did not heed the Pope’s call for democratic change. Since then, Castro has disregarded similar pleas from Canada, the European Union and members of the Organization of American States, and a year after the Pope’s visit Cuba remained under the totalitarian control of a one-party Communist state. As Human Rights Watch noted in its annual report in December 1998:

After an apparent opening early in 1998, Cuba took firm action against nonviolent government critics as the year progressed with surveillance, harassment, and intimidation. Cuba used short-term, arbitrary detentions together with official warnings of future prosecution to urge activists to leave Cuba, abandon their opposition activities, or distance themselves from “counterrevolutionary” colleagues or family members.²

As 1998 drew to a close, Cuba’s stepped-up prosecutions and harassment of dissidents, along with its refusal to grant amnesty to hundreds of remaining political prisoners or reform its criminal code, marked a disheartening return to heavy-handed repression.³

Heightened repression continued into 1999 with renewed waves of detentions and, in March, with the convictions and sentencing of four of Cuba’s most prominent dissidents on charges of "sedition," as described later in this section and in Section XII. As the trial approached, at least 100 dissidents, including human rights activists and independent journalists, were temporarily detained or placed under house arrest in an evident attempt to prevent them from campaigning on behalf of those being tried, or from attending or reporting on the proceedings. Cuban human rights monitors said that it was the largest anti-dissident round-up since the break-up of the Concilio Cubano in February 1996.⁴...

What must happen is a reform of the Cuban penal code and judicial system so that the freedom of association, the freedom of expression and of the press, are no longer crimes. Otherwise, the prisons will just fill up again.⁵

Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina said that the government had no intention of altering Cuba’s legal structures. He stated that Cuba’s laws would remain in place and that there would continue to be no tolerance for peaceful opposition to the government. He said that the release of prisoners "has not been made to stimulate acts of internal dissidence," and he made it clear that the government would take a stern view of "counterrevolution," the term the government habitually uses to refer to peaceful dissent.^6....

....Nevertheless, Cuban dissident organizations, inspired by the Pope’s message and seeking to take advantage of the apparent thaw after his visit, undertook a number of new initiatives to seek peaceful political change, as described in Section V. Again, the lessening of repression in early 1998 conformed to the pattern evident since the 1980s, in which the Cuban government becomes less heavy-handed against peaceful opposition when it wants to gain political or economic support from abroad. For example, when the economy was on the verge of collapse in 1994-1995 and the government was seeking foreign investment and debt relief, there was an easing which allowed dissidents to form the Concilio Cubano, a national umbrella organization which was eventually crushed in 1996. The thaw in early 1998—during which dissidents nonetheless remained under tight watch and subject to government reprisals—stemmed from Castro’s thus far successful effort, beginning with the Pope’s visit, to end Cuba’s political isolation internationally, as discussed in Section VI.

Some commentators have suggested that international monitors should observe whether the Cuban courts are following established legal norms in the case. These well-meaning suggestions miss the point. The problem is that Cuban laws criminalize free speech and free assembly and undercut defendants’ rights to a fair trial…The Cuban criminal code serves as the foundation of Cuba’s repressive machinery…Cuba has repeatedly refused to modify criminal code provisions that restrict the fundamental rights to free speech, association and movement.²2

Then, in February 1999, the government adopted the Ley de Protección de la Independencia Nacional y la Economía de Cuba, Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Economy of Cuba. Also known as Law No. 88 or, among dissidents, the Ley Mordaza, Gag Law, it is so restrictive that a Cuban could now be imprisoned for up to five years for merely writing a letter abroad complaining about food shortages.²³ Law No. 88, described in greater detail in Section XII, meant that those groups identified as being at risk in the Perspective Series report Cuba: Systematic Repression of Dissent were now possibly in greater jeopardy than they were before the Pope came to Cuba.

During the Pope’s stay in Cuba there were few reported incidents of repression. The Catholic Church had signaled dissident organizations that it did not want political protests at papal Masses and they complied by keeping a very low profile.³⁷ Still, State Security agents carried off at least three individuals who shouted anti-Castro slogans or criticized the government before foreign television cameras during the Pope’s Mass in Havana. The fate of those people remained unclear as of March 1999.³⁸

Though Fidel Castro may have hoped for more sympathy from the pontiff, outwardly he appeared pleased that the Pope had criticized the U.S. embargo and decried "neo-liberal capitalist" systems which "enrich the few on the backs of the poverty of many." ³⁹ When Castro bade farewell to the Pope following the Mass in Havana, he said, "For every word you have said—even those I might disagree with—on behalf of all the Cuban people, Holy Father, I thank you." ⁴⁰ Castro also heaped scorn on those who may have hoped that the papal trip would mean the demise of his Communist regime, saying that Cuba "knows no fear…it firmly defends its principles and has nothing to hide from the world." ⁴¹

On January 6, State Security officials in Havana detained four journalists affiliated with Habana Press—Jesús Díaz Loyola, Lázaro Rodríguez Torres, Jorge Olivera and María del Carmen Garro Gómez—as well as Javier Troncoso of the Confederación de Trabajadores Democráticos de Cuba (CTDC), Democratic Workers Confederation of Cuba, and Estrella García Rodríguez of the Partido Pro-Derechos Humanos de Cuba, Party for Human Rights in Cuba. Before releasing them, the officials warned them to stay away from the Havana court where the appeal of Lázaro Constantino Durán’s conviction was to be heard the following day, saying to them, "We will use whatever kind of force against you." ¹⁸⁰

In mid-January, more than a dozen dissidents and independent journalists were jailed or held under house arrest in Havana for up to three days to prevent them from attending a commemoration of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. convoked by the Fundación Lawton de Derechos Humanos, Lawton Human Rights Foundation. Among those arrested were Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, director of the foundation, and María de los Ángeles Amaro, director of the Unión de Periodistas e Escritores Cubanos Independientes (UPECI), Union of Independent Cuban Journalists and Writers.¹⁸¹ Also detained were Odalys Curbelo of CubaPress, Ana María Ortega Jiménez of the CTD and Migdalia Rosado of the Fundación Lawton.¹⁸²

In the last week of January, more than a dozen dissidents and independent journalists were briefly jailed and threatened by State Security agents in Havana to prevent their participation in a procession to mark the first anniversary of the Pope’s Mass in the capital. The procession, ultimately blocked by the government from taking place, had been organized by the Fundación Lawton, and many of those arrested had been detained two weeks earlier at the time Martin Luther King’s birthday.¹⁸³ The arrest of Dr. Elías Biscet marked the tenth time he had been detained and threatened in the previous four months.¹⁸⁴

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least eleven independent journalists were temporarily detained and threatened in January alone. Along with those held in Havana, also arrested were Pedro Argüelles Morán, CubaPress correspondent in the central eastern province of Ciego de Avila; Hirán González, CubaPress correspondent in the southern central province of Cienfuegos; and Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández, executive director of the Cooperativa Avileña de Periodistas Independientes (CAPI), Avileña Cooperative of Independent Journalists, in Ciego de Avila. Díaz Hernández, aged 24, was arrested on January 18 and the following day was tried and convicted on a charge of "dangerousness." He was sentenced to four years in prison, which brought to four the number of independent journalists enduring long-term incarceration.¹⁸⁵

In mid-February, around a dozen dissidents and independent journalists were briefly detained or visited by State Security officials in Santiago de Cuba who warned them to stay away from a Latin American Catholic Bishop’s conference being held in that eastern city and threatened them with violent reprisals and long-term imprisonment. Among those detained and threatened were Rolando Bestart Favart of the Biblioteca Independiente Pedro Luis Boitel, the Independent Library Pedro Luis Boitel; Marilyn Lahera of Santiago Press; Mirna Riverón of the Biblioteca Independiente René Eduardo Chibás, Independent Library René Eduardo Chibás, and the Agencia de Prensa Libre Oriental (APLO), Eastern Free Press Agency; Santiago Santana of APLO; and José Vidal Cros and Luis Enrique Ferrer of the Movimiento Cívico Cristiano Pro Derechos Humanos, Patria, Independencia y Libertad, Christian Civic Movement for Human Rights, Fatherland, Independence and Liberty.¹⁸⁶

In mid-February, the Cuban National Assembly rubber-stamped a new law, the Ley de Protección de la Independencia Nacional y la Economía de Cuba, Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Economy of Cuba. Also known as Law No. 88 or, among dissidents, the Ley Mordaza, Gag Law, it appeared to augur a period of even greater repression against dissidents and independent journalists. Among its provisions, the law establishes prison terms from two to five years for "anyone who…collaborates in any way with foreign radio or television stations, newspapers, magazines or other mass media with the purpose of…destabilizing the country and destroying the socialist state." Prison terms increase to three to eight years if such collaboration is "carried out for profit." ¹⁸⁷

Law No. 88 also calls for prison terms of seven to fifteen years for "anyone who…carries out any action aimed at hindering or hurting economic relations of the Cuban state." Further, it sets penalties of three to eight years for those "who accumulate, reproduce or spread material of subversive character from the government of the United States, its agencies, dependencies, representatives, officials, or from any other foreign entity." It also provides for terms of between three and eight years for "anyone who…directly or through third parties, receives, distributes or participates in the distribution of financial, material or other resources, from the government of the United States, its agencies, dependencies, representatives, officials or private entities." ¹⁸⁸

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