CubaCurious
"I’ll die standing firm to defend liberty"/ Professor expelled for criticizing Communist Party official / A shortage of snitches
Hola and welcome,
This week’s scoops give voice to 2 intrepid Cuban activists who refuse to let the dictatorship win.
I’ve tried to quote them directly as much as possible. Their words and actions inspire me. I hope you’ll feel the same way.
Hasta la semana que viene,
Ana
Uno — Famous political prisoner worries about forgotten fellow prisoners
In a letter smuggled out of prison, high-profile political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer called for the international community’s focus on political prisoners being held by the Cuban regime, whose basic rights Ferrer says are systematically violated. “Political prisoners Aníbal Ribeaus and Ian Games, survive under extreme conditions in this prison. They need more solidarity and material support of food, medicine and personal hygiene products,” Ferrer wrote.
Ferrer describes his fellow prisoners’ unattended serious ailments, extreme hunger, receiving mostly undrinkable water, and rations he compared to those of Nazi concentration camps. “I would like to share the food and resources [his family has managed to send him] but my extreme isolation and surveillance makes it impossible from to help anyone here. They won’t let any prisoner come near me or speak with me. Even the jailers are forbidden to speak with me . . .” he said.
Ferrer has been held in a walled isolation cell for the last year and a half. “The dictatorship has buried me alive, they want to silence me at all cost.”
The political prisoner is being held at the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba, “. . .I”ve tried to get my messages to them [prison and state officials] but I’m not sure they’ve been received. Hopefully this one will [be]. José Daniel Ferrer García will never give up . . .I’ll die standing firm to defend liberty, democracy, human rights, justice and fundamental values: separation of powers, freedom of speech, the press, association, peaceful assembly, economic freedom and social justice.”
Ferrer, an activist since the 1990s, has endured decades of persecution, long prison sentences, house arrest, abuses against his family, and physical and psychological torture for his political beliefs. The European Parliament, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, and many others have repeatedly called for his release.
The regime has offered to release Ferrer into exile, but he has consistently refused. “My solidarity is with Ukraine, the persecuted opposition in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Russia, Bielorussia, Burma, and the rest of the world. Thank you to all who have been concerned for me, for my brothers in solidarity. “Viva Cuba Libre,” he concluded.
Dos—UNEAC expels professor Alina Bárbara Lóopex for criticizing “the leadership of the revolution."
The Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC) expelled last Thursday historian Alina Bárbara López—a sanction in which the intellectual sees the heavy hand of State Security—for criticizing the “high leadership of the revolution,” “supporting the 11 of July movement,” and violating the institution’s statutes.
According to López, representatives of each branch of UNEAC as well as her province’s (Matanzas) committee president, told her they had sufficient reasons for demanding the “separation.” Among them, her insults against Communist Party official Julio César Pérez, who is also vice-president of the Writers’ Association.
César Pérez, through a State Security account dedicated to “cyberattacks,” accused López of “having lost all shame and violating the peace of her city [López has been holding silent vigils in a central plaza to protest human rights violations].
UNEAC told López its decision was unappealable, a pointless detail, she concluded, since the message “was clearly dictated by State Security and not artists and writers.” Still, she considers the decision to be unfounded and illegal.
López said she was given no documented proof of the ruling, only a verbal statement. UNEAC representatives would not read the actual documented decision to her, and only after much insistence did they re-read their ruling. “Their goal was to have me listen and to end the meeting without debate. They don’t know me very well. I did not accept and forced an exchange they did not want, where they had to listen to me,” she said.
She made clear that the 11J social protests [ 11 July 2021 countrywide anti-regime protests] were spontaneous, so UNEAC could not accuse her of backing its leadership. She admitted to analyzing the causes for the protests, writing articles, and calling for the release of those who were arrested. “I found it unjust that those people should serve long sentences for simply marching and shouting slogans or filming the protests. I never condoned the vandalism, but that was not at all typical during 11J,” she said.
As far as committing acts “against the revolution” (which she said should be viewed as “against the state”)—López asked for clarification, for she has never been a member of an opposition group. “I’ve never called for violence and I’m a promoter of national dialogue, have never asked for anyone to join me in my personal quests to protest. I am exercising the constitutional rights established in Article 56 of the Law of Laws: freedom of expression and peaceful demonstration,” she explained.
UNEAC’s representatives claimed the organization’s statues allowed them to expel her, but López reminded them that no organization’s rules are above the constitution and they were therefore committing an illegal act [by expelling her].
UNEAC was created in 1961 during extreme political pressure sparked mounting censorship and Fidel Castro’s rules for what would define culture. From its origin, the group has used expulsion as a political tool against its members.
Now run by Luis Morlote, UNEAC has reinforced its ideological control and has affirmed, through communiqués and declarations, its non negotiable loyalty to the regime.
NOTE: The preamble to Cuba’s 2019 Constitution declares the nation to be “democratic.” Yet the document affirms that the Communist Party is the only legal party permitted in Cuba and that the nation’s socialist system is “irrevocable.” The freedoms promised to citizens throughout the document are effectively annulled by Article 4: “All citizens have the right to fight, using all means, including armed struggle, when no other recourse is possible, against anyone attempting to overthrow the political, social, and economic order established by this Constitution.”
Tres—Ex Cuban spy laments shortage of snitches
Translated and summarized excerpt from today’s Cafecito Informativo podcast by Yoani Sánchez:
“The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) are agonizing, in free-fall. One reason is a lack of recruits—there are not enough people to cover the more than 138,000 barrios of Cuba that have comites. I remind you that CDRs are nothing more than para-police units dedicated to surveil and control Cuba’s barrios, block by block, and snitch on not just those who have a different political view point, but also those who, lets say, buy or sell products on the black market or participate in any action the regime wants to punish or control, so they become mechanisms to control and blackmail people who decide to criticize the regime.
Former Cuban spy Gerardo Hernández [coordinator of nation’s CDRs], says they’re having problems filling openings at CDRs. He says it’s because people are busy working, and they’re at their jobs for 8 hours a day, there’s not enough time to dedicate to laboring at CDRs to defend the revolution. But clearly, the massive exodus of Cubans, an estimated 200,000 have arrived so far in the US’s fiscal year, has had a major impact on CDR staffing, and those who remain aren’t ready to sign up for the work either.
The era of snitching, of collaborating with the government so easily, has, fortunately, ended.”
NOTE: “Hernández was the leader of a Cuban espionage ring, known as the Wasp Network, dismantled by the FBI in South Florida in 1998. He was convicted of espionage and conspiracy to commit murder for his involvement in Cuba’s shoot-down [MIGs]of two planes owned by the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue in 1996, in which four people [3 American citizens and 1 US permanent resident] were killed. Hernández was sentenced to life in prison, but was released by President Barack Obama during a prisoner swap in December 2014 after serving 16 years. Welcomed in Cuba as a hero, Hernández was appointed in May 2016 as vice-rector of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs higher education institute, from which he had graduated in 1988. In September 2020, he was named general coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, or CDR, the organization created by Fidel Castro to take state surveillance to every street block on the island. “ —14 June 2023 Miami Herald article by Nora Games Torres.