Posted on 10/29/2003 1:47:01 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA -- Tony Díaz Sánchez, of the Liberation Christian Movement, is imprisoned at Holguín, 1,000 miles from his hometown, Marianao. To see him, his wife, Gisela, daughters Yeni, 16, and Lázara Massiel, 4, and his brother Carlos must make a long trip, filled with the difficulties of the Cuba of the poor.
The visits occur every three months, and on Oct. 14, the family carried ''the basket'' -- a bag of sugar, a bag of powdered milk, a little oil, a powdered beverage, but no proteins, because prison officials do not permit them. The officials allow only 30 pounds of food every 90 days, and that includes the containers' weight.
Bear in mind that these prisoners live in cages where they cannot take three steps in a straight line or stretch their arms out to the side because they'll hit the walls. Once a day, they are allowed to collect water in a container, and they are given a small portion of food, often in bad condition, spoiled. It's the torture of physical hunger. Some of those reading this article have never had that experience: being hungry all day long and having nothing to eat.
Many Cubans, hundreds of thousands, have been imprisoned and know what we're talking about. But this is an extreme case. It is torture. It is a means of reducing a prisoner to the minimum of his physical and mental abilities.
This near-annihilation is completed by sensory isolation, a cloud of mosquitoes and, in many instances, rats and mice. Arbitrarily, guards confiscate inmates' correspondence and deny them their medicines, even those brought by relatives, because in prison -- according to the guards -- ''they lack nothing.'' The prison provides only pain, humiliation and rations of modus muriendi.
The family of Díaz Sánchez, a Varela Project coordinator, must take him what's called ''the toiletries'': soap, deodorant, sheets, a coat and anything else that he might need. From prison officials, the prisoners receive only cruelty, not basic supplies for survival.
When the family handed the guards the 30 pounds of food and ''toiletries,'' the guards said that the toiletries weighed 21 pounds. A prison official said that weight had to be subtracted from the food's weight, which meant that the prisoner could have only nine pounds of food. But that's not accurate either, because the weight of the containers is included.
In all, Díaz Sánchez would have a scant eight pounds of food for the next three months. That's not even 1.5 ounces a day. But this is not an article on statistics; it's a denunciation of torture.
Díaz Sánchez rejected the food package, because he considered such treatment to be degrading. He told the guards: ``I'm imprisoned here for defending the rights of all Cubans, and I'm not going to accept this violation.''
The warden told the relatives to leave through a back door and ordered two common prisoners to throw the bag with the food out on the road, which they did. Díaz Sánchez told his wife, daughters, and brother not to touch it. It just lay there. His wife told me that she felt very sad as she walked away and saw the package -- which she had put together with such sacrifice -- lying on the road. But she knew that at most one quarter of its contents would have reached him.
Meanwhile, I've heard from José Daniel Ferrer, who is at the Pinar del Rio prison known as Kilometer 5 ½. He tells me about the prisoners' suffering and constant hunger. His brother Luis Enrique -- who challenged the judges to sign the Varela Project and thus was handed the longest sentence, 28 years -- is now in a punishment cell. When normal conditions are torture, imagine what a punishment cell must be like.
What's remarkable, what history will record as the truth, is the love of Cuba's political prisoners for their people and for freedom. It's the kind of unlimited courage that confuses their jailers. It's the fortitude of their spirit while at total disadvantage, their inner peace in the face of those who have only power, tyrannical power, and compensate for the strength of the powerless ones by inflicting pain upon them.
The prisoners of the Cuba spring and all other political prisoners in Cuba are sustained by their faith and the prayers and solidarity of all sensitive people inside and outside our island. But this should not be a spectacle for Cubans. Every drop in the torrent of pain that flows from these prisoners and their relatives is shed by every Cuban -- every elderly person and poor child, every disheartened youth who plunges into the sea, every family that suffers anguish and oppression and even by those who talk and only talk, complain or dwell on the subject but give no support.
Each drop of that suffering is shed by you. Don't pity the prisoners, because if they suffer hunger and thirst, they are blessed because they hunger and thirst for justice. There are no blessings, however, for those who show no solidarity because they don't want to get in trouble.
Oswaldo Payá heads the Liberation Christian Movement, which launched the Varela Project for human rights and democracy in Cuba.
''This president will not do business with a tyrant,'' Reich said.***
However, they support the real Leftists, the Leninist "Inner Party", who figure Sanchez got what he deserved.
Without the fools supporting the Leninists there would be little to fear from the Left in America, instead of the current situation, one of serious danger.
A rationale for giving*** How and why we choose a cause, or drop it again, fascinates me, especially as the needs seem greater and time more fragmented. I often ask friends why they espouse the causes they do, but rarely are our answers clear. What tugs at our hearts - or purse strings - is complicated and sometimes unpredictable. It reminds me of dating, the way we fall in love with one good cause after another, and then get disgusted with them or trade them in for a newer, sexier model. The difference is that the good philanthropies never call. (I've been known to drop them, if they do. A warning about my low tolerance for phone solicitations is part of our early courtship.)
When it comes to giving, are we fastidious or merely fickle? I'm not alone in this struggle to define to whom we will give.***
Struggle? This is her struggle?
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