Posted on 04/29/2003 1:05:04 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
BOGOTA (AFP) - Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a friend of Fidel Castro, condemned the death penalty "anywhere and for any reason," in reply to US writer Susan Sontag, who said she was troubled that the Colombian writer had not condemned recent executions in Cuba.
The Colombian writer, who won the 1982 Nobel prize for literature, and the Cuban revolutionary have been friends for years.
Sontag, on a visit to Bogota's book fair, Sunday said that while she admired Garcia Marquez as an author, it did not seem correct to her that he had not spoken out after Cuba executed three men who tried to hijack a commuter ferry to the United States.
Many people at the fair applauded her remark about Colombia's favorite son.
Garcia Marquez told the newspaper El Tiempo "as a rule I do not reply to unnecessary or provocative questions, wherever they come from, even if they come from -- as in this case -- a person so deserving and respectable."
"As far as the death penalty is concerned, I have nothing to add to what I have said in private and in public for as long as I can remember: I am against it, anywhere and for any reason, under any circumstances."
The April 11 executions in Cuba followed a week of harsh sentences -- from six to 28 years in prison -- doled out to 75 dissidents rounded up in a recent crackdown and accused of being threats to state security, after trials lasting a few hours.
The crackdown, Cuba's harshest in years, brought condemnation from almost all corners of the international community, including the United States, the European Union and Pope John Paul II in addition to some political parties and intellectuals usually sympathetic to Castro.
In the last month, the Cuban authorities have rounded up 75 dissidents and imprisoned them for terms of up to 28 years. As part of the crackdown, Cuba also executed three men who hijacked a ferry in a failed bid to reach the United States.
"Having Cuba serve again on the Human Rights Commission is like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security," Fleischer said. "It is an inappropriate action that does not serve the cause of human rights in Cuba or at the United Nations."
Cuba's U.N. ambassador, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, accused the United States of executing minors and the mentally retarded people and abusing the rights of Afghan fighters long confined without charges in a U.S. base on Cuban territory.***
Ditto for Libya too.
"As far as the death penalty is concerned, I have nothing to add to what I have said in private and in public for as long as I can remember: I am against it, anywhere and for any reason, under any circumstances."Mr. Garcia Marquez,
Please, Castro is your hero, your idol, your personal friend.
To keep mum while Castro is executing black Cubans fleeing the Workers' Paradise is a good indication of appeasement and double standard.
You couldn't stop flapping your gums while the military governments in Argentine, Chile, and Central American were fighting internal guerrillas and terrorists.
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