Stephan Archer
Tuesday, May 9, 2000
Although Fidel Castro has done much to make world observers believe that he has introduced a true color-blind society in Cuba, evidence suggests that black and mulatto Cubans are treated unfairly and even harshly.
On the surface, Cuba’s constitution, as it pertains to discrimination, has the familiar ring of many American laws that deal with the same subject.
With laws touting that discrimination is forbidden on the basis of race, sex or national origin, it would appear that Cuba’s multiracial society lives without fear of official harassment and prejudice.
Brave Cubans still publicly point their fingers at a hypocritical regime that all too often breaks its own official discrimination codes. As a reward for their honesty, many are thrown in prison.
Prison conditions continue to be harsh in Cuba, but for the black prisoner, particularly those who speak out against the government, conditions are even worse.
"The fact that there are black dissenters is a tremendous slap in the face for the Castro regime, and when they encounter such an individual, they treat them even worse, if that’s possible, than another dissenter,” explained Mariela Ferretti, a spokesperson for the Cuban-American National Foundation.
Though the Cuban government offers no statistics, former prisoners indicate that Cuban blacks – though 12 percent of the general population – are a majority in Castro's prisons.
Currently, blacks and mulattos continue to be discriminated against in government leadership positions, even though they make up over half the population, says a 1998 U.S. State Department report on Cuban human rights abuses.
Blacks and mulattos, states the report, hold only six seats in the 24-member Politburo, and according to Luis Zuniga at CANF, only around 15 blacks hold seats in the 150-member Central Committee.
Castro's military leadership – the backbone of the regime – has practically no blacks in its ranks.
The State report goes on to say that much of the police force and army enlisted personnel is black.
Targeting Blacks
Castro's regime has openly targeted its black populations.
The U.S. State Department reports that police harassment seems to be disproportionately aimed at the country’s black youth.
In 1997, Castro implemented Decree 217, which was designed to control the migration flow from the poorer provinces to the capital city of Havana.
"Human rights observers noted that while the decree affected migration countrywide, the decree was targeted at individuals and families from the poor, predominantly black and mulatto eastern provinces,” states the State Department report.
The decree also resulted in numerous credible reports that said many blacks and mulatto squatters, not having official permission to reside in Havana under Decree 217, are forcibly evicted from their homes and sent back to the countryside.
Ferretti believes Castro is getting away with this deception because human rights groups in the United States believe things are getting better.
"This smacks of hypocrisy," said Ferretti. "These so-called liberal groups – when they are encountering a situation of discrimination, of violence, in Castro’s Cuba – they look the other way. And then at the slightest excuse, they say things are getting better."
Things are getting better?
Not according to the State Department’s own report.
"Evidence suggests that racial discrimination occurs often [in Cuba],” the report says.