The courts, under Cuba's constitution, are formally subordinate to the governing elite and cannot protect the innocent. Neither can lawyers, who lost their right to work in private firms in 1973 and have been forced to work either for the government or in collectives. Lawyers who had defended dissidents were refused membership in the collectives.
Cubans found guilty under this criminal justice system -- and their fate is rarely in doubt -- often serve 10 to 20 years in jail for political crimes. But most Cuban criminals are not political. A large proportion of the estimated 180,000 to 200,000 common criminals in Cuba's 500 prisons are people who broke the law by killing their own pigs, cattle and horses and selling the excess meat on the black market.
To maintain discipline inside prisons, prison guards appoint hardened prisoners to "prisoners' councils." Reports Human Rights Watch: "The council members commit some of Cuba's worst prison abuses, including beating fellow prisoners as a disciplinary measure and sexually abusing prisoners, under direct orders from or with the acquiescence of prison officials."
Despite this appalling human rights record, Castro has been courted and condoned by a fawning international intelligentsia that includes Harvard lawyers and statesmen who have made their reputations defending civil liberties. These include former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau -- Castro was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral, no less -- former South African prime minister Nelson Mandela, and, more recently, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. One world leader who has not been duped is Czech President Vaclav Havel, himself a political prisoner before the fall of communism in Europe, who sponsored a resolution condemning Cuba at the UN Commission on Human Rights.***
The cable went further, detailing these allegations: o U.S. diplomats and their families ``are denied rest or relaxation by house alarms triggered in the middle of the night . . . phones that ring at all hours, and by cellphones that ring every half hour for no apparent reason.'' o Cars belonging to U.S. diplomats who talk regularly with Cuban dissidents on the island are particular targets, their tires slashed, windows smashed and insides ''pilfered.'' Sometimes, as evidence of an intrusion, they find their car radios re-tuned to pro-Castro stations. o The Cubans search and wiretap the Americans' Havana residences, including tapping into their home computers, leaving open doors and windows behind and 'leaving not-so-subtle `messages' . . . including unwelcome calling cards like urine and feces.''***