Fr. Geoffrey Dennis Bottoms, a Catholic priest from Lancashire, England, was presented with the Friendship medal by Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcón at the offices of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) on the 20th June. The medal was awarded by the Cuban State in recognition of his solidarity work with Cuba and his devotion to Five Cuban political prisoners and their families. Fr. Bottoms holds the church has a body of social teachings which is its best kept secret and that the clergy of all faiths should be publicly involved in the issues that really matter: the ones that affect ordinary people and especially those that are oppressed or marginalized or in any way suffering. While he was in Cuba, Bernie Dwyer, Radio Havana Cuba interviewed the Reverend Bottoms.
[Bernie Dwyer] Congratulations, Fr. Bottoms. How did you feel when the Institute for Friendship with the People (ICAP) informed you that the Cuban State wanted to award you the Medal of Friendship?
[Geoffrey Bottoms] Absolutely delighted! It's a great honor: the greatest honor of my life to receive this medal from a country that has my respect and love.
[BD] You were awarded the medal for your solidarity work with Cuba, especially with the five political prisoners in the US. Will you give us an outline of the solidarity work you have been involved in?
[GB] Yes, I have been involved in solidarity with Cuba for ten years now as a member of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in England, Scotland and Wales. I am also the chairperson of my local group which is very active in the northwest of England. I have led groups and study tours to Cuba for the participants to discover the reality of this country for themselves. I am a member of the executive committee of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign with special responsibility for the Campaign to Free the Five, so I am kept quite busy with many speaking engagements up and down the country.
[BD] In my experience most Catholic priests don't have a high political profile. They are generally good pastors and look after their flocks but they don't appear to become active as you do. What inspires you to become politically involved in certain cases?
[GB] This is a pity, because the church has a body of social teachings which is its best kept secret. Very few people including priests seem to know anything about it and yet the church has got social and political aspects to its message and I believe that if we are going to live out the gospel in today's world we must take the issues of peace and justice very seriously. I believe that if this is God's world and God is concerned about what happens to people and what happens to his world, then we should be involved in the issues that really matter: the ones that affect ordinary people and especially those that are oppressed or marginalized or in any way suffering.
[BD] You joined another one of Cuba's good religious friends, the Reverend Lucius Walker from Pastors for Peace, on one of his US/Cuba Friendship Caravans. What year was that?
[GB] That was in 1997, I think it was the 7th Friendship Caravan and it was the first one to be waved through without any problems, nothing was confiscated there was no assaults. There were no imprisonments and I think there were no repercussions on the 'caravanista' from the Untied States when they returned home.
And what was also special was that Tony Caccione, a London cabbie, brought his taxi over from England. We led the caravan and it was painted in the colors of the Cuban flag. This is Tony's mission in London: to bring the message of Cuba home to people by the use of his taxi. We came here to Havana and did an interview with Radio Havana together in this very same studio where we are now. The caravan that year was dedicated to children and we had a wonderful celebration in the Pioneers Palace in Lenin Park where Tony and I met with el Comandante Fidel Castro. That was an incredible experience, one of the highlights of my life.
[BD] You were already involved in educational and information solidarity activities with the solidarity campaign in England with special responsibility for the five Cuban political prisoners in the United States when you decided to go a step further. You decided that you were going to visit all five in their separate prisons. What was it that took you from the committee stage going around the country talking about the case it to actually going to visit these five men?
[GB] When I first heard of their case I was very moved, not only on a political level but on a humanitarian level as well. I was very involved with them through regular correspondence and I think I was the first one to write to them from England. They immediately responded and their responses where so warm that before long I felt that a relationship had been struck up between all five and myself. So much so, that I found myself asking them in my letters if they would you like me to come to see them. For me this was natural development and I also thought this would be a way of publicizing the campaign.
They immediately said to come. But you have to apply for visiting privileges which I did, and up until now I have only received permission for two, Gerardo and Ramón, both of whom I have visited recently. So really, it was their response to my correspondence and the relationship that developed that somehow blossomed into this mission of mine to visit all five.
That was helped by meeting their family on Mothers day last year at ICAP where I was speaking to them about why I got involved and I committed myself to visiting to them all. I felt that this was also a way of bringing some kind of encouragement to the families to know that there is somebody actually dedicated and committed to this degree because I feel as I have become a member of the families of these men. Its amazing how this whole thing has developed.
[BD] The Five are five thousand miles away on the other side of the Atlantic so that was very a big commitment to make. How did you find the time and the money to do this as well as the patience and commitment needed to fulfill that promise to them?
[GB] When you become so involved and when these men and their families mean as much as to you as they do to me, -I have taken them into my hearts and they have taken me into theirs, there is something very special in this relationship-, when you believe in something passionately and when you are so committed to people in this way I find that you are prepared to go to any length in order to offer help and solidarity.
So I made the time by using up the holidays that I have as a priest in order to go over to the states and then to go to Cuba and to report back to the families. I've got wonderful people in my parish back in Blackpool, in the northwest of England who finance me because they support everything I do. They know about the case of these men, because I have spoken to them about it. I have even printed their messages in my weekly bulletin in church for them to take away and read. They back me not only morally but also financially especially two elderly people who are not very well off and yet who contribute towards my finances and they feel that this is their way of sharing in what I am doing because they trust me. They believe in what I am doing and they give me that kind of support because they have that kind of confidence in me.
[BD] You have gained the trust of the two political prisoners that you have visited, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino. Gerardo is in Lompoc California, a high security prison where he is serving two life sentences plus fifteen years, and yet you described him after your meeting as being one of the most complete human being that you ever met. Before your visit, did you feel a bit apprehensive about meeting him?
[GB] I was not apprehensive about the man but I was apprehensive about visiting Gerardo in a US prison because none of this is very easy. There are all sorts of obstacles placed in your way and the conditions in which these men are held are not exactly very pleasant. Gerardo, for example, is imprisoned in Lompoc and that building dates back to the 1940's. It's showing signs of its age and there is a very harsh regime in there.
When you visit you sit on either side of a table with a panel underneath so that they cannot be any contact whatsoever other than an initial embrace and a farewell embrace. You have to buy his food from a very expensive machine that sells junk food. You are only allowed to take so many dollars in and it must be in coins and then you have to microwave it for him. If he wishes to go to the bathroom he must stand at the door with his hand up so the guard is constantly walking around watching you, listening to what you are saying. So it's not conducive to a very pleasant experience, but Gerardo cuts through all that because when you speak of one you speak of all five.
I called them the most complete human beings because that is how people have described Che Guevara ands for me these men are examples of the new person of whom Che Guevara spoke. When you meet them you are absolutely enthralled by these people. They are so humble and ordinary that they cannot believe they are heroes of the Republic of Cuba because they say they have only done what any ordinary Cuban would do in the same circumstances. They see it as their duty. They were defending their homeland, their people and their revolution and that for them is a noble cause. It is that spirit that sustains them in prison. That is the spirit that sustains their hope that they will return home. They do believe that international solidarity will eventually secure their release just as it secured their release from solitary confinement.
So when you are in their presence you feel you are in the presence of somebody you have known all your life, somebody that shares your same ideals, your ideals of justice and equality and compassion and solidarity and everything that the Cuban nation stands for.
And to me they are examples of the true heroic resistance of the Cuban people and I find that in visiting them I am very humble because I find them an inspiration.
[BD] How is Gerardo dealing with the fact that he was sentenced to two life sentences and 15 years for a crime that he did not commit?
[GB] He is in very good spirits. He has a very good sense of humor which helps him through, and he is a cartoonist as you know. I'm told by Ramón that he was the comedian of the group and I think that keeps him going. He is also on good terms with other prisoners especially the other Cuban prisoners. Many of them are Marielitos, who have been in that prison for many years because there is no extradition treaty between the US and Cuba. They are there indefinitely; in fact you can say that they are also serving life sentences as well.
He gets along very well with his prison guards. At the time I visited him he was working in one of the prison factories processing orders by computer and he seemed to be fulfilled in doing that even though its slave labor. He got 80 cents an hour which does not amount to much when you think that he worked a 40 hour week and if you visited him on a Friday, which would be taken from his week's work and his wages would be docked accordingly. Then when you think that he rings home 15 minutes at a time, he is allowed three hundreds minute a month, at a dollar a minute, the money does not go very far.
It's the solidarity of the people throughout the world and the love and support of the people at home that keep them going. Gerardo told me that on his wall in his prison cell, he has a picture of the 26th of July march and he tells himself: "They are my people and that's why I'm here".
[BD] You went to visit Ramón in Beaumont Penitentiary, Texas. Is that a different type of prison? [GB] Yes, it's a modern prison. It has only been built five years and the material conditions are better than in Gerardo's case although the prison regime is just as harsh. For example, Ramón was put in solitary confinement for a week when he was first admitted because he wouldn't admit to being a Caucasian. They tried to get him to admit to being white but he said he was Cuban and that he wouldn't play that game. They also wanted him to say that he was guilty of the things he had been accused of and he would not. He stood by his principles and they put t him in solitary confinement for a week to try to break him.
And then since he was released he has to report every two hours to a guard every day for the rest of his time in prison. Even while I was visiting him, he kept asking me the time. I had to tell him when he had to go and report to a guard even during visiting times, which are technically from 8am until 3pm although you never get to see them much before 9am and, of course, you have to leave a quarter of an hour early to get out on time, so it does cut the visiting time down. But he said that the worst feature of being in a United States prison is the culture of violence because there are mafia gangs at work in the prison involved in alcohol and drugs and if people default on their payments, they are knifed and knifed to kill. He has a little group around him. He calls it the school of the revolution made up of the prisoners who are interested in Cuba and the revolution but he is frightened of the group getting too large in case the other mafia leaders see him as a rival.
[BD] I have read that the frequent lockdowns are a result of gang warfare within the prison. If these gangs start fighting is everybody is put in lockdown?
>{?[GB] Yes, Antonio has been in lockdown three times. The first morning I went to see Ramón, I didn't see him until 1.15 in the afternoon because there had been lockdown in the yard during the count where there had been an incident between inmates. When I went to see Gerardo, he was delayed coming to see me. There had been an incident on his unit and as we were speaking a body was wheeled out through the court yard. We could see it through the window and he said that it was related to the incident on his unit that morning.
[BD] Do you feel any of this is having a brutalizing effect on them?
[GB] This culture is having no effect on their personalities or their characters whatsoever. They are the same people and this is what I admire so much. They remain strong. They remain convinced of their cause, they remain committed to their country and its revolution and I'm amazed that when you are with them you enter into political discussion more than anything else and you speak for hours and occasionally you break off to speak about life in prison or about the families but mainly they want to engage in political dialogue.
[BD] You have visited Gerardo and Ramón and you plan to visit the other three. At what stage are your plans for those visits?
[GB] I have been refused permission to visit Fernando at Wisconsin, Oxford although members of the Green Party of the US are trying to find another way around that. With René and Antonio, I am waiting to hear if I have been given permission. I have sent the required forms in applying for privileges. In René's previous prison I was refused but now that he has been moved to Edgefield, we will try again because if there is one thing I have discovered about the Federal Prison system in the United States is that it's contradictory.
It doesn't follow or implement policies in the same way. Each prison seems to have a certain degree of autonomy or interpretation. So I have been given permission for Ramón and Gerardo for example but not Fernando and yet Gerardo is serving two life sentences, Ramón one life sentence and Fernando is serving nineteen years, one of the most lenient sentences of the five and yet I have been denied permission. But I am determined to continue my mission to visit the three other political prisoners because now they are my family.
This interview was presented by Bernie Dwyer and aired on Radio Havana Cuba in two parts 23 and 24 June, 2003
Excuse me Fr., but how many political prisoners did you visit in Cuba?