RIGHTS-CUBA: Wives of Jailed Dissidents Fast and Pray

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 18 2004 (IPS) - The wives of many of the 75 Cuban dissidents sentenced to lengthy prison terms on charges of conspiring with the United States to ”destabilise” the Cuban government gathered Thursday, the first anniversary of the arrests, to fast and pray.

”We want our husbands to be freed, that’s why we’re here,” Yolanda Huerga told IPS, describing as ”unjust” the law under which her husband Manuel Vásquez, a journalist with the independent Cuba-Press agency, was tried and convicted.

Huerga was dressed in white with a Cuban flag, crisscrossed by the number 75, pinned to her blouse, like all of the women meeting in the small living room of a house in downtown Havana.

”We will fast for 12 hours, ingesting only liquid,” said the owner of the house, Laura Pollán, who also insisted that the imprisonment of her husband, Héctor Macedo, is unjust.

”I don’t think anyone will feel sick (from fasting), but at any rate there is a family doctor just a block and a half from here,” she added.

The women have covered one wall in Pollán’s house with photos and the names of the 75 dissidents, who Amnesty International has declared ”prisoners of conscience”. At the centre of the wall is the photo of Martha Beatriz Roque, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her activism.

Another group of relatives of the imprisoned dissidents met in the home of Gisela Delgado, director of the Independent Libraries Project and the wife of Héctor Palacios, of the Everyone United movement, who is serving a 25-year term in the Pinar del Río prison, 176 kms west of Havana.

Besides talking about the fast, Delgado announced that the Félix Varela prize was being awarded to the 75 dissidents for ”the dignity and courage” they have demonstrated in their struggle, and for ”contributing in a disinterested manner” to breaking down the state monopoly on news and information.

The prize, which carries the name of one of the leading thinkers of Cuba’s 19th century independence movement, included 1,500 dollars donated by the Independent Libraries Project. ”This money is part of the ‘democracy award’ that the Project was granted in 2002 by the Swedish Liberal Party,” Delgado explained to IPS.

On Aug. 18, 2003, the Cuban government announced in the official daily newspaper Granma the arrest of ”several dozen people directly linked to the conspiracy activities of James Cason,” the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba.

The Granma article accused Cason of turning the diplomatic office into ”an organiser, financier, and general headquarters of activities to destabilise” and subvert Cuba’s constitutional order.

The U.S. Interests Section’s secretary of press and culture, Kelly Keiderling, told IPS that the diplomatic office ”has not and does not give funds to any activist, dissident or non-governmental group on the island.”

She acknowledged, however, that the Interests Section supports dissidents with ”magazines, radios, different kinds of information,” and access to the Internet.

”We also invite them to our homes and to our diplomatic receptions, and we provide occasional workshops on a variety of issues” – a task that U.S. consulates and embassies carry out ”all over the world,” Keiderling added.

The 75 opposition activists were tried Apr. 3-7 last year and found guilty of criminal activity ”against the security of the state” and offences outlined by Decree 88 on Protection of National Independence and the Cuban Economy.

That law, in force since 1999, provides for penalties for those found guilty of engaging in activities aimed at ”supporting, facilitating or collaborating with the objectives of the (U.S.) Helms-Burton Act, the embargo, and the U.S. war against Cuba.”

The 1996 Helms-Burton Act tightened the four-decade U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, with the specific aim of keeping third party countries from investing in and doing trade with this Caribbean island nation.

Cuban officials maintain that last year’s trials, in which the dissidents were handed prison terms of up to 28 years, were fully in line with the law, and that the accused enjoyed due process guarantees.

”Cuba vindicates its right to apply its laws to defend itself from aggression,” and to ”try mercenaries who collaborate with the blockade and the aggressive policy of the superpower (the United States),” Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Wednesday.

He referred to the issue at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where he complained that Cuba is accused of human rights violations ”in an arbitrary, politicised and discriminatory manner.”

Vladimiro Roca, with the dissident group Everyone United, said last year’s wave of arrests amounted to ”a brutal blow” that without a doubt affected the entire opposition movement in Cuba.

In the trials, at least half a dozen supposed independent journalists and dissidents were revealed to be government agents who had infiltrated the opposition groups.

”We were paralysed,” but now we are growing, because many young people have joined us, which is very encouraging, said Roca, who in May 2002 completed a five-year term to which he was sentenced for anti-government activities.