Contents
The Government’s "New Course" and Human Rights Violations
The "Absent Presence" of the Committee and the Rule of Law
Aberrations of the Constitution
"It’s Not Easy To Be Young"
The Intellectuals, the Artists and Afro-Cuban Religion
Institutional Violations of Human Rights
"The Havana Appeal"
The Political Prisoners and Common Offenders

A Poetic Conclusion

Bofill: As far as I can see, during the last few years a number of factors, chiefly of an international political nature have combined, creating a greater global awareness of the meaning of man’s fundamental liberties, this process has undoubtedly been particularly intense in certain events around the world, such as the struggle for a new democracy in Chile, Central America and several other places, and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.. Naturally the problems related to Cuba have also attracted the attention of public opinion. Various international organizations, such as Amnesty International, America’s Watch and the International Association of Human Rights, just to name a few that have been concerned about the Cuban problem for the last few years.

The subject of human rights in Cuba was discussed in 1986 by the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. As we all know, a number of testimonies and irrefutable evidence were presented which clearly proved that for almost thirty years the Cuban government has been systematically violating many articles and precepts contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its Covenants and Options.

The Geneva meeting of 1986 undoubtedly marked the culminating point of a series of minor battles that had been fought during previous years. All of them came together on that occasion. Although the Commission did not cast the number of votes that would have been necessary for the Cuban case to be examined, the broad interest its deliberations awoke proved that many countries’ delegations were worried about the state of human rights in Cuba.

Naturally the Cuban government is sensitive to this sort of explicit message. It has been anxious to preserve its international credibility, as it has eroded over the last few years. There are several reasons for this. Some of them are: The constant reports of executions following trials held without the full protection provided by law; massive and arbitrary arrests of citizens accused of so-called "potentially dangerous behavior". the mistreatment of prisoners in jail; religious persecutions, particularly that of Jehovah’s Witnesses; the restraints imposed upon the people’s right to travel freely to and from the country, as well as other violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

These problems have been discussed continuously in the international press, in debates and meetings, and awareness of their existence has grown. I believe that both international and national factors have contributed to the government’s change of course.

Cartaya: Mr. Saumell do you have anything to add to Dr. Bofill’s comments about the external and internal factors involved in the new situation faced by human rights activists in Cuba?

Saumell: Yes, I would like to define these internal and external factors, since they are very closely interrelated. First I will speak about those that in my opinion are domestic nature. It will be necessary for me to go back a few years. Political repression in Cuba increased in intensity approximately in 1980. This year marked the beginning of a new qualitatively period in the history of the Cuban revolution.

In 1978 and 1979 thousands of political prisoners were liberated or benefited from a partial amnesty. Then the events of the Peruvian Embassy and Mariel’s emigration occurred. These resulted in a hardening of the new Cuban government’s policies relating to its citizens political attitudes, consequently, the number of new political prisoners in Cuban prisons grew considerably.

It must also be noted that some of the founding members of the Cuban Committee of Human Rights (Ricardo Bofill, Eddy Lopez Castillo, Adolfo Rivero, Enrique Hernández Mendez) were arrested during this period. For the sake of historical accuracy I have to admit that the Cuban Committee for Human Rights did not command a broad social base of support among the population at that time. As far as I know, the Committee was made up of people who could described as ‘observers’ of the Cuban government attitude regarding human rights. They had not yet found any response in intellectual circles, although they could all have been regarded as intellectuals.

The imprisonment of these people, especially after 1980, transformed the situation of human rights in Cuba into a matter of social interest. A number of people, especially those who were forced to play an active part when their political beliefs sent them to jail, began to understand the Cuban Committee for Human Rights’ program and the meaning of the thirty points contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was then adapted by them to the reality of our nation. In spite of these developments some of the Committee’s members (I will give a little historical background, if I may), such as Ricardo Bofill Pages, Enrique Hernández Mendez and Adolfo Rivero Caro, were released in 1982. Eddy Lopez Castillo, who was given a longer sentence, is still in jail. As a result of new incidents he was accused of the possession of hostile propaganda, as well as other offenses, Ricardo Bofill Pages reentered prison in 1983. I believe that this was the year the Cuban Committee of Human Rights entered a new phase. Ricardo Bofill who had formerly been placed with common offenders, was now housed with the political prisoners, which gave him a chance to spread our beliefs.

I am not saying that he walked around reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to everyone. He had the opportunity to find people willing to listen to his ideas. He did not knock on the door of any cell with the purpose of recruiting new followers. I would like to underline this fact. The idea was that of creating a common ground among all major political tendencies represented in Cuban jails.

The more mindful among Cuban political prisoners were able to achieve a new awareness and combine their forces in the pursuit of a common goal: the defense of human rights in Cuba as a separate objective that was unrelated with the ruling ideology or the individual political beliefs of political prisoners in the country. So much for the internal factors, although other events have to be considered as well.

When Armando Valladares was released from jail, the problems of his generation, the generation of the sixties, were no longer his main concern. The opportunity of getting to know a new generation of political prisoners and his personal contact with Ricardo Bofill had added a new dimension to his work, which I believe to be extremely important.

The Cuban revolution would no longer be judged from any particular ideological point of view. Any attempt to understand the Human Rights situation in Cuba would be based on a United Nations documents designed to create a new awareness, of one kind or other, among all the different sectors of our population.

The Government’s ‘New Course’

Cartaya: I have two questions that I would like to direct one of the founders of the Committee, Professor Lopez Castillo. Is the new situation merely temporary, or has the Cuban government taken a new course? Consequently, if human rights in Cuba have undergone a change for the better, could you please give us specific examples?

Lopez Castillo: In my opinion the human rights situation in Cuba is hardly changed at all, in spite of all the government’s propaganda aiming at covering up the truth. Only five months ago I was released from a very well known prison kept by the Cuban government in Havana, Combinado del Este. Even in the last five months prisoners have been mistreated, tortured and denied rights guaranteed by the Penal Code itself. What improvements, what real changes have taken place in the treatment these persons receive, so far from their loved one and relatives? I have specifically mentioned only prisoners. Let us see what happens to those who are not in jail…

CARTAYA: Excuse professor, but as I said at the beginning of this meeting, the fact that we have been able to come together here means that were are facing new and changed situations. What grounds do you think the Cuban government has to base a campaign, seeking to cover up the true situation? Has any real change taken place? Can you specify what the government has done in order to improve its international reputation?

Lopez Castillo: As two other members of the Committee, Dr. Bofill and Mr. Saumell have already noted, the government suffered a moral defeat after the discussion of human rights in Geneva last year. It is now trying to avoid a similar catastrophe. The defeat it suffered was real. Cuba escaped a formal accusation by only one vote, and now the government is trying to create a semblance of law and order and democracy. Certain very serious offenses it once committed have not been repeated any more. But the…

Cartaya: Could you please give us some examples?

Lopez Castillo: Our meeting for one. If the Security Police had found out about something like this a few years ago, we would all have been arrested by now. But I don’t think this reflects a true change. Our organization is practically underground. We have not asked the government’s permission for our work. We believe that every Cuban, including ourselves, possesses the inalienable right to fight for democracy and true legality, and it is that struggle that has brought us together today.

Cartaya: Since it is apparent that the situation has not changed in any substantial way, I would like to know what the most flagrant violations of human rights have been this year in Cuba, particularly those against individuals, although I know that certain institutions have also been the victims of aggressions. Dr. Bofill if you please.

Bofill: According to the written reports sent regularly to us by our Committee member confined in the Combinado del Este Prison, the beatings and mistreatment continue. Living conditions there are still unworthy of human rights. Prisoners receive cruel and degrading treatment.

Specifically I could mention the case of Jacinto Fernandez Gonzalez, who has been cruelly confined to a punishment cell, denied medical assistance and sunlight, and kept in very unsanitary conditions inside the prison, only because of his written protest against the government. His case is not the only one. We know, for example that the former Cuban ambassador in Belgium, Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, who participated in the attack on the military barracks at Moncada, as well as Dr. Domingo Jorge Delgado and the former diplomat Ricardo Diaz Trujillo, live a section of the Combinado known as "the padlocks". It is a disciplinary area designed to hold prisoners for no more that 21 days, but they have been locked up in this for more than five years, Gustavo Arcos for almost seven.

The death penalty is still very common as well. At this very moment Arturo Suarez Ramos and two other men, were sentenced for trying to hijack a plane of Cubana de Aviacion, await their execution. We have presented an appeal of commutation, but who knows if it can achieve anything ? The trials of these men took place without the guarantees provided by law.

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Their defense attorneys are government employees. It therefore seems very likely that the accused are innocent or that there may be some extenuating circumstances pertinent to their case that have not been taken into account. All of this, including the death penalty, is a reality in our country, although its index of political violence is the lowest in the world.

The classification as a ‘dangerous person’ is also just as common as it always was. Raul Alfonso Morejon, for example, a surgeon, has received two warnings from the police, accused of ‘dangerous activities’. In general terms, people are still being imprisoned for periods of four years’ time without being tried.

The Ministry of the Interior and its General Immigration Office have the power to deny or suspend permits of emigration without giving any explanation. Naturally, they are violating Article 13 of the Declaration of Human Rights. The temples were Jehovah’s Witnesses worshipped have been shut and the members of the sect are being imprisoned for proselytism or for promoting the Christian religion. I could mention many other examples, but these seem to be the most important ones.

Cartaya: Let us turn the microphone over to Rafael Saumell, who has more to say on this subject.

Saumell: Yes, I do. On August 31, 1987, only a few months ago, Enrique Hernández Mendez applied for the Cuban Committee for Human Rights official registration in the appropriate office at the Ministry of Justice. There has been no response, which is extremely interesting. Our presence in Cuban politics is obvious. Paraphrasing Lezama Lima and a current legislator, the Cuban Committee for Human Rights is something like an ‘absent presence’ in our country today. Everyone acknowledges its existence except for the people who have the power to bring it to life as an institution, to legal life.

Although even the Constitution states our legal right to exist, we have not been officially recognized by the government. Nevertheless, brigadier general Juan Escalona Reguera, the Minister of Justice, mentioned our Committee in a press conference held during the Eight Conference of American Jurists —though in a derogatory way. No matter what the political and personal opinions about the members of this Committe and its goals may be, we have been doing what we always intended to do.

I would like to underline the fact that our main purpose is to observe the Cuban government’s conduct regarding human rights. Our group is fueled by a humanitarian concern and calling both in and outside Cuba. If I were to use religious terminology I could say we are ecumenical, universal believers. We do not want the evil doings taking place around the globe to take root in Cuba and vice versa. We are not interested in political systems, ideologies or individual opinions. Lack of interest in these things is also a human right. The only thing we want is respect for everyone’s opinion.

Cartaya: Mr. Saumell, you have just mentioned a statement made by the Minister of Justice. It so happens that the legislative body of our government, the National Assembly of Popular Power, has been getting ready to debate a reform of the Cuban Penal Code, and what should our Committee suggest on the matter? What could our contribution be?

For the information of those who will listen to us outside our country and those who are assembled here now, the present Penal Code was worked on for ten years until it came into force toward the end of 1979. Before that the Code of Social Defense had been used, with certain modifications since 1940. It was adapted to the historical and social developments that had prevailed in Cuba since 1959. Among other things, the new Penal Code prescribed the death penalty for 25 crimes. Most of the crimes to which it applies are included in the chapter regarding offenses against State security.

The present Penal Code also has other faults: the penalties it fixes for certain actions that are not criminal acts and should not be punished by imprisonment, lack all proportion. In addition to the new political situation in Cuba, as of 1980, the Penal Code played a decisive part in an alarming increase of the number of people confined to Cuban jails, due both to common offenses and "violations" of State security. The extraordinary growth of the prison population, international political pressure and the Human Rights Committee’s activities inside the country forced the government to take action, perhaps defensively. Thus it decided to reform the Penal Code.

Cartaya: It has been said that one percent of the whole Cuban population has been subjected to the penal system.

Saumell: Figures like that are always inexact. We don’t know of any documents, not even any government publications, which could help us determine whether this or that figure is wrong or right. The only thing we can rely on are our observations and experiences in the different jails we have access to. They are always filled beyond capacity.

Cartaya: Dr. Bofill, I think the Committee’s programs include certain points that should be taken into account in a new Penal Code. Could you please explain what they are?

Bofill: Some time ago, in a document submitted to the National Assembly of Popular Power, we suggested that certain institutional changes to be made. Our proposals were designed to guarantee individual liberties and other fundamental rights that present conditions in the country do not assure. Above all, we spoke of constitutional reform. The absence of liberty and the violations of human rights in Cuba are really a result of the constitutional text itself. It is common knowledge that in Cuba the concept of liberty is understood only as any attitude that does not judge, criticize or oppose the dominant outlook.

Cartaya: Is it a matter of interpretation?

Bofill: The problem is not the interpretation but of content. Is simply caused by the basic concept of our Constitution, which establishes that none of the individual liberties it grants may be used in order to criticize the social system, that is to say socialism, or the government based on it. This fact is really ironic. Cuba’s Constitution and indeed its government guarantee the people the freedom to support them, but not to exercise the only true concept of liberty —the right to opposition without being oppressed.

Many other aberrations of the Constitution arise from the same source. Its chapter about the right to hold peaceful meetings and demonstrations or to form associations contradicts itself in another paragraph, which states that these rights can only be practiced through the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Women’s Federation and other institutions that everyone knows comply totally with the Government’s policies. The birth of organizations such as ours is in a sense corrupted by the spirit of the Constitution. The right of habeas corpus or free movement does not exist either. Our present constitution lacks an article, included in that of 1940, assuring all Cubans freedom of travel to and from the country. The Constitution is really the source of all these problems.

Cartaya: The problem therefore does not involve the Penal Code as much as it does the Constitution, the fundamental charter of our Republic?

Bofill: Yes that is true. A document in which we state our Committee’s principles and principal activities includes a summary of the paper we submitted to the National Assembly of Popular Power. There can be no doubt about the fact that the Penal Code’s great flaws limit civil liberties. One that has affected us all directly are the chapters dealing with hostile propaganda. According to the legal terminology, hostile propaganda is information spread at times of armed conflict in order to stir up the population in a manner favorable to the enemy. Hostile propaganda incites people to disobey and rebel against a legally constituted government. But in Cuba the concept of hostile propaganda is applied to the simple ownership of a book placed on some blacklist, of a newspaper that published a contentious article, according to the government’s point of view, or simply to the expression of any critical opinion about the government’s policies.

Cartaya: There is the book El Estado by Ariel Hidalgo Guillen, for example.

Bofill: That is an excellent example. The book was written from a Marxist point of view, but some of its chapters expressed criticism and the author, as we all know, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Cartaya: Dr. Lopez Castillo, would you like to add something?

Lopez Castillo: In Cuba, among the general population, very few people know that the Constitution itself, as Dr. Bofill mentioned a moment ago, does not grant the citizens any rights. On march 27, 1974, the Cuban government ratified and thus turned into law a so called agreement against racial discrimination. According to this law, the Cuban government must guarantee the rights that have been discussed here: freedom to travel inside and to and from the country, to change one’s residence or place of employment, to elect one’s line of work, to refuse a job that is unsuitable for health reasons, physical or mental, or which does not agree with one’s abilities.

In one of its paragraphs the law also takes into account the right to inherit t from a blood-relation, which is constantly violated by the Cuban government. When a former political prisoner leaves the country, officially they are almost banished and deported by a ‘definite departure from the country’. Their relatives are denied the right to follow them. This is one more violation by the Cuban government.

Cartaya: Dr. Bofill, I would like you to explain a statement you have earlier about the need to revise not only the Penal Code but also the Law of Penal Procedures.

Bofill: The problems we have been discussing are rooted in the current Law of Penal Procedures, which did away with the Courts of Investigation. As we all know, the Courts of Investigation comprised an intermediate step between the police force that presented the charges and the Provincial Tribunal or former "Audiencias", where the oral trial was held. Naturally these courts, as the whole legal system, remained independent of the government. Investigations were conducted by an independent judge called the investigative judge. Today these functions are in the hands of a police investigator belonging to the National Revolutionary Police Force or the institutions of State Security. As can easily be imagined, the case of a defendant who in the first instance is tried by a member of the police force is twisted right there, and even more so if his offense was against State security. Here the investigating officer represents the State on the first level. According to the present system, when charges are established and preliminary hearings take place, the person has practically been condemned already, even before he or she appears in court.

Cartaya: What about the defense attorneys?

Bofill: That is something else we have criticized many times. Independent law practice does not exist any more. It has been replaced by collective law offices. The new system, in fact and by right, has turned Cuba’s defense attorneys into government employees. Therefore, when it comes to matters of State security, they end up being employees of the prosecutor. No one can expect a well developed defense, complying with all guarantees established by law, from any attorney in the country, for the simple reason that they are not about to stand up against an employer who pays their salary, is able to improve their social position, and gives them a house to live in- who provides them, in short, with everything related to their status in society.

"It’s Not Easy To Be Young"

Cartaya: The first few minutes of this conference have shown that the activist of this Committee indeed face a new situation. A sign can be found, for example, in the fact that it is now easier to speak with foreign journalists. On October 25, 1987, we had a remarkable experience. Although we submitted a copy of the "Havana Appeal", with its concrete demands for the Cuban government, to the foreign press, our members are still walking around freely. The imprisonment or direct retaliation we were accustomed to from other occasions have not taken place. I would like Mr. Bragado to tell us about the moves made by Cuban intelligence since Geneva session of the Human Rights Commission, in order to crush our Committee’s activities.

Bragado: First of all, I must remind you that we are dealing with police work, which is always kept secret. It is hard for us to keep up with all their moves.

Cartaya: But which have been the most evident?

Bragado: There are many. One of them is a campaign aimed at discrediting our Committee. It tries to influence opinion among prisoners and the general population, to … make us appear slightly misinformed, lost or confused, or to convince people that we are counter-revolutionaries paid by intelligence organizations from God knows where. The police force has taken these steps because it is afraid. What it fears is the spreading of our ideas, which has already become apparent.

Several spontaneous incidents have taken place in Havana among the young. I am talking about specific events. A protest demonstration developed in front of the Chaplin Cinema when the government decided to cancel the Soviet film It’s Easy to Be Young, about problems inside the Soviet Union. When the young people waiting to see the movie found out about the cancellation, they protested and were arrested. Their friends managed to get them out of the police station by demonstrating angrily in front of the building. This is exactly what the government fears, that this kind of feeling could grow stronger. There has also been some trouble at the University. Journalism and Literature students have demanded autonomous rights based on Mella’s reforms, none other than Julio Antonio Mella from the twenties.

Cartaya: What happened in the School of Journalism?

Bragado: A questionnaire went around that covered everything from origins of a personality cult to the way glasnost and perestroika are dealt with in Cuba.

Cartaya: What were its results?

Bragado: Aldana was not able to ….

Cartaya: You mean Carlos Aldana, the top man in the Department of Revolutionary Orientation?

Bragado: Exactly. Aldana was not able to regain control over the situation and President Castro himself had to go answer the students’ questions about all these subjects. It was something completely unheard-of, but not the only event like it. There have been more. A door has opened the way into this new situation. Where did it come from? Many elements combined to make it possible, but internally the existence of the Human Rights Committee cannot be overlooked in this respect. A few days ago Dr. Bofill told me that we can think of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King and Father Bartolome de las Casas as our forerunners-three men of religion and soldiers of the civil rights cause. What is happening in Cuba? Religious fervor is undeniable in our country. We are also witnessing the coming of a new generation, as between the generation of 1868 and 1895 and 1930 and 1953. As it is, we are a little late this time.

Cartaya: Do you think that this generation will define a new national state of mind?

Bragado: The truth is that a change is already taking place, although our generation won’t be the one to see it through. We are simply witnessing the sowing of the seeds. Their growth can’t be stopped. It would be impossible, like trying to prevent sprint from coming. Some fossilized mechanisms do try to stop the course of history, but we all know that it will never happen. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that the Cuban Committee for Human Rights has played the most important part in this process. Our movement has created a new awareness among the population, without having to replace the present political program with a different one.

Thanks to the Committee, basic principles have been established: the thirty points of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by the Cuban government, although well all know it doesn’t abide by them. The declarations are like a backbone created to support the people in their struggle. I don’t know what is going to happen to today’s 15, 17 or 18-year-olds. The social explosions that have occurred in the University and the streets, in the movie theater, for example, give us an idea about how worried the government must be. Now the situation has reached intellectual circles.

The Intellectuals, The Artists

Cartaya: In what sense?

Bragado: It is very difficult for an intellectual not to disapprove of the violation of human rights, no matter if his political tendencies pull him to the left, right, center or whatever. The human element unites us all. An intellectual cannot remain on the sidelines. In Cuba they have already expressed concern about these matters, which just goes to show that foundations have been laid for a new stage of civil awareness.

Cartaya: You have now mentioned the role played by intellectuals in this process. You yourself have promoted and are the president of a section of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights devoted to supporting artists and intellectuals in their struggle to prevent violations of their rights. I would like you to tell us why this section exists and what the aims of its small program are, in relation to the greater one of the Committee as a whole.

Bragado: Our purpose in creating the section was that of uniting all unofficial artists and intellectuals. When I say "unofficial" artists and intellectuals, I mean those who have no access to the State’s means of cultural expression. The artists who are grated access to the State’s media are official, the rest are unofficial.

Our section for artist and intellectuals was created to join these people together. Its main objectives are that of providing them with moral support and unity, showing them that they are not alone, that other people are living in the same conditions and that they should not allow loneliness, ostracism and social exclusion to crush them, but rather that they should help each other.

One of the most important goals of this section is to foster unity among its members, Next, they must try to help each other. Artist production must not be interrupted, or we will lose our national patrimony. The work of the outcasts belongs to our nation, our national culture, and must not be lost. This is another one or our section’s goals.

Moreover, it strives to publicize violations committed in the area of artistic creation. As we all know, official Cuban cultural policies were summarized by President Castro in his famous "Words to the intellectuals" (1961): "Everything within the boundaries established by the revolution, and nothing outside of them". This is the official foundation of Cuban culture. As is shown by the declaration, a very small, practically non-existent margin is left for those who think differently. To think differently is an inalienable right. In Cuba the freedom of creation has been crushed and this inalienable, right does not exist any more. Castro’s declaration defines all cultural policies. Whenever an artist right is violated, it is our turn to act and to denounce the facts that exclude these unofficial artists from society.

Cartaya: I would like Mr. Saumell to give us his opinion on the same subject. At the Geneva meeting, some of the Cuban government’s official writers asserted that no one goes to jail in Cuba because of his or her work. What has your personal experience been in this sense, and what were the results of your recent meeting with the current president of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, Lisandro Otero?

Saumell: It is always said that no one has ever been arrested in Cuba for strictly literary reasons. This was the hyperbole expressed by Lisandro Otero at the Geneva meetings. I believes, however, that history shows us a different picture. These have been many ____ Ariza, for one. He was arrested in the seventies because of a book of short stories. The poet Heberto Padilla was also imprisoned for his work. His case became the most well known. Other people have not been arrested, but different and equally extreme solutions were found to get rid of them.

This is what happened to the wrongfully forgotten Calvert Casey, who committed suicide. A whole group of authors has been punished for their work in one way of another, I am not talking only about poets, prose writers or essayists, but also about journalists. Your own case is one of them, Cartaya. An article you wrote for a foreign press agency was worth two years of prison. Any kind of unofficial thought has always been subjected to the Penal Code’s famous Article 108, the true gag of freedom of speech, or to the article of contempt, as was your case during the days of Mariel. I could talk about many others: the essayist Ariel Hidalgo Guillen, the writers Jose Zarraluqui and Humberto Leon Fernandez, Walterio Carbonell ….

Three weeks ago I met Lisandro Otero, who is currently the president of the Union of Cuban Writters and Artists. My main purpose was to state a claim, according to copyright laws , on the book I had sent to the Union and for which I was sentenced to five years in prison. I was surprised to note that he didn’t pass the matter on to his secretary or chief administrator, but received me himself in his office at the Writers’ Union. How did I prove everything I went to say? Simply by handing him a copy of my sentence, which stated that the accused had been arrested for writing this book and that the court also possessed other pieces of evidence against him.

The cartoonist Luis Ruiz was sentenced to six years in prison for the same reason. Edmigio Lopez Castillo spent eight years in prison for expressing his thoughts.

I can only imagine two things: one, that Lisandro Otero has been misinformed and, two, that there are two Cuban nations, which is what I believe. One is the official nation that travels to other countries and appears in the official press, builds child centers and performs extraordinary industrial feats. The other one is the officious nation, the one that fills up the jails and is excluded from all political, cultural and social activities.

There are two nations. The whole of reality is divided into two parts. But perhaps there is really only one and the written press doesn’t know or care about it. Lisandro Otero’s reaction was very interesting. He told me that he has always thought these charges were spread by the ideological centers of imperialism in the United States, England, France, or wherever. However, the copy of my sentence made him comprehend that in Cuba people do go to prison for strictly literary reasons.

But there is another interesting element in all of this: my answer to Mr. Lisandro Otero. I reminded him that a few moths ago during the closing ceremony of a labor union convention, Carlos Aldana Escalante, the ideological secretary of the Party, said that the Party regretted the fact that in the last few years he had not read any books that would have alerted him about the problems that must be corrected today by the policy of rectification. I responded that neither the Party nor anyone else could have read or even seen those books because State Security forces always arrive first and the authors end up in prison. This is why the Party didn’t find out about anything.

Cartaya: We will now continue with Raul Montesinos, one of the youngest members of our Committee. He is an artist and also priest of Ifa, that is to say babalao.^* Montesinos, do you believe that conditions regarding artists —other writers, whom Saumell and Bragado have talked about in detail— and religious rights, including those of Afro-Cuban cults such as the one you belong to, have changed at all?

Montesinos: If we are to evaluate violations of freedom in an area as fundamental as man’s aesthetic expression, we will have to go back to the first years after the revolution. At the time, the nation’s leaders asserted that any kind of creation should aim at consolidating the prevailing system. Precedents for this attitude can be found in Stalinist thought. Marta Arjona, who now directs the Department of National Heritage, then launched a misinformation campaign against the true values of Cuban culture. The movement destroyed and ostracized the painters who were working in the forties, and estranged them from the nation’s sentiments.

This is what happened to Agustin Fernandez, Carreno, Mijares and many more painters who are unknown to the new generation whose works gather dust. To begin with I have to mention a great Cuban painter, Servando Cabrera Moreno. He became known for his artistic documentary of the rebels when they came down from the mountains, and his portrait of charcoal vendors. Subsequently, these subjects did not satisfy him any more and he entered his erotic period, which caused great uneasiness in government circles.

Marta Arjona ordered the master’s work to be confiscated and censored. Many of his canvases were disfigured or used for Marxist propaganda and purposes by a government that had attained power by force and meant to keep it in the same way. In the world or art, aggressions have been committed not only against the artist but also against their works. Many have been left out in the open to rot, as Tomas Oliva’s work. Since his show at the National Theater, his sculptures have been left to deteriorate, corrode and rust in an empty, fenced-in lot next to the National Library. No voices have been raised in an attempt to save these works of art, which are part of our national heritage. Tomas Oliva, their creator, is in exile. I could also speak about Cundo Bermudez’s mural at the former Havana Hilton, today’s Free Havana Hotel, a work of art that has fallen apart and not yet been replaced by any painter pledged to current policies.

Cuban musicians are suffering the same conditions. Since the deaths of Roberto Faz and Benny More, no musical composition worthy of universal tradition has been recorded. There is only of universal tradition has been recorded. There is only emptiness, a black space. All artist have been forced to comply with the government’s policies. Many of them have had to adopt this position for financial reasons, as well as the pressures they are subjected to.

As for religion, the worst case of oppression has been a result of the same policies and oblivion, the same power exerted by the State over people’s minds. I am talking about a city named Ciudad Modelo La Mar. Local police forces have created an oppressive penal code that does not tolerate the slightest sign of any attempt to practice Afro-Cuban cults. They even keep watch over what happens in the homes. In the whole city not one effigy of a Catholic saint, a figurine or so-called fetish of a popular Afro-Cuban cult can be found. We must not forget that any Cuban who celebrates Christmas or the feast of the Epiphany is excluded from political and social life. Jehovah’s Witnesses are also prosecuted and imprisoned.

When the Oni of Ile Ife visited Havana, he asked the press to publish information about a meeting he had had with a group of babalaos. (I will only talk about the people’s attitude in the matter. Official disapproval is on such a broad scale that I would rather not bind myself to any one statement about it. I don’t know what the government’s reaction to this personage will be, who is the greatest representative of yoruba culture in his country, in major industrialized societies and the underdeveloped parts of the world). There was a big public outery for some kind of contact, if only visual and formal, with this religious man. He was practically isolated, turned over completely to alleged religious leaders who were nothing but police and Security agents placed at his side in order to avoid any direct contact with the population and a true expression of religious feelings in Cuba. It was said that a temple would be built, but the Cuban press remained totally silent. Religious leaders were supposed to be sent to study at the University of Nigeria, but nothing has happened.

An official celebration was going to be held in honor of this religious notable, with the participation of all babalaos and members of the popular Afro-Cuban cults, but there were only banquets, the same ones offered to everybody who comes to Cuba on official visits. We don’t even know whether he came officially or for religious reasons. The Cuban people are still wondering about that. All I can say is that the State honored and surrounded him with generals and colonels instead of religious people or the true followers of Afro-Cuban cults.

Cartaya: Mr. Bragado has something more to say about intellectuals and artists.

Bragado: Yes, I would like to add something on that subject. The margin we have been left by official cultural policies is absurd. Any cultural policy constitutes a violation of the spontaneous nature of artistic creation, a mystery that no one has been able to explain. How did Beethoven find the exact notes of his Ninth Symphony’s Fourth Movement, or how did any other work of art come into existence, for that matter?

The aberration imposed by the government leaves us very few options: exile, prison or singing the praises of the government. Of the three, the saddest and worst is the last. The intellectuals who choose this path are not sincere. They go along with everything and become a mass of contradictions and self-pity. They are the saddest because we lose their talents, and in the end our national culture suffers the deprivation.

An analysis of Cuban literature in the year 2000 or 2050 will show us that during the present period there were no suicides, prisons, homosexuals, drug addicts, robberies or any other kind of crime in Cuba. According to the books, we are living in wonderful times. What has happened? The writers have been gagged and some of them are going along with the game of praising cultural policies, the government and everything else. They are the saddest. It may hurt to see intellectuals emigrate and go to prison, but we truly pity those who agree to participate in this disgusting game.

Institutional Violations Of Human Rights.

Cartaya: Enrique Hernández Mendez, the vice president of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, has just joined us. We would like Mr. Hernández to answer the following question. Lately, during this period of relative tolerance, the Cuban Committee for Human Rights has won greater support. What caused this development?

Hernández: It is a logical development. In Cuba there are violations not only of human rights but of all kinds of rights in every organization, company or ministry. Even though we have a Constitution and laws, each organization and manager, at every level, thinks they have the right to interpret them in their own fashion. When the laws go against someone’s way of thinking, wishes or prejudices, the are ignored and he does as he pleases. In practically any undertaking many different kinds of violations take place, in addition to those that already exist on a broader scale, for example, those committed by the Council of Ministers.

The Constitution states that everyone must receive the same salary for the same amount of work. Nevertheless, the Council of Ministers has passed a decree according to which a pensioner who works, instead of receiving the salary he should, gets only an amount equal to the difference between his pension and the salary he made before. The Council of Ministers approved this measure and it is being applied on all levels.

Cartaya: Would it be possible to say, therefore, that over and above individual violations, such as those committed against prisoners or citizens who have been arbitrarily arrested, there are institutional violations which affect major segments of the population?

Hernández: Yes. People who violate workers’ and students’ rights and claim privileges for themselves can be found everywhere. From time to time the most flagrant are published by the press. Unfortunately, not everyone disposes of means to contact the press and vent their problems, although the press does take notice of the violations committed by institutions and directors against workers, students and the general population. This kind of situation can reach great extremes. One may be standing in line, waiting to buy a certain product, for example, when an official comes and gives orders for the line to be formed in the sun instead of in the shade. It is simply a matter of whims.

Cartaya: What attitude has the Committee adopted regarding these institutional violations? What does it do about them and how does it make them known? Are there things only disclosed outside the country or are they also brought to the attention of the institutions responsible for taking care of this kind of problem?

Hernández: Our policy has always been to let the government know about everything. We have sent several reports to different institutions. The "Havana Appeal", for example, includes many propositions. Recently the Department of Immigration and Foreigners has been handing out a brochure to those who wish to emigrate, in which it explains that they may not remove anything from their homes although the government has not yet taken possession of it. Bofill and I delivered a letter with a number of complaints to the office of the prosecution attorney of the Republic on December 8. Since there is no court specialized in protecting the citizen’s constitutional rights, such as the Constitution of 1940 has made provisions for, the present Constitution asserts that legal principles shall be defended by the District Attorney’s office. The measure taken by the Department of Immigration violates several precepts of the Constitution, such as the fact that confiscations are forbidden or must be indemnified if they do take place, and other points I won’t do well upon now.

Cartaya: You have briefly mentioned the subject of emigration. As we all know, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes the freedom to emigrate, reside in the territory of any other State, change this residence again, and return to one’s country of origin. Please explain the famous "model C-8" that has been given some people who wish to emigrate from Cuba.

Hernández: The problem of leaving the country originally began in the first days of the revolution. Certain people had participated in crimes committed during Batista’s dictatorship and could have tried to leave the country in order to avoid trial. At a later date, the laws were extended and encompassed practically the whole population. Now immigration law demands a departure permit. When it is refused, one receives a ‘model C-8" without further explanations. The only thing it says is that one cannot emigrate because the guidelines now in force do not include one’s particular case. These guidelines are unknown.

They have not been published. This kind of situation can go on for years. I, myself, have been submitting applications for different reasons since 1980, but have still not received a permit to leave the country.

Cartaya: About the same subject, we know that those who manage to travel abroad encounter great difficulties when they want to come back even though they may have only made a temporary visit to relatives, etc., a need that is completely normal and human. The migration agreements between Cuba and the United States have recently been ratified again. Nevertheless, in an interview given to the newspaper Granma, Ricardo Alarcon said that the Cuban community abroad still can’t travel to our country. Could you explain the reasons for this situation?

Hernández: Since 1978 the government has been taking advantage of its position in order to exert pressure on the emigres, compelling them to talk well of the Cuban government, and avoid reports of violations committed against relatives, as long as they are allowed to come for a visit from time to time, etc. Not very long ago, I had to go to the Department of Immigration, where I met a girl who had married a West German. Her mother was going to stay in Cuba, so she had gone to the Department of Immigration in order to apply for a temporary permit to leave the country. She wanted to be able to come back to visit her mother and the rest of her family. Since she had apparently not been very active as far as revolutionary activities were concerned, she was denied the temporary exit permit and will be forced to accept a definitive departure. She will have to say good-bye to her mother and the rest of her family forever, because she didn’t cooperate with the government to the extent they like to see.

Cartaya: What about the people who do participate in the revolutionary process? Is it easier for them to obtain temporary travel permits?

Hernández: Sometimes, but not always. It depends on the government’s specific interest in their case. Some get permission, others don’t. Of course, there are never any explanations of one thing or the other. The reasons are always secret.

Cartaya: Aren’t there laws regulating these procedures?

Hernández: There must be, but they are secret and available only internally to the Department of Immigration or Security. We have no idea where the decision is made exactly.

The Havana Appeal

Cartaya: Before you arrived we were talking about the "Havana Appeal", which was read publicly at the church of San Juan de Letran on October 25, 1987. It is a summary of the program of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and includes concrete suggestions for the Cuban government. How important do you believe this appeal is?

Hernández: It is very important. It is practically the first time that the Committee includes the full names of many of its members in a public appeal. Very delicate points were discussed in it, many of them for the first time. It was really and act of direct defiance against the government, based on our right to express our own opinions.

Cartaya: If I am not mistaken, you yourself applied for the Committee’s legal registration at the beginning of the year. There was no concrete response. Later these activities became public. What course will the Cuban Committee for Human Rights take now that is no longer underground but has not yet achieved legal recognition.

Hernández: We have always wanted to proceed legally. It is the only right way to do things. The trouble is that the government fears the kind of observations we make. It has therefore resorted to a pattern of imprisonment and constant persecutions. Bofill and other members of the Committee, including myself, have been imprisoned. Many times our sentence wasn’t directly related to anything we had done. Any excuse at all was used to imprison or persecute us. In 1980 I was expelled from the University "according to superior orders", as my notification stated. It is inconceivable that a university professor should be fired by superior orders. I never even received a copy of the expulsion, so I don’t really know what that document said. I have asked for it many times.

Cartaya: You have mentioned something interesting. Not all people oppressed by the Cuban government for the opinions they hold possess a document that explains why they were put in prison or punished in any other way. I would like to ask you about the number of people who have been imprisoned for political reasons in our country. It is a figure that has never been established precisely.

Hernández: First I would like to go back to the subject of the Committee’s legal recognition, which you mentioned in your previous question. The application we submitted has not received a formal response yet. Nevertheless, a Cuban journalist, Enrique Lopez Oliva, asked the minister of Justice whether a decision had already been made. The minister answered that the Committee would not be legalized. The whole matter was handled wrongly by the government. A written and signed document stating our address should be answered by the same means. If the minister wants to deny our application for legal recognition, let him do so, but in writing and not in the lobby of the Free Havana Hotel, or wherever it was that he gave his answer.

Political Prisoners And Common Offenders

Cartaya: Let’s go on to the next question. It has not always been possible to determine how many political prisoners there are in the country, because not all of them have been charged with so called offenses against state security. What do you have to say about this?

Hernández: The problem is that the charges are not determined by a judge in a hearing but by a police investigator, who is not competent in many cases and very much prone to making mistakes. Perhaps the problem lies not so much in the possibility of error as in the wish to conceal what is considered a political offense. I remember the case of a man who was charged with "contempt of authority", a minor offense, after writing a sign that said "End Communism!". It really was considered an act of sedition or something like that.

Cartaya: If you will pardon me, I would like to lay aside my role as moderator for a moment and talk about the case of a boy I know, Ricardo Julian Nunez de Cespedes, a descendant of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. He was imprisoned for telling another 17-years-old boy in a park that the best option was to seek refuge in an embassy. He was put in jail on charges of "incitement to crime". Any lawyer looking at these charges in a penal file will immediately think he is dealing with a crime against common law, although it was evidently a political offense.

Bofill: You have not specified what observers you talking about. In my opinion the only judgments about the human rights situation in Cuba that can be trusted are those that for the last few years have been discussed by different international groups, such as Amnesty International, American’s Watch, the International Association of Human Rights and others. Some defenders of Cuba’s government have vaguely mentioned the human rights problems in our country, but lack all credibility.

These people —I am thinking of Father Betto, the Brazilian theologian, the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Adolfo Perez Esquivel, from Argentina, who received the Nobel Prize for Peace— have indeed claimed that no major violations of human rights occur in Cuba. We have asked ourselves if these observes have really had any contact with Cuba’s true reality. I would like to know if Perez Esquivel, Father Betto or Garcia Marquez have seen how political prisoners are left to rot, if they have visited the disciplinary cells of the Combinado del Este or talked with the relatives of those sentenced to die, who can’t even claim the bodies of their dead.

It would be interesting to find out, for example, whether Garcia Marquez has spoken to Elsa Temprana, mother of Owen Delgado Temprana, one of the boys who invaded the Ecuadorian Embassy in 1980. As we all know he was 15 years old, some State security guards kicked him to death, and his mother has still not been able to recover her son’s body. I would also like to know if Father Betto has spoken to Caridad Pavon Tamayo’s relatives. The cause of her death was not very clear. She was an active member of a group of workers who were trying to create an independent union movement. Her death occurred under very strange circumstances. Whenever we reveal these violations of human rights in Cuba, we state concrete facts, complete names, numbers and details.

The answers given by the Cuban government and those who defend it are vague. it doesn’t really mean anything when someone declares that human rights are not violated in Cuba or that no political prisoner has ever been mistreated or tortured here, as our President Fidel Castro claims. many times we have demanded information from the Cuban government and its defenders about people who are sentenced to death now, whose pardon we have pleaded for.

We want to know whether Arturo Suarez Ramos is going to be executed. We want the Cuban government to submit this man’s penal record to international commissions, in order for a legal analysis of this material to establish whether his act really justify a punishment as severe and merciless as death. It would be evident that they do not.

Cuba is one of the countries with the lowest index of political violence in the world. Not one resident of Havana has ever heard about such things as assassinations of a major act of sabotage; not one member of the revolutionary government, on any level has ever died a violent death. We sometimes wonder what Cuba’s reaction would be if terrorist attacks, such as those inflicted by ETA in Spain, were staged in our capital or any other city. What would happen in this country if there were a civil war like that of El Salvador, or a whole series of acts of violence like those committed in Argentina during the seventies?

The trust is that we can’t establish a parallel between Cuba and what has occurred in El Salvador, Guatemala or Argentina. Circumstances are different n Cuba. We have not had a civil war like the ones that developed in those countries, mainly toward the end of the seventies, or the one that is taking place in El Salvador right now. Therefore no comparison is possible. Although there have been very few acts of violence against the government, practically none, we can speak of the government’s violence against its political opposition and dissidents. I would like to ask: Is the treatment given Gustavo Arcos Bergnes violent or not? He has been confined to a cell in the prison Combinado del Este in conditions unworthy of a human being for almost seven years. Gustavo was not imprisoned for any violent crime but for his beliefs, the same as Ariel Hidalgo Guillen. Do these examples constitute violations of human rights or don’t they?

A Poetic Conclusion

Cartaya: Let us return to the subject of artists and intellectuals. I would like to ask Reinaldo Bragado, president of that section, how the artistic circles have reacted to his efforts. I am talking about those who have been condemned to silence by being denied access to the official cultural media.

Bragado: The people who have had to remain on the sidelines see us a refuge of peace. Some have joined us openly. It must also be noted, however, that many official artists and intellectuals have let us know they support us, although they prefer to remain anonymous. It is their right and we respect it. Their support makes us very happy and proud.

I would like to introduce one of those outcast intellectuals today. She is Tania Diaz Castro, a writer, poet and journalist who has worked for the magazine Bohemia, Trabajo, and Prensa Libre, among others. She has also worked for the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television. She has published three books, Apuntes para el tiempo (Cuba, 1965), Selecciones de 5 poetas jovenes (National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, 1967), and Todos me van a tener que oir, the one she is most famous for. I have just read it a few days ago and it fascinated me. Other books she has written have not been published yet., such as Mientras giran las hojas del arce and A paso de mujer. I would like to mention that she was expelled from the Writers’ Union in 1977 and from the Institute of Radio and Television in 1982. She is one of the outcast artists who have joined us. Her support is very valuable to us, and she is a wonderful person. Let us listen to her and her poems.

Cartaya: Did you write these poems recently?

Diaz Castro: Yes, very recently, only a few weeks ago. I have not worked on them or anything. They are very spontaneous. For exactly ten years I have not read or written anything. my life has been completely passive. I have done nothing but stay at home and take care of my dogs and my daughters. This is my first encounter with intellectuals in ten years. I have to admit it because it is true. I am now going to read three short poems. One of them is called "God", and it goes like this:

Why don’t you place him before me as he rest in hell?

Why don’t you turn this into a country of gentle

fish and save us from the last fishhook?

If you are truly a Creator and all-powerful,

give me this Friday at his side.

You only have to use your miraculous key or

man’s picklock to open his cell and let him sing to me.

Then place me by his side and let us talk for a long

time, in our special visit,

until the atheists kill you.

These poems are very short. they are part of the book called A paso de mujer, that you already mentioned. This one is called "New Riddle".

It is late afternoon

A child wrote your name and mine

on his blue kite.

He let it fly before my eyes

outside the prison’s sad reality.

The next one is called "Truly a Dream".

I have awoken with your head between my hands

while the enemy dies in the mirror.

I stole the key from the warden and opened your

bars because I wanted to awaken with your head between my hands.

I even sang inside your mouth, looked at the sky

you can see, listened to the sound of freedom from

the western drum.

Finally I took your head between my hands and

all the prison cells were opened in my country.

Cartaya: Dear friends, I don’t think we could ask for a better conclusion for our meeting today, on Human Rights Day, December 10, 1987, that these beautiful verses by Tania Diaz Castro. Please stay on the alert for any messages in the voices of those who in our country, in this very city of Havana, fight for all civil and political rights that have been trampled on for such a long time.