 The only torture chamber in Cuba: the U.S.-controlled base at Guantanamo. Below, a Cuban woman marches in defense of the revolution.  |
There is no limit to how low imperialism and the western media will go in its efforts to discredit the Cuban Revolution. The most recent episode in their ongoing propaganda war has revolved around the recent death by hunger strike of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year-old prisoner in Cuba. Cuba’s enemies are trumpeting his death as “proof” of human rights abuses in the socialist nation. Before taking these claims at face value, one would do well to examine the facts.
Zapata Tamayo spent time in prison for committing a series of violent common crimes. He was convicted and served time for the crimes of unlawful entry (1993), assault (2000), fraud (2000), and assault and the possession of a sharp weapon (2000), in which he used a machete to fracture the skull of another Cuban citizen, Leonardo Simón. He was charged with public disorder in 2002. After being paroled in 2003, he immediately committed another violent crime and was sentenced to three additional years. His sentence was increased due to aggressive behavior while imprisoned. During this period, Zapata was never on any of the lists of so-called political prisoners. (Granma, March 1)
Only while in prison did Zapata Tamayo adopt a “political” profile, and receive encouragement by enemies of the revolution to go on a hunger strike. He went on the hunger strike to demand a television, stove and personal telephone in his cell. Zapata received comprehensive medical care from Cuban doctors. He was fed intravenously and given counseling on the long-term health consequences of prolonged fasting by medical professionals. Zapata Tamayo’s fast began on December 8, 2009, and he died February 23, 2010.
Extensive medical coverage given to prisoner
After his death, Cuban television’s Roundtable program dedicated an evening to explain the medical care that Zapata received, and the extreme unlikelihood for a person to survive a long-term hunger strike, even with intravenous feeding.
According to Dr. Gimel Sosa Martín of the National Hospital for Inmates, who was interviewed on television: “The patient suffered a series of complications inherent to prolonged inanition, of being so long without ingesting any food.” (Granma, March 4)
María Esther Hernández, head of the Department of Psychology at the Ministry of Interior in Camagüey province, added: “We explained to him constantly the consequences of his decision and the danger this was posing to his life; we explained other ways that he could find, other ways of dealing with his situation, looking for other channels of communication, and he always maintained the same conduct.”
Prior to his death, Reina Tamayo, Zapata’s mother, stated that she was satisfied with the care being provided to her son by medical authorities. “I was able to see the doctors who were there before I went in, and there were doctors from CIMEQ (Center for Medical Surgical Research), the best doctors, trying to save his life…”
Cuban doctors even had a kidney reserved in case his failed. But despite their efforts, Zapata Tamayo succumbed to the accumulated damage caused by his hunger strike.
Since Zapata’s death, Reina Tamayo has reversed her earlier remarks, claiming that Zapata did not receive medical care and blamed his death on the Cuban authorities. The grief of this mother has been exploited by the counter-revolution in order to try to discredit Cuba and foment further counter-revolutionary activity.
Ramón Saúl Sánchez, terrorist ringleader based in the United States, claimed Zapata was “…mistreated and he eventually died; another crime of the Cuban regime.” The U.S. State Department echoed these fraudulent charges, asserting that Zapata’s death “highlights the injustice of Cuba’s holding more than 200 political prisoners who should now be released without delay.” When Zapata was slowly dying from self-inflicted starvation, where were these people? Were they with the world-renowned Cuban doctors trying to save his life? No, they were rubbing their hands in anticipation of a “martyr” who was about to be created to discredit Cuba.
Now, the Cuban counter-revolutionary forces are attempting to capitalize on Zapata’s suicide by encouraging a counter-revolutionary, Guillermo Fariñas, who has begun a hunger strike as well. This is Fariñas’ twenty-third hunger strike, including one for 8 months when he demanded access to the internet in his home. Fariñas is a regular commentator on the U.S. government’s propaganda station Radio Martí, which illegally tries to broadcast into Cuba. The internet is available to all Cubans in public places, although costly because of Cuba’s limited resources.
Human rights hypocrisy
The U.S. government above all has no authority to condemn Cuba for human rights violations against prisoners. The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, not to mention numerous political prisoners—from the Cuban Five to Mumia Abu Jamal to Leonard Peltier. The U.S. is notorious for its torturous practices such as prolonged isolation, torture and murder in domestic and military prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.
The European Parliament cynically and hypocritically passed a resolution on March 10, condemning Cuba for Zapata’s death. While western European countries have gone out of their way to condemn Cuba, not all heads of state have bowed to the counter-revolutionary pressure. Brazilian President Lula da Silva expressed his respect for “the decisions of the Cuban legal system,” adding, “I don’t think a hunger strike can be used as a pretext for human rights to free people.”
Cuba’s parliament, the National Assembly of People’s Power, responded with a declaration which said in part, “This unfortunate event cannot be used to condemn Cuba under the allegation that his death could have prevented. If there is an area in which our country does not need to defend itself with words, because reality is undisputable, that is in its struggle for human life and not only for those born in Cuba but elsewhere, too. The presence of Cuban doctors in Haiti for eleven years prior to the earthquake of last January, practically ignored by the mainstream press, is but an example of this.
“A great cynicism stands behind that condemnation, for countless lives, especially of children, have been lost in the poor nations due to the decision of the rich countries represented at the European Parliament to avoid honoring their commitments to development aid. Everyone knew that such a decision was a massive death sentence, yet they chose to preserve the level of wastage and ostentation of an eventually suicidal consumerism.”
Cuban President Raúl Castro made this point when he reminded the world: “We have tortured no one here, we have not carried out any extra-judicial execution. Well, here in Cuba there have been tortures, but they have taken place at the Guantánamo Naval Base, not on territory governed by the Revolution.”
As Cuba’s legislative parliament, the National Assembly of People’s Power, explained, “Those who were involved in and/or allowed the air smuggling of detainees, the establishment of illegal prisons and torture lack the morality to pass judgment on a brutally blockaded and harassed people.”
Regarding Farinas’ continuing hunger strike, a March 9 statement published in Cuba’s Granma newspaper, reads, “There are bioethical principles that force doctors to respect the decision of a person who has decided to begin a hunger strike.
“Therefore, he or she can in no way be forced to eat, like U.S. authorities customarily do at the prisons and centers of torture of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram, in violation of the rights of the detainees.
“In this case, it is not medicine that must resolve the problem intentionally created with the purpose of discrediting Cuba’s political system, but the patient himself and the unpatriotic people, foreign diplomats and media outlets manipulating him. The consequences will be his entire and sole responsibility.
Cuba, which has more than shown that it has the lives and dignity of human beings as its main motto, will accept neither pressure nor blackmail.”
While Cuba continues to play an exemplary role saving lives in Haiti, the U.S. government and media are seizing upon this latest campaign to discredit the island nation and justify its inhumane, suffocating blockade.
