Cuba a Communist Hellhole, State Department Reveals

Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, April 2, 2003

Described by the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor as a totalitarian state controlled by Fidel Castro, Cuba has an utter disregard for the rights of its citizens, revealed in stark and shocking detail in the Bureau’s Report on Human Rights Practices for 2002.

The report, newly released, presents a picture of an island nation groaning under the heel of one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. As Americans recoil in shock as the extent of Saddam Hussein’s mistreatment of the Iraqi people is revealed, just 90 miles south of the U.S. even more brutal tyrants are engaged in imprisoning, starving, beating, torturing, maiming and denying medical treatment to those who dissent from the regime's dictatorial practices.

Using the Interior Ministry's Department of State Security as its enforcement arm to investigate and suppress political opposition and dissent, the government runs a police state every bit as pervasive as existed during the reign of the Soviet Union’s KGB.

That ministry maintains "a pervasive system of surveillance through undercover agents, informers, rapid response brigades (RRBs), and neighborhood-based Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs)," the report reveals.

The government uses the CDRs "to mobilize citizens against dissenters," impose ideological conformity, and root out "counterrevolutionary" behavior.

RRBs consisted of workers from a particular brigade (construction workers, a factory, etc.) organized by the Communist Party to crush any social unrest. The government on occasion used RRBs instead of the police or military during such situations.

Members of the security forces committed numerous, serious human rights abuses such as:

Prisoners died in jail because of lack of medical care.

Members of the security forces and prison officials continued to beat and abuse detainees and prisoners, including human rights activists. The government failed to prosecute or sanction adequately members of the security forces and prison guards who committed abuses.

Prison conditions remained harsh and life-threatening. The authorities routinely continued to harass, threaten, arbitrarily arrest, detain, imprison and defame human rights advocates and members of independent professional associations, including journalists, economists, doctors and lawyers, often with the goal of coercing them into leaving the country.

The state used internal and external exile against such persons.

The state denied political dissidents and human rights advocates due process and subjected them to unfair trials.

The state infringed on citizens' privacy rights. It denied citizens the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. It limited the distribution of foreign publications and news, restricted access to the Internet, and maintained strict censorship of news and information to the public.

The government restricted some religious activities but permitted others. It limited the entry of religious workers to the country.

The government maintained tight restrictions on freedom of movement, including foreign travel and did not allow some citizens to leave the country.

The state was sharply and publicly antagonistic to all criticism of its human rights practices and discouraged foreign contacts with human rights activists.

In addition, the report charges that "violence against women, especially domestic violence, and child prostitution were problems. Racial discrimination was a problem. The Government severely restricted worker rights, including the right to form independent unions. The Government prohibits forced and bonded labor by children; however, it required children to do farm work without compensation."

Torture

The report cites incidences of torture.

"On March 4, state security agents, police, and civilian members of an RRB beat blind activist Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leyva, independent journalist Carlos Brizuela Yera, and eight other activists, who were at a public hospital in Ciego de Avila protesting the earlier beating of independent journalist Jesus Alvarez Castillo. Police forcibly removed the protesters from the hospital and arrested them. On August 21, a municipal court charged them with 'contempt for authority, public disorder, disobedience, and resistance.' Prosecutors requested a 6-year sentence for Gonzalez Leyva. Gonzalez Leyva protested his imprisonment through a liquids-only fast, and at year's end weighed less than 100 pounds.

"On September 17, plainclothes police beat 59-year-old Rafael Madlum Payas of the Christian Liberation Movement as he approached a police station to inquire about the cases of seven activists being held at the station …

"Detainees and prisoners, both common and political, often were subjected to repeated, vigorous interrogations designed to coerce them into signing incriminating statements, to force collaboration with authorities, or to intimidate victims. Some endured physical and sexual abuse, typically by other inmates with the acquiescence of guards, or long periods in punitive isolation cells. Pretrial detainees were held separately from convicted prisoners. In Havana there were two detention centers; once sentenced, persons were transferred to a prison.

"Prisoners sometimes were held in "punishment cells," which usually were located in the basement of a prison, were semi-dark all the time, had no water available in the cell, and had a hole for a toilet. No reading materials were allowed, and family visits were reduced to 10 minutes from 1 or 2 hours. There was no access to lawyers while in the punishment cell.

"On May 10, political prisoner Carlos Luis Diaz Fernandez informed friends that he had been held in solitary confinement since January 2000 in a cell with no electric light and infested by rats and mosquitoes."

The report, ignored by the largely pro-Castro mainstream media, is a ringing indictment of the Castro regime, which many U.S. "liberals" support.

The full report on Cuba can be read here.

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