Cuba Dissident dies

by Doubter Wed Feb 24, 2010 18:00

I doubt very much that this man was anything like a CIA agent - not too many of them are willing to starve themselves to death for a principle. Moroever, if you are going to allege this, please provide some evidence. Bad things happen in self styled socialist countries as well as capitalist ones. . If the suggestion in the aboev comment is that Cuba is beyond reproach it is clearly not rational. Or is it only the US whose actions should be subject to reproach? Power everywhere needs to be carefully scrutinised, whatever flag or ideology it shelters under.

by Celia S Wed Mar 03, 2010 09:20

For whom is death a useful tool?

By Enrique Ubieta Gómez

In the last few days, certain news agencies and governments have rushed to condemn Cuba for the death in prison, on February 23, of Cuban Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Any death is painful and lamentable. But the media echo this time is tinged with enthusiasm: at last — it seems to be saying — a "hero" has appeared. For that reason, it is necessary to briefly explain, without unnecessary words, who Zapata Tamayo was. Despite all the dressing up, he was a common prisoner who began his criminal activities in 1988. He was tried for the crimes of "unlawful entry" (1993), "assault" (2000), "fraud" (2000), "assault and the possession of a sharp weapon" (2000: wounds and a fractured skull inflicted on the citizen Leonardo Simón with a machete), "public disorder" (2002), and other charges bearing no relation to politics. He was paroled in March 2003 and committed another crime on the 20th of the same month. Given his criminal record and parole status, he was then sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but the initial sentence was considerably lengthened in the following years on account of his aggressive behavior in prison.

His name does not appear on the list of the so-called political prisoners drawn up in 2003 to condemn Cuba in the manipulated and extinct United Nations Human Rights Commission — as claimed by the Spanish news agency EFE

Translated by Granma International

For the rest of the article see: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/marzo/lun1/death.html

by Celia S Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:36

Statement from Cuba's National Assembly of People’s Power

IN the wake of a media campaign mounted by powerful corporations, fundamentally in Europe, which have ferociously attacked Cuba, and after a dirty debate, the European Parliament has just passed a resolution of condemnation against our country that manipulates sentiments, brandishes lies and conceals realities.

The pretext utilized was the death of a prisoner, initially sentenced for a common crime and subsequently manipulated by U.S. interests and mercenaries at its service, who, of his own free will, refused to eat, despite warnings from and intervention by Cuban medical specialists.

This lamentable event cannot be utilized to condemn Cuba by adducing that a death could have been avoided. If there is one field in which our country does not have to defend itself in words, given that the reality is irrefutable, it is in that of the fight for the lives of human beings, whether born in Cuba or in other countries. Just one example is the presence of Cuban doctors in Haiti for more than 11 years prior to the earthquake in January of this year, a fact silenced by the hegemonic press.

For the rest of the statement see: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/marzo/vier12/declaraci....html

by Eamonn Deegan - self organisation Sun Mar 14, 2010 16:15

We must all stop and metaphorically take our hats off to Mr. Orlando Zapata Tamayo .

I am in awe of him.I back any cause he espoused.

A very brave and very strong willed individual who stands out from the herd like a glacier in the Sahara.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo RIP

by Celia S Thu Mar 18, 2010 16:19

Statement from the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists: To the intellectuals and artists of the world

WHILE the Book Fair was taking place from one end of our country to the other and hundreds of Cuban doctors were saving lives in Haiti, a new campaign against Cuba was being cooked up. A common criminal with a proven history of violence, who had become a “political prisoner,” announced that he was undertaking a hunger strike for the installation of a telephone, stove and television in his cell. Incited by unscrupulous individuals and despite everything that was done to prolong his life, Orlando Zapata Tamayo died and has now been converted into a regrettable symbol of the anti-Cuba machinery. On March 11, the European Parliament passed a resolution “energetically condemning the avoidable and cruel death of the dissident political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo,” and in an offensive act of intervention in our internal affairs, “urged European institutions to unconditionally support and unreservedly encourage the start of a peaceful process of political transition toward a multi-party democracy in Cuba.”

A petition titled “Orlando Zapata Tamayo: I accuse the Cuban government,” is currently circulating to collect signatures against Cuba. The petition claims that this inmate was “unjustly imprisoned and brutally tortured,” and that he died “denouncing these crimes and his country’s lack of rights and democracy.” At the same time, it shamelessly lies about our government’s alleged practice of “physically eliminating its critics and peaceful opponents.” On March 15, a Spanish newspaper displayed the face of Zapata Tamayo, when this man had died and was in his coffin, and announced that certain intellectuals had adhered to the petition, adding their signatures to those of old and new professionals in the internal and external counterrevolution.

We Cuban writers and artists are fully aware of how the corporate media and hegemonic interests link up with international reactionary forces on any pretext whatsoever to damage our image. We are aware of the merciless and ghoulish distortion of our realities and the daily fabrication of lies about Cuba. We also know the price that is paid by those people who have tried to express themselves within culture with their own nuances.

Never in the history of the Revolution has a prisoner been tortured. Not one single person has disappeared. There has not been one single extrajudicial execution. We have founded our own form of democracy, imperfect, yes, but far more participatory and legitimate than the one they want to impose on us. Those who have orchestrated this campaign do not have the moral authority to teach us lessons in human rights.

It is essential to halt this latest aggression against a blockaded and pitilessly harassed country. To that end, we appeal to the conscience of all intellectuals and artists who do not harbor spurious interests with respect to the future of a Revolution that has been, is, and will be a model of humanism and solidarity.

Secretariat of UNEAC (Union of Cuban Writers and Artists)
National Leadership, Hermanos Saíz Association
16-03-2010

Translated by Granma International

For more: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/marzo/mier17/uneac.html

by joe Fri Mar 19, 2010 15:20

Recognition of Zapata as a prisoner of conscience by AI in the first place says more about the corporate direction that organization is taking than it does about human rights in Cuba. Sean’s report says that Cuba depicts political prisoners as “US-funded mercenaries who plotted "counter-revolutionary" acts against the communist regime.” But the regime hasn’t said anything like that about Orlando Zapata Tamayo . On the contrary ,the Cuban authorities have said that Tamayo never took funds from a foreign power . What they rightly say is that his death and his family’s grief have been cynically exploited and manipulated by the pro-US corporate media to malign Cuba .

The hypocrisy of the corporate media’s coverage of Zapata’s tragic death is exposed in this voltaire.net article by Salim Lamrani .
http://www.voltairenet.org/article164489.html

by Celia S Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:20

Worldwide condemnation of anti-Cuba media campaign

THE Mexican chapter of the Defense of Humanity Network of Networks is circulating a petition titled "In Defense of Cuba" condemning the European Parliament for its interference in the island’s internal affairs, for violating UN nonintervention principles, and for thus joining "the criminal blockade to which the Cuban people have been subjected for the simple fact of not accepting impositions and defending the right to decide their own destiny with dignity and independence."

Signed by Pablo González Casanova, Víctor Flores Olea and Ana Esther Ceceña, the petition is also supported by Danny Glover, Frei Betto, Alfonso Sastre, Thiago de Melo, Ignacio Ramonet, Jorge Sanjinés, León Rozitchner, Víctor Heredia, Danny Rivera, Gianni Miná, Atilio Borón, Stella Callón and Belén Gopegui, among many other intellectuals and artists. The text is open to signatories via the website www.porcuba.org

For more see: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/marzo/vier19/condemnat....html