Castro rides wave of new repression

By Steven Greenhut
Published: 04/13/03
Orange County Register

As the Bush administration was launching its war on Iraq, and understandably focusing its main attention on the Middle East, Cuba¹s totalitarian government was taking full advantage of the diversion to launch a cruel crackdown on dissidents.

On Thursday, Fidel Castro¹s government sentenced the last of 75 dissidents to long prison terms --- up to 28 years --- for engaging in what it calls counterrevolutionary attempts to undermine the social order, and for supposedly taking money from the U.S. government.

In reality, the latest victims of Castro repression did nothing more than what most Americans take for granted --- engaging in the free debate of ideas. As Wired magazine reported, those convicted of crimes mainly were journalists, librarians, economists, human-rights activists and journalists who wrote stories that were published on Internet sites. Others are supporters of the Varela Project, a referendum to push for reforms based on what is supposedly allowed under the Cuban constitution.

These are some of the world¹s bravest people, who willingly subject themselves to long prison terms and Castro¹s torture cells in order to publish views that are contrary to what the Supreme Leader and his police state find acceptable.

"These people are working for the American government, which maintains an economic embargo against Cuba," is how one Cuban government official put it. "Obviously they are mercenaries for the U.S. government."

The only thing obvious is that totalitarian governments cannot allow a single flower to bloom, lest the whole terror state begin collapsing. So they must always seek out enemies and quash them. What¹s astounding is the silence from the world regarding this particularly heinous attack on civil liberties.

Secretary of State Colin Powell did issue a harsh statement: "We call on Castro to end this despicable repression and free these prisoners of conscience. The United States and the international community will be unrelenting in our insistence that Cubans who seek peaceful change be permitted to do so." And the human rights organizations, Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, spoke out against the repression.

But few others have. We wonder where Jimmy Carter has been. Last May, the former president went to Cuba, where he complained about America¹s human rights record although he issued some tepid criticisms about the regime.

"Despite all his friends here who say that Castro has changed, he continues to have these waves of repression," Miguel Faria told us; he is a Georgia physician who fled communist Cuba, and author of the book, Cuba in Revolution: Escape >From a Lost Paradise. Castro has been trying to get U.S.-backed loans and further easing of sanctions. "He won¹t get what he wants, so he cracks down on the little bit of freedom he has allowed," Dr. Faria said.

There¹s not much America can do, but at least Americans can keep attention focused on the horrors just 90 miles from our shores.

Steven Greenhut is a Senior Editorial Writer and Columnist for the Orange County Register.

Only a few copies of the first edition of Dr. Faria¹s book, Cuba in Revolution: Escape From a Lost Paradise are left. To order, visit http://www.haciendapub.com.

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