11/03/2011 @ 12:02PM
In March 2003, the Cuban regime rounded up 75 journalists, librarians
and human peaceful dissidents and quickly hustled them off to prison for
lengthy terms on bizarre, trumped-up charges.
For example, Normando Hernandez, who had been writing articles on
CubaNet since 1999, was found guilty of reporting on the health,
education and judicial systems and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Jose
Luis Garcia Paneque, a surgeon who was hounded from his profession for
his political beliefs, was sentenced to 24 years, with 17 months of it
in isolation. Ill with pneumonia and a cyst on his kidney, his weight
dropped to 90 pounds. Regis Iglesias, a poet, received an 18-year sentence.
All of the 75 Cubans were released by 2010, a few months after an
international outcry over the death of imprisoned dissident Orlando
Zapata Tamayo. But the releases did not come until many of those jailed
in the spring of 2003 — including Hernandez, Paneque and Iglesias — had
spent more than seven years in prison, in terrible conditions for
alleged crimes that amounted to nothing more than the exercise of "the
most elementary of human rights, especially as regards freedom of
expression and political association," as the European Union put it, in
a statement denouncing the prosecutions.
For these three and many of the others, however, the privations did not
end with release from prison. They were exiled to Spain, where they were
denied basic liberties customarily accorded political refugees. In a
column in the Wall Street Journal on June 13 of this year, Mary
Anastasia O'Grady criticized the Spanish government for "assisting the
Cuban dictatorship to disguise the deportation as 'liberation.'"
Among the readers of the column was former President George W. Bush. The
three ex-prisoners learned of his interest, and, on Tuesday, they fly to
Dallas to tell their stories to a packed assembly at an event sponsored
by the Bush Institute.
The Cubans were accompanied by Jose Maria Aznar, former president of
Spain, and Antonio Lopez-Isturiz White, secretary general of the
European People's Party, the pan-European center-right organization that
has been looking out for the welfare of the exiles as the Spanish
government has shirked its responsibility.
The sad fact is that much of the world is either consciously ignoring or
is blissfully unaware of the brutality and repression being exercised by
the Cuba regime against citizens simply asking basic freedoms. While
global attention has focused on the Arab Spring and the liberation of
Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, a Caribbean island has remained for more than
60 years in the grip of a family that has destroyed its economy and
stripped its people of the most fundamental rights.
What's the answer for Cuba? Start with an intensification of
international pressure on the regime. Certainly, the attitude of the
Spanish government will change later this month if, as expected, the
Socialist government so friendly to the Castros is defeated.
But international pressure won't increase unless the world hears the
stories of brave Cubans like Dr. Paneque, who told the rapt audience in
Dallas about the hell of solitary confinement in a tiny cell. He said
that his life would never be the same. You could see the emotional scars.
The Castro brothers probably expected that the experience of prison
would chasten or silence the released dissidents – those in Spain or the
United States or still in Cuba. But it has not. Hernandez, Paneque and
Iglesias remain defiant. They're telling tales of one of the most
repressive governments in the world. "We must seek the truth," said
President Aznar on Tuesday, "and make known the lies of the regime."
Change in Cuba also requires that freedom-loving Americans – especially
high officials — to lend their moral support. Aznar reminded the
audience that freedom "will never come from appeasement and complacency."
When President Bush was in office, he vigorously and publicly put the
weight of his office behind hundreds of dissidents and freedom advocates.
He met with Dr. Paneque's wife and daughter in the Oval Office during
the dissident's fourth year in prison and then, six months later, in the
East Room of the White House for a "day of Solidarity with the Cuban
People." The President even helped Paneque's wife get a better job in
Texas so she could be at home with her daughter at night. He mentioned
Paneque three times in speeches, including an address to the Cuban
people a few days before he left office in 2009.
President Bush also mentioned the jailed Normando Hernandez in three
speeches, and Hernandez's mother joined Mrs. Bush in the First Lady's
box for the 2008 State of the Union address. We know from interviews
with other dissidents that word of this kind of support seeps into
prisons and gives freedom advocates the courage to struggle on.
Finally, the United States and other nations need to be steadfast in
their policies. Any change in relations with Cuba must be predicated on
free elections. Freedom won't come to the nation until the current
regime leaves power and the Cuban people themselves are able to choose
their leaders.
Perhaps nature will have to run its course, but I hope not. There are
non-violent ways to bring freedom to Cuba, and they all come down to
helping courageous Cubans like Hernandez, Paneque and Iglesias succeed.
James K. Glassman is the founding executive director of the George W.
Bush Institute and a former Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs
and Public Diplomacy.
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