Once again, Fidel Castro is traveling the world stage, and being embraced by the liberal elite as their last radical champion of those hazy, LSD-laced days back in college when they burned their draft cards. Meanwhile, back in Cuba, the people of that sad lonely Gulag suffer silently, or go to prison for speaking their minds. The result of this Orwellian existence is a steadily increasing suicide rate. In 1957, the suicide rate was 13.1 per 100,000 and has steadily increased to its 1993 figure of 21.5 per 100,000. A study on abortion in Cuba found that 60.2% of pregnancies were terminated in 1994, up from 56.6% in 1993. Mothers would rather kill their children before they are born than put them through the hell Castro has created in Cuba.
Over the past thirty years Castro's Robin Hood image has become tarnished in some circles to the point that he's not invited to every social event. For example, President Fernando Ferrer of the Bronx Borough said, that he "cannot in good conscience extend an invitation to anyone who has been charged with a violation of human rights." However, the U.S. Foreign policy establishment, the Council on Foreign Relations, thought differently and invited him to a luncheon. In addition some business leaders who met with Mr. Castro were very enthusiastic. For example, Dwayne Andreas, the chairman of Archer Daniels Midland said, "I talked to him most of the time about business. He seemed to know what he's doing, I'd say. It was like talking to the president of AT&T." (Castro's real business is the enslavement of 11 million people, and the propagation of anti-American propaganda throughout the world.)
At the same time that Mr. Castro was being invited to Mort Zuckerman's home in his posh New York pad and embraced by Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. Cuban journalist Olance Nogueras Roce was seeking refuge in the Bureau of Independent Cuban Journalists (BPIC) in Havana and police were surrounding the building. His crime: " spreading enemy propaganda." His offense covering and writing a story about the Soviet-style nuclear power plant being completed in Juragua.
During the reunion of world leaders at the United Nations, Fidel Castro asked, "How long shall we wait for the democratization of the United Nations?" At the same time Castro refused to bring democracy to his own country and condemned the practice of opposition parties in the political system. Furthermore, Castro agreed with estimates by Amnesty International that 600 Cubans are in prison for reasons of conscience.
One of the men who used to be part of those 600 was Sebastian Arcos Bergnes-leader of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights (CCPDH). His organization according to the Castro government, is guilty of cataloging human rights offenses committed by the Revolution and spreading this "enemy propaganda" to such subversive groups as Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. He had been in prison for most of the past ten years, and would have died there if not for the bravery of a young physician. Mr. Arcos-Bergnes had been suffering intense abdominal pains-to the point that he had to lay on the floor to be able to sleep, and was unable to walk.
To have an accurate diagnosis ascertained Dr. Jesus Martinez Carles, a 33 year old proctologist, had to use false names to evade identifying the patient and having the bureaucrats evade giving Arcos-Bergnes adequate medical care. As a result of this, Dr. Martinez diagnosed advanced rectal cancer. As a result of this diagnosis and the means used to achieve it. This doctor was charged with "incompatibility with the political-ideological system of the country," according to the official document released by the Ministry of Public Health. "Arcos blames his cancer on the Castro regime. If he had received proper medical attention during his latest imprisonment, his cancer would have been treated earlier. "It was negligence pure and simple, and there is no excuse for it." However, if foreign human rights groups hadn't pressured the Cuban government he would have been one more name forgotten in the long list of martyrs that have disappeared under Castro's tyranny.
Although, some of the liberal New York elite liked to overlook the barbarisms committed by their trendy guest, others took a different view. CBS' Mike Wallace described Castro's meetings with journalists, and business leaders as a "sales meeting, He's here to get American capitalists to save one of the only remaining communist bastions in the world." Men and woman are still beaten and tortured inside of Castro's Cuba. The kind of business Castro is in is the same kind of business as the Mafia. But, unlike the mafia, which has to worry about the FBI and local law enforcement. The only protection folks like Sebastian Arcos have are people like you who read this article , and become outraged about those who struggle day and night for the liberation of a nation, and are met with imprisonment, torture, and death.
Sources for this article were transcribed and translated from the The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and Exito magazine. In addition information was gathered from Sebastian Arcos Cazabon, and others involved in the human rights movement. If you are interested in helping spread the word. Contact me at fcf@fiu.edu
By John Suarez