Invisible Cuba: Cultural Dialogue But About What?

Some of us waited until midnight November 7 for the Castros to release all of Cuba's political prisoners, as Mr. Raul Castro had promised. Just last week Cuba's Cardinal Ortega had expressed how honored he was by Mr. Raul Castro's presence at the inauguration of the first Catholic seminary in Cuba in 51 years. For a very brief moment, I even considered: could it be that Raul and Fidel are converting to Catholicism? Might it be that they are sorry for their crimes against the Cuban people? Does the cardinal perhaps know something which we don't? After all, they are unrepentant murderers in their late seventies and eighties and conceivably could die at any moment. Maybe, I wondered, Raul spiritually confided in the cardinal and that's why they appear to have a close bond.

As it turned out, I must have been fantasizing for the Castros appear far from repenting or converting to anything, let alone to the gospel of love and eternal life. As for Cardinal Ortega having expressed being honored by Mr. Raul Castro's presence, maybe he just did not know what else to say in the face of a murderous criminal in a suit who mixed himself in with a room full of others at a religious ceremony. Perhaps he took his cue from Jesus who soaked some bread and gave it to Judas while ordering him to quickly take care of the business that remained. (But hopefully Raul and Fidel will not meet the same fate. Hopefully both will repent and be humble enough to accept mercy and forgiveness in the true faith and the one they were baptized in, before it's too late.)

Raul Castro has now broken his promise. In his brother's mind there likely wasn't any point in keeping it given the results of the United States midterm elections. What might they expect to get in return for imprisoned Cubans now? Fidel, after all, has been trading Cubans ever since the post Bay of Pigs prisoner sale. He knows his business well. That's why they had promised to release all prisoners only after the United States' elections. In any case, the broken promise was not really much of a surprise and certainly not the only troubling news for Cubans the past week, even if the media missed it.

I just finished reading Mrs. Reina Luisa Tamayo's testimony on what the regime put her through last Sunday, November 1. Evidently emboldened by the support they have been getting, the tyrannic duo unchained their renowned rabid security mob on the mother of the dissident who in February died after more than 80 days on a hunger strike. Allegedly her son was killed by the regime's intentional negligence for he was imprisoned and therefore in their custody. So on the morning of November 1, Castro's regime allegedly had Mrs. Tamayo, her children and supporters brutally beaten up as they were leaving the cemetery where her son Orlando Zapata Tamayo is buried in Banes. Her son's tomb has evidently becoming a symbolic threat to the tyranny as has the mother of the one who is interred therein. It's not the first beating she gets from the regime's political police after her son's death,

According to Mrs. Tamayo, as she was preparing to leave church to visit her son's tomb, she observed people outside who she believed were preparing to harass her. Indeed, as she approached the cemetery with her children and companions, a person who frequently harasses her by calling her dead son "a skeleton" began laughing along with a growing crowd. They then began throwing rocks at them, striking two of Mrs. Tamayo's remaining sons and one of her daughters. Mixed in with the group where security and military personnel dressed as civilians. Then the man who routinely harasses her threatened to kill her and began to call her dead son a homosexual.

Upon reaching the cemetery and while surrounding her son's tomb, she says she saw uniformed military men, police cars, ambulances and buses close by. Finally, upon finishing her visit and stepping with one foot outside of the cemetery’s door, a military officer called out an order and she was thrown on the floor.

They then hit Mrs. Tamayo in the mouth and jumped on the others. Three men jumped on top of her and began pulling at her purse and pants to seemingly leave her in her intimate clothing, she contends. She was finally grabbed by both arms and forced by civilian dressed military women into a vehicle.

Regime officers shouted at her: "Shameless woman, you sold your son". She responded "Down with Fidel! Down with Zapata's assassins." But an officer warned: "Shut up you (expletive) Negro!" The chauffeur, a police officer, then told the other officers to take a dirty rag soaked in gasoline and stick it in her mouth but she clenched her teeth to prevent them and so they held it against her closed mouth, almost asphyxiating her, she says. She was then taken to a police station which was surrounded by military in civilian clothes. There she was denied water.

After the ordeal Mrs. Tamayo lamented: "Here in Banes , there is a total state of siege ...the cynics and assassins who tortured Zapata (her son) still think of themselves as having a right to beat up my (other) children and my brothers (her sympathizers), the ones who give me life, who sustain my life."

She finishes her declaration pleading for the world's help but she was again detained (in front of her home) and beaten up yesterday, November 7, the day the prisoners who were not released were supposed to have been freed.

Mrs. Reina Luisa Tamayo
Dissident Mother of Dead Hunger Striker Dissident
Photo taken from Directorio de Cuba

If one were to judge by what has been published in the most prestigious American newspapers the past week, part of the United States is blindly enthusiastic about the potential for a "cultural dialogue" with the brutally criminal Cuban tyranny and its supporters. How else could one otherwise explain how they missed Mrs. Tamayo's brutal assault while covering the tyranny's ballet? In a way, it's perfectly understandable, for just how does Mrs. Tamayo, her family, the political prisoners who were not released after all the promises and multiparty elections fit into the cultural dialogue? This they just never adequately explain.

In contrast, when it comes to a place like Burma (Myanmar), Senator Kerry [Dem], Chairman of the United States Senate's Foreign Relations committee, knows exactly what he wants: big changes and nothing less.

"The military’s 'roadmap to democracy' will lead to a dead-end if the government keeps its political opponents jailed and muzzled... If the Burmese government breaks from the policies of the past, the United States should stand ready to improve relations....But make no mistake, this will require a government with new faces and new policies: releasing political prisoners, easing media and speech restrictions..."

I wish Senator Kerry had said something like that about Cuba too but please don't misunderstand, I don't mean to single him out. He's certainly not the only one in Congress or in the United States who has been wanting to finance Castro's tyranny. But why isn't the United States Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, which he leads, demanding the same changes in Cuba?

Why have those who have sought to befriend, glorify, finance and uphold Cuba's tyrant as either a sage and model to be learned from or a sinner to be rehabilitated by United States tourist dollars, remained silent while Mrs. Tamayo was being threatened, insulted, struck, gagged, dragged on pavements and subjected to expletives hurled at her and her dead son?

AUDIO OF MRS. TAMAYO'S TESTIMONY FROM DIRECTORIO DEMOCRATICO CUBANO:

More audios from Directorio Democrático Cubano

Invisible Cuba

Nov 8, 2010

Cultural Dialogue But About What?

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