Rights violations under Fidel Castro: What Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch left out. By Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter.
28-11-2016
Rights violations under Fidel Castro: What Amnesty Int'l and Human Rights Watch left out By Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter November 27, 2016
"We must say here what is a known truth, which we have always expressed before the world: firing squad executions, yes, we have executed; we are executing and we will continue to execute as long as is necessary. Our struggle is a struggle to the death." - Ernesto "Che" Guevara, UN General Assembly, 1964
Reading two press releases released by prestigious international human rights organizations on November 26, 2016 analyzing Fidel Castro's record on human rights in Cuba some glaring omissions are found in both that ignore some of the most grievous human rights violations committed by the Castro regime over the past 57 years.
"There are few more polarising political figures than Fidel Castro, a progressive but deeply flawed leader. Access to public services such as health and education for Cubans were substantially improved by the Cuban revolution and for this, his leadership must be applauded. However, despite these achievements in areas of social policy, Fidel Castro’s 49-year reign was characterised by a ruthless suppression of freedom of expression. The state of freedom of expression in Cuba, where activists continue to face arrest and harassment for speaking out against the government, is Fidel Castro’s darkest legacy. Fidel Castro’s legacy is a tale of two worlds. The question now is what human rights will look like in a future Cuba. The lives of many depend on it.”
Guevara-Rosa also mentioned "an unprecedented drive to improve literacy rates across the country" and described this as an improvement in human rights in Cuba. This ignores that Cuba had the fourth lowest illiteracy rate in Latin America in 1953 with an illiteracy rate that was 23.6%. Costa Rica's at the time was 20.6%, Chile's was 19.6%. and Argentina's was the lowest at 13.6%. She praises the improvement in literacy as if it were something exceptional but much of the rest of Latin America would show similar or greater gains without sacrificing civil liberties as can be seen in the table below.
The decline of Cuba's education system on Fidel Castro's watch
There are also great concerns about the Cuban educational system. First the issue of a system of education being transformed by the Castro dictatorship into a system of indoctrination and secondly following the collapse of Soviet subsidies the material decline of the entire system along with shortages of teachers.
The Slovak-based People in Peril conducted a study between 2005 and 2006 that generated a 77 page analysis, What is the future of education in Cuba?, gathers criticism, suggestions and proposals for a future educational reform. According to Eliska Slavikova in an interview with El Nuevo Herald on October 23, 2007 observed 'Cuban education is destroyed, with grave problems like the deterioration of the schools, the predominance of ideology over teaching and the bad preparation of teachers.' The study made the following findings:
• There's been a 'pronounced' departure of teachers to other jobs because of low salaries and the lack of social recognition. • Many teachers also left their jobs because of the government's growing ideological pressures. The primary objective of education is the formation of future revolutionary communists. • The great majority of schools lack the equipment and installations needed to provide a good education. • High school graduates have been put to teach after only an eight-month special course. But much of the teaching now is done through educational TV channels.
More recent analyses of the Cuban educational system in 2014 and 2015 arrive at the same conclusions on lack of quality, resources and continued politicization of the curriculum.
The Castro regime's healthcare claims and the dismal reality today
Totalitarian regimes often times make outlandish claims of great successes in particular areas in order to justify or rationalize repression and political terror elsewhere. It is true of North Korea and it is also true of Cuba. The only difference being that Cuba has a much more effective propaganda apparatus than their counterparts in Pyongyang and they have invested heavily in their education and healthcare claims.
However Amnesty International should already have an institutional memory with regards to Cuba. In 1997 when a Dengue epidemic broke out in Cuba the dictatorship tried to cover it up. When a courageous doctor spoke out he was locked up on June 25, 1997 and later sentenced to 8 years in prison. Amnesty International recognized Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison under condition he go into exile in December of 1998. The regime eventually had to recognize that there had been a dengue epidemic. The same pattern repeated itself in 2012 with a cholera outbreak, but this time it was an independent journalist jailed for breaking the story on mishandling of medical aide by Cuban officials. Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias was recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience and the organization described how:
"He had been investigating allegations that medicine provided by the World Health Organization to fight the cholera outbreak (which began in mid-2012) was being kept at the airport instead of being distributed. Since then, he has been detained in various detention centres. He has been held at Combinado del Este prison since November 2012."
If you have to lock up journalists and doctors to cover up problems in your healthcare system then its probably not a great healthcare system and outsiders should be a little more skeptical with official claims.
Human Rights Watch also cites as evidence that the Castro regime has achieved much in social, economic and cultural rights that UNESCO had concluded that there was "near-universal literacy"in Cuba, but one should also recall that this UN body is terribly politicized. For example on June 18, 2013 UNESCO added “The Life and Works of Che Guevara” to the World Registrar. UNESCO is providing funds to preserve Che Guevara’s papers. Guevara in addition to promoting communist ideology, is best known as an advocate for guerrilla warfare who viewed terrorism as a legitimate method of struggle against an enemy.
The Embargo: Otherwise known as "the elephant in the room"
The firing squads in 1959 had nothing to do with the Embargo because it did not yet exist nor with U.S. subversion because the Eisenhower Administration quickly recognized Castro's provisional government and hoped for normal relations. The repression was a classic tool to impose revolutionary terror and prepare the population for a communist dictatorship while wiping out all resistance and dissent in order to install a totalitarian regime and then export it to other countries.
Following the failures to overthrow the Castro dictatorship that Human Rights Watch quickly outlined and the dangerous nuclear confrontation in October of 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis the decision was made to push for a policy of isolation and making it more expensive for the Castro regime to export its revolutionary project to other countries, and it did work.
However the Carter Administration's dismantling of sanctions and opening of Interests Sections in Havana and Washington DC ended the political isolation and the Castro regime was able to project itself more successfully in Latin America. The end result was the Sandinista regime taking power in 1979. Ronald Reagan enters the White House in 1981 rolling back the Carter policy changes and isolation was able to reassert itself.
The Clinton Administration in the 1990s sought a rapprochement with the Castro regime believing that with the collapse of the Soviet Union the regime's days were numbered and by 1999 Castro ally Hugo Chavez was taking power in Venezuela and the Cuban dictatorship had a new lease on life. In 2000 despite a horrid number of human rights atrocities committed by the Castro regime Bill Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro and a short while later opened cash and carry trade between US companies and the Castro regime. Now Obama has taken things further and the human rights situation, predictably has deteriorated and the dictatorship gotten more aggressive. Once again the tide is going out for democracy in Latin America.
Furthermore, as Venezuela has demonstrated, getting rid of economic sanctions in Cuba will only mean a change in language to defend maintaining the totalitarian nature of the regime intact by whatever means necessary.
