21 Dec The Strikes of the Rightless
By,
Pedro Corzo, Senior Fellow, MSI²
The abuses and crimes of Castroism do not end; one might say it is a system that outdoes itself in cruelty and in the systematic violation of human rights. It is a system of governance in which insular totalitarianism is not alone, as it is accompanied by its counterparts in Nicaragua and Venezuela, a malignant triumvirate that will always be remembered for its constant savagery.
The political prisoners of these three regimes survive under very deplorable conditions, as it is easy to imagine if we consider the precarious circumstances in which citizens who have not been imprisoned subsist, a situation that forces both groups to demand what their respective dictatorships deny them.
The injustice of the sentences and the precariousness of the environments in which they are held determine that prisoners stage numerous protests, such as those that recently occurred in several Cuban prisons, to the point that it was reported that at least ten political prisoners were on hunger strike to denounce, at the risk of their lives, the mistreatment and abuses to which they were subjected.
We were never able to verify whether the figure mentioned was an unquestionable reflection of reality, but we do know that at least 13 political prisoners on the Island have died during hunger strikes—tragedies that could have been many more, as recorded by writer José Antonio Albertini in his book Cuba and Castroism: Hunger Strikes in the Cuban Political Prison System.
In his work, Albertini gathers several testimonies from hunger strikers, among them that of Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, who claims to have participated in more than fifteen hunger strikes during the 23 years he was imprisoned and that, when one of those strikes ended, he went from weighing 180 pounds to just 70. He also refers to collective hunger strikes, such as the one recounted by Roberto Martín Pérez, imprisoned for 28 years, in the Guanajay prison, in which more than a hundred inmates participated.
It goes without saying that hunger strikes are very dangerous, especially when they are carried out under a dictatorship that does not respect any person’s right to life, particularly if that person is an opponent, as in the case of Yosvany Aróstegui Armenteros, so far the most recent individual to die in a hunger strike after 40 days of fasting that began on August 7, 2020, in the province of Camagüey.
To the sorrow of Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, the despotism they endure knows no moral boundaries and never ceases to corner those who love freedom, as has happened to two Cuban citizens born after the triumph of the Castroist insurrection, two men who have never known freedom, much less enjoyed their civil rights, as is the case with Yosvany Rosell García Caso and José Antonio Pompa López.
García Caso, 37 years old, was born after the Mariel exodus in 1980 and has suffered throughout his life the absolute lack of rights in a repressive environment characterized by misery and terror, and, as a final blow, he has had to carry out a 40-day hunger strike that brought him to the brink of death.
Yosvany is in prison for participating in the peaceful protests of July 11, 2021. He did not kill anyone; no weapons of any kind were found in his possession. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the same sentence received by Fidel Castro for leading the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. Castro, a true criminal, was amnestied after 22 months of imprisonment, as was his brother Raúl, another murderer.
Another hunger striker was José Antonio Pompa López, an activist of Cuba Independiente y Democrática and Cuba Primero, a 50-year-old man who was born five years after the failed “Ten Million” sugar harvest and eight years after the notoriously infamous “Havana Belt,” two fantasies of the supreme tyrant that contributed greatly to the destruction of the Cuban economy; initiatives for which the people were mobilized in a criminal and unjust manner by the duo Fidel and Raúl Castro, two predators whom history will never absolve.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Miami Strategic Intelligence Institute (MSI²).