Published on Wednesday, July 14, 2010
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) -- Recovering hunger striker Guillermo Farinas said
on Tuesday that Fidel Castro's TV interview signaled "tacit support" for
Cuba's release of 52 political prisoners and that nothing has changed on
the communist island.
"Undoubtedly, the government made a clemency gesture to its opposition
prisoners and I believe it should continue doing so," Farinas told AFP
in a telephone interview the day after seven freed prisoners left for
Spain and Castro spoke on television.
Farinas on Thursday ended a near-deadly 135-day hunger strike after Cuba
announced it was releasing 52 political prisoners following Roman
Catholic church- and Spanish-mediated talks with Fidel's brother,
President Raul Castro.
Fidel Castro, 83, on Monday made a rare, videotaped television
appearance coinciding with the release of seven former inmates, who flew
to Spain later that night. The former Cuban leader, however, did not
mention the prisoner release in his interview.
Revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, who turns 84 this month, has made only
sporadic appearances -- either on television or in public -- since
emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006 drove him to hand power to his
younger brother Raul, 79.
Farinas, 48, who had been demanding the release of 26 sick jailed
dissidents, said Fidel's appearance "is an indirect tacit approval of
what is going on with our prisoners and of the talks with the European
Union and Catholic church."
"It's extremely important, crucial, that Fidel showed himself to be
lucid, conscious, so the most radical members of the regime can't accuse
the Raul Castro administration and those who want changes of betraying
the leader," he told AFP.
The television interview was also "a way of distracting national and
international attention" from the prisoner release, and showing Castro
followers that "the comandante is still here... (that) nothing's going
on here," Farinas said.
Farinas said that since he broke his fast he has been on a liquid diet,
but was still in "serious and critical" condition with a blood clot
lodged in his jugular vein.
Two more released prisoners were expected to leave for Spain Tuesday
with their close relatives, and another 11 will make the same trip soon,
dissident sources said here.
In all, 20 of the 52 prisoners slated for release within the next few
weeks requested to be sent to Spain.
According to the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation
Commission, even after all the 52 inmates are released, there will still
be 115 political prisoners held in Cuba, the only one-party Communist
system in the Americas, where censorship is enforced with an iron fist.
The Cuban government, however, which consistently skirts the issue in
its official media outlets, still denies holding any political
prisoners, saying they are mercenaries in the pay of the United States.
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