Safe in Spain, Cuban dissidents vow to continue struggle
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuba's best-known political prisoner and nine others will refuse to
leave for Spain if freed, relatives said, while the seven former
prisoners who arrived in Madrid on Tuesday vowed to continue their
activism from exile.
``Each person has taken the road they consider best,'' Ricardo Gonzalez
told reporters on arrival in Spain. ``For us, exile is an extension of
the struggle, and one can struggle in many ways.''
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, meanwhile, announced
four more dissidents would be freed and fly to Madrid on Tuesday and
Wednesday as part of a Raúl Castro government agreement to free 52 of
Cuba's estimated 167 political prisoners over the next four months.
U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said Washington wants
all political prisoners freed but called the release of the first seven
``a positive development that we hope will represent a step towards
increased respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.''
``All those released from prison should be free to decide for themselves
whether to remain in Cuba or travel to another country,'' Crowley added,
apparently referring to complaints that Cuban authorities are putting
improper pressures on the dissidents to leave the island.
The seven were taken directly from prison to the commercial jetliners
that flew them and about 30 relatives to Madrid ``as though they were
dangerous criminals,'' said Berta Soler,wife of one of the jailed
dissidents.
The Catholic church, which negotiated the releases with Castro, has
insisted the departures are voluntary and said 20 of the 52 prisoners
have agreed to leave the island. The 52 are the last still in prison of
the 75 peaceful opposition activists rounded up in a 2003 crackdown. The
other two dozen were released for health reasons.
Cuba's leading political prisoner, Oscar Elías Biscet, has already
decided not to go into exile and remain in Cuba as a human rights
activist if he's freed, his wife of 19 years, Elsa Morejón, told El
Nuevo Herald by telephone from Havana.
``He has always said no, and he's still saying no'' to leaving the
island, added Morejón, who spoke Saturday by phone with Biscet at
Havana's Combinado del Este prison. ``And I respect his position.''
Morejón said Biscet also told her Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega had not
phoned him to ask if he wanted to leave the island -- as Ortega has done
with most of the others.
Prison authorities also have told him nothing about a possible release.
Biscet, 49, a physician serving a 25-year sentence, was detained dozens
of times between 1997 and 1999.
From 1999 until today, he was free only 36 days. In 2007, he won the
U.S. Medal of Freedom, awarded by the George W. Bush administration.
Morejón identified the other prisoners refusing to go into exile -- all
part of the 75 -- as Eduardo Diaz Fleitas, Regis Iglesias Ramirez, Pedro
Argüelles Moran, Librado Linares, Jose Daniel Ferrer, Arnaldo
Lauzerique, Ivan Hernández Carrillo, Fidel Suarez Cruz and Diosdado
Gonzalez Marrero.
Neither Cuban nor church authorities have explained what would happen to
the political prisoners who refuse to move abroad once they are freed.
The government controls 95 percent of the economy, and often dismisses
political opponents from their jobs.
The seven ex-prisoners who arrived in Madrid on Tuesday were Ricardo
González Alfonso, Léster González, Omar Ruiz, Antonio Villarreal, Julio
César Gálvez, José Luis García Paneque and Pablo Pacheco.
Gálvez, 65, an independent journalist who was serving a 15-year
sentence, read from a joint statement at the Madrid airport that
credited their release to the many Cubans fighting for human rights. It
specifically mentioned hunger strikers Orlando Zapata, who died Feb. 23,
and Guillermo Fariñas, who ended his 135-day protest, demanding the
release of 26 political prisoners in ill health, last week after church
officials announced that the 52 would be freed.
Gálvez later told the Spanish EFE news agency that while Castro is no
``little angel,'' he had taken actions ``that his brother Fidel never did.''
The 60-year-old Ricardo González, an independent journalist, denied the
seven felt they had been pushed into exile and added that in any
negotiations there has to be some concessions and changes in positions.
Six of the seven wore shirts and ties apparently issued to them by Cuban
authorities just before their release, then raised their arms in victory
and headed off to unknown lodgings arranged by the Spanish foreign ministry.
The Spanish government ``is going to facilitate everything necessary for
your full integration into Spanish society,'' though they also can chose
to move on to another country, State Secretary for Latin America Juan
Pablo de Laiglesia told them.
Most of the Cubans will be resettled outside Madrid, María Jesús
Arzuaga, president of the Spanish Refugee Assistance Commission, told
Spanish National Radio.
The four prisoners to be freed next were identified in media reports as
Omar Rodríguez, Normando Hernández González, Luis Milán and Mijail Bárzaga.
In Argentina, Cuban dissident physician Hilda Molina said the government
agreed to free the prisoners not because of a ``desire for change'' but
because of the ``pressure of world public opinion.''
While news media around the world have given wide coverage to the
prisoner releases, Cuba's government-controlled newspapers, radio and TV
reported nothing on the release and departure of the first seven.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/13/v-fullstory/1729375/safe-in-spain-dissidents-vow-to.html
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