Guillermo Fariñas Letter to Raul Castro

Guillermo Fariñas Letter to Raul Castro

Fariñas' Letter to Raul Castro

Santa Clara, Cuba, 20 July 2016

General of the Army Raul Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State
and of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba

Sir:

Yesterday, on 19 July of the present year, I was tortured while
handcuffed by troops of the Special Brigade of the Ministry of the
Interior in the province of Santa Clara. Because of group of us,
militants of the United Anti-Totalitarian Forum (FANTU), were going to
the 5th Unit of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), to inquire
about our member falsely charged in the province of Pinal del Rio, Jose
Rolando Casares Soto, and about a member of the Patriotic Union of Cuban
(UNPACU), Carlos Amel Oliva Torres, who is on hunger strike in Santiago
de Cuba.

To present oneself before an establishment of MININT is not a crime,
according to current laws, if one is not carrying allusive posters,
distributing propaganda, or shouting a slogan against the regime, and
that was what we militants of FANTU were doing when we were violently
arrested.

The above is a small sample of the wave of abuses, terror and violence
that the repressive authorities of your government unleashed about 19
months ago against the non-violent opposition that civilly confronts
totalitarianism.

And that can trigger an escalated violence among Cubans, resulting in a
civil war, something that I do not want for my Nation and I think you do
not want it either. You and the MININT Special Brigade members –
Anti-riot –who tortured me when I was defenseless, and called me a
Mercenary.

Let me clarify, that to be a mercenary one must meet two conditions: 1st
– To be fighting outside one's country of origin, and 2nd – To be at the
service of a foreign power. I fight within Cuba and I was born in this
land. I only accept having been a mercenary when I fought in Angola and
was in the service of the Soviet Union, a foreign power.

With regard to the second, let me clarify, it is true that I receive
material and financial support from anti-Castro exiles, something that
does me honor, because these compatriots in the diaspora do not forget
the suffering of the Cuban people. Something that you and your
supporters have no moral authority to criticize, because when you were
fighting Fulgencia Batista y Zalvidar, the exiles financed you, or where
did the money come from to buy the yacht Granma, a boat financed by the
exiled ex-president of Cuba Carlos Prio Socarras?

Also the heroes of independence Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo received
material and monetary help from Cubans in exile. And so, General of the
Army, if we are mercenaries you also were.

And I believe that neither Marti nor Maceo had been. For all the reasons
detailed above, I am declaring as of today I am on a Hunger and Thirst
Strike, until you declare publicly – and your words are published in the
official newspaper Granma – that we opponents are not to be tortured,
beaten, threatened with death, we will not be subject to spurious
charges and we will not have our personal property confiscated.

Also that you designate one of your vice presidents to meet with a dozen
prominent leaders of the non-violent Cuban opposition to realize the
fulfillment of your promise. I hold you and your government responsible
for my life and the lives of all non-violent Cuban opponents as of this
moment.

General of the Army I urge you to act as a Cuban patriot and not as an
ideological militant of one ideological trend. That you recognize that
no Mercenary offers his life for pro-democratic ideals and that it is
our right, recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to
always think differently, in a non-violent way.

Without further comment I am,

Guillermo Fariñas Hernandez, Psychologist, Winner of the European
Parliament Andrei Sakharov Prize, Coordinator General of FANTU

Source: Guillermo Fariñas Letter to Raul Castro – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/guillermo-farinas-letter-to-raul-castro/