Spain betrays Cuba's dissidents

Spain Betrays Cuba's Dissidents
President José Zapatero helped Castro get rid of the best leaders of the island's nascent democracy movement. JUNE 13, 2011

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
Madrid
Despite 21% unemployment and a looming debt crisis, Spain is still considered one of the world's great travel destinations. That is unless you are a Cuban prisoner of conscience who was deported and dumped here by the military dictatorship in Havana. In that case, life as an alien on the sunny Iberian Peninsula is economically and psychologically grim.
Over the past 11 months, the Cuban regime has abruptly removed 115 political prisoners from their jail cells and banished them to Spain, calling their exile "liberation." Many of them are part of a group known as "the 75," who were arrested in March 2003 for activities like collecting signatures on a democracy petition, leading peaceful marches, or writing for independent newspapers. They were permitted to leave with their immediate families and bring one change of clothes from Cuba, but they were not given the chance to say goodbye to friends and extended family and were issued no papers. A number of them have tried to claim political-refugee status, but the Spanish government has not been eager to grant it. As a result, many of them still have no permanent documents.
Last week I met with 10 of them here. Their stories of years in Cuba's dungeons and of the wider repression across the island are hair-raising. One of them showed me smuggled photos from inside the notorious Combinado del Este prison, a filthy, infested facility not fit for animals. Some prisoners of conscience have spent years there.
Cuban dissidents rally outside the Cuban Embassy in Madrid on Feb 26, the anniversary of the death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
After three days of these interviews, I began to slump under the weight of the Cuban reality. But the cloud that darkened my spirit was not brought on by anything these patriots had revealed about the hell-hole known as Cuba. I am well-versed in Castro's human rights record. The truly distressing part of the prisoners' stories is the morally bankrupt role played by the Socialist government of Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in assisting the Cuban dictatorship to disguise the deportation as "liberation." It's what one might expect from the bosses in Burma, North Korea or Iran.
The harsh prison conditions in Cuba are legendary, though the regime has not allowed any human rights observer to have a look in more than two decades. One of the exiles told me about a punishment technique called "the crab," which he said is used on common criminals but one human rights activist in the U.S. told me is also used on political prisoners. One handcuff is put on one wrist and the other handcuff is put on the opposite ankle. Another set of handcuffs is put on the other wrist and ankle. Then the prisoner, wearing only underwear, is tossed onto the floor of a dank cell where he may remain for a day or more. Beatings, solitary confinement and harassment of family members at home are also common practices.
This kind of stuff is supposed to curb dissent but after seven years of grisly prison life, many of "the 75," a number of whom were serving sentences of more than two decades, showed no signs of cracking. Orlando Zapata Tamayo went on a hunger strike and died at the hands of the regime in February 2010. The beatings by Castro thugs of the Ladies in White—the wives, sisters and mothers of the political prisoners—were captured on cellphones and went viral on the Web. Another hunger-striking dissident, Guillermo Farinas, was gravely ill.
"The 75" had become a huge public-relations problem for the regime. As governments and intellectuals around the world condemned the systematic brutality, it was clear that more than a half-century of Cuban propaganda promoting the socialist paradise image was in danger of going down the drain. To minimize the damage, the regime needed not only to get the prisoners out of the country under the headline of "liberation," but also to ensure that they would land in oblivion. Spain agreed to help, and why not? Then-Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos has a warm relationship with the Castro government and was a frequent VIP guest on the island.
Most of the former prisoners told me that they did not want to leave Cuba, but Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who acted as a go-between for the dictatorship, pressured them and their families. Family members, worried that their loved ones might die in prison, asked them to take the Spanish exit.
Once in Spain, they realized they'd been had. They were clearly political refugees, and under Spanish law they were entitled to claim that designation. But for Spain to admit that they were victims of political persecution would negate the whole point of the exercise, which was to paint Castro as a great humanitarian who had set them free. This is why many of those I spoke with remain in legal limbo.
The transition to democracy in Cuba depends on two things: New leaders at home and international solidarity with their struggle for liberty from abroad. Mr. Zapatero has betrayed the Cuban people on both fronts.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

Chavez under fire from international community

Chávez under fire from international community

By Benedict Mander in Caracas

The unfulfilled dream of Hugo Chávez’s idol, Venezuela’s 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, was to unify South America. But a heated exchange at a recent regional summit meeting – during which Venezuela’s leader told Alvaro Uribe, his Colombian counterpart, to “go to hell” – underlined how elusive this goal remains.

In recent days, Mr Chávez’s socialist government has come under heavy fire from the international community for allegedly assisting drug traffickers and violating human rights at home. Now it has been accused of co-operating with Spanish and Colombian insurgents on assassination plots.

Mr Chávez has rejected “unacceptable and politically-motivated accusations” made by a Spanish judge last week that it had collaborated with Basque separatist group Eta and Farc, the Colombian guerrillas, to assassinate top Colombian politicians including President Alvaro Uribe.

On the same day, Venezuelan security forces were singled out in the US State Department’s annual report on international drugs trafficking for “directly assisting” Colombian guerrillas linked to cocaine smuggling.

The previous week, the Organisation of American States released a scathing report accusing Venezuela’s government of undermining democracy and the rule of law through human rights abuses, political repression and eroding the separation of powers.

Venezuelan authorities brushed off the criticisms as part of a continued internationally co-ordinated smear campaign intended to discredit Mr Chávez’s “Bolivarian revolution”, long a fierce opponent of global capitalism and US imperialism.

“It’s been said that there are Hezbollah cells in Venezuela, practically that Bin Laden is in Venezuela – they also say that we are trying to build an atomic bomb with Iran. It’s laughable,” said Mr Chávez.

Mr Chávez described the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as a “mafia” and its leader as “pure excrement”. He also threatened to leave the OAS altogether, after the report detailed the firing of Venezuelan judges whose rulings were not to the government’s liking, the closure of critical media outlets and the obstruction of democratically-elected opposition politicians.

“Things aren’t looking too good for Chávez on the international scene,” said Mervin Rodriguez, head of international relations at the Central University of Venezuela, who said that the former tank commander is losing support and credibility abroad, with lower oil prices limiting his ability to spread influence. “Chávez has actively sought out enemies, and now that he is weaker comes the international counterattack – his enemies have been waiting for this moment,” he said.

Pro-government commentators have characterised the attacks as intended to weaken support for Mr Chávez ahead of key legislative elections in September, in which the opposition hopes to wrest a majority from the government that allows it to pass laws at will.

The criticisms come at a difficult time for Mr Chávez, who is already facing a series of complicated domestic challenges, including persistently high inflation and violent crime, as well as serious water and electricity shortages causing continuous blackouts.

“I wish Chávez would spend a bit more time dealing with problems at home, rather than wasting time and money abroad which don’t make much difference to me,” said Sergio Romero, a bus driver from Caracas, the capital.

The array of challenges facing Mr Chávez on the home front are chipping away at his popularity, and seven ministers have quit or been fired in recent weeks. Also, one of the most high-profile and successful pro-government politicians, Henri Falcon, governor of Lara state, recently resigned from Mr Chávez’s United Socialist party, signalling growing dissent and disappointment among the “chavista” ranks, say analysts.

The latest accusations will also pose a challenge for both Spain and Colombia, two of Venezuela’s top trade partners.

Colombia in particular has been seeking to defuse a tense standoff, in hope of reinstating former trade relations, which reached $7bn in annual bilateral trade until Mr Chávez froze economic and diplomatic ties last year in protest at Colombia’s deal to allow US troops greater access to its military bases. Colombia has also offered to export electricity to alleviate Venezuela’s energy crisis.

Meanwhile, Spain’s relations with Venezuela have constituted a delicate balancing act, with major commercial interests to protect such as Telefonica and Repsol, which recently won a major contract to develop a block in the oil-rich Orinoco belt. Although bilateral relations have improved since the arrival of leftist Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, they were put to the test when Mr Chávez nationalised the Venezuelan franchise of Banco Santander, and when King Juan Carlos once told Mr Chávez to “shut up” after interrupting Mr Zapatero at a summit meeting.

Mr Zapatero ordered his foreign ministry to “request an explanation” from Venezuela after a Spanish national court judge announced indictments for 13 Farc and Eta suspects accused of conspiracy to commit murder and terrorism and that had alleged ties with the Venezuelan government.

Venezuela rejected the accusations as “tendentious and baseless”, arguing that they were based on information taken from files allegedly found on a laptop seized from a Farc leader killed during a Colombian military air strike on a rebel camp in Ecuador in 2008.

King of Spain an Prime Minister feed up with Hugo Chavez's big mouth

King of Spain an Prime Minister Zapatero feed up with Hugo Chavez's big mouth
At last! Spaniards finally told Chavez what everybody else wants to: SHUT UP!

The news appeared today in Spain's newspaper ABC online. In this video, you can tell how Mr. Zapatero is asking Hugo Chavez for a little bit of respect for him to address to ex-president Aznar. This happened at the Cumbre Iberoamericana in Chile. Zapatero said to him, that there is a conduct norm that everybody should do, and is to address others with respect. To that, Mr. Big-Mouth-Clown of Venezuela insisted insulting Aznar for a second time, calling him a "fascist.

And, guess what, non other that the King of Spain intervened this time to put Chavez in his place. He said to him, "why don't you shut up?"

This is so shamful. You can make your point across without behaving like a caveman. I cannot believe that someones NEEDS to teach this guy some manners on a political summit. For the record, I never voted for Hugo Chavez.