Human Rights Watch World Report 2001 - Cuba

Human Rights Developments

Despite a few positive developments over the course of the year, the Cuban government's human rights practices were generally arbitrary and repressive. Hundreds of peaceful opponents of the government remained behind bars, and many more were subject to short-term detentions, house arrest, surveillance, arbitrary searches, evictions, travel restrictions, politically-motivated dismissals from employment, threats, and other forms of harassment.

Although Cuba's human rights conditions improved little in 2000, U.S. policy toward Cuba did begin to change. The high-profile case of Elián González, the six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor who stayed seven months in the United States against the wishes of his father, brought increased public attention to the United States' policy of isolating Cuba. After the boy returned home in June, congressional efforts to relax some aspects of the thirty-eight-year-old U.S. economic embargo against Cuba gained momentum.

Cuba's repressive human rights practices were undergirded by the country's legal and institutional structure. The rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and of the press remained restricted under Cuban law. By criminalizing enemy propaganda, the spreading of "unauthorized news," and the insulting of patriotic symbols, the government effectively denied freedom of speech under the guise of protecting state security. The authorities also imprisoned or ordered the surveillance of individuals who had committed no illegal act, relying upon laws penalizing "dangerousness" (estado peligroso) and allowing for "official warning" (advertencia oficial). The government-controlled courts undermined the right to a fair trial by restricting the right to a defense, and frequently failed to observe the few due process rights available to defendants under the law.

Even Cubans' right to leave their country was severely restricted, as the government prosecuted persons for "illegal exit" if they attempted to leave the island without first obtaining official permission to do so. Such permission was sometimes denied arbitrarily, or made contingent on the purchase of an expensive exit permit.

Pro-democracy activists planned a series of protests to coincide with the ninth annual Ibero-American Summit, held in Havana in November 1999. Yet, the authorities cracked down hard on public dissent, arresting over 200 dissidents in the weeks before and after the summit. Many of them were placed under house arrest, while others were temporarily detained in police stations. This wave of repression continued through February 2000. The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (Comisión Cubana de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliación Nacional), a respected Havana-based nongovernmental group, announced in early March that 352 dissidents hadbeen arrested over the preceding four months, while another 240 had their freedom of movement restricted, normally by being ordered to remain at their homes.

While the vast majority of those arrested were eventually released without any criminal charges being brought against them, a few were prosecuted. The most serious case was that of thirty-eight-year-old Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet González, who received a three-year prison sentence on February 25 for protests that included turning the Cuban flag upside-down and carrying anti-abortion placards. Biscet, the president of the Lawton Human Rights Foundation, was convicted of dishonoring patriotic symbols, public disorder, and instigating delinquency. It was reported in August that he had experienced severe weight loss in prison, suffered from health problems, including an untreated gum infection, and had been held in solitary confinement for months at a time.

Also on February 25, immediately after Biscet's trial, Eduardo Díaz Fleitas, vice-president of the Fifth of August Movement (Movimiento 5 de Agosto), and Fermín Scull Zulueta, were convicted of public disorder by the same court. Díaz Fleitas was sentenced to a year of incarceration, while Scull Zulueta received a year of house arrest. Like Biscet, they were anti-abortion protesters, and had carried signs at a November 10 demonstration.

The most encouraging development of the year came in May when three leaders of the Internal Dissidents Working Group (Grupo de Trabajo de la Disidencia Interna, GTDI) were freed prior to the expiration of their sentences. Economists Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, engineering professor Félix Antonio Bonne Carcasses, and attorney René Gómez Manzano were granted provisional liberty within two weeks of each other, but Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, the fourth leader of the group, remained incarcerated at this writing. The four had been sentenced in March 1999 to several years of imprisonment for "acts against the security of the state," after having spent nearly nineteen months in pretrial detention. They were first detained in July 1997, a month after the GTDI released "The Homeland Belongs to All" (La Patria es de Todos), an analytical paper on the Cuban economy, human rights, and democracy.

Whether detained for political or common crimes, inmates were subjected to abusive prison conditions. Prisoners frequently suffered malnourishment and languished in overcrowded cells without appropriate medical attention. Some endured physical and sexual abuse, typically by other inmates with the acquiescence of guards, or long periods in isolation cells. Prison authorities insisted that all detainees participate in politically oriented "re-education" sessions or face punishment. Political prisoners who denounced the poor conditions of imprisonment were punished with solitary confinement, restricted visits, or denial of medical treatment.

At least twenty-four prisoners faced the death penalty, according to a list circulated in August by the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which also provided the names of twenty-one others who had been executed in 1999. Although the organization noted that all of the executions involved defendants convicted of homicide, Cuban law permitted the use of the death penalty for numerous other crimes, including international drug trafficking and the corruption of minors. Cuba's secrecy regarding the application of the death penalty-the government did not provide information on execution-made it difficult to ascertain the actual number of death sentences imposed and carried out. The Cuban legal system's serious procedural failings and lack of judicial independence, which violated the rights of all criminal defendants, were especially problematic with regard to capital offenses. Miscarriages of justice were also unlikely to be remedied upon review by a higher court, since Cuban law afforded convicts sentenced to death minimal opportunities to appeal their sentences.

The Cuban government maintained a firm stance against independent journalism, regularly detaining reporters and sometimes prosecuting them. On November 10, 1999 Angel Pablo Polanco, the director of Noticuba, was arrested and held for a week, allegedly to prevent him from reporting on protests surrounding the Ibero-American Summit. On January 20, 2000 José Orlando González Bridón, president of the Cuban Confederation of Democratic Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores Democráticos de Cuba) and writer for the Cuba Free Press, was detained for several hours. Police reportedly questioned him about his writings and threatened to prosecute him. Other journalists detained and questioned for brief periods over the course of the year included Ricardo González Alfonso, Jadir Hernández, Jesús Hernández, and Luis Alberto Rivera Leiva. Others were harassed or prevented from working by police.

Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, a long-time government opponent who wrote for the Union of Independent Cuban Journalists and Writers (Unión de Periodistas y Escritores Cubanos Independientes), was sentenced on January 25 to six months of imprisonment for "hoarding" toys. Police had confiscated toys that he had planned to give away to poor children in his area; they had been paid for by Cuban exiles in Miami. Just after Arroyo's trial, the Cuban authorities freed another independent journalist, Leonardo de Varona González, who had served a sixteen-month sentence for "insulting" President Fidel Castro. At least three other independent journalists remained incarcerated: Bernardo Arévalo Padrón and Manuel Antonio González Castellanos, serving sentences of six years and of two years and seven months, respectively, for "insulting" Castro; and Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández, serving four years for "dangerousness," who was reportedly held in solitary confinement until early August.

On October 16, after his release from prison, Arroyo was reportedly beaten and insulted by state security agents. He and another dissident were picked up from a friend's house, driven to the police station in Güines, beaten en route, and then driven dozens of miles away and released after being beaten again.

Foreign journalists too faced government harassment if they attempted to work with or assist their Cuban colleagues. Italian freelance journalist Carmen Butta was reportedly detained by police on June 18 after meeting with independent journalists as part of her research for an article on the Cuban independent press. In August, three Swedish journalists were arrested in Havana by state security agents. They had traveled to Cuba on tourist visas but had held a seminar on press freedom for independent journalists. The three were deported after spending two days in detention. Earlier that same month, French journalist Martine Jacot was detained and interrogated at the Havana airport by six members of the Cuban security forces. She had spent a week in Cuba interviewing independent journalists and family members of incarcerated journalists. Jacot's equipment, including a video camera, was seized, as were some documents.

While the government permitted greater opportunities for religious expression than in past years and allowed several religious-run humanitarian groups to operate, it continued to maintain tight control over religious institutions, affiliated groups, and individual believers.

The government recognized only one labor union, the Worker's Central of Cuba (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, CTC), and restricted labor rights by banning independent labor groups and harassing individuals attempting to form them. It tightly controlled workers employed in businesses backed by foreign investment. Under restrictive labor laws, the authorities had a prominent role in the selection, payment, and dismissal of workers, effectively denying workers the right to bargain directly with employers over benefits, promotions, and wages. Cuba alsocontinued to use prison labor for agricultural camps and ran clothing assembly and other factories in its prisons. The authorities' insistence that political prisoners work without pay in poor conditions violated international labor standards.

Defending Human Rights

The Cuban government continued its systematic harassment and repression of human rights defenders. The authorities routinely used surveillance, phone tapping, and intimidation in its efforts to restrict independent monitoring of the government's human rights practices. In some instances, they employed arbitrary searches, evictions, travel restrictions, politically-motivated dismissals from employment, threats and other forms of harassment against local activists.

The Cuban government denied international human rights and humanitarian monitors access to the country. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had not been allowed to conduct prison visits in Cuba since 1989, making Cuba the only country in the region to deny access to the ICRC. Human Rights Watch had not been allowed to send any representatives to monitor human rights conditions in Cuba since 1995.

The Role of the International Community

United Nations

At its April session, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights voted once again to censure Cuba for its human rights abuses. The resolution passed by a wider margin than in previous years, but did not make provision to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor human rights conditions. Sponsored by the Czech and Polish governments, the resolution criticized Cuba's treatment of political dissidents and urged the Cuban authorities to allow visits by U.N. human rights investigators. Cuba retaliated the vote by staging a mass demonstration outside the Czech embassy in Havana and temporarily recalling its ambassador from Argentina. (Argentina was among the twenty-one countries that supported the resolution.)

In February, just prior to the commission's session, U.N. Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy released her report on violence against women in Cuba. The report, which was fair, objective, and comprehensive, was the fruit of an unprecedented mission to Cuba undertaken by the special rapporteur in June 1999. (The Cuban authorities had once allowed the U.N. high commissioner for human rights to visit the island, but had otherwise consistently denied access to U.N. human right monitors, including thematic rapporteurs and mechanisms.) While criticizing the U.S. embargo for its adverse impact on Cuban women, the report urged the Cuban authorities to undertake legal reforms to deal more effectively with the problems of domestic violence, rape, and sexual harassment. It also denounced the arbitrary detention of women whose political views are unacceptable to the government.

The report evoked a stridently defensive response from the Cuban authorities, who sent a note verbale to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that complained that the special rapporteur's visit was "manipulated" by the U.S. government, and that challenged the applicability of the special rapporteur's "bourgeois democratic-liberal concept of human rights." The Cubans also vociferously attacked Human Rights Watch, whose 1999 book on Cuban human rights conditions was among the sources cited in the special rapporteur's report. It erroneously asserted that Human Rights Watch received substantial U.S. government funding, when, in fact, the organization accepts no funding from any government, either directly or indirectly.

Ibero-American Countries

The Ibero-American Summit brought the Spanish king to Cuba, in what was the first visit to the island by a reigning Spanish monarch, as well as high officials from twenty-one countries. Heads of state from all over Latin America were in attendance, although a few declined to participate because of Cuba's lack of progress on democracy and human rights. In a welcome break from the usual protocol, a number of officials, including Spain's Prime Minister José María Aznar and Portugal's President Jorge Sampaio, took advantage of their visit to meet with prominent dissidents such as veteran activist Elizardo Sánchez.

The summit culminated in the adoption of a series of documents, including the Havana Declaration, in which signatory states expressed a commitment to democracy and human rights and called for the U.S. to end its embargo against Cuba.

Organization of American States

Latin American political leaders had a further opportunity to collectively assess their engagement with Cuba during the thirtieth Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly, held in Windsor, Canada, in June. While a number of Caribbean countries spoke up for Cuba's reintegration into the OAS-Cuba was suspended from the regional grouping in 1962-no concrete steps were taken toward this end.

European Union

The European Union's relationship with Cuba remained formally defined by its 1996 Common Position, which conditioned full economic cooperation on human rights reforms. But in 2000 there were indications that the E.U.'s approach to Cuba was changing. In February, Cuba formally requested integration into the multilateral grouping established under the Lomé Convention, a trade and aid agreement linking the European Union to African, Caribbean and Pacific states. The application sparked considerable debate regarding whether Cuba's association would be consistent with the agreement's criteria on democracy and human rights. In April, however, just after the adoption of the U.N. human rights resolution supported by many E.U. states, the debate was mooted by Cuba's decision to withdraw its application. The Cuban government also cancelled an ambitious visit planned for late April by senior E.U. officials. Yet, in August, once again, Cuba reportedly expressed interest in associating with the E.U.'s aid pact, now called the Cotonou Agreement.

Although Cuba remained the only Latin American country not to have entered into a formal development and cooperation agreement with the European Union, the regional bloc still provided the largest amount of international aid to Cuba. European trade and investment in Cuba also continued to flourish, with countries such as Spain, Italy and France being among Cuba's most significant partners in the areas of tradeand finance. With several bilateral agreements being signed in recent years, all E.U. member states had official bilateral economic relations with Cuba.

United States

The issue of the decades-old economic embargo on Cuba received renewed congressional attention in 2000, and steps, albeit small ones, were taken toward easing it. After months of debate in congressional committees, both houses of Congress passed legislation in October to allow limited food and medicine sales to Cuba. Farmers, agricultural interests and pharmaceutical companies had lobbied heavily for access to the Cuban market.

But the practical impact of the legislation was likely to be less than its symbolic importance. While it signaled the first significant rollback of U.S. sanctions against the island in nearly four decades, the package was unlikely to yield more than a small volume of actual business. Because of compromises with conservative lawmakers opposed to loosening trade restrictions, no U.S. export credits or private financing would be allowed on food sales. Indeed, as the bill reached a final vote in the House of Representatives and Senate, Havana denounced its conditions as "humiliating and unjust." An editorial published on the front pages of the Communist Party daily Granma promised that Cuba would "not buy a single cent of food or medicine from the United States."

And in a step backwards, the bill contained provisions codifying the rules that generally banned U.S. tourism to Cuba. To travel legally to Cuba, Americans had to obtain a license, available only to narrow categories of visitors, or be invited by a non-U.S. group that met the costs. By limiting travel to Cuba, these restrictions violated article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a party.

U.S. authorities continued to detain and repatriate Cuban asylum seekers aboard vessels intercepted at sea, giving them only on-board screening interviews to determine whether they had a "credible fear" of persecution in their homeland. As exemplified by the case of Elián González, whose mother died attempting the voyage, large numbers of Cubans continued to risk their lives at sea in the hope of reaching and obtaining asylum in the United States.