Cuba opens jails for first time in over 10 years
by Carlos Diaz
Friday, April 2, 2004
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): For the first time in
more than a decade, with a UN vote on its human rights record looming, Cuba
has partly opened two jails to the media amid a rising tide of international
charges its prison conditions are worse than grim.
The partial view Wednesday was limited in scope to two prison hospitals, on
the heels of recent charges that some jailed dissidents were not getting
proper care. Cuba has rejected the idea of a
visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the lone one-party
Communist-ruled country in the Americas. The last time the International Red
Cross visited Cuba's jails was in 1988 and they had been closed for more than
a decade to any foreign visitors. The visits
Wednesday were organized at the medical facility at Combinado del Este, one of
Cuba's largest correctional facilities and at the Western Women's Prison,
known as Manto Negro, on the outskirts of Havana. Reporters were allowed to
film and photograph what they were shown. At
Combinado del Este, fresh coats of paint were in evidence, the hospital had
shiny high-tech equipment and the few inmates who were being treated were
decked out in crisp new uniforms. Officials
allowed reporters to chat with inmates receiving medical attention, but it
emerged that three dissidents who were jailed at that prison and had been
being treated at that medical facility no longer required treatment and had
been moved out. Dissident Elizardo Sanchez
Santa Cruz, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, said the jailed inmates "were pulled out of there unexpectedly
the day before so as to avoid any contact with the press," citing reports from
their relatives. "The intention of this
guided visit is obvious," Sanchez Santa Cruz said. "This was a simple
propaganda operation to offer journalists a sort of stroll for tourists
through the prison." In the women's jail,
which had been remodeled and painted, dozens of inmates could be seen in the
open-air patio sharing a lunch with their children and husbands, in a large
area complete with gardens and children's toys in impeccable shape.
Its medical facility also had up-to-date surgical units and maternity units
where inmates are allowed to remain with newborns until they are one year old.
A week ago Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque summoned a news conference to
counter a charge from families that pregnant inmates were jailed in dismal and
unhealthy conditions. "Cuba meets the minimum
requirements the United Nations requires for detainees," Perez Roque said
insisting no prisoner is subject to torture or physical abuse in jail.
Sanchez Santa Cruz called the visits a calculated moved by the Fidel Castro
government to mute international criticism of Cuba's penal system ahead of a
vote in late April in Geneva by the UN human rights commission on the state of
such rights in Cuba.
He said most of Cuba's prison population,
estimated at 80,000 to 100,000, faces overcrowding and poor nutrition.
The Cuban government last April launched its toughest crackdown against
dissidents in years, netting 75 opponents who were given summary trials,
convicted and sentenced to lengthy jail terms. The move brought an outcry from
the United States and the European Union.
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