Chronicles of Birania*: Justice? / Angel Santiesteban

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 3 June 2015 — It is laughable that the prosecutor in Santa Clara pursued a case for “injury” (when it was really a case of “attempted murder and injury”) against Jose Alberto Botell who, in an attempt to assassinate opposition leader Guillermo Fariñas, seriously wounded one of his companions, a Lady in White, who ended up in intensive care with life-threatening injuries, and stabbed four other human-rights activists. For all of this the prosecutor sought only a five-year sentence, but the Court took pity on the “sad case” with murderous intentions, and sentenced him to four years, knocking one year off his punishment.

In my case—after demonstrating my innocence at trial, where I presented five witnesses who they then rejected—even assuming I had committed the crime for which I was charged, the maximum punishment according to the law was four years. They violated my rights by adding to the charge against me an allegation that I was not subject to, for the sole purpose of adding one year to my sentence. This shows that there are two penal codes: one for those sent to commit crimes for State Security, and another for dissidents.

The day that freedom arrives, and all the excesses of the Castro family and the institutions that bend to their will are investigated, many will be surprised, or pretend to be, because the atrocities were committed before everyone, in public view. This is exactly what dictators fear, the day of reckoning. This is why they are currently busy taking the lives of those who will accuse the guilty, and present evidence of their abuses and injustices.

Meanwhile, the opposition has no choice but to continue pointing out the deaths, the abuses, the humiliations.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, June 3, 2015

Border Prison Unit, Havana

*Translator’s Note:
Birania –  from Birán, the name of the Castro family ranch, where Fidel and Raul were born, used metaphorically to describe Cuba as their personal plantation.

The Lives Of Opposition Leaders Have Their Names On The Government’s Blacklist / Angel Santiesteban

José Alberto Botell, Guillermo Fariñas’ assailant

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 3 June 2015If the Cuban dictatorship has an enemy, it is themselves, as an institution of evil. After committing their outrages, the injustices and atrocities carried out by their henchmen who commit the atrocities they are ordered to commit — at any cost — in exchange for benefits awarded them by the governing officials who believe they are the owners of the nation. They cannot hide who they are.

The government has just exposed that there are two penal codes, one for dissidents, and another one for the acolytes who commit crimes on behalf of its totalitarian regime.

Recently they have “sentenced” José Alberto Botell, who was charged with the crime of “injuries,” after wounding five dissidents with a knife, one of them, Maria Arango Percibal, a member of the worthy Ladies in White.

Mary was in intensive care because of the severity of the injuries she received she when stood in front of the assailant to protect the leader of the United Antitotalitarian Front (FANTU), Guillermo Fariñas, winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, for whom the attack was intended. The attacker also severely injured another glorious Lady in White, Isabel Fernandez Llanes, and three other regime opponents.

It is laughable that for such a criminal specimen, the prosecution would ask for a five-year sentence and the Criminal Court itself would reduce it by one year to leave it at four years maximum. Needless to say Botell was sent by the political police to get Fariñas out of the way because he openly opposes the negotiations between the United States and Cuba, unless the Castro brothers put an end to the systematic violations of human rights in advance.

If Fariñas had gone alone, or his companions had not reacted as they did, we would be grieving the loss of another opposition leader today. The type of violence shown by the attacker — who turned the scene into a carnage — even against women, shows that his intentions, meaning “orders,” were to assassinate Fariñas.

Had their plan gone well, we would now add another dead to our cause, just like they did with Laura Pollan, the leader of the Ladies in White, whose health condition deteriorated rapidly — strangely in and odd circumstances — in a hospital room commanded, supervised, ruled and surrounded by State Security agents.

Or as they did to Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, who died after an alleged “traffic accident”, in which there is evidence showing the hand of the political police behind it, as a result of which his family and one of his companions in the car raise their voices at international bodies to demand justice.

The lives of opposition leaders, especially those who oppose the Cuba-US negotiations, have their names on the government’s blacklist and, in advance, they have been labeled already: Berta Soler and the Ladies in White, Angel Moya, Guillermo Fariñas and Antonio Rodiles, are today the “targets under the sniper’s scope with a finger on the trigger”.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 3 June 2015

Border Patrol Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

I Plead to Human Rights Organizations on Behalf of the Slave Labor in Cuban Prisons / Angel Santiesteban

 

The exploitation of man by the State

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 17 May 2015 — If there were an indictment against Cuban government and its socialist process,among many other things, most of which are coincidentally human rights violations, would be charges of slavery in which they keep their nationals.

Slave labor in the Castro regime’s prisons

It is known that although the dictatorship signs lucrative contracts (in the millions) with various countries, for sending them Cuban professionals — including doctors, medical technicians and university professors — it pays these professionals a tiny percentage of what the State charges for their services.

Besides that, for the most part, these professionals join these adventures not from altruism, “internationalism” or any convenient adjective by which they are labeled by the totalitarian regime, but out of mere survival instincts; to help their families and get them out of the totally precarious conditions in which they live.

It is not misleading to point out that those two years of family separation have a crisis impact that results in a higher rate of divorces, in some cases in families with children; another common consequence is that many infidelities are forgiven by one or both spouses.

As far as I am concerned, I have witnessed, besides physical and psychological abuses committed against the inmates, who have all of their rights violated, including their schedules. Prisoners are sent to work in the hardest trades, from dawn and with a lousy breakfast, and are returned to their facilities after twelve hours or more.

Even I have sometimes seen that on their arrival, they have been forced to unload a few tons of cement bags — on their shoulders — or unload trucks of rebar and then receive a miserable salary that does not even guarantee them a minimum support for their minor children.

Report from within “Combinado del Este” prison.

That slave work is done in the worst abusive conditions, with torn boots, tattered clothes, starvation, humiliation from correctional officers who guard them. This is a real slavery that has nothing to envy to the one practiced by the first settlers on their arrival on the island of Cuba.

The prisoners work seven days a week

This past May 1st, some prisoners decided to take the day off to wash their clothes, a task they usually do on their return from the daily work. And that attitude was taken by Major Aliet as an act of rebellion, and as punishment he kept them out of work for several days, which prevents them from receiving that puny wage, and, above all, prevents them from leaving the severity of the prison that drives them mad after several days cloistered. Any reaction to the abuse is sanctioned or they get additional charges to add more time to their sentences.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats, Military Prison, Jaimanitas, Havana Cuba.

 

In the Border Patrol military facility of where I am — besides taking them out to work today, Sunday May 17th — they were denied the corresponding break time by the order of officer Parra, head of the prison logistics.

Then you have to listen to the Castro family trying to defend its dictatorship, its iron-dictatorship, its humiliating-dictatorship, its unbearable-dictatorship that rules us for over half a century, about which one can only feel ashamed for them.

We plead that international bodies accept this letter about these violations letter that lacerate Human Rights.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

May 17, 2015.

Border Patrol Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael