Cuba. The most fertile and oldest prison on the continent.

By: Pedro Corzo - 03/12/2023

Guest columnist.
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In a few days, the Cuban political prison will reach 65 years, the same period that the dictatorship of the Castro brothers, which became a totalitarian system, will serve shortly after.

The Castro prison has been particularly massive and bloody. According to research, more than half a million men and women have passed through Cuban prisons from one day to 30 years, as exemplified by Mario Chanes de Armas and Ignacio Cuesta Valle, who has confessed on numerous occasions with exceptional chivalry, who does not forgive his captors who have not left him in prison for a couple more months to also reach 30 years in prison.

The political prison under Castroism was an occurrence prior to the insurrectional triumph, as were the shootings, although in honor of the historical truth, both tragedies, after January 1, 1959, became an atrocious epidemic.

Another criminal characteristic of Castroism was the application of its justice. Death sentences were in the thousands, but prison sentences were in the hundreds of thousands. The long sentences were not related to the alleged crime committed, but rather to the hysteria of the regime, as supported by a recent issue of Lux magazine directed by the distinguished Ángel de Fana, a man of unmatched moral strength.

Lux magazine, a publication founded in Cuba by workers in the electrical sector and promoted abroad by the late union leader Calixto Campos, in its latest edition headlines, “In Cuba, those sentenced to life imprisonment for trying to escape the dictatorship without that violence has occurred.”

It is truly unheard of that there are people who must be in prison their entire lives for the simple act of trying to leave the country without resorting to violence, as happened, among other cases, with a group of young people who assaulted the Baragua boat, which was completing the crossing. from the town of Regla to Havana, to escape to the United States.

No person was injured, except the three boys that Castro sentenced to death, Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro L. Sevilla García and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, executed in April 2003 in less than 48 hours, finally motivating the protest of some organizations. international and intellectuals such as Jose Saramago.

This crime occurred when the dictatorship was carrying out one of its most abusive pogroms, the Black Spring of Cuba, 2003, when dozens of independent journalists and librarians were arrested without a weapon and sentenced to more than 25 years in prison, while 50 Years before, the Castro brothers commanded the attack on the Moncada barracks, causing the death of dozens of compatriots from both sides, being sentenced to a few years in prison and amnestied without serving two.

In the same death sentence trial, Harold Alcalá Aramburo, Maykel Delgado Aramburo, Ramon Henry Grillo and Yoanny Thomas González were sentenced to life imprisonment, the rest of the young people were sentenced to different sentences, including 30 years of confinement.

The totalitarian system has proven to be efficient in very few activities, but there is no doubt that they deserve the highest rating for their repressive capacity and their ability to build prisons.

Cuba in 1958 had one prison per province, two in Oriente and the Príncipe prisons and the National Prison for Men on the Isle of Pines and the Torrens juvenile prison. Six and a half decades later, there are at least 350 prisons of different characteristics on the Island and people like Joel Dortha García who has been in prison for more than 24 years.

It is no secret that any prison is the anteroom to hell. Being deprived of freedom, depending on subjects who most of the time accept that job because of the vileness of their souls, is terrible, but I assure you that the totalitarian system in itself is hell, so I ignore the appropriate adjective for the centers. condemnation of Castroism.

However, despite the horrors and abuse suffered by all those who have passed through Castro's prisons, I do not know a former political prisoner who does not feel proud of their experience and of sharing it with their former colleagues whom they consider family. I always keep in mind the statement of Alfredo Elías and Eraiser Martínez, “this is our extended family.”

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