Posted on 01/23/2002 1:22:20 AM PST by JohnHuang2
PUNISH RIGHTS ABUSERS
Criticizing the party line in totalitarian Cuba might be defined as a form of insanity. To oppose the oppressive one-party state is to subject yourself knowingly to persecution, imprisonment and worse. But at no time should criticism be a justification for torture disguised as psychiatric treatment -- one of many systematic human-rights abuses with which the Cuban government has assailed political prisoners for 43 years.Thus the upcoming criminal-court trial of Eriberto Mederos, accused of administering electroshock torture to political prisoners is a watershed. It will shine a spotlight on brutal practices of the Cuban government. What's more, it may set a standard for dealing with suspected collaborators in crimes against humanity who have refuge in the United States and South Florida.
No human-rights abuser should find haven here. Just as with former Nazi henchmen, those found today to have committed atrocities abroad should be brought to the justice, even if it means stripping them of U.S. citizenship and deportation to places where they may be prosecuted.
Of some 200 suspects in the United States, Mr. Mederos is the first to be prosecuted for alleged human-right abuses. He is charged with lying on his citizenship application. Trial is set for July. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to 10 years in prison and be put into deportation proceedings -- although the Cuban regime rarely allows repatriation of convicts.
Mr. Mederos, 78, is accused of applying electroshock to political prisoners as a form of torture when he was an orderly at Mazorra, a well-known psychiatric facility near Havana. He has said that he was an employee following doctor's orders. Jorge Alejandro Ferrer, a former political prisoner, remembers otherwise. Mr. Ferrer describes being repeatedly stunned by electroshock while on the wet floor of a filthy cell. Though some medical treatments prescribe electroshock, none do so without anesthesia, which Mr. Ferrer didn't get.
Credit the Immigration and Naturalization Service for opening an investigation into Mr. Mederos' case. It has begun a program to identify and deport foreigners suspected of politically motivated atrocities.
There are other cases that beg for inquiry. Among them: Emanuel ``Toto'' Constant, who moved to Queens after founding FRAPH, the bloody Haitian paramilitary group implicated in the murders of 3,000 pro-Aristide activists after the 1991 coup; and Honduran Juan Evangelista López Grijalba, thought to be a leader of the CIA-trained Battalion 316 suspected in the 1980s kidnapping, torture and murder of 184 leftists.
These cases should compel the House of Representatives to approve the Anti-Atrocity Alien Deportation Act already passed by the Senate. That would broaden the scope of the Justice Department's search for human-rights abusers.
great news, john! by the way, love the crown : ) !
Me too -- though I'll try not to let it go to my head...hehe ;^)
This is a question that Cubans and Cuban-Americans ask all the time, in anguished and bewildered tones. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.N. ambassador, says that all this is "both a puzzling and a profoundly painful phenomenon of our times." What is "especially puzzling ," she continues, "is the extreme selectivity of concern over terrible, terrible suffering, the deprivation of all rights." Americans followed the saga of South Africa with intense interest, and activism. The abuses of the Pinochet regime in Chile are the subject of film, song, and much else. The victims right-wing dictatorship can usually count on the world's attention. But those who dare to resist and challenge the regime in Cuba work in near-total darkness.
….snip….
Back in the Reagan years, Jeane Kirkpatrick became a heroine in the Soviet Union for the simple act of naming names on the floor of the U.N.: naming the names of prisoners, citing their cases, inquiring after their fates. Later, in Moscow, she met Andrei Sakharov, who exclaimed, "Kirkpatski, Kirkpatski! I have so wanted to meet you and thank you in person. Your name is known in all the Gulag." And why was that? Because she had named those names, giving men and women in the cells a measure of hope. Kirkpatrick says now, "This much I have learned: It is very, very important to say the names, to speak them. It's important to go on taking account as one becomes aware of the prisoners and the torture they undergo. It's terribly important to talk about it, write about it, go on TV about it." A tyrannical regime depends on silence, darkness. "One of their goals is to make their opponents vanish. They want not only to imprison them, they want no one to have heard of them, no one to know who or where they are. So to just that extent, it's tremendously important that we pay attention."
Indignation and concern are not inexhaustible, of course; no one, including Americans, can watch the fall of every sparrow (although, somehow, it seemed possible in South Africa). But American attention is a powerful thing; so is an American consensus. "Fidel will eventually die," some people say, with a shrug. But certain other people have waited long enough. [End Excerpt]
From the Miami Herald news story (02-21-02)- Cuban torture suspect's citizenship targeted
No electroshock that I know of but Coors was known to give "problem" [Translation: Pro-Union] employees polygraph tests where their immediate supervisor would ask the employee sexually explicit questions designed to embarrass.
In the nuclear power industry, all workers are required to take psychological tests like the MMPI, and be monitored for "suspicious" behavior by their supervisors. Any employee who criticizes company policies is sent to "Employee Assistance" for "counciling", and a record of "psychological problems" goes on their permanent record.
I would LOVE to help him on his way!!
Viva Cuba Libre!!
Norb in Jacksonville
As set forth in the Indictment, Mederos entered the United States as a Cuban immigrant in December, 1984.
At the time, he advised the INS that he had never been affiliated with the Communist Party. In May 1993, Mederos was sworn in as a United States citizen after affirming in his written application for naturalization that 1) he had never been in any way associated with the Communist Party or furthered its interests, and 2) after affirming in the same application that he had never participated in persecuting any persons because of their political beliefs.According to the indictment, these representations were false. The indictment charges that in fact, Mederos had been associated with and aided the Communist government of Cuba and persecuted its political prisoners during a ten year span ending approximately in 1978. As outlined in the Indictment, Mederos worked in the Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital where he had applied repeated electric shocks to political prisoners, abusing and torturing them. The electric shocks, applied under the guise of "electro-shock therapy," caused the victims to suffer extreme pain, physical injury, loss of control of bodily functions and loss of consciousness. The electric shocks also caused extreme fear in the victims and other prisoners who witnessed their administration.
The charges are based on laws that preclude anyone from being sworn in as a United States citizen if they were not legally admitted to the United States, and if they testified falsely in order to obtain immigration or citizenship.
From Castro’s Cuba, a baroque account of abuse and retribution. In April 1992, a retired Miami businessman named Eugenio de Sosa Chabau paid his weekly visit to an aged aunt at the Hialeah Convalescent Home. The visits had always been quiet family moments. But on this day, Chabau was horrified when he recognized a nurse named Eriberto Mederos. By Chabau’s telling, the man was really Heriberto Mederos, a notorious head nurse at the Havana (formerly Mazorra) Psychiatric Hospital. Chabau says he was tortured by Mederos. His offense? In 1962, Chabau smuggled out a secret message to his Choate classmate President John F. Kennedy -- telling him Soviet missiles were on their way to Cuba. That landed him in prison for nearly 21 years, including five months at Mazorra. Now evidence will be presented to a grand jury this week, that alleges Mederos lied on his citizenship application, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
He said the electric shocks "felt like thunder, an explosion."
"Kirkpatski, Kirkpatski! I have so wanted to meet you and thank you in person. Your name is known in all the Gulag."
Hope, what an incredibly simple thing to give, and what a powerful weapon to place in the hands of those forgotten ones rotting away in the dark recesses of inhuman despotism.
I pray that for this, Mrs. Kirpatricks name "is known in all the" heavens.
Dammit! I got something in my eyes.
Norb, you and I are going to Havana soon, I am taking you with me mi hermano.
El año que viene en La Habana!
Does this keep going on.....
"Does this keep going on....."
Because I like to flag you!
Want me to stop?
:-P
Luis
This is good news - that finally - someone is being called to account for their brutality against Cubans under Castro. But when will Castro himself be called to account?
Great post CW.
We remember the name of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet.
Dr. Biscet is a Cuban physician and a Christian who is languishing in one of Castro's maximum security prisons for the "crime" of speaking out against abortion and human rights abuses in his country. He has been tortured and beaten countless times as part of his so-called "psychiatric treatment."
Click on the photo for more information about this prisoner of conscience.
Which was dutifully provided by the Vast, LeftWing Medyuh Whore'd during Clinton's Tyrannical Reign.
"One of their [the Left's] goals is to make their opponents vanish. They want not only to imprison them, they want no one to have heard of them, no one to know who or where they are. So to just that extent, it's tremendously important that we pay attention."
Yes...we must pay attention AND Prosecute the Guilty...in America, as well as Cuba!!
FReegards, CW...MUD
Good point Susan, I was wondering about that.
One would expect sadistic Communist prison goons to show a little more loyalty. Fidel must be slipping in his old age. If this goon's defection is reflective of poor job satisfaction among Castro's elite cadre of prison torturers, his approval rating among US media types could fall below 90%.
Well, it's about time.
A tyrannical regime depends on silence, darkness. "One of their goals is to make their opponents vanish. They want not only to imprison them, they want no one to have heard of them, no one to know who or where they are. So to just that extent, it's tremendously important that we pay attention."Excellent post, CW.--Jeane Kirkpatrick
Fidel must be slipping in his old age.
That's a happy thought. And once he's dead he'll be falling even farther!
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