Focus on Cuba

Mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo: ‘Death Threats from Castro Mobs’

Banes, Cuba – Reina Luisa Tamayo is being harassed and threatened by mobs organized by the political police and military officials of the Castro regime. The latest affront took place in mid-August, when her house was surrounded by buses and trucks and crowds of Castro supporters, who prevented her regular Sunday visit to the Church of La Caridad and the cemetery where her son is buried.

According to Ms. Tamayo, the riotous crowd, carrying posters and wearing tee shirts with photos of Ché Guevara and Fidel Castro, danced as they used megaphones to scream offensive language and defame the family of the late prisoner of conscience, Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Tamayo died February 23, 2010, after suffering cruel and inhumane treatment at the hands of prison authorities in Cuba during an 86-day hunger strike.

Ms. Tamayo has recorded several interviews, in which she reports:

“For more than five months the repression against myself, my family, and those activists who accompany us every Sunday to the Church of La Caridad and to visit the tomb of my son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, is becoming more violent and aggressive, involving larger crowds of policemen and military personnel, many dressed in plain clothes, some carrying metal rods wrapped in [...]
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Cuban Prisoners Exiled to Spain Face Maze of Immigration Rules

from news sources

Cuban refugee Jorge Pérez Fernández has the promise in writing: the Spanish government will grant him political asylum or residency within six months of his arrival in Spain.

Fourteen months after he landed in Madrid, he has neither — a harsh lesson on the vagaries of Spanish migration laws that he has already passed on to the former political prisoners who arrived from Havana in the past weeks.

“I told them to stay alert,” said Pérez, who has launched a hunger strike to push for a resolution of his case: he’s an undocumented migrant who can’t work legally and gets no government aid.

“Economically speaking, I am totally defenseless,” said the 42-year-old architect from the eastern Cuban town of Banes, who arrived from the Guantánamo naval base and now lives in Spain’s Canary Islands.

Jorge Graupera, a Cuban-born Madrid lawyer who specializes in immigration cases, is not surprised by Pérez’s case or by the many questions surrounding the status of the 23 ex-prisoners and 100 relatives who arrived from Havana since July 12.

Outside Spanish Laws

“There’s a lot of confusion, even among immigration lawyers. We have never [...]
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Major Realignment of Workers in Cuba Results In Losses of Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs

Sources in the Cuban Communist Party say the government has started to “reorganize” its labor force, implementing a plan the government claims will relocate to more productive employment more than one million workers during the next five years.

The Communist sources were quoted in late July by the Madrid news bureau, “Agencias.”

According to the news source, the relocation of about one fifth of the country’s labor force would be accompanied by economic reforms. The stated objective of the Communist regime is to propel forward the nearly destroyed island economy, removing from government employment workers that President Raul Castro has described as “unnecessary.” The displaced workers would be placed in other jobs where “they really have to work,” according to Communist Party sources. An economist militant in the Communist Party – who requested anonymity – stated that “we hope to eliminate 200,000 jobs every year, some 100,000 of them during the next year but only in the capital Havana.”

A Return to Farming
Those who refuse new jobs will have to go to Labor Ministry offices, request the assignment of parcels of land and dedicate themselves to agriculture, or live from the remittances they get from [...]
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CFTU Calls for Release of All Cuban Dissidents

The Committee for Free Trade Unionism (CFTU) welcomes the efforts of Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino to obtain the release of at least some of the political dissidents the Castro regime has imprisoned for many years.

According to the government of Spain, about 23 formerly imprisoned Cuban dissidents and their families have arrived in that European country.

Among those known to have been released is Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Paneque, who is suffering from a malabsorption syndrome acquired while in a Cuban prison.

Not Open to Democracy

One former prisoner, in an interview with the BBC, said Havana’s motives should not be misunderstood. “Cuba is not opening up to democracy,” he declared. “I personally think it is a trick by the Cuban government,” the former prisoner said. “The economic needs on the island are huge. The social situation is critical, the political stagnation… This is why it is important to draw the international communities’ attention to this aspect of the Cuban government so they don’t get fooled again,” he said.

The Cuban government has yet to acknowledge publicly details of the releases, or why the release of additional imprisoned [...]
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Amnesty Int'l: Cuban Courts Complicit in Stifling Dissent

HAVANA —(Associated Press)  Cuba uses repressive laws, a well-oiled state security apparatus and complicit courts to stifle political dissent as it harasses, spies on and imprisons those who openly oppose its communist system, Amnesty International said in a report released July 14. 2010.

The 35-page analysis said restrictions on expressing views deviating from the official line are “systematic and entrenched,” despite the government’s taking “some limited steps to address long-standing suppression of freedom of expression.”

Cuba’s government did not respond to a request for comment. It routinely dismisses international human rights groups as tools of the United States.

Amnesty found that things have not improved since February 2008, when Cuba signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political [...]
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CFTU Forum Rips Cuba on Rights Violations

There’s been no letup in Cuba’s harsh treatment and imprisonment of its citizens who want more political freedom and free trade unions that actually protect the rights of workers.

That’s the conclusion reached by participants in a forum on “Freedom of Association in Cuba,” sponsored in June in Geneva by the Committee for Free Trade Unionism (CFTU) and the Unitary Council of Cuban Workers (CUTC).  The forum was held concurrently with the 99th annual conference of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

During the forum, panelists highlighted the plight of the independent labor movement in Cuba, the Cuban government’s continuing violations of human rights, its harassment of independent labor activists, and the inhumane living conditions of Cuba’s political prisoners.

As an example, Aurelio Bachiller, a former political prisoner and now general secretary in exile of the National Independent Workers’ Confederation of Cuba (CONIC), explained to forum participants how his son MacDiel Bachiller was arrested and imprisoned by the Cuban government. The senior Bachiller was arrested in 1993 after he attempted to create an independent labor union of agricultural workers. He spent three years in a Cuban prison and in 2008 was able to emigrate [...]
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ITUC Cites Cuba's 2009 Labor Union Violations

In its annual survey of violations of trade union rights, the International Trade Union Confederation issued the following report about Cuba:

Background: Cuba saw a bad start to the year in the aftermath of the three hurricanes that struck the island in 2008, leaving damages estimated at 10 billion dollars. The government reduced subsidized food quotas in 2009, cut energy consumption and stopped its debt repayments. No change was seen, however, on the political and rights front. According to the majority of the analysts consulted, no substantial change was seen on the political scene, aside from the replacement of secondary figures such as Carlos Lage, the former vice president. The same applies to the civil and democratic rights situation.

Anti-union legislation: The regime continues to prohibit independent trade unions and the right to strike is simply not regulated by the legislation in Cuba. According to the government, the need to call strikes does not apply, as the official trade union organizations enjoy the guarantee that their demands will be heard by the authorities.

Right to form and register organizations declared illegal: A considerable number of trade union organizations have been declared illegal [...]
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Bios, Photos of Jailed Trade Unionists in Cuba

We’ve posted updates and photos of the 10 independent trade unionists still being held in Cuban prisons, some since their arrests in 2003.

Just click on our Archives button at the top of this page for their names, photos and more. Trade unionists and others of good will all over the world are pressuring Cuba to release these men.

Sugar Harvest 'Worst' in 105 Years

Havana  (AP) -  Cuba is calling this year’s sugar harvest “horrible” and says it’s the least productive since 1905.

The scathing assessment comes two days after Raul Castro fired Sugar Minister Luis Manuel Avila.

Granma says the sugar harvest fell 850,000 tons short of expectations, though it does not specify that goal. It says 105 years have passed since “such a poor sugar campaign.” Once a world leader in sugar, Cuba has slashed production in recent years. Today, it has 750,000 hectares (1.9 million acres) and 61 mills dedicated to sugar.

Granma says only 10 mills met production goals. It blames officials for “lack of control” and for lacking “objectivity” in planning.

Cuba Frees Backer of Dissident Group

Havana  (AP) — An independent Cuban journalist with ties to the Ladies in White dissident group has been freed as she appeals a 20-month sentence for allegedly mistreating her adult daughter.

Dania García, who uses U.S. websites to report on everyday Cuban life in defiance of government controls on all media, was released, according to her blog and the Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders.

Felipe Sanchez, head of the independent, Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, had reported that Mrs. Garcia was arrested April 20 and sentenced three days later after her daughter filed a complaint — apparently angry at her mother’s criticism of the Castro government. Sanchez had reported previously that he suspected, but could not prove, that Garcia was targeted for being a supporter of the “Damas en Blanco. The official charge against Garcia was “abuse of authority” for throwing her 23-year-old daughter out of her home.

Garcia writes for dissident and opposition websites including Primavera Digital and CubaNet. She also runs a blog, daniavirgengarcia.blogspot.com. The site is blocked in Cuba.

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CFTU Updates

  • The New CFTU Website

    Welcome to our new CFTU website!

    We’ve designed it to keep you better informed about developments in the continuing struggle of workers everywhere to establish and maintain the right of Freedom of Association – the right to form and join unions of their own choosing, run by people they elect.

    The CFTU has been active in recent years in attempts to assist workers in Cuba struggling to assert that right – in the face of their government’s insistence that only one union, guided by the Communist Party, can represent them,  and against the background of continuing imprisonment and harassment of those who think otherwise.

    Cuba is not the only country in the world denying workers their rights.  Sadly the list is long – Burma, Vietnam, North Korea, China -  to cite a few.  But too many trade unionists in the free world are unwilling to speak out, apparently believing that somehow these regimes will transform themselves into democratic societies and that through contact with free world unions, the non-representative unions in those police states will remake themselves into legitimate unions. Such a belief flies in the face of 90 years of experience to the contrary.

    The recent hunger-strike death in a Cuban prison of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year old brick mason serving a 26-year sentence for his political activities, and the current hunger strike of  dissident journalist Guillermo Farinas, provide eloquent testimony to the determination of those heroes to see their country free and democratic and observant of all the rights of free people.

    Our committee believes that neither dictatorships nor their hand-maiden unions ever yield power willingly and that free trade unions must not be complicit in the denial of freedom of association to workers.  Rather, we believe that those who are joined in the struggle to assert workers’ rights in the face of dictators, those who risk imprisonment and harassment, need and deserve our moral and material support.  We hope you will join us in those struggles.

    Tom Donahue, CFTU Chair

  • CFTU Seeks Release of Jailed Son of Cuban Labor Leader

    CFTU’s Chair, Thomas R. Donahue, recently contacted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, for help in gaining freedom for Macdiel Bachiller Pedroso, the 21-year-old son of a Cuban labor union official now living in exile.

    Pedroso has been imprisoned in Cuba for more than four years for the crime of “dangerousness.” The young man is the son of Aurelio Bachiller, the General Secretary of the Independent National Workers’ Federation of Cuba  (CONIC).  The elder Bachiller now lives in the United States.

    “There is no doubt that the son is being punished for the sins of the father, the most recent of which was to testify before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and which occasioned Macdiel’s most recent arrest,” Donahue stated in a letter to Mrs. Clinton. “The Cuban government apparently is going to charge the young man with another false charge to extend his sentence.”

    Donahue asked Mrs. Clinton to forcefully raise the issue of Macdiel’s imprisonment with the Cuban government, as well as the cases of the other independent trade unionists and democracy activists still suffering in Cuban prisons.

    In a letter to Mrs. Clinton, Aurelio Bachiller stated that in March 2009, his son began the process of emigrating to the United States to join his family. Subsequent to his application, the young man was detained by the Cuban government many times, each time based on the testimony of false witnesses. All of that was preparation to send him to prison. Soon after receiving a visa to travel to the U.S., he was arrested and accused of violent robbery and possession of firearms.

    “The Prosecutor is asking for 20 years’ imprisonment despite the fact that all the charges are false,” Bachiller told Mrs. Clinton. The only crime my son has committed was being the son of a father who is an independent trade unionist who continues to fight for worker rights in Cuba.

    “My son is now being pressed to sign a declaration of guilt in exchange for his liberty – a common practice in Cuba for unjustly charged persons. My son is now alone, without support, in the hands of a government that will use any means to stay in power. By forcing him to sign this statement, the Cuban authorities wish to compromise Macdiel’s possibility to go to the U.S. to join his family so that they will be able to use him as blackmail to try to stop my work.”