Feb 23 2008
Beatings And Broken Bones
Four Cuban dissidents freed from prison reportedly through the intervention of the Spanish government, are telling of their brutal treatment at th hands of their jailers.
Four dissidents freed this week after five years in inhumane conditions in a Cuban prison have revealed the dark side of Fidel Castro’s regime.
The four - José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Omar Pernet Hernández, Alejandro González and Pedro Pablo Álvarez - described regular beatings, humiliation and arbitrary punishment with long periods of solitary confinement in cramped cells with cement beds.
They said they were deprived of food and water in conditions which resembled "a desert".Arriving in Spain to be reunited with their families, they exposed the routine abuse of political prisoners which marked Castro’s five decades in power.
The four were part of a group of 75 dissidents who were jailed in 2003 by Castro’s regime in a move which caused an international outcry. The official reason given for their release was "health reasons".
But behind the scenes pressure from the Spanish Government on Havana is believed to have been the key to setting free the long-term opposition activists, who all have relatives in Spain.
Mr Castillo, 50, a journalist who wrote articles critical of the regime, told The Sunday Telegraph: "It was terrible. It was like being in a desert in which sometimes there is no water, there is no food, you are tortured and you are abused.
"This was not torture in the textbook way with electric prods, but it was cruel and degrading. They would beat you for no reason even when you were in hospital.
"At other times they would search you for no reason, stripping you bare and humiliating you. There was one particular commander at a jail in Santa Clara who seemed to take delight in handing out beatings to the prisoners."
Mr Castillo, who claims he was denied proper medical aid for diabetes and heart problems, added: "We are nothing more than a reflection of the human cost of the fight being waged by the Cuban people."
While the dissidents tasted freedom, 58 of the original 75 jailed for long terms in 2003 are still behind bars.
Yet Barack Obama is willing to meet with the Cubans without conditions. Say, Senator, would you have the courage to meet with some of Fidel's victims first and listen to their stories?
Maybe you should. We won't hold our breaths waiting, though. A blue complexion is so unflattering.
23 Responses to “Beatings And Broken Bones”
At least they didn’t put underwear on their heads. That would have been a crime against humanity.
Well stated Gaius.
Beatings. Denial of food, water, and medical treatment. Sexual humiliation. Is that torture? If it is torture, why is it torture? Is it torture because that kind of treatment, in and of itself and by definition, is torture? Or is it torture because it was Castro’s regime that did it?<i>Yet Barack Obama is willing to meet with the Cubans without conditions. Say, Senator, would you have the courage to meet with some of Fidel’s victims first and listen to their stories?</i>I cannot believe that you actually wrote those words, and see no irony in them.
Beatings. Denial of food, water, and medical treatment. Sexual humiliation. Is that torture? If it is torture, why is it torture? Is it torture because that kind of treatment, in and of itself and by definition, is torture? Or is it torture because it was Castro’s regime that did it?Yet Barack Obama is willing to meet with the Cubans without conditions. Say, Senator, would you have the courage to meet with some of Fidel’s victims first and listen to their stories?I cannot believe that you actually wrote those words, and see no irony in them.
Your software’s formatting system is very strange. Why do line breaks between paragraphs vanish when the comment is posted?
It isn’t only Cuba where stuff like that happens. I am hearing reports of a hotel in Mountain View, California where female staff were physically abused (not sexually as far as I know, this is abuse as in physical beatings) and told that if they went to a doctor and told what was happening to them, they would be fired and turned in to immigration authorities. Basically there is a person who is hiring illegals and then abusing them and using the threat to turn them in to immigration to keep they quiet about it. Makes me sick. That is why we need illegals to be able to report crimes without worrying about their immigration status.
Kathy…NEWSFLASH!!>>>> I’d like to inform you that the people who beat and sexually humiliated prisoners at Abu Ghraib are doing time. The people who denied medical treatment in Afghanistan are doing time. I’m not aware of any American operative who denied food and water for long enough to cause physical harm as it did with Castro’s victims.And even if you don’t believe the above and do believe that America and Americans are terrible torturers shouldn’t you be equally harsh on Castro? If so, then why waste bytes on calling out supposed hypocrisy? Shouldn’t you be saying "welcome to the club that opposes torture!"? Honestly, Kathy, your willful ignorance on so many things is tiring and stereotypical. Do you wake up every morning and decide that today, just like every other day, I’ll do my best to prove to conservatives that everything they believe about liberals is true? Hate is a terrible thing, Kathy.BTW: Gaius? Your spell check thingy is still messing with Firefox’s integral spell checker.
Kathy is not interested in holding Castro accountable, Quilly. Kathy is not even really interested in holding torturers of any political stripe accountable. Nor will Kathy ever see the irony in using Abu Ghraib as an excuse to ignore Castro’s crimes. It’s all about defending the Heroes of the Left - and that is all it will ever be about.
During the 1970s and 1980s we were treated to the spectacle of Leftists claiming that the McCarthy Era was somehow morally equivalent to Stalin’s murderous regime. In recent years the alibi has been Abu Ghraib and waterboarding. Tomorrow … who knows? The only constant is the Left’s raging lust for power.
And Kathy is right about one thing. The formatting is strange. Do I need to use html to break?
I’m not sure why there are problems with the formating - this a the first I have heard of it.
I’ll see if I can figure it out.
(I’m testing various formatting controls with this comment.)
My Firefox spell check is working perfectly, QM with no interference. If you are using script blocking, you might want to check that you are allowing this site.
All of that last one posted exactly as I wrote it. I’m going to try from a different computer not logged in as administrator.
The problem was that it took the paragraph breaks away. When I right click on the spell checker it calls up a cut & paste gizmo.The formatting seems ok but the gizmo still blocks my spell checker.
Nope, ran them all together. Each one of the above sentences was separate paragraph.
I can’t even call up the spell checker in Firefox - the key is grayed-out. The Firefox speller is highlighting errors in real time, just as I have it set. I’m not able to replicate these problems some of you are having. I have no clue what is going wrong for you.
And I’m just spacing here to make a new paragraph. Underline text here. Bold here. Italic here. Combined here.
New line.
Each of these sentences should appear as a separate paragraph when I hit the submit key.
I can’t get the same errors.
I’d like to inform you that the people who beat and sexually humiliated prisoners at Abu Ghraib are doing time. Only after a very courageous and principled soldier blew the whistle, and THEN only after a massive coverup was publicly revealed. Furthermore, only the people who actually carried out the orders to do the beatings and sexual humiliations, not the ones who ordered them done. The system that not only allowed Abu Ghraib to happen, but deliberately planned for it to happen, is still in place.In Afghanistan, all of the people who were responsible for beating, torturing, and ultimately murdering several prisoners at Bagram were either found not guilty or were given sentences that amounted to a slap on the wrist.I’m not aware of any American operative who denied food and water for long enough to cause physical harm as it did with Castro’s victims.And even if you don’t believe the above and do believe that America and Americans are terrible torturers shouldn’t you be equally harsh on Castro? I like that qualifier in the first sentence. What constitutes "long enough to cause physical harm" in your estimation? Prisoners have been denied food and water or given minimal amounts of same for extended periods of time both in Afghanistan (for one) and in Guantanamo. Denying food and water at all, period, for extended periods is forbidden under international law. Parsing it in terms of what constitutes physical harm and when is physical harm severe enough to be too much physical harm, and what does extended mean, etc., does not change that.As to your second argument, I have never minimized or denied the brutality of Castro’s regime — and I also think that U.S. policy toward Cuba for the past 40-plus years has been, to put it mildly, exceedingly unhelpful in ameliorating that brutality. You, on the other hand (and not just you, Quilly Mammoth, but Gaius, and all the others on the right who support the Bush admin’s conduct of the "war on terror"), have consistently denied or minimized, scoffed at, made fun of, and otherwise trivialized exactly the same abuses (and worse) that Gaius condemns above.It’s a bit much to read outraged condemnation at Cuban prisoners’ reports of being sexually humiliated when the very same treatments done by U.S. personnel against suspected, uncharged, indefiinitely detained, "suspected terrorists" are dismissed with mocking laughter. How many times — how many millions and zillions of times — have I read far right bloggers and their readers making fun of the very idea that sexual humiliation of detainees (as just one example) is torture, when it was Americans doing it?Shouldn’t you be saying "welcome to the club that opposes torture!"?Yes, I should. You are absolutely correct, and thank you for making that point.Welcome to the club that opposes torture, Quilly Mammoth.
Kathy, I say this fully realizing that by feeding your troll garbage I’m only inviting another bite of what I assume you think is your rapier wit. Take away the methods for a moment and realize that there is a large difference between what was done in Cuba and what has been done to suspected terrorists by the U.S. military. The Spanish prisoners were part of a peaceful demonstration; the suspected terrorists are picked up based on intelligence that they may be participating in activities that are threatening the lives of American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians. There’s no sinister military official who points at a demonstrator and says, "That man is bad-mouthing the president. Have him tortured." Intelligence gleaned from those "suspected terrorists" has yielded real, positive results that have saved lives. I’m not saying that intelligence officers should have free reign to interrogate enemy operatives any way they wish, but if it keeps an IED off the streets that would otherwise orphan a child or widow a wife, I’m fine with detainees experiencing some "discomfort." Yes, it’s a slippery slope, but denying the necessity of that slope when it comes to gathering intelligence is not just naive, it’s idiotic. Since you’ve never been to Iraq, though, let me ask this question: if the "torture" of ten people, by say, waterboarding, had yielded intelligence that would have stopped 9/11, would it have been worth it? I doubt your lofty ideals would seem as worthwhile to those who lost a loved one that day.
Take away the methods for a moment and realize that there is a large difference between what was done in Cuba and what has been done to suspected terrorists by the U.S. military.You’ve just reinforced what I said in my first comment. I asked Gaius whether he was distressed about the beatings, denial of food and water, and sexual humiliation in and of themselves, or whether he was distressed that the victims were Cuban. You have just answered that question by telling me that it’s not *what* was done to those prisoners; it was *who* the prisoners were. There is nothing wrong with beating, sexually humiliating, and denying food and water in and of itself. Depending on who those things are done to, and who does them (us or our enemies), is what makes those treatments either bad or good.The Spanish prisoners were part of a peaceful demonstration; the suspected terrorists are picked up based on intelligence that they may be participating in activities that are threatening the lives of American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians.Well, in fact, the vast majority of the "suspected terrorists" in Guantanamo had committed or planned no acts of terrorism. The "intelligence" you refer to, more often than not, was gained by the U.S. military giving local people several thousand dollars for every "suspect" they turned in. That would be a lot of money here; it’s even more in Afghanistan or Iraq. That said, it’s really irrelevant whether the "suspected terrorists" were actually terrorists or not, because torture is a violation of U.S. and international law, as well as the most basic norms of civilized people. As I said to Quilly Mammoth, "Welcome to the club that opposes torture" — but I guess you are not in that club.…if the "torture" of ten people, by say, waterboarding, had yielded intelligence that would have stopped 9/11, would it have been worth it? The premise behind your question is false. Torture does not produce reliable intelligence.But let’s say it did. What if waterboarding didn’t work to get the prisoner to tell you what you want him to tell you. There are other forms of torture that could be applied, that might work better on that particular person. He might be impervious to physical suffering, but be unable to bear seeing a loved one tortured. In that case, would it be acceptable to torture his wife or his child in front of him? If that’s what it took to stop 9/11, would it have been worth it?
There is nothing wrong with beating, sexually humiliating, and denying food and water in and of itself. Depending on who those things are done to, and who does them (us or our enemies), is what makes those treatments either bad or good….. That said, it’s really irrelevant whether the "suspected terrorists" were actually terrorists or not, because torture is a violation of U.S. and international law, as well as the most basic norms of civilized people. So which one is it, Kathy? Is it right or wrong?
Close this post now before the truth is told.. The Brigadier General who was in charge of Abu Ghraib Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was demoted.
Where did Janis Karpinski come from? ( Clinto Adm ) and why didn’t she have any control of her command?
Ask Bill Clinton.
Bad link, Pete.
So which one is it, Kathy? Is it right or wrong?Wrong, always, Sarge. I thought I had made that clear. What was done to those Cuban prisoners is wrong no matter who it’s done to, or by whom. It’s wrong always, with no exceptions, even when the government that’s doing it says it’s being done to "save lives" and "in the interests of national security." ALL countries that practice torture say they’re doing it to get information that could save lives, or because the people being tortured are dangerous extremists who want to destroy society. That’s pretty much a marker for torture.And you, Sarge? Which one is it? Is it right or wrong?
This is my final post on this subject. Trying to reason with a troll is like trying to teach advanced physics to a dog. That said, Kathy, I’m sure we can agree that when President Bush announced the end of the war in May of 2003, the real war had yet to even start. As there are now more troops in Iraq than any time since then, we can then reason that we are still at war, whether you believe that war to be just or not. War is a nasty, terrible, brutal business, and the old saw about breaking eggs is as true now as it ever was. Civilians are bombed by both sides, otherwise good men and women are pushed beyond the breaking point and lash out, and intelligence is sometimes gathered with a stick and not a carrot. However, there is a world of difference between interrogating suspected enemy agents in an active war and torturing innocent protesters. I’m pro-interrogation, anti-torture. There’s a marked difference. Abu Ghraib was torture, because aside from being cruel and unusual, it served no purpose but to humiliate and psychologically damage the inmates. Those same techniques, used to gather valuable intelligence, would STILL be wrong. In an active war, or for that matter a domestic criminal case, interrogation is both justified and warranted. Is yelling at a suspect torture, or showing pictures of a brutal murder? Is turning the thermostat in an interrogation room up or down police brutality? Where’s the line, Kathy? You want a black and white answer to an issue that’s made up of shades of gray. I’m not going to sit here and mark out all the differences between interrogation and torture because some of them fall into that gray area. Call me indecisive if you like, but I know torture when I see it, and I believe it’s wrong, but I whole-heartedly believe that interrogation is an indispensable intelligence-gathering necessity. Maybe that makes me a monster in your eyes; I think it makes me a realist. As previously stated, this is my final word. Go ahead and give your inevitable response that demonstrates your moral superiority. I’ve already wasted far too much of my time and energy trying to get you to think instead of just reacting. Let this be a lesson to you all: don’t feed the trolls.