The Cuban Democratic Directorate Responds to the Malicious Lies Spread by Castro Regime Media
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Miami. March 3, 2010. Cuban Democratic Directorate. The Cuban Democratic Directorate hereby releases the following statement:

Fidel and Raúl Castro’s totalitarian military dictatorship is not content with having murdered prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo. They now intend to assassinate his character and memory.

In a shameful article carrying the token byline of Enrique Ubieta Gómez, and published in the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma, Orlando Zapata Tamayo is accused of being a criminal. This is nothing new. The totalitarian regime routinely makes accusations against all those who raise their voice against injustice, smearing them as “mercenaries, gusanos (worms), bandits, asalariados (salary-earning employees of the “Empire”), and every other hideous epithet that occurs to them.

But in the case of Zapata Tamayo who was murdered in a premeditated fashion, who was allowed to die in the custody of the Ministry of the Interior’s State Security Department and Prison System, who was denied drinking water for 18 days, it seems his adoption as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International is an uncomfortable fact for the dictatorship.

Nevertheless, the Granma article reveals important statements that demonstrate the true colors of those going to the trouble of engaging in defamation.

First, the notion that the rights a person enjoys as a human being may be violated in the case of someone sentenced to imprisonment, no matter what the crime, implies a breach of the Minimum Standards for Treatment of Prisoners, which have been signed and ratified by the Cuban regime before the United Nations. Those who are familiar with the lack of legal procedural guarantees in Cuba, and the arbitrary measures continuously taken by State Security in interfering with and steering the sentences for crimes classified in the Penal Code itself as crimes against State Security, know well that an innocent person may be sentenced on any trumped up charge, or even for being considered politically dangerous to the regime.

Second, the statement that Zapata spent several days on an artificial respirator demonstrates that the doctors and military personnel lied to his mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger, and that the certainty of Zapata’s death was fact known to his jailers before he was transferred from Amalia Simoni Hospital in Camagüey to Combinado del Este prison in Havana.

Zapata was a human rights defender from the moment when he realized that the unease he felt at the injustices to which he was exposed from a very young age had its origin in a regime imposed by force against the Cuban people. Because of this, he joined the opposition, entering the ranks of those who supported Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet through civic struggle. He was one of those who began the human rights discussion circles that met in Havana’s Central Park. He was arbitrarily detained on numerous occasions, and was held captive without trial from December 6, 2002 until early March, 2003. Immediately after his release, he joined the fast for the release of Oscar Elías Biscet, and was again detained during the 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown. After his arrest, he was held without trial until May, 2004. At that time, he was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. While in prison, he was tried on eight additional occasions due to his unyielding attitude against “reeducation” attempts and humiliating and harsh treatment, the added sentences amounting to a total of 36 years imprisonment. His family was barred from attending these trials.

To the Dictators: The Cuban resistance against communist totalitarianism does not need any more dead: there are already enough. It has been 51 years of unjust deaths, of men and women who have given their lives for the dream of achieving and defending freedom. Thousands have been executed by firing squad by the regime you defend, violating respect for their human dignity. Thousands have disappeared at sea, and thousands have been disappeared or extrajudicially murdered. Hundreds suffer imprisonment. Throughout this arduous Passion of the Cuban nation, too many prisoners have died on hunger strike, demanding respect for their rights and as human beings, including Carmelo Cuadra Hernández on April 21, 1969, Pedro Luis Boitel Abraham on May 25, 1972, Olegario Charlot Espileta on January 15, 1973, and y Orlando Zapata Tamayo on February 23, 2010.

Now, adding malicious insult to lethal injury, Cuban television is manipulating the facts of the case, presenting statements by military doctors, who owe their sworn loyalties to State Security in the first place and only secondarily, if at all, to the Hippocratic Oath, as all of us Cubans know well.

We ask of Zapata’s murderers: Who denied Zapata Tamayo drinking water for 18 days? Who inflicted brutal beatings upon hum throughout 2009? Who wished to force Zapata to wear the uniform of a common prisoner while he was a recognized prisoner of conscience? His jailers did, those who imprisoned him because of his ideas, because Zapata Tamayo defended the rights of the Cuban people. Neither Major Filiberto Hernández Luis, director of Kilo 8 prison, nor Major Julio César Bombino, a State Security agent in Camagüey, nor Roiland Cruz Oliva, a State Security agent in Holguín, nor Major Orleivis Miraldea, chief of Holguín Provincial Prison, will enjoy impunity. They are the ones who committed this crime against Zapata, as well as its intellectual authors, the generals who gave the green light from Havana: Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, Ramiro Valdés, and Raúl Castro, who is ultimately, and primarily responsible. They are all guilty.

Whom do the murderers in Havana wish to deceive?

The Cuban Democratic Directorate publicly refutes the malicious lies propagated by the dictatorship through official media in Havana. We reaffirm our commitment to the truth, and to the struggle for freedom in Cuba. We will not be silent in the face of injustice in Cuba’s prisons and on Cuba’s streets.

For 51 years, Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s murderers have murdered the finest sons of the Cuban nation. It is time to say, “Enough!” to these criminals who control our country by force. Enough! Cuba longs to be free!

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Directorio Democrático Cubano
P.O. Box 110235
Hialeah, Florida 33011
Tel. 305-220-2713
info@directorio.org

In Memory of Mario Manuel de la Peña