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Cuban Independence Day 5/22/89 [OA 6265] [2]
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This is not a textual record. This is used as an
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Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
Collection/Office of Origin:
Speechwriting, White House Office of
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Speech File Backup Files
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OA/ID Number:
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Folder Title:
Cuban Independence Day 5/22/89 [OA 6265] [2]
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26
19
1
3
05/10/89 18:27
C202 623 3605
IDB EXD NRC
002
MAY 22, 1989 WHITE HOUSE CELEBRATION OF
CUBAN INDEPENDENCE DAY (MAY 20, 1902)
Audience: Approximately 200 Cuban-Americans representing
Republican leadership from around the country
Business and civic organizations around the country
Elected officials, principally from the state of Florida
(State senators and legislators, city mayors and councilmen)
Outstanding individuals in different fields
Topics:
Celebration of Cuban Independence Day
United States Policy on Cuba
(See attached resolution approved unanimously by the
RNHA National Convention in San Diego on April 22, 1989)
suggested Speakers:
The President of the United States
The Secretary of State
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
STATE DEPT.. MACCOMUCK
NSC
GATES
INS
NELSON
Attachment
35/10/89
18:27
202 623 3605
IDB EXD NRC
003
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL HISPANIC ASSEMBLY (RNHA)
DEMOCRATIZATION OF CUBA
The 1989 RNHA National Conference RESOLVES:
1. To express its support for the policy of the Bush
Administration of withholding diplomatic recognition of Cuba until
such time as the government of Cuba:
frees all political prisoners;
conforms to accepted international standards regarding
respect for human rights, such as adherence to each and every one
of the principles contained in the International Declaration of
Human Rights:
allows complete and unrestricted operation in Cuba of
organizations whose purpose is to monitor compliance with standards
for observance of human rights;
adopts a policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs
of other states, particularly by ending all its activities and
logistic support for terrorism and subversion in Angola, Ethiopia,
Yemen, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and all other countries in
which it is now engaged;
allows free and unrestricted travel to and from Cuba for
all persons, including present citizens and residents of Cuba; and
takes concrete and specific steps to allow the restoration
of representative democracy in Cuba, beginning with a national
plebiscite or elections with full guarantees of expression,
assembly, political organization and habeas corpus.
2. To declare its strong support for the policy of the Bush
Administration to oppose Cuba's reentry to the Organization of
American States (OAS) until the above conditions are met.
3. To declare its strong support for Radio Martí and for the
establishment of TV Martí as the only means for bringing objective
news and information about Cuba and the world to the long-suffering
people of Cuba.
VOI 10/00
10:20
case cza 7070
IDB EXD NRC
004
-2-
4. To declare its solidarity with the people of Cuba who, but
for the totalitarian regime that oppresses them, would take their
place alongside the other peoples of the Western Hemisphere who
live in freedom and with democracy.
5. To request the National Chairman to undertake appropriate
and effective follow-up actions to bring this resolution to the
attention of the President, the Chairman of the RNC, the Secretary
of State, and leaders of Congress, including the Chairmen and Vice-
Chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on Foreign Relations.
APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY
April 22, 1989
THE VICE PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON
May 17, 1988
Greetings to everyone gathered at City Hall in celebration
of the 86th anniversary of the independence of Cuba
Dear Friends:
Best wishes to all of you as you mark the 86th
anniversary of Cuban independence. This is a special time
for freedom-loving people because it gives us an opportunity
to reflect not only on the liberties we enjoy, but also on
ways to help those less fortunate.
Americans owe a great debt to the Cuban people. We
will always remember that back in 1776, when George
Washington's troops were dreadfully short of food and
supplies, the ladies of Havana banded together and raised
1.2 million livres for the cause of American freedom.
I am absolutely, unalterably committed to Cuba Libre,
and neither I nor the President will ever falter or waver in
our support.
Barbara joins me in sending best wishes and
congratulations to everyone present and may our dream be
realized soon.
Sincerely,
Cuy George Bl Bush
E210
.B6
1974
WHRC
t: Encyclopedia
of the
AMERICAN
REVOLUTION
by
Mark Mayo Boatner III
*
Bicentennial Edition
David McKay Company, Inc.
New York
1041 SPANISH IN COL. WARS AND REV.
This aroused great indignation in the
rights of Britain to maintain her trouble-
West, and in 1787 James Wilkinson
some log-cutting settlements in the
negotiated directly with authorities in
regions now known as Honduras and
New Orleans, becoming the principal
Nicaragua. Britain, in turn, relinquished
agent of Spain in her dealings with the
Cuba to Spain. Bemis writes:
Separatists (or Secessionists). Although
"Another provision of the treaty of
the conspiracy was suspected almost
Paris that was full of later importance
from the beginning, and Wilkinson was
for the diplomatic history of the United
exposed by Daniel Clark in Proofs of
States was the regulation of the navi-
the Corruption of
Wilkinson (1809),
gation of the Mississippi River. Because
the secessionist plan collapsed before
France retained the 'island' of New
any of its principal organizers could be
Orleans as a part of Louisiana, the
prosecuted. (See also the end of the
river flowed between French banks [sic]
article on SPANISH PARTICIPATION
.)
on its last 220 miles to the sea. In order
A close associate of Wilkinson in the
that this might not interfere with the
"Spanish Conspiracy" was Aaron BURR,
navigation interests of British subjects
but the "Burr Conspiracy" was another
upstream
the treaty declared that the
movement, although WILKINSON was in-
navigation of the Mississippi should be
volved.
'equally free, as well to the subjects
of Great Britain as to those of France.
SPANISH PARTICIPATION IN
THE COLONIAL WARS AND THE
(Ibid., 10-11)
At the outbreak of the American Rev-
AMERICAN REVOLUTION, includ-
olution Spain shared the French desire
ing the postwar period. In the article
on the COLONIAL WARS, c. 1560-1763,
to get vengeance on Britain, and her for-
eign minister, Grimaldi, favored going
the role of Spain in this period of Amer-
to war with France against Britain as a
ican history is outlined. The Treaty of
pretext for conquering the latter's tradi-
Utrecht, 1713, was the first to rearrange
tional ally, Portugal. Grimaldi failed to
the colonial map of America, and
lead his country into this course of
"Some commentators have gone so far
action and Spain limited herself to fur-
as to call it the beginning of the diplo-
nishing secret subsidies to the colonists,
matic history of the United States,
$200,000 (a million livres) to HORTALEZ
ed
because its articles are the root of later
& CIE., and another $197,230 in war
important questions of American diplo-
matériel. In 1778 she loaned $74,087
macy," writes Bemis. (Diplomatic Hist.
30
to POLLOCK and Thos. Willing. (Later
of the U.S., 7) By this treaty Spanish
he
Spain loaned $174,011 to Jay, bringing
rights were recognized in Fla. (includ-
her total subsidies and loans to about
ing most of the southern part of Ga.)
at
$645,000, as compared with French sub-
and the regions now known as Mexico,
sidies of almost $2,000,000 and loans of
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Cali-
over $6,000,000. Bemis, op. cit., 24.)
B
fornia. The Treaty of Paris, 1763,
Floridablanca succeeded Grimaldi in
ending the Colonial Wars, eliminated
1777 and in a memorandum dated 17
=
French holdings in North America, giv-
Oct. '77 reviewed the reasons why
ing Spain the former French possessions
west of the Mississippi, and taking from
Spain opposed open war against Britain:
ed
Charles III did not wish to appear to be
ile
her the Fla. territory, except for the
Island of New Orleans (retained by
dominated by his nephew Louis XVI,
France but ceded immediately to Spain).
the Spanish gentry liked England and
(See MANCHAC) Spain acknowledged the
were antipathetic to France, a peaceful
SPANISH IN COL. WARS AND REV. 1042
1043
settlement had been reached with Por-
vention of Aranjuez. The two countries
Sept. '79 and Oct. '82 the Spanish con-
the
tugal and war with Great Britain would
agreed to fight the war until Gibraltar
ducted minor operations in HONDURAS
35)
interrupt the latter country's extensive
was won for Spain. Other objectives
and NICARAGUA, and they captured the
S]
trade with the peninsula, and war would
were outlined, and both powers agreed
undefended Bahamas in May '82. See
ARM
jeopardize the vast holdings of Spain
not to make a separate peace. By this
also JAMAICA and WEST INDIES IN THE
P
in the New World. (Nickerson, Turning
treaty Spain did not recognize Amer-
REVOLUTION. On the west bank of the
Spai
Point, 408) Spain's objection to the
ican independence. Bemis comments that
Mississippi the Spanish held military
eral
American Revolution from the start was
France's alliances with the U.S. (1778)
posts at St. Louis, New Madrid, and
try
that an independent America would push
and Spain (1779) insofar as American
Arkansas. In 1797 they gave up their
volv
into her possessions in Louisiana and
independence was concerned were "in-
posts at Memphis (San Fernando) and
sipp:
Mexico (Bemis, op. cit., 11), and that
compatible, almost bigamous." (Op. cit.,
Confederation (near the junction of the
to I
the dangerous notions of independence
34)
Tombigbee and Black Warrior rivers in
Ame
would spread to Spanish colonies. She
On 21 June '79 Spain declared war
Ala.). In 1798 they gave up Vicksburg
lel a
was so right.
on Great Britain. Her military efforts
(Nogales), Natchez, and Ft. St. Ste-
Flor
Floridablanca also hoped to use non-
were concentrated on an effort to take
phens (on the Tombigbee, 60 airline
nort]
intervention as a weapon to win certain
Gibraltar, a dream that was shattered
miles N. of Mobile). In 1798 they con-
burg
diplomatic goals, while still refraining
at Cape St. Vincent, 16 Jan. '81. (See
tinued to hold New Orleans, Mobile,
sissi]
from assisting the Americans in achiev-
end of article on NAVAL OPERATIONS)
Pensacola, St. Marks, and St. Augustine.
Spail
ing their dangerous independence. Re-
Spanish authorities in Havana refused
(Ibid., map 6, p. 76; Scribner's Atlas,
pass
covery of Gibraltar and Minorca were
the request of Gov. Rutledge to send a
88-89)
On 1
Spain's main aspirations; she hoped then
fleet and army for the defense of
John Jay had been appointed agent to
arriv
to recover Fla., Jamaica, gain full con-
Charleston in the spring of 1780 (Ward,
Spain on 27 Sept. '79 and held his post
was
trol in Central America (by expelling
W.O.R., 698), and Spain declined to
there from Jan. '80 to May '82. Al-
make
the British settlements mentioned ear-
join the French in operations against
though he failed in his mission of ne-
navig
lier), and she even aspired to a share
the British in North America. They
gotiating an alliance-he was not recog-
Cong
in the Newfoundland fisheries. (Ibid.,
did, however, show substantial interest
nized by the government-his presence
gotia
33) Floridablanca's approach to this
in capturing British posts in the West,
was useful to Floridablanca, who still
they
problem, which could have resulted in a
and in this they were fortunate in hav-
was trying to coerce Britain into ced-
ulate
diplomatic masterpiece, was to threaten
ing the extremely capable Gen. Gálvez
ing Gibraltar, and the foreign minister
of th
Britain with mediation of her dispute
in command at New Orleans. In 1779
did give Jay a loan of $174,011.
made
with France. His price was Gibraltar.
Gálvez took the river posts of Manchac,
"Floridablanca's persistent flirtations
Aug.
"Really if Great Britain had accepted
Baton Rouge, and Natchez. The next
with a British envoy at the Span-
cede
she would have been left in a posi-
year he took Mobile, and he forced the
ish Court, Richard Cumberland, finally
comr
tion much better than she was forced to
surrender of PENSACOLA, 9 May '81.
drove Vergennes to map out a com-
only
accept in her final defeat [comments
These conquests did little to further the
promise peace-at the hands of neutral
vote
Bemis].
France would have been
American cause at the time, but they
mediators-which would have left the
to rat
sorely embarrassed because of her guar-
assisted in later diplomatic relations by
United States in the lurch. Fortunately
Jay's
anty of the independence of the United
shifting possession of these places from
for American independence George III
seeme
States. She would have been obliged
Britain to Spain. (Bemis, op. cit., 34 n.)
refused to let Gibraltar go or to recog-
down
either to accept or to refuse. If she had
A British retaliatory expedition was
nize any Spanish proposals for the
(Pinc
accepted she would have deserted her
stopped at ST. LOUIS, 26 May '80. A
disposition of his colonies. The Cum-
27 O
American alliance. If she had refused
Spanish expedition against Detroit cap-
berland negotiations broke down. The
sissipi
she would have abandoned her Spanish
tured FT. Sr. JOSEPH, Jan. '81, and
United States and Spain were to come
aries
affinity." (Op. cit., 33)
subsequently the Spaniards claimed that
into opposition again in the final peace
naviga
George III refused to accept the
by virtue of having held this place
negotiations. The principal value to the
right
Spanish offer, fortunately for France
(near the S.E. coast of Lake Michigan)
United States or to France of Spain's
at Ne
and America, and on 12 Apr. '79 Spain
for 24 hours they had conquered the St.
belligerency was the moral effect of
they
allied herself with France by the con-
Joseph and Illinois valleys! Between
lining up another European country in
point
1043 SPANISH IN COL. WARS AND REV.
Sept. '79 and Oct. '82 the Spanish con-
the war against Great Britain." (Ibid.,
ducted minor operations in HONDURAS
35)
and NICARAGUA, and they captured the
Spain had joined the League of
undefended Bahamas in May '82. See
ARMED NEUTRALITY in 1781.
also JAMAICA and WEST INDIES IN THE
Postwar boundary disputes between
REVOLUTION. On the west bank of the
Spain and the U.S. after 1783 were gen-
Mississippi the Spanish held military
erally the same as those the new coun-
posts at St. Louis, New Madrid, and
try had with Britain, but they also in-
Arkansas. In 1797 they gave up their
volved the knotty problem of Missis-
posts at Memphis (San Fernando) and
sippi River navigation. Spain refused
Confederation (near the junction of the
to recognize the part of the Anglo-
Tombigbee and Black Warrior rivers in
American treaty that set the 31st paral-
Ala.). In 1798 they gave up Vicksburg
lel as the northern boundary of Spanish
(Nogales), Natchez, and Ft. St. Ste-
Florida, claiming a line 100 miles
phens (on the Tombigbee, 60 airline
northward, at 32° 22' (through Vicks-
miles N. of Mobile). In 1798 they con-
burg), and extending between the Mis-
tinued to hold New Orleans, Mobile,
sissippi and the Chattahoochee. In 1784
Pensacola, St. Marks, and St. Augustine.
Spain refused to let American shipping
(Ibid., map 6, p. 76; Scribner's Atlas,
pass freely along the lower Mississippi.
88-89)
On 15 May '85 Don Diego de Gardoqui
John Jay had been appointed agent to
arrived as minister to the U.S., and he
Spain on 27 Sept. '79 and held his post
was instructed by his government to
there from Jan. '80 to May '82. Al-
make no concessions with respect to
though he failed in his mission of ne-
navigation of the river. On 20 July
gotiating an alliance-he was not recog-
Congress authorized John Jay to ne-
nized by the government-his presence
gotiate with Gardoqui, and on 24 Aug.
was useful to Floridablanca, who still
they instructed him particularly to stip-
was trying to coerce Britain into ced-
ulate the U.S. right to free navigation
ing Gibraltar, and the foreign minister
of the Mississippi. Needless to say, this
did give Jay a loan of $174,011.
made a deadlock inevitable, and on 29
"Floridablanca's persistent flirtations
Aug. '86 Congress authorized Jay to
with a British envoy at the Span-
cede this point in return for a favorable
ish Court, Richard Cumberland, finally
commercial treaty with Spain. This came
drove Vergennes to map out a com-
only after a bitter debate and with a
promise peace-at the hands of neutral
vote of 7-5; since 9 states would have
mediators-which would have left the
to ratify a treaty that might result from
United States in the lurch. Fortunately
Jay's new instructions, the situation
for American independence George III
seemed hopeless and negotiations broke
refused to let Gibraltar go or to recog-
down. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo
nize any Spanish proposals for the
(Pinckney's Treaty), signed at Madrid,
disposition of his colonies. The Cum-
27 Oct. '95, Spain recognized the Mis-
berland negotiations broke down. The
sissippi and the 31st parallel as bound-
United States and Spain were to come
aries and gave the Americans free
into opposition again in the final peace
navigation of the river as well as the
negotiations. The principal value to the
right for three years to deposit goods
United States or to France of Spain's
at New Orleans; thereafter, if need be,
belligerency was the moral effect of
they could deposit goods at another
lining up another European country in
point to be designated. Meanwhile a
Know on op-ed writen
Darid Rogus 647 - 9272
insert on human rights - U.N. human rights comm.
resulted in resolution.
We expect the Sect. Gen.
(Smith/Blessey)
May 18, 1989
Draft Three
CUBA
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: CUBAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
ROOM 450, OEOB
MONDAY, MAY 22, 1989
B.R. Remarks Ind,
My friends, it is truly a pleasure to be with you to
celebrate this wonderful occasion: The 87th anniversary of Cuban
Boy B
independence.
1989
1902
87
Now, I know that the official anniversary LS Saturday, not
today. Let's get that straight [PAUSE]
after all, Pearl
Harbor.
But, you know, I would be delighted to be here on any day.
For we Americans owe a debt of gratitude to the Cuban people.
That debt dates back to 1776, when George Washington's
5/17/88
troops were dreadfully short of food and supplies. Some of you
may remember how the women of Havana banded together and raised
1. 2 million livres for the cause of American freedom.
stotesDep
One hundred and twenty-six years later, another people
fought bravely for the cause of freedom. For it was on May 20,
1902, after a long and brutal struggle, that the Cuban Republic
was born.
1902
1776
124
pastle liberty of
ban
event peper
We gather here to remember that victory. And the fact that
Washi
freedom knows no boundaries. Perhaps it was the Abraham Lincoln
on
Bortletts
of Cuba, that great patriot Jose Marti [Mar-TEE], who said it
149.8
best. He remarked, "To beautify life is to give it an object.' "
My friends, our object is human liberty. And a free,
united, and democratic Cuba. As President, I am absolutely,
unalterably committed to Cuba Libre. And I will never falter in
that support.
I know that you are with me. And so is America. For we
oppose those who mock the rights we treasure: rights of speech,
religion, assembly, and economic freedom. And in response, our
demand is plain and simple: "Democracy, Mr. Castro -- not some
time, not some day, but now."
NBC
This morning, I call on Fidel Castro to free all political
prisoners. And to conform to accepted international standards
regarding human rights. I challenge him to allow unrestricted
access to organizations monitoring their compliance. And a
policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other
states.
On this, Cuban Independence Day, I challenge Castro to take
concrete and specific steps to begin democracy's electoral
process. And to allow free and unrestricted travel to and from
Cuba for all persons -- including present citizens and residents.
blocking
ACCIDE
plantados - political prisoner
This I pledge: Unless these conditions are met -- basic
conditions, elemental -- we will oppose Cuba's re-entry to the
Organization of American States. And this, too, I promise: We
will continue Radio Marti. We will create TV Marti. We will see
707pq-3
that the people of Cuba know the truth - about their dictator,
and about the world.
In short, we want to advance that day when Cuban
comm, toncept
Independence Day achieves a new and richer meaning:
-- Freedom from the evil of tryanny and oppression;
Freedom from the economic misery wrought by communist
misrule;
-- The freedom that can liberate lives and lift the human
heart -- yes, the freedom of democracy.
To achieve that freedom, heroes must lead the way. Well, in
sense they already have, and are. For Cuba can claim many
heroes -- those who struggled valiantly almost ninety years ago,
and those who struggle today.
87 yrs AJO
₹' Record 10mg Heroes, 5/17/89
(1902)
for example, like Dr. Claudio Benedi, here in this
audience, who has condemned -- eloquently, repeatedly -- Castro's
3/3/6241
Bio
violations of human rights. Or another great patriot of the
Western Hemisphere -- a hero for the ages.
I'm referring, of course, to Armando Valladares. He spent
Fringt
22 years in Castro's prisons. And he wrote a book about that
All
ordeal, and his ultimate release. It's titled Against All Hope.
And it describes how he survived beatings, starvation, and
unspéakable horror.
I'm sure many of you have read this unforgettable tribute. A
tribute to the arching human spirit -- to that will to live which
helped endure the cruelest of regimes. A tribute, also, to the
courage of the Cuban people -- resolute and unafraid.
My friends, that courage has helped you endure. And it will
one day unite a million free Cuban-Americans with their long-
suffering Cuban brothers.
For if hope can stay alive in the heart of Armando
Valladares, surely we will see Cuba free again.
Thank you for coming here, God bless you, God bless America,
and
Viva Cuba Libre.
#
#
#
#
Cubon Event
3/16/89
Cubon - "Wekome to our House"
Nilo Menendez - Composer
Green Eyes
Perez Prodo-musicion
Jebs wife - Columbo
Mexicon Story
Women CASAblancA on the Verge ot D Nervous Bradd
AAAI
Brood Dreps of policy
Not interested in better interests
Cuban suppo
Military Adventurism LAfrica
Cubon - Soriet relationship
Inst. glorantees in humon rights
FPT
$18.95
AGAINST
-
The Prison Memoirs of
sur get ith wit Fra int rel pu A1 wl the ca tie of at fc W S b a
NST
ALLHOPE
n Memoirs of
Armando Valladares
Translated by Andrew Hurley
Alfred A. Knopf New York 1987
FPT
$18.95
A
gainst All Hope is Armando Valladares' dra-
matic and harrowing account of his twenty-
two years in Castro's prisons-from his arrest at the
age of twenty-three (for being philosophically op-
posed to Communism) until his release in 1982, the
result of an international campaign of protest.
His story opens with the classic arrest in the night:
the house searched, the family terrorized, the man
taken away But what follows is shockingly unex-
pected, because nothing has prepared us for Valla-
dares' eloquent and devastating testimony about the
outrages committed by the Cuban government
against its own people. From the very beginning, as
he waits in his prison cell for the inevitable sentence,
he makes us witness to the new Revolution's inces-
sant brutality- the notorious firing squads are at work
just outside his window. And when he is transferred
to the infamous Isla de Pinos (where he will watch the
failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion) and he begins the
endless days of violence and harassment, putrid food
and squalid living conditions, illness and forced la-
bor, solitary confinement and the indifference of out-
side humanitarian agencies, we experience this life
with him and his fellow prisoners, many of them
former friends and allies of Castro.
We share, as well, his elaborate and hazardous
attempt to escape, which fails and leaves him crippled
the hunger strikes that bolster his spirits and those
of his companions, even as they provoke the authori-
ties' desire to break the prisoners, to make them re-
cant
his meeting with a fellow prisoner's daughter,
the woman he will eventually marry his poetry,
which is smuggled out and published in Europe and
America, winning him the attention of writers and
public figures around the world and, above
all,
the
relentless enmity of the government, which tries to
intimidate and discredit him until the very end, when
France's President Mitterrand personally intervenes
with Castro in Valladares' behalf.
An indictment of a cruel regime and the suffering
it has imposed, this book is also an irrefutable, unfor-
gettable revelation of one man's courageous efforts to
survive "against all hope."
Colección Cuba y sus Jueces»
EDUARDO J. TEJERA
LA AYUDA CUBANA A LA LUCHA POR
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
"HISTORY of CUBA IN
RELATION TO THE UNITED
Bef DR. HERMINIO PORTELL ViCA
LA INDEPENDENCIA NORTEAMERICANA
STATES ANN SPAIN"
THE CUBAN CONTRIBUTION TO THE
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
UNIVERSAL
Ediciones Universal. Miami, 1972.
- EDICIONES:
EDICIONES UNIVERSAL
P.O. BOX 353 (Shenandoah Station)
Miami, Florida 33145. USA.
Simon sailed from Cape Haitien in the last days of
them then. All this expedition having been a-
July, (55).
rranged only on your request and without being
So enthusiastic was De Grasse, that before hea-
restricted by the French and Spanish Ministers,
ring about the negotiations in Havana, he dispatched
I have thought myself authorized to take every-
the frigate Concorde with a letter to Rochambeau. In
thing on myself for the common cause; but I do
this letter of July 28, the first one since his arrival
not dare to change all the plan of their cam-
in Cape Haitien, De Grasse gave an explicit account
paign by employing for a long time so conside-
of all the events that had occurred within the past
rable a body of troops. I have read with great
weeks (56). He informed him that they had recruited
sadness, of the distress in which the Americans
an army of 3,000 men, plus 100 artillerymen, 10 can-
find themselves and the necessity of prompt
nons and other material. Above all, he stated that:
aid which you request. I have conferred with,
«The Saint-Domingue (Haiti) Colony has no money,
M. de Lilliancourt who has taken command of
but I will send a frigate to Havana in quest of it, and
the government and I have induced him to give
you may depend upon receiving this amount; one
me from the garrison of Saint-Domingue (Haiti)
million two hundred thousand livres.» Whem this le-
the regiments of Gatianis, Agémois and Tourai-
tter reached Rochambeau's hands, it filled him with
ne, totalling 3,000 infantry, 100 artillerymen, 100
joy for it was the first good news in months, and it
dragoons, 10 fied cannons, and some seize guns
promised the beginning of a new phase in the War.
and mortars. All will be embarked on 25 or 26
Here is an incomplete text of the letter:
ships of war which will leave this place on Au-
gust 3 and reach as soon as possible Chesapea-
Cape Haitien, July 28, 1781
ke Bay The Saint-Domingue (Haiti) had no
«I shall be obliged, to employ the fleet promp-
money, but I will send a frigate to Havana in
tly and to good purpose, so that the time may
quest of it, and you may depend upon receiving
be spent to profit sufficiently against the enemy
this amount; 1,200,000 livres (57)
naval forces and their land forces; but I shall
As may be observed, undoubtedly the letter gives
not be able to use the soldiers long; they are
leasons for rejoicing to the troops of Washington, La-
under the orders of the Spanish who will need
(57) This letter is a translation made by the author of this
(55) Charles Lee Lewis: Admiral De Grasse and the Ame-
essay, and taken from different sources, mainly from French
rican Independence, p. 138. The author states: «De Grasse
books, pertinent to this topic. Henri Doniol: Histoire de la
persuaded Señor de Salavedra, Spanish director general of
participation de la France A L'Etablissement Des Etats-Unis
customs, then residing in Cap. Francais (Cape Haitien), to ar-
D'Amerique. Vol. IV, p. 649. Jean-Jacques Antier: L'Amiral De
range for raising the money in Havana.»
Grasse; Héros de L'Indépendance Americaine, pp. 204-205. Ste-
(56) Charles Lee Lewis: Admiral De Grasse and The Ame-
phen Bonsal: When The French Were Here p. 116, the original
rican Independence, p. 138.
letter is in the French Archives.
120
- 121
fayette and Rochambeau. It not only informed of the
na Governor, Bernardo de Gálvez, in America, mainly.
recruitment of troops in Cape Haitien, but promised
against English positions in Pensacola, Mobile and
the solution to the embarrassing financial problem.
other towns in Mississippi. Cagigal also joined Spa-
The frigate Aigrette, the fastest in the French Fleet,
nish Admiral Solano in giving chase to British ships
was chosen to collect the funds in Havana. Tre voya-
in Cuban waters (60).
ge from Cape Haitien to Havana was very dangerous,
The history of Miranda, the leader of the Spanish
for the English ships maintained a tight watch in the
American independence, is well known; however, un-
area, after the French Fleet had entered the waters
fortunately, his decisive participation in the collection
of the Antilles. According to the historian, M. Antier,
of the funds needed to finance the Yorktown Campaign
the Aigrette and its two reinforcements, were forced
is one of the least known aspects in the life of this
to sail through the Keys in order to evade the «British
extraordinary man (61). The truth is that Miranda,
men-of-war» which were anxious to intercept a French
together with other Cubans (Creoles), was one of
ship in order to learn about their plans in the tropics
the persons who organized the collection of the funds
but above all, about the War in America (58). Fortu-
requested by Saint-Simon. The money was collected
nately, the Aigrette was able to reach Havana safely
from different sources, primarily by the ladies of
without any confrontation with the English.
Apparently, the contacts in Havana were, Lieutenant
(60) Herminio Portell Vilá: Historia de Cuba en sus relacio-
General and new Governor of Cuba, Juan Manuel de
nes con los Estados Unidos y España (Jesús Montero, La Ha-
Cagigal and his aide-de-camp, don Francisco de Miran-
bana, 1938). Tomo I, pp. 92-96. Charles Lee Lewis: Admiral De
Grasse and the American Independence, p. 139. Marshall Count
da, the future forerunner of the Spanish American in-
de Rochambeau: Memoirs; Relative to the War of Independence
dependence (59). Cagigal was well known for his
of the United States. (French, English and American Library.
adventuresome spirit, as well as for his commercial
París, 1838, pp. 60-61.)
ambitions. He was one of those who prepared and
(61) José Manuel Pérez Cabrera: Miranda en Cuba, p 17.
led the only Spanish expedition, together with Louisia-
The author states: «Miranda, who commanded the voluntary
Anglo-american forces in the fortunate expedition to Pensacola,
and who also supplied Admiral M. De Grasse with the inmense
resources for his entry into Chesapeake», In the judicial trial
(58) Jean-Jacques Antier: L'Amiral De Grasse; Héros de
against Miranda during the French Revolution in 1792, for ac-
L'Indépendance américaine, pp. 205-206. M. Antier wrote: "En
cusations of treason led by Robespierre and Marat, his de-
longeant la cote nord de Saint-Domingue, puis celle de Cuba, la
fense attorney Chauveau-Lagarde argued that Miranda had
frégate devait se confondre avec la haute terre et échapped á
always lent inminent services for the cause of freedom, and
la croisiére anglaise. Mais restait un mauvais passage entre
that it was he who had handed the funds to Saint-Simon in
les deux iles, trés surveillé et fréquenté par les Anglais, dont
Havana, to defray the expense of the Yorktown Campaign. This.
c'est le trajet habituel de la Jamaique au continet américaine.»
interesting allegation is in the Judicial work, Annales Du Ba-
(59) José Manuel Pérez Cabrera: Miranda en Cuba (1780--
rreut Francais ou Choiz Des Plaidoyers Et Mémoires, Claude
1783) (La Habana),
Academy of the History of Cuba, 1950,
Chauveau-Lagarde, <<Plaidoyer Pour Le géral Miranda.. (París:
pp. 16-19.
Guibert, Libraire-Editeur, 1847), pp. 1-78.
- 122
- 123 -
Havana. They offered their jewrly and diamonds to the
said about the Cuban ladies: The public treasury
American cause (62). Great sums were also offered
was assisted by individuals, ladies even offering
by Havana merchants and many private entities. Ap-
their diamonds. Five hours after the arrival of the
parently, in the light of the documents examined, the
frigate Aigrette, sent by De Grasse, the sum of
funds donated by the ladies of Havana came from
1,200,000 livres was delivered on board» (64). The
sometype of women's association or lodge which
efforts of Miranda were instrumental in this endeavor.
existed at the time. This theory has not been pro-
Due to the protection of the public authorities, he
ven, but everything indicates that it is correct (63).
helped organize the vast collection.
It is most probable that the funds proceeded from
The contributions of the ladies of Havana and
women's associations that had proliferated in great
merchants were decisive in the collection of the
numbers, not only in Cuba but also in the rest of the
funds, for due to these generous contributions the
Continent. These women's organizations had a patri-
larger part of the whole sum was raised. Now that
otic character and appeared as cultural centers. In
we have presented this historical data, the reader
South America numerous of these associations exis-
will probably ask why would ladies and merchants
ted, like the one from Buenos Aires which was one of
of Havana be interested in the American independence
the largest. The history of these lodges or lyceums, is
cause. There are two reasons that seem important.
full of noble pages, due to their nationalistic character
First, the population of Havana always manifested a
and the important services they rendered during the
special hatred for anything English, as these had
independence wars. In Cuba, these lodges were
militarily occupied Havana in 1762, looting businesses
always the center of patriotic activities. Therefore, it
and leaving behind a strong aversion for all things
would not be incorrect to affirm that the funds CO-
British. The Cubans and especially the inhabitants
llected for the American War came from these orga-
of Havana never forgot the excesses of the invaders.
nizations.
The memory of these events undoubtedly contributed
Charles Lee Lewis, historian and biographer of De
in motivating the Cubans toward supporting the
Grasse, having done research in the Archives of
American rebels against Great Britain (65).
France, and as such, able to examine the original
letters and documents of the French Admiral, has
(64) Charles Lee Lewis: Admiral De Grasse and the Amer-
ican Independence, p. 138; See the Interesting quotation taken
(62) Charles Lee Lewis: Admiral De Grasse and the Ame-
from Rochambeau's Diary in Appendix III.
rican Independence, p. 138. Stephen Bonsal: When the French
(65) Herminio Portell Vilá: Historia de Cuba en sus relacio
Were Here pp. 119-120.
nes con los Estados Unidos y España. Vol. I, pp. 80-100. Eme-
(63) José Manuel Cabrera: Miranda en Cuba, pp. 16-17. Ste-
terio S. Santovenia: Armonías y conflictos en torno a Cuba.
phen Bonsal: When The French Were Here pp. 119-120. The
(México. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956), pp. 11-43. The
author says: "the millions that was supplied Saint-Simón to pay
author says: During the occupation of Havana by the British,
his troops by the ladies of Havana».
there were excesses similar to those of the Spanish domina-
- 124
- 125
The roots of the probable motivations of the
to help the American patriots at a time of severe
merchants are inherent in the despotic monopolistic
economic crisis for the Continental Congress. What
system exercized by the Spanish Crown upon its
the merchants could not foresee was that the liberal
overseas colonies. We must recall that the Cubans
policies would be short lived, for immediately after
were not permitted to trade with other nations except
the American independence was won, in the after-
Spain, and all goods had to be transported exclusively
math of the Yorktown surrender, the Crown re-
in Spanish ships. This had drastic negative con-
established its old despotic and monopolistic system.
sequences on the backward economic development
This shift of policy angered the Cuban people and
of the Island as it did not permit the natural and
was the cause of serious uprisings and revolts in
harmonious growth of industry and trade (66). During
the country; for example, the tobacco growers
the struggle for American independence, the Crown
protest (68). We have digressed somewhat from
liberalized somewhat these prohibitive measures,
the main topic as we consider it important to point
permitting the Cubans to supply foodstuff and
out some of the probable motives that prompted the
resources to the Thirteen Colonies. Juan de Mira-
ladies of Havana and the merchants to contribute to
lles, of Havana, was the person who made the first
the American cause.
commercial contracts between Havana and Charleston.
This is, the history of how the Cubans helped in
Cuban merchants saw in the new Republic to the
a most effective manner, the rebels of the Thirteen
North, a contributing factor toward economic pros-
Colonies. This contribution was decisive because
perity and as the reason for the sudden trade
the immense funds collected at Havana financed the
liberalization (although limited) policies by the
historic Yorktown Campaign. It would be an error
Spanish authorities (67).
to say that since Cuba at the time was a colony
Henceforth, the reason why many merchants sym-
of Spain, all the inhabitants of the Island were also
pathized with the American independence cause and
Spaniards. Although this is true from the legal
contributed to the collection of the funds, in order
(68) Herminio Portell Vilá: Historia de Cuba en sus relacio-
nes con los Estados Unidos y España. Vol. I, pp. 74-75. The
tion in addition to the large ransom paid In accordance with
author states: "It is a singular coincidence that in the months
the truce understanding, the victors practiced many abuses, rob-
of organization of the Philadelphia Congress which on the 4th
bed great amount of money and destroyed and stole parts of
of July, 1776, would proclaim the independence of the Thirteen
the National Archives without justification» p. 11).
Colonies, the Spanish authorities of Cuba were facing a protest
(66) J. Alvarez Díaz; A. Arredondo, R. M. Shelton and J. F.
movement by the Cubans with revolutionaries aims. This protest
Vizcaíno: Cuba. Geopolítica y pensamiento Económico. (Miami:
had its origen in the abuses produced by the monopoly of the
School of the Economists of Cuba in Exile, 1964), pp. 50-90.
tobacco grown in the Island and the injustices committed with
(67) Herminio Portell Vilá: Historia de Cuba en sus relacio-
the «vegueros» who solicited loans to pay their expenses
nes con los Estados Unidos y España. Vol. I, pp. 99-110. Fran-
The truth is, as we have seen, that while the War of Indepen-
cisco de Arango y Parreño: De la Factoría a la Colonia (Re-
dence of the United States began, Cuba was also on the
edited by the Minister of Education, Havana, 1936...)
threshold of revolution
126
127
- 5 -
I CHALLENGE HIM TO ALLOW UNRESTRICTED ACCESS To THE
UNITED NATIONS AND OTHER™ ORGANIZATIONS MONITORING THEIR
COMPLIANCE. AND A POLICY OF NON-INTERVENTION IN THE
INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF OTHER STATES.
ON THIS CELEBRATION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE DAY, I
CHALLENGE CASTRO TO TAKE CONCRETE AND SPECIFIC STEPS
LEADING TO FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS AND FULL DEMOCRACY.
A USEFUL FIRST STEP WOULD BE TO ACCEPT A PROPOSED
PLEBISCITE IN CUBA.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 19, 1989
INFORMATION
MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT
THROUGH:
CHRISS WINSTON
cu
FROM:
CURT SMITH
SUBJECT:
REMARKS FOR CUBAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
I. SUMMARY
At 2:30, on Monday, May 22, you will address about 230
members of the Cuban-American community in Room 450. The event
is to celebrate the 87th anniversary of Cuban Independence Day
which occurs on Saturday, May 20.
II. DISCUSSION
The enclosed remarks discuss freedom, and the U.S.-Cuban
relationship. The text also challenges Castro to take steps to
bring democracy to Cuba.
(Smith/Blessey)
May 18, 1989
Draft Four
CUBA
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: CUBAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
ROOM 450, OEOB
MONDAY, MAY 22, 1989
My friends, it is truly a pleasure to be with you to
celebrate this wonderful occasion: The 87th anniversary of Cuban
independence.
Now, I know that the official anniversary was Saturday, not
today. Let's get that straight [PAUSE]
after all, remember
Pearl Harbor.
But, you know, I would be delighted to be here on any day.
For we Americans owe a debt of gratitude to the Cuban people.
That debt dates back to 1776, when George Washington's
troops were dreadfully short of food and supplies. Some of you
may remember how the women of Havana banded together and raised
1.2 million livres for the cause of American freedom.
One hundred and twenty-six years later, another people
fought bravely for the cause of freedom. For it was on May 20,
1902, after a long and brutal struggle, that the Cuban Republic
was born.
2
We gather here to remember that victory. And the fact that
freedom knows no boundaries. Perhaps it was Cuba's George
Washington, that great patriot Jose Marti [Mar-TEE], who said it
best. He remarked, "To beautify life is to give it an object."
My friends, our object is human liberty. And a free,
united, and democratic Cuba. As President, I am absolutely,
unalterably committed to Cuba Libre [KOOBA LIBREH]. And I will
never falter in that support.
I know that you are with me. And so is America. For we
oppose those who mock the rights we treasure: rights of speech,
religion, assembly, and economic freedom. And in response, our
demand is plain and simple: "Democracy, Mr.
Castro -- not some
time, not some day, but now. "
sponished
This morning, I call on Fidel Castro to free all political
prisoners. And to conform to accepted international standards
regarding human rights. I challenge him to allow unrestricted
access to the United Nations and other organizations monitoring
their compliance. And a policy of non-intervention in the
internal affairs of other states.
On this, Cuban Independence Day, I challenge Castro to take
concrete and specific steps leading to free and fair elections
3
and full democracy. A useful first step would be to accept a
proposed plebicite in Cuba.
I challenge Castro to allow Cuban citizens who wish to leave
Cuba to do so -- a fundamental human right guaranteed by free
nations.
I challenge Castro to show that Cuba is truly independent by
sharply reducing the Soviet military presence.
This I pledge: Unless Castro is willing to change his
policies and behavior, we will maintain our present policy
towards Cuba. I also want to make it clear that we oppose Cuba's
re-entry to the Organization of American States. And this, too,
I promise: To help break down the monopoly on information that
Castro has maintained for 30 years, we will continue Radio Marti.
We will push forward our proposal for TV Marti. We will see that
the people of Cuba know the truth -- about their dictator, and
about the world.
In short, we want to advance that day when Cuban
Independence Day achieves a new and richer meaning:
-- Freedom from the evil of tryanny and oppression;
4
-- Freedom from the economic misery wrought by communist
misrule;
-- The freedom that can liberate lives and lift the human
heart -- yes, the freedom of democracy.
To achieve that freedom, heroes must lead the way. Well, in
a sense they already have, and are. For Cuba can claim many
heroes -- those who struggled valiantly almost ninety years ago,
and those who struggle today.
Unsung heroes, for example, like long-time political
prisoner Alfredo Mustelier Nuevo [MOOSTEHLEHR NOOEHVO] who
refuses to give up -- who, despite deterioriating health,
continues his hunger strike for freedom.
Heroes like Dr. Claudio Benedi, here in this audience, who
has condemned -- eloquently, repeatedly -- Castro's violations of
human rights. or another great patriot of the Western Hemisphere
-- a hero of our times.
I'm referring, of course, to Armando Valladares
[VAHLAHDAHRES]. He spent 22 years in Castro's prisons. And he
wrote a book about that ordeal, and his ultimate release. It's
titled Against All Hope. And it describes how he survived
beatings, starvation, and unspeakable horror.
5
I'm sure many of you have read this unforgettable tribute. A
tribute to the arching human spirit -- to that will to live which
helped endure the cruelest of regimes. A tribute, also, to the
courage of the Cuban people -- resolute and unafraid.
My friends, that courage has helped you endure. And it will
one day unite a million free Cuban-Americans with their long-
suffering Cuban brothers.
For if hope can stay alive in the heart of Armando
Valladares, surely we will see Cuba free again.
Thank you for coming here, God bless you, God bless America,
and Viva Cuba Libre.
#
#
#
#
Special Report
PCC
BOLETIN
ESPECIAL
EQUIPO DE OPINION DEL PUEBLO. DOR PCC PROV. HOLGUIN
A Public Survey
on the Quality of Health Care
in the Province of Holguín, Cuba
A Confidential Report by the Cuban Communist Party
1988
CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL FOUNDATION
The Cuban American National Foundation is an independent, non-profit insti-
tution devoted to the gathering and dissemination of data concerning the
economic, political and social welfare of the Cuban people, both on the island
and in exile. The Foundation supports the concept of a free and democratic
Cuba.
The Foundation promotes an objective view of Cuba and Cubans, and an
objective appraisal of the Cuban government and its policies.
The Foundation supports a general program to enlighten and clarify public
opinion on problems of Cuban concern, to fight bigotry, protect human rights,
and promote cultural interests and creative achievement.
FOREWORD
This confidential report by the Cuban Communist Party, based on a public opinion
survey in the Cuban province of Holguín (pronounced ohl-GEEN), evaluates the quality
of health care in that country. Of 10,756 opinions taken, 87.6% were unfavorable,
effectively demolishing the myth of "great accomplishments" in the field of public
health that has been propagated by the Castro regime for almost thirty years as one
defense of its dictatorial rule.
In reviewing each hospital, dental clinic, laboratory, and other health care facility
in Holguín Province, the survey reveals such shocking accounts of women dying during
childbirth due to medical incompetence; pregnant women afraid to be hospitalized;
contaminated operating rooms; and the grossest negligence on the part of medical
staffs.
Of particular note is the report on the Lenin Hospital, long-touted as the
Revolution's showcase hospital. There, the people say, most operations become
infected; hygienic conditions are poor; there are no syringes and other vital
instruments; and that they have lost confidence in the hospital because of the many
errors in diagnoses.
The Communist Party concludes that, despite Fidel Castro's personal attention and the
efforts of the government and party, "the people are not satisfied with the medical
care." This fact, however, is not published by the Cuban media, nor is it admitted at
medical forums, and it is not reflected in the false statistics that the Cuban
government sends to international bodies such as the World Health Organization.
It may be of interest to recall that in Grenada, among the documents seized was a
dossier given by the Cuban government to Maurice Bishop with instructions on how to
prepare and maintain two sets of statistics: one for international consumption and a
confidential set which reflects reality.
This report brought before you - which contains a side-by-side English translation
provided by the Cuban American National Foundation - is the confidential one, the
true set, the one which reflects the reality of health care in Cuba. And that reality, in
the words of the Cuban people, is that "Cuba may be a medical superpower in the
number of doctors, but in quality it is below that of years past."
Ambassador Armando Valladares
"If we speak of social development, logically we must include the famous public
health system. How can the successes of the Revolution and public health not be
recognized if no country in the world in such a short period of time has made similar
progress? [And] not only has there been a quantitative increase in medical services
but there has also been an extraordinary qualitative increase."
Fidel Castro
July 26, 1988
Santiago de Cuba
PROLOGO
Este informe confidencial del Partido Comunista de Cuba, basado en una encuesta
de opinión pública realizada en la provincia de Holguín, valora la calidad del cuidado a
la salud pública en ese país. De las 10,756 opiniones tomadas, un 87.6% fué
desfavorable, demoliendo totalmente el mito de los "grandes logros" alcanzados en el
campo de la salud pública que durante casi 30 años ha venido propagando el régimen
castrista para defender la permanencia de esa dictadura.
Al revisar cada hospital, clínica dental, laboratorio y otros centros de salud en la
provincia de Holguín, la encuesta revela espeluznantes datos de mujeres que mueren de
parto por incompetencia médica; mujeres embarazadas que temen ser hospitalizadas,
salones de operación que están contaminados; y la mas crasa negligencia por parte del
personal médico.
De especial interes es el informe sobre el Hospital Lenín, que por años ha venido
siendo el hospital vitrina de la Revolución. Allí, cuentan, la mayoría de las
operaciones se infectan; las condiciones higiénicas son malas; no hay jeringuillas y
otros instrumentos de vital importancia; y el pueblo ha perdido la confianza en el
hospital por el sinnúmero de errores en los diagnósticos.
El Partido Comunista concluye que, a pesar de la atención personal de Fidel Castro
y los esfuerzos del gobierno y del partido, "el pueblo no está satisfecho con la atención
médica". Esto, no obstante, no es publicado por los medios de comunicación cubanos, ni
admitido en los forums médicos, ni reflejado en las estadísticas falsas que el gobierno
cubano envía a organismos internacionales, como la Organización Mundial de la Salud.
Resulta interesante recordar que entre los documentos recuperados en Granada, se
hallaba un dossier entregado por el gobierno de Cuba a Maurice Bishop con
instrucciones sobre cómo preparar y mantener dos juegos de estadísticas: uno para
consumo internacional y un juego confidencial que refleja la realidad.
Este informe que les presentamos que muestra una traducción al ingles página por
página suministrada por la Fundación Nacional Cubano Americana es el informe
confidencial, el verdadero, que refleja la realidad de la salud pública en Cuba. Y esa
realidad, en las propias palabras del pueblo cubano, es que "Cuba será una
superpotencia en el número de médicos, pero en calidad está por debajo de la de hace
años".
Embajador Armando Valladares
"Si vamos a hablar del desarrollo social, logicamente tenemos que incluir la salud
pública. Y cómo no van a reconocer nuestros adversarios los éxitos de la Revolución en
la salud pública si ningún país del mundo, en tan breve tiempo, alcanzó similares
avances...Y no sólo se ha producido un incremento cuantitativo de los servicios médicos,
sino también un extraordinario incremento cualitativo."
Fidel Castro
26 de julio de 1988
Santiago de Cuba
PCC
BOLETIN
ESPECIAL
EQUIPO DE OPINION DEL PUEBLO. D'OR PCC PROV. HOLGUIN
INTRODUCTION
"To maintain and preserve the health of the people and to raise
their life expectancy to a maximum" is an all-level task in the
program of the Cuban Communist Party.
To attain this goal, innumerable resources are invested
throughout the country and a special interest is shown at all
Party and Cuban Government directorate levels.
To keep the Party directorate informed of the evaluation made
by the people, of the services provided by the Health Sector in
the 14 municipalities of the province, the People's Opinion
Section of the DOR [Revolutionary Orientation Department] *
Provincial Committee analyzed the opinions polled during the
second semester of 1987.
* [Brackets signify translator's notes.]
INTRODUCCION:
If Mantener y preservar la salud del pueblo y elevar al máximo sus expeg
tativas de vida It es una tarea jerarquisada on el programa del Parti-
do Comunista de Cuba,
Para lograr este objetivo se invierten gran cantidad do resurses a. 10
largo de todo el país y Be muestra especial interés on todos los nivg
les de dirección del Partido y el gobierno eubano,
Para que la direooión del Partido oonozoa la valoración que hase al -
pueblo dol servicio que brinda el Sector de Salud on los 14 munici--
pios de la provincia, la Sección de Opinion del Pueblo dol DOR del -
Comité Provincial, analizó las opiniones recepcionadas en el segundo
semestre del año 1987.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 2
GENERAL EVALUATION
From a total of 10,756 opinions, 87.6% are unfavorable. In
comparison with the same period of the previous year, there was
an increase of 3% (chart 1).
As noted in chart 3, the percentage of unfavorable opinions
decreased only in the municipalities of Báguanos, Mayarí and
Frank País; the increase is significant in Gibara (8.9%), Banes
(8.3%), Sagua de Tánamo (15.3%), and Moa (13.6%).
In Rafael Freyre, Antilla, Holguín, Cacocúm, Urbano Noris and
Cueto, the increase was minor.
We believe that in the case of Calixto García it is not timely
to establish comparisons, because during 1987 the information
on the municipality was sketchy and very irregular.
As in the previous analyses conducted, positive opinions
reflect the people's recognition of the efforts being made by
the Revolution and the achievements attained in this important
sector.
Notwithstanding the above, unfavorable opinions evidence that
despite Party and Government efforts and the special attention
on the part of Comrade Fidel [Castro] to provide optimum
quality in services rendered at health centers, the population
is not totally satisfied with the attention they receive.
As can be noted from the report, criticisms that continue to be
reiterated the most are those regarding the lack of attention,
negligence and abuse of patients, which we have pointed out in
previous reports. Therefore, we consider that more should be
demanded towards complying with the principles of Medical
Ethics, and that direct work with each one of the sector staff
should be intensified.
CONFIDENCIAL
Hoja # 2
VALORACION GENERAL
De un total de 10 756 opiniones, son desfavorables el 87,6%, on compa-
ración con igual período del año anterior, hubo un ascenso de un 3%. -
(gráfico 1).
Como se observa on el gráfico 3 el porciento de opiniones desfavore-
bles sólo descendió on los municipios de Báguanos, Mayari y Frank ---
País, el ascenso es significativo on Gibara (8.9%), Banes (8,3%). Same
gua de Tánamo (15,3%) y Moa (13,6%).
En Rafaol Freyre. Antilla, Holguín, Cacocum, Urbano Noris y Cueto el -
ascenso fue a menor escala.
Consideramos que en el caso de Calixto Garola no as oportuno hacer la
comparación porque durante el año 1987 la información del municipio -
fue pobre y muy irregular.
Como en los analisis hechos anteriormente on las opiniones positivas
86 manifiesta el reconocimiento de la población por el esfuerzo que --
realiza la Revolución y los logros obtenidos on este importante 800-
tor.
No obstante a esto on las opiniones desfavorables se evidencia que a
pesar del esfuerzo de nuestro Partido y Gobierno y de la atenoión espe
oial que tiene el compañero Fidel por lograr una total optimización on
los servicios que se presta on las unidades de salud, la población no
está totalmente satisfecha eon la atención que on ellas recibe.
Como se podrá observar en el informe las críticas que más 50 reiteran
están dirigidas fundamentalmente a la falta do atención, negligencias
y maltratos a los pacientes, cuestiones que han sido señaladas ante---
riormente en nuestros informes, por lo que consideramos que aun se de-
be elevar la exigencia on el cumplimiento de los principios de la Eti-
on Medica y que el trabajo directo con cada uno de los trabajadores -
del sector debe intensificarse.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 3
PROVINCIAL MATTERS
As in previous analyses, in 539 opinions the need to increase
fumigations against mosquitoes, and other insects and rodents
in all the provinces and municipalities continues to be
reflected.
Ninety-seven opinions polled in the Sagua de Tánamo
municipality raised the need to gather the pigs that roam the
urban zones.
FAMILY DOCTOR
This plan is the creation of the Commander in Chief [Fidel
Castro], and as can be determined from the positive opinions,
the plan has been very well received by our people, who also
have acknowledged the benefits it provides and its importance
in preventive medicine and health control.
Unfavorable opinions, which account for 64.9%, point out the
deficiencies in several consultation centers, and also give
suggestions to improve, according to the people's criteria, the
invaluable services offered at these centers.
The most repeated concerns are the following:
- At consultation centers, the issuance of health certificates
takes too long (8-Banes).
- Many doctors do not comply with regulations; do not make
rounds (attention is not the best) (63 opinions)
* Banes.
* Consultation center #36; the three at El Coco junction
(Holguín).
- The La Güira consultation center is closed in the afternoon
(3-Banes).
- They wonder why so many consultation centers have been built
in urban areas, where all medical resources are at hand, and
none have been built in the rural areas (135 opinions).
Rafael Freyre, Cueto, Banes, Mayarí, Cacocúm, Urbano Noris,
Báguanos.
- Scandals in consultation center #17 (20 opinions).
- There exist consultation centers which have been completed
and are not in operation yet (65 opinions). La
Agraria-Cacocúm, Aguas Claras-Holguín, Veguitas-Banes.
- They wonder what the motives are for not expanding to all
neighborhoods and municipalities (10-Holguín).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 3
CUESTIONES PROVINCIALES:
Como on analisis anteriores en 539 opiniones se continua señalando on
todos los municipios de la provincia la necesidad de intensificar las
fumigaciones que combatan los mosquitos, otros insectos y roedores.
En 97 opiniones del municipio Sagun de Tanamo se plantea la necesidad -
de recoger los cerdos que estan en las zonas urbanas.
MEDICO DE LA FAMILIA:
Este plan, oreación del Comandante en Jefe es muy aceptado por nuestro
pueblo en las opiniones positivas, reconociendo los beneficios que apor
ta y la importancia que tiene en la prevención y control de la salud.
En las opiniones desfuvorables, que representan el 64.9%, se señalan -
deficiencias en algunos consultorios, en otros se haoen sugerencias que
mejorarian, según el criterio de la poblacion, ol valioso servicio que
on estas unidades se presta.
Las cuestiones que más se reiteran son:
En los consultorios la firma de los certificados tarda mucho (8-Banes)
- Muchos medicos no cumplen con lo que esta establecido, no hacen terry
no, (la atencion no 98 la mejor (63 opiniones)
Banes
Consultorio # 36, los tres del cruce El Cooo (Holguin).
En el consultorio de la Gülra no trabajan por la tarde (3 Banes)
So preguntan por qué'en la zona urbana, donde existen todos los recur
SQS medicos se han hecho tantos consultorios y on la zona rural ningu
no (135 opiniones) Rafael Freyre, Cueto, Banes, Mayari, Cacooum, Urba
no Noris, Báguanos.
Escandalos en el consultorio If 17. (20 opiniones).
Hay consultorios terminados y no han comenzado a funcionar (65 opinio
nes). La Agraria-Casocum, Aguas Clara- Holguín, Veguitas-Banes.
Se preguntan los motivos por lo oual no se extiends a todos los repar
tos y municipios (10-Holguin).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 4
- The family doctor needs to take more steps to become a
specialist (6-Holguin)
- He does not solve any of the workers' problems; they still
have to go to the polyclinic (13-Holguín).
- Some doctors do not live at home and when they are needed at
night they are not available (5-Holguín).
- The doctor always has a different ailment (4 opinions)
*
Consultation center #9-Holguín.
- These are open only to 6pm (18 opinions)
*
Aguas Claras and the Lenin District (Holguín).
-
Consultation centers that have no doctors (9 opinions)
* #50 - Banes.
SUGGESTIONS
- Family doctor consultation centers should be made available
in rural areas (32)
* Cueto.
* Holguín.
* Mayarí.
* Banes.
- Stricter rules must be enforced on family doctors who refuse
to work (6-Holguín).
- The family doctor is much needed in the municipality
(10-Cacocum).
- The doctor should possess injections [syringes] to lower the
blood pressure to avoid going to the hospital (8- Banes).
AIDS [SIDA]
With reference to this illness, called the "Plague of the 20th
Century, " favorable opinions indicate a high degree of
confidence and satisfaction on the part of the population
regarding the measures taken by the Cuban Ministry of Public
Health to prevent massive contamination; TV programs broadcast
to that end are evaluated as good.
Notwithstanding the information given, 78 opinions affirm that
throughout the province there are "X" cases of AIDS.
The following suggestions are also made:
- That the analyses that are being done in Havana also be done
in the rest of the provinces (15 opinions).
- They should take into consideration prisoners who can be
carriers because there are homosexuals (7 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
Hoja # 4
E1 médico de la familia tiene que dar más pasos para llegar a ser 05-
pecialistas. (6-Holguin)
A los trabajadores no le resuelve ningun problema, de todas formas -
hay que ir al poliolinico (13-Holguin).
Algunos medicos no viven on las casas y cuando se necesitan de noshe
no se encuentra (5-Holguín).
La doctora siempre tiene una afectación diferente (4 opiniones)
Consultorio # 9-Holguin
Sólo funcionan hasta las 6,00pm (18 opiniones)
Aguas Claras y el Distrito Lenin (Holguin)
Consultorios que no tienen medicos (9 opiniones)
# 50 - Banes
SUGERENCIAS
En las zonas rurales deben hacer consultorios del medico de la fams--
lia (32)
Cueto
Holguin
Mayari
Banes
Hay que ponerse duro con algunos medicos de la familia que no quieren
trabajar (6-Holguin)
El medico de la familia hace mucha falta en el municipio (10-Casocum)
-
E1 medico debe tener inyecoiones para bajar la presión, para no tener
que ir al hospital (8-Banes).
SIDA:
En relación con esta enfermedad, llamada la "peste del siglo XX" on las
opiniones favorables se evidencia un alto grado de confianza y satisfac
oion del pueblo por las medidas que ha tomado el Ministerio do Salud
Publica oubano para prevenir la contaminacion masiva, se valoran de bue
no los programas que en relacion a esto ha transmitido la television
cubana.
No obstante a la información que Be ha dado on 78 opiniones se asegura
que en distintos lugares de la provincia hay X casos de SIDA.
Ademas se hacen las siguientes sugerencias:
1
Que los analisis que estan haciendo en La Habana lo hagan también on
las demas provincias (15 opiniones)
So deben tener en cuenta los presos que pueden ser portadores porque
hay homosexuales (7 opiniones).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 5
- The AIDS video should be broadcast to the whole population
(10 opinions)
- A medical investigation should be conducted to detect all
AIDS cases (3 opinions)
- AIDS tests should be made on all women who change sexual
partners frequently and on those who go out with foreigners
(22 opinions).
- It should be demanded that all blood donations and tests be
thoroughly analyzed in order to avoid contamination with
AIDS (7 opinions)
- Preventive measures must be taken (25 opinions)
.
- Measures must be taken on homosexuals (53 opinions)
- The whole population, especially the youth, should be
provided with information (53 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 5
- El video del SIDA se debería pasar a la población on general. (10 opi
niones)
- Hacer una investigación medica para detectar todos los casos de SIDA
(3 opiniones)
-
Se debe hacer la prueba del SIDA a todas las mujeres que cambian fre-
ouentemente de pareja y las que andan con extranjeros (22 opiniones)
- Deben exigir que todas las donaciones de sangre y pruebas sean bien or
analizadas para evitar el contagio del SIDA (7 opiniones).
- Deben tomar medidas preventivas (25 opiniones)
- Que se tomen medidas oon los homosexuales (53 opiniones)
- Deben darle información a la población on especial a la juventud, -
(53 opiniones).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page 6
GIBARA MUNICIPALITY
Of all opinions 93.6% are unfavorable, an increase of 8.9% over
the same period in 1986.
One hundred and twenty-seven hospital-related opinions say:
- Attention is poor and there is patient abuse (68 opinions)
*
In one week, there were two deaths in the operating room;
they call it "Room 8" [referring to the Cuban game of
charades, where the number 8 signifies "death. "]
At the lab, the women engage in chatting.
*
Several patients have died on surgeon Pujol.
*
Doctors make patients wait because they keep watching for
the distributed. arrival of a truck, wondering what goods will be
*
Sometimes it is 9am and there are no doctors in the
Emergency Room.
*
Most Emergency Room doctors are new and inexperienced.
Needs
- There are few doctors (41).
- At the hospital, to meet programmed activities, a taxi must
be hired daily (3).
- There are broken windows (4).
- There is no boiled water for the children in the respiratory
unit (6).
- Hepatitis patients have to undergo tests at Chaparra or
Puerto Padre (2).
Suggestions
- Add another lab technician to do the tests on children.
Polyclinic
- Poor attention is given to patients (49)
* Often, the Ophthalmology consultation is cancelled.
* There is no control of patients' files registry.
* Tests are lost.
* Workers encounter difficulties in getting their health
card.
MUNICIPIO GIBARA.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 6
Del total de opiniones el 93,6 %, son desfavorables, 8,9 % más que on -
igual etapa del año 1986.
En 127 opiniones relacionadas con el Hospital se plantea que:
Hay mala atención y maltrato a los pacientes (68 opiniones).
Le dicen la "Sala 8" en una semana se han mueyto dos en el salon de
operaciones.
En el laboratorio las compañeras se ponen a converzar.
Al cirujano Pujol se le han muerto varios pacientes.
Los medicos tardan en atender a los pacientes por estar atentos al
carro que llego y que van a distribuir.
En ocasiones a las 9.AM no hay medicos en el Cuerpo de Guardia,
Los medicos del Cuerpo de Guardia en su mayoria son nuevos, sin -
experiencia.
Necesidades.
Hay pocos medicos (41).
En el hospital para cumplir las actividades programadas hay que --
alquilar un taxi diariamente. (3).
Hay ventanas rotas (4).
No hay agua hervida para los niños en la sala de respiratorio (6).
Los enformos de hepatitis tienen que hacerse los analisis en Chapa
rra D Puerto Padre (2).
Sugerencias:
Poner otra tecnica en el laboratorio para que haga los análisis a los
niños.
Poliolínico.
Mala atención a los pacientes (49).
La consulta de Oftalmoligía se deja de realizar son frecuencia.
No hay control del registro de las historias Clinicas.
Los analisis se pierden.
A los trabajadores se les dificulta obtener el carné de salud.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 7
- Shortage of doctors; there is one for three sectors (161
opinions)
- Abuse by doctors (17)
* otolaryngologist.
*
the doctor in sector #2.
Suggestions
- The urologist should improve his temper (4)
- Conditions must be improved for the patients awaiting their
tests (7).
Velasco Polyclinic
- At times it is 9am and no doctors are in yet (10)
- There are few doctors (9).
- Evidence of favoritism in the Obstetrics Room (8)
Suggestions
- That a hospital be built in accordance with the existing
population in that area (20)
Dental Clinic
- Attention is inefficient; only a few patients are seen
daily; the comrades go out very frequently (6).
Piloto Pharmacy
- On Sundays they have problems in returning small change (4)
Medical Post:
Floro Pérez
- Doctors are seldom there (119) .
- It is closed on weekends (14)
- It is suggested that better attention be given to the people
(12). .
Los Alfonsos
- It was declared a model and there is not one doctor (28)
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 7
- Falta de medicos, hay uno para tres sectores (161 opiniones).
- Maltrato de los medicos (17).
Del otorrino.
De la Doctora del sector # 2.
Sugerencias:
-
El Urologo dobe mejorar su caracter (4).
- Hay que mejorar las condiciones para que el público pueda esperar -
los analisis (7).
Policlinico de Velasco.
-
A veces son las 9.AM y no hay medicos (10).
Hay pocos medicos (9).
- Manifestaciones de amiguismo en la consulta de obstetricin (8).
Sugerencias:
- Que se construya un Hospital de acuerdo a la población existents en
la zona (20).
Clinica Dental.
-
La atencion no es eficiente, se atienden pocos pacientes on el aía.
las compañeras salen con mucha frecuencia (6).
Farmacia Piloto:
-
Los domingos tienen dificultades para dar el vuelto (4).
Posta Medica:
Floro Pérez
- Casi nunca hay medicos (119).
-
Los fines de semana está cerrada (14).
- Se sugiere prestar una mejor atención al pueblo (12).
Los Alfonsos:
- Se declaro modelo y no hay un médioo (28).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 8
Caletones
- Good attention (12)
Home for the Elderly
- It is suggested that the PCC [Cuban Communist Party]
investigate several senior citizens who have breakfast and
dinner at the Home and are doing business [on the side] with
their food quota [ration-card] (12).
Other general comments
- Ambulances are being used for pleasure rides and also for
personal business (11)
- The doctor prescribes medications which are not available in
the pharmacy (2)
- If doctors continue to issue health certificates, the
School-in-the-Country will have to be cancelled because all
the children are sick (18)
- Public Health has lowered its guard in the attention
provided the population (7).
Suggestions
- Something must be done with the new doctor who now holds
Zayda's position; she abuses the patients (31)
RAFAEL FREYRE MUNICIPALITY
Out of 318 opinions, 65.7% are unfavorable, a 4.8% increase
over the same period last year.
Regarding hospital services, 75.8% are unfavorable; the
complaints most heard are regarding:
- The quality of services and attention has gone down (108
opinions)
*
Doctor Juana María (orthopedist) leaves her work post on
occasion and does not say where she is going.
*
There is lack of confidence in lab analyses results.
*
A woman died during childbirth because she was not
attended to promptly and adequately (6)
Favoritism is practiced when giving out appointments.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 8
Caletones.
Buena atencion (12).
Hogar de Ancianos.
-
Se sugiere que el PCC investigue algunos ancianos que comen y desa-
yunan en el Hogar y están haciendo negocios con la cuota de la bode
ga (12).
Otros comentarios generales.
-
Las ambulanoias se estan cogiendo para pasear y resolver problemas
personales (11).
-
El medico manda medicamento que no hay en la farmacia (2).
-
Si los medicos siguen dando certificados no se podrá efectuar la -
Escuela al Campo porque todos los alumnos estan enfermos (18).
-
Salud Publica ha bajado la guardia en la atención a la población -
( 7).
Sugerencias:
- Tienen que hacer un trabajo con la Doctorn nueva que vino por -
Zayda ya que maltrata a los pacientes (31).
Municipio Rafael Freyre.
De las 318 opiniones son desfavorables el 65,7 %, 4,8 % más que en -
igual etapa del año anterior,
Del servicio del Hospital son desfavorables el 75,8 %, las cuestiones
que mas se señalan estan relacionadas cont
- Ha perdido calidad en el servicio y en el trato (108 opiniones).
La Doctora Juana Maria (Ortopedica) en ocasiones abandona su
--
puesto de trabajo y no dice donde está.
No hay confianza con el resultado de los analisis que se realizan
on el laboratorio.
Murio una señora de parto porque no fue atendida en tiempo y for-
ma (6).
Manifestaciones de amiguismo al repartir los turnos.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 9
- There are no specialists in Pedriatics (40).
- Several consultation room doors are falling down (8)
- Fifty opinions acknowledge that attention has improved.
Punto Fijo Polyclinic
- It is suggested that measures be taken regarding elements
[people] who do not let the doctor work (16).
Fray Benito Polyclinic
- Good services are being rendered to the population (10).
Pharmacy
- In the evenings, there are no salespersons (6).
- At the Santa Lucía one, service is very slow (15).
Medical Post:
Melones
- The doctor does not come to consultation any more and nobody
knows why (10).
BANES MUNICIPALITY
Unfavorable opinions are 96.2%, an increase of 8.3% over the
same period in 1986.
of the hospital-related opinions, 83.8% are unfavorable and
they point out that:
- Patients are not given good attention (101)
* The doctor orders electrocardiograms and they [the EKGs]
never turn up.
*
Appointments with specialists are delayed up to 4 months.
*
At times no rounds are made in the men's ward.
*
There are two orthopedists and they give out very few
appointments.
*
While the skin specialist is on vacation he is not
replaced by any other doctor.
Needs
- There are never any working materials for X-rays (6)
- Installation of the elevator remains unfinished (5).
CONFIDENCIAL
No hay especialistas en Pediatria (40).
HOJA # 9
Hay algunas puertas de las consultas que se estan cayendo (8).
En 50 opiniones so reconoce que el trato ha mejorado.
Poliolínico Punto Fijo.
Se sugiere que hay que tomar medidas con los elementos que no dejan
trabajar al medico (16).
Policlinico Fray Benito.
-
Prestan buen servicio a la población (10).
Farmacia.
Por la noohe no hay dependientes (6).
En la de Santa Lucia el servicio es muy lento (15).
Posta Medica.
Melones.
-
El medico ya no viene a la consulta y no se sabe por que razones (10).
Municipio Banes.
El 96,2 % de las opiniones son desfavorables, 8,3 % mas que en igual -
etapa del año 1986.
De las relacionadas con el Hospital son desfavorables el 83,8 % en -
ellas se señala que:
-
No hay buena atenoión a los pacientes (101).
El medico indica los electros y no aparecen.
Las consultas de especialistas se demoran hasta 4 meses.
En ocasiones on la sala de hombres no pasan visita.
Hay dos ortopedicos y reparten pocos turnos.
Cuando el especialista de piel se va de vacaciones no ponen a --
otro.
Necesidades:
Nunoa hay materiales para trabajar en Rayos X (6).
No terminan de instalar el elevador (5).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 10
- Pregnant women are afraid to go to the hospital to give
birth (7).
- At times the doctors are unable to diagnose the illness of
the patient (18)
Suggestions
- The State should analyze the possibility of building a
dining room (7)
- Baby-sitters should be allowed to remain because they are
needed in the ward (8).
Nicaragua Hospital
- Medical attention is bad (59)
- There is evidence of "sociolismo" [favoritism] (4)
- Surgical procedures are not performed due to lack of X-ray
materials (3).
- There is no anesthetist for an urgent Caesarean (8)
- The operating room is almost always contaminated (12).
Suggestions
- A good repair is in order (3)
Polyclinic
- Patients in the Comunitario were transferred to the Integral
and the patients are very inconvenienced (12)
- Pediatrics appointments are given out in the morning and
consultations are at 2pm and this affects the patients who
live in the country (16)
- Consultations for pregnant women are twice a week and they
never start on time (20)
- Doctors do not treat patients properly (5).
- Tests cannot be conducted due to lack of water (3).
Deleite Polyclinic
- Attention and behavior [towards patients] are not good (21)
*
Patients are admitted and they are not seen again.
*
When doctors are lying down they do not want to get up to
see a patient.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 10
Las mujeres embarazadas tienen miedo de ir a parir al Hospital (7).
En ocasiones los medicos no pueden Magnesticar cuál es la enfermedad
del paciente (8).
Sugerencias.
El Estado debe analizar la posibilidad de la construcción de un come
dor (7).
Las niñeras no debian quitarlas porque hacen falta en la sala. (18).
Hospital de Nicaragua.
Hay mala atención medica (59).
Hay manifestaciones de sociolismo (4).
Se dejan de realizar operaciones por falta de materiales de Rayos X -
(3).
No hay anestecista para realizar una cesaria urgente (8).
Casi siempre el salon de operaciones esta contaminado (12).
Sugerencias:
Se le debe hacer una buena reparación (3).
Policlinico.
-
Pasaron los pacientes del Comunitario para el Integral y los pacien-
tes pasan mucho trabajo (12).
Los turnos de pediatria se reparten por la mañana, las consultas son
de 2.RM y esto afecta a los pacientes del campo. (16).
Las consultas de embarazadas no comienzan a la hora establecida y BO-
lo trabajan dos días a la semana (20).
-
Ios medicos no tienen un correcto trato con los pacientes (5).
No se pueden hacer analisis por falta de agua, (3).
Poliolínico de Deleite.
La atención y el trato no es bueno (21).
Ingresan a los pacientes y después no los vuelven a ver mas.
Los medicos cuando estan acostados no quieren levantarse para
-
atender algun enfermo.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 11
Suggestion
- Behavior towards patients must be improved and better
attention should be provided (7).
Cañadón Polyclinic
- Service is bad
* When the stomatologist [dentist] comes, his assistant is
absent, and vice versa; when both are in, there is no
water.
* There is only one doctor for the entire population.
* Lack of a lab technician.
Dental Clinic
- Prostheses are of poor quality (30).
- Appointments go from one month to the next when there are
so many stomatologists (15).
Pharmacy
- The pilot is declared a model, but at times they maltreat
customers; the attention is not good (5).
- At the semi-pilot (near the shoe-repair shop), the comrades
barely work; they talk their lives away and take their time
to attend to customers (3).
Los Pinos
- In this community there is no medical assistance of any
kind, there is not even one nurse to heal a wound (9).
Las Mulas
- Neither the doctor nor the ambulance are there when needed
(25).
Ambulances
- Those of Guardalavaca and Cañadón are used for personal
affairs (8).
- When there is a patient to be taken urgently to Holguín, the
ambulances do not appear.
Suggestion
- The Deleite ambulance must not be taken away (15).
CONFIDENCIAL
Sugerencia:
HOJA # 11
- Se debe mejorar el trato con los pacientes y darle una mejor
atención (7).
Policlínico de Cañadon.
- El sevicio es malo.
Cuando viene el Estomatologo no está la ayudante y visever-
sa, y si están ambos no hay agua.
Solo hay un médico para atender a toda la población.
Falta de Técnico en el laboratorio.
Clínica Dental.
- Las prótesis tienen mala calidad (30).
- Los turnos tardan de un mes para otro, habiendo tantos estoma
tólogos. (15).
Farmacia.
- La piloto es modelo pero muchas veces maltratan a los clien
tes, no hay buena atención (5).
- En la Semi-Piloto (cerca del taller de zapatos) los compañe-
ros casi no trabajan, viven hablando y se tardan en atender
-
(3).
Los Pinos.
-
En esta comunidad no hay asistencia médica de ningún tips,-no
existe ni una enfermera para curar una herida (9).
Las Mulas.
- Ni el médico ni la ambulancia están cuando se necesitan (25).
Ambulancias.
- La de Guardalavaea y Cañadón son utilizadas en otras funciones
particulares (8).
- Cuando hay un enfermo que se debe llevar urgente para Holguin
np aparecen las ambulancias.
Sugeencia:
- No deben llevarse la ambulancia de Deleyte (15).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 12
General Opinions
- There is little concern on the part of the doctors, they
wait to the last minute; when they transfer a patient to a
better hospital it is because he cannot be saved (17).
- Some gynecologists are negligent, and when women cannot
deliver, doctors do not practice the required Caesarean
section, endangering the lives of mother and child (6).
- Doctor Yoelia has little experience (4)
- Many children get medical certificates and do not attend the
school-at-the-country (13)
- Sick relatives of municipal doctors and nurses get more food
quotas than the rest of the population (6)
Suggestions
- Mental patients should be picked up (20).
- Public Health should clarify rumors of a tuberculosis
outbreak (28).
- At least once a week, doctors in Banes, specialists in
Orthopedics, Pediatrics, Ophthalmology, should visit the
areas that are far away from the municipality (6).
ANTILLA MUNICIPALITY
Unfavorable opinions are 89.9%, up 4.3% from the same period in
1986. of the 714 hospital-related opinions, 81.2% are
unfavorable.
In 369 opinions, it was reiterated that there are few doctors;
that a pediatrician, surgeon and gynecologist are needed; and
that the appointments granted for the different specialists do
not meet the needs of the people.
Also, 46 point out that on any given day, doctors are absent
and consultations begin late.
A lack of concern on the part of the doctors is expressed in 98
opinions.
Fifty-three opinions state that to get a test done, one has to
stand in line from the previous day, and that often tests
cannot be done because there is no water.
Twenty opinions express that the comrade in charge of the
electrocardiograms is frequently absent and patients are not
advised. Also, that the X-ray technician maltreats patients
and seldom is at his work post.
Twenty-two opinions express that Doctor Nora maltreats her
patients.
CONFIDENCIAL
Opiniones generales.
HOJA # 12
- Hay poca preocupación de los médicos, lo hacen a última hora,
cuando trasladan al enfermo a un hospital con más recursos es
porque no tiene salvación (17)
Algunos Ginecólogos que son negligentes y a veces hay mujeres
que no pueden parir, que deben hacerle cesaria y no la hacen,
poniendo en peligro la vida de la madre y del hijo. (6).
La Doctora Yoelia tiene poca experiencia (4).
Hay muchos alumnos que no van a la escuela al campo porque -
consiguen certificados médicos (13).
Los familiares de los médicos y enfermeras del municipio tienen
más dietas por enfermedad que el resto de la población (6)
Sugerencias.
Los enfermos mentales deben ser recogidos (20).
- Que Salud Pública de una explicacion sobre el brote de Tuber-
culósis que se comenta que hay (28).
-
Que aunque sea una vez a la semana, los médicos de Banes, espe
cialistas como Ortopedia, Pediatría, Oftalmología, visiten las
zonas distantes del Municipio (6)
Municipio Antilla.
El 89,9 % de las opiniones son desfavorables, 4,3 % más que en-
igual etapa del año 1987.
De las 714 opiniones relacionadas con el hospital e1 81,2 % son
desfavorables.
De forma reiterada se plantea en 369 opiniones que hay pocos -
médicos, haciéndose mencion a la necesidad de pediatra, gineco-
logo, cirujano y que los turnos que reparten para los distintos
especialistas no satisfacen las necesidades de la población.
De igual forma se señalan en 46 comentarios que a diario faltan
médicos y que las consultas comienzan tarde.
En 98 opiniones se dice que hay poca preocupación de los médicos.
En 53 opiniones se plantea que para hacer análisis hay que hacer
la cola el día anterior y que a veces no se hacen por falta de -
agua.
En 20 opiniones que la compañera de los electros se ausenta con
bastante frecuencia y que no se le avisa a los enfermos, además
que el técnico de Rayos X, no atiende a los enfermos de la mejor
forma y casi nunca se encuentra en su puesto de trabajo.
Se dice en 22 opiniones que la Doctora Nora tiene mala forma pa
ra tratar a los pacientes,
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 13
Suggestions
- Services and behavior towards patients must be improved
(53) .
- There should be more concern over the emergency shift (9).
- The emergency doctor must remain in the Emergency Room (14).
- More specialists should be brought in (3).
Polyclinic
- There are expressions of bad treatment and poor service
as follows (90) :
* There is no one who can provide information.
* There is no consultation schedule.
* On Saturdays, at the Gynecology consultation they only
take 10 [appointment] cards.
* There are few doctors.
* For three weeks, there has been no pediatrician.
Suggestions
- The scheduling of doctors' consultations must be improved
(30). .
- Acupuncture technicians should be brought in (31)
Pharmacy
- A stricter control of alcohol sales is suggested (56).
General Opinions
- There are few doctors in the municipality (14)
- The physiotherapist does not have the adequate facilities
for the exercises (12) .
Suggestions
- An investigation should be conducted on the skin rashes and
the diarrheas that the population is suffering (83).
- All children should be vaccinated against "Meningo"
[meningitis] (40)
CONFIDENCIAL
Sugerencias.
HOJA # 13
-
Deben mejorar su servicio y el trato a la población (53).
Que se preocupen un poco más por el Cuerpo de Guardia (9).
- El médico de guardia debe permanecer en el cuerpo de Guardia.
(14).
- Deben traer más especialistas (3).
Policlínico.
- Hay manifestaciones de mal trato y mal servicio expresado de
la siguiente forma:. (90)
No hay nadie que pueda dar una información.
No hay programa de consultas.
Los sábados sólo recogen 10 tarjetas en la consulta de Gine
cología.
Hay pocos médicos.
Hace tres semanas que no hay pediatra.
Sugerencias:
-
Se deben planificar mejor las consultas de los médicos (30).
- Deben traer técnicos de Acupuntura (31).
Farmacia.
- Se sugiere tener un control más estricto en la venta de
-
Alcohol (56)
Opiniones Generales.
- En el municipio hay pocos médicos (14).
- El compañero que da fisioterapia no tiene un Ingar adecuado-
para aplicar los ejercicios (12).
Sugerencias.
- Se deben investigar las causas de las erupciones en la piel -
y las diarreas que sufre la poblacion (83)
- Debe vacunar a todos los niños contra la Meningo (40).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 14
BAGUANOS MUNICIPALITY
of all opinions, 93.1% were unfavorable, a decrease of 4.4%
from the same period last year.
Of hospital-related opinions, 91.3% are unfavorable and the
main concerns pointed out are regarding:
- Deficient service and maltreatment of patients
*
Comrade Reyna Viera treats people badly.
*
Doctors arrive late for consultations.
*
diagnoses. Doctors lack knowledge and responsibility; they err in
*
There are consultation offices closed for lack of
doctors.
*
Appointments to see specialists are delayed very much.
*
There are few resources at the hospital, and doctors take
too long to transfer cases as required.
*
Doctors from out of town leave early.
Others
- There is broken equipment and they do not bother to fix
them (13 opinions).
- The hospital is considered poorly managed (11 opinions).
Tacajó Hospital
- At times the water given to patients is not drinkable (4
opinions).
- There are few doctors (1[?] opinions)
- Not all the resources to be used to perform medical checkups
can be guaranteed (8 opinions).
- Consultations are delayed very much (6 opinions)
Polyclinic
- There are few doctors and the employees do not give patients
their best treatment (37 opinions)
- At times there are no lab technicians (6 opinions)
- The comrade for social work is not very efficient (3
opinions )
- There is an automatic plant that is deteriorating, instead
of being used (24 times).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 14
Municipio Baguanos:
Del total de opiniones, son desfavorables el 93,1%, on relación con -
18ual período del año anterior hubo una disminucion de 4,4%,
Do las relacionadas oon el hospital son desfavorables el 91.3%, las -
principales cuestiones que se señalan estan relacionadas con:
Maltrato y deficiente servicio a los pacientes:
La compañera Reyna Viera tiene mala forma.
Los medicos llegan tarde a la consulta
Los medioos tienen poco conocimiento y responsabilidad, se equiro
can en el diagnostico.
Hay consultas cerradas por falta de médicos.
Los turnos para los especialistas tardan mucho
En el hospital hay pocos recursos y los médicos retienen demasia-
do los casos que necesitan remision.
Los medicos que vienen de afuera se van temprano
OTROS
Hay equipos rotos y no se preocupan por arreglarlos (13 opiniones)
- Se considera que el hospital está mal dirigido (11 opiniones).
Hospital de Tacajo:
En varias coasiones el agua que le dan a los enfermos no es potable
(4 opiniones).
Hay pooos medicos (19 opiniones)
No se garantizan to.los los recursos para realizar los chequeos modi
908 (8 opiniones)
Las consultas tardan mucho (6 opiniones)
Folielinioo:
Hay poeos medicos y los empleados no utilizan el mojor trato eon year
los pacientes (37 opiniones).
Algunas veces no hay técnicos de laboratorio (6 opiniones)
La compañera que athende servicio social no tiene un trabajo may -
eficiente ( 3 opiniones)
Hay una planta automatica que se está echando a perder on Yes de -
poneria (24 veces).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 15
Pharmacy
- Employees abandon their work to shop at the produce
mini-market (8 opinions).
General Opinions
- The optical store is almost always closed (11 opinions)
- Municipality doctors transfer cases to evade
responsibilities and not face the situation (6 opinions)
- The municipality does not have the facilities to shelter
doctors from out of town (17 opinions).
HOLGUIN MUNICIPALITY
of all comments, 91.4% are unfavorable; in comparison to the
same period of last year they increased by 0.3%.
Hospital-related unfavorable opinions are 89.9%.
Regarding the Vladimir Ilich Lenin Hospital specifically, it is
expressed that:
- Attention is lacking and the public is treated badly (335
opinions)
*
Emergency Room doctors get lost; specialists are seldom
available; the number of doctors does not meet the needs;
service is slow; at times either there are no stretchers
or the stretcher bearers have disappeared.
In the Psychiatrics ward, at times there is only one
nurse and there are no syringes available.
Some doctors and nurses argue in front of patients.
One nurse changes the medications prescribed by the
doctor.
The elderly are treated badly.
Good attention is given only to friends and to those who
have important positions.
Pregnant women are left to die in the delivery room.
Most of the operations become infected.
There is non-compliance with the administration of
medications prescribed for in-patients.
Ultrasounds lack quality.
CPV's do not treat patients well.
Delays in getting admitted for surgery.
- Poor food quality, they give very little, and at times there
is not enough (101 opinions)
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 15
Farmacia:
-
Los empleados abandonan el trabajo para comprar en la placita (8 -
opiniones).
Opiniones Generales:
La óptioa casi siempre está cerrada (11 opiniones)
- Los medioos del municipio remiten los casos para salvar responsabili
dad y no enfrentar la situacion (6 opiniones)
- El municipio no tiene condiciones para albergar médicos do afuera -
( 17 opiniones)
Municipio Holguín:
Del total de comentarios son desfavorables el 91,4% en relación con -
igual período del año anterior aumento un 0.3%
Relacionadas con los hospitales son desfavorables el 89,9% do las opi-
niones.
Del hospital Vladimir Ilich Lenin en específico se manifiesta que:
- Hay mal trato al público y falta de atenoión (335 opiniones)
En el ouerpo de guardia los medicos se pierden: casi nunca hay -
pecialistas, la cantidad de medicos no Satisface las necesidades,
UT servicio 03 lento; on consiones no hay camillas o los camille
ros no aparecen.
En psiquiatría, on ocasiones, hay una sola enfermera y mL jeringui
llas tienen,
Hay medicos y enfermeras que discuten delante de los pacientes
Enfermera que cambia los medicamentos que panda el medico.
A los ancianos los tratan mal
Solo atienden bien a los que tienen amigos on el hospital, o tiem...
non algun cargo.
En el salon de partos dejan morir a las mujeres
La mayoria de las operaciones se infectan
Hay falta de exigencia on el cumplimiento do los medicamentos indi
cados a los pacientes ingresados.
Los ultrasonidos no 20 realizan con calided
Los CVP no tienen al mojor trato con los pacientes
Demora en el ingreso para las operaciones
Mala calidad de las comidas, dan muy poca y on ocasiones no aleanza
( 101 opiniones).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 16
- Hospital garments of in-patients are in the worst hygienic
conditions; they are not dried properly (85 opinions)
* When there are visits they give out new garments and
later they are taken away.
- Doctors lack knowledge (38 opinions)
*
The Orthopedics specialty is no good, patients do not
come out well.
Doctors cannot find out what the illnesses are.
*
The people have lost confidence in the hospital due to
the errors in diagnoses.
- The fifth floor does not have the same maintenance as the
other wards (3 opinions).
- Pediatrics lacks the instruments to cure children (4
opinions)
- Three X-ray machines are broken (2 opinions).
- General assistants were laid off and now everything is dirty
and no disinfectants are used (23 opinions).
- Ambulance service is deficient (4 opinions)
- Information is not brought down on time (14 opinions).
Suggestions
- Why isn't a shelter built for the families of in-patients?
(41 opinions).
Pedriatics Hospital
- Service and treatment of patients are both deficient (59
opinions)
* There are few doctors in the Emergency Room; at times
there are students only, who make mistakes often;
injections are given by students with only three months
of classes.
They admit children with diarrhea who are not given any
medicine.
*
Evening attention is bad.
*
When the comrade who distributes the medicines is on
vacation, no one replaces him.
- When one side of the Pedriatics ward gets fixed, the other
side breaks (5 opinions).
- The treatment given to the housed nurses is bad; poor
attention is paid to them (8 opinions).
- The food being given to mothers accompanying sick children
was cut down in order to give it to the employees (7
opinions).
- The children are suffering from the heat, because there are
no fans (23 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 16
La ropa do los paciontes ingresedos caté on pesimas condiciones higis
nicas, no tienen un secado correcto (85 opiniones).
Cuando hay visita ponen ropa nueva y luego la quitan
Hay falta de conocimientos en los medicos (38 opiniones)
La especialidad de ortopedia, no sirve, los pacientes no quedan -
bion.
Los medicos no dan oon las enfermedades
La gente ha pordido confianza en el hospital por las equivocaciones
on los diagnosticos.
El 5to. piso no tiene el mismo mantenimiento que las demas salas.
( 3 opiniones)
Faltan instrumentos do curaciones on la sala de niños ( 4 opiniones)
Hay 3 equipos de Rayos X roto (2 opiniones)
Quitaron auxiliares generales y ahora todo esta sucio y no 10 dan -
desinfectantes (23 opiniones)
El servicio de ambulancia es deficiente ( 4 opiniones)
No bajan la informacion a su debido tiempo (14 opiniones)
Sugerencias
Por que no lc construyon un albergue a los familiares de los pacien-
tes ingresados (41 opiniones).
Hospital Pediatrico:
Hay deficiencia en el servicio y el trato que reciben los pacientes
(59 opiniones).
En el Querpo de guardia hay pocos medicos, on ocasiones solo hay -
alumnos y se equivocan con frecuencia, ponen a inyectar a alumnas
que solo llovan 3 meses de clases.
Ingresan a los niños con diarreas y no le dan medicinas.
La atencion nocturna 88 mala
Cuando el compañero que propara las medicinas sale de vacaciones -
no hay quion lo sustituya.
El pediatrico lo arroglan por un lado y por el otro lo rompen. (5 -
opiniones).
El trato que SS la da a las enfermeras albergadas 08 malo, le dan -
poca atencion (8 opiniones).
Le recortaron la comida a las madros que estan acompañando a aus hi-
Jos para darsela a los empleados (7 opiniones)
Los niños estan pasando calor por falta de ventiladores (23 opinio....
nes).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 17
Polyclinics:
Díaz Legrá
- The lack of doctors is resulting in maltreatment of
patients (164 opinions)
- Patients are attended without the doctors having their
medical histories on hand (9 opinions).
Suggestions
- Caridad, the head nurse, must be replaced; she is a dictator
and mistreats the people (1[?] opinions).
Máximo Gómez
- There seldom is a general practitioner available (10
opinions)
- Doctors do not serve their required annual assignments in
the country (3 opinions)
- There are difficulties with vaccines for children (15
opinions).
- Doctors are frequently absent from consultations (7
opinions).
- At times there are no doctors at night (2 opinions)
Alex Urquiola
- It is in poor condition (19 opinions)
- Many friends of doctors and nurses enter consultation
offices without appointments or patients' approval (6
opinions).
Rene Avila
- Attention in Gynecology is bad (6 opinions)
- The Doctor in Sector 3 is rude (3 opinions).
Alcides Pino
- The nurses who will attend the Congress were chosen without
taking into account their attitudes, conditions and
[political] trajectory (20 opinions).
- At the polyclinic, Lucy is not the one in command and she is
the head nurse (36 opinions).
La Plaquita
- One arrives at 8:00am with a child and leaves at 11 or 12 (4
opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 17
Policlinicos:
Dias Legrá
La falta de medicos está causando maltrato a los pacientes (164 opi-
niones).
Atienden a los pacientes sin historia olínica (9 opiniones)
Sugerencia:
Caridad la Jefa de enfermeras debe ser sustituida, as una dietadora,
maltrata all pueblo. (le opiniones).
Máximo Gomez
Dasi nunoa hay medicos de medicina general (10 opiniones).
Los medicos no hacen terreno (3 opiniones)
Hay dificultades con las vacunas do los niños (15 opiniones).
Los medicos tienen frequentes ausencias a las consultas ( 7 opinio-
nes).
En ocasiones no hay medicos por la noche (2 opiniones)
Alox Urquiola:
Está en mal estado ( 19 opiniones)
A las consultas entran muohos amigos de los medicos o enformedas sin
tener turno y sin pedir permiso a los pacientes (6 opiniones).
Rene Avila:
Es mala la atención en ginecologia (6 opiniones)
La Dra. del Sector 3 tiene mala forma (3 opiniones)
Alcides Pino:
Eligieron a las enfermeras quo van al Congreso sin tener on euenta -
sus actitudes y las condiciones y traycotoria (20 opiniones)
En ol policlínico no manda Lucy, 08 la Jefa de enfermeras, (36 opi--
niones).
La Plaquita:
Llegas a las 8,00am con un niño y sales a las 11 : 12 (4 opiniones)
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 18
San Andrés Polyclinic
- Service is the worst, the people are very unhappy (11
opinions)
Suggestion
- Build a hospital in accordance with the existing population
(8 opinions)
Julio Grave de Peralta
- There are few doctors (5 opinions)
Pharmacies
- There is a lack of many medications (45 opinions)
- Delay in service (17 opinions).
- Need for another pilot pharmacy in the center of town (24
opinions)
- Need for a pharmacy at Piedra Blanca (8 opinions)
- Pacifiers are being sold to some people under the layette
card [ration card for mothers] but salespersons give them to
other people in large quantities, to do business [on the
side" (4 opinions)
- At the one across the park they change medications (2
opinions)
Suggestion
- All salespersons in the pharmacy across the park must be
changed (3 opinions).
Dental Clinics:
Manuel Angulo
- In the prosthesis department they give you an appointment
and then see you three hours later; the quality of the work
is not among the best (16 opinions).
Mario Pozo
- The quality of the personnel doing the prostheses is poor (9
opinions)
- They summon everyone for 3pm and do not start calling until
4pm, even if there are only a few persons (10 opinions).
Artemio Mastrapa
- Very few appointments are given out daily (8 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 18
Policlinico de San Andres:
El servicio es pesimo, hay mucho descontento on la poblacion (11 been
opiniones).
Sugeroncia:
Construir un hospital acorde a la poblacion que existe ( 8 opiniones)
Julio Grave de Peralta:
Hay pocos medicos (5 opiniones)
Farmacias:
Hay muchos modicamentos en falta (45 opiniones)
Demora on el despacho (17 opiniones)
Necesidad de otra farmacia piloto en el centro del pueblo (24 opinio
nes).
-
Necesidad do una farmacia en Piedra Blanca (8 opiniones)
-
Estan vondiondo los tetos por la hoja de canastilla para algunas -
gentos y para otros los dependientes se los dan por cantidades pata
negocios (4 opiniones).
-
En la de fronto al parque cambian los medicamentos ( 2 opiniones)
Sugerencia
- Deben cambiar todas las dependientes de la farmacia de frente al -
parque (3 opiniones)
Clínicas dentales:
Manuel Angulo:
En el departamento do protosis oitan para una hora y to atienden a
las 3 horas y la calidad de los trabajos no 68 la mejor (16 opinio-
nes).
Mario Pozo:
Hay poon cali on el personal que realiza las protesis (9 opinice.
nes).
Citan para las 3 pm y llaman a las 4pm sin haber tanto personal. --
(10 opiniones)
Artemio Mastrapa:
-
Dan muy pocos turnos diarios (8 opiniones)
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 19
I.T.H. Maternity Home
- The doctor leaves at 9:00pm and only one nurse stays (5
opinions).
- There is no variety of sweets for the patients (10
opinions).
Blood Bank
- The snack given to the "cederistas" [members of the
neighborhood watch committee] who donate blood is very poor
(7 opinions).
La Gira Infirmary
- There is a lack of medications, and often the nurse is
absent (40 opinions)
Physiotherapy (Miró)
- Mistreatment from some technicians who keep patients waiting
for a long time while they keep on talking (13 opinions).
Home for the Elderly (Mayarí Road)
- Some of the elderly have a bad and sickly appearance; they
are dirty (15 opinions).
General Opinions
- Appointments for the stomatologist are given every 30 days
(11 opinions)
- Doctors prescribe medications which are not available at the
pharmacies (4 opinions).
- Doctors have little knowledge (13 opinions).
- There are too many family doctors and at polyclinics there
are no doctors to service the people (16 opinions).
- In the province there is no reagent available to perform the
hepatitis test (11 opinions).
- Public Health does not have union leaders to truly represent
the interests of the workers (42 opinions).
Suggestions
- Havana should be imitated; there, all hospitals have been
repaired and, here, we have the new hospital out of service
(14 opinions).
- A new polyclinic is needed between Pueblo Nuevo and Alex
Urquiola; all others are too distant and there is no bus
service (8 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 19
Hogar Matorno I.T.H.
-
El medico esta hasta las 9,00pm y solo se queda una enfermera (5 opi
niones).
-
No traen variedad do dulces para las pacientes (10 opiniones)
Banco de Sangre
- Es pobro la merienda que le dan a los cederistas que donan su san-
gro (7 opiniones).
Enfermeria do la Gira:
- Faltan medicamontos, así como muchas veces falta la enfermera (40 -
opiniones).
Fisiotorapia (Miro)
- Maltrato do algunos toonicos que se ponen a conversar'y los pacien-
tes tienen que esperar mucho rato (13 opiniones)
Hogar do ancianos: (Carretora do Mayari)
-
Algunos ancianos tienen mal porte y aspecto, estan sucios (15 opi--
niones).
Opiniones gonorales:
-
Los turnos para el estomatologo los dan enda 30 dlas (11 opiniones)
-
Los medicos mandan medicinas que no aparecen on las farmacias (4 -
opiniones)
-
Los modicos tienen poco concoimiento (13 opiniones)
-
Tantos medicos de la familia y en los policlínicos no hay medicos
para atonder a la poblacion (16 opiniones)
-
En la provincia no hay reactivo para hacer el analisis de la hepati
tis (11 opiniones).
-
Salud publica no tione dirigontes sindicales que representen fiel...
mente los intereses de los trabajadores (42 opiniones)
Sugerencias:
1
Hay quo imitar a La Habana quo no queda ningun hospital sin ser -
reparado y aquí tenomos ol nuevo hospital parado (14 opiniones).
-
Haco falta un policlinico entre Pubblo Nuevo y Alex Urquiola, los
quo hay quedan muy lojos y no hay rutas de guagua (8 opiniones).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 20
CALIXTO GARCIA MUNICIPALITY
of all the opinions received (41), 53.6% are unfavorable.
We should clarify that during 1987 the flow of information from
this municipality was very poor and irregular; thus, we do not
find it objective to evaluate this year against the same period
in 1986.
The opinions received express that:
- At the Buenaventura hospital, there is little attention paid
to pregnant women by the nurses (1 opinion).
- At the Mir polyclinic, doctors start consultations late (4
opinions)
- At the Buenaventura polyclinic, they do not give the first
appointments to the farmers (2 opinions).
- Melecio Guerrero, the chauffeur, spends all day at home with
the ambulance parked there (2 opinions).
Suggestion
- In the surrounding neighborhoods there should be a car on
call during the night; if someone gets sick, there is no way
to get him out (2 opinions).
Calixto García
Positive
- From now on, Sabanazo will improve greatly with the
inauguration of a pharmacy and an infirmary (5 opinions).
- At San Agustín, the doctor has good manners and works the
hours that are necessary (6 opinions).
CACOCUM MUNICIPALITY
Unfavorable opinions represent 97.7%, 1.1% over the same period
of 1986. The main polyclinic-related deficiencies mentioned
are:
Cacocum
- The service and treatment given to the people is not good
(99 opinions)
* Bureaucracy has increased and the attention to patients
has decreased.
*
Consultations are at 8:15am and they almost always start
at 8:30 or 8:45.
Consultation offices get crowded with people who are
alien to the place.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 20
Municipio Calixto Garola:
Del total de opiniones recibidas (41) son desfavorables el 53.6%
Debemos aclarar que durante el año 1987 el flujo de informacion de -
este municipio fue muy pobre y de forma irregular, por lo que no con-
sideramos objetivo hacer ningun tipo de valoracion con igual período
de 1986.
Las opiniones recepcionadas planquean que:
En el hospital de Buenaventura hay poca atención a las mujeres emba
razadas por parte de las enfermeras (1 opinion)
En el poliolínico de Mir el médico empieza tarde la consulta (4 -
opiniones).
En el policlínico de Buenaventura no le dan los primeros turnos a -
los del campo (2 opiniones)
E1 chofer, Melecio Guerrero, se pasa todo el día on su casa con la
ambulancia parqueada (2 opiniones).
Sugerencia:
En los barrios debe haber un carro de guardia por la noche, euando
hay un enfermo no hay que on que saearlo (2 opiniones).
Calixto Garofa:
Positivas:
Sabanaso a partir de ahora va a tener una gran mejoria con la insta
lacion de la farmacia y la enfermeria ( 5 opiniones).
En San Agustín el medico tiene buen trato y trabaja las horas que
sean necesarias (6 opiniones).
Municipio Cacocum:
Las opiniones desfavorables representan el 97.7%, 1,1% más que on -
igual etapa del año 1986.
En las relacionadas con los policlínicos las principales deficiencias
que se señalan son:
Cacooum:
No es bueno el trato y of servicio que so le brinda al pueblo (99
opiniones).
Se ha aumentado el burooratismo y la atenoión al paciente ha dis
minuido).
Las consultas son a las 8,15 y easi siempre empiezan a las 8.30
: a las 8,45.
Las consultas se llenan de personal ajono
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 21
The Director lacks proper social behavior.
When seeing the patients, the doctors do not read their
medical histories.
The doctors keep on talking among themselves even if
there are patients waiting.
Doctors prescribe the wrong medications.
*
Electrocardiogram results are not ready for 12 days.
Nurses do not provide good service.
No appointments are given for the dermatologist, the
ophthalmologist, etc.
* There is nothing with which to cure a wound.
- The polyclinic is too distant from the town (19 opinions).
Antonio Maceo Polyclinic
- It is abandoned; when it rains it gets flooded (5 opinions).
- There are only two doctors (57 opinions)
- Doctors do not provide their best attention (8 opinions).
- One has to wait a long time for a Stomatology appointment (5
opinions)
Pharmacy
- There is a shortage of medications and when they arrive
there are very few (10 opinions).
Red Cross [Ambulances]
- The one at the factory is always broken and when fixed it is
used for something else (8 opinions)
- The polyclinic has three ambulances but only one driver (6
opinions).
General Opinions
- At night, the Public Health Directorate cars are used to
drink rum in and go partying (9 opinions).
- Public Health is in worse shape than in 1960, the majority
have no ambulances, doctors are scarce, they do not fumigate
(6 opinions).
- The increase in infant mortality is due to the inexperience
of the doctors in the municipality (12 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 21
La Directora no tiene buen trato.
Los medicos no cogen la historia olínica al atender a los pacien-
tes.
Los medicos se ponen a conversar aunque tengan pacientes esperan-
do.
Los medicos recetan medicamentos equivocados.
Los electrocardiogramas tardan hasta, 12 días para saber 01 resul-
tado.
No hay buen servicio por parte de las enformeras.
No dan turnos para el dermatólogo, oculista, etc.
No tienen conque curar una herida
El policlínico está muy distante del pueblo (19 opiniones)
Poliolínioo Antonio Maceo:
Esta abandonado, cuando llueve se llena de agua (5 opiniones)
Solo hay dos medicos (57 opiniones)
Los medicos no tienen la mejor atenoión (8 opiniones)
Hay que esperar mucho tiempo para poder ooger un turno para estoma-
tologia (5 opiniones).
Farmacia:
Hay falta do medicamentos y cuando estos llegan son pooos (10 opi--
niones).
Grus Roja:
La de la fabrica siempre está rota y cuando esta buena 18 dan otro
uso (8 opiniones)
E1 policlínico tiene 3 ambulanoias pero con un sólo chofer (6 opi....
hiones).
Opiniones generales:
Los carros de la Direoción de Salud Pública los eogen de noche para
tomar ron y fiestas (9 opiniones),
Salud Publica esta peor que el 60, la mayoria no tiene ambulancias,
faltan medicos, no fumigan (6 opiniones)
E1 aumento do la mortalidad infantil #8 por la inexperiencia de los
medicos que tiene el municipio (12 opiniones)
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 22
Suggestions
- The people are asking that a doctor visit here at least
twice a week, until the family doctor arrives (3 opinions).
- The work of Public Health management must be improved in the
municipality; a lot of favoritism is evident (3 opinions).
- Why are mass mobilizations towards the polyclinic not
carried out? (13 opinions).
URBANO NORIS MUNICIPALITY
Of all opinions, 94.1% are unfavorable; an increase of 4.1%
over the same period of last year.
Hospital-related opinions indicate:
- Difficulties in services provided the population (33
opinions)
*
New doctors do not consult patients properly and refer
them to the polyclinic.
*
The ambulance lingers on until it has two or three cases
to be transferred to Holguín.
* For emergency services, at times one has to wait half a
day.
*
Marcia García (X-rays) is not qualified for this job.
- When will we have a decent hospital? (46 opinions).
- The expansion work has deteriorated (8 opinions)
Suggestions
- The hospital must be improved so that the workers may have
better working conditions (5 opinions).
- Allowance should be given for two visits per week at night
for [the benefit of] working families (18 opinions).
- The specialists who come from Holguín should do so once a
week instead of once every two weeks (7 opinions).
Polyclinic
- Service and attention are not good (36 opinions)
*
Consultations are scheduled for 8:00am and do not start
until one hour later.
*
The doctor in children's sector 3 arrives at 9:00am and
she treats people badly.
*
Doctor Flora treats patients in a bad way.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 22
Sugerencias:
E1 puoblo pide que nos visito un medico aunque sea dos veces a la -
semana, mientras venga el medico de la familia (3 opiniones)
Se debe mejorar ol trabajo de dirección de Salud Publica on el muni
cipio, 80 manifiesta mucho amiguismo (3 opiniones)
Por qué no So haoen movilizaciones de masas para el nuevo policlini
00 ( 13 opiniones)
Municipio Urbano Noris:
Dol total de opiniones el 94,1% son desfavorables; 4.1 más que on -
1gual otapa del año anterior.
Las opiniones relacionadas con el hospital señalan:
Dificultades on el servicio que le presta a la poblasión (33 opinio
nes).
Los medicos nuevos no atienden los enfermos correctamente, Los -
mandan para el policlínico.
La ambulancia espera que haya dos o tres casos para salir eon la
remision para Holguin.
En las consultas de urgencias a veces hay que estar medio dia
-
para atonderso.
Marcia García (Rayos x) no tiene la capacidad necesaria para esta
funcion.
Cuando tendremos un hospital decoroso ( 46 opiniones)
Ha decaído el trabajo de ampliacion (8 opiniones)
Sugerencias
Deben mojorar ol hospital para que los obreros tengan majores condi-
ciones de trabajo (5 opiniones)
Debon poner visitas dos veces a la semana de noche para los familia-
Tes quo trabajan (18 opiniones)
Los especialistas que vienen de Holguín deben hacerlo semanal, no --
quincenal (7 opiniones).
Poliolínico
La atención y el trato no 08 bueno (36 opiniones)
Las consultas tienen que empezar a las 8:00am y 10 hacen una hora
después.
La doctora del sector 3 do niño, llega a la consulta a las 9.00am
y su trato 08 malo.
La Dra. Flora utiliza mala forms con low pacientes.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 23
*
In Gynecology, at times there are as many as four or five
nurses.
* The population has increased and the sectors remain the
same as they were in 1977.
Suggestions
- They should work nights (8 opinions).
La Camilo Medical Post
- It goes for days without a doctor (32 opinions)
- At night, in emergencies, there are no ambulances; the one
assigned to it remains at the municipality because of the
poor condition of the road (32 opinions).
- It only provides medical services from 9 to 3 pm (64
opinions).
- Little attention is given to the medical post (20 opinions)
- The dental service is not being provided (32 opinions).
- It has been abandoned for a few months (20 opinions).
Ambulances
- They are always broken down due to lack of care (21
opinions).
Pharmacy
- The La Camilo one is closed during working hours for no
reason at all and does not service the people (14 opinions)
- At the pilot one, there are long lines all the time (3
opinions)
* There are difficulties in the preparation of medicines,
especially on Saturdays and Sundays (34 opinions).
- There is never any distilled water; therefore, no injections
are being administered (10 opinions).
Stomatology Clinic
- The stomatologists argue in front of the patients (6
opinions)
- The farm workers do not have the opportunity to be consulted
due to the system of the clinic (19 opinions).
- The quality of service has declined (12 opinions).
General Opinions
- Medical attention during August was bad, the comrade we had
left for San Andrés (29 opinions).
- Why was Marcos transferred to the hygiene center if he is a
pediatrician and needed in the municipality? (20 opinions)
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 23
En la consulta do ginecologin on ocasiones, hay hasta 4 : 5 enfer-
meras.
La poblacion ha aumentado y los sectores se mantionen igual que on
el 1977.
Sugerencias
Deberian trabajar por la noche (8 opiniones)
Puesto medico La Camilo
Se pasa días sin medicos (32 opiniones)
En caso de urgencia nooturna no hay ambulanoia, la que tienen asigna
da permanece en el municipio por el mal estado del camino (32 opinio
nos).
Solo presta servicios medicos de 9 a 3 pm (64 opiniones)
Se le da pooa atencion a la posta medica (20 opiniones)
El servicio del dentista no se esta cumpliendo (32 opiniones)
Esta abandonado desdo hace algunos meses (20 opiniones)
Ambulanoias:
Estan siempro rotas porque no se cuidan (21 opiniones)
Farmacia:
La de la Camilo on horario do trabajo 1- cierran sin motivo alguno y
no le presta el servicio a la poblacion (14 opiniones)
En la piloto siempre hay grandes colas (3 opiniones)
Hay dificultados en la confección de las medicinas, fundamentalmen
to los sabados y domingos (34 opiniones)
No aparece ol agua destilada por 080 no se está inyectando (10 opi--
nionos)
Clinica estomatologica:
Los estomatologos discuten delante de los pacientes (6 opiniones)
Los trabajadores dol campo no tionon oportunidad de atenderse por al
sistema quo tiene la clinica (19 opiniones)
Ha decaido la calidad del servicio (12 opiniones)
Opiniones generales
La atenoión medica en el mes de agosto fue mala, la compañera que -
teniamos se fue para San Andros (29 opiniones).
Por que trasladaron a Marcos para 61 centro de higiene, siendo pedia
tra y haciendole falta on el municipio (20 opiniones).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 24
CUETO MUNICIPALITY
Unfavorable opinions represent 96.7%, 4.2% above the same
period in 1986.
Regarding the hospital they indicate that:
- Attention and treatment are not good (48 opinions)
*
Cytologic [Pap smear] tests get lost.
Only 10 oculist appointments are given within a six-month
period.
There are few doctors.
Doctors do not transfer the sick, even when seriously
ill.
*
The emergency doctor at times cannot handle serious
cases.
- The cleaning is not good (9 opinions)
Marcané Hospital
-
Attention and treatment are not good (54 opinions)
Doctors do not want to work.
There is little [sense of] responsibility.
Stomatologists do not want to work.
Patients die and there are no doctors.
-
The cleaning is not the best; there is a bad smell in the
men's ward (one opinion).
Suggestion
- There are no resources, it is a learning center; different
specialists should come (11 opinions).
Polyclinic
-
There are difficulties in the service and treatment given to
the people (118 opinions)
Patients arrive at 5:00am and at 8:00am they are told
there are no appointments.
There are five doctors and four go on vacation.
Patients are told to arrive at 8:00am and they do not
start consulting until 9:30am.
Doctors are unable to diagnose some illnesses.
They give good attention only to their friends.
Doctor Alfonso drinks a lot of alcohol.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 24
Municipio Cueto
Las opiniones desfavorables representan el 96.7% 4,2% mas que on -
1gual etapa del año 1986.
Del hospital se señala que:
- La atenoion y el trato no son buenos (48 opiniones)
Las pruebas citológicas se pierden
Solo dan 10 turnos para el coulista on 6 meses.
Hay pocos medicos
Los medicos no remiten a los enfermos aunque esten graves.
El medico de guardia a veces no puede atender los casos graves.
No hay buena limpieza (9 opiniones)
Hospital de Marcané
La atenoion y el trato no es buena (54 opiniones)
Los medicos no quieren trabajar
Hay poca responsabilidad
Los estomatologos no quieren trabajar
Se mueren los pacientes y no hay medioos
- La limpieza no es la mejor, on la sala de hombres hay mal olor -
(una opinion).
Sugerencia:
- No hay recursos, es un centro de aprendizaje, debian venir diferen-
tes especialidades (11 opiniones).
Policlínico:
Hay dificultades en el servicio y el trato que se le brinda a la -
poblacion. (118 opiniones)
Los paciontes van a las 5,00am y a las 8,00am le dicen que no hay
turnos.
Hay 5 medicos y le dan vacaciones a 4
Citan a los pacientes para las 8,00am y empiesan las consultas a
las 9,30am.
Los medicos no saben diagnosticar algunas enfermedades.
Solo ationdon bion a las amistades
El Dr. Alfonso ingiere mucha bebida alcoholica.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 25
-
"T" D.I.U. is never available; people say that in Jagüeyes
they sell it for 10 pesos (7 opinions).
- The water tank spills over almost daily (2 opinions).
Suggestions
- The elderly should be seen first (9 opinions)
- Doctors should improve their attention (5 opinions).
- Measures should be taken; doctors who are drunks are
admitted in the polyclinic (16 opinions).
Marcané Polyclinic
- The general practitioner is often absent (35 opinions).
- Doctors only prescribe Papavar and Gravinol (5 opinions).
Maternity Hospital
- There are problems with the doctor making the rounds; some
days she goes at dinner time (7 opinions).
- On the week of a non-working Saturday, rounds are made on
Friday and then not again until Monday (10 opinions)
- There is nothing with which to supplement the diet; it must
be brought from home (9 opinions).
Pharmacy
- It provides poor service, there are delays in waiting on the
customers, employees spend their time talking, there is poor
management (103 opinions)
- Another pharmacy is needed (2 opinions)
Suggestion
- There should be a better assignment of salespersons to wait
on customers (15 opinions).
Ambulances
- The chief does with them what he pleases (9 opinions).
- Ambulances are rotting away because there is no garage (100
opinions).
Birán
- Why is it that, occasionally, the doctor and the ambulance
are away from the polyclinic? (12 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 25
Nunoa hay D.I.U "T" y se dico que por Jagiieyes han ido vendiendo a
10 pesos (7 opiniones)
El depósito de agua casi todos los alas se derrama (2 opiniones)
Sugerencias:
Deben consultar primero a los ancianos ( 9 opiniones)
Deben mejorar la atención de los médicos (5 opiniones)
Deben tomar medidas, on el poliolínico se admiten médicos borrachos
(16 opiniones)
Policlínico de Marcane:
El médioo de medicina falta con frecuencia (35 opiniones)
Los medioos sólo recetan papaver y gravinol (5 opiniones)
Hospital Materno:
Hay problemas con el pase de visita de la doctora, hay días que T&
a la hora de la comida (7 opiniones)
La semana de sabado no laborable pasan visita ol viernes y después
hasta el lunes (10 opiniones)
No hay con quó reforzar la dieta, éstas hay que traerlas de la -
sa (9 opiniones)
Farmacia:
Presta un mal servicio, so demoran en despachar, las empleadas no -
pasan el tiempo conversando, hay mala administracion (103 opiniones)
Haoe falta otra farmacia (2 opiniones)
Sugerencia:
Debe haber una mejor distribuoión do los dependientes en ou despa--
cho (15 opiniones)
Ambulanoias:
El Jefe hace lo que le da la gana con ellas (9 opiniones)
Las ambulancias se están echando a perder por falta de un garage
(100 opiniones).
Biran:
Por qué en ocasiones el médico y la ambulanoia faltan del polioling
00 (12 opiniones)
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 26
Alto Cedro
- The doctor refused to see a patient and he died (24
opinions).
General Opinions
- Doctor Mariano gives bad service; after consulting female
patients he seduces them (35 opinions).
- There are doctors who do not want to get up when a seriously
ill patient arrives (8 opinions)
- Public Health is working badly (4 opinions)
- Doctors of the municipality have little knowledge (10
opinions).
- The sublime [sic] nurse treats the patients badly and tells
them obscene words (15 opinions).
- Dr. Miguelito maltreats patients (29 opinions).
MAYARI MUNICIPALITY
Unfavorable opinions account for 75.8%; a 6.5% decrease from
the same period of last year.
Those related to the hospital refer to:
- Lack of attention, little concern and maltreatment (257)
In July, no Orthopedics appointments were given.
Evidence of favoritism.
To have a gastro [gastrochemogram] done, one must go to
Cueto.
There is no ophthalmologist though the position exists.
Deaths have occurred during childbirth for lack of
attention (113 opinions)
Poor attention from the Emergency Team.
Gynecologists wait to the very last minute to decide on
giving a patient a Caesarean section.
There is a two-month wait for surgery.
Mistreatment on the part of shift heads.
One sole gynecologist has to mind the consultation and
the emergency rooms.
Doctors have little experience.
On occasions there is no doctor for emergencies.
Doctors are so busy talking that they barely pay
attention to the patients.
Emergency Room doctors begin work late.
No receptionist is capable of providing information to
the people.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 26
Alto Cedro:
E1 medico BC nego a atender un paciente y éste falleció (24 opinio-
nes)
Opiniones genorales:
El Dr. Mariano da un mal servicio, despues de consultar a las pacion
tes las enamora (35 opiniones)
Existon modicos que llegan pacientes en mal estado y no se quieren
levantar ( 8 opiniones)
Salud publica está trabajando mal (4 opiniones)
Los medicos dol municipio tionen pooos conocimientos (10 opiniones)
La enfermora excelsa trata mal a los pacientes oon palabras obsenas
(15 opiniones).
El Dr. Miguolito tiene maltrato con los pacientes (29 opiniones)
Municipio Mayari
El total do opiniones desfavorables representan el 75,8%; 6,5% menos
que igual otapa del año anterior.
Las rolaciones con 01 hospital SO refieren a:
La falta do atoncion, poca proccupación y maltrato (257).
En la especialidad do ortopedia on el mes de julio no habia turno
Manifostacionos do aniguismo
Para hacorse un gastro hay que ir a Cueto
No hay oftalmólogo, existiondo la plaza
Se han producido muertes de partos por falta de atencion (113 opi-
niones)
Mala atención on 31 ouerpo de guardia
Los ginecologos esperan los ultimos momentos para decidir on la -
cesarea de una gestante.
Para operarse bay que esperar más do dos mcses.
Maltrate de los Jefes de turnos
Un solo ginecologo tieno que atender ol cuerpo de guardia y la -
sala.
Los modicos tienen poca experiancia
En ocasiones no hay medico de guardia
Los modicos upenas atienden los pacientes por estar conversando.
Los medicos del euerpo de guardia comienzan a trabajar tarde
Ninguna portera sabo darle información al pueblo.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 27
- Ambulances generally fail to take patients to the Lenin
[hospital] and are used for personal business (3 opinions)
- Relatives caring for patients overnight do not have one
place to get a snack (5 opinions)
- When a patient has to be taken home, the emergency car has
disappeared (6 opinions).
- The chiefs get to work after the workers (5 opinions).
- The hospital expansion is very ugly, there are broken
faucets, lack of cleanliness, disorganization (17 opinions)
.
- In the Emergency Room there is only one restroom for both
men and women (6 opinions)
- There are beds in the hallways of the old hospital while
there is one floor that is empty (4 opinions).
Suggestions
- Measures must be taken with the problem that exists in the
hospital (9 opinions)
- Why not build a Burn Ward? (10 opinions)
- There are deficiencies in the hospital that must be
eliminated (4 opinions).
- Patient-sitters should be given food at hospitals (4
opinions)
Guatemala Hospital
- In order to go for a consultation, one must get up at 3 or 4
in the morning (8 opinions).
- The children's pajamas are in very bad shape (3 opinions).
- No food is given to patient-sitters even if they come from
far away (3 opinions).
Positives
- Good service is given in Stomatology (14 opinions)
- It works better than the hospital at Mayarí (10 opinions).
Nicaro Hospital
- The Emergency Team gives poor medical attention (17
opinions).
- In one ward, there are several beds stored away because
there is no gynecologist (5 opinions)
- On occasions the sick do not have water during the night
because it is turned off (8 opinions).
- The X-ray technician (Lescay) treats people badly (6
opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 27
Las ambulancias en su mayoria fallan para llovar enformos al Lenin
y se utilizan on asuntos particulares ( 3 opiniones)
La gente que ouida enfermos por las noches no tionen donde comerse
ni un dulce. (5 opiniones)
Cuando hay que llevar un enfermo a su casa ol carro de guardia no -
aparece (6 opiniones).
Los Jefes llegan al centro después que los obreros (5 opiniones)
La ampliación del hospital está feisima, hay plumas rotas, no hay -
limpieza, hay desorganizacion (17 opiniones)
En 01 cuerpo de guardia solo hay un baño para hombres y mujeres. -
(6 opiniones)
El hospital viejo tiene camas on los pasillos habiendo on el odifi-
cio viojo un piso que no se usa. (4 opiniones)
Sugerenoias:
Hay que tomar medidas con el problema que existe on el hospital -
(9 opiniones)
Por quó no se hace una sala de quemados (10 opiniones)
En el hospital hay deficiencias que hay que eliminar (4 opiniones)
En los hospitales a los acompañantes debe dársele comida (4 opinio-
nes)
Hospital de Guatemala:
Para poderse atender on las consultas hay que levantarse a las 3 :
4 de la mañana (8 opiniones)
Los pijamas de los niños están on malas condiciones (3 opiniones)
No le dan comida a los acompañantes, aunque sean de lejos (3 opinio
nes).
Positivas
Se presta buon servicio en estomatología (14 opiniones)
Tione mejor trabajo que el hospital de Mayari (10 opiniones)
Hospital de Nicaro:
Hay mala asistencia medica en el cuerpo do guardia (17 opiniones)
Por falta de un ginecologo hay una sala con varias camas guardadas
(5 opiniones)
En ocasiones los enfermos no tionen agua por la noche porque 010mm
rran la llave (8 opiniones).
La teonica do Rayos X (Lesoay) da mal trato al pública (6 opiniones)
CONFIDENTIAL
Page 28
- Attention is not good for patients with no accompanying
friends or relatives (5 opinions)
.
- Doctors are inexperienced (11 opinions)
- Relatives have had to buy medications for patients because
there were none in the hospital (4 opinions)
- At times there is no milk for the patients (3 opinions)
Guaro Polyclinic
- A doctor or nurse is needed (8 opinions)
Community Polyclinic
- There are deficiencies in service and mistreatment (185
opinions)
* More patients go in without an appointment than there are
patients in the waiting room.
* There is only one doctor for six sectors.
* House-call service is bad.
* Materials for X-rays are never available.
*
Only a few Stomatology appointments are given out.
Dr. Lemo does not give much attention to patients in the
polyclinic but he treats them well in his own consulting
office.
At times there is no equipment to take the blood
pressure.
*
The Orthopedics consultations do not meet the needs.
- There is disorganization stemming from management itself (3
opinions)
Levisa Polyclinic
- There is a lack of specialized doctors (25 opinions).
- At times it is 9:00am and no one knows if a specific doctor
is coming at all (10 opinions).
- The Gynecology consultation does not fulfill the needs (4
opinions) .
- The Stomatology room does not give good night service (12
opinions)
- In general, there are not many complaints of favoritism (11
opinions)
- The treatment given by doctors and nurses is bad (14
opinions)
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 28
No hay buena atencion a los enfermos que no tienen accupatiantes -
(5 opiniones)
Los medicos no tienen experiencia (11 opiniones)
Hay familiaves de pacientes ingresados que han tenido que comprarie
medicamentos por no haber on el hospital (4 opiniones)
Hay ocasiones no hay leche para los enfermos (3 opiniones)
Polialínico do Guaro
Falta un medico o una enfermora (8 opiniones)
Policlinico Comunitario:
Hay deficiencias en ol servicio y maltrato (185 opiniones)
Pasan mas pacientes a las consultas sin turnos que los que se on-
ouentran on 61 salon do ospera.
Hay un solo medico para 6 sectores.
El servicio modico a domicilio 08 malo.
Nunoa hay material para Rayos X.
Dan pocos turnos on estomatologin.
El Dr. Lemo no atiende bien a los pacientes on el policlínieo y
en su consulta particular las atiende bien.
En ocasiones no tionen el equipo para tomar la presión
Las consultas de ortopedia no satisfacen las necesidades
Hay desorganización partiondo de la misma dirección (3 opiniones)
Poliolínico de Lovisa
Hay falta de medicos on las especialidades (25 opiniones)
A veces son las 9,00am y no se sabe si vione o no determinado médi-
00 (10 opiniones)
La consulta do ginecologia no satisface las necesidades (4 opinio--
nes).
El salón do estomatologia no brinda un buen servicio de noche (12 -
opiniones)
Hay poca exigencia on gonoral de manifestaciones de amiguismo, -
(11 opiniones)
El trato do los modicos y enformores es malo (14 opiniones)
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 29
Pharmacy
- At the ones in Nicaro and Levisa, customers have to stand in
line for a long time (19 opinions).
Positives
- It has improved since the sales system was changed (28
opinions)
Dental Clinic
- Very few appointments are given out daily (21 opinions).
- Evidence of favoritism in order to to enter (5 opinions).
- Appointments are given out in one month for the next (4
opinions)
Ambulance
- Four ambulances have turned over because chauffeurs are
hired without screening who they are (3 opinions)
- In the Cosme Batey zone, patients cannot be transferred
because there is no ambulance (3 opinions)
- The one in the Guaro maternity home is never there (7
opinions)
General Opinions
- There are doctors who take part in cock fights (3 opinions).
- Nicaro and Mayarí doctors err in the diagnoses made on many
patients (9 opinions)
- In Mayarí, doctors are not rendering good service to the
population (4 opinions).
- There are good technicians who have fulfilled
internationalist missions but cars are given only to
doctors, even if they are bad (4 opinions).
Suggestions
- Doctors should not recommend that patients try to get
medications from abroad (USA) (2 opinions).
- A polyclinic should be built with at least 10 beds for
in-patients (4 opinions).
"FRANK PAIS" MUNICIPALITY
of all opinions, 58.6% are unfavorable, 25.8% less than the
same period last year.
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 29
Farmacia:
En la de Nicaro y Levisa los usuarios permaneeen mucho tiempo on la
oola (19 opiniones)
Positivas
-
Ha mejorado desde que quitaron ol sistema de despacho que tenían -
(28 opiniones)
Olinica dental
- Dan muy pooos turnos diarios (21 opiniones)
- Manifestaciones de amiguismo para entrar a la consulta (5 opiniones)
- Los turnos los dan de un mos para otro (4 opiniones)
Ambulanoia
So han volcado 4 ambulancias porque ponen choferes sin analisar ---
quienes son (3 opiniones)
En la zona de Cosme Batey no se pueden remitir los enformos por fal-
to de ambulanoia (3 opiniones)
La del hogar materno de Guaro nunoa está en su puesto (7 opiniones)
Opiniones Generales:
Hay medicos peleando gallos (3 opiniones)
Los medicos de Nicaro y Mayari se equivocan en los diagnosticos que
hacen a muchos enfermos (9 opiniones)
En Mayari los módicos no le están prestando buen servicio a la po--
blacion (4 opiniones)
. Hay téqnicos buenos que han cumplido misiones internacionalistas, -
poro solo le dan carros a los medicos aunque sean malos (4 opinio--
nes)
Sugerencias:
-
Los médicos no deben recomendar que busquen medicinas al extranjero
(USA) (2 opiniones)
- Que so construya un poliolínico que tenga por lo menos 10 camas para
ingresar (4 opiniones)
Municipio "Frank País"
Dol total de opiniones son desfavorables el 58,6% el 25,8% monos que
on igual etapa del año anterior.
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 30
Regarding the hospital, it is stated that:
- The service provided is not good (20 opinions)
* During consultations, doctors are always accompanied by
unknown persons.
* Dr. Jorge Félix does not stay in his place when on
emergency duty.
- There are no pre-employment forms available (4 opinions)
- Workers wear street clothes because uniforms are not
available (3 opinions).
Suggestions
- In cases of patients with headaches, the doctors must send
them in immediately (15 opinions).
Positive
- It is recognized that there are changes in the attention and
the treatment given the patients (56 opinions).
Cánanova Hospital
- There is no one in charge of the reception desk (9
opinions).
Positive
- The attention by doctors and employees is good (11
employees).
Dental Clinic
- Does not have the conditions to service the population (8
opinions).
Optical
- When the comrade who works there has any problem, there is
no one else to deliver the work done and it can take up to
three-and-a-half months (12 opinions).
SAGUA DE TANAMO MUNICIPALITY
of all opinions, 96.2% are unfavorable; 15.3% more than in the
same period last year.
Hospital-related opinions point out that:
- Neither the attention to, nor the treatment of, patients is
good (422 opinions)
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 30
Del hospital B0 plantea que:
El servicio que se prosta no QS bueno (20 opiniones)
Los médicos on las consultas siempre están acompañadas de perso--
nas ajenas
El Dr. Jorge Felix no permanece on su puesto cuando ostá de guar
dia
- Nunca hay modelos pre-empleo (4 opiniones)
Los trabajadores viston con ropa de la calle por no tener uniformes
(3 opiniones)
Sugerencias:
En los casos do pacientes Don dolores de cabesa 01 médico debe man-
darlo a pasar enseguida (15 opiniones)
Positiva:
Se reconoce que hay cambios on la atención y 01 trato a los pacien-
tes ( 56 opiniones)
Hospital de Cananova
No hay nadie que ationda la recepción (9 opiniones)
Positiva
- La atención do los medicos y domás empleados 05 buena (11 opiniones)
Ginion dental
-
No niones) roune las condiciones para prestar servicios a la población (8 opi
Option
Guando la compañera que trabaja alll tiene problemas no hay otra -
persona para entregar los trabajos y se demora hasta 3 meses y medio
(12 opiniones)
Municipio Sagua do Tanamo
Son desfavorables Gl 96,2% del total do opiniones, 15,3 más que once-
igual etapa del año anterior.
Las opiniones relacionadas con el hospital señalan que:
No es buena la atonoión ni ol trato que reciben los pacientes (422
opiniones).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 31
In most deliveries by Doctor Rosa, the babies die.
Caesarean sections are performed too late.
Dr. Serrano has bad manners and is homosexual.
There are two orthopedists and they only work two days a
week; appointments must be requested one day ahead.
While emergency doctors are waiting for their relief they
do not want to see any more patients.
Some doctors prescribe and say the same things to
everyone.
There is evidence of favoritism.
Dr. Abelardo mistreats the public, his work is bad, and
he drinks alcoholic beverages.
Doctors authorize transfers when patients are dead.
At times the operating room cannot be used.
Dr. Tamayo releases in-patients while still not well.
- There are practically no specialties in the hospital (50
opinions)
-
It does not have all the resources necessary (7 opinions)
- Hospital cars are broken and there is no interest in fixing
them (26 opinions).
- The director and the administrator mistreat the workers (45
opinions)
Suggestions
- Pay more attention to patients admitted for observation (45
opinions)
- Allow relatives to bring food to the patients (4 opinions)
- Food should be provided to patient-sitters from distant
areas (6 opinions)
- The lack of specialists has resulted in risks to the
patients; the Party should intervene in this (10 opinions)
Community Polyclinic
- Employees go for breakfast and stay out for two hours (2
opinions)
- There are two general practitioners and yet they have
consultations only twice a week (6 opinions)
- Doctors leave the interns by themselves at consultations (20
opinions)
- The peasants must lose two days when they go to see the
doctor (8 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 31
A la Dras Rosa la mayor parte do los partos que atiende los nifios
no le mueren.
Las cesareas se haoen despues que se pasan de tiempo
El Dr. Serrano tione mala forma y 05 homesexual.
Hay dos ortopedicos y solo dan dos consultas a la semana y hay que
sacar los turnos un dia antes.
Los medicos del cuerpo do guardia no quieren atender a los pacien-
tes cuando estan esperando el relevo.
Algunos médicos a todos los pacientes les dicen y recetan lo mis--
mo.
Hay manifestaciones de amiguismo
E1 medico Abelardo tione mal trato oon el publico, au trabajo 02
male e ingiero bebidas alcoholicas.
Los medicos dan las remisiones cuando los pacientes están musrtos
El salón de operaciones muchas veces no se puode utilizar
E1 Dr. Tamayo le da el alta a los enfermos sin estar bien
No existe on el hospital casi ninguna especialidad (50 opiniones)
No tiene todos los recursos necesarios (7 opiniones)
Los carros del hospital están rotos y no hay interés por el arregio
de los mismos (26 opiniones)
El Director y el Administrador tienen mala forma al tratar a los -
trabajadores (45 opiniones)
Sugerencias:
Dar un pooo más de atenoión a los pacientes que ingresan on observa-
oion (45 opiniones)
Deben dejar que los familiares le lleven alimentos a los pacientes.
(4 opiniones)
Debon darlo comida a los acompañantes de lejos (6 opiniones)
La falta de especialistas ha traído riesgos on los pacientes, el -
Partido debe intervenir en esto (10 opiniones)
Poliolínico Comunitario
Los nes). empleados salen a desayunar y se están dos hores fuera (2 opinio
Solo dan dos consultas de medicina teniondo dos médicos oada semana,
(6 opiniones)
Los medicos dojan a los internos solos dando consultas (20 opinio--
nes).
Los campesinos para verso con un medico tienen que perder 2 dias -
(8 opiniones).
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 32
- Appointments are given out at 2:00pm and the following day
the doctor does not work (10 opinions)
- Appointments are given out at 2:00pm and the people have
been there since 4:00am (45 opinions).
- The jeep is used for all the activities of the municipality
and not for what it has been assigned (4 opinions).
Dental Clinic
- The workers do not meet the date set for pick-up and there
are no dentists (23 opinions).
Ambulances
- There are ambulance drivers who sell coffee and other
contraband articles in the black market (21 opinions).
Pharmacy
- The milk of magnesia is sold by the pound; they buy it and
resell it at a higher price (3 opinions).
- Nursing bottles are sold by the box at 20 or 25 cents each,
and are immediately resold in the park for 2.00 [pesos] (30
opinions).
- The pharmacy is full of people, and while there are four or
five workers, only one is serving the customers (40
opinions).
- The pharmacy administrator has the State car for his
personal use (9 opinions).
Suggestions
- A pharmacy should be built in the Square (7 opinions).
- [Teething] rings and pacifiers for babies should be sold
under the maternity [ration] plan (9 opinions).
General Opinions
- The nurses are told that there are no gowns and later they
are sold to friends or at the fair (15 opinions).
- Health personnel did not participate much in the carnivals
because the hygiene was bad (9 opinions).
- Cuba may be a medical power because of the number of
doctors, but in quality it is below past years (9 opinions).
-
The Public Health Director was awarded a trip to the
socialist bloc, but he did not earn it, his sector is in
very bad shape (12 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 32
Los turnos se repartes a las 2,00pm y al otro día el médico no tra-
baja (10 opiniones)
Los turnos los reparten a las 2,00pm y el personal está desde las
4,00am. (45 opiniones)
El Jeep 10 utilizan para todas las actividades del municipio y no -
para lo que está asignado (4 opiniones)
Olinioa dental:
Los trabajadores no cumplen oon 1a fecha de entrega que 50 indioa y
nunoa hay dentistas (23 opiniones)
Ambulancias:
Hay choferes de ambulanoias que son traficantes de café y otras -
cosas clandestina (21 opiniones)
Farmacia:
La leche magnesia se vende por la libre, la compran para después -
venderla mas cara (3 opiniones)
Venden los biberones por cajas a 20 : 25 centavos y en el momento -
10 revenden on el parque a 2,00pm (30 opiniones)
La farmacia está llena de personal, hay 4 o 5 trabajadores y nada--
mas hay despachando uno (40 opiniones)
E1 Administrador de la farmacia tiene el motor del Estado para uso
particular (9 opiniones)
Sugerencias
En la Plazuela deben poner una farmacia (7 opiniones)
Les roseas,y teteras para niños deben venderse por plan materno. -
(9 opiniones)
Opiniones generales:
Se le dice a las enfermeras que no hay batas y después se la renden
a sus amistados O en la feria (15 opiniones)
E1 personal de Salud intervino muy pooo en los carnavales ya que la
higiene ora mala (9 opiniones)
Cuba será una potenoia medica en cantidad de medicos pero en cali--
dad esta por dobajo de los años pasados (9 opiniones)
Le dieron un viaje al Director de Salud Publica a los países Sooia-
lista, no so lo ha ganado, tiene el Sector muy malo (12 opiniones)
CONFIDENTIAL
Page # 33
Suggestions
- The Party must "shake the tree" [weed out the incompetents]
at Public Health (8 opinions)
MOA MUNICIPALITY
of all the opinions, 77% are unfavorable, 13.6% above the same
period the previous year.
The hospital-related ones indicate:
- When the food is not burnt, it is too salty (3 opinions).
- At times the Emergency Team is found only after 40 minutes
(19 opinions).
- There are some doctors who do not treat patients adequately,
prescribing medications without even knowing what the
illnesses are (5[?] opinions).
- Irán Leyva, the director, carries large numbers of chickens
in a small car that does not even have a license plate, and
takes them to the Square (2 opinions).
- Pereira, the pediatrician, mistreats the mothers and
patients, and is a hard drinker of alcohol (6 opinions).
- There are few appointments for the orthopedist (12
opinions).
- There is much bad talk about Tony, the gynecologist; he is
always drunk and mistreats his patients (20 opinions).
- In Gynecology, they wait too long to perform a Caesarean
section (16 opinions).
Las Coloradas Polyclinic
- Many analyses get lost due to lack of organization and
control (15 opinions) .
- At night, no on-duty doctor can be found during the
established schedule (10 opinions).
Nurses School
- It is suggested to give it more attention because it is
totally demolished (12 opinions).
General Opinions - Suggestion
- If there are so many doctors in Cuba, why don't they send us
a urologist that is so badly needed? (34 opinions).
CONFIDENCIAL
HOJA # 33
Susterenoiss
- E1 Partido debe sacudir la mata on Salud Pública (8 opiniones)
Municipio Moa
Del total de opiniones son desfavorables el 77%, 13,6% más que on igual
período que el año anterior.
Las relacionadas oon el hospital señalan:
La comida cuando no la queman queda salada (3 opiniones)
Muchas veces el cuerpo de guardia so encuentra sólo hasta 40 minutos
(19 opiniones)
Hay algunos médicos que no atienden bien el paciente, recetándole me-
dicamento sin saber que enfermedad tionen ( 500piniones)
Iran Leyva, el Director está cargando pollos por cantidad on un carri
to que ni chapa tiene y los llova para la Plazuela (2 opiniones)
El pediatra Pereira tione maltrato con las madres y pacientes y se -
dedion a la bebida alcoholica (6 opiniones)
Pogos turnos para el ortopédico (12 opiniones)
Se habla mal dol ginecólogo Tony, vive embriagado y no trata bien a
los pacientes (20 opiniones).
En nes). Gineoologia esperan demasiado para hacer una cesárea (16 opinio-
Poliolínico Las Coloradas:
Muchos análisis se pierden por falta de organización y control (15
opiniones)
Por la noche no se encuentra ningún médico de guardia on el horario
establecido (10 opiniones)
Escuela de enfermería:
So sugiere darle más atenoión ya que está totalmente destruída. -
(12 opiniones)
Opiniones Generales: Sugerencia
S1 on Cuba hay tantos médioos por qué no mandan un Urólogo que tan-
to falta hace (34 opiniones).
60
80
100
[Second semester/86]
Segundo semestre/86
84,6%
COMPARACTON DE LAS OPINIONES DESFAVORABLES
[COMPARISON OF UNFAVORABLE OPINIONS]
[Second semester/87]
Segundo Semestre/87
87,6%
GRAFICO #1
[CHART #1]
COMPORTAMIENTO DE LAS OPINIONES POR MUNICIPIOS
GRAFICO # 2
[RESULT OF OPINIONS BY MUNICIPALITY CHART # 2]
TOTAL DE
TOTAL DE
[PERCENTAGE]
TOTAL DE
N/O
MUNICIPIOS
OPINIONES
NEGATIVAS
PORCIENTO
POSITIVAS
1
Gibara
813
761
93,6
52
2
Rafael Freyre
318
209
65.7
109
3
Banes
638
614
96,2
24
4
Antilla
1296
1166
89,9
130
5
Báguanos
397
370
93,1
27
6
Holguín
1764
1613
91,4
151
7
Calixto Garoia
41
22
53,6
19
8
Cacooum
313
306
97.7
7
9
Urbano Noris
733
690
94,1
43
10
Cuoto
762
737
96.7
25
11
Mayari
1028
780
75.8
248
12
Frank País
162
95
58.6
67
13
Sagua de ⁷ anamo
1211
1165
96.2
46
14
Moa
227
175
77
52
Medioo de familia
671
436
64.9
235
SIDA
382
279
73
103
TOTALES
10 756
9 418
87.6%
1 338
[COMPARISON OF UNFAVORABLE OPINIONS BY MUNICIPALITY]
COMPARACION DE LAS OPINIONES DESFAVORABLES POR MUNICIPIOS.
Gráfico No. 3
2do. Semestre 1986
[Chart No. 3]
2do. Semestre 1987
93,6 %
2 96,2 %
9% 87,9%
89,9 9 %
97.5 %
93, 1 %
91,1 1 %
91,4 4 %
96,6 %
7 97,7 %
100
94,1 1 %
7 84,7 %
92, 5. % 92,5%
96,7 %
2 96,2 %
6 85,6 %
90 %
82,3 3 %
84,4 4 %
75, 8 %
80,9 %
77 %
- 60 50 40 70 90 80 10 30 20
60,9 %
65,7 7 %
58,6 %
63,4 4 %
essay
R.Freyre
Banes
Anti a Antilla
Báguanos
Holguin
GRICTA is
Eacocum
Moris =
Cueto
Mayari
Pais is
Sagua T.
Moa
[CHART # 4]
GRAFICO # 4
[OTHERS]
TOTAL
DEL
HOSPITALES
POLICLINICOS
OTROS
MUNICIPIOS
MCPIO
TOTAL
NEG.
%
POSIT
TOTAL
NEG.
%
POSIT
TOTAL
NEG.
%
POSIT.
Gibara
813
127
127
100
-
315
289
91,7
26
371
345
92,9
26
Rafael Freyre
318
207
157
75,8
50
26
16
61,5
10
85
36
42.3
49
Banes
638
272
256
94
16
114
106
92,9
8
252
252
100
-
Antilla
1296
714
645
90.3
69
154
154
100
-
428
367
85,7
61
Baguanos
397
219
200
91,3
19
27
27
100
-
151
143
94.7
8
Holguín
1764
917
825
89,9
92
332
332
1.00
-
515
456
88,5
59
C. Garola
41
1
1
100
-
6
6
100
-
34
15
44,1
19
Cacooum
313
205
205
100
-
108
101
-
-
-
-
93,5
7
Urbano Noris
733
132
117
88,6
15
54
54
100
-
547
519
94.8
28
Cueto
762
137
123
89,7
14
169
169
100
-
456
445
97,5
11
Mayari
1028
547
354
64,7
193
266
266
100
-
215
160
74.4
55
Frank País
162
114
47
41.2
67
48
48
100
-
Sagua de T.
1211
661
633
95.7
28
95
95
100
-
455
437
96
18
Moa
227
135
83
61,4
52
25
25
100
-
67
67
100
-
This is one of a series of reports and reprint articles
of Cuban concern distributed by
The Cuban American National Foundation.
Nothing written here is to be
construed as an attempt to aid
or hinder the passage of any
bill before Congress.
Copies of this publication are available for $5.00 from:
The Cuban American National Foundation
1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, N.W., Suite 601
Washington, D.C. 20007
IS CUBA
CHANGING?
CHANGING
Susan Kaufman Purcell
CHANGIN
CHANGI
CHANG
28
CHAN
The Cuban American National Foundation
CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL FOUNDATION
The Cuban American National Foundation is an independent, non-profit insti-
tution devoted to the gathering and dissemination of data concerning the
economic, political and social welfare of the Cuban people, both on the island
and in exile. The Foundation supports the concept of a free and democratic
Cuba.
The Foundation promotes an objective view of Cuba and Cubans, and an
objective appraisal of the Cuban government and its policies.
The Foundation supports a general program to enlighten and clarify public
opinion on problems of Cuban concern, to fight bigotry, protect human rights,
and promote cultural interests and creative achievement.
IS CUBA CHANGING?
Susan Kaufman Purcell
The Cuban American National Foundation
1989
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Kaufman Purcell is Vice President for Latin American Affairs at the
Americas Society in New York City. From 1981-1988, she was Director of the
Latin American Project and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
in New York. Her recent publications include Mexico in Transition (editor and
co-author), "Debt and the Restructuring of Mexico" (Critical Issues, 1988:5),
and Chile: Prospects for Democracy (co-author), all published in 1988 by the
Council on Foreign Relations, as well as "The Choice in Central America"
(Foreign Affairs, Fall 1987).
"Is Cuba Changing?" is reprinted with permission from The National Interest,
No. 14, Winter 1988/89, pp. 43-53.
© 1988 by National Affairs, Inc.
N
ew Year's Day, 1989, will mark the thirtieth anniversary of Fidel Castro's
revolutionary victory over the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. While it can be
predicted confidently that the ritual of public celebration will be properly ob-
served, one can be equally certain that it will be accompanied by much private
anxiety on Castro's part. For he faces problems of unprecedented severity. The
Cuban economy cannot generate sufficient foreign exchange to pay for the
imports the country needs. At the same time, the Soviet Union, which currently
provides an estimated $4.5 billion a year or $12 million a day in economic and
military assistance to Cuba, is reassessing its commitments abroad because of
its serious economic crisis at home. Castro has grown dependent on Moscow's
largess to maintain Cuba's highly unproductive and inefficient socialist com-
mand economy. Soviet aid also allows Castro to pursue his "proletarian inter-
nationalist" foreign policy of supporting Marxist guerrillas and governments in
the Third World.
There is some evidence that the Soviets' economic difficulties have already
produced some changes in Cuba's behavior. In October 1988, for example,
Cuba agreed to withdraw its approximately fifty thousand troops from Angola
within twenty-four to thirty months, despite earlier vows that they would remain
there until apartheid was abolished in South Africa. Cuba has also increasingly
indicated its desire for improved relations with the United States. This would
strengthen the likelihood that the United States would lift its long-standing eco-
nomic embargo, thereby enabling the cash-hungry island to obtain hard cur-
rency from U.S. tourism, trade and investment.
These developments argue for a reassessment of U.S. policy toward Cuba.
Relations between the two countries since the 1959 revolution have been hos-
tile almost from the start. From the U.S. point of view, the main stumbling block
to a so-called normalization of relations has been the combination of Cuba's
revolutionary foreign policy and its alliance with the Soviet Union. A related
impediment, which has loomed particularly large for the important Cuban-
American community in the United States, has been the nature of the Cuban
regime: a personalistic communist dictatorship characterized by widespread
abuse of human rights and denial of basic political freedoms.
If Cuba's behavior is indeed changing in ways that benefit the United States,
Washington should consider adopting policies that might reinforce the process.
Before making such a decision, however, and before deciding what policies
1
would best serve those ends, it is essential to understand better the changes that
are occurring. Are they merely tactical and superficial, aimed at enabling Castro
to get hard currency, while maintaining his alliance with the Soviets, his anti-
American foreign policy, and his control over the Cuban people? Or is there evi-
dence that they represent a major reorientation of Cuba's policies that will
render Washington's traditional approach toward Havana outmoded?
In his speech in July 1988 commemorating the thirty-fifth ánniversary of his
famous assault on the Moncada barracks, Fidel Castro acknowledged that Cuba
is facing the worst economic crisis in the history of the revolution. He blamed
the crisis mainly on external developments beyond his control. He acknowl-
edged, however, that the Cuban people bore some responsibility for the sorry
state of affairs. He minimized his own role, although no major economic
decisions are made without his approval.
One of the main explanations he offered for Cuba's economic difficulties is
the falling price of oil. This may come as a surprise, since Cuba imports 90
percent of the oil it consumes, and the decline in prices apparently should have
worked to its advantage. That it did not is due to the special arrangement that
Cuba has worked out with the Soviet Union, which supplies nearly all the
island's oil.
Oil imports from the Soviet Union account for 30 percent of the country's
total imports. In the late 1970s, the Soviets began allowing Cuba to sell on the
spot market whatever oil it did not consume. When oil prices were high, oil
replaced sugar as the number one export in terms of hard currency earnings. In
1986, however, oil prices fell 50 percent and in the following year Cuba's
earnings from this source were cut in half. The 1988 figures are not expected to
show much improvement, and the outlook for 1989 remains poor.
The price of Cuba's other major export, sugar, also declined between 1980
and 1985. Yet although the Cuban economy remains as undiversified and
dependent on sugar as it was before the revolution, the impact of the falling sugar
prices was cushioned by Soviet subsidies. Approximately 80 percent of Cuba's
sugar was not sold on the world market during this period, but to the Soviet bloc,
at prices that ranged between one-and-one-half times the world market price
in 1980 to ten times that price in 1985. Between 1985 and 1988, sugar prices
doubled, but Cuba was actually hurt by this development in 1987, when,
because of a decline in its sugar production due to unfavorable weather
conditions combined with labor's decreasing willingness to work, it had to
purchase nearly a million tons of sugar on the world market to meet its export
2
commitments to the Soviet bloc for 1986-1987.
Finally, Cuba was hard hit by the devaluation of the dollar. Cuba's exports
are paid for in dollars, but because of the U.S. trade embargo, it cannot use them
to buy goods from the United States, where full value for its devalued dollars
could be obtained. Instead, it must buy from Western Europe and Japan, whose
currencies appreciated in relation to the dollar. The result was an increase of be-
tween 30 and 40 percent in the prices Cuba had to pay for imports it needed, but
which were not available from the Soviet bloc. The dollar's devaluation also
increased Cuba's debt to the Paris Club, which is denominated in Western
European currencies.
All this has produced a serious hard currency shortage. Cuba needs an
estimated $1.2 billion in hard currency each year, in addition to its imports from
the Soviet bloc, to maintain the economy at a minimal level of performance. In
the last year or so it has had to manage on about half that amount. As a result,
economic activity declined 3.5 percent in 1987, following two years of stagna-
tion. In contrast, Cuba's economy had officially expanded at an average rate of
7.2 percent annually between 1981 and 1985.
Cuba's present economic difficulties are part of a longer-term trend. The
country's gross national product today, for example, is more or less the same as
it was in 1958, before the revolution. At that time, Cuba had between six and
seven million people; now it has ten million. On a per capita basis, it ranked third
in the hemisphere in 1958; now it is considered one of the poorest countries in
Latin America in per capita terms. Cuba's poor, however, are not in as desperate
economic straits as many of their counterparts in the hemisphere because of their
access to free health care, free education, and subsidized food and clothing.
Castro usually blames Cuba's poor economic performance mainly on the
U.S. embargo, which makes Cuba spend more for imports, and denies Cuba
access to advanced technology and dollars from U.S. tourists and investors.
Paradoxically, however, Castro also has repeatedly argued (as have some
Americans) that the embargo has been a failure. It has not, for example,
prevented Cuba from purchasing elsewhere what it cannot get from the United
States. Cuba has succeeded even in buying U.S. goods and acquiring new U.S.
technology with the help of an enterprise created in the late 1970s called
CIMEX, which operates in Panama, Mexico, Canada, Spain, and other coun-
tries.
The two positions on the embargo are not necessarily contradictory. The
embargo has failed in the sense that it has not prevented Cuba from getting
access to Western goods and technology needed to keep its economy function-
3
ing. It has succeeded, however, in raising the economic costs that Castro must
pay for his anti-Americanism, revolutionary adventurism, and military alliance
with the Soviets.
The other explanation for Cuba's poor economic performance over the years
is socialism. Like the Soviet Union, Cuba has a highly centralized command
economy that is notorious for its squandering of resources and rampant
corruption. Productivity is also extremely low because the Cuban people refuse
to work, in protest against the system. Unlike the Soviet Union, however,
Cuba's command economy responds to the wishes of one man whose desire for
total control, combined with his charismatic, mercurial personality, make for a
much less rational, orderly, and predictable decision-making process than that
centered in Moscow.
The problems with Cuban-style socialism were already apparent by 1968,
when Castro launched his so-called revolutionary offensive to rid Cuba of most
of the last important vestiges of private property and thereby give himself
complete control over the Cuban economy. The offensive also involved
replacing material incentives with moral ones, while simultaneously rekind-
ling the ideological fervor of the population so that it would work hard without
tangible rewards. The offensive's first test was in 1970, when the "new Cuban
man" was exhorted to achieve an unprecedented ten million ton sugar harvest.
The harvest fell well short of its goal and left the economy in ruins. This gave
the Soviets the opportunity they had been waiting for. In 1968, they failed to in-
crease their supplies of oil to Cuba in an attempt to force Castro to abandon his
revolutionary pursuits abroad and to focus instead on making the Cuban econ-
omy more productive. Castro responded by purging high-ranking members of
Cuba's Communist party who had been leaders of the Popular Socialist Party
(PSP), the old pre-revolutionary Communist party allied with Moscow. He also
directly challenged the Soviets ideologically by implementing moral incentives
at a time when Moscow was experimenting with material ones. The economic
failure of the revolutionary offensive symbolized by the inability to achieve a
ten million ton harvest, combined with the ideological failure of moral incen-
tives, allowed the Soviets to impose upon the unwilling Cuban leader a series
of important economic and political reforms. In 1972, in a number of secret
accords with the Soviets, Castro agreed to restructure as well as to create some
new state and party institutions patterned on the Soviet model. These were to
give Cuban communism a more democratic and less personalistic facade. The
country also agreed to formalize its economic ties with the Soviet bloc by
4
joining COMECON.
The impact of the agreement was limited by the spectacular rise in sugar
prices in the mid-1970s. The sugar boom initially did for Cuba what the oil boom
did for Mexico, allowing Castro to postpone making changes in order to
increase economic productivity. Instead, he was able to use the greatly increased
revenues to paper over Cuba's problems. Sugar was also used as collateral to
secure generous loans for ambitious but highly unrealistic development proj-
ects. When sugar prices declined several years later, Cuba was left deep in debt,
its economic problems unsolved. Castro had no alternative then but to integrate
Cuba's economy more closely with that of the Soviet bloc, and once again
impose económic austerity.
Castro also tried to increase Cuba's hard currency earnings in order to
decrease his dependence on the Soviets and undercut growing popular discon-
tent. His target then was the Cuban-American community, a group for which he
repeatedly had expressed strong contempt. In 1977, he decided to wring large
sums of money from the Cuban-Americans by allowing them to visit their
relatives in Cuba and charge them for services he knew they would not use. The
bulk of the community arrived the following year, and, as anticipated, spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What Castro had not anticipated, however, was the reaction of the Cuban
people. Having long been told that their relatives in the United States were poor
and exploited, they were suddenly presented with compelling evidence to the
contrary. Such disillusionment resulted in the massive Mariel exodus of 1980,
during which more than 125,000 Cubans fled the island for the Florida coast.
At about the same time as Castro's decision to tap the Cuban-American com-
munity for hard currency, he also decided to follow the Soviet lead by allowing
the introduction of some material incentives in order to reduce popular discon-
tent and revive the economy. So-called trabajadores por cuenta propia or self-
employed workers, such as plumbers, were authorized by the state to do private
work for a fee. In 1980, he expanded Cuba's use of material incentives by
launching the free farmers' markets, which permitted a measure of guided free
enterprise. They were an immediate success, providing Cubans with a broad se-
lection of agricultural products whose quantity and quality surpassed that of the
state farms and cooperatives. Several years later, Castro also experimented with
production bonuses and a program that allowed Cubans to build, buy, and sell
private homes on the open market.
5
T he experiment with material incentives was short-lived. Castro found its suc-
cesses threatening, both to the ideological underpinnings of the revolution and
his control over the Cuban people. In 1982, he began to restrict the farmers' mar-
kets, claiming exploitative high prices and profits by middlemen and producers
as the justification. By late 1984, he began to remove the Soviet-backed tech-
nocrats and planners who had advocated the reforms. And in 1986, he called for
an all-out rejection of the Soviet-inspired program, blaming it for "many vices,
distortions and, worst of all, corruption." Instead, he urged Cubans to return to
a purer and more doctrinaire form of Marxism that had no place for material in-
centives and considered private profit and property anathema.
The so-called "rectification" campaign followed. Launched in February
1986 and still in effect, it is an ideological update of Castro's failed revolution-
ary offensive of 1968. Providing for increased economic centralization and
moral incentives instead of material ones, its prospects for success are even
dimmer than those of the earlier effort. Today, the revolutionary fervor of the
population has all but died. Following the announcement of the rectification
campaign, for example, billboards throughout Havana began proclaiming,
"Now indeed we are going to build socialism." The intensely negative and
cynical reaction of the Cuban people, who asked what had been going on during
the twenty-seven years since the revolution, prompted the abrupt removal of the
signs.
The Cuban people also know that the Soviet Union is trying to revive its own
failing economy by decentralizing and providing more market incentives, while
their country is going in exactly the opposite direction. They know from their
own experience that moral incentives do not work. Finally, they are aware that
Gorbachev is critical of what Castro is doing. All of this contrasts with the
situation during the revolutionary offensive of 1968, when Cubans were less
informed and the evidence of socialist economic failure was less compelling.
Today, Cubans avidly read the Spanish edition of Moscow Daily News (a
publication they once regarded as excruciatingly boring), for accounts of
perestroika and glasnost. (Cuban newspapers do not carry such information.)
Since 1985, they also have been listening in large numbers to Radio Martí in
order-to get information about Cuba and the world which their own government
will not broadcast.
The Cuban people are expressing their weariness, cynicism, and diminished
ideological fervor in a number of ways. Over the past few years, an unusually
large number of high-level military and civilian elites have defected. These
6
former officials speak of widespread alienation, particularly among the young,
and of extraordinarily high suicide rates. They claim that Cuban jails hold more
than one hundred thousand prisoners who have been arrested for theft, assault,
and similar crimes resulting from the growing economic hardship and scarcity.
And they report that the rising discontent has resulted in riot training for the
police and the purchase of the first riot helicopters.
Given the nature of the Cuban regime, it is difficult to know exactly whether
current levels of discontent pose a serious challenge to Castro's rule. Opponents
of the government cannot organize or demonstrate. There is no independent
press, television or radio. Committees for the Defense of the Revolution report
"suspicious" behavior to authorities, and one can never be sure who is working
for the pervasive security or intelligence apparatus. At the same time, people are
totally dependent on the government for their jobs, homes, education, food,
clothing, and health care, which makes opposition a very risky and potentially
costly business.
Although the rising discontent may not prove lethal to the regime, Castro
nevertheless cannot afford to ignore it. Nor can he fail to heed signs that his
rectification campaign is doomed to failure. Both coincide with a serious crisis
in the Soviet economy. This combination of factors constitutes the real crisis
facing Cuba today.
D
espite the Soviet Union's severe economic problems, it is not yet clear
whether the $4.5 billion it provides annually to Cuba can or will be cut drasti-
cally. For while Cuba is the single largest recipient of Soviet aid in the Third
World and accounts for 50 percent of Moscow's foreign assistance budget, it is
also true that Moscow receives a substantial return on its Cuban investment.
Cuba is an important Soviet outpost and ideological ally in the U.S. "sphere
of influence." It serves as a base for Soviet submarines and aircraft and greatly
enhances Soviet intelligence-gathering capabilities along the Atlantic coast of
North and South America. Perhaps of equal importance, Cuba advances Soviet
interests in the Third World by engaging in behavior that would be unacceptable
if done by the Soviets. It gives military support to Marxist guerrilla groups strug-
gling for power, and helps consolidate and protect Marxist governments.
Diplomatically, Cuba has enhanced Soviet contacts and influence with the so-
called Non-Aligned Movement, as well as with developing countries within the
United Nations.
Yet Cuba is not a Soviet puppet that automatically does Moscow's bidding.
Although the interests of the Soviet Union and Cuba often coincide, Cuba has
7
disregarded Soviet advice or resisted Soviet pressures in those few cases where
their interests have diverged. In foreign policy, for example, Moscow advocated
the "peaceful road to socialism" in Latin America throughout the 1960s.
Havana, in contrast, actively supported Marxist insurgencies throughout the
region.
Moscow has shown great restraint in using its considerable leverage to force
Havana to accede to its wishes. The Soviets recognize that Castro's tempera-
ment and personality would not allow him to be an obedient servant of Moscow
and that efforts to transform him could produce unpredictable results. From time
to time, they have signaled their unhappiness with Castro's behavior by
imposing sanctions, such as their 1968 failure to increase their delivery of oil to
Cuba. Yet when Castro rejected their advice and launched his revolutionary
offensive and campaign for a ten million ton harvest, they patiently waited for
his doomed and costly experiment to run its course. As long as the U.S. embargo
remained in place, the Soviets know that the Cuban leader would ultimately
have no other alternative to themselves.
Castro has even fewer options today. He is worried that the new technocratic
elites rising to positions of power in the Soviet Union will be far less tolerant of
Cuban inefficiency and the huge waste of Soviet resources. He also fears a
weakening of the Soviets' ideological commitment to communism and to East-
West competition. These developments, in addition to the new detente between
Moscow and Washington, could severely reduce Cuba's importance to the
Soviet Union and make the continuation of Moscow's massive economic
outlays to Havana doubtful.
Castro reportedly said as much to Gorbachev when he visited Moscow in No-
vember 1987. During a personal meeting with the Soviet leader, Castro claimed
that many of the Soviet Union's economic reforms could be devastating to what
Castro calls "the Fourth World"-the socialist (as opposed to market-oriented)
developing countries.¹ Castro also expressed concern that as the Soviet econ-
omy became more decentralized and as industries became more autonomous,
factories trying to improve their balance sheets might give priority to cash-
paying customers and fail to meet their commitments to Cuba.
Gorbachev tried to reassure his ally by telling him that the economic
I Interview on October 11, 1988, in New York City with Gustavo Pérez Cott, former
vice president and deputy minister, State Committee for Technology and Supplies,
Cuba, who defected to the United States in January 1988.
8
liberalization measures were mainly tactical; they would enable the Soviet
economy to revive and, therefore, would enable Moscow to meet its commit-
ments to developing socialist countries. Gorbachev also noted that Castro's
fears regarding the behavior of autonomous enterprises were unfounded, since
orders requested by Moscow to comply with the Soviet Union's international
commitments would continue to take priority.
At the November 1987 meeting, Castro also asked for aid and a hard currency
loan. The Soviets agreed to give Cuba $450 million, a sum volunteered by
Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodríguez. The first installment arrived in
December 1987, with other disbursements completed by March 1988.
In January 1988, however, reports began to circulate internationally that
Moscow had cut its aid to Cuba for 1987. The reality is quite different. The data
regarding Moscow's alleged reduction of aid to Havana were cooked up by the
National Bank of Cuba, at the time of Cuba's debt negotiations with the Paris
Club, and used to justify Cuba's inability to meet its financial commitments.
The figures referred not to real decreases, but to delays in the delivery process.
In fact, goods in Soviet ports destined for Cuba at the time of the report equalled
five times the supposed "shortfall" in Soviet aid. In the event, the Soviets
increased their aid to Cuba by an estimated 10 percent in 1987.²
The conventional wisdom remains that the Soviets will be unwilling or
unable to maintain, let alone increase, the high levels of aid they currently
provide to Cuba. Such claims have been made before, when Moscow was pro-
viding far less economic and military assistance to Cuba, and its overseas
empire was considerably smaller and less costly. Nevertheless, they seem
somewhat more credible this time because of Moscow's economic problems
and the apparent determination to do something about them.
If the Soviets do indeed reduce their aid to Cuba, they are likely to cancel
some of the major development projects they had planned to finance-for
example, a second nuclear plant for the island's western provinces. Such
projects-the soon-to-be completed nuclear plant and oil refinery in Cienfuegos,
two thermal electrical plants, the supertanker base in Matanzas, a pipeline from
the new oil fields in Jaruco to Cienfuegos, and a textile plant in Santiago-help
account for the approximately 50 percent increase in Soviet aid over the past five
years.
Military assistance is in theory another area of possible cuts. The main mo-
tivation would not be economic, since military aid does not constitute a big eco-
2
Interview with Pérez Cott.
9
nomic burden on the Soviets, given their large war industry. Instead, Moscow
would act to reinforce its improved relationship with Washington. According
to U.S. State Department figures, Soviet bloc military aid to Cuba from 1982 to
1986 came to nearly $8 billion. It allowed Cuba to build the largest combat force
in Latin America, with approximately 300,000 military personnel, as well as a
militia that exceeds one million. The rest of Latin America together imported
military equipment worth $9.3 billion during the same period.
So far, however, the Soviets have made no such cuts. Despite the economic
burden that Cuba represents, Moscow apparently is reluctant to risk taking steps
that might unravel the Castro regime. Instead, Cuba seems willing to cooperate
with Moscow's efforts to extricate itself from politically costly conflicts in some
regions of the Third World. Cuba has also decided to seek better relations with
the United States in order to solve its hard currency problems and lessen its
economic dependence on the Soviet Union.
This explains Castro's decision to negotiate with the United States and South
Africa over the removal of its estimated fifty thousand troops from Angola. It
also explains his decision, immediately after his November meeting with
Gorbachev, to revive the- 1984 immigration agreement with the United States.
Cuba suspended the agreement in May 1985, to protest the beginning of
broadcasts by Radio Martí. The action had taken Washington by surprise, since
the negotiations leading to the agreement occurred after the law establishing
Radio Martí was passed. U.S. attempts in 1986 to revive the agreement failed
when the Cubans insisted on a medium-wave frequency to broadcast to the
United States. In November 1987, however, Cuba suddenly dropped its demand
for both a radio frequency and the cancellation of Radio Martí.
Other signs of Cuba's desire for improved relations with the United States,
as well as with other Western nations, followed. In April 1988, Castro invited
Cardinal Connor to visit Cuba. He then promised to release some of the 429
political prisoners, whose existence he had denied previously, and to allow them
to emigrate to the United States. He permitted a number of Catholic priests to
return to Cuba in order to offset the shortage of priests on the island. For the first
time since the revolution, human rights groups from the United States and other
Western countries were allowed to inspect Cuban jails and speak with prisoners,
while several Cuban human rights activists, in turn, were permitted to visit the
United States.
Finally, Castro and other high-ranking officials began to change the way they
spoke about the United States. They dropped their hostile, confrontational
rhetoric, and repeatedly mentioned their desire to discuss the U.S.-Cuban
10
bilateral relationship with U.S. government representatives. They specifically
mentioned their wish to see an end to the U.S. embargo, which would give them
access to trade, technology, investment, and tourist dollars from the United
States. In the meantime, Cuba began to invest heavily in its own tourist industry
and to WOO tourists and investors from other capitalist countries.
H
OW significant are the recent changes in Castro's foreign and domestic
policies?
In the area of foreign policy, the evidence is still very mixed. On the one hand,
Castro's willingness to negotiate the removal of Cuba's troops from Angola, in
exchange for the withdrawal of South African troops and the independence of
Namibia, represents an important reversal of his earlier position. As recently as
1986, at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Zimbabwe, Castro announced
that he would keep Cuban troops in Angola "so long as apartheid exists in South
Africa." Furthermore, Castro had never before indicated a willingness to par-
ticipate in direct negotiations with either South Africa or the United States over
the Angola issue.
As of late 1988, there was still no final agreement on a specific timetable for
the Cuban withdrawal. In fact, there are now an estimated fifteen thousand more
Cuban troops in Angola than there were at the start of the negotiations, making
for an overall estimated total of fifty thousand. (Castro claims the Cuban troop
reinforcements were necessary to prevent the defeat of MPLA forces by the
South Africans during the negotiating process.) Furthermore, the Cubans have
moved some of their troops to within six miles of Angola's border with Namibia,
where Cuba has also recently constructed two 3,500-meter airstrips with
hangars and maintenance facilities.
From one perspective, it does look as if Cuba has conceded a great deal in
order to accommodate the Soviet's desire to withdraw from Angola and to lay
the groundwork for an improved relationship with the United States. After
thirteen years of fighting, Cuba has agreed to remove its troops from Angola
before UNITA is defeated and eliminated as a threat to continued MPLA rule.
Castro will now be faced with the problems of what to do with the fifty thousand
troops who must return to Cuba.
From another perspective, however, it looks exactly the opposite. The
Cubans have accepted an agreement that allows the self-proclaimed Marxist
MPLA to retain control of the Angolan government and to continue receiving
Soviet aid. The agreement also prohibits South Africa from sending troops to
Angola or providing aid to UNITA. It does not prevent the United States from
11
aiding UNITA, although the odds are good that a Democratic-controlled
Congress will cut off further aid once negotiations are completed. Without
outside aid, UNITA's fighting capabilities, and therefore its negotiating posi-
tion, will be severely weakened. At the same time, Cuba has achieved the
independence of Namibia and the likely installation of a Marxist government
there under the control of SWAPO. As for the fifty thousand returning troops,
it will not be difficult for Cuba to absorb them, since under Cuban law their jobs
have been kept for them.
The possibility remains, of course, that the agreement will break down. In
that case, the Cuban military situation in Angola will be stronger than it was be-
fore the negotiations, both in terms of numbers and geography. Cuba will also
be in a better position to aid SWAPO militarily, should the opportunity arise.
It is therefore quite premature to conclude that Angola represents definitive
proof that Castro has decided to abandon "proletarian internationalism." More-
over, Cuba's behavior elsewhere in the Third World remains more or less as it
was. Several thousand Cuban military and civilian advisers remain in Nicara-
gua, Cuban aid to the Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador continues, and the Cuban
presence in Panama has increased. Thousands of Cuban troops are still in
Ethiopia, and large numbers of Cuban military advisers help prop up Marxist
regimes throughout the Third World.
In terms of Cuba's apparent desire to improve relations with the United
States, the signals are also ambiguous. The more positive interpretation is that
Cuba made a concession to the U.S. by dropping its insistence that Radio Martí
first be disbanded before the immigration agreement could be revived.
The other interpretation is far less charitable to Cuba. Given the rising
discontent on the island, Castro needs an escape valve. The revived agreement
will permit twenty thousand Cubans with close relatives in the United States to
emigrate annually. An additional three thousand former political prisoners and
their families will be allowed to do the same during the first year of the agree-
ment, as will others in the future, subject to U.S. law. At the same time, few of
the 2,746 "undesirables" whom Cuba agreed to take back may ever return to
Cuba. Upon learning of the agreement, those awaiting repatriation in jails in
Louisiana and Georgia rioted and seized hostages, giving up only after the U.S.
government agreed to review their repatriation on a case-by-case basis under
U.S. law. From this perspective, nothing has changed. Castro is doing what he
has always done-using immigration or creating refugees as a way of defusing
internal political and social pressures.
12
Castro's decision to allow delegations of human rights activists to inspect
Cuban prisons also cannot be considered a gesture of good will. It is the product
of a number of new developments, including the publication in 1986 of Against
All Hope by Armando Valladares, who spent more than twenty years as a
political prisoner in Cuban jails. The book, which became a world-wide best-
seller, made it impossible for Castro to continue denying the existence of
political prisoners in Cuba. It also embarrassed human rights groups into finally
focusing their attention on Cuba, after years of concentrating only on the fate of
political prisoners held by right-wing Latin American dictatorships.
Castro allowed a group from the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights to visit for a somewhat different reason. For years, the United States
delegation to the commission tried without success to get the commission to
condemn the abuse of human rights by the Cuban government. Finally, the
United States shifted tactics and asked instead for an official examination of the
human rights situation in Cuba. By then, an international campaign had made
people aware that Cuba had long been abusing human rights while few had been
paying any attention.³ In order to prevent a vote that even Castro realized he was
going to lose, the Cubans took the initiative and invited an inspection group to
their country.
The UN group made its inspection in mid-1988, although several private
groups had been allowed to inspect the jails and speak with the prisoners
somewhat earlier. All found the prisons to be in better condition than they had
been led to expect, and the prisoners with whom they spoke reported no torture
or other atrocities. The small group of Cuban human rights activists who were
allowed to visit the United States in the summer of 1988, however, told a
different story. According to them, and to other reports that filtered out of Cuba,
Castro had refurbished the prisons in preparation for the visits, and the small
number of long-term political prisoners or plantados who had refused to move
into the redone prisons had been severely beaten and denied access to the
visiting human rights groups.
Castro's treatment of two human rights organizations within Cuba also can
be interpreted in two ways. In one sense, it represents an important break-
through, since such organizations have never before been allowed to exist or
function. But the groups have never been formally recognized, only tolerated-
3 The excellent film Nobody Listened, written and directed by Nestor Almendros
and Jorge Ulla and released in 1988, deals with this theme.
13
and that only up to a point. After the visiting human rights groups left Cuba,
bands of Cubans organized by the regime taunted and attacked the Cuban
human rights activists. This is familiar behavior in Cuba, where the government
often unleashes such groups against individuals regarded as "counterrevolu-
tionaries. " Recently, Ricardo Bofill, the leader of one of the groups, left Cuba
rather than suffer harassment by the government.
Castro's apparent change of heart toward organized religion is also problem-
atic. His meeting with Cardinal 'Connor and his decision to ameliorate the
shortage of clergymen by allowing twenty foreign priests in are obvious
attempts to build bridges to the Catholic Church. This may well work to Castro's
advantage. The church has reportedly agreed not to take a stand against
dictatorial rule in Cuba, as its counterparts did in the Philippines, Chile, and
other non-democratic regimes. Also, the rapprochement with the Catholic
Church should be seen in the context of a long interview that Castro gave to Frei
Betto, in which the Cuban leader spoke favorably of liberation theology, which
blends Marxism and Catholicism. Furthermore, there is no evidence that
government officials have stopped keeping lists of those Cubans who try to
practice their religion so as to deny them job promotions and membership in the
ruling Communist party.
Finally, the campaign to attract many more tourists from Western countries
seems to be an important sign of the government's increased tolerance of
capitalist influences. Castro however has not portrayed it as such, but rather as
an attempt to solve Cuba's serious hard currency shortage. Any investment in
the tourist industry would be under the rules of Cuba's foreign investment law,
which requires foreigners to channel their payments to Cuban workers through
the government which in turn pays the labor force. There are also signs that the
government intends to limit severely the opportunities for contact between the
tourists and the general population. Cubans, for example, will not be allowed to
use the hotels, beaches, and new facilities during the tourist season
T
he difficulties in interpreting the recent changes in Castro's behavior may
help explain the absence of consensus over how we should respond to them.
Those of more liberal persuasion prefer to accentuate the positive. They want
the United States to take advantage of the new situation in order to overturn tra-
4 For a graphic account of such behaviour during the Mariel incident see Insider: My
Life as Revolutionary in Cuba by José Luis Llovio Menéndez (New York: Bantam
Books, 1988).
14
ditional policies toward Cuba that they believe have failed. They define failure
as Castro's continued hold on power, despite repeated U.S. efforts to overthrow
him. They charge that despite the embargo, Cuba is able to obtain whatever it
wishes to buy. They argue that American attempts to isolate Castro in the hemi-
sphere have backfired. Today, Cuba has diplomatic relations with all but a hand-
ful of Latin American nations and is admired for having stood up to the powerful
United States.
People of this persuasion believe that the changes currently underway in
Cuba should be met with revisions in U.S. policy. By this they usually mean
initiating talks with Cuba leading to lifting of the embargo so as to allow trade,
investment, and tourism to flow between the two countries. They assume that
the establishment of normal relations between Washington and Havana will do
more to open up Cuba's closed and tightly controlled economy and political
system (irrespective of Castro's efforts to prevent this from happening) than the
traditional U.S. emphasis on sanctions. As proof, they often cite the Mariel
exodus, when more than 125,000 Cubans fled to the United States following a
glimpse of the "good life" in the form of their visiting Cuban-American
relatives.
Those of a more conservative bent, in contrast, believe that the recent changes
are little more than a public relations campaign aimed at getting naive Ameri-
cans to make unilateral concessions that will allow Castro to weather Cuba's
current crisis. They argue that U.S. policy toward Cuba has worked and
continues to work. Castro is no longer seen abroad as a charismatic revolution-
ary hero, but rather as a ruthless dictator and an abuser of human rights who has
ruined Cuba.
Most conservative-leaning people therefore believe that instead of trying to
encourage a thaw in relations with Cuba, the United States should toughen its
policy. The Soviets would then have to decide between pressing Castro to im-
plement a Cuban perestroika and glasnost, or continuing to waste billions of
dollars each year on their tropical communist ally. In either case, the United
States cannot lose. If Cuba becomes more open economically and politically,
that is good for the United States. And if the Soviets have to keep bankrolling
Cuba, that is better than what they believe the more liberal policy would lead
to-the American subsidy of a Cuba that remains under Castro's control and
militarily allied with the Soviet Union.
There is, however, a possible middle ground. The recent changes in Cuban
policy argue for some kind of positive response by the U.S. At the same time,
their ambiguity justifies proceeding with caution. If the United States were to
15
lift its embargo against Cuba, it would be impossible to reimpose it. Washington
must therefore be far more certain than it now is that Castro wants a construc-
tive relationship with the United States, and not just American dollars to rein-
force his control over the Cuban people and to subsidize his foreign policy.
The current situation is ideal for testing Castro's intentions. Because both
Cuba and the Soviet Union are experiencing severe economic problems, Castro
needs relations with the United States much more than Washington needs
relations with Havana. The initiative for improved relations should therefore
continue to come from Cuba. There is no compelling reason for the United
States to take the lead.
Each time that Cuba takes the initiative, the United States must insist on a
balanced and comparable negotiating agenda. Cuba has always had a small
bilateral agenda and a large one. The small agenda includes immigration, politi-
cal prisoners, cooperation on hijacking, and the settlement of outstanding
claims. The large one includes ending the embargo, withdrawing from the
Guantánamo base, and normalizing relations.
Washington can now build upon the recent immigration agreement by
agreeing to negotiate other items of mutual interest on the smaller agenda. As
in the case of immigration, both sides would compromise over the same kind of
issue. Following the Reagan administration's lead, the United States would not
discuss the future of Guantánamo or the embargo in return for possible Cuban
concessions over fishing rights or political prisoners.
The United States must keep in mind that Castro is not Gorbachev-at least,
not yet. He continues to resist making precisely those economic and political
reforms that make the Soviet leader attractive to the West. By giving Castro
premature access to the hard currency he so desperately needs, the United States
will allow him to postpone indefinitely an economic and political opening in
Cuba.
Washington should be favorably disposed towards a more normal relation-
ship with Cuba; but this must follow, not precede, a Cuban glasnost and
perestroika. Only then should the United States turn its attention to the larger
bilateral negotiating agenda and explore further whether the Cuban leader has
really changed.
16
Recent Titles by the Cuban American National Foundation:
Political Hospitality and Tourism: Cuba and Nicaragua, by Paul Hollander.
This 32-page study exposes a systematic campaign of "political hospitality and
tourism" designed to persuade elite groups of the virtues of the Fidelista and
Sandinista Revolutions. Dr. Hollander is author of Political Pilgrims: Travels of
Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba (1981, 1983). Price:
$4.00
Fidel Castro and the United States Press, by John P. Wallach. The essay explores
how the American media has often given Castro the benefit of the doubt. It
includes numerous examples of Castro's techniques in dealing with the media.
John P. Wallach is the Foreign Affairs Editor for Hearst Newspapers. Price.
$4.00
Castro's Puerto Rico Obsession is a study of Castro's campaign to promote a
Marxist Puerto Rico. It details Castro's efforts to promote Puerto Rican "inde-
pendence" in the United Nations and his support for Puerto Rican terrorist
groups. Price: $4.00
General Del Pino Speaks: An Insight into Elite Corruption and Military Dissen-
sion in Castro's Cuba. An abridged translation of Radio Martí's 1987 interview
with the highest ranking military officer ever to defect from Cuba. Topics include
Cuba's involvement in Angola; corruption in the Cuban government; and the
disillusionment among the Cuban people with the Castro regime. Price: $5.00.
Towards A New U.S.-Cuba Policy (1988). A briefing on Cuban domestic and
international policies which offers thirty policy options for a new and more
effective U.S. policy towards the Castro regime. Price: $4.00
The Cuban University Under the Revolution, by Eusebio Mujal-León. This 65-page
essay examines the role of the university - the historic focal point of the Cuban
struggle for independence and democracy - in the Cuba of Fidel Castro. Price: $5.00
Narco-Terrorism and the Cuban Connection, by Rachel Ehrenfeld. An analysis
of Havana's role as "command center" for a network of narco-traffickers and
terrorists in the Western Hemisphere. Price: $4.00
A Public Survey on the Quality of Health Care in the Province of Holguin, Cuba.
A Confidential Report by the Cuban Communist Party. Smuggled out of Cuba
and translated by the Cuban American National Foundation, this report effec-
tively demolishes the myth of "great accomplishments" by Cuba in the field of
health care. Price: $5.00
17
Castro's America Department: Coordinating Cuba's Support for Marxist-
Leninist Violence in the Americas by Rex A. Hudson. In this 72-page essay, the
author examines the office of the Cuban government responsible for subversion in
the Western Hemisphere, using nearly three hundred footnotes to document
evidence of its involvement abroad. Mr. Hudson is a Latin America specialist at
the Library of Congress. Price: $5.00.
18
This is one of a series of reports and reprint articles
of Cuban concern distributed by
The Cuban American National Foundation.
Nothing written here is to be
construed as an attempt to aid
or hinder the passage of any
bill before Congress.
Copies of this publication are available for $3.00 from the
Cuban American National Foundation
One Thousand Thomas Jefferson Street, N.W.
Suite 601, Washington, D.C. 20007
THE SITUATION
OF HUMAN RIGHTS
IN CUBA
VALLADARES
THE SITUATION
OF HUMAN RIGHTS
IN CUBA
VALLADARESKOMMITTEN
ADDRESS: BOX 226
133 02 SALTSJOBADEN. SUECIA
COMITE
PRO DERECHOS HUMANOS
EN CUBA
CLAUDIO COELLO, 41-1.°
MADRID (ESPANA)
THE SITUATION OF HUMAN
RIGHTS IN CUBA
Armando Valladares
After twenty-one years of imprisonment in Havana, on charges of
«counter-revolutionary activities» by the Cuban communist regime,
Armando Valladares was set free by the end of 1982, thanks to the
intervention of French President François Mitterrand. During Valla-
dares' imprisonment, the Spanish dramatist Fernando Arrabal wrote:
<The most elementary rights which were hardly ever denied in Franco's
prisons, are denied to this martyr.» Valladares is now 47 years old.
January first, 1984 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of
Fidel Castro's tyranny, making it one of the oldest in the world.
It is inconceivable to retain power for such a time, backed by
tanks, bayonets and the terror of the Political Police, without
violating human rights. This cannot be disclaimed even by
the staunchest defenders of Castro's savagery against the
Cuban people.
Human rights in Cuba have been almost systematically
violated since 1959, and this could be considered the badge
of the revolution.
Every civil right has been suppressed, like: freedom of
organizing or belonging to an independent trade union,
freedom of journeying within the country, and even the right
to be released on completing a prison term.
On account of this situation, which has affected the country
for the last quarter of a century, any person may be arrested
3
with no legal proceedings whatsoever, on charges of spying
for the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), terrorism, murder
attempt or any other story concocted by the Political Police,
without evidence of any kind, or only on the basis of the
notorious «confessions» violently extorted, and be sentenced
to death by a firing squad. According to some very conserva-
tive estimates, a total of about 40,000 persons have been
executed in Cuba since Castro assumed office in 1959. We
may conclude that many of these people were free of any pun-
ishable guilt, and that others had committed offenses or viola-
tions of the law which in no way would justify the death
sentence application. The innocence of a great many of these
victims may be inferred owing to the fact that, in no case, had
they the remotest chance of defending themselves in compli-
ance with the procedures guaranteed in the most elementary
constitutional state.
I myself was sentenced to a prison term of thirty years for
having merely expressed anti-Marxist ideas, in an irregular
trial in which not a single piece of evidence was presented
against me. The officers in charge themselves told me that
they could not prove my guilt, though they were convinced
that I was a potential enemy of the revolution.
Presently, eleven provincial law-courts impose death pen-
alties in Cuba, and in the medieval fortress-prison of La
Cabaña in Havana, there is a special security court mainly
devoted to judge political dissidents and human rights activ-
ists. This was the very court which, only a few months ago,
sentenced to death several labour activists who had made a go
to organize a free trade union similar to Solidarity in Poland.
Moreover, this court recently imposed a death penalty
upon prominent Cuban lawyers and human rights activists
such as: Doctors José Redell Soto, Abelardo Triay, Emilio
Valdés Arnau, Félix Casuso and Nicasio Hernández de Armas.
During the same proceedings Doctors Aramís Taboada,
Francisco Morúa and Israel Tamayo were sentenced to thirty
4
years' imprisonment. After the suicide of the Cuban Minister
of Justice, Dr. Osvaldo Dorticós, and the stir-up created by
the <<farce of the lawyers,» these sentences were revoked and
the members of the victims' families were told that a new trial
would be held.
It is important to note that the violation of human rights
in Cuba is not due to the initiative of appointed officials or
groups acting on their own. The violation of human rights in
Cuba is institutional. It is set up by laws and decrees.
Thus, Article 52 of the socialist constitution in force since
1976, reads: <<Citizens are granted freedom of speech and
press, in accordance with the goals of socialist society.»
Therefore, a Cuban is only free to speak out in favour of
Marxism and applaud his political leaders.
Castro himself has said: "All criticism is opposition, all
opposition is counter-revolution.»
The Vice-President of the Cuban State Council and former
Minister of dictator Batista, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, in an
interview to Madrid's Diario 16 on Saturday, October 10, 1983,
when asked about the underground groups which are fighting
in Cuba for union liberties and for the respect of human rights,
answered as follows:
«Maybe there exist people on the island who have these
festive ideas about union liberties, but I predict that they will be
ridiculed.»
When in 1981 Amnesty International addressed the Cuban
government demanding the abolition of death punishment,
the same Carlos Rafael Rodríguez answered that death punish-
ment was necessary in Cuba. Impudently and in contempt
for man's dignity, the Cuban hierarchs admit in statements of
this sort their totalitarian and criminal vocation.
In 1983's annual report of Amnesty International, the
execution of 29 Cubans for plotting against Castro is denounced.
5
It is also denounced the execution of the political prison-
ers Abilio González and Rodolfo Alonso, twenty-one and
twenty-eight years old, respective being my ill-fate to have
seen them off when they were carried away before the firing
squad likewise in the case of the three García Marín brothers,
executed for having occupied the Vatican Embassy in Havana.
A few weeks ago three clergymen were executed as part
of this systematic policy. They were members of Jehovah's
Witnesses Congregation and were caught with a mimeograph
used to print excerpts from the Bible. Accused of <<abetting
armed insurrections,» they were sentenced to death and exe-
cuted. The victims were Jesús Prieto Suárez, twenty-seven
years old and town-chairman church minister; Saúl Rey,
county parrish, and Efrem Noriegas Barroso, twenty-one,
preacher. For the time being, the minister of the Jehovah's
Witness Church in Las Villas province, Julio Olivera Alberto,
and two other clergymen, are sentenced to death there and
awaiting- execution.
In Cuba, the absence of religious freedom is also institu-
tional. Article 54 of the Constitution reads: «It is illegal and
punishable to oppose faith, or religious belief, to the revolu-
tion.» In May 1983, in Santiago de Cuba province, the uni-
versity student Carlos Alberto Gutiérrez, aged twenty-three,
member of the Communist Youth Organization, was executed
on charges of «terrorism.» This young man's only crime was
to paint anti-Castro slogans on the walls of Santiago de Cuba,
as leader of a group of students discontented with the govern-
ment. In "Sancti Spiritus province, eleven peasants were
executed at the beginning of March 1983, accused of trying to
blow up the dam on the Zaza river. In fact, these peasants
were looking forward to creating a union and had organized a
protest against the confiscation of their crops and other abuses,
permanently subduing the productive sectors of the country.
Presently, there are about 40 persons sentenced to death
for alleged political crimes and awaiting execution in a <<death
6
row» in the Combinado del Este prison in Havana. It should
be noted that all executions in Cuba are carried out with the
aftermath approval of Fidel Castro, or at least it is so enacted
by the laws in force.
Another threat for life and physical safety of Cubans are
the so-called <<suicides>>> in the dungeons of Cuba's State
Security Department, and through «disappearances while
trying to furtively leave the country by sea.» This form
of physical elimination has been applicated recently, among
others, to one of the members of the expeditionary force
of the yacht Granma, captain Noelio del Pino; to the lab-
our leader and ex-member of the executive staff of C.T.C.,
Rogelio Iglesias Patiño, and the minister of the Seventh Day
Adventist Church, Indalecio Ara.
The <<suicide>> file has been used to cover up the missing
of Eurípedes Núñez, labour leader and former general secre-
tary of the workers' union of the Havana-based tobacco fac-
tory H. Uppman; of Javier de Varona, philosophy lecturer at
Havana University; of Dr. José Janet, physician and human
rights activist; in like manner, years ago were eliminated the
commander of the Revolutionary Directors' Board and former
Foreign Trade Minister, Dr. Alberto Mora. This would be
merely for the sake of mentioning the most conspicuous cases
of well-known characters, since the list of anonymous victims,
of ordinary men whose names never leak out, reach alarming
figures.
As far as the guarantees of the fundamental citizens' rights
are concerned, such as the principle that no one may be arbi-
trarily arrested, it should be noted that the situation has
worsened in Cuba to an unmatched standard in the history
of the island after Fidel Castro's rise to power. In fact,
throughout Cuba such repression is constantly exerted and the
situation most closely resembles a state of siege or martial law.
Both the State Security forces and the ordinary police are
entitled to arrest citizens on mere suspicion or anonymous
7
denunciation, and hold them under inquiring proceedings for
unlimited time. Some cases like that of Elizardo Sánchez
Santa Cruz, economy lecturer and dissident, who was confined
for nearly two years in the State Security Department dungeons
and subjected to all kinds of burdens trying to extort confes-
sions involving other people and a self-indicment.
As part of this handling of detainees held under trial, dif-
ferent sorts of physical and mental tortures are applied. A
typical case is that of the physician Mario Zaldívar, a former
practitioner of the Havana Military Hospital, alternately
subjected to freezing and heating chambers as well as beatings,
which caused him such powerful traumatisms that now, in an
effort to hush up the matter, he has been sent to Holguín
prison to serve a prison term far from any outdoor contact.
Details of the case of this physician come into focus to give
evidence that not even the members of this noble profession
are respected, even though the cases involving ordinary citi-
zens add up thousands, making up a daily increasing register.
Another significant case is that of the lawyers previously men-
tioned, and who have been held in solitary confinement in the
cells of the State Security Department in Havana nearly for six
months.
In Cuba, people may not only be arbitrarily arrested for
investigation, but also, by equally unrighteous procedures,
they may be imprisoned for long terms on account of the
<<pre-criminal dangerousness act.» The repressive forces
always have this bill on hand in order to deprive of his freedom
any citizen they want with no legal proceedings whatsoever.
This constitutional violation of human rights is set up by
Articles 76 and 77 of the Penal Code, and through its applica-
tion, a police officer may construe that any citizen will com-
mit a crime in the course of time and he may arrest him so
as to prevent this. Last September, dissident Ricardo Bofill
was kidnapped and held captive for weeks for having spoken
to two French journalists, being sent to a psychiatric hospital
8
and, ultimately, given a twelve year sentence. At present his
whereabouts are unknown.
From 1959 to the present, joint forces of the Cuban Home
Office have carried out different mass arrest and imprisonment
<<raids>> on the basis of the <<pre-criminal dangerousness act.:
These <<raids>> have resulted in the imprisonment of nearly ten
thousand people, throughout the country. Some of these
people were among the prisoners- sent to the United States
through Mariel passage in 1980, while others still remain in
jail or, after serving their terms, they have been sentenced
again, thus their imprisonments are endless ones. Therefore,
and owing to the fact that Cuban courts are nothing but a
shield for the illwill. of the Home Office, Cuba's inmate popula-
tion can be estimated in one hundred and thirty thousand
citizens deprived of freedom, being political prisoners about
fourteen thousand.
In the Combinado del Este prison in Havana, there are
about twelve thousand prisoners. In the same province there
are fourteen more prisons. Prisons, the so-called <<correctional
farms» and the concentration camps, come to about two
hundred penitentiary facilities throughout the country.
The prisoners undergoing the worst situation are rebels
who reject political rehabilitation programmes. They have
beèn kept for over three years, without clothing, in shut-up
cells with no natural or artificial lighting, deprived of mail or
any other form of contact with the outer world. Lacking
medical care they even suffer beatings and harrassment of all
sorts.
After twenty years in jail, they are the most ancient pris-
oners throughout America; including the Spaniard Eloy Gu-
tiérrez Menoyo, Roberto Martín Pérez, the poets Ernesto
Díaz and Jorge Valls, and the Baptist minister Humberto
Noble Alexander, who has already completed his term, with
him another 20 people who have not been released because
they reject the political' rehabilitation programmes.
9
Part of this information on the present state of human rights
in Cuba comes from an out of the record report prepared by a
group of judges who smuggled it out of the country.
For years, Castro has hushed up the outcry of the tortured,
and buried his dead secretly. A curtain of secrecy and indif-
ference has fallen relating these crimes and atrocities of the
Cuban regime. The same governments, politicians, intellec-
tuals and press who rend their garments over the violations
of human rights in Chile, Argentina or Guatemala, close their
eyes and say nothing about Castro's crimes.
The twenty-five years of dictatorship, the lack of all free-
dom, the persecution, tortures, executions, terror and viola-
tions of, human rights which characterize the criminal nature
of the Cuban regime admit no refutation or can be construable.
It is not by cheering up tyrants, supporting them, helping
them and backing their crimes, that we are helpful to the
cause of Freedom, Justice and the respect of Human Dignity.
It is not by singing praises for those who subdue and murder
their own people, that we will attain the development of society
toward the ideal of perfection cherished by all men of good will
on earth.
10
23/2/83.
For. MRS. MARTHA VALLADARES.
ESTIMADO HERMANO, APENAS UNAS HORRS QUE sellt
UNA BALITA PARA ri, Y MHORA ACADAN DE TRAER DOS JÓVENES
N LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS (PASELLONES DE CASTIGO) Y
me MANO DE ENTERAR as TRATO QUE LES ESTAN DANDO
IN EEAS ERGASTULAS. LAS TORTURAS VAN DESDE LAS
psiquich A LAS FisicAS. PERO ANDRA sE HAN EXTRE-
MADD como NUNCA ANTER EN LAS CELORE DE LA MUERTE.
Si ENTRAS DE REPENTE PENERRÍA DUE ESTA PINTADA
DE ROJO, PERO NO, HERMAND MIO, ES LA SANGRE DE
LOS MARTIRIEADO. AHORA TIENEN UNA NUEVA DIVER
sión, TE IMAGINA CUR: ES? PUES BIEN, TRAIN LOS
PERROS "PASTORBALEMAN" PARA ENTRENARLOS EN
LOS CORREDORES, CIERRAN LOS PASILLOS, Y ENTON-
CE COMIENZA LA FIESTA, GUANDO SACAN LOS PRESOS,
CONVIRTIENDO LOS PASILLOS EN COLISEO ROMAND, y LOS
PERROS EN VERDADERAS FIERAS. POR миено QUE SE
TRATE DE EXPLICAR, ME ES imposible, NO HAY PALAS-
RAS PARA DESCRIBIR LA ESCENA, SOLD VIENDOLO PUE-
Das CRUNELO, 0 DESPUTS PODER VER ÉSTOS INFORTUNA-
DOS CON LAS HERIDAS Dissminacht EM EL CUERPO Y.
nov alaunaa INFECTADAS . can QUERNOS. LE
EDENTO csro PERQUES out COMPRENDE COMO
HA WUSEDIOC ATRO ABUSO. SEMEJANTE A LOS DE
SAN Runda y TRES MACIOS. Y AQUI ESTAMOS
MANIATROOS, CON UNA INCOMUNICACIÓN COMO
NUNCA ANTES J COMPRENDEICOMO HA DE ESTAM
86 ANIMO DEL PERSONAL AL TENER CLIE SOPORTAR
ESTO, Y OIKLOS VOCIFERANDO POR LA "RH.C."
SOARE LOS DERECHOS DE LOS RECLUSES, Y LOS
MALTENTOS QUE SUFREN EN CHILE y OTROS PAISES
DE AMERICA!
NOS HACE FALTA DENUNCIAN LO CIIE ESTA PA-
SANDO AQUi. CHAO.
Dide.
Facsímil de la carta
de Humberto Noble Alexander
11
LETTER FROM THE BAPTIST SHEPHERD
HUMBERTO NOBLE ALEXANDER
Taken secretly out of the prison where he is confined. This prisoner
completed his 20-year sentence two years ago and has not yet been
released. The authorities stick to it on the ground of his religious activ-
ity within prison.
From the Cuban political penitentiary «Combinado del Este»
Prison, Havana.
February 23rd, 1983
For: Mrs. Martha Valladares.
Dear Brother:
Just a few hours ago I sealed up a letter-bullet for you,
and now they have just brought in two youths from «Human
Rights» (Punishment Section). So now I have learned of the
treatment they are receiving in those dungeons. The torture
is both mental and physical. But now they have made it
harsher than ever before in the death cells.
If you were to suddenly enter there, you'd think the walls
NOTE: Humberto Noble Alexander was released on June, 1984;
that is, more than two years after having completed his 20-year
sentence.
12
0
were painted red. But no, Brother, it is the blood of the
martyred. Now they've invented a new pastime. Can you
guess what it is? Well, they bring in their German shepherd
dogs to train them in the corridors. They lead in the prison-
ers, close up the halls, and all is set for the games to begin.
The dogs become genuinely wild beasts and the corridors
turn into a Roman coliseum. No matter how hard I try I
could not word a description of this scene, only seeing is
believing, or seeing these poor men with wounds scattered over
their bodies and infected with worms in some places.
I tell you all this because I know you understand how an-
other abuse has taken place, like that of San Ramón and Tres
Macios.
And here we are, with hands tied up, being isolated like
never before. You can understand how people's spirits are
having to bear with all this and then hear them yelling on
«R.H.C.» (RADIO HAVANA CUBA) about prisoners' rights
and the maltreatment suffered by prisoners in Chile and other
American countries.
We must give out what is happening here.
Chao
13
CUBAN JAILS FOR WOMEN
By former female political prisoners
1. May 20th, 1961 - Mother's Day
We were 100 women held in Guanabacoa's jail and they
wanted to transfer us to Guanajay prison, where conditions
were unbearable. We tried to resist this and so 20 were taken
to a cell where from, later on, they were taken out by 60 guards
who started to beat them. The prison was fenced in by some
600 armed men and women. They finally took these 20
women away in a cellular car and subjected the remaining
ones to water hoses at a pressure of 200 to 300 pounds which
threw us on the floor. To one of the women prisoners who
was six months pregnant, they directed the hose to her womb
to provoke an abortion. Many of us ran' to protect her with
our bodies. The water pressure left severe marks on our skin
for about two months. After the water, the men beat us
again.
2. June to December, 1961
Guanajay prison. The conditions were terrible, with no
medical care at all. Due to the lack of health care, 21 year
old Lydia Pérez died in January while in labour. When her
husband, who was also a prisoner in another jail, heard the
news, he killed himself.
We endured the most thorough searches during which all
our personal belongings were taken away, in July, August and
September.
15
These searches always ended with beatings and punish-
ments. One night, one of the women became severely ill and
vomited continually. We all started to yell calling for a doctor,
but our screaming was ignored. We' endeavoured to be
heard, and we were indeed. The guards started shooting at
us. The marks of the bullets were all over the walls. Then
they came into the cells and beat us unmercifully. .More
than 50 women were left wounded.
In December 1961, 50 year old Julia González-Roquete
passed away. She was suffering a painful tooth ache but no
medical care whatsoever was given to her. When her con-
dition worsened she was taken to die elsewhere away from her
cell. She died from septicemia. Her husband was in prison
too and their children in the United States. She was buried
scarcely 1/2 hours after her death.
3. July 4th, 1962
A new stronger disciplinary system was enforced. Unreason-
able punishment was constantly inflicted. Relatives' calls
were suspended for more than half of the inmates. At midday
on the 4th of July, four women were summoned to the Admin-
istration where from they were pushed out into a totally locked
up truck with the sign «Furniture» on it. One of them man-
aged to escape and ran into the prison yard yelling warnings
about the transfer. Immediately four or five men held her
and started beating her. In the meantime about 150 armed
men and women came into the prison yard walking towards
those <<in galleys» (Note: <<In galleys» means those of us
kept inside the cells and not allowed to step out into the aisle)
and shouted out 25 of the names, saying afterwards: «Trans-
ferred.
The yard turned into a battlefield: screams, insults, threats,
beating, curses, the sound of cracking skulls, blood. Within
the cells, many of us remaining <<in galleys».. being not able
16
to do anything for them but to despäir and yell. A young
black woman, Juana Drake, was taken out of her cell and
beaten all along the way while the militia man shouted at her:
«Keep moving you rotten nigger This girl was again sen-
tenced to three more years after having completed her first
three-year term, and put with criminal female prisoners, for
having written on the wall the sentence: «We have the right
to be free,» in English, Spanish and French.
A total of 65 women prisoners were taken to a military
airport in sealed-up trucks with no ventilation at all, being told
they were sent to Russia, and suffered abuse during the
journey. They were transferred to Oriente province at the
eastern end of the island. In Santiago city, they were again
jammed into police cage trucks and started on their way to
Baracoa's jail, for a trip lasting a full day and night without
water or food. A baby girl, born in prison only 23 days before,
went with us through this ordeal. The guards gave her no
water either for the first hours. When finally some water was
provided, it turned out to be salty. The baby had some, and
it made her so sick that it was a miracle she survived. Later,
she was christened Milagritos (Little Miracle.)
In Baracoa the punishment was even worse. Six months.
without medical care, with hardly any water and lousy food
until January 13, 1963, when we were transferred back to
Guanajay prison. At the arrival they tried to have everyone
naked to carry out «a thorough search,» with women who had
not been able to change the clothes they were still wearing
after six months!! They tried to do the same to those of us
who remained <<in galleys.» When we resisted to be stripped
of our clothes, we were savagely beaten. One of us, Sylvia
Perdomo, now residing in Miami, was so violently pulled by
her hair that her «pony tail» was completely torn off. We
were heavily kicked on breasts and wombs. Two of the
guards pulled apart the legs of one of us while a third one kept
kicking her genitals. This lasted up till 5 in the morning
17
- and what they left behind was a group of women feeling
that for quite a few days could not even eat, full of sores,
bleeding and cold, as the temperature was 5° C, and we only
had our pijamas on. We were kept <<in galleys» for over six
months, with no visits, or food bags that when received,
usually contained a few pounds of sugar, powder milk, choco-
late and some home-made dessert.
4. July, 1963
We were still <<in galleys» when one night Manolo Martí-
nez, Chief of Prisons called in to us. We knew that he was
going to create problems as usual, because he is mentally
deranged. Since our punishment period was about to finish
(from January to July) we agreed not to do anything to
arouse his anger. We remained silent in order to avoid
trouble, but on noticing our silence he became hysterical and
started to send women into «tapiadas.» These are cells with
steel plates on the doors and windows allowing no light to
come through, and as to sanitary facilities, there is only a
hole in the floor. He started to call names out up to 40
chosen at random. He kept them in the «tapiadas,» without
ventilation and in total darkness, with no beds or even water
to wash themselves, and with the same uniform for over 40
days. They only had one meal a day of boiled corn flour and
two small glasses of water per day. Many, were bitten by
spiders and rats. When taken out, they were unable to open
their eyes in daylight for several days.
5. February, 1964
The guards sent women prisoners into seclusion again for
a period of six months: this time there were 64 of them.
6. November, 1964
Two months after releasing the second group of the «ta-
piadas,» Captain San Luis of the Prison Department, consue-
18
tudinary drunkard, came into the galley. He was drunk and
carried a gun. Once in the galley, he began to insult us. We
got scared and asked him to leave as he was drunk and he
started firing his gun on to the ceiling. Some militia men
appeared and took him away but later on he took revenge
sending 60 women prisoners into the «tapiadas,» this time for
a period of four months. Almost all of them were covered
up with fungus, athlete's foot and other ulcerations, and one
of them was under a hypoglycaemic coma because she was
denied a teaspoonful of sugar she badly needed. Many
became ill with liver and bladder diseases, as well as ulcers.
7. January, 1965
Every 10 or 16 months we were taken out for inquiries
- what we thought about God, the revolution, Cuba, the
USA, the rehabilitation programmes (indoctrination), what
we would like to do if we were free, etc. It was an annual
test of our minds. In this occasion, 60 women refused to sub-
mit themselves once again to go over this sort of mental
torture, but they were taken by force, by men who twisted
back their arms along the 250 metres from the «tapiadas» to
the office. Others were beaten with sticks and carried away
in cellular cars. At the arrival all of them were beaten on
their wombs and kicked. If they refused to face the inquiry,
the guards continued to beat them in the office.
During these beatings those of us in the «galleys» could
only shout <<cowards and murderers» to them, whilst awaiting
our turn to be beaten. A women prisoner still in jail, was
so badly hurt that for over five days she lay on the floor, un-
able to move or utter a single word. Our pleads for medical
aid for her did not succeed. For months there was blood in
her urine.
8. November, 1966
Forced labour was put into effect, but we resisted. More
19
beating, more of us in «tapiadas» and more confinements.
The guards brought female inmates from the penitentiary
- who were mentally ill, physically and morally degener-
ated - and lodged them in cells above ours. For 30 consecu-
tive days and nights, without a minute rest, they made a <<tin
beating» hitting the cell bars with tin plates. The noise was
hellish. The nerves reached a degree of edginess and the head
looked like going to burst. It was impossible to rest or sleep.
Not satisfied with all this, the guards turned on loudspeakers
at full blast with static sounds of the Communist Anthem
«The International.» After 30 days we could not stand it any-
more. Suddenly the noise stopped, but for 2 days I still kept
hearing it in my brain. Now, the silence also did not allow us
to sleep. It was a crushing experience. The noise had pierced
our brains.
9. February 14th, 1965
We were given an ultimatum. Either we would do forced
labour the guards would bring back the convicted women
prisoners into our cells. That would have killed all of us. We
started to work from 7 to 11.30 a.m. and from 1.30 to 5 p.m.
removing the grass with shovels.
Upon returning to our cells we were locked up until next
day. The food continued to be awful. For four months we
only had boiled eggs and Russian canned mincemeat. After
the third month I threw up just looking at it. I became ill
with hepatitis. For more than 15 days I only ate bread, water,
sugar and a piece of tomato and lettuce that I had managed
to smuggle from the field. From November 8th, 1965 up
to April, 1967 we were kept in «tapiadas.» Exactly for 17
months. On April 18th, we were removed from Guanajay
prison to make room for the men that could not be kept in
other prisons, and we were taken to Guanabacoa's jail before
going to a concentration camp, ironically called «Free Amer-
20
ica.» We were about 400 women approximately 45 to a cell,
with hardly any space to move like in galleys, for a full month.
In the concentration camp (sort of a farm confiscated to
their rightful owner) the discipline, work and punishment
increased. Two large aisles were turned into galleys. In one
of these (50 X 70 feet) they kept 350 women, and in the other
(12 X 34 feet) the remaining 50. They set up a «Court» for
trials, with a jury formed by 3 or 4 militia men who punished
us almost for nothing, cancelling our visits, mail, bags or food
parcels. Every Monday a «Court» was held with an average
of 25 punished. I personally had my visits, mail, and food
bags cancelled for three months - just because I picked up a
mango, that had fallen from a tree.
A girl whose parents were about to leave the country and
who was doing her best to avoid the cancellation of their last
visit, was accused of «looking with hatred to a militia woman,»
and punished for six months.
Another one had a three-month punishment for not having
gone to work under a severe asthma fit that almost prevented
her from breathing.
We did not have any warm clothes at all. We only had
two denim uniforms, two pieces of underwear and a bedsheet
to cover us up. We tried to get newspapers to put them
between our clothes and bodies and inside our stockings.
After two months of severe winter, a flannel undershirt was
provided to women over 60 years old.
Our meals: breakfast at 6 a.m. consisting of hot water with
dark brown sugar. At 12 noon boiled noodles or a light bean
soup (sometimes of the «Guanina» type, that is, food for
porks) and a piece of bread. At 5.30 p.m. bean consomé with
Russian canned mincemeat or corn flour, boiled eggs or rice
and a piece of bread. The guards knew that we were going
to be hungry during the night, but did not allow us to take
the bread into the cells. Sometimes I managed to hide it
under my clothes because I could not sleep with an empty
21
stomach. By then I had acquired hyperchloridia and my
bladder hardly functioned (if I went with an empty stomach
for a long while I would feel terrible pains.) I still had hepa-
titis and my nervous condition gave way to uncontrolled heart-
beats. I lost 38 pounds. Once I became so critically ill, that
I had to be injected two intravenous serums, and I was given
some vegetable soup. That was all the medical care I received.
Next day I was back again on the highly greasy canned
Russian meat and the boiled eggs that by then I was unable to
swallow.
Things became worse. New prison rules granted a visit
every 30 days and authorized receiving or writing one letter
every 45 days. The guards did everything possible to force us
into the Rehabilitation Programme.
In October, 1969, it was the birthday of one of the inmates
and we wanted to celebrate it by singing and dancing for her.
The militia men did not like this and they suddenly break
into the cell for an inspection. They broke everything that
came across and beat us with wrapped electric wires, sticks
and machetes. I saw seven guards (four males and three
females) beating one of my fellow inmates. When I tried to
help her, they hit me on the back with a machete. One of the
scars they left me is still visible.
That day ended with a balance of broken arms, a head
with 14 stitches, three inmates with broken ribs, and all with
signs of the beating. One of the girls was so seriously wound-
ed that for a month we were afraid she might lose one of her
eyes.
The women still in prison in this concentration camp «Free
America» recently named «Nuevo Amanecer» (New Dawn)
are still enduring the worst conditions without enough food,
medical care, almost without visits or mail, facing the cruel
reality that while a lot is said about political prisoners in other
parts of the world, the plight of Cuban prisoners remains
ignored.
22
Report signed by:
Yara Borges, Trial 102/61. Residing in: 6530 SW 41 St., Miami,
Fla. 33155. Telephone: 667-8651.
Genoveva Canaval, Trial 600/60. Residing in: 39 East 9th Street, Apt. 2,
Hialeah, Florida.
23
PRISONS
AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS
IN CUBA
PRISONS
AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS
IN CUBA
VALLADARESKOMMITTEN
ADDRESS: BOX 226
133 02 SALTSJOBADEN. SUECIA
COMITE
PRO DERECHOS HUMANOS
EN CUBA
CLAUDIO COELLO, 41-1.°
MADRID (ESPANA)
PRISONS AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN
CUBA
It is impossible to make a precise count of the penal
population in Cuba, including all types of prisoners, men,
women and children. However, without exaggerating, we can
state that, according to the latest information received from
Cuba, there are now between 140,000 and 150,000 ordinary
prisoners (and this estimate probably remains short). There
are no less than 35,000 young men who are now imprisoned
because of the Compulsory Military Service (S.M.O.), and at
least 15,000 political prisoners. Of the nearly 3,000 political
prisoners reprieved in 1978 and 1979, about 200 maintain a
position of rebellion by rejecting the established rehabilitation
and work plans. The rest of the political prisoners, who have
been sentenced from 1967 to the present, together with
«rehabilitated» prisoners who have completed 14 to 16 years
of their prison sentences, are working. The new prisoners in
Cuba, since 1967, are directly assigned to the work and
rehabilitation plans in prisons, concentration camps and
«open fronts».
PRISONS AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS. THEIR
ORGANISATION
We have a good knowledge of the prisons, concentration
camps and other penal establishments in Cuba, although here
we will only be referring to those on which we have been able
to compile specific information. The regime constantly
3
o
deactivates some institutions and builds other new ones
throughout the Island. And not all of them appear in this
report.
There are hundreds of prisons which are commonly
designated by the kilometre point where they are located
along a given road. For example, «Kilómetro Siete» is an
establishment situated at kilometre 7 on the Camagüey-
Nuevitas road. All the prisons, concentration camps, encamp-
ments, etc. are numbered in the different regions of the
country. There are nearly 50 regional areas throughout the
Island, and each regional area has a «Command Post» or
«Base» which controls the prisons of different types which are
located in its territory. There are also the so-called «Open
Fronts», composed of numerous brigades, which may in
turn consist of 50, 100 or 200 prisoners. Each «Front» has
thousands of prisoners at its disposal, who are moved as
soon as they finish a job in a given place. The Open Fronts
contain ordinary, political and Compulsory Military Service
(S.M.O.) prisoners, all working together. The regime sends
prisoners who are considered less dangerous, or those who
will soon be completing their terms, to these Fronts. The
main incentive of these establishments is the offer of a pass for
prisoners so that they may visit their homes once every 45
days.
THE SO-CALLED «OPEN FRONTS»
There are at least six Open Fronts in Havana. These
Fronts do not have anything to do with the other prisons. The
<<Sixth Front», for example, extends from San Antonio de los
Baños to Jagüey Grande, in Matanzas province. These prisons
are specialised in mechanical works, electrical installations,
plumbing, and all types of construction.
All the Country Secondary Schools (ESBEC) have been
built by prisoners. The regime obtains a skilled workforce
σ⁴
from among the political prisoners, and for this reason all the
prisons, Open Fronts, etc. contain political, ordinary and
Compulsory Military Service prisoners. As of the end of
November, prisoners had built no less than 150 schools. The
civilian personnel, and particularly skilled civilians, are of
minimum numbers in these projects. Prisoners have also
constructed about 25 schools which are designated by the
regime as «Teacher Training Units», where the primary
thing, as in all the schools, is <<allegiance to Marxism-Len-
inism». Furthermore, prisoners have built more than 20 poly-
technic schools, particularly in Oriente and Camagüey.
Other constructions have been carried out in the sugar plants
throughout the Island.
In its issue of April 20, 1973, the government weekly
Bohemia admitted the use of «counter-revolutionary» prisoners
in public works. Bohemia informed, in 1973, that in addition to
<<contributing to agriculture, and particulary to the sugar
harvest» (which is the most labour-intensive job in Cuba), the
political prisoners had completed a whole series of works and
were actively employed in others, including:
- In the province of Havana, they built three secondary
schools, 135 dairy farms and 6 cattle breeding centres, 344
housing projects, and other works.
- In Pinar del Río, they were building 48 housing units and
8 secondary schools, in addition to working in a
prefabricated materials plant, two carpentry shops and
four government establishments.
- In Matanzas, they built a dairy farm, a hog breeding farm,
a prefabricated materials plant, a mortar factory and a
carpentry shop, in addition to carrying out the works for
enlargement of two penal institutions.
- In las Villas, they built 2 secondary schools, 10 dairy
farms, a group of silos, 3 manufacturing plants and a penal
unit inside a prefabricated materials plant.
5
- In Camagüey province, they constructed 28 dairy farms,
24 housing units and a secondary school.
- In Oriente province, they were mainly employed in the
construction of prefabricated materials plants within penal
institutions, and in the adaptation and construction of
such institutions.
The labour required by this quantity of projects indicates
that legions of thousands and thousands of pólitical prisoners
were put to work in Open Fronts.
In the newspaper Granma, such things as <<Brigades of the
Ministry of the Interior sent to Camagüey» can often be read.
These are brigades of prisoners under the control of the
Ministry of the Interior. The word <<prisoner>> is taboo and the
regime avoids using it in public, although prisoners are
precisely what most abound in the workforce of the country.
The second-in-command of prisons and other penal
establishments in Oriente, a second lieutenant known as
<<Papito Struch», once stated: <<Prisoners are a primary
workforce.» His words were quite true.
Even prisoners sentenced to only thirty days, and those
who, for lack of money, cannot pay required fees, are sent to
concentration camps, open fronts, encampments and hostels
(the latter are institutions where prisonners sleep, being
transported to work sites in other places). Prisoners are
crowded together in lorries and trailers when transported.
There are also concentration camps for <<punished
persons» of different State departments. They are told that
they are not prisoners, but that they may not leave the
assigned workplace until they are given a pass. These
<<punished people» are sentenced by «Work Boards». If they
try to escape, they are tried by the so-called <<People's Courts»
and sent to a different type of concentration camp with stricter
surveillance and greater repression. Farming or construction
work is involved. The Communists have reached such a high
6
level of impudence, that they have created <<Prisoners' Work
Boards», composed of the most submissive and unconditional
prisoners who collaborate out of personal interests. These
«Boards» punish their own companions.
The body called D.E.S.A. (Development of Social and
Agricultural Constructions) has a workforce in which almost
60% of the workers are prisoners. Let's take a look at some
figures on this organisation for the first nine months of 1974:
works were carried out for the amount of $348,510,910 in
construction and assembly, $23,395,400 more than in the
preceding year. 93 farming and ranching constructions were
carried out, 85 school works, and 10 miscellaneous works
(including the new prisons built), plus 9,314 homes.
PRISONS IN PINAR DEL RIO PROVINCE
The notorious «Ñato»
The provincial prison here is known as <<Cinco y Medio»
(Five and a Half), since it is located at this kilometre point
along the Pinar del Río-Luis Lazo road. It is directed by the
captain of the Ministry of the Interior, Emigdio González,
better known as «Nato». This individual is quite sadistic, and
he has earned his rank by his acts against prisoners: beatings,
barbaric inspections, etc. «Nato» has placed young political
prisoners together with degenerate ordinary prisoners to have
them violated; he has flooded cells and corridors, letting the
water rise to over one. metre (after previously building
containment walls), etc. One of «Nato's» phrases has become
famous: «The revolution has only reached Artemisa (a region
which now belongs to Havana), and from there to here, me
and Cheda give the orders» (Cheda is the Provincial Chief of
Prisons and Penal Establishments in Pinar del Río).
At <<Cinco y Medio», there are political prisoners, some
7
2,500 ordinary prisoners, and Compulsory Military Service
(S.M.O.) prisoners. A group of political prisoners there, who
have rejected rehabilitation, are kept in nothing but
underclothing, in walled-up cells.
There are cells at <<Cinco y Medio» which, although
intended for only two prisoners, have seven or eight sleeping
on the ground. The punishment dungeons or «chapels» are
collectively known as «The Toaster», since they are located
next to the kitchen and the heat is unbearable, in winter as
well as summer. It is a security prison, of the so-called
<<closed>> type. The prisoners work in a prefabricated materials
plant, a book-binding shop, a propaganda print shop, and
shops for carpentry and the manufacture of handicraft items,
etc. There is a women's section this prison.
The following are other prisons and concentration camps
in Pinar del Río province:
G-2 of Pinar del Río: Near Pinar del Río and <<Cinco y
medio». It has underground torture cells.
Loma de los Coches: Prisoners' encampment in the area of
<<Cinco y Medio». The prisoners here work on construction. In
this place, formerly a military installation, thousands. of
persons have been executed by firing squad. There are
ordinary and political prisoners here.
El Cuajaní: Concentration camp near <<Cinco y Medio».
Cárcel Occidental de Mujeres: Opened in 1981. Near the
village of Bauta, in Havana. 2,500 prisoners.
Llamazares: Another concentration camp, on the Luis
Lazo-Pinar del Río road.
La Granjita: Near <<Cinco y Medio», with about 300
prisoners, including Jehovah's Witnesses.
El Jovero: Command Post of the Guane Regional Area,
which has an extension of 3,397 km² and comprises Guane,
8
Mantua, Sandino and Las Martinas. It has 21 construction
sectors of country secondary schools.
Sandino 1 and 2: About 1,500 political, ordinary and
S.M.O. prisoners in each unit. Unit 3 was previously the
largest, with about 2,000 prisoners. It was deactivated not
long ago.
Combinado de Sandino: Independent of the other prisons,
with several hundred inmates. It contains a prefabricated
materials plant and different workshops.
Sandino: At the present time, a new prison is being built
near the concentration camps Sandino I and 2. It is a security
prison. Prisoners are working on the construction of this penal
establishment, just as happens all over Cuba.
Taco-Taco: Political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners. This
place is famous as a result of an incident in which 8 deaths
were produced among ordinary prisoners. It is surrounded by
6 fences, a wall and other security systems. It is under the
command of Lieutenant Breto, known by the nickname of
«The Jackal of Taco-Taco». He has earned this name by his
abuses.
El Brujo: Located on the old estate known as «El Sitio»,
near Puerto de la Coloma. It is a mixed concentration camp,
with political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners.
La Tranquilidad: In the first years of the revolution, it
was a torture camp, particularly for rebellious peasants.
People were tied up and submerged in wells up to their neck
to make them confess what they were allegedly concealing.
Those under accusation were also taken to the cave called «El
Indio», where thousands of bats lived. There, they were tied,
hands and feet, and thrown into the cave, with guards
watching the entrance. This penal establishment contains cells
known as «lockers», into which several people are placed
without room to lie down. Access is by a. place known as
Fierro.
9
El Baly: In Los Palacios. It is particulary used for
punished military personnel of the Ministry of the Interior.
There are also other prisoners in a different part of this area,
separated from the military men.
El Caribe: In Alonso Rojas, Consolación del Sur. It has
three fences, and contains political and ordinary prisoners. It
is a maximum security centre.
La Vigía: Near Mantua, for minors. Over 1,000 prisoners.
It is a fenced-off centre, with several barbed wire fences and
sentry boxes.
La Majana: Concentration camp on the south coast of
Pinar del Río. Contains S.M.O. prisoners.
El Corojo: In San Luis. Concentration camp with S.M.O.
prisoners.
Herradura: In Consolación del Sur. It operates with what
is called «El Combinado». Over 600 political prisoners,
working with prefabricated materials (another concentration
camp).
El Corojal: Mixed concentration camp in Candelaria.
Fajardo: In San Cristóbal, with about 1,500 prisoners.
Mixed concentration camp.
«OPEN FRONTS», PRISONS AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS
IN HAVANA PROVINCE
In Havana province, there are currently eight «Open
Fronts» for work, independent of the prisons, concentration
camps, encampments and hostels. The «Fronts» have dozens
of brigades, which pertein to different sectors.
La Cabaña Prison: Set within the military fortress of the
same name, whose construction was completed in 1774. It
currently contains about 400 political prisoners, most of whom
10
are between the ages of 18 and 20. Other prisoners have been
sent there for having attempted to escape from concentration
camps, open fronts, the country itself, etc. There is always an
average of about 3,000 young S.M.O. and ordinary prisoners.
Groups of prisoners are frequently sent out to work sites. They
are transported to concentration camps in lorries and trailers,
like animals. Transfers take place from dawn to night. Orders
can be heard on the loudspeakers, calling out for one group or
another, because the trailers are waiting. And so, like animals,
like modern slaves, the prisoners are transferred to work
centres throughout the Island.
This is perhaps the prison where the Cubans have been
executed by firing squad. Just as has been denounced by
Amnesty International and the Report on Human Rights of
the OAS (Organisation of American States) and other
organisations, the executions have not ceased in Cuba since
1959. In 1982, nearly one hundred prisoners were shot to
death in this prison.
G-2 of Havana: Located in a former school of the Marist
Brothers, a Catholic religious order, in La Víbora. This centre,
the Cuban Ljubljana, the capital of terror, has been operating
in this district since 1963. Its basements are equipped with the
most refined torture methods, including artifically cooled cells
where the water on the ground turns to ice. Other cells can be
artificially heated, and still others measure only one-half
metre, where the prisoner is held for weeks, standing, until he
confesses. And these are but some of the horrors.
El Morro: A genuine centrifuge of prisoners, where the
«club-helmet» method is used. This prison, which is a bivouac
of Havana, was built by the Spaniards in 1630. It has been
deactivated and reactivated several times. It currently
contains political prisoners awaiting trial. There is a stable
average of about 3,500 to 4,000 ordinary prisoners who, the
same as the political prisoners, are crowded in underground
11
galleries, hungry and lacking in medical care. Hundreds and
hundreds of them sleep on the ground because there is not
enough room, and there is not even running water.
El Morro is a centre of repression. For psychological
reasons, the new political and ordinary prisoners are
terrorised with constant inspections. The guards place their
helmets on prisoners and then strike them with clubs. The
poet Miguel Sales, whose case has become known, was
clubbed twice in this way while at El Morro. Political
prisoners who have been at El Morro have informed that, in
two months' time, 6,000 political and ordinary prisoners were
admitted. When the sugar harvest time arrives, the number of
daily arrests increases. It should be noted that, in each of the
148 central sugar plants of the Island, six to ten prisoners'
camps are installed during the cane harvest. They consist of
sheds which cover only the minimum needs, without the
slightest comfort. The groups of prisoners exit from El Morro
constantly. It is a real centrifuge.
Melena 1 and 2: In Melena del Sur. These two units
contain a total of over 3,000 ordinary prisoners. They work in
prefabricated materials plants and in other types of jobs.
S.M.O. prisoners are also held here.
Melena del Sur: In the area of Melena 1 and 2. It is a
concentration camp for persons under fifteen years of age.
There are more than one thousand youths and boys of as little
as ten years of age.
Guanajay Prison: About 750 or 800 S.M.O. prisoners and
some political prisoners, who carried out skilled jobs.
Carpentry work is done: chairs, desks, blackboards, etc.
Valle Grande: One of the latest and largest concentration
camps. Located on the road from Havana to Pinar del Río.
Combinado de Carpintería de Guanajay: This unit is
being constructed with prisoners along one side of the prison.
It is a penal establishment of the security type witho two
12
fences and sentry boxes every 50 metres. The Communists
have stated that it will be the largest carpentry plant in Latin
America. That's how they make their «wonders».
Valle del Perú: It has an extension of 625 «caballerías»
and is located between Jaruco and San José de las Lajas. The
political prisoners and many ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners
began to work in this area in 1968 on dairy and forage crop
plans. It is 40 kilometres from Havana and the prisoners have
built 33 dairies, three calf rebreeding centres and three large
cattle raising farms. The prisoners also built a primary school,
whose pupils attend to a farm of 17 hectares.
Cuba-Bulgaria: Another concentration camp, holding
about 2,000 prisoners. It is in the area between San Cristóbal
and Guanajay.
Los Valles de Picadura: Another of the regime's
showcases with prisoners at work. It is an extension of land
stretching from the Jibacoa area to the boundaries of
Matanzas province.
It is a project of broader scope than <<Valle del Perú», with
dozens of dairies and other ranching facilities. This
programme is led by Ramón Castro, brother of the Cuban
dictator. Los Valles de Picadura features modern installations,
and it has been toured by all the high Communist officials
who have visited Cuba, from Brezhnev to Boumedienne; as
well as by Miterrand, and delegations from Perú, México,
Sweden, England, Canada, etc.
San Alejo: A concentration camp in San Nicolás de Bari,
near Río Seco.
El Mamey: Another concentration camp in the same area
as the preceding establishment. Particularly contains political
and S.M.O. prisoners.
Arco Iris: Concentration camp for minors. Contains about
1,500 youths. Located near the village of Santiago de las
Vegas.
13
Nueva Vida: Concentration camp for about 1,500 minors.
Also in the area of Santiago de las Vegas.
Capitolio: Concentration camp for youths under fifteen
years old. There are boys of nine, ten and eleven years of age
here. In the Palos area.
Mulgoba 1 and 2: Unit 1 is for females and unit 2 for
males under fifteen years of age. The prisoners are guarded by
police officers of the Ministry of the Interior. There are about
300 girls and over 500 boys. These minors have been accused
of theft, vice, etc.
San Juan: Concentration camp between Cayajabo and
Cabañas (mixed).
San Ramón: Mixed concentration camp, that is, with
political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners.
Santa María del Rosario Prison: Ordinary prisoners.
La Nena and La Paloma: Concentration camps in the
former estates of these names, between Artemisa and
Guanajay (mixed). Near the former hospital of La Esperanza.
In Havana, there is another concentration camp for ordinary
prisoners, where there was a police academy.
La Condesa and Somarriba: Among other concentration
camps in the Güines area. There are dozens of them in this
highly fertile agricultural region.
Güines Prison: In the village of the same name. Ordinary
prisoners and minors.
Fontanar: Construction of homes for military men and
foreigners. Political and ordinary prisoners. They sleep in
«hostels».
Cayo La Rosa: San Antonio de los Baños. Ordinary and
political prisoners. Prefabricated materials plant (concen-
tration camp).
Malagamba 1, 2 and 3: S.M.O. prisoners in San Antonio
14
de los Baños. Thousands of these youths are held here. Their
number is uncountable.
Virgen de Regla: Concentration camp for female ordinary
prisoners. Its name comes from the former estate in San
Antonio de los Baños.
El Pitirre: At the end of the Padrón road. Holds 1,000
minors.
Comet Cart Factory: San Antonio de los Baños. This
establishment has been enlarged, and over 400 political and
ordinary prisoners work here.
Primera and Calle 176: Flores District. Homes are built
for the Soviets and other foreigners. Apartment buildings are
also constructed. Political and ordinary prisoners. They are
taken to the «La Gallega» hostels (Campo Florido) in lorries
to spend the night.
La Gallega: Concentration camp at Campo Florido.
About 400 ordinary prisoners.
Arroyo Naranjo: Concentration camp for minors. About
600 young men.
The New Habana del Este Prison: On Vía Monumental. In
1980, 13,500 political and ordinary prisoners were being held
here. It contains a section for homosexuals and a building
which acts as a bivouac. One of its installation has 99
strict-punishment cells.
This prison holds hundreds of political prisoners who
refuse political rehabilitation. They are kept naked, without
medical care, incommunicated and locked in walled-up cells
for up to four years, since 1980. When these prisoners fulfill
their prison term, they are not set free.
Pedro Pi: Between Jamaica and Cuatro Caminos. Political
and ordinary prisoners. Construction of housing and other jobs.
La Clarita: Concentration camp between Guanajay and
Artemisa (political and ordinary prisoners).
15
Combinado del Este for Children: Located to the left of
the HABANA DEL ESTE prison. About 2,000 children are
held here. The prison is equipped with an operating room so
that the minors do not need to be taken out of the installation.
La Bertiel: Near Guanajay, in the direction of Artemisa.
Assembly of vehicles imported from France and other
countries. Bus chassis of different types (concentration camp).
San Antonio: Concentration camp in Bahía Honda.
Political and ordinary prisoners.
Jaruco 1 and 2: Concentration camp, unit 1 for adults and
unit 2 for minors.
Nuevo Amanecer: Concentration camp for female political
and ordinary prisoners. On the Punta Brava-Guatao road. It
was opened when <<América Libre» became too small and was
closed.
13 and Paseo: Off-limits. Prison for minors. It is for
admissions and evaluation.
Quivicán: Concentration camp for ordinary prisoners and
some political prisoners, who performed skilled jobs. It is a
large installation, with three or four thousand prisoners.
Alamar: Brigades of political and common prisoners who
work in housing construction, also in Guanabo and Jibacoa.
Guanabacoa: Many brigades of political and ordinary
prisoners construct apartment buildings in the districts of
Nalón, Debeche, Villa Elena, Pomo de Oro, Ampliación de
Guanabacoa, La Loma and others. In particular, apartment
buildings are- built for military men and foreigners. Many of
the prisoners used here, come from zones 1 and 2 of La
Cabaña and from hostels located in San Miguel del Padrón,
where there are five buildings with fences and sentry boxes.
The command post is located in «La Gallega», Campo
Florido. There are work plans with political and ordinary
prisoners in the so-called «Triángulo de Catalina» and in
16
«Васигапао». In Guanabacoa, prisoners were used to build a
Dairy Complex. In Cojímar, they built a teachers' institute, as
well as country schools 3 and 4 in Ariguanabo and homes in
Belena and Baracoa.
Güira 1 and 2, Marquetti: These and other concentration
camps, in Güira de Melena. S.M.O., ordinary and political
prisoners. There are minors under 15 years old here, too.
Combinado del Lápiz de Batabanó: Minors work here,
packing pencils in boxes. About 300 prisoners.
Castillo del Príncipe: In the city of Havana itself, at
Calzada de Zapata. It held 5,000 ordinary prisoners, and has
now been deactivated.:
Castillo de Atarés: In Havana city, on the hill of the same
name. It has been usted as a torture centre because of its
underground cells. It is currently used as a military prison.
Santa Amalia Farm: In Havana, exclusively for military
personnel of the Ministry of the Interior. About 2,500
prisoners.
Artemisa Banana Plan: With punished civilians and
ex-prisoners, political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners. It lies
in an extensive area of Artemisa as far as Alquízar. Thousands
of prisoners work here. These are persons punished by
different government bodies, who have been tried by the
<<work boards». If they attempt to escape, they are tried by the
so-called <<People's Courts». Insane persons are also put to
work in the <<Plan Plátano» or Banana Plan, earning 30 pesos
a month. They are under the control of the Psychiatric
Hospital, formerly Mazorra, and of guards.
La Castellana: Men's prison. In the Mazorra area.
Halls and Prisons of G-2: The so-called National Psychia-
tric Hospital (formerly Mazorra) has one part which is
displayed to visitors, and particularly to medical delegations,
as a «showcase». The Ministry of the Interior has two halls.
17
They are under its jurisdiction. One is <<Víctor Barahona»,
with about 100 beds. The other is the «Paredes» Hall, for 50 or
60 cases. The Ministry of the Interior also has about 200 cells
and dungeons. Many prisoners and exprisoners have passed
through it, among them, Angel Laborde, Víctor Sira, the poet
and writer René Ariza, and Jorge Arcala Rodríguez, 19 years
of age and resident of San José de las Lajas, who was
sentenced to five years' imprisonment on charges of having
torn a poster with picture of Leonidas Brezhnev, at the time of
the latter's visit to Cuba. These young peasant had torn off a
piece of the poster and used it to pick his teeth. He was
moreover accused of <<political unrealiability» and a false
testimony was presented, as happens in most cases prosecuted
by the political police, to justify the bureaucratic apparatus.
The patients of the former Mazorra Asylum, who are
charges of the Ministry of the Interior, include one who is
notorious throughout the land. His last name is Mederos and
this <<patient>> is one of the champions at beating the prisoners
of the political police who fall into his power. The
«electro-shocks» at this establishment know no limits, and
there is no appropriate scientific criterion for them. We have
seen many young men in prisons with the marks of
electro-shocks on the sides of their head.
Political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners work in hundreds
of places more in Havana. In the former «Merceditas» and
«Gómez Mena» central sugar plants, which now bear other
names, political prisoners are currently building two sugar
polytechnics. Here, while the young people «study», they will
be utilised in the work of the sugar industry.
Ceiba Plan: In this area of the province of Havana, which
comprises Ceiba del Agua and environs, the political,
ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners have built five country schools,
roads, homes, and half-board primary schools. The tourists
who see crews of workers building roads or fences do not
18
suspect that they are prisoners. The prisoners are currently
building a university teaching affiliate. A plan for citrus and
other fruit is being carried out on an extension of 386
«caballerías».
Parque Lenin: This was also built by prisoners and
ex-prisoners. It covers an extension of several «caballerías»
between Havana and Santiago de Las Vegas. The buildings
were constructed by prisoners, ex-prisoners and a few civilians.
It is another of the «wonders» achieved by the system. Its
restaurant, <<Las Ruinas», serves all types of drinks and foods.
In other establishments of the park, one can find everything
that is not freely sold in the rest of Cuba: crackers, candy, hot
dogs, etc. This park was devised by the government as a way of
collecting money, selling almost everything at prohibitive
prices.
Stone Crushing Plant: This installation is being built by a
large number of prisoners in San José de las Lajas, in the
Cuatro Caminos area. A brigade of political and ordinary
prisoners are used here. The Communists hold that this will
be the largest stone crushing plant in Cuba, with a capacity of
800,000 cubic metres.
Isle of Pines: This is one of the eleven regional areas of the
province of Havana, with 2,199 km². From 1963, a pilot plan
of forced labour was started. It was called the «Morejón
Plen», since a lieutenant of that name, a henchman of the
Ministry of the Interior, is the person responsible for directing
the repression against thousands of political prisoners there, in
the former <<Presidio Modelo», which was constructed by the
Machado government between 1926 and 1928 for ordinary
prisoners.
In 1963, what the Communists called the «Special Camilo
Cienfuegos Plan» was started. This plan was spoken of as a
civilian project in the press, but it involved the forced labour of
more than 10,000 political prisoners, situated in the four
19
circulars, two buildings and sheds in the concentration camps
designated «Mella» and «La Reforma». The prisoners carried
out agricultural jobs, constructed and operated dairies,
laboured in two stone and marble quarries, carried out
different constructions, etc. They were divided into «blocks»,
which were in turn divided into brigades of 50 and 100
prisoners. Balance of the <<Special Camilo Cienfuegos Plan»:
completed in 1967, it showed a balance of several dozen
prisoners murdered, shot, dead from starvation in hunger
strikes, jabbed by bayonets, mutilated or driven mad.
To erase those years of torture and murder in the forced
labour camps, the idea*arose of turning the Isle of Pines into
the «Isle of Youth», a demagogic name concealing another
plan. Work, this time with the students from the primary,
secondary, college preparatory and other schools.
The new plans are based on another form of slavery, and it
was thanks to the forced labour of prisoners, that the main
foundations were laid for the overall utilisation of the Isle of
Pines. It cost the death, blood and sweat of modern slaves, in
the midst of the 20th Century. The system has adopted other.
methods, but it continues to make use of scientifically devised
slavery. The prisoners who do not work are not released upon
completing their terms. Pressure is even applied by denying
medical care, in the aim of getting more «rehabilitated»
prisoners to work. Thousands of psychological and
hunger-based methods, derived from the Soviet experiments,
are used to attain their ends. The present Isle of Pines Plan
comprises 84 new secondary. schools, built by prisoners.
Schools are now operating with over 20,000 students, both
Cuban and foreign (above all Africans), who take care of
thousands of «caballerías» of land, primarily with grapefruit
orchards. The Plan will be developed to cover 2,000 to 3,400
«caballerías», utilising the work of more than 40,000 young
men and women, most of them between the ages of twelve and
fifteen, although primary school children are also used. The
20
citrus fruit plans and others, on both the Isle of Pines and in
Cuba, which are carried out with students, are under the
responsibility of the State Farming Association of the so-called
National Agricultural Reform Institute. This Institute, as is
generally known, has not benefited any peasants, but quite to.
the contrary, it has dispossessed them of their lands, as is the
rule with Communism.
To wind up these brief notes, let's see what Captain
Antonio Núñez Jiménez, now ambassador in Perú, wrote
about the <<Special Camilo Cienfuegos Plan»:
The <<Special Camilo Cienfuegos Plan» is being carried out on the
Isle of Pines, and it is a beautiful example of what a country in
Revolution is capable of achieving: Treasure Island becomes a rich
grapefruit production area and is developing a magnificent cattle
industry, with the effort and work of thousands of young people in the
farming columns.
No remarks are necessary here. It was the prisoners who
gave their lives, blood, sweat and suffering.
MATANZAS PROVINCE
Castillo de San Severino: Closed prison, with inhospitable
wards, built in 1692 by the Spaniards. Today there are some
700 political and ordinary prisoners. It contains a
prefabricated materials plant, where the prisoners are used.
The prison was deactivated, but later reactivated.
Agüica: Security concentration camp, with several fences,
barbed wire entanglements and sentry boxes every 50 meter.
Over 1,300 prisoners are held here.
Caballero Milián: For political prisoners. In Pedro
Betancourt, concentration camp with several fences and sentry
boxes with armed guards. There are prefabricated materials
plants.
21
Porfuerza: Concentration camp devoted to agricultural
labours.
Santa Rita-Baró: Several encampments in this agricultu-
ral area.
Jicarita: In Bolondrón. Concentration camp for ordinary,
political and S.M.O. prisoners.
Canasí: Several concentration camps.
Ciénaga de Zapata: Located in the largest regional area of
the Island, which likewise comprises Jagüey Grande, with
4,460 square kilometres. Several thousand prisoners are used
for work throughout this region.
LAS VILLAS PROVINCE
Centro de Seguridad Nieves Morejón: Between Guayos
and Sancti Spíritus. About 360 prisoners are held here, in
three buildings, with about 120 in each one. There are
political prisoners on work and rehabilitation plans. This
prison was opened in March 1973, with the personnel from
Manacas. The prison has a capacity for 1,500 men. New
section are now beign completed.
Nieves Morejón: Name of a former estate. Here there is a
quarry where prisoners are employed. This installation,
together with the «Guao» and «Arriete» quarries, also in Las
Villas and where prisoners also work, are considered the
largest on the Island.
El Condado: In the middle of the country, near the village
of the same name, 20 km. from Trinidad. This was a centre
for interrogations and tortures, not for condemned prisoners.
Surrounded by electric fences.
Another installation, exaclty the same as the preceding one
and calted «El Serrucho», to the north of Ciego de Avila,
has a capacity for 500 prisoners and the same mission:
interrogations and tortures to obtain confessions.
22
Santa Clara Prison: «A prison which looks like a factory».
This is the provincial prison. It is near the capital, on
the road from Esperanza to Antón Díaz. It was opened in
February 1973. It has two sections for political prisoners
of the Rehabilitation Plan in transit to other prisons. Cap-
acity for more than 2,500 prisoners, with several platforms
to allow construction of other bays or sheds. It contains a
prefabricated materials plant, known as the <<Prefabrication
Centre». It does not look like a prison, but rather, like a
factory in which civilian workers are employed. There are
gardens in front and around it, trimmed trees, etc. It covers a
large extension, and it is a security prison.
Ariza: Security prison, located at the entrance of
Cienfuegos, on the road to Rodas. More than one thousand
prisoners on the Rehabilitation Plan. There is a prefabricated
materials plant.
Palma Sola: Women's concentration camp, located in the
Placetas district. Over 800 female political and ordinary
prisoners. There are also some male prisoners here. Farming
plan.
Tres Palmas: Women's prison. With 500 ordinary
prisoners.
Aguada de Pasajeros: There are several concentration
camps in this area, with thousands of prisoners. In Cienfuegos
and Sancti-Spíritus, there are also concentration camps which
the Communists cover up with the designation of «farms».
Cárcel de Remedios: In the same village, with about 300
ordinary prisoners and some political prisoners.
Santa Isabel de las Lajas: Several concentration camps
with political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners. (These
installations have no names, since they have been designated
as «Typical» and given an order number since 1967. For
example: Typical 1 of Santa Isabel de las Lajas, Typical 2,
23
etc. They have a capacity for about 500 prisoners each.
Los Mangos: Hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses were kept
in this concentration camp for political prisoners.
El Condado and La Campana: In the Escambray area.
El Capiro and La Cochiquiera, to the south of Las Villas,
currently desactivated. Hundreds of executions took place
here, particulary of rebellious peasants from Cartagena,
Parque Alto, Tres Pinos, etc. The persons executed were
thrown into wells then under construction. Hundreds
disappeared without their families ever having been notified of
their fate.
El Cayo Diego Pérez: Located to the south of Zapata
Swamp. In 1961 and 1962, prisoners were taken to this
mosquito-infested area. They had been accused of
homosexuality, vagrancy, etc. The main thing is that they
were <<politically unreliable». Here, in the swamp, they carried
out forced labour. In 1964 and 1965, it became a centre for
another type of prisoners: the so-called «psycho-selected»
persons, acused of graft, etc. (In all these past times, it was
enough to be the owner of a car, a house or any other
property, for a person to be tried on some mock charge, since
these people were considered politically unreliable for the
Communist regime and the objective was to dispossess them
of their belongings.) From 1968 to 1972, there were political
prisoners here, and in 1973, S.M.O. military prisoners began
to be sent to this establishment.
CAMAGÜEY and ORIENTE PROVINCES
«Kilo Siete» Prison: This is a security prison with political
and ordinary prisoners. More than 2,500 prisoners are held
here. Located. in Camagüey province. Operates as a
prefabricated materials plant. The section for ordinary
24
prisoners is a den of corruption. In 1974, there were more
than 40 murders here in fights between ordinary prisoners,
with many of these brawls being due to reasons of regional
rivalry, between men from Havana and Camagüey. This
regional war began with the death of an ordinary prisoner
named Quijada, who was murdered by an inmate from
Havana.
The garrison encourages these fights.
Kilo Siete y Medio, Kilo Nueve and Kilo Doce: These are
other concentration camps.
El Mambí: This is considered to be one of the largest
concentration camps in Cuba. The Communists say that is the
largest <<farm>>. It is in the Florida area, and contains political
and S.M.O. prisoners. Plans are carried out for the breeding
of chickens, turkeys and other fowl; hog and cattle breeding;
crop raising, etc. There are over 3,000 prisoners.
Morón Prison: With walled-up cells for rehabilitation of
political prisoners. About 450 prisoners.
Falla: Concentration camp, with over 1,000 young S.M.O.
prisoners.
Chambas: Near Punta Alegre. Concentration camp for
political and ordinary prisoners.
El Anoncillo: This is one of the many «bases» or
<<command posts», with some 8,000 political, ordinary and
S.M.O. prisoners under its control. Near the city of
Camagüey.
La Loma: This is a sub-base, with about 1,500 prisoners of
different types, including political prisoners.
La Majasera: On the Cubanacán road. About 3,000
political and ordinary prisoners. This is another concentration
camp.
Florida: In this regional area, a series of facilities were
started up for dairy operations, cattle breeding, etc. What was
25
called the <<First Ring» began here, comprising an extensive
area. They are now working on the «Fifth Ring», built by
thousands of prisoners, and particularly political prisoners.
The project covers an area as far as Holguín, in Oriente
province.
Marchena 1, 2 and 3: Near Hatuey and the former
«Siboney» plant. There are thousands of prisoners in these
concentration camps.
13 y Medio: Concentration camp near Vertientes. In this
same area, there are four «farms» for female political and
ordinary prisoners, and one for male political prisoners. There
is also a «farm» for girls under fifteen years of age.
El Corojal: In Gaspar, concentration camp for political
and ordinary prisoners.
La Caoba: In Ciego de Avila. A concentration camp for
different types of prisoners, including political prisoners.
La Matilde: 7 km. from Siboney, with three fence
enclosures. Political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners. This
establishment is equipped with torture cells, of the type known
as «lockers». There are two concentration camps for political
prisoners.
Siboney: Two concentration camps for political prisoners,
with three fence enclosures and sentry boxes. There is a centre
for breeding German shepherd dogs, which come from West
Germany. They are distributed in all the concentration camps
to pursue escaped prisoners. Each concentration camp has six
sheds and over one thousand dogs.
Some of our companions who have been there, say that the
drinking water is hot, since it comes from the Siboney power
plant. The food is terrible, as is the case in almost all the
prisons.
La Matilde 1 and 2: Concentrations camps.
Martí: Near here there is a fairly large concentra-
26
tion camp with three fence enclosures and sentry boxes.
Hatuey: Near this village, there is a closed prison with
political, ordinary and young S.M.O. prisoners. About 4 km.-
away, there is another establishment.
Ciego de Avila: Several «mixed» concentration camps.
There is one which exclusively for S.M.O. prisoners.
Jatibonico: In this area, there are four concentration
camps.
Lumumba: Concentration camp in the Cubitas area.
Guangirtri: This is the name of the village, constructed by
political prisoners and others, 20 km. from the city of
Camagüey and 6 km. from Siboney. Prisoners continue to
work on different plans in this region.
Cuban-Bulgarian Friendship Dam: Near Sibaniai and
Siboney. (Prisoners have worked on almost all the dams and
reservoirs of the Island.)
Cunagua: There is a concentration camp for political and
ordinary prisoners, near the old Cunagua power plant.
Sector Number 9, at Manga Larga: There are infernal
swamps and beaches here, infested with mosquitoes and other
insects. On the Morón-Camagüey road. Prisoners in other
establishments are terrified of being sent here. (The sectors
are numbered } to 15.)
Gimam Bay: Near Vertientes. About 600 prisoners,
including political prisoners.
El Jagüeyal: Another concentration camp, with about
1,000 prisoners.
U.M.A.P.: These are the Spanish initials for «Military
Units for Production Assistance». It was the first method used
to mask a pilot plan for the agricultural and general economic
development of Camagüey province. It is the province with
the largest number of prisoners on the Island. Measuring
27
26,346 km², Camagüey is the second largest province in terms
of extension. It is also the least densely inhabited province of
Cuba, with 31 inhabitants per square kilometre. With the
workforce of political prisoners, for the most part, and some
ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners, an effort is being made to
create another Cuban «wonder» a «wonder» like those of the
ancient world, built by slaves.
U.M.A.P. operated from 1964 to 1966 with thousands and
thousands of S.M.O. prisoners who refused to join that
organisation. Other prisoners who had attempted to escape
from different establishments --civilians, <<politically
unreliable» persons, etc.- were crowded into lorries and
trailers and, without any trial at all, they were carried off to
U.M.A.P. The history of the murders committed here is quite
long but almost unknown to the world. Individuals without
political ideas resisted and died here, not daring to attempt to
denounce the horrors they had witnessed and experienced to
the world.
Hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses were also taken to
U.M.A.P. and there they were harassed and mishandled in
different ways. Many were murdered. Some Catholic priests
were also sent to U.M.A.P., together with members of other
Churches.
City of Camagüey: Political, ordinary and S.M.O.
prisoners were used to built a University composed of 25
buildings. The Communists who are in charge of these works
hold that this will be the largest university in Latin America.
They continue to produce their «wonders» with the slave
labour of prisoners.
Montecarlo District: Here, houses have been built for
Russian technicians and military personnel, and for other
foreigners of the Socialist camp who direct different plans in
Cuba. There are also plans in operation for the construction of
homes for military personnel of the Army, Ministry of the
28
Interior and other repressive bodies. These housing plans
cover the whole Island, with priority for members of the New
Class.
In Guanabacoa, to speak of another example now known
to us, in the Debeche district, the buildings were constructed
for military personnel stationed at La Cabaña Prison. In the
Flores district, on Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue) in Havana,
homes were built for Russians and other foreign Communists.
This is the case in most of the main Cuban cities and other
towns where the Russians are directing different projects,
including military plans.
The New G-2 of Santiago de Cuba: This is another
modern torture centre. The modern G-2 prison, of new
construction, is in the Versalles district, near the airport, and
it is equipped with underground cells and cells with small
windows and fixed concrete louvres, in the shape of inverted
«V»s, so that the prisoners can not see out. This is the system
which is used in all the G-2s. There are thousands of
mosquitoes in the cells, since once they get in, they cannot
easily get out. In the summer, the prisoners are given blankets
to cover themselves, instead of sheets. A choice must be made
between allowing oneself to be eaten by the mosquitoes, or
suffocating from the heat of the blanket.
Other torture techniques include high an low temperature
cells.
The heat or cold is adjusted, intensifying it to almost
unbearable levels. There is a dark corridor through which the
new prisoners are led, threatening them with obscene words to
make them hurry. Another system used is to prevent prisoners
from sleeping during weeks and months. Every fifteen or
twenty minutes, or even more frequently, the prisoner
subjected to this torture is called by the guards. Sometimes it
is for an interrogation, other times it is only to ask whether the
prisoner called for the jailer, others to ask whether he needs
anything, in short, any excuse is good to keep the prisoner
29
awake. Days and days go by like that, without the prisoner
being allowed to sleep. It is a premeditated plan. This system
was used on some of the Colombian fishermen who were
imprisoned at Santiago de Cuba, including Marcos Avendaño
Yépez, who was not permitted to sleep for fifteen days, in
addition to beign administered what was apparently pentothal
or some other drug. Several prisoners have been murdered in
fabricated «escape attempts». One prisoner who had been at
this G-2 in 1972 spoke to us of the machine-gunning of an
insane man who spent all his time screaming: «You're all a
bunch of sons of b...! I'm not a Communist!» The screams and
cries of the prisoners being tortured in different ways affect the
other prisoners. The G-2 of Santiago de Cuba is sadly
notorious for all the abuses committed there.
El Castillito: According to some reports, this
establishment has recently been deactivated. We have not yet
been able to confirm this point, since some persons say that it
continues to operate as a dependency of the political police.
Boniato: A sadly notorious prison: Located near
Santiago de Cuba, in Puerto Boniato (amidst the mountains of
the same name, in an area of great natural beauty). In this
beautiful place, under the Communist rule, dozens of
prisoners have starved to death in hunger strikes in which
they lacked all medical care. These people included Esteban
Ramos Kessel, Ibrahín Torres Martínez, Olegario Charlot
Pileta and José Luis Castillo del Pozo. A number of prisoners
have also been murdered in false escape attempts, as in 1971,
when the survivors of the Baracoa expedition, commanded by
the patriot Vicente Méndez, were killed. There are about 1,600
ordinary prisoners. This establishment operates as a
prefabricated materials plant. Throughout the Island, there
are several dozens of these plants, where the prisoners are
forced to carry out tough labour. Boniato is a prison of sad
memory.
30
At the present, political prisoners are held there who refuse
rehabilitation. The building has been caged in between two
high walls, which are connected to each other by cyclone
fencing. There are closed-circuit t.v. systems for surveillance
of corridors, and microphones. This establishment now holds
the poets Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, Jorge Valls, Roberto
Martín Pérez, the ex-commander Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, a
Spaniard, and hundreds of others. Naked, incommunicated
and lacking in all medical care, they never go out of their
walled-up cells.
Baracoa and Holguín: Security prisons. From 800 to
1,000 political and ordinary prisoners in each of these
establishments. The prisoners carry out a variety of jobs.
Palmas Altas: Security prison, in Manzanillo, on the road
to Holguín, with political and ordinary prisoners. Over 600.
Guantánamo: Security prison. Over 700 political and
ordinary prisoners. In all the aforementioned districts, there
are concentration camps.
El Mijial: A historical site of our war of independence.
There are 2,600 to 3,000 political, ordinary and S.M.O.
prisoners here.
Tres Macios: Concentration camp, with 2,500 to 3,000
ordinary and political prisoners. In the «locker» cells of this
prison, dozens of our companions have been tortured. On one
occasion, the national chief of Prisons and Penal
Establishments, Medardo Lemus, visited this prison and said
to the jail guards: «You got carried away. You've been putting
too much pressure on these people.» The strange thing is that
these tortures continue there and in other places on the
Island. Lemus was playing to the gallery, because there were
prisoners assigned to the Plan listening, as well as some who
had been tortured.
San Ramón: Also equipped with «locker» cells. Over 3,000
political and ordinary prisoners.
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Santa Lucía: In Holguín. 800 political and ordinary
prisoners (concentration camp).
Playa Manteca: In Mayarí, with 700 to 800 political and
ordinary prisoners (concentration camp).
La Caoba: Between Palma Soriano and Contramaestre.
Near Dos Ríos, where our apóstol, José Martí, died. There are
800 political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners there. There is
also a breeding centre for German shepherd dogs
(concentration camp).
Women's Prison: One of many found throughout all the
provinces of the Island. This one is near Siboney, Santiago de
Cuba. Political and ordinary prisoners.
El Caney: Several encampments and concentration camps.
El Brujo: Concentration camp, near Santiago de Cuba.
There are about 1,000 ordinary, political and S.M.O.
prisoners here.
Fernando Chenique: Concentration camp, in Bayamo,
with over 1,500 political and ordinary prisoners. In the second
half of November 1974, Granma, the official Communist Party
Organ in Cuba, reported that this «farm» (concentration
camp) was one of the winners of <<National Emulation», for
having achieved a large rice harvest (emulation of prisoners).
La Manga: Concentration camp with about 900 political
and ordinary prisoners, in Bayamo.
La Majasa: Concentration camp with over 1,000
prisoners, in Campechuela.
Mangos de Baraguá: Concentration camp with several
hundred political and ordinary prisoners. As is known, it was
in this area of Oriente province that the protest of General
Antonio Maceo took place against the Zanjón Pact in 1878.
Manatí: Concentration camp with more than 3,000
political, ordinary and S.M.O. prisoners.
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Yarigua: Concentration camp for political, ordinary and
S.M.O. prisoners.
Chafarinas: There are eight concentration camps in this
area. Guantánamo región. The camps include, among others:
«La Clemencia 1 and 2», and «La Piña».
Potosí: In Victoria de las Tunas. Concentration camp for
3,000 women prisoners. They work on looms inside the camp
itself. It is the largest establishment for female prisoners in
Cuba.
If the Cuban regime were to allow an inspection in the
country, it would be found that there are many more
concentration camps. Some doubt their existence, just as some
doubted in Stalin's times.
But there is one clear reality: Castro has been maintaining
a Marxist dictatorship for more than a quarter of a century.
And Marxism cannot remain in power without concentration
camps.
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