Cuban Payback

Cuban Payback
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

Being a black dissident in "revolutionary" Cuba has always been an
especially dangerous vocation. That's because the military dictatorship
attaches its hopes for legitimacy, in part, to the claim that it rescued
Cuban blacks from a life of strife. When an Afro-Cuban objects to that
narrative, it makes the regime look bad, and that upsets the masters of
the island slave plantation. Rage generally follows. Just ask long-time
Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who this week was arrested for
just such a "crime."

In a June 7 Senate Western Hemisphere subcommittee hearing titled "The
Path to Freedom: Countering Repression and Supporting Civil Society in
Cuba," Chairman Robert Menendez (D., N.J) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.)
interviewed four Cuban dissidents. Only one of the four was in the
hearing room. One of them spoke by telephone from the eastern end of
Cuba, and two of them spoke on a video feed from the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana.

One of those at the Interests Section was Mr. Garcia Perez—aka
"Antunez"—a 47-year-old activist who happens to be black and already did
17 years in a Cuban prison. Forty-eight hours after giving testimony,
Antunez was beaten and detained by Cuban state security. An activist who
was with him at the jail said that the police pumped pepper spray into
his mouth until he lost consciousness. He was later taken away to a
detention center and his wife was not allowed to see him for more than
three days.

There can be little doubt that Antunez understood the risks of his
participation in the Senate hearing. In the video he explains that he
did not have a lot of time to prepare because the event had to be kept a
secret. To smuggle himself into the U.S. Interest Section he says he had
to "walk kilometers and to hide behind trees and bushes as if I was some
kind of a criminal."

Once inside the walls of the U.S. building, Antunez didn't pull punches.
As he described the hardship endured by pro-democracy activists, he
reminded the committee that he was not talking about pre-1959 Cuba or
the South Africa of P.W. Botha. He said it is happening today, in 21st
century Cuba. He also argued that liberating travel to the island and
increasing remittance flows will not accelerate the transition to Cuban
freedom. Those policies, he said, "will only create impunity for the
regime and allow it to continue its repression." What the movement
needs, he said, is U.S. help for civic groups that want to change Cuba.
As he wrapped up, he said that giving a travel visa to Mariela Castro
was an insult to Cubans. Might dissidents also be allowed to travel to
the U.S. and then return to Cuba, he asked.

During the hearing Mr. Menendez noted the presence of members of the
Castro regime, who are posted at the Cuban Interest Section in
Washington and were taking notes. The senator promised to "monitor the
rights" of those who testified from Cuba and to "make sure that they are
not repressed or face any consequences upon their return to their
homes." But someone back in Havana didn't get the memo. On Monday Mr.
Menendez took the floor of the Senate to denounce the "beating and
arrest" of Antunez, which he said was "clearly a direct result of his
Senate testimony."

The senator called on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and
Committee Against Torture to fully investigate the incident, "as well as
the more than 2,400 other political arrests that have occurred this year
in Cuba." He also asked the State Department to cease providing any
non-essential visas for travel to the United States by Cuban officials.

Antunez was finally released this morning but remains charged with
assault, resistance, contempt and spreading false information. The state
is threatening to prosecute him.

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