A Tale of Bad Memory*: Surveillance and Arrest(Dr. Saumell is currently Associate Professor of Spanish at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas)
Reprinted from FROM: http://www.cubaencuentro.com with permission of the author.
Translated by Margarita García
We already know that more than seventy Cuban dissidents have been arrested and are facing summary trials. Several governments, human rights organizations, writers, academics and relatives of the detained have been condemning this most recent offensive of the Cuban authorities through diplomatic channels as well as through the media. Since I am a former “counterrevolutionary” prisoner, I have more than enough motivation to join the campaign for the liberation of these compatriots. I wish we could help them gain their release sooner than later.
On the other hand, this grave incident has awakened in me some memories that I have been trying to suppress for the last fifteen years. In reality, I don’t want to live dominated by sadness, remembering each day all the dreadful moments I lived in the company of thousands of other prisoners. Nevertheless, I have decided to write some notes based on that experience to give the readers some idea – a pale one, of course – of what can happen to a person in Cuba when one is accused of being an “enemy of the country and of socialism”.
Being watched is the first thing. One is surrounded by the eyes and ears of informers. Some specialize in spying upon you in minute detail. The Committee for the Defense of the revolution, in the block where you live, is the most visible enemy. Whoever lives with you is also under surveillance: in the neighborhood, in the school, on the job, in the store, in the butcher shop, in the vegetable stand. Your telephone, if you happen to have one, is another source of information for the police. They do not need a warrant to “share” your telephone line.
For all these reasons, it becomes quite easy to get somebody out of circulation. An order “from above” is all that is needed for all subordinates to faithfully follow it. After all, the repressive forces, the tribunals and the prisons all work for a single employer. When this implacable mechanism starts to work, it is impossible to stop it. The suspect immediately turns into a guilty party with no recourse. He or she belongs in only one place: a jail.
Then comes the arrest. Agents from the State Security Department (DSE) invade the house of the dissident. They firmly knock on the door. Once the door is answered, they show the search warrant and the arrest order. At this point, one realizes what two of the characteristics of the system are: the absolute powerlessness of the citizens in front of the police force and the total lack of respect for the integrity of the person that they demonstrate. The appearance of legality exhibited by the police is really tragicomical. In order to carry out the search, they are accompanied by two members of the local committee for the Defense of the Revolution and for hours they scrutinize every corner, drawer, box and wall, ceiling and floor crack of the house.
The accused and his or her family are cornered in their own home. Imagine what goes through the minds of these victims from the moment that they are assaulted by the guards who are very conscious of their impunity. Later, the one in command announces that the arrest is going to take place.
Upon leaving the house, the policemen and their prisoner confront a small crowd of citizens. Some jeer and yell a variety of insults against the victim. The rest are silent and just watch. The drivers of State Security start the vehicles. The guards push the dissident inside the center of the back seat.; One guard then seats on each side of you and you are given the order: “You have to always face the front. You cannot talk, scream or wave to anybody.” Immediately the cars start at full speed for the Offices of the State Security, the infamous “Villa Marista.” There, the officers on duty are ready to carry out certain routines: take away all the civilian clothes, take away any jewelry, empty the pockets, take your photograph, take your fingerprints. In an index card they write the amount and type of your belongings.. There is space for your signature. They then make you wear a yellow uniform and they assign you a number through which you will be identified and by which you will be called every time they come for you for the interrogation sessions.
Going towards the cells, the guard goes behind the prisoner, constantly whistling in order to avoid any encounter with another guarded prisoner coming the other way. Communication has been instantly cut off. The hallways are long, the silence is heavy, only the whistling is heard. Finally, they reach the cell. There are two metal cots, one on top of the other. The walls are stucco. There are no windows, but two horizontal slits where some little air gets in and out. To the right is an area for the bath and the Turkish latrine: above, there is a tube where water for the shower comes out; a few inches below there is the faucet for drinking water; in the center of the floor there is hole for urination and defecation. Above the entrance there is a light bulb that would remain lit till the end of time.
The loved ones, the colleagues, the friends have remained behind. The psychological war has just started. From now on there will be bars, state security officers, dogs, whistling and a tribunal formed by five “judges,” a prosecutor and a defense lawyer. Neither one of them is independent of the government. The isolated individual remains accompanied only by his conscience. Could one count on a lawyer ready to face up to the political police? In recent years there have been some who had the courage and unusual disposition to work in favor of those accused of crimes “against the security of the state.” How many? Very few. How effective? Their good intentions collide against the absolute power of the regime. The state security officers and the prosecutors assigned to “counterrevolutionary” trials have always had the advantage.
How about the local press? Would people be informed about what happened? Probably yes, but it depends on certain circumstances. If one of the official newspapers or radio and TV stations reports some news, they would have been already filtered through official channels, that is the Ministry of the Interior. Then, there is Radio Martí, whose impact is somewhat limited due to the strong interference broadcast against it by the Ministry of Communications. There remains another channel: the foreign news agencies. Unfortunately these only report to the outside world. To top it all, citizens do not have access to the Internet. The natural constituency, for whom the dissident is working, does not have the right to know what is going on. The only mechanism of distribution of news that remains is word of mouth.
The dissident is doubly isolated: by the censorship walls raised by the closed society in which he or she lives and by real walls and barbed wire of the prison where he or she has been sent. The only interlocutor is the officer in charge of interrogation. This individual would do his utmost, within “socialist legality” to send the prisoner to jail for a good number of years, as many as had been decided beforehand by the maximum manager of laws and administrator of dramas. Comandante Fidel Castro.
Normally, the prisoners at Villa Marista can be visited by close family members. On the visit day, the guard opens the narrow hatch on the door of the cell, calls your number and announces the visit. To keep appearances, the male prisoner is taken to a barber shop where an officer shaves him with a dull razor after applying a soapy scum on the face. It is a strange barbershop, really exceptional, because there nobody talks to anybody else. After the shaving session there is another pause in front of a mirror where the prisoner discovers, in addition to his own reflection, a long, dirty comb full of dandruff. It is an invitation to style the hair. After this episode, one starts on the way to the room without windows where one can be reunited with family. A guard will form part of the scene. There is no privacy. In many cases there can be no mention of the charges against the detained. Length of the visit: five, nor more than ten minutes.
In Villa Marista they try to crush the morale of the detained. They will try to break the prisoner using whatever means can be imagined. The final purpose is that they sign a document called “Declaration” written in the best prose of the Stalinist trials. It is very desirable that the detained admits total culpability and regret. He or she can also ask for pity from their benevolent captors or the magnanimous tribunal that would pass sentence. “The revolution is generous,” repeat the jailers, at the same time that they make use of a variety of physical and psychological pressures with the aim of dominating their prey.
While statements condemning the repression are being composed, signed and circulated abroad, the dissident pending trial is subjected to these hardships. The family lives under harassment. That is why the democratic international community must make use of whatever pressure tactic they can in order to force Castro to take the prisoners of conscience out of his dungeons. This process can see results in days, months, or years in the worst of cases. For jailers like Castro, prisoners have an added value: they can serve as currency in future “deals.” However, this can take long. The destiny of these individuals does not depend on any judicial process, but on their political value as assigned to them by the First Magistrate.
The dissident must adopt a stance of unbreakable patience. Suffocating days of isolation, of forced separation from family, of sickness, of hunger, of arbitrary acts, of blackmail, of beatings, of real danger await the dissident. One has to learn to have no hope in any of the laws of the land. Only whatever is beneficial to Castro decides the freedom or the continued imprisonment of his opponents. The judicial apparatus is subordinated to a single political man. Let no one have illusions on the contrary. The system follows that design. Different generations have tried to modify it without success.
Many times I dream about a radical turn towards democracy in Cuba. Today, however, I feel pessimist. Even here in the United States I see and hear different personalities from industry, business, agriculture, politics, arts, and academia who defend and justify the status quo in the island. They see in Castro a defender of the poor facing a brutal and aggressive power where hundreds of thousands of “Cuban terrorists” have found a heaven, mostly in Florida. After my jailing and exile, I have met many Americans, Europeans and Latin Americans who have no qualms in making such statements. I have seen how they show justifiable indignation with the injustices committed in various regions of the planet. However, in the matter of Cuba they become mute and paralyzed. They suspect the victims, they blame them and they despise them.
To my jailed compatriots, who will not be able to read these lines until much later, I wish them the best. I think about what happened to hundreds of thousands of us when we traveled the same painful route. I don’t forget for a second the apprehension and dejection of the families. I am distressed to realize that Villa Marista continues to collect so many innocents in its caves. When will this all end?
* "The Bad Memory" was a book written by the late Cuban author Heberto Padilla, recounting his arrest, forced "admission of wrongdoing," and forced "mea culpa" which resulted in an international outcry in condemnation of the Stalinist tactics of the Cuban regime.