Speech #940077992

Thousands of Cuban citizens have been shot mercilessly during these tragic years of ruthless imposition by force. deceit. coercion and terror. of a political. economic and social system controlled by fanatics acting like witchhunters against any citizen daring to exercise human rights recognized as universal. But hundreds have also died as a result of the assassinations. tortures and conditions which abound in prisons. hardlabor and concentration camps where thousands are maintained as a continued warning to the rest of the Cuban people. Has there been one single appeal by the Secretary General of the United Nations or any of its bodies to the authorities in Cuba for a stop. on humanitarian grounds. to: (a) the blood bath of thousands. assassinated mercilessly for years before firing squads acting on purely ideological grounds. (b) massive incarceration in prisons. fortresses. concentration and hardlabor camps of tens of thousands of citizens. deprived of all basic human rights and legal guarantees for remedy. (c) the institution of forced labor. making it obligatory for all civilian males over 27 years of age. as a sine qua non condition to be eligible. yet without any guarantee. for permission to leave their country. besides being fired from their regular jobs following their request for exit visas. (d) confiscation of all private or personal property. including simple household effects. clothes and everything possessed by any Cuban or foreign resident. without respect for their human right to dispose of their personal belongings. not even being allowed to transfer them to relatives remaining behind and residing at other addresses. (e) the annulment of all passports of some 300.000 Cubans at the moment prior to boarding the planes from Cuba to the United States under the refugee airlift agreement operating from December 1965 until February 1974. Such annulment of passports executed against men and women. children and the very old without distinction. in violation of the UN Convention on Refugees and Statelessness. (f) the ransacking of homes. subjecting citizens to search at any hour. in violation of the sanctity of the home. without legal recourse or remedy. other than to be arrested by the dreadful secret police. socalled (-2. which faithful to its initials operates as a true second Gestapo. with the cooperation of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. operating in every block of every neighborhood to spy and interfere in every activity of life. including personal mail. (g) the conditioning of political (communist) indoctrination in the education of children and youths. and its requirement as a prerequisite for university education. (h) the denial of transcripts. whether of secondary or university education. to students who have left for abroad. nor of any proofs of academic degrees received that may be requested by any departing Cuban graduate. (i) the governmental policy of hate instilled in the population toward dissidents and the social consequences that it has brought to them in all areas of community life. (j) the despicable. constant and discriminatory use of the word "gusano" (worm) by all government officials. even by those supposedly administering justice. when referring in their public speeches or functions to noncommunist citizens. (k) the use of racist insults against blacks or any other minorities while in prison. on top of the unspeakable contempt with which they are addressed as "gusanos". "counterrevolutionaries". etc. (1) the coercive conditioning of the administration of justice. the penal system. the press. trade unions. political or social association. education. art. poetry and literature to the control of communist fanatics operating as witchhunters against any citizen daring to exercise human rights and fundamental freedoms contained but suspended for sixteen years now in the Constitution of Cuba. though of universal recognition as inalienable for all human beings. (m) last. but not least. the denial by the authorities in Cuba of permission to leave for their respective countries of citizenship. to hundreds of foreign nationals remaining in Cuba with their families. against their will. among which several hundred are citizens of the United States. awaiting for years to exercise their right to repatriation. Those foreign nationals are deprived from work unless they renounce their foreign citizenship. are denied entitlement to higher education in Cuban Institutions and are subjected to constant surveillance. yet. they are not given exit permits to depart to their countries of citizenship as they repeatedly request from the Ministry of the Interior and the Swiss Embassy in Havana. the latter being unable to do anything for their international legal protection in their departure. The abovecited examples do not exhaust the gamut of gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cuba. but are examples of those amply applied mercilessly and illegally en masse.