Cuba: Tropical gulag

HAVANA, 11 (AFP) - Cuba has 100,000 prisoners behind bars, though just 4,000 were imprisoned before Fidel Castro came to power 45 years ago, according to what dissidents call the first study of the "tropical gulag."

The president of the Cuban Human Rights and Reconciliation Commission, Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, told journalists the "huge statistic" was "the bitter fruit of the totalitarian system."

Sanchez, a former political prisoner, said the year-long study was done with the help of prisoners' families who tallied the numbers of inmates across the country.

Cuba's population roughly doubled since 1949, from 5.5 million to the current 11 million.

With a prison population of 100,000, 0.7 percent to 0.9 percent of Cubans are behind bars, Sanchez reckons.

Because official figures are not available, he said, there is a margin of error of 20 percent.
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Cuba's prison system is "the only one in the Western Hemisphere that keeps at bay any sort of national or international oversight," he said.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross last visited Cuban prisons in 1988, but the visit yielded a report that did not please the authorities and which is still "highly confidential," Sanchez said.

The number of prisoners of conscience is more than 300, he said. The toll jumped in March 2003, with the round-up of 75 dissidents who were later sentenced to as many as 28 years behind bars.
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"Physical torture is not the rule in Cuba," he said. However, "psychological torture is routinely practiced," he said, by isolating prisoners in small cells, with "extremely high temperatures," in poorly ventilated cells without running water and sleep deprivation if authorities seek a confession.

"I remember having killed 5,374 cockroaches in a few weeks," said Sanchez, who spent eight years in prison.

"I counted them."

In 1958, there was only one prison for the 150 or 300 women imprisoned, he said. Today, there are about 10, with 2,000 to 3,000 prisoners. Another 10 or are detention centers for "hundreds" of young women "completely innocent" yet accused of prostitution, the activist said.

Hmmm. Somebody ought to tell Caribbean journalists what is occurring in the jails of the most populous island in the region.

Damn! Forget that. The island is Cuba, and the dictatorial ruler is Castro; he's a hero in the region.

Plant an American flag on Cuba -- it's coming -- and watch how the ICRC and Caribbean journalists take a sudden interest in the jails.