Inside Castro's Prisons

(3 of 7)

In August 1974, the detainees at La Cabaña, to which I had been returned, were deprived of food for 46 days. At the end of that ordeal, six prisoners, myself included, could move only in wheelchairs. For years we were refused any medical care whatsoever. In 1976, as the result of pressure by Amnesty International, the Cuban government sent a report to that organization, admitting that I was suffering from "deficiency polyneuropathy," which restricted movement of my arms and legs. For more than four years all my efforts to obtain medical care and assistance were in vain.

In 1979, however, as a result of a new political strategy, Castro announced that he would lighten some prison sentences. I was taken to a civilian hospital, where I began to receive appropriate treatment. However, the publication of Castro's Prisoner in France resulted in the suspension of this treatment. I was sent back to prison, this time to Combinado del Este, where I remained until my release. In April 1981, the military transferred me to las celdas de castigo (punishment cells), which, at the time, housed 67 people who had been sentenced to death either for political reasons or for common crimes. I saw young boys and workers led off to the execution post simply because they had peacefully opposed the regime. Four months later, only 13 of the 67 were still alive.

By August, the authorities had built special premises so as to keep me in utter solitary confinement. The walls and ceiling were painted dazzling white, and just above my head, my jailers installed ten neon tubes about five feet long. These were kept on all the time, throwing off a blinding light that caused my sight to be damaged.

Next to my cell, they had installed a gymnasium equipped with all the requisite physiotherapy contraptions: tables, pulleys and parallel bars. They then began to put me through intensive treatment. Supervision was very strict and the guards were handpicked. The authorities already had the intention of releasing me, and their objective was to remove all the aftereffects of the ill-treatment I had been subjected to. Castro had told several ambassadors and statesmen who had taken an interest in my plight that until I could walk I would not leave the country. The colonels in the political police often told me that the only prisoner who could not leave Cuba in a wheelchair was me. Other detainees left the country in just such a condition, and two of them, still invalids, are now living in the U.S.

Little by little I began to regain the use of my legs. I was given food that was in short supply: a liter of milk each day, lots of meat, fruit, vegetables, vitamins and minerals. Several months later I was able to stop using the orthopedic devices. I began to walk between the parallel bars, lurching and staggering at first, then moving with more confidence. I was able to squat down and run in place, but I was still unable to walk without holding on to the parallel bars. I tended to reel off sideways, the result of having remained too long in an enclosed space. (After we had spent a few years in small cells in the Boniato prison, several of us were brought out into the corridors: we reeled as if we were drunk.)