Inside Castro's Prisons

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I remained in that condition for many months. The wardens refused to let me walk outside the gymnasium. I learned later that they wanted to maintain complete secrecy concerning my re-education in order to win a propaganda victory with all those who, expecting me in a wheelchair, would be astonished to see me walking normally. At that time I was far from imagining that the treatment was, in fact, an anticipation of my release. I was in complete isolation. I thought this was the result of a government decision aimed at putting a stop to the campaign, which I suspected existed, to have me granted the medical care I needed. Each week I received a visit from officers in the political police who tried to convince me that everyone had forsaken me, that even my family wished to remain in Cuba. I did not believe a word of that, but neither did I have any inkling of the magnitude of the campaign being mounted for my release. The treatments continued. However, once the exercises and massages were finished, I still had to use my wheelchair to return to my cell or to go to the bathroom.

The Cuban government had already tried to discredit me abroad by printing a phony card that was supposed to show I was a member of Batista's political police and by trying to show that I had been a torturer. On my release I was easily able to show how worthless this proof was. If I had been a police torturer, Castro himself would have had me shot or imprisoned as soon as the revolutionaries seized power. Instead, I was promoted, and at the time of my arrest, I was a civil servant.

In Cuba, minors are sent to detention centers for offenses, which, in most countries, do not result in imprisonment. In Combinado del Este I met a twelve-year-old boy named Roberto. At night he would weep and cry out for his mother, pleading to be allowed to go home. To silence him, the guards would throw buckets of cold water and bottles at him or beat him with a rope. Roberto had been sentenced to prison because, while walking in the street, he had seen a pistol lying on the seat of an automobile belonging to a commander in the Ministry of the Interior. Just for fun, he had picked up the gun and shot it into the air.

On his arrival in prison, Roberto was put with the common criminals. A few days later, after having been raped by four men, he had to be hospitalized. On his return, he was classified as a homosexual and transferred to the section reserved for homosexuals. He subsequently had to return to the hospital many times because he was suffering from venereal disease. There are many Robertos in Cuba.

While I was in prison I also met four Jehovah's Witnesses, all of whom are probably still imprisoned in Combinado del Este. I saw several Protestant churches on Isla de Pinos that had been turned into fertilizer stores. Many Catholic churches have been closed and traditional religious ceremonies banned. The celebration of Christmas has been suppressed, and even the smallest of Christmas trees is looked upon as counterrevolutionary. Only a few people, generally the aged, run the risk of going to church; young people who attend Mass are stigmatized as "enemies of the revolution" and run the risk of expulsion from the university.