Refused to wear the uniform of Cuban jail
Posted on Wed, Jun. 18, 2008
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
Gladys Suárez, a former political prisoner in Cuba who belonged to a
group of men and women who refused to wear the uniform of common
prisoners, has died in Miami of a heart attack. She was 68.
Mabel Crúz, a niece, said her aunt died Sunday.
''She was a wonderful person,'' said Olga Morgan, who was imprisoned
with Suárez at the prison in Guanajay, southwest of Havana. ``She was
always full of love toward others and she was very young when I first
met her in the early 1960s. She resembled a high school girl.''
Morgan, who lives in Ohio, is the widow of William Morgan, an American
who fought in Cuba's rebel forces and was executed in 1961 by one of
Castro's firing squads for counterrevolutionary activities.
Morgan said she and Suárez were held at Pavillion D of the Guanajay
prison, which was then populated by presas plantadas, literally
''planted'' female prisoners who spent their days in undergarments
because they were firmly planted against Fidel Castro's revolution and
refused to wear the uniform assigned to common criminals.
They wanted to force Cuban prison authorities to recognize them as
political prisoners. Male plantados often spent their days naked for the
same reason.
Born in Havana on Nov. 28, 1939, Suárez was one of five sisters born to
Lidia Scull Cordero, wife of René Suárez, who restored antique colonial
buildings in Cuba.
Soon after Castro seized power in 1959, Gladys Suárez became an opponent
of the Cuban communist regime and was imprisoned on Dec. 13, 1963,
according to Crúz. She said her aunt was sentenced to 20 years in prison
but was released after nine years in 1972.
While in prison, Crúz said, guards broke her aunt's arms when they beat
her with chains, and during another incident she was hit in the face and
lost partial vision in her left eye.
''She suffered severe punishment in prison for being a plantada,'' Crúz
said. ``She was courageous.''
After being released, Suárez resumed anti-Castro opposition activities
and was often jailed, Crúz said.
As the Mariel boatlift unfolded in 1980, Crúz said, Cuban officials
forced Suárez to board one of the boats headed for South Florida.
In Miami, Suárez married another former political prisoner, Manuel
Sabas, who died in 1994. They had no children.
She is survived by her mother, four sisters, two nieces and one nephew.
A viewing was held Tuesday at Caballero Rivero Woodlawn funeral home.
She will be buried at Woodlawn Park South, 11655 SW 117th Avenue, after
a religious service at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
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