A bricklayer has electrified the dissident community and dimmed
prospects of changing international Cuba policies.
By Nick Miroff
Published: March 2, 2010 11:12 ET
HAVANA, Cuba — Orlando Zapata Tamayo wasn't a prominent voice in Cuba's
small opposition movement. He wasn't one of the dissident activists whom
foreign reporters often call for quotes, and he didn't have a blog or an
academic degree.
But when the 42-year-old bricklayer died Feb. 23 after an 85-day hunger
strike in prison, he made a powerful protest statement that has
electrified the island's fragmented dissident community and brought a
flood of fresh criticism to Cuba's human rights record.
For the Cuban government, Zapata's death has been a public relations
disaster, particularly in Europe, where Spanish newspapers have devoted
extensive coverage to the story. Spain's influential daily El Pais
published nearly 20 articles and editorials on Zapata's death in the six
days following his death, and several leading U.S. papers have also
condemned the Castro government.
The cascade of negative press comes at a particularly bad time for
Havana, as Spain's socialist government has been pushing to change the
European Union's common position on Cuba, which calls for human rights
improvements as a condition for better relations. Now, analysts say the
uproar in Europe over Zapata's death will make changes to Cuba-EU
relations unlikely.
The episode has also further dimmed the prospects of changes to U.S
policy at a time when tensions were already high following the Dec. 3
arrest of a U.S. contractor, Alan Gross, working on behalf of the U.S.
Agency for International Development. The 60-year-old Maryland resident
was arrested for distributing illegal satellite equipment on the island
and is being held in a maximum-security prison, though he has not been
formally charged.
With Gross' arrest, and now Zapata's death, the new effort in Congress
to lift the ban on American travel to Cuba and ease restrictions on food
sales to the island will also likely face intensified opposition.
Even Rep. Jim McGovern, the Massachusetts Democrat who has been a
leading voice for Cuba policy reform in Congress, told the Miami Herald
that the Castro government "should have intervened earlier to prevent
this tragedy," adding "his death is on their conscience."
Cuba has been slow to respond to the criticism, though in recent days,
it has increasingly challenged the version of events — and the version
of Zapata's character — put forth by dissident activists and foreign
editorials.
On Monday evening, Cuban state television broadcast a lengthy report
that featured interviews with several doctors who treated Zapata,
detailing the medical care he received and the health problems that
ensued from his staunch refusal to eat. The report was the first mention
of Zapata on Cuban television since his death, and for many ordinary
Cubans, it was likely to be the first time they'd ever heard of him.
The television report also included what appeared to be secretly taped
footage of Zapata's mother, Reina Tamayo, who has accused the Cuban
government of "murdering" her son. In the footage, she appears in
meetings with Zapata's doctors, thanking them effusively for their care,
while the confidentiality of the meeting vanishes through a hidden lens
filming from somewhere inside the doctor's desk.
"Our relations with his family were cordial," one of Zapata's physicians
says in the report, which goes on to use more secretly taped recordings
to allege that anti-Castro groups in Miami had plotted to manipulate
Zapata's hunger strike for political gain, showing little concern for
his health.
Cuba's communist party newspaper Granma also tried to undercut Zapata's
hallowed image over the weekend with an article describing him as a
"common criminal" who had been manipulated by anti-Castro "mercenaries"
in the service of U.S. foreign policy. It listed several prior criminal
convictions on Zapata's record, including an assault conviction in 2000
after he fractured another man's skull with a machete.
Still, it was unclear why Cuban authorities — who often complain of
unfair coverage in the foreign press — had allowed so much time to pass
before providing information about Zapata that would contrast with what
his supporters were saying. Their efforts at damage control are probably
too late to alter the heroic image of Zapata that was erected by Cuban
dissidents in the days following his death.
They have depicted him as a humble, courageous everyman who faced
numerous beatings and abuses in prison, ultimately turning to the hunger
strike as a last-resort form of protest. His refusal to wear a uniform
and frequent clashes with prison guards stretched a three-year prison
term — for crimes that included "resistance" and "disrespecting
authority"— into a 25-year sentence.
He was considered a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International —
one of about 200 political prisoners currently held in Cuban jails,
according to rights activists and Western governments.
The island's dissident community, meanwhile, has been galvanized by
Zapata's death. Scattered groups of bloggers, reformers, human rights
activists, hardliners and others say their differences have been
smoothed over with Zapata's emergence as a martyr.
"It's had a catalyzing effect," said human rights activist Elizardo
Sanchez. "We've all speaking with one voice." Sanchez said several
dissidents have launched their own hunger strikes since Zapata's death,
and that symbolic acts of protest would continue from opposition members
inside and outside prison. What's not clear is how many ordinary Cubans
will notice.
Cuba dissident death | Orlando Zapata Tamayo (2 March 2010)
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/cuba/100302/hunger-strike-dissident-death
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