29 March 2024, Friday, 14:34
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Undesirable Hero

8
Undesirable Hero
Guillermo Farinas

My friend Guillermo Farinas (known among friends and supporters as "El Coco") is dying today in Cuba.

He is the most determined and most noble man I ever met. He is the winner of European Parliament "Freedom of thought" Sakharov's Prize which was awarded to him in 2010 in absentia since Castro regime didn't allow him to leave Cuba for the ceremony. He spent 11 years in Castro prison. He won many other international human rights awards and was praised for his integrity in the fight for human dignity and against totalitarianism. He organized and leads United Anti-Totalitarian Forum.

He is on his 24th hunger strike today which lasts for more than a month already. It is almost beyond human ability to start a merciless torture of yourself after so many hunger strikes ruined your body and left very little inside it undamaged and capable to keep it going. It is definitely beyond human imagination.

Coco took his self-destructive decision after he was badly beaten, detained and tortured on July 19 when he and a group of his friends went to a police station to enquire about the fate of their colleagues unlawfully detained by Castro secret service.

He started his most dangerous dry hunger strike and wrote a letter to Raul Castro with a simple and legitimate demand that the regime should stop using violence against non-violent opposition in Cuba. That was something that Castro should have promised to the West on the very eve of lifting the US embargo on Cuba. Dictators are like this: the more desperate they are for the Western money the easier they give promises without any intention to keep them.

Coco's previous hunger strike in 2010 that also brought him to the edge, helped release 52 political prisoners in Cuba. But those were different times. Castro regime had to reckon with the West because more sanctions could have upset the system of corruption and its control over the poor Cuban economy and buried the regime. Those were the times of intense negotiations between the Cuban regime and the US administration on lifting the embargo and the regime had to curb its natural violent nature. At that time there were strong statements and strong conditionality on human rights issues.

I know that Coco opposed the new policy of the US fearing that it will lead to more repression and more violence in his beloved Cuba. He discussed it in person with President Obama. He was right. I know also that American diplomats and all kinds of envoys worked very hard to persuade him to take part in the meeting with Obama during the US President historic visit to Cuba last March. Reluctantly he agreed because he listened to the argument that it might help the people.

Today Coco's sacrifice goes almost unnoticed in the West. There were statements from his friends and very timid "expressions of concern" from Western diplomats. That's it. One strong statement from the American President could save Coco's life, because it the US that mapped and leads the new Western policy on Cuba. But Washington is loudly silent.

That exactly what Castro regime wants to hear. Dictators of the world, be it Castro in Cuba or Lukashenko in Belarus, watch very closely for any signs on human rights coming from the West. If there is silence they take it as a cart blanche to do anything they want with undesirable elements, like Guillermo Farinas. They know that once the deal is reached the heroes become undesirable for the West as well. They stand in the way of business.

Castro regime wants Coco to die. They are spreading rumors that he is dead already to prepare the ground.

Don't let them defeat you, Coco. We need you alive. Every freedom fighter in the world needs you. Every decent human being needs you.

Libertad y Vida!

Andrei Sannikov, especially for charter97.org

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