I Plead to Human Rights Organizations on Behalf of the Slave Labor in Cuban Prisons / Angel Santiesteban

The exploitation of man by the State

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 17 May 2015 — If there were an indictment against Cuban government and its socialist process,among many other things, most of which are coincidentally human rights violations, would be charges of slavery in which they keep their nationals.

Slave labor in the Castro regime’s prisons

It is known that although the dictatorship signs lucrative contracts (in the millions) with various countries, for sending them Cuban professionals — including doctors, medical technicians and university professors — it pays these professionals a tiny percentage of what the State charges for their services.

Besides that, for the most part, these professionals join these adventures not from altruism, “internationalism” or any convenient adjective by which they are labeled by the totalitarian regime, but out of mere survival instincts; to help their families and get them out of the totally precarious conditions in which they live.

It is not misleading to point out that those two years of family separation have a crisis impact that results in a higher rate of divorces, in some cases in families with children; another common consequence is that many infidelities are forgiven by one or both spouses.

As far as I am concerned, I have witnessed, besides physical and psychological abuses committed against the inmates, who have all of their rights violated, including their schedules. Prisoners are sent to work in the hardest trades, from dawn and with a lousy breakfast, and are returned to their facilities after twelve hours or more.

Even I have sometimes seen that on their arrival, they have been forced to unload a few tons of cement bags — on their shoulders — or unload trucks of rebar and then receive a miserable salary that does not even guarantee them a minimum support for their minor children.

Report from within “Combinado del Este” prison.

That slave work is done in the worst abusive conditions, with torn boots, tattered clothes, starvation, humiliation from correctional officers who guard them. This is a real slavery that has nothing to envy to the one practiced by the first settlers on their arrival on the island of Cuba.

The prisoners work seven days a week

This past May 1st, some prisoners decided to take the day off to wash their clothes, a task they usually do on their return from the daily work. And that attitude was taken by Major Aliet as an act of rebellion, and as punishment he kept them out of work for several days, which prevents them from receiving that puny wage, and, above all, prevents them from leaving the severity of the prison that drives them mad after several days cloistered. Any reaction to the abuse is sanctioned or they get additional charges to add more time to their sentences.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats, Military Prison, Jaimanitas, Havana Cuba.

 

In the Border Patrol military facility of where I am — besides taking them out to work today, Sunday May 17th — they were denied the corresponding break time by the order of officer Parra, head of the prison logistics.

Then you have to listen to the Castro family trying to defend its dictatorship, its iron-dictatorship, its humiliating-dictatorship, its unbearable-dictatorship that rules us for over half a century, about which one can only feel ashamed for them.

We plead that international bodies accept this letter about these violations letter that lacerate Human Rights.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

May 17, 2015.

Border Patrol Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael