A document details the cases of political prisoners who have been subjected to forced labor and highlights several names among ’thousands’.
14ymedio, Havana, 28 August 2024 — The imposition of forced labor – such as cutting cane or marabú – on those who express “different political opinions” has led a United Nations collaborator to insist on his “concern” about human rights violations on the island. With a report by the organization Prisoners Defenders (PD) in hand, Tomoya Obokata, UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, criticized this practice in Cuban prisons.
During the 57th regular session of the Human Rights Council, of which Cuba is a member, Obokata included the brief report on forced labor in Cuban prisons, prepared by PD. The expert denounced “the existence of national laws and regulations that allow compulsory labor for expressing political opinions or participating in strikes”.
The document details the cases of political prisoners who have been subjected to forced labor and highlights, among “thousands”, several cases: those of Dariel Ruiz García, Walnier Luis Aguilar Rivera, Yeidel Carrero Pablo, Roberto Jesús Marín Fernández, Yanay Solaya Barú, Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, José Díaz Silva, Taimir García Meriño and César Antonio Granados Pérez.
Although the Cuban Constitution recognizes respect for the prisoner’s dignity, the Penal Code endorses the sanctions for forced labor
Although the Cuban Constitution recognizes respect for the inmate’s dignity, Article 30.3 of the Penal Code endorses the sanctions for forced labor, emphasizes their obligatory nature and leaves it up to the State to “consider the form of compliance through study or betterment”. Through testimonies collected in the report, PD found that attenuated treatment is more than unusual and that compulsory labor is the norm not only for political prisoners but also for ordinary ones.
In a country where production and workforce are scarcities, the regime has found in prisoners the ideal labor force. Inmates are forced to do work no one else is willing to do. PD’s example is the production of marabú charcoal – which brings large profits to the government by being sold abroad – and cutting sugar cane in its harvest season.
“Cuban charcoal is sold in Spain, Portugal and (the rest of) the European Union,” says PD. It is enough to consult the testimony of the relatives of some political prisoners, such as that of Walnier Luis Aguilar’s father, who has denounced how they cut “marabú trunks with their own hands”, without the use of a “machete or axe saw”—the result: “hands full of blisters”, among other injuries.
There are plenty of videos to make the situation clear, PD stresses. “Living without drinking water, in subhuman conditions, with insufficient and outdated work material (the cost of which is deducted from their meager ‘salary’, which many never receive) and sleeping in the open, the workers are forced to work in inhospitable places under the vilest physical, psychological and judicial threats,” they denounce.
The alarming thing, says the organization, is that the product resulting from this slave labor is consumed all over the world with impunity
The alarming thing, says the organization, is that the product resulting from this slave labor is consumed all over the world with impunity. 24% of the Cuban marabou charcoal ends up in the markets of Spain, 21.5% in Portugal, 12.1% in Italy and 11.6% in Turkey, countries with governments with very different ideological leanings which, nonetheless, buy charcoal from Cuba.
PD unequivocally qualifies them as “involuntary accomplices” of the regime since they purchase a product manufactured at the expense of the “suffering and pain” of Cuban prisoners. However, they admit that “Cuba has been able to conceal for years, although not from Cubans, the slave-like origin of its marabou charcoal production”.
The organization hopes that Obokata’s denunciation at the UN will mark a turning point in the fight against these practices on the island. It is calling on the European Union to inform itself about the charcoal it buys and to demand transparency about its production process. The 27 countries are obliged by law not to do business with countries that promote slave labor, they emphasize.
As for sugarcane, PD describes the scenario as a return to the 19th century, when slavery was the engine of the wealthy “sugarocracy”. The difference, in this case, is that not even with its “endless list of human rights violations” does the regime achieve economic prosperity.
As for the rest, there is nothing more similar to a colonial slave than a political prisoner of Castroism. “In most cases, they do not have working gloves, boots or files, which results in the blades not being sharp enough to do the job efficiently”. Everything points to a sort of “involution to centuries ago” that shows the regression, even on a historical level, of the defense of human rights on the island.
There was a skinny, elderly woman in a wheelchair, with asthma, who could no longer walk, who had to leave for work at six o’clock in the morning
The testimonies provided by PD are enough to assess the situation. “There was a skinny elderly lady, in a wheelchair, with asthma, who could no longer even walk, who had to leave for work at six in the morning, like everyone else. No matter their age, health or anything else. There are no conditions for anyone,” says former political prisoner Yanay Solaya. “We work in the fields, whatever they sent us to do, doing the mowing. We did not get paid for it.”
Refusing to work is costly. This is the case, explains PD, of Taimir Garcia, a prisoner of conscience, who was threatened with the withdrawal of her prison leave and the two-month sentence reduction for each year of her sentence, and with being locked up again in a regime of maximum punishment.
Other aspects of the problem, such as the exploitation of children – some prisoners are minors and are subjected to seven-hour working days – or the lack of contracts, should also be a cause for concern, according to PD. The fact that their report has reached the UN Human Rights Council, they believe, justifies paying the utmost attention to the problem and holding Havana accountable.
Translated by LAR
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