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Cuba Campaign Final Report
August 01, 2004
Story Continued...
As promised, with the Cuba Campaign now concluded, here is a report on the last four weeks.
May I begin by thanking all those of you who took part. I was particularly pleased if you notified me of what actions your Centre took. Chip Rolley of the Sydney Centre noted, “We do far more here than I ever report on,” and I suspect this is true of many if not most Centres. Therefore it was excellent to receive so much feedback during this campaign and I hope that on reading this report you will be encouraged by the fact that so many PEN members around the world joined together in support of the Cuban prisoners.
News during the campaign
Unusually for a campaign, our appeals bore fruit almost immediately. During Week 1 – which focused on those prisoners who were suffering from poor health – the economist Marta Beatriz Roque was released (see Update #3 to RAN 22/03 – 23 July 2004). Roque had served 16 months of a 20-year sentence and was released unconditionally on health grounds. She had been named as one of those whose release PEN was seeking. Of course, it is more than likely that the timing of the campaign and Roque’s release were coincidental but I suspect the sudden flux of faxes cannot have done her cause any harm.
One release we definitely can’t lay claim to during the campaign, but for which PEN members have been appealing since the April 2003 clampdown, is that of Roberto de Miranda (59). Acting on a tip-off from the San Miguel Centre, I rang a neighbour of Miranda’s and was pleasantly surprised to be speaking to the man himself a minute later. He related that he had been released on health grounds six weeks beforehand on 23 June (see Update #4 to RAN 22/03 – 6 August 2004). Oddly, the event had gone totally unreported. The release was made under licence and so he does face the possibility of returning to prison in the future to serve more of his sentence. However, with the succession of releases on health grounds that has taken place this year (including 5 of WiPC’s 35 cases), it would seem that the Cuban government is desperate not to have any of the ‘counter-revolutionaries’ die whilst in prison, and it is hoped that Miranda has seen the last of the inside of a prison cell. He thanked PEN warmly for all the appeals made on his behalf and asked us to persevere until all his colleagues on the island were free.
Centre involvement
The vast majority of feedback I received from Centres regarded their involvement in sending communications to the Cuban authorities. Those Centres who reported that their members were dusting off their fax machines were: American, Canadian, Catalán, English, Netherlands, New Zealand, Quebecois, San Miguel de Allende, Swiss Romand, Sydney, USA West, and Vietnamese Writers in Exile.
The Swiss Romand and the Quebecois Centres translated appeal letters into French. A number of these were then circulated around our contacts in Francophone Africa so that they too could become involved. The Quebecois Centre also made some helpful suggestions for the content of the campaign prior to its launch.
Sydney PEN lobbied the Australian Ambassador to Cuba (who is resident in Mexico), the Australian Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and a Cuban-American politician from Florida, raising particular concerns over one of their Honorary Members, Miguel Galván Gutiérrez. At time of going to press they were also endevouring to gain coverage on the campaign in the Australian Book Review and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Staying in the Antipodes, the New Zealand Centre will be making the campaign the focus of this year’s Courage Day. Meanwhile, the three Swiss Centres will be combining forces to do the same on Writers in Prison Day.
English PEN made sure that all faxes they sent to the Cuban authorities were copied to the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The San Miguel de Allende Centre should be commended for some peerless work bringing phone contact details up to date (never an easy task when it comes to Cuba), as well as for their tip-off regarding Roberto de Miranda.
The Nepal Centre expressed an interest in the campaign which I hope flowered into action.
Honorary Members
Two Centres elected Cuban prisoners as Honorary Members during the campaign:
Catalán (Iván Hernández Carrillo and Mario Enrique Mayo)
English (Pedro Arguelles Moran, Jose Luis Garcia Paneque, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, Jorge Olivera Castillo and Oscar Espinosa Chepe)
A good many of the Cuban prisoners have now been adopted by Centres around the world but there are still a goodly handful left unelected. Details can be found in our recently released Jan-June 2004 Case List. Don’t feel you have to wait until the next Cuba Campaign to sign them up.
Websites
American PEN and PEN USA West both uploaded the Cuba Campaign materials onto their respective websites, the former also managing to get a Cuba news site to link straight to the campaign materials. News of the campaign was also available through the International PEN website (http://www.intenationalpen.org.uk) and circulated in the weekly electronic newsletters.
[If you did take action and your Centre is not included in this report, please make a mental note to send in a line or two of reportage next time around. If you believe you did so, and you still haven’t been included, do accept my apologies.]
Cuban government response
[This space has been left blank. As far as I am aware, there has been no response as yet to the campaign (with the possible exception of their release of Marta Beatriz Roque).]
Lessons for future campaigns
The lack of any response from the Cuban government is certainly a concern (assuming you don’t count the release of Marta Beatriz Roque as a response). Whether or not their replies will begin to trickle in over the coming weeks remains to be seen.
Another blind spot we always seem to have is a general lack of press reporting. Aside from the valiant efforts of Sydney PEN, I’ve heard nothing regarding media coverage of the campaign. This is an area that was raised at the WiPC Conference in Barcelona this year and which will be discussed during the WIPC day at the forthcoming PEN Conference in Tromsø. Any suggestions you wish to make on this topic would be gladly received.
Where do we go from here?
Unfortunately, after the end of the campaign, 32 Cuban journalists and librarians will remain in prison. One excellent way of maintaining some Cuba consciousness in your Centre is by electing one or more of them as Honorary Members. Furthermore, every six weeks or so, I send out an update on all Cuban prisoners to every Centre that has a Cuban HM so you will be kept informed of any developments.
You might also consider using Cuba as a focus for a forthcoming event or commemorative day, such as is the case with the New Zealand Centre’s ‘Courage Day’.
May I conclude by thanking everyone who has taken part in the Cuba Campaign. The fact that both Marta Beatriz Roque and Roberto de Miranda put down their respective releases to international pressure certainly suggests that such campaigns are worth the effort put into them.
If you have comments on this campaign or suggestions for how future campaigns could be improved, do contact me at: dwills@wipcpen.org
All the best
Dixe Wills
Americas Researcher, WiPC