Cuba: “Police Brutality” or “Natural Causes” in Dissident's Death?”

Cuban bloggers continue their outcry over the death of dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto, especially in light of an official statement which suggests that Soto, popularly known by his nickname “The Student”, died “of natural causes”.

On hearing the position of the Cuban government, Uncommon Sense quips:

That could be true, of course, because in Cuba under Castro, the police beating a dissident is as natural as it comes.

Then his tone becomes serious, saying:

But the party line has been undermined by witnesses who have stepped forward to tell what they know about Soto's death. The party line is being undermined by the truth.

For instance, there is Mario Lleonart Barroso who says he spoke to Soto after he was beaten and before he was readmitted to a hospital in severe pain.

The blogger also speaks of “other witnesses ready to testify not to what they saw but ready to risk their own lives to ensure that justice prevails in Soto's death” as well as “numerous dissidents ready to go on hunger strike if by July 26, 2011, the dictatorship does not properly investigate what happened to Soto.” One dissident has reportedly already begun [es] his hunger strike.

Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia.

 
The two accounts of Soto's death could not be more contradictory, with local dissidents insisting that he had been beaten by police and officials maintaining that his “acute pancreatitis…led to multiple organ failure” and calling the allegations of police brutality a “'smear campaign' aimed at weakening the Cuban revolution.”
Babalu does not accept the official line, saying:

Apparently, a vicious and brutal beating by State Security is considered a natural cause of death in Cuba.

The blog also takes issue with this post, saying:

Once again we have a ‘Cuba Expert' blaming the victim instead of the assailant. Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia is dead not because Cuban security agents beat him to death, but because Soto Garcia ‘resisted their entreaties to leave the area.'

Meanwhile, Pedazos de la Isla spares a thought for Soto's mother, who “must accept the harsh reality of no longer being able to see her son just because chose to defend human rights in a country where all that is just is considered illegal.” The blogger goes on to question the position of the Cuban government:

The only thing that is clear is that they have responded with fear, quickly asserting that it was all a lie. Now we must wait and see if the international media will repeat the absurd fallacies created by the Castro government, as many did with Orlando Zapata.

Octavo Cerco offers a more personal perspective on the situation:

The last image I have of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia is at my side running around under the Santa Clara’s relentless sun. We tried to get permission from the Bishop so that Padre Dominico–who had come halfway around the world to get to Cuba–could go see Guillermo Fariñas in Intensive Care at the scheduled visiting hours.

Now I look at the photo in Penultimos Dias of the Student and I don’t recognize him. It must be that I refuse to accept that they beat him to death. It must be that I can’t admit that this time of horror has come to this Island. And I ask myself–is it the obvious uncertainty of rationalism–how many Wilfredos have there already been and how many are still to come? While sitting in a park, an incomprehensible crime, the massive weight of half a century of police impunity falling on his body.

Finally, the blogger goes on to say of the Cuban police, whom she calls “anonymous faces in blue”:

For a long time people have feared them more than the thieves, scammers and criminals. “Call the police” has become the last card in the deck. Because justice does not come with them. Because they are not here to protect us, but to control us at any price.

Written by Janine Mendes-Franco

From: Global Voices

Video of one of the few testimonies of police violence in Cuba. To film or photograph the police in Cuba it's a crime punished by the "law".  The "press" and the "tribunals" work for the dictatorship. So there's no way the citizens could defend themselves against the state.  

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Cables spotlight health system woes in Cuba

Doctor's workplace in one of the Cuban hospitals.

In one Cuban hospital, patients had to bring their own light bulbs. In another, the staff used "a primitive manual vacuum" on a woman who had miscarried. In others, Cuban patients pay bribes to obtain better treatment.

Those and other observations by an unidentified nurse assigned to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana were included in a dispatch sent by the mission in January 2008 and made public last month by WikiLeaks.

Titled "Cuban health care: Aqui Nada es Facil" — nothing here is easy — the cable offers a withering assessment by the nurse, officially a Foreign Service Health Practitioner, or FSHP, who already had lived in Cuba for 21/2 years.

The Cuban government still boasts of its vast public health system, though the system suffered deeply after Soviet subsidies ended in 1991. It also blames most of the system's problems on the U.S. embargo. Though U.S. medical sales to Cuba are legal, the process can be cumbersome and Havana can sometimes find better prices elsewhere.

The U.S. cable is not an in-depth assessment of Cuba's health system. Rather, it's a string of anecdotes gathered by the FSHP from Cubans such as "manicurists, masseuses, hair stylists, chauffeurs, musicians, artists, yoga teachers, tailors, as well as HIV/AIDS and cancer patients, physicians, and foreign medical students."

At one OB-GYN hospital, the dispatch reported, the staff "used a primitive manual vacuum to aspirate" the womb of a Cuban woman who had a miscarriage "without any anesthesia or pain medicine. She was offered no . . . follow up appointments."

A 6-year old-boy with bone cancer could only be visited at a hospital by his parents for "limited hours," the cable added.

Cancer patients receiving chemotherapy or radiation get "little in the way of symptom or side-effects care . . . that is critically important in being able to continue treatments, let alone provide comfort to an already emotionally distraught victim," the dispatch noted.

"Cancer patients are not provided with, nor can they find locally, simple medications such as Aspirin, Tylenol, skin lotions, vitamins, etc.," it added.

HIV-positive Cubans have only one facility, the Instituto Pedro Kouri in Havana, that can provide specialty care and medications, the cable noted. Because of transportation problems and costs, some patients from the provinces may be seen only once per year.

Kouri institute patients can wait months for an appointment, "but can often move ahead in line by offering a gift," the dispatch added. "We are told five Cuban convertible pesos (approximately USD 5.40) can get one an x-ray."

Although the practice was reportedly discontinued, some HIV-positive patients had the letters "SIDA" (AIDS) stamped on their national ID cards, making it hard for them to find good jobs or pursue university studies, according to the cable.

The cable acknowledged that medical institutions reserved for Cuba's ruling elites and foreigners who pay in hard currencies "are hygienically qualified, and have a wide array of diagnostic equipment with a full complement of laboratories, well-stocked pharmacies, and private patient suites with cable television and bathrooms."

Hospitals and clinics used by average Cubans don't come close, the dispatch added, providing details on the FSHP's visits to four Havana hospitals:

At the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, part of which is reserved for foreign patients and was featured in the Michael Moore documentary "Sicko," a "gift" of about $22 to the hospital administrator helps average Cubans obtain better treatment there. The exterior of the Ramon Gonzalez Coro OB-GYN hospital was "dilapidated and crumbling" and its Newborn Intensive Care Unit was "using a very old infant 'Bird' respirator/ventilator _ the model used in the U.S. in the 1970s."

During a visit to the Calixto Garcia Hospital, which serves only Cubans, the U.S. nurse "was struck by the shabbiness of the facility . . . and the lack of everything (medical supplies, privacy, professional care staff). To the FSHP it was reminiscent of a scene from some of the poorest countries in the world."

At the Salvador Allende Hospital, the emergency room appeared "very orderly, clean and organized." But the rest of the facility was "in shambles" and guards by the entrance "smelled of alcohol."

"Patients had to bring their own light bulbs if they wanted light in their rooms. The switch plates and knobs had been stolen from most of the rooms so one had to connect bare wires to get electricity," the dispatch reported.

From: The Gazette

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