Miguel Díaz Bauzá has spent 10,957 days in prison

By: Pedro Corzo - 02/11/2024

Guest columnist.
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I regret to be forced to write again about the immortal Cuban political prison, the best and most glorious proof —after the firing squad, deaths in combat and disappearances— that a large sector of our people refuses to live under totalitarianism.

Miguel Díaz Bauzá is a worthy example of Jose Martí's statement: "When there are many men without decorum, there are always others who have in themselves the decorum of many men." And it was while outside of Cuba, far from the traumatic experience of living under oppression, that he decided, together with a group of companions, to leave for the Island to bring freedom to his compatriots, organizing an armed uprising against the dictatorship of Fidel Castro.

It is fair to say so because honouring is honouring. There have been many Cuban exiles who have abandoned a life of family and possessions, risking everything when they landed in Cuba to fulfil their duty to fight for freedom and human dignity. There has been no shortage of heroism, as stated by the writer and former political prisoner Jose Antonio Albertini.

Díaz Bauzá landed on the coast of Caibarién on October 15, 1994, alongside the martyr of the homeland Armando Sosa Fortuny, who died in prison after serving 44 years in two terms. Sosa Fortuny entered Cuba clandestinely twice, in 1960 and 1994, and died in 2019.

They were accompanied by Humberto Eladio Real Suarez, 29 years behind bars, and former political prisoners Jesus Rojas Pineda, Jose Ramon Falcon Gomez, Pedro Visao Pena and Lazaro Gonzalez Caraballo.

Castro's totalitarianism has accumulated a prison evil that has no parallel in our hemisphere. The living conditions of political prisoners are inhumane, while those imprisoned for common crimes are no better.

The number of people who have served more than 20 years in prison in brutal conditions is astonishing, with Mario Chanes de Armas reaching 30 years, now surpassed by Díaz Bauzá, who reached more than 30 years with his two sentences, a figure invented by the Cuban prison authorities to try to destroy the dignity of these brave men.

Many prisoners served their sentences facing year after year the repressive acts of the henchmen and challenging the authorities, so that when the day of their release arrived they were not freed, having to serve months and even years in prison by administrative order of the Ministry of the Interior, by the whims of a leader or in a trial as spurious and unfair as all those carried out by the dictatorship. These prisoners began to be known among their fellow prisoners as the “reconvicted.”

The regime could not tolerate the rebellious behaviour of many men and women, so, disrespecting its own laws, it “recondemned” them.

It is unacceptable that Díaz Bauzá, 81 years old, has served 30 years in prison and is still in prison. We must not remain silent in the face of such cruelty and we must denounce the false pretext of a new sentence of 25 years, for having participated in a revolt in one of the many ergastulas of tyranny.

Those who know him say he is a man of honour with a deep sense of justice. Angel de Fana, a former political prisoner for 20 years, with whom he speaks relatively frequently, says that the prisoner is not willing to make any concessions to get out of jail, despite the decades that have passed and his precarious health condition, which is why he has to receive medicine from abroad.

Díaz Bauzá is one of the people who has spent the longest time in prison for political reasons on the continent, a painful distinction that the totalitarian dictatorship intends to extend until 2032, which would mean he would serve 38 years in prison. The conduct of the Cuban dictatorship against Miguel Díaz Bauzá is the reiteration of evil, injustice and the abuse of absolute power against those who want freedom and civil rights on the Island.

The perversion of the Cuban regime is unparalleled. Misery and the violation of civil rights reign from one end of the island to the other. Crises have followed one another over these six and a half long decades, severely affecting the citizenry.

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