Political prison, an industry of Castroism

By: Pedro Corzo - 02/02/2025

Guest columnist.
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For years, Fidel Castro and those who have benefited from the political and family dynasty imposed in Cuba since 1959, have used political prisoners as an instrument of change that has yielded them different types of gain, most of the time political in nature, other times economic, and there are also those that have had more than one purpose.

This situation was repeated with the announcement by the Cuban dictatorship that it would release 553 people in prison for various crimes, after the United States government announced that it was removing Cuba from its blacklist of countries sponsoring terrorism, although according to reports, the release was a consequence of conversations between Pope Francis and the jailers in Havana.

In reality, it is not known with certainty whether Joe Biden, in his conciliatory spirit, decided to remove Cuba from the terror list, on which it has every right to be, or whether Miguel Díaz Canel, under the influence of the spirit of the holy year 2025, apparently the designated dictator had an outburst of religiosity, decided to release those who should not be in prison, such as José Daniel Ferrer and Félix Navarro, two of the many who make up an endless relationship.

However, it must be kept in mind that it was reported that Pope Francis was a determining factor in the Cuban regime's decision to release prisoners, which is why this columnist wonders why the releases were suspended as soon as President Donald Trump returned the dictatorship to the list of deserved prisoners. Where is the truth, was it a negotiation that President Biden led or the Christian spirit of Díaz Canel evaporated as happened with the lives of the thousands of people that his regime shot.

Everything seems to indicate that the Cuban regime was trading with the United States the release of people who were mostly unjustly detained, just as it has done for the past 66 years, and the Church was used to cover up the effort.

In all fairness, Castroism has negotiated with governments and politicians the banishment without return of many citizens, which has motivated the organization “Plantados” to carry out acts of solidarity with the prisoners in different places in the city of Miami for decades, demanding “Freedom without banishment.”

Talking about this with Evelio Yero, a professor in Puerto Rico, and the writer José Antonio Albertini, they reminded me that the Castro prison industry dates back at least to the sale of the expeditionaries of Brigade 2506, captured by the Cuban regime in April 1961, after the landing at Playa Girón.

With this business, Castro's totalitarianism demonstrated that since the dark dawn of the revolution, the only thing that mattered to it was money plus power, both issues far above the values ​​and principles that it proclaimed with the objective of manipulating the population in general and its supporters in particular.

The prisoners, after media spectacles to the liking of the dictatorship and more than 20 months in jail, were sold to the United States for 62 million dollars.

It is worth noting that the regime was willing to negotiate individually with the prisoners, in case the negotiation with Washington did not come to fruition, so they set a price for each of the expeditionaries in prison, like real slavers. The amounts fluctuated between $100,000, $50,000 and $25,000 based on the estimates made by the masters of the island's totalitarianism.

Politicians such as Felipe González, who apparently maintained friendly relations with the Cuban tyrant when the firing squad was deafening us, managed to free several political prisoners. Another friend of Fidel who received a prisoner was Gabriel García Márquez. Many American personalities were honored with the delivery of gangs of slaves, among them the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Congressman Bill Richardson, but not so many Latin American politicians who were friends and partners of the Cuban dictatorship, who have never shown interest in the prisoners of the Island.

I believe that this type of business, devised and implemented by the Castro regime, has served as an example for similar practices of kidnapping and payment of hostages carried out in several Latin American countries, Nicaragua and Venezuela, together with guerrillas supported by the Castro regime, particularly the Colombian FARC and ELN.

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