CUBAN EXODUS THE SYMBOL OF FAILURE OF THE COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP CASTRO
Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet
President of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights
Presidential Medal of Freedom
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - www.lawtonfoundation.com

Soviet imperialism invaded Afghanistan with impunity to the nation in 1979. This began a mass exodus of citizens to neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran. After a decade had more than six million refugees in these countries and established a world record in this category.

So did the wars of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, former Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic promoted during the decades of the nineties. This caused a massive flight of the population. Four million fled their homes, among which were two million Kosovar Albanians.

At the same time, because of the massive massacres of the Rwandan government, the two million Hutus fled into the town of Kibumba, east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In the Caribbean islands of Cuba, ruled by the tyrannical regime of Castro, its population has fled en masse to escape the political and religious persecution, and to improve their living conditions before the economic failure of the regime.

These momentous events were expressed as follows:

1959-1962 took refuge in the United States more than 270 thousand people.

1962-1965 fleeing tens of thousands of people. More than 14 thousand children are sent to the United States in Operation Peter Pan

1965 first exodus from the port of Camarioca, Matanzas. More than 300 thousand Cubans fled the country.

1980 seconds exodus across the bay of Mariel, Havana. More than 120 000 people fled to the United States, tens of thousands traveled to Peru.

1994 third exodus, more than 30 000 people took refuge in Guantanamo Bay. 10 000 were sent to Panama.

1994-2011 several thousand Cubans are fleeing by sea to Central and then move to the United States. Other people in other countries drop out of work and play missions from Governments of the Island

Some interesting aspects of these acts of desperation we can see with the Mariel boatlift. Years before the Castro government had imposed state terror and after having intimidated the population imposed the 1976 Constitution, which authorities claim was approved by 97.7% from 98% who took a vow. But the test of the electoral farce was demonstrated by the fact that four years later fled the country over 120 thousand people in a few months.

Other aspects that draw attention is that these government warlords categorized as self-releasing the black population and that this race was discriminated against, he threw the dogs and they were all very poor in the United States. However in the Mariel boatlift the vast majority of people were black or mixed race.

Fidel Castro was furious upon learning of this fact and gave the order to get out of prison all the black criminals and deport him to the goal of Cuban exiles and the American people hate black Cubans.

Just as the authorities of the United States government took the Hungarian experience in the political crisis of 1989. Hungary opened its borders to East German citizens came to Austria and then to West Germany.

The U.S. authorities should have taken refuge in the Guantanamo Naval Base to one or two million Cubans disaffected. This measure would have resulted in the downfall of Castro's tyranny as was the case in Communist Germany Honecker.

I am sure with the multimillion dollar figure that would have cost to keep these refugees none of the military and economic powers would be opposed to solving the refugee problem as happened in the former East Germany.

At the height of cynicism, the Castro regime and does not use negative insults and epithets to refer to Cuban exiles. Now used to finance its economic disaster and prolong tyranny. The now classified as economic migrants and citizens become privileged or first order with foreigners and the ruling elite. Meanwhile, most of whom we still lag behind third-class citizens in our own country.

More than two million Cubans living outside Cuba and hundreds of thousands who wish to leave the country are living proof of the political-economic failure of the communist dictatorship in Cuba.

The Cuban hierarchy to utter cries reforms that benefit all the people of Cuba because what they propose is more communism and absolute power for themselves. Some institutions in the country asking for changes that benefit the public but are unable to specify.

I say they are directly and with few words. Cubans urgently need:

Changes to restore our dignity as free men through respect for our human rights.
Changes that recognizes our right to own.
Changes that respects the rules of a market economy.
Changes which replaces an outdated tyranny over half a century with free elections leading to democracy and rule of law where every citizen is master of his fate.
That is the only formula that will be able to bring peace and prosperity for all the children of Cuba.

Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet

President, The Lawton Foundation for Human Rights

February 16, 2012

House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights

I am Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet

Internal Medicine Specialist

President of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights

Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007

All the testimony given by me before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights and in the presence of the Biblical God, is the sole truth about the events that have taken place.

I wish to express my gratitude to my compatriot and defender of freedom for the Cuban people, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for extending this invitation and my admiration of the Cuban-American members of Congress, Mario Diaz-Balart, David Rivera, Albio Sires, Robert Menéndez and Marco Rubio for their altruistic efforts on behalf of the Cuban cause.

Warmest greetings to all the prominent individuals gathered here today.

Cuba, where I reside, is a society of fear. Since 1959, it has been run by a communist totalitarian regime in the style of Stalin.

This regime is essentially characterized as being anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Black. Its permanence is due to its use of State terrorism and extreme police control over its citizens.

The dictatorship of the Castros commits flagrant and systematic violations of the human rights of the Cuban people.

The lack of basic liberties in our society motivated me to become an activist for human rights and to regain them for the Cuban people through non-violent resistance.

These humanitarian goals led to my suffering great vicissitudes at the hands of the Castro government’s political police.

The following are some of the most horrific events endured:

Once, during a conference at the Materno Infantil de Diez de Octubre hospital, in 1998, while making a presentation to my colleagues about the right to life, a mob of members of the Communist Party violently expelled me from the hospital’s classroom.

Ever since that day, Cuba’s communist regime has not allowed me to practice the noble profession of medicine.

At the same time, my wife and son were threatened and blackmailed to get them to abandon me. Their firm decision to stand by me caused my wife to be fired from her employment and my son’s inability to begin his university studies. We were all evicted from the house, which also served as a medical office, where my wife worked as an exemplary registered nurse.

During that period, I was arrested dozens of times. I was placed in walled cells along with murderers and others with personality disorders who had just committed bloody criminal acts.

The political police is beaten me, disfigured me, and caused me dental fractures. On one occasion they fractured my right foot.

These agents, while following the orders of the dictatorship, tried to coerce and intimidate me through torture and cruel and inhumane treatment, with the objective of having me give up my humanitarian activism. Unable to meet their objective, they imprisoned me for about a dozen years.

However, if these actions had been taken only against my person, they would lack historical importance. The big problem is that these aberrations and violations of human dignity are committed against the general population and that imprisoned in the country’s jails.

The Cuban socialist penitentiary system does not comply with the minimum requirements for the care of prisoners established by the United Nations. Due to this, they tortured not only me but also my family members.

Most disturbing is the fact that three prisoners tried to assassinate me on different occasions; two of them had been hired by military officers of the inland cities.

Some of the torture and cruel and inhumane treatment that I observed or suffered while in socialist prisons were:

Individuals were kept prone with their hands, toward their back, handcuffed to their feet for more than twelve hours, sometimes over twenty four hours.

Individuals were handcuffed with hands extended over their head while the tips of their toes slightly touched the floor. The duration of these events was similar to the ones described previously.

Taser guns were used for psychological and physical torture.

During searches, prisoners would have to strip while in groups without any regard for human modesty.

As a form of retaliation, inmates are denied medical attention. Many of these types of cases exist. I will limit myself to exposing two which impressed me as a human being and also due to my knowledge of medical science:

I was in the punishment cells at the prison Cuba Sí in the Holguín Province in 2002.

An inmate, in protest of the prison authorities, inserted a sharp object into his abdomen. He was kept in that condition for two days until I found out about it and protested strongly. He was taken to the hospital; he underwent surgery due to acute peritonitis.

There was a young inmate who had two non-communicable chronic conditions, asthma and cardiac problems related to valve pathologies. He was stable but had an appointment with the doctor. He complained because he was not taken to see the doctor and was given such a beating that he died. This occurred on the second floor of the first building at Combinado del Este prison in 2010.

Prisoners are held in cells under subhuman conditions. There is no natural light, sometimes not even artificial light; no potable water; no ventilation; overcrowding; prisoners coexisting with vectors and more.

Scores of prisoners suffer these same human miseries and, even worse, are being housed with common offenders who are utilized by the penal authorities to try to stop political prisoners from maintaining a posture of challenge.

I would like to take this opportunity to greet two compatriots who are supporters of liberty for humanity who will be testifying before this Committee, a former political prisoner who is one of the 75 prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, Normando Hernández and Indiana’s Representative Dan Burton, who along with Senator Jesse Helms, was a promoter of the Helms Burton Act of 1996.

If all the articles and chapters of this magnificent legal-political document were enforced, it would persuade and motivate all free nations towards solidarity and to seek changes leading to freedom and democracy for the Cuban people.

The dictatorship of the Castro brothers has played a role in all embarrassing and condemnable world events. I will make reference to a few of them:

It offered unconditional support to the imperialistic Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and of Afghanistan in 1979.

It also supported, during the first decade of the Twenty-first Century, Russia’s expansionist invasion of Georgia.

It offered unlimited defense to the despotic regimes of S. Milosevic, S. Husein and M. Ghadafi.

Has given military training and logistic support to the Colombian drug guerrillas; and extremist Muslims from Hezbollah and Hamaz have operational bases in Cuba.

If this cold policy of indifference towards the Cuban communist hierarchy persists, I fear that shortly we will have a new missile crisis, such as the one in October of 1962. But this time the players would be Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and the United States.

Tomorrow, we will proudly celebrate the fourth anniversary of Kosovo’s independence. Five years ago, you Americans promised the Kosovan-Albanians unwavering support of their independence. You did it with such firmness, honor and love that you had many other nations join you in this just cause, and you triumphed.

This is the kind of support that I would ask of you so that my people would be free and sovereign.

Thank you.