A Cuban Hero
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
November 5, 2007; Page A18
Cuban physician Oscar Elías Biscet and seven others will be awarded the
presidential medal of freedom by George W. Bush in a White House
ceremony today. But Dr. Biscet will not be there to accept his honor in
person. Today, like most days for the better part of the past eight
years, he is locked away in a dungeon on Fidel Castro's island paradise.
Americas columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady discusses the bold radical
maneuvers of a Cuban doctor who is now in prison.
Tales of totalitarian gulags may strike some readers as ancient history,
something that happened during Europe's 20th-century experiments in
fascism, communism and Nazism. Yet in Cuba, the gulag and its suffering
have not ended. Dr. Biscet's medal serves to remind us of this fact. By
raising the profile of his struggle for a free Cuba, the award also
highlights what Castro's regime fears most. It is not the guns and tanks
of some imperial invader, but rather the faith, courage and
nonconformity of the country's own people.
Dr. Biscet, 46, is a renowned pacifist and devout Christian. He has said
that he is inspired by the examples of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and
the Dalai Lama. We know this and much more about his life thanks to the
Coalition of Cuban-American Women, which says it documents all the facts
it publishes about political prisoners through live testimonies from Cuba.
While practicing medicine in Cuban hospitals for more than a decade, Dr.
Biscet became increasingly concerned about the government's abortion
practices. In 1998, at a Havana hospital, he took the risk of engaging
in a clandestine study on the administration of a drug called rivanol to
abort advanced pregnancies. The drug was being widely used, particularly
on girls as young as 12, who, having been forced to leave their parents
and work in rural areas as part of their schooling, found themselves "in
trouble."
The study concluded that rivanol resulted in viable fetuses being born
alive. What often happened next horrified Dr. Biscet, who later wrote
that, "the umbilical cord was cut and they were allowed to bleed to
death or they were wrapped in paper and asphyxiated."
[Oscar biscet]
As a result of his vocal opposition to these abortion practices he lost
his job, his family lost their home and Castro's goons were sent to beat
him up. But the bullying didn't work. By now he was actively engaged in
resistance against the regime and, as he has written, his conscience
would not allow him to back down. Those familiar with Dr. Biscet's work
say that he was instrumental in building -- at the grassroots level --
on the impact of Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba in January 1998. The
regime took notice. Dr. Biscet became one of the few dissidents that
Castro has ever attacked by name in a speech to the nation. As a
proponent of Cuban democracy told me, "It proves that Biscet really got
under Castro's skin."
From July 1998 until November 1999, Dr. Biscet was jailed 26 times.
During those detentions, he was held for days in windowless cells or
thrown in with populations of violent criminals and the mentally ill. In
February 2000, he was tried and sentenced to three years in prison for
holding a press conference to announce a peaceful march during the 1999
Ibero-American Summit in Havana. The backdrop at the press conference
was two Cuban flags hung upside down to protest the state's violations
of human rights. He was convicted for "dishonoring national symbols,
public disorder and inciting delinquent behavior" and sent to a maximum
security prison 450 miles east of Havana, making family visits difficult.
Cuba's political prison system is structured not only to punish dissent,
but also to force the "rehabilitation" of the prisoner. Captives who
give in, admit the error of their political ways and beg forgiveness
sometimes can get out of jail. But Dr. Biscet is no such prisoner. While
serving his three-year sentence, he increased his resistance, carrying
out fasts and pushing for the release of political prisoners. The regime
responded by putting him again in a squalid, solitary confinement cell
or among dangerous inmates. He was denied visitors and medical
treatment, and his Bible was confiscated.
In late October 2002, Dr. Biscet was released from prison only to be
arrested 36 days later as he was preparing to meet with fellow Cuban
human-rights advocates. In April 2003, he was convicted, as were 75
others who had been rounded up in the now-infamous March 2003 crackdown
on dissent. He received a 25-year sentence for "serving as a mercenary
to a foreign state." The Coalition of Cuban-American Women reports that,
from November 2003-January 2004, he was held in "an underground dungeon
with a common criminal and lost 40 pounds."
His time in solitary has been no less inhumane. Dr. Biscet has described
his 3-foot-by-6-foot cell as having no windows or running water. It has
a hole in the floor for a toilet and is infested with vermin. One of his
confinement periods there lasted 42 days. Dr. Biscet says that "the
Cuban government has tortured me during eight years, trying to drive me
insane." Perhaps most painfully for the prisoner, his wife has been
fired from her job as a nurse and is harassed by the state.
Dr. Biscet says that the regime has offered to let him go if he agrees
to leave Cuba. He will not. In an April letter to his wife Elsa, he
explained why: "My suffering is much, much less since I began to seek
after my dream of being free, but not only for me personally. If I
thought only of myself, you know that I would have been free a long time
ago, and I would have been rid of these unsettling anxieties. But I want
to see my friend's son, my adversary's son, or any citizen laughing
happily from the satisfaction in their lives and enjoying a wealth of
freedom because it is the only way human talent reaches its maximum
splendor. . . ."
Reading those words, it is difficult to think of anyone more deserving
of a medal honoring those who serve the cause of freedom.
• Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119422609412382047.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
No comments:
Post a Comment