July 24, 2010

Guantánamo Prison Horrors

By Humberto Fontova

"We lived surrounded by rats, cockroaches, scorpions -- and I have to say it -- with human excrement, yes, with excrement ... dengue and tuberculosis ravaged the prisoners. Forty prisoners were crammed into cells measuring 32 square feet."
- Julio Galvez

"I lived in total darkness with my hands tied; with rats and cockroaches and excrement everywhere. That was all I could smell."
- Lester Gonzalez

"Many prisoners attempted suicide. I saw prisoners stick needles in the dark part of their eye. I saw prisoners roll themselves in foam mattresses and set themselves alight, prisoners who inject excrement and urine into their eyes, prisoners who inject petrol into their private parts and other places just so they will be attended to."
- Normando Hernandez.

"I spent 17 months of solitary confinement in a four-by-four-meter cell."
- Jose Luis Paneque

Okay, okay, by now you've noticed the quotes are followed by Spanish surnames. So allow me to apologize for my deceptive article title. But it's mostly accurate. Guantánamo, you see, is not only the name of a U.S. military base in Cuba, but it's also the name of a Cuban province that contains 94 (Castroite) jails. And some prisoners from nearby Cuban jails (Castro's Cuba boasts from two to three hundred prisons; Batista's Cuba counted twelve) were recently forcibly deported (not "released," as the current MSM/Castroite spin claims) to Spain, where they revealed the above horrors.

These Castro prisoners' crimes?

Essentially, saying things about Fidel Castro in Cuban public similar to what the Dixie Chicks, Michael Moore, the Congressional Black Caucus, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel, etc., etc., etc., said about George Bush in U.S. public.

So I'm thinking, hey! Maybe -- just maybe! -- while some intrepid MSM "investigative reporter," pundit, or show producer Googles around for his next Guantánamo prison Rocky Horror article or TV piece -- he might come across this article's trap-title and be alerted to the shocker (within his profession) that Castro jails and murders people!

"Dream on!" you say. And of course, you're absolutely right. What was I thinking?!

Prisoners, as we all know from the thirteen gazillion MSM articles, also exist in the U.S. enclave of the Guantánamo province. And as we learn from a Spanish reporter named Marc Bassets who recently visited the U.S base, many of these prisoners were horribly anguished of late. (No reporters, by the way, dare venture anywhere near Castro's prisons. Their employers' Havana press bureaus would be "seriously jeopardized" by such insolence.)

At any rate, the anguish among the prisoners on the U.S. side stemmed from their concerns about securing good front-row seats at the prison hall to watch the World Cup. The prison's wide-screen TVs capture over twenty channels, including Al Jazeera, so some observers felt the anguish was a bit overblown.

Among the other horrors uncovered by Bassets:

*To alleviate the prisoners' suffering, the six Halal menus are revised -- but only every two weeks!

*Though the prisoners receive thousand calories daily -- only twice a week are they allowed Pepsi-Cola and ice cream!

*Though a prison library exists -- it contains only 17,000 books!

*Though the prisoners can attend English, accounting, and art classes -- these can be boring!

The worldwide MSM agonizes over the legal process that landed prisoners in the U.S. Guantánamo prison. If only they'd show a molecule of such indignation against the process that lands prisoners on the Castro side.

"We punish individuals who refuse to participate in collective effort and who lead an antisocial and parasitic life," read Beria and Vishinky's charges against millions of Stalin's victims. "We punish individualists and antisocial miscreants."

"Individualism must disappear!" thundered Castro's chief hangman, Che Guevara (this idol of "do-your-own-thing" Bohemians) in a 1961 speech in Havana. Interestingly, the cheeky Ernesto Guevara's signature on his early correspondence read "Stalin II." "Judicial evidence is an archaic Bourgeois detail," declared Che Guevara. "We execute from revolutionary conviction ... we send [to forced-labor camps] those who commit offenses against revolutionary morals." Alas, Che Guevara's definition of such "offenses" proved pretty sweeping.

In his book Against All Hope, Armando Valladares, who suffered 22 years in Castro's dungeons, forced-labor camps, and torture chambers, reveals how at one point in 1961, Castro's Cuba held 350,000 political prisoners. That's out of a Cuban population at the time of 6.4 million.

In her book Gulag, Anne Applebaum estimates that at any one time, two million people were incarcerated in Stalin's Gulag. That was out of a Soviet population of 220 million.

Now punch your calculator...see? Turns out that calling Castro a "Stalinist" actually lowballs his repression. Castro and Che Guevara jailed and tortured Cubans at a higher rate than (Che Guevara's idol) Stalin jailed and tortured Russians.

Now, getting back to Mr. Armando Valladares, who became a U.S. citizen. Can you think of a better nominee for U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission?

Neither could President Reagan, who appointed Mr. Valladares to the position in 1987, thus scandalizing "enlightened" opinion worldwide. The gaucherie was right up there with his "Evil Empire" and "tear down this wall" quips.

Humberto Fontova is the author of four books, including Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant and Exposing the Real Che Guevara. Visit hfontova.com.