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Monday,
I wrote about René Montes de Oca Martija, the Cuban dissident and
human-rights activist who had
escaped
from prison on April 20. He told me during our interview on Saturday
that he expected to be arrested again very soon — but wanted
to get his story out, particularly as concerned his twelve-year-old
son, who is in need of medical care and being denied it by the regime.
The son is also being beaten by thugs at school with the obvious
blessing of the authorities.
I report sadly that what Montes de Oca had predicted, has now come
to pass. He was caught by state-security agents on Tuesday night.
He had spoken to some friends in the United States — providing
as much information as he could — then gone to the home of
a fellow oppositionist. In the night, both men were discovered and
hauled away.
Montes de Oca mentioned in our Saturday interview that, once he
was rearrested, the consequences would be severe: He would be sentenced
to additional years in prison for having escaped, and he would also
face trumped-up charges of "common" crimes, such as thievery. The
mother of his child had already been asked to testify that Montes
de Oca had beaten her. She refused to collaborate with this lie:
and lost her job as a result.
Montes de Oca, a Pentecostalist, is also an official of Cuba's Human
Rights Party (Partido Pro-Derechos Humanos) and a dedicated opponent
of tyranny everywhere.
As one might expect, I have received a lot of mail concerning my
pieces about Cuba, and many letters — particularly those from
Cuban-Americans — have asked the same thing: "Why don't Americans
care more about this? Why do our elites turn a blind eye, or make
up excuses for Castro and his regime? Why?" As the Cuban-American
congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart unforgettably put it, "For the life
of me, I just don't know how Castro can seem cute after forty years
of torturing people."
I can only answer, first, that it takes an unusual type of person
to care about other people's problems, and, second, that the pull
of the Left in this country is very strong. To support Castro, or
to be neutral toward him, is a way of expressing disgust at the
United States. Then, too, maybe the Left simply enjoys the torture
and wrongful imprisonment of anti-Communists.
Recall, from Monday's article, that I asked Montes de Oca, "Why
do you persist? How can you be so brave?" He answered, "There are
many brave people in Cuba, both men and women. We Cubans
have always been faithful: a faithful community, a faithful people.
We take our strength from the Bible. We believe in love, justice,
and peace, and we bear it in mind not to go with what is wrong.
We take God's truth to the darkest and loneliest places of human
existence: like the prisons."
René Montes de Oca is a Christian, a peaceful warrior, and an example
to us all. He is also a challenge to everyone who would swallow
sweet lies about the kind of island Fidel Castro is running just
off our southeastern shores.
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