This latest effort was launched in protest over the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
A plumber and bricklayer, the forty-two-year-old Cuban dissident died February 23, 2010, in Kilo 7 prison, Camagüey province, after a hunger strike of his own, one that lasted eighty-three days.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo starved to death…
It was the first time a dissident had died had in a Cuban prison following a hunger stike since 1972
when the student leader Pedro Luis Boitel, who had also opposed the Batista regime, died in similar circumstances.
Arrested along with many others following a harsh campaign launched by the authorities in 2003 to crush the pro-democracy movement, Orlando Zapata Tamayo was charged with disobedience and sentenced to three years in jail.
At the time of his death, his sentence had been extended to thirty-six years, due to his refusal to submit, even in prison…
Guillermo Farinas, who is forty-eight and also known as Coco, was raised in a family of Castro supporters. His father even fought alongside Che Guevara in Africa.
Once a member of the Union of Communists Youths, Farinas became disenchanted with the Castro regime, and quit the organization in protest over the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa.
The general was one of the early followers of Fidel Castro, and was instrumental in the capture of Santa Clara in December 1958.
The victory by Castro’s forces, headed by Che Guevara, led to the fall of the Batista regime, the dictator fleeing the country a few hours later.
A veteran of the Angolan and Ethiopian campaigns, Ochoa was made a Hero of the Revolution by Castro himself in 1980.
In 1989 however, he was charged with drug trafficking, corruption and treason, and executed on July 12, 1989.
Farinas had also fought in Angola against the FNLA.
Cuba’s involvement in the former Portuguese colony in support of the Marxists MPLA lasted from 1976 to 1991.
Upon his return, Farinas studied psychology and worked in hospitals in Havana.
In 2002, charged with disorder, he was sentenced to six years in jail.
In poor health, he was released the following year and created the independent news website Cubanacan Press, along with other independent journalists.
In 2006, he began a hunger strike to demand unfettered access to the internet for all Cubans, but his campaign was not successful.
He launched a new effort in February 2010, this time in protest over the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and more generally to denounce the appalling living conditions of political detainees in Cuban jails.
His fast lasted one hundred and thirty four days…He lost twenty kilos in the process.
The regime finally relented and, following a negotiation with Spain and the Roman Catholic Church, agreed to release fifty-two prisoners detained since the 2003 crackdown.
In the spring of that year, the regime arrested and sentenced seventy-five human rights activists to long sentences for crimes such as hijacking and terrorism.
Most had been involved in the Varela Project, launched in March 2001.
Named after Felix Varela, a priest who demanded Cuba’s independence from Spain in the nineteenth century, the project was initiated by Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, a dissident who was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2001.
The project demanded five major reforms: free elections, free speech, freedom of assembly, private enterprise and the release of all political prisoners.
The project’s promoters cleverly chose the legal path to achieve their aims.
Article 88 of the Cuban Constitution allows citizens to request a referendum on a legislative proposal of their own, provided it is sponsored by at least 10,000 Cubans.
Needless to say, the regime had no intention of authorizing such a challenge to its monopoly on power, and cracked down harshly on the movement, arresting scores of activists.
Incidentally, by May 2002, the Varela Project had recived the support and signatures of over 11,000 Cubans. Nevertheless, it was ignored by the National Assembly.
Yet, these arrests spawned a new protest movement.
The wives and relatives of those arrested began gathering every Sunday at Santa Rita church in Havana. Dressed in white, they would then walk together in silence down the capital’s Fifth Avenue in protest over the arbitrary detention of their husbands.
They became known as the Ladies in White, headed by Laura Pollan, and have been repeatedly harassed and molested by the regime ever since.
In 2005, the organization was also awarded the Sakharov Prize, and honored the following year by Human Rights First.
Since July, the Castro regime has released thirty-nine of the fifty-two remaining prisoners detained in 2003.
Of the thirteen remaining, seven have repudiated the deal negotiated by the Roman Catholic Church and Spain because it entails exile in the latter country.
According to Cuban human rights activists, one hundred and fifteen political prisoners are currently detained in Cuban jails.
Cuba has also agreed to release an additional five who do not belong to the group of fifty-two.
Guillermo Farinas’ brave campaign on behalf of Cuban political prisoners contributed to making the agreement negotiated with Spain and the Roman Catholic Church possible, leading to the release of the activists.
As a result, the European Parliament awarded the 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Guillermo Farinas, in honor of his commitment to human rights.
Guillermo farinas has resorted to hunger strikes to protest and defy the lack of freedom of expression in Cuba, declared Jerzy Buzek, the Polish President of the European Parliament, upon announcing the news that the Cuban had won the prize.
He was the ideal candidate, peacefully and selflessly embodying the ideals of the Sakharov Prize, the defense of human rights and fundamental freedoms, freedom of speech, the fight for democracy, José Ignacio Salafranca, a Spanish Euro MP and Guillermo Farinas supporter, told RFI.
Farinas put his life on the line and with dignity.
He has risked his life on behalf of detainees, and never given up, Laura Pollan, of the Ladies in White, told AFP.
The other two finalists were the Ethiopian democracy activist and opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa and the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence.
The recipient remained humble.
It's not a prize for Guillermo Fariñas. It's a prize for the rebelliousness of this people against the dictatorship, the prisoners, the people on the streets receiving blows and threats, he told El Nuevo Herald from his home in Santa Clara.
For me, personally, it means a greater commitment to the cause I am fighting for, which I will keep up until I achieve the democratization of Cuba or lose my life in the effort, he told DPA.
Will the Castro regime allow Guillermo Farinas to travel to Strasbourg, France, to collect his award and the 50,000 Euros prize money, on December 15?
I am pessimistic about this and I think I have to go on hunger strike so that they let me leave, he told BDA.
Last month, in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Fidel Castro said the following: the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.
Is it not time to draw the logical conclusion that it should be done away with?
Are the Castros capable of such a revolution?
This is highly unlikely
Yet, how much longer should the Cubans have to wait before the Castros return what they wrested away from them, their dignity and freedom?
(the photograph of Laura Pollan and Guillermo Farinas taken Thursday October 21, 2010 is by Alejandro Ernesto/EFE)
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