Thaindian News

Havana, March 3 (IANS/EFE) Fidel Castro has confronted international and opposition criticism of the Cuban government following last week’s death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo after an 85-day hunger strike, saying “we have never ordered an adversary killed”.
“In our country we have never tortured anyone, we have never ordered an adversary killed, we have never lied to the people,” the retired Cuban president said in the latest of his “Reflections” on public affairs.

He also defended Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against those who accuse him of ignoring the case of Zapata on his recent visit to Havana.

“Some who envy his prestige and his glory, and even worse, those who are at the service of the (US) empire, criticise him for visiting Cuba. To do so they use the vile slander that has been used against Cuba for half a century,” Castro wrote.

For its part, state television broadcast an extensive report Monday night accusing “the counterrevolution” of a “defamation campaign” to hide the medical attention that Zapata received before he died.

The programme said that the dissident, who had been in jail since 2003, was attended “with the strictest medical ethics”.

Granma accused Zapata of being a common criminal who “adopted a political persona when he already had a long criminal record”.

State television also presented interviews with doctors and specialists who detailed the reactions of the human body to prolonged starvation and the physical process leading to the fatal result.

It also published pictures of Zapata’s mother, Reyna Tamayo, and videos of her visits to the hospital where he was admitted, meetings she had with police authorities, and wiretapped conversations with members of the opposition in Miami and Cuba.

One of the doctors said that the prisoner was treated with “the latest generation of products in terms of nourishment”.

The report said that “the counterrevolution” is promoting a campaign to “accuse the island’s authorities of not providing Orlando Zapata with medical attention,” and that “it therefore decided to manipulate and cover up any proof to the contrary”.

“The words of Orlando Zapata’s mother about the excellent attention her son was getting were never divulged. That truth was not suitable in a campaign of defamation against Cuba,” it said.

Dr. Maria Esther Hernandez said she kept telling Zapata “about the consequences of his decision and how it was putting his life in danger, but he maintained his position at all times”.

In a related matter, two of the five dissidents who launched hunger strikes after Tamayo’s death decided to end their protests.

Political prisoners Eduardo Diaz Fleitas and Diosdado Gonzalez, both held at Kilo 5 prison in the western province of Pinar del Rio, announced they would resume taking nourishment.

Two other prisoners: Nelson Molinet, also at Kilo 5; and Fidel Suarez Cruz, serving time at the Kilo 8 penitentiary in Pinar del Rio, remained on hunger strike, the spokesman for the unofficial Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Elizardo Sanchez, told EFE.

–IANS/EFE

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