Cuba’s indomitable heroine ~~ Jeff Jacoby

 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGxRxKKNBpVkXNVgdfsKkZRdVCQ

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

(NB note - that this woman is being honored and recognized by the US State Department is not a ringing endorsement for her.  As with most things, there is probably a complexity here.  She claimed to be fighting for "human rights and demoncracy", but what it looks like she was fighting for was increasing the chokehold of capitalism on Cuba and for the privatization of the Commons - hardly about human rights or democracy.  Cubans have the "huamn right" to healthcare.  That is something to be applauded and emulated.)

Tuesday, March 5, 2023 By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Opinion columnist    The State Department on Friday announced this year’s recipients of the International Women of Courage Award, an honor bestowed annually by the American secretary of state on individuals “who have demonstrated exceptional courage, strength, and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality, and the empowerment of women and girls.” Among those being recognized this year is one of Cuba’s greatest living heroes.  Martha Beatriz Roque is a 78-year-old dissident who for more than three decades has championed human rights and democracy in her homeland, which is ruled by the oldest dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere. An economist and former professor of statistics at the University of Havana, Roque first fell afoul of Fidel Castro’s communist regime when she praised Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika reforms in the Soviet Union. Many academics would have reverted to silence once they realized the government that controlled their salary was displeased with their comments. But Roque’s career of speaking truth to power was just beginning.    In 1997, she and three other dissidents — Vladimiro Roca, Félix Bonne, and René Gómez Manzano — published a report criticizing Cuba's communist economy and urging a peaceful transition to democracy. Titled “La Patria es de Todos” (“The Homeland Belongs to Everyone”), it was a ringing call for pluralism and tolerance. The manifesto decried the Cuban government’s disregard for basic rights “inherent to human beings.” The authors pleaded for democratic self-rule and economic freedom. For that offense, they were arrested, charged with spreading “enemy propaganda,” and convicted in a one-day show trial that was closed to the public.  Roque spent nearly three years behind bars. In May 1998, she managed to smuggle out a letter written on toilet paper; it described the terrible health conditions and relentless political indoctrination to which she and her co-defendants were subjected. Canada’s then-prime minister Jean Chrétien intervened personally with Castro for her release. So did Pope John Paul II. The dictator rebuffed them both.  Not until May 2000 was Roque set free. Undaunted, she promptly resumed her human rights work. Martha Beatriz Roque, 78, has championed human rights and democracy in Cuba for more than 30 years. (Photo: US State Department) I had the honor of meeting Roque at her home in Havana in 2002. She welcomed me cheerfully to her meager apartment, saying she was glad of the chance to practice her English. She had been detained 17 times by the authorities, she told me, showing me the gouges on the door frame caused by the police the last time they had ransacked her house. “They took everything I could use to write,” she laughed. “Even my pencil. And every piece of paper.”  She assumed she was under surveillance, she said as she handed me an espresso her assistant brought from the kitchen, but she wasn’t about to stop her work. She had already spent nearly three years in prison and she would go back if she had to.  A year later, she had to.  During the “Black Spring” crackdown the following year, Roque was once again arrested, tried, and convicted. Of the 75 dissidents, reformers, and pro-democracy advocates rounded up by Havana’s security agents, she was the only woman. For telling the truth about her country, she was sentenced to a staggering 20 years’ incarceration. She had been right about being under surveillance. The chief witness at her trial was an undercover security agent who had spied for more than a year on her every move: the assistant who had made us coffee.  In prison, Roque grew extremely ill. Repeated bouts of vomiting and diarrhea caused her to lose 30 pounds; her health declined so precipitously that the government released her early. Indomitable as ever, she immediately threw herself back into the fight to liberate Cuba.  Unlike countless other Cuban citizens who have fled for a better life in America and elsewhere, Roque will not consider going into exile. In announcing her International Women of Courage award, the State Department applauded Roque’s fierce refusal to knuckle under government pressure. She “continued to advocate for human rights,” it noted, “maintaining contact with political prisoners, documenting fraudulent court hearings, and providing material support to activists and their families.”    In Cuba, as in all dictatorships, it is the dissenters who sustain hope and keep honor alive. The nation Roque loves still bleeds under its cruel communist oppressors. But those oppressors will not rule forever. One day, Cuba will be free. And then Cuban children will be taught the truth — that the Castro revolution brought evil and lies and suffering to the island, and that liberty and democracy eventually returned only because heroes like Martha Beatriz Roque refused to be cowed.