Inter Press Service

January 14

CUBA: Dissident Group Calls for Abolition of Death Penalty

By Dalia Acosta, 

HAVANA, Jan 14 - The moratorium on the death penalty applied by the government of Fidel Castro (news - web sites) since 2000 should be replaced by a total abolition of capital punishment in Cuba, according to the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN).

The dissident group urged the government of Fidel Castro last week to declare a ''moratorium de jure that would permit the immediate commutation of all pending death sentences.''

 Around 50 people are on death row awaiting execution by firing squad in 10 high-security prisons in Cuba, according to a partial list published by the dissident group, which has been active since the late 1980s.

 In 1987, the CCDHRN sought permission from the Ministry of Justice to register as a legal non-governmental organization, which it has not yet been allowed to do, although its work is tolerated by the government to some extent.

 The head of the organization, Elizardo S�nchez, one of the best- known dissidents outside Cuba, is part of the moderate internal opposition, which wants political changes to be brought about peacefully, and even under the leadership of Castro himself.

 The CCDHRN puts together its list based on information from the families of death-row inmates and could be incomplete, since Cuban authorities do not make information available on the prison population.

 The abolition of the death penalty would be the only way to ''put an end to the cruel, daily uncertainty suffered by around 50 people who have been sentenced to death,'' said S�nchez.

 Although he recognized that the government's moratorium on executions was ''a very important and positive change,'' S�nchez complained that death row inmates lived in ''cruel, inhuman and degrading'' conditions.

 ''The anguish itself caused by the uncertainty over when they might be executed becomes, objectively, a form of continuous psychological torture,'' said the dissident leader.

 The CCDHRN has documented several recent cases of ''self- mutilations or suicide attempts by death row inmates,'' which the group blames on the conditions on death row.

 S�nchez noted that although the government argues that the death penalty in Cuba is necessary ''to protect state security from the actions of external violent groups...only five percent of those on death row in Cuba were convicted of political or military- political crimes against the state.''

 The fact that only three of the people on the CCDHRN list were convicted of offences against national security disproves the government's argument, said S�nchez.

 One of the three is Humberto Eladio Real, who disembarked in Cuba in 1994 as part of an armed anti-Castro mission that set out from the southern United States, and who caused the death of an innocent civilian on his attempt to enter the country.

 The other two are Salvadoran nationals Ra�l Ernesto Cruz and Otto Ren� Rodr�guez, who were sentenced to death for their participation in a wave of bombings of Cuban tourist installations in 1997, in which an Italian businessman was killed.

 The rest of the death row inmates who appear on the CCDHRN list were convicted of homicide, violent robbery or rape.

 A February 1999 reform of the penal code introduced the life sentence and expanded capital punishment to those found guilty of drug trafficking, violent robbery and corruption of minors, with aggravating factors.

 Cuban law bans the death penalty for anyone under 20 and for pregnant women. According to official sources, no woman has been sentenced to death since Castro took power in January 1959.

 Local authorities say capital punishment is an exceptional measure to be applied in the case of particularly appalling crimes. But they want it to remain in place as long as Cuba continues to be a target of United States hostility.

 Castro, however, admitted last November that a group of legal experts was studying alternatives to the death penalty. ''We have other ideas that will allow us one day, and by our own decision, to abolish capital punishment,'' said the president.

 The European Union (news - web sites), the Roman Catholic Church and various dissident groups have all called for abolition of the death penalty.

 However, capital punishment enjoys support among the population of 11 million. In Cuba it is easy to find people who defend the death penalty, especially in cases of murder or rape.

 However, no surveys have been carried out on the public's views regarding the death penalty. The socialist government, for its part, does not provide information on the prison population, death row inmates or executions.

 According to the United Nations (news - web sites), 92 countries still apply the death penalty, while it does not exist in 56 countries. Meanwhile, some 30 nations still have it on the books, but have not applied it in a number of years.

 An August 2000 CCDHRN report estimated that between 20 and 30 people were executed by firing squad in Cuba in 1999, a number that places this Caribbean island nation among the countries with the highest execution rates.

 According to the report, in 1999 the execution rate was 2.6 per million people in Iran, 2.1 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1.9 in Cuba, 0.9 in China, and 0.4 per million in the United States.