Chronicle on Cuba - September 2005

Exile Community

September 15: A former political prisoner in Cuba, who says he was repeatedly tortured with drugs and electric shocks, sued Fidel Castro's government for $50 million in damages in a case aimed partly at exposing what Castro opponents call his brutality toward dissidents. Nilo Jerez said in court papers that the torture in the early 1970s made him sterile and continues to cause "distress, anxiety, fear and apprehension." "It is time to have justice," Jerez told reporters outside the Miami-Dade County Courthouse after filing the lawsuit. (AP, 15/9/05)

September 19: A US federal judge has dismissed a wrongful death suit filed against Cuba and Fidel Castro by the sister of a man executed in 2003 for his role in a ferry hijacking. US District Judge Patricia Seitz acknowledged in her ruling that the sister, Yordanis Montoya Isaac, had presented a "sympathetic case." But Seitz said she could award no damages because neither Montoya nor her brother, Jorge Luis Martinez Isaac, were US nationals when the execution took place. Montoya had sought more than $75,000 in damages from Cuba for the April 11, 2003, execution of her brother in the hijacking earlier that month of the Baragua, a 45-foot Cuban ferry carrying 50 passengers. (The Gainesville Sun, 19/9/05)

September 28: Elián González, who now refers to Fidel Castro as ''a father,'' says in a new television interview that his Miami relatives held him against his will during his sojourn five years ago. Elián's Miami relatives immediately labeled the statements propaganda produced under pressure from the Cuban government. ''He is a brainwashed little kid afraid of Castro, just like everyone else,'' said Armando Gutiérrez, former spokesman for the González family. Gutiérrez said he never heard Elián say he wanted to return to Cuba during the countless hours he spent with the boy. Elián’s uncle, Delfín González, said he sees the boy on television, making speeches in support of the Cuban government and shakes his head. ''The exile community here predicted that would happen,'' he said. "It's no surprise to me. But when you live in the devil's house, you have to do what he says.'' (The Miami Herald, 30/9/05)