To The Editors:
In his account of the human rights situation in Cuba “In Cuban Prisons,” NYR, June 30]; Aryeh Neier presents a very unbalanced report which distorts the present situation in Cuba and overlooks a process of reform which began in the 1960’s. Further, in straining to draw negative conclusions from some of the positive aspects of Cuba’s prison system, Mr. Neier makes both factual errors and contradicts his own factual findings.
Mr. Neier first visited Cuba as a participant in a delegation sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies. The IPS delegation was not, however, the first to visit Cuba’s prisons although it may have had access to some not visited before. I first visited two Cuban prisons in 1984 and have visited others since. A number of other lawyers have visited Cuba’s prisons. The Washington based Human Rights Project began a series of visits to numerous prisons in Cuba in the fall of 1987, the International Association Against Torture made visits in December, 1987, and the National Lawyers Guild undertook a study of criminal justice in Cuba in June, 1987, Every published report by these visitors states that allegations of torture, arbitrary executions and disappearances are unfounded. Even the IPS delegation found no evidence to sustain such allegations. Yet, the best Mr. Neier can conclude is that he doubts that most such charges can be sustained.
A significant defect in Mr. Neier’s report is his denial of historical fact and context. Although Mr. Neier does describe significant reforms which are taking place in Cuban prisons, he insists that such reforms only came about as a result of United States pressure and, rather immodestly, his own visit to Cuba. In doing so, he ignores important internal changes in Cuba which began years before Mr. Neier set foot on the island and before Armando Valladares was released from prison in 1984.
Reform of the criminal justice system in Cuba began in the 1960’s and has continued to the present. By the mid-1960’s the armed insurgency had been defeated. As a result many fewer people were imprisoned for counter-revolutionary activity and the infamous UMAP work camps were closed. In 1973, the Revolutionary Tribunals which had been administered by the military to try political offenders were abolished and replaced by a unified court system under civilian control. Also in 1973, Cuba adopted a new Code of Criminal Procedure.
Cuba’s criminal justice system is based on the civil law investigatorial system of Spain and, thus, very different from the Anglo-American adversarial system. (Mr. Neier criticizes its non-adversarial character as a violation of human rights. Yet, the investigatorial system exists in most European and Latin American countries.)
Revolutionary Cuba continued to enforce with some modifications the Spanish Social Defense Code of 1896 which was still in effect in 1959. In 1979, the government adopted a new criminal code after considerable public debate. The 1979 Code, like its predecessor, treated criminal conduct severely, but it also contained major improvements. For example, the age of adult criminal responsibility was raised from 12 to 16, and the new code gave judges more flexibility in applying sanctions by allowing for alternatives to imprisonment for minor offenses.
The overriding concern of those involved in reforming criminal law in Cuba has been the harshness of sentences. Thus, the 1979 Code was not satisfactory to many involved with the penal system primarily because it maintained a regime of severe sanctions. By 1983 discussions were underway to create a commission to analyze the Code, particularly the sentencing structure, and to propose reforms. Contrary to Mr. Neier’s suggestion that the Cubans only look to the Soviets for models, the Cuban jurists participating in the commission studied the contemporary criminal codes of many countries including the United States. I assisted in obtaining copies of the criminal codes of New York, Illinois and Massachusetts for their review.
As a result of a three year study, a revised Criminal Code was presented to the National Assembly in December, 1987 and was adopted Among the major modifications adopted were substantial reductions in sentences and greater flexibility in sentencing for first time offenders. Moreover, even before the National Assembly considered the proposed reforms, review of sentencing of individual cases was begun. A decree-law passed in 1985 established a special procedure of sentence review called “revisions” which gave the Supreme Court authority to review cases of prisoners to determine whether sentences imposed were too severe. As of June, 1987, 4,000 cases had been selected for review and many of the prisoners had been released or received reduction of their sentences.
The new sentence structure has been applied retroactively to those already serving time, and since April 30, the effective date of the new code, over 1500 prisoners have been released as a result, Prison officials estimate that over 10,000 prisoners (about one third of the prison population) will be released by the end of the year. This reduction would make Cuba’s rate of incarceration substantially lower than that of the United States. Ironically, the criticism of the new code which I have heard most frequently from Cuban citizens is that the sentences are now too lenient.
A similar review of the Code of Criminal Procedure was begun in 1987. A number of revisions are under consideration which would strengthen due process.
Clearly, international attention has prompted some changes. For example, the isolation cells at Combinado del Este are now mostly empty and are being renovated to improve ventilation and lighting. But the shaping of a prison system to serve the goal of rehabilitation rather than punishment has long been the objective of prison officials. The overriding concern is to prevent recidivism and to reduce the prison population. Thus, reform of sentencing and prison rules in Cuba has been primarily the result of internal debate and analysis.
Mr. Neier does note the significant positive aspects of Cuba’s prison regime, most of which are absent from almost all United States prisons: productive work for full pay; clean, uncrowded facilities; excellent medical facilities; educational programs and conjugal visits. Yet, he is compelled to conclude that the system is inhumane. The conclusions are unsubstantiated.
For example, he applauds the fact that prisoners continue to support their families from pay received for work in prison and that conjugal visits are a normal feature. (He understates, however, the frequency of such visits. Most common prisoners have been entitled to 3 to 4 such visits a year, depending on good behavior, and this will be increased to 6 in the coming year as prison population declines.) Moreover, visiting and mail privileges are being increased. Mr. Neier only presents the rules for recidivists and prisoners convicted of violent crimes. The minimum number of visits for this group was increased from 2 a year to 6. Visiting and mail privileges for first time offenders have been and are substantially more frequent. He also fails to mention that prisoners meet family members in open rooms unseparated by glass or wire partitions. Despite this evidence of concern to maintain family ties, Mr. Neier concludes that the rules show determination to isolate prisoners” from their families.
Further, Mr. Neier finds political motivation in isolating common prisoners who violate prison discipline by putting them in punishment cells for 21 days. Mr. Neier implies that most of these prisoners are punished for “political” acts of resistance manifested in minor infractions of prison rules or in demonstrated disrespect for officials. In fact, with few exceptions, the prisoners placed in such cells have stabbed other prisoners, precipitated fist fights or engaged in other acts of violence while in prison.
Like the State Department’s campaign against Cuba, Mr. Neier seems more concerned with criticizing Cuba than with supporting human rights. At one point, he states: “In several other Latin American countries, the security forces torture the people they arrest in order to extract confessions from them or to get them to implicate others, but mistreatment ends when they get to prison.” The implication is that at is preferable for a regime to engage in systematic torture of persons arrested without even the benefit of legal proceedings than to punish convicted felons for infractions of prison rules. Clearly, such logic turns human rights principles on their head.
In sum, Mr. Neier commits the same errors he attributes to Cuba’s other detractors—overstating his case and distorting fact. He does both the cause of human rights and improvement of relations with Cuba a disservice If we are to move closer to normalized relations with Cuba, which I believe we should, we need facts, impartially reported, on which to base rational dialogue.
Debra Evenson
DePaul University College of Law
Chicago, Illinois
Aryeh Neier replies:
Professor Evenson says that I make “factual errors” and leads off with the assertion that “the IPS delegation was not, however, the first to visit Cuba’s prisons.” My article did not suggest that it was the first visit, but described the visit as taking place as a result of an “unusual agreement” that involved the right to visit six prisons of our choice and to conduct confidential interviews with up to one hundred Cuban prisoners of our choice. In exchange, a Cuban delegation was to visit the US and conduct a similar number of visits and interviews. I believe the agreement was unusual in at least two respects: first, in making possible such great access to the Cuban prisons; and second, in its reciprocal provision, which has, unfortunately, been negated by the refusal of the State Department to grant visas to the Cubans.
Professor Evenson cites her own previous visits to Cuban prisons and the visits by three other organizations. I am familiar with the reports that resulted from each of these visits and, frankly, I discounted them. None of the groups mentioned is well known in the field of human rights reporting. More important, neither the reports of Professor Evenson, nor of the National Lawyers Guild, nor of the Human Rights Project so much as mentioned the punishment cells to which I devoted much of my article. This means that they did not see them or did not choose to report on them. Those reports say nothing about the ideological content of the “reeducation” system on which the Cuban prisons are based. As for the beatings of inmates with rubber hoses, kicks and punches that the IPS group learned about in Boniato and in Combinado del Este prisons, there is no reference to this practice in the reports of the Human Rights Project. The National Lawyers Guild report deals with this subject only to the extent of stating in one sentence that: “In one instance, the prisoner reported being struck once after deliberately insulting one of the guards.” Professor Evenson’s own report also deals with this in one sentence, stating that: “In Combinado del Este, prisoners have related that the relationship between inmates and guards is not tense although there are occasional blows from guards, but not beatings.”
