We Deserve Better, says Cuban wife

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Elizabeth Palmiero

Elizabeth Palmiero, wife of Ramón Labañino, one of five Cubans currently imprisoned in the United States, has been joined by amnesty international in her condemnation of US immigration authorities’ manipulation of the regulations to obstruct family members attempting to visit. (link to Amnesty International call http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR51/041/2009/en/f9c713db-a083-4da2-ab4d-50420fda35fe/amr510412009en.html

In a recent interview in Havana, Elizabeth said that as most of the family members of these men live in Cuba, they must obtain a visa to travel to the US to visit their loved ones.

“Since 2006 the visa process has become more and more complicated, in my case resulting in not being able to visit my husband Ramon for 2 and a half years, but two of the other wives have been refused visas for nine years,” she stated. “The authorities change the reason every time – Adriana has now been told that she will never be eligible for a visa because she is a citizen of a country on the US terrorist list, but so are the rest of the family members and some get a visa every year, others every two years.”

Member of the legal team in the USA, Leonard Weinglass has affirmed that Federal Prison regulations require that families be able to visit monthly, and this has been codified into law. So to preclude the family members from visiting by refusing them visas is a violation not only of the constitutional rights of the inmates, but of the Bureau of Prisons regulations.

The toll on family members and prisoners alike is considerable. “They [US immigration authorities] have used the visas to torture them more than just the fact of their being imprisoned. By with-holding the visa they are using their families to cause them more pain.”

Families also innocent victims

“In the case of the mothers they are all old persons, over 70 years, they are suffering because their sons are in prison,” Elizabeth said. Adriana Pérez and Gerardo Hernández were planning to start a family before his arrest, but the length and conditions of his imprisonment and the refusal to grant his wife a visa have virtually destroyed any possibility that they will ever be able to become parents.

Several of the men already had young children, and as Elizabeth pointed out, these young people are being forced to grow up without their fathers, while they in turn are being denied their constitutional right to monthly family visits as per US prison regulations.

Whilst Elizabeth described her and her daughters’ visit with Ramon last October as “the best”, her description of it cannot fail to move even the hardest heart. Here we have a wife who has not seen her husband for several years, and two daughters who last saw their dad when they were 8 and 13 years old respectively, and who at the time of the last visit were 11 and 16. Imagine the amount of news the two children would want to tell their dad after such a long time, and how excited they would be. Instead of being able to run in and throw themselves on his lap with childish enthusiasm and pour out their hearts, and dreams, and fears, or to be hugged and caressed and comforted, this is what they meet with.

“To enter the prison is a very difficult process because they inspect everything - the blouse you are wearing, your dress, they put a stamp on your hand and you have to be controlled at all times. The guards are all the time hearing everything and watching every movement. We cannot enter anything into the prison, only money to buy food inside the prison, it is very very difficult.” Having been subjected to thorough inspections, the girls and their Mum finally get to see their dad.

“We are only allowed to embrace and have a kiss at the beginning of the visit and at the end. During the rest of the time we are not allowed to touch each other because they can cut the visit and say you are not allowed to enter any more into the prison if you touch him or if you are kissing during the visit. The prisoners cannot move from their chair.” With almost all human contact prohibited, what is left?

“We try to gain as much as possible from those visits - from his love, from his intelligence, from his solidarity with us, everything. We try to make it easy during the time, we don’t talk about all the suffering and the pain we are living during the time we cannot be with each other, we try to talk about different things, we talk about the future, we talk about school and the way the girls are changing, we try to be a better person in the time we are in those difficult conditions of the prison.”

Despite the incredibly tough ten years this family has already lived through, and the less-than-ideal conditions under which they have but irregular contact, like Ramon, Elizabeth has an amazing capacity for hope, self-belief, sacrifice, and love. “Every year I make a plan for the time when Ramon will be released but every time I have to change the plan because he has been in prison for ten years...but there is one thing that is always in my plan, that we will recover all the lost time, we will do everything we haven’t done because of prison, we will try to be as happy as possible in the time he will finally be here in Cuba with me.

I will try to make him the most belovest man in the world, because through all the suffering, all the time we have been apart, he has made me feel a special person because I am his wife, and because of the two daughters we have. I will change all those plans every year, with all the love he deserves. This time we have been separated has been very painful, and we deserve a better time in the future.”

Who can fail to agree, or to expect that in the spirit of their commitment to observe constitutional and international human rights obligations, evident in the about-turn regarding Guantanamo inmates, the Barack Obama administration will see fit to also promptly apply the relevant standards to these prisoners and their families, and put an immediate end to their unnecessary, unjustifiable, and unconscionable suffering.

They do indeed deserve a better future.

For background on the case, go to http://scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00136.htm

ENDS

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