La Jornada is a Party Organ
Last week Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a Cuban political prisoner encarcerated since 2003, died at Havana's Combinado del Este prison after 85 days on hunger strike.
Mr. Zapata, 42, was arrested on charges of "disrespecting authority" and sentenced to 3 years behind bars. This sentence was later increased to 25 years because of his protests at jail conditions.
His death marks the first time in nearly 40 years a Cuban activist starved himself to death in protest against government abuses.
Since Mr. Zapata had been declared a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International, the news of his death appeared in nearly every major world publication (including every Mexican daily) with the exception of one: La Jornada.
The Principled Left
On the La Jornada web site, a banner daily appears called "Reflexiones de Fidel Castro", a link which takes you to a chronological listing of every public event, directive and utterance made by the great Cuban leader.
The banner has graced the publication's site since it first went online and represents the moral imperative (in a sense, the soul) of the publication.
In Mr. Zapata's case, the reasoning goes like this: since the Castro brothers officially deny the existence of any political prisoner on Cuban soil (except in Guantánamo), there's no reason for La Jornada (or any Cuban publication) to mention Zapata's death.
The fact that the story appeared in every other Mexican news channel only makes the omission more principled.
Politics over Journalism
Mr. Zapata's mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, told the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald that her son had been "murdered" by Cuba's authorities. "They managed to do what they wanted," she said. "They ended the life of a fighter for human rights.''
Laura Pollan, a dissident from the group known as Ladies in White, told the BBC: "He wasn't a murderer. He wasn't a thief. He wasn't a rapist. He was simply a young man who wanted a better future for Cuba."
But Castro's neo-Stalinist regime and (of course) La Jornada claim otherwise. How can prisoners be mistreated if they don't exist?
Most La Jornada readers would consider Mr. Zapata and Cuban human rights activists in general to be CIA stooges. Somehow - though without apparent explanation - they blame Mr. Zapata's death on the U.S.
The fact that Mr. Zapata's trial - and the trials of 74 other dissidents jailed in 2003 for "disrespecting authority" - was closed to the public is merely a yanqui distraction, a convenient capitalist ploy neatly contained (and rendered inert) by neo-Marxist theory.
What was Mr. Zapata's real "crime"? Perhaps he made contact with the U.S. Office of Exterior Affairs in Havana, or received letters from Miami-based compatriots.
The bottom line is that the gringos once tortured suspected terrorists in Guantánamo - ergo anything used by Cuba or La Jornada can be justified.
Whether law abiding citizens are jailed and tortured by the Cuban authorities for expressing their opinions is a trifle in the context of the Great Revolution and all it (still) represents to left-wing Mexican "intellectuals".
Comments [0]
