OPEN LETTER TO THE REV. LUCIUS WALKER

JOEL DUENAS MARTINEZ

24 March 1994

The author is serving a four-year sentence at Cinco y Medio Prison in
Pinar del Rio, Cuba, for “spreading enemy propaganda.” He wrote this open
letter to the Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., director of the Minneapolis-based
ecumenical group Pastors for Peace, which has been delivering food and
medicine to Cuba through Mexico.

The original Spanish-language version of this letter was published on
Monday in El Nuevo Herald.

REVEREND:

No speech has ever left me so perplexed as yours did, when I read it in
the official newspaper, Granma. Never has a man of the cloth used biblical
quotations for such lowly purposes. I cannot conceive of any priest, minister,
or pastor who would support a dictatorship, much less by resorting to the Holy
Scriptures.

How can a man who calls himself a believer support the Mecca of atheism?
In this country, religious people have been isolated, humiliated, turned into
second-class citizens, expelled from universities, hunted down, and even
imprisoned.

The Catholic Church is not allowed to display religious images in public
processions. Jehovah’s Witnesses are sent to prison for refusing military
induction. In short, being a religious person in this country means
shouldering a cross permanently.

The apparent tolerance now being shown toward religion is nothing more
than a hypocritical posture dictated by circumstances and conditions.

Those who fall for this maneuver are either naifs or apostates.

Do you know what would have happened if the hunger strike that you and
your people staged (last August in Laredo, Texas) had been to protest a ruling
by the Cuban government? In the best of cases, you would all be joining me in
the cell that I occupy at Pinar del Rio’s provincial prison.

In the worst of cases, you would be allowed to die — as happened to
Pedro Luis Boitel. You don’t know that name, right?
Neither do most Cubans. No pastor ever wrote a single word about Boitel’s
situation; he died slowly after fasting for 70 days. His elderly mother
appealed to the man you now praise and begged him to show mercy to her son.
That unfeeling tyrant whom you so admire rejected her plea.

While you people exercise your right to dissent, our government represses
us for expressing ourselves peacefully. That’s what happened when we gathered
outside Villa Marista (the headquarters of Cuba’s state security forces) to
demand freedom for political prisoners. And when our wives, mothers, and
sisters prayed for us at Mercedes Church in Havana, they were brutally
assaulted as they left.

Have you ever asked yourself how many tears our mothers have shed in the
35 years that Castro has been in power?

The undersigned does indeed support the U.S. embargo. I believe that it’s
one of several ways to combat this cruel dictatorship. But while the embargo
helps end this agony, you come up with your ridiculous aid — a coarse
political campaign to perpetuate Fidel Castro’s grip on power.

You should know that sending a letter like this is taking a risk that is
dearly paid for in Cuban prisons. Our mail is monitored by state security
officials, so the controls imposed upon us were circumvented to get this
letter out of Cuba. There will be a high price to pay, and we Cuban prisoners
of conscience pay it.

As I sign off, I regret being unable to call you “brother,” but you
support the man who oppresses my people, the torturer who keeps me behind
bars. While you organize your caravans, my brothers and I endure unfair
imprisonment, ill treatment,
and beatings from the warders you feed with your pharisaical crumbs.

From my cell, I invite you to ask the Cuban government for permission to
visit us. We offer you our small quarters — a 6- by-9-foot cell for three men
— our brackish drinking water, our hunger, and our pain.

I urge you to visit us during your next ride-through. Will you persist in
defending Fidel Castro after going through our hell? I believe that you won’t
— but only if you’re a truly honest man and practice what you preach.