CHAPTER 1

Persecution on Account of Race:Esteban Marcial Mosqueda of Cuba

Background

The island now called Cuba was discovered by ChristopherColumbus during his voyage to the New World in 1492. By 1514the Spanish Empire had colonized the island after brutal suppressionand massacres of the indigenous people, who were understandablyreluctant to work for their new European masters. In the absence ofa ready and willing pool of laborers, the Spanish eventually beganimporting slaves from Africa to work in the burgeoning and profitabletobacco, sugar cane, and coal-mining industries—a practice thatcontinued until slavery was abolished in Cuba in 1886.

Except for a short period in the eighteenth century when it washeld by Great Britain, Cuba was ruled by Spanish governors until itgained independence in 1902 following four years of United Statesoccupation at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. For thenext four decades, Cuba democratically elected a series of presidents,many of whom proved ineffective in dealing with the corruptionthat arose in response to increased prosperity. After World War II,Cuba enjoyed a boom in its economy, health services, and educationalopportunities, but many of these gains were undermined by thegovernment of Fulgencio Batista, who had been elected president in 1953.

On January 1, 1959, under pressure from the United States anda growing number of opposition citizen and guerrilla groups withinCuba, Batista fled the country. Backed by his own followers as wellas other rebel armies and groups that had been gathering with himin the mountains, Fidel Castro stepped into the void. Six days later,the United States recognized the Castro government and sent a newambassador to the island.

Within months of seizing power, however, Castro purgedall of his political opponents (and even some of his supporters),took over the media and schools, and instituted a one-partyCommunist system that brooked no opposition or questions.By the summer of 1959, the stunned Eisenhower administrationbegan planning the ouster of Fidel Castro, and relations betweenthe two countries deteriorated rapidly as it became apparent fromhis public statements that the new dictator wanted nothing to dowith the United States.

Soon after his inauguration in January 1961, President John F.Kennedy authorized the notorious Bay of Pigs invasion in whicha US-trained force of approximately 1,300 Cuban exiles invadedthe southern coast of Cuba with the intention of overthrowing theCastro government. Castro's armed forces defeated the invaderswithin three days.

In October 1962, in what became known as the Cuban MissileCrisis, the United States successfully cordoned off internationalwaters in order to prevent the Soviet Union from sending into Cubamore missiles than those previously discovered in U-2 reconnaissancephotos. Soviet economic aid, however, continued to pour into Cubauntil the final collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Left largely unchecked either by any internal voice of reason orby the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of Fidel Castro beganimprisoning moderates and members of the middle class in forcedlabor camps soon after it came to power. Many Cubans of Europeandescent who could afford to leave the island did so, and as theeconomy declined, unemployment soared.

In 1972, the Castro government instituted an anti-loafing lawthat made it a crime to be a working-age male without a job. Thosecaught not working could either go to jail or go fight in Soviet-backedwars on the African continent in Angola, Algeria, Congo,and Ethiopia.

While slavery had been abolished in Cuba in 1886, prejudicehad not, and although the black population of Cuba increasedenormously over the next seventy-five years, it remained at thebottom of the social and job structure and was viewed as inferior bythose of European descent who controlled the government and theeconomy. Additionally, as the United States became more invested inCuba politically and economically, it tacitly endorsed the ideologicaland attitudinal apartheid on the island and did as little to promoteracial equality there as it did within its own borders.

By the time of the Castro revolution in 1959, an estimated 60to 70 percent of the Cuban population was of African or mixedAfrican heritage and thus obviously outnumbered those who were ofstrictly Spanish or European descent. Initially, many Afro-Cubanssupported the revolution, believing its egalitarian promises ofland reform, better education, and adequate health care and socialservices. And even though matters did seem to improve superficiallyin the early years of the regime, Castro made it very clear that theprimary goal of his revolution was to eliminate distinctions in classrather than in race.

As Euro-Cubans and their money fled postrevolutionary Cuba,they left behind a crumbling economy, an iron-fisted dictator,and a majority Afro-Cuban underclass that had little money, fewresources, no power, and absolutely no avenue for the redress of theirgrievances. One of the repressive tools of the Castro governmentwas the formation of Committees for the Defense of the Revolution(CDRs) that were (and still are) block-watch groups charged withreporting any allegedly counterrevolutionary speech or activity tothe government.

In order to survive, many Afro-Cubans resorted to buying andselling goods on the black market, and some would occasionallyquestion obvious racial disparities in housing or employment. Bothof these activities, along with penalties for violating the anti-loafinglaw, caused the imprisonment of Afro-Cubans in numbers fardisproportionate to even their majority status.

In early April 1980, starting with a small group and eventuallyswelling to 10,000 citizens, Cubans seeking asylum from their owngovernment stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana. In response,Fidel Castro announced...