Review of Armando Valladares’s Against all hope

Review of Armando Valladares’s Against all hope. A memoir of life in Castro’s gulag. Translated by Andrew Hurley. San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2001. 426 pp.

Rafael E. Saumell, Ph.D.

    Cuba and its relations with the United States has been a regular topic in the American culture for the last two centuries. Even Thomas Jefferson expressed in 1803 his desire to make of Cuba the most southern state of the Union. After all, 90 miles from Key West there is an island whose current government is, as former diplomat Wayne Smith put it, our closest enemy. Recently, viewers in the United States have had the chance to see the film Before night falls, directed by Julian Schnabel. The plot is taken from a book of memoirs penned by Cuban writer and poet Reinaldo Arenas, who died in New York City in 1991. Arenas suffered political and sexual discrimination in Castro’s Cuba. He managed to smuggle his books outside the archipelago with enormous pain, dangers and efforts. In his homeland he was both a prisoner and a pariah. Finally, he came to the United States in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift, along with hundred thousands of countrymen.
Now we have the reissue of Armando Valladares’s Against all hope. A memoir of life in Castro’s Gulag (Translated by Andrew Hurley, San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books 2001). This book narrates the twenty-two years of political incarceration endured by Mr. Valladares, a former prisoner of conscience. He was arrested by the State Security Police in 1960. In 1982 he was released, thanks to an international campaign organized by human rights groups from France, Spain and the United States. François Mitterand, then-President of France, intervened on behalf of Mr. Valladares, and persuaded his friend Castro to free the now famous prisoner and poet. Valladares had smuggled some of his prison writings, and they made him a “cause célèbre” among human right activists in the Western hemisphere.
If we pay close attention to the historical period covered by these accounts, we can realize how many crucial events are mentioned here as sub-plots: the end of diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and Cuba, the Bay of Pigs fiasco (1961), the Missile Crisis (1962), the assassination of President Kennedy (1963), the execution of “Che” Guevara in Bolivia (1967), the guerrilla wars in Latin America (from the sixties to the early nineties, concluding in El Salvador), and the triumph of “Sandinistas” over dictator Somoza in Nicaragua (1979). Also, we must remember Castro’s interventionism in the Middle East and in Africa with strong Soviet support.
Valladares spent all these years behind bars, facing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment. He was isolated from his relatives and from the outside world. Furthermore, he became a “plantado [planted] prisoner”, somebody who refused to wear the prison uniform created by the new regime. Also he resisted rehabilitation through indoctrination. He went on hunger strikes, fought the prison guards, was beaten, and humiliated. Valladares tried to escape from the infamous prison-colony of Isle of Pines (now renamed Isle of Youth), the Cuban equivalent to the French “Ile du diable” or the American “Alcatraz.” But he was not alone; nor he was the only one. There were many inmates who did exactly the same thing. Valladares and his cellmates refused the notion of accepting political neutralization. Lee Lockwood, who was the first foreign journalist ever to be authorized to visit Cuban prisons (Castro’s Cuba, Cuba’s Fidel, 1969), declared that Castro himself and every officer he encountered pointed out that the main goal consisted in neutralizing the prisoners. They wanted to make sure that prisoners would never organize opposition to the communist rule.
Valladares and his colleagues were not neutralized. In prison they kept a very active movement against the government. They never gave up in spite of terrible sufferings inflicted by the authorities. In addition, he used his writings to expose all sorts of human rights violations committed in and outside prisons. In this sense, Valladares’s narrative continues a long tradition of political denunciations against slavery and colonization started by the domestic slave Juan Francisco Manzano and the poet José Martí in the 19th century. In the next century, once Cuba became a republic, intellectuals Carlos Montenegro and Pablo de la Torriente Brau condemned political corruption and general Gerardo Machado’s administration, respectively, from the books they wrote on their prison experiences. In 1954, Fidel Castro penned a testimonial account based on his trial and subsequent incarceration during general Fulgencio Batista’s years in power.
Valladares, along with former prisoners Carlos Alberto Montaner, Jorge Valls, F. Miguel Angel Loredo, Nicolás Pérez Diez-Argüelles, Ernesto Díaz, and Ana Rodríguez, was one of the first who came out with his memoirs, denouncing the atrocities perpetrated by the government, throughout two long decades of repression. Castro, as a former prisoner and political activist himself, knows very well how devastating a book like Against all hope can be for his fortunes. His credibility, his claims of being solely a victim of American imperialism, can fall down abruptly. In response to Valladares accusations, he orchestrated a vast international campaign against the author, labeling him of an U.S. agent, a liar and a former Batista police officer.
    For these reasons, I must clarify that this is not a mere piece of literature. Rather, this is the testimonial rendition of a real and overwhelming experience. The author is not looking for acceptance only in literary circles. He intends to reach every possible audience, from the left or from the right. The atrocities he presents affect all people, everywhere and at all times. He wants his experiences and those of his fellow prisoners to be known. He is pressing charges against Castro, one of the most popular leaders of the international left. This book does not deal with the topic of building hospitals and schools in Cuba. It is not about how many Olympic medals Cuban athletes have won in the past forty-two years. This is a hidden side of Cuba that is coming to light. In short the main theme is that the extreme left has committed serious crimes in the name of social justice.
Castro is linked to Chile’s Pinochet in prohibiting, persecuting and annihilating the opposition. In his mission to save Cuba from capitalism he has built a tropical Gulag. Yes, there are plenty of schools, hospitals, and athletic facilities in the island. But no one can dissent or openly promote political alternatives to the present power structure. Religion is not beyond Castro’s hands. God and African “orishas” (gods and goddesses) are welcomed by the “comandante”, but if they contradict his policies, then they are expelled from the country, and sent to counterrevolutionary hell.
The former prisoner faces one of his most formidable challenges. He has to dismantle a legend that has admirers among heads of states, rich and poor, student and political leaders, scholars, intellectuals, artists and millionaire professional athletes such as Argentinean soccer player Diego Armando Maradona. Besides, Castro is a dictator who dared to utter this lie: “From our point of view, we have no human-rights problem –there have been no “disappeareds” here, there have been no murders here. In twenty-five years of revolution, in spite of the difficulties and dangers we have passed through, torture has never been committed, a crime has never been committed.” Only the people who deny the holocaust or the existence of labor concentration camps in the former Soviet Union can believe Castro.
Of course, it is not the first time when a leader with charisma enjoys wide and blind admiration. Stalin in Russia, Mao Tse Tung in China, Benito Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, even Hitler in Germany, and to this day the man in Havana, have had their poets and fans in democratic nations.
    Nevertheless, one thing distinguishes Cuba from the countries already mentioned. Although years have passed, and with them many negative experiences, the pro-Castro lobby in many nations is still strong. The Western left was unable to save Russia from Stalin, China from Mao and his Cultural Revolution and Mexico from the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and the massacre of Tlatelolco in 1968. Castro, however, is presiding over his proletarian dictatorship with a halo. Maybe for one main reason: his declared enemy is the “American empire.” A huge giant confronts a small, impoverished, but proud and fearless Caribbean nation. Rightist Goliath versus leftist David. Of course, certain devotees are ready to forget that Castro had on his side until 1991 a powerful partner, the former Soviet Union. The Cuban Constitution of 1976 recognized this historical truth in its introduction. Today, he is not isolated though. He is very influential in several chanceries of the First and the Third World who mistrust or at least have serious reservations about the American approach on Cuba.
The basic economic and social programs designed by Castro have much appeal: universal health care and free education at all levels, full employment, good sport facilities, and a foreign policy aligned against Yankee imperialism. The fact is that many third world nations cannot compete with Cuba in terms of achievements in those areas. Still, Cuba exports it medical doctors to all continents. Likewise, the undemocratic rule that sustains the Cuban model is irrelevant to many presidents from Africa, the Middle East or Latin America. They all have in common a long list of failures regarding democracy. As for certain politicians in the first world, let’s not neglect that some of them share with Castro socialist ideals based upon the notion of a big and paternal government covering all aspect of its citizens’ life. A proof of this is that not long ago, a socialist legislator from Norway proposed Castro as the next recipient of the Nobel Peace Price.
Valladares considers that geography plays a role that favors Castro’s clash against the United States: “I have become convinced that hatred towards the U.S. has been a chief reason for Castro’s longevity in power. The old dictator’s proximity to the United States and his confrontational attitude have given him undeserved support from the press, governments, politicians and intellectuals of this hemisphere. I believe if Castro had established his dictatorship in Africa or Asia, far from the U.S., he would have disappeared years ago.”
What is interesting is not that a dictatorship has survived in spite of its immediacy with the United States. What is paradoxical is that a communist dictatorship continues to exist after the end of the Cold War, of which Castro is a leftover. Mexico was governed by a single party rule (PRI) for decades, until Vicente Fox and the PAN (National Action Party) won the presidential election in year 2000. Cuba is no exception to this geopolitical reality, beginning with general Batista’s rule (1952-1959).
    In the name of socialism and communism, thousands have been executed by firing squads. Too many have spent years in prison under terrible conditions; about two million of Cubans have emigrated. There is no freedom of speech, no autonomous media, no private businesses, no multi-party system, no independent judiciary, no open elections with different candidates and political platforms.
    Yet, for the sake of “realpolitik” several personalities in the U.S. want to lift the embargo against Castro: congressmen from both parties, tycoons, businessmen, scholars, religious leaders, and simple citizens. Valladares is very much aware of this. In his prologue he states: “There has been a continuing love affair on the part of the media and many intellectuals with Fidel Castro…I encountered many individuals who argued fiercely on behalf of the Castro regime.”Why?
   Once again, the answer can be found in Castro’s foe: the United States of America. The “comandante” has tried to compete with this nation in several areas: foreign policy, health care, education and sports, but never in freedom of enterprise, expression or press. We all know why Cuban national hero José Martí, who lived in New York City between 1890-1895, was capable of writing hundreds of pages on the United States and its defects: because here he had the freedom to do so, as Cuban writer Roberto Luque-Escalona once indicated. A century later after Martí we see the same panorama. Some of the strongest indictments against the United States come from within, from congressmen, journalists, scholars, writers, radio, TV commentators, etc. Nonetheless, criticism about the Cuban regimen never comes from Castro’s media. Occasionally it comes from Castro himself, when he decides to practice an indulgent and mild self-criticism that is politically suitable for him. This is why Cubans need to get out of Cuba in order to be able to overtly disapprove of Castro. Valladares had to leave his homeland in order to be able to talk about his life in prison.
According to Castro’s laws, Valladares is a counter-revolutionary. This is the same scheme used by the former governments of Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Those who fought single party rule lacked political legitimacy. They did not represent what the “majority” wanted, but the interests of a foreign power, in particular the United States. The author remembers that when he demanded not to be treated like a criminal, a prison guard replied to him: “You are not political prisoners, but counter-revolutionaries. In socialist countries, we do not have political prisoners.” Curiously enough, this is the same opinion utilized by right-wing regimes against their opponents who were arrested, tortured, and disappeared.
In his book The voice of the masters (1985), Yale University Professor Roberto González Echeverría says this: “Authoritarianism, to be sure, is a sad political reality in Latin American, affecting right-wing and left-wing. Although the avowed aim of their policies may differ, authoritarian leaders in Latin America vary little, regardless of the political doctrines they profess: they are male, militaristic, and wield absolute power.” Valladares is conscious of these principles. He has offered many times to extend his arms and solidarity towards the victims of right-wing military governments.
One could expect that such an attitude will find a fertile ground in human right organizations and academic institutions around the United States, Latin America or Western Europe. Well, this has not been always the case. Aryeh Neier, one of the directors of “Americas Watch” (today Human Rights Watch), wrote an important article (“Castro’s victims”) on this topic for The New York Review of Books (July 17, 1986). His own experience tells him that it is extremely difficult to deal with Castro’s Cuba: it is almost impossible to investigate human rights there. Also, he stresses, Cubans abroad have been associated with right-wing causes. The result is mixed: “Despite its terrible record, Cuba has never figured prominently in the concerns of most organizations and people who actively promote human rights. This is not to say that it has been ignored.”
In academic circles around the United States little is known about reports on Cuba made by Amnesty International, Human Right Watch or Freedom House. Valladares’s book has been mostly promoted by newspapers and magazines. Very few scholarly essays have been written on this author or any other Cuban writer who denounces prison conditions in the island. There is a double standard about Cuba and human rights. Pierre Golendorf, a French journalist who spent time in Cuba’s prison has referred to this problem. He argues this: if Armando Valladares were from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Iran, South Africa, or even from Russia or Ethiopia, nobody will doubt his testimonies. But Armando Valladares is from Cuba (Prisionero de Castro [Castro’s prisoner], 1982).
   Things started to change when then-President Ronald Reagan read Valladares’s memoirs, met the former prisoner, and asked him to lead the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission (1986), a job he kept until the first or second year of the next presidency. The intended goal was “to try to convince this body to open an investigation into the violation of human rights in Cuba.” The nineties was the decade when Castro’s crimes were denounced at that level. Several resolutions condemned his rule. Human Rights, and not a particular political ideology, became the main theme of the opposition to the “comandante.”
At the present moment, dozens of independent organizations work inside Cuba, elaborating reports on human rights, the economy, social policies, political essays, or writing news for the foreign media since they do not have access to the state controlled Cuban propaganda services. This does not mean that Castro has had a change of heart. The Soviet Union no longer exist, and only a few European nations put pressure on him every time he sends Cuban dissidents to prison.
The reissue of Mr. Valladares’s memoirs update those readers who neglect democracy for Cubans when they think of opening trade relations with the last proletarian dictatorship in this hemisphere. Investments and commercial links will not bring per se any significant change in Cuba. They will make American companies richer. Cubans will be better fed and clothed, but like their counterparts in China or Viet Nam, they will not become free. If democracy has any meaning for American investors, then they must read Armando Valladares’s prison memoirs.

Rafael E. Saumell is an Associate Professor of Spanish
at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX. He is a Cuban and a former
political prisoner.