Cuban political prisoners in Spain threaten hunger strike over treatment

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Saturday, 05.28.11
Cuban political prisoners in Spain threaten hunger strike over treatment
.Former Cuban political prisoners say Madrid has not kept promises it has made

By Juan O. Tamayo
[e-mail]

Three former Cuban political prisoners and 15 relatives living in northern Spain are threatening a hunger strike unless authorities resolve the “chaotic” conditions of their exile, complaining that they fall short of the welcome promised by the Spanish government.

“They are treating us like simple immigrants,” said Erick Caballero, one of the more than 100 political prisoners freed by Cuba over the past year after they agreed to go directly from jail to the Havana airport and flights to Madrid.

Spain’s Socialist government promised a broad range of benefits to the former prisoners and nearly 900 of their relatives, but many have complained that they were all but abandoned once they landed in Madrid.

The latest complaints came from Caballero, who arrived April 8 and along with two other former political prisoners, 15 other adults and six children were sent to a Spanish Red Cross migrant reception center in Torrelavega, in the northern province of Cantabria.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/28/2238911/cuban-political-prisoners-in-spain.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. No free ride at U.S. taxpayers expense, like the Miami mafia got? Poor babies!

In Cuba, their families were housed, and got free, top quality medical care, free, top quality education through graduate school, and other benefits of a decent society, and even in prison, these folks got top quality medicare care, good food, education and training opportunities, and family and community oriented rules.

I have to say their whining is ironical. Now they're in the corporate-run "neo-liberal" world--with Spain about to go belly up like all the other victims of "the blue-eyed wonders of Wall Street"--so these "political prisoners" are just going to have to tough it out in the "dog eat dog" world that they've chosen. "Austerity" for the poor for the profit the super-rich! New rules, guys! Don't ya love "freedom"?

Maybe those Gucci-bag-importing wingers in Venezuela will help them out? Or maybe the U.S.-subsidized Miami mafia will contribute to their upkeep? CIA slush funds dried up? Can't SOMEBODY give these "political prisoners" condos, Jaguars and running around money?

Ah, heck! The lucrative anti-Castro "industry" ain't what it used to be.

[dipsydoodle]

2. How sad

Not.

Threatening a hunger strike ? They're in Europe now : not Cuba.

[flamingdem]

3. Way to annoy your hosts!

True that unemployment is high in Spain and Cubans not especially welcome..