COMMITTEE EXHIBIT No. 5-Continued ONLY THIS Poetry is nothing more Than conversation in the shadows Cast by an ancient stove When all have gone, And beyond the door Murmur the impenetrable woods. A poem is only a few words And whose order time has changed, So that now Only a suggestion, An inexpressible hope, Poetry is nothing more Than happiness, a conversation After everything else has gone TRANSLATED BY: COMMITTEE EXHIBIT NO. 5-Continued The selections in this booklet are the preface to the book points out, The various contributors, who include TRANSLATION OF COVER POEM Moonlight What to do in prison, without drink or flowers, Cover Design: Prensa Latina Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (1829-1878). Ignacio Agramonte (1841-1873)... Antonio Maceo (1848-1896).. José Martí (1853-1895).... Máximo Gómez (1848-1896).... Julio Antonio Mella (1903-1929)..... Antonio Guiteras..... Abel Santa Maria, Frank País. José Antonio Echevarría.. Camilo Cienfuegos.. Ernesto "Che" Cuevara... Tanara Bunke "Tania".. of ..One of the leaders of the 1365 .Along with de Cespedes declared Cuba a Black military general who continued Involved with Maceo and Corez in struggle ..Military general who continued struggle .Strong nationalist in government after Machado and the rise to power of Fulgencio ..Involved with Castro in attack on the .Major in Rebel Army involved with the 1958 ..Argentinian doctor who fought wit! rebel ་ COMMITTEE EXHIBIT NO. 6-Continued By HILDA INCLAN Miami News Reporter Copyright 1971, The Miami News, Inc. Thousands of persons locked in tiny, airless cells in Communist Cuba, wasting away, waiting to die... Their only "crimes," in many cases: Their political inclinations. This is the gist of letters smuggled into this country from prisoners in those jails; from prisoners in the 1971 version of the infamous "Tiger Cages" of the Vietnam War, where thousands of prisoners of war were herded together like animals. They are men and women from all walks of life; sugar cane cutters, blue-collar workers, peasants, clerks, doctors, teachers, technicians, newspapermen. The Miami News today is publishing from one of these prisoners a letter that reveals details never before made public in English. He is in the Boniato jail. Prisoners in this jail, in Oriente Province, have been kept incommunicado for two years. Their entire dinner fits in a small can of condensed milk. Plagued by scurvy and other diseases, they are denied medical attention. The windows in their tiny 5' by 10' cells are securely boarded up with steel plates. They are allowed no sunshine or exercise. Their bathroom is a hole in the floor. Two persons are in each cell. "It seems impossible that what we are telling is actually happening here," the Boniato prisoner wrote. "Only you, those that were here, the Frenchmen that were prisoners of the Communist in Indochina, the North Americans taken prisoner in Korea; only they know that we are not lying." Pictures of German concentration camps after World War II shook the world. But no pictures can be taken of Cuba's prison camps. In Boniato, no outsiders can enter. In another prison camp in Manacas - conditions are slightly better. Isolation is not as complete. Still, a sugar mill worker who would have been freed in December was murdered Aug. 5. He fell to the ground, a gunshot wound in his head, a victim of the rage of the Prison Camp Director. He was shot during a flurry that occurred when prisoners from another jail were being transferred to Manacas. Other prisoners were wounded. In Boniato, three other political prisoners were killed by guards during an alleged escape attempt. He was shot during a flurry that occurred when prisoners from another jail were being transferred to Manacas. Other prisoners were wounded. In Boniato, three other political prisoners were killed by guards during an alleged escape attempt. The letter, and others, being smuggled out by the prisoners at great personal risk, are the only way they have of communicating their plight to the outside world. ་ They all share the same cells, the same fate. Estimates as to the number of prisoners run as high as 100,0000. No one seems to know for sure exactly how many jails there are. Translation 'We are subject to extermination' "Tiger Cages" of Cuba, Boniato Prison, June 10, 1971 My dear brother...! This letter is not an outcry, it isn't a call for help. We know that we are alone. We know about the apathy of international bodies, of the press of the free world, that which appears to be so dynamic in denouncing injustices but doesn't say one word about what is going on in the prisons of Cuba. What do they want, that we send them photographs? The communist jails are not the jails of democratic countries. NOBODY can enter here. This is the only piece of paper that I have been able to get to write to you. The physical integrity of many prisoners will be risked to try to get these lines out to you. Our situation is very difficult. These are the "Tiger Cages" of Cuba. All of the political prisoners of Boniato are being subjected to the most brutal and inhumane plan of physical extermination that America has heard of in all its history. We've already been here for two years incomunicado in cells with windows and doors hermetically walled up with steel plates. The total lack of light has made many of us almost blind. I am writing this letter lying down on the floor, using the very soft light that comes in through the small space underneath the bottom of the door... The cells are five feet wide and ten feet long. That's the way political prisoners here live, two for each cell, without getting out of their cells for years. As a bathroom we have a hole in one corner and a faucet that never has any water. Our excrement and our urine accumulate constantly in fetid pudales. We lack any articles of personal hygiene. Our food doesn't reach 900 calories per day. Everything served is carefully weighed. One lunch fits inside an empty can of condensed milk; one dinner, the same; that is our plate, one of those cans. Our breakfast: hot water with sugar and one ounce and a half of bread. 'Look like prisoners Our diet is composed solely of corn flour and boiled noudies and white rice, all of it served with tiny spoons. The absence of proteins and other foods is total. There are men here whose weight has gone down to 70 pounds. I must weigh 115 pounds. The last time they came over to weigh us with a portable scale my weight was 120 pounds. I have lost 35 pounds. My taighs measure 15 inches, my biceps 10. My legs, Continued on 10A, Col. 1 |