Comments on Cuban political prisoners haunt Brazilian president

Brazil leader blasted for stance on Cuba prisoners

BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s president is coming under criticism for his deference to the Cuban government regarding the island’s political prisoners and hunger strikes over human rights.

A Cuban dissident on hunger strike to demand the release of ailing political prisoners accused President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday of complicity with “the tyranny of Castro.” At home, Brazilian pundits blasted Silva while a political ally called the president’s words disappointing.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Silva said that “we have to respect the decisions of the Cuban legal system and the government to arrest people depending on the laws of Cuba, like I want them to respect Brazil.”

Brazil’s president went on to say a hunger strike cannot be used as a pretext to free people from prison, despite the fact that he himself engaged in a hunger strike as a union leader during Brazil’s military dictatorship.

In late February, Silva met in Cuba with Fidel and Raul Castro just hours after Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata died from a prolonged hunger strike.

At the time, Silva told Brazil’s privately run Agencia Estado news agency that he “deeply regretted” Zapata’s death. Silva did not meet with opposition groups in Cuba.

Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, who started his twenty-third hunger strike the day after Zapata’s death, says Silva should take a stand against Cuba’s regime instead of stating he had to respect the government’s decisions.

“With that statement, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva shows his commitment to the tyranny of Castro and his contempt for the political prisoners and their families,” Farinas said in an interview with columnist Flavia Marreiro of Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. “A majority of the Cuban people feel betrayed by a president who was once a political prisoner.”

Silva led worker strikes against Brazil’s military regime and was imprisoned for 31 days in 1980 for his political activities.

“I’ve been on hunger strikes and I would never do it again,” Silva said. “I think it’s insane to mistreat your own body.”

Silva said he thought there was hypocrisy at play in the criticism of Cuba.

“It’s not just in Cuba that people died from hunger strikes,” he said.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim backed Silva on Wednesday.

“It’s one thing to defend democracy, human rights, the right to free speech,” said Amorim. “It’s another thing to be supporting everything that is dissident in the world. That is not (our) role.”

Amorim said Brazilian trade and its development projects were helping Cubans and said it was in the hands of the U.S. to bring the quickest changes to the nation.

“If someone is interested in creating political evolution in Cuba, I have a quick prescription: End the embargo.”

Columnist Merval Pereira wrote in Wednesday’s edition of the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that “the comments of president Lula are worrying because they denote that he made a terrible confusion between democratic regimes and dictatorships, treating them equally.”

Cuba has blasted foreign press coverage of Farinas’ hunger strike as part of a campaign to discredit the island’s political system.

In Brazil, a lawmaker from the ruling Workers Party — which Silva founded — told the Globo television network he was disappointed with the president’s words, though he suggested they were just a slip.

“The president expressed himself poorly or he was misunderstood,” said Mauricio Rands, a federal deputy with the party. “We don’t accept that somebody can be detained just because they have disagreements with the government.”

Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.