Orlanzo Zapata Tamayo, a politicized case 
23 February 2010 The Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Cuban prisoner, died after a hunger strike for 83 days. He was 42 years. It was the first time since 1972, when he died, Pedro Luis Boitel, a Cuban detainee died in similar circumstances. The Western media have made this tragic event in the foreground and highlighted the sad fate of those detained in Cuba
The tragic death of Zapata has created a justified emotion around the world. The case of detained Cuban undeniably evokes a certain sympathy and a feeling of solidarity with a person who has expressed his frustration and his illness in prison doing, to end his hunger strike. The heartfelt emotion that has caused this case is worthy of respect. However, the manipulation for political purposes of the death of Zapata and the pain of his family and his friends, carried out by the Western media, violates the basic principles of journalistic ethics.
ZAPATA, a prisoner POLITICAL OR HELD JOINT?
Since 2004
Amnesty International considers him a "prisoner of conscience" among the 55 who are in Cuba, and points out that Zapata began a hunger strike to denounce the conditions of his detention, but also to demand the impossible for an inmate, such as a television, a kitchen and a personal cell phone to call his family.
Although it was not the devil himself, Zapata was certainly not a model prisoner. In fact, according to Cuban authorities, was guilty of various acts of violence in prison, in particular against the guards, to the point that his sentence came to 25 years in prison.
Oddly Amnesty International at no time mentioned the alleged political activities that led to Zapata in prison. The reason is relatively simple: Zapata has never made anti-government activities prior to his incarceration. Instead, the organization recognizes that he was sentenced in May 2004 to three years in prison for "outrage, public disorder and resisting arrest."
This penalty is relatively mild compared to those of the 75 counter-revolutionaries convicted in March of 2003, coming to terms with 28 years in prison for having received funds or materials from the U.S. government in order to carry out activities that the authorities consider subversive and damaging to Cuba, "as recognized by Amnesty International, which constitutes a serious crime in Cuba as in any other country in the world. Amnesty International in this situation falls into an apparent contradiction: on the one hand these people qualify as "prisoners of conscience," and the other admitted that they committed a serious crime to accept "money or materials from the U.S. government."
here Amnesty International Unlike these detainees, the Havana government has never accused Zapata to be salaried by a foreign power, and always considered him as a prisoner of common law.
Zapata had serious criminal convictions. In fact, since June 1990, was arrested and sentenced several times for "public disorder, damage, resisting arrest, two counts of fraud, public performance, injury and possession of weapons." In 2000
fractured the skull of a Cuban national with a machete.
His criminal history, therefore, does not include any type of crime of a political nature. Only after his incarceration his mother, Reyna Luisa Tamayo, was close to groups of government opponents, but was never charged with any offense of a political nature.
emotion DOUBLE LEVEL?
The United States and European Union have declared their dismay and demand the "liberation of political prisoners."
"We are deeply dismayed by his death," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also denounced the "oppression of political prisoners in Cuba." In a similar way it is expressed that Brussels has called for the "unconditional release of all political prisoners."
Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz regret the death and recalled, in response to the emotion involved in both Washington and Brussels that "in half a century, we have not killed anyone here was not tortured anyone here has not been committed any extrajudicial execution. Of course, in Cuba there have been torture for the naval base in Guantanamo, "referring to the torture center of the U.S..
"They say they want to discuss with us and we are willing to discuss everything with the U.S. government, I repeated it three times in Parliament: everything, everything, everything. The discussions will not accept them if they are placed in conditions of absolute equality of both parties. They can investigate or ask about all the issues of Cuba, but we must have the right to request information about all the problems of the United States. "
The Brazilian president Lula da Silva, on a visit to Cuba, expressed his condolences, but also wanted to highlight the double standards of Western media, Washington and Brussels recalling a sad reality: "I know almost all the hunger strikes that have occurred over the past 25 years in the world and they were few people who died because of it. "
The media has ignored the vast majority of these tragic cases and absolutely no media coverage was so impressive as those for prisoners to Cuba.
To make a comparison, in France, between 1 January 2010 and February 24 of 2010, there were 22 suicides in prison, including that of a teenager 16 years. In 2009 there were 122 suicides and 115 in French prisons in 2008. The families of the victims have not been entitled to the same treatment granted to media Zapata and his mother, nor a public official declaration of the French Government.
must observe the Zapata case in relation to two other facts much more serious, however, that the Western media have deliberately ignored and which clearly illustrate how politicized and it exploits a common fact, that goes unnoticed in most countries of the world when it comes to Cuba
the coup and the establishment of military dictatorship in Honduras June 27, 2009, led by Roberto Micheletti first and then by Porfirio Lobo to January 28, 2010, there have been more a hundred murders, disappearances and other cases of countless cases of torture and violence. Abuses against opponents to the military regime, however, the Western media are newspapers criticize them meticulously. So, Claudia Brizuela Larissa, a member of the National fornt Popular Resistance (FNRP), and against the coup, was murdered was murdered on February 24, 2010, the day after the death of Zapata. There was no word about it throughout the Western press.
Another similar case shows the hypocrisy of Western media. In December 2009, in La Macarena, Colombia, was discovered the mass grave of more
Latin American history, with no less than 2000 corpses. According to testimonies gathered by British MEPs on the spot, they were trade unionists and peasant leaders assassinated by the paramilitaries and the Colombian army's special forces. The lawyer Jairo Ramirez, secretary of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Colombia, described the terrifying scene: "What we saw gave him chills. Countless corpses and on the surface of hundreds of white wooden plaques with the inscription NN and dates from 2005 to today. The army commander told us that they were guerrillas killed in battle, but the people of the region tells us about social leaders, farmers, community advocates who disappeared without leaving track ". Despite countless testimonies and present Members of Parliament, despite the visit of a English delegation to investigate the case, no Western media gave little space to this news.
Suicide (suicide because of it) Orlando Zapata Tamayo is a tragedy and the pain his mother must be respected. However, there are unscrupulous people. For the Western media, in Washington and the European Union matters little Zapata's death, as well as the countless people he cares little Honduran and Colombian killed. Zapata's is only useful in the media war against the government in Havana. When ideology than objectivity Information, truth and ethics are the first victims.
Stroke and loosely translated from a text by Salim Lamrani, French university professor specializing in the history of relations between Cuba and the United States
