Face to Face with Huber Matos
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Face to Face With Huber Matos Theodore Jacqueney INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIA JACQUENEY Huber Matos, Cuba’s best-known polit- Costa ,Ria in a Costa Rian Govcrn- filled with the testimony of Cubans ical prisoner, was released on October ment plane, to be welcomed by his fam- who, like Huber Matos. had lost their 21. 1979, after completing “every min- ily and an immense crowd of prcss. wcll- initial enthusiasm for Castro’s revolu- ute” of a twenty-year prison sentence. wishers, and Costa Rican ollicials, in- tion as it became increasingly repressive Matos had helped make Fidel Castro’s cluding his old friend “Don Pepe” Fig- and had become victims of that reprcs- revolution, not only as a military com- ucres. sion themselves. mander in the rebel army, but by per- My husband, Ted Jacqueney, was On the day the Washington Post ran suading the then president of Costa there, at the invitation of the Matos Td’s first article about his trip, an Op- Ria, JosC Figuercs, to send arms to family. We had met one of the Matos Ed piece which concentrated on Huber Castro. When Matos asked to resign sons through a neighbor in Bli;r.ibeth, Matos, klubcr Matos Jr. .was seriously from Castro’s government because he New Jersey, just before Ted went to wounded near his home in Costa Rica disapproved of its increasingly Marxist Cuba in October, 1976. with a group of by gunmen who sprayed his car with direction, lie was charged with “slan- Ripon Society members who planned to machine-gun fire, escaping to Panama. dering the Revolution,” an accusation investigate Cuban-American business By the time Ted’s longer articles (“The later changed to “trcason.” relations. Ted planned a dirercnt sort Yellow Uniforms of Cuba,” Worldview, of investigation: He clandestinely inter- January/Fcbruary. 1977; “Castro’s Po- viewed former political prisoricrs end litical Prisoners.” Free Trade Uuiori the families of many still in jail. News, May, 1977) appwed, wc had Through these contacts he passed a been warmed to be “careful” by Cuban mcssage into Ilubcr Mates's cell (Ma- friends and by the FBI, which sent two tos himself was in a prison hospital at nice young men to teach us how to the time) and got back, not only an- check our car for explosive devices. swers, but a smuggled gift: a handmade During the next two years Ted con- cigarette holder for a Cuban human tinued to publicize the situation of polit- rights activist in the United States. ical prisoners in Cuba, and of Huber One day thc Ripon group visited a Matos in particular, through his writing polling place for an clcction then in pro- and through The Democracy Intcrna- gress. The Cuban minister of justice tional; Mrs. Maria Luisa Mntos and arrived, as scheduled. to meet the party thcrc. giving Ted an opportunity to read aloud (to the minister and about two dozen Cuban voters) a polite inquiry about political prisoners. Huber Ma- tos’s name topped thc list. There was no formal rcply. This gesturc madc, Ted’s subscqucnt interviews were conductcd evcn more clandestinely, and he spent thc rest of his visit wondering if he would be joining the half-dozen Amcri- cans already in Cuban jails for political orenses against the Castro government. Also making Ted uneasy was the suc- cess of Cuban right-wing exiles opposed Intense pressure from forcign gov- to U.S.-Cuban trade in blowing up an ernments and from intcrnation;rl human Air Cubana plane that was to have taken rights organizations did nothing to the Ripon group from Kingston to Ha- shorten his sentence and little to ease vana-though fortunately for the Ripon the dreadful conditions of his incarcera- group. and unfortunately for the eighty tion. but may have made it politically persons who pcrishcd, the bomb ex- diliicult for the Castro government to ploded in the aircraft ahead of schedule, retain or resentence him, :I common while the plane was between Bridgc- occurrence for Cuban political prisoners town and Kingston. Ted left Cuba with- who rcfuse to rcnounce their beliefs. out interference, however, carrying a Former President Figucres was among souvenir requested by other Cuban ac- those who worked for Matos’s release. tivist friends: a Havana telephone dircc- On October 22. Huber Matos arrived in tory. Hc also brought back notebooks 4 HUBERMATOS / 5 J-luber Junior became active members. interpreted by one of the Matos daugh- “YOUare Buddhists, then?” Huber When Huber Junior telephoned on the ters, from his notes and tapes. Matos asked me. “Yes and no,” I told morning of October 20 to ask Ted 10 be him. “but the Buddhist political leaders with the family for his father’s long- In late November. Huber Matos Ted knew in Vietnam opposed the awaited but as yet unconfirmed release, came with his wife, two of his grown former government, which was corrupt Ted took an afternoon plane to San children, and a bodyguard to pay a con- and repressive, and also opposed the JosC. He telephoned me on October 22 dolence call on me. Well-groomed. well- Communists....” Huber Junior trans- to say that Huber Matos had just fleshed, and slightly tanned, he sug- lated my embarrassingly simple descrip arrived, exhausted and apparently in gested a diplomat or politician with a tion of the Vietnamese Third Forcc, and terrible pain from beatings during the hint of the military somewhere in his his father asked what had happened IO days just before his release, but “every background, rather than a school teaeh- our friends when the government of inch the commandante.” The next day er turned revolutionary who had spent Vietnam changed. “They Icft. or went this astonishing man held a press con- the entire two decades of his middle age to prison, or were put under house ference. describing events of the past as a political prisoner. He walked slowly arrest. Some of them are now living in few days and the past twenty years with around our apartment, remarking in the United States and France. and some remarkable clarity, and reaffirming his Spanish on the view of New York, the are now dead.” Huber Matos nodded, commitment to a “truly free Cuba.” photo of Ted with “Big” Minh. the raising and lowering first his right hand, Ted, who had been living in the Matos shelf of books on Cuba. He asked me then his left: “Like us, first Batista, family’s house, interviewed Huber Ma- about the Buddhist altar with Ted’s pic- then Castro.” tos on October 24-a long-anticipated ture flanked by candles, fruit, and in- In 1976, he told me, hc had come opportunity to confirm what he had cense. I explained that the Vietnamese back from the hospital to his cell in h hmrd about the man himself and about Buddhists who had performed our mar- Cabaiin Prison to the news that a “peri- the conditions in Cuban prisons. riage ceremony in Vietnam and were odista Norte-Americano” had been Ted Jacqueney came back to the now in America had asked if they might looking for him and sending messages United Statcs on Octobcr 26 and died, perform the Fast rites for Ted and take from his family. No one was quite sure totally unexpectedly, on October 31. I his ashes to the Buddhist temple in of the man’s name, Matos said, but now reconstructed the interview, which was Washington. he knew it was “our friend Ted.” THEODORE JACQUENEY: Let me start by asking you about be thrown on the floor and kicked-I felt thatjmaybc the something you mentioned in your press conference the worst was yet to come, when I was to be sctfrce. I am day after .you left Cuba: being beaten up by guards a few sure this was an attempt to intimidatc me wilh physical hours before your release. You said they hit and kicked abuse. My reaction was total indignation. you, threw you around, and screamed insults at you, but why do you think this happened? What were they say- You said, “aside from beatings,” so I assume you were ing? beaten in prison at other times as well .... IIUBER MATO!!: Yes, they did all of those things. It was Yes, several timcs. Let mc give you one example. In an attempt to intimidate me. They yelled: “We are thc May, 1973, I was savagcly beaten. Thcy broke scveral of machos! We have thc powcr! Wehave thc force and we my ribs and they permanently injurcd my left arm, will do this whenever we feel like it! Wc are the which later became partially paralyzcd, for the rcst of machos!” I yelled back at thcm, and later they put tapes my life. Thcy had excuses for all their barbaric acts; in over my mouth.” this case the ~XCUSCwas that thcy were conducting a search. About ten men surrounded me and suddenly told Obviously, if this was an attempt to keep you from mc to take olT my clothes. When they told mc to speaking out after you left prison and Cuba, it undrcss, I was preparcd for what was going to happen. 1 failed ....Tell me, what was your worst experience in pris- said, “Don’t use excuses, if you are going to beat me, get on? on with it.” Some of thcm threatened me with iron pipes Distinguishing between most difficult moments and used in construction, but the first blows were struck maltreatment, I would say the two most difficult with fists, feet, and knees, and then 1 was on the ground.