ON HEARING HUBER MATOS SPEAK
H., I.
He is a small man, neatly turned out, compact, looking maybe like the chap who runs your stationary store, reminding me improbably of William Faulkner, quiet, dignified, never raising his voice....
...He stood fast...
...In Cuba there is no chance for any organized dissident movement...
...He does not talk about himself, he asks for no sympathy or mercy, he even corrects the chairman who has said that Matos "sacrificed" half his life...
...In the discussion Stanley Plastrik asks Matos a question, I understand you to say that you would be opposed to a new Bay of Pigs operation...
...As for the "bad" ones, I don't really care about them...
...Quiet, reflective, mildly humorous...
...More vengeful: is that how it is different...
...In Cuba you cannot even paint a few words on a wall, as you can in Peking...
...For the time being I think what I have to do is to give political orientation to the "good" Cubans in exile...
...Obviously, in our fantasies, not like Huber Matos...
...But, for 20 years, unyielding, unbending...
...He speaks for the prisoners remaining in Castro's camps and prisons, describing the way those who remain intransigent in their opposition to Castro must suffer in endless ways, from poor medical treatment to contrived humiliations...
...He speaks before some two dozen people at a gathering called by the League for Industrial Democracy...
...Where does that put you in relation to the Cuban exile groups, some of whom would like to see an external liberation...
...I sit there, a little stunned, trying to digest the thought that this man is a hero of our time, unsung, uncelebrated...
...Repression is the one thing that works well in Cuba...
...He talks without bitterness, his flowing Spanish translated into halting English by a son whom he barely knew until his release a few months ago...
...No, it is not a sacrifice to be in prison for the right to speak freely...
...when it became clear that Fidel was intent upon establishing another, more efficient dictatorship, Matos sent him a letter asking simply to be allowed to withdraw from politics, pull out of "the movement," and return to teaching school...
...The perspective for freedom in Cuba is longrange, says Matos, and the main task he sets himself is speaking for the prisoners who remain there...
...Still, there is resistance, anonymous, individual, unseen...
...IRVING HOWE q 171...
...Huber Matos was a comrade-in-arms of Fidel Castro, fighting in the campaign to overthrow the Batista dictatorship...
...Then, we should remake the image of the hero: a hero in the 20th century is one who retains his humanity...
...Think of it, 20 years, not a day less, no parole or time off for "good behavior," such as you can get in the decadent bourgeois countries...
...He would not bow to the dictator, and the price he paid was-20 years...
...These prisoners are the forgotten men of our time, for even liberals and radicals who cry out against repressions in other Communist countries hesitate—do they not?—to attack the Castro regime...
...Cuba is different," they say...
...Matos answers, The campaign in which I am involved in the United States is of an ideological nature...
...For that unforgivable crime he was tried by a Castro court, sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he refused to accept indoctrination, often was subject to long periods of solitary confinement and other humiliations, and watched his own body disintegrate...
...What does a hero look like...
Vol. 27 • April 1980 • No. 2
