Armando's 30-year prison sentence in Cuba under Fidel Castro was shortened to 22 years when French Pres. Mitterand intervened for him. Considering what he went through, it's amazing he lasted that long. Other prisoners died from violence or suicide.
He was willing to talk about it after he got out. He published a book and was appointed in 1988 as ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Last year he received a lifetime award to honor his sacrificial life from World Magazine.
In his own words, he describes his imprisonment as “eight thousand days of hunger, of systematic beatings, of hard labor, of solitary confinement, of cells with steel-planked windows and doors, of solitude. Eight thousand days of struggling to prove that I was a human being. … Eight thousand days of testing my religious convictions, my faith, of fighting the hate my atheist jailers were trying to instill in me with each bayonet thrust.”
photo: http://babalublog.com/2016/04/13/eli-wiesel-to-present-armando-valladares-with-canturbury-medal/
(cont'd tomorrow)
No comments:
Post a Comment