Sebastian Arcos Bergnes

Sebastian Arcos Bergnes (1931-1997). The seventh of nine children born to Antonio Arcos and Rosina Bergnes in Caibarien, a maritime port and fishing town on the northern coast of the central province of Las Villas, Sebastian was attending the University of Havana at the time of General Batista's military coup, which toppled the legitimate government in March 1952. When his brother Gustavo was released from prison in 1955 after having participated in the 1953 attack against Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, Sebastian joined Castro's 26th of July Movement (M-26-7), helped organize the movement in northern Las Villas and became its leader in that region. In 1956 Sebastian was arrested for his role as M-26-7 leader and sentenced to three years in the Presidio Modelo on the Isle of Pines. He was released after Castro's revolutionary takeover in 1959, joined the Navy with the rank of captain and was later appointed Vice-Minister of Finance. After his brother Gustavo's arrest in 1966, Sebastian was expelled from his Navy position (the Ministry of Finance had been abolished by Guevara some years before), went back to his profession as an orthodontist.

After years of quietly looking for ways to flee Cuba, Sebastian fell into a trap prepared by the Cuban Secret Police and was arrested on December 31, 1981, while attempting to leave the island, along with his former wife, their son and daughter, and his brother Gustavo. After a mock trial, Sebastian was sentenced to 6 years in prison. While in Havana’s Combinado del Este prison, Sebastian met some of the founders of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights (CCPDH). He decided to join the group and began to smuggle out reports of human rights violations from inside the prison. Once released, Sebastian was appointed vice-President of the CCPDH and was responsible for expanding the Committee from a small Havana-based group into a nationwide organization. He coordinated the testimony given by the CCPDH before a special delegation from the UN Human Rights Commission that visited Cuba in 1988, which produced a 400 page report critical of the Cuban regime's human rights record. In the next few years, the CCPDH became the largest and most respected independent human rights organization in Cuba, spawning an explosion of opposition groups that resulted in what is now known as "the Cuban Human Rights Movement."

In March 1990, in reaction to the UN Commission of Human Rights having passed a resolution criticizing Cuba's human rights record, the regime launched the worst wave of “acts of repudiation” since the 1980 Mariel Boatlift, starting with Sebastian's home, which suffered two attacks in one week. In the second attack, the Arcos home was kept under constant siege for almost two days by an angry government-led mob. In the summer of 1990, the CCPDH once again made history by calling on the Cuban regime to engage in a "civic dialogue" with opponents inside and outside the island. Ironically, as a result CCPDH members were accused of being "US agents" by the Cuban regime and "Castro agents" by the exiled community. [http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/90.91eng/chap.4.htm] [http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/WR93/Amw-03.htm]

In 1992 Sebastian was again arrested by the Secret Police. [http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/L/1996/A/un960754.html] Charged with "enemy propaganda" and "inciting to rebellion," he was sentenced to four years and eight months. He was transferred to Ariza Prison in Cienfuegos Province, more than 130 miles from Havana, where he was imprisoned alongside dangerous criminals and systematically denied medical attention. [http://193.194.138.190/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/TestFrame/c914003814fde070802567120056d285?Opendocument] In 1993 the regime offered Sebastian a deal: he would be released immediately if he only agreed to leave the island for good. [http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ESLAMR250111993?open&of=ESL-2M5] Sebastian rejected the deal, becoming the first political prisoner ever to choose prison in Cuba over freedom in exile. After a vigorous international campaign that included his designation as an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience, he was finally released in 1995. A few weeks after his release, Sebastian was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the rectum which forced him to travel to Miami for treatment. In 1996 he testified before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, and in 1997 was awarded the first Human Rights Award given by the Spanish-Cuban Foundation (Fundación Hispano-Cubana). Sebastian Arcos died in the family home in Miami on December 22, 1997. [http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-06.htm] His case is a textbook example to showcase the denial of medical attention as a form of torture used by the Castro regime against Cuban political prisoners. [http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/ref.index.instan.medneg.html]