A Stage for a Rights Champion

More than 200 Mexican intellectuals have written a letter asking President Ernesto Zedillo to urge Cuba’s Fidel Castro to grant a travel visa to Elizardo Sanchez, the president of the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission. Zedillo should do all he can to facilitate a visit to Mexico by this unsung hero of human rights on the island.

It’s the third time the Mexican intelligentsia has extended an invitation to Sanchez; each time the Castro government has refused to let him leave. The pending invitation comes from the Mexican Academy on Human Rights, which wants Sanchez to participate in a seminar. Again, so far, no visa.

Sanchez, a 52-year-old former philosophy teacher, has been jailed at least 10 times in Cuba, and Amnesty International has declared him a “prisoner of conscience.”

Curiously, Cuba this week let Sanchez go to France to accept the prestigious French Prize on Human Rights. French President Jacques Chirac, commenting on the visit of Sanchez and others, said “it is an honor for France to receive in its territory men and women who are persecuted by their own government.” At the awards ceremony, Sanchez estimated the number of political prisoners in Cuba at 2,000 to 4,000.

Sanchez seems to insist on remaining a resident of Cuba as long as there is a single prisoner of conscience there. “My life will change when things change in Cuba,” he has said.

The Castro government is increasingly embarrassed by Sanchez’s revelations. Although it repeatedly has refused to give him a visa to attend human rights seminars abroad, it would in fact like him to leave for good. His wife and children have lived in the United States since 1972, the first time he was jailed.

We hope the latest invitation from Mexico will receive a positive response from Castro. It could be eye-opening for Mexicans and others to hear the truth, firsthand, about human rights violations in Cuba.