“Whoever knew slavery never wants to be a slave again,” said Fidel Castro in February 1993, however, by the hand of the socialist regime established by the Cuban revolution in 1959, slavery has returned to Cuba. The first comprehensive report on forced labor in Cuban prisons, presented by the organization “Prisoners Defenders”, is a devastating testimony of what is happening on the island. An exhaustive document that exposes how 60,000 of the more than 127,000 prisoners and sanctioned in open regime in the country, are forced to perform forced labor in the service of the State, which in principle is a punitive measure, but in reality serves the purpose of generating great economic benefits for the regime. These new forced slaves work under inhumane conditions in the production of marabú charcoal, tobacco or the cutting of sugar cane, and the fruits of their labor are exported to countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Turkey, among others.
The report was detailed last Monday at a press conference held online and presented by Cuban journalist Camila Costa and Javier Larrondo of “Prisoners Defenders”, and was attended by former MEPs Javier Nart and Leopoldo López, who described the Cuban system as “feudalism”, as well as EPP MEP Antonio López Istúriz and Blas Jesús Imbroda, dean of the Melilla Bar Association. Larrondo explained the figures in the report and described the Cuban regime as a “criminal government for what it is doing to its people… the only way to stop this slavery is to stop imports obtained through slave labor”.
The research data, the results of the analysis of 53 valid testimonies collected, are incontestable: all prisoners were forced to work under coercion, threats, violence or reprisals; 69.81% did not sign a labor contract; 98.11% worked without tools, education and training or necessary work tools; 96.23% were subjected to serious risks due to climatic and environmental conditions (sun, heat, cold, pests, etc.); 45.28% of the declarants suffered physical violence during work (half of the women suffered harassment and sexual violence by officials and other prisoners), and 81.13% reported serious physical and psychological deterioration as a consequence of forced labor in such conditions: mutilations, post-traumatic stress, serious injuries, etc.
The report also states that 94.34% of the prisoners were forced to work with illnesses incompatible with such hard jobs as coal, sugar cane cutting, agriculture or the construction of private mansions for the generals and high commanders of the regime. A total of 98.11% did not receive medication for their illnesses, nor adequate treatment or medical follow-up. In fact, the vast majority have suffered and continue to suffer from health sequelae caused by forced labor.
The working conditions of these new slaves are practically non-existent and the salary supposedly assigned, when it is assigned, was not even paid to a third of the declarants or was withheld with the excuse of using the withholding to pay for work tools, clothing, food and water. The 17% who were paid received less than $4 per month, a pittance for a workload of 63.06 hours per week spread over 6 to 7 days per week and an average of 10 hours of work per day. To this must be added the very poor living conditions of the prisoners, for example, those who work with charcoal live in shacks with no ventilation, no mattresses and no refrigerators for food. The vast majority of the charcoal workers have a long sentence, so they accept these conditions in order not to return to prison. This minimal expenditure on the slave labor force brings huge profits to the regime. In 2023, Cuba exported $61.8 million of charcoal (it was Cuba’s sixth most exported product), making it the ninth largest charcoal exporter in the world destined for Spain and the countries mentioned above. For each 15-kilogram sack a consumer buys in Spain, Spanish traders received $21.6, the Cuban government $7.86 and the forced laborer less than ten thousandths of a dollar.
But if one product is the symbol of Cuba, it is the Havana cigar; a symbol also stained by the stain of slavery. The Tabacuba Group, one of the most powerful companies in the country, employs a mixed formula of specialized personnel and prison inmates, who work poorly fed for a miserable salary, when there is a salary, in 10-hour shifts. To this end, Tabacuba has installed its factories inside the prisons. For example, in the Quivicán prison, 40 prisoners and 2 civilians, tobacco professionals, work there, teaching their work to the prisoners and keeping the factory’s accounts. The difference between the conditions of these two experts and the prisoners could not be greater: five working days a week, from Monday to Friday, from 7:00 to 16:30, and a salary of about 40,000 Cuban pesos a month (97 dollars) and they can take two cigars a day home. The prisoners, on the other hand, enter the factory at 6:30 in the morning and are returned at 21:00 or 22:00, every day of the week, except Sunday, when they work until lunchtime and have no rest during the day. Their salary, when their family receives them, is 3,000 Cuban pesos ($7.32), in exchange for making between 50 and 130 cigars a day.
Logically, the export of products obtained through slave labor can and should be banned immediately by the European Union, and this report is directed towards that goal. For example, the marabou charcoal production system constitutes a direct violation of Article 5.2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as well as ILO Conventions 29 and 105. Once the existence of forced labor has been determined, as the report points out, the entry and marketing of marabou charcoal in the EU should be prohibited under EUFLR rules. In this sense, Javier Nart advocated for a “necessary campaign of awareness and denunciation against Spanish companies that violate Spanish and European Union laws”.
Blas Jesús Imbroda pointed out that “Cuba subjects and represses its people, but not only its people, because it contributes to what happens in other countries, turning them into tyrannies, as in the case of Nicaragua or Venezuela, and exporting its model of social control and represión”, which is why democracies, the European Union, cannot remain impassive in the face of another violation of human rights as is the case of this new slavery. Picking up the baton, MEP Antonio López Istúriz said that polarization in the European Parliament and left-wing sympathies with Cuba make it very difficult to take decisions against the Castro regime: “The reality is that an ideological sector of the Parliament systematically refuses to recognize these facts and it has been very difficult to get Cuba discussed in the European Commission on Human Rights”.
After the presentation there was a question and answer session in which I turned to MEP López-Istúriz to ask him if a change was possible on the part of the European Commission after the publication of this report, taking into account the controversial role of the previous high representative of EU foreign policy, Josep Borrell, with respect to Cuba. His answer was blunt: “No. Kaja Kallas, still influenced by the legacy she received, said earlier this year that Cuba was more or less an imperfect democracy. Kallas, as is logical because of her Baltic origin, is very concerned about the eastern flank and Ukraine, and her ignorance of Spanish-American problems is obvious. However, I have spoken to her and I have seen that she is very willing to listen, so I hope that we can reach a realistic position at some point. That is the last hope I have left, but in the meantime, I don’t think they are going to change much in the Commission. There is a double standard with a regime like the Castro regime that has been murdering and torturing the Cuban people for 80 years”.
The full report can be read here.
