Fidel Castro on Armando Valladares

From: My Life by Fidel Castro (2007) pp.448-450.
 

Armando Valladares, a cause célebre; he was imprisoned here.

That's right; he was imprisoned for acts of terrorism, pure and simple, for setting off bombs. There were two people involved; one was younger and we didn't try him for it, because he wasn't old enough, but Valladares was sentenced. It was during the days right after Playa Girón, when that famous Operation Mongoose was still in effect, which included dozens of plans for assassination attempts,' acts of terrorism by the thousands – thousands! – and then Valladares, at one of those acts, was arrested, tried and sent to prison. At one point he passed himself off as paralysed, he fooled the whole world, because there was a huge propaganda campaign orchestrated by the empire [to free him].

I here was a huge commotion all around the world because the Cubans had somebody in prison that the media were presenting as a poet, who was also paralysed, supposedly as a consequence of mistreatment in the jails. This book of poetry comes out, Desde mi silla de ruedas ('From My Wheelchair'), published by a 'poet-prisoner' – a terrorist, with explosives and dynamite; he wasn't a terrorist that hurt the economy, he was a terrorist [that used] explosives and dynamite, that harmed people's lives – and Valladares becomes this world-renowned figure, with books written [about him] abroad, and 'paralysed' to hoot. Listen, you know Régis Debray, just as I know him – he was working in those days as an adviser to French president Francois Mitterrand. He came to Cuba to argue in support of Valladares; be told me the Mitterrand government was practically going to collapse if the 'poet-prisoner' wasn't released.

Quite a responsibility for you ...

So then, what happened? I asked an eminent doctor, `Listen, my friend, what is it really that's wrong with him?' Because there was all this brouhaha And campaigning, and he says to me, 'There's nothing wrong with him.' I say, 'What do you mean, nothing wrong with him? That's impossible.' And he insisted: 'There's nothing wrong with him.'

Valladares was in a wheelchair.

That's right. And he says to me, `Test him.' So that was easy: you use audiovisual means to check on his activities. That had never been done here, nothing of the sort. So we did that, we checked, and we received a film of everything he did. Because you've got to give Valladares the Olympic prize for faking; he managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the whole world. As soon as he was alone, he'd look around – we've still got the films – stand up, go into the bathroom, and there in the bathroom he'd do all sorts of exercises. He was in better shape than you are, than I am – than an athlete! Perfectly healthy.

He was faking.

I told you what Régis Debray told me. We called Debray in and we showed him the film. We showed it to him, too.

Showed it to Valladares?

That's right. Before we gave our answer, we called Valladares in and we showed him the film we had of him doing wonderful exercises -- he could write a manual of exercises to keep people in excellent shape while pretending to be paralysed – and his reaction, when he saw it? He stood straight up, like a shot, out of his chair.

Then we showed it to Regis Debray, and then we told Valladares, 'Listen, you're going to be set free' – he'd served a large part of his sentence and had been the instrument of a fierce campaign – 'and we have just one condition you have to board the plane walking on your own two feet and you have to leave the plane walking on your own two feet.' Debray already knew that the only condition we were putting on Valladares' release was that he walk on and off the plane, that he give up on that ruse of paralysis. I'm not criticizing him, because a prisoner [has the right to] invent anything get out.

He has the right to do that.

Yes; I'd say that he has the right to invent things, but we caught him at it. Oh, he was clever – he fooled a lot of doctors. I couldn't believe it. We sent him to an eminent specialist, and he said, 'There's nothing wrong with him,'

You, personally, thought that he was paralysed, really ... ?

I thought there was something wrong with him, some problem, and I want to know what kind of problem it was and why he had it, whether or not there was any solution from a medical point of view.

We will never give in to pressure. That is a principle as unwavering respect for the human person, as the principles that have guided our Revolution. One of them is this: by force, one obtains nothing in this country other means, one obtains many things.




 

My Life by Fidel Castro (2007)
pp.448-450.