Armando Valladares
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Armando Valladares (May 30, 1937) is a former prisoner in Cuba turned United States ambassador to the United Nations.
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[edit] Political prisoner
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The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (March 2011) |
Valladares was a Cuban Postal Bank employee[citation needed] . He was arrested when he refused to display a sign on his desk that promoted communism[citation needed]. Valladares was jailed in 1960, at age 23, when the new government arrested him on charges of being a counter-revolutionary. Valladares spent 22 years in prison. He was adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and an international campaign for his release was led by his wife Marta[citation needed] . Many artists[citation needed] joined it, for example Jacek Kaczmarski[citation needed]. The campaign culminated in French President François Mitterrand making a personal appeal to Fidel Castro. Valladares was freed after spending 22 years in prison. He then moved to the United States.
[edit] US ambassador to UNHRC
Valladares's memoir, Against All Hope - which details his version of his incarceration in Cuban prisons - became an international bestseller[citation needed]. President Ronald Reagan appointed Valladares to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He served in that capacity from 1988 to 1990.[1][2] As head of the U.S. Delegation, he successfully brought Cuba before the Commission for human rights violations, just to see all accusations been shown to be true. Reagan would later confer on him the nation’s second-highest civil honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal. The Cuban workers' newspaper, Trabajadores described the appointment as "a disgrace".[3]
[edit] Other activities
Valladares has addressed the United Nations General Assembly and legislative groups in Europe and the Americas. He is currently the President of the Valladares Project, an international non-profit organization which advocates children’s rights.
Valladares is the former Chairman of the International Council of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. He resigned July 7, 2009, in support of Honduras's democratic institutions, publishing a public resignation letter with title "I am in total disagreement with what you published regarding Honduras". In it he pointed out the background to the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, calling Zelaya's plans illegal.[4] In November 2009 he was decorated with the "José Cecilio del Valle" medal by Honduras's interim president Roberto Micheletti, together with Alejandro Peña Esclusa and Juan Dabdoub Giacoman, who had also been outspoken defenders of the country during the crisis.[5]
Valladares was one of the closest friends of Pedro Luis Boitel, the Cuban dissident poet opposed the governments of both Fulgencio Batista and Castro.
Valladares signed his name to a full-page ad in the Dec. 5, 2008 New York Times that objected to violence and intimidation against religious institutions and believers in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8. The advertisement stated that "violence and intimidation are always wrong, whether the victims are believers, gay people, or anyone else." A dozen other religious and human rights activists from several different faiths also signed the ad, noting that they "differ on important moral and legal questions," including Proposition 8.[6]
He is a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.[7]
[edit] Criticism
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This section may not be warranted as a stand-alone section. Please attempt to diffuse its content into appropriate sections of the article. (September 2011) |
Since his release, the Cuban regime has described Valladares as a terrorist and a fraud. Cuban officials allege that Valladares was a former member of the secret police of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was toppled by the 1959 Cuban revolution.[3]
In 2004, Felipe Pérez Roque, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, said: "That is Armando Valladares, a cop from Batista’s dictatorship, detained – that is the press of the time – for placing in public places bombs packed in cigarette boxes; a member of a terrorist cell in which Carlos Alberto Montaner also participated. They were convicted and for that reason Armando Valladares went to prison in Cuba".[8]
During his captivity, Valladares claimed to be partially paralyzed (and in need of a wheelchair) as a result of mistreatment in prison. Valladares is not actually paralyzed.[9]
[edit] Books
- Desde mi Silla de Ruedas (1976)
- El Corazon Con Que Vivo (1980) - a book of poetry in Spanish, published by Ediciones Universal (ISBN 0-89729-245-6)
- Cavernas del Silencio (1983)
- Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag (1985) - an autobiographical work, published by Encounter Books (ISBN 1-893554-19-8)
- El Alma de un Poeta (1988)
[edit] References
- ^ "U.S. Tones Down Strategy to Fight Cuba on Human Rights". Miami Herald: p. 1A. February 28, 1988.
- ^ "Sims Flap Shows Miami at Divisive Worst". Miami Herald: p. 1B. January 8, 1991.
- ^ a b Congressional Record - 101st Congress (1989-1990) - THOMAS (Library of Congress)
- ^ Está en total desacuerdo con lo que publicaron sobre Honduras, open letter to Thor Halvorseen, published in Nicaragua Hoy 2009-07-07, retrieved 2-10-07-16.
- ^ Noticias de Servicios de Relaciones Exteriores de la Republica de Honduras, December 2009, http://www.sre.hn/Noticias/Diciembre/Ceremonia_de_Condecoracion_Orden_de_Jose_Cecilio_del_Valle.pdf
- ^ http://www.nomobveto.org[dead link] NoMobVeto.org
- ^ "International Advisory Council". Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Archived from the original on 2011-05-20. http://www.webcitation.org/5yrII6tyj. Retrieved 2011-05-20.
- ^ Press Conference delivered by Felipe Pérez Roque
- ^ Cuba 2300
