Persecution Repression's Hall of Shame

By Lisa Beyer

Some countries, like China, have been known to mete out swift execution to < their political prisoners. Others, like Cuba, imprison them for decades. Indonesia has a uniquely cruel approach. As early as this week, the Jakarta government intends to execute six men for their alleged roles in a 1965 coup attempt -- after keeping them behind bars for anywhere from 18 to 24 years. In February four other purported conspirators were sent before the firing squad. Those killings prompted a burst of protest from overseas, but despite the outcry the government is going ahead with its plan. According to a close confidant of Indonesian President Suharto's, the next round of executions may take place as soon as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends on April 25. Said he: "Their request for clemency has been rejected, so they will die."

Despite the waves of liberalization that have swept across the world in the past year, thousands of political prisoners still sit in cells from Singapore to Syria. Some have been there for more than 27 years, the time served by South Africa's Nelson Mandela, the world's most famous detainee until his release in February. Among the longest-serving political prisoners:

CUBA

Mario Chanes de Armas detained since July 17, 1961

Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez detained since Dec. 4, 1968

These two men are the last of Cuba's plantados historicos (literally "the historically planted"), political prisoners so dubbed for their long terms and unyielding defiance of the authorities.

Chanes, 63, and Diaz, 51, were among Fidel Castro's original companeros, but after the Communists took control of Cuba in 1959, the two former guerrillas became disenchanted. Chanes, a security guard who served briefly in the revolutionary government, began to criticize Castro; Diaz, a fisherman and bus driver, joined a paramilitary dissident group in Miami. In 1961 Chanes was arrested for plotting to assassinate Castro, a charge human-rights groups believe was trumped up. Although Chanes' 30-year sentence expires next year, his former prison mates doubt he will be set free. Diaz was seized in 1968, while attempting to smuggle counterrevolutionaries and supplies into Cuba. He was sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison.

Chanes and Diaz are kept in isolation at the Combinado del Este prison on the outskirts of Havana in a windowless cell so tiny they have no room to walk. Both are said to be in failing health.

INDONESIA

Iskandar Subekti detained since July 31, 1968

Iskandar, 69, is among an estimated 50 Indonesians who remain in prison for their alleged complicity in the 1965 putsch against then President Sukarno. The uprising was launched by junior army officers purportedly in concert with senior members of the now outlawed Indonesian Communist Party. The six detainees expected to be put to death soon are Iskandar and Ruslan Widjayasastra, 72, both party Central Committee members; I. Bungkus, 61, a sergeant in Sukarno's elite security guard; Marsudi, 53, a sergeant major in the air force; Sukatno, 61, chairman of the party's youth organization; and Asep Suryaman, 62, an alleged member of the party's "special bureau," which was responsible for building links with the military. Since 1985, at least 20 prisoners have been executed for alleged involvement in the long-ago uprising or for membership in the Communist Party.

MALAWI

Martin Machipisa Munthali detained since sometime in 1965

Munthali, then an apparatchik in the ruling Malawi Congress Party, fled the country in 1964 with a group of dissident Cabinet Ministers. From abroad they organized a movement to oppose the despotic Hastings Kamuzu Banda, then Malawi's Prime Minister and since 1971 President for Life. Munthali, who is in his early 60s, reportedly returned to Malawi in 1965 and was arrested. By some accounts, Munthali was never tried. According to others, he was charged with a firearms offense, served an eleven-year prison term, was immediately detained again when it expired and has been held since without charge or trial in the Mikuyu prison near Zomba. In the early years of his detention, Munthali's jailers reportedly applied gasoline to his legs and ignited them, causing injuries that were not treated. Today he shares a single cell -- with a bucket for a toilet -- with some 30 other political prisoners.

SINGAPORE

Chia Thye Poh detained since Oct. 29, 1966

Chia, 49, was a member of Parliament representing the opposition Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front) when he was arrested for allegedly advocating armed struggle against the government of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Over the years, Singapore officials offered to free Chia, who has never been tried, if he would renounce violence. But he refused, maintaining that he had never espoused it in the first place. Last May Chia was sent into a bizarre internal exile on Sentosa, a tiny tourist island just off Singapore's main isle. He is * allowed visitors and free run of the island, where he is the only permanent inhabitant, but he cannot leave it, address public meetings or take part in any political activity without official approval.

SYRIA

Salah Jadid detained since Nov. 13, 1970

When Lieut. General Hafez Assad seized power in Damascus in a 1970 military coup, he locked up many members of the previous regime, who are still behind bars. Eighteen people -- including Jadid, who was the strongman of the earlier government -- have remained in prison without charge or trial since their arrests between 1970 and 1972. Though the detainees, who are held in the notoriously grim Mezze military prison near Damascus, are allowed visitors, President Assad's government does not acknowledge that they are imprisoned.

Aside from Jadid, 62 -- who served as the assistant secretary general of the regional command of the Baath Party, the ruling party then as well as now -- the more prominent of the 18 include Noureddine Attassi, 60, who was President and Prime Minister, and Mohammed Id Ashawi, 59, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. All the inmates are said to be in poor health because of inadequate medical care and, in some cases, the effects of torture. Some reportedly are victims of the "German chair," a modern-day torture rack used by Syria.

MOROCCO

Fatima Oufkir and family detained since Aug. 20, 1972

The Oufkirs are victims of vengeance at its most perverse. Fatima Oufkir's husband, General Mohammed Oufkir, was Morocco's Defense Minister when air force leaders unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate King Hassan II on Aug. 16, 1972. General Oufkir was accused of complicity and the next day was found shot dead. Four days later, Fatima, now 54, the six Oufkir children, who now range in age from 21 to 37, and Fatima's cousin Achoura Chenna, 54, were put under house arrest and have been held since then without explanation, charge or trial in various houses and farms.

From 1974 to 1977, the family was reportedly kept in almost total darkness. For the next ten years, they were held incommunicado in separate, windowless cells. In the past few years, the conditions of the family's detention have improved. In 1987 King Hassan agreed to let them immigrate to Canada but then reneged on the deal.

In an age of instant communications, when the freeing of Mandela is viewed by millions of people, public pressure can influence some repressive regimes. Human-rights activists believe Singapore improved the conditions of Chia Thye Poh's confinement out of fear that when South Africa released Mandela, world attention would focus on the remaining long-termers. Still, other governments seem impervious to criticism. "Each country is a separate case," notes Richard Reoch, information director of London-based Amnesty International. There are limits too to how hard foreign governments will press allies on human-rights issues. The U.S., for example, remained mute over the February executions in Indonesia. Yet while international pressure may not always work, it is the political prisoner's only protection.

With reporting by James Carney/Miami, Aidan Hartley/Nairobi, and Farah Nayeri/Paris