Distribuído por Cuba Free Press, Inc. - http://www.cubafreepress.org

La Habana, July 8, 1998, Cuba Free Press.

Dessy Mondoza, M.D., Sends letter to the Council of State from Boniato's Jail. By Ana Luisa Lopez Baeza, Cuba Free Press.

From Boniato's Jail, Doctor Dessy Mendoza Rivero sent a letter to the Republic's Council of State. There he explains in detail the elements which prove his innocence with regards to the "enemy propaganda" offense for which he was convicted to eight years in jail.

Quoting fragments of the information which he transmitted then to the foreign press, Dr. Mendoza illustrates that he did not circulate any false information. The Dengue epidemic in Santiago de Cuba was a reality suffered by the population even though people did not know what the problem was.

The physician also quotes the report which the official press was forced to publish after his report was aired. In spite of all the carefulness to avoid stating the seriousness of the situation, the reports did confirm the existence of an epidemic, and the risk of spreading and costing innumerable victims.

Dr. Dessy Mendoza refutes each one of the offenses for which he is blamed by the prosecutor, as well as the sentence dictated by the tribunal. He thus turns from accused to accuser.

"When they found nothing illicit in me, they proceeded to fabricate offenses to justify the sanction. With this unjust and hostile attitude the national dignity is offended," says Dr. Mendoza. He then states, "Why do you charge against a human rights activist with so much hatred and arrogance ?

Is it because I did not submit to silence without dignity, while the the people in Santiago de Cuba, from whom the thousands of ill patients come, the dead and the eternal grief of those who lost their loved ones.

The physician also exposes the infrahuman conditions in which he is serving time, and then he asks, " Is no one to respond to this crime? Where is justice? Where and how does one search for justice? Do those who lived injustice under Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship forget where does this behaviour lead?"

Doctor Mendoza's family sent copies of this document to the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Assembly of Peoples Power, the Justice Ministry, the General Monetary Fund of the Republic and the Popular Supreme Tribunal.

Ana Luisa Lopez Baeza, Cuba Free Press.