Humberto Fontova: Rush, Jesse, and Fidel

"As mentioned, this was summer of 1984, so at the time, the world's longest-suffering black political prisoner suffered his incarceration and tortures in stoic defiance. 'Nigger!' taunted his jailers between tortures. 'We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!'

"I do not refer to Nelson Mandela. No, this prisoner was being tortured a few miles away from the Revs. Jackson, Wright and their entourage of black American luminaries. The prisoner was a black Cuban named Eusebio Penalver and he was being tortured by Reverend Jackson's gracious hosts. Mr Penalver's incarceration and tortures stretched to 29 years which makes him the longest-suffering black political prisoner in modern history, surpassing Nelson Mandela's record in time behind bars and probably doubling the horrors suffered by Mandela during this period.

"Eusebio Penalver was bloodied in his fight with Castroism but unbowed for almost 30 years in its dungeons. He's what Castroites call a 'plantado'--a defiant one, an unbreakable one. 'Stalin tortured,' wrote Arthur Koestler, 'not to force you to reveal a fact, but to force you to collude in a fiction.'

"'The worst part of Communism,' wrote Solzhenytzin, 'is being forced to live a lie.'

"Eusebio Penalver refused to collude in this lie. He spit in the face of his liar jailers. He scorned any "re-education" by his jailers. He knew it was they who desperately needed it. He refused to wear the uniform of a common criminal. He knew it was they who should don it. Charles Rangel, Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Sheila Jackson Lee, Maxine Waters, Ron Dellums, etc. etc. etc. all toast his torturer. But through almost 30 years of those tortures Eusebio Penalver stood tall, proud and defiant."