Armando Valladares

Armando Valladares (May 30, 1937) was a political prisoner and prisoner of conscience in Cuba. Valladares was jailed in 1960, at age 23, when the new regime under Fidel Castro began to crack down on dissidents. Valladares spent 22 years in prison. After the campaign for Valladares' release began, and after he was adopted by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience. An international campaign for his release, was led by his wife Marta. Many artists joined it, for example Jacek Kaczmarski (writing song "Listy"). The campaign culminated in French President François Mitterrand making a personal appeal to Fidel Castro. Armando Valladares was freed after spending 22 years in prison. He then moved to the United States.

Valladares's memoir, "Against All Hope" - which details his incarceration in the Cuban gulags - became an international best-seller. On the advice of his daughter Maureen, then President Ronald Reagan (who was moved by his writings),Fact|date=March 2007 appointed Valladares to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. As Head of the US Delegation, he successfully brought Cuba before the Commission for its human rights violations. President Reagan would later confer on him the nation’s highest civil honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal. The Cuban workers' newspaper, "Trabajadores" described the appointment as "a disgrace". [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r101:S17NO9-1592:]

Since his release, the Cuban government has described Valladares as a traitor. 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. [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r101:S17NO9-1592:] 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" [http://www.cubaminrex.cu/English/currentissues/Press%20Conference%20delivered%20by%20Felipe%20P%E9rez%20Roque.htm] . The claim by the Cuban government that Valladares was a Batista police officer was undermined when the Cuban government publicized a false identity card purporting to be that of Valladares. The card contained demonstrably false information including height, weight, date of birth, and blood type.

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 Chairman of the International Council of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation.

Valladares was one of the closest friends of Pedro Luis Boitel.

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)