UNJUSTLY IMPRISONED CHRISTIAN FREED

Date posted: Thursday 6th April 2006

Latin Link members Ian and Juliana Horne (left) work with Paz y Esperanza (Peace and Hope) based in Lima. The article below shows the result of the association's work on one man but hard times still lie ahead...

After serving 13 years for terrorist crimes he didn't commit, Walter Cubas left Lima's maximum security Castro Castro prison February 1 as a parolee. But the 42-year-old Peruvian evangelical labor leader is finding that his battle is just beginning "� and he's just plain tired.

"I have the will to work, and I don't want to keep fighting for justice,"� he said, while acknowledging that God has called him to do precisely that.

Much has changed in the world beyond bars, and he finds it all so depressing. For starters, his long-embattled neighborhood remains more blighted with social problems than when he left. "There's no work, there's great misery and a lot of poverty,"� Cubas said. "Everybody is poor."�

Then there are his two youngest children, now ages 14 and 15, who were just infants when he was arrested. They want to continue their education, but now Cubas' challenge is just feeding them. "Regrettably, in this country and in my neighborhood, people who don't have help leave school,"� then fall into crime, drugs and prostitution, he said. "And that's what I don't want."�

Cubas said he was deeply grateful to God and to Peace and Hope Association lawyer Wuille Ruiz for securing his freedom. But challenges abound as he reintegrates into society that, for well over a decade, has gone on without him. He clings to his faith that God, who worked a miracle in securing his release, will continue to provide for him and his family.

"In my case, I'm free but marginalized ! even a little afraid to talk,"� he said.

Hooded Judges

A member of the non-denominational Pentecostal church Christ Lives, Cubas came to faith as a child and later led a textile workers union at La Union factory in Lima. When the factory closed in 1992 without paying employees, Cubas took part in a demonstration.

Soon after, apparently in reprisal, police arrested Cubas and other La Union workers who protested, claiming they were Shining Path terrorist group subversives. Police accused Cubas of painting the Peruvian Communist Party's logo and the words "Yankees, go home from the Middle East"� on a building. They also claimed Cubas was linked to explosives and a pistol and ammunition stolen from a soldier they accused Cubas of killing in 1992. Police also alleged he had participated in a riot.

Cubas denied all charges. When under torture Cubas refused to sign a confession that the weapon and ammo were his, a prosecutor forged his signature.

A court of judges with concealed identities refused to hear evidence in Cubas' behalf and slapped him with a life sentence for terrorism on January 20, 1993. He was sent to serve his sentence in a maximum security facility known for cruel conditions, the Yanamayo Prison high in the Andes. Later he was transferred to Castro Castro in Lima, where he lived in a Christian cellblock and participated in its church.

An Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Cubas clung to hope that someday he'd be able to resume his life as a free man. For years lawyers from the Lima-based evangelical legal aid group Peace and Hope Association represented his case on appeal. His hopes rose in January 2003, when Peru's constitutional court voided the rulings of military courts that had tried civilians, as well as those of "faceless"� courts, where judges' identities were concealed by hoods or mirrors.

That ruling overturned Cubas' life sentence and those of some 1,700 others, meaning all would receive new trials.

But despite the lack of evidence against Cubas, in June 2005 the Supreme Court upheld a a 16-year sentence imposed on him in December 2004. (See Compass Direct, "Peruvian Judges Uphold Prison Term for Evangelical Christian,"� December 30, 2004.). Ruiz then sought parole for him, which Judge Walter Castillo Yactayo granted.

Catching Up

While imprisoned, life continued without him. In 1998, one of his five children died; prisoners are not allowed leave to attend funerals. Two of his children grew up and left home.

During his imprisonment, some 1,000 cards and letters kept his hopes alive that the worldwide body of Christ hadn't forgotten him. He covered his prison cell with the greetings and well-wishes from Europe and North America, which included photographs, stickers and children's drawings.

Now that he's been released, he's had to learn about e-mail and cellular phones, neither of which he had access to while in prison. While incarcerated, Cubas had envisioned launching a large-volume potato business if freed, but those plans seemed to have evaporated in his first week of freedom. Now he's helping his wife sell fresh fish, which the couple did before his arrest more than 13 years ago. It's hard work that doesn't pay well, but he remains grateful.

In April Cubas turns 42. Without conceit in his voice, he told Compass, "I look like I'm 30."� He's acutely aware that self-preservation is rare in a prison where rampant disease such as tuberculosis and the multiplied stresses of life add cruel years to one's appearance. And although he's tired now, he knows that God has called him to continue advocating for those in need.

"God has constantly protected me,"� Cubas said. "I haven't gotten sick, and my spirits haven't been broken. I'm a still a person of worth, of work, of struggle, and I'm always going to be called to take a stand for justice."�

- by Deann Alford with permission from Compass Direct

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