Armando Valladares
| Armando Valladares Perez | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 30, 1937 (age 79) |
| Nationality | Cuban |
| Occupation | Poet, diplomat, activist |
| Known for | exposure of human-rights abuses by Cuban government |
| Title | United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (1988-1990) |
| Spouse(s) | Marta |
Armando Valladares Perez (born May 30, 1937) is a Cuban poet, diplomat, and human rights activist. In 1960, he was arrested by the Cuban government for conflicting reasons; the Cuban government alleged that he had been complicit in anti-Castro terrorism, while foreign sources regarded his arrest as being due to his protesting communism, leading Amnesty International to name him a prisoner of conscience. Following his release in 1982, he wrote a book detailing his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Cuban government, and was appointed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Valladares is from Pinar del Rio, Cuba. By his own account, he was initially a supporter of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, later becoming an employee of the Office of the Ministry of Communications for the Revolutionary Government, for which he worked at a post office.
In 1960, at the age of 23, he reportedly refused to put an "I'm with Fidel" sign on his desk at work. Shortly after, he was arrested by political police at his parents' home. He was subsequently given a thirty-year prison sentence. The Cuban government stated that his arrest was on charges of terrorism, and that he had previously worked for the secret police of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship. The international human rights organizations Oslo Freedom Forum, PEN International, and Amnesty International, in contrast, stated their belief that Valladares had been imprisoned solely for his anti-Castro stance, and the latter organization named him a prisoner of conscience.
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