Carta de Cuba, la escritura de la libertad

Havana, July 23, 2005.-- In an effort to prevent a protest in front of the French Embassy yesterday, political police arrested over 17 leading dissidents, while dozens of others were detained, threatened and beaten. Those arrested include Rene Gomez Manzano and Marta Beatriz Roque, leading figures of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, the group which had organized a protest Friday in front of the French Embassy in Havana. The wherabouts of the Félix Bonne Carcassés are unknown, and it is feared he was also arrested. Vladimiro Roca, leader of another opposition group stated that he was aware of at least 17 arrests. Roque was freed early this morning, after spending the night in a jail cell, while others appear to remain in detention. Roque, a 59-year-old economist, and the president of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, was  sentenced to 20 years in prison in the repressive wave of 2003, but released for health reasons exactly one year ago, on July 22, 2004, suffering from diabetes, hypertension and partial paralysis of the face. She had already  served three years in jail between 1997 and 2000. 

Still, the wave of repression could not prevent dozens of  Cuban dissidents and relatives of political prisoners from gathering Friday in  front of the French Embassy to demand the release of detained dissidents. Protests and dissent have increased  with  the growing discontent of the population, due to the poor standard of living and lack of basic necessities in the wake of Hurricane Dennis, prompting a massive police and military mobilization in Havana and its environs. 

ACT OF REPRESSION IN HAVANA

Havana – In the afternoon of July 17^th, the political police of Cuba’s communist regime organized an act of repulse against eight peaceful opponents, in the town of Jaimanitas, City of Havana. The action took place at 2:40 PM, in the bus stop located on 5^th Avenue and 240^th Street, in this capital, after the dissidents leaving the residence of the peaceful opponent Isabel Ramos Martínez, mother of the political prisoner Arturo Suárez Ramos. Isabel had been on a hunger strike for 5 days, in demand of his son’s and all political prisoners’ freedom. When they arrived to the bus stop, more than two hundred people, forming one of the so-called Rapid Reply Brigades, guided by the regime’s political police, began shouting: ¨Down with the worms, freedom for the five heroes!¨, among other improprieties, and throwing them stones and eggs. The injured parties are named Alejandrina García de la Riva, wife of political prisoner Diosdado González Marrero; Berta Soler Fernández, wife of the also political prisoner Angel Moya Acosta, and the members of the Cuban Republican Party and the Civic Feminine Front: Georgina Noa Montes, Lourdes Hernández López, Idania Cecilia López Zamora, Ofelia Astorac Obregón, Gladys Núñez Villalta and Silvio Herrera Núñez. All of them, during the more than 30 minutes the protest lasted, responded making the Victory sign with their fingers. A young man of 14 to 16 years old snatched a cell phone from the wife of Angel Moya Acosta, while letting down does his shorts, to show the genitals. Something stood out, amidst all of this, when a 60-year old gentleman, Narciso Posada Martínez, began to shout to the rabble, ¨Get back, you hungry bastards, we are all brothers!¨, which made a State Security guard to take him away.

Havana – In a very hot summer, the distressed Cuban population continues to show its annoyance, in front of the poor quality of life, where the lack of basic staples, electric power, transportation and the deterioration of living quarters, after the passing of hurricane Dennis, is showing a panorama of social unrest which, evidently, Castro’s government cannot avoid. In Santiago de Cuba, hundreds of neighbors of Trocha Street –one of the city’s main boulevards- charged with sticks and stones against members of the communist party, demanding food and resources to repair their houses, with several wounded persons reported. In the city of Cienfuegos –one of the most affected by the storm- various groups of people walked through the centric San Carlos avenue up to the Terry Theatre, where they showed posters with slogans against Castro’s regime. In the city of Trinidad, one of the most affected by the cyclone, workers from the Port of Casilda, angrily protested in a public meeting, accusing the government of being incapable of improving the population’s living conditions. A score of dock’s workers were arrested and released, after paying a fine for public disorder. Trinidad, with 285 thousand inhabitants, has been suffering the electric shortage, for a whole week, now.- José Raúl García

Havana – The insufficient distribution of powdered milk, for the exclusive use of children less than seven years old and sick people, is now practically paralyzed, due to the oil shortage, as reported by a local broadcasting station. In the populated neighborhoods of 10 de Octubre and Havana Center, where more than 358 thousand children live, no milk has been allotted in the last two weeks. ¨I have to buy a pound of powdered milk at the¨black market¨, which costs me 40 pesos (about two dollars); nothing is sold at the grocery store, nor milk, or rice, or fish…I don’t know where are we going to¨, indicated Laura Rodríguez, mother of two little children, living at the Alamar neighborhood, in the east side of the capital…Barbarito Iglesias, a refrigeration mechanic living in El Vedado neighborhood, expressed to the independent journalist José Morán: ¨Since the hurricane, we hardly get any food, they promised us 36 more products and… nothing. They only have given us a little rice, beans and sugar…and the market places are empty, you can’t even find an onion¨, added the troubled 78 year-old habanero, who has neither received the pound of milk they give him every month.- María Olaya

Havana – Anti-Castro’s posters keep appearing in this capital’s neighborhoods, especially during the night, amidst the blackouts, indicated Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz, an important dissident of Castro’s regime. It is estimated that 75% of the city inhabitants do not get any electricity, increasing the popular discontent. At zone 15 of Alamar neighborhood, in the very popular Coppelia ice cream shop, located in El Vedado, as well at the Grillo park, in Havana Center, some posters have showed up, with slogans painted in red and blue, reading: ¨Down Fidel!¨, ¨We want food¨, ¨Come on Yankees¨ and other protest themes. Police units came by very quickly taking the posters away.- Juan Uribe

Ciego de Avila – Several naked men with flamed torches ran recently through the streets of Morón, in this province, shouting in protest against the Cuban regime, while being pursued by the police. According to María Elena Oliva Leyva, human rights activist, the protest action took place during a prolonged blackout. She also comments that at the following night, several people formed a ¨conga¨ parading the streets, singing anti-Castro’s songs, in which the lyrics referred to the power shortage, the ¨doddering old Castro¨ and the ¨alcoholic Raúl¨, the dictator’s brother. The ¨congueros¨ -mainly young people- were intercepted by police forces and some of them were fined for disorderly conduct.-Abel Escobar Ramírez

Camagüey – Pulmonary emphysema, gastritis, a lot of cough and fatigue are some of the ailments affecting Fabio Prieto Llorente, the prisoner of conscience of famous 75 cause, is imprisoned in the prison of maximum security ¨Kilo 8¨, located at the province of Camagüey. Juan Carlos González Leyva, president of the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights, informed that the authorities have arbitrarily changed the timing of the visits the opponent used to receive, from every 3 months to 4 months. Prisons sources confirmed that Prieto Llorente is not receiving specialized medical attention. Fabio Prieto Llorente, who is 42 years old and was sanctioned to 20 years in prison, used to live in 2811 47^th Street, apt. 6, between 28^th and 30^th, in Nueva Gerona, Island of Youth, more than 600 Km. away from where he is incarcerated.- José Morán

REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS

Havana – The illegal  "Joven Cuba" Popular Party rendered homage to the victims from the Tugboat ¨13 de Marzo¨, together with activists from the Republican Party of Cuba, the Martí Civic League, the Civic Feminine Front and the Martí Center of Studies. In the ceremony, celebrated a the home of opponent Georgina Noa Montes, president of the Martí Center of Civic Studies, a journey of prayers took place as well as the presentation of the film Bitter Sugar, which deals on the awakening of the Cuban people to the sophistry of Castro’s government. At the civic meeting, the names of all victims were read, including the twelve children murdered at high seas by launches from Castro’s government on July, 1994.

JAILED JOURNALIST IN HUNGER STRIKE

Paris.- Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about the fate of imprisoned journalist Mario Enrique Mayo Hernández, who has announced in a message to the organisation that he began a hunger strike on 14 July and will starve himself to death if he is not released soon.The editor of the Felix Varela news agency, a small independent agency based in the eastern province of Camagüey, Mayo Hernández has been in prison since March 2003."We take his warning seriously and the Cuban government would be well-advised to do so as well," Reporters Without Borders said. "Must the government wait until one of the 21 journalists held since the Black Spring of 2003 dies before it finally agrees to release the others?"The organisation added: "By committing himself to an indefinite hunger strike, Mayo Hernández is representing all of his fellow-journalists and other dissidents who have been convicted without cause and pushed to their limit by more two years of detention in filthy prisons. His desperate act calls for an urgent pardon for him and all the Black Spring's other victims, even if this means pardoning innocent men."Mayo Hernández's wife, Maidelin Guerra Álvarez, yesterday sent Reporters Without Borders the following message from her husband:"I will not wait until the government deigns to grant the release of 20 detainees because they are ill or because Fidel Castro needs to improve his international image. I have even less intention of waiting 10 or 20 years"."I was imprisoned just for freely saying what I think and for practising independent journalism on this island. I have never lied about human rights violations in Cuba. This is why I will maintain my hunger strike until I obtain my freedom or I die. If death is the price to pay, I am ready to pay it, but I want the world to know that nothing short of freedom will now be able to stop me."Arrested on 19 March 2003, Mayo Hernández was sentenced on 4 April 2003 to 20 years in prison for "threat to the state's independence or territorial integrity." He has been transferred from prison to prison four times since his arrest and has been in Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey since 21 June.He has had several spells in prison infirmaries or hospital because of his many ailments, which include pulmonary emphysema, high blood pressure and inflammation of the prostate. He already went on hunger strike for a month in November to protest against prison conditions and mistreatment by guards.

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