Uncommon Sense

Music of the counter-revolution

Here's a trailer for East of Havana, the Charlize Theron-produced documentary about a group of Cuban hip-hop musicians.

J.B. of J.B Spins last night attended a screening of and has posted his first impressions:

East of Havana follows three young Cuban Hip-Hop artists who have formed their own musicians union, El Cartel, outside of the state music system. They are looking forward to Cuba’s international Hip-Hop festival, a rare opportunity for their music to come out from underground. It seems Hip-Hop in Cuba is in an analogous position to that of jazz in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. While usually suffering from malignant neglect to outright hostility, the music’s “proletarian” roots allows for occasional sanction for state sponsored international events (which of course, serve a propaganda purpose).

While the press materials carefully try to position the film between “the twin carcasses of Castroite Communism and the Bush-backed exiles,” in the words of in the words of The Independent (UK), it is hard to argue with the most ardent critic of Castro after seeing the living conditions documented in the film. Nobody has anything to say about all that great free healthcare Castro provides, but one of the young rapper’s mother tellingly jokes about cooking entire meals from three garlic cloves. Ah yes, the fruits of revolution.

Watching East clearly illustrates the legacy of Castro. He has turned the island into a slum. In his urban blight, Hip-Hop, the contemporary music of urban angst naturally thrives. Cuban youths are seen wearing Tupac t-shirts in much the same way their western counterparts wear the image of Che. However, the Tupac enthusiasm is more understandable and appropriate to the circumstances faced by El Cartel

Read his whole post here.

J.B. says the movie is set for release in January.

Meanwhile, listen to and watch El Cartel for yourself:

Cuban journalists under siege

Lamassiel Gutiérrez Romero

Shelyn Rojas

A sure way to measure the quality of an independent Cuban journalist is to examine how much attention they are getting from the police or other agents of the state. The better the stories they get — or maybe it's just the more stories they get about the reality of life on the island — the more harassment, the more pressure, and worse, they receive to get out of the business.

However, what the Cuban regime and its goon squads don't realize is that for journalists like Shelyn Rojas and Lamassiel Gutiérrez — the latest to get a squeeze from the police — their work is not just a job. It is their vocation. It is how they do their part, as patriotic Cubans, to help make their nation and their fellow Cubans free.

In recent days, the Cuban police have tried again what they have failed before — to convince Gutiérrez, who earlier this year was released from prison, and Rojas, to quit their work as reporters for outlets like Payolibre and Miscelaneas de Cuba.

On Friday, Rojas was summoned to a police station to be questioned about her "counter-revolutionary" activities, according to a report by journalist Luis Cino posted at CubaNet.

After waiting for about an hour to be seen by a police captain, Rojas left the station and went home, where she was greeted by two police officers who drove her to another police station for questioning.

There, she was told by two State Security agents identified as Moisés and Eliécer that it was dangerous for her to continue working as a journalist and to transmit her stories to foreign-based outlets.

After about an hour of questioning, Rojas was released.

As for Rojas' response to the police warning, well, she has a new story posted at Miscelaneas de Cuba.

The situation with Gutiérrez may be more serious.

Journalist Mario Hechavarria Driggs reported Monday that Gutiérrez told him that two police officers had warned her she could be jailed if she continued working as a journalist. She also was cited for "public disorder," which as a practical matter, meant she cannot leave her home in Nueva Gerona, on the Isle of Youth.

Gutiérrez is intimately familiar with the Cuban gulag, and how serious the regime is about acting on threats like that she just received.

In March, she was granted a conditional release from prison. She had completed a seven-month prison term for
“resisting the authorities and civil disobedience.”

Gutiérrez had originally been sentenced to house arrest, but last October was transferred to a prison after she continued her journalistic work.

Gutiérrez is married to prisoner of conscience Rolando Jiménez Pozada, who has been imprisoned since April 2003, even though he never has formally been charged with a crime.

Whoever is charge right now in Havana is making sure the old repressive ways remain intact. Just look at the efforts to silence the independent press.

The bravery of journalists like Shelyn Rojas and Lamassiel Gutiérrez, and their colleagues across the island, will ensure the dictatorship always fails.

More on my Uncle Rolando

As I wrote earlier, Tuesday is the 31st anniversary of the murder of my great-uncle, the former Cuban senator Rolando Masferrer.

Recently, I received from a reader PDF copies of a couple of declassified U.S. government reports about Rolando from the 1950s.

Read them here and here.

Previously, I first wrote about Rolando in a newspaper column published in April 2004.

Cousin's film will tell 'El Tigre's' story

Marta Masferrer, like her third cousin, is a
storyteller. She doesn't use ink and newsprint, but
lights, cameras and action. Other than that, there is
not much different about what we do, although I
suspect the movies she makes are much more
entertaining.

I recently learned that Marta even existed when an
aunt forwarded to me some e-mails she had received
from a cousin in Miami. New York-based Marta, the
e-mails revealed, was seeking counsel and assistance
for her next project, a feature documentary on one of
the iconic characters in our family's history, Rolando
Masferrer.

I don't remember ever meeting Rolando, a brother of
my grandfather. My first memory I have of hearing of
him is from the fall of 1975, when word reached us in
Dallas that he had been killed by a car bomb in Miami.
I was 8.

From stories I have picked up over the years, from
both those who knew him and mentions in books and Web
sites about Cuban history, Rolando was larger than
life, a renaissance man in a different sort of way.

A brilliant student, he won the top prize from the
law school at the University of Havana. He also was a
newspaper publisher, a communist and a veteran of the
Spanish Civil War, wounded while fighting with the
International Brigade against Franco's fascists. The
Communist Party later expelled him.

A contemporary of Rolando's, albeit about 10 years
younger, was another brilliant law student, Fidel
Castro.

Rolando and Castro were bitter political enemies.
Rolando headed a political party called the Socialist
Revolutionary Movement; Castro was a member of a rival
group. More than once, they tried to kill each other.

The most dramatic of such incidents took place in
1947. Castro had joined with Rolando's group in a
Cuban government-backed group plot to invade the
Dominican Republic and overthrow the dictator Rafael
Trujillo.

After the plot fizzled, so the tales go, Rolando and
Castro got into a fistfight on a boat. Depending on
which version of the story you believe, Castro either
was thrown overboard into shark-infested waters or he
jumped to save his life and swam to shore. Rolando
thought there was no way he could survive.

No such luck. Later, Castro used the story to help
build his cult of personality.

Eventually, Rolando, as a senator and power broker,
was a major backer of Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista.
Rolando even had a private army — some accounts
describe it as being more of a gang — called "Los
Tigres," or the Tigers. My father and others in the
family dispute this, but Los Tigres had a reputation
as being as vicious as the Castro-led rebels they were
fighting.

On New Year's Eve 1958, as Batista's regime
collapsed, Rolando and his two brothers, Kiki and my
grandfather Raimundo, fled to Key West, Fla., in a old
U.S. Navy PT boat Rolando had acquired after rebels
burned his yacht.

Before leaving Havana, Rolando asked my grandfather
if his son, my father, would be joining them. No, he
would stay to take care of his mother and sister. They
later fled to Venezuela, with the help of the Vatican
embassy.

At Key West, Rolando and his brothers were arrested
for illegal entry but released about a month later.
From then on, Rolando was involved in various
anti-Castro plots, of which there were many in Miami
in the 1960s and 1970s, but not the Bay of Pigs
invasion, which took place 43 years ago this weekend.
One story goes the FBI picked up him a few days before
in order to keep him quiet.

Rolando, as he had in Cuba, wrote for and published
newspapers in Miami, using them to spread his
anti-Castro message. The Cuban exile community during
that time was rife with divisions, as rival groups
used various tactics, including terrorism, to make
their point. It was an environment with which Rolando
was very familiar.

In an editorial published in his Libertad newspaper
on Oct. 24, 1975, after a bomb maker had been injured,
Rolando condoned bombing as a legitimate political
act.

A week later, Rolando was killed by a bomb placed in
his car.

The killer or killers were never caught. Some in the
family will always suspect that Castro finally got his
revenge.

Cousin Marta — we share the same
great-great-grandfather, Antonio Masferrer y Grave
Peralta, a captain in the Cuban guerrilla army that
fought the Spanish for independence in the late 1800s
— is calling her documentary, "El Tigre." On her Web
site, Marta writes that she "will explore her family's
both celebrated and notorious past and more
importantly the failure of political violence as a
tool to attain political change. It will ask the new
generation of Americans, in particular Cuban Americans
who face dealing with such a disjointed identity and
controversial history, in 30 years what have we
learned?"

"Disjointed identity?" I'm not sure about that, but I
can't wait to see what she finds out.

About a month later, I wrote a second column, about how distant family members responded to what I wrote.

'El Tigre' inspires a family reunion

The Internet makes the world, and families, smaller.
With a few keystrokes and mouse clicks, it is possible
to learn so much about people and places that formerly
seemed so distant.

I learned that this week, after I began hearing from
distant cousins who had read online my recent column
on my late great-uncle Rolando "El Tigre" Masferrer. I
wrote the column after I got word that New York
filmmaker Marta Masferrer, a third-cousin I never had
heard of, was working on a documentary about Rolando,
a colorful and controversial figure in 20th century
Cuban history, and in our family.

Earlier this week, I received an voice mail message
from Marta, who said that she had read the column and
was excited to know that I approved of her project.
Soon afterward, I had a pleasant telephone
conversation with her father, Eduardo.

Others I heard from via e-mail included cousins
Marta D. Masferrer, Alejandro "Alex" Masferrer and
Rolando P. "Rolandito" Masferrer.

They were not all complete strangers before I wrote
my column. Rolandito who is a few years younger than
my father, is the son of Rodolfo "Kiki" Masferrer,
brother to my grandfather Raimundo and my great-uncle,
El Tigre — which no one in the family ever called him.
Rolandito referred to him as "RM."

Cousin Alex, about a year younger than me, is the son
of Rolandito's sister, Tamara. From childhood, I have
memories of hearing these names and even a few
scattered reminiscences of actually meeting them.

Rolandito confirmed that.

"I met you on one of your trips to Miami when you
were much younger, Raimundo took you over to our
house."

Later, I remember, we caught up with each other when
we went to Miami for my grandfather's funeral in 1990.

Rolandito, who for years has studied the history of
our family in Cuba and Spain — he said he and I are
part of the "warrior" branch of the family — offered
comments about my original column, including a few
corrections of the record. For example, he disputed my
description of Fidel Castro, a political rival of RM's
during the 1940s, as a "brilliant student" at the
University of Havana.

"He was an avid reader but not brilliant student.
Fidel led the Bonchistas group whose sole purpose was
to coerce and threaten the lives of the faculty
members," Rolandito wrote.

Rolandito's most revealing comments were about my
grandfather Raimundo, who I called "Abaray," one of
the kindest, most generous men I have ever known. I
never imagined him doing some of the things Rolandito
described. Abaray, he wrote, was as involved in
fighting Castro as his better-known brother.

During Castro's revolution, RM, a member of the Cuban
Senate, lead a private militia called Los Tigres, or
"the tigers," who, Rolandito wrote, took up the fight
against Castro as the army lost interest.

"Your grandfather was also a Tigre and fought
courageously against Castro."

The night the government collapsed, New Year's Eve
1958, my grandfather and his two brothers left Havana
on Rolando's boat, the Olukum II, for Key West, Fla.
(The Olukum I had been burned by Castro's men.)

Later, Rolando and my grandfather caused trouble for
Castro's Cuba, but they did not take part in the
failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 because of
political differences with the fellow exiles leading
the plot.

"Your grandfather, who was very much experienced in
navigation and knew engines like the back of his palm,
made several trips to Cuba aboard the Olukum to
deliver weapons and fighters. In 1960 a group led by
Armentino Feria and Robert “Bobby" Fuller landed in
Cuba. Raimundo was the Olukum captain. The Olukum hit
a reef ... and sank eight miles out from the Cuban
coast. Raimundo was rescued by a second boat," my
cousin wrote.

I did not know that story.

My only memory of RM, the man who made this virtual
family reunion possible, is from 1975, when we learned
in Dallas that he had been killed in Miami by a bomb
placed in his car. I was 8.

Rolandito shared an anecdote from when he was about
the same age back in Cuba.

One day, Rolandito was riding in a Jeep with his
uncle.

"A group of three rebels were planning to assassinate
RM. They saw the Jeep coming and blew a couple of
dynamite sticks. Luckily nothing happen to me, just a
hate for (Castro) that has gotten the best of me over
all this years."

Rolandito suggested that the disparate branches of
the Masferrer family gather soon for a real reunion. I
hope our recent contacts via telephone and e-mail help
bring that about — maybe we can all be at the premier
of cousin Marta's film — because in these few
exchanges with relatives who were formerly strangers,
I have learned that we really aren't that different.
We have spouses, careers and outside interests, but
most importantly, we share a common and proud history
that time, distance and a tyrant in Havana can never
take away.

Rolando Masferrer, the man from Holguín

Rolando Masferrer

More than once since starting this blog, I have received inquiries like one I received the other day from a new online acquaintance:

The question I have for you actually comes via my mom - she's 92. When I mentioned your name she wanted to know if your family is THE Masferrer family, originally of Holguin.

You know this drill, right? If they did come from Holguin, we both get the 2nd half of the story.

Yes, I know the drill.

The second half of the story, I’m guessing, is about my great-uncle Rolando Masferrer.

Lawyer.

Poet.

Journalist.

Communist Party member.

Spanish Civil War veteran.

Expelled Communist Party member.

Enemy of Fidel Castro.

Senator.

Fighter.

That’s him.

I’m sure some, including the folks in charge in Havana, have a few other choice ways to describe Rolando.

Thief.

Gangster.

Murderer.

Of course, they could be confusing him with what they see in the mirror each morning.

I don’t recall ever meeting Rolando.

My first and only memory of him came 31 years ago on Tuesday, Halloween 1975.

That is the day he was killed in Miami by a bomb placed in his car.

He was 62.

I’ve never seen any record that the police ever caught his killer.

There was a lot of that sort of thing in Miami in the 1960s and 1970s, with rivalries in the Cuban exile community, perhaps stoked by the regime in Havana, frequently turning violent.

Rolando was very much a part of that milieu. Just a week before he was murdered, Rolando had written a newspaper editorial in which he called bombings an acceptable tactic.

His was a spectacular way to die.

But long before that day in front of his house in Miami, Rolando had left his mark on Cuban history.

Another inquiry about my relationship with Rolando came a couple months ago from a university professor in the Midwest. Once I confirmed my ties with Rolando, it was clear she had done her research about my uncle and the impact he had on the island’s politics and history.

His life was wrapped around so many of the 20th century's great conflicts: Spanish Civil War, Cold War, Cuban revolution. I agree he is worthy of tremendous respect both for being a pivotal figure in all of these events, as well as for his literary inclinations and journalism. Anybody can be a gangster. But to be a poet/gangster/revolutionary/senator is another thing altogether.

Rolando was a player in the Cuban politics of the 1940s and 1950s. After being expelled from the Communist Party, he formed his own party. He held elected positions as a representative and later a senator in the Cuban congress, but beyond that he was a power broker helping ensure the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Rolando also was not afraid to use a gun to get his way. More than once, most famously at Cayo Confites in 1947, Rolando had a chance to rid the world of Fidel Castro before he could cause even more trouble.

Later, when the military lost the will the to fight Castro’s rebel army, Rolando’s Tigres — “tigers” — took up the fight.

Los Tigres de Masferrer, my uncle’s private army, could be brutal.

But they were fighting a brutal enemy.

However my maternal great-grandfather, my late grandmother used to say, always insisted that Rolando was worthy of respect. After all, he won a top prize while a law student at the University of Havana. (This was long before my parents would meet and marry, so my great-grandfather was not just being nice.)

The Tigers were not enough.

On New Year’s Eve 1958, Rolando was at his house in Havana when he got the call that Batista was leaving the country.

My father, then 15, was in the house, too.

Quickly, Rolando and his two brothers — Raimundo, my grandfather; and Rodolfo — made their way to the harbor, hopped on Rolando’s boat, a former U.S. Navy PT boat; and fled to Key West. Rolando asked if my father was coming along, too, but my grandfather said no, he had to stay to care for his mother and younger sister.

Upon arrival in Key West, the Masferrer brothers were arrested for illegal entry, the first of several run-ins Rolando had with the American law.

A lot of that had to do with plots, most of which were ill-conceived, to undermine and overthrow the new Castro regime in Havana. President Kennedy, one story goes, didn’t want Rolando anywhere near the Bay of Pigs invasion, so he ordered the FBI to detain him to keep him quiet.

Of course, Kennedy’s plan didn’t turn out so well, either.

Later, Rolando served time in federal prison for violating the Neutrality Act when he hatched a plot to invade Haiti.

Since starting this blog 11 months ago, I have frequently wondered how Rolando would use this technology to continue and nurture his struggle against Fidel Castro. I wonder what he would say about the coming transition. Would he again be smuggling arms and more back to the island the way he and my grandfather did in the early 1960s?

I’m thinking he would have his own blog to spread his message.

I don’t agree with all of the rhetoric or tactics Rolando used, but I’d like to think he would be proud of what I have tried to do with this site.

On Halloween 1975, the day Rolando was murdered in Miami, I was 8.

So all I know about him comes from what I have read in books and stories from family members. The judgment others make about him is mixed.

He was brilliant.

He was a sociopath.

He was a gangster.

He was a patriot.

I haven’t reached any of my own conclusions, except it is clear, as events show, he is important to understanding the history of Cuba.

And the history of my family, the Masferrers of Holguín.

For more on Rolando Masferrer, including several photographs, visit the Cuban Information Archives.

Angel Moya Acosta, Political Prisoner of the Week, 10/29/06 (UPDATED)

UPDATED, Feb. 13, 2011 — Angel Moyá was released from prison on Feb. 12, 2011.

|———|

Cubans will only live in freedom, with democracy and human rights, when in Cuba there are no longer any mob attacks against those persons who express themselves against the Regime’s policies, when no one is persecuted or imprisoned for their political opinions, and when the government you represent permits and respects the right to freedom of expression, association, assembly and protest.
— Angel Moya Acosta, letter to Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, March 19, 2005.

No matter how it has tried, and it has tried hard, the Cuban dictatorship has not been able to silence Angel Moya Acosta.

A construction worker by trade, Moya, now 42, saw as his higher calling a life committed to freedom and democracy for Cuba.

The founder of the Independent Alternative Option Movement, Moya in 1999 lead a fast to demonstrate support for a fast by the political prisoner Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet. In December of that year, on the 51st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Moya lead another demonstration.

This time, the dicatorship responded by throwing him in jail for eight months — which earned Moya recognition from Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.

When Moya was released, he picked up where he left off, which became a familiar pattern for the next few years.

Cuba Political Prisoner.info, which has all the details, explains:

Angel Moya Acosta has a long honorable history of disagreement with the Cuban communist regime and has expressed his beliefs through peaceful means. His principles are aligned with those of Dr. Elias Biscet’s. Cuban citizens must claim their rights in a non-violent manner by public demonstrations.
In a letter written in prison, Moya Acosta provides us with a window into his firmly held beliefs and his idea of the future. “…there is no pact with the tyrant”.

In March 2003, during the "black spring," Moya was arrested one final time and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

But that did not silence Moya either, as Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque learned two years later after he spoke to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

In the letter, Moya debunked Perez's claim that there are no political prisoners or other repression in Cuba.

Moya wrote:

On May 13, 2003, the Chief of the Provincial Prison of Holguin forced me to undress in his office in front of my jailers. Once I had done this he gave them the order to take me to the punishment cells. The jailers placed me in a dark cell, infested with mosquitos, dirty, with no water. They took away the mattress, blanket and towel, and for three days I had to sleep on a board with no protection whatsoever. Again, I point out that while I was taken to the cell I was naked, barefoot, handcuffed and in plain view of both prisoners and guards.

Sir, how do you classify these actions by jailers which I have been a victim of? Are these practices by the jailers an expample of proper treatment?

No sir, they are not an example of good treatment. These measures are an example of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

In Cuba the press, radio and television do not belong to the people as you say. They are owned and controlled by the Communist Party. They are managed by members of the Communist Party and the Union of Young Communists. And to provide you with an example of this, I urge you to pick up a copy of the Granma newspaper where you can read under the main heading where it says: “Official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.” Then, who does this newspaper answer to? Without a doubt, to the interests of the Communist Party of Cuba.

Read the whole letter here.

Payolibre has more, in Spanish, on this hero.

One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of more than 300 political prisoners. To illustrate that reality, Uncommon Sense each week will profile one prisoner, and keep that post at the top of the page from Sunday night through Friday morning. (That may change depending on the news of the day.) There also is a Political Prisoner archive on the left sidebar. To suggest a prisoner for a profile, send me an e-mail.

For profiles of imprisoned Cuban journalists and related information, read the March 18 Project.

Cuban opposition gains strength

Writing at TownHall.com, Italian blogger Stefania Lapenna describes how the Cuban opposition, despite continued repression, has grown in focus and strength as most of the media fixate on Fidel Castro's health and the dictatorial capabilities of his little brother Raúl. As usual when it comes to Cuba, Lapenna writes, the world media is missing the real story unfolding in Cuba.

An excerpt:

The Assembly to Promote the Civil Society is a coalition of 365 political parties, movements and independent libraries. Its leader is the 60-year-old independent economist Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello. The majority of the opposition groups in the island are members of or support the Assembly. Unlike more soft coalitions such as the Oswaldo Paya's Varela Project, which demand reforms to the constitution of the communist regime, the groups belonging to the Assembly look for democratic regime change. They don't believe in the possibility of any democratic change coming from the Cuban rulers.

In spite of the new wave of repression started after the Assembly's first national congress held on 20th of May, 2005, the coalition is moving forward with new important projects. One of these is a Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation campaign promoted with the coordination of the Miami-based exile groups. Named "Yo No Coopero Con La Dictadura, Yo Si Quiero El Cambio" (I do not cooperate with the dictatorship, I want the change), this unprecedented initiative aims to promote the importance of non-cooperation with the repressive forces and the peaceful struggle for freedom through civil disobedience, methods that were successfully used by the freedom fighters in the former communist regimes of Eastern Europe. Several political prisoners spoke to Radio Martì from their prisons, expressing their endorsement of this campaign and calling on the Cuban people to do the same. The prisoners of conscience supporting the initiative are putting it into action by disobeying orders from the prison guards, even if this leads to consequences, like being continuously beaten or taken to incommunicado (solitary confinement) cells as punishment due to their valiant resistance.

Each of the Assembly's groups agreed to a shared action plan with respect to the campaign: they will be engaging the Cuban population in every town and city. Wherever they meet people, they will distribute informative material explaining what the Assembly is and what its initiatives are about.

So far, it seems that the initial steps are working well. Several dissidents in the island report on the growing refusal by the population to attend the official meetings of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), which take place in every neighborhood. These meetings are where brutal methods are planned against peaceful opponents and those who violate the "state's laws" that, in Castro's Cuba, include street vendors and prostitutes.

There is also an increase in popular rejection of the so-called 'acts of repudiation' led by the State Security and the political police, who gather as many thugs as possible in front of the houses of dissidents, specially during or before opposition meetings. During these barbaric acts of harassment, which often start from the early morning and end late in the afternoon, the freedom fighters are insulted, threatened with death, defamed and even beaten up in their own houses, as occurred a few months ago to Martha Beatriz Roque.

Read the whole thing here.

For more on the "Yo No" campaign, visit the Cuban Democratic Directorate. Be sure to read the latest column by the Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady.

80s Flashback: Journey

My friend Pat e-mailed me the other day, in part, to tell me that he liked how I was posting some vintage music videos from the 1980s, when we both were in high school and college.

I have known Pat for more than 25 years, and I love him like a brother, but at least in high school, our musical tastes were very different.

For instance, he listened to Journey.

I didn't.

This song and video is one reason why.

As Andrew Sullivan, who is running a video contest writes, some videos "are so bad they're great; or they're great in an awful kind of way. Journey featured in many such submissions. 'Separate Ways' soars above either bad or good. It just is."

Cuban news service resumes operations

Somewhere in the Cuban gulag, journalist Alberto Triay must be proud.

The news agency he started, La Estrella Solitaria, is back in business.

The Cuban dictatorship last delivered a severe blow to the group when it seized the group's tools of the trade and on Nov. 9, 2005, arrested its founder, Triay. Recently, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for engaging in "subversive propaganda."

Which seems appropriate considering the "subversive" nature of the truth about Castro.

"That is why we were obligated to end our work, but now it is time to start again," one of the group's members told journalist Shelyn Rojas, for a story published on Payolibre.

Rojas wrote that La Estrella Solitaria — "the solitary star," like on the Cuban flag — currently has eight members, but its support is growing.

Dead man talking

No, it's not the newest Halloween mask.

But it sure is scary, especially if you live in Cuba.

It's just a dying dictator.

Give peace a chance

I am not a very spiritual person.

I do believe in God, and as I get older, it has become more important for me to attend Mass on a regular basis. It recharges my heart, mind and spirit.

I have faith. But rarely have I had that experience, that moment where I feel the hand of God upon me, guiding me in the right direction or lifting a burden from my soul.

Maybe I'm just not built that way. Patience is not one of my strong suits.

But I do think that I did have just such an experience last weekend, when I returned to Texas for my late grandmother's memorial Mass and impromptu family reunion.

At some point on Friday, Oct. 20, the sorrow and despair I had felt after my grandmother's death six days earlier lifted, and was replaced with something else, something bordering on the amazing.

I'm not sure how to describe it.

Except that it brought me a feeling of peace. That my grandmother was OK — much more than OK, actually — and that I and my family would survive, and from our grief, recover with our love and devotion to each other stronger than ever.

I'm not sure when I knew that.

It might have been during Mass, during the priest's comforting homily.

It might have been during a eulogy delivered by a Baptist preacher, a friend of the family and perhaps the closest my grandmother came to having honorary 11th child. In remembering his friend, our matriarch, he reminded us of everything she meant to us, and what we mean to each other. At least for a moment, our tears of sorrow were replaced by tears of joy and laughter.

As he described us, we are big and loud and diverse. But whatever differences we might have over politics or how each of us have chosen to live our lives, they cannot stand up to what unites us — our love of life, and for each other.

That was clear at the church, and later at my uncle's ranch, where we gathered for lunch and more laughs and tears.

Maybe it was there, as I stood by a fence, looking up at the clear blue Texas sky, and back on the porch, where my family was crowded, that I knew I would be OK, that we would be OK. My grandmother had prepared us for this moment, and it now was time for us to take what she had taught us about life and love, and to put it fully into action.

Or maybe it was Sunday, when I was back at my own church, playing my guitar with the choir with all the energy and spirit I could muster. It had been a long time since I had played that well, definitely much better than the week before, 24 hours after my grandmother died.

I struggle to describe it, because it is so intensely personal, that sense of peace that came over me at some point last weekend. I was reluctant to write about it; seems so self-indulgent to carry out such a self-examination in such a public forum.

But a friend advised that I try, that maybe my experience is yours, too.

I don't know when it happened. And I do not know whether my words do the experience justice.

I just know that it did.

May God, if only for a moment, grant you that same peace.