If speculations are correct, and the announcement of Fidel Castro's death coincides with a roundup of Cuban dissidents, so as to silence any potential troublemakers, high on the target list will be independent journalists. Their record of "lawlessness" under the dictatorship — reporting stories about the real Cuba, and distributing them to the outside world — makes independent journalists a mortal threat to a punk like Raúl Castro trying to make his bones without the protection of his big, much more capable, brother.
Ludis Rodríguez Díaz, editor of the El Martiano Libre newspaper, already has gotten a taste of what might be to come.
On Aug. 23, Rodríguez was summoned to a police station in Manzanillo, in Granma province, according to a story by independent journalist Mario Hechavarria Driggs, posted at CubaNet. A secret policeman named "Quintana," warned Rodríguez to quit the newspaper, which she publishes out of her home, or she might be sent to prison. He then seized her identity card, which without in a police state like Cuba's, is like walking the street naked.
Rodríguez's response might best be summed up like this:
"Fuck that!"
"El Martiano Libre is a newpaper produced by a group of pacific opponents, with the intent of having citizens read a free press, without censorship nor hindrances of any type," Rodríguez told Hechavarria. "El Martiano will continue to come out because the public wants and asks for it. I will be without an identity card as long as they want, but that won't get in the way of my journalistic work."
In the face of courage like that, how long can Raúl Castro really survive?
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