Uncommon Sense

Cuba ex-political prisoner Vladimir Alejo ends hunger strike on behalf of Alan Gross

Vladimir Alejo Miranda during his hunger strike.

After 47 days, former political prisoner Vladimir Alejo Miranda has ended a hunger strike he started to demand that the Castro dictatorship release imprisoned American contractor Alan Gross.

Alejo, who had demonstrated his resolve by sewing his mouth partially shut, said family concerns and his declining health caused him to end his protest.

"I was in precarious condition," Alejo told Reuters by telephone. "My lips were wrecked with infection."

Another former political prisoner who joined in the hunger strike, Angel Enrique Fernandez Rivero, said he would continue with his protest — despite the Castro dictatorship's best efforts to end it.

Reuters has the details:

Fernandez told Reuters on Monday he had been ordered to a medical clinic to receive liquids intravenously and while there, state security agents tried to persuade him to drop the hunger strike by telling him Gross would be freed soon.

"They [said they] are going to release him as a matter of compassion, that this is a compassionate revolution. But until I see with my own eyes that he is free, I am not going to drop [the hunger strike]," Fernandez said.

(Fernandez's wife Niurka) Rivero said government agents came to their home on Tuesday to press Fernandez to end his strike, but without success.

Hunger strikes against the Castro dictatorship are considered futile, as the regime usually doesn't care whether the protester lives or dies.

But in at least this case, the protesters have their regime's attention, which in Cuba passes as a big victory for freedom.

Castro goons again target Cuba ex-political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer García

Another day in Cuba under the Castros, another day of repression for those Cubans — like former prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García — who choose to live as free men.

Via the Hábalo Sin Miedo website, Ferrer reports that Castro police agents and other goons on Wednesday were again watching his home and moving in violently anytime other activists tried to visit him.

"We hold Raúl Castro responsible for any acts of violene against us," Ferrer said.

Marielitos and Marielitas made America a better place

Tony Montana was not a Marielito. Yes, in "Scarface," he arrives in Miami during the Mariel boatlift from Cuba, but it is important to remember: "Scarface" was just a movie, meant to entertain, not to educate; and Tony Montana was just a cartoon.

The real Marielitos and Marielitas are people like my friends Patsy Feliciano and Betsy Gonzalez, who arrived here 31 years ago this spring and summer with little more than with their families and with their ganas to build a better life.

And how they have succeeded.

I like "Scarface" as entertainment, but I concede that the film, and the violence and the cocaine and the misogny depicted, probably has had an undue influence on what many think about Marielitos and Marielitas, and Cubans in general. There's not much I can do about that ignorance.

But because of what I have learned from my friends, and from others whose stories are told in a new documentary, "Voices from Mariel," I admire most Marielitos and Marielitas for two reasons:

First, how they overcame everything they risked and lost in coming to America to build new and fruitful lives. Like the Cubans of my parents' and grandparents' generations, they have made this a better country as they built their American dream for themselves and for their families.

And secondly, their commitment to doing whatever they can to ensure that their home, their Cuba is one day free again.

For that, I am proud to call some of them, like Patsy and Betsy, my friends.

And for that, America should be proud to have them.

The Castros and their kind are talking scared in Cuba

Cut through the bullshit of the Castro dictatorship's pronouncements that dissidents are trying to foment conflict between Cuba and the United States, and what you hear is fear.

The fear of a regime that knows in what passes for its heart that its time — like that of its comrades in terror and fear in Libya, Syria and other countries like it — is up.

Their time is up, and they fear and they know that history will not absolve.

There is nothing left for the Castros and their regime to do but to turn up that fear, under the delusion that it is fear that gives them strength.

Just listen to their words, as transmitted by Granma-brand toilet paper and reported by the Latin American Herald Tribune:

HAVANA – Cuba’s internal opposition is seeking “pretexts,” such as the recent death of dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, to spur conflict between the island and the United States, the newspaper of the ruling Communist Party said Monday.

The death of Soto Garcia has become the latest “disinformation campaign” against Cuba, Granma said in an editorial taking up the entire front page of Monday’s edition.

Juan Soto Garcia died May 8 at a hospital in the central city of Santa Clara. While representatives of Cuba’s opposition said he perished from injuries received two days earlier at the hands of State Security police, the official autopsy said death was solely caused by “multiple organ failure due to pancreatitis.”

“Our country will not be confused by these domestic counterrevolutionaries who seek any media pretext to foment conflict with the United States, and will respond calmly but firmly against the actions of these mercenaries,” Granma said, using the Castro regime’s standard epithet for the dissidents.

“What are they after with these campaigns? Just to vilify us or something worse? Is it that the ones who are pulling the strings and the people on their payroll here would love to pretend they are ‘protecting civilians’ by bombing Havana?” the newspaper said, alluding to the stated rationale for NATO’s ongoing military intervention in Libya.

The fear in their voice is deafening.

We can only hope it is warranted.

2 Cuban dissidents under siege in their own homes

Cuban police on Monday were blocking two prominent dissidents from leaving their homes because, well, that's what communist dictatorships dictated by dictators named Castro do.

That I consider these two brave men to be my friends, makes it that much more outrageous.

They are:

Darsi Ferrer

Eriberto Liranza

CIHPRESS news agency has the details.

An interview with Cuban blogger Claudia Cadelo

I just discovered a collection of Cuba-related interviews produced on video by veteran Cuba-watcher Tracey Eaton.

Here's one with one of my favorite independent bloggers on the island, Claudia Cadelo.

Claudia Cadelo from Tracey Eaton on Vimeo.

Castro goon squad threatens to lynch Cuban dissident José Daniel Ferrer García

The Castro dictatorship is scared to death of former prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García.

Babalú has the evidence:

The Castro dictatorship dispatched a violent mob to the home of Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia to attack the former political prisoner and other dissidents at his home. The government led mob surround his home, attacking innocent dissidents in what is known in Cuba as an "act of repudiation," and threatened to enter the home and lynch Ferrer Garcia and the others seeking refuge there.

The report of the attack was made by Ferrer Garcia himself in a phone call to Hablalo Sin Miedo (my translation):

Listen to the message

Transcription:

We find ourselves in the home of who is speaking to you, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, in Palmarito del Cauto. Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, former prisoner of conscience. We are being victimized by an act of aggression on the part of the political police and the paramilitary troops of the so-called rapid response brigades. They have beaten my wife, brothers in the struggle, the person who is speaking. We are currently victims of strong aggression and they are threatening to enter our home and lynch us. The head of the party, a major from the political police Gorki (?), all of them are at the front of the repressive act. Please call +5353631267. You can hear the shouting. The act of repudiation continues. We are victims of a strong act of repudiation with aggression and beatings.

End of message.

Cuba ex-political prisoner: Castros feed on the silence and hypocrisy of the West

Cuban journalist and former prisoner of conscience Normando Hernandez calls to account those in the West whose silence and hypocrisy on events in Cuba and the Castro dictatorship's repression only strengthen the regime.

Via Pedazos de la Isla:

We Must Shatter the Chains
by Normando Hernandez, ex prisoner of conscience

Dictatorships are not the only ones that throw chains around freedom. Those who remain silent before the crimes these dictatorships commit are also responsible for enslaving freedom. The hypocrisy exercised by democratic governments and international organizations, such as the UN to name just one of the many, provide a green light to dictatorships when they pretend to be deaf when those who attack freedom asphyxiate an entire people. Let us not forget the phrase we Cubans frequently use: “He who holds the cow's leg when it is being slaughtered is just as guilty as he who kills it."

Until when are democratic governments going to continue playing along with the horrors of the Cuban misgovernment?  They can’t talk to me about the free will of people because we all know that Cubans do not have the right to rights. I would also like for someone to explain to me how we can solve a conflict if we do not interfere in it.

I am not ashamed to say that the main culprits of Cuba’s situation are Cubans themselves. It’s true. But it is also true that the government of the Castro brothers has always had an opposition against them ever since day one on January 1st of 1959. And that opposition has been vilified, massacred, executed, jailed, and exiled before the passive stares of the world and the horrified eyes of the Cuban people who see their reflections on the mirror State terrorism which has existed on the island for 52 years. Why can’t efforts be unified to support that opposition so that Cuba can achieve the freedom its people have long awaited?

We know that modern so-called revolutions consist of an organized opposition within the country and support from abroad. In Cuba, the opposition is organized but it does not have the sufficient support to carry out its goals. A perfect example is the sleepiness with which democratic governments have responded towards the State-sponsored assassination of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, the 46 year old dissident who died on May 8th 2011 after Castro policemen beat him and burst his pancreas just for wanting to be a free man and for sitting on a park bench talking about baseball.

And just like that, those international organizations, those governments, and those democrats remain silent while Castro henchmen beat and torture peaceful people simply because they do not agree with the ideology of those who rule in Cuba.

One of the most recent examples of torture was the one the ex-prisoner of conscience from the group of the 75, Angel Moya, was subjected to this past Thursday May 12th. A State Security official who goes by the name of Camilo tortured Moya by pressuring a pillow down on his face, as he tried to asphyxiate him. This method of torture is the same as the one we know as “the submarine” which consists of shoving the prisoners face into a bucket of water to produce a sensation of asphyxiation. The “crime” which Moya committed was that he was trying to meet with a group of dissidents which were going to pay homage to political prisoners which had been assassinated by the Cuban government. Moya was also beaten by the political police — those officers which enjoy complete impunity, like the ones who killed Soto Garcia.

Angel Moya, after being beat and tortured

We would not be surprised if tomorrow we receive a new notice that other individuals or groups of dissidents have been detained, beaten, tortured, and/or assassinated because, unfortunately, that’s how things are in Cuba. And I am not playing the role of a prophet here.  The problem is that totalitarian governments gain strength from the silence and hypocrisy of those who tolerate them.

We’ve had enough.  We must unite our forces and deposit our grains of sand just as was done in favor of the Libyan people. We must shatter the chains which tie down freedom in the most beautiful land which humans have laid eyes upon.

Interview with Cuba blogger Laritza Diversent

One of my favorite Cuba-based independent bloggers is Laritza Diversent.

This interview shows why:

Lartiza Diversent from Tracey Eaton on Vimeo.

 

Cuba ex-political prisoner Pablo Pacheco: 'The only thing we Cubans need ... is freedom'

Pablo Pacheco

Cuban journalist and former prisoner of conscience Pablo Pacheco, now in exile in Spain, boils down in a few words what the Cuban people need most: Freedom.

Via Pedazos de la Isla:

The 6th Communist Party Congress is more of the same, with the additional problem that time is running out and a social explosion can surge at any moment as a consequence of the political immobility on behalf of the dictatorship, the economic crisis which the nation has been submerged under, and the absence of freedoms. The discourse reflects the lack of will of the regime, and the fear they try to infuse on the Cuban people.

We must recall that prior to the Congress, Raul himself stated that they were border-line ruined: “We either fix ourselves or we drown”, he said. But, can socialism really be saved? I think it’s far too late to dream while awake, and to continue carrying out this political system which excludes its citizens. The Cuban people will inherit the worst of capitalism and the nature of communism- the massive employee layoffs from the first, and the absence of freedom from the latter. I’m not sure what to think if this consolidates itself. Cubans no longer care about one ideology or the other. The world has changed and we now have only two options: dictatorship or democracy, and only the latter is compatible with humanity. We deserve another opportunity, and we deserve to live like human beings without fear, without so many limitations, and without a double morale. In sum, the only thing Cubans need to rebuild the ruins which 52 years of totalitarian rule have left us is: freedom.