Silito Tabernilla, A General

JJ: There are men who unwittingly become part of history. That is the case with General Tabernilla. Where were you born?

ST: I was born in beautiful Guanabacoa, aon. I lived there a year and a half, then we moved to La Cabaña where my father belonged. I kept living in Guanabacoa, I never left. My uncle Marcelo, my father’s brother lived there. There were three brothers: Francisco, Carlos and Marcelo.

JJ: When did you join the military?

ST: I told you that when I was a year old or so we moved to La Cabaña from Guanabacoa. From early childhood I lived among soldiers. I am a soldier by birth and by calling, but I officially entered military life in 1937, the same year my wife was born.

My brothers became pilots, but aviation didn’t do anything for me. I didn’t like taking a plane to go from here to there. If they gave me an order I’d do it, but I don’t like to fly. Even here, every time they invite me I say no ….

JJ: What do you remember about that last flight, when you left Cuba?

ST: Well, it was a long process. The American ambassador told Fulgencio Batista that he should leave Cuba and that the United States would not recognize the government of Rivero Agüero.

Batista accepted, but if he had acted like a President, people would have supported him, and the military also, although many soldiers were disgusted because every time they presented well-thought-out plans to finish off Fidel, Batista rejected them. It was unbelievable how he defended Fidel. Of course, Batista was not a soldier, neither by career nor mind-set.  He was in the army as a sergeant stenographer.

On December 2, 1956, the telegram came about the landing of Fidel Castro and a group of around 100 men. We found out even before the landing, and we could have acted. By then I was head of the infantry division in the military town. At 11:00 I asked the CIM for Batista, and they informed me that he was eating at the home of Dr. Garcia Monte. I went there, and when I arrived they were playing canasta – the Admiral, Rivero Aguero, Garcia Monte, some others and Batista. He stared at me. I talked to him about the landing and our lack of reaction. He asked me for discretion, he said: “Silito, let’s talk about this later, I don’t want Martica (his wife) getting nervous.” After a while he got up and asked for a map. They brought him one from the Esso gas station. He opened it and immediately asked where the landing had been. He knew nothing about it. He proposed sending 40 men. It was totally crazy, but he believed he was invincible.

JJ: Invincible, like any dictator….

ST: Yes, invincible. Batista under-estimated Fidel Castro, or maybe he wanted to help him. With respect I suggested to him that he send 2,000 men to put a quick end to the incipient insurrection, but Batista answered: “Listen, Silito, you’re crazy, don’t you know that no one lives in the Sierra Maestra?”

Look, he had no idea about what it means to be a soldier. Then they sent a battalion under the command of Juan Gonzalez. In Alegria de Pio Captain Morelos Bravo had made contact with those we called “the rebels” in a sugarcane field that was on fire. I’ve never seen a cane field burning, it must be horrible.

JJ: And hot.

ST: Impressive. There were casualties on both sides. Our troops regrouped to organize the final offensive, but General Robaina arrived with instructions from the President and ordered a return to Havana. Leaving that situation in the hands of the rural guard was another tremendous insanity. Commander Juan Gonzalez was insubordinate and was punished for it. One can say that Fidel Castro arrived in the Sierra Maestra because Batista let him win. And there were many times that Batista spared Fidel’s life; all those decisions were taken in my office at Columbia, in the military town. Any effective action would have ended that war, but this one extended it, it finished nothing, and the troops were eager to stop and return. Batista had delusions of being democratic, pretending to be something he wasn’t, and because of that he was never photographed with any solider.

Then came the campaign of Herbert Matthews. First he interviewed Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra and then Batista in the palace. The publicity from that meeting, a little manipulated, had a significant effect, especially on the businessmen. General Cantillo was  named chief of operations and prepared a perfect plan to kill Fidel, but the same problems that set Batista against his own military led him to conspire. That was a process which, in private, ended with the Americans taking part in the affair. On November 1958 Mr. Powell met with Batista. After that meeting Batista himself told me “Listen, Silito, when that guy called me, I wanted to give them a kick.” Things were getting complicated, the elections were approaching, and the Americans began to intervene openly in favor of Fidel Castro. This was something incredible that we could talk about for hours. They even took away our weapons, and we had to buy them in the Dominican Republic. When the American ambassador told Batista that he must leave Cuba and that they would not recognize the government of Rivero Agüero, Batista agreed.

I was in the military town, it was about 5:30 in the evening, calm, when my phone rang and it was Fulgencio Batista asking for Cantillo. I called the Air Force and they answered that Cantillo was flying from Santiago de Cuba and would land in Columbia in about an hour. I told Batista, and he said that when the plane landed, to order Cantillo to meet him at his house at 8:30 pm. It was Cantillo’s wedding anniversary, so they met at 10:30, not at 8:30 as previously ordered. When I got to Kuquine, there were several people. Cantillo arrived at 10:30, and they enclosed themselves in the office for 10 or 15 minutes.

When I returned to Columbia, I went with the order to deliver the division under my command to General Cantillo (he who has the division has control of Columbia). I had sent for the top officers. We did the transfer of power.  Here I have it saved as a historical document of my immediate resignation. There Cantillo informs us that the president has decided to resign to avoid bloodshed. Some were happy thinking about the end of the war. Others were sad, envisioning perhaps that there would be a much longer and worse war.

I returned to the residence and Batista was eating. When he finished, he told the duty officer to let us come in. We generals entered, and Captain Martinez picked up the charts and the operations dispatches in the room. The planes were ready; our route was to fly to Daytona Beach. Batista’s fate would be decided during the flight itself. The last thing I remember about Cuba is that I got on a plane, and with the same gun I had when I rode into Columbia, I landed in Jacksonville.

JJ: And tell me, General, have you thought about returning? 

ST: Yes, absolutely yes, I’ve thought about returning. It’s what every Cuban yearns for.

Translated by Regina Anavy

The General’s Speech – An Odd Catharsis

The speech by General Raul Castro Ruz at the regular meeting of the National Assembly was opportunistic and authoritarian. To denationalize Cuban society, as a decision of the State, does not mean much, especially when political discourse doesn’t reflect the real need for a non-state sphere, or limit the unlimited powers of the Party and State. On the contrary, it mitigates and releases the State from an obstacle that consumes it. To pretend and gain time is an interplay to recover and strengthen the State. He made it very clear by saying “We are not abandoning, even for a moment, the unity of the majority of Cubans around the Party and the Revolution, that unity that has helped us get here and continue to move forward in building our Socialism.”

Why is Raul blaming the endemic corruption on Cuban leaders, and not putting his brother Fidel at the top the list? What is the meaning of the letter he read before the beginning of the long-awaited regular session of the assembly? It says, “You brought us freedom, gave us land and labor.” Manipulation is the word, a direct way to monopolize opinion. Conditioning the audience is the same as censoring it.

The parliamentary bacchanal only reports. There was no confrontation of ideas nor a free and plural debate. As always it was a poor simulation, a cathartic adulation among people who share the same ideological position, similar ethical principles, a single party and the same aspirations. What else could we expect?

Mr. President, no doubt you need to restore lost confidence to the people. The measures or maneuvers, however you call them, to reshape immigration policy, subsidize the sale of some building materials, make housing policy more flexible, authorize the purchase and transfer of cell phones, cars and houses, rearrange the sugarcane zones, sell agricultural products to tourist-industry complexes, and expand the area of land in usufruct serve only to give credit and acknowledge a young, new social class, so it will give you support and backing.

Talking about the future of Cuban socialism as something new, forgetting the present, creates a laughable disappointment. It crosses the line in its disrespect of the Cuban people.

The President-General, Machiavellian and hypocritical, made a show of a benevolence that he doesn’t profess and needs to represent. He announces as a commendable decision that he is pardoning over 2,900 prisoners. He says further that he took into account the announced visit to Cuba of Pope Benedict XVI, and the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the image of the Virgin of Charity del Cobre.

He should be ashamed; at the least he should be scolded. The release of those prisoners, among so many other interventions and pressures, national and international, is the essential result of the unequaled prowess of the LADIES IN WHITE. Raul Castro is too dishonest, and too insignificant for my taste.

Translated by Regina Anavy

December 28 2011

Concave and Convex

The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly are just points of view. The legal or illegal is something different altogether. I don’t believe in the truthfulness of any political discourse, at least not until someone begins by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, what I’m about to say is false and manipulative.”

I’m all for the appearance of Pablo Milanes in the city of Miami. Look, that doesn’t make me an enemy of those who rightly protest the presence of the singer in the capital of Cuban exile.

For me, the controversial concert and the performance of a bulldozer breaking Pablo’s CDs are acts with the same cultural value. I like both; they inflame and fascinate me. Antagonistic positions always create diversity, and they generate freedoms. But it’s sad to see that even today, Cuba and Miami continue to show the sad pride of being fiefdoms dominated by the same dictator.

If there is anything that accompanies me since I started thinking, it has been my doubts. Free will is a gift for which you have to fight.

Translated by Regina Anavy

August 27 2011

Noble as a Farmer, Wise as a Priest

JJ.- Hector, whether some like it or not, your name is relevant when we speak of the internal opposition in Cuba. How do you see Hector Palacios?

HP.- Well, first I want to introduce myself because you already know me, but many readers do not.  I am a farmer who was born in the Escambray.  I am also one of the revolutionaries who since 1980, exactly during the Mariel crisis, stopped being on the side of this thing they call Revolution. Because of that I spent time in prison; I have been a prisoner of conscience three times. And between short and long detentions, I have been detained dozens and dozens of times that add up total many years. Solely and exclusively for the crime of thinking or suggesting, many times, that things have to be different.

In 1989, I was the founder of the first liberal movement of this last period in Cuba.

JJ. What kind of “Liberal”?

The type of liberal that the leaders of this country’s independence were.

I currently lead “The Liberal Unity” of the Republic of Cuba and…

JJ.-Yes, but I prefer not to get into party politics yet.  Héctor, as you said a moment ago, your life began in the countryside.  There is even, at least in my view, a strong rural influence in your way of speaking, of looking at things, of saying and expressing your ideas.  Tell me about these beginnings, your childhood, family environment, friends.

HP.- Look, I was born in a pretty inhospitable area in the middle of the Escambray…

JJ.-What is its name?

H.-Pico Blanco. That is where my family settled, and then people came who rose up against the dictator Fulgencio Batista, the people of the Revolutionary Directorate, the Second Front of the Escambray, Che when he came from Oriente… That is, I lived in the middle of that place.  But we lived peacefully, in bateyes (outbuildings), each family with a group of houses built around the head patriarch’s house.

JJ.- And what was life like in that environment?

HP.- There were teachers and priests who baptized you.  I was baptized. At that time there were not the number of schools that were built later. At that time, I mean in nineteen fifty-something, where I was born there were only three schools.  And it is true that in those schools all the grades were taught together, but when you finished a grade, you really finished it.

There was a lot more discipline.  And, besides, you had to work in addition to going to school.  That was the farming custom and that is why, among other reasons, that there was food in Cuba.  Because people worked.

If you go there today, you will see that where we produced hundreds of hundred-pound sacks of coffee, thousands of tons of sugar, I don’t know how much cheese, milk, etc., today they don’t produce anything.  The Escambray is without its people.

I grew up like that. The farming environment is supportive, solid, religious, and has very sincere principles.  At home you couldn’t tell a lie, you ate on time.

My family wasn’t rich. My father was a mule driver and he worked from sun to sun with his team of mules.

JJ.- Was your family strict?

HP.-Some were stricter than others.  I think that is a problem with farming customs.  But in general they were all strict.  In my home there was a lot of discipline at meal time, with personal hygiene, study time…  I remember that I learned the multiplication tables at my grandmother’s house.  I had to do it in a few weeks because on my left was the book but on my right was the ruler.  Yes, there was strictness, there certainly was, but we lived with a lot of affection and love.  It was something else.

Then it all fell apart and, just as my family was destroyed–and it was a big family–all the rest of the families of Cuba were destroyed, and those of the countryside and the nation.

And I want to confess something to you that I have never told anybody but I have thought a lot about this campaign of Raúl Castro’s that–according to him–proposes to give land to farmers for their use as if land could be given for its use.  Look, you have to give land or not give it.  He knows very well that it is harder to create a farmer than a doctor.  At 24 years of age, a doctor is a doctor, but a 50-year-old farmer is still not a farmer.

I don’t know how Raúl Castro is going to solve the problem of a countryside without farmers.  In Cuba, 80% of the people used to live in the countryside; and it was the countryside, it had a tradition of over two hundred years.  So I don’t see how it is possible to solve the problem of the countryside as it is being done now.

It might be possible to solve the administrative/bureaucratic obstacles, but you need generations for the farmer to learn again how to look at the sky, because that true man, who smells it when it is going to rain, who doesn’t go to the hospital because he has a sick ox, a hurt animal or because his cow is going to give birth; that man is very difficult to make in days like these when farmers only get sunburns, lots of insecurity and pretty bad pay for their work.

JJ.- By the way, Héctor, there is a myth or a reality, I don’t know, that says that country boys have their first sexual experiences with animals.  Did you have that experience along with others?

HP.- I’ll tell you. In the country there was not the “sexual spirit” that there is today.  That is, you did each thing in its time.  The farmer, generally, got married very young when he was just carrying his first or second girlfriend on the back of his horse. That was the custom. Not like now, when there is a very strong sexual appetite because there is nothing like what there used to be.

I really don’t remember that that was my life or that of other farmers.  I don’t mean it wasn’t done, or that it isn’t still done; but you really started your family very young.

JJ.- Let’s talk about your youth.  There is no doubt that the Revolution, more than a dream, was a radical process that many fell in love with.  How did you see that process?  Why and to what degree did you get involved?

HP.- Look, son, I didn’t go out to look for revolution; the Revolution came looking for me.  I lived in the Escambray and nothing there interested me.  The first town I visited was in the area of Güinía de Miranda, just at the time El Che took Güinía, about twenty kilometers from Manicaragua.  That’s why I tell you that the Revolution came looking for us.  And it came with an important program that they read to us, “History Will Absolve Me”, that spoke of reestablishing the constitutional order lost in 1952 after the coup; of giving land to the farmers; of paying fair salaries; of having several political parties; of not having leaders who would deceive the people; and of the need to construct roads, highways, etc…

JJ.-You fell in love, like others, with the “Moncada Program.”

HP.-Yes, I fell in love with the Moncada Program.

We really were not needy; we had our own revolution, our own land, we ate well… And not only our family, but dozens of families that lived together there and didn’t have many problems.  But the best thing we had then was, in that area, no darned politicians or communists.

Later yes, later it filled up with that.

I joined the Revolution, rose up very young, only thirteen years old.  I fought passionately for that Revolution until the 1980′s.  Yes, I fought passionately for the Revolution until the ’80′s and I was deceived by it.  Not now; now I fight for myself, for that Revolution I founded in my head.

JJ.-But today the story is different.  I understand that “The Revolution” didn’t change; its leaders changed.

HP.-The Revolution changed, it is still to be made.  Incredibly, now we are much worse off than under Batista.  Now the land doesn’t belong to the farmers, as it did before; the store doesn’t belong to the storekeeper, as it used to, etc., etc.

Batista was a tyrant who did not monopolize property.  I think that the most difficult period, as far as citizens’ problems go, began in the ’80′s.

JJ.- And what was your metamorphosis like?  How did you become part of the opposition after having believed so passionately in the Revolution?

HP.- I have been surprised to hear many people say, “Suddenly, I changed.”

That’s a lie, nobody changes that quickly; it’s a process.

JJ.- Well sure, that’s why I said “metamorphosis”.

HP.- In the sugarcane harvest of ’70 I felt deceived, one could smell the lies.  And with “The ten million are going” campaign the country was ruined. No factory worked or anything.

JJ.- Yes, many Cubans felt deceived; but not all of them became dissidents.

HP.- Because that isn’t easy, son.  When a political process hooks you, it isn’t easy to unhook yourself.  You have to have experience. I had the luck of having experience because in the middle of all this I made myself into a psychologist, a sociologist, learned to read and write… And it isn’t that I didn’t know how to read and write; I know how.  But I learned well, as I learned how to relate to people.  I left the Escambray and learned about the other world.

For me the final blow began in ’79 when they let the famous “counterrevolutionaries” who lived in Miami enter Cuba.  It was a campaign of Fidel’s, “The Country Has Grown”, in which it was understood that the problems between Miami and Havana had been resolved.  Then I, who had family outside with whom I couldn’t correspond, had to deal with those families who put their JEANS in front of me.  I asked myself a thousand times, why?

It was like the one who had been showered with rotten eggs when he left had come back to give you a box of eggs.  Something like that.

That was my first shock, and I didn’t pay attention to them and so got warnings.

The following year came “El Mariel” and how was I to imagine that this country was prepared to even kill or run over and beat people… ”El Mariel” was the decisive point for many people.  But don’t forget that the people of this country were terrified.  Because this Revolution sowed terror.  People were indiscriminately executed by firing squad, etc.

JJ.- With no trial?

HP.- Well, there were summary trials with no serious appeals allowed.  Then terror began to be sowed.  And the worst thing is, the worst thing that can happen to a human being is to be terrified because no one can think or reason if he is terrified.

It happened to me; I also lived terrified.  The first time the State Security came to visit me, I almost died.  Because I thought that was how…well, how it is: true power.  But it is a malevolent power that I didn’t know existed.  The top leaders knew this, the ones who had created the problem.  We intermediate-level soldiers did not know about this.

When I saw that in the street was when I definitely broke with this totalitarian, unscrupulous dictatorship.

JJ.- And doesn’t it seem to you that, speaking of that very fear, is what is happening now?

HP.- No, I am talking about terror, and what there is now is fear.  People think with fear. There is an enormous difference between fear and terror.  As I said, people cannot think when they are terrorized; with fear, they can.  That is why what they call Revolution has reached a critical stage, because the terror is passing.

JJ.- Now then, you are a definite member of the opposition.

HP.- Yes, sure.

JJ… and there is a theory that the members of the opposition are people who marginalize themselves, who isolate themselves from society… How much truth is there is this?  Where does this theory come from?  Do you hide, stay away from movie theaters, or…?

HP.- Those are theories invented by totalitarian parties and governments. Don’t forget that the easiest thing for a totalitarian party or government (with all the power in the world) to do is to denigrate others.

And one way to denigrate a human being is to marginalize him or accuse him of not having contact with reality, or with the people, or with his family, etc.

There is no more balanced person than a dissident.  Because he thinks about tomorrow, about his family, he thinks about remaking what has been taken from us, thinks about not having again the bad things we had or that we have today. And, even more, we think about not killing, about love and, of course, about others’ rights.

JJ.- Do you have friends who are active in the Communist Party?

Of course; some are good people.  It is just that they are terrorized like the senior government appointees are terrified because they know they are being watched.  I told you a while ago, in a private conversation, that I have a brother who is a high official in the army, whom I haven’t seen for 20 years.  He lives there at Matanza, has two or three cars; for him it is easy to come but he is still living in a state of terror.  The poor guy doesn’t visit our mother either.  They could take away his stripes and even certain benefits.

Look, right now, after the transfer of power–because here there have been no elections and Raúl has not been elected President but rather there has been a transfer within the monarchy (because here there is a type of monarchy), 25 senior leaders have been replaced.  Who would have thought that Carlos Lage could have been replaced, or Felipe Pérez Roque?

Translated by S.Solá

2 June 2011

An Interesting Story About a Jehovah’s Witness

I was born in one of the central eastern provinces. Cuba was recognized by many as the beautiful pearl of the Caribbean from the very first day of its discovery by Christopher Columbus, who expressed that this was the most beautiful land ever seen by human eyes. I was born in nineteen hundred and fifty-eight, one year before the triumph of the revolution. My parents were religious, they educated me in accordance with their principles. My father and my older brother were detained on various occasions, and completed sentences of deprivation of liberty; my brother on three occasions and my father on two. Mistreated and abused as you might imagine.

I was the fourth son of seven that my mother had, we lived in a coastal town. My father owned a candy store and dedicated the better part of his time to his work and to preach the Word of God, as is common with the “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. He never wished to mix in political problems nor give opinions that were not about his religion, this was known by the whole town, where he was very appreciated for the help he offered to many people.

In that time, to be religious, homosexual, or dress in the latest fashion was to be considered counter-revolutionary. They were persecuted or causes would be invented to detain and judge them.

One day several uniformed men appeared at the house bearing large arms, they broke down doors and windows, one group entered brusquely and another surrounded the house outside, as if they had entered a haunt of criminals or terrorists, though my parents had never had troubles with the police or justice. They handcuffed my father, they took him out of the house beating him, and by force they took him into detention. I am never going to forget what they did before our eyes, I was already around seven years old and was there with three brothers younger than me.

My mother took us all through town by foot, and we went to the police station where they were holding my father. When we arrived they were taking his statement, they wanted to accuse him of counter-revolution. He refused to sign, he told them he was a religious person and that his beliefs did not permit him to mix in political matters.

After several hours of interrogation, of personal offenses and physical mistreatment, right in front of is they took him down with blows and shoving him, put him in a cell together with other common prisoners. One of them helped the policeman, and as a result, they fractured his ankle as well as left many marks on his body. That day they did not take him to the doctor, instead on the following day, then they could make out a certificate about the lesions that was useless; they never made a case based on the denunciation of my father.

My father remained firm and offered resistance to being detained, because that was an arbitrary act, it was illogical to think that they were dealing with a counterrevolutionary or something like it. If he signed those documents he was recognizing his participation in something he had not done, the entire town was a witness to these facts, I remember having seen many people meeting in front of the police station.

After several days of detention and without proof, the police decided to set him free. Our family looked for lawyers, we presented proofs, the medical certificate but they never accepted the complaint. With time we finally realized the impossibility of carrying a criminal complaint forward against the police and we left it all in God’s hands.

On another occasion, they used Maturranga, a poor town drunk, to make him pass as a Jehovah’s Witness. I was small and don’t remember his real name, what was important was the trauma they raised around him. The police would get him drunk, they’d give him matches and fuel so that he would appear in a sugar cane field as if he were going to set it ablaze. The man followed orders and in those moments the police showed up, faked having been advised to stop this man — whom everybody knew well for his alcoholism and not as a religious type — from setting the sugar cane field on fire.

Meanwhile in town the other part of the plan was being cooked up. The raising of a public show trial in the park. They had the circus set up, cars with amplifiers installed, to announce that they had surprised a Jehovah’s Witness trying to burn a cane field. They got the whole town together to give him a show trial, in the middle of a park in town; but as everyone knew it was a farce, very few attended.

The only thing they succeeded in was being the town joke, which as always they invent stories and jokes around anything that happens. I remember some verses in the form of a popular satire which came out of that happening:

In God’s Armaggedon
According to the prophet Maturranga
There will be a lot of taro,
Butter, wine, and rice

June 10 2011

Winning by Knockout, Another Excellent Reason

Juan Juan – My good friend Cepillo, Don Joel Casamayor. Your sports career began in Cuba and continues in the United States. You own all the titles that exist in the amateur and professional boxing. To whom do you owe so many laurels?

Joel Casamayor – Look, brother; I owe that to many. I was born in Guantanamo and live in the US. In Cuba I have my mother, family members, friends, and followers who are always in my prayers, my grandmother died there. Here too I have family, children, friendships. That which I am I owe to my strength, to those who work with me, and those who trust in me, in my family, in the friends who follow me, and to God.

JJ – You invited me to your fight in Las Vegas, and I saw you win. What is your next step?

JC – The next step is to rest, and after a week return to training, to boxing, to knocking out.

JJ – Would you like to go to Cuba sometime to fight?

JC – Sometime? You’re crazy, not only would I like it, I would love to fight in my country for my people. For those people who follow me, who listen to me by hidden radio, who watch me by illegal antennas. I want to take care of my brother, I want to kiss my mother, I want to invite my friends. But when a sportsman decides to leave Cuba, the government punishes him and has to pay for that. It’s something I don’t understand, nor anyone. We have to finish this old fight which is holding us all prisoner. That would be the knockout victory that every Cuban is hoping for.

People can believe that when you’re world champion, your problems are over. But it isn’t that way; my brother is sick in Cuba, he needs me like I need him, why do I have to ask for a permit to enter the house I was born in?

JJ – I’m with you 100%. We can’t respect an entry or exit visa imposed with the objective of stealing and robbing.

Cepillo, what do you think of so many people who laugh about how a boxer speaks?

JC – A boxer? I don’t understand … ahhhh, yes. I think that boxers came to the world to box, writers to write, and those who talk … tell me, Juan, does anyone gain respect by poking fun?

Shoemaker, stick to thy last.

We’ll see each other at my next fight.

March 30 2011

The Peruvian Embassy 1980

JJ – Zenaida Gonzalez Cuétara is a Cuban worker, proud of her origin. She was of those people who, on a not too hot day in 1980, decided to take refuge in guarded premises of the Embassy of Peru.

ZG – I lived at O’Reilly and Aguiar, Centro Habana, until April 5, 1980 when I entered the Embassy of Peru. That day changed my life.

JJ – The Cuban government has repeated over the years that people who entered the embassy of Peru, were all criminals. Is that true, or is it infamy?

ZG – During the terrible ordeal I was 24 and a member of the Union of Young Communists. I worked in the town of Regla in a state enterprise exporting shrimp and lobster. That’s not a crime.

It is true that the situation became chaotic without taking into account the needs of human beings themselves, but all sorts of people in Havana came to the Embassy of Peru, most from upright and educated homes. Look, really, we were not criminals but victims of robbery, outrage, and many violations not only of Cuban officials, but also of some Peruvians who crashed the ambassador’s car to extort money from the Cuban victims of blackmail in exchange for a little sugar, and victims of threats to deprive us of our gold chains. Thus we came to Peru, and the campaign here was destructive.

JJ – That’s just what I want. So that the agreements between both governments were not kept; and remember that many people in Miami and elsewhere in the United States, seem to forget that the Mariel boatlift depended on the sad events of the Embassy of Peru and of those Cubans who, like you now live stranded in Lima.

ZG — That’s right, Mr Almeida, this was terrible here. We’ve gone through everything, fortunately the years have managed to erase much of what happened. I sell Peruvian candy here on the street, I have a 17-year-old son ready for college. That’s what I can do, it has dignity.

JJ — And tell me Zenaida, how Cubans like you, who in 1980 took refuge in the embassy of Peru, how do you live.

ZG — There’s everything. The majority live from working, some live on drugs. I live quite far from that, I have to work. But I invite you to come to Peru, to visit everyone. Everyone, the few who remain. Some left from here, others have died of old age, illness or overdoses… It’s been 32 years, there has been a lot of despair.

JJ — I accept the invitation. I think drugs are simply the result, has anyone been offered a job?

ZG — Never, sir. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has purchased several lots on the outskirts of the city, well away. There we built little houses. But nobody has ever given us work.

JJ — Has the Cuban Embassy or its officials ever done something for you?

ZG — No, never. When a Cuban passport must be renewed, there they are to collect. That’s their greatest aid, to charge you. The last place you would go to seek help is the embassy.

JJ — I know well, but I want to stress – for those who think so – if ever the government of Cuba, in one of its highly publicized humanitarian gestures, has been concerned for you.

ZG — For us? Never.

JJ — For a working person it’s impossible to pay the consular fee, what it costs is highway robbery. But would you not you like to return to your country and show it to your child?

ZG — Sure, sir, of course. I have 15 brothers and sisters in Cuba, isn’t that reason enough to go to my country? I would love to forget spending 32 years missing my family. Hopefully some day it will be within my power to teach my son about his family, his culture, his country. But it’s hard, Sir, every day is very hard. I’m a street vendor, I sell on the streets of Lima, porridge and rice pudding.

JJ  — Now I have to ask the question of sixty-four thousand dollar question. Why did you leave Cuba?

ZG – To look for a better future, another alternative for my life… Could you tell me why you, considering everything, decided to leave Cuba?

JJ — I left my country to be reunited with my family, to receive medical treatment that does not exist in my country, because a profoundly dictatorial system bored me, because I’m not one of those who can practice hypocrisy as a way of life. I was not looking for a future, I was looking for a present, because mind was crap.

Thank you Zenaida, it has been a pleasure talking with you.

March 22 2011

From San Antonio To Maisí, All Cuba Awaits

JJ – Willy, like I told you a few days ago, it was a pleasure to meet you and an honor to see you sing. Tell me something, brother, what is your divine formula — or secret — to sound the same in a theater as on a CD?

W – If you’re asking me which is the biggest blessing God has given me in professional matters, I would answer you that more than singing, playing an instrument, writing a song and even entertaining a public, I think that I know how to make an orchestra sound good, or maybe it’s being able to ask each musician that the result be harmonious and with swing. Besides rehearsing frequently and always demonstrating to my musicians that the first one ready to give it his all is me.

JJ – I like your music, that fusion that you succeed in mixing rock & roll with sound in a masterful way fascinates me. Thought and heart, you’re all alchemist. Why does an artist of your stature, a local idol with an impressive musical presence, stay local and go out so little to explore? Do you do it for comfort, love of your native land, lack of time, or is it a question of opportunity?

W – That isn’t so, this past year we gave concerts in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Tenerife, Belgium, Milan, Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Los Angeles, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and it’s possible I’ve forgotten some other place. Traveling more isn’t what interests me. I like dedicating time to my family, too, to my home and my studio.

JJ – “Ya viene llegando” (“Our Day Is Coming”) is an anthem to nostalgia, a song that makes you dance, cry, think. What happens today with that day you dreamt about in the 90s, that you sing about in 2011, that doesn’t stop coming?

W – That question has different answers.

I prefer to think that we still haven’t stopped burning the karma produced by the crimes committed by our forebears since 1492. But today I feel more optimistic than ever that we see the light at the other end of the tunnel.

JJ – A friend we have in common told me that the present Cuban government (and I say “present” to not speak badly of it) won’t let you enter Cuba. Tell me something, Chirino, with so many people who follow you, you singing from your stage and with many who listen to you, why don’t you raise your voice and help me fight against that violation that the same “present” government uses to be able to dominate, punish, and divide the Cuban family and its own citizens?

W – I have not stopped, nor will I stop raising my voice through my music to denounce the horrors committed by this line of thugs who misgovern my country and demand justice for my people.

JJ – I don’t consider myself a politician; but I have political opinions as I have them about art, religion, sociology or sports. What do you think of those artists who use as a leitmotiv the phrase “I am an artist, and do not politically opine”? Do they say that out of fear, opportunism, or because they know the proverb “There is no more politician than the seeming politician”"?

W – I believe that every Cuban has the responsibility to denounce the reality of our people, no matter where or how he lives.

Words from our Apostle (José Martí): “When we’re dealing with freedom, everything into the fire … even art, to feed the bonfire.”

JJ – A guajiro in Vuelta Abajo came up to me and said to me one day “If the breeze in Pinar makes a sound, it’s from Willy Chirino.”

W – That guajiro went over the top with his commentary. There is no pay nor applause that might be equal to words like those. What a good phrase for my tombstone.

Translated by: JT

A Story from Peru

1 – Yesenia Álvarez, young intelligent, successful….strange combination. Tell me about yourself, this organization over which you preside, your professional and family education, and when and why you had this passion for Cuba.

If in our countries we let our talents flourish in freedom we would not talk about a strange combination. I am sure that many young people in Peru take this path; however, there are a lot of reasons the youth of Peru and Latin America are able to fully enjoy the possibility of being successful if we express our talents without any populist, authoritarian or interventionist State appropriating the product of our work. Freedom, once you achieve it, should be constantly guarded. There is no way of assuring it will last forever. That’s the price of taking it: taking care of it. For this reason, in the IPL, the organization over which I preside, we are committed to spreading and demonstrating the benefits of living in freedom.

I studied law, and since the university, in the first years with my study of the origin of constitutional law, I remained captivated by liberal ideas, so always the situation of freedom and human rights in a long-lived dictatorship like the Cuban one has been my preoccupation since those years. I should add that in Peru as in other Latin American countries, the myth has been created that Cuba, rather the Cuban government, should be a model to imitate for our countries.

When I discovered liberal thought, I felt that I had always been liberal and am now committed to spreading it as a philosophy of life. I wanted to help demystify the supposed “social accomplishments of the Cuban government” that make many people, some certainly intelligent and well-intentioned, be condescending with one of the most perverse dictatorships of the continent.

2 – “Freedom is important to achieve development” is an interesting phrase that is attributed to you on the Internet, and it has generated comments. Aren’t you excluding those who don’t have something so relative and that many call “freedom”?

It doesn’t make it exclusive precisely because the phrase seeks to encourage countries that don’t have freedom to take this path, since where there is freedom there are conditions for each individual to construct his own destiny, there is the possibility of development, opportunities to generate wealth, to be successful, to improve your quality of life, and to accomplish your dreams. When you let someone else choose your future or destiny, which is what the populists and the “welfarists” want, you are condemned to what they elect to give you, and of course experience clearly shows that the life they want to give you is very poor.

What the Cuban government does is for me an example of this. There are many cases, I shall focus on one that ought to merit the indignation of anything called democracy, that is, they say that in Cuba they have the best quality education, but I ask myself, Can you call it education and even more one of quality if the students don’t decide what to study? If in order to study they have to affiliate themselves with thought that is only revolutionary? Can it be the best education if the student can’t decide what to do with that education, if the student can’t improve his quality of life because of an economic system that exploits him? There is nothing like self-development in Cuba from education. Can you call it education if once educated the student cannot read or say what he wants?

I’m speaking of the people, not those privileged ones who are close to power. The ones who exclude are those authoritarian members of government who exclude the citizens from the advantages of freedom. It’s easier to ask for revolution, socialism, a welfare state, the sacrifice of freedom when this sacrifice is for others. I say this in relation to all those who support the regime from outside, saying that “it’s worth sacrificing civil liberties in exchange for social accomplishments” but who are not capable of living in that dictatorship, like those people who are not privileged with power.

The freedom is the absence of those privileges acquired at the cost of the individual people who live in oppression. Freedom is a value and should not be sacrificed in exchange for other values. When it happens it soon becomes noticeable that freedom has been lost and also those values in exchange for which liberty was removed. In the name of a supposed better education those in Cuba who dare to think differently from the government are punished.

3 – In 1980, a small group of Cubans – in my opinion desperate, and on board a bus – broke into the Peruvian embassy. And although many Cubans have forgotten, this one event marked a “before and after” in my country’s history. Tell me, Yesenia, what you know about this, and relate to me, please, how they are now living, these Cuban families who generated the Mariel Boatlift and who remained stranded in Lima; people to whom more than 120,000 Cubans, instead of ignoring them, should owe them eternal gratitude?

There’s a strong bond between Peru and Cuba. I have heard many stories, and all are sad. No one deserves the mistreatment and abuse that those people suffered in their attempt to leave the country. There you can see the evidence of how the Cuban government has been the main separator of families. I don’t understand how people as sensitive as Silvio Rodríguez, García Márquez and others can be so condescending with a dictatorship that has separated Cuban families during all these years. It’s the symbolic story of Cuba, fathers, sons, brothers, families who want to be together and have been separated for years, because many people in exile can’t return.

The desire to flee of thousands of Cubans in 1980 should make us think. According to a recent report, hundreds of people came to Peru and after 30 years there are something like 60 left in Villa El Salvador. You would have to look at these stories, I am very interested in this, of how they managed in those years, those who left Lima, others who did well in Lima and also those who did poorly. Thirty years have passed and are not important.

Today Peru is not the same as then, Today they breathe the air of freedom but with certain barriers that we have to conquer so that we citizens can successfully build our future. We should value the fact that we have freedom of expression, of denouncing corruption, of opposing the abuses that citizens suffer with commercialism, to ask what they do with our taxes and above all the possibility of conquering poverty with our creativity. We should take care of the freedoms that we now enjoy and fight for more freedoms.

“Cuba and the Elephants” seemed to me to be a critical work, demystifying, respectful and real. You are a lover of peace, justice, and a defender of so many noble causes that, unfortunately, as I understand it, are partially lost today. Tell me, why did they expel someone like you from my country, and even more, prohibit you from entering?

For something that doesn’t happen in the middle of the 21st century in an open society. Together with four other Peruvian women I visited the Ladies in White in a public place, at the Church of Santa Rita in Havana. We did it in December 2007, on the eve of the International Day of Human Rights, to express out solidarity with their valiant and heroic effort against the dictatorship.

Even now I remember the fear and the uncertainty of our fate that day, first persecuted by Havana and then interrogated and detained at the hotel, forbidden from leaving and stripped of our passports. If there is something that works well in Cuba, it’s the repressive apparatus. Paradoxically, there we were without rights on the International Day of Human Rights.

5 – It’s been an honor to know you, and I’m pleased to be your friend, Before ending, and because someone like you always arouses the passion of my readers, I would like to ask, are you married or single? Do you know how to sing? Do you like to dance?

It’s also an honor for me to know you, Juan. I admire your work and your bravery which is why I very much appreciate beginning this friendship, which I predict will be long-lasting. I am single, I don’t know how to sing but I enjoy this talent in others. I have been told that I dance very well, although I’m a little old for that. One of my passions is basketball, and I adore movies and television series. Since my childhood I’ve liked to read a lot and to listen to thrilling stories about life. Thank you very much.

Translated by Regina Anavy

January 3 2011

…they will see me fight again in the Sala Kid Chocolate, in the Sports City or in whatever other place…

JJ    Odlanier Solis Fonte, you are a glory of sport and the pride of Cuba. Three-time world champion, Olympic champion in Athens 2004, a personality in professional boxing. Why do you think that the Cuban government – violating its own laws – forbids you to enter your own country?

OS   Look, I ask myself that but I can’t find an answer. There is no reason to put up with this exit permit, nor an entry visa. That affects us all, but soon, someday it will have to change…. These people are not going to be in power forever. We’re Cuban, Cuba is our country. We have to protest, it is not fair, or decent to bear this injustice.

JJ   Yes, we have to protest, but meanwhile, those people who followed you and still follow you from Cuba, and especially from Havana, can’t see you fight.

OS    See, that’s something that hurts. To them I dedicate this fight and victory. But sooner or later they’ll see me fight again in the Sala Kid Chocolate*, in the Sports City* or elsewhere. I’m Cuban and proud of it.

Translated by ricote

*Translator’s note:
Sala Kid Chocolate is an indoor stadium in the center of Havana, near the Capitoilio. Sport City is an athletic complex a few miles out of town, where promising young athletes are sent to live and train, sometimes from childhood, and which houses various sporting venues, and the headquarters of the Cuban Government Sporting Association.