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/ Jorge Olivera Castillo
Men in Peril
Photo: /
I do not know about other places, but in Cuba, the needle and thread serve for some purposes that from the point of view of reason are difficult to acquiesce.
My deceased grandmother mastered these two tools with a great skill. In a jiffy, she could sew pieces that had nothing to envy to those made by my aunt on a Singer sewing machine produced in the United States. It was in the early 1970s and I was still living the innocent years of my existence. A child of eleven or twelve can still look at the world with rose-coloured glasses. I did not see the dark shades of life, and maybe at some point I even felt as if the world belonged to me. Our poverty was dispelled by my eager naivety and by the caring kindness of my mother, who is still with me in this world, and by my deceased grandparents, who continue alive in my best memories. Only when I turned forty-two did I learn that the use of a needle and thread was not restricted to sewing fallen buttons, to shorten trousers or to other tasks which seem simple but are essential in families where misery is a permanent guest. Sewing meat is something quite special. This practice might begin in restaurants or households when you are tailoring some unusual menu for a feast, and might end in Kilo 8, Guamajal, Boniato or in the Combinado Provincial de Guantánamo - to put it simply, in the prison universe of the Republic of Cuba. It was there that I could become acquainted with the grotesque use of the tools that in my grandmother` s hands seemed so noble, if not magical.
While I was in prison, seeing young men sewing their lips with a greasy thread and a rusty needle became one of the pictures that frequented the panorama of my eyes. All the men who underwent this horror trial are carved in my memory just as the grids and fierce arguments. It was one of the first experiences that I had as a prisoner of conscience. Deep in my soul I was astounded at every movement of those who were committing aggressions to their own body. I remember the drops of blood staining the polished floor, the steel spike slowly piercing their skin, the thread following its path of pain, and the agony reflected on their faces. And then there were tied lips and bleeding mouths paralyzed by eight sutures, and other prisoners with looks expressing a wide array of feelings, ranging from indifference to a concealed fright.
My reaction was the latter. Those were not images from a horror film or from a story by Edgar Allan Poe or Horacio Quiroga. Those were one, two or many men submerged in alienation and despair. In such a simple way they opted for a mute, wordless silence and deliberate hunger. In cold blood, they played with the searing pain of martyrdom.
These prisoners who willingly take on this form of protest against the glaring and systematic abuse by jailers have recently been joined by Juan Carlos Herrera Costa. His imprisonment was unjust. He only dared to ask for the establishment of rule of law, crossing the red line the full visibility of which is checked by the political police on a daily basis. He may have made a wrong decision, but the question is: Did he have another option? There is no space for doubts - it has be to admitted that in these places of horror, possibilities are scarce. I can support this with a great deal of evidence.
My fellows who are still helplessly drifting in those stormy waters are always on my mind. In a fatal conjuncture of unfavourable circumstances they literally can die.
Juan Carlos Herrera sewed his mouth in order to denounce all the violations and abuse that the prisoners are faced with. Iván Hernández Carrillo suffers threats from criminals, who want to kill him. They are all men in peril of their lives, innocent human beings enduring their existence on the periphery to where they have been swept. The fact that in Cuba there are 200 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience facing a similar destiny is worth of attention. Therefore, it is time to turn up the volume of all the alarms. Tomorrow it might be too late.
2010-02-09 / Esteban Israel (Reuters)
Cuba travel bill buried in political agenda
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan drive in Congress to end a Cold War-era travel ban on Cuba was buried during the healthcare reform debate but its supporters hope to dig it out this year.
Sponsors of two bills allowing Americans to travel freely to Cuba, introduced last year in the Senate and the House of Representatives, say a flood of dollars from the pro-embargo Cuban-American lobby might also have played a part.
"Support has not waned but it's clear that the debate over healthcare has consumed the first year of the (Obama) administration and has had a similar impact in terms of congressional action," Representative Bill Delahunt, a Democrat and one of the authors of the bill, told Reuters.
Co-sponsor Jeff Flake, a Republican representative, said the votes were there to pass the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act this year but the Democratic majority in the House was divided over whether to take it to the floor for a vote. ...more
2010-02-09 / AFP - Agence France-Presse
Cuba releases all dissidents arrested last week
HAVANA — Cuba has released the last five of a group of 35 dissidents it arrested last week for demonstrating on behalf of a conscientious objector, a Cuban human rights group said.
"The last three dissidents that were jailed since Wednesday were freed on Sunday" and another two were released Friday and Saturday, Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) director Elizardo Sanchez told AFP.
Cuban police arrested and jailed 35 political dissidents in the eastern city of Camaguey, when they were marching in support of Orlando Zapata, whom Amnesty International has declared a prisoner of conscience. He has been in prison since 2003.
The protesters were briefly jailed, then 30 were released.
The demonstrators were protesting "the cruel and inhuman treatment" of Zapata. The CCDHRN said it was concerned over Zapata's health, and called for his unconditional release.
In its January annual report, the group said that there are 201 political prisoners in Cuba.
Authorities on the communist island insist there are no political prisoners, but rather US-financed "mercenaries" jailed for threatening Cuban national security.
2010-02-08 / Marc Frank (Reuters)
Cuba looks to suburban farms to boost food output
CAMAGUEY, Cuba (Reuters) - Cuba has launched an ambitious project to ring urban areas with thousands of small farms in a bid to reverse the country's long agricultural decline and ease its chronic economic woes.
The five-year plan calls for growing fruits and vegetables and raising livestock in 4-mile-wide (6.5 kilometer) rings around 150 of Cuba's cities and towns, with the exception of the capital Havana.
The island's Communist authorities hope suburban farming will make food cheaper and more abundant, cut transportation costs, be less reliant on machinery and encourage urban dwellers to leave bureaucratic jobs for more productive labor. ...more
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