`I regret my hurtful actions'

H/T to Joseito!

Letter to the Editor at the Miami Herald:

In March 2007 I resigned as Special Assistant to President Bush. I did so a week before press reports disclosed that I had been involved in the theft of funds while employed at the Center for a Free Cuba. After months of cooperating, first with the Center, and then with the federal government, I pleaded guilty to one count of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds. For months now, rumors have circulated regarding the nature of the theft. I would like to clear things up.
While I worked at the Center, my assignment was to procure shortwave radios and other equipment to be shipped to Cuba in support of USAID's programs to strengthen civil society on the island. Without the knowledge of the Center's staff or its directors, I bought bulk shipments of radios from the cheapest vendor through two companies that I created and controlled. I then resold the equipment to the Center at a higher price than I paid for it, making my self a de facto middle man and keeping the profits, which I used for personal expenditures.
Though the Center always received the radios and other equipment it ordered at a price and quality equal to previous purchases, it was my obligation to get the best price I could for the equipment and pass it along to the center without making any personal profit.
I breached that duty, violated the trust of an old friend, damaged the reputation and operation of the Center and humiliated my family. My family has been subjected to criticism, speculation and investigation. Furthermore, I violated my own standards of integrity and the sense of honor that my family instilled in me. I committed this betrayal for selfish reasons.
Granma, the Cuban government's daily newspaper, alleged that this theft was a part of a conspiracy orchestrated by Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center, Adolfo Franco, former assistant administrator at USAID, and other USAID officials. Granma also alleged that the funds were used for domestic propaganda, political campaigns and other schemes. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Calzon is an honest Cuban patriot who has dedicated his life to the cause of freedom in Cuba. He was nothing more than a victim of my actions. I regret that they have destroyed our friendship and damaged the organization he worked so diligently to establish. Furthermore, Franco and all officials from USAID with whom I dealt while at the Center and the White House were professionals who worked tirelessly to promote democracy abroad.
I have repaid all the profit I made, with interest, to the Center and I accept full responsibility for my actions. I would like to say that I have made full restitution, but that is not the case. The Center has suffered suspension of its contracts and decreases in funding that I hope will be restored but that I cannot remedy. No matter how many times I say I am sorry, it would not be enough; not enough to restore the honor lost by my family, the Center's reputation and that of its directors, the trust of former colleagues and the delay in freedom for the people of Cuba.
Nevertheless, I regret my actions and am sorry.

FELIPE E. SIXTO, Miami

New World Order?

"The president-elect is coming into office at a moment when there is upheaval in many parts of the world simultaneously," Kissinger responded. "You have India, Pakistan; you have the jihadist movement. So he can't really say there is one problem, that it's the most important one. But he can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It's a great opportunity, it isn't just a crisis."

" I am the senator, doggone it, people really like me?"

Tertulia literaria en Biblioteca Independiente sobre el libro "La sangre de la Libertad".

H/T to Enrique Artalejo for article:

From: roberto de jesus Gerra Perez

Tertulia literaria en Biblioteca Independiente sobre el libro "La sangre de la Libertad".

Por: Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, Periodista Independiente y Director del Centro de Información de la Corriente Martiana (CICM).

Foto de la tertulia literaria en la Biblioteca Independiente Reinaldo Bragado Bretaña.

Para finalizar el año 2008 fue realizada el 23 de diciembre una tertulia literaria en la Biblioteca Independiente Reinaldo Bragado Bretaña, dirigida por Omayda Padrón Azcuy para presentar e hablar sobre el libro La sangre de la libertad de la autoría de Orlando Freire Santana.

"La sangre de la libertad es un libro que gano el premio Frank Kaska 2008 en novela y habla sobre la oposición cubana, agentes represores del actual regimen asi como de los chivatos que salieron a la palestra publica en el 2003 que declararon en contra de 75 disidentes que fueron condenados a largas e injustas penas carcelarias, entre ellos 17 bibliotecarios por realizar lo mismo que hoy estamos haciendo nosotros los aquí presentes" explico Omayda Padrón, al Centro de Información de la Corriente Martiana

La Reinaldo Bragado esta ubicada en la calle 18 numero 5 A e/ Línea y Calzada Ciudad de La Habana., cuenta con más de 800 ejemplares de literatura censurada y presta un servicio también de discos con películas poco conocida y censuradas en la isla.

Omayda denunció el viernes 19 de diciembre al Departamento de la Seguridad del Estado (DSE) y principalmente al agente conocido por Roque quien en la mañana de este dia se presento en su domicilio para una vez mas reprimirla por ella realizar tertulias literarias y otras actividades y amenazarla con llevarla a prisión por reunirse con disidentes ya que tenían información sobre el encuentro.


Foto: Cortesía de Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez.

The 2008 Weblog Awards

I was informed that El Cafe Cubano is one of the finalist for the Best Latino, Caribbean, or South American blog. Thank you to those who nominated this blog, but I feel that Yoani at Generation Y is more deserving of this award. Actually all those who constantly fight for Cuba's FREEDOM deserve this award, those who have died or have been executed deserve this award, the political prisoners in Cuba deserve this award, and ALL the Cubans on and off the island deserve this award. ALL you fellow FREEDOM FIGHTING bloggers deserve this award!

I am not telling you who to vote for(not my style), below are the finalist and please vote your choice:

Best Latino, Caribbean, or South American Blog

Dolar Paralelo
inca kola news
Generation Y
Mujeres camino al éxito
mUsiqUe auTomaTiquE
El Cafe Cubano
Cubanazos
Luz de Luma. yes party!
Mambí en Acción
popnografia

“It goes without saying”

This is the latest article from FREEDOM FIGHTER Jose Reyes, it's on the 50th anniversary of the revolution:

“It goes without saying”
By Jose Reyes
No one in their right mind can possibly tell me or even attempt to convince me or anybody else, that the “Revolucion” has worked in Cuba. Nothing and I mean absolutely nothing positive has occurred in the last 50 years with this brutal, aimless Castro dictatorship. So who is to tell me or anybody else, that the Cuban people will ever be rewarded with any sort of accomplishment? 50 years of misery, is all that any “sane” individual would plainly gather after a general analysis of Cuba now, 50 years ago and every respective year in-between. This is just a general analysis, never mind a “careful” analysis. In that case you can write a book that would rival “War and Peace” in volume, just on detail. Details backed by facts which will prove without a doubt, how useless and pathetic it has been. “It goes without saying”, literally explains it all. You have to be deaf, dumb and blind to even attempt to defend the Castro regime. You have to be an immoral masochist or may I say, an outright devil worshiper, to agree with the self serving “system” there is in Cuba now and for the last 50 years. Unfortunately, there are many out there who actually support the Castro system, but one can plainly see, these individuals all have an agenda behind their sympathizing thinking. Maybe this could be where others seem to miss the point whenever they read about or hear anybody who agrees with the Castro regime. Whether if it is written by the mainstream media or preached in a classroom by a college professor, there is an agenda behind it all. Whether the agenda is a political reason, hatred towards the Cuban Exiles or hatred towards America, these words that are written and these words that are spoken always irresponsibly forget to mention many very important factors. These words are meaningless because there is nothing to back them up. The reason is very obvious but these self-righteous, mislead, controlled, ignorant individuals always steer around the real issues in Cuba. Their Utopian ideals, which govern their thought process, always deny taking into consideration the basic concept of “Human Nature.” Human nature is where Communism always staggers and falls on its face. So for this reason, Cuba only stands for Fidel and “his” revolucion, the Cuban people do not really exist, how could they? The average Cuban in Cuba has no opinion at all, that right is not in the vocabulary. Neither are they allowed to leave the country, no visa. They cannot demonstrate against the Castro regime, long prison terms. So it goes without saying, the Castro regime has done nothing for the Cuban people in the last 50 years that would justify and be considered as positive progress.

What has the Castro regime done for its citizens? Besides, brainwashing them with false promises and enslaving them like dogs, tell me, what good have they done for them. When the average wage of a Cuban citizen is $20 and all their food is rationed. Someone tell me, what have the Cuban people achieved now that their identity has been taken away from them and what will their future be? It is insult to humanity, what is happening in Cuba now and for the last 50 years. A country that competed head to head with the rest of the world, this is an insult to anybody’s intelligence. So honestly ask yourself if you doubt me, what in the world is this 50th annual celebration all about? Also, can someone please tell me, where is Fidel? He’s the one who started this atrosity. He’s the one that deprives and has deprived for 50 years, the very people of Cuba who he supposedly represents. He along with his brother Raul have deprived the Cuban citizens of their dignity and of all their human rights. It goes without saying, this has been the biggest debacle in modern history.

"Nothing changes on New Year's day"

50 years and NOTHING changes for Cuba on New Year's day! 50 years of the castro clan in power and NO INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION? No matter how you slice it up, it's a dictatorship!

"Communist Cuba: 50 Years Of Failure"

50 years..'Boys don't cry"

The media is fawning all over the 50th anniversary of the monstrous revolution. I can't understand how anyone could still defend the dictatorship? 50 YEARS of what?Destruction....imprisonment.....death ....total power in the hands of one family? What has happened to Cuba and Cubans should make even the strongest of will cry, but boys don't cry!

The Cure for Cuba: FREEDOM!

The dictator says he is a terrorist!

Merry Christmas!

Meaning of Christmas? I am still learning and yearning for the TRUE meaning of Christmas. Yes, our Lord savior was born for us, but over the years myself and many need to be reminded of this message. True sacrifice for others, how many have died or are in prison standing up for FREEDOM and for an entire country! You can't put that in a box or in a Christmas card.

We all are given special gifts! God has blessed me with a beautiful, loving, and most caring(should get bonus points for this!) wife and wonderful children!

What more can I ask for?

I have been blessed with the greatest parents! Always there with a smile and a "how can I help you!" I really don't know how to thank you. God bless you my dear parents!

What more can I ask for? I have been blessed with special friends WHO always stand behind me with support! God bless you my friends!

God, THANK YOU for ALL the special blessings!

OyeCubanos.com

Here we have a special Christmas present from Jose Reyes. Click on the title and enjoy!

Carta Abierta

General Abelardo Colomé Ibarra
Ministro del Interior


Sr. Ministro:

A partir del día 10 próximo pasado y hasta hoy, el que suscribe ha recibido la visita de numerosas personas que, de una u otra forma, tuvieron que ver con los acontecimientos del parque Villalón en la ya reiterada marcha en celebración del Día Internacional de los Derechos Humanos que un grupo de compatriotas suele realizar.

Habiendo escuchado con atención a estas personas entre las que hay algunas mujeres, he llegado a algunas conclusiones que me han parecido pertinentes exponer a usted y al resto de nuestros conciudadanos.

En primer lugar, a contrario sensu de lo ocurrido en años anteriores en esta fecha y lugar, es decir, de la brutalidad desatada contra personas desarmadas e indefensas, en esta ocasión las fuerzas policiales uniformadas y no uniformadas se comportaron de forma irreprochable en el trato dado durante la detención, conducción y estadía de estos ciudadanos en las estaciones de policía donde se retuvieron para ser luego liberados y, en ocasiones, hasta devueltos a sus hogares en los vehículos de la policía, horas más tarde.

Esa actitud si se corresponde con el pensamiento del más grande de todos nosotros: “Yo quiero que la ley primera de nuestra república sea el culto de los cubanos a la dignidad plena del hombre”. Salvo en algún caso puntual, ese fue el actuar general de sus hombres. Para Ud., pues, nuestro reconocimiento.

En el segundo aspecto de este asunto, no puedo, desgraciadamente, expresar el mismo beneplácito. Este año, si bien en las condiciones antes expresadas, volvieron a detenerse, esta vez a un grupo mucho mayor, de personas mientras en el Palacio de Convenciones se efectuaba un taller en celebración de tan magna fecha.



La detención de una persona, como sé que Ud. conoce, procede únicamente cuando se sospecha (y no someramente) de la comisión de un delito. Detener a alguien cuando no se ha violado la ley en ningún sentido constituye un acto arbitrario y que en nuestro caso, no se justifica de ninguna manera a la luz de lo expresado por el canciller Pérez Roque en el diario Juventud Rebelde de fecha viernes 29 de febrero de 2008:

“El ministro cubano de Relaciones Exteriores, Felipe Pérez Roque, dijo este jueves que la firma de los Pactos de Derechos Humanos responde a una decisión soberana de un gobierno que nunca ha actuado bajo presión…
Añade que la Constitución de Cuba y su legislación consagran los derechos protegidos por esos Pactos y que las políticas y programas del Estado cubano garantizan la efectiva realización y protección de esos derechos para todos los cubanos.”

Sólo en los casos de excepción pudieran desconocerse los derechos que la Ley otorga a los ciudadanos y, que sepamos, ese estado no ha sido decretado.

Según se nos enseñó en los recintos universitarios, “el cumplimiento de la Ley es obligatorio para todos”: nunca se nos dijo que el Ministerio del Interior constituyera una excepción. Por otra parte, si procede la exigencia de la observancia de las leyes a los ciudadanos, esa exigencia se dobla en el caso de las autoridades por lo que implica la fuerza del ejemplo.

Me placería sobremanera, como lo fue en la primera parte de esta carta, poder constatar en una próxima oportunidad, que en este segundo aspecto de la triada ciudadanía-Derecho- autoridades el Ministerio del Interior, del cual es usted la máxima representación, se torna, cada vez más, garante de los derechos ciudadanos.

De Ud. respetuosa y atentamente,


Wilfredo Vallín Almeida
Licenciado en Derecho
Asociación Jurídica Cubana

The Cubanology Bi-Weekly “Christmas Special”

"In defiance: Cuba's women prisoners"

From the Miami Herald:


BY MYRIAM MARQUEZ
mmarquez@MiamiHerald.com

She spent 16 years, nine months and four days in Fidel Castro's prisons, but it's what happened on Dec. 7, 1969, that still torments Georgina Cid.
That cold dawn, prisoner Cid was ushered into a room in a forced-labor farm outside Havana with the government-imposed Orwellian name of America Libre, Free America. Two interrogators delivered an impossible ultimatum as a simple choice: Snitch on your group's anti-Castro activities -- on lacausa, the cause -- or we'll kill your older brother, who had been running CIA-backed raids on the island from Miami.
Cid had already lost her younger brother, Eladio Jr., to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista during a shootout at the Haitian Embassy, where he had been hiding in 1956. And now, facing these two men -- just months after her father, Eladio Sr., had died of a heart attack in state custody under questioning -- she was supposed to help the regime?
'I told them, `Look, I am willing to give my life for my brother's because he is better than I am and more useful than I am,' '' said Cid, catching her breath while wiping tears from her face at her Miami home recently. ' `But I can't do that. This is a struggle, and I can't risk anyone's security to save even those dearest to me.' ''
Francisco ''Paco'' Cid -- bruised, emaciated, his once sturdy muscles hanging from bone as he hugged his imprisoned sister for the last time -- was executed by a firing squad, leaving his widow, Ofelia Rodríguez, in prison and a young son.
TOUGH CHOICES
Thousands of women like Georgina Cid had to make tough choices. While Cuban male political prisoners have long captured the media limelight, the women have mostly kept their memories private.
When set free in the 1970s and 1980s, these women set out to rebuild their lives in South Florida. Some earned university degrees; others worked menial jobs. Many married former political prisoners -- men who understood their pain and pride.
Now in the twilight of their battle, the former women prisoners who are left -- many of them called plantadas because they were firmly planted against the regime and refused Marxist reeducation programs -- share a precious bond. Their stories, rarely told outside Cuban exile circles, stand as testament to these women's grit and defiance at a time when most women -- Cuban and American alike -- were expected to be prim and proper homemakers, not gun-toting conspirators for democracy.
Cid was just shy of her 25th birthday when she was sentenced in 1961 to 20 years for hiding a gun ''to conspire against the powers of the state'' -- against a revolution she had embraced after Eladio Jr.'s death.
When she arrived in Miami in 1979, she had become, like so many of the ferociously hopeful Cuban women of her era, a symbol of proud suffering, never cracked by jailers in a bloody, dysfunctional regime that sought to break them.
Most of the imprisoned women had championed the revolution but turned against it once Castro stopped talking about building a big political tent for democratic ideals, and started building prisons instead.
So the women hid young conspiracy-hatchers, cooked up Molotov cocktails, moved weapons and distributed anti-Castro pamphlets.
They stole their Fidelista father's guns for the underground, learned to set up a radio station to incite the masses, or, like Zoila Aguila, known as La Niña del Escambray, took to central Cuba's hills to fight the new revolutionary army. They did everything and anything in the hope that the citizenry would find the nerve to rise up against a communist takeover of their young country. It was a tough sell in a climate of fear fed by hours of bloody executions showcased on TV.
In prison, the women were punished relentlessly, which only brought them closer -- a ragtag sisterhood as diverse as it was united. Poor campesinas like Olga Rodríguez Morgan and Aracelis Rodríguez San Roman mixed in with the once upper crust of Cuban society, such as lawyer Albertina O'Farrill, who had been an ambassador's wife during the Batista years, and Polita Grau, the niece of a former Cuban president, Ramon Grau San Martín, who lived to regret his early support for Castro.
A prisoner's smuggled testimony to the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights detailed the violence on Mother's Day, 1961:
There were a hundred of us women prisoners in Guanabacoa, and they wanted to transfer us to Guanajay, where the conditions were unbearable. . . . The prison was completely surrounded by about 600 armed men and women. . . . They turned [on] water hoses, with a pressure of 200 to 300 pounds. . . . There was one prisoner who was six months pregnant, and they aimed the hose directly at her stomach to make her abort. Many of us ran to protect and cover her with our bodies. The pressure of the water left a deep mark on our skin for about two months.
''From a humanitarian point, independent of what we thought politically and respecting each other's beliefs, we stood together,'' recalls Miami librarian Luisa Pérez, who was among the women who dived in front of a very pregnant Raquel Romero to protect her from the powerful fire hoses. The baby survived. ``If they touched a hair on one of us, all of us would come out to defend her.''
Pérez, Cid, Morgan and Ana Lázara Rodríguez are among the dozens of women who survived that violent Mother's Day behind bars, coming just weeks after the exiles' failed, CIA-hatched Bay of Pigs invasion.
Cid had just returned to her cell after a visit from her mother when she heard ''these terrible screams.'' The women started to bounce off the packed cell door to break the lock and join the fight.
In Diary of a Survivor: Nineteen years in a Cuban Women's Prison, Rodríguez describes the scene as ``a kaleidoscope of flying fists and swinging feet. . . . Casualties were falling on both sides. . . . But the men had the advantage of size, numbers and weapons.''
PLANNED VIOLENCE
When the riot broke out in the yard at the Guanabacoa prison, Morgan was being punished in her cell. ''I was in Galley 5, and I'd been digging a hole to escape, so when we saw so many militiamen outside, I thought the authorities had discovered the hole. But no, it was a trap to transfer some women to Guanajay, and to beat up the mothers and families who had come to see us,'' said Morgan, who now lives in Ohio with her husband, James Goodwin.
''That was an important moment,'' Morgan said. ``In that moment, we began to see ourselves as one.''
Morgan was a guajira -- a country girl -- who grew up in the tobacco region in a little house with a dirt floor in the kitchen and dining room. As a student leader in Santa Clara, she had fallen in love with William Morgan, the fabled yanqui comandante in Castro's rebel force.
After Castro's triumph, the pair were relegated to running a revolutionary frog farm in Pinar del Río province, and an unhappy William soon began to conspire against Castro's tilt toward communism. Arrested in October 1960, William Morgan was executed five months later. By Mother's Day, 1961, Olga Morgan had left her two baby girls to her mother. She was now an imprisoned widow, sentenced to 30 years.
Guanajay scared the women because it was built for the most violent common criminals during the presidency of Grau San Martín in the late 1940s. As Castro's regime cracked down, prisons like Guanajay were packed with six to 10 women in a cell built for one.
Among the prisoners at Guanajay: Grau's niece, Polita, accused with her brother Ramon of counterrevolutionary activities, including helping 14,000 Cuban children escape to the United States through the Catholic Church's Pedro Pan program.
From an OAS report on July 4, 1962, on a transfer from Guanajay to Baracoa prison:
A new system of iron discipline was imposed at Guanajay. Punishment without cause became constant. At noon on July 4, they . . . called off 25 by name followed by the word, ''Transfer.'' The courtyard turned into a battle scene. Yelling, insults, threats, blows, profanity, curses, the noise of broken heads, blood. . . . A young black, Juana Drake, was taken out of her cell and beaten all the way by a militiaman who screamed at her, ''Walk, you black bitch!'' This young woman was resentenced to another three years with the female criminals because she wrote a sign on the wall in English, Spanish and French, which said, ``We have the right to be free.''
In all, 65 women were taken from Guanajay to Baracoa, including Maria Amalia Fernández del Cueto and her baby daughter, Amadita, then only 23 days old and who barely survived the trip. The Baracoa cells had lice and rats, and there was no medical care, except for any help that prisoners Caridad de la Vega and Isabel Rodríguez, both doctors, would lovingly dispense to their younger cellmates.
''For six months, they had us there,'' said Gloria Argudin, who was a 20-year-old University of Havana secretary when her father, a Fidelista doctor, ran the campus clinic. One day, she decided to take some of his weapons and head for the Escambray Mountains. She was caught conspiring against Castro's government in 1960.
Argudin was the only woman with a band of 12 men in two cars hauling grenades, guns and radio equipment. Five men were sent to the firing squad in that show trial, attended by 2,000. Cuba's Bohemia magazine described them as former revolutionary rebels gone bad, beholden to the ``imperialist monster to the north.''
CHILLING MEMORY
To this day, Argudin gets chills on high-rise balconies -- the legacy of having been dangled off the roof of a tall building, part of her interrogation after being ''shot'' by soldiers with fake bullets in front of a ditch. ''I never cry in those moments,'' she said in her Little Havana apartment. ``I just get more furious.''
Friends like Gladys Chinea, who was in prison with Argudin, recall how guards would taunt her with threats that her friend would be facing the paredón -- execution by firing squad.
'We would hear, `Gloria Argudin, paredón!' '' Chinea said. ``On those nights, we would all tremble.''
After Baracoa, the 65 women and the baby were returned to the Guanajay prison in 1963. They soon found a new revolutionary method of torture: Tapiadas, or covered cells.
''Our arrival was terrible,'' Morgan said. ``Each time one of us got down from the van, they would grab you and pull you and beat you up the stairs. Several of us were badly injured.''
Eventually, some of the women would be stripped of their clothes and thrown into newly built cells with concrete slabs covering windows and a metal door that barely allowed a food plate and tiny pink cup to be slid through the slot. It baked in the tropical sun. The Internacional, the communist anthem, played incessantly.
''The cells were made by sick minds, by people who thought they could take away our strength, our principles, our ideas,'' Morgan said. ``But they were wrong.''
Miami historian Pedro Corso, a former Cuban political prisoner whose group, Instituto de la Memoria Histórica Cubana contra el Totalitarismo, documents the regime's human-rights abuses, calls the women prisoners ``unique to their time, often suffering more abuses than many of the men.''
That suffering made them stronger. They would sing and crack jokes and taunt their jailers. And pray.
Grau, who died in South Florida in 2001, loved to play guitar and formed Christmas choruses to sing religious songs banned by the atheist regime.
At Nuevo Amenecer, or New Dawn, a perverse misnomer for a work-camp prison in Havana province, Rodríguez San Roman remembers how excited the young women would get when Grau talked about her years as Cuba's first lady during her uncle's presidency. Rodríguez, Grau and La Niña del Escambray were among the last plantadas there in the late 1970s.
Rodríguez came from a big family of 11 siblings, country folks who grew rice, tobacco, malanga and corn in Pinar del Río. With only a sixth-grade education, Rodríguez is scrappy smart. She kept the books for the Frente Union Occidental, the Eastern Union Front, an anti-Castro group her uncle ran to disrupt commerce by bombing bridges.
That uncle, Esteban Marquez Novo, escaped to the United States, trained with the CIA, and returned to Cuba to run missions and bring out some of his nephews between 1961 and 1964.
Two of Rodríguez's brothers also returned on May 13, 1964. Gilberto was killed in combat. ''He had a machine gun, so he killed two or three of them,'' Rodríguez said. Her brother Arsenio escaped but was on the lam for almost a quarter century -- hiding in Cuba until he left on a boat.
When news of nephew Gilberto's death reached Marquez Novo, who ran the Frente, he grabbed his pistol and killed himself.
That same day, Rodríguez, her father, uncle and another brother were hauled away. She was taken to the G-2 security office in Pinar del Río. They wanted her to identify her brother Gilberto's body. She was taken down a hall to a pile of clothes on the floor.
''They were full of blood,'' she said, her voice breaking, ``but I didn't see the body. For years, I didn't know if he was really dead.
''History can be so horrible,'' she said. ``No one imagines.''
In 1979, Rodríguez left Nuevo Amanecer and came to Miami, among 3,000 political prisoners released by Cuba. She was 39 and about to be married to another prisoner. Since widowed, Rodríguez now takes care of her 98-year-old mother and her 94-year-old uncle, Ramon San Roman Novo, who spent 24 years behind bars.
HALF A CENTURY
Fifty years. Families decimated by firing squad, suicide, guerrilla raids and long imprisonments. Women set free too old to have children.
Hate? No. But justice, sí.
''I'm one of those people who doesn't forgive or forget,'' said Gladys Ruisanchez, who served 10 years in prison. Her father and her future husband were also imprisoned.
Today, Ruisanchez helps organize events to bring the women together -- and find ways to help the opposition in Cuba, groups like the independent Democratic libraries run from people's homes and the families of ex-prisoners who remain in Cuba.
Cid says her imprisonment gave her the chance to meet women ``with a lot of morals and spirituality. We cared for each other and still today continue doing so because we shared a common suffering.''
Turning a page of her late mother's memory book, which contains hundreds of Cid's numbered letters from prison, Cid spots a yellowed Cuban exile newspaper's clipping about her brother's death, with the headline: ``Cuba will be free because of the sacrifice of its sons.''
And its daughters.

“La oposición celebró Día Internacional de los Derechos Humanos en las comisarías”

Por Dr. Darsi Ferrer
La Habana, 15 de diciembre de 2008.

La oposición dio una gran lección de dignidad, de madurez cívica y determinación en su lucha por el reconocimiento y la protección de los derechos y libertades de todos los cubanos, el pasado 10 de diciembre, al celebrar en las comisarías el Día Internacional de los Derechos Humanos, luego de que la seguridad del estado impidiera la realización de la tradicional Marcha en el parque Villalón, frente a la sede de la UNESCO.
Como ya es habitual, el gobierno desconoció el derecho a manifestarse pacíficamente de los activistas convocados a conmemorar la magna fecha, con una Marcha en silencio, sin consignas ni carteles. Acción que sólo está concebida para festejar la importante conquista de la humanidad, y promover el cumplimiento de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas que recoge esos principios.
En esta ocasión, aunque se mantuvo la política oficial de obstaculizar la actividad, la seguridad del estado cambió la estrategia, no utilizó el método de años anteriores, 2006 y 2007, cuando organizó turbas de personas violentas que, con total impunidad, agredieron física y verbalmente a los indefensos activistas de derechos humanos. El gigantesco despliegue de la policía política se concentró en interceptar a los convocados en las proximidades del parque y exigirles que regresaran a sus casas. Otros activistas tuvieron la visita de oficiales de la seguridad desde el día anterior para amenazarles y advertirles que no podían acercarse a la sede de la Marcha.
De los más de 50 opositores conducidos a las comisarías muy pocos fueron arrestados de primera intención, pues la mayoría exigió ser detenidos al impedírseles llegar al parque. En las comisarías los arrestados celebraron dignamente el 60 aniversario de la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos cantando el himno nacional, además de corear las frases de vivan los derechos humanos y viva la libertad.
Se conoció que decenas de opositores que pretendían viajar desde sus provincias para participar en la Marcha también fueron detenidos en Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Santi Espíritu, Villa Clara, varios municipios de la Habana y Pinar del Río.
Mientras, en el Palacio de las Convenciones se efectuó un taller internacional con motivo de la celebración del Día Internacional de los Derechos Humanos, que contó con la asistencia de reconocidas personalidades internacionales y autoridades del gobierno de Cuba, sin que se presentara contratiempo alguno y con todas las garantías en el aseguramiento de su realización.
Los hechos demuestran con claridad las violaciones sistemáticas, de manera institucionalizada, de las libertades y derechos elementales que sufren las personas con pensamiento político distinto al que impone el gobierno. Además, es obvio el desprecio que manifiestan las autoridades del país por su propia legislación jurídica, y por los compromisos que han contraído internacionalmente, pues Cuba es firmante y signataria de la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos y miembro fundador del Consejo de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas, y hace unos meses firmó los Pactos de Derechos Políticos y Civiles y Económicos, Sociales y Culturales de las Naciones Unidas, los que pronto serán ratificados, según recientes palabras del canciller cubano.
Es interés de los activistas de derechos humanos privados del derecho a manifestarse públicamente y víctimas de las reiteradas violaciones y delitos de parte de los oficiales de la policía política, entablar una demanda jurídica contra el ministro del interior, Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, por ser el principal responsable de la discriminación a la que son sometidos y, para ello, recurrirán a los servicios de la Asociación Jurídica Cubana, que agrupa en la nación a más de una decena de abogados, así como apelar a la cooperación, asesoramiento y representación de personas de buena voluntad u organizaciones internacionales relacionadas con la materia de los derechos humanos.
También se ha decidido convocar públicamente a todos los cubanos para que participen el próximo 18 de marzo en un acto simbólico en solidaridad con los presos de conciencia, el que consistirá en presentarse en alguna comisaría y exigir ser detenido como mínimo hasta las seis de la tarde. La acción no representa un acto de desobediencia civil, tampoco se trata de una demanda de excarcelación de los luchadores por las libertades y derechos del pueblo cubano, simplemente radica en compartir el sufrimiento de esos hermanos, injustamente condenados, pasando unas horas en condiciones similares a sus encierros. Es hora de convertir cada aniversario de la Primavera Negra del 2003 en el Día de la Dignidad.
Nota: Anexo listado parcial de algunos de los detenidos el pasado 10 de diciembre, en relación con la tradicional Marcha del parque Villalón, en las proximidades de la UNESCO-

Alfredo Guilleuma Rodríguez. Daniel Almeida Cuba. Jesús Almeida Cuba.
Yusnier Osorio López. Lázaro Monzón López. Pedro Moisés Calderin Tápanes.
Rafael Ernesto Ávila. Vladimir Calderón Frías. Alfredo Montaner Ramos.
Julián Guerra Deriet. Zoila Hernández Díaz. Yasmany Yi Martínez.
Miguel López Santos. Alexis Rodríguez Zapata. Miguel Amado Reyes Fonseca.
Raicel Rodríguez Rivera. Pedro Fontanals Miranda. María Cristina García Mazona.
Joaquín Sarduy Gómez. Nelson Herrera Ayala. Raquel Castillo Urquiza.
Miguel Alvarado Marrero. Raúl Montanel Herrera. Carlos Raico Pupo Morgado.
Wiliam Prior Peña. Jesús Adolfo Reyes Sánchez. Jorge Omar Lorenzo Pimienta.
José Antonio Labera Almosa. Juan Gilberto Hernández Molina. Aramis Batista Callamo
Carlos Manuel Pupo Rodríguez. Yusnaimy Jorge Soca. Darsi Ferrer Ramírez.

Friday Fast for ALL Political Prisoners in Cuba

Coming to a theatre near you: Brokeback Island!

A smile from a father

This past Thanksgiving weekend we took off on a short 1 day road trip..nothing special..just the family spending time together. Well since we have a large family something is always bound to happen, our oldest son was not feeling well and he vomited all over the back seat. We drove to a gas station and we spent over 2 hours cleaning the back seat and the floor! I was not a happy camper. My son's clothing were full of you know what, so my wife stopped at a discount store to buy him a shirt. She gives him the shirt and I hear "I AM NOT GOING TO WEAR THAT!"

So I bark back: "Put it on now" and he responds; "dad, I can't wear this, this is what Fidel Castro wears!"

I look back and it's a Adidas shirt!

At that moment my anger disappears!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The comemierdas R Us Club!