A Hunted Hunter / Luis Felipe Rojas

Lieutenant Colonel Roilan Cruz Oliva (left) and Lieutenant Luis Quesada (Right). The latter is now being accused of violating a minor in Holguin.

On March 24, 2010 when the political police deported me from Bayamo, Granma to Holguin, they took me directly to the G2 Operations Barrack located in the neighborhood of Pedernales. Lieutenant Colonel Sabuco, a notable oppressor known for his abuses and his aggression against dissidents, was waiting for me there.

The instructor (investigator) I was assigned to was Lieutenant Luis Quesada, who at first seemed like a person who wanted to portray an image of a joyful kind of guy in the eyes of others. He walked in with the technique of trying to win me over, of mentioning two or thee places in Santiago de Cuba where he said he had studied. He spoke to me about sports and a few other things until he asked me what I was doing in Bayamo. I responded to him, telling him that the information had a price and that he’d have to extract that confession from me through torture, but of course, he quickly argued that the revolution does not torture anyone. When we spoke a bit more and interchanged some opinions, he told me that he had been in the home of Cari Caballero in December of 2009. I told him that everyone knew that, that he had been denounced by everyone for kicking open the door of the house, for taking part in dragging activists who were protesting when Zapata was on hunger strike. Remember?

Luis Quesada boasted in my face about kicking that door open and perhaps about kicking some ribs as well.

Today, Lieutenant Luis Quesada is being held in that same detention center where he tried to recruit me, where he asked me to tell him who was going to my house and why. In that barracks of Pedernales, in Holguin, where so many non-violent dissidents have slept on the floor, put up with the rigorous cold, the heat, and the insects, is where Luis Quesada is detained awaiting his sanction for the crime of having violated two minors, a 13 year old girl and a 15 year old girl, a case which is currently under investigation and which has not yet concluded…and perhaps they will never do it.

In the picture I have posted above, one can see Lieutenant Luis Quesada next to now Lieutenant Colonel Roilan Cruz Oliva, who at the time of Zapata Tamayo’s death was a Major and served as second in command of Department 21′s Confrontation of Enemies section. He was directly in charge of Zapata. When the death occurred, at one point he even told Reina Tamayo Danger that the martyr should have never been sent to Camaguey, which destroyed all accusations made by the regime of Havana. Reina can affirm this. In the photo, both these men are standing in front of the mob which, until recently, was blocking the surroundings of La Guira cemetery in Banes. Surely on that morning they saw how the paramilitary troops kicked and insulted (as usual) men and women who long for freedom.

Translated by Raul G.

19 August 2011