Released after 27 years in prison and solitary confinement, Ernesto Borges gives his testimony to 14ymedio.

14ymedio, Mario Félix Lleonart, 2 May 2025 — Since his release from Combinado del Este prison after 27 years in prison, Ernesto Borges hasn’t stopped. Returning home, reuniting with his family, seeing Havana after almost three decades of not walking its streets, and undertaking numerous bureaucratic procedures, such as applying for an identity card, have tested the former political prisoner’s emotional and physical capacities.
Amidst this maelstrom, Borges spoke with 14ymedio about the long years he spent locked up and the importance of solidarity in cases like his.
14ymedio: Your father has been a constant activist for your release. How has that support been?
Borges: I’ve experienced the support he’s given me with great gratitude. When I look at him at 85 years old and the wear and tear of age, my heart aches, but I also feel a great pride in having him. He’s not just my father; he’s also my friend. I’ve found him worn down by the suffering and helplessness of having a son in prison, but he’s alive, and that’s the most important thing right now.
The interrogator told me that parents who had a child in prison were like sick people.
Once, during an interrogation, the investigator told me that parents who had a child in prison were like sick people, or that they behaved as if they were in constant mourning for the death of a loved one. He was right. I’ve seen it in my father, my brother, and my mother, who has since passed away. continue reading
14ymedio: Huber Matos wrote Cómo llegó la noche (How the Night Came) after 20 years in Prison. Have you read that testimony?
Borges: I read that book in Guanajay prison a few years ago. They managed to get it into prison in two parts, and I really liked it for its frankness, its sincerity, and its humility. But above all, what I remember most is Huber Matos’s description of the Sierra Maestra, where I’ve never been. He describes with such love that time when he was up in the mountains, fighting against [Fulgencio] Batista, and it’s truly moving.
14ymedio: Have you met many political prisoners in jail?
Borges: I met several people from the case of the 75 [of the ‘Black Spring’] who were arrested in 2003, among them Omar Pernet Hernández, Jorge Luis González Tanquero, Osvaldo Alfonso Valdés and Efrén Fernández Fernández, among others who were taken to the Guanajay prison where I was at the time. I also met others at Combinado del Este, like Rafael Ibarra Roque, also Carlitos El Americano, whose name I don’t remember. Anyway, I had contact with several of them, very good people in general.
I also met some protesters convicted for participating in the protests of July 11 and 12, 2021.
It was my turn to comfort them and encourage them. Some, although they had come for political crimes, lacked much political or ideological training; they had reacted purely instinctively to what was happening in the country. Some of them hadn’t even read a book, so I encouraged them and shared my vision. I also met some protesters convicted for participating in the protests of July 11 and 12, 2021, like Dayron Martín Rodríguez , from La Guinera, with whom I became friends because we attended religious services together. He was sentenced to 25 years for the crime of sedition, a person who has suffered greatly. I also had contact with Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, who was exchanged with the United States in December 2014, a person who had also suffered greatly.
14ymedio: How do you survive, physically, but above all, mentally, more than a quarter of a century in prison?
Borges: I must say frankly that I had several advantages in facing such a challenge. First, I was imprisoned very young, barely 32 years old. I was also well-prepared; my work in counterintelligence served me well. The same materials I studied to train the agents I would later turn into double agents helped me prepare and survive isolation and prison. During that time, I also read a lot, studied a lot, and I was determined to learn English. I also opened myself to faith.
My love for Cuba also saved me.
Faith has been a decisive experience for me. If prison has taught me anything, it is that. I spent a lot of time in solitary confinement, unable to vent with anyone about the long interrogations, the threats I received that they would impose the death penalty, or the whole 30-year sentence. My love for Cuba also saved me. I feel an immense love for this country, and life also gave me a wonderful, humble family. My relatives are the unsung heroes of this story. They had to deprive themselves of many things to bring me things in prison. They had to run when I needed medication. They didn’t hesitate to get me the books and study materials I needed to develop myself.
14ymedio: How did you experience the solidarity of activists and exiles?
Borges: The other heroes in this story are the brothers and sisters of the opposition inside and outside Cuba, those who delivered the messages that comforted me so much, even in the most profound loneliness. I’ve overcome so much because, in reality, I was never alone; many people helped me carry the cross. Brothers and sisters from the Catholic, Evangelical, and Protestant churches who have been true disciples of Christ, preaching by personal example. I feel very fortunate for all of that.
My eternal gratitude to those who did not leave me alone.
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