Category: Mario Felix Lleonart

My Encounters With Popieluszko / Mario Lleonart

With my brother in Christ Dagoberto Valdes during the homages to Jerzy Popieluszko

In June of 2013 I travelled for the first time to Poland and made an inevitable visit to the tomb of the Polish martyr Jerzy Popieluszko. All the way from distant Cuba, Popieluszko for me embodied the logical challenge of faith in the face of a totalitarian system that is an enemy of God.

If in life Popieluszko more than fulfilled his pastoral duty of defending his fold against the wolf, in death he showed the world the utter impotence of a regime capable of resorting to assassination to silence a prophet, and clearly put in contrast the borders between good and evil in the Poland of 1984.

My return to Poland in October 2014 coincided with the 30th anniversary of the crime agains Popieluszko, and constituted a theological lesson on the implications of the martyrdom of the saints – in particular, the eschatological truth of the Resurrection and the Christian hope that celebrates as ever-living those exceptional beings such as Popieluszko, even though their remains still rest in their tombs.

Here I am in the church with the sister and brother of Popieluszko

This time my pilgrimage was not in solitude in search of a site of mystical quietude, as in 2013. It was more like a grain of sand among compact multitudes who were expressing our admiration and remembrance of the good pastor who did not flee when he saw the wolf approaching. At the same time, we were celebrating the fruit of his sacrifice: democracy and liberty in today’s Poland.

Among the first changes evident after 1989, perhaps imperceptible among many enormous and transcendent transformations, was the inclusion (a happy initiative of Lech Walesa’s) of a chapel in no less than the symbolic Presidential Palace – which would have been inconceivable during the period of totalitarian misrule.

Expression of liberties gained constitutes proof that the physical death of the martyr Popieluszko, rather than rendering him invisible, immortalized him to his people and amplified the values and virtues that he preached and practiced in life.

A radiant sun on Sunday, October 19, provided an extraordinary setting — as if in respite from the harsh, quasi-wintry days of autumn — to thousands of Poles and hundreds of citizens from the world over gathered at the place that guards the remains of the martyr who awaits his resurrection.

It was the natural testimony of the celebration in heaven and on earth honoring the the life that Death did not cut short, an evangelical reaffirmation that there are some who kill physical bodies, but they cannot kill souls. Blessed Poland that has her Popieluszko as a sign that in her, the wolves could not — without pastoral resistance — attack the sheep, who in fact chased away the wolf that attacked their pastor.

Multitudes at the tributes to Popieluszko
Multitudes at the tributes to Popieluszko

Happy Poland for not accepting the lament (in other contexts a fitting one) in “Ring Them Bells” by Bob Dylan: “Oh the shepherd is asleep/ where the willows weep/ and the mountains are filled with lost sheep.” God willing that in any part of the world where, as in Cuba, wild beasts have their lair, there be pastors like Popieluszko capable of facing them down, true to their calling, even — were it necessary — unto the sacred privilege of martyrdom.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

29 October 2014

Lech Walesa: “Cubans need responsible leaders” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Lech Walesa during the conversation with Cuban activists, with his translator Tomasz Wodzyński
Lech Walesa during the conversation with Cuban activists, with his translator, with his translator Tomasz Wodzyński

The Nobel Peace Prize winner speaks with several Cuban activists on the situation of the island and the possibilities for democratic change

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Warsaw, 21 October 2014 — Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa had an agreement that death annulled. The two would go to Havana when the democratic transition occurred to support the process of political and civic reconstruction in our country. The “Cuban change,” however, has been too long delayed and the Czech died before realizing his dream. The Solidarity leader, meanwhile, has only been able to have contact with the island through dissidents visiting Poland.

Yesterday, Monday, Walesa talked for more than two hours with a group of activists from diverse provinces and political leanings. It was if a piece of Cuba had arrived in the autumn cold of Wasaw. I share here with the readers of 14ymedio the first part of that conversation.

Lech Walesa: Tell me what can I do to help speed up the democratization process in your country. Am I likely to see a Free Cuba before I die?

Dagoberto Valdés. I have good news for you and a suggestion of how you can help. A significant and growing group within Cuban civil society has identified four points on which we agree and which are demands to the regime. It is a way of organizing ourselves, but not the only one. There are other agendas, but I will now read the four issues on which we converge: the release of political prisoners, the ending of political repression, ratification of International Covenants on Human Rights, and recognition of Cuban civil society as a legitimate interlocutor. You could collaborate with us to disseminate these and support them in international forums.

Lech Walesa: I like those points, but I would add a fifth which would be to ask that “Raul Castro leave power,” because I think when the previous four are achieved it will be because the current system has been dismantled. If the rulers accept that agenda, that would mean that they would lose power immediately. So I think that they will never approve them, but in any event I support them.

I like those points, but I would add a fifth which would be to ask that “Raul Castro leave power”

Yoani Sánchez: You wonder when you can visit a free Cuba, but for now what has happened is that a fragment of an already free Cuba has come here. A plural, diverse and growing group of Cubans, who behave as free beings, have come to Warsaw this week. Isn’t that hopeful? continue reading

Lech Walesa: Wherever there are two Poles there are three political parties and from what I see wherever there are two Cubans there are five political parties. You have to be very well prepared and organized, not only for what you are doing now but for what comes next.

Once democracy is achieved there are very important elements that have to be considered and one of them is creating laws that protect the rights of the people. However, if they already exist, than you have to ask yourself if people are using them to behave like citizens, if they are enjoying the legality they have and are organizing themselves in accordance with it. Another important part is economic resources. If people are afraid of showing their political differences because they will lose their jobs or resources, this greatly limits democratic activism.

While some help to create the laws, others have to teach people to use them and one part of that is that you must prepare financial proposals.

Yoani Sánchez: In the case of Cuba, recent years have also been characterized by a loss of the government’s monopoly on information. Numerous independent publications have emerged and new technologies help people to be better informed. Do you think this flow of information will help bring about change?

Lech Walesa: I am a big user of the new technologies, I always have a computer or tablet nearby. However, although technology and information are very helpful in any democratic process there is also information that can slow it down.

One day, after the transition, I was speaking with a Polish soldier who had had a high position in the Communist regime. I asked him why the military had not participated actively in the democratic struggle. His response was very interesting. He told me that in the barracks they that knew all the major Polish cities were targeted for a Soviet military attack. They had missiles pointed at those cities. Many people did not know, but the military itself was aware it. They feared that the USSR, with the push of a button, could erase a third of our country. Knowing too much paralyzed them, the responsibility this information brought them made them opt for passivity.

We were lucky that a Polish pope was appointed (…). He joined us… and the opposition learned to channel that feeling of unity

Dagoberto Valdés. With this control and all the threats of a foreign force how did Poland free itself? Did the spiritual power of the nation help?

Lech Walesa: For over twenty years I was looking for people to join me to overthrow communism, but very few wanted to join. We had a more difficult situation here because our country came to be occupied by more than two hundred thousand Soviet soldiers and people were enormously afraid. Our struggle was different, for too long we couldn’t organize because the government had a very simple formula against us: disperse, divide and dissolve the democratic forces. We were lucky that a Polish pope was appointed. He joined us first in prayer and faith, but afterwards the opposition also learned to channel that sense of unity brought to us by John Paul II.

Before the appointment of Karol Józef Wojtyla as Pope, I could not muster even ten people, and then ten million joined in. He awakened the nation and said “do not be afraid.”

Mario Felix Lleonart: I would like to say that even though you are not able to travel to the island, the government is very annoyed that you are receiving activists in Poland. The official press has published several articles against you. What message would you like to send to those who are in opposition in our country?

Lech Walesa: During the years of change in Eastern Europe, the Cuban opposition was not as organized and could not use that democratizing energy. Maybe that’s why you have had to wait so long. However, in the eighties when I was asking people whether they believed that Poland could democratize, everyone answered me no, we had no chance. The forecasts were very unfavorable.

You are in this situation now, because few believe you can change. Sure, they said the same thing to us, but you should wake up and find those values—which every nation has—and in these is the unifying force. If you find them and bring them together you can achieve it. You need a multitude of people who say, “Starting tomorrow we are going to change our country.” Who don’t just believe it but who take to the streets, who go into the factories to convince others. For this you have to have structures. You need responsible leaders.

My Experience in Coral Park: The Church-Synagogue / Mario Lleonart

The temple of the First Baptist Church of Coral Park: “The Whale”

It was my Sunday of rest in the United States (July 20), on this voyage that I made, between July 9th and August 6th, leading a small delegation that included my wife and daughters, and four other brothers of our church in Cuba. It was my day to be seated to receive the Word.

The previous Sunday I preached in the Baptist church “Star of Bethlehem,”  in Hialeah; and in the nearly two weeks of the journey that remained, they hoped that I would preach to at least four more congregations: “Jesus Worship Center (www.iglesiadoral.org)” of Doral; the “First Hispanic Presbyterian Church” of Tampa; the “Christian House: JWC” of Kissimee; and the “Hispanic Baptist Church” of Naples. It was very opportune that this Sunday was included, because I had done so much speaking in the previous day that I had ended up literally without a voice.

The stained glass window of the Star of David

First Baptist Church of Coral Park is the congregation where brothers worship deeply and with great love for Cuba that today they wanted to dedicate to us their Sunday and their church. The same church in which pastored the well-remembered Rev. Jorge Comesañas whose name, unsurprisingly, was given to one of the neighboring streets, and especially to whom they arrived from their broken isle seeking healing for their wounds. continue reading

The sign of the street named for Rev. Jorge Comesañas

The congregation is composed largely of Cubans, as is its pastorate, as well, although its web page (coralpark.org) reports that its members come from twenty-five different nations. This very Sunday its current pastor, Carlos Tellez, who many remember as pastor in Santo Domingo and Madruga, in Cuba, completed his first year of ministry in this church, of the twenty-eight that he has completed as pastor.

Known locally as “the whale” due to its distinctive architectural form, the temple served as a synagogue from its completion until 1986. The church has respected one of  the  conditions stipulated in the sales contract: that the building’s Jewish symbols be retained.

The street with the name of the pastor

That is why both inside and outside one can still see stained glass windows with unmistakable Stars of David. But in addition to its surface decoration, the whale retains something of a Jewish spirit.

I felt this when a group of visitors, including myself, were welcomed — in Hebrew no less — with verses to a well-known song: “Hevenu shalom aleichem, Hevenu shalom aleichem, Hevenu shalom aleichem, Hevenu shalom, Shalom. Shalom aleichem” When prayers were later offered for peace in Jerusalem, I had no doubts.

In these days of clamoring for true peace for Jews and Palestinians that do so much harm to each other, and of condemning the terrorist organization Hamas, I rejoice in attending congregations such as these that remember so well the sequence of a historic Christianity that was born in the synagogues and that was moved to similar churches, and that are debtors of them.

The church-synagogue from the inside.

And although this Sunday I rested from preaching the message with which I came this time to the US: “From the end of the earth to Jerusalem,” after, of course, having proclaimed it first in Cuba; I continued in the same spirit and each time more convinced of the word of the apostle Paul when he cited Isaiah and Jeremiah in Romans 11:26b-11:27: “As it is written: there will come out of Zion a Savior, that will take away the impiety of Jacob. And this will be my pact with them, when I forgive their sins.”

And it is the most admirable, and Jewish of the synagogue-church of Coral Park, that it proclaims the only one capable of giving peace both to the Jews as well as to the Palestinians: Jesus the Messiah, who gave his live on the cross for ALL.

Translated by: Diego A.

22 July 2014

Retired but Not Gone Away / Mario Lleonart

On Friday, November 22, we made another stop on our U.S. itinerary that we will never forget. At the invitation of the Fellowship of Hispanic Churches, we participated in a tribute paid to retired pastors. Honor to whom honor is due, or as the Scripture says in Hebrews 13:7: ̈ Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you; Consider the result of their conduct, and imitate their faith.”

This special occasion took place in Gethsemane Baptist Church in Miami at 5298 NW 7th St. The meeting was full of fond feelings. The pastor of the local church Felipe Rodriguez, moderator of the radio program “Building Lives,” which airs daily from 7 – 8 p.m, on 1450 AM, who was in an evangelistic campaign in our church in Taguayabon in 1993 while serving as pastor in Regla, blessed everyone with a few inspired words from Galatians 1:6 – 2:5 from which he set out seven truths he learned from the honorable elders: the one called by God preaches the true gospel (1:6-7); is radical (1.8-10); has a divine message ( 1:11-12); is set apart by God’s grace (1:15); is prepared by God (1:17-18); preaches with his testimony (1:24); and identifies the false brethren and does not submit to them even for a moment (2:4-5).

My wife Yoaxis  and I had the blessing of greeting such worthy elders. To share the table with Dr. Marcos Antonio Ramos, who prefers to be known as “Tony” the son of “Cheo”, showed us that even if they are retired they have by no means gone away. Some of them we knew from Cuba, as in the case of those who were our pastors in my early childhood: Isabel and Esteban Estrada, as well as Dora and Leoncio Veguilla, who for years occupied the highest offices of our Association in Cuba.

I was moved to find there the widow of former Taguayabon pastor Obed Guzman, the moderator for many years of the “Baptist Hour” program in Miami that we listened to from Cuba. It was also very moving for us to to be embraced by the widow of the great Jorge Comezañas. One of the most beautiful moments was the wedding sendoff of Rafael Melian (Felo) and Miriam Sánchez Parodi, who will move to Jacksonville in January.

The author with one of those retired but not gone away, Dr. Marcos Antonio Ramos, along with the leaders Pablo Miret and Luis Estevez
The author with one of those retired but not gone away, Dr. Marcos Antonio Ramos, along with the leaders Pablo Miret and Luis Estevez

As a continuation of Friday, on Sunday morning I attended the first service of Northside Baptist Church Pastor Adalberto Cuellar, also retired, who baptized my parents and many other relatives in Cuba because he was pastor at our church in Taguayabon in the hardest times, just as they got up the nerve to put a stamp on our door between November 1963 and December 1964. In our area, the work of this man of God, who remained unwavering in difficult times, still survives.

Leaders like Pablo Miret, Andrés Olivares, Luis Estevez, and Nathaniel Vicens struggled and performed a work of genuine servants “washing the feet” of so many heroes and reaching the goal. I embrace them for the gracious invitation and thank them for the master’s class that was given to me that day, fantastic for my ministry in the midst of an aging country, in the most-aged province, and with the fate of lacking an entire generation of senior pastors who, like most of those present that day, had to leave Cuba in a choice that I do not judge, as a result of one of the greatest persecutions that we believers have suffered in the entire continent.

Translated by Tomás A.

25 November 2013

Confusion in the Americas on the Venezuelan Crisis / Manuel Cuesta Morua

HAVANA, Cuba. – The open crisis in Venezuela confuses all of Latin America and the Caribbean. It has an important economic component. Many of the small countries of the Caribbean basin, turned client-states, foresee the loss of the cheap oil prices Venezuela has been providing. This may be a small consideration for most, except for Cuba.

A shift should be easy to navigate for those barely viable and sparsely populated nations; no one knows why they changed a safer and more stable economic relation with the US, for a cheaper but clearly less reliable one with Venezuela. Surely, we know that strategic thinking is what the region lacks. To change oil and freedom, for oil and conditioning is a very strange move to secure independence.

However, the most important point of the Venezuelan crisis at the hemispheric level, is the one that connects the strategic possibility of a model of integration  that is trying to develop, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the awareness and commitment of its elite with the values of its institutions, the growing struggle of citizens for self-recognition and the political intelligence of the leaders in the region.

Amid the silence of ALBA, Evo Morales withdraws to a nationalist but not at all anti-capitalist economic model despite his extravagant and poorly articulated rhetoric. His advisers seem to have more influence on him than those of Rafael Correa, who does not know how to respond to the crisis of his own model and the consequences of his erratic policies; one day he wants to be reelected, another day he swears he does not want to be reelected only to appear later, in a seeming act of despair which says little about his seriousness, threatening to seek reelection where we all thought was about a Citizens’ Revolution.

Meanwhile, Cristina Fernández de Kichner cavorts even better, defending democracy from the left and right; stating her support is not for Maduro but for the democratic process itself, while at the same time saying that the protests, which are precisely part of that democratic process, are a “soft coup.”

Juan Manuel Santos, trapped between the left and right, tries to save his difficult relations with Venezuela; while talking with the FARC and Havana, he is also forced to point out the value of democratic institutions and the need for dialogue in the other side of Tachira, even if it means being humiliated by Maduro. Mujica barely knows what to say, invokes UNASUR, which has little to contribute. Meanwhile, Piñera, on his way out, takes care to remind us that this happens because in Latin America almost everyone is dedicated to blaming the foreigners of the north, not the south, instead of looking for problems in their own entrails.

At the beginning of the Venezuelan crisis, Michelle Bachelet had the strategic intelligence to recognize a constitutional crisis in the country and recommend a plebiscite. She has been the only one in this sea of confusion to show vision. Unlike Rouseff who forgets her past as a student victim of the Carioca repression, and in this dramatic moment, allows herself  to be lead exclusively by the economic interests of Brazil.

Nothing unusual in the pragmatic tradition of Brazil and a Lula with global ambitions, whom we all envisioned at the International Labour Organization battling for workers worldwide. He steps from being a union leader to President of Brazil and finally ends up a representative of Odebrecht, a transnational if there ever was one.  And, in Havana, he allows himself the luxury of pointing out that Maduro is a man of good intentions. Thank God.

There is total disorientation. Even rhetorical. Maduro blames the Yankees, expels its diplomats while asking to talk to Obama and naming a new ambassador in Washington, almost all at the same time and within the closed cycle of events. He had earlier threatened to use the full force of the army against civilians, precisely what all fascists do, while accusing them of being Nazi-facists and inviting them to a peace dialogue for which he has no resources in his political and verbal memory.

The OAS seems to be slipping by Insulza, this man has lost every opportunity to show some kind of leadership and allows himself the luxury of coming to Havana to be rebuffed by his hosts in the face of the OAS. This is however, the only organization that has established consolidated mechanisms with reference, tradition and experience, but which has to be invoked in Mexico by Obama, the enemy, to the silence of Peña Nieto, the new Mexican friend of Castro, the coldness of Canada and the indifference of the rest.

And the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)? A newly released political ghost that no one in their right mind will talk about for a long time, if it even has a future. Without mechanisms, institutions, political representation and experience, CELAC, of course missed the opportunity to proactively respond to events in Venezuela through the vigorous defense of the democratic basis on which its integrative effort was founded, a defense that the presidents who participated in this political rock should have made. Not wanting to speak, from CELAC, about democracy in Cuba, has left Latin America and the Caribbean unable to talk about democracy in Venezuela, invoking the help of the ghost.

If it had done this, the youth of this new integration effort would have compensated with a clear and visible commitment in the right direction, and now Maduro’s rhetoric would have more legitimacy to obtain clear and consistent backups, alienating Washington, whom he has foolishly wanted to approach, from the shores of Venezuela. CELAC in Havana did not do the best it could and anyway, its leaders had to jump over the old principles of respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of other states they solemnly swore to respect: one way or another,  they have gotten into the internal affairs of Venezuela, now that many things are at stake. Starting with Havana, who has turned that country into a juicy backyard of oil, resources and XXI century essays. Until it dries up, if patriots there are unable to succeed.

No one really knows how to react in front of a crisis that once more puts in evidence the lack of leadership in Latin America: a leadership that, by the way, can only be reached by combining the values, interests and strategic vision of where the region wants to go. No wonder some elites, with some clarity, look to the Pacific where, as in the China syndrome, the United States appears once more. A region and a country that were not in the integrationist plans of Marti or Bolivar.

Cubanet, March 5, 2014,  

Translated by: Eleruss

Eric Metaxas’s “Bonhoeffer” / Mario Lleonart

By Mario Félix Lleonart

If the only benefit of my recent trip to the United States had been to find and bring back to Cuba with me the biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, it would have been worth it. As I’ve always declared, that martyr of the German church is an inspiration for my life, and thus for this “Confessing Cuban” blog.

During the recent days of detention and house arrest accompanying the shameful repressive crackdown (as we should always characterize it when mentioning the Second CELAC Summit in Havana), the work of Metaxas was my bedside book. A text like this, regardless of my circumstances, reaffirms my faith and my convictions of social justice emanating from the Bible.

In my recent reading (since several more are required) of chapter seven, “Bonhoeffer in America,” recounting the pastor’s nearly yearlong stay (1930-31) in that great country, I identified strongly because of my similar experience during the four months I just lived through. continue reading

Coincidentally we arrived in the States on almost the same day of the same month (he on the 12th, I on the 11th of September), but he ended his journey in New York on June 17 (my birthday) to return three days later to Germany. During that time the place Bonhoeffer chose to spend Christmas was not in the icy north but in our tropical Havana, where he jumped at the chance to preach to a German congregation, from the text that narrates the death of Moses on Mount Nebo.

Of all the theology Bonhoeffer had contact with in the the United States, that which most influenced him was what he encountered through his friend Albert Franklin Fisher, an African-American raised in Alabama, with whom he attended the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where he was impressed on meeting the preacher Dr. Adam Clayton Powell.

According to Metaxas “Powell combined the fire of a revivalist preacher with great intellect and social vision. He actively fought racism and did not shrink from talking about the saving power of Jesus Christ … he believed that without both you had nothing, and with both, you had it all. When you combine the two, and only then, God was present in the equation and life flowed outward.”

Bonhoeffer returned to the United States on June 12, 1939, but was in New York for only twenty-six days, during which he debated whether to take refuge there or return to Germany to confront its harsh reality, finally settling on the latter. Chapter 21, “The Big Decision,” based on the events of his life in 1939, describes this episode.

Although this was a short trip short compared to the first, Bonhoeffer wrote, while in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on his return: “The visit has come to an end. I’m glad to have been here and I’m content to return home. I may have learned more in this month than in the entire year I spent here nine years ago; at least I gained some insight for all future decisions. It is likely that this visit has had a great effect on me.”

I agree with the Wall Street Journal review of this gem of a biography: “In Bonhoeffer, Mr. Metaxas reminds us that there are forms of religion—respectable, domesticated, timid—that may end up doing the devil’s work for him.” This statement brought to mind the recent words from the authoritative voice of Dr. Marcos Antonio Ramos, author of the largest volume ever written on Protestantism in Cuba, in an interview conducted by martinoticias.com, about the thirty questions I was going to raise during my trip to the United States. The historian stated that only the voices of individual pastors or priests have been raised to challenge the regime, but not a single organized religious denomination in Cuba has dared to do so.

To our historic regret, the words of Marcos Antonio combine with those of the Wall Street Journal on Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer, to indict us, the Cuban church in general. The Journal’s words seem to describe us literally. As one of the officers of the political police active in these days of repression said: “The church in Cuba does not interest me.” As if to say “It’s not a problem for us. It’s so full of competing interests. It’s a great useful idiot.”

Christianity Today also commented on Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer, which it described as solid and masterly, saying: “During a harrowing time when many churches adopted the Nazi ideology and others buckled under pressure from the government, Bonhoeffer remained firm, if sometimes alone.” Bonhoeffer’s life and also his practical theology constitute an example to any Christian in Cuba who decides to represent the values of the Kingdom in the midst of the carnage that reigns as a result of over fifty years of misrule.

Translated by Tomás A.

1 February 2014

"The Student" and #ShameOnUnitedNations / Mario Lleonart

Poster for the campaign #ShameOnUnitedNations. By Rolando Pulido.

The beginning and end of yesterday were inextricably linked.

I woke up to the publication on Facebook, by my brother Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo of the recently initiated campaign, and we’ll be waging it as along as the United Nations remains occupied by regimes tied to terrorist, or which are guilty of State Terrorism.

Independently of each of the faces on this poster, my soul is touched by all the martyrs, the victims of the feudal government that reigns in Cuba. The first of them, Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, nicknamed “The Student,” moved me deeply, for being the face of a friend, whose story of life and death God involved me in during the last year of his life, the irrevocable proof of which is my tweet of May 5, 2011 at 11:55 a.m., a few minutes after the he was fatally beaten.

At the closing of the night I was sent “The Price,” by its composer, Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo dedicated to my assassinated friend.

The death of “The Student” — nicknamed this for his early imprisonment when he was only sixteen — invalidates the bad government in Cuba, not only for a seat on the UN but also for the chair that it occupies there. The worst thing is that there are many more deaths, a multitude of faces far beyond those shown on the poster; and the worst of the worst is that 148 States have become accomplices.

14 November 2013

“Prince of Peace” Around My Neck / Mario Lleonart

Preaching the Gospel: Prince of Peace Lutheran Church

When I was just a kid, discriminated against in Cuba for attending the Baptist Church of my town, I could not imagine that one day I would receive the special Prince of Peace honor that is granted by the Lutheran Church on 6375 West Flager in Miami.

Every Sunday before going to Sunday school, I would listen to the program “Ayer, hoy y siempre” (Yesterday, today and forever) on radio WQBA “La Cubanísima” on 1140 AM. And Good Friday was not truly Good Friday if I did not listen to the “Sermon of the Seven Words” presented by the pastor, Reverend Lenier Gallardo, on the same radio frequency.

Receiving the medal from the hands of Rev. Lenier Gallardo

I had the blessing of being present when the same medal was conferred to Reverend Marcos Antonio Ramos who honors the name of the Baptists among the Cubans in exile. He gave an extraordinary sermon about the “Day of the Protestant Reformation” and later the Reverend Lenier Gallardo put the meaningful medal on his neck. What I didn’t imagine was that the next Sunday the same scene was repeated for me. It had been years since the church had given its symbolic award.

With Rev. Lenier Gallardo after ceremony

To be so close to and shake hands with two men of God as the Rev. Lenier Gallardo and Dr. Marcos Antonio Ramos are for Cuba was already enough. But being feted with the Prince of Peace medal at the hands of the saint that is the Rev. Lenier Gallardo was more than I could dream of. Receiving the blessing and the affection from these spiritual leaders of the exile strengthens my commitment and responsibility to the Gospel of Christ for Cuba. Hopefully I can reach the level of the ministries that they have achieved.

The award to Dr. Marcos Antonio Ramos a week before, celebrating the Day of the Protestant Reformation

Translated by Boston College CASA (Cuban American Association) Member: Elio Andres Oliva

14 November 2013

The Welcome of Our Brothers in the USA / Mario Lleonart

US churches and ministeries plus the media and secular institutions are giving us a warm welcome.

Tomorrow at 9 am we will participate in the special service dedicated to the Protestant Reform Day that will be celebrated at 9 am in the Lutheran Church “Prince of Peace” (6375 West Flager Street, Miami, FL 33144).  We were invited by its pastor Lenier Gallardo; we listened to him from Cuba for many years preaching a liberating gospel through the program “Yesterday, Today and Always” or through his famous sermons of seven words each Holy Friday, through WQBA.  In this special service the sermon will be provided by the Baptist pastor, also a prolific writer, journalist and historian, Marcos Antonio Ramos, and with whom we already had the honor of sharing at Miami Dade College.

Then at 11 am we wiil have the responsibility of preaching in the New Jerusalem Baptist Church at 760 SE 8 St in Hialeah, invited by its pastor Luis Estevez.  We already did it at Adonai and Mi Ebenezer, invited by its pastor Moises Robaina; at Estrella de Belen, invited by its pastor Javier Sotolongo; at Bethel, invited by its pastor Gerardo Garcia and at Nazaret, invited by its pastor Noel Perez.

We have also been invited to the Baptist program of Multicultural Radio (UNAVISION RADIO), to several programs of the services of “Onward” by 1450 AM; and to the program of Life (1080 AM) and Radio Luz by 1360 AM, this last can be heard perfectly in Cuba, and we had the unforgettable opportunity of being heard by our brothers there.

To top it off, pastor Javier Sotolongo gave us the opportunity to exercise a professorship in the Miami Bible College that he directs.  The live transmission of his church services permitted us to reach with our preaching many around the world, including those who had the privileged and very exclusive possibility of accessing from Cuba.

We are receiving invitations to go share with churches and ministries in other cities and states like Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey and Indiana.  We were already in Washington DC where one of our most important stops occurred: the visit to the headquarters of the World Baptist Alliance where we were received by the unforgettable brother Raimundo Barreto who directs the Commission of Justice and Liberty there; in Oklahoma where we met courageous brothers, typical inhabitants of the not coincidentally named Bible Belt of the United States. We thank God for offering us the excellent opportunity of also proclaiming his Word on this shore where we also have found so much of Cuba present.

Translated by mlk.

26 October 2013

Visiting the USA / Mario Lleonart

Alongside a national poster campaign announced in November by Billy Graham.

Contrary to predictions since 9/11 my wife and I are in USA.  It has been so intense that the time to write in my blog Cubano Confesante has been null.  But now is the time, in the midst of a tight agenda I will attempt to stamp a few lines where we’ll provide testimony, at least the most important parts of our stay in the nation of our admired Billy Graham.

Translated by – LYD

1 October 2013

The Same Dream, for Cuba / Mario Lleonart

1377651836_Una-de-las-diapositivas-de-mi-sermón-este-domingo-300x225Text of the poster: Christian Cubans also have received all the divine means Martin Luther King had at his disposition to combat evil. God willing we make use of them.  

This Wednesday, August 28 marks 50 years since the famous march on Washington lead by Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) demanding the recognition of rights of African-Americans. From Cuba, I follow the example of this hero of faith. To these oppressors who constantly threaten and stalk beneath the taboo that Christians should not get involved in politics today I return to give the example of the life, work and homily of this pastor baptised as I am. And I warn you; watch out for me if God gives me the opportunity, as he had, some day to participate, too, in a march on Havana where I will express that I also have a dream, similar to that of Reverend King, “With all and for all Cubans.”

27 August 2013

Orange Juice Runs Through My Veins / Mario Lleonart

Not even I understand how much those nearly eight months — from 30 November 1993 to 28 July 1994 — affected the rest of my life. I was used as cheap and reliable labor, exposed to hard labor in the citrus harvest, to the substantial economic benefit of the Cuban regime and the Grupo B.M. y Waknine & Berezovsky Co. Ltd. Over the years now I hve come to understand that it was a chapter God had for me. The experiences I went through had to do with things far beyond what I imagine, given all that I have been and done since then.

My friend Omar Lopez Montenegro whom I met last June on my trip to Poland excitedly tells his experience at the famous Pre-University of de la Víbora, a site which has also been immortalized thanks to another of its graduates, the writer Leonardo Padura Fuentes, who turned this mythical place into the origin of the backstory of his character detective Mario Conde.

The joint non-violent resistence of Omar and other friends prevented some gatekeepers from cutting their long hair during a period of mobilization in the field. I lived something similar in Boom 400 of the EJT (Ejercito de Trabajo Juvenil, or the Youth Labor Army) and above all the vivid outrages will stay with me forever.

After walking for three months among the concentration camps adjacent to the towns of San Jose Torriente and San José de Marcos, they made us return to that of Socorro en Pedro Betancourt. Supposedly from this Boom 400, which was our original camp, the suppliies assigned to us should have arrived, but we received nothing during those three months during which we wandered on some supposed mission whose high work goals were never met.

During those three months we didn’t even get a pass to go to our homes. We felt sorry for ourselves. Our clothes were dirty and ragged as could be. Most of us were walking barefoot, a few with broken boots. One of the generals named Acebedos came by for inspections and called us “the shirtless”, and a relaxed captain in the camp next to Torrientes, seemingly moved by compassion, told us — pointing at his massive gut: “Don’t be discouraged boys, I lost this belly in the army”.

On returning to our original camp, we held out the hope that things might change, but on arrival, a new unit chief met us: a Navy captain whose punishment was being sent to the EJT. And I became aware of another characterisic of this invincible army: it was the punishment site for MININT, Armed Forces, and even Navy officers.

For us, the officer’s reception was to inform us that we’d just arrived at Boom 400, and we had to earn all we asked for. An additional answer to our worries was the delivery of immense Chinese machetes, and after a miserable lunch, he made us go to some place infested with the invasive marabú weed that we had to pull up and prepare for the planting of citrus.

That was more than a humiliation. Supposedly, in those conditions we didn’t cut even one marabú, our patience having completely dripped away, so even better we organized and so it was like that night in May 1994 when, in protest, the complete squad deserted and we agreed that nobody would return for at least a week. The silent exit from the camp and the trip, one by one, through the orange orchards towards the national highway where in a matter of minutes we undertook a course towards Las Villas, were the most glorious moments of those eight months of abuse.

On our return, at least those who returned — some never did — we were subject to trial in the camp’s ampitheater, seeking an answer: “Who had been the leader?” The end of the trial consisted in the delivery of the supplies they’d deprived us of for the last eight months, our manner of nonviolent protest showed the vulnerability of those who thought they had power and made us discover that power was really in our hands.

The en masse desertion of an EJT squad had made the news all over the island and uncovered corruption in high places. Although I was liberated, that unforgettable July 28, 1994, I can’t deny that since then, orange juice runs through my veins.

Translated by: JT

12 August 2013

My Youth Labor Army (EJT) / Mario Lleonart

They undoubtedly ordered the official press panegyrics in honor of the Youth Labor Army (EJT) for its forty years of existence. Between the two national newspapers they share the responsibility and take turns with articles such as, “At the end of the line,” “EJT: an undefeated army,” “Force for youth training,” and “Immersed in the EJT is the transformation of the Cuban economy.”

This same press hasn’t said a single work about the scandalous traffic in arms carried out by the founder (i.e. Fidel Castro) of the Military Units in Aid of Production (UMAP) and its successor, the EJT, in cahoots with his counterparts in North Korea; but that they carry on about a topic that concerns me because in one of those concentration camps they stole eight months of my life twenty years ago.

Colonel Pedro Duardo Mendez, Head of Territorial Headquarters of the Western Railway, quoted in one article, said that the EJT “was forces composed of Active Military Service (SMA) soldiers, usually with family or financial problems.” But they took me for the same reason they mobilized those in UMAP: my condition as an evangelical believer that meant I wasn’t reliable enough to be in the real army, the care and safeguard of the regime.

This same official said that the EJT recruits “have a salary that depends on their monthly production… They work in the interest of developing our country’s economy and at the same time receive a pay package for the solution of their economic problems.” But when I left the EJT I had to pay them a debt of almost 200 Cuban pesos to be released.

He said he also interviewed soldiers “recruited in places near their homes. to facilitate the work and the assistance,” but they took me 100 miles from my house and met young people in those camps who’s been brought from the easternmost areas of the country and could barely visit their homes once a year.

The journalist Eduardo Palomares in the 5 August edition of Granma (which, by the way has not dedicated a single word to the nineteenth anniversary of Maleconazo), said: “For a long time considered the country’s most productive force… they envisioned leading the way to the aspiration planned by Army General Raul Castro, in which the EJT will always be a highly efficient institution.”

And it’s undeniable, just like in the UMAP, the main objective of EJT is to make the most of young people forced to work, especially in forced labor in which it is not easy to voluntarily engage people, at least not with the paltry wages they earned.

It has to be efficient, this consortium provider of cheap labor to other companies, with the additional guarantee of total control of slaves without rights who are subjected to all kinds of abuse and harassment to perform the tasks that nobody else wants to do.

In this regard my twenty years of experience in the citrus groves of Jagüey Grand remains fresh in my mind, producing large gains for an Israeli company in dealings with the regime that served us to them on a silver platter along with our oranges.

But I know for a fact that the forced labor workers today are forced to work laying railway lines, performing specialized tasks of so-called regional companies of the Union of Railways, hard work and underpaid, done by these young people, some of whom, if they mange to finish the two years they “owe to the regime” unscathed, end up with their spines traumatized for the rest of their lives.

They end up “rallying the troops” after forcefully “squeezing them dry” in exchange for a measly cents to be investing in their own food and things which are deducted from their wages. That is our undefeated EJT.

7 August 2013

The 40th Anniversay of the Youth Labor Army (EJT) / Mario Lleonart

This week I will dedicate my post to what is called the Youth Labor Army (EJT), on the 40th anniversary of its creation, which is Saturday, August 3, and nineteen years since my release from its “ranks,” which occurred on July 28.

This so-called Army, created in 1973, it’s said, from a merger of the Centennial Youth Column (CJC) and the Permanent Infantry Divisions (DIP), had its true antecedent in the dark Military Units in Aid of Production (UMAP), which were dissolved in 1968 in the face of global condemnation given its undeniable and unmasked reality of being concentration camps in which the Cuban regime committed crimes for which they still haven’t answered, but for which they will undoubtedly have to pay one day, no matter how much they try to erase the traces of that terribly black period.

Five years after dismantling these UMAP camps, they were reorganized with the new euphemism of EJT. Of course, it wasn’t simply a change of initials, five years between death and resurrections were sufficient to draw the experiences and to try to do the same thing but with different appearances.

I experienced it first hand in the EJT, for almost eight months, exploitations and humiliations greater than any I’ve been subjected to in my life. Between 230 November 1993 and 28 July 1994, I felt like a real slave. When people ask me if I was ever a soldier I respond categorically no, but yes, I was a prisoner under the false facade of completing Active Military Service (SMA) in EJT Boom 400, a concentration camp located one mile from the 119 Kilometer mark on the national highway. The nearest community is called Soccoro, which belongs to the Pedro Betancourt municipality in the province of Matanzas.

Despite being there barely eight months I knew two other concentration camps to which we were sent to serve our “mission” on the part of Boom 400, one very close to Torrientes, and the other at San Jose de Marcos, two villages of the municipality Jagüey Grande.

In these three military units in support of citrus production we were cheap and safe manual labor for the regime which at that time had strong business in this area with Israeli companies.

One of the biggest contradictions I experienced, by the way, in those dark days was to constantly wonder why there was this Zionist capitalist complicity with the totally anti-Zionist regime that didn’t even allow an embassy from the State of Israel. For me, educated from my early childhood in a Baptist community that instilled in me a love for the Jews and taught me to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, this was one of the greatest tortures that accompanied every drop of sweat and cursing.

Reading the autobiography “After Captivity, Freedom,” by my friend Luis Bernal Lumpuy, which includes the traumatic experiences of the author in the UMAP camps forced me to remember, by association, my sad experiences in the EJT and therefore I dedicate to him my brief written this week, with the certainty that both of us will finally see a Cuba free of these gross violations of fundamental human rights. And also of tyrants bred to create concentration camps such as UMAP or EJT, taking advantages of the students of Stalin, who highlighted similar experiences in Siberia, and the partners of the current regime, experts in this type of prison where they perform cruel experiments on humans, such as North Korea, our currently favored ally, as confirmed by the warmongering world adventure laid bare in Panama.

5 August 2013