The first feature of all dictatorships is to see those who think differently as the enemy. This is how Nicolas Maduro sees former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who ventured to say that Venezuela should assemble a political coalition to govern. Maduro immediately ridiculed Lula’s comment.
The Venezuelans are living in the last gasps of democracy; with every minute that goes by their freedom is being choked off and, as in the sixties in Cuba, they will be cheated with dreams of goldfish, which in the end, as in the archipelago—half a century after so many sacrifices—never came true and never will.
It hurts to see how history repeats itself, which is why the Cuban people still suffer today. Our spirit goes out in support to dear Venezuela, so that they can get rid of that straitjacket called “the revolution” with its “21st century socialism.” God save and free them, and do the same for us.
We don’t hide the fact that we pray earnestly for success in their fight for freedom, because to the extent that they succeed in restoring democracy, they will deprive the Castro dictatorship of the oxygen by which it still remains in power, and therefore we can expect our reality to be transformed sooner than the island’s tyrants have planned.
If God helps Venezuela to restore the rule of law, He will be indirectly promoting freedom in Cuba.
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Lawton Prison, April 2014
Follow the link to sign the petition for Amnesty International to declare Cuban dissident Angel Santiesteban a prisoner of conscience.
Translated by Tomás A.
28 April 2014
