Raul Castro, Think Again / Angel Santiesteban


The months keep passing, and Angel Santiesteban — the only “common prisoner” to whom the political police have offered “freedom” in exchange for his renouncing his political position, witnessed in a video — continues punished, victim of constant inspections and deprived of passes to which by law he has a right; nor do they permit him to go to the dentist or the barber.

Now, this “common prisoner” was chosen among the 100 Freedom of Information Heroes by Reporters Without Borders.  Those who took him to jail should be writhing in shame; also those who have been and are complicit with their silence.

Why does the Regime fear him so? Because if it considers him a common prisoner, nothing they undertook against him make sense, besides being illegal.

Angel remains incarcerated, and he considers it an honor; the Review of his trial remains ignored and his attorney disqualified. From whatever point you try to understand this unjust sentence, the one who loses is the dictator Castro, because being a “common prisoner” he treats him — for all purposes — as a political prisoner, by which we can imagine that he wants to aggravate his situation “converting him” now into an enemy of the Revolution and traitor to his country.

If they make this official, they will only admit that Angel is a political prisoner, and there will be in evidence — once again — the true nature of the Castro dictatorship. It is also true that the democratic governments that make deals with Cuba at the cost of the sacrifice, suffering and blood of Cubans, don’t care at all. These governments and the Castro dictatorship will pass, because everything passes.  But they will remain forever in history.

Raul Castro, think again; you can still correct this injustice–and all those that are committed against the more than one hundred political prisoners. Do not do it for Cuba or for your victims; you as well as your brother demonstrated amply that no one and nothing matters to you, that only power interests you; do it for your children and grandchildren, those who throughout life are condemned to carry your last name and your stigma. Because the moment will come in which everything will fall into place, although you and your brother perhaps will no longer be–regrettably–and will be saved from facing Justice.

It is not only incomprehensible that the dictatorship is the most tolerated of the world, but no one ever will be able to understand why a “Revolution” that never spared bullets and violence so fears the words and opinions of an intellectual, of peaceful opponents and of decent women who bear as a “weapon” a gladiolus.

The only certainty is that history will not absolve them.

The Editor

Follow the link to sign the petition for Amnesty International to declare Cuban dissident Angel Santiesteban a prisoner of conscience.

Translated by mlk.

1 May 2014