The Lives Of Opposition Leaders Have Their Names On The Government’s Blacklist / Angel Santiesteban

José Alberto Botell, Guillermo Fariñas’ assailant

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 3 June 2015If the Cuban dictatorship has an enemy, it is themselves, as an institution of evil. After committing their outrages, the injustices and atrocities carried out by their henchmen who commit the atrocities they are ordered to commit — at any cost — in exchange for benefits awarded them by the governing officials who believe they are the owners of the nation. They cannot hide who they are.

The government has just exposed that there are two penal codes, one for dissidents, and another one for the acolytes who commit crimes on behalf of its totalitarian regime.

Recently they have “sentenced” José Alberto Botell, who was charged with the crime of “injuries,” after wounding five dissidents with a knife, one of them, Maria Arango Percibal, a member of the worthy Ladies in White.

Mary was in intensive care because of the severity of the injuries she received she when stood in front of the assailant to protect the leader of the United Antitotalitarian Front (FANTU), Guillermo Fariñas, winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, for whom the attack was intended. The attacker also severely injured another glorious Lady in White, Isabel Fernandez Llanes, and three other regime opponents.

It is laughable that for such a criminal specimen, the prosecution would ask for a five-year sentence and the Criminal Court itself would reduce it by one year to leave it at four years maximum. Needless to say Botell was sent by the political police to get Fariñas out of the way because he openly opposes the negotiations between the United States and Cuba, unless the Castro brothers put an end to the systematic violations of human rights in advance.

If Fariñas had gone alone, or his companions had not reacted as they did, we would be grieving the loss of another opposition leader today. The type of violence shown by the attacker — who turned the scene into a carnage — even against women, shows that his intentions, meaning “orders,” were to assassinate Fariñas.

Had their plan gone well, we would now add another dead to our cause, just like they did with Laura Pollan, the leader of the Ladies in White, whose health condition deteriorated rapidly — strangely in and odd circumstances — in a hospital room commanded, supervised, ruled and surrounded by State Security agents.

Or as they did to Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, who died after an alleged “traffic accident”, in which there is evidence showing the hand of the political police behind it, as a result of which his family and one of his companions in the car raise their voices at international bodies to demand justice.

The lives of opposition leaders, especially those who oppose the Cuba-US negotiations, have their names on the government’s blacklist and, in advance, they have been labeled already: Berta Soler and the Ladies in White, Angel Moya, Guillermo Fariñas and Antonio Rodiles, are today the “targets under the sniper’s scope with a finger on the trigger”.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 3 June 2015

Border Patrol Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael