My Encounter with Paya in Voices 16 / Mario Lleonart

Careful with those whom you all kill, they can spur a craving for liberty in the people (Oswaldo Paya in an interview by the Hispano Cubana Magazine, No. 16, 2003, p. 122).

Friday, September 7 the launch of the 16th edition of the magazine Voices took place in Havana in the home of Yoani Sanchez and Reinaldo Escobar.  Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo was in charge of the introductory words, and not one more person could have fit in the living room and on the terrace of our friends.  Thanks to God I was able to be there and also I have the honor of being included in the so heartfelt pages of this singular issue whose special edition is dedicated to the tragic death of Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero which occurred July 22 in the vicinity of Bayamo.

I thank greatly the editors of this very daring magazine who, for a second time, have included one of my writings.  The first time was in the still recent Voices 14 presented and dedicated to the then imminent papal visit where was inserted my prediction, regrettably correct, “Another Pope, another Cuba and another church.”  This time Voices 16 took from my soul “My encounter with Paya” and I feel maybe they are the simplest of the included pages, surrounded as I am there by multiple voices of high quality.

I recommend the reading of the 16 editions of Voices in general (http://vocescubanas.com/voces) and this issue 16 in particular, as singular as the rest, but so special for its being dedicated to two such special souls as Harold and Oswaldo.  Regardless of my invitation to read the magazine directly, I will provide in my next post fragments of the writing that I dragged from my heart for Oswaldo Paya in Voices 16.

Translated by mlk.

October 30 2012

How to Apply the Words of Paul in the Cuban Context / Mario Lleonart

JOIN IN SUFFERINGS

So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. (2 Timothy 1.8)
Any action which I have done is a result of my faith in God. Faith was the first motivation. (Oswaldo Payá, 1952-2012)

2 Timothy is the second of two letters in the New Testament that the Apostle Paul addressed to his spiritual son Timothy. It is also the last of the thirteen epistles ascribed to this great man of God, which is contained in the Bible and considered the apostle posthumous document and his testament farewell. If you do not possess a Christian worldview then the legacy the missionary gives to young Timothy seems puzzling, especially when it is re-read today, in times when the words satisfaction and success are the highest aspiration promoted by a society of comfort and consumerism, even in areas where these words are found to be pure utopia. Join in sufferings is an invitation made by an inmate death saying goodbye to his beloved son, and although such a proposal goes against total slightest notion of pragmatism, even the most basic self-preservation instinct and conservation that God himself placed in every human being, is this, and only this, what Paul has for the recipient of his letter, when he was about to be murdered by Nero in the Roman circus.

How wonderful it would be to re-read this letter in these times where other purposes, interests and aspirations prevail, even in churches that call themselves churches of Jesus Christ but in practice they are openly led by marketing philosophy, complacency and the long-awaited success measured solely by cold statistics where people stop being seen and treated as human beings to become mere numbers! A true reading of this epistle would break any schemes and paradigms that are driving to the practice of what no longer is the true body of Christ to be just mere institutions of power!

But, how to apply the words of Paul in the controversial Cuban context, in a society which is so far, at least for most of the people, from an atmosphere of comfort and consumerism. Paul’s invitation to join in sufferings is even more relevant in this society since the mere fact that to speak the truth, and nothing but the truth, as it is completely inherent and essential to the gospel’s nonnegotiable ethics, can be paid with imprisonment or with all kinds of outrages and abuses; including, as we have seen in recent months, the repression unleashed by extrajudicial executions, after the General, who serves as the top leader, asked on his closing speech at the last Unique Party Congress to defend His revolution in parks and streets. It is true that this is still not a consumer society… this is even worse because the churches placed in the Western democracies have to survive, overwhelmed by lawlessness government that matches perfectly with the characteristics of the types of antichrists that the Bible describes, where not allowing to be mark by the political power is equivalent to at least not to be able to buy or sell.

It is sad to see how this pragmatic system shows itself to the world, as a government that respect the different religious believes when actually it disrespected them and repressed them for decades. And it is also sad to see the pragmatism between the institutions of power under the name of churches that depend of a legal framework offered by the system to survive in exchange of complicity or doing the work of supplying opium to the people who is required numbed and alienated. Nothing new, it is the same despotic kings with false prophets’ old concubinage, being the latter ones always willing to offer praise to the powerful peoples’ ears and always willing to make concordats to ensure the alms of the political power.

Recent threats of imprisonment has been made to me by Mrs. Caridad Diego Bello, head of the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, when she warned the Baptist Convention from Western Cuba, which I gladly am Pastor of, that she will not receive any claims from this institution when my imprisonment is indeed a fact, well that does not intimidate me. I thank both brothers equally as enemies that everyday ask me to take care of myself. Long ago I accepted the challenge of Paul to join in sufferings that remain to add to the sacrifice of Jesus, whether to live according to my Christian conscience is trying to live consistently with the gospel I preach, releasing all that oppresses and overwhelmed.

The sacrifice of the precious life of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and other martyrs who have precede him in this form of targeted killings, this is far away from scare me,on the contrary, it encourages me to continue my ministry that can not exclude this despotic regime.

When I said goodbye to my friend Juan Wilfredo Soto García, killed in May  2011, I did ask in one of the post I wrote then, who would be the next victim, and after his death, we buried Laura Pollan (October, 2011), Wilman Villar Mendoza (January, 2012) and now Payá (Julio, 2012).

I am an heir of a countless multitude of martyrs, including Paul, from the first century, who chose to die rather tan refusing to preach the gospel. In this sense, as a follower of Jesus who gave me the example of not to shun the cross but to carry ours, I own His own words of response to the death threats sent by Herod: Go and tell that bitch that today and tomorrow I will be driving out demons and healing the sick, and in the third day I will have finished. Although, in truth, today and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, I shall continue my journey up to Jerusalem. After all, there’s where they kill the prophets. (Luke 13.32-33, TLA).

Mario Félix Lleonart Barroso

Our Campaigns and the Pacts / Mario Barroso

In 2008 the Mission Board of the Baptist Convention of Western Cuba convened the first Campaign of Fifty Days or Prayer for Cuba. It was an intense journey of prayer that involved believers inside and outside of the island. That same year, 2008, was also significant for another national reason: The Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations, on February 28 in New York City, signed the Pact of Political and Civil Rights and the United Nations Pact of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which constituted a very laudable act.

After that important year our churches have continued praying for the nation and this year, 2012, our already celebrated Campaign of Fifty Days of Prayer for Cuba — always held between the day of the Resurrection and Pentecost — was the fifth one. But the mission of the believers is not only to pray but also to do everything they can for this world to adjust to divine will; not in vain did the wide Ignacio of Loyola say: Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you. It is in that sense that the believers themselves who pray so intensely for our nation should join a just citizen demand that asks the highest authorities of Cuba to take the necessary steps first taken in 2008, and ratify the signed pacts given that in them the spirit gathers the dignity of all human beings and the respect for their most elemental rights as creatures created in the image and likeness of God.

If the highest Cuban authorities ratify the pacts that they signed in New York in 2008 and take all the steps that implies we can thank God because many of the petitions that we have raised in our campaigns will have been granted. And it is that, a pact, although of man, once ratified, no one invalidates it or adds to it (Galatians 3:15).

Translated by mlk.

August 5 2012

Tomás, the Man who Brought Broadway to Taguayabón / Mario Barroso

Source: http://buenavistavcuba.blogspot.com/

This past July 2 was second anniversary of the death of Tomás Leopold Alfonso Manso. He was born on September 30, 1941, and unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack on July 2, 2010, leaving an irreplaceable emptiness in Taguayabón, the town in which he lived since 1978 and to which he devoted his art, with the same dedication as if Taguayabón was New York City.

In the last months of his life, we shared the same daily routine of having coffee in the morning at the home of a mutual friend, a ritual as important to Cubans as three o’ clock tea is for an Englishman. Tomás adopted me as his spiritual guide and told me the stories about his deepest traumas and desires. In the 51st edition of the folklore magazine Signos from 2005, dedicated to the traditional occupations in Cuba, I published my contributionHabit Makes the Monk, and Hard Work Traditions Make Taguayabón,” and under its title it said “Tomás Manso Alfonso, our float maker” (pages 65-66). This human being was receiving then one of the very few tributes that honored him during his life, and that he very much appreciated.

The fact that he was a literacy teacher, especially in the Escambray, during the harsh days of the 1960s when Cubans shed the blood of other Cubans, made him a witness of the crimes committed by the Cuban regime, crimes he never forgot.

The firing squads scenes which he was forced to attend turned into a horrific drama that accompanied Tomás throughout his life. He still could hear the cries of “Long live God our King!” from those who were going to die, teenagers among them, if not children.

Tomás could not find any other way to avoid those memories, but secluding himself in art, and Taguayabón had the blessing of being the place for Tomás’s work. Thanks to him, the hardships of a town like this, in  remote Cuba, became less because Tomás gave his people a reason to laugh and dream. Probably, most of Taguayabón’s people will never see Broadway, not even Tomás did, but that was not an excuse to not bring it to the Taguayabonians.

The State censors, who were always shadowing Tomás’ projects and who knew very well what he had witnessed, in spite of knowing that this was contrary to the wishes of his family and of El Gavilán, the party neighborhood to which he belonged, made a clumsy attempt to stop me from speaking at the cemetery of San Antonio, on the morning of July 3rd, before his burial.

They failed. And as a tribute to Tomás, on behalf of all of Taguayabón, two years after his deeply felt absence, the blog Cubano Confesante will make available a video that his entire neighborhood El Gavilán dedicated to him, which was publicly exhibited in the 2010 carnival parties that were organized to honor Tomás’ memory. The entire recordings of two mournful farewells before his burial will be also available, that of a retired State Security agent who served as the head of this organ for many years in Caibarién, and my own, which he failed to stop from happening.

Translator’s note: Two video links accompanied this post but they have been removed from YouTube because they are too long.

July 5 2012

ALL OF US CHRISTIAN CUBANS SHOULD SIGN THE CITIZEN DEMAND FOR ANOTHER CUBA / Mario Barroso

ALL OF US CHRISTIAN CUBANS SHOULD SIGN THE CITIZEN DEMAND FOR ANOTHER CUBA

For several weeks now the CITIZEN DEMAND FOR ANOTHER CUBA has come to be known, a demand which a symbolic number of Cubans — not on behalf of any party or institution, but simply by virtue of citizenship — turned in to the National Assembly of Popular Power. Given such a short period of time, this effort has already achieved a record number of Cuban signatures, both within and outside the island. Internationally recognized figures of unquestionable prestige are starting to take note and see this demand favorably — a snowball that is increasing exponentially in size and is headed straight toward the sore — perhaps as a last valid effort for obtaining the changes, so urgent to Cuba, via totally peaceful and civilized means.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, I have decided not to remain neutral before the disaster — in every sense — that is today the nation in which I live, in which I am called to minister, and which I love. I believe Dante was correct when he declared: “the most fiery parts of Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, remain neutral.”

That is why my signature of the CITIZEN DEMAND FOR ANOTHER CUBA was already among that first symbolic group of signers who carried out the formal delivery. Also there, were those of my wife as well as other esteemed brethren of faith.

I consider that no one who claims to be a disciple of Christ in Cuba should remain neutral before the debacle that is being reaped as a result of these more than fifty years of disaster; and much less remain in whichever of those organizations which are identified as political or of the masses — merely tentacles of the oppressive government.

My pastoral work is characterized by a lot of patience and tolerance of the many who are in such ambivalent positions, but my personal opinion is that if neutrality is questionable in its extreme, placed on a par with the half-heartedness referred to in the Book of Apocalypse of the Bible, conspiracy with a system that is at present totally unmasked is equivalent to complicity, also equivalents to allowing yourself to be marked by the political beast to whom the Book of Apocalypse makes reference in chapter 13.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is not neutral to the Cuban plight, and much less favors it, I call all of my Cuban brethren of faith within and outside the island, to sign this demand that can in itself constitute an instrument of response to the innumerable prayers and clamor that has been raised to Him during decades of suffering. Those possessing access to internet may do so on the following web page: http://porotracuba.wordpress.com

The CITIZEN DEMAND FOR ANOTHER CUBA merely insists that the pacts signed in the United Nations by Felipe Perez Roque, ex-minister of Foreign Affairs, be ratified. The ratification involves one step beyond a simple signing since it forces the urgent materialization of constitutional changes that will adapt to those pacts.

The Bible states in Galatians 3:15 that A PACT, EVEN IF MADE BY MAN, ONCE RATIFIED, NO ONE CAN INVALIDATE IT NOR ADD TO IT. Although human, these pacts pick up on basic elements so that people be treated with the dignity corresponding them for the simple reason of being born, created in the image and likeness of God.

Let our acts correspond to our prayers.

Let us sign the CITIZEN DEMAND FOR ANOTHER CUBA!

Presbyter Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso

Translated by: Maria Montoto

July 5 2012

THE PRICE OF RECOVERING CELEBRATIONS / Mario Barroso

In my previous post, “Recovered Celebrations,” I alluded to the concessions that the Cuban regime has granted to the Catholic church in regards to Christmas and Good Friday. Although the latter has been recognized and adopted by Catholics, it also serves as a way for many Christians throughout the world to remember Christ’s suffering on Calvary as he made his way along the Via Dolorosa to his death on the cross. I personally celebrate Christ’s birth as well as his death and resurrection in the firm belief that thee three events are a sign of our faith and, of course, of the Messiah’s mission and ministry among men.

I also believe that each concession the dictatorship makes to insure its own survival – though undoubtedly for the church they amount to “crumbs” – is a sign of its growing and progressive deterioration, and its striking inability to suppress topics that in previous decades it controlled, and over which it exercised its “absolute” and arbitrary power. In my previous article, however, I made it very clear that my real objective was specifically to show that, in other areas, Cuban leaders still refrain from addressing issues such as the opening or reopening of religious schools, or allowing radio and television programming. Nor does it address the issues of genuine freedom of assembly, freedom of religious belief, or respect for the autonomy of different religious groups by refrainng from openly and blatantly interfering in these churches’ internal affairs and manipulating the leaderships of these organizations.

The Cuban government has created a new form of penetration and manipulation – something which Pastor Mario Félix has called “the arm of death” – in which church-state relations appear to go from good to better. Granting small requests, allowing a little slack in the rope, and offering perks and privileges gives the regime a bit of the vital oxygen it needs to survive. As I have said, it guarantees a more comfortable control over the church. Thus, the construction and repair of sanctuaries, permits to build new churches, facilities for the acquisition of means of transport, exit permits for church leaders and special visas for foreigners as well as other tactics are part of a “respectful blackmail” in which governmental power is exercised over ecclesiastical power. This fateful embrace favors the dictators and tarnishes the image of Christ in the haggard face of the Cuban Church.

I am sure that these celebrations, which the religious public can once again enjoy, are, I repeat, a sign of the the current weakness of the regime, and not of its understanding and affection for Christianity. It felt obliged to make concessions, which themselves required a high degree of appeasement and obsequiousness on the part of the country’s Catholic hierarchy. We saw this quite clearly in the unfortunate remarks by Cardinal Jaime Ortega during his trip to the United States in reference to the dissidents who occupied churches in the days prior to the visit by Pope Benedict XVI. The cardinal made use of the petty, offensive and always dismissive language of the regime. This made me think that perhaps he had recently been receiving lessons and had become an enthusiastic student. Such is the price of holidays.

I only hope that the true church, the authentic flock recognized by the Good Shepherd, flees from the clutches feigning an embrace in order to choke her to death. We must begin to relinquish all material and worldly interests, and enunciate the truth in our daily discourse, denouncing the sad state of Cuban reality, without ambiguity or artifice. We must call out by name the sin of those who have misgoverned us for many decades now. We must also denounce “the great whores” who sit beside the powerful of this world (and country) and trade their divine legacy for the superfluous profits of this life. The pact between the country’s tyrannical monarchs and their new sychophants will not endure because God will not allow any malignant force to continue adversely affecting and subjugating our nation, and especially its children. This I declare without any fear and with complete certainty.

Translated by: Hank Hardisty and Anonymous

April 27 2012

Union and Ostracism / Mario Barroso

This past February 23rd the official press media of the country informed of the meeting held between members of the Central Committee and the Government with the principal leaders of religious denominations and fraternal organizations, this occurrence was well disseminated and, furthermore, concluded with the phrase of Esteban Lazo where he made clear the existing unity between the governmental hierarchy with the ecclesiastic.

It is good to know that they are so unified, as it is also good to know that they mutually take care of each other’s interests. In an excellent post written by priest Mario F. Lleonart, the author expresses the evident hypocrisy that prevails at these meetings. As well as the double morals, defect of our society which has regrettably also permeated our churches. A unity which only safeguards the dilapidated image of the Cuban regime with regard to the different religions and guarantees its dominion over them and at the same time ensures the development without hindrance of certain goals outlined by the religious institutions, such as, permission to travel abroad, construction or repair of temples, legalization of churches, granting of religious visas to foreigners, acquiring automobiles and some others.

As I reread the note that appeared in Granma about this occurrence and some articles published on the internet, among those the already cited one of pastor Mario F., I compare the different positions and reflect on my experience which is of someone who will never be included in this tight Church-State relationship so subtly achieved by the Cuban regime.

The other face of the coin seems dark and appears desolate and it is that, for those of us who do not offer the government a complicit smile, what awaits us is completely opposite to what the religious chiefs achieve with their flirtatiousness. I confess that I did not know the meaning of the term ostracism until now that I am suffering first-hand the results of this strategy that the agents of the Cuban Security of State apply so efficaciously, it is hard to survive the test of isolation, the loneliness, it is entirely a challenge to stand firm on an ideal in the midst of the rejection of many of those who surround us.

The policy of ostracism is the current measure that the Security of State imposes against my husband, my family and the community of faithful that we shepherd. The achievements are evident, we perceive it in a neighboring church of another denomination that not so long ago worked shoulder to shoulder with us in favor of the gospel and that has currently broken off all relations, as if we were plague-ridden, something worse than lepers; I can not forget that Jesus kissed the leprous, the marginalized of His time, those of lesser condition, He refused no one, more so those who upon accepting Him gained the state of being called children of God.

We also learned of the fear instilled on behalf of a pastoral colleague to a possible donor for the repair of the roof of our temple, diverting their desire to cooperate with the restoration, insinuating that their help to pastor Lleonart would greatly hinder their entry into the island in the future, something not so far from the truth, because just as many say, pastor Mario is marked and any ties with him is damaging for carrying out any plans or projects which need clearance from the State.

The pressures of the Political Police have also affected the local Alcoholics Anonymous group, which for many years was held in our church with the support of pastor Mario F. whom they qualify as a triple A, although this group maintains in its rules to not participate in political controversies, has left our facilities thereby adopting a position in favor of a regime which paradoxically does not yet legally recognize their organization.

The campaigns against us are also seen reflected in the impossibility of participating in the spiritual Retreat Three Days with Christ No. 8, which we had attended on prior occasions in Havana, but to which this year was added as a condition of obtaining permission for its celebration, our non-attendance.

A sister of the church reports to us that at an encounter for women in which she had participated prior years, to be celebrated at the end of the present month in Canaan camp (Miller, Placetas), she has been told that this time she can not attend due to her being from our congregation. In that way, we are being driven to cold solitude and sadly many, even being evangelists have already excommunicated us and those who still remain with us, are threatened all the time, the test of isolation is hard, only the strength that God instills can help to bear it.

So, in an environment where one church is every day more unified with the regime, swimming against the current is difficult, but the encouraging biblical promises comfort me: “When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” With this premise, there is no ostracism, nor sentiment of loneliness that can overwhelm us.

Translated by: Maria Montoto

March 20 2012

Letter from Priest Mario Félix Lleonart Barroso to the Villa Clara Provincial Prosecutor / Mario Félix Lleonart Barroso

April 23, 2012

Year of the Lord.

From: Priest: Mario Félix Lleonart Barroso.

To: Villa Clara Provincial Prosecutor’s Office and Management of the Protection of Citizen Rights of the Prosecutor General of the Republic.

In so far as: Within just a few days, on May 8th, it will be one year since the controversial death of Santa Claran citizen Juan Wilfredo Soto García.

In so far as: By petition of the undersigned, the General Prosecutor of the Republic delegated to the Santa Clara Provincial Prosecutor, the opening of an investigation thereon, as I was notified by a letter dated July 19, 2011, on behalf of the highest body, by Prosecutor Raul Lopez Pertierra, Chief of the Department of Penal Matters.

In so far as: In evidence that the Villa Clara Prosecutor’s Office attended the request of the Prosecutor General of the Republic, initiating an investigation, September 8, 2011, Prosecutor Osmel Fleites Cardenas took my declaration with regard to everything of which I am certain in relation to the passing of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, for which he opened a case countersigned by both of us, and informed me that there existed sufficient elements to initiate an investigative-penal process.

In so far as: In the interest of colaborating with the development of said process, on October 7, 2011, I personally hand delivered to Prosecutor Osmel Fleites Cardenas, in the main offices of the Villa Clara Provincial Prosecutor, a list with sufficient facts so as to immediately locate other indicated witnesses, all willing to also make declarations before said attorney.

In so far as: None of said witnesses has received up to the present time any summons to make declarations, placing in doubt that the process has continued or worse yet, that there does not exist a true willingness to clarify the facts, which deal with the loss of a human life, which in my point of view can only be taken by God.

In so far as: Moreover, one of the witnesses has since died without being called to testify (Santiago Martinez Medero, December 21, 2011), and as time goes by, due to various reasons, others may become unable to do so, which works against a rigorous investigation, as should correspond in relation to serious doubts about the true causes of the death of a Cuban Citizen.

In so far as: The serious declaration made to me by citizen Soto Garcia before dying, generated in me a responsibility in my condition as a human, Cuban, Christian, Baptist and pastor.

In so far as: Just as I declared in my testimony to Prosecutor Osmel Fleites Cardenas, on September 8, 2011, in the legal condition of Indicated Witness with which the Applicable Laws identify me, I am offended and alluded to by diverse publications which prior to any investigation took place in the official press, in the days following the death of Soto Garcia; most notably in the the “Informative Note of the Revolutionary Government” (first page of Granma, May 10, 2011), in the article “Cuba Rejects Lies” of journalist Freddy Perez Cabrera (third page of Granma, May 12, 2011), in the Editorial “Fabricating Pretexts” (first page of Granma, May 16, 2011) and in the disrespectful caricature on the first page of Granma dated May 17, 2011.

In so far as: I am sheltered by my status as plaintiff and the full duties and rights thereon attendant for the simple innate reason of being a Cuban Citizen.

As a Cuban Citizen under protection of the Law I demand various matters:

Demanding: That I be informed of the state of the investigation , which on July 8, 2011 I requested of the General Prosecutor of the Republic and which was thereby delegated to the Villa Clara Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.

Demanding: That in said investigation all details stated herein be taken under consideration.

Demanding: That the general Prosecutor of the Republic will carry out that which is legislated, as it should be.

Without further matter and grateful beforehand in anticipation for the attention I hope will be given (this matter), as corresponds to me by right.

Mario Félix Lleonart Barroso

Baptist Priest

Translated by: Maria Montoto

April 24 2012

OUR SHARE OF REPRESSION FOR THE VISIT OF BENEDICT XVI / Mario Barroso

The 103rd Annual Assembly of the Baptist Association of Western Cuba, to which I belong, concluded Saturday the 24th at 6:00pm. That was why my wife Yoaxis and I found ourselves in Havana from the Monday before, the 19th of March, separated from our two girls and from the churches in which we work in the center of the island.  Nevertheless the news that arrived from there was not very promising for our return.  Because of the visit of Benedict XVI something inconceivable was launched throughout Cuba: a true human hunt that trapped as common criminals and fearsome terrorists peaceful people who simply worried about the deplorable human rights situation in their nation.  Detained friends, whole families fenced in, telephones cut off, people disappeared; this was the news we got, and it was really happening behind the scenes in contrast with the striking order on the plazas where the Pope said mass.  In such a situation and assuming that some of these repressive variants or several at once could befall us, we decided to stay in the capital against all risk.

We planned as varied as possible an itinerary that on one hand would keep us moving constantly without any fixed site and that on the other hand offered us the possibility of carrying out advantageous activities in the midst of true secrecy.  One of the most outstanding moments was the religious service we participated in on the Havana Malecon with the street church Victory Reach that as part of the international ministry Victory Outreach rescues treasures in the midst of such darkness.

In our very own pilgrimage, giving time for the Pope to leave, and trying to survive without being captured, at nightfall on Tuesday the 27th, we went to the home of a fellow pastor who took great pains in preparing a tasty supper that we shared in lively fashion with his family in his house full of neighborhood children as they prepared for what they call a night of sleepover, completely outside the presence of a Pope in Cuba.

As part of our rigorous schedule we did not permit ourselves to stay more than three hours in the same place and from the house of our brothers in faith we planned to move to an unfixed point on the Havana Malecon from which we could try to contemplate the presence of the other Cuba that also desired to be present amidst so much euphoria, that of the diaspora, through a self ordained Lights of Liberty, that like the other realized in December on the eve of the International Day of Human Rights, would greet Cubans sequestered on this prison island through fireworks.

The supper was almost finished when they knocked on the door of the apartment in which we found ourselves.  It was the State Security, through two of its agents, who had found us and explicitly prohibited my wife and me from participating the next day in the mass that Benedict XVI would offer on the Plaza of the Revolution.

We explained to them that our presence in Havana after concluding the 103rd Annual Assembly of the Baptist Convention was not principally due to our desire to participate in said mass, but to avoid this repression that now finally made itself present here.  Evidently the order that the agents brought was to detain us both, as they were doing with hundreds of others.

The brother that welcomed us and his family all gathered at the door and prevented the detention by expressing to the agents that they were in the best position to offer us their home for the night and to watch the mass together the next day on television.  The agents, a little perturbed by the atmosphere of peace and harmony that was clearly observed, and which in a certain manner they had interrupted, told us that as far as they were concerned, there was no problem, but they had to consult higher authorities.

Asking me to accompany them alone to the stairs of the building, which I did without resisting, prepared for the ordained arrest, the only one of the two agents who the whole time made use of words left me alone a moment in the custody of the other and made a call, I suppose to the command center of the operation, and after receiving confirmation expressed to me that they accepted my presence in that house from which I could not move while they maintained surveillance.

So it was that we spent a fun night of sleepover in the home of our beloved brothers in faith while the agents kept watch.  I cannot count how many there were in total, but do affirm that there were many more than the two who showed their faces.  Something that powerfully called our attention is that the kind of transport they used possessed private license plates (rather than the plates identifying their vehicles as government cars) and included at a minimum two modern, white cars and another green one, plus a Suzuki motorcycle which could not be missed.

Our share of repression for the visit of Benedict XVI, in spite of everything, was not among the highest.  Just before returning from Havana an abject group of all the repressed joined us in the house of a young independent film maker, Ismael de Diego, grandson of the great man of Cuban letters, Eliseo Diego, who also was victim, and there we found out about the infinity of all kinds of abuses, even taking into account that we who met that afternoon of Thursday the 29th constituted the most fortunate as was demonstrated by the fact that we had been able to get there even with our telephones not working.

The great majority of those excluded and repudiated found themselves distant and handcuffed in provinces like ours, where commonly repression is greater and unpunished.  As a result of our meeting we agreed on a document of denunciation that we signed and delivered to the Apostolic Nuncio by means of the Catholic priest Jose Conrado, present among us, also with his cell phone cut off, who dedicated words to us that expressed his profound regret for what had happened to all of us as part of the papal visit.

If anything, the Cuban visit by Benedict XVI showed that the brutal repression within Cuba, and very alarmingly it seems for many in the world also, is seen now as a normal and tolerable phenomenon, very typical of a System considered unworkable even by its own actors, but which nevertheless is granted recognition and consent.

This time the exaggerated operation, coinciding with the fifth-third anniversary of the repressive organs of the State Security, has been baptized as the Vow of Silence, and undoubtedly constitutes the biggest exercise of this type that has taken place since the Black Spring of 2003, and many senses it is only as the preamble of future repressions through which there could very well be, in contrast with this, victims who are never found again.

Let us pray and work to prevent in Cuba a possible bloodbath so typical of decadent regimes like this one.  A peaceful transition to an authentic democracy, as perfectible as it may be, constitutes an issue of survival for many in the middle of a growing, dangerous impunity.

Translated by mlk

April 5 2012

The Energy Regression / Mario Barroso / Yoaxis Marcheco Suarez

From: http://www.tiempo21.icrt.cu/

By: Yoaxis Marcheco Suarez

Two separate power outages last week, one on Monday from early morning until well past noon and the other on Tuesday night occupying the afternoon, made me reflect again on the subject that was so fashionable a few years ago while the eldest in the hierarchy still ruled over us.

The Energy Revolution, which made many believe that all our problems regarding this situation would be resolved and as if by magic we could live a hundred percent on electricity with a minimum consumption of energy — an idea that could occur only to a madman in a country with deplorable economic conditions as ours — of course this madman misjudged the higher rates that customers should pay from the moment that, happy, content and and never grumbling, we began to use “modern and comfortable” electric burners, electric pots and electric heaters.

The kerosene, oil or bright light as it is variously called in the regions of the country, would be only for emergencies or disasters such as the feared and regular cyclones.

But the madman forgot to calculate that the appliances that had been sold did not possess the quality required for prolonged durability, much less eternal; and that on the island, given the critical conditions of the old power grids, which may well tell the story of Cuba since the rise of the Republic to date, energy demand can cause unexpected, untimely and frequent failures especially in this time of year where, despite the special summer schedule that takes advantage of more sunlight, the usual storms evening with rain and wind and lightening, cause damage to networks that could be resolved quickly or, as in the previous week, can take hours and hours affect the lunch hour or dinner at home.

Like those who set something aside for a rainy day, many housewives don’t dare risk the kerosene they’ve saved, thinking that the blackout will go on for just three or four hours, when the moment of truth arrives and entire days pass without electricity, so they have nothing to cook with, and no lights.

In my house, in particularly, we don’t have a stove that uses kerosene, so on repeated occasions we’ve seen ourselves “fried and placed in the sun” or with “the double blank” (as in dominos) — that is we can’t prepare our own food and have to go with our pots and supplies and ask our near neighbors for help who, I confess, have often helped us.

On the other hand, stoves and other domestic appliances are not always in the best condition, my stove, for example, has required considerable investment to fix the wiring. Once we were in a state of siege food-wise for more than a week, because they didn’t have the parts at the little shop in my village and my stove was on a waiting list nearly three hundred stoves long, which resulted in days we don’t even want to remember.

But let’s not talk only of homes and the constant daily odyssey of trying to put something on our plates, let’s think about the huge investment made in air conditioning offices, hard currency stores, medical centers and surgical rooms, and other state facilities, of good number of which can now function only in certain hours of the day or at night, or where the equipment simply sits on the wall deteriorating and losing its useful life.

Another example of the dementia and lack of economic wisdom of the “Fathers” of Cuban Socialism.

As I write this post, it has started to rain, as is typical of May evenings, or at least it should be, as distant thunder sounds and the heat becomes suffocating. But guess what just happened. Yes, it’s easy to guess, a few minutes ago the electricity cut out.

Will this be one more afternoon that we pass “with a double blank” or parading with our belongings through the neighborhood? I don’t know. Already my little girls’ heads covered in sweat, and the youngest crying out for the fan, is enough to remind me of the madman who once mentioned the false phrase “Cuban Energy Revolution,” who never suffers blackouts nor uses  the “fragile piece of junk” he sold to the people to use in our humble kitchens.

This madman always tends to play with the same words, I’m sure that on pronouncing the term “Revolution” he laughed once again about his submissive subjects and in his mind he thought that if this illogical and mediocre plan failed, none of them would complain about it.

The truth is that we are drowning in this energy, economic, social, cultural, educational regression which many blind people still call the “Glorious Cuban Revolution”; and in the midst of this asphyxiation the people still continue mute in a lamentable way, although, in a whisper, they complain about the person or people who took their kerosene and replaced it with fragile electric stoves.

May 17 2012

It Will Change / Mario Barroso

The city that looks toward the heavens, that looks toward the sea, at the infinite / asking itself from within what our destiny will be

A neighbor from Taguayabón, scandalized with the growing brutality of the system, peculiar to dictatorships in decline, and sincerely worried about me, begged me with all her heart after my arrest last October 19th, that I stop talking and start acting in accordance with the prophetic role to which I have no doubt been called by God before the beast that is Cuban Castroism. To compensate, I told myself, use music. Although she didn’t attend our church, she was referring to the chants she heard with such frequency coming from there, which I so often amplify in order for the many pedestrians to hear them, as well as to the concerts we offer from the vestibule, filling the streets with people alive with faith and feeling, but with high doses of fear about crossing through the doors of a place where we preach, in the words of Bonhoeffer, the gospel that frees from all who oppress and overwhelm.

I confess that I am very thankful for this neighbor’s pleas, and those of so many other people who truly love me and approach me with worry, but I cannot silence God’s encouraging push: do not be afraid! I must recognize nonetheless, something very wise in the appraisal of my neighbor: the power of music against this tyranny. My experience related to this past International Day of Human Rights in homage to the universal principles signed on December 10th, 1948, supports the certainty of my neighbor.

A brief trip to attend to some personal matters placed me in Havana in the maelstrom of December 8th and 9th, at the same time they led me away from the hunt, this time unsuccessful, that was organized against me in Taguayabón to prevent my free movement on a day as transcendental as that of the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration. In the midst of dozens of arrests of friends and the immobilization of so many others, I became aware of the things that were happening through my Twitter account @maritovoz, things like the civil act of Cubans from the other side who had the healthy intention of shooting off fireworks only twelve miles off the coast of Havana’s seafront. I thank God I was offered the inescapable opportunity to discourage some desperate youths, who without doubt were incited by the bad intent of State Security to throw themselves into the sea under the deceit that some fleet of Democracy would be a way of escaping this island prison, when in reality they were to be used as a boycott of a healthy act free of all provocation by being bearers of a message of love and peace.

I don’t know if it was UNICEF or someone else that made the wise decision to convene an open-air concert with the successful singer-songwriter X Alfonso at just a few blocks from the seafront (Ave G and Calzada), and right at the end, greeting the brothers from the other side on the night of December 9th at 10:00pm! This allowed many to see the fireworks, charged with significance on the horizon, closing with the culmination of a silver so strong as if it were the presentation of the disk of X “REVERSE”, completely free and in the open-air.  Thousands of young people, still without the courage to go out on the street like those admired women dressed in white brandishing gladiolas like swords of peace, nevertheless had the courage and passion to sing with energy and a certain freedom words charged with authentic rebellion and nonconformity like those of the talented X Alfonso, so sensibly named an Ambassador of Good Will by UNICEF.  Again, art succeeds where the harassers have not been able.

I was one among the multitude. Before the seafront, on one side without access because of the enraged sea, and hundreds of policemen watching its access on the other side, I climbed unnoticed to the top floors of the Giron building, on the corner of F and Malecon. Running the risk of being taken for a thief, since I was a stranger, I stayed an hour, between 8:30 and 9:30, stationed like a guard to watch the signals on the horizon in one of the corridors. A number of curious neighbors, not because of my presence, but because of the lights of freedom in the horizon, gave me peace. I imagine the same show was happening in all the buildings along the eight-kilometer strip of seafront, and furthermore, especially in the neighbors of Eastern Havana like Cojimar and Alamar, where there were many reports and photos of this luminous embrace that will one day cross the twelve miles that remain for us to melt into one single people. Undoubtedly, the emotion of being able to make out physical lights was much smaller than that of the lips of a people divided for more than fifty years trying to kiss each other in spite of the weight of those twelve miles.

Leaving the Girón at 9:30 to melt with the mass of people that gathered on Presidents Avenue in spite of its being a military zone, and singing with an enormous crowd that seemed to not notice such worried uniformed civil police was an unforgettable emotion. Words like those in this song sum up everything:

The city that looks toward heaven, that looks toward the sea, toward the infinite

asking itself what our destiny will be

hiding its answer in the air of a breath

and waiting for the time to pass, like bored fish.

Politics incapable of resolving any conflict,

government taxes that make them rich,

officials who waste the effort obtained,

workers rising early, giving their souls for their children.

Everything will change, oh, some day it will change,

everything will change, I have faith that it will change.

The poisoned lie that preaches fanaticism,

the ban, speak softly, that you get me into trouble,

the importance of selling a paradise to the outside,

the reasons for taking away my rights, my principles,

those that ignore your problems for obeying what is established,

who point with a finger for thinking differently,

make families unable to share the most beautiful moments,

loneliness that is not a name, is a really messed-up feeling.

Everything will change, some day it will change,

everything will change, I have faith that it will change.

The city that looks toward heaven, that looks toward the sea, toward the infinite

 asking itself what our destiny will be,

this anguish of the silence of knowing if we are alive,

sacrifices without an answer at the end of this road.

Everything will change, someday it will change.

Everything will change, I have faith it will change.

Everything will change.

I should confess that I often remember the words of my neighbor and recognize that art and faith, in the case of Cuba, are achieving what political orders and tendencies cannot, decimated by too much aggression by an intolerant system and concentrated on ways to confront so many valiant people, while a people expires from physical and spiritual hunger. As if to corroborate this, I submerged myself in another sea of people the next day, in Villa Clara, in a provincial gathering among my Baptist brothers, accompanied and protected by the people of my church who, to demonstrate valor, only need to accompany me, as they did. There I sang, our Cuban gospel music this time, and I felt the certainty of what X Alfonso predicts will happen with the impulse of art and faith, like this faith in Christ that not only frees and saves the soul for eternity, but also converts enslaved human beings into citizens with dignity, full of civic consciousness in the here and now, as it did with the possessed Gerasene. I have no doubt that everything will change; what is more, I have faith it will change.

 Translated by: Kimberly De La Cruz, M. Ouellette, AnonyGY

January 3 2012

It’s Good for Them to Know They Are United /Mario Barroso

When Granma and the National Televised News publicized on Thursday, February 23rd the previous day’s meeting between hierarchies of Cuban religious denominations and fraternal organizations with representatives of the Cuban regime, many were alarmed to discover the existing communion between religious and political leaders. Such agreement places both on the same playing field.

Esteban Lazo, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of The Party and vice president of Advisors of the State, summarized everything when he declared clearly, “It’s good for them to know we are united.” Granma confirms this by claiming that these meetings convene annually to reflect the unity between the Cuban government and religious and fraternal organizations.

Such images and declarations place many clerics in a difficult position. In the past, some of these leaders revealed themselves as critics of the Advisory for Cuban Churches by accusing them of appeasing the government, some whose denominations still do not belong to this ecumenical group. What is certain is that belonging to the CIC (Advisory for Cuban Churches) or not does not determine the degree of submission to the regime, which is realistically channeled through the Attention Office of the Central Committee for Religious Matters in charge of punishing or rewarding according to the required behavior.

As a matter of fact, it has been a while since the government discarded the use of the CIC as a control mechanism.  All the CIC has is its fame. The government no longer needs them so much. Its own Attention Office for Religious Matters has managed to fix control, and its methods of reward and punishment are turning out to be extremely effective. In encounters like this, petitions are made, as in years past, in which ecclestiastical leaders were asked to make the changes necessary in their religious structures that would allow them to remain in power, a subject in which these political officials have so much to teach, and the reason is obvious: we already know you.

After returning to their own institutions, as on prior occasions, a good part of these leaders intend to remove so much dust from the top, located between the sword and the wall, between the people and the God they say they serve and the human princes to whom they show their true servitude.

We fell into a trap, they say: we have the duty, as your representatives, to attend the meetings the authorities call us to, and later they take our photos and videos so they can publish them with declarations of politics, boasting about their intimacy with us.

What is certain is that they comment on this in their offices, in their comfortable cars or corridors, but no one dares to publicly refute the hand that pets them, such as Lazo or Caridad Diego, head of the Office that gives the orders.

Entirely the opposite: in practice, they point out the certainty of politicians’ declarations. Some of them hierarchical, critical of the CIC in the past, smiling from ear to ear in front of Lazo or Caridad, but with a different story before their constituency. Demonstrating a double standard, they have arrived at the height of prohibiting their members from attending any of the church’s activities in which I take part, or relating as they used to, not only with me, but with any of the brothers that have remained firm in our congregation, since we could become a danger for its prioritized interests if Caridad Diego finds out.

For them, it is preferable that their constituents have better relationships with the members of the CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution), which many times even they themselves direct, than with brothers in Christ with whom for years they have cultivated relationships and whose houses may be separated by just one door.

Not even these same officials of the regime offices put up with the amoral behavior of these religion merchants bartering the principles of the Kingdom they are called to live for plates of lentils. Some of these politicians have confessed to being perfectly convinced that many of these over-pious white-collar individuals, who in their presence feign being more faithful to the regime than those who show their true devotion when turning their backs, know and exploit very well the eagerness for comfort and lifestyles, which are, of course, ever more remote from the large part of their suffering constituents.

They is sad, these elites, who claim to represent the Kingdom of heaven in Cuba but who, in practice, only demonstrate submission to and complicity in the same regime that extorts the masses, whom they are called on to minister, to change the privileges and salaries. The recent meeting is without a doubt a true confirmation of the degree of “constantinization” of Cuban religious organizations.

But there is no doubt that the axe is at the base of the trees and that Jesus will return to throw the merchants from the temple, those that have been allowed to set prices to be able to buy and sell, while their people perish for lack of vision. But yes, Lazo, while that day approaches, it is good to know, although not even you yourself really believe it, that they are united, at least in the mire of their hypocritical bedfellow relationship.

Translated by: M. Ouellette

February 28 2012

Torture China

Many will think that I am referring to a method of torture made by the Chinese with the deliberate attempt to hurt, but far from that, I am speaking of the famous Yutong brand of bus made in China. Although, I am sure it was not designed to torture us, it does so with amazing efficiency, especially when the distance traveled is long. Obviously, the Chinese Yutong buses manufactured do not take into account Cuban characteristics, for if they had, the space between the seats would be greater because Cubans do not like to ride anything that crowds us especially when those around us are unknown. The seats in these buses have been the cause of more than one altercation between passengers and if someone really wanted to know what I mean by torture, one would only need travel from Villa Clara to Havana to understand, much less try a masochistic journey of more than fourteen hours from the capital to any point of the eastern part of the country.

The jokes abound among the clients of the only bus line in the nation, the ASTRO, which in spite of its name, every day loses more luster due to the fact the buses age without receiving much maintenance. The backs of the narrow seats, for example, suffer from the pockets of mesh within which to place containers of water or other possessions that we carry by hand. In many buses the curtains hang with breaks or it is impossible to close them, cording them through the clasps made for it, or riding in the hot Cuban sun, whether by day, or cold moonlight in the night passing through the windows; or you cannot see outside at all. A very bad matter for the claustrophobic. If we add the stench emerging from the bathroom added to the monotony of travel and the screens for the projection of film or music hang useless all the way. But the most uncomfortable aspect continues to be the tightness between the seats.

As I said the jokes and conjectures are many: the Chinese think that Cubans have limbs as short as theirs and we are as thin and stiff as them, that the buses were built to travel short distances, if I still carry my knee pinned in the back, that if the fat next to me almost touches the floor and the last I heard: Hey, this bus is a Chinese condemnation of torture!

During these days we were visited by friends, the anecdotes were raining down and to me, I almost used the entire tube of Bengay in the massage I gave my visitors imagining the seats located in front of the bathroom and third to the last, stiffer as it is known those don’t lean backward. If anyone has doubts about how torturing these babies are, if a foreigner will not travel the country in rented cars or on buses chartered by National ASTRO, choose instead to sit on one of the stiff (bus seats), I am certain that after that experience no one will be able give him a story of what the true reality of the life of everyday Cubans.

Translated by: Hank Hardisty

March 9 2012

ONE OF THE MANY… THE RAFTER CRISIS / Mario Barroso

…and the sea is now no more. Revelations 21:1

The response to the material nightmare that was buried in the spiritual collapse and in large measure the political and ideological collapse, was the mass escape at the risk of any mishap and even death.

The sea was open defiance, the horizon was the choice of the American dream and who denies that the American dream has always been one of the escape routes most used by Cubans, historically and paradoxically our natures have sought refuge in the shelter of the “monster of the North,” sometimes for political reasons and at others to for economic aspirations; the big neighbor for one reason or another has always opened its doors and provided facilities to those born on the island.

One of these is the famous Cuban Adjustment Act, which encourages with the shelter of the law the escape from the bowels of the known monster, and those Cubans who prefer to try their luck have no room for the refrain better the evil you know than the evil you don’t, because however evil the sea to the north it, it will never be like the one we know.

Thus in the nineties thousands of Cubans took to the waters. I know many who survived the dangerous journey, now living on U.S. soil, but others were trapped, the American dream vanished in the Straits of Florida, it sank like the boat that capsized.

As natives of an island, Cubans have much in common with the sea, from their tanned complexion, food, beaches, the joy of living, to the nostalgia of those who left and the pain of those who died crossing these ninety dividing miles.

But above all the sea is a symbol of freedom for those who have managed to cross the border and may be a symbol of imprisonment for those who stay at home with the latent inability to travel and know new routes. The sea separates us all and locks the invisible bars that surround our Cuba.

The material scarcity but also the spiritual oppression, the hunger to live as human beings, to maximize his youth, to grasp every opportunity that life offers, in 1994 made my friend Frank was launched himself, along with his brother and two young men, on a raft into the sea. Young people prefer to put aside their fears and risk conquering their dreams.

Frank didn’t make it to the United States, his brother did and this became a permanently open wound for him. In a way this post is a tribute to Frank and the thousands of men and women of this country who lost their lives, a tribute to the rafters, who arrived and who did not. In both cases they escaped the bars.

The past is hard, so is the present. And although the Cuban leaders strive to show a world just and full of virtues, a system whose priority is mankind, with advances in health, education and culture, a significant number of Cubans still choose to migrate in some way, legal or illegal, anything to escape this wall that is imposed on us.

The sea remains the symbol of nostalgia for those who left, the path to freedom and progress, the discovery of the unknown; but also for the majority it continues to symbolize the element that isolates us and locks us in. Somehow we have to conquer the sea and with it the freedom that they have usurped.

March 11 2012

PEOPLE IN MEMORY: The Child and the Egg Bombardment / Mario Barosso

In vain I search my mind for the name of my favorite friend when we were in preschool and first grade, the passing of the years have totally erased it.  He was the tallest child in the classroom and he sat in the desk that was next to mine, he happily shared with me his lunches and would sharpen my pencil when the tip broke.  We laughed together during recess and we ran around each other while doing three-legged races.  He was probably the best friend I had during those two years of childhood.  The presence of my classmate every morning was an important part of my routine when I was a child and it made me feel fortunate, I would even say happy; in my infantile mind there wasn’t the slightest possibility that one day that child could disappear from my life, in a way that never again, to this day, I would ever see him again.

Sitting on the doorstep of my grandparent’s house who took care of me nights while my parents worked or studied, I saw a large group of people go down the street, shouting phrases and slogans as they went, much of what they said I am unable to remember at all, but the euphoric cries of: down with the worms, the lumpen, and the song of: down with Pin Pon, down with the worm farm, if I remember them correctly in my memory.  They would walk down the streets with lit torches in their hands, frightening me tremendously without understanding what was happening and making me run into my grandparent’s house’s to hide from the strange parade; when the mob went by, I came out, still not understanding precisely the meaning of all that commotion.

Next day I went back to school and was surprised by the absence of my classmate, I remember this day as one of the saddest in my childhood.  Between the events of the night before, the absence of my friend and the commentaries of those around me, I began to put together what was happening and only understood completely when I walked one afternoon by the boy’s house and saw it shut down, with a paper seal guarding the front door, the floor of the entryway littered with broken eggs and the green-painted masonry, splattered.  I drew the sad conclusion that the family had left the country through the Mariel Boat Lift and that they had taken my dear friend away with them, but sadder still was to understand that the wild mob that had scared me so much had been targeting them, hurling all kinds of insults, rejecting them as if instead of human beings they had been vermin and throwing at them, like bombs, the innumerable eggs.

Years later, during the nineties, when the economic situation in Cuba collapsed, especially because of the collapse of the European socialist camp that practically supported our country, during the terrible periodo especial (Special Period) that dealt blows to all of us, we came to cry in the midst of our need for an egg to satisfy hunger in our ruined stomachs and it was later that these repudiated Cubans were welcomed like gods, it would be they who, with their remittances and family assistance and friends, would substitute in part for European Socialism in supporting our sickly economy. I have always wondered if my friend has been among all these Cubans in exile that have returned to the country to visit their loved ones whose memory must keep like a stigma the act of repudiation that el pueblo enardecido (the inflamed people) dealt them, in which people he may have known since he was born participated, the chants and slogans that I am sure in that moment he did not comprehend and the egg bombardment with which they committed aggression against his home.

Things haven’t changed that much, Cuban emigrants have multiplied since the time I reference until today, it being difficult to find a family in Cuba where at least one of its members doesn’t live outside of the country, it’s good that the times when they were repudiated through mass action have gone away.  I just hope that in a not too distant future the acts of repudiation cease against other Cubans who have not decided to leave but rather to stay within our borders to confront the same regime that governs us since ’59, and that the people of Cuba in their totality roundly refuse to participate in these low and immoral acts, showing themselves to be a people that is coherent, dignified, truly respectful of differences, which is the only way possible to march together towards a tomorrow better than that yesterday and than this today all of us Cubans live.

Translated by: lapizcero

October 28 2011