It’s almost like a premonition, but backwards. After ascending a few steps over the heads of the citizens, those who’ve been dismissed by the regime have to walk down the small mountain they though they had climbed. One step forward, and three steps back, or to the side. It’s like a dance, but it’s as if they’re drunk, disoriented, without that compass of lies, consisting of a uniform, an ID card with red letters which read ‘PNR’ (National Revolutionary Police) and a Soviet-style Makarov pistol. They suffer from a haunting scarcity.
The chief of the PNR Unit in San German, located in the province of Holguin, the 1st Lieutenant Manual Gonzalez Sera was dismissed from his position “because of his incompatible attitude with the processes of the police bodies”, according to local sources. The currently dismissed police chief had accusations from citizens, alleging violence. Though there is still no (and I dare say, will be no) official release, the former officer was subjected to a home search where they occupied numerous of his garments, which presumably were traced back to a relationship he was having with a Cuban-Canadian citizen, a grave crime within the Cuban military code which prohibits relationships between its officials and foreigners.
Within the past year, two chiefs of the police unit have been dismissed in San German. The other, former captain Vladimir Aldana Rodriguez, is serving a sentence in a provincial penitentiary system, just like the local officers Alexander La O and Herson Ramirez. Another three have been dismissed or have been laid off for different motives, all related to police corruption and serious violations in the carrying out of their duties to watch over and maintain citizen’s tranquility.
During the middle of 2011, various sources confirmed the news of the arrest of Lieutenant Luis Quesada, a Penal Instructor from State Security in an infernal unit located in the Pedernales neighborhood, on the outskirts of the city of Holguin. Quesada had bragged to me once when I was detained that he was the one who tore down the door of dissident Cari Caballero’s home so that his olive green troops could search the house. We still don’t know if he has been sanctioned for the crime of raping minors and of lechery.
In the prison known as ‘Cuba Si’, situated on the path to San German, a Lieutenant Colonel from Military Counterintelligence (CIM) whose last name is Monje is serving jail time for the crime of corruption and abusing his power. It seems like a cleansing of their social ditches. Based on the amount of cases there have been reported from various provinces in the country, many suggest that it is just a governmental prance.
But one doesn’t have to imagine it, there are those who wash their face while their hands are full of blood.
Translated by Raul G.
25 January 2012
