By Yudel Rojas**
I was born on December 24, 1980 in Manzanillo to a family committed to the Revolution. I always dreamed of being a member of the Special Forces and one morning they offered me a chance to work for the revolution.
You might ask how.
A captain in counter-intelligence, a man name Jorge Vázquez, told me I should join his agency as an undercover agent. I told him that, of course, I would do anything for the Revolution.
After a few days he came by on a motorcycle, took me to a Cuban Communist Party guesthouse and led me to a bedroom where I was to receive lessons in intelligence gathering. I was trained in debriefing and security monitoring, which meant having to meet people at various houses, where I was given information and instructions. Thus began my life as a G2 agent.
I had to memorize the phone numbers that the official in charge had given me. I felt very encouraged by the contribution I was making to the Revolution, to which I was told I owed a lot, even my existence as a human being.
One night I was taken to Vallespín Park, a place well-known to residents of Manzanilla, and was introduced to a man I was never to see again. We met up with a dissident known as Pascual. He headed the cell of a splinter group, whose members were known, in the language of counter-intelligence, as grupusculeros. My official let it be known these were people who posed a grave danger to the Revolution and who worked for the United States government.
This group had been infiltrated a year and a half earlier. At the time Pascual, who was married to Mirta, had been sentenced for committing a very dangerous crime. He served out his sentence and a few months later left for Spain.
The head of the Gulf of Guacanalyabo branch of the party was the dissident Tania de la Torre Montesino. Before leaving, Pascual suggested I begin working with Tania, through whom I would meet Nelson Virelles, Diéguez Segura and others.
During the meetings at Tania’s house the discussion was about human rights and the challenges facing the Cuban people. Listening to Tania talk about freedom and democracy, I began to have serious doubts.
I was confused and shared my doubts with the official with whom I worked. He told me it was all a lie. He said that, if these were good people, the Party would accept them as one more Cuban civic organization.
After five years problems began to crop up due to ideas about which I had learned from the dissident movement. After every meeting I would ask the official about the things that had been discussed, which led him to finally ask me if I was with the revolution or against it. I told him it was only a question and nothing to get upset about. Once I did not go to a meeting and was ordered detained by the police.
Things got worse. I learned not to trust anyone. Jorge, the official, told me repeatedly that my goal as an agent was to infiltrate these splinter groups, not to ask stupid questions. I stopped doing infiltration work but kept visiting Tania’s house and participating in various activities.
Over time I learned I had been mistaken, that State Security had confused me and that the truth was to be found there in the old house where the brave fighter known as Tania de la Torres Montesino lived.
I was arrested several times and the head of counter-intelligence, Alexis Díaz, threatened me, saying I might simply disappear if I kept visiting the grupusculeros’ house.
To be continued.
*Translator’s note: Acronym for Cuba Independent and Democratic. An organization founded in Venezuela in 1980, dedicated to “the struggle for the establishment in our homeland [Cuba] of a society committed to liberty and human dignity, completely democratic and sovereign, socially balanced and just.”
** Yudel Rojas is the author’s actual name. He is a member of the CID delegation in Manzanillo.
10 September 2013
