English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
It’s still not a year since we suffered the death of Laura Pollán — in October — and in January that of Wilmar Villar, when mourning once again cloaked the feelings and spirit of the alternative civil society in Cuba. Oswaldo Payá, the most prominent of the opposition leaders inside Cuba, is physically absent from … Continue reading “Another Absence / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado”
The trashed cityscape reaches all the way to the gate of the parish, in the arid Cerro neighborhood. “The Savior of the World,” says the sign, so distant from the desert outside, beyond the gates. And one thinks, sleepwalking before sunrise: how poor any form of expression is in this country. Dawn lingers on the … Continue reading “Payá, Posthumous President / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Again, Cuba’s general-president has offered his gastronomic policy to the American president. “The table is set…” said a Raúl Castro who appeared erratic and inconsistent at the podium this 26th of July, as if a touch of rum had been added to his morning coffee. He laughed at his own bad jokes like some street … Continue reading “The Empty Table / Miriam Celaya”
Absurd and suspicious. No matter what the News says. He was a man threatened with death. The News emphasized the years of experience of the experts who established the responsibility for the accident, and I think they belong to the same Ministry where the order came from to threaten Oswaldo Payá and his family. Not … Continue reading “The Death of Oswaldo Payá / Lilianne Ruíz”
World: Death on the island The death of Oswaldo Paya in Cuba has impacted the dissidence and sowed suspicion. This is the story and tribute from a Cuban writer and photographer from the ranks of the opposition. By Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, from Havana 26/07/2012 Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (1952-2012) has died like they kill the … Continue reading “Payá Yes, Bishops No / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Still dazed and in shock I compose these words to Oswaldo. When I started to get the first messages about Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas’s death they were showing the film “War Horse,” and in one of the scenes a soldier leaves his foxhole to save his charger and before the imminence of his death he is … Continue reading “Oswaldo Payá: The Act of Serving / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Executives and members of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance Front, raise their voices to condemn the cowardly assassination of prominent opposition leaders Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, founder of the Varela Projects and founding president of the Christian Liberation Movement. This Coalition of Coalitions shares in the grief of this Christian family, at a time … Continue reading “Message from the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance Front on the Death of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero / Jorge Luis García Pérez Antunez”
Oswaldo Payá has died and left us, this man who with his “Varela Project” taught my generation and Cuba that freedom is possible. We were very young then and our idea was to shout liberty through literary works, which, from our naivete, we thought was the most direct path to democracy, and that this was … Continue reading “Oswaldo Payá on the Altar of the Nation / Ángel Santiesteban”
About five hundred people accompanied the body of Oswaldo Payá to his final resting place in the Colon Cemetery. Family members, activists, Ladies in White, foreign correspondents and diplomats based on the island gathered at eleven in the morning. Dozens of dissidents traveled from the central and eastern provinces to the capital in Havana to … Continue reading “Rosa María Payá Honors Her Father Oswaldo Payá: “We do not seek revenge, but we thirst for the truth” / Yoani Sánchez”
Yesterday, Sunday the 22nd of July, through a telephone call from a friend, I learned of the tragic death of the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in a traffic accident that occurred in Granma province. The versions about what happened are dissimilar and will surely vary. What will not change is … Continue reading “Oswaldo Payá, a Part of Our History / Dimas Castellano”
No one should die before reaching their dreams of freedom. With the death of Oswaldo Payá (1952 – 2012), Cuba has suffered a dramatic loss for its present and an irreplaceable loss for its future. It was not just an exemplary man, a loving father and a fervent Catholic who stop breathing yesterday, Sunday, but … Continue reading “Oswaldo Payá, Rest in Freedom / Yoani Sánchez”
At five in the afternoon on July 22, the death of opposition leader and founder of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) Oswaldo Payá was confirmed. The news started as a rumor that spread during the early hours of Sunday afternoon. Known nationally and internationally for organizing and carrying out the Varela Project, his death at … Continue reading “Cuban Opposition Leader Oswaldo Payá Dies in Car Crash / Yoani Sánchez”
What effectiveness with the enemies…!!! Translator’s note: Ecured is the Cuban government’s internal “wikipedia” — written and controlled by the government. The introductory text of Oswalda Payá’s entry [from the image above] reads: Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas. Cuban counterrevolutionary, linked to the United States. Leader of the counterrevolutionary organization The Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) and … Continue reading “Oswaldo Payá Dead Ipso Facto in "Ecured" / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
It leaves an empty space … my friend Alfredo goes into exile. In March 2003, that Black Spring, chaos erupted in his life. The son of Alfredo Felipe Fuentes, an opponent of the regime, and Loyda Valdes Gonzalez, Lady in White. His father, proselyte, irreducibly dissenting, fell into the round of 75 opponents taken prisoner. … Continue reading “When a Friend Leaves / Jeovany Jimenez Vega”
She said it with a tone somewhere between surprise and disappointment: “They don’t give a damn, Ernesto. How mistaken we exiles are.” And I nodded because I knew too well what she was talking about. For her, a woman from Santiago who hadn’t stepped foot on her native land since 1999, living in Miami and … Continue reading “The Winners’ Trophy / Ernesto Morales Licea”
