Translating Cuba

Many people ask me to clarify some points that tarnish the credibility of my case and situation. As Internet is the playground of all, we can utter truths, but also otherwise. And every time, after every event, positive or negative, that happens in my life, I have a bunch of people trying to highlight an insidious observation, creating doubt and suggesting, in general, that I’m lying.

Among them, some even tell me that there are people who think I’m imprisoned because of a family dispute. That possibility seems impossible to me since the all evidence of my innocence can be found on the Internet, and nothing, not a single thing, against me.

So how can anyone even suggest that what the government in power says about me is true. I have exposed to public review all my proofs, I proved that I am innocent. On top of that, I made a video of an alleged witness for State Security’s Prosecution and the “plaintiff” against me. I absolute believe that, after seeing this proof, among many others, no one can accept the version of the State against me.

After someone makes a pact with the State, with its political police, and its legal arm, it could appear plausible. I’ve said a thousand times before opening my blog I was [in the eyes of the regime itself] an exemplary citizen, save for my writing which was already, from my start, rebellious.

I was also an exemplary father, and spent more than two and half years lovingly and physically separated from my ex, with whom I have a beloved son.

I have also offered the name of Major Pablo, chief of the sector chiefs of the municipality of Plaza.

In my blog you can read all the irregularities of the trial, it was just a circus, and a month before the sentence was handed down the henchman Camilo announced my sentence to me, with the number of years I would serve. Is he psychic?

It can also be seen in the sentence, after the appeal and review, that I was badly sentenced, but nonetheless they are not interested in amending it. Anywhere in the world, that sentence should be thrown out. And in front of the whole world, I ask for a new trial.

To make matters worse, the journalist Juan Carlos Linares Balmaseda, from Cubanet, interviewed me. They immediately asked how it was possible that he could have access to me. I urge those who have questions to ask the journalist to see how terrified he was, and how he had to escape before finishing so he wouldn’t be arrested. In that interview he took a picture, the one where I am at the end of the unit where they keep me locked up, which adjoins a street and homes. That was the appropriate space to do it.

Under my sentence (five years), I have the right to leave on a pass every sixty days. After eight months in prison, I was awarded the first pass and visited the home of Antonio Rodiles and in the happiness of family, they gave me a cake and me took a portrait.

That day gave rise to more gossip, sowing doubts, saying I was released and just pretending to be a prisoner, and so many stupid things that they don’t deserve mention. Then Aimara Pérez came to Cuba and spent a day visiting my family. I allowed her to photograph me. This prison settlement ends at the end of a street. Then some said I was in the street. At the end there is a Girón bus they keep here, and others said that the picture was taken on a public street. It is like looking for the detail to fit the official version.

I have no doubt that those who are interested in these false details have another interest which is not the freedom of Cuba. It only remains to add that anyone who has any doubts can look for evidence on the internet or can approach me, can find ways to reach me, and after that conversation, then you will be allowed to issue an opinion supported by your own inquiries.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Prison settlement of Lawton, January 2014

From the time I was a kid I discovered that my feelings forced me to show solidarity with the weakest. In sports I wanted to play on the most competitive teams, and today it’s the same. But I’ve always been on the side against the Cuban dictatorship.

In the eighties, when my generation started thinking, we hated the dictatorships in the world, especially those in Latin American; at that time we didn’t understand that Cuba lived under a totalitarian regime.

I still don’t know where my need to express my feelings without worrying about the consequences came from, even if the price is my own life.

The Cuban opposition, if I were asked to express it through a painting, would be a huge tree in a gale of wind raging against its structure, and despite its trunk, sometimes it leans, seeming as if it could touch the ground, and even so, it endures all things, at times the wind carrying away its branches, leaves, fruits, but always, irremediably always, it recovers, and stands to wait and face the next onslaught.

The time remaining without freedom is impossible to predict, but the forces of resistance seem to be sufficient and are multiplying.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Prison settlement of Lawton. March 2014.

Please sign the petition so that Amnesty International will declare Angel a prisoner of conscience.

Reopening of the Marti Theater

Since we were kids we dreamed of this space full of magic and history, where a great part of Cuban culture was staged and presented for our enjoyment. Timeless works were presented there: “Cecilia Valdés,” “Amalia Batista,” among others, without forgetting that in this space in 1900 the Constituent Assembly was held, and that a year later Generalissimo Maximo Gomez, surrounded by the great generals, presided over a gala celebrating the victory over Spain and the ultimate decolonization.

For decades we’ve suffered the ruins of that majestic place, in silence imaging the beginning of its functions.

On several occasions I’ve approached it — from outside — penetrating it with my gaze and recreating those sublime figures who represented culture at the height of their era, and those who fought for freeing and shared their lives. The first, learning to be the artists of their time, and joining in the social clamor with a vernacular theater and slapstick comedy, the people saw reflected in those characters their desires. They also recreated society with political satire, that cold irony that made us laugh and think.

The historian Eusebio Leal Spengler recalled the example of the Father of the Nation and founder of the Cuban nation, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes: “In a few days we will remember his great sacrifice. High above the mountains, in a place called San Lorenzo, he gave his life, laying the foundation, the example and at the same time, the bitter lesson that disunity would only postpone the chances of achieving the great objectives.”

Such immense words for that man who agreed to let go of power knowing how much he had done, and he did it, rather than divide our forces. Quietly and immediately he began to prepare the files to give to his successor, and with his hat over his heart, he received him at the entry of his camp. A great man until the last moment of his life.

Would that Fidel Castro had learned that lesson. Today our country wouldn’t be in ruins, like the Marti Theater has been for decades, our families divided. Nor would we have sacrificed so many brilliant lives, nor would the nation be bleeding from its wounds of political repression.

The difference would be a place won for each person. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes will always be remembered for his sacrifice, putting his country before his personal interests. Fidel Castro and his brother Raul will be remembered for the opposite.

Blessed history!

Ángel Santiestaben-Prats

Prison Settlement of Lawton, March 2014

3 March 2014

I recognize the sin it is to read the Cuban press, but really we should give ourselves the entertainment, in good humor. In these newspapers, we find topics to write stories about, with themes that border on the absurd.

A great character among those that lend themselves to a demented and evil personality, of the worse strain, whom we doubt could have been born of woman, is Lazaro Fariñas, inflator of realities, misinterpreter at his convenience, impossible to explain further as he lives in the United States, from where he criticizes and attempts to convert, or at least make people believe, that Cuba is a paradise. But so lucky is he that his office of satrap and calculator is carried out from the land of freedom, that he could never do otherwise.

In his last article, from 21 January, he raises the alarm with an immense ingenuity not characteristic of him, about the closure of the busiest bridge in the world , the George Washington, which links Manhattan with the city of New York, because of an issue between politicians in that area.

The most laughable part is when he says that Cubans won’t be able to believe it. It was the peak of ecstasy, I laughed myself sick, imagining how they used little children to close one of the busiest streets in Havana, First Avenue and 60th in Miramar, which leads to the National Aquarium, using the children as shields to try to prevent the opposition from holding the First International Conference on Human Rights, which demanded the ratification of the UN Covenants, organized by the independent State of Sats project.

Under the guise of a cultural activity they diverted traffic — and it wasn’t a partial closure like on the George Washington Bridge, but a complete closure to cars and “untrusted” people, not to mention public buses.

When the Ladies in White meet at their headquarters in Neptune Street, before dawn, they don’t allow traffic or pedestrians to reach that street and they  detain dissidents who approach to participate, beating them and taking them to nearby police stations.

How is it possible that this gentleman thinks we Cubans can’t believe something that we experience every week. Our most fundamental rights are violated every day. I’d like to see him on the front page of some newspaper of this country and see him survive on the salary they would pay him!

He does his work without any scruples at all. He dedicates himself to scaring Cubans who don’t walk in his footsteps: do what I say and not what I do. Accept the vineyard of the Lord.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton Prison Settlement. January 2014

Please join the campaign in solidarity with these two artists whose only “crime” is to want Cuba to be free and to not have to pay the consequences to the Castro dictator when they say what they think. Follow the links and sign. Many thanks.

To sign for Gorki, go here.

To sign for Angel, go here.

8 February 2014

In new demonstration of the impunity with which the Cuban Regime does and does not practice justice, using it solely as an instrument of punishment against the dissidence, proving clearly that in Cuba justice is NOT independent and is simply an armed arm within the monstrous repressive apparatus of the dynastic dictatorship, now in the hands of the younger son Raul, they have sanctioned Ameila Rodriguea Cala — attorney for Angel Santiesteban, Gorki Aguila, Sonia Garro and the Ladies in White among many other opponents persecuted and imprisoned for political reasons — to six months of not being allowed to practice her profession.

We understand that with the infamous accolade that have members of CELAC, Mr. Inzulsa and Mr. Ban Ki Moon have given to the dictator Castro, and thus, to the dictator Maduro as well, repression and violation of human rights in Cuba has steadily increased since January because it has been supported and rewarded, not to mention the way the government of Venezuela, led from Havana, has unleashed the most brutal violence and repression against young students asking peacefully, among other demands, for security.

Everything that happens in Cuba and Venezuela is the responsibility of the concert of nations and leaders who reward a military dictatorship with a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, and who open a “frank” dialog caring for nothing but business relations at the cost of freedom for Cubans.

From here, we hold Raul Castro responsible for the physical integrity of Angel Santiesteban, for all the prisoners and those politically persecuted by the regime, and ask for a small show of decency and that he fulfill his promises to “reform” his government for the better.

Free Justice from the political power and comply with the laws and the Constitution.

Respect the rights of Angel Santiesteban and “allow” Justice to carry out Justice. In the long-term the most harmed will be the government, if it continues to violate rights and repress the people.

As you already know, we in the free world are watching if there is the slightest dignity and if you fulfill your responsibilities and as a first proof of “goodwill” SIGN NOW the UN Covenants.

The Editor

Attorney for the Opposition Can’t Practice / by Lilianne Ruiz

Read the article here.

21 February 2014