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FROM
CUBA
"This
regime will be over when Cubans wish it":
Manuel V�zquez Portal 1z6q31
HAVANA, December (cubanet.sergipeconectado.com) - "If
we suffer under a tyranny, it's only because
we put up with it, and so we deserve it.
Until the Cuban people, in spite of the
government's repression, decide to be free,
we will continue to be slaves. As long as
we continue believing the regime's barrage
of propaganda, we will continue, like mesmerized
toads, living in the muck," wrote imprisoned
poet and journalist Manuel Vzquez
Portal, serving an 18-year sentence, to
his wife.
Aguadores Prison, October 1, 2003
Sra. Yolanda Huerga Cedeo
My Puchita:
My birthday will be on the 9th. I will
not be able to enjoy your company, and Gabriel,
who already misses me, will not be able
to wake me up, with his eyes beaming for
joy, to remind me that I'm getting older.
When will we be able to enjoy these basic
pleasures that we were used to, and which
have been denied to us by the injustice
and ferocity of a deadly regime? To this
question, I cannot but answer the same way
I always answer those who ask me when this
hateful regime will be over: This will end
when Cubans wish it. If we suffer under
a tyranny, it's only because we put up with
it, and so we deserve it. Until the Cuban
people, in spite of the government's repression,
decide to be free, we will continue to be
slaves. As long as we continue believing
the regime's barrage of propaganda, we will
continue, like mesmerized toads, living
in the muck.
Castro's Revolution has been, since the
beginning, an Edenic simulation that, through
a press that indoctrinates more than it
informs, has sold a messianic image, has
tried to dazzle the world, has bamboozled
some, and has fooled a whole people. Of
paradise, Cuba has only had the perilous
age, a danger-strewn Styx, that daring
navigators have desperately discovered in
the Straits of Florida, in which they envision
the promise of a better life after having
faced Cerberus.
This year, in which I arrive at age 52,
without peace, without a country and without
liberty, has been particularly fateful for
Cuba. Thousands pay with their imprisonment
the quota of suffering that periodically
punishes the nation. Faced with the impossibility
of lowering social pressures through another
massive exodus, the regime has been forced
to substitute imprisonment for migration.
Police operations, this time headed by
State Security, have been able to put the
brakes on popular discontent. How many prisoners
were arrested this year? No one, except
the higher-ups in power, knows. Operatives
with highfalutin names, such as People's
Shield, directed against drug trafficking;
Offensive Two, against opponents and journalists,
and others, have landed many in Cuban jails.
But popular discontent has not decreased.
Unconformity bubbles in our country as the
lava inside a volcano. I sincerely believe
that the increasing disapproval to the Castroite
system is irreversible. I aspire to no more
birthdays under the heavy burden of Cuban
totalitarianism.
I love you,
Me
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