Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Terror


Photo: AP

The street taken over by hundreds, not what I expected at all. I knew that at any moment they would cease to be individuals and turn into a machine of repression. Silvia and I filmed from inside a car, at some point I leave her with the camera away from the eye of the hurricane and return to 23rd and G. I am very scared. Claudio, camera in hand, is mixing with the international press. I see almost all my colleagues from the academy—students and professors. I give Reinaldo a kiss, he makes a joke about the television cameras, he and I, but I can’t laugh. I want to say, “We have to run!” But I keep quiet, I’m in the irrational world, what little sanity I have left controls my impulses.

To my right is a human wall and a woman gesticulating, the horizon doesn’t exist. I know, in an instant they will fall on us from above, there are four hundred and I’m terrified. I move to the back, I can’t help it. The press is concentrated around Reinaldo, the air is unbreathable. One of my classmates tells me, “Go over there, there are the cameras,” I tell her, “Don’t go, they will run over us.” I think, for a second, to run over to the Riviera, my head’s going a mile a minute… I fled, what horror. I get back on my feet, I can’t find my phone, the avalanche passes by me screaming, “Fidel! Fidel!” dragging everyone along. Suddenly there are a few guys behind me, screaming lasciviously, “This is a good day!”

On one corner, Lía, Vallín and Iván have survived The Wave. She grabs her laptop while the others are both reflecting some kind of calmness, “They’re not afraid!” I think. Later they told me that they were afraid, I hope some day to manage to control myself like they do.

Unfortunately, right now I can’t find myself in that place, I’m trembling, I grab onto Lía. Stop a taxi and get in, sending some Tweets, I tell the driver I am going to Nuevo Vedado. He crosses G and I ask him to return. We double back to F and drive onto the Avenue going to 21st, a Human Torrent is moving from left to right, I have never seen anything more extraordinary: there are screams, punches, groups, police, hysterical people, students and some cordons of State Security running from one side to the other. The traffic is diverted by plainclothes types, a bicyclist in front of us is pushed up the street by a security officer shouting, “Out of the way! Out of the way! Clear off!”

I call Yoani, this is out of control, I’m coming over there, I’m convinced they are all unconscious already and we will spend the night calling the stations and going around to the hospitals. I imagine Reinaldo thrown out on the street and those savages coming down on him. The taxi driver is shocked and pulls out his cell phone and takes a few pictures.

When I get there Reinaldo had already called, I can’t believe it but I keep quiet. I go in the door and find out, they are telling the truth: they’re living a miracle. Today the government has intentionally put the lives of people in danger. From this moment I charge the organs of State Security and Raúl Castro with responsibility for anything that happens to those who, today, after having been dragged by a mob, beaten, interrogated and detained, have finally returned to their homes.*

- Marleny Gonzalez
- Yoan Hernandez
- Yadaimí Dominguez
- Frank Paz
- Wilfredo Vallin
- Eugenio Leal
- Pastor Manuel
- Ivan Garcia
- Silvio Benítez
- Jose Alberto Alvarez Bravo
- Lilia Hernandez Castañer
- Lianelis Villares

Today I was a coward and I will always reproach myself, today I discovered TERROR.

* I am missing some names of people who either I do not know or could not see, I promise to update the list as soon as possible.

Note: We have a fairly complete video of what happened, is very large and I have not been able to load it. Tomorrow I will try again.


Here is the video:

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

tu eres valiente,cobardes son ellos que usan la fuerza en masas de ignorantes y ciegos que no conocen la realidad y la libertad.

Humberto Capiro said...

CONTACT LIST FOR THE FOLLOWING HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS, THEY WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS
http://www.rsf.org/Contact-us.html


HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
http://www.hrw.org/en/contact-us

John Two said...

Don't call yourself a coward Claudia even for a day. You are a woman of incredible and uncommon courage.

To paraphrase a famous anthem of the US civil rights movement: 'deep in my heart I do believe that you shall overcome someday.'

And that day may arrive sooner than any of us think.

Humberto Capiro said...

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Pro-Castro mob attacks spouse of top Cuban blogger

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ieny-Uk_U9cLHJElw4J198MjzspQD9C3K97O1


The man in the middle of the picture looking stoic is Yoani Sanchez' husband Reinaldo Escobar who had dared the BULLY who beat his wife to a DUEL OF WORDS. What he got was MOB INTIMIDATION AND VIOLENCE. This was all orchestrated by THE CUBAN GOVERMENT to intimidate the bloggers in CUBA practicing FREEDOM OF SPEECH even with many difficulties in getting their words heard in the ISLAND PRISON!

SHAME ON YOU FIDEL AND RAUL! YOU COWARDS!!

Humberto Capiro said...

MORE BAD PRESS FOR THE CASTROS!!

REUTERS: Husband of Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez attacked
"Reinaldo Escobar, also a blogger, said he had gone to a Havana intersection hoping that state security agents would respond to a challenge he issued earlier to meet there for a "verbal duel" about his wife's incident.

He said he was speaking to reporters when, in what appeared to be an orchestrated event, several hundred people gathered and began shouting "Viva Fidel" and "Viva la Revolucion."

"His wife, who was not with him at the attack, wrote on Twitter: "Until when will the language of force, of intolerance and disrespect for the opinion of others be the one that prevails in my country?""

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N20232240.htm

Humberto Capiro said...

LATIN AMERICAN HERALD TRIBUNE: Husband of Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez Reports Being Beaten

“I had double luck,” Escobar said, “on the one hand, the foreign press was filming the whole thing (they were also knocked around), and on the other, I took less of a beating because an unexpected shield of ‘friends’ took some of the blows for me. Will they now demand medical certificates?” he asked."

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=347803&CategoryId=14510

Humberto Capiro said...

Reporters Without Borders: Going online in Cuba - Internet under surveillance
http://www.rsf.org/Going-online-in-Cuba-Internet.html

Reporters Without Borders:Authorities block websites, detain 26th journalist
http://www.rsf.org/Authorities-block-websites-detain.html

Human Rights Watch: Cuba's Repressive Machinery:
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1999/06/01/cubas-repressive-machinery

Humberto Capiro said...

INTERNET TREND:
North Korea isn’t the only victim of a growing trend of spoof despots.Twitter bin Laden?

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has his own impostor (www.twitter.com/TheRealColonel), as do Fidel Castro (www.twitter.com/FidelCastro) and Osama bin Laden — that last of which has no fewer than 10 Twitter accounts in his name. Last year one announced: “Cave boring without Xbox.”

Humberto Capiro said...

‘Obama Effect’ Highlights Racism in Cuba

New America Media, News Analysis, Louis E.V. Nevaer, Posted: Dec 15, 2008

"The European Union recently dispatched anthropologists to study racism in Cuba. Their findings were shocking: Not only was racism alive and well in the workers’ paradise, but it was systemic and institutional. Blacks were systematically excluded from positions that involved coming in contact with foreign tourists (where they could earn tips in hard currencies), they were relegated to poor housing, complained of the longest waits for healthcare, were excluded from managerial positions, received the lowest remittances from relatives abroad, and were five times more likely to be imprisoned. "

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7b4ef8e52790034e043a37d170243f0f

Humberto Capiro said...

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT ON CUBA 11/18/09:Cuba: Raúl Castro Imprisons Critics, Crushes Dissent

"Washington, DC) - Raúl Castro's government has locked up scores of people for exercising their fundamental freedoms and allowed scores more political prisoners arrested during Fidel Castro's rule to languish in detention, Human Rights Watch says in a report released today. Rather than dismantle Cuba's repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active, the report says."

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/18/cuba-ra-l-castro-imprisons-critics-crushes-dissent

Reporters Without Borders: Going online in Cuba - Internet under surveillance
http://www.rsf.org/Going-online-in-Cuba-Internet.html

Reporters Without Borders:Authorities block websites, detain 26th journalist
http://www.rsf.org/Authorities-block-websites-detain.html

Human Rights Watch: Cuba's Repressive Machinery:
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1999/06/01/cubas-repressive-machinery

Humberto Capiro said...

BRADENTON HERARL ARTICLE (England)- Human rights report confirms Cubans still in agony

"When it comes to human rights, the 123-page report offers overwhelming evidence that he has run a government every bit as repressive as Fidel Castro’s. Not only does the state’s all-seeing, punitive apparatus remain in place, but Raul has made sure it stays busy.When it comes to human rights, the 123-page report offers overwhelming evidence that he has run a government every bit as repressive as Fidel Castro’s. Not only does the state’s all-seeing, punitive apparatus remain in place, but Raul has made sure it stays busy."

"Meanwhile, beatings like the one blogger Yoani Sanchez experienced recently, short-term detention, “acts of repudiation,” denial of work and brutal treatment of political prisoners remain common features of the machinery of repression."

http://www.bradenton.com/442/story/1870558.html