My Husband is Worth it, Telephone Interview with Suyoani Tapia Mayola (II)

Part Two: Kilo 5 ½ Prison in Pinar del Río

- When did you decide to follow the fate of Horacio and move out of Ciego de Avila to Pinar del Rio?

It was difficult to get them to give me authorization, me being a doctor, to go visit Horacio after they transferred him. We intended to make the relationship work and so I had to move there. Also, I couldn’t keep up the pace of the visits from Ciego de Avila.

I have been living here in Pinar del Rio for four years with no one, only his family and the friends I’ve made since I came. The families of the other prisoners supported me, for example I would stay in the house of the family of Victor Rolando Arroyo when I came on the visits.

It was hard to separate from my family, I never dreamed of living in Pinar del Rio and look, here I am. Then my mother-in-law died, which was a very hard blow for Horacio and for me. She helped me with everything, she died March 2, 2008, of cancer.

I was very lonely but months later God gave me the gift of becoming pregnant and now I have a daughter of 15 months; we named her after Horacio’s mother: Ada Maria, she’s the youngest little Lady in White.

Despite everything I think we are happy, despite being separated we have a lot: a family on a sound footing. We, Horacio and I, have always had a great deal of faith, and at times -- my mother also tells me this -- I feel as if it were a mission, that only God knows why he does things.

I can’t say it is completely happy, having him in prison is very hard; we are all prisoners, we have no life. I take my daughter to all the visits, she plays for two hours and on leaving him she cries. For us as parents, also, it’s very difficult, he has missed so much: her first steps, her first words. We miss having Horacio very much, as do his children and their spouses. We hope that everything will be solved and we can live as a family, as the real family that we are.

- Are you still practicing as a doctor in Pinar del Rio?

I finished my social service and I continue working here, the move was difficult, at first no one wanted to give me a position. My career is very practical and I always want to work. State Security made sure that my position here in Pinar del Rio was very far away, there wasn’t even a road, I had to get there in a horse cart, and I was there for six or eight months. When I was pregnant I had to travel by wagon with my big belly, coming and going every workday.

Eventually I approached the town and then the municipality, but with all that I’m still very far out. In my work I’m assigned to the municipality of Sandino, about twenty miles from where Horacio’s family lives.

They gave me a job, but they have never made things easy for me. A doctor friend told me when I arrived, “Are you prepared for how you will live? I’m convinced you can’t even imagine how things are going to be for you.” And it’s true, very difficult things have happened, when I got pregnant it was even worse, with a huge belly for six, seven months, going alone to the prison, arriving with three or four suitcases of things for Horacio and the officers weighing them so they can start removing things. All of the prisoners’ families live through this, but looking at my story in particular and what they have done, there is cruelty.

- Do you have any special moment you would like to tell me about, something that has been marked you as a couple?

We have had very hard times but also very beautiful times in our relationship. I can’t deny that at times we’ve fallen, like everyone else, but we are always able to pick ourselves up and the proof is this: today we are together, after nearly seven years in a relationship, we are more united than ever, and that’s the truth.

There is a story that marks us -- it’s even amusing -- at times a person from outside hears it and it seems normal, but for us it has a great deal of significance: Once I was looking after a prisoner and Horacio called me to attend to him. I thought he felt bad, I was worried because I thought it was serious. It happened that I was examining other prisoners -- the doctor in the prison usually goes in and examines the prisoners in the same cell -- and the guard forgot about me and left me alone with the inmates. Horacio was calling and calling me, and suddenly he was at my side and without thinking he gave me a hug as if he wanted to say that no one could touch me. When I realized what was happening it frightened me. Afterwards we laughed and I asked him, “What were you thinking?!”  What he hit on was to hug me before the whole world!

- When did you get married?

We were married on March 21, 2007, the wedding was in the prison, a very simple thing: we brought a notary, signed. Perhaps one day we will celebrate our union in a better way with our family. Horacio has three daughters, the oldest is 22 and is very attached to us, she was 16 when her father was convicted.

Perhaps we’ve managed to achieve things other couples living together don’t manage, I daresay there are married couples in the street, you see it every day, who do not have what we have. This is not an heroic act of mine: Horacio is worth all this sacrifice, he inspires me to do all of this.

- What do you think of the negotiations taking place now between the government and the Catholic Church?

It is very difficult to have a daughter alone, to see how this baby walks, talks and grows without being able to see her papa, to see how she cries every time we leave him. It’s very hard to see him turn his back and know that he is enclosed behind a fence, to not know if he’s eating, if he’s going to be fine. Then, as long as it doesn’t go against our principles, I’m infinitely thankful for everything that is being done to free him and all the prisoners.

There was a time in my life when there was no light, I lived to live and today I have the hope of being able to form a family, to give my daughter a stable home. Her father is irreplaceable, his place can’t be filled by anyone else, not by grandparents, by no one, then the possibility to live together, to have a normal live, as God wishes, it’s something I am very grateful for.

(End of interview)

"My husband is worth it," Telephone Interview with Suyoani Tapia Mayola (I)

It was by chance that I heard the story of this twenty-nine-year-old doctor and her husband, Horacio Piña Borrego, 42, a freelance journalist imprisoned for the cause of 75.  As she told me the odyssey of her fate, it was as if she was reading from a chapter of Wuthering Heights. These things don’t happen in real life, I thought, but if they do I have to talk to this woman, I have to report this.

A mutual friend connected us and I decided to call her to hear her testimony. Suyoani’s words pierced my heart and although they say everything is more distant on the phone, when she cried I  cried too on the other side of the handset. I didn’t think I would publish an interview but rather that I would tell her story; but after recording it, to convert the life of this girl into my own words seemed a sacrilege.

Part One: Canaleta Prison, Ciego de Avila

Q: How did you meet Horacio in Canaleta prison?

We met for the first time in a punishment cell. It was shocking to me because I wasn’t a doctor in the isolation zone, I was on duty and they sent me to look at Horacio who was feeling ill.

When I entered the corridor there was an incandescent bulb, no sunlight enters there because the windows are blocked with a piece of zinc. It was a huge space, I can’t tell you how big it was -- it’s incomparable -- there were many small cells, extremely small. And there were five there from the Cause of the 75, [from the Black Spring of 2003]: Raúl Rivero, Ariel Sigler Amaya, Luis Milán Fernández, Pedro Pablo Alvarez and my husband, Horacio Piña.

I remember that Horacio had a headache and high blood pressure. When I saw him through the bars it was extraordinary, from that instant the two of us realized something was going to happen. At that time I never thought we would end up getting married, and we would even have a daughter. But it was magical, I have great faith in these conditions, to get to know a person, fall in love there, and to get married and have a family, it really has to be the work of God.

Q: Why were the five of them in punishment cells?

There was no reason for this, it was where the authorities had put them. These were the punishment cells for common criminals, but also the isolation zone. When they were imprisoned they were put there with those condemned to death and life in prison. Horacio was there for a year and four months.

Q: When did you realize you were falling in love?

At first we were just friends, although from the beginning we identified with each other. On May 13, 2004, we had our first kiss -- almost a year after we met -- because as he was in the isolation zone we rarely saw each other, only once or twice a month.

In the prison the relationship between the prisoners and the guards and doctors is very difficult, they spoke very badly of him to me. My husband told me many times he wanted to start a conversation but he was afraid of disappointing me, or saying it in the wrong way, or other things given his situation. I also wanted to talk to him, but also was afraid.

It took a long time before we could talk, only when they transferred him to the regular population with the rest of the prisoners could we see each other almost daily and we started our relationship. I took care of the chronically ill and he had various diseases.

Our union was, despite so many adversities, very strong; we never talked about something temporary, on the contrary, we always made plans for the future. We had a lot of problems because there are things you cannot hide: State Security realized that something was wrong, that I was helping not only him but the others as well. They started to watch us, and although they never obtained clear evidence of our relationship, they suspected it. After Raúl Rivero wrote a poem about our story, State Security confiscated it.

Horacio is wonderful, the person I chose to model myself on, I rely on him, he gives me great strength to live and to carry on. There are people who say to me, “How is this possible? You’re a young woman, you have your whole life ahead of you. What are you doing joined to a man sentenced to twenty years?” I simply answer: My husband is worth it.

Q: What were the consequences when they discovered everything? In your personal and professional life, what happened?

They came to look for me in the consulting room -- I was just attending to Horacio -- five State Security officers came and took me to an office, it all happened in front of him. It was a terrible moment, he knew that something was wrong and said to the officers, “Interrogate me! Leave her alone!”

They pressured me so I would confess. I am a doctor, a civilian employee of MINIT (Ministry of the Interior) and I was finishing my social service, we were nothing more than a man and a woman, they couldn’t accuse me of anything. The tried to intimidate me through my family, they threatened me; they told me they were going to tell my parents.

An officer asked in an interview how it was possible that a doctor, a graduate of the Revolution, could be in love with a terrorist. On that occasion I answered, “It seems that you and I don’t have the same concept of what a terrorist is, Horacio Piña is not a terrorist.”

They transferred me to another MINIT unit, and he was then sent to Pinar del Rio. The last interview in Canaleta was July 18. Horacio was transferred on the morning of August 11 to Combinado del Este and then to Pinar el Rio. That is, he only spent a few days in Ciego de Avila after I was sent to a unit made up of offices with nothing to do with prisoners. They said they didn’t want to lose a doctor, so they made a job swap: a doctor in a school was interested in changing jobs, so she went to MINIT and I went to the school.

Q: So they wouldn’t allow you to continue working in prisons?

No, they knew that, having a relationship with him, I was going to help him. They don’t want, they can’t even imagine, that someone could make things easier for him. There were times of great pressure, there was the day I was waiting for a bus to go to work and at the stop one lady said to another, “There is a doctor with a terrorist in prison here in Canaleta.”

That little designation of “Doctor with Terrorist,” they were ordered to disclose back in my province. For my family it was also very difficult, they called my parents from their jobs. They were very hard times for everyone, including for him, because he felt helpless while I was going through the whole situation.

Q: And your family, how did they react to such pressure?

I have a fantastic family... I can hardly talk about it. In the case of my dad, because my mom is a little bit more quiet, he told me, “If we don’t help you, who will then? You are my daughter.” Remembering this hurts. The day State Security interrogated me, they also interrogated my father. The next morning when I was leaving for work he asked if I wanted him to go with me.

“Daddy, I can go alone,” I said, and he told me,

“Then hold your head high, you have done nothing to be ashamed of.”

And I will always be grateful for this, really I have so much to be thankful for because both of their jobs are related in one way or another to the government, to the system. Another family may not have taken this position. The officials even asked my father why I was still living under his roof and he said,

“No way will she leave this house, she is my daughter and I will support her in everything.”

And so he always has done. It’s been almost seven years and here I am in Pinar del Rio. Despite being so far away they have helped me a lot.

Q: What about people, what attitude have they taken to the defamation? Your coworkers and your friends?

I’ve received the support of many people. Horacio is very sociable and easy to love. The nurses help us a lot and he even stays in contact with people in Canaleta. I told him at that time, “You have eyes in the back of your head,” and he explained himself, saying, “The friendships warn me of dangers, they let me know when someone who is harmful to us is nearby.” State Security hasn’t been able to destroy people’s solidarity, it’s a thorn stuck in their throats and that's why they won’t let me live in peace. I have always been persecuted, I haven’t had a moment’s tranquility. Here in Pinar del Rio, for example, when I start work somewhere the same thing always happens, at first no one says anything, but later, when we know each other, they confess, “Doctor, I have to say one thing, before you came State Security was here and told us we had to inform on you, about everything you do, when you come and go.”

They have called my parents and pressured them to ask me to come back, they say they will give me a job, locate me in the provincial capital, that nothing will happen to me... They’ve even gone that far.

(End of the first part of the interview.)

The Return

Image: El Guama

I don’t know why, nor for what, the obscure reasons and the theories surrounding his reappearance don’t interest me. I don’t think, even for a moment, of trying to figure out Fidel Castro’s return to the cameras. There are things in life that that are only for delight, and this is one of them.

The Twilight of the Dictators is hard not to enjoy in its entirety, since his retirement, in 2006, I've had a feeling I would miss a good part of the senile finale of the “Cuban Revolution.” I was wrong and I rejoice for my mistake.

I had to satisfy myself with the Reflections, increasingly more like science fiction short stories in nickel magazines than anything else, good for a laugh, but infinitely inferior to their graphic versions -- it wasn’t for nothing that television flooded the marketplace in the twentieth century.

It is not the same as reading this:

"The economy of the super power will collapse like a house of cards. American society is the least prepared to withstand a catastrophe like that the empire has created on its own territory from where it left.
We are ignorant of the environmental effects of the nuclear arms, which will inevitably burst upon various parts of our planet, and that in a less severe variant will be produced in abundance. To venture a hypothesis would be pure science fiction on my part."

Or listening and seeing this.




Gentlemen, without sadness or despair, this miracle of the national comedy calls for a celebration, there is a distinct possibility that this will be the last time we will see it pass by.

Sad Highways

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

Practical woman that I am, I thought I would take advantage of my trip to Santa Clara to buy, along the highway, products which, in the capital, are hard to get or very expensive. From when I was little I remember the peasants by the road side selling what they themselves had planted and grown, trading their wares directly with travelers.

The lack of vendors on foot for miles and miles, surprised me, as I know these farmers have a very precarious economy, and I had to believe that the police dedicate themselves to punishing those who sell what they grow with their own hands. From their wooden houses, with their government-registered cows, they could earn enough from the sale of a few pounds of cheese to feed their families for some days.

There are still some, maybe fewer than twenty, along the miles that separate Havana and Santa Clara. Fearful, when a car stops they approach with caution, because the National Revolutionary Police hunts them by posing as customers.

The boy who finally sold me some cheese couldn’t have been more than 25. I asked him what happens when the police catch them: he said they run as fast as they can, trying to save at least some of the goods, while the police chase them back into the woods.

“They chase you into the woods?”

It’s hard to take seriously the ridiculous image of a uniformed officer knocking a peasant down into the grass to seize twenty bananas.  As the poor boy hadn’t come to hear a lecture from me, I simply paid him and left, but the idea was making my head spin. Are there not, according to Raul Castro, a million unproductive people in Cuba earning salaries? Why don’t they start by getting rid of the jobs of these predators on the family economy and allow the farmers to sell their products wherever they want?

The One Who Understands Nothing is Me

"Don't believe, don't fear, don't beg."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The last days have been dizzying, torn between joy and uncertainty. I didn’t say goodbye to Pablo Pacheco because he sneaked out of the country, I haven’t been able to talk with Pedro Argüelle and I still have my eyes fixed on the image of Fariñas, frozen in the moment when the grimace on his face proved that to take a sip of liquid was, for him, Pure Misery.

I felt a little disconnected, running here and there, from Pinar del Rio to Santa Clara, finding out about everything going on through a flow of text messages that we managed to keep going between some friends. I have seen many people with the faith that one day we will live in a free country, I was struck by the network of solidarity outside Coco’s hospital, a score of his loyal friends and colleagues desperately watching the ups and downs of his health, turning to the clueless, like me, who arrived three hours before the visit, bringing everything they have, and that is: almost nothing. I sincerely regret that not a single journalist has taken the trouble, until now, to talk with these people who for four months, silently, have cared for the life of the freest man in Cuba.

It is sometimes unsettling to see so much courage and the kindness in people, like the mother of Fariñas, and so much indolence and hypocrisy in articles like this*. There are times when it is preferable not to connect to the Internet.

It bothers me deeply, horribly, to see the sleight of hand that has been shown to the voices of civil society in pursuit of a policy so opportunistic towards those who live in my country today: the release of the innocents. At what point in history was the dialog between the Church and the Cuban government, and with Moratinos left as mediator? When will the prisoners who want to live in Cuba be released? Why, in an international airport, don’t “free people” board the plane like the rest of the passengers? If they can come to Cuba whenever they want, why couldn’t they say goodbye to their friends today, or stop and have a cup of coffee at home before leaving the island?

Today for the first time I saw José Luis García Paneque’s face in a photo on the Internet, my feelings are indescribable, this post would become absurd if I indulged all my questions. I hate to say this, but so far only one word describes the achievement of this unique dialog that excludes the protagonists and victims of one of the two parties: Exile.

When at least one of the ex-prisoners of conscience released in Madrid puts his feet on Cuban soil again, when Pedro Argüelles, Eduardo Díaz and Regis Iglesias are in their homes, when the laypersons Dagoberto Valdes and Osvaldo Payá are invited to the negotiations between the government and the Catholic Church, and can express their opinions on equal terms, then we will be engaged in DIALOGUE; until that time we are only talking about concessions, convenience and emergency exits.

* Translator’s note: The link is to an article, in Spanish, titled, “Dissident Cubans in Spain Face an Uncertain Future”

Juan Juan Almeida, Today at 23rd and L

Do you want to know what else Hugo Pavón devotes himself to? Look here.

Request from Guillermo Fariñas Hernández to the Newspaper Granma

Imagen: La redención de Horus, por Luís Trápaga

Taken from the blog Hunger Strike

Request from Guillermo Fariñas Hernández with regards to the interview by Deisy Francis Mexidor, of the newspaper Granma, Saturday, July 3, 2010, with the Chief of Intensive Care at the University of Arnaldo Milián Castro Hospital.

The request was dictated by phone by Guillermo Fariñas to Licet Zamora Carrandi

The journalist Deisy Francis Mexidor intentionally omitted to detail the entire medical team attending Guillermo Fariñas Hernández. It includes: Dr. Armando Caballero López head of Intensive Care and Specialist in the Second Degree, Dr. Elias Becker Garcia, Second Degree Specialist in Nutrition Parenteral, Dr. Luis Alberto Pérez Santos, Second Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Mauro López Ortega, Second Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Mario Rodríguez Domínguez, Second Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Rodolfo Delgado Martínez, Dr. Israel Serra Machado, Dr. Ernesto Fernandez Aspiolea, First Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Marcos Castro Alonso, First Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Yoniel Rivero Lóbrega , Third Year Resident in Critical Care and Dr . Cartaya Carlos Herrera, who is not part of the medical team because he is fulfilling a mission to Venezuela but on a visit to Cuba he has attended, every morning, the discussions of the medical team with respect to the progress of Guillermo Fariñas, because of his years of experience with the various strikes previously carried out.

Professor Armando Caballero made a slight error because I entered weighing 53 kilograms on March 11, and on occasion have been as high as 69.75 kilograms. All this has been thanks to the nutritionist Dr. Elias Becker, which makes us certain that Orlando Zapata Tamayo was assassinated because had he been given the medical attention that the newspaper Granma reports that I have been given, at this time he would not be deceased.

She omitted explaining the reason for my fast and suggested in the newspaper that it is a suicide and it was not explained to the readers that Guillermo Fariñas has been on a hunger strike since last February 24, demanding parole for 25 of the political prisoners in Cuban prisons as prisoners of conscience because they are in poor health.

I believe that because of my serious condition they have used the humanitarianism of the doctors to prepare the international media for my future death. I am aware of my upcoming death and consider it an honor to try to save the lived of the 25 political prisoners of conscience which our country needs as leaders. The only ones responsible for my future death are the brothers Fidel and Raul Castro. I trust in the medical and paramedic team treating me. That is why I have rejected the various offers that have been made to me to go to other countries. I want to die in my country under the noses of the dictators with their guns, rifles, canons and bombs. I have only the moral standing of a member of the ordinary people, misled and subjugated for 51 years by those who have weapons, violence, totalitarian laws and misgovernment from above.

Guillermo Fariñas Hernández

A Little Vacation Time

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

I'm going to take a few days off, I will still post but not as often. I need to rest a little, my body and mind are begging me. But don't worry, I'm fine.

Cold Water and Eternal Debt

Photo: Truck with old refrigerators in my neighborhood.

Amelia is about 50 and lives alone, her husband died in the war in Angola and since then she’s received a miserable pension through the Veteran’s Association. As she doesn’t work for the State, tough she is still of working age, several times they’ve tried to take from her the pittance of 200 Cuban pesos she receives as “financial aid.”

Since she exchanged her refrigerator for a more energy efficient one, her life has been complicated: she has cold water but owes the state 2,000 pesos in thirty monthly payments, plus late fees, which she hasn’t been able to pay. For some months an “inspector” has visited her house weekly, to tell her of the really bad things that are going to happen in her case. It all started with a fine, which exceeded the unpayable debt itself. As that didn’t work, it moved on to the blackmail of threatening to remove the refrigerator, and finally the threat of a trial.

Amelia knows she can’t raise this sum, and her inspector, gaining confidence as she looked him in the eye, confessed to her that he has not been able to meet his own commitment to pay for his refrigerator, either.

In a bizarre “Year of the Energy Revolution,” an epithet that was written below the date on every official document and on school blackboards during all of 2006, Fidel Castro decided to update our home appliances. The energy itself never came, but our lightbulbs, fans and refrigerators were exchanged for new ones, along with promises that we would pay for them on the installment plan.

Some years later, a rather high percentage of Cubans owe thousands of pesos to the State, Cuban Communist Party meetings demand of their militants that they “ensure compliance with the commitments in their nuclei and their neighborhoods,” and, incidentally, “set an example by settling their own debts.” But after 50 years -- Party member or not -- the common denominator of the average Cuban is insolvency. This bankruptcy of the family economy is the result of government mismanagement, which now demands that we pay what we have never earned.

The Limits of Cynicism

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

One of the characteristics of the rational being is to recognize his own limits, as well as others which -- for logical reasons -- must be adhered to so that coexistence works as harmoniously as possible. Some sectors of my society, however, break the boundaries of human cynicism on a daily basis, and at the forefront of this movement we find, without a doubt, official journalism and its famous National Television News (NTV).

One of the latest changes made by our appointed president was the modification of the retirement law: overnight -- without shouts, without rejoicing, without protest and without labor unions furiously demanding explanations -- Cubans were warned that our right to retire would be extended from age 60 to age 65 for men, and from age 55 to age 60 for women. So, without further ado, the “working masses” of the socialist paradise were forced to swallow this bitter pill from the abusive state and extend their working lives by five years.

But for some, no humiliation is too much; yesterday on NTV they aired a small report about the “tens of thousands of demonstrators” in France, who took to the street to protest the government’s intention to impose a law that is similar, though it adds only months of extra work.

The soft voice of reporter entertained us over screen shots of a Parisian street filled with strikers. “French workers,” she said, “are protesting the government’s intention to increase the retirement age by two years."

How far do the distant horizons of official cynicism reach? Is it an act of State vs. People sadism, or simply the laziness of the powers-that-be who forget to sweeten the pills of their subjects. Does the Party Central Committee want to demonstrate their impunity relative to the workers? Could it be considered an irony planned by the boys of the Department of Revolutionary Orientation, who don’t want to retire five years later, and so they slip the information in between the lines to raise everyone’s temper?

I don’t know what the correct hypothesis is, but whatever it is, it’s nothing more than a cruel sarcasm aimed at us: for fifty years we have not protested to our working rights.