Distributed by CubaNet

FROM CUBA:

DIGNITY HAS NO AGE

by Maria de los Angeles Gonzalez Amaro, de la Agencia de Prensa Independiente de Cuba, (APIC).

LA HABANA, 24 de julio (APIC).- How difficult would it be for a 23 year old young man to choose between the forces of good and evil. Even though when he's not a Christian. He would make a decison, perhaps without full consciousness of its repercusions. At such young age, everything looks simpler, and you only think clearly behind the dark and pestilent bars of a prison cell. It was then when Julio Cesar ALvarez Lopez, ex-officer of the Cuban counterintelligence, reaffirms having done the right thing: ending his double morality, and bring a clean and honest being into light, joining those who are his true brothers, those who want the democratization of their country in a paceful manner.

Julio Cesar is in front of the military tribunal, stripped of his rank. Julio Cesar. His executioners, pardon, judges are accompanied by hate. He furtively glances at his mother, who is crying, but he has chosen. He does not want to hear the screams of the prosecutor, calling him traitor. He is not. He will never betray his country. He stands firm, his head high. The members of the tribunal stand, and he is ordered to do the same. "You have been sentenced to 19 years of incarceration for insubordination and revealing secrets, according to statute 332 of 1992. "

Almost immediately, this courageous man with the dignity of a giant, was transferred to Kilo 8. In there, in that prison, known to all in the Cuban opposition as the most cruel and inhumane, Julio Cesar faces daily all the habitual psychological pressures inflicted on every political prisoner.

"Listen, Julito, are you going out to proclaim the revolutionary slogans?'

"Of course not. That's why I am here".

And thus the days and months go by, and why not, even the years. Ana Luisa Lopez admonishes her son to behave well, since she does not want to arrive from so far away to find out that he's in a punishment cell. "Mom, I do what I need to do. If they respect me, I respect them. If not, I react".

Major Cuba is sitting in his chair in a well appointed office, when someone knocks and a soldier asks permission to come in, interrupting perhaps some good thoughts.

"Major: Julio Cesar' Alvarez' mother would like to speak with you." With a gesture of contempt, he assented with his head. The thin woman came in, marked by age and fatigue. "Major, please, I don't want to take too much of your time. I only want you to consider the great distance I must travel to see my son, and because of that I am requesting that he be transferred to Havana."

The answer was quick. "That cannot be done. You must ask General Bruno. He is the one who must determine that."

Ana came out of that room pained as Mary in the Calvary, but like her she said:"I will go forward. No one will stop me". And in that manner the faithful friend who never betrays, requested an interview with the General whom she never saw. Captain Doris saw her instead, and at the woman's insistence, she showed her real face.

"Lady, stop trying. Your son will not be transferred, because he must suffer greatly for his treason. Remember that he is a counterrevolutionary. And you participate in the severity of the treatment, since he suffers seeing all the sacrificing you go through to see him. Besides, you must be grateful to the revolution that he has not been shot".

>From his cell, with his fists clenched by powerlessness, Julio Cesar Alvarez Lopez does not want his mother to bow down in front of the tormentor.