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Manuel Vázquez Portal, sentenced to 18 years in prison. Boniato Prison,
Santiago de Cuba.
Prison
Journal (II)
March 19: House search and arrest.
April 4: Summary proceedings. Haven't met or talked to my defense
attorney.
April 24: Depart Villa Marista [Department of State Security
headquarters in Havana] for Boniato prison.
April 25: (Before dawn) Arrive at Boniato prison. Put in isolation
cells. Cell No. 30. Latrine backed up. No running water. Dirty mattress on the
floor.
April 25: (Afternoon) Transfer to Cell No. 31. There's a latrine and
running water. The cell floods daily with residual water from the hallway. High
blood pressure. I'm taken to the hospital, chained hand and foot. Stuffed
mattress is dirty, torn, old and hard.
April 27: Strong rain. The roof leaks. Plenty.
April 28: Alone in isolation cell. They cut off my hair and beard. Later I
shave. Food, as in other days, indescribable. They take us out to take the Sun
together (Normando Hernández, Próspero Gaínza, and myself).
They fingerprinted us.
[Hernández is a journalist; Gaínza a dissident.]
April 30: Visit. Yoly, Xiomy. [Wife and sister.] 30 minutes. We are
not allowed any privacy.
May 5: Today my son Gabriel goes in for surgery. The days go by
slowly. I read a lot.
May 8: I witness something terrible; on top of a 25-foot wall, the
brothers Agustín and Jorge Cervantes near-riot, shouting slogans against
the government. The guards are not able to bring them down. They send inmates
who knock them off by force. They must have hit hard. I couldn't learn anything
else about this.
May 12: Photographs, fingerprints, again.
May 14: The warden, along with the chief of Re-education [political
rehabilitation] and the chief of our cell block, came by to tell us that, by
mandate of the State, we will be kept in maximum security (first phase). We were
given the calendar of visits, packages from home, and nuptial visits, as
follows: Visits May 31, August 30, November 29. Packages June 30, October 30.
Nuptial visits June 18, November 17.
May 15: HIV blood test. No disposable syringe.
May 15: (Afternoon) A visit from a State Security headquarters
lieutenant colonel, accompanied by a State Security major from Santiago de Cuba,
and by Arrate, who "looks after us" on behalf of State Security in the
prison. An ugly argument. They complain about my wife and try to threaten me.
The lieutenant colonel called me a liar. I answered that I don't work for Granma
[the official Communist Party newspaper].
May 16: High blood pressure, 100/150. They injected me with a drug
known as "furosemida." Still no access to newspapers. No access to TV.
The food is still hellish. They haven't changed my mattress notwithstanding that
I have asked every chief several times. They have installed magnetic card phones
in our cell block.
May 17: We are still in isolation cells in maximum security.
Weekends we get no yard privileges. Blood pressure normal.
May 19: Three times I have spoken with the chiefs so they'll let me
telephone to learn about my son Gabriel's operation. They haven't allowed me to
call even though they all promised. I did not accept the evening meal.
They took us out to the yard separately. Normando with a lifer; Edel and
Juan Carlos; Villareal and Nelson; Próspero and myself. They say it's an
order from above.
[Normando Hernández, journalist; Edel José García,
journalist; Juan Carlos Herrera, journalist; Antonio A. Villareal, dissident;
Nelson Aguiar, dissident; Próspero Gaínza, dissident.]
May 20: (101 anniversary of Cuban independence) [Holiday not
recognized by the present Cuban government] I did not accept the breakfast I
was given. I went out on the yard. I told my mates about the call to my family.
I did not accept the medications (Vitamins C and E). I did not accept lunch.
Immediately, re-educator Sabino called me to his office. He told me he had
spoken to my sister Xiomara and that the child's operation had been postponed to
June. I don't know why. Then, we talked, supposedly about politics, for
two-and-a-half hours. It's too bad about his indoctrination. He doesn't seem a
bad sort.
At about five in the afternoon a nice, placid, silvery rain shower fell (the
first one of the month here in Boniato; I stuck my hands out through the bars to
get wet). It was as if Nature were saluting the 101 anniversary of the
proclamation of the Republic and at the same time were crying for its
imprisonment during 44 years.
I recalled my wife's grandfather's hardware store, taken over by Castro's
government. It was called The 20th of May. Normando gave me some candies. I
thought of writing some chronicles from jail, but the diary is better.
May 21: I feel more at ease. Knowing that Gabriel and the rest of
the family are all right comforts me. I managed to hold back the flooding. I
rolled up two plastic bags and stuffed them between the floor and the lower bars
of the door. A little water comes in occasionally. During the rainshower
yesterday, I had some leaks. They haven't changed my mattress. I hurt all over.
I can only sleep a little. But I'm not going to complain. When I finally take a
decision it will be definitive. The food remains hellish.
Today a psychologist interviewed us. The poor thing is the type that
believes in manuals and somewhat presumptuous. A provincial! She put us through
a very elementary test. She asked me to draw a person of each sex. I drew some
childish scrawls. She wanted to do a personality profile with phrases that I
should associate with the first thing that came to mind. I had a lot of fun. I
made up sentences that sounded like philosophical proverbs
(pseudo-philosophical, I mean to say) and, even though I was sincere, I was also
making fun of the whole situation. They are going to have to bring back Sigmund
Freud, or at least Pavlov.
She is also one of the Interior Ministry's little robots, a lieutenant. If
they don't know how to think with their own heads, I don't know that they are
going to be able to know, or find out, about others'.
Their thinking is static, on account of indoctrination and fear. They are
incapable of any analysis that deviates from whatever they believe to be
unmoveable and that's upheld by the pitiful power that protects them.
I'm going to have a lot of fun in the future. Shrewd mockery is now my only
weapon. I have discovered their weak spot; they want to appear cultured when
they talk to me. They don't know what they are getting into.
I have little in the way of news; we have no access to newspapers, radio, or
TV. Nothing. I'm getting used to it. I read all day, although it's impossible at
night; there is no light in the cell. I still think "War and Peace" is
a monumental novel. I liked "Bomarzo" again. I read "Perfume"
and thought it was all right. I laughed with "Games for Mortals" and "The
Heart of the Serpent." They are science fiction stories from when the
Soviets believed the fiction of the globalization of Communism. I haven't read
anything funnier in my life. History demolished those writers. Poor things! Who
knew it would happen so suddenly?
I read the Bible a lot, one in very poor condition that someone lent me. I'm
reading "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." It's a shame that
I've already seen the movies. I also read a very interesting book about the
Christian vision of the origin of the universe and of man, "There Is a
Creator that Is Concerned about Us." Although it's directed to Jehova's
Witnesses, I found it interesting. I learned things that are also good for a
Catholic. I have read other things, but I'm not taking inventory.
Afternoons, before I bathe, I exercise. In spite of the poor diet, I'm
keeping in shape. I have tanned from the Sun. For almost a week they have been
taking me out on the yard at noon. Between the UV and the infrared, they are
going to give me skin cancer.
Thank God my family brought milk, otherwise I would have died of hunger. My
family also had to bring sheets, a blanket, a towel, toothpaste, a mosquito net,
etc. Inmates here are only supplied with a pair of shorts and a sleeveless,
collarless shirt.
But it's not all bad. At night I see the stars through the bars on the
window, although in the daytime I also see stars. I recall César Vallejo,
when he wrote "Trilce" in a jail in Perú. Best of all, when our
jailers let us borrow the Sun for an hour and we see birds in flight. I refused
the food. Pshew! The pigs would throw up!
May 22: Very interesting; today they took me out to the yard with
Edel García. I have become his personal psychotherapist. I refused lunch.
Pshew! Again. Normando Hernández gets a bout of diarrhea before he can
shake the previous one. Próspero Gaínza and Antonio Villareal
remain strong. I have not been able to speak with Nelson Aguiar. We haven't been
to the yard at the same time as Juan Carlos Herrera, the Guantanamero. If Joseíto
Fernández [the composer of Guantanamera] met him he would write a song
about him. I have only been able to talk to him through the bars that look over
the yard. He is a fun type. I wonder how are the other 68 who are spread
throughout Cuban prisons? I'll know something when next I have a family visit.
The other inmates, even though we have no contact with them, have expressed
solidarity and attack the system more than we do. We have chosen to let the
world defend us. Under pressure in prison, almost anything is impossible,
although there'll always be something one can do. The guards remain respectful.
They are poor devils who take orders and I sense they are scared.
I discovered a way to suffocate the stench coming out of the latrine, with a
plastic bottle that used to contain oil. I filled it with water and stuffed it
into the smelly hole; the diameter of the bottle matches that of the hole. What
relief! Let the nose rest some, although at certain times, not even my
improvised stopper can stem the sickening vapors. What would the illustrious "colleagues"
of the Round Tables [nightly TV programs with heavy propaganda content] if they
discovered a prison in the U. S. with similar magnificent sanitary conditions?
We must not forget this prison was built more than 60 years ago. Fidel Castro,
Yndamiro Restano, and myself have slept here. It's a miracle it hasn't sunk in
the Puerto Boniato valley without leaving a trace.
I refused the evening meal. Double pshew! I ran out of books. At least I
have the Bible somebody lent me and the latrine stopper keeps rats out of my
cell.
May 23: I went out to the yard. I took my vitamins. Normando again
gave me some candies. Captain Vázquez??? is worried because I refuse
food. I told him it's very poor. He said I should make an effort. I told him
that I find it nauseating, that he should speak to someone to improve it. He
tried to explain the situation the country is in. I told him I am in prison
precisely because I wanted to improve the situation the country is in. The
food??? problem could become more serious between him and me. I am not willing,
nor is my stomach prepared, for such slop. I refused lunch. Must not forget my
previous description of what they call food. Then again, it's no wonder; if out
in the streets, supposedly enjoying freedom, the food is horrible, what can we
expect in here?
In the evening they "reinforced" the meal. I accepted the bread,
already described, and a small piece of chicken. Hallelujah, they provided some
cold water! Why wouldn't they provide it every day and instead make us drink out
of the faucet? They also gave us swill they called coffee.
I have thought of the inevitable reprisals when these pages are published.
I'm prepared. If for simply doing journalism they sentenced me to 18 years,
nothing now can be more unjust or out of proportion.
I wondered at the expulsion of the Cuban "diplomats" from the U.
S. It would seem they don't want to follow Castro's example, by jailing
opponents and journalists. One would think they have room for those who write
with different opinions.
May 24: (Saturday, overcast) Grey, humid day. It rained last night.
I finished reading "Till Death Do Us Part" by John Dickson Carr.
Cuban poet and journalist Manuel Vázquez Portal was arrested
during the March-April government crackdown on civil society initiatives. He was
sentenced to 18 years in prison under Law 88, the "Gag" law.
Vázquez Portal joined the independent journalists' movement at
the beginning and was the founder of the Decoro Press Agency, later known as the
Decoro Work Group.
CubaNet started distributing his work at a time he was in jail, in 1995.
His novel, El Niño del Pífano, can be seen at
El Niño del Pífano
CubaNet published his book of poems
Celda Número Cero.
Versión
original en español
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