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A
socialist system turned to anguish
Posted on Sat, Jan. 03,
2004 in The
Miami Herald.
Below are quotes from Cubans in exile and
on the island from the Jan. 1 El Nuevo Herald
article, The tally on 45 years of the Cuban
Revolution, by El Nuevo Herald staff writer
Wilfredo Cancio Isla.
For you, what is the net result of 45 years
of revolution in Cuba?
o Guillermo Cabrera Infante, author: It
has been an era of blood, sweat and tears.
They have robbed the homeland and have given
death to Cubans.
o Mario Chanes de Armas, former revolutionary
who later served 30 years as a political
prisoner: The revolution was to combat a
dictatorship, but its ideals were crushed
from the start by Fidel Castro, who in power
trampled the constitutional rights that
he promised to defend. Worst is the jailing,
the pain and the division of families.
o Vladimiro Roca, leader of the dissident
coalition All United [from Havana]: The
revolutionary process has been a catastrophe,
a perpetual deception and colossal fraud.
We are in the final chapter of a telenovela
in real time, where the director-in-chief
is left with only two options: 1) make the
changes, even if only an economic reform;
or 2) use force and repression to stay in
power in the middle of this disaster.
o Claudia Márquez, independent journalist
[from Havana]: I'm 26, so I was born in
the middle of the process, listening to
the propaganda about the present and promises
for the future. But I have never been able
to feel free in my own country. I sense
the nostalgia of those who are outside the
country; but here, too, many Cubans feel
exiled inside our own country, aliens, repressed
for the simple fact of thinking differently
than the government.
I dream of the moment of feeling freedom
for the first time.
o Carlos de la Cruz, Chairman of Eagle
Brands: How is it possible that in the 21st
century, Castro's dictatorship in Cuba continues
to exist? The deliberate myopia of the international
organizations like the United Nations, in
the interest of protecting countries' sovereignty
. . . has permitted Castro to remain in
power even after the fall of the Soviet
Union.
The bottom line of the Cuban Revolution
is the misfortune of a country that has
gone from having the second-highest per
capita income in the hemisphere to one of
the lowest. Unfortunately, this misery and
lack of liberty have brought our people
to yearn for leaving their homeland.
o Gisela Delgado [from Havana], leader
of the Independent Libraries Project and
wife of dissident Héctor Palacios,
who is serving a 25-year prison term: This
has been 45 years of human-rights violations.
The bastions of public health and education
have crumbled: Hospitals have no medications,
and the schools lack professors. The socialist
system has turned into anguish for the Cuban
people. . . . Free medicine and education
should not bar freedom of expression.
o Blanca Reyes [from Havana], wife of poet
Rául Rivero, who is serving a 20-year
prison term: I was 11 years old when the
revolution triumphed. At the time, I loved
and followed a 33-year-old bearded Magi
who has ended up being a capricious old
dictator. I lived in a cloud until a certain
day in 1980 when . . . I began to discover
a destroyed Havana. I lament having given
my youth and my life to something who wasn't
worth it.
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