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FROM
CUBA
Gun shots in the city
Rafael Ferro Salas, UPECI.
PINAR DEL RÍO, Cuba, August (www.cubanet.org)
- The air was filled with the smell of fresh
coffee. Jesús Tigrán wanted
to soak up the whole aroma that wafted in
from the kitchen. His daughter, Magdalena,
was preparing the coffee. Jesús was
reflecting that his daughter's coffee was
the world's best. He was reflecting on other
things when he was drawn out of his reverie
by some knocking at the door of his home.
He got up from his chair to answer. He didn't
imagine that before long the entire smell
of coffee would escape in terror to make
space for the terrible breath of death.
When Jesús opened the door his innocence
hadn't ended yet, much less when he saw
who the visitor was at the door. He was
on the point of inviting him to stay for
coffee, but one thinks about certain things
and life puts others in one's way. For Jesús,
life put a man with a gun in his hand. Jesús
Tegrán didn't even have time enough
to be frightened. Death didn't give him
time, nor did death give Jesús' daughter
a chance to be frightened. She heard the
sound of the shots and ran to the living
room. Right there she was murdered together
with her father.
All this sounds like fiction, or maybe
the recounting of a movie. But it isn't.
Jesús Tegrán Febles was shot
to death by his granddaughter's husband.
His daughter, Magdalena Tegrán Pacheco,
was killed, too. And right there, the same
day, his 12-year old grandson, Duvuchel,
who's still fighting for his life in the
city's children's hospital, was also cut
down.
All this occurred in Pinar del Río
province in Cuba on a street that paradoxically
bears the innocent name of Isabel the Catholic.
It's also the case that just a month ago,
a man dismembered a woman with a machete
in a park of a multi-family building in
this city, in full view of a group of neighbors.
Afterwards, to give the crime a macabre
ending, he cut off her head.
These things occur in Cuba, and not only
in this province located 170 kilometers
from the capital. Last year a man entered
a home and slit the throats of four members
of a family, including the dog. The deed
occurred in the town of Artemisa, a municipality
in Havana province.
All this is part of the Cuban reality,
but what happens is that the media hide
the truth. They show the other side of the
mirror, talking about the violence in the
United States. To give greater veracity
to what they proclaim, they aired the documentaries
of the American filmmaker Michael Moore
on national television. The first one was
"Bowling for Columbine." The second
was nothing less than the much talked about
"Fahrenheit 9-11."
Analyzed from the viewpoint that defends
the interests of the politics on the island,
Mr. Moore has been converted overnight into
an icon. Until yesterday he was unknown
in Cuba. Now they've dedicated a "round
table" news discussion to his work.
It's a game of strategy to distort the
reality. The violence in Cuba is hidden
behind the cloak of the media's demagoguery
and remains unknown abroad. Only those who
are its victims suffer it and have to swallow
its horrors in the darkest, imposed silence.
It would be well worth the trouble for
all Cuban exiles and all men and women who
defend the truth to summon Mr. Moore to
come film the truth we suffer, the uncertainty
and fears, the abuses and outrages, the
prohibitions and the forced exiles. It would
be very good if the Cuban authorities allowed
it and let the Cubans speak about what they
suffer.
There's something that's truly certain:
the reality is one thing and the dreams
are yet another. For Cubans it remains a
dream to be able one day to tell all the
truths. Jesús Tegrán Febles
was also dreaming the day that the air in
his home erased the smell of coffee to inundate
its walls with the terrible breath of death.
Versión
original en español
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