Testimony of one of the victims
MATANZAS, January 24 - I am Miguel Sigler Amaya, a resident of the municipality of Pedro Betancourt in the province of Matanzas. I am a member of the Alternative Option Movement. I am 38 years old.
We had organized a fast that started on January 22, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., to last until January 28. This was to happen at my house, at 1910 22nd Street, between 19th and 21st Streets, in Pedro Betancourt.
We started the fast that day reading a verse from the Bible. Later we prayed to God for the liberty of the political prisoners. On the porch, we had the Cuban flag, a color photograph of José Martí, 50 by 50 centimeters, one Christ on the Cross, 70 centimeters tall, and signs
reading "The Fatherland Belongs to All," "For Ideas, Palaces, Not Jails" and "Fast For the Liberty of Political Prisoners in Cuba."
We were sitting, some of us on the porch behind the closed door and others in the living room. At about 9:10 a.m. Andrés Noriega, an ideologue of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), one whose alias is "Chicuá," and another called Arsenio, also of the PCC, came into my
house along with Chamizo, the chief of the Committee of the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) in the municipality. They came into the porch violently and my mother, who was sitting there in front of the door, who has had three heart attacks and has been operated seven times in her spine, and is in
very bad shape and is almost an invalid, they threw on the floor and against the chairs on the porch.
Later, they came into the house, they broke the portrait of José Martí, they broke the statue of Christ on the Cross, they broke the signs, they tore down the Cuban flag, and we grabbed the Cuban flag by one end and they by the other, they went in almost to the bedrooms. We managed
to wrest the flag from them, they beat us with sticks over the flag, because they were armed with sticks. At that point my brother, Juan Francisco Sigler, who had been summoned by the police to prevent the fast, a Christian fast, a Biblical fast, pacifist, my brother arrived at that moment and when
he bent over to pick up the pieces of the portrait of Martí, the ideologue of the PCC, Andrés Noriega hit him with a stick over the head, wounding him and he almost fainted to the floor.
At that moment I came out quickly to pick up my brother and he hit me with the stick with such force that he broke one of my ribs and injured two others. Thereafter, Juan Francisco Sigler's sons, Guilibert and Ulises, ages 23 and 24, jumped over the porch railing to help their father, their
grandmother and me, and then Andrés Noriega, Chamizo, Chicuá and Arsenio, and others, attacked them with the sticks, and Carmen Gusmelis, the president of the Cuban Federation of Women (FMC) also hit them with a stick.
Both boys they beat all over, hitting, kicking, both. My brother on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. At that moment my sister, age 31, arrived. She is an anesthesiologist at Jovellanos Hospital, and tried to pick up my mother from the floor and Carmen Gusmelis (of the FMC) beat her on the
hands, on the head, my sister.
Also the wife of Juan Franciso Sigler came screaming into the porch, saying that was abusive, that they are murderers, they beat her too, beat her with a stick, the one from the FMC hit her everywhere, on the head, and hands.
Finally I was able to pick up my brother off the floor, I sat him on a chair and I sat down in another and I ran my hand through his bloody face and I showed it to the people that had congregated, some 400 or 500 people, to show them the abuse to which we were subject.
All the time the terrorist mob was beating my family with sticks, the president of the Popular Power, Ciro Lamoya, who represents the government hereabouts, observed the aggression without saying anything against it, he is an accomplice in this terrorist act. There was also Ovidio Ávila,
an official of the PCC, Flora Herrera, an official of the PCC, and Guillermo Montenegro, who is the director of Commerce and Gastronomy. In all, about 25 persons attacked us.
On the other side, the people were in silence, in fear, in horror. Many from the population cried seeing the blood that ran through the floor. We yelled "Long live Democracy," "Long live Human Rights," "Down with Terrorism," "Fascists, Nazis, Hitlerians,
Assasins."
But the mob continued its attack, came into the house, beat everybody present, beat all of us up. At that time, the police were there, and no policeman did anything to prevent such savagery.
Later, the police arrested all of us, the complete family, who had been attacked. They took us to the police station in Jovellanos.
The chief of police, by name Rojas, and the chief of State Security (DSE), who says his name is Braulio, came into my house and went all the way to the bathroom and came out with Juan Rogelio González, who was peeing, and they took him out by force and took him also. My wife asked them
why they came into the house if they didn't have a search warrant. They then answered: "That's what we do to counter revolutionaries."
My mother was saying that her heart hurt, that she was sick and the president of the CDR, Chamizo, yelled at her: "If she is going to go, let her go, let the old lady die, let all the gusanos die." Andrés Noriega, ideologue of the PCC, threatened us. He yelled: "Whenever I
find you in the street, I am going to kill you."
The people of Pedro Betancourt are witness to this terrorist act of the Castroite mob.
I want to say we have suspended the fast because of my mother's health, she is now in bed practically unconscious. For this reason, we decided to stop the fast momentarily.
But let the world know that we have not taken a step back, we will not yield one millimeter. We will continue, whether the communists want or not, defending human rights. It is our right to ask for liberty for political prisoners, because they are arrested arbitrarily by the government of Cuba
which day to day attacks its opponents who defend the rights of the people.
Today in Cuba it has become a crime to defend human rights, the government has made it a crime, it has become a crime even to say long live human rights, it has become a crime to say long live democracy, for them, for Castro's government, that is a crime and we are going to continue, whether
they want it or not. Miguel Sigler Amaya, of Pedro Betancourt, Matanzas, is telling the world, we well continue even if they kill us. They said they were going to kill us, and here is the Sigler Amaya family for them to kill, the whole world has to know of these abuses.
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