GUANTANAMO, November 25 (Luis Torres Cardosa, Lux InfoPress) - Alberto
Maitines, 16, is being held incommunicado at State Security headquarters here
since November 20, accused of trying to leave the country illegally.
He was returned from the U. S. naval base in Guantánamo, where he
unsuccessfully tried to seek asylum.
Maitines, before embarking, left a letter to his family, explaining his
reasons for wanting to leave.
"Father," he wrote, "I’m writing this letter so that if
anything happens to me, it’s my responsibility. I don’t want you to
reproach me for my decision to seek asylum in the naval base at Guantánamo,
and I’m doing it for the following reasons:
"I’m one of many frustrated youths... When I chose to study art,
the government refused me that wish. You know that since I was little I had that
vocation.
"For the repudiation directed against me when the Elián González
affair, because I had a U. S. flag painted on my bicycle...
"For all the times you were beat up in prison, ...for the kidnapping
and beating of June 8 and 16, and I don’t know how to take revenge for
that.
"For the problems at school September 1, when they threw me out for
saying the prisoners are mistreated, especially if they are political...
"For the cruelty committed on orders of the dictator Castro..."
Maitines continues his letter, writing
"Ever since I started school, I was taught that Fidel Castro is a God,
I was taught to hate the Americans, and to adore the image of Lenin, and to love
Russians, and after some time, that even these were not so good...
"If I fail, I won’t regret my decision. It is preferable to die
than to live in a country where all of a person’s rights are violated."
The youth’s father, also named Alberto Maitines, is the president in
Guantánamo of the Political prisoners’ and ex-prisoners’ club.
He explained some of the passages in his son’s letter.
He said his son, like many other youths, had not been allowed to follow a
course of study of his choice, but rather made to study a career deemed
necessary to the State.
The senior Maitines explained that around the time of the Elián González
affair, his son was the object of a "repudiation" and a beating at his
school, because his bicycle had a U. S. flag painted on it.
Maitines was in prison for opposition to the regime, where he was beat up
several times. He was also beat up on June 8, mentioned in the letter, and
kidnapped by police, who drove him out of town and left him abandoned there. On
the 16, he complained about the affair and was kidnapped again.
Maitines Sr. said he has not been allowed to visit his son in jail or to
take any food for him.
Versión
original en español
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