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Cuba's brave 'Ladies in
White'
The
Post and Courier, NC, Monday, October
18, 2004.
During the Argentine
military dictatorship, it was a group of
courageous women who defied the regime and
eventually helped to restore democracy.
In Cuba, a similar group of women is shaming
Fidel Castro into improving conditions for
imprisoned dissidents.
The women in Argentina became known as
the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo because every
Thursday they covered their heads with white
handkerchiefs and marched around a monument
in the square outside Government House to
demand information about their missing children.
The women in Cuba are known as the Ladies
in White (Las Damas de Blanco), because
they wear white dresses to protest the imprisonment
of their husbands in a crackdown on dissidents
ordered by Castro over a year ago.
They have been meeting every month at churches,
but until last week, their vigils were to
no avail.
Then on Oct. 12, Berta Soler decided to
sit in a park close to Revolution Square
and the presidential palace. She delivered
a letter to Castro demanding that her husband,
serving a 20-year-jail term, be hospitalized
for treatment of a herniated disc.
She announced that she intended to stay
in the park until her letter was answered.
The word got out and more Ladies in White
joined her. They remained in the park for
41 hours until police broke up their vigil
and drove them back to their homes.
That same day, Mrs. Soler's husband was
transferred to a hospital. Even some of
the most ruthless dictators try to appear
more human when confronted by courageous
women.
Copyright © 2004, The Post and Courier,
All Rights Reserved.
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