From: rravelo@asturias.acs.uci.edu (Ray Ravelo)
Subject: Human rights/Cuba
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 28 Aug 92 19:34:43 GMT


 To the benefit of new readers of s.c.l.a, here is (again) the following:

 
 FROM A HUMAN-RIGHTS LEADER  ( from the New York Times )
 --------------------------

 FIDEL CASTRO, CUBA'S OWN WORST ENEMY
 
  This letter was written on Sept. 27, 1991 by Maria Elena Cruz Varela,
 a prizewinning Cuban poet and the leader of Criterio Alternativo, a
 human-rights group. On Nov. 19, Cruz was attacked in her apartment by
 government henchmen and forced, in the presence of her daughter, to eat
 some of her political writings. She was then dragged into the street
 where she was beaten and arrested for her anti-government activities.
 She is now serving a two-year term in prison.
 
 Excerpts from her letter, translated by Toby Talbot, follows.
 
 By Maria Elena
  Cruz Varela
 
 Havana - What a pity, Sen~or Fidel Castro, that you mistake where your
 opponents are; what a shame that you try to place the opposition so far
 from Cuba.
 No, Sen~or Fidel Castro, the Cuban opposition isn't from or in the USA,
 regardless of that country questionable positions.
 Your opposition is yourself and your own contradictions. Your opposition
 is the proven economic, political, and social failure of 32 years of
 experiments.
 We are your opposition, we 10 million Cubans who look around us in terror,
 searching for something that allows us to believe in the possible
 salvation of our lives and those of our families, the salvation of our
 dignity and survival as a civilized nation.
 It is not an easy opposition: I regret not having the time or means at
 my disposal to bring together, one by one, all the elements that would
 make the signatures to this letter endless.
 
 It is I who am speaking now. I, with full responsibily, assume the voice
 of the hundreds of thousands of political prisoners rotting in my
 country's jails; the voice of those who are now voiceless, having died
 in prison or in trying to save themselves by desperately crossing the
 Strait of Florida; the voice of those who are beginning to take their
 first steps, overcoming fear.
 
  A fearful creature. How terrible is the mirror-image of a man looking
 himself in the face and discovering his fear. Dramatic plastic surgery
 is needed on the Cuban nationality to restore its looks!
  Years will go by before many realize the quality of the byproduct they
 have become.
  But me, I exist. I speak up. I write. I oppose.
 I shall not stop shouting: I oppose the system you represent; I oppose
 the barbarism being imposed on us; I oppose you because your irresponsible
 leadership may give excuses to others to intervene and to be the ones to
 "resolve" our problems.
 
  I am not the CIA. I don't represent their interests; I'm not interested
 in them or interested in the insecurity of the state and the psychological
 terror you've patiently inflicted on us for 32 years, like a brutal,
 deadly inoculation.
  
  My duty is to make clear to you, to national and international public
 opinion, that opposition does exist in Cuba.
  It only does not exist among those who turn away for three reasons:
  FEAR, FEAR and FEAR.
 
  Not only do I exist; we are many, so many that our existence is
 imperiously denied; we are opponents, and we are not exactly in the
 United States. We are here, a few steps away from you - and you know it.
  The circuses and gastronomical festivals organized to distract your
 visitors don't matter. That kind of irresponsible, political
 neo-tourism bestowed on figures from other countries does not matter;
 the fact that they depart "satisfied" by our sad spectacle does not
 matter.
 
  Beneath all that scaffolding live the people, and we're among those
 people: Those who oppose, repressed to be sure, but as undeniable as
 a birthmark in the middle of one's forehead.
  To those who survive our approaching catastrophe, I want to say
 something: It is good, it's healthy to remember that history can absolve,
 but it can also condemn.


  end of NYT excerpts. Typed without permission.


--
Ray I. Ravelo                 "We're your opposition, Mr. Castro, we 10 million
Office of Academic Computing.  Cubans who look around us in terror"
UC, Irvine.                   from the open letter to Castro by M.E. Cruz-Varela

Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america