Nevertheless, Echemendía follows there. Obstinate to its principles, perhaps being or with itself and the mother country, because with her - the men as Echemendia - they always are or. However, often I ask myself: We will be the compatriots of Echemendía fulfilling sufficiently him? Who, of the different generations from political opponents will have visited their house and relatives? The ones of the independent press, we will have given the sufficient cover them to its case? And in I exile, will have been realized a sufficiently impressive campaign for its liberation? I not even create, that somebody has, a photo that puts face to him to the cause of Echemendía. I do not know if with that treatment, anybody wanted to follow the passages of Echemendía.

At the end of a 2002 based political express at the moment in the United States it visited to us here in Santiago of Cuba. Also it was questioned, if they, the political expresses and that once were companions until of cell of Echemendía, they would have fulfilled its commitment when they left the jail and they promised not to forget of which they were back.

To that it told us commitment that she took to the creation of a club of political expresses, that very very premeditadedly was put to them by name, Gerald González to that in the prison of Sweet potato they said “to Brother of the Faith� by its religious beliefs and their love to them to the fellow and that outside vilely assassinated the 1 of September of 1975, indeed in the prison of Sweet potato to demand medical aid for one of its companions of cause.

In so many years of prison, since in the next month of May it turns 19 years of confinement, Echemendia has seen pass thousands of events, many have filled to hope and optimism to them: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the landslide of the field, the economic crisis in Cuba, in its greater denominated expression “special period�, the crisis of the ferrymen in the 94, the well-known public protest like “maleconazo�, the apparent economic opening in Cuba and the migratory agreements, signed between Cuba and the United States. In short, one retahíla of events, that besides being historical, little represent or change to the condition of prisoner or in the life of Francisco Herodes Diaz Echemendia.

Nevertheless, although the pressure ended its familiar life, because his father died early and the wife did not resist similar test of stoicism, other people went to its support. It is necessary to emphasize among them to Elaine Ibarra, adopted that it as a son and gave everything him what could while they allowed it to the circumstances, but she did not arrive either in the end, to see free Echemendía at least. Victim of the cancer died a few years ago.

In the 2006 Provincial Popular Court of Santiago of Cuba it denied the conditional freedom to him, by his vertical and inclaudicable position, but authorities catalog the judicial it because it has not fulfilled the reeducation plan.  The reality is that during his political military prison Echemendia it has not a little while let denounce the excesses of the punitive forces and the convincing violations of the human rights.

I have in my hands, a very small paper, removed surreptitiously from the prison of Sweet potato where Echemendia gives account of which the past 3 of March the inmate Leonardo González Figuera was struck by captain Alain, head of the Internal procedure, in company of the reeducador Amauri and five guards of the penitentiary. The 16 of March also brutally were struck the prisoner Néstor Cala Revilla by a group of the military directed by the Vladimiro official. This demonstrates the consistency of Echemendia in the denunciations, even expensa of its own benefits.

The internal and external situation of Cuba, in a world that becomes and accomplice more favorable, does not allow to have good auguries, that Echemendía manages to leave before turning the 20 years from prison to which initially was condemned. In a world, where people who were adolescent when Echemendia fell imprisoned, today already are presidents of their respective countries and they do not consider them, rather support with its victimarios. Then it is our responsibility to elevate our voices and solidarity with Echemendia, and is for that reason, specifically one has repeated very insistently its name in this article, to compensate in something the times that its name has been ignored.

All that one that wants to know more of the life and work of Francisco Herodes Diaz Ecehemendia can be put in contact with its relatives, residents in: Cale and 74 No. And B and D Chicharrones Distribution, Santiago of Cuba, Cuba.