“Here Nobody surrenders�

By: Juan Carlos Hernandez Hernandez
Director APLOPRESS.
juanchernandez2002@yahoo.es

SANTIAGO OF CUBA, 17 of September, the 2009 (www.miamiprogressive.com) death of Juan Almeida Forest to the 82 years of age is clarinada, of which they, also die.  The rest of Almeida, that was member of the Political Bureau of the Party Communist of Cuba and considered number three of the government, (to the memos by its historical trajectory) they will be buried with military honorses in the Mausoleum of III in front Eastern one, Mario Muñoz Monroy, according to his supposed will.

when writing these lines I cannot deny the torrent of ideas that happen through my mind, first is a question, who will be the next one? Thus the Soviet Union began to dismount. The Cuban authorities seem to think the same and reinforce their odd habit political strategy. From Monday the preparations for the mobilization of centers of works and schools began Tuesday to attend velorio road, but also the operative ones of the Security of the State, with the support of cash of the Military Counterintelligence, checked our homes and movements, without dissimulation some. The mother of Clear Sanchez Altarriba, one of the 75 dissidents jailed during the black spring of the 2003 commented: “he was intense the control and monitoring that mounted in front of my house, that was increased when knowing itself the presence Juan Carlos Hernandez and other activists who visited to me�.

I am wanted to limit to establish, perhaps, a certain parallelism in the attitude of the santiaguero town that denotes its sincretismo and culture somehow. Few days back, we attended the procession of our Virgin of the Charity of in a while very special Cobre and of the misa, our Dionisio Archbishop Garci'a asked that each person in particular made her request, and almost right away, the silence that took place was as frightening as the one that was carried out in that same Park of Turfs, when from the balcony of the City council they dropped flowers on the coffin of Juan Almeida who momentarily had paused in the place.

The santiaguera population has found feelings, on the one hand it remembers the times of Juan Almeida like Delegate of the Political Bureau, been in Santiago of Cuba, where a program of improvement of the streets impelled everything, with paving and asphalt realized by the own neighbors with own effort and materials assigned by the State. And on the other side faces the submissive man, who did not know to defend and to maintain his position after to vote against the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa. That same Almeida that per years has directed that tenebrous well-known organization like the Association of Combatants, whose members monitor the life of whichever Pacific opponent exists around to his soon to inform to the Security of the State.

While they happened the images of the duel by the television I strived to see if were Juan Juan Almeida Garci'a, its son of 44 years of age, that already they had retired of the Place of the Revolution, where a ceremony of military funeral honorses to its father was realized. This is another facet that is due to emphasize, the attitude pusilánime of Juan Almeida, who did not have the value to intercede by his son, when he was stopped when trying to leave the country of illegal form, since he had been prevented him to travel to the foreigner to receive certain medical treatment and to eet again with his wife and daughter, who live in the United States.

An analysis of our historical context is somewhat paradoxical.  How a man of humble extraction, that risked its life, in search of a process of social vindication, would fall in excesses worse than to those than he faced.  Today by chance the extraordinary edition of the “Newspaper of Cuba� of the 7 arrived at my hands from January of 1959 in which I could read an article of the 28 of December of 1958 Manifest titleholder “of the Revolutionary F.� signed by several organizations and Political Parties that by its meaning I reproduce a part:

… The “Revolutionary Front of Cuba� formed by eleven organizations of the opposition, among them the Movement 26 of Julio and the “Authentic Organization� that directs ex- President Carlos Prío Socarrás affirms today that the victory against President Fulgencio Batiste is close and reiterated that its program is “deeply democratic and anti-communist�…

When we observed that in the heat of Batistiana dictatorship existed at least eleven organizations or political parties of opposition and the press of the country, gave total cover him to the events that were developed, mainly those of Movement 26 of Julio, I cannot stop thinking about our brothers that today fulfill unjust sentences and in which we are on the verge of following its example by only made think different, since made all those organizations in its time.

A very important observation that I realized when towards this journalistic work, was the great amount commentaries related to the maximum direction of the country. Great majority agrees, that by natural, soon that chaste one law that governs, will not be able to assume the challenges that are imposing him the society and this new youth with anxieties of significant changes in all the spheres of the life of our town will drag, it to its step.

Recently in a telephone contact with the Thorny economist Oscar Chepe I formulated a question to him, that also had realized to him to an outstanding leader of the opposition in a meeting which we participated and the answer of both was almost identical: “The regime knows all the problems, they know that we are not any mercenaries and who also we want freedom, that we are not any annexionists, but also recognize that abrir the country to a true democracy where in the first place free elections exist, freedom of expression, meeting, manifestation, grouping, with right to the use of the Internet, etc., they lose the power and that is the one that does not want to loosen because they know that all that prebandage and facilities which they have in the name of the humble ones and by the humble ones would come to them down�.

Against this background I would add more, cannot be assured these people to them who stop to maintain the power by more than 50 years have committed dissimilar criminal figures, do not have to face justice, something that is right, but it makes intrench in the power. Then I included/understood that in spite of all the threats and persecutions, we do not have left another one, to which really we are at least it jeopardize with leaving for our descendants a free mother country, that to say how same it said to Juan Almeida a day: “Here Nobody surrenders�