Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The First Book of the End of Castroism

The First Book of the End of Castroism / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Posted on April 2, 2014

The Madrid publisher Anaya has just released the first book of the end
of Castroism—that is, of Castroism understood as a myth perpetuated by
the intellectual left. From now on, one cannot sympathize with the
Castro dynasty without also becoming a criminal collaborator.

The book is called Muerte bajo sospecha (Death Under Suspicion) and it
contains the testimony of Ángel Carromero, the young Spanish politician
who witnessed a double State assassination in Cuba on July 22, 2012. In
the attach, both the human rights activist Harold Cepero and Oswaldo
Payá, founder of the Christian Liberation Movement and winner of the
European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2002,
were killed.

Two years ago, on July 22, Carromero was driving a rental car from
Havana towards Santiago de Cuba, accompanied by the Swedish politician
Aron Modig and the Cubans, Cepero and Payá. A little after midday, they
were rammed off the road by another car. Nobody was injured. A group of
unidentified men in plain clothing descended on them immediately. The
foreign men were taken in separate vans to Bayamo Hospital which was
already occupied by army officers and the police. Hours later, Cepero
and Payá were dead. The identities of the men who transported the two
survivors has never been revealed by the Cuban government. A few months
later, during the trial that sentenced Carromero to four years in jail
for "negligent homicide," there was no investigation into the
unidentified men.

This is the basis of Carromero's story, and it's what he and Modig were
able to convey via text message after the accident, before their foreign
cell phones were confiscated by hospital staff, and before they were put
into solitary confinement, despite the Payá and Cepero families' demands
to speak with both of them.

Muerte bajo sospecha summarizes these details and many others. Most
sinister of all, the book is now the testimony of a man with a death
sentence hanging over him. Carromero describes how, before finally being
deported back to Spain in December 2012 to serve the rest of his prison
sentence, a Cuban State Security official warned him that if he ever
told the truth, he too would be killed by extra-judicial means.

Carromero has now told the truth, and so his death is inescapable, and
it will be "accidental." It could happen whenever public opinion least
expects it, and it will happen just when the intellectual left—who have
already begun to stigmatize the young Spanish secretary of the People's
Party, including through protests in the basest Castroist fashion—least
believe it could.

But Carromero's conscience can already rest in peace. The Cuban people
must show their gratitude for his courage. With his testimony, the
post-Castroist era has been ushered in, where the Revolution and
Crime-Without-Punishment will be synonymous forever more.

From Sampsonia Way Magazine, 1 April 2014

Source: The First Book of the End of Castroism / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
| Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-first-book-of-the-end-of-castroism-orlando-luis-pardo-lazo/

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