For an Exiled Cuban Photographer, Freedom Was in Color

July 10, 2012, 5:00 am

For an Exiled Cuban Photographer, Freedom Was in Color
By DAVID GONZALEZ

Freedom was in color. That was the indelible memory that Omar Rodríguez
Saludes remembered the day he boarded an Iberia flight to Spain from
Havana in 2010. Until then, his world was sketched in drab shades of
gray, green and white. Those were the colors of his imprisonment: gray
for his rags, white for the walls and green for the guards.

"To see any other color was rare," Mr. Rodríguez Saludes said. "But in
that plane, I saw colors. Everyone was dressed regularly. I saw colors I
had not seen in a long time."

Seven years, to be exact. Journalism was the reason for his
imprisonment. Specifically, everyday shots of Havana life, far from the
gleaming tourist hotels and beaches. His world showed a crumbling city
with haggard faces, presided over, Oz-like, by billboards with
revolutionary slogans.

He had been among some 20 independent journalists who were rounded up by
the Cuban government during a sweep of 75 dissidents in March 2003, and
given lengthy sentences after quick trials. They were said to be
traitors and mercenaries in the service of the United States government,
even though international human rights and journalists groups defended
them as prisoners of conscience.

Mr. Rodríguez Saludes was a self-taught photographer who was considered
among the best of the island's up-and-coming independent journalists. It
was not an easy life, whether dealing with daily harassment and
short-term jail stays, or regularly having his camera and recorder
confiscated. In a profile I wrote on him in 2002, he called himself "a
blind photographer," since he saw only his negatives, never the prints
that were published in a Miami-based Cuban news service, Nueva Prensa
Cubana.

Soon after the article ran, a friend of his in Miami called to thank me.
The article, he said, would give his friend a higher profile and,
perhaps, a measure of protection.

That's relative. Mr. Rodríguez Saludes was sentenced to 27 years, the
longest of any independent journalist. He got off easy: prosecutors had
asked for a life term. Mr. Rodríguez Saludes served seven years before
being sent into exile to Spain with his family, where he now lives
(though has been unable to find work).

"You have to have courage to do this work," said Carlos Lauria of the
Committee to Protect Journalists. "Omar's case was one of the longest
sentences they gave to anyone. It is a faithful reflection of an
arbitrary system that has a totally obsolete legal framework. It is
totally repressive and looking to stifle any kind of expression."

Mr. Rodríguez Saludes did not start out to be a journalist or dissident.
He had been working at a shipyard, where he saw the differences between
how the company — the Cuban government — treated those who worked inside
the office and those who worked fixing boats. He called it slavery. The
government thought otherwise. In 1992, he lost his job.

He had become used to walking around Havana taking pictures, a hobby he
had picked up from his mother, who took family photos with an old box
camera. In his early 20s, he had been using a Soviet-made camera to
chronicle his walks about town. His archive grew; his work prospects did
not.

In 1995, Raúl Rivero, the dean of Cuba's independent journalists,
invited him to become part of the island's growing movement. He quickly
took to it.

"I was already in the streets with my camera in hand," he said. "It was
my custom, almost a vice. Even on family walks I had my camera. It was
daily work that gave me a social and photographic vision. I saw things
others did not. I focused on the details."
DESCRIPTIONOmar Rodríguez Saludes Two generations, one disaster.

The more he shot, the more he looked to contrast the reality on the
sidewalk with the billboards and official pronouncements. Getting around
on a bike, he scooted about Havana looking for those contrasts.

"I had to be fast," he said. "This was before digital. Back then, the
frame had to be right. I had one or two shots to get it. I tried to show
the reality as it is. I wanted to speak loudly about the reality facing
Cubans, and to show it was not he paradise the government presents. They
try to say it is clean and stable. But reality is far from that."

Though he had often been detained — losing his cameras to an agent of
state security who hung one in his office like a trophy — things took a
serious turn for the worse in March 2003, the time that came to be known
as Cuba's Black Spring. He said that agents showed up at his home and
searched it, taking books, cameras and even medicine sent by his mother
from Miami.

One particular prize was the 2002 New York Times article.

"When they found it in a drawer, one of the agents said, 'Look at this!'
when I turned around, I saw it was the New York Times article," he said.
"They used it as evidence against me in their prosecution, as if it had
been a nuclear weapon."

While in custody, he was repeatedly questioned.

"They started to talk to me about the news, who spoke to me, how did I
get the news, what did I do with it," he said. "From the beginning, the
only words I said was 'No, I will not respond.' They knew the answers
already. That was public. The problem was I did not want to cooperate.
You can't cooperate with them."

His trial lasted hours. His sentence, years. He spent his first nine
months in an isolation cell, he said, and was later sent to different
prisons, often making it hard for his wife and children to visit. During
those years, he managed to keep a diary.

He was freed in July 2010, thanks to the intercession of the Cardinal
Archbishop of Havana and the Spanish government. The offer was hardly
ideal: he would have to go into exile in Spain, whose government was
willing to offer resettlement assistance (which has recently run out for
those exiles still there).

The conditions placed on many of the freed journalists — namely, exile —
have been denounced by press freedom and human rights groups. Mr. Lauria
said it was important to note that many of the former independent
journalists had not been writing direct criticisms of the government or
its leaders.

"It's important to note that may of those who were jailed had once
embraced Socialist ideas," Mr. Lauria said. "But the moment they
expressed themselves, they were seen not just as the opposition, but
acting against the interests of the state. For something that in any
normal country is not considered an aberration, but part of the game of
democracy."

Many of the former journalists have left Spain after finding it hard to
find work. Mr. Rodríguez Saludes himself is unemployed despite having
taken courses in three different trades. He recently decided to move to
the United States, where he hopes to finish writing his prison diary.

He says he regrets nothing.

No longer a blind photographer, the only pictures he takes are with his
cellphone — though they are in color, just like inside the plane that
took him from Havana.

"When I walked up the steps with my family, I did not look back," he
said. "I knew they were looking at me. I knew there was hate.

"But when I got to the top of the stairs, something happened. The flight
crew was there and the captain extended his hand to me. 'Welcome to
Spain, liberty and democracy.' Then, he hugged me and my family."

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/freedom-was-in-color/