Seeing Berta Soler off at the airport

Seeing Berta Soler off at the airport / Agustin Lopez
Posted on March 12, 2013

Between hugs, handshakes and some tears we said goodbye at the Havana
aiport last night, Sunday, 10 March, to the leader of the Ladies in
White, Berta Soler.

She was accompanied more than fifty of these brave women and about
thirty friends and admirers (including the political police brigade that
never misses these events) but not along the the usual route of the
Ladies in White through the streets of Cuba to demand freedom for
political prisoners. Rather she is taking advantage of a part of Law No.
13, embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, violated for
53 years by the authorities of the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro
Ruz, before, and now by his brother Raul Castro the leader of the
Communist party, the only party allowed to exist under the constitution
created by them and approved by fear. A violation that had motivated
thousands of Cubans to make an out-of-control exodus in which many lost
their lives trying to escape the dictatorship. For 53 years Cubans could
only leave the island to work in international missions (serving as
doctors and other positions), in sports delegations, or on cultural
tours, all well-controlled by government authorities, but still many
members risked desertion under the strict eyes of State Security. Thus
numerous talents in all branches of learning and doing fled the island.

A few minutes before leaving this reporter asked Berta Soler two questions:

What will make you return to Cuba?

Berta: My commitment to my people, to political prisoners who remain in
prison, to freedom. To demand the rights that are still violated by the
dictatorship. I go out into the world only to bear witness to the truth
of Cuba and to fight for our rights. We are not mercenaries as we are
painted by the dictatorship but patriots, people of any social class who
lose the fear of repression and hold to citizenship in search of democracy.

Are you afraid to return home?

Berta: No, not at all. Fear of the tyrant has plunged this country into
misery, has made this people mediocre and isolated from the rest of the
world, not knowing how to relate to their own brothers. Even the
government itself has confessed that it has failed to create a
generation within the Party capable of replacing the old and worn out
satraps who govern. God willing, I will return to new streets, that do
not belong to the Party, to a government or to a dynasty, but to all
Cubans, those here and our brothers who have been banished into exile,
because for me we have all been banished, expelled from out country, the
land that by right belongs to us.

Now on the point of crossing over the high wall of the Revolution, her
husband, Angel Moya Acosto, a political prisoner from the Black Spring
Group of 75, hugs her and says, "Do the right thing, not one step back.
Our best weapon is the truth. Give the world this message. We are here,
waiting for you."
Laughter, applause, excitement, and the cameras clicking, until the
Afro-Cubana leader is lost behind the curtains of customs.

11 March 2013

http://translatingcuba.com/seeing-berta-soler-off-at-the-airport-agustin-lopez/