Cuba and Its Parts in Conflict

Cuba and Its Parts in Conflict / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on February 21, 2014

We know that in more than a half century of command, the only thing that
has interested the Castro brothers is to keep their damn power. For that
they have submerged the nation in profound poverty. In order to maintain
their prolonged rule, they have converted the country into a state of
terror.

They have filled the prisons with young people who, not having another
option, have preferred to become delinquents rather than becoming
submerged in the profound, generalized economic crisis. Also the
professionals, after pursuing advanced degrees and becoming
professionals who would be in high demand in any other country, are
obligated to commit crimes of embezzlement. The lucky ones have found a
way of leaving the country definitively, or by employment contracts
between the states in question, and with meager pay, which helps them to
moderate their miserable lives.

Another part keeps hoping to emigrate, and while that wait goes by, they
repress their longing to think, criticize, demand better, because they
fear reprisals from the political police for daring to dissent from the
government program, and they survive on remittances received from the
exterior.

The minority remain, those who don't have even a remote possibility of
emigrating or receiving remittances, and although they may also dissent
like the rest, they have no other option but to cling to the structures
of power to receive the inferior surplus that they let escape for those
who get close, which is barely sufficient to breathe and to survive.

Power is maintained thanks to the blackmail of this minority, which they
use as a repressive force. The so-called "white collar" crimes are very
common, because they toil like prisoners, in economic control or
directing construction works.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton Prison Settlement, January 2014

Please follow the link and sign the petition to have Angel Santiesteban
declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.


Translated by Regina Anavy

15 February 2014

Source: Cuba and Its Parts in Conflict / Angel Santiesteban |
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