(El artículo en español sigue abajo)
BY JUAN TAMAYOmailto:TAMAYOjtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
The women met each other in Villa Marista, tenebrous headquarters of Cuba's political police, while visiting some of the 74 husbands, sons and fathers arrested in a 2003 crackdown on dissent.
``We didn't know each other because most of us were not dissidents, just wives, mothers, daughters,'' recalled Berta Soler. ``But we started to chat, and to organize, and we became the Ladies in White.''
They sought support and publicity in a Havana church frequented by foreign diplomats. And they marched on the streets, at first tentatively, then daringly to the very symbols of the regime that sentenced their men to up to 28 years in prison.
More importantly, they became the only group that regularly staged street protests in Cuba, giving their persistent demands for the freedom of their men and all other political prisoners a level of visibility rare in communist Cuba.
Today, the Ladies in White have become icons of the Cuban dissident movement, condemned by the Raúl Castro government and little known in their country but praised around the world, defended by Cuba's often timid Catholic church and even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
``To win the streets is the basic issue for the dissidents, and no other group has won that space,'' said Cuban sociologist Haroldo Dilla. ``They are so vulnerable and fragile that they are difficult to repress.''
State security officials blocked the women's marches the last two Sundays, a clear sign Castro has had enough of their very public activism. The officials have warned the women that if they insist on marching, police may not be able to ``protect'' them from the government-organized mobs of civilians that regularly harass them.
But the women have vowed to keep at it, and will try to march again today (Sunday) as is their custom after attending the 10:30 a.m. Mass at the Santa Rita church, wearing white clotes and carrying pink gladioluses.
``We will continue to try to march every Sunday,'' said Soler, whose husband Angel Moya Acosta is serving a 20-year sentence. ``For the freedom of our men, we will continue going into the streets.''
``This will be a struggle of resistance, for which we are prepared,'' declared group spokeswoman Laura Pollán. ``If there's something that we have, it is patience, perseverance and resistance. We have shown that through seven years of peaceful struggle.''
Cuba's government has certainly tried to stop the women in many ways since 2003.
Most of their marches are harassed by government-run mobs that hurl insults at them -- including ``paredón!,'' slang for a firing squad -- and sometimes hit them on their backs, pinch their arms and stomp on their feet, the women say. Security forces broke up several of the protests by dragging them into buses and driving them away.
State security officials also regularly threaten the women and their jailed relatives with worse prison conditions if the women continue their protests, said Soler, and can delay or block prison visits and deliveries of food and other supplies.
Many of the Ladies in White suspect the government has infiltrated snitches in their midst, and Pollán found a microphone in a wall socket in her home three years ago.
Virtually all are unemployed, most of them fired from their jobs in a country where the government controls 95 percent of all economic activity. Others resigned because of the withering pressures.
Soler, a microbiologist at a maternity hospital, quit out of fear she would be blamed for a death. ``I had to keep my eyes wide open all the time, to make sure I would not be framed for something,'' she told El Nuevo Herald by telephone from Havana.
Cuban officials also have put pressures on the Ladies in White's children, other relatives, friends and neighbors, the women say.
Gisela Delgado, whose husband Hector Palacios was sentenced to 25 years but was freed in 2006 for health reasons, said their daughter Giselle was expelled from the University of Havana because of her parents' activism.
Yolanda Huerta said her 9-year old son was given a psychological test in school to determine ``whether he had been imbued with his father's ideas.'' Her husband, Manuel Vasquez Portal, was freed in 2004 and the family now lives in Miami.
Delgado said state security agents also have tried to set the prisoners' mothers against the wives, and to recruit boyfriends and girlfriends of the older children to spy on the families.
``This is psychological torture against our families. This is state terrorism,'' she said via telephone from Havana.
Police also have told neighbors that the jailed men were convicted killers, said Soler. Her son Luis Angel, now 15, got into a fight in primary school with another kid who called his father a murderer and ``now he's marked as a troublemaker'' in school records, she added.
``To be the child of a dissident in Cuba is worse than being the child of a thief,'' said Maria Elena Alpizar, an independent journalist in Cuba who wrote often about the Ladies in White and now lives in Miami.
Cuba brands the women, like other dissidents, as ``mercenaries'' paid from abroad to criticize the government. In 2008, it made public a receipt signed by Pollán for $2,400 to be distributed to nine women over two months -- $133 per woman per month. The government alleged the funds came from a Miami group with links to a supporter of anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles.
The women don't deny that some of them receive money from a number of individuals and groups abroad -- including the plantados, a group of former political prisoners in Miami -- but they angrily deny the allegation of being ``mercenaries.''
``First, nobody pays us to defend democracy and human rights,'' Delgado said. ``This aid comes primarily because all the women are unemployed, and it's a minimum for maintaining the family and delivering some food and other things to men in prisons that are not like those in other countries, where they have a proper diet.''
A bag with a month's supply of canned and dried foods, soap, toothpaste and maybe some towels runs anywhere from $100 to $140, the women say.
``More important than the dollar value of the aid is the support that one feels, that one is not totally unprotected, that there are people who worry about you,'' Alpizar added.
The Ladies in White clearly remain little known inside Cuba, where the government-controlled domestic news outlets seldom mention them. But if history is any guide, the women will manage to persevere.
They first met at Villa Marista, where many of the 74 male dissidents were detained after the 2003 crackdown known as Cuba's Black Spring. Another jailed dissident was Martha Beatriz Roque.
Only three or four were already activists, said Blanca Reyes, a member until her husband, journalist Raul Rivero, was freed in 2004 and they left for Spain. She now represents the group in Europe.
The women started talking about staging some sort of protest to demand the release of their men, and learned there was already a group of mothers of pre-2003 political prisoners -- the Leonor Perez Mothers' Committee, named after the mother of independence hero José Martí -- who wore white in summer and black in winter for their activities.
They regularly attended the Sunday masses at the Santa Rita church on Fifth Avenue. But the mothers' group never tried to march down the streets.
A handful of relatives of the 74 dissidents first turned up at the church March 30, 2003, dressed in white, Alpizar said. The headline on one her dispatches, posted on the Internet May 28 under the pseudonym ``10,'' gave the group its name, Las Damas de Blanco.
``We started just standing at the church door after Mass'' to buttonhole the diplomats and plead their case, Reyes recalled. ``Then we started reciting the Ave Maria. Then we started walking, then walking a bit further, and so on.''
``We were so close, I can't even remember who first said, `let's march,' '' she said by telephone from Madrid.
The initial marches generally stayed close to the church. But on March 19, 2004, 17 of the women marched to the government agency that runs prisons and the national legislature to hand over petitions for the release of all political prisoners.
And on Feb. 18, 2005, in their most daring sally, the women delivered a similar petition to the ruling Council of State on Revolution Plaza -- the iconic meeting place for Castro and his followers.
``No matter what the government has done or will do, we will continue trying to march, trying to demand liberty for our dear relatives,'' Soler said last week. ``We will never give up, because what unites us is our pain.''
BY JUAN TAMAYOmailto:TAMAYOjtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
The women met each other in Villa Marista, tenebrous headquarters of Cuba's political police, while visiting some of the 74 husbands, sons and fathers arrested in a 2003 crackdown on dissent.
``We didn't know each other because most of us were not dissidents, just wives, mothers, daughters,'' recalled Berta Soler. ``But we started to chat, and to organize, and we became the Ladies in White.''
They sought support and publicity in a Havana church frequented by foreign diplomats. And they marched on the streets, at first tentatively, then daringly to the very symbols of the regime that sentenced their men to up to 28 years in prison.
More importantly, they became the only group that regularly staged street protests in Cuba, giving their persistent demands for the freedom of their men and all other political prisoners a level of visibility rare in communist Cuba.
Today, the Ladies in White have become icons of the Cuban dissident movement, condemned by the Raúl Castro government and little known in their country but praised around the world, defended by Cuba's often timid Catholic church and even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
``To win the streets is the basic issue for the dissidents, and no other group has won that space,'' said Cuban sociologist Haroldo Dilla. ``They are so vulnerable and fragile that they are difficult to repress.''
State security officials blocked the women's marches the last two Sundays, a clear sign Castro has had enough of their very public activism. The officials have warned the women that if they insist on marching, police may not be able to ``protect'' them from the government-organized mobs of civilians that regularly harass them.
But the women have vowed to keep at it, and will try to march again today (Sunday) as is their custom after attending the 10:30 a.m. Mass at the Santa Rita church, wearing white clotes and carrying pink gladioluses.
``We will continue to try to march every Sunday,'' said Soler, whose husband Angel Moya Acosta is serving a 20-year sentence. ``For the freedom of our men, we will continue going into the streets.''
``This will be a struggle of resistance, for which we are prepared,'' declared group spokeswoman Laura Pollán. ``If there's something that we have, it is patience, perseverance and resistance. We have shown that through seven years of peaceful struggle.''
Cuba's government has certainly tried to stop the women in many ways since 2003.
Most of their marches are harassed by government-run mobs that hurl insults at them -- including ``paredón!,'' slang for a firing squad -- and sometimes hit them on their backs, pinch their arms and stomp on their feet, the women say. Security forces broke up several of the protests by dragging them into buses and driving them away.
State security officials also regularly threaten the women and their jailed relatives with worse prison conditions if the women continue their protests, said Soler, and can delay or block prison visits and deliveries of food and other supplies.
Many of the Ladies in White suspect the government has infiltrated snitches in their midst, and Pollán found a microphone in a wall socket in her home three years ago.
Virtually all are unemployed, most of them fired from their jobs in a country where the government controls 95 percent of all economic activity. Others resigned because of the withering pressures.
Soler, a microbiologist at a maternity hospital, quit out of fear she would be blamed for a death. ``I had to keep my eyes wide open all the time, to make sure I would not be framed for something,'' she told El Nuevo Herald by telephone from Havana.
Cuban officials also have put pressures on the Ladies in White's children, other relatives, friends and neighbors, the women say.
Gisela Delgado, whose husband Hector Palacios was sentenced to 25 years but was freed in 2006 for health reasons, said their daughter Giselle was expelled from the University of Havana because of her parents' activism.
Yolanda Huerta said her 9-year old son was given a psychological test in school to determine ``whether he had been imbued with his father's ideas.'' Her husband, Manuel Vasquez Portal, was freed in 2004 and the family now lives in Miami.
Delgado said state security agents also have tried to set the prisoners' mothers against the wives, and to recruit boyfriends and girlfriends of the older children to spy on the families.
``This is psychological torture against our families. This is state terrorism,'' she said via telephone from Havana.
Police also have told neighbors that the jailed men were convicted killers, said Soler. Her son Luis Angel, now 15, got into a fight in primary school with another kid who called his father a murderer and ``now he's marked as a troublemaker'' in school records, she added.
``To be the child of a dissident in Cuba is worse than being the child of a thief,'' said Maria Elena Alpizar, an independent journalist in Cuba who wrote often about the Ladies in White and now lives in Miami.
Cuba brands the women, like other dissidents, as ``mercenaries'' paid from abroad to criticize the government. In 2008, it made public a receipt signed by Pollán for $2,400 to be distributed to nine women over two months -- $133 per woman per month. The government alleged the funds came from a Miami group with links to a supporter of anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles.
The women don't deny that some of them receive money from a number of individuals and groups abroad -- including the plantados, a group of former political prisoners in Miami -- but they angrily deny the allegation of being ``mercenaries.''
``First, nobody pays us to defend democracy and human rights,'' Delgado said. ``This aid comes primarily because all the women are unemployed, and it's a minimum for maintaining the family and delivering some food and other things to men in prisons that are not like those in other countries, where they have a proper diet.''
A bag with a month's supply of canned and dried foods, soap, toothpaste and maybe some towels runs anywhere from $100 to $140, the women say.
``More important than the dollar value of the aid is the support that one feels, that one is not totally unprotected, that there are people who worry about you,'' Alpizar added.
The Ladies in White clearly remain little known inside Cuba, where the government-controlled domestic news outlets seldom mention them. But if history is any guide, the women will manage to persevere.
They first met at Villa Marista, where many of the 74 male dissidents were detained after the 2003 crackdown known as Cuba's Black Spring. Another jailed dissident was Martha Beatriz Roque.
Only three or four were already activists, said Blanca Reyes, a member until her husband, journalist Raul Rivero, was freed in 2004 and they left for Spain. She now represents the group in Europe.
The women started talking about staging some sort of protest to demand the release of their men, and learned there was already a group of mothers of pre-2003 political prisoners -- the Leonor Perez Mothers' Committee, named after the mother of independence hero José Martí -- who wore white in summer and black in winter for their activities.
They regularly attended the Sunday masses at the Santa Rita church on Fifth Avenue. But the mothers' group never tried to march down the streets.
A handful of relatives of the 74 dissidents first turned up at the church March 30, 2003, dressed in white, Alpizar said. The headline on one her dispatches, posted on the Internet May 28 under the pseudonym ``10,'' gave the group its name, Las Damas de Blanco.
``We started just standing at the church door after Mass'' to buttonhole the diplomats and plead their case, Reyes recalled. ``Then we started reciting the Ave Maria. Then we started walking, then walking a bit further, and so on.''
``We were so close, I can't even remember who first said, `let's march,' '' she said by telephone from Madrid.
The initial marches generally stayed close to the church. But on March 19, 2004, 17 of the women marched to the government agency that runs prisons and the national legislature to hand over petitions for the release of all political prisoners.
And on Feb. 18, 2005, in their most daring sally, the women delivered a similar petition to the ruling Council of State on Revolution Plaza -- the iconic meeting place for Castro and his followers.
``No matter what the government has done or will do, we will continue trying to march, trying to demand liberty for our dear relatives,'' Soler said last week. ``We will never give up, because what unites us is our pain.''
_________________
Damas de Blanco: ‘‘Lo que nos une es el dolor''
JUAN O. TAMAYO
JUAN O. TAMAYO
Las mujeres se conocieron en Villa Marista, la tenebrosa sede de la policía política de Cuba, mientras visitaban a algunos de los 74 esposos, hijos y padres arrestados durante la ola de represión contra los disidentes del 2003.
Así formaron el grupo de las Damas de Blanco, y buscaron apoyo y publicidad en una iglesia de La Habana frecuentada por diplomáticos extranjeros. Marcharon por las calles, al principio tentativamente, y luego desafiando al régimen que sentenció a sus hombres a condenas de hasta 28 años.
Más importante aún, se convirtieron en el único grupo que llevó a cabo regularmente protestas en Cuba, dando a sus persistentes demandas por la libertad de sus familiares y de todos los presos políticos un raro nivel de visibilidad en la Cuba comunista.
En la actualidad, las Damas de Blanco se han convertido en íconos del movimiento disidente cubano, condenadas por el gobierno de Raúl Castro y poco conocidas en su propio país pero elogiadas en todo el mundo, defendidas por la muchas veces tímida Iglesia Católica e incluso nominadas al Premio Nobel de la Paz.
"Ganar las calles es la cuestión básica para la disidencia, y ningún otro grupo ha ganado ese espacio'', declaró el sociólogo cubano Haroldo Dilla. "Son tan vulnerables y frágiles que son difíciles de reprimir''.
Agentes de la Seguridad del Estado bloquearon las marchas de las mujeres los últimos dos domingos, en una clara señal de que Castro está harto de su activismo público. Igualmente les han advertido que, si insisten en seguir marchando, la policía no va a poder "protegerlas'' de las turbas de civiles organizadas por el gobierno que las hostigan con regularidad.
Pero las mujeres se han comprometido a continuar, y tratarán de volver a marchar hoy como es su costumbre luego de asistir a la misa de las 10:30 en la Iglesia de Santa Rita, vestidas con ropa blanca y llevando gladiolos rosados.
"Vamos a seguir tratando de salir a caminar todos los domingos'', aseguró Berta Soler, cuyo esposo Angel Moya Acosta está cumpliendo una condena de 20 años. "Por la libertad de nuestros hombres, vamos a continuar saliendo a las calles''.
"Nos espera una lucha de resistencia. Para ello estamos preparadas'', declaró la portavoz del grupo, Laura Pollán. "Si hay algo que tenemos las Damas es paciencia, perseverancia y resistencia. Lo hemos demostrado en estos siete años de lucha pacífica''. El gobierno cubano ciertamente ha tratado de poner coto a las mujeres de muchas maneras desde el 2003.
La mayoría de las marchas son hostigadas por turbas enviadas por el gobierno que les gritan insultos --incluyendo gritos de "¡paredón!''-- y a veces las golpean por la espalda, les pellizcan los brazos y les pisotean los pies, según cuentan las Damas. Agentes de la Seguridad del Estado han interrumpido varias protestas arrastrándolas a la fuerza hacia autobuses y llevándoselas del lugar.
Además de las amenazas de los agentes contra ellas, también amenazan a sus familiares en prisión con ponerlos en peores condiciones si ellas continúan sus protestas, dijo Soler, y pueden demorar o impedir las visitas a la prisión y los envíos de alimentos y otras provisiones.
Muchas de las Damas de Blanco sospechan que el gobierno ha infiltrado informantes entre ellas, y Pollán encontró un micrófono en un orificio de la pared en su casa hace tres años.
Casi todas ellas están desempleadas, la mayoría expulsadas de sus trabajos en un país donde el gobierno controla el 95 por ciento de la actividad económica. Otras renunciaron a sus empleos debido a las terribles presiones.
Soler, que trabajaba como microbióloga en un hospital de maternidad, renunció por miedo de que la responsabilizaran de alguna muerte.
"Siempre estaba con los ojos muy abiertos para evitar que me hicieran alguna trampa'', afirmó a El Nuevo Herald desde La Habana.
Funcionarios cubanos también han ejercido presión sobre los hijos de las Damas de Blanco, así como sobre otros parientes, amigos y vecinos, afirmaron las mujeres.
Gisela Delgado, cuyo esposo Héctor Palacios fue condenado a 25 años pero liberado en el 2006 por razones de salud, dijo que su hija Giselle fue expulsada de la Universidad de La Habana a causa del activismo de sus padres.
Yolanda Huerta comentó que a su hijo lo habían sometido a una prueba sicológica en la escuela cuando tenía 9 años para determinar "si había sido imbuido de las ideas de su padre''. Su esposo, Manuel Vázquez Portal, fue puesto en libertad en el 2004 y la familia vive ahora en Miami.
Delgado dijo que agentes de Seguridad del Estado también han tratado de enemistar a las madres de los presos con sus esposas, y de reclutar a los novios y novias de los hijos mayores para espiar a las familias.
"Eso es una tortura sicológica para nuestra familia'', indicó Delgado desde La Habana. "Eso es terrorismo de Estado''.
La policía ha dicho además a sus vecinos que disidentes encarcelados son asesinos convictos, dijo Soler. Su hijo Luis Angel, de 15 años, tuvo tiempo atrás una pelea en la escuela primaria con otro niño que llamó asesino a su padre, y "ahora está fiscalizado'' en su expediente escolar, añadió.
"Ser hijo de un disidente en Cuba es peor que ser hijo de un ladrón'', dijo María Elena Alpízar, periodista independiente que escribió a menudo sobre las Damas de Blanco y ahora vive en Miami.
Los funcionarios cubanos marcan a las mujeres, como a todos los otros disidentes, como "mercenarios'' que reciben dinero del extranjero para criticar al gobierno. En el 2008, hicieron público un recibo firmado por Pollán de $2,400 para repartir entre nueve mujeres durante dos meses: $133 al mes por mujer. El gobierno alegó que el dinero venía de un grupo en Miami con conexiones con el militante anticastrista Luis Posada Carriles.
Las mujeres admiten que algunas de ellas reciben dinero de individuos y grupos en el extranjero, incluyendo a los plantados, un grupo de ex presos políticos del sur de la Florida, pero niegan con indignación la acusación de ser "mercenarias''.
"Primero, nadie nos paga para defender la democracia y los derechos humanos'', comentó Delgado. "Esta ayuda viene en primera porque somos todas desempleadas, y es un mínimo para mantener una familia, llevarles unas jabas a nuestro esposos en cárceles que no son las cárceles de otros países donde las personas tienen una alimentación adecuada''.
Una bolsa con el suministro de un mes de alimentos enlatados y secos, jabón, pasta de dientes y tal vez algunas toallas puede costar entre $100 y $140, de acuerdo con las mujeres.
"Más que la ayuda de los paquetes, es importante el apoyo que uno siente, que no está totalmente desválido, que hay gente que se preocupa por uno'', añadió Alpízar.
Las Damas de Blanco siguen siendo poco conocidas dentro de Cuba, donde los medios de prensa controlados por el gobierno casi nunca las mencionan. Pero la historia sugiere que las mujeres se las arreglarán para perseverar.
Se vieron por primera vez Villa Marista, donde muchos de los 74 disidentes estaban detenidos tras la ola de represión conocida como la Primavera Negra de Cuba. Una disidente encarcelada era Martha Beatriz Roque.
Por entonces, sólo tres o cuatro de las mujeres eran activistas, dijo Blanca Reyes, quien perteneció al grupo hasta que su esposo, el periodista Raúl Rivero, fue puesto en libertad en el 2004 y salieron para España. Reyes representa ahora al grupo en Europa.
Las mujeres empezaron a hablar sobre cómo organizar algún tipo de protesta para exigir la liberación de sus familiares. Supieron que ya existía un grupo de madres de presos políticos encarcelados antes del 2003 --el Comité de Madres Leonor Pérez, llamado así en homenaje a la madre del héroe de la independencia José Martí-- que se vestían de blanco en verano y de negro en invierno para sus actividades.
Las madres del comité asistían regularmente a las misas dominicales en la Iglesia de Santa Rita en Quinta Avenida, porque atraía a muchos diplomáticos y periodistas extranjeros que vivían en ese barrio. Pero no solían marchar por las calles.
Unas pocas parientes de los 74 disidentes fueron por primera vez a la iglesia el 30 de marzo del 2003 vestidas de blanco, dijo Alpízar. El título de uno de sus reportajes, publicado en internet el 28 de mayo de ese año bajo el seudónimo "10'', dio su nombre al grupo: las Damas de Blanco.
"Empezamos nada más que permaneciendo de pie a la puerta de la iglesia'' para acercarse a los diplomáticos y defender su causa, recordó Reyes. "Luego empezamos recitando el Ave María, luego caminando, caminando más lejos, y así sucesivamente''.
"Estábamos tan unidas que no me acuerdo quién fue la primera que dijo: ‘Vamos a caminar' '', relató desde Madrid.
Las marchas iniciales generalmente no se alejaron mucho de la iglesia. Pero el 19 de marzo del 2004, 17 mujeres marcharon hasta la agencia del gobierno que administra las cárceles y la Asamblea Nacional para entregar peticiones por la liberación de todos los presos políticos.
El 18 de febrero del 2005, en su intento más osado, entregaron una petición similar al Consejo de Estado en la Plaza de la Revolución, el emblemático lugar de reuniones de los Castro y sus seguidores.
"No importa lo que nos hayan hecho o lo que nos puedan hacer, nosotras continuaremos tratando de caminar, tratando de reclamar libertad para nuestros seres queridos'', subrayó Soler la semana pasada. "Porque lo que nos une es el dolor''
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