In his apartment in the Alamar district of the Cuban capital, Leonardo Otaño, 30, keeps nine plants in tins formerly used to market tomatoes. “Each one of them corresponds to one of the times I was arrested or called to testify”, says the professor and doctoral candidate in history at the University of Havana.
“For every bad moment in life, we expect a good moment, hence this little ritual.”
Between books and an aquarium, the activist apologizes for the lack of tidiness in the house, which boasts a photo of him with Pope Francis in 2015, when the pontiff visited Cuba. Otaño, who was part of the Archipiélago group, organizer of the July 11, 2021 protests in more than 50 cities and of the November 15, severely repressed demonstration attempt, is religious, but professes a “progressive, left-wing version of the Catholic Church”, in addition to being an admirer of Liberation Theology.
“There is nothing further from being left-wing and progressive than the totalitarian regime that exists in Cuba today. I am left-wing and I don’t accept people saying that those in power are too.”
Since the beginning of the post-11J crackdown, and even more so after the failure of 15N, Otaño has focused solely on supporting the families of political prisoners who have been convicted of participating in the protests.
Of the 1,395 arrested on July 11, 728 remain in prison — and the trials are trickling. Since then, according to official figures, 128 people have been sentenced to a total of 1,916 years in prison.
In recent weeks, seven young people, between 16 and 18 years old, received orders from 19 to 25 years of hospitalization. Data compiled by the NGOs Cubalex, Prisoners Defenders and Amnesty International show that more than 40 minors have already been the target of such decisions, with sentences of more than 15 years in prison. NGOs also accuse the occurrence of torture, deprivation of light and food, as well as electric shocks.
Esperanza (fictitious name), who agreed to speak with Sheet on condition that the reporter walk with her along the Malecón, Havana’s main thoroughfare, to avoid the impression that she was being interviewed, she cries when talking about her 19-year-old son, sentenced to 25 years in prison for “disorders to public order “.
While highlighting the effort to obtain an amnesty, she says she hopes the offspring understand how hard it is for the family to be watched when going to the market or when the brothers go to school.
As soon as the convictions began to be released, a group of 35 mothers began to work in collecting signatures for the amnesty petition and in contacting courts and international organizations.
Feathers frighten Cubans, especially those from poor neighborhoods in the capital. If in the streets of Habana Vieja, the tourist center, the presence of police and military is small, it is not so in Guanabacoa and Los Pocitos or in the interior of the country, especially in Camagüey and Holguín, places with a tradition of rebellion against the system and that manifested themselves with intensity in 11J.
The leader of the Cuban dictatorship, Miguel Díaz-Canel, says there are no political prisoners on the island and says the convictions are for crimes against state security and for collaboration with foreign forces.
While talking to Sheet, Otaño shows the neighborhood in which he lives and which summarizes the degradation of the dream of the socialist revolution in 1959. Alamar was a project headed by Fidel Castro (1926-2016) and brings together Soviet-inspired buildings, with small apartments, but with “everything what a family needs”. The units are virtually identical, and there are images of the revolution’s heroes on every corner. “The idea was to build a neighborhood where the ‘new man’ would live, who would not seek to have more than the others”, he says.
The current reality, however, shows insufficient spaces, open sewage and constant complaints due to electricity blackouts. Residents of poor neighborhoods in Havana say that the power outage can last up to five hours a day — in the countryside, the report is of entire days without power.
Overall, the opposition is fragmented. There are, for example, activists who bet on an institutional solution, with an amnesty that would come through legal channels. Many artists, who with movements like San Isidro and Espaço Aglutinador fought for freedom of expression, left the country.
In her studio, Sandra Ceballos, 61, offers the reporter a chair, warning that it is not just any chair: “It’s one of the originals from the mythical Coppelia ice cream shop”, she proudly says. Coppelia gained international recognition with the film “Strawberry and Chocolate” (1993), by directors Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, one of the first works to address the LGBTQIA+ issue in Cuba.
The ice cream shop was also a personal effort by Fidel, who, determined to make Cubans have “the best ice cream in the Caribbean”, imported the most modern machinery in Europe in 1966. Today a tourist spot, the place, however, has been losing quality. The increase in the prices of ingredients and the lack of milk makes the product often watery or tastes like soy. The story explains why Ceballos kept an original chair.
A former member of the Archipiélago, she has no hope of further manifestations. “The conditions exist, but we are also sure that another wave of terrible repression will follow,” she says. “Now, with these boys sentenced to spend more than 20 years in prison, with allegations of torture, there’s no way around it. I’m a pacifist, but the only way to overthrow the regime is as they did with Fulgencio Batista in 1959. With guns, an organized guerrilla coming from the interior, and overthrowing the power by force.”
Here, the opposition is fractured again. Otaño says he does not want the overthrow of a totalitarianism with “the weapons used by what could become another totalitarianism”. “After all, who said that if we overthrow the regime we have now, there won’t be a Putin? We don’t want that.”
Ceballos also criticizes the opening of cultural spaces with permission from the regime, such as Fábrica de Arte, a venue for concerts and exhibitions that is a sensation among young people. On the 15th, with the house full, the Sheet attended the presentation of Interactivo, a group of jazz and Caribbean genres that has been causing a stir. Led by pianist Roberto Carcassés, the group of more than 30 musicians plays everything, but doesn’t speak a word of politics.
“With the situation we live in, with artists imprisoned and exiled, having a cultural space like this is absurd. It’s also a horror that artists perform there without speaking out about the repression. There should be a strike of everything in this country – and also of culture”, says Ceballos.
While the condemnations silence the opposition, the economic situation has been deteriorating. Due to the Covid pandemic, Cuba’s GDP has been reduced by 11% in 2020, and inflation has reached 300%. Despite the reopening to tourism, it has been difficult to reach previous levels.
The Ukrainian War also worsened the situation, as Russians made up 20% of tourism during high season. This year, for example, there were 30,000 cancellations of reservations after restrictions imposed on flights from Moscow. There are still Russian tourists who don’t know how they will get home.
To get remittances from abroad to resume the pace, the regime opened channels to facilitate the departure of Cubans. For example, it signed an agreement with Nicaragua not to require a visa or permission to travel, and thus, since October 2021, more than 200,000 Cubans have emigrated to the country controlled by Daniel Ortega with the intention of crossing legally or illegally. the US border.
The route, however, with few direct flights to Managua, costs about US$ 2,000 (R$ 9,830) per person with tickets alone. And coyotes charge up to $10,000 for the journey. Officially, the US claims to have received last year 32,000 Cubans who are now in state custody.
According to the Cuban Penal Code, which will have a new version this year, leaving the island illegally is a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison. The regime, however, has turned a blind eye, as the economy needs foreign exchange.
The number of “balseros”, who try to reach Florida by sea, has increased sevenfold since last year. US patrol boats have been circulating with the sign “Do not go overboard” and have returned many migrants. The Joe Biden administration says it prefers entry by land, even if the definition of such cases is complicated, than facing the dangers of sea crossing.
The idea of leaving the country is not the most popular either. Yulier (not his real name), from Los Pocitos, remembers the “immense family” he has in Cuba and his mother, who is sick. “Why do I have to leave?”
Otaño, who travels frequently due to his academic activity, says it is wrong to think that Cubans just want to leave. “Actually, when I travel, what I fear most is being prevented from returning.” Or, as the writer Leonardo Padura said in Europe to promote his new book, “Como Polvo en el Viento”: “Why do I have to leave? I arrived earlier.”
