The environment of subjugation was once in an old thick-walled prison like that of the La Cabana fortress in Havana Bay. A prison that had previously been a military barracks, because both soldiers and inmates suffer similar impediments to behaving like free beings. Both are subject to the shackle, which is imposed as a criminal penalty, or by the power of sergeants and commanders. It would not be surprising if Jose Marti, instead of writing, "One cannot establish a people, general, as one commands an encampment," had drawn the comparison with a prison where the citizen is at the mercy of his guards, under the shadow of his keepers.
Now we also have modern prisons, with the same architecture as the high schools in the countryside, but just as atavistic in their methods of subjugation. Rather than thick bars they have lieutenants who lower self-esteem, doctors who aren't there when needed, and the pressure of a doctrine that blames the accused for not having turned himself into a "New Man." In many Cuban prisons they try to take away a person's self-respect. Hence, they must live with their own excrescences and those of their cellmates. The walls of the Manto Negro prison for women, for example, are splattered with tears, blood, fluids and saliva, as well as names and dates, spells, threats and promises.
The bricks of either prison - the ancient or the modern - have been placed so that freedom does not seep through them, so that no crack allows the passage an ounce of optimism. The builders have constructed them from their own phobias, harnessing everything that will create terror. The squalor of a prison is the perverted face of justice and those who erect and maintain certain shadowy prisons in our country have confessed their fear of being human.
Translator's note:
The narrator in the video is Dania Virgen Garcia. Briefly, she is speaking of women she encountered in the prison where she was sent on April 23. She speaks of women sentenced to ten months for selling nylon shopping bags, cutting themselves, cutting their veins, not receiving medical care or care for mental health conditions, depressed from having to leave their children, and being treated badly by the guards. She says that bit by bit she will tell all the stories from the prison. A series of posts in Laritza Diversent's blog cover the arrest, trial, and appeal, starting with this one.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez
Fear and intimidation is all that the Tyrannosaurus Rex and his brother can offer the enslaved Cuban people. For how long does the corrupt military dictatorship will be able to continue to do this type of repression before they are dragged by their hair into the streets by the Cuban people?
Castro brothers and the military/political elite should be sanctioned for this and so many other violations they have been constantly inflicting upon the Cuban population, at the same time that they deceive and laugh at the whole world.
In the area of El Wajay, near Cacahual, Havana, Castro built one of his infamous high-security prisons for women, known as Manto Negro (Black Mantle). Another high-security prison for women is Kilo-5 {Kilometer-5) in Camagüey. Thousands of women have gone through those prisons where the violence, sadism and torture against the inmates reign, and because of it some of them have died in there.
In 1958, with a population of 6.5 millions, there were 4,000 prisoners; by 2010, with a population 11.5 millions, there are at least 100,000 prisoners. In the last 50 years have been a 20-fold increase in the number of prisons, and 25-fold increase in the number of prisoners.
List of prison in Cuba: http://www.cuba-junky.com/cuba/prisons.htm
"The choice is to continue under the personalized and elitist system we have or refund the country over new basements of plurality and social participation"
"When I study Theory of Socialism I learned that factories and business belong to the workers but here I only see a big company owner: The state"
It is wrong to believe Cuba is in front a dilemma about choosing socialism or capitalism, since long time ago we have a State capitalism
Map of Prisons in Cuba
http://www.therealcuba.com/castrogulag3.jpg
Well, it seems for them it is now enough to be similar to the rest of the world and it is a strong enough justification for 50 years of killing, jailing, repressing and impoverishing.......... nothing more similar to a defeat than our dears castrofascism supporter’s attitude!!!!!
Mayo 13th, 2010 at 22:24
Sigmund Freud
Mayo 12th, 2010 at 21:29
Just for selling plastic bags!!!!!!…… many Cubans dives in garbage containers or goes knocking doors across the city in order to obtain used plastic bags…… they washes those bags and sell them to people that need it like street sellers, Paladars and at the entrance of markets….. the cost of one of those plastic bags is one peso…. there are thousands of Cubans that survives thanks to recycling those bags……… for castrofascism it is an illegal economic activity!!!!!