Havana/A man on the ground floor of our building says that today is a “date of the counterrevolution” and that is why we cannot go out on the street. Wearing a hat, dark glasses and a thick coat, the State Security agent has briefly taken out his card to warn us that he is there to prevent us from going through the door of this concrete block. It is very likely that there are others deployed around the block and a police patrol parked nearby. There is intense cold, dry gusts of wind and a spill of sewage falls from the roof of the entrance very close to the safe. The environment could not be more hostile today for the disciplined repressor.
In the last month, this is the third operation around our house. Although it could be believed that we have integrated it into our daily routine, we continue to be surprised that resources are spent on two peaceful journalists, with no other tool than the word. A few meters away from where the political police agent is standing is one of the four huge garbage cans that surround our building. Symbolically, the mountain of waste stands in front of a sculpture that recreates the Cuban flag. Blue stripes here, filth there. A red triangle on this side, stinking waste on the other
/ 14ymedio
When the agent approached Reinaldo Escobar at around eight in the morning, he asked him if he knew what day it was. “An important date in our wars of independence,” responded this sharp-spoken man with whom I have lived for 33 years. “No, no, today is the day of the shooting (sic) of the Hermanos al Rescate planes,” the man noted with an air of authority. safe. The fear that activists and independent journalists will take to the streets and make some reminder of the events of that February 24, 1996 is the reason why we are prohibited from setting foot on the street. They have spent resources, gasoline and labor force to surround two citizens in the middle of a city paralyzed by state apathy and lack of fuel.
My neighbors don’t get used to it either. When we are operating down there, informal vendors can barely offer their products on the stairs and hunger hits those who cannot go out to buy the hardest. When the political police surround this building, annoyance grows among those who would prefer to see that efficiency and energy focused on the serious problems that plague our community. Two rickety elevators, a water tank that falls apart on our heads, vandalism that takes away the light bulbs in the hallways and the glass from the windows and pipes strangled by the accumulation of salts and decades without maintenance are just some of those serious problems that we face every day.
My building and my neighbors need attention but not of this kind. How many pieces for the elevators could be purchased with the cost of three police operations? Would the pumps that raise water from the cistern be able to be repaired with the expense of a deployment of this type? Would the money from a repressive operation be enough to pay for a new door at the lobby entrance to replace the current one, broken and out of place? The list of needs and emergencies is long. But the authorities care little that this building is becoming a ruin like the rest of the city. Making the lives of Cubans better is not their priority.
