A padlock permanently closes the two wooden leaves of the 955 Damas Street door in Old Havana, which in the past was almost always open. According to many in the neighborhood, at the home of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and headquarters of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), “they always welcomed anyone.” Now, his figure is no longer visible in the doorway or looking out the window as before. Since the protests of July 11, the artist has been held in a high security prison.
It’s been a year since violent eviction carried out by State Security to get the group of hunger strikers and their companions out of the building, who demanded the freedom of rapper Denis Solís, and the panorama is now quite different.
This Thursday, November 25, Damas Street was passable, not like a year ago when police surveillance prevented it. From a staircase, music is heard at full volume, a Karol G song coming from the speakers. On the corner, a couple of boys fix a car, another cleans the roof of his pedicab while a young man charges his electric motorcycle.
“I remember that in those days this was hell, even for us who lived here they had us controlled. The police and the officers had everyone scared”
“The block has been returning to normal,” says a neighbor. “I remember that in those days this was hell, even for us who lived here they had us under control. The police and the officers had everyone scared, with threats so that no one would come near Luis Manuel. But they could never screw up the relationship that boy had with everyone. Here we adore him. He always said that what was his, belonged to everyone. “
The neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, insistently compliments Otero Alcántara’s generosity. “It was tremendous, the neighbors felt that this was also their home. They passed by, talked, even took food from the refrigerator if they needed it and Luisma said not to ask for permission.”
Solidarity, he argues, went both ways. “His neighbor also gave him food made almost daily. If he made beans, he would bring him, as if they were family. He made himself known as he is and I tell you something: it is impossible not to love him.”
The neighbor relates that State Security managed to terrorize the area. Long before – and after – the eviction on November 26, the artist lived harassed and persecuted by the authorities. Upon leaving the Manuel Fajardo hospital where he was taken that night after several days on a hunger and thirst strike, he found his home besieged by police patrols and State Security officers, who from then on exercised 24-hour surveillance of the day.
The violent action of the Government against the headquarters of the MSI unleashed, the following day, an unprecedented protest of citizens, artists and intellectuals at the gates of the Ministry of Culture demanding that freedom of expression and the right to have rights be respected. Where will we meet? What do we do? Where are we going? Was the question that ran through the WhatsApp groups that were immediately created to coordinate a meeting on November 27.
“Living here has taught me that nothing belongs to anyone. Here you only have yourself, if you want to see the movie on television and the biggest and strongest wants to see the ball, that’s what you have to see”
Faced with the outrage and violence that many had seen on their cell phone screens, the reaction was to take to the streets, that place that in Cuba is reserved only for “revolutionaries”, according to President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself said during the day of protests on July 11, when Otero Alcántara ended up in prison again, where he has not yet left.
“When Luis Manuel was there, we felt safe, his brave attitude was contagious.” Therefore, he assures, on April 4, “the whole block” came out to sing Homeland and Life and shouting “Díaz-Canel singao” in “the face of the Police” and helped prevent the arrest of Maykel Castillo Osorbo. Now, “with him in prison, everything is different, there is no one who can defend us from abuse by the Police and this is quiet,” he laments.
Another neighbor on the block says that Otero Alcántara went to live with an aunt in El Cerro and almost did not go to Damas when he left Calixto García, where he was in custody for a month after another hunger strike he carried out. “He just came to get some things and left quickly, because this was with the fixed guard of the State Security and the patrols on the corner,” says the woman. “It is very hard what that boy has lived through, the only thing he does is art.”
A relative of the artist who spoke with 14ymedio He remembers that the last time he visited him in prison, Otero Alcántara told him: “Living here has taught me that nothing belongs to anyone. Here you only have yourself, if you want to see the movie on television and the biggest and strongest want see the ball, that’s what you have to see. ” Although the artist said it laughing, he did not have the courage to answer what he thought: “It is that 955 Damas Street is your house, Luis Manuel, not this dungeon where they have put you.”
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