The independent press loses with Juan González Febles what was for a long time, and precisely in the most difficult of times, one of its most important pens.
HAVANA, Cuba. – He died todayin his apartment in Lawton, Havana, at the age of 75, the independent journalist and writer Juan González Febles. He had been suffering from senile dementia for several years. On several occasions he left home and wandered the streets for days, without being able to remember what he did or where he was.
Anyone who did not know him could not associate that old man with no memory, poorly dressed, delusional and refugee in a parallel world with the intelligent, cultured, conceited and always sharp man that he was, one of the most outstanding and incisive pens of independent journalism.
This dementia may have been caused by the general anesthesia they used, a few years ago, when he had to undergo surgery for a strangulated hernia, but I am inclined to think that it was a consequence of the many years of poor nutrition and material deprivation of all kinds; of feeling watched and harassed by State Security, of being defamed and betrayed by some colleagues and of having to watch how due to lack of financing, he was shipwrecked, despite all his efforts, Digital Springthe project that he founded and directed starting in 2007 and in which, for more than a decade, he invested all his energy, as if his life depended on it.
I met Johnny, as his friends called him, more than 30 years ago, in 1991, when he was a librarian at the House of Culture of the Diez de Octubre municipality, and we were both bursting with desire to express our opposition to the regime. Then, in 1998, we both started as independent journalists, along with Adela Soto and Omar Rodríguez Saludes, at the Nueva Prensa agency, directed by Mercedes Moreno.
In 2007, González Febles, his wife, photographer Ana Torricella, and I created the weekly Digital Spring, with the support of the Swedish Christian Democratic Center.
In Digital Spring and the bimonthly printed newspaper Cuban Springthey collaborated Tania Diaz Castro, José Antonio FornarisJorge Olivera, Rogelio Fabio Hurtado, the lawyer Laritza Diversent, Victor Manuel DominguezLeonardo Calvo, Julio Aleaga, Lucas Garve, Jorge Luis González, Rogelio Travieso, Ainí Martín, Osmar Laffita, Adolfo Borrazá and dozens of other journalists, as well as opposition leaders such as Martha Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca and Héctor Palacios.
Febles proposed that Digital Spring It was a space without censorship for absolutely everyone, and that was something that went too far for him and me, who was the editor of the weekly for almost 10 years. The fact that anyone, whether journalist or activist, published whatever they wanted, based on their right to freedom of expression, but sometimes irresponsibly – as I have to admit Johnny did on several occasions, motivated by apprehensions, justified or not -, created clashes, disagreements and misunderstandings.
In mid-2014, the Swedish KIC stopped financing Digital Springwhich was a very hard blow for the project. Even so, for more than seven years, Johnny, Ana Torricella and a handful of collaborators continued with their work and there was not a week in which it did not come out Digital Spring. Only illness managed to stop Johnny.
There are many who criticized Johnny for his character, accusing him of being arrogant, authoritarian, stubborn, paranoid. What they will never be able to do is accuse him of having been dishonest with the management of the newspaper’s funds, since many times he had to take his money to pay for the collaboration of a colleague. And there will not be anyone who can deny his capacity for work and his courage, as was proven in 2003, when after the repressive wave he continued writing as if nothing was happening.
The independent press loses with Juan González Febles what was for a long time, and precisely the most difficult of times, one of its most important pens, who never gave up.
