Criticism about the situation in the country continues to rise in tone in the Cuban Catholic community. The superior of the Daughters of Charity in Cuba, Nadieska Almeida, has published this Saturday a harsh text in which she denounces that the police have been given the “‘combat order’, and act with impunity, even hitting minors” , as it happened in Nuevitas, Camagüey.
On his Facebook account, Almeida start reflecting about the problems that a family with a cancer patient is going through. The economic deterioration on the Island and the long blackouts means that people do not sleep and hardly eat anything nutritious. “This has generated an involution in the health process of this young man that is rapidly attacking his life.”
“I dare to say that there are thousands like that family in our country,” says the nun, who calls for a framework of true justice in Cuba and makes it clear that the current situation only favors “the unjust, the repressors.” Almeida underlines her desire: “I don’t want them to continue arresting those who courageously go out to ask for food, light, freedom.”
“I want the justice that speaks of being able to express ourselves through social networks or anywhere and without fear of being hit with tonfas, of being shot because they have weapons and with them ‘power'”
“I want the justice that speaks of being able to express ourselves through social networks or anywhere and without fear of being hit with tonfas, of being shot because they have weapons and with them ‘power’.” The woman criticizes the police arrests “without explanations or under threats” and clarifies that she is not making anything up: “This is happening, and very often.”
But the religious also fears “justice taken into our hands, which can become the result of everything we have repressed internally: tiredness, fatigue, pain, loss of relatives.” She clarifies that she does not want to see “blood flow” and she remembers the young people killed in the fire at the Matanzas Super Tanker Base, some of them in compulsory military service.
“They were not heroes, they were victims, and because of that irresponsibility of sending them to something superior to their experience, they are no longer with us,” remarks the nun, who calls on them to “understand once and for all that this people demands what he belongs by right, because what he touches is not begged for. We do not want out of charity what belongs to us out of justice”.
This same Saturday, the Cuban Conference of Religious Men and Women (Concur) has released a statement in which he calls for “being together with the suffering people, we make ours the cry of the multitudes in different communities of the country and more recently in Nuevitas, Camagüey”.
La Concur regrets “the persecution and imprisonment are the only response that the protesters have received” who only demanded a response to “their basic needs and their desire to be able to express themselves freely.” “As a Church we offer ourselves once again to accompany detainees and their families,” she adds.
In contrast to the harsh statements of Almeida and other colleagues of his, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba has assumed a rather moderate position regarding the crisis
Nadeska Almeida is part of a religious group increasingly active in the Cuban public sphere, which also includes priests Albert ReyesCastor Álvarez, Jorge Luis Pérez Soto, Léster Zayas, Kenny Fernández and many other members of the clergy and the Cuban Catholic community.
In contrast to the harsh statements de Almeida and other colleagues of his, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba has assumed a rather moderate position regarding the crisis and the pronouncements of its members have been individual.
During an interview Granted to the Spanish radio station Cope, the Cardinal Archbishop of Havana, Juan García, admitted that relations with the Government were “stuck.” “We want to talk, because we have not had the facilities to obtain what we ask for in a larger dialogue” that addresses “the problems of the Church and the needs of the people,” he added.
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