One name on the list

One name on the list
YOANI SANCHEZ, Enero 15, 2015

Living in Caimanera is like living on an island within the island. On
either side of the highway at the entrance can be read "This is the
first anti-imperialist trench in Cuba." The land is arid and three
points of police control block any unauthorized person from accessing
the town.

In the village adjoining the Guantanamo Naval Base, a young man has
woken up in his own bed today after months in prison. Yojarne Arce
dreams of being lawyer, although in the last year he has experienced the
law from its most arbitrary side, the political prison.

This 35-year-old Guantanameran has been released as a part of the
agreements between the Cuban government and the United States. His name
is on the list of activists that Raul Castro ordered out of the prisons,
in a political game as long-awaited as it is disappointing.

In the cold language of the court record, it says that Yojarne was
condemned for the crime of assault, but those who knew his activism said
that State Securirty spent time "hunting him down." It was a matter of
time before they trapped him.

In the middle of last year a video raced across social networks and
mobile phones. In it the images of a man is seen standing on a
telecommunications tower where he displays a sign with the phrase "Cuba
violates human rights." For long minutes he waves the cloth and shouts
slogans.

At the foot of the metal structure people are gathered, half curious,
half supportive. That day the police could not arrest him, because his
neighbors surrounded him and accompanied hi, home. "You're not going to
take him," shouted some of them at the law enforcement officers.

But the police have the time, all the time, to wait until an
inconvenient individual is alone and helpless. That day came. They
arrested this young man from Generation Y right in the street, between
blows and screams, a few yards from the border than separates Cuban
territory and the American naval base.

And what list are you on?

Yojarne spent days of interrogations and threats. Afterwards they took
him to the Guantanamo Provincial Prison, a school-style construction in
the country where the greatest lesson to be learned is survival. "I went
to 'The Gulf,' which is what the prisoners call this encampment where I
was, because it's the last, the end of everything." He spent most of the
time among murderers, repeat offenders and rapists.

"From the beginning I behaved like a political prisoner because I helped
to organize several protests and defend the rights of other prisoners,"
Yojarne said, while his grandfather prepared a taste of coffee to be
drunk in one sip, thinking about those days in prison with hardly any
breakfast.

The life of this Patriotic Union of Cuba activist has gone from one list
to another. To visit him in Caimanera it's necessary to sign in on a
form that every family has at the police station. "Relatives note the
name of whoever wants to spend some days with them and then the person
is investigated to see if they can enter the town." For someone who was
studying fifth year law when he was arrested, these restrictions remain
intolerable.

He was in the prison yard with the common prisoners when they called
him. "Yojarne, get your things, you're going," one of the guards told
him. At first he thought it was a joke. Between those walls he had been
on hunger strike and was in the punishment cell at least three times.
The Guantanamo Provincial Prison was his home for six months, a cruel
home where he won some small battles and left on parole.

"I started a protest which several inmates joined to demand that they
display the prison rules," he says in a lawyerly tone. He takes his time
between one word and another, as if reliving those days and then
continues, "I did it so the prisoners could know their rights and know
what they had access to."

The first visit after his release was to his captive village. "Caimanera
remains the same, nothing has changed, the people are fed up." Thus he
explains his first impressions. His grandmother waited for him at home,
running back and forth with joy. The neighbors also came to hug a man
who was once a sports trainer and an improvised physiotherapist in the
neighborhood.

"I lost the school year, because the university took advantage of my
being in prison to kick me out," he explained, sadly. He lacked just a
few months to obtain the title of lawyer that he had planned to hang on
the wall facing the door. "I am going to try again," he says loudly,
although it seems to be a promise he is making to himself.

The phone rings and it's an activist from Santiago de Cuba who called to
report that they wouldn't let him enter Caimanera because he isn't "on
the list." Yojarne is trapped in a Cold War bastion that the official
discourse itself seems to be rejecting. He has exchanged Guantanamo
provincial prison for the wide prison that is Caimanera.

Source: One name on the list -
http://www.14ymedio.com/englishedition/one-name-list_0_1707429249.html