Colleague of Priests Slain in Cuba Says He's Scared

Colleague of Priests Slain in Cuba Says He's Scared
By Anett Rios

HAVANA – Spanish priest Isidro Hoyos, a friend and compatriot of two
priests murdered this year in Havana, told Efe that the crimes had very
similar characteristics and do not seem to be a "coincidence," and he
added that he is scared.

"In my country, they say that 'you don't have two without three,' but I
don't want to think about that," said Hoyos, 75, who came to the
communist island a decade ago to minister to the faithful at the San
Martin de Porras Church, in the Havana neighborhood of Alamar.

Hoyos traveled to Cuba inspired by colleague and friend Mariano Arroyo
Merino, 74, whose body was found early Monday morning drenched in blood,
gagged, with hands tied and partially burned in the parish house of the
church in Regla, a town in the Havana metropolitan area.

He was also a friend of Eduardo de la Fuente, 61, the parish priest of
the church in Santa Clara, in the Havana neighborhood of Lawton, who was
stabbed and strangled in mid-February. Cuban authorities have released
no information about their investigation of that killing.

"I'm not superstitious, but yesterday (Monday) was exactly five months
after Eduardo's death, and it seems that the procedure was the same, the
torture, the cruelty ... It's so awful," he said.

Hoyos said he spoke with Arroyo for the last time on Sunday afternoon,
just a few hours before his murder, because the Regla priest was going
to accompany him to the airport on Monday so he could go spend his
vacation in Spain.

Hoyos changed his travel plans at the request of Havana Archbishop,
Cardinal Jaime Ortega, and is now waiting for the Cuban authorities to
turn over Arroyo's body so that he can accompany it to Madrid.

"Eduardo and I came after Mariano. The connection we had here was
Mariano," he explained, recalling that De la Fuente started visiting the
island to fill in for Arroyo, and later for him, until he eventually
decided to remain in Havana to carry out his priestly duties.

Hoyos said that the crimes do not seem to be "a coincidence."

"The first, the second. What's behind this? Who are they? What are they
looking for? The people in charge of the ivnestigation will have to
clear that up. Is it some kind of mafia? I don't know," he said.

Hoyos emphasized that such murders are an "unusual" event in Cuba, where
there is "a type of veneration and respect for all religious symbols."

He said the Regla priest had a "great personality" and was "a man who
was intellectually very well-educated and concerned about culture,"
adding that during his years of work on the island "he specialized" in
matters such as Cuban religious syncretism.

In the religions of African origin that are practiced by tens of
thousands of Cubans, African myths and rites are mixed with those of
Catholicism. For instance, in those belief systems, the Virgin of Regla
is Yemaya, the goddess of the sea.

"I knew him very well. I admired him greatly. We loved each other a
great deal, we were very good friends. You never know, but I think it's
a loss for Cuba," he added. EFE

Latin American Herald Tribune - Colleague of Priests Slain in Cuba Says
He's Scared (16 July 2009)
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=339329&CategoryId=14510