Today I continue my series of guest posts to introduce Huffington Post
readers to some of my fellow citizens who blog from inside Cuba.
Unfortunately, only a limited number of blogs are currently being
translated into English, but our volunteer translators continue to add
new blogs as fast as possible.
Today's guest blogger is Pablo Pacheco who was arrested during what has
come to be called the Black Spring in 2003. With the world's attention
turned to Iraq, Fidel Castro used the cover of the first days of the war
to launch a crackdown against independent journalist in Cuba. Pablo
Pacheco was one of seventy-five journalists arrested; he was
subsequently sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. Two months ago
Pablo launched his blog, From Behind The Bars, dictating his entries by
telephone to fellow blogger Claudia Cadelo who prepares his entries for
publication; additional helpers outside Cuba manage the translations.
The Power of Unity
By Pablo Pacheco, Prisoner of Conscience in Cuba.
It is true that throughout history, unity is what has bound all of
mankind. When the idea of having my own blog first blossomed, and Ivan
proposed to help me put one together, I planned at first to have
something with a fictional flavor. I knew very little about what a blog
was and even less about the internet due to the ferocious restrictions
imposed on us by those who seek to enslave the thoughts of all Cubans.
I would like to believe that in all totalitarian systems there exist men
like Boris Pasternak who won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature and
declined the honor to remain ensconced with and continue suffering the
pain of the Russian people.
Recently, Cuban blogger Claudia Cadelo has informed me that my blog is
now being translated into English, Portuguese and those who manage it
are pushing to try and get it translated into French.
Something interesting about my part in this story was that when Ivan
went to the capital to find out if it was true, he was unable to get
anyone to meet with him. This was March 14th, 2003, four days after I
was arrested during the repressive wave of that year known to the
outside world as the Black Spring.
I am unable to meet Claudia and am only able to speak to her on the
telephone. The incredible thing is that it seems to me that I've known
them my whole life. I will forever feel gratitude towards them, as it
seems my mother taught me well when I was a young boy.
Since the beginning I decided to dedicate my blog to my compatriots who
were arrested with me on that fateful day, to all their relatives and
certainly to all those I know and communicate with. In my opinion, the
blogger movement in Cuba has become an excellent alternative form of
free communication that is so badly needed by those living in despair
here on this island, taking on for a small moment the role of foreign
press as the voice of the internal opposition and the dissident movement.
It has previously occurred to me that everyone with a blog is therefore
a dissident with the choice to be joined to or to be independent of
everyone else and to certainly not have to compete with other foreign
press agencies.
In the end it is like we are the press, even if it's our own independent
one, since news happens everywhere in the world. For the time being I
consider myself to be the voice in this dismal prison of those whose
voices have been taken away from them, and who do not have the chance to
have a blog. I think I can also say without fear of being wrong that the
voice that has been the most tightly muzzled among the 11 million Cubans
is that of the prisoner.
Because of this it is our duty to speak for them, because they need us
to fight for those with blogs and those without, since this is the true
definition of unity.
Yoani Sanchez: An Imprisoned Journalist Blogs From Inside Castro's Gulag
(14 July 2009)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/an-imprisoned-journalist_b_230884.html
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