And that is true. The (Sydney Morning) Herald tried for days to find a Cuban willing to interpret but, as soon as they discovered that the subject would be politics, none would agree. The first person asked physically backed away, saying: "I could get in trouble." The second initially agreed to take $US20 ($31) - a month's wages - for doing the work, but an hour before we were to meet, she rang and said: "I think it's not a good idea," before quickly hanging up.
So, for more than two hours, while Paya rocks gently in his chair, we try to talk using his basic English, my appalling Spanish, and a dictionary that his 14-year-old daughter has fetched from her room. I start with the most obvious question: "Why aren't you in jail?" This is something that Paya, too, has been wondering about. In recent weeks, just about every other Cuban dissident has been rounded up and sent to jail for 18 to 25 years.
Those jailed include librarians who want to give Cubans access to a range of different books, journalists who want to give Cubans access to newspapers not produced by Castro's Government and economists who want to crack open Cuba's socialist system by allowing Cubans to own and operate businesses. Paya expected to join them. During the interview, his eyes keep moving towards the door, as if he expects it to open and police to come flooding in.
"This is the question everybody - all my friends, my family - is asking," he says. "I don't know the answer, but I know another question. Why are other people in jail? What have they done? They have not used violence. They have not made the threat of violence. They have simply asked for change." ***
By the end of the War of Independence in 1898, Cuba had been in ruins. As a consquence of the war some 400,000 persons had died, about one-fifth of the population. The country had lost two-thirds of its wealth. Railroads, bridges and telegraph lines had been destroyed. Sanitary conditions were deplorable and the country was gripped by mortal endemic sicknesses like yellow fever.
"Once upon a time there was a Republic. It had its constitution, its laws, its civil rights, its President, a Congress, and law courts. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom. There existed a public opinion both respected and heeded."
Fidel Castro, "History Will Absolve Me" (1953)
* In 1953, almost 57 per cent of the population was urban. More than 1/2 of the population lived in cities of more than 25,000 inhabitants, 1/3 lived in 4 cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants. One-sixth of the population lived in Havana, third-largest capital of the world in relation to the total number of the nation's inhabitants after London and Vienna.
(Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, Hugh Thomas………..***