Visiting the Devil***"If President Lula wants to deny with facts, and not with words, that he has turned himself into the greatest international supporter of the Cuban Communist regime - with all the serious responsibilities that it implies before the Cuban people and the generous, cordial and intuitive Brazilian people, but, above all, before God - let him adopt categorical diplomatic measures to contribute to the liberation of hundreds and perhaps thousands of Cuban political prisoners. Let him do something effective to save the lives of the political prisoners Martha Beatriz Roque and Oscar Biscet, who agonize in the Cuban jails, responding thus to the public call that has just been made by the Cuban organization Cuban Unity, of Miami. Let him not cross his arms before the drama of the Cuban physicist Dr. López Linares, currently residing in Brazil, who fruitlessly wrote the Brazilian president requesting his intervention to be able to travel to Cuba to meet his little son Juan Paolo, four years of age. Let him not try to whitewash the Castroite crimes by alleging the external 'blockade' or the alleged 'advances in the social sphere,' as health and education, that in reality are two implacable instruments of ideological, mental, political and police control of the unfortunate Cubans. Let him, in short, contribute, without euphemisms, toward the urgent liberation of Cuba."***
In jail or free, dissidents determined to stay*** For Rivero and journalists who smuggled their missives abroad, it was their insistence on writing what they saw and felt that put them in jail. That fidelity to the truth could now kill them. Rivero and journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, 62, are both ill, their families tell visitors. Rivero, who has lost much weight, has circulatory problems, and Espinosa suffers from a liver disease.
Castro must realize that even if he relents and sets Rivero and others free, they are likely to stay in Cuba. Rivero has long understood that Castro may be the Father of the Cuban Revolution, but that the revolution's children are increasingly restive. Castro can deny their simple truths like a Cuban King Lear, but Rivero and others persist. They witness. They write.
Over the years, the authorities picked up Rivero, questioned him, harassed him, and tried to nudge him off the island. But Rivero stayed. Others did, too.***