Carlos Manuel Cabreras Calviño

“People are waiting to see what they bring, what they offer in the market. Imagine, people are starving. Here in Cuba, there always has existed hunger, it is our life, but this hunger becomes more acute. During the special period [economic crisis during the nineties when the Soviet Union felt apart and also the economic support to Cuba] that was abusive. Now, the Government must see what measure to take, what to do, because it is not possible. With seven pounds of rice you cannot eat. You cannot eat with seven pounds of rice, later they give you five, and then they tell you they will give you seven pounds again, but there is also no meat, there is no chicken, there is nothing. When they take out a chicken for sell, it is a problem to buy it, it is awfully expensive. People should go to the fields to cultivate something, it should be permitted, to have an alternative, because if not, your family is going to starve, compadre!”

“There [in the Combined Prison of Guantánamo] I declared several hunger strikes, because I did not agree that they threw me in the cell number 19, they transferred me to this cell number 19. There they undressed me by force, while I was telling them that I was on a hunger strike, however, they placed me there in the cell and said to me: ‘Nothing will be achieved this way, amigo.’ I was naked in that cell; they brought my mother. They brought my mommy who was sick too, they told my mother that, well my mom, you know, they talked to her and manipulated her, so when she saw me, she told me that she was not going to eat until I ate! If I did not eat, she would not eat either. I said, ‘Mom, they are going to imprison me here for a while, even if I did not do anything.’ ‘Oh, my son, we are going to fight, we are going to do this and that, we will do our best. If you do not eat, I am not going to eat either my son.’ It broke my soul, so I decided to eat.”