“In 2015, I held several public demonstrations with the signs saying ‘I have the right to work’, ‘I have two children’, ‘I need to feed my children’, and with these signs I went out several times to the José Martí Park in Guantánamo. I went with these posters also in front of the Municipal Government Directorate, in front of the Provincial Government Directorate, in front of the Municipal Directorate of Education and in front of the Provincial Directorate of Education, and on several occasions also out of the Guantánamo city. During all these demonstrations, I was detained, I was mistreated, I was beaten many times. I was also attacked by the members of pro-regime group ‘Rapid Response’ [Respuesta Rápida] and fined 30 pesos for alleged public disorder. On one occasion I was fined even 200 pesos for alleged enemy propaganda, when I went with a sign to the José Martí park during the time when the Wi-Fi was on, like at seven o'clock. I showed my sign to everyone and I said, ‘Look at it, till the State Security beat me up and fined me 200 pesos for alleged enemy propaganda.”
“When my wife visited me in a jail, I could see how much weight she lost, she was very thin. I do not know how she could make it economically, because I did not leave her any money, as I had no money, I had no reserve funds, I had nothing. She had to take care of our two little children, our boy who was at that time five or six years old, and our little daughter, who was two years old by then. In the prison, I used to see my children just every five months. Once my wife brought my son to visit, after three months she brought my daughter. If I claim that I have never thought about suicide, I will lie, because of the level of frustration, pain, anguish, and helplessness I suffered, my mind was full of thoughts of all kind.”
“One of the biggest differences between today’s youth and the youth of my generation is, that we were completely blind. Most of us, including myself, believed in the communist system, we had truly little alternative information. There was no source of other information than the controlled one by the Government. There was a great majority among the young people that time, who supported the regime, simply because of lack of knowledge and information. Today, everything is different, people are all the time on internet, they travel abroad, young people have the possibility to get other type of information than we had, they have access to other news, that are not from the official media. Today’s youth believes less in the dictatorship, in the totalitarian system that is present here in Cuba. On the other hand, youth is also increasingly disillusioned with the system and we can say, that they show its rebellion with a simple apathy towards everything connected with the Government. People are not openly rebellious against the system, but they are showing total apathy, disinterest in everything the Government does and declares, in its policy.”
“During the eighties, when I was 14 or 15 years old, the State Security was cooperating with the CDR [The Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, Los Comités de Defensa de la Revolución] and mobilizing its members so that they made an act of repudiation [Acto de Repudio, activities organized by the communist regime against all opponents] to all those people who were leaving Cuba. Adherents of the regime were acting to make feel those who wanted to leave the most undesirable people in the world. Many Cubans even believed the idea that it was a patriotic duty - to offend these people who were emigrating, to mistreat them. I have never seen that the leavers would be beaten, but I did see people throwing eggs at them, to the ones that were at the Directorate. This Directorate served as a meeting point, where the leaving Cubans were picked up in the bus and headed to the port of Mariel [a port about 60 kilometres from Havana]. Every bus that left, was being attacked by members of CDR, the so-called cederistas, they were throwing eggs at them. Like this, they fulfilled with the act of repudiation. This was the reality. Shameful of this country and this system.”
Miguel Ángel López Herrera was born on February 26, 1966, in Havana, Cuba. His family had high social status, and because of that, Miguel had the opportunity to realize his university studies in the Soviet Union [USSR]. Miguel studied in Uzbekistan during the second half of the 1980s, exactly when significant economic and social reforms culminated in the Soviet Union. All these changes impacted Miguel Ángel, and when he returned to Cuba in 1990, he wanted to share his enthusiasm for this transformation of the communist regime. However, he was not successful. On the contrary, he was rejected by his colleagues and started to have disagreements with the communist system. In 2000 Miguel decided to join the oppositional “Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy” [Movimiento Cubano Jóvenes por la Democracia] and the Catholic Church. Because of his activities against the communist regime in Cuba, he has been imprisoned twice and detained countless times by the State Security. The regime managed to destroy his relationship with his close family and his two marriages by use of threats. He is unemployed without the possibility of finding a legal job in Cuba. He has three children and resides in Guantánamo.
