Agustín Palma Masa

“Well, I’m not afraid to tell you, that all the policemen outside on the street were corrupted, there always had been police who robbed even the bread from the bakery, from the big one on the corner of the street Emilio Giro and Marcelo. Corrupted thieves. They even had a gang they used to send, a gang of thieves who just took what they wanted and forwarded it to the police patrol. They also assaulted people on the street. I remember another case at that time, it was when a Chief of the Economic Police was imprisoned. They had a charity [an institution providing support to citizens] on the street Manuel Ibarrola, and this Chief named Iván was imprisoned for corruption, even when he was an economic policeman, the economic police was so important that they just threw him into the prison because being afraid of all the power he had.”

“Well, every time I almost had a stable job, once they knew my job experience so, they almost hired me, well, the state authorities just took my job from me. They canceled my contract just for fun, for pleasure. They fired me from the bakery and asked me to leave. I used to have a good job, and when I felt like I could support my family working and earning my money honestly, my cell phone was stolen. The Cuban authorities simply started a war against me, like Alicia Millán, who speaks for the human resources department of the Labor Office, she requested me to pay for my job position. I have no money, nothing with what I could support my family with - to buy clothes, or to buy something for my wife and children, so how could I afford to pay for a job position?”

“My father was a rebellious political prisoner, always in his underpants, that is why the other prisoners called him a prisoner in underpants. ‘Was he punished?’ [from Spanish plantado, being punished became a symbol of resistance] Yes, because he did not wear his prison garb, that is why they called him a political prisoner in underpants back then. The guards told to my father: ‘If you want to have your son here in this prison for the adults, you have to accept our conditions’. So, my father accepted their conditions, to transfer me to the Correctional Chafarinas, to take care of me, to protect me. When I came there, I had big problems with the guards, so I was sentenced to one year in the prison, for disorder. ‘How was the life in the prison at that time?’ It was violent. They just smashed all young men, destroyed them. A lot of violence, they were speaking to you harshly, there was a lot of sodomy, all these kinds of things. Even there were guards who were later convicted for drugs, drug belonging, for example of marijuana.”