“Look, it was a magical stage, where we spent a lot of work, where we lived, in this period, with incredible intensity. (...) We did it with... through... there was no internet, we did it through a fax that was in Guillermo Fariñas's house and it was quite a mystical experience, sending a note meant that there were times when you had to be there all day in front of that machine, because the transmission was constantly dropping and you had to repeat the operation... an operation that was very rigorous until finally the page was passed, the fax digitized it and you sent it through the line. Traveling was another problem. We had to get up at four in the morning, take a train that took three hours, despite the fact that Santa Clara is barely 90 kilometers away, it took three hours... on a train in tremendous conditions. Many times, we went without breakfast, with barely the money to go and return. The train was the best option, because it was very cheap, barely worth 1.50 or something like that, and with the few resources we had we could then use this type of transport. It was exhausting, but at the same time it was comforting, because we saw that something that had happened within the province that we considered of informative value came out, something that otherwise would not have been published. And the fact of knowing that we were the ones who contributed to this taking place filled us with reconciliation.”
“I have always lived in the same neighborhood. People have known me since I was born and anything they said to try to distort my image was not going to be believed, because people knew who I was, what my behavior had been, what family I came from. So, these types of tools did not work for them. However, they came with various other methods, some of them very creative. On one occasion they sent me a transvestite. It was someone who came... I am used to receiving people at my house who come to file complaints, to make known some kind of peculiarity, a case of something that has happened to them or to a family member for advice. This boy arrives, very nervous, sweaty, and I thought: 'Well, this is someone who has come to make a complaint.' And he, very nervous, tells me: 'Look, you haven't hurt me and I can't do this to you.' And I: 'But what, boy?' And he tells me: 'I just left the first police unit. And an officer who is keeping me there told me that if I came to your house and made a scandal that you had a relationship with me, they would take away the position that I had.’ Luckily, my wife was there, she was listening the conversation, there was also a neighbor who witnessed that. I told this boy: 'Look, don't worry, this is something they use very frequently. I patted him a few times and the boy left very worried. Later I learned that he finally served prison for not having fulfilled this type of errand.”
“My dad had several friends in the neighborhood and he made it a habit to sit around the corner of the house and talk about the latest news about what was happening in Eastern Europe. I remember that in a humorous way we named that place 'The hot corner', because of the passionate debates there. Ricardo was there, we called him El Gordo, a combatant from Escambray Mountains, a fan of communism, but a beautiful person. That is to say, beyond the ideas that he professed with the fanaticism that bordered on imbecility, the truth is that he is a very noble, very good person, and when those discussions, those debates ended, he forgot the heat that this aroused, he left to the human question and friendship prevailed above all. (...) All these discussions, all these stations, all this programming that I listened to, my experience in the 1980s with this Mariel thing, the literature that little by little I was assuming, shaped me and turned me into Alejandro the activist, Alejando the opponent, Alejandro the person who already had a wide discontent with what he was living.”
“Something that marked me and that somehow defines what I am today… my political activism… was in 1980 at the moment of the Mariel [boatlift]. My father’s sister, along with the rest of the family, decided to leave the island and suffered what from then on would be known as acts of repudiation. It was something that I lived through at one stage... I was already undergoing cancer treatment, in bad conditions not only from a health point of view, but also from a rather weak emotional point of view, and that event came to reinforce, to enhance these feelings, these experiences that I was having. I saw how they beat members of my family, how they were throwing stones against the house. They literally destroyed it. It was the first time I saw my father cry when he tried to pass the food to them. They had been besieged for three days by the mobs that were brought there to shout things at them, to attack them. And when my father tried to pass them a basket with food, they wouldn't let him. He went to the police unit, went to talk to the officers who were there so that they would offer him some kind of guarantee, of protection. And those refused. I remember that my father returned to the house and, crying, throwing things down. I saw him disconsolate. It was the first time I saw him in these conditions.”
Alejandro Tur Valladares was born on December 1, 1968 in Cienfuegos as the second son of the marriage of an accountant and a seamstress. Like most Cubans, his family suffered from a constant lack of money. However, despite the fact that they all shared a single room in a house with a tin roof, the parents managed to create a very loving environment in which the children lived happily. That changed when Alejandro got sick with cancer. Completing fifth grade at school, he had to undergo treatment that required frequent trips to specialized centers in Havana. His father financed them with the money collected by his co-workers. Due to the seriousness of the illness, Alejandro spent several years in bed at his house, where he fiercely read classical literature and later continued to study history, psychology and philosophy. Thus, he was acquiring a sense of freedom and democracy that was also nourished by the democratic thought and culture of his father, by the debates that he witnessed and by the foreign radio programs that were heard in his house. In addition, one of Alejandro’s aunts wanted to emigrate through the port of Mariel (Mariel boatlift) and this caused attacks and acts of repudiation against family members. All these experiences and circumstances led to his interest in the activities of the Cuban opposition. He tried to join the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and later worked for Oswaldo Payá’s Varela Project. He met Guillermo Fariñas and began working as a freelance journalist for his news agency Cubanacán Press. The publication of his articles on human rights violations resulted in repression by State Security agents. For example, he was prohibited from leaving the house and charging for his work. Having some experience with running a news agency, he decided to found the first independent news agency in Cienfuegos called Jagua Press, in which he led a group of about ten journalists. Because of this, he continues to be the object of repression and confiscation, not only of his work equipment, but also of his personal belongings.
