They didn’t allow me to be elected, but we won and they lost

The elections for district candidates in Cuba have been a sham. Repression bodies have made direct participation impossible, at all costs, for those of us who strive to have the people choose their authentic representatives. In my case, in zona # 81, CDR# 5, Tomás Valdés, in San Juan y Martínez.

Since I live a few houses away from the CDR, early in the afternoon of September 22 I realized one Jeep and two motorcycles of the Interior Ministry arrived at the place, later on a municipal government Lada car, so, I knew the meeting was not going to be too in tune with those of us who defend the people’s rights.

At 8 p.m., I arrived at the place where the elections would take place, and agents of the so-called respuestas rápidas (quick response units) blocked my way in, while a small group they had assembled began shouting insults at me. They wanted to frighten me and scare the citizens who were there. Despite the insults and the agents preventing me to enter, I insisted in going in, and then three police and two state insecurity henchmen, named Juan and Rodovaldo, took me out by force and almost dragging me took me outside my house. With my wife and my seven year-old daughter present, they yelled at me that if I went back to the meeting, they would beat me up and then make me disappear so I would not be at it on the streets of San Juan.

They are now exposed before the people, because now they have to use force to prevent us from being nominated. They did not allow me to be elected, but we won and they lost. I will continue to fight until one day, in a free Cuba, they elect me as a delegate and I can help my district’s fellow citizens to build up this country.

By Osmani Miranda Prieto, Cuba Independiente y Democrática (CID) activist. Address: Barrio El Paradero, El Varón, San Juan y Martínez, Pinar del Río, Cuba.