CHURCHES AND POETS ARE NOT SPARED FROM VIOLENCE

Along with the economic crisis that our country is suffering, there is another that reflects the deterioration of numerous civic and moral values. This is what Dagoberto Valdés has rightly called “anthropological damage to Cuban society.”

If the figures of violent events that occurred in Cuba during 2023 were alarming, those corresponding to the first quarter of this year confirm that violence is an unavoidable reality.

However, spokesmen such as Humberto López have tried to minimize this phenomenon, which extends from the cities to the most remote places in the countryside.

In a recent television appearance, the spokesperson – a member of the Central Committee of the PCC – endorsed the opinion of a high-ranking MININT official that it is uncertain that there are now more crimes than before. According to both, there is a false perception of reality due to the fact that social networks magnify these events.

Contrary to this position was that of another high-ranking MININT official in the province of Santiago de Cuba, who last January met with residents of the Abel Santamaría neighborhood of the provincial capital, and acknowledged the existence of armed criminal gangs in that territory, dedicated to assaulting citizens and sowing terror.

The facts don’t lie. This dangerous environment also exists in other Cuban cities.

15 unfortunate femicides so far this year.

Thanks to the work of independent feminist organizations, the existence of 15 femicides is known as of March 31. For the record, these are the cases that have been verified.

In the case of Paulina Collazo, Diago was a demented old woman. The lady named Maria was another 92-year-old woman.

Helen García Artelles was a trans woman.

Homicides and murders:

Due to the silence of the official press, it is the social networks and the independent press that are the only ones that take care of reporting on the violent events. I am absolutely convinced that there are many more than we have recorded.

Missing

On February 24, Cubanet reported that citizen Yanisley de la Caridad Castillo García had been missing for more than a month, along with a minor son, and as of the date the news was published, the police had not offered any information about her whereabouts to her family. Nor are we aware that his whereabouts were subsequently reported.

In February of this year, it became known that the young Karildi Caridad Martín had been missing for 67 days since she was last seen on December 14, 2023.

On February 26, three-year-old Lali Paola Moliner was reported missing after her mother was found dead off the coast of Cojímar, Cubanet reported on February 29.

Another Cubanet report, published on March 22, states that teenager Maydelenis Rosales Rodríguez disappeared more than two years ago, when she was 16. Nothing has been heard about her since.

These are the most well-known cases, but it is obvious that there must be many more.

A Dangerous Environment

Criminals do not respect barred houses or those with security cameras. This was the house of Pedro Luis Fonseca, the Holguin businessman murdered in his home on January 7, with robbery being the alleged motive for the crime.

In the list of those who were killed, one of the recurring motives was the theft of the motorcycles, as occurred in the cases indicated with numbers 4, 5 and 8.

The case marked with number 3 concerns a young man residing in the United States who was visiting Cuba. The car he owned was dismantled.

On many occasions the theft and illegal slaughter of large cattle is done in broad daylight and also during the day traps are set for drivers – especially tourists – on roads with little traffic.

Not even the temples are spared from criminals. Last January, the priest Kenny Fernández Delgado denounced on his Facebook account that the robberies perpetrated in the churches of Madruga and Catalina de Güines remained unsolved. Father Alberto Reyes also referred to the issue, according to a report by Martí Noticias on January 21.

Such is the violence that poets are not spared from it either, as shown by the assault suffered in the middle of a public street and in a central place of Santa Clara by Ian Rodríguez on January 25, who had his backpack, money and cell phone stolen, in addition to beating him when he demanded that the assailants return his phone because he kept his poems in it.

I know Ian and I’m sorry for what happened. I know all too well what that loss means to him. But criminals have no respect for the lives and property of others, nor for poetry or the claims of poets.

These heartless people are the fruit of a society that in many cases has punished more severely those who kill a cow than those who kill a fellow human being, and which, in judging, is always a respecter of persons.

I have no doubt that, if they go to prison, many will be snitches on the authorities and will receive the benefits that are denied to political prisoners, because they are as heartless as those who misgovern Cuba.

Roberto Jesús Quiñones Haces