Rafael Puente Cremé

“The achievement I am really proud of is my participation on the campaign of the civic movement called ‘Cuba Decides’ [Cuba Decide]. The ‘Cuba Decides’ movement significantly marked a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ in the history of the Cuban civic movement. Because of this campaign, for the first time the Government had to accept an existence of voting opposition in Cuba - of more than one million Cubans. In other words, we are no longer some small groups, we are a million Cubans believing in this calculation, a million Cubans who oppose the system, voters, it is opposition. There already exists a great opposition that does not agree with that long queue [to buy food], that opposes to the great lie of the Government, that opposes how a national patrimony has been devastated - there is not a good theatre, there is no a good cinema in this country.”

“They kicked me out of my cell because I was beating the door, as I already mentioned by that time, I was already part of the opposition. From the other side of my cell was the cell of Néstor [Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, dissident and political opponent of the communist regime Cuba], we were already in contact. So, one of the guards took me out of the cell and hit me with two punches. He surprised me, so I told him: ‘Don't touch me, dude.’ I did not know this pacific reaction yet, the one that I learn later, this peaceful opposition and how to withstand the aggression, not violent counterattack, a firmness. To get back, that time I still tried to defend myself, I did not fall, and I hit back this guard but yes, he felt down on the brick with his head. And it was this very moment, when I suffered the first great onslaught of a cruel repression. About twenty guards came up. I do not know how I am still alive. I looked for a way to get off, to jump down from the fourth floor, but the door was closed.”

“We were inventing all the kind of staff, we were young adolescents doing everything possible in order to drink some alcohol, we drank a lot. If the teachers could drink – we saw them several times driving drunk, why we could not? If our teacher could be with a beautiful student, why we could not? And all these experiences were affecting us, were contributing to our social behaviour. Sometimes we just escaped from the school area and we were walking around looking for some drinks, well, we did not have good intentions. All these situations had its influence at the students, even causing some kind of deformation, some of the students were already completely deformed and decided to dedicate themselves to stealing or aggression. Why? Because they did not have the surveillance of their parents, hinterland of their families, to have all necessary, so some of them started to find a way, how to fill their need with stealing.”