"We stayed to live there. My mum in one little house and my grandma in the other. Until one day, the insurgents came over, waving some paper saying that they were confiscating our house. They faced my grandma who was neither a revolutionary, nor a supporter of Batista. She was a humble, poor village woman. We lived off our little fields, one cow and so on. We didn't own any vast property. We got our house from the previous owners who fled to exile. The militias arrived with an order saying that my mum and grandma had to leave their shacks and find a new housing because a school would be built there. They put up a huge billboard: 'Here, a vocational school will be built.' It stayed there for the next two decades but nothing was ever built there. But everyone passing by was assured that the revolution was building a school. The same thing had happened at many other places. From the very beginning, they had built such fake image."
"I have been fighting for nearly fifty years for freedom in my country. I could see the Cuban regime almost scientifically destroy the self-regard of the people, in order to control them. I could see the Cuban man who was defiant and resisted turn into a scared person who - instead of resisting - only tries to flee. They permanently and scientifically introduced fear as a basic element of the Cuban society - in order to destroy its confidence and make them succumb to those in power. That means to the Castro family and their lackeys. One of the things that need to be done is to reverse this process. To renew the self-esteem of the Cuban citizen and to ressurect his spirit of resistance. So that he could feel again that he is of value, and not just a replaceable component as the regime tries to convice all who do not support it fully. This is a process. We can see people in many countries standing up to the regime. Currently in Venezuela, for instance. People are asking: 'Why isn't it happening in Cuba?' It was happening in Cuba in the past but thousands of people were executed, tortured and murdered without trial. Twenty percent of the population fled into exile. A quarter million people went through Cuban prisons. And despite all of that, the Cuban people still continue in their struggle. The dissent is small due to tough oppression, but it isn't giving up its fight for free Cuba. As long as this flame is ignited, there is still the possibility that outrage overtakes fear, and that the flame of human dignity flares up and takes down the dictatorship."
"I was always a believer. My faith in God enabled me to overcome the hardest situations in life. I am a very imperfect man. I am one of the greatest - if not the greatest- sinners. I am grateful to God, though, that he'd given me much experience, that I'd gotten to know many beautiful and many evil people. In spite of everything, he always spared me from hatred. Whatever I do and will do, is based on love. I believe in building bridges. I value more convincing someone than defeating them. Victory is an act of strength while convincing someone is an act of dignity. I therefore believe in God and confess that without God, I could not have overcome that terrible pain in the heart of an exile who witnessed his country being mercilessly destroyed."
Ramón Saúl Sánchez was born on 1 September 1954 into a poor Cuban family in the province of Matanzas. As a twelve-year-old, his parents had sent him to the United States so that he would avoid conscription. As a fifteen-year-old he joined the radical guerrilla group Alpha 66 in Miami. He later transferred to other organizations which were getting ready to fight Fidel Castro’s regime in their homeland. In 1982, he refused to testify before an American court in relation to terrorist attacks carried out by Cuban exiles. He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for contempt of court. After release, he became engaged in non-violent resistance against the Cuban government and in campaigns helping refugees. He lives in Miami.
