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CUBA:Letter
from a Dissident's Daughter
Perico,
Matanzas,
March 28, 2003
Dear Mrs. Nancy Perez-Crespo,
My name is Sayli and I am the daughter of
Felix Navarro Rodriguez.
At this moment my dad is in prison, it is
not the first time that this has happened,
but the last time I was too small to
understand the reasons why they had taken
him away from us. My mother suffered a lot,
I did as well because I missed him so much,
and I didnt know how to console her.
Today, however, I understand why my dad and
so many other good men have been
incarcerated. I have cried so much that I
felt my heart was breaking into one
thousand pieces, I think that I will never
again be able to cry, because right now I
feel a great emptiness inside of me. Perhaps
you are asking yourself why I write this
letter.
I will tell you that I do so for many
reasons; one of them being the fact that
you are a woman, and this allows me to speak
to you as if I am speaking to a mother;
mothers always understand better the
suffering of their children. Another reason
is that you are a journalist and a
professional, dedicated to the cause of
Liberty for our country in your radio
program in Miami Monday Communiqués With
Cuba, with Mr. Agustin Tamargo, as well as
in your other program; but the main reason
why I write to you is than on more than one
occasion, during your broadcasts, I have
heard your voice break and I realize that
you feel the anguish of our people, as if
instead of living in a free country, you
lived here, with us, and suffered with your
own body and spirit our pain. That is a
miraculous thing, and even difficult to
comprehended.
I will tell you that the messages of
solidarity we are receiving from all parts
of the world seem to be infinite in number.
Not only from Cubans overseas, but also
from Spaniards, Canadians, Americans,
Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, Venezuelans,
Dominicans, Chileans, etc. But the most
emotive ones have been the ones we have
received from our neighbors, including
people from the Committee for the Defense
of the Revolution, Communist Party members,
police officers, the Federation of Cuban
Women, members of The Young Peoples
Communist Party, and even from a State
security agent who stopped by to tell us how
embarrassed he felt witnessing these
abuses. It is a comfort to know that we are
not alone.
My parents taught me not to hate, to never
resort to violence, and to understand the
true meaning of Freedom: a free man is not
the one who oppresses an entire people to
stay in power, because the addiction to that
power turns him into a slave.
A free man does not incarcerate another man
for dissenting, thats done only by cowards
who have no response to the dissenting
voice, and whose sole source of power lies
in the use of brute force.
Free men do not incarcerate poets, this is a
useless act; maybe they do it because they
are not aware of the words written by the
Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Becquer in mid
XIX century Seville: perhaps there will be
no poets; but there will always be poetry.
Our nation is not a nation of cowards. Its
been over two thousand years since a man
from Judea turned the other cheek and
allowed Himself to be crucified, it was His
actions, and not the Inquisition or the Holy
Crusades that set in place the base for
western civilization to come.
I pray that this letter reaches your hands.
Respectfully;
Sayli Navarro
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