Cuba / Cuban Affairs

Alivio ante conclusión de la huelga de hambre de Yosvany Rosell García Caso                                                                                  Pendiente de su evolución, los próximos días serán cruciales

El Consejo para la Transición Democrática en Cuba recibe con alivio la noticia de que Yosvany Rosell García Caso, padre de tres hijos y manifestante pacífico de las protestas pro-democráticas del 11 de julio de 2021, haya depuesto su huelga de hambre después de 40 días en los que estuvo al borde del colapso de sus órganos y expuso su vida misma. Sin duda, es una buena noticia pero seguimos pendiente de su evolución hasta que le den el alta en el hospital.

Su protesta extrema expone, una vez más, el estado absoluto de indefensión al que son sometidos los presos políticos en Cuba y los tratos crueles, inhumanos y degradantes que imperan en centros penitenciarios considerados por ex prisioneros de conciencia, como José Daniel Ferrer, “las peores cárceles del hemisferio”. Según testimonios de su esposa, Mailín Rodríguez Sánchez, a Yosvany le fueron negados medicamentos esenciales para controlar su presión arterial, provocándole dolores de cabeza insoportables, inflamación en manos y pies y noches enteras sin poder dormir.

 Desde la cama del Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico Lucía Iñíguez Landín, en Holguín, encadenado y sometido a condiciones infrahumanas, Yosvany convirtió su propio cuerpo en el último recurso para denunciar la barbarie del presidio político cubano.

                     I’ve been thinking about a hypothesis

 It is wise to distinguish between what is evident and what is assumed. What is evident is “what the camera records,” what reality presents to us. Everything else is interpretation, a hypothesis that may be true or not, but is still a guide for thinking and acting.

At this moment in Cuba in November 2025, it is evident that there is a nationwide health crisis, even if the Government has not officially declared a health emergency nor done anything significant to remedy it. We are in a health Crisis.Yet on the contrary,the government has announced the discussion of a package of measures which, if implemented, would make the life of the Cuban people much more painful and difficult. All this is in addition to the precarious situation due to food shortages, blackouts, and the collapse of the healthcare system, etc.

It is logical to ask not only why the Government appears so indifferent to the extreme suffering of our people, but also why its attitude seems aimed at making the life of the ordinary citizen even harder.

The sociologist and political scientist James C. Davies postulated that people do not usually rebel when they are at the worst point of misery, because there is resignation, fear, and lack of organization. Rebellion requires the situation to start improving for a while, in such a way that expectations of change grow and people begin to have hope for a better future.

                     He estado pensando en una hipótesis

Es juicioso distinguir entre lo evidente y lo supuesto. Lo evidente es “lo que filma la cámara”, lo que la realidad nos presenta. Todo lo demás es interpretación, es hipótesis, que puede ser cierta o no, pero que no deja de ser una guía para pensar y actuar.

 En este momento, es evidente que existe una crisis sanitaria a nivel nacional, que el Gobierno no ha declarado oficialmente una emergencia sanitaria ni ha hecho nada significativo para remediarla. Por el contrario, ha anunciado la discusión de un paquete de medidas que, de hacerse efectivas, harían mucho más penosa y dura la vida de este pueblo.

Todo esto unido a la precaria situación de escasez, apagones, descalabro del sistema sanitario, etc. Es lógico preguntarse no sólo por qué el Gobierno se muestra tan indiferente frente al sufrimiento extremo de este pueblo sino por qué su actitud apunta a hacer más dura la vida del ciudadano común. 

I’ve been thinking about realities that make me think. This reality I am living is happening after 60 plus years of communism in Cuba.

 Ever since we made the mistake of letting ourselves be seduced by the word “Revolution,” we have learned to live with countless situations: scarcity, hunger, helplessness, repression, fear, frustration…

We have become experts at adapting to everything, and maybe that is why now we are learning so easily to live with death.

We are dying. Cuba has become an island of rotting streets, where garbage piles up shamelessly, and from those filthy streets a multitude of diseases—so avoidable and yet so transmissible—has spread. Dengue, Zika, chikungunya, arboviruses… what does it matter? But the reality is this: people are dying, many people are dying, in silence, in anonymity, under our impotent gaze—already accustomed to everything—and also under the apathy and inaction of a Government that takes care only of itself, a Government that has nothing to offer and no longer cares to offer anything.

And I think: how have we allowed our souls to be emptied so much that not even death itself pushes us to look for a definitive way out of this nightmare? How can we accept with such passivity the suffering of those we love—those we see suffering before our eyes because they do not even have a basic pain reliever? How can we so calmly accept the death of our loved ones while we wait for a solution from those who neither can nor care to provide one?