On [March] 18 [2003], my husband [Angel Moya Acosta] went to Pedro Betancourt, Matanzas – his birthplace – because his mother had suffered a stroke. There he learned that the Sigler Amaya brothers, who were also activists, were being raided. He went to their place and was told, “Leave, this does not concern you. It concerns those who met with the Ambassador at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.” Angel stayed there.
He learned that they also detained Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, also from Matanzas. He called to tell me what was occurring and that he would return to Havana the next day. He arrived the next day around noon. When I arrived around three o’clock he said, “They have detained many, more than 50. What is happening?”
My daughter was at a painting class. I left to pick up my son from school. My son went to get bread. The ration book allows one [loaf] per person and it costs only half a peso. By five in the afternoon if he was not busy; my husband typically would go to exercise or would run along the coast. He put on his gym clothes and he went jogging.
He got to the corner of our building when he was detained. Less than five minutes had passed when he returned and said, “I have visitors. These men are here to arrest me. I am not leaving wearing gym clothes.” I thought it would be like the other times when he had been detained and he was released within one or two days.
They took my husband and in less than 10 days he and all the rest had had a summary trial. Many did not even have a right to speak with their attorneys prior to the trial. The trial was a show by the government. My husband’s took place on April 7, 2003, in Havana’s municipality of Diez de Octubre, from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. Members of the Cuban Communist Party and the State Security were present. The only family members present were his brother, sister-in-law, and me.
He was condemned to 20 years imprisonment. As we exited, the State Security agents said, “We will allow you and your brother-in-law to visit with your husband in Villa Marista.” I said no, not if others, including Oscar Elias Biscet, [Miguel] Vargas Tamayo, and [Orlando] Fundora, would not be offered the same visit. The visit was typically allowed within three days. They selected a day of the week when each man could have a five-minute visit with their family.
[Villa Marista is a prison in Havana run by the Ministry of Interior. Many political prisoners have been incarcerated there.]
They said, “No, Berta. You will be granted a visit so that his brother who has not seen him can speak with him.” The issue was that at 3 o’clock, the tribunal received word that my husband’s mother had died but they did not want to say anything until after the trial.
On my way to Villa Marista, I called Angel Pablo Polanco, an independent journalist, to tell him about the trial. He told me that at 3 o’clock, a call was made to notify us about my husband’s mother’s death. Upon arriving at Villa Marista I told them they were cruel, that they could have left the trial for another time and told my husband.
They said I could see him but that I could not let him know what had transpired. I told them that I did not typically cry and that if my husband saw me crying that he would know something was wrong and would worry so I would have to tell him about his mother’s death. It was better for me not to see him.
I slept in the bus terminal to go to Pedro Betancourt, Matanzas, where my mother-in-law had lived, because I did not have money to rent a car. I got there around noon to see my husband and give him a hug and share with him such a terrible pain. But it was not possible.
At daybreak on April 8, my husband was taken to the funeral home without being told about her death. He thought he was being taken to see her because she could not see him in prison. He was being held far away, in Holguin. This was painful and strengthened me to continue a peaceful fight against Castro’s dictatorship.
I visited him four days after the funeral. I said, “I was not able to be with you.” He responded, “It has passed. It is done.” He was at the funeral for only an hour and 15 minutes when they said to him, “Angel, let’s go.” His sister protested that the visit wrt. My husband replied, “Darling, it is enough time. I must leave.” These are things that kill you, that touch you deeply. They are things they do to strike your Achilles’ heel and strengthen you to change the history of Cuba.
Berta Soler Fernández was born in Cuba in 1963. She studied microbiology and became a hospital technician in Havana. In 1988, Berta married Angel Moya Acosta, an opposition activist who became one of 75 nonviolent dissidents arrested during the March 2003 crackdown known as the Black Spring.
Berta’s activism began after Cuban authorities imprisoned her husband in 2003. Joining with other spouses and family members of the Black Spring prisoners, she became a founding member of an organization called the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) that demanded the release of their loved ones and advocated for greater civil liberties in Cuba.
In October 2004, the Ladies in White staged protests in front of the Communist Party’s headquarters in Revolution Square, pressuring the government to allow Berta’s husband to undergo surgery for a herniated disc. The protest went on for two days until the regime permitted Angel’s operation.
Berta was a central figure in orchestrating the release of her husband and other Black Spring political prisoners. The Ladies in White lobbied Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the leading representative of the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba, and convinced him to negotiate for the release of the prisoners. By 2011, after years of protests, the Black Spring dissidents, including Berta’s husband, were released. While the majority of the prisoners went into exile, Berta and Angel chose to remain in Cuba.
In 2005, the European Parliament awarded the Ladies in White its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Berta, along with the other representatives of the organization, planned to receive the honor in person. However, the Cuban government denied them passports and they were unable to attend the ceremony. In 2013, after the regime had relaxed its repressive travel restrictions, Berta received permission to leave the island and led a delegation to accept the 2005 Sakharov Prize on behalf of the Ladies in White.
In 2011, Berta assumed the leadership of the Ladies in White following the death of the organization’s co-founder, Laura Pollan. She continues the struggle for a free and democratic Cuba.
Cuba, an island nation of 11.4 million people in the northern Caribbean Sea, is a totalitarian state.
Fidel Castro led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and ruled the country for 49 years before formally relinquishing power to his younger brother Raul in 2008. Raul Castro is the current head of state and First Secretary of the Communist Party, which is recognized by the Cuban Constitution as the only legal political party and “the superior leading force of society and of the state.” Raul Castro has said that he will step down from power at the age of 86 in 2018.
Cuba was a territory of Spain until the Spanish-American War. The United States assumed control of the island until 1902, when the Republic of Cuba became formally independent. A fledgling democracy was established, with the U.S. continuing to play a strong role in Cuban affairs.
In 1952, facing an impending electoral loss, former president Fulgencio Batista staged a successful military coup and overthrew the existing government. While his first term as elected president in the 1940s largely honored progressive politics, universal freedoms, and the Cuban Constitution of 1940, Batista’s return to power in the 1950s was a dictatorship marked by corruption, organized crime and gambling. He held power until 1959 when he was ousted by Fidel Castro’s rebel July 26th Movement.
While promising free elections and democracy, Castro moved quickly to consolidate power. By 1961, Castro had declared Cuba to be a communist nation.
Castro’s communist government nationalized private businesses, lashed out at political opponents, and banned independent civil society. As Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, Cuban-American relations soured, including a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to war, after the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, prompting a U.S. naval embargo.
Since the revolution, Cuba has remained a one-party state. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the evaporation of Soviet economic support, Cuba loosened some economic policies, became more open to foreign investment, and legalized use of the U.S. dollar. By the late 1990s, Venezuela had become Cuba’s chief patron, thanks to the close relationship between the Castro brothers and Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez.
The regime continues to exercise authoritarian political control, clamping down on political dissent and mounting defamation campaigns against dissidents, portraying them as malignant U.S. agents. In a massive crackdown in 2003 known as the Black Spring, the government imprisoned 75 of Cuba’s best-known nonviolent dissidents.
The Cuban government does not respect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, movement, and religion. The government and the Communist Party control all news media, and the government routinely harasses and detains its critics, particularly those who advocate democracy and respect of human rights. Frequent government actions against dissidents often take the form of attacks by regime-organized mobs. Prison conditions are harsh and often life-threatening, and the courts operate as instruments of the Communist Party rather than conducting fair trials.
Cuba relaxed its travel laws in 2013, allowing some prominent dissidents to leave and return to the country. It continues to experiment with modest economic reforms but remains committed to communist economic orthodoxy.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report, Cuba was designated as “not free” and is grouped near the bottom of the world’s nations, with severely restricted civil rights and political liberties.
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