Miriam Leiva

“When the Black Spring began in March; 18th, 19th, 20th of March 2003, those 75 were taken to the prison. In fact, they were 80, at the end they took 75 peaceful opponents, who were later declared prisoners of conscience and were sentenced up to 28 years in the jail. Oscar Espinosa Chepe received 20 years in jail. Then, I immediately started to act, when the political police came here to our house. On March 19 they arrived, they disconnected our phone, they closed the whole street, they closed our dog, an officer was holding the dog. They took Oscar and checked everything, everything, everything, in this small place, they moved even the slightest things.”

“It was in 1992 when there were the blackouts because of the special period. When this happened in Cuba, nobody talked to you. State Security came and they told to all your neighbours, that they could not have any contact with you, people were afraid to interact with you, they were afraid to even say hello. Not only the neighbours, but also the family. Which means, that what we already lived once, it happened again. We were some people, who were simply harassed or unknown, we were surrounded. I was surrounded the whole life by informants and of course, each of them had videos and documentation on my acts, so the State Security can cite Oscar or me any time they wanted to.”

“But what happened was, that I was as a Central Organization's Secretary of the Central Committee, in the party's core of the Embassy of Cuban Republic. Previously, Oscar had an incident with the Committee, so there was never a relation of trust between Oscar and the party, because he was not a member of the party. And usually, it is always like this, it is very exceptional that in some official position, as a high official in one of Cuban institution, and more if he was a representant of an economic office of the Embassy of Cuba and he was not a member of the party. Apart from the whole history he had behind, it was always like a stigma. Later, in 1987, when we came back to Cuba, there was a small incident, but it looked like it was small. When we came on vacation to Cuba from Yugoslavia, he spent all his holidays here, attending meetings and so on, and when he wanted to return to work to Yugoslavia, because our holiday ended, they informed him that he was being held, that there was an official order, that he could not leave the country. He arrived immediately with me and told me about his situation, I immediately began to move and investigate, call to my contacts and try to find out why it happened and what was going on.”