“No, I believe that Castroism has not taken anything from me. On the contrary, it made me stronger. It made me stronger, because it is the struggle with a conviction, to maintain those criteria, to pass the difficulties. It took away my freedom, but when I was in the prison, I was always free, because I did not allow things, I fought for the things I understood, even being in prison. My body was imprisoned, my mind was not, my beliefs neither. And I repeat, everything that helped me was because of this kind of life I had, these types of experiences.”
“In the 80s [1980s] Mariel situation happened, but the problem started at the Embassy of Peru. Everyone calls it Mariel, but it was a circumstance that happened in Cuba at the Embassy of Peru. In April the Cubans at the Embassy of Peru decided to find a way out, to leave the country. The Government takes advantage of this situations, they handled it politically, I do not know how but they did. Cuban Government took advantage of the situation and within a social environment they created several groups to get rid of them. There existed so much pressure, they noticed this ongoing pressure. They create a group of people who followed social disaffection, disaffection of the Government. The others were linked to a group with the problem of religious activities, as Jehovah's Witnesses and us, we were linked as political prisoners and we got the facility to leave the country.”
“The rigor of investigations in institutions of the State Security are quite hard, because they represent psychological pressure. Pressure is psychological because the bathroom battery never closes, they let it drop, pressure is to wake you up at 3 or 4 am, uncomfortable situations. Hunting, lights, lights are never turned off, the guard comes and check all your stuff every 10 or 15 minutes. If you are in a cell that has an iron door, they let you drop the door: 'PUM', these actions of guards are psychological. Apart from that you always have a man among the 3 or 4 that you are in the cell, looking at you, watching you.”
“They call me to mandatory military service. Benito, already with his clear ideas, all this series of things, he had to go to this service. He was in this military unit, where he found similar mindset to his own. Benito from the street also had those ideas, ideas of continuing to work to overthrow the Government. I unite with them, we created an idea, to try to lead, to provoke a popular insurrection in the country. Overtake the unit, I don't know, a series of plans that were going through our minds, we wanted to realize that process. If we have had taken the unit and could have the weapons, we could take the town, we could do a take-out phase. We had a support from the cities to affect that action. Among the plans at that time, because we were near to the prison called Huica, was to incorporate the prisoners, at that time there were only political prisoners.”
José Benito Menéndez was born in 1947 in the Republic of Cuba. Since his youth, he has been against the communist regime in Cuba and decided early on to overthrow the Government. His first attempt, in 1969, led to four years in prison, and because of his second attempt, in 1994, he was sent to prison for 16 years. José´s children and wife live in the United States of America, where they managed to emigrate in 1981 through the port of Mariel - along with hundreds of Cubans who went to Miami in 1980 and 1981. Since his return to Cuba, José now cannot leave the country and reunite with his family due to the Cuban authority´s restrictions. However, despite all the threats and intimidations by the communist system, José remains an opponent and supports Cuban young people through independent movements and organizations, aiming to improve awareness and education in Cuban society.
