Pablo Moya Delá

* 1955

  • “I sticked to that idea, despite that pain and that hardship, that I had to continue fighting. And this struggle that I am facing is because the freedom and the political and economic rights in this country come together with a fundamental law, which would allow us the right and the guarantee, not only to the self-employed, but to all Cubans. Because I've been looking at how Cubans are doing right now. Our people are in a tough and dark situation. Very dangerous. But very very very dangerous. So, in this case, I'm willing to fight until the very last consequence, bro. I have nothing left to lose. Because everything has been taken from me. I reached an age where I really need a retirement for everything I have done working for the state power, however, I’ve got nothing. Which means, that there is nothing left. So the only thing left for me is to keep fighting until the death.”.

  • “Last of all, what I did was that I brought together about fifty, sixty self-employed from the San Luis area, the area from here in Palma, from there from the Los Ríos area, and that is when the problem began, and brings me all this danger until nowadays. We gathered and all these people from the Government, from the State Security, all the repressive body, came to us. Then they say to me: ‘Come here, boy. The only one who has gathered this many people here in Palma Soriano is you. Come here. Who are you, boy?’ I say: No, I’m nobody. [I am] what represents a fundamental law that we have, and that is what we have to take care of. They [the agents] tell me: ‘No, I am the Constitution.’ I say: Well, if you are the Constitution, that is where the problem lies. Because we are not under the constitutional rights, but we are under the human condition. And so, we are not well, brother. So, we started this fight. Until they coldly told me: ‘Well, we’re going to hit you with a bulldog over your mouth, if you keep meeting with the self-employed. And we are going to declare you as one of the most reactionary counterrevolutionary leaders of the self-employed.”

  • “When the coronavirus came, the Government carried out an operation at the national level with full force, repressing the people in such a criminal way... Taking from everyone what they were carrying in their hands. If they brought a chicken, they took it from them, they put them in the prison. And with thousand pesos of fine. Two thousand, three thousand pesos of fine. You know that this crisis does not come from the coronavirus. This crisis of hunger and misery has been going on for years. When the coronavirus came and they input this operation, the whole thing comes together and really created that conflict of total hopelessness.”

  • “No, out there [abroad, when he worked in the Cuban navy] they wouldn't let us buy cars, because they said that this was an ideological deviation for the country. We even got to Halifax in Canada one day. And we were so excited to see those cool cars, we didn't have any. And it seems that was when they hunted down the people from Germany who were bringing car engines. So, we said that if they bring engines, we are going to take a car and put it all together. For the first time we prepared a car. In the meantime, they sent a message to the captain, that no car had to be passed to the ship. And then the cars had to be thrown into the water, thrown away, because they wouldn't allow it. Although we spent so much work at it. Because that brought an ideological deviation.”

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    Cuba, 15.07.2020

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Memoria de la Nación Cubana / Memory of the Cuban Nation
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„I don’t have anything else to lose. The only thing I have left is to keep fighting in Cuba until my death.“

Pablo Moyá Delá was born on November 7, 1955 in Mayarí Arriba, Cuba. He grew up in Palma Soriano on the coffee farm called “La Región” that his grandfather had left him. He helped his father on this farm until he was 15 years old. In 1959, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the Agrarian Reform of Cuba was proclaimed, and the farm was confiscated. At this time, Pablo joined the organization of the „Columna Juvenil del Mar,“ a gathering of future fishermen founded in 1970. From this organization, he was called on to study at the Naval Academy. Between 1971 and 1975, he took cooking courses and spent the next 25 years cooking on a Cuban navy ship. In 1997, he was fired from the navy but found work in the private sector as a self-employed cook in Palma Soriano in 1998. Being self-employed brought him many legal problems. Therefore, he gathered other workers with similar problems and prepared a document with the requirements and rights requested for self-employed workers in Cuba. In 2012 he was forced to hand over his self-employment permit in Palma Soriano. Today he lives in Havana and continues fighting for the rights of the self-employed workers in Cuba.