The Cuba that You Don't Know

Por Jesus Castro

Who has not heard of Cuba? Its beaches, music, food, the beautiful women... and even Fidel Castro? But how many of you know about the misery and repression in which the people of Cuba live? How far does the violation of the civil rights of the people of Cuba go? It's hard to put so many bad things together in a small book. I'll show you some of the most relevant and the simplest things you never think about because you always had it when you need it and when you want it.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 23 may 2022
• ISBN: 9781662492655

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The Cuba That You Don’t Know

JESÚS CASTRO

Copyright © 2021 Jesús Castro

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-66249-254-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-66249-265-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

But what one wonders is: who needed the revolution? The ones who had nothing: those children who had no shoes to wear, who had no life? Those did need from us, and those are the ones who we’ve helped.

—Commander in Chief and First Minister, Fidel Castro Ruz, on Garzon Avenue, Santiago de Cuba, November 30, 1959

Who has not heard of Cuba? Its beaches, music, food, the beautiful women, and even Fidel Castro? But how many know of the misery and repression in which the people of Cuba live? How far does the violation of the civil rights of the people of Cuba go? It’s hard to put so many bad things together in a small book. I’ll show you some of the most relevant and the simplest things you never think about because you always have it when you need it and when you want it.

I know that the idea that the government is controlling how much rice, sugar, beans, meats, and baby food you can buy; when and how much milk a child should drink; which cartoons children can see and when; what you wear; what music they listen to; what God to believe in; and even the number of sanitary pads a woman gets, doesn’t fit in your mind. So why continue making statements of abuse and poverty to the people who lived through it? Why not make it known to other people in the world who do not speak Spanish and have a completely different idea of what Cuba is? What communism is?

The Cuba government blames the imperialist Yankees for everything that happens in Cuba. If a child does not have milk, then it is because of the embargo. If there is no aspirin in pharmacies, it is the fault of the Yankees. When there is no water for seven days or electric service for twelve hours, it is also the fault of the brutal embargo. If a hurricane enters the Cuba territory, it is because the Yankees diverted it to damage the integrity of revolution and thus, absolutely all the misery of Cuban people, it is the Yankee’s fault.

The violation of human rights in Cuba has spread in every sense of the word and for so many years that people already see it as normal that their rights are violated. No one can say what they think of the government without being beaten and put in prison. There are hundreds of prisoners all over the island for saying that the government is wrong about something or simply for saying that the people are starving. Many peaceful groups like Las Damas de Blanco, Movement San Isidro, and UNPACU, to name a few, are beaten up in the street for expressing their ideas. Other groups are exiled from their country, such as the case of José Antonio Fuentes, Diosmilda Castro, and another seven more who belonged to the Pedro Luis Boitel Civic Resistance Movement who were exiled to Spain in 2010.

I will show you in this book, photographs, some taken by myself and others, by Cubans tired of lies and abuses. Some taken with cameras, some with cell phone. Nothing professional and nothing special. But with the intention that everyone who doesn’t know what communism looks like, to start to see why this movement threatens our freedom. You’ll be able to read excerpts from some of Commander Fidel Castro Ruz speeches and