On Tuesday, Cuba is to mark the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution that brought the late and enigmatic leader Fidel Castro to power. Here, four Cubans talk about what the revolution still means to them.
THE EX-COMBATANT
For 97-year-old Alejandro Ferras Pellicer, the revolution is as alive now as it ever was. He was the oldest of a group of 100 rebels, including two of his brothers, who joined Castro in an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba in July 1953, an operation widely considered to have launched the Cuban revolution.
Photo: AFP
On Jan. 1, 1959, Ferras Pellicer was an exile living in the US as the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista fled his island homeland. Ferras Pellicer left his wife behind to take “the first plane” to Havana. “I arrived before Fidel,” who was still in Santiago, he said.
“I had to come to join the revolution here,” he said from the tiny museum dedicated to the Moncada operation that he built in the capital.
“I’ve never left the country” since, he said with pride.
Photo: AFP
When confronted by the Batista dictatorship, “revolution was necessary” because it was about “fighting for the future,” he said.
Most of all, though, “the revolution was Fidel,” he added.
The charismatic leader died in 2016. His brother, Raul, had taken over as Cuba’s president from 2008 and ruled until earlier this year, when he passed the baton to the first non-Castro post-revolutionary leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel.
“For us, Fidel is not dead. We’re keeping him alive,” Ferras Pellicer said, because “we’re continuing the revolution,” which “can last another 50 years” with public support.
“As long as the revolution has the people, it is secure,” he added.
THE ATHLETE
Ana Fidelia Quiros was a two-time world champion and twice Olympic medalist in track and field. She said she owed everything to the revolution, even her life. In 1993, she survived a stove explosion in her home that left burns over 40 percent of her body and killed the child she was expecting.
The revolution “represents everything for me. It’s thanks to the revolution that I was able to train as an athlete, become a better person and, most of all, allowed me to get through what could have been a fatal accident,” Quiros said.
Two years later, the “Caribbean Storm” won her first world title in Gothenburg, Sweden, before repeating the feat in Athens in 1997.
Such a Lazarus moment “wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t live in a country like this one, where medicine is free,” she said.
The revolution also helped make sports accessible “for everyone,” turning the island nation of 11.5 million people into an Olympic overachiever, with 78 gold medals in the Summer Games.
Quiros, 55, recognized that “many things are missing” in the country, but hoped that political reforms would “improve the economy” and help “Cuba regain its place” on the world sporting map.
THE DISSIDENT
The son of a communist leader, Vladimiro Roca has nonetheless been one of the regime’s fiercest critics for many years.
“The revolution died a long time ago. Now there’s a dictatorial regime,” the 76-year-old former fighter pilot said.
Having originally followed in his father’s footsteps — Blas Roca was a Marxist theorist and parliamentary president from 1976 to 1981 — the son grew disillusioned with the revolution.
“I fought for a democratic revolution and not for a family dictatorship, which is what has been established in Cuba,” said Vladimiro Roca, who was fired from his job in 1992 and sentenced to five years in prison in 1997 over his opposition to the regime.
“People are afraid” of repression, said the dissident, who insisted that the revolution “will blow itself out.”
“First of all, the youth are fed up. They don’t believe in any of that, and then there’s not much support from abroad,” he said.
“It’s possible that when Raul Castro dies, everything will end because those following aren’t prepared to risk everything for something that has no future,” he said.
THE DOCTOR
Lourdes Garces was part of the Cuban humanitarian mission to Brazil that was abruptly ended last month after Cuban authorities reacted with indignation to criticisms from Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro.
Part of previous humanitarian missions to Venezuela and Guatemala, the 54-year-old doctor said that the revolution is “developing and can still offer a lot more.”
“Since its inception ... it has shown solidarity in every sector of society, whether that’s in culture, education, sport or health,” she said.
Her foreign missions meant she missed “many important events” in the lives of her two sons, but Garces is happy to have gained professional experience by “helping the poorest people.”
She refuted accusations that Cuba has been using its highly trained medics to indulge in political indoctrination.
“We don’t interfere in politics or any other domain outside of health,” she said.
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