Interviews with Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antúnez

The regime needs to confuse the world. It needs “spokespeople” inside and outside Cuba to continue promoting the idea that there are changes and there is an opening because the regime needs various things: first, for international pressure to be eliminated; that the European Union eliminates the Common Position, and that the United States ends its financial and economic embargo. Why? To provide itself with the funds and investment needed to maintain power and continue its oppressive rule.

[The European Union’s Common Position on Cuba was adopted in 1996 and makes cooperation with Cuba’s communist regime conditional on improvements in human rights and political freedom.]

A few days ago in Washington someone asked me specifically why we are opposed to the embargo’s elimination. I said, “In Santiago, Cuba, an area that is devastated by hurricanes, there are many who still have no roofs or even homes who are living in huts or shelters. However, when we go to the stores, we see countless items, materials, and resources from abroad that are sold at unaffordable prices to the victims.”

I meant that whatever resources arrive in Cuba aren´t used for the people’s benefit. They are used to repress the people and bolster the government elites. Go to the Combinado del Este or other prisons to see the buses donated by a missionary group. Go to the police units to see the computer equipment they have. The regime thinks that they are Cuba.

Freedom will not arrive in Cuba via tourists’ pockets. It will not arrive by offering the dictatorship flexibility. It will arrive through the efforts of Cubans, inside and outside Cuba, and with the international community. We may think that by getting close to the regime we can influence it to solve Cuba’s problems, but we are actually distancing ourselves from the people and the resistance.

This must be a clear message heard by the world. It is why we are profoundly grateful to all institutions of the world that hear this message and support the resistance: support for the regime is distancing oneself from the people.

Jorge Luis García Pérez (better known as “Antúnez”) was born in Placetas, Cuba in 1964. He is the leader of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Resistance Front. The Front is a Cuban civil society organization named for a political prisoner who died while on a hunger strike in 2010.

As an Afro-Cuban, Antúnez experienced the regime’s discrimination against minorities in restricting both educational and career opportunities. Such treatment, along with severe political repression, contributed to his disenchantment with the regime.

Antúnez, inspired by freedom movements in Eastern Europe, became active in the Cuban opposition. In March 1990, he was arrested for publically denouncing the Castro regime and sentenced to five years in prison. Despite his incarceration, Antúnez remained defiant by refusing to wear a prisoner’s uniform and rejecting the government’s re-education programs.

Antúnez also created the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners group in honor of the famous prisoner of conscience who died during a hunger strike in 1972. Through this organization, the prisoners drew inspiration and encouragement to continue their struggle. As a result, Antúnez was subject to solitary confinement, torture, and an extension of his five year sentence. He endured 17 years of prison before being released in 2007.

Antúnez continues advocating for freedom and democracy in Cuba with his wife, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, leader of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights. His work involves supporting Cuban political prisoners, and expanding political freedoms and civil liberties.

Twitter: @antunezcuba