‘You stay there, I stay here’

Havana university students demonstrated on Human Rights Day

By Aurelio Pedroso

The big fountain at the famous Calzada Street park, adjacent to the Amadeo Roldán Theater in the Havana neighborhood of El Vedado, had not even a drop of water. Inside it, some forty university students played and amused themselves, encouraged by several hundred youths around the fountain who engaged in dance competitions, soccer and other games of group participation.

Standing in one corner of the park, next to a bust of Eva Perón, a woman from the U.S. Interests Section (USINT) could hardly believe the fuss made by the youngsters, especially because anyone who dares get into a public fountain anywhere else in the world would have to deal with the police authorities and pay a fine for the infraction.

But, because Cuba is Cuba, nowhere in the entire block of the park (called Villalón) could one see a uniformed police officer, much less a patrol or other crowd-control teams that police departments usually have.

In the cool Friday morning (10 Dec.), the commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the woman from the USINT waited for the arrival of an opposition group that had announced its intentions to use the park to express its vision of this controversial topic.

The students, for their part, also offered their views. Before starting the festivities, they read, through professional loudspeakers, the declaration adopted by the United Nations, on Dec. 10, 1948.

So, to the songs by amateur groups and a good and affordable catering service that sold snacks and refreshments, the youths and the “girl” from the USINT, (along with a German diplomat, I was told) kept waiting for the dissidents’ arrival. So did the foreign press, which, if it was from the United States, deserved special attention from some students, who looked at their press credentials with questioning eyes.

Meanwhile, the park’s trees were festooned (temporarily, according to the rules of public order) with posters supporting the revolution and its historical leaders Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, the current President of the Republic. On a long row of benches rested placards with photos of all the passengers killed in the bombing of a Cuban airliner off the coast of Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976.

“We have every right in the world to defend ourselves,” said a student from the University of Havana. And when I told him that those who would come to protest were also Cubans, he did not think twice and answered, “Yes, but they want something else.”

Between what some want and what others prefer lies the essence of the current controversy. “This is a question of the survival of the ideals of the revolution,” said another student more willing to dialogue with the press.

“Just so you may understand, sir, this is our Moncada,” he said, referring to the assault on the headquarters of that name that Fidel and other young men staged in July 1953.

After several hours, the opponents chose not to come or were denied access to the park. The fact remains that, in Cuba today, despite these episodes of extremely varied opposition that includes people who’d like Cuba to be annexed to the U.S., the immediate fate of a nation is being decided. I use the larger concept of nation because some of these students spoke about it, giving it its real significance.

“We have to make changes and lots of them, but the fact is that the Cuban nation is in peril,” said a youth who had been kicking around a soccer ball. “We know Ileana Ros said that they will squeeze us. And for what? Democracy? She and who else? Human rights? Considering what WikiLeaks is publishing?” He laughed. “We have to change, but we are not fools,” he said.

The student celebration in the park continues. Now we can hear the band Charanga Habanera loudly playing the tune that is so popular in Cuba and Miami. “You stay there, I stay here,” goes the refrain and, in the heat of the event, it doesn’t sound charming or harmonious. I mention that to one of the big boys who do not fear my U.S. press card.

“We do not generalize, but we can’t ignore the fact that yesterday at the University of Miami the terrorist and murderer Orlando Bosch, one of the men who organized the downing of a Cubana Airlines plane, killing 73 people, presented a book of his memoirs. A tribute to human rights,” he says, ironically.