Antonio Guerrero Turns 50

The distance hurts, but we must think that soon he could be home. The injustice against the Cuban Five has no limits.

Mirta Rodriguez, mother of Cuban Five member Antonio Guerrero, recalls that on October 16, 1958 she gave birth at 2:10 pm. to “a skinny and long baby that weighed seven pounds and six ounces.

“It seems like it was yesterday/ that you were a boy/ and I would take you in my arms,” said Mirta while listening to a song by Armando Manzanero who has special sentimental value for both of them.

Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez —Tony— “was the son we were waiting for,” said Mirta. “In that period there wasn’t ultrasound equipment to detect the sex of the fetus, but I sensed that it was a boy and life has given me him and also my daughter, Marucha (Maria Eugenia).”

PERMANENT LOCK DOWN

Time went by. This last stage of family life has been hard, “but if there’s something that hasn’t been missing its strength,” said Mirta who, jumping periods, and stopping at the prison in Florence, Colorado where her son “is behind bars but with ideas that of a limitless freedom.”

“Tony’s prison, like that where Ramon and Gerardo are held, is maximum security. They are held under a regime of rigorous discipline. Nonetheless, there are frequent acts of violence,” she explains.

As an example she said: “On April 10, 2008 I was carrying out a visit to Tony. Suddenly there were bursts of gunfire, sounds that came from an area in the prison, and explosions. From the place for visits it wasn’t possible to see anything, but shortly after an officer suspended the visit.” “Two rival groups had clashed inside as one of the two was celebrating Hitler’s birthday,” he explained.

“There was an immediate operation conducted with police reinforcements from other prisons to try and control nearly 200 prisoners. The result was two dead and five wounded, said the local press. I mention this anecdote because up until that moment I hadn’t understood the real dangers that existed in the prisons.”

“After what happened, they interrogated him, even though Tony didn’t have anything to do with it —his discipline is impeccable just like his other four comrades in their respective prisons. In the end, Florence went into a lock down for two and a half months. The measure punished all the prisoners, leaving them locked in their cells for the time the prison authorities saw fit.

“Later on August 8, I got a call from my son. He promised me that he would try to communicate in the coming days but a week passed and another and another and nothing. We assumed that the prisoners were being punished. Tony finally resurfaced after a month. Now, in mid-October, it’s been five days since the partial opening of the prison, which is for hours… they even take them to the shower area in handcuffs for security reasons. When he has said something about the situation there he tells me ‘the lock downs continue.”

IDEAS IN FREEDOM

“Recently, he told me that as always he’s thinking about other things that transport him to other horizons and other hopes; he has gathered some unpublished poems written during the last seven years, those that will make up his new poetry book,” said Mirta.

Does he mention his 50th birthday?

He told me: “It’s seems unreal that I’m going to turn 50! Is it simply that I haven’t been counting?

And about the ten years in prison?

He believes that despite everything, those ten years have given him the possibility to do things that he never thought of doing and have allowed him to “pass times like these which have been so long,” he said. He also told me: “I have a cell full of a tremendous hope because I am painting the national bird of every country of the Americas. I’m putting on the final touches.”

Why the birds?

He said he loves the project of the birds for the spirit of freedom they possess, “because they fly and my soul and my thoughts are always flying.”