Opposition leader García leaves Cuba for Spain, raising questions about movement’s future
%20(2).jpg "Opposition activist Yunior García Aguilera, playwright and one of the organizers of a protest march, stands in a window of his house with a white flower, in Havana, Cuba, on Sunday, November 14, 2021. RAMON ESPINOSA AP")
In a surprising twist after days of tension and clashes between the Cuban government and the opposition movement, one of the more visible faces of the dissident group Archipiélago left for Spain with his wife.
European media first reported the arrival of Yunior García, promoter of the November 15 march, in Madrid with a tourist visa that he requested.
After much speculation throughout the day, García said in an interview in the afternoon that he made the decision to leave the island after experiencing months of harassment, intimidation, and isolation by Cuban authorities.
“I am not a machine, I am a person, and the last few days have been more difficult than I could have anticipated,” Garcia said in an interview with Cuban filmmaker Ian Padrón, who also lives in Spain. “The decision to leave the country was only mine; it was made on the 14th because I thought I had no other way out.”
“At one point in the day, I cracked,” he continued. “Maybe I’m not that bronze or marble statue; I’m a normal guy. That does not mean that I will give up my ideas, my principles, my goals, but those were tough moments that changed your life”.
That day, a pro-government mob and state security officials surrounded García’s house, preventing him from going on a symbolic walk by himself carrying a white rose. In an interview with the Herald that morning, he described the scene at his apartment.
“They can knock down my door at any moment,” Garcia said. “There are many cars, security agents in civilian clothes. I am looking from my window, and they are all over the street, in a school that is in front of my house, on the ground floor of my building, they are in front of my door, they are everywhere”.
A photo of García showing a white rose through his apartment window in Havana sent a powerful message of the struggle of an opposition movement led by young Cubans and the civic group Archipiélago.
The group had called for a peaceful protest march on Monday to advocate for the release of political prisoners. But the government deployed its security forces to patrol the streets and detain supporters.
Even after the crackdown frustrated its plans, Archipiélago claimed the whole affair forced the government to show its authoritarian face and generated support within the population.
But news Monday of García’s departure was a blow to the island’s opposition movement, with many of its prominent figures currently in jail or exiled.
“It is a hard blow, but we must continue,” said independent journalist Camila Acosta on Twitter shortly after the news broke. “Yunior is not the only leader, there are many people in Cuba fighting. There are many people imprisoned, there are many leaders who have had to leave and this is not over,” said Acosta, who has supported Archipiélago from her home, where authorities have kept her detained for several months.
The Cuban government has pushed several other activists, artists and dissidents to leave the country recently. García said the Cuban regime had succeeded in making him feel isolated at times, leaving him and his family incommunicado and intimidating friends and neighbors from approaching him.
García has been the target of a relentless weeks-long campaign to discredit him in Cuban state media and pro-government blogs after Archipiélago notified authorities of the planned march. Cuban authorities accused him, without proof, of being paid by the United States as part of a plot to destabilize the country, a typical accusation against dissidents in Cuba.
Ahead of the march, state security agents told him he would be arrested if he joined the protests.
“It is clear to me that their goal is to destroy you as a person. The only way I found to avoid being silenced was to escape from them,” said García, who also referred to the controversy generated by his decision.
“Time will tell if this decision is a mistake or a success, but now I can give testimony worldwide; I can speak with everyone without them having control over my movements.”
Late Tuesday, Archipiélago had publicly said García and his wife had “disappeared” and urged the Cuban government to provide information about their whereabouts.
García confirmed in the interview that he could not communicate his decision to travel to the group because he was incommunicado and that after arriving in Madrid, he had a “difficult” talk with them.
The playwright said that he would dedicate his efforts to advocate for the release of the political prisoners and that he was thinking of returning to the island in the future.
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 11:08 AM.