They say you're a dissident.

I don't like that word. I am a political opponent, a human rights activist. Activist. I was born in Havana in 1959, when the revolution overcame, when Fidel Castro came to power and ended the revolution. Some people said that I was born with revolution and that I grew up with dictatorship.

Without knowing, however, the previous dictatorship.

Yes. Anyway, my parents told me Batista's dictatorship. I already knew what had been before. The batista regime generated rejection among the majority of Cuba, as well as among our relatives. Castro, on the other hand, had the support of the people from the beginning. The opposite would be false. Not even the Americans wanted Batista. No one wanted Batista for his perversity and corruption. The goal was a democratic solution, and Castro then promised to restore the 1940 Constitution, which Batista rejected. Castro, however, did not restore the Constitution until 1976, when the current Statute of Autonomy was established. In the meantime, he ruled by decree. Castro's ego ended the revolution.

The reform of the Cuban Constitution remains in place to date.

It's the second part of the 1976 lie. A farce. They manipulate the rights of Cubans. A Constitution, whatever it may be, cannot defend the interests of a particular political party.

Why, then, the admiration for Cuba, the help of the internationalists, solidarity and the rest?

Confronting the United States often leads to enthusiasts. Even more so at that time, in 1960. So they are the war in Vietnam, the fall of several right-wing dictatorships – partly supported by EE.UU. – the sad international policy of EE.UU...... Confronting an enemy of that size was successful.

You were born with the revolution, what memories do you have of that time?

I lived happily. Among the revolutionaries, boys and girls, we had fun. We took the ball and we played. We called the doorbells and played the vomit. We were doing what boys and girls everywhere do. We knew there was a shortage, we had little clothes, but we weren't poor at all. We had little food, but not because of the rapture of the Americans, but because we could not produce the smallest things in the country. Everything was “nationalized”, all the industries that gave money, companies, business… It was a time of crisis. But despite all the misery and misery, children grow up, and we also grew up in that Marxist-Leninist and castrist ideology of the education system.

When did you notice the situation?

In 1980, I discovered that the Cuban system was dictatorial and savage. That year, many Cubans entered the Peruvian embassy. Many others fled the port of Ariel. I, on the other hand, saw my neighbors, acquaintances, friends, colleagues … listening to those who were leaving; the government, naturally, encouraged. They were given the name of “scum” (garbage)… That was when I realized it. It was a contempt. I saw people hiding in the house waiting at the door, throwing rotten potatoes. I was very disappointed. I knew before the system didn't work, but when I saw it with my own eyes, I came to mind the things I heard, the things I learned, the things I read, and I realized that we were in dictatorship.

In the former German Democratic Republic, then you were in “East Germany”.

I studied German at a language school in Havana. I worked as a translator in Cuba itself, but not for a long time, because they took me to Berlin to work for the intelligence service. Cuba officials didn't know German and I did as a translator. I also had to translate the papers, but I wasn't a spy. When I was in East Germany, I was in several neighbouring countries: In Hungary, in the Czech Republic, in Bulgaria, in the Soviet Union, in Poland… And there I also saw the same thing as in Cuba, that people did not believe in the system, which was totalitarian, despite some reforms. Nobody wanted that system. For example, in Moscow in 1986, when I saw the economic situation, I was completely disappointed! They had rockets, planes and the army stronger, but they had food, consumption, administration ... “The capital of communism in Moscow, and this is the situation 70 years after the revolution. Is this our future?” For example, I started thinking about fleeing in Moscow.

Think, you didn't let yourself be done.

In 1985, a Cuban musician came to East Germany. He soon informed me that he did not want to return to Cuba. I was afraid to talk to me. I didn't know whether we were from the same pen or not. I was working for the Cuban intelligence service, but there was also the counter-intelligence service, with hundreds of officers. They learned that the musician wanted to flee and, of course, they didn't want to leave him. The person closest to that musician was me, and instead of naming me as his agent, I had been commissioned to do so. I remember what the counter-intelligence service manager told me: “That work is a revolutionary action!” I understood that I had no escape. As soon as I met the musician, I said: “They know what your intentions are. It’s better to run, to get both of us caught!” I already had some contacts with the U.S. embassy and I called on the phone, but they weighed the call and started the operation.

Operational?

Yes. The first of them was an operation called Cuban, in which the Cuban Revolution was established. Five or six people persecuted me. Then came the second, about twenty people behind me, to any part of the city. Name of this second operation, Sugar.

Ah! Sugar.

But they're very creative! It reminds me of Celia Cruz’s song, “Sugar...”. There is no choice but to laugh. The operation against one of my colleagues had a secret code called Caperucita. It was 90 meters, the hair was blacker than the night… And Caperucita! We weren't spies or terrorists. We just wanted to live free. At the end of the operation, a colleague invited me to coffee -- a rich coffee, though -- it was a trap, the colleague was working for Stasi, the German Democratic Republic Intelligence Service. When we were in the cafe, I was in the toilet, and while I was there, three men came in: “Come with us!” they promised me. Not abruptly, but... “Come with us!” “Who are you?” “You know,” they do. And I went with them. So it is over! I knew if I tried to escape, they would shoot me.

That was in 1987.

11 March. I lived in the city of Karl Marx [Treveris], about 250 kilometers from Berlin, and I was captured there. They arrested me, put me in the car, closed my eyes and took me to Berlin, where the airport and the Cuban State Security were. However, I don't know where they got me. They didn't mistreat me. They took me in the car, without the wives, for example. I know many others were taken in the furgons, locked up in the cage… I don’t. I was an employee of the Cuban government, and maybe that's why I wasn't taken that seriously. The blood made me crumbling, I was terrified, unable to move.

They didn't torture you.

No. I was in lockdown for about five days. Without torture, but psychological pressure was unbearable: isolated, I was prevented from sleeping, the day I was in the cell… Stasi called it “Operational Psychology”, that is, psychological war. The goal is to bring the prisoner to the lowest category of national self-esteem. White torture. They don't give it a leak. Instead, they drive you to where you feel guilty. Or to get out of this cruel hell, as far as you start collaborating with them. In my case, the thing was faster, as I was expected in Havana. I have been in Berlin for five days and, as I have noted in my report, the Minister of State for Security decided to move me to Cuba. “I wanted to flee and we’ve captured it. It’s no longer our question.” And to Cuba.

To Cuba, where?

Havana, to the La Vibora district, to the Villa Maristas prison. At one time, until 1960-61, it was a Catholic school, but the dictatorship turned Villa Maristas, a barracks of psychological terror and counter-intelligence, into a research center of the political police. Those of us who went there got out pretty badly, and it didn't matter if we were there six hours, two days or six days. Nor has a Cuban opposition who has gone through Villa Maristas been able to forget his passage through the city centre. It's a sad place. From the moment you go in until you go out, you depend on them. Cells are unimaginable: a hole in the center to make their own needs; a lamp always on; no daylight… Not recommended for those who have claustrophobia, for example. Cube, cube…

How long did you have in Villa Maristas?

Just a few days. I signed a document in which I recognized my guilt, the high degree of betrayal. A mea fault, in short. I asked them to give me a second chance and they let me go. The officer who took care of me, who will never forget me, was called Hernández, and he said to me: “It’s in your hands… get up to the chariot of the revolution!” "Thank you! I told him. What to do? I had no alternative.

When did he leave Cuba?

1992. My wife was a German. I asked for a license to provisionally leave the barracks. They gave me the final ticket. I wanted to go to Germany, see the situation, go back to Cuba and decide. I didn't have a chance to do that. “Definitely.” I wanted to live free, but not so. I was banished. It was terrible. In 1996, I went back to Cuba on vacation, but they only gave me permission to be three weeks.

Always ask the question: What do you think of the U.S. kidnapping?

Kidnapping is a great excuse for further repression. They will lift this embargo and they will invent another. The external embargo? Cuba can negotiate with all the countries it wants, except the United States. Japan, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela… Kidnapping was a very hard thing in 1970, but the president of the United States. USA, Jimmy Carter, he gave Fideli the chance. “You must open the window!” That was what I had asked him to do. Fidel preferred the kidnapping to the conversation. The only excuse they have is kidnapping.

It has suffered the rejection of the Cuban government. Also in Europe, you are questioned…

They attack me on one side and on the other, on the right and on the left. I, on the other hand, am a human rights activist. I criticise the foreign policy of the United States, that of the Soviets, that of Russia, that of China, that of North Korea, that of Venezuela… The human rights activist has no political colour, it does not belong to any particular political party. I am a member of the Christian Liberation Movement. The leader was Oswaldo Payá, who died in 2012 in an attack on the security of the Cuban state in which he died. He confronted the Cuban Government through a dialogue, the dictatorship. I was a supporter of dialogue, a promoter of the Varela Project. He used no explosives, no screams, no garlands… His followers, on the contrary, we only have to keep saying what we think, hoping that the situation will change, little by little.