Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos, Sr. Montes de Oca Martija
I don't live in Miami, so I don't know how big a deal this is. But it ought to be:
René Montes de Oca Martija, one of Cuba's leading human rights activists, last week reluctantly went into exile in Miami in order to receive treatment for a variety of medical ailments, no doubt aggravated by stints in the Castro gulag and the general disregard of the dictatorship for the health care needs of those who oppose.
"In Cuba, René is missed by his followers for he has won the love and admiration of the people for his tireless struggle in the defense of human rights," wrote Cuban independent journalist Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez.
Montes de Oca Martija is secretary-general of the Samuel Martínez Lara Memorial Pro-Human Rights Party. Considering what happened last week to another one of the group's activists, Montes de Oca Martija may have gotten out of Cuba just in time.
For more on Montes de Oca Martija, read Jay Nordlinger's 2003 article.
His uncle is Ramon Martija, who was a soldier in the Moncada garrison on July 26, 1953, when Fidel Castro and his rebels attacked the fortress. Private Martija's photo and his account of the events appears in my book "The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution."