At 8:30 am yesterday morning, Juan Amador Rodriguez called me with Reina Luisa Tamayo on the line. With her phone in her hand, this brave woman walked out of her house in Banes, Cuba, with five other women and a little girl, and attempted once again to attend church and visit the grave site of her martyred son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
Within seconds you could hear the throngs of Castro thugs–who had already surrounded her house–begin the brutal repression of this grieving yet incredibly brave mother and the women who stood by her side. I paced the house with the phone to my ear, listening helplessly as vulgar and racial slurs were hurled at Reina by a mob ordered to repress a mother who only wants to attend church and pay her respects to the son she buried after the regime assassinated him.
For almost 25 minutes I listened to the hate, to the brutality, to the inhumanity of the Castro revolution as its automatons attacked a helpless mother and her friends. Deciding that we had heard enough, a prerecorded message in Chinese signaled us that Castro’s state security had cut the phone call. But not before we managed to record the entire event.
You can listen to the attack on Reina Luisa Tamayo, complete and unedited, HERE.
Thirty minutes later, Juan Amador was able to get Reina on the phone once again and she was able to give us this statement:
Well, at this moment I can say that at 8:30 this morning we attempted to leave the house and go to church. More than 600 people are currently surrounding my house and Dariel Mesa was hit on the arm by a rock. They are aggressively attacking us with offensive slurs, saying “you sold your son,” and calling us “worthless niggers” and “depraved.” Just like that it must be said so the world knows.
The Castro brothers have no respect for this mother after having assassinated her son. Until when will they continue to injure this family? We are only 6 women and one girl, and they are stopping us; they don’t let us go to church, they don’t let us go to the cemetery. Until when? When will the Castros have shame, when will they have dignity towards their fellow man? After they assassinated my son, now they want to assassinate this family and the little that they have.
Here they are at the corner my house, women of low class, women who have no morals to be in front of this mother, they have no dignity. They are here at the corner of my house screaming “whore!” These low class women are nothing but thieves who steal from the government, and that is why they are there.
After her statement, Reina stepped to the front of her house and held out the phone so we could hear the insults directed at her and the Castro slogans being chanted by the more than 600 Castro thugs that surrounded her house.
You can listen to Reina’s unedited statement and hear more of the mob outside her house yesterday HERE.
Later that morning, we were able to get Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez on the phone and we asked him for his reaction to the events that took place in Banes earlier that morning. Here is a translation of his opening statement:
What seems to me that is happening with Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger, that heroine, that Martiana, that titan of liberty, that mother of the martyr Orlando Zapata Tamayo, primarily is a reflection of the current state; the fear, the terror, the impotence, and the cowardice of a criminal and totalitarian system that is the Castro regime. It is fearful of the push that the forces of the internal opposition is making. Above all, the resistance of this dignified woman in spite of their threats.
We were able to ask Antúnez several questions, including his thoughts on the US lifting the travel restrictions to Cuba. Antúnez echoed the sentiments that many Cubans on and off the island have expressed; opening the floodgates to American tourism would only serve to provide the Castro regime with much needed funds that would help them continue their repression and subjugation of the Cuban people. He implored exiled Cubans not to visit Cuba as tourists as that only served to strengthen the regime. And he added that he understood there are Cubans who have a need to visit family members on the island for one reason or another, and he did not condemn them for that. But if they had to visit Cuba, he asked that they help support the opposition on the island. He asked that they teach their family members about democracy and freedom and to tell them about the opposition in Cuba. Let them know that there are Cubans within the island fighting to end the tyranny that has oppressed Cuba for more than 50 years.
When asked about Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, Antúnez had strong words for the Archbishop. He categorized the cleric as a traitor to the Cuban people, and a willing tool of the Castro regime. He reiterated that the Catholic church in Cuba, and the Cardinal in particular, has done nothing for the opposition movement in Cuba other than to collaborate with the regime to rid themselves of them through forced exile.
You can listen to the complete and unedited interview of Antúnez HERE.
***UPDATE***
Zoé Valdés’ blog has video of yesterday’s attack on Reina Luisa Tamayo.
Hey Gloria! Aren’t you due for another Ladies in White photo op?
Less than 5 months ago our “esteemed” Gloria Estefan was all over the news calling for a solidarity march for the Ladies in White. I guess there’s no need for “props” anymore. Perhaps Obama and the “others” already accomplished what they set out to do during her Democratic “fund raiser” at her home.
I sure would love to meet some of those people in a act of “reconciliation.”
Calling all “Cuba Experts!”…calling all “Cuba-Experts!”….better yet, calling all media outlets who habitually rely upon “Cuba-Experts”…read this post instead, and get an eye-witness account of what’s actually going on.
Unreal
As long as the mainstream media refuses to print any of this, it will continue and it will escalate.
The NY Times, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Time Magazine, Newsweek, AP, Reuters, etc..are giving the regime the GREEN LIGHT.
Don’t worry, Val. In a freed Cuba, there will be TONS of people like these clamoring for reconciliation, “let bygones be bygones,” “a fresh beginning” and other nice-sounding euphemisms for getting off scot-free.
As for the MSM, they’ve been giving the Castro crowd the green light since BEFORE 1959.
Antúnez is proof that you can be blacker than black and STILL be ignored if you don’t dance to the right tune. And that tune, obviously, ain’t “Liberty for Cuba.”
I wonder if anyone, aside from Ariel Sigler Amaya’s family, have fought back against the people doing the acts of repudiation. I know I’d take a few people down if they spit on me, or even tried to hit me.
Big talker, Felix. And what if there are fifty there with bats or weapons if they need to use them? Be real.
I am still trying to get this out to the media. But there is so much else going on. I got a few things out, but I’ll keep trying.
The sad truth is that ninety nice percent of the people in Cuba have been castrated by fifty one years of Cagastro oppression and indoctrination.
This kind of $#it drives me nuts! Im with Felix. I understand its easy to say from over here. But I think if I was over there Id be in jail. I cant take it when innocent people take that kind of abuse.
Asombra,
You are correct, the MSM has been giving castro the green light since before 1959, but as the years go by and more people are imprisoned, more and more people are beaten, abused, forcibly exiled, as the country falls into deeper ruins with open sewers, collapsed buildings, garbage dumps all over, slums where there were once elegant homes, as the poverty escalates, as Cuba’s foreign debts continues to rise, as castro’s broken promises multiply, as more people go on hunger strikes, as more and more tales of prison abuse filter out through blogs, youtube and cellphones, this tacit approval through indifference becomes more and more egregious, harder to justify.
It’s as if I murdered someone and had his corpse in my apartment, but all of my neighbors just ignored it, but as the time went by I started killing more people and adding more corpses. Pretty soon the stench would be so overwhelming that it would be pretty darn hard to ignore, while in the beginning with just one corpse and enough formaldehyde, I might be able to hide the stench.
Alberto, am I correct in assuming that NOT ONE major media outlet has approached us to use our exclusive audio files?
You are correct, George, not a one.
George,
Like we constantly say around here,
We’re Cubans, we don’t know shit about Cagastro’s tyranny. The MSM knows better than us.
To the media outlets we’re the intransigent, uncompromising Miami Mafia dinosaurs, ex-Batistianos not worthy of respect.
The media outlets don’t want to hear and see the truth as they cannot handle it.
Remember that if they were to publish the real truth about Cagastro’s tyranny their fifty one years castle of lies and support for Cagastro would collapse.
The problem is that you guys aren’t writing about what they want to hear. I remember not too long ago there was a story going around about a Cuban American U.S. soldier who was making a stink because he couldn’t visit his family back in Cuba often enough. The angle was that those horrible Cuban Americans from Miami were responsible for his dilemma, since we [NOT CASTRO!] were restricting visits to Cuba. Oh boy! Did that receive coverage! Then of course, Luis Carriles Posada was another story that was covered to death, repeatedly over and over and over again! If only Reina Luisa Tamayo got a 1/100th of all that coverage, we could sing victory!
Out of curiosity [not that it would make much difference] do you folks send out press releases?
There are two types of Cubans in this world. Los Decentes y lo Indecentes. That chusma mob is certainly the Indecent ones. I remember growing up this type of basura. VIVA REINA LUISA TAMAYO!
Press releases, alas, cost a bundle.
The audio and the info is out there for the taking; they could arguably get info from the Huffpo if they wanted, because Yoani posts there.
It’s not the availability of hard news that’s at issue: It’s the fact they’re a pathetic buch of girlymen.
Precisely, ojc. All they have to do is grab the audio and give us attribution for our exclusive. They don’t do it because they are fidel’s butt-boys. They are tools: ignorant, insensitive, evil tools.
try to pass it on to drudge or hannity – then msm would have to cover the story (by somehow attacking it following media matters’s inevitable lead)
Those in the news that have been blind for 51 years … are not about to admit it and start seeing.
Thousands of members of the MSM have infested their hopes and dreams in the Cuban revolution. Those 60 year olds who call the shots now in the press rooms look back romantically on their youth and Che & Fidel. To admit the Cuban revolution was a failure would be a shot to their core. They have to keep believing regardless of the facts.
No, George, they’re not ignorant. They know the truth but choose to ignore it, distort it, deny it or downplay it. They know exactly what they’re doing and why. If anything like what’s being done to Reina Luisa Tamayo had happened to Winnie Mandela under apartheid, well, you do the math. They know they’re full of shit, and they think that’s perfectly OK as long as they can get away with it. That’s the hallmark of a true degenerate, knowing it and not caring. They deserve essentially zero respect.