“Todos los cubanos tenemos miedo” Rusbel Joaquín Machado
“Todos los cubanos tenemos miedo”
Rusbel Joaquín Machado, devoto católico cubano residente en el municipio de Guanabacoa, ha dedicado su vida a compartir su testimonio cristiano en su comunidad. Sin embargo, desde 2010 se enfrenta a la persecución del Estado cubano por sus creencias religiosas.
Machado, que forma parte de la parroquia Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Barreras, ha sufrido presiones y represalias por parte de las fuerzas del Estado a lo largo de los años. La persecución se intensificó recientemente después de que utilizara sus redes sociales para denunciar la trágica muerte de Yahicel Vilche Rosales, de 10 años, que falleció el 3 de septiembre a causa del dengue.
El Estado ha respondido a sus denuncias con acusaciones de calumnia y le ha denunciado ante el párroco de su iglesia.
Entrevista: John Palomino
Rusbel Joaquín Machado, devoto católico cubano residente en el municipio de Guanabacoa, ha dedicado su vida a compartir su testimonio cristiano en su comunidad. Sin embargo, desde 2010 se enfrenta a la persecución del Estado cubano por sus creencias religiosas.
Machado, que forma parte de la parroquia Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Barreras, ha sufrido presiones y represalias por parte de las fuerzas del Estado a lo largo de los años. La persecución se intensificó recientemente después de que utilizara sus redes sociales para denunciar la trágica muerte de Yahicel Vilche Rosales, de 10 años, que falleció el 3 de septiembre a causa del dengue.
El Estado ha respondido a sus denuncias con acusaciones de calumnia y le ha denunciado ante el párroco de su iglesia.
Entrevista: John Palomino
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Rusbel Joaquin Machado is a Catholic practitioner who has dedicated his life to sharing Christian testimony.
00:06 He is Cuban and resides in the municipality of Guanabacoa in Barreras, where he practices his faith in the parish of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.
00:14 Machado claims that he has been persecuted by the Cuban state since 2010.
00:20 The persecution intensified recently after Machado denounced on his social networks
00:26 the death of a child in Barreras as a result of a dengue infection.
00:32 In an interview with ADN Cuba, Machado spoke about his experience and the reasons why he believes that the Cuban state is trying to silence him.
00:41 I will explain in detail. In 2014, on Sunday, December 7, 2014,
00:49 the death of a 17-year-old boy in Barreras occurred as a result of a friendship with my person.
00:56 There were many problems in the sense of the manipulation that occurred in the investigation of the case.
01:03 I supported the family and accompanied the father to all the institutions here in the country.
01:08 I was also visited by the people of the State Security and I was also visited by the father to the Villamarista Center,
01:19 which is the center in Cuba of the State Security, with the father of the child.
01:24 And from there it started, they continued to arrest me against my person.
01:29 In 2017, because of a conversation I had with a foreigner who is a Jalisco and lives in Cajamarca,
01:41 I was visited at my house again. They wanted to take me to jail, I refused.
01:46 So that day they didn't take me. The next day, two agents of the State Security appeared,
01:53 dressed in uniform, and then they convinced me, because they said it was so that I could make a statement.
02:00 I made it two kilometers from here, where I live, in the sector of La Gallina.
02:04 After that, it also happened that in a procession that was done on a Holy Friday,
02:13 they saw that this day was something, nothing was spoken about the police.
02:17 They went and complained to the prosecutors of the Guanabacoa district. And so on, I have been really harassed by the State Security.
02:26 The Guanabacoa party has also raised many questions for me, in the sense that, what happens?
02:32 I, from my Christian values, from my position, from this testimony of a Christ,
02:37 I support a lot the mothers on social networks of political prisoners.
02:44 For me, a political prisoner is an injustice, therefore, from the voice of the Gospel, I always support their freedom.
02:52 And so it started. Now what happens? There is a lot of difficulty in the whole country,
02:58 diseases, lack of medication, and so on. The Church here in Bajera has always provided services to people when they die.
03:08 When that child died, the family asked and provided services to anyone else.
03:15 What happens? They seem to have thought, like the people of Bajera,
03:22 they have a conformity because all the people of Cuba thought that the people would be taken to the streets.
03:27 When I saw that the Church was full of military agents, a large military operation, from the morning,
03:38 I came to the Church after 5 in the afternoon. I was alone in the Church, waiting for the body of a child to come, a family child.
03:48 I wrote a letter after 1 in the afternoon, where I reported that it was not possible that there were so many cars in that operation
04:03 and that there were no ambulances in Cuba to treat a patient.
04:06 And so they took that letter with them to justify what they had been doing for more than a day.
04:18 And then they complained to the priest, the priest who currently works for me, who is Brazilian,
04:28 and then they called him directly from the office or department of the Central Committee of Religious Affairs
04:34 to complain about my writing and to justify that the military action had been for my writing, which is not the case.
04:44 And then, of course, the foreigner is not to blame, because I am the one who writes, I am the one who makes the complaint,
04:53 they do not come at any time to ask me, but they use an easier way for them to pressure the priest.
05:04 Of course, that brings tensions and divisions, really, sadly, that is the case.
05:11 Because the Cuban government uses psychological pressure, blackmail, slander, to achieve its objectives.
05:20 It is not known if it was a dengue or not, if there was a dengue outbreak at that time,
05:26 a dengue outbreak that was not controlled with anti-fungal control, much less with fumigation.
05:34 It was really like that.
05:35 When I write, what I do in the complaint on Facebook is about what the church and the park were located
05:42 and how the town of Bajera was, which is a relatively small town,
05:49 harassed, because really when people see that military operation, they get scared.
05:54 And what I do is a criticism of the military operation.
05:58 And then I ask that question, that they confirm that there is a military operation,
06:02 that there is a car accident and that there are many people,
06:04 and that there is no ambulance, not just a car, anywhere in Cuba to take a sick person.
06:08 And then this is what they think hurt him, and then they started, they complained to the priest.
06:14 It really was like that.
06:16 But when I write that complaint, the complaint that I made on Facebook was already cited.
06:24 It was not what I wrote.
06:26 What I used in my writing to justify it.
06:29 That they complained to the priest, pressured the priest, and the priest of course is a foreigner.
06:35 And then of course he caught my attention and took some measures against me here in the church.
06:41 Being a foreigner, it is like that.
06:44 I really did not blame the priest, I blamed the Cuban Communist Party and the State Security.
06:51 Because they really pressured the priest.
06:54 What he communicated is that I had called him from the Department of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee
07:00 and I had called him for attention, I wrote to him, and the second time I saw him.
07:04 The priest really had been planning to leave for a long time.
07:09 And now they send him to another mission in another country.
07:16 Let's see, look, really for example, the day the church was visited by the Communist Party,
07:26 of course as a human being I feel fear.
07:29 But at the same time I feel the need to report the situation.
07:33 Because I think that if we Christians are passive, we are not doing anything.
07:38 And I think that the truth is what leads us forward, as Jesus says, and the truth makes us free.
07:43 And it is like that with the help and testimony of the Christian faith.
07:47 And then of course all Cubans are afraid.
07:51 We are afraid, for example, that they do something to us on the street, that they kill us at night.
07:57 Or that we are, for example, arrested.
08:02 Really like that.
08:04 Fear in Cuba is simple.
08:06 Because the censorship and the aggression in Cuba is very big.
08:10 Even for using social media, they can put a price on you.
08:13 They can put a price on me for writing you, or for anything else that they write on social media.
08:18 You realize, then, the fear is always going to exist.
08:23 You feel threatened, that they can kill you.
08:27 They use you because they send you to any person who does something to you on the street.
08:30 It's a joke.
08:32 That's why many of my friends, there are times when they fear for my life.
08:35 It's really like that.
08:37 I really have faith in God and I trust that He will protect me.
08:41 Of course, my faith goes above all those elements that I have been afraid of, of fear.
08:46 Because I trust in God.
08:48 If I trust in God, I have His protection.
08:51 [Credits]