From Cuba into Exile in MiamiReina Luisa Tamayo suffered death threats, beatings, and the murder of her son Orlando Zapata Tamayo. She was then vilified and smeared along with her family by the dictatorship in Cuba's propaganda apparatus both in and outside of the island.
Amnesty International had to emit urgent actions on more than one occasion pleading with the Cuban regime to not harass this mother when she wanted to visit the grave of her martyred son. In addition to that her other children were also harassed and threatened by the dictatorship.
Her well-grounded fears of the Castro regime were so powerful that she even refused to leave Orlando Zapata Tamayo preferring to have him exhumed and cremated. Leaving Cuba without her son's remains and with no one left to guard his tomb she believed that they would desecrate his remains and disappear him.
Safe from the ruthless regime in Cuba but now exiled from her homeland along with the ashes of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Bittersweet is defined as pleasure alloyed with pain. In this case it is the pain of a murdered son and exile from your homeland mitigated by arrival in a free country where Reina Luisa Tamayo no longer need fear harassment from a cruel dictatorship. It is more bitter than sweet, but the price of liberty and human dignity is often steep.
Welcome to Miami and let us all hope that one day soon Reina along with many other Cubans are able to return to a free and democratic homeland where Orlando Zapata Tamayo and not Che Guevara will be the subject of study in Cuban high school students textbooks. Let us hope that when that day arrives that Orlando Zapata Tamayo's ashes may finally rest in Cuban soil.
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What about the other Ladies in White? the ones that can't leave Cuba whose is going to lead them in their fight against the Cuban dictatorship now that Reina Luisa Tamayo had left Cuba. Another important question that nobody wants to ask is why Reina Luisa Tamayo left the fight against the tyranny after 8 years of struggle by coming to Miami Reina Luisa Tamayo has awarded the Castro brothers a much needed breath of air in their dictatorship against the Cuban people
ReplyDeleteBruno,
ReplyDeleteThe main spokesperson for the Ladies in White has been and remains Laura Pollan. There are over 2 million Cuban exiles who left because to remain placed their lives and the lives of their families in mortal peril. Reina suffered death threats and physical assaults plus the fear that they would murder another of her children.