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ONLY THE DEAD Emilio Adolfo Rivero It was May 3rd, 1961, my first day in a prison. We were forming a queue for breakfast. Those who were ahead of me were talking among themselves of the mass arrests that had taken place throughout Cuba in the last eighteen days, of how stadiums, theaters, El Morro Fortress moats, private residences, had been transformed into provisional detention centers where men and women, old and young, were thrown together till someone ordered their arrest to be confirmed or revoked. It was the estimate of those who were before me in the queue that no less than 300,000 people had been arrested, most of the cases with no other reason than that of being suspected as non-sympathizers of the Revolution. Instances were mentioned of people dying of heart attacks, of women giving birth while being in a crowd, of men, women and children in the open, under heavy rain, of the lack of the most basic sanitary facilities. At a given moment a man, who was inmediately before me in the line, and who had been participating in the conversation, turned around and said to me: "You know, when you live in a communist country, only the dead have less rights than you do". It was the first and only time we faced each other, and I don't even remember how he looked like. I don't know what became of him, whether he was merely a suspect who later on was released or someone who was to face prison or execution. But his words remained in my memory.
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