By Ana Hurtado on February 20, 2024
Journalist José Manzaneda, coordinator of Cubainformación. Photo: Cubaperiodistas
In October 2020, the independent media outlet in Spain Cubainformación, published a very accurate article written by a great companion of causes, journalist José Manzaneda.
José is a humble person, who tries to go unnoticed and without making noise, but his walk and his steps have shown us the greatness that he has inside him. Despite his prudence and low profile, José Manzaneda stands out. Because he has been fighting for years and educates us to fight for the truth, which today is worth more than dignity. Jose is loaded with both.
This article that Manzaneda wrote was entitled Creating a Health Crisis in Cuba: Target of the War against its Media Cooperation.
The article was an excellent reflection of how the counterrevolution and the right wing are trying to suffocate Cuba, in this specific case by means of the health blockade.
You have to be some sort of serious criminal to want to suffocate a people in the middle of a pandemic. So that with 243 new measures imposed by the Trump administration, media terrorism and more blockade, of the sanitary type, are applied. So as not to let Cuba, without bothering anyone, breathe.
Against our colleague Manzaneda and the association Euskadi Cuba, the ultra-right-wing organization Prisoner Defenders filed a lawsuit, with a private accusation requesting six years in prison and 50,000 euros.
We can see that this is one more trick of the genocidal policy of the blockade against Cuba: to try to intimidate judicially those who practice truthful and free journalism. To think that for a denunciation in a court of law, whatever the cost, a revolutionary is going to stop doing his work, is something not heard of.
According to the accusation, the article contained the word “war criminal” against an individual and that was an attack against his honor, which a few days later Cubainformación opted to withdraw the term.
But when desperation reigns, when you have no major battles to win, when you know that no matter how much noise you make, your battle and your war are lost, there are not few who engage in this type of unworthy acts that will end up showing them for what they are: moral and mental paupers.
We have the responsibility and obligation as journalists, as writers and not only as such, but as people who live in an unjust world, to reveal injustice and raise our voices.
We will not stop exercising our freedom, we will always stand condemning violence against the oppressed classes.
Coming back and quoting Sartre, “it is our problem, it is the problem of the time and it is the problem of us, the writers. Such is the responsibility of the writer, not eternal but actual”.
The moment needs us now. Even if we can’t, even if we want to be there tomorrow. Even if justice does not always agree with us, but it knows and they know that they have in front of them people whose pulse does not tremble to do what they do.
Our method to confront the right is neither more nor less than the battle of ideas.
They are terrified of that. They have to resort to lynching campaigns, to defamation. Because our trenches are the strongest, indestructible.
Because one thing is clear.
We are not owners of great fortunes, we are not owners of capital, we are not owners of companies. We do not have economic power. We do not have technology and algorithms in our favor.
We do not contemplate our freedom, we realize it. Without caring about the consequences. The gags and what people will say.
We have decency. It is more than enough.
We were shot dead and we are still alive.
And we are behind the enemy, everywhere.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English