Forty years of impunity

Special for Por Esto!

By Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Date: April 30, 2019

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews

On April 28, 1979, in broad daylight, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a group of assassins shot and seriously wounded a young man just 25 years old, Carlos Muñiz Varela, who died after painful agony on the 30th of that month.

It is now forty years of shameful, scandalous, impunity. None of those who planned, directed and executed the crime has been punished. Working hard, without refusing to face the threats, the obstacles, and the disinterest or the complicity of politicians and bureaucrats, his friends and family have not stopped for a moment to demand that justice be done.

It has been an incessant struggle. Over the years it has brought about the revelation of documents, testimonies and other evidence that would have made it possible to completely clarify a fact that still awaits action by the court. Some of the culprits died unmolested. But half a dozen of those who participated in the unforgivable misdeed still circulate freely in Miami and Puerto Rico.

Carlos’ murder could have been prevented if the Puerto Rican authorities or their colonial masters had wanted to do so. During the previous year, 1978, for several months, threats against his life had multiplied, reproduced even in propagandistic attacks by anti-Cuban terrorist groups operating openly on the sister island.

Now, on the eve of the 40th anniversary, “El Nuevo Día,” the newspaper with the largest circulation there, reports other documents that confirm and expand on what was already known thanks to the indomitable tenacity of his colleagues and friends.

Carlos had been born in Cuba and was a very young boy when he was taken to Puerto Rico after the Cuban revolutionary triumph. There he grew up and joined the efforts for the independence of what for him was also his other homeland. He was the initiator of the visits to Cuba by other young Cubans who, as he had been, had been taken to live outside their native land. His work met with fierce opposition from the annexionists – narrow allies of Cuban-born gang members – who even used the colonial “Senate” for that purpose.

This anniversary also coincides with the redoubled attempts to asphyxiate Cuba, which include additional restrictions on travel and family remittances from Cubans living abroad. These were announced in Miami by Mr. John Bolton, in a grotesque ceremony with the defeated invaders of Playa Girón and other mercenaries. There they were, celebrating their impunity, those who took the life of an innocent boy who never hurt anyone and gave his all for the reunion and harmony among Cubans.

His friends did not forget him. We will never forget him.