by
Luis González Infante
On August 5, 1971 Oriol Acosta and I were imprisoned in Manacas, Province of Las Villas, Cuba. On that day, a group of prisoners from another jail was being taken into Manacas and were being beaten by the guards as they got in. In order to try to stop the aggression, a group of us in the yard started shouting "Stop!" "Stop!"
At this point, the Director of the Manacas Prison, Lieutenant Abraham Claro ordered his guards to open fire against us in the yard. After 15 minutes of indiscriminate shooting several prisoners laid wounded and Oriol Acosta, a native of Las Villas province, laid dead with a bullet in his head.
For the rest of us, who survived the shooting, life in prison became even more terrible: we were put in punishment cells, all family visits and mail were suspended, the food became even more scarce and medical treatment was eliminated. Beatings and other humiliations continued.
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