Saturday May 15th is the birthday of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Had he been alive, he would have turned 43 years old, probably in one of those jails where the Castro regime tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress him and from where he escaped once and for all last February 23rd.

In Banes, in the eastern Cuban province of Holguín, the political police have a permanent siege on Zapata Tamayo’s mother’s house, to prevent her from celebrating the memory of OZT, his example of rebelliousness against totalitarianism and his total devotion to the cause of freedom in Cuba. In the cemetery where he rests, the political police have tried to erase his name from his tombstone and they have also posted surveillance guards at the foot of a nearby pine tree to prevent people from coming close to his graveyard and to make them forget he ever existed.

But we have bad news for the Castro brothers and their sinister police: starting on the eve and throughout May 15th, we will celebrate the life of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. And we are going to do it with the same words with which his mother and the Ladies in White invoke him:

¡Zapata Vive! (Zapata is alive!) These women carry in themselves the will of many Cubans of being free.

This is an open invitation, and the meeting point is Twitter: #ZapataVive will be the hashtag. We will also use #OZT y #Cuba. Let’s make the conversation about Cuba on May 15th a conversation about Zapata Tamayo. Let’s not allow his flame to go out until the dawn of a free Cuba.

Numbers do make a difference here. If you want to join us celebrating the life of Zapata on his birthday, we invite you to link in Twitter, between the 14th and the 15th, articles, comments, drawings, songs, videos and any other material that has appeared in traditional media, blogs, Youtube, Myspace, Facebook and other social networking sites. Post what you have written and what others have written as well. And don’t forget to add #ZapataVive, #OZT and #Cuba on each tweet. Let’s welcome May 15th, Zapata Tamayo’s birthday, with a message of freedom for Cuba.

Keep us posted on anything that is published on the subject by emailing us at ozt.prensa@gmail.com. We will post updates on the evolution of the event. The goal is for the #ZapataVive hashtag to become one of the “trending topics” on Twitter on May 15th. Let our voices get to the Cubans who seek their freedom. And let them reach the ears of the tyrant. Starting on Friday, May 14th and throughout the 15th: ¡Zapata Vive! The hashtags: #ZapataVive, #OZT, #Cuba. Spread the word!