Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, instructed his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfredo Moreno to petition the United Nations to act on behalf of Cuban opposition activist Guillermo Fariñas who has been in a hunger strike since February.

“Today, I asked our minister of foreign affairs, and to our ambassador before the United Nations, to make all efforts necessary [to engage] the Cuban government and the United Nations to try and save the life of Guillermo Fariñas, one of the political prisoners* in hunger strike in Cuba, so that the sad story of Orlando Zapata does not repeat itself” stated Piñera during a ceremony in which the keys to new low income houses built by the previous government were delivered to their new owners.

Source [in Spanish]: AP

*As we have noted before, Fariñas was not in prison when he initiated this hunger strike. However, he started it in solidarity with those who are, a situation in which he has been many times before because of his peaceful opposition activities.

In an article titled Molina stands by ‘my truth’ about Cuba the Buenos Aires Herald's Michael Soltys, chronicles the presentation by Dr. Hilda Molina of a book, Antes que amanezca y otros relatos (Before Day Comes and Other Tales) written by Cuban former political prisoner Jorge Olivera Castillo.

Dr. Molina, a Cuban opposition leader who after rising to prominence in Cuba, founding and directing the International Center for Neuro-transplant and Neurological Restoration in 1987, was a member of the Cuban "parliament" (National Assembly of Popular Power) broke with the regime in 1994, and was allowed to leave the island for Argentina last year after years of battling with the Cuban dictatorship; was the victim of pogrom-like “acts of repudiation” at the presentation of her own book, Mi Verdad (My Truth) last month in Buenos Aires.

During the presentation of Olivera’s book, the article tells us that she described how "this 'very Cuban' writer once believed in a revolution two years older than himself to the extent of going to fight in Angola ‘exporting subversion’ — brainwashed but essentially human. Much like the neurosurgeon Molina, Olivera started to dissent from Fidel Castro’s ‘Stalinist’ regime in 1993 with metaphor as his chosen vehicle, as in the 15 short stories of the book presented yesterday.” She remarked that “these metaphors describe the existential anguish of a people compelled to live a lie for over 50 years — the hunger and the lack of even water which forces people to rob for the black market, even dead bodies. The regime of the Castro brothers has caused a ‘genocide of the family’ via intense militarization but also a homophobic hell for Cuban gays, constantly exposed to blackmail and driven to suicide.”

The article also carries the words of Argentinean politician Martín Borrelli and Chilean Christian Democrat Senator Patricio Walker.

Borrelli pondered why the “[Argentinean] May Revolution whose Bicentennial is justifiably being celebrated, [it is so by comparing it] now [to] the wrong kind of revolution in Cuba, saluting the memory of hunger strike martyrs Pedro Luis Boitel and Orlando Zapata Tamayo. He also stressed the threat of Venezuela, where Cuban military training is now underway, and pointed out that the fuel sale scandals now being probed helped to finance the pickets who disrupted Molina’s book presentation, among other things.”

Walker offered his advise on a future Cuban transition to democracy based on his personal experiences with Chile’s own transition from tyranny in 1990.

Entire article here.