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26/7/05
7:54 pm
Page 94
Drum: TRAVELS
Will The Revolution
“We are not free in Cuba; we are not free to leave the island. I want
to be able to see the world, to have my own house, to own a car, to
buy nice shoes, to have the nice things that you have.” These are the
words of 19-year-old Julio Sanchez. Ishmahil Blagrove Jr. reports.
I
met Julio one unbearably hot afternoon amongst
the throng of people that busy themselves within
the labyrinth of Havana’s dilapidated and overcrowded side streets.
Julio would have remained an anonymous face
amongst the fleeting crowds were it not for his
pronounced youthful swagger and the Nike logo
conspicuously tattooed on the side of his face. Two
coffees and countless cigarettes later, he lifted his
shirt to reveal a twelve-inch tattoo of the Statue of
Liberty emblazoned across his torso. He also
revealed a secret he had been harbouring for the past
few years: the desire to flee the island as soon as the
opportunity presented itself. Such discussions of
escape or of life in what the West describes as a
communist dictatorship are common but are not
well-received by the ubiquitous eyes and ears which
make up Cuba’s ever alert intelligence community, so
Julio and I hastily retreated to a venue where he
could feel more relaxed and speak openly. It was
there that he disclosed to me his feelings of
entrapment and his yearning for the freedom so
propagated in Cuba since the ideals of Western