Yoani Sanchez joins Las Damas' Sunday march

Las Damas. Photo credit: Fotos desde Cuba

Yoani Sanchez marched Sunday with las Damas de Blanco, according to Fotos desde Cuba. That looks like Yoani in the photo, above at left. I would imagine that this is the sort of thing that Cuban government supporters hope to avoid, any kind of joining of the blogger movement with traditional dissidents and activists.

Supporters of the Castro government have often weakened opposition groups by dividing them. Sanchez appears to be trying to unite the opposition. Toward that end, she yielded her space today in her high-visibility Huffington Post column to journalist Luis Felipe Rojas. He writes about the precarious health of prisoner Orlando Zapata.

Zapata was among the 75 dissidents, journalists and activists arrested during the government crackdown in the spring of 2003. He was initially sentenced to 25 years in prison. His supporters say authorities have since added charges and lengthened his sentence to 47 years, an extraordinarily long sentence in a country where manslaughter convictions can bring sentences of 10 to 12 years.

Zapata has been on a hunger strike for more than two months and his mother worries he is on the verge of dying. Marc Masferrer at Uncommon Sense has written extensively about Zapata's plight. His latest post is here.

Photo credit: Boring Home Utopics

Links:
Along the Malecon's Yoani & digital revolt page
Along the Malecon's Dissidents, Ladies in White page
Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs explanation of the judicial system

The woman behind Luis Posada Carriles

A Posada Carriles family portrait

One of the many intriguing characters in the saga of Luis Posada Carriles is his wife, Nieves, 74.
She has stuck by his side even as he's been in and out of jail, according to Ann Louise Bardach, author of Without Fidel, an authoritative and insightful book published in October 2009. Bardach writes:

During Posada's incarceration in El Paso, Nieves reappeared as his advocate - lobbying with his lawyers and fussing about his health - just as she had when he was imprisoned in Caracas. She said she was bewildering why authorities were detaining her husband.

"I don't understand how come Orlando (Bosch) got out and Luis's case is taking so long," one of her husband's attorneys recounted her saying, adding..."I think Nieves is still in love with him."

The couple's two children, shown above, are now adults.

Links:
Along the Malecon's Anti-Castro militants page
Posada Carriles articles posted on Ann Louise Bardach's Web site.