The Price of Defection

October 19, 2010


The Anchorage Daily News ran an interview with Yeniel Bermudez, the former captain of Cuba's under-23 national soccer team who defected to the U.S. in 2008. It tell of his struggle to become a professional soccer player, which has now taken him to Alaska (of all places).

However, it's his description of the reality of Castro's Cuba and the price his family has paid for his defection that serves as a gripping reminder of that regime's cruelty.

Here's an excerpt:

I asked him to describe Cuba, and how it compared to the U.S. He told me he could talk about that for a week.

He grew up with rationed food and electricity. Cars, ancient relics from the '50s, were held together with makeshift parts. All the media is controlled by the government. People can be jailed for no reason.

As a kid, he told me, he learned not to talk to his playmates about what he ate for dinner. If it had been purchased on the black market, his parents could have been punished. As teenagers trying to impress girls, he said, he and a brother shared a rotation of three shirts. His mother, a doctor, made about $10 a month.

Since he defected, his family has become a target, he said. His stepfather and brother were detained and jailed almost a year ago. Police called them "traitors," Bermudez said. Only recently, they were told that they had been charged with smuggling, which carries a sentence of as much as 10 years. His mother has a lawyer and is trying to fight the charge. But there have been no hearings.

"They don't respect lawyers. I told you, Cuba is crazy," he said.