“Lay flowers on my grave when Cuba is free” – Guillermo Fariñas to Lech Walesa

Yesterday evening (March 11) in a phone conversation with Guillermo Fariñas, the Cuban dissident on hunger strike, President Lech Walesa declared his help and asked for suspending the protest. “I perfectly understand your situation and the situation Cuba is in. I declare my help and support in building a free Cuba. But I would like to ask you to rethink your decision. A free Cuba needs leaders such as you” - said Lech Walesa. 

Guillermo Fariñas responded that “Cuba needs martyrs, such as Orlando Zapata, to awaken the international public opinion and to raise its awareness about the Cuban situation”.

Lech Walesa expressed his conviction that Fariñas had already won for he managed to move the world and made it talk about the political prisoners in Cuba, but to build a free Cuba, the country needs live people, actions and victories.

Guillermo Fariñas stayed firm: “I admire you and I respect your opinion, but I cannot stop my protest. This is my method of fighting with the totalitarianism for freedom in Cuba, and I need to be consistent. If I die, I only ask you, to lay flowers on my grave when Cuba is free.”

After the death of Orlando Zapata, Lech Walesa appealed to the laureates of Nobel Peace Prize to take joint actions to exert pressure on the Cuban regime and demand an immediate release of the political prisoners. Yesterday the European Parliament condemned the regime’s repressions of the opposition in Cuba. Guillermo Fariñas was transferred to the hospital today. He is in critical condition.