Independent Journalist

Founding member of Ladies in White

Profession:  Diplomat, translator and interpreter, English teacher.

Date and place of birth: April 5, 1947.  Encrucijada, Villa Clara, Cuba.

Father: Guillermo Leiva, veterinarian. 

Mother: Concepción de las Mercedes Viamonte

1956-1959 lived in Connecticut, USA.

Married in 1975 to Oscar Espinosa Chepe, independent economist and journalist   (sentenced to 20 years in prison during the March 2003 crackdown and on conditional release due to serious health problems since November 29, 2004).

Majored in International Affairs, Havana Univertsity, 1975.

Speaks Spanish –mother tongue; English quite well; French, Russian, Czech,  Srbocroationan (has lost practice).

Work Experience:

1962-67 Czech translator, Ministry of Construction.

1971-1992 Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Senior official, Divisions of Eastern Europe      (Hungary and East Germany), Africa (Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia),  Non Aligned Countries.

Organized  NAM ministerial meetings in Cuba and was member of Cuban delegations in the country and abroad.

1984-87 Cultural Attaché, Cuban Embassy in Yugoslavia.

September 1992 expelled from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, due to “lack of political confidence”.  Her husband had been accused of being a counterrevolutionary and they expected her to let him down.

Until February 2003 she worked as a private English teacher.

In 1996 she joined the opposition as a human rights activist and independent journalist.

In charge of the International Section of the DE CUBA magazine, which was the first magazine of the independent journalists published in Cuba.  Only two editions (December 2002 and February 2003) came out because of the crackdown on the dissident movement on March 2003. 18 members of the Association were taken to prison, including Raúl Rivero and Ricardo González Alfonso. (The Association received an award from Columbia University afterwards that same year, but the prevailing repression has impeded its further functioning.) She has been a member of the Manuel Marquez Sterling Association since 2002.  Vicepresident of the Manuel Marquez Sterling Journalist Association since 2003.

Her works have been published in the International Herald Tribune, The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, newspapers and magazines in Sweden, Slovakia, France, etc., and posted in Salon, Cubanet, Cubaencuentro,  Libertad Digital, etc.

Member of the Jury of the Reporters without Frontiers Prize 2004 and 2005.

Founding member of the Ladies in White movement March 30, 2003, immediately after the 75 peaceful independent economists, journalists and librarians, and human rights activists were taken to prison (March 18, 19, 20), including her husband.

Read her articles in Spanish