Still Waiting for White Dove's Peace

On the way home from a New Year's Eve party, we saw something that made us stop and reflect. Standing on the sidewalk, daringly blocking our passage, was a white dove.

It happened a half-century ago. It must have been 2 a.m., on the morning of Jan. 1, 1959, as I walked home with my parents in my Cuban hometown, La Salud.

I was only 8 years old. But I remember that moment as if it were yesterday.

"It's the symbol of peace," my mother said as she grabbed my hand and guided me off the sidewalk and around the dove, "perhaps it is a sign that freedom is finally upon us."

I was only a kid, but that comment didn't require any further explanation. My parents had been opponents of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship and ardent supporters of the rebels who were said to be fighting to restore democracy to my homeland. On several occasions, they had taken me to secret meetings, where a few neighbors gathered to listen to the rebel leader — Fidel Castro — speaking from his mountain hideout through short-wave radio.

Had my mother's words not been so timely and prophetic, the dove incident probably would have been forgotten. But a few hours later, after we woke up from a short snooze on that New Year's Day, we heard the news that Cuba was free.

Just around the time my mother had been interpreting the dove's significance, Batista and many of his henchmen had been secretly and hurriedly fleeing Cuba.

On that glorious morning, as the Cuban people danced on the streets, my parents and I kept thinking about significance of that white bird.

"La paloma blanca (the white dove)," my mother told everyone, "foretold the whole thing."

The Cuban Revolution had triumphed, and everyone expected the rebel army to establish a temporary government followed by free elections.

Amazingly, 50 years later, the Cuban people are still waiting. Castro not only outlasted Batista but went on to become the world's longest-lasting dictator.

He ran kangaroo courts and firing squads, and he had his own henchman — Che Guevara — kill a lot of innocent people. He jailed thousands simply for expressing opposition to his regime. He violated every conceivable civil and human right. He took wealth from the rich and still made all Cubans extremely poor. He turned Cuba into an island prison, from which thousands have drowned while trying to escape.

And he forced some two million Cubans — including my family and me — to seek freedom elsewhere. Every year at this time, exiled Cubans make resolutions to "return to a free Havana in the new year," and thousands — including my parents — have died waiting for that dream to be realized.

But this year in particular, even Cuban-Americans are finding it hard to accept the fact that their suffering has lasted a half-century. "Can you believe it has been 50 years?" we asked each other, as if still seeking some sort of explanation for why the whole world continues to ignore the plight of the Cuban people.

In the American news media, we see few journalists marking Cuba's half-century of repression, or noting that the Castro regime has outlasted 10 U.S. presidents.

Except, of course, for this boy from La Salud, who is still waiting for the peace and freedom the dove never delivered.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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