Related articles and links |  1 of 9

In 1994, Cuban secret police arrested Eliezar Veguilla after the pastor organized a Baptist conference in Havana that attracted 5,000 youth. Police charged him with being a counterrevolutionary spy working for the CIA.

Cockroaches crawled over Veguilla's body during confinement in darkness up to 16 hours a day. Authorities told Veguilla that if he refused to confess to being a CIA operative he would be placed in a cell with a ferocious bear, visible through a screen.

Then prison guards threw him into a dimly lit dungeonlike room with a bear. A frightened Veguilla prepared to meet his Maker. "I decided at that moment never to confess anything to the government," Veguilla, 39, told Christianity Today. But he had been tricked. This was a different bear, declawed and chained.

Two days later, the mind games returned. Moments after hearing gunfire and screams, authorities lined Veguilla up against a wall as a firing squad raised its guns. Ordered to confess, Veguilla, emboldened by the life-changing encounter with the bear, shouted "Cuba for Christ! Cuba for Christ!" The rifle triggers clicked, but the firing chambers clinked empty. Veguilla, now a refugee in the Miami area, will never forget the sound of soldiers laughing after his mock execution.

WHEN WILL CUBA OPEN? Although few Cuban Christians are subjected to such terrifying experiences, church leaders are keenly aware of the state's ruthless exercise of power under Fidel Castro. Soon after seizing power in 1959, Castro implemented hard labor and so-called re-education programs for those he considered the dregs of society: drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals—and pastors. Nearly 40 years later, the re-education camps are gone. But physical beatings and other ill treatment of prisoners remain potent weapons of the Communist regime.

"As long as Castro is alive he will be able to maintain control," says 53-year-old church historian Marcos Antonio Ramos, a Baptist pastor who is dean of the South Florida Center for Theological Studies in Miami. "Sooner or later, Cuba will open. When is the $64,000 question."

As Castro, 71, this month begins his thirty-ninth year as dictator, Cubans sense that their island's next revolution has already begun.

The Vatican, the Cuban exile community in southern Florida, the U.S. government, Castro loyalists, and Cuban minorities—including evangelical Protestants—are all vying for an influential role in Cuba's future.

Some hope that this month's visit of Pope John Paul II will be the catalyst to bring a swift conclusion to the Castro era. The pope's presence spurred on the collapse of communism in heavily Catholic Poland in the 1980s. "This could be a watershed event that galvanizes change, either peaceful or revolutionary," says Nina Shea, director of Freedom House's Washington, D.C.-based Puebla Program on Religious Freedom.

In the short term, Christians hope the papal visit will open the gates to additional religious liberties. But some are wary, believing it could spark religious persecution of an intensity not seen since the early days of the communist revolution.

The pontiff will celebrate open-air masses in Havana, Santa Clara, Camaguey, and Santiago. The Cuban Council of Churches will distribute 100,000 Bibles as gifts during the papal visit, and Protestants are hoping to be in the crowds to worship outside their church walls for the first time in nearly four decades.

In June, Havana's archbishop, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, 61, conducted the first outdoor service permitted in the country since 1961. Since then, the government has permitted door-to-door visitations in which Catholic volunteers distributed photos of the pope and invited residents to church. Large outdoor banners declaring "John Paul, messenger of truth and hope, welcome" are on display.

next page... |  1 of 9

share this page

January 12 1998, Vol. 42, No. 1