January 21, 2001

                   "EVERYTHING started on September 12, 1998, at about 5:30 a.m.
                   at home. That’s where they arrested us and took us to the FBI
                   headquarters in Miami for an interview designed to ‘convince’ us to
                   collaborate and betray, in return for certain promises. Obviously I had
                   nothing to say and after several failed attempts, having made no
                   progress, they took us by car to the FDC [Federal Detention Center],
                   in the heart of downtown Miami, where we have been since that time.

                   "We were taken immediately to the 13th floor, where we stayed for
                   18 days. I had a solitary cell with an iron bunk bed, a mattress,
                   concrete table, a porcelain toilet, a metal chair and just one blanket
                   to sleep under. During the first three days, from Saturday,
                   September 12, 1998, to Monday, September 14, when we went to
                   brush our teeth for the first time, we had no freshen-up, no way of
                   washing, not even a comb¼ nothing. That’s when they took us
                   down for the first time to the federal show.

                   "This first court appearance was to declare that we had no money,
                   so the court would assign us public defense lawyers. That time all 10
                   of us were present.”

                   "During the hardest moments, in the most extreme solitude when
                   we even missed hearing the voice of another human being (and we
                   were frightened of losing our ability to communicate, we longed to
                   hear a word, in any language, spoken by another human being), I
                   always had you with me, without fail, always and eternally by my
                   side, my mother was there too. You were all there, my children, my
                   dearest friends, and in highest place the mother to whom we all owe
                   ourselves: our country.

                   "At that time, during all this, when I had just a small stump of pencil
                   and some sheets of paper, I wrote a few ‘attempts’ at ‘poetry,’ to
                   put some kind of name to what I’m sending you. There’s a bit of
                   everything, some are about love, for you and others close to me,
                   others are about life in general, some are even about philosophy.
                   There are others that I don’t dare send via this route because of
                   ‘censorship,’ on which I don’t speak very pleasantly¼ about lies,
                   trickery in an ‘illegal’ trial. Just to give you a brief idea about them,
                   one is entitled, ‘They Will Not Succeed.’

                   "I’m sending you the poems I wrote in the famous ‘hole’ where we
                   spent 17 months of our lives (in the first six months we were alone,
                   that’s what inspired me to write this )¼

                   Absence

                   Woman, when I am absent
                   don’t think I am far away,
                   or even that I will be long,
                   don’t shed tears of pain,
                   or feel anguish for my absence,
                   don’t retrace your memories,
                   or scour my thoughts
                   or search my photos or my poems,
                   for a hidden message of love;
                   or some silhouette that is no longer there
                   in the shadow of your conscience.
                   Don’t complain about my empty space,
                   nor the mark left by my head on your pillow,
                   nor the moisture of my lips on yours,
                   nor in the 1,000 nights and one dawn.
                   Don’t let your soul suffer insomnia,
                   don’t languish in the taste of desperation,
                   don’t go without sleep, or torture yourself with unfinished ideas
                   Because I have not gone far away,
                   I haven’t moved, not even a bit,
                   from the center of your soul.
                   That favorite place
                   you always keep for me