Frustrated by Fidel Castro's continued rule in Cuba, Cuban-American Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego '07 recently attempted to rally the Cuban community on campus through a BlitzMail call to arms.
"I want the Cuban community here to train itself, to bear arms and to send every able-bodied man and woman between the ages of 18 and up over to the island," Dinnella-Borrego wrote in the BlitzMail message. "Let us take back what is ours."
Instead of waiting for the aging Castro to die, Cuban exiles should work alongside anti-Castro Cubans to violently overthrow the government, Dinnella-Borrego said.
Dinnella-Borrego, who had earlier started a common interest group on thefacebook.com for Cubans on campus, hoped his BlitzMail message would provoke a more impassioned response among the Cuban community. He was disappointed to receive only two responses.
"One girl wrote me to tell me that I was nuts and that I was advocating fratricide," Dinnella-Borrego said.
Dinella-Borrego's views on a free Cuba were deeply affected by a trip to the country in 2001 to visit relatives. The visit allowed him to see the nation's state of affairs firsthand.
"Buildings are falling apart, there are 1950s cars everywhere that need to be gutted, there is nothing to buy and society is rationing," he said.
While Dinnella-Borrego considers himself a nonviolent person, he said he would be willing to fight if it meant achieving a democratic government in Cuba.
Many Cubans on campus, though, do not share Dinnella-Borrego's radical approach, despite agreeing with his desire for a free and independent Cuba.
Laura Rodriguez '08, who was born in Cuba, agrees with Dinnella-Borrego's ideas but disagrees with his methods.
"I've been directly affected by Fidel's regime," she said of her experience with Castro.
But Rodriguez feels violence would be an ineffective way to achieve change.
"Getting trained and being sent to the island -- to do what?" she said. "In Cuba, there are people who listen to your conversations, put tape recorders in your car, tap the phone lines, read all the mail and search you when you get to the airport. The kind of network you would need is almost totally suppressed."
Rather, Rodriguez thinks a Dartmouth student-based group should use the power of all the politicians that come to campus, especially during the primaries, to bring attention to Cuba's issue.
"We must get aid from the U.S. government, promote business and go help the people -- not make them suffer even further," she said.
Borrego, on the other hand, believes Cuba cannot truly be free so long as the U.S. government intervenes in its affairs.
Yet other Cuban students were simply turned off by the methods Dinnella-Borrego advocates.
"I'm pretty speechless to be honest," Ellen Menocal '07 said. "Of course the idea of getting rid of Castro is nice, but Dartmouth College students bearing arms to go fight on the island? Come on."
