Cuba: How then shall they live?

Castro doesn't care as long as he remains in power.

Mass eviction in Casablanca

HAVANA, July 7 (Moisés Leonardo Rodríguez, Grupo Decoro / www.cubanet.org) - Amid a massive display of force, authorities evicted a number of people in several families June 30, apparently in order to clear a slum known as Bachiplan on the road between Casablanca and the Bahía neighborhood in Regla municipality.

Sixty police officers in four cars and a troop transport, eight officers from the Department of State Security in motorcycles and three ambulances showed up early and by 9 a.m. they had arrested three persons who opposed the eviction; two women and a man, Juan Bermúdez, a government opponent who had assumed the leadership of the residents.

Bermúdez' wife, Nery Castillo, ran into some woods after her husband was arrested and police say they haven't been able to find her. Castillo is eight months pregnant and had just checked out of a hospital the day before upon receiving news of the eviction.

Most of those evicted said they were going to seek refuge in a church to which they belong, where they intend to stay until authorities heed their pleas.

After the eviction, authorities demolished the existing structures in Bachiplan.