Raúl Rivero, poet and journalist, dies in Miami

November 8, 2021

Cuban poet and journalist Raúl Rivero Castañeda died on Saturday, November 6 in Miami at the age of 75, according to confirmation from his wife, Blanca Reyes Castañón.

Born in the city of Morón in 1945, Rivero was one of 75 activist opponents, human rights defenders, and independent journalists imprisoned during the so-called "Black Spring" of 2003 against Cuban dissidence.

The writer was sentenced to 20 years in prison but was released in November 2004 for health reasons and after an international pressure campaign. Six months later he moved to Spain with his family, where he was granted citizenship in 2012.

The poet and journalist lived the last years of his life in Miami, United States, until his death at Kendall Baptist hospital, as a result of cardiorespiratory arrest. He had been admitted to the emergency room since the day before due to cardiorespiratory problems.

The writer had suffered for years from pulmonary emphysema and was recently diagnosed with a cancerous condition, according to confirmation from family sources.

"He never recovered from leaving Cuba. He didn't die because of that, but he always talked about Morón," in Ciego de Ávila, where he was born, Blanca Reyes said to Diario de Cuba, the publication of which he was a founder.

Journalist Michel Suárez, also a founder of Diario de Cuba, said on Facebook that Rivero was a "fighter for Cuba's freedom" and maintained that the country "is forever indebted" to him.

In Cuba, Rivero was one of the founders of the magazine El Caimán Barbudo in 1966. He was also a correspondent for the state agency Prensa Latina in Moscow between 1973 and 1976.

In the late 1980s, he distanced himself from the official press for considering it a "fiction about a country that does not exist"; and in 1991, he was one of the signers of the Letter of the Ten to demand from Fidel Castro's regime democratic changes and the liberation of prisoners of conscience.

In 1995 he founded the Cuba Press agency together with other colleagues and later participated in the creation of the Manuel Márquez Sterling Society, the first formed by independent journalists on the Island, and in the founding of the magazine De Cuba.