The Cuban opposition figure Guillermo del Sol announced this Saturday, August 29, that he has decided to temporarily end the hunger strike he had maintained, after his son managed to persuade him to abandon the protest due to the serious deterioration of his health and the high risk of potentially fatal complications.
Del Sol, upon reaching the 73rd day of the strike, explained in a video published on Facebook that he made the decision at the request of his family and acknowledged the seriousness of his physical condition after requiring urgent hospital care on Friday.
"My son has been trying to convince me since last night, and he succeeded. I want to announce that at the family's request, I will be taking a break," he expressed in the message released this Saturday, in which he admitted that he had arrived at the hospital "in very poor condition."
The activist reported that at the time of making the statement, his blood pressure was 220/120, while efforts to lower those values had only managed to bring it down to around 170/100, according to his own account.
"No way to control the pressure anymore and due to diabetes I could experience kidney failure or a stroke at any moment. The goal is not to commit suicide. It's hard after going 72 days without eating," he stated.
Del Sol made it clear, however, that the suspension of the strike does not mean he is abandoning his cause or surrendering.
After 72 days without consuming food, he stated that the time had come to end the protest due to the risk to his life, but he insisted that he would continue his activism and his demands for Cuban political prisoners.
“It is not the last battle nor that surrender”, he stated before thanking the support received from both within and outside Cuba during the more than ten weeks the protest lasted.
The opposition figure also reiterated his commitment to those imprisoned for political reasons on the island and affirmed that he will continue to fight for them.
"For me, everyone is a political prisoner. I will continue to love them, and my commitment is to keep fighting alongside them. I want to see a free Cuba. I want to contribute to that free Cuba. I want to embrace them and get them out of prison. But for that, we must keep moving forward," he expressed.
During his message, he also expressed gratitude to the many individuals and organizations that supported him during the 72 days of protest, both in Cuba and abroad.
He specifically mentioned the support received from Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Argentina, and Colombia, as well as the backing from the press, exile organizations, religious representatives, congregations, and churches that had been praying for him.
Del Sol stated that he will continue to defend what he considers the rights of Cubans and expressed special gratitude to his son for standing by his side during the physical deterioration caused by the weeks of hunger strike.
The anguish of the son
The decision to suspend the strike was made just one day after a serious health crisis that forced him to be urgently transferred to a hospital, as reported on Friday by his son, Adrián del Sol, who stayed by his side during the protest.
According to Adrián's account, between the afternoon of August 27 and the morning of the 28th, his father exhibited extremely high blood pressure readings. After midday, his condition deteriorated dramatically.
The son of Del Sol stated that the opposition figure recorded a blood pressure of 240/130, in addition to a blood sugar level of 3, severe chest pain, severe tachycardia , and numbness in the right hand. The document does not specify the unit corresponding to the reported blood sugar value.
In light of that situation, Adrián decided to take him to the hospital right away.
"As his son and a physical witness to his condition over these 72 days, upon seeing him in such critical shape, I made the decision to take him to the hospital urgently before it was too late," he explained.
Once at the medical center, Guillermo del Sol was treated in the emergency department by a team that, according to his son's testimony, included a cardiologist, an intensivist, and therapy staff.
His level of dehydration was so severe that it became extremely difficult to access his veins. The cardiologist who attended to him believed, according to Adrián, that if he had not arrived at the hospital at that moment, he could have suffered a myocardial infarction, due to the intensity with which his heart was working.
The doctors administered urgent hydration with Ringer's Lactate solution in order to stabilize him. Adrián indicated that his father was then extremely weak and close to losing consciousness.
After about two hours of medical care and receiving intravenous solutions, the healthcare staff arranged for his admission to Cardiovascular Therapy, but at that moment there were no beds available.
For that reason, he remained under care in the emergency room of the hospital while waiting for the transfer. According to his son, after observing a slight stabilization of blood pressure and blood sugar levels, as well as an improvement in other parameters, Guillermo personally decided to return home, a decision that Adrián claimed to have respected.
Hours after that episode, and on this Saturday, Del Sol publicly acknowledged the seriousness of the situation and accepted the request of his son and other family members to end the strike.
Del Sol began his hunger strike on June 19 to demand the release of 18 political and conscience prisoners, a protest he also linked to the revocation of the extrapenal license of Leonel Tristá García, a prisoner from the 11J who was readmitted to prison days before.
Of the 18 detainees, only Jonathan David Muir Burgos, 16 years old, was released. The other 17 —including Félix Navarro Rodríguez, Donaida Pérez Paseiro, Saylí Navarro Álvarez, and José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez— remain imprisoned.
The activist suffers from type 2 diabetes, severe hypertension, asthma, heart disease, and a history of thrombosis, conditions that severely exacerbate the effects of a prolonged hunger strike.
His deterioration was progressive: on the verge of 66 days, his blood pressure had already reached 200/130 and his blood glucose level, 3.0 mmol/L. The provincial hospital even refused a new admission, citing a supposed "lack of criteria."
The Cuba Decide platform and the family hold the Cuban authorities directly responsible for anything that may happen: "Guillermo del Sol's life is in serious danger. We hold the Cuban authorities accountable for any irreversible consequences to his life and integrity, and we demand that he receives proper, ongoing medical attention without interference."
This is at least the fourteenth hunger strike that Del Sol has led since the 1990s as a form of political protest against the Cuban regime.
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