“You have to hear every silly thing in this country!” / Cubanet, Orlando Freire Santana

Self-employed watch repairer. “We change every kind of battery” Cuba_archivo
Self-employed watch repairer. “We change every kind of battery” Cuba_archivo

A letter published in the official Granma by one its readers asks the State to limit the prices charged by the self-employed in order to protect “the working people from abusive prices”

cubanet square logoCubanet.org, Orlando Freire Santana, Havana, 27 March 2015 – Notwithstanding the image that the Castro regime strives to present about small, private enterprise, in the sense of having expanded this activity as part of the economic transformations that are taking place on the island, the truth is that the non-state sector of the economy faces more than a few obstacles.

High taxes, lack of a wholesale market where supplies and raw materials can be acquired, the lack of recognition by the authorities of the total costs that private businesses incur, as well as the excess of audits of Sworn Personal Income Statements, among others, are some of the daily hurdles that stand in the way of the self-employed.

Last Friday, March 20, the newspaper Granma published two works that contain “recommendations” that could obstruct or kill self-employment. The first of these, “Money Well Paid?” is a report about the payments by state entities to self-employed workers in the Holguin province. continue reading

The very title of the report – with that question mark included – already allows a glimpse of the distrust of those kinds of transactions, that in the past year reached 36 million pesos. The Holguin authorities insist that state entities must exhaust all options that the providers from the government sector offer when acquiring goods or services. And only lastly to approach the self-employed workers.

The state payments to the self-employed in the referenced territory, with a view to exhaustive control, must pass through a bureaucratic structure that includes the Government Central Auditor Unit, the Commission of Charges and Payments, and the Provincial Administration Council. And by the way, what becomes of the highly vaunted “entrepreneurial autonomy” if the entrepreneurs can barely decide from whom to buy what they need?

The other material featured in Granma is the letter from a reader, “For the excessive desire to obtain greater riches,” in which he complains of the prices charged by the self-employed who entertain children in the Palmira township in Cienfuegos. In addition to that specific situation, the writer of the missive extends his criticism to all the self-employed and says in one paragraph: “I think that the Administration Councils, municipal as well as provincial, must control the prices of the offerings by the self-employed, protecting the working people from abusive prices and giving those people a legal foundation on which to demand their rights.”

It should be emphasized that an opinion of this kind, appearing in an official organ of the Communist Party, cannot be underestimated in any way. So began the attacks against the self-employed who sold home products, to those who were called “retailers.” In the end, that activity was prohibited, and many self-employed who used to hold those licenses lost them and were left unemployed.

When I commented to a café owner in my neighborhood about the Granma reader’s letter, the man reacted indignantly: “Don’t tell me…self-employed prices are abusive…Listen to me, abusive is the tax that I pay, which they have raised on me three times; abusive is that I spend more than 50% of my revenues on buying everything that I need to work, and the people from ONAT [the State tax collector] only recognize 25% as expense; and abusive was the fine that they imposed on me last year, of several thousand pesos, when they deemed that I had under-reported personal income. You have to hear every silly thing in this country!”

About the Author

orlando-freire-santana.thumbnailOrlando Freire. Matanzas, 1959. Graduate in Economics. He has published the book of essays, The Evidence of Our Time, Vitral Prize 2005, and the novel The Blood of Liberty, Franz Kafka Novels From the Drawer Prize, 2008. He also earned Essay and Story prizes from the magazine The Universal Dissident, and the Essay Prize from the magazine New Word.

Translated by MLK

Suspended or Censored? / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

14Ymedio
The members of the Taliban of the Cuban official web Reflejos, offended by the presence of an independent site like 14Ymedio should be celebrating: after a week of putting up with such dangerous neighbors, it withdrew the Yoani Sanchez’s daily from its platform. Authorities have demonstrated their inability to stand the test of freedom of the press.

cubanet square logo Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, MIAMI, Florida, 27 March 2015 — The members of the Taliban of Reflejos, the Cuban government-sponsored website, offended by the presence of an independent site like 14Ymedio should be celebrating. After a week of putting up with such dangerous neighbors, the authorities gave censure the all clear, in virtue of which 14ymedio has been “suspended or mothballed” because, in this era of technology and communications, euphemisms are also updated — it will no longer be able to be viewed on a platform which describes itself as “inclusive”.

Thus, while 14ymedio, the digital newspaper, launched from Cuba and in which several independent journalists on the Island collaborate or are involved, has demonstrated its ability to make use of any possible opening that facilitates access to its pages by Cubans from within Cuba, the authorities have shown their inability to stand the test of freedom of the press and differing opinions, particularly when participants have the moral authority of having experienced, on a daily and firsthand basis, the realities they narrate, report, or comment on. continue reading

We must acknowledge, however, that the kids from “Reflejos” demonstrated, in addition to their “revolutionary intransigence” and their combative ability — taking into account that they are soldiers and spend their existence fighting symbolic battles — exemplary discipline to obediently follow the chain of command, which also brings to the surface their peculiar concept of autonomy and decision-power to manage their own website. And they still call themselves “free”.

Mercenaries at the service of the dictatorship?

Not necessarily. Or not all of them, for there are always useful idiots. It is known that the piñata of official patronage has its gradations, is limited, and extremely fickle. Today they take notice, tomorrow they won’t, as befits a system that has established its existence (not its success, as some claim) on the standardization of mediocrity. That’s the reason fidelity tends to substitute for talent in Cuba, and thinking is not only a heavy burden, but a dangerous pastime.

So let’s not be too hard on the little Talibans. Perhaps the hosts of “Reflections” are only members of a declining sect, worshipers of a regime that soon will leave them very disappointed.

For now, we can imagine the meetings that had to be stirred up at all levels and with “all factors” to analyze what measures would be taken against the counterrevolutionary intruders until the anointed “at the top” gave the censorship order… that is, the “suspension.” The truth is that those who control the dominion could not even decide for themselves, hence 14ymedio survived for a whole week on the official website. It is axiomatic that absence of freedom is so rooted in Cuba that the more loyal you are to the authorities, the harder the authorities enslave you.

But censorship is not only applied against 14ymedio, but also against freedom of access to the same privileged members of the sect who have the ability to establish a blog and a certain level of access to some websites that are tolerated by the government. Who knows if, at this point, some of the more novice and restless slaves, or the lesser bilious readers, might be wondering whether it would be more effective to destroy the internal counterrevolution by allowing Cubans to access our sites, to discover for themselves the lies that the vile “mercenaries” at the service of a foreign power – who inexplicably continue to exercise journalism — are trying to pull the wool over their eyes, most likely with the malicious intent of surrendering the country to imperialism; which is just, more or less, the work that the General-President is involved in with all his might.

Note: Miriam Celaya, a freelance Cuban journalist based in Havana, is visiting Miami.

Translated by Norma Whiting

They Donate Blood for Bread with Ham / Cubanet, Pablo Gonzalez

cubanet square logoCubanet, Pablo Gonzalez, Havana, 20 March 2015 – Each state enterprise has to deliver a quantity of blood donations each month in order to comply with the rule established by the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP). Each clinic has to make one hundred donations per month.

Donor in Cuba, where the sanitary conditions leave much to be desired (photo PG)
Donor in Cuba, where the sanitary conditions leave much to be desired (photo PG)

The pressure that MINSAP and the Committees in Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) put on the clinics makes their workers go out into the streets desperately searching for donors.

Without doing any prior testing they carry out the blood extractions with poor medical instrumentation.

Voluntary blood donation in Cuba, begun in 1962, has grown to reach and exceed the target set by the World Health Organization for one donation for each 20 inhabitants. According to the Granma newspaper, blood donations exceeded what was planned in the last two years.

Donor Yasmany Machado, 27 years of age from Sancti Spiritus in the Fomento Province, commented on this report in Granma on the web page of the daily itself:

“Since 2005 I have been a blood donor more than 20 times for the benefit of others. Now I ask myself the following question: Are donors encouraged by MINSAP and the CDRs? Is it perhaps resolved with a role for the district? Why does MINSAP not worry about the health of the donors?” continue reading

And Yasmany’s commentary continues: “Why is modest help with food not offered to those who donate blood? Saying that the blood bank is poorly supplied (she refers to the bread with ham and cheese and the soda that they give to the donors). It is insufficient most of the time what is given to the donor … When the CDR wants your help and you are due, they visit you so that you go to donate. But no one is able, not the director of health nor the coordinator responsible for the CDRs, to see how you are. Well, to donate and comply yes, but to see what the bank gives to the donor, no… Why don’t they give two pieces of bread in the blood donor’s snack? Because all the protein, most of it, you donate it at that moment… I don’t understand, I will not understand… Signed: A blood donor, totally disappointed with the country’s policy. I am not satisfied…”

Blood bank in Havana
Blood bank in Havana

Most donors, like almost all Cubans, are people who have nothing in their homes for breakfast or they eat a poor breakfast. Sadly, they donate their blood simply in order to eat the bread with ham and cheese, and the soda that they give after each donation.

This phenomenon is understandable. In stores this same bread costs a dollar sixty-five and the can of soda 50 cents. The average Cuban salary being around 20 dollars a month, there are few who can give themselves the luxury of buying bread with ham and cheese for breakfast.

Doctor Luis Enrique Perez Ulloa, chief of the National Blood Program for MINSAP, said that the Cuban blood program is multi-faceted and that in Cuba 340,000 people routinely donate blood.

But a nurse from the “Leonor Perez” clinic-hospital in Boyeros, who preferred anonymity, says:

“We have to do wonders to meet the established standard. We go out to the streets looking for donors. Any person will do to count one more. We tell the workers at the clinics that they have to donate. If they do it we give them the day off as a reward. Always looking for ways to turn them into donors or at least get them to donate once. Many are vagrants, hopeless ones from the streets who easily give their blood without much prodding because of the snack that we give them afterwards, when there is a snack, because often it is lacking.”

There are others who come because they paid them – concludes the nurse – or because they bribed them at some work center.

Soda's and bread and ham for the donors
Soda’s and bread and ham for the donors

Not only do the clinics have to meet a monthly standard for donations. Each state enterprise also must deliver a quantity of donations per month to the local clinic. In order to comply with the standard set, the administrators search for people outside of the workplace. They bribe them with goods gotten from the workplace itself: food, money and even drink. These bought donors present themselves at the clinic posing as employees of the state entity that bribed them.

Enrique Gonzalez, a donor at the same hospital clinic, commented: “I have been a donor for many years, and I am here because my work center sent me. The doctors have told me that I have to continue doing it because if I don’t, my hemoglobin will go up. They give me the day off every time I do it, at work they give me two pounds of chicken per donation, and also I eat the snack that they give after the donation.”

A doctor of the hospital clinic who asked that his name not be revealed said:

“We do not worry much about who the donors are, where they come from or the reasons for which they donate; what is important is that the most people donate to be able to meet the established standard. It is not always met, but we do everything possible.”

There is a black market in blood. For a curettage or any kind of operation, they do not use the blood from the bank; on the contrary, they demand that the patient’s family bring a donation of blood. Donations cost about 20 dollars. And donors always appear for that money.

Voluntary and good faith donations are well-received, but in Cuba most people donate blood for money, for a piece of bread with ham for breakfast.

Translated by MLK

Raul Castro Plays Both Sides / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

raulmadurobama

Maduro states that the Yankees [Americans] will not set one foot on Venezuelan soil, while Raul Castro will roll out the red carpet welcome for them, thus dismissing XXI Century Socialism.  Goodness, Maduro, neither political agreements nor ideologies are worth a dime in matters of capital.

cubanet square logoCubanet, Miriam Celaya, HAVANA, 16 march 2015 — The recent U.S. declaration that Venezuela constitutes a threat to U.S.National Security, as well as the sanctioning of seven employees of that South American country –six of whom are in the military — have offered the tenant of the Palace of Miraflores an ideal opportunity to call a meeting of the National Assembly to request an Enabling Law that will “allow for the defense of the country against any imperialist aggression.” And, of course, he got that law passed, though there has not been any deployment of maneuvers to justify such a call to slaughter. So far, the dreaded imperialistic onslaught has been limited to freezing the assets of the so-called employees “of the people” in U.S. soil and financial institutions (??!!) and forbidding their entry into that country.

Obviously, all indications so far are that some “Venezuelan boots” have trodden on “Yankee” territory, and not continue reading

the opposite. While it is fair to say that the six military and civilian staff members affected by the empire’s alleged belligerence did not come to the US to make war, but to safeguard their personal profits – resulting from privileges granted to them by the government and who knows what other shady deals — while their compatriots grow poorer every day.

Chief Nicolas Maduro’s bleating trumpets have even shaken up the near-death specter at Ground Zero [n.b. Fidel Castro], who, happy for this opportunity – possibly his last — of waging another war of lies against the imperialist foe, has once again come out of his feebleness to congratulate the Joker for his “brilliant and courageous speech against the brutal plans of the U.S. government.”

The Grand Island Madman

It is conceivable that the Grand Island Madman might have already hung a map of Venezuela on the walls of his lair and riddled it with colorful tacks indicating where, according to his (nonexistent) judgement, Marines might land to invade Bolivar’s motherland. And to think that some of his detractors say that Mr. F. has no sense of humor!

Meanwhile, the “revolutionary government” of Cuba issued a statement against the interventionist act of “government authorities and the US Congress” that threatens Latin America and the Caribbean, a “Peaceful Zone”. A message which aims to brand a de jure Latin Americanist position, while Castro II and his cohorts continue with their de facto negotiations with that Giant of the Seven Leagues, which is, after all, the more tangible ace in the olive green deck of cards. The situation is confusing, as it is when one is playing both sides, but if one looks at it carefully, it encompasses a twisted certain twisted logic: rather than “to win” it is about not losing too much of the Latin Americanist pose, without risking too much the profits that are expected from a reconciliation with Uncle Sam.

However, this new North-South escalation, when many Latin American countries are facing very complex internal situations, is a preview of how controversial the approaching America’s Summit meeting will be, where, in addition, a new stage show will take place, since both the Cuban government and the Independent Civil Society are being invited to attend. For the first time, Cuban dissidents will be represented at a hemispheric conclave, a thorn on the side of the dictatorship which – like it or not — it will have to swallow.

The erosion of the system

Everything indicates that the warmongering media hysteria is looking to create an anti-imperialist climate in time for the Summit. The protagonists of the alleged US invasion of Venezuela are, and not by chance, these two aberrations known as revolutions, the Cuban and the Bolivarian. Both would be uncomfortable with an agenda that – among other points — will set out the constant human rights violations in Cuba and Venezuela. The satraps and their lackeys are closing ranks and preparing the trenches for the battle ahead. There is nothing as encouraging to dictatorships and nationalist unpleasant aftertastes as the winds of war. The predictable strategy might well be “Latin America against the Empire and its mercenary allies and traitors.” Or, if necessary, they might even, as a last resource, abstain from attending the meeting, under the pretext of imperialist hostility and impertinence against the sovereignty of our peoples.

So, if Chief Nicolás has launched this warmongering bravado on the advice of the Cuban regime, he had better think twice. After all, while oil in recent times has been plummeting, the dollar has been rising… while Castro II has been negotiating secretly with the common enemy. Sooner or later, Maduro will be left alone in that contest, because, as far as capital is concerned, not even the most rancid nationalists, political agreements or ideologies are held very firmly, though the dogmas taught in the classrooms of the Communist Party High School may preach otherwise.

At this time, the tower of the olive green power — in its funny transmutation to capitalist entrepreneurship — will have tallied their accounts to see who is worth more as a long-term ally, and perhaps their clerks have filed away XXI Century Socialism with the long list of system losses. So, while Maduro states that the Yankees will not take one step on Venezuelan soil, Cuba’s President-General, with more haste than pause, will welcome them by rolling out the red carpet.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Grandfather’s Recipes / Cubanet, Luis Cino Álvarez

361_cocina-china

“The cuisine of the Chinese in Cuba: a Family Recipe Book” goes well beyond what its title indicates, becoming an homage to all families of Chinese descent.

cubanet square logoCubanet, Luis Cino Álvarez, Havana, 13 March 2015 — During the recent Havana International Book Fair, although copies were available for sale, no public presentation was allowed of “The Cuisine of the Chinese in Cuba: A Family Recipe Book” (Editorial Arte y Literatura, Havana, 2014), by Ernesto Pérez Chang. Evidently, this was the punishment for his collaboration with Cubanet that the censors imposed on the writer, who has won various important national literary prizes, including, in 2002, the Julio Cortázar Iberoamerican Short Story Prize.

But it is not of the censors’ mischief that I wish to speak, but of the book.

“The Cuisine of the Chinese in Cuba: A Family Recipe Book” goes well beyond what its title indicates, becoming an homage – not only to Hoeng Chang and Doña Lola, the author’s grandparents – but to all families of Chinese descent who, despite material scarcities, difficulties and prejudice endured, have kept continue reading

alive the traditions of their ancestors.

They are recipes for almost 200 Chinese dishes, patiently compiled by the author, which provide Pérez Chang the unifying theme for this project. In his commentaries on each recipe, he gradually develops a composite history of his grandfather and of some of the more important exponents of Chinese cuisine of that Havana of the first five decades of the 20th century (which seems unimaginable without smelts, Chinese soup, and fried rice).

Many recipes are taken from old books and magazines, transcribed by elders who had been cooks in the old Chinese eateries in Havana, or which the author discovered when he travelled to China in 2010, a trip he does not consider his own, but rather, “the symbolic return of the subject of that photograph that I carried in my pocket.”

However, most of the recipes, and suggestions about proportions of ingredients and variations in preparation methods, come from the notations of his grandmother Lola, jealously preserved and practiced by her family throughout many decades.

As her grandson Pérez Chang tells us in the book, Doña Lola was not Chinese, but rather of French and Spanish ancestry. She was from a well-off family, and caused a major scandal at the time she escaped from her family home to go live with a handsome Chinese man who sold fresh fish door to door and whose name was Hoeng Chang (but who, upon arriving in Cuba from Canton in the 1920s, changed his name to José Chang).

Chang and Doña Lola passed on their love for all things Chinese to their descendants, including the cuisine – although in this regard, it was no small feat for the family to obtain, in Havana, ingredients such as mussels, ginger, celery, tofu, sesame and soy or oyster sauce.

But the effort is worth it, and not only for the palate – but also for the soul and for one’s dreams, which is the most important.

Pérez Chang explains in the preface, “It seemed to us all, to my mother, to my grandmother, and my sisters, that of my grandfather there would be no trace left behind, because he was a simple man, a poor man. But we did not delay in realizing that despite his poverty, he had bequeathed to us a country not only of dreams, nor a kingdom of words, but a place, a dimension of infinite flavors and aromas which we could reach just by turning on the stove and combining the ingredients in the proportions that he had taught us – every dish achieved with his mastery was a kind of return of the grandfather and a consummation of his immortality.”

At times, among the steaming pots, María Elena Chang and her children and grandchildren have thought they have seen Lola and José, the guardian spirits of the home. It is comforting to know that they are always there, that they do not leave the family, under any circumstance.

Author’s email address: luicino2012@gmail.com

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

What if Fidel Were to Survive Raul? / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

cubanet square logoCubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 10 March 2015 — Let’s call him Hermes. Everything he says is said in private. I will not reveal his identity but, given the positions he has held, it is worth listening to what he has to say.

We all know these are confusing times, but imagine how much more confusing they would be if Fidel were to survive Raul. While hard to believe, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. While respectful of nature, for him it is the statistics that are significant.

We have in Havana fifteen thousand people living in provisional housing. In other words people whose homes have partially collapsed and who are more or less living continue reading

in these places as best they can, some for twenty years or more.

We also have some one-hundred fifty thousand people “approved for housing.” In other words people who should be in housing but are not due to a housing shortage. That’s one-hundred fifty thousand people whose roofs could fall in on them even without a downpour.

That’s one-hundred fifty thousand people who hug their loved ones before they go to bed at night as though they were going off to war. One hundred seventy-five thousand people, both in temporary housing and waiting for housing, who — as architect Miguel Coyula pointed out at a conference sponsored by the Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC) — is equal to the population of Matanzas.

Add to this political threat, says Hermes, the fact that Havana — with the exception of Nuevo Vedado — has still not been fixed and is like a wheel about to lose its spokes. Add to this the serious problems of internal plumbing and electrical wiring and carpentry… Replacing a window, just one (and most of them are rotted from termites), costs 100 CUC or more.

These problems are not unique to Havana; they are found throughout all of Cuba. Exactly how this has happened is not clear, but it is worth asking — adds Hermes — if, once Fidel and Raul are gone, will Cubans be willing to continue living and dying under such conditions.

His salary does not allow him to carry out repairs on his house. Nor would a bank be able extend him credit based on that salary, something that might have been possible one-hundred fifty or two hundred years ago. And even if it could, where would the country get the cement and the wood for such a monumental reconstruction effort. We are, therefore, faced with a problem created by socialism but for which socialism has no solution.

That’s the issue, says Hermes. That’s it. In other parts of the world there are the “landless.” Here there are the “roofless,” the ones who need things repaired, the ones who cannot wait to have things repaired. In these dramatic population figures, which encompass more than seventy percent of the country’s housing stock, he sees the inevitability of change, of the transition to democracy. Of course, all of this depends on Raul and Fidel not being around, as he points out.

Raul and Fidel were heroes. They were forged in war. The founded a religion based on it. They started handing out houses, handing out cars, handing out scholarships. For years they were like the Magi. For years they could count on bad American foreign policy decisions and people imagined themselves fighting alongside them. But aside from the legacy of destruction left by the Magi, what will their hand-picked successors and all those like them be able to offer?

Think about it, he suggests. Do the numbers. The path to the future will be based on pragmatism, not ideology. It is a matter of survival. Whoever comes after will not be able to imitate the Chinese. The country has been disappointed with the future that was offered to them a little over half a century ago.

Now the future as we imagnied it is gone. Anything with even whiff of socialism will cause a Cuban to quickly and decidedly go for his proverbial axe. We live in the age of the internet, says Hermes, and if the level of development we have seen in those countries which have left utopian socialist visions behind were not enough, we can now witness in Cuba the financial well-being of those who struck out on their own and began working for themselves.

For all these reasons Hermes is sleeping soundly. His digestion is good and he is laughing at the pessimistic prognostications of today’s soothsayers. He knows, as his numbers indicate, that anyone who did not seem to be political — the average guy who watched his house age without being able to make repairs or who watched it fall down — will be at the forefront of deciding the question of democracy’s future, even in the event that Fidel survives Raul.

The People Speak Very Well of Us / Cubanet, Ernesto Garcia Diaz

cubanet square logoCubanet, Ernesto García Díaz, Havana, 19 February 2015 — On the morning of Saturday, February 14, in the town of Colón, Matanzas, CubaNet visited with Caridad María Burunate Gómez, a member of the Ladies in White.

To learn more about this dissident who is also a member of the clandestine Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy (PDPLB), we asked her in what year she joined the Ladies In White movement.

She replied, “I started in the Ladies in White of Colón in 2005. I was in touch with other Ladies, but here I began as a volunteer with my sister-in-arms, María Teresa Castellano. We went on foot, dressed in white, to the church, and from the parish to my home. I belonged to the PDPLB, which is presided over by my compatriot Feliz Navarro Rodríguez, who supported us and they are our protectors every continue reading

time we march on Sundays.”

CubaNet:  How did the Ladies in White movement in Colón grow?

Burunate:  Well, a group of women opponents from the municipalities of Los Arabos, Perico, Calimete and Jovellanos, who were also Ladies in White, began to join us. We were more than a dozen and we have continued going out every Sunday. We walk two-by-two in silence. We are organized, in spite of the pressure we receive from State Security.

CubaNet:  What do your PDPLB compatriots do?

Burunate:   What can I tell you, they provide an important escort, to protect us from being beaten. About 20 of them would come out when we were being heavily repressed — now there are fewer of them, because the repression has let up. During the phase in which State Security would surround my house, (the PDPLB members) would come from Perico, Jovellanos and Los Arabos — many would even be there already by Friday — and they would join us in the street. It was a way to avoid us being detained. The bond among us is great.

We have been beaten very much. Ivan Hernández Carrillo, Félix Navarro Rodríguez, Francisco Rangel, they were all beaten. Senén was knocked out with a two-by-four, I was slapped, my sister got a huge bruise in the stomach. One official known as Col. Joaquín of Section 21 ransacked my house. Lázaro Díaz was beaten on the head so hard the blood was gushing out. They would be taken to other provinces and dropped off, with no concern for the safety for their lives.

CubaNet:  Do you enjoy the support of the people?

Caridad María Burunate Gómez, Lady in White (Internet photo)

 

Burunate:  The people speak very well of us. When we were the targets of repudiation rallies, we would be beaten, and the people did not approve of this. Folks know that we do not interfere with anyone, we do not scream orders, we walk silently, with a flower in our hand, and our silence seems to resound with a great voice that proclaims, “Freedom for political prisoners and freedom for Cuba.”

CubaNet:  2014 was a year of much repression against your group. How is that situation now?

Burunate:  They threw eggs at us, they tarred our houses, they used prisoners to fling pig excrement at us, they would call us mercenaries, worms, but we were able to discredit various local government leaders as corrupt.

It was the townspeople themselves who would tell us who was corrupt. We began to report on Bequer; on Dignora Senea Sotolongo who is president of the local government, who made shady deals on some houses, who receives monies from abroad while proclaiming “Fatherland or Death.” The acts of repudiation began to diminish. Now they only watch us.

CubaNet:  How has State Security behaved since the December 17 announcement?

Burunate:   The State Security officers Orlando Figueroa, Ravelo and Irbis, have told us that they will not interfere with us anymore, that we should go out in a group, not two-by-two in line. But we did not accept this. On Sunday, December 21, they took us to the police station, but on subsequent Sundays they have not bothered us again.

Our profile has not diminished, while that of Security has been restructured: now they make their attacks individually.

CubaNet:  What do you hope from the reestablishment of relations between the governments of the United States and Cuba?

Burunate:  I don’t hope for anything from the Cuban government. This government is a dictatorship, they will not democratize the country, they do not want the opponents to be legalized, they do not want to recognize the opposition.

They say we do not have a platform — well, of course not, they deny us the right to have one. They say we are mercenaries, that we do not have convening power, nor a project — a plan — for the people; well, no, being that when we go out, they follow us, they apprehend us, they do not let us do anything. They are blackmailers.

The Ladies in White of Colón, Matanzas (Internet photo)

 

Let them allow us to move freely, let them legalize us — then this government of the few who claim to speak for the many will not last a moment. The people themselves will throw them out.

—————–

Felipe Marrero Manes, known as “Merejo,” is Caridad Maria’s husband. He says, “I have supported my wife in everything. We have been married for 26 years. Our daughters Yelena and Yisable have grown up being harassed and pushed around by State Security. The older one was detained and beaten. The regime cut short their academic progress. A (Masonic) lodge brother of mine warned me that we should take care of our daughters, that they would not be able to go to school. It is love that nourishes our marriage and keeps us strong for the fight.”

Finally, CubaNet asked Caridad Maria, “Do you want to communicate any message to those who might read this interview in and outside of Cuba”?

Burunate:  “I say that we will keep on fighting, marching every Sunday. We should unite and leave aside any disagreements. We must work with the people. A love-driven cause will triumph. Here, we work with the people.”

Author’s email address:  ernestogardiaz@gmail.com

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Spanish post
20 February 2015

Having a Boat in Cuba / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

Although boat owners mostly fish, getting a boat is not as hard as people imagine.

cubanet square logoCubanet, Anddy Sierra Alvarez, Havana, 2 February 2015 — Any Cuban can have a boat in Cuba. You just have to be authorized by the appropriate authorities. Here is the detail Those who are interested in buying a boat are investigated. If they are authorized, all that’s missing is pure bureaucracy to become owners.

Miguel E. Gil, 52, fisherman and owner of a boat, said he never faced obstacles to buying it. “I just had to wait for the Cuban Vessel Register to authorize me, the rest is like buying a car,” he said.

But there are always some who are rejected, and this was the case for Mendoza, 30, who comments, “My request was denied, I was surprised because I’ve seen people with bad criminal records and I just I had continue reading

a traffic accident. Like my friends say, I have bad luck.”

The price of a 12 horsepower boat (the most common) varies between five and nine thousand dollars, according to its characteristics.

“A Chernera model, fiberglass with Japanese Yanmal 12 horsepower engine costs $8,000, equivalent to 32 years of work by a Cuban with average wage,” said Ernesto Aguirre, 55, a fisherman.

Having a boat carries costs

An owner of a boat answers to the Ministry of Fisheries, Cuban Registry of Ships, Captain of the Port, Coast Guard, Fish Inspection and Ministry of Transportation.

Therefore, he will pay a tax of 75 pesos per year to the Registry, and a tax of 150 pesos to the National Tax Office (ONAT), for having a 12 horsepower boat, the tax is increased if the boat has more horsepower.

“I pay 150 pesos to the ONAT because of the characteristics of my boat. For having a fishing license I pay 60 pesos, 20 pesos per place (the number of people who I can carry in the boat), the professional fishing license costs 100 pesos. It allows you longline fishing. All that is annually,” said Michael E. Gil.

Navigation has its limits

By day, the authorities allow the boat to be up to 7 miles from shore, at night 3 miles.

“Not only is it limited to seven miles in the day and 3 miles at night, but you can’t be less than 50 yards from the shore, for fear of hurting a swimmer or to be planning an illegal exit from the country,” he said Alain Soto, 39, fisherman.

Although not controlled by GPS, if you are found more than seven miles out they will impose a fine.

“Before they would sanction you to one to three months without sailing, but now they impose a fine exceeding one thousand dollars,” said Gilberto Segura, 58, owner of a boat.

Maintenance, the safety of the ship and the fuel are borne by the owner

“Yes, everything comes out of our pockets, many of us have a contract with the Acuabana company that buys the fish supplies us with fuel, according to an agreement, which should be systematic,” said Michael E. Gil.

Although boat owners fully engaged in fishing, getting a boat is not as difficult as people imagine. There is a filter that will or won’t authorize you to be an owner, but from that moment you have to maintain it yourself, even though you have a contract with Acuabana.

2 February 2015

Family Code: Socialism’s Straight Jacket / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

Mom with young "Pioneer"
Mom with young “Pioneer”

The newspaper Granma insists that “it’s a code for the rights of women”. But in 1919,  as many women proportionally graduated from the University of Havana as graduated from universities in the U.S. And with the Revolution, Cuban women are forced to raise their children under the mores of socialism, with the slogan “We will become like Che.”

cubanet square logoCubanet, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 28 February 2015 — In an extensive full-page article published on February 14th, the newspaper Granma (“Un Código de Amor para la Familia“), is full of praise for the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Family Code, which – in the words of Dr. Olga Mesa Castillo, president of the Cuban Civil Rights Society and of the Family of the National Syndicate of Attorneys, and faculty professor of and consultant to the Faculty of Law of the University of Havana — “is a code about the love and the rights of women.”

Paradoxically, not even the most politically correct academic discourse of a second-hand law officer can hide certain flaws that reveal the passive role of Cuban women since, with the arrival of F. Castro to power, their autonomy was appropriated and, along with it, their ability to freely associate to defend their gender interests, issues relating to the family, the right to choose their children’s education, etc. In fact, it can be argued that the Revolution of 1959 put to rest even the last vestiges of the Cuban feminist movement continue reading

.

That explains why, when Dr. Mesa refers to “those who conceived and were involved in [the code’s] drafting,” she mentioned ten people’s names and only one of them was a woman, which means that the Family Code, which “enabled Cuban women to fly” was – just like the Revolution itself and all of its laws — essentially conceived and drafted by men, though by then 16 long years had elapsed under a system of supposed gender equality.

Nevertheless, we must be aware that this law, de jure, benefited the interests of minor children born in or outside marriage, it favored the allowing of divorce, and constituted a guarantee for families based on informal (or consensual) marriages, and for the right of children born from those unions. Another question would be to determine how effective the law has been in practice, if it has been applied extensively, and how the subject of civil law would be justified at a preset ideology, when sanctioning the obligation to establish a family and raise children “according to socialist standards.”

Cleaning up history

So, beyond the official vice of collecting calendar anniversaries for whatever reason, the issue moves us to question and to calling to mind, not just because of the usual compliments to justice and female equity, achieved thanks to the Revolution, or because of the monumental tackiness of adopting the law on Valentine’s day, but for the perversity of intentionally misrepresenting the role of women in Cuban history, omitting the unquestionable legal gains made by the women’s movement during the Republican period.

An in-depth historical analysis of the role of women since the Cuban wars for independence in the nineteenth-century would be extensive, but it is essential to recall the Republican period because it was then that the foundations of legal conquests were seated, from a women’s movement that — while not claiming the participation of women in politics, as was happening in developed countries, such as the US — at least was struggling for a larger share, employment opportunities, and social protection connected with maternity and family.

Thus, as early as 1914, discussions began about the relevance to legislating divorce. In 1916, a legal bill was presented guaranteeing married women self-management of their assets – managed by their husbands, fathers or guardians until then – which was approved in May, 1918. That same year the divorce bill was passed.

As for educational and cultural strides, by 1919 Cuban women had reached the same level of literacy as men and in the decade of the ‘20s proportionately as many women graduated from the Cuban University as did from American universities. [1]

Between 1923 and 1940, Cuban feminist groups influenced the political forces in support of legislation for women’s rights and founded several associations and media publications to defend women’s interests. There were also women’s associations that promoted class actions, such as the Women’s Labor Union, an organization that placed the issue of working class women ahead of women’s suffrage rights. [2]

At the same time, there was an increase in women’s activism aimed at influencing legislative decisions, partnerships were established with various influential political and economic groups – entirely controlled by men — there were street demonstrations, ideas about women’s rights were published in newspapers and the radio, obstetric clinics were built, night schools for women were organized, women’s health programs were developed and contacts with feminist groups abroad were established. [3]

It is true that women just took part in legislative debates, but the demonstrations organized by activists and the first feminist groups of the time were instrumental in modifying civil and property rights that changed the rules of property management — a distinctly masculine role until then — and along with them, of women within the family, thus taking a significant step forward for women’s rights compared to other countries in the region over the same period.

New laws favored citizenship status of women, establishing their autonomy and rights, which proved a decisive factor for the development of women’s movements in the following years.

In 1923, with the participation of 31 associations, the first women’s national congress was held; the second one in 1925, saw the participation of 71 associations.
In 1933, a strong feminine campaign claimed the right to vote (which had been proposed by Ana Betancourt since the previous century), which was formally acknowledged in the

Interim Constitution of 1934

In 1939, the Third National Congress of Women was held, whose final resolutions demanded “a constitutional guarantee for women’s equal rights,” a demand which was discussed in the Constituent Assembly and finally recognized in Article 97 of the 1940 Constitution: “Universal, equal, and secret suffrage is established for all Cuban citizens as their right, duty, and function.” [4]

Thus, in spite of the traditionalist nature of the feminist movement in Cuba, of the shortage of legal mechanisms and limitations of our ancestral culture and idiosyncrasies, Cuban women could vote and be legally elected to public office even before many suffragists in more developed countries.

To summarize, important legal strides were attained during the Republic, as important as the right to vote, full capacity to make decisions about property, the paid maternity law (though that did not include domestic or agricultural workers), recognition of the rights of “illegitimate” children and a gradual increase in protection of the rights of women workers. In fact, those gains during the Republican era were influential in a notable increase in the incorporation of women into paid jobs, especially in urban areas, a process that was becoming stronger in the years before the arrival of the Castro regime.

Two readings of the same Code

Now the official press and its cohorts of useful shysters, in the style of Dr. Olga Mesa, aim to score for “the Revolution” of 1959 what were legal conquests of Cubans many decades before. While it is true that those female fighters of the Republic did not free themselves of patriarchal subjection – cultural patrimony that even today has not been totally overcome — or participate actively in national politics, they launched a new feminine social model and created favorable conditions to advance to higher levels of emancipation, compared to many countries in the world.

In the years following 1959, the ideology that hijacked the power quickly appropriated all spheres of socio-economic and political life of the nation, including domestic areas. Thus, the full potential and aspirations of feminine equality became subordinate to the service of regime.

The rich tradition of the struggle of Cuban women was finally limited to “a present” on Valentine’s Day of this outdated and anachronistic law called “Family Code,” mechanically repeated in every marriage ceremony… as long as the ceremony takes place between Cubans.

I was able to evidence this these last few days, when I had the opportunity to attend the wedding in Cuba of a young Cuban woman, residing abroad for more than a decade, and her Spanish boyfriend. So, here is where “the Family Code” which — microphone in hand — was read by the celebrant before the spouses and guests, had been mutilated in its essence: the legal imposition of “educating children on the principles of socialist morality.” Since this was the case of spouses who do not reside in Cuba, they were released from such a legal aberration.

As an additional detail, there was no Cuban flag or Cuban coat or arms presiding over the ceremony. Perhaps what happens in these cases is that the services are paid for in foreign currency, and we already know that socialism takes a step back in the face of capital. Or perhaps it is just that, in family matters, capitalism really is “clueless.”

[1] K. LYNN STONER. De la casa a la calle, p. 184
[2] CASTELLANOS, DIMAS CECILIO. Desentrañando claves (inédito), Havana, 2011
[3] CASTELLANOS, DIMAS CECILIO. Desentrañando claves (inédito), Havana, 2011
[4] PICHARDO, HORTENSIA. Documentos para la historia de Cuba. Volume IV, Part 2, p.349

Translated by Norma Whiting

An Ethical Path for Civil Society / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

Meeting of Cuban Civil Society Open Forum (Photo: Luz Escobar)
Meeting of Cuban Civil Society Open Forum (Photo: Luz Escobar)

cubanet square logoCubanet, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 25 February 2015 — This Wednesday, February 25th, 2015, a new meeting of the members Espacio Abierto [Cuban Civil Society Open Forum] of the independent civil society took place with a broad representation of members of various pro-democracy projects throughout the Island, as well as independent journalists. A total of 25 participants took part in the symposium, where, in addition, views on issues of interest to the Cuban reality were exchanged.

On this occasion, among the most important points of the discussion adopted by full consensus was the document “An ethical roadway for Cuban civil society” which — as its name suggests — provides a guide for the basic principles governing the conclave, and a Motion of Solidarity with civil society and the Venezuelan opposition at a time when the repression tends to flare up with a statement that emphasizes leaders like Leopoldo López, who recently served a year in prison; Maria Corina Machado, a former deputy who was attacked continue reading

and removed from office by the Chavista authoritarianism; and the Mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, elected at the polls by popular will, violently arrested in recent days by the repressive forces of the government of that nation.

Whereas the document adopted at the conclave should be made known to the public, especially Cubans from all shores, its contents are reproduced here in their entirety:

An Ethical Path for Cuban Civil Society

As part of the independent Cuban civil society, we believe that every moral choice is a strictly non-transferable decision, absent from all imposition. We also recognize that, because of its relational character, citizens seek to socialize and get incorporated into communities that have received an established humus solidified with values and virtues known as community ethos, whether family, group, national or international. By agreeing to an ethical path, we reject a dogmatic moral, prohibitive in itself, of frivolity and debauchery. We opt for dialogical ethics against an authoritarian moral, ethics that intrinsically link freedom and responsibility. We propose to educate ourselves to assume, in our principles and in our attitudes, the following ethical path, rooted in the best of our Cuban heritage:

  1. We acknowledge that a human being is the central character of his own story. Thus, the person must be the beginning, the middle and the end of any institution or historical process. Human beings are not the means, nor can they be an object in the hands of others, therefore they should not be manipulated for scientific, social, political or economic experiments.We believe that all human beings are equal before the law and diverse in their abilities and personal choices.
  2. We must encourage consistency between what we believe, what we say and what we do. Any personal, civic and political engagement must be inextricably supported by ethical behavior without which all individual or community action loses value and meaning.
  3. Cuba, that is, the nation known as the community of all its citizens on the Island and in the Diaspora, its wellbeing, its freedom, its progress and common good, is the inspiration and the end of all civic and political action, banishing spurious interests.We consider that the meaning and purpose of our ethical commitment to Cuba is to build a peaceful, fruitful and prosperous coexistence in our country, rather than a simple coexistence with those who are different or adversarial.
  4. We opt for peaceful methods and for seeking nonviolent solutions to both national and international conflicts and our interpersonal relationships. We opt for the absolute respect for human life and declare ourselves against all violence and the death penalty.
  5. The discrepancy of opinions and political debate should leave no room for personal or group attacks, insults or denigrating exclusions, or defamation.
  6. We believe that property, knowledge, and power are to serve and that without agile and honest institutions there is no possible governance. We believe that without civil sovereignty there is no progress, articulation, or primacy of the governance of civil society as a valid participant. Corruption, lies and excessive material interest are the main enemies of civility in the world today, so, as part of the independent Cuban civil society, we reject these evils and opt for transparency, favor truth and the primacy of spiritual values.
  7. We seek a modicum of ethics agreed to through a consensus building process. We differentiate the processes of dialogue and negotiation. Therefore, we believe that an ethical minimum must surface from a dialogue leading to consensus agreements, while specific covenants should surface from negotiations, which must be observed and followed by the parties.
  8. A civic ethic of minimums agreed to by consensus is an achievement of pluralist humanity. Its basis is the full and utmost dignity of the human person, achieved through acknowledgment, education and defense of all rights for everyone, proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights resolved by the U.N. in 1948, which we fully embrace as our inspiration and ethics program.
  9. We adhere to the three fundamental values summarized by the best aspirations of humanity: freedom, equality, fraternity and their corresponding rights. First generation rights extol the value of freedom, they are civil and political rights. Second generation rights commend the value of equality, they are economic, social and cultural rights. Third generation rights endorse the value of universal brotherhood as ecological rights for a healthy environmental balance and the right to a peaceful world.
  10. Consequently, we wish to opt for inclusion and democratic participation; moral authority, not authoritarianism; proposals, not prescriptions; what ideas are expressed, rather than who speaks them; programs and not just leaders. Unity in diversity, not uniformity. Rational convictions, not fanaticism. The decriminalization of differences, not intolerance. Decentralization and subsidiarity should replace centralism and totalitarianism. Ethics must take precedence over technique and science. Commitment must win over indifference. We opt for the ethics of politics and economics, of national coexistence and of international relations.
  11. This ethical commitment should translate into attitudes and proactive actions to heal the anthropological damage and overcome civic and political illiteracy with the systematic labor of citizen empowerment. Since we reject any moral imposition, we believe that education is the only valid way. So we direct our efforts towards an education liberating of ourselves and of all alienation, in order to be able to contribute to the ethical and civic education of all Cuban people, inspired by Human Rights and their corresponding Civic Duties.
  12. Civic and political activists or intellectuals should not be society’s moralizers. Being chosen to represent does not confer moral authority, but political commitment, subject to scrutiny and public willpower. We believe in representation as a service to society. This representation must be the product of popular choice, limited by time and succession.  Civic ethics is forged by each person, and it is the community’s responsibility to establish, educate, promote and safeguard the humus of the ethics of the nation open to the world, based on the great values of truth and freedom, justice and love.

By adopting this ethical pathway, we want to identify its roots in the ethics of our founding fathers. The teaching of the Apostle José Martí reminds us that: “For love we see, with love we see, it is love that sees.” We believe in civic friendship and in the reconciliation where that righteousness should flow, which Maestro José de la Luz y Caballero called the “sun of the moral world.” Finally, we share Father Félix Varela’s philosophy that taught us that “There is no Motherland without virtue or virtue without piety”.

162nd anniversary of the death of Father Félix Varela

Translated by Norma Whiting

Salaries for Doctors on the Island Will Increase / Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones

cubanet square logoCubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones, Guantanamo, 16 February 2015 — A rumor is keeping  the medical sector in Guantanamo euphoric, and it provokes immediate outbursts of joy in hospital corridors, in homes and in every place the supposedly good news is known. No one knows the origin of the rumor nor its hidden intent.

According to those who are in charge of spreading it, very soon the government will increase the salary for doctors. And, as happens with every rumor, there are always those who know everything about it and affirm that the new increase will be put into force to try to contain the exodus of physicians abroad by way of continue reading

 a 30-day exit permit, a type of safe conduct that helps them flee.

These experts assure that the new increase will raise physicians’ salaries to 5,000 pesos per month (200 dollars), an astronomical pay in Cuba, but that they’ll only receive it if they agree to sign a document saying they will remain in the country for five or ten years without asking for the exit permit.

However, a few days after the rumor appeared, the voices of others begin to be heard. They speak clearly, affirming that not even with this increase, which would place the doctors in the vanguard of the Castro Communist labor aristocracy — now made up of Party and governmental bureaucracy along with the sportsmen of high performance and the high officials of the armed forces and the Ministry of the Interior — would they be able to contain the massive exodus of these professionals abroad. Above all to Ecuador, a country that doesn’t request visas and where there already exists a developing but prosperous Cuban medical community that has taken care of communicating to its colleagues on the Island the high lifestyle that is rapidly achieved in the land of Eloy Alfaro.

Because 5,000 Cuban pesos are around 200 dollars, a sum very inferior to what any Cuban doctor could earn abroad.

Between the well-being within reach and the promises of a prosperous and sustainable socialism, which no one knows when it will arrive nor if also there is another rumor or a new feverish chimera of the Cuban leaders, you don’t have to rack your brains to decide. Stupid people are more scarce every day, and the ideological teque* has been in intensive care for some time.

I don’t know what the government will do to stop this flight of doctors, which has a direct effect on one of its most trumpeted social accomplishments — currently in a very precarious state, among other things because of the lack of specialists — and on the export of health services, which is perhaps, together with tourism, the most lucrative activity of the Cuban economy at this time.

In case the rumor becomes a certainty, let’s see what happens with the other professionals, because the flight of qualified personnel is not limited to the medical sector. Pandora’s Box is open, and the government doesn’t give any signs that will let us believe it is possible to close it and, above all, to convince us.

*Translator’s note: “Teque” is literally a spinning top, and is used in Cuba to mean old, worn out, political harangues.

Translated by Regina Anavy

“It Is State Policy To Misinform People” / Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones

Leinier Cruz Salfran (photo by the author)
Leinier Cruz Salfran (photo by the author)

cubanet square logoCubanet.org, Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces, Havana, 13 February 2015 — Raul Castro’s government, in spite of rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, continues the work of keeping people from freely accessing the internet.

On Monday, January 19 Cubanet published a report about the detention of the young Guantanemero Leinier Cruz Salfran on Saturday, January 17 by State Security agents. The reason? Leinier was gathering together a group of young people outside of the Hotel Marti, connecting through his laptop to the building’s WiFi and sharing the Internet with the others present who had also brought their portable computers to the location.

We contacted the young man who agreed to grant us this interview:

Q: Leinier, why did State Security detain you?

Because according to them I was committing a crime of Illicit Economic Activity.

Q: What did you do?

I shared the use of the Internet with other people through Hotel Marti’s wifi continue reading

connection.

Q: How many users came to connect to the Internet at the same time because of your initiative?

There was no fixed number, there were days when more than fifty people connected on the ground floor of the Hotel Marti which was generally where I was connected.

Q: What was the typical connection speed when everyone was connected at the same time?

The Hotel Marti has a bandwidth of 6 mbps (megabits per second) which equates to a download speed of 600 kb per second. The speed was sufficient for chatting, participating in a video conference or carrying out an audio session on Facebook. The speed was acceptable.

Later the hotel managers applied a speed limit of 2 mbps for each direct client. Only three people could connect directly to the hotel without interference. If another person connected the speed was divided among the four.

In the end, I had to tell the users that they could not do video conferences because now the bandwidth was insufficient for everyone. Everything was limited to opening pages, downloading email and voice sessions.

Q: How would you rate the internet connection opportunities that exist today in the city of Guantanamo?

There are very few internet access points, just two Internet rooms with 10 computers for a city of more than 150,000 residents. Furthermore, now the Hotel Marti denies Internet access to Cubans, who now cannot even pay a dollar to go up to the terrace which is where they have placed the wifi access.

Also, in the Hotel Guantanamo, the equipment for the point of access used to be in the lobby and now they put it on the second floor and even removed the antennas, which they only put up between 4 and 8 pm. Whoever wants to access the internet has to pay one dollar per hour. This part a decision by the government itself.

Q: The police accuse you of supposed illicit economic activity. Did you charge for sharing Internet access or did you share the cost of the connection with your friends?

I never charged because I knew they were following me. After I started sharing the connection I knew that I had become a dangerous enemy for the authorities and I knew that at some point I was going to confront them face to face, obviously on their terms, so I just shared the cost of the connection.

Q: Is there a law in Cuba that prohibits sharing the connection cost among several users?

I don’t know. During the interrogations they spoke to me of a crime called Violation of Contractual Services, something like that, in which the crime of violating a contract incurs a penalty of up to three years incarceration. Apparently they were convinced there was no evidence of any illicit economic activity, however, they emphasized that I violated the contract with ETECSA (Telecommunications Enterprise of Cuba) by using the Nauta (Internet) service, but in my opinion they did not want to go to the extreme of sentencing me.

Q: Did they return your laptop, flash drives and camera that they took during the search of your home?

No, they still have not told me what they will do with them. They took them from me and have left me disarmed because I am a programmer.

Q: Do you plan to do it again?

No, no I cannot trip on the same rock, it would be stupid if I did that. I think I have to focus my efforts on other artists, other projects that I have in mind until I find a person with strength and the chance of helping me carry them out.

Q: Why do you think they authorities hinder cheap Internet access for young Cubans?

I believe that it is the policy of the State to maintain massive disinformation for the Cuban population, and that is demonstrated by the fact that this government has never permitted free access to information. Here we have no chance of getting computers, mobile devices, access to satellite TV, the Internet, there are no satellite phone connections or access to information technology. What they have done to me proves it.

Q: What is your current legal situation?

Apparently I am not going to have a trial. They told the mother of my daughter who communicates with me to go to the Operations Unit to process the application of a fine, God knows for how many pesos, but I have decided not to go until such time as they communicate it to me as the law provides, through a document. The same way that they came with a search warrant the very day that they arrested me in front of my neighbors as if I were a delinquent and arrested me, that’s how they must do it for me to go there.

(We went to the Hotel Marti, the place where Leinier carried out his supposed derelict activity for which he was arrested. This reporter tried on three occasions to speak with the hotel manager, leaving his address and telephone number with a note in which we expressed that our intention was to bring to her attention what Cubanet published so that she could offer her viewpoint. In spite of our efforts, the lady did not agree to an interview.)

About the author

Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces

Born in the city of Cienfuegos September 20, 1957. He is a law graduate. In 1999 he was sentenced unfairly and illegally to eight years incarceration and since then has been prohibited from practicing as a lawyer. He has published poetry collections “The Flight of the Deer” (1995, Editorial Oriente), “Written from Jail” (2001, Ediciones Vitral), “The Sheepfolds of Dawn” (2008, Editorial Oriente), and “The Water of Life” (2008, Editorial El Mar y La Montana). He won the Stained Glass Grand Prize for Poetry in 2001 with his book “Written from Jail” as well as Special Mention and Special Recognition from the Nosside International Poetry Competition in 2006 and 2008, respectively. His poems appear in the 1994 UNEAC Anthology, in the 2006 Nosside Competition Anthology, and in décimas selections “This Jail of Pure Air” by Waldo Gonzalez in 2009.

Translated by MLK

Steak: Prohibited for Ordinary Cubans / Polina Martinez Shvietsova

cubanet square logoHAVANA, Cuba, 10 September 2103, Polina Martinez Shvietsova, www.cubanet.org –If you sell tenderloin or minute steak from your doorway, Caution! You could put yourself behind bars. Before 1959 it wasn’t like this. The country possessed a livestock of around six million head of cattle, the same number as the Cuban population, there was one cow per person. Cuba was a great producer of sugar cane, which, among other benefits, represented the feed base for our livestock in the Republic. continue reading

The products derived from this bovine multitude were for the daily consumption of the people.  Beef was not lacking in the butcher’s shops, plazas and stores on sale for different prices.  If a rich man ate fillet steak, the poor skirt steak — from there came la Ropa Vieja — beef was attainable for any pocketbook. A portion of this meat was destined for export and industries of processing and preserving. Also the skin of cattle was used in the making of shoes such as the well-known brands “Ingelmo” and “Amadeo.”

In the early sixties, the nationalizing interventions took place in Cuba.  The hardest hit businesses were the American owned, including the livestock businesses in the east of the country.  Then the humble man of the countryside was integrated into the defense “of the country.”  Thus abandoning the agricultural work and development of livestock herds.

Some peasants continued cultivating and trying to survive, despite the nationalizations of small farmers, because the “benevolent revolutionary state” had given, and then taken away, some twenty caballerías (a Cuban land measure) were expropriated from the great landowners and their proprietors by inheritance.

The peasants of the Escambray — in the east — were forcibly removed from their lands and exiled to new urban communities in the distant province of Pinar del Rio in the far west. They formed the Centers for Agricultural and Livestock Teaching and Polytechnic Institutes. They organized large dairies, such as that of Jimaguayu, in the province of Camaguey, and “El Valle de Picadura” in Matanzas.  But everything was slowly abandoned to inertia and official disinterest, until it was left in ruins.

In centers for bovine development, feed for the livestock came, by and large, from Soviet subsidies. Our darling cows were fed with grains like peas, sorghum, corn and some agricultural by products from sugar cane. Nevertheless, after the abundance and excessive squandering suddenly appeared diversion and robbery of resources.

Nearly twenty years after the end of Soviet subsidies, the lack of beef for the populace remains as dramatic as in the old times of “economic bonanza.”  Only a few Cubans are able to perform balancing acts and taste it even once a year.  Even in the large markets which sell in CUC, the lack of beef and its derivatives is notable.  For the greater part of half a century, steak has been a prohibited dream for the humble person in Cuba.

From Cubanet

10 September 2013

The Communist Party in the New Cuba / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

“There is only one option: Fatherland, Revolution, and Socialism”
“There is only one option: Fatherland, Revolution, and Socialism”

cubanet square logoCubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 13 January 2015 — Following the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, Havana has become a cauldron of ideas about how we could have elections by secret and direct ballot – an exciting thing to contemplate. Many here see it happening right around the corner, maybe within a few years, three at the most. Others completely deny it. They speak – not in favor, but they do speak – of the Chinese method as the successor to Raul Castro socialism.

Would the Communist Party participate in such elections? This is one of the topics for debate. Some would prefer not to even hear of this. Others – myself included – believe that it would be impossible to exclude the Party: because we are democrats, because otherwise the elections would be invalid, and because, still, the Communist Party holds the reins of power.

However, upon the new government’s establishment, there would be a movement to seize and recover all of the Party’s properties. All. That means, guest houses continue reading

, workplaces, office furniture and equipment, yachts, recreational facilities, means of transportation, bank accounts, etc. The idea would be to start over, on a level playing field, with the other political parties in existence then. And if by means of the Constituent Assembly this recovery could take place prior to the elections, even better – more democratic.

The consensus appears to be unanimous to prevent the current leaders from occupying public positions in the new government. Well, now, would these personages, civilian or military, have the right to run for office? There is no agreement about this, but based on what I have been able to detect from conversations on the street, the public for the most part does not see a reason to oppose this.

There is even talk of a Senator Mariela Castro and a Mayor Eusebio Leal. I do not doubt that they would win. With the appropriate official support, of course, Ms. Mariela Castro Espín has done commendable work—work that in no way diminishes the historical responsibility of her relatives in creating the tragic UMAPs—and this work has gained her a place in the social struggles of her country.

For his part, Eusebio Leal – “St. Eusebio,” as some call him — has shown how much can be done, even without plenipotentiary powers, for a city. Understandably, one hears talk of forgetting the air-kisses which the Maximum Leader, during his speeches, would covertly or overtly blow to Leal. That was, they say, the price the saint had to pay – but thanks to him, they also say – Old Havana exists today. Therefore, generally speaking, the future “dream” electorate of Havana exists because of Eusebio. And because of Mariela.

Well, now, what of the non-recycled candidates, i.e. the new blood, the candidates of the democracy? There lies the great unknown of the moment, the question without an answer among those who already see themselves before the ballot boxes, flags flapping away in the city covered in leaflets and palm leaves. Because they have had no place in the public life of the country, the dissident leaders are not known by the public. The government has never mentioned them – not during their almost-daily detentions, nor upon their releases. Prematurely aged as they enter and leave the jails, and well-known abroad; but in their own country the dissidents are no more, at most, than names heard in passing.

But, fine – it is said – the candidates will appear, the important thing is that elections are around the corner. In the organizing process of the parties, the fighters of old and the new ones, the ones yet to appear, will be known. Upon uttering these words the future elector is seen to sigh and assume an expression of, “Finally! At last! We will have a President and Congress that emanate from the will of the people.”

It is a joy not without its worries. Will free education and hospital care disappear with a democratic government? Here starts the guessing once again. Will the house one lives in have to be returned to its former owner? What about the plot of land granted by the government? As the Russians did, will the current rulers retain the enterprises created by the socialist State?

All of this is fodder for discussions on the street corners, but the joy is so great at even talking about democracy that the conversation veers again towards elections and the media that will facilitate them: radio, TV, the printing of leaflets, etc.

Nevertheless, those who had already been planning to leave the country are still packing their suitcases. And, those who claim to know very well that what is really coming is the Chinese method, sorrowfully spit through their fangs. Raúl and his generals are uninterested in hearing talk about these things, they say. Elections?? And they point to the recent events concerning the artist, Tania Bruguera.

Ultimately, whether these killjoys are right or not, Hope has come knocking, and it is impossible not to let her in.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

The opponent Antonio Rodiles is not allowed to leave Cuba / Cubanet

RodilesCubanet, 13 January 2015 – The director of the opposition group Estado de SATS, Antonio G. Rodiles, reported Tuesday that the regime has refused to allow him to leave the country, as stated in his account on the social network Twitter.

cubanet square logoThe opponent was arrested the day of Tania Bruguera’s performance, with his wife, Ailer Gonzalez, whose passport was also withdrawn. Bruguera, currently in Havana, has also been denied permission to leave the country.

Cubanet spoke with Rodiles by telephone. He told how he had gone to the office of the Ministry of the Interior where passports are processed to renew his passport (the Cuban passport is valid for six years, but must be “renewed” every two to maintain its “validity”) and the official attending him, after searching for his name on the computer, simply informed him that his passport could not be renewed and, consequently, he could not travel abroad “for reasons of public interest.”

Days earlier, during the arrests that Rodiles and his wife, the artist Ailer González, were subjected to during the performance that Bruguera attempted in the Plaza of the Revolution, one agent of the Ministry of Interior had told Gonzalez to hand over both passports, which she did not do.

It is significant is that, so far, Rodiles and Ailer González, who had no direct involvement in organizing Bruguera‘s performance, are the only opponents against whom the government has taken this step.