Author: Iván García

Thank You, Eusebio / Ivan Garcia

Eusebio-born-in-Mozambiqu-006With the unexpected death of Eusebio da Silva Ferreira on the morning of January 5, the soccer world lost one of its greatest players and an extraordinary ambassador for the sport, an honest and simple man, who never forgot his humble origins despite his fame.

Sports columns of the five continents have dedicated reviews and reports to him. Photos and videos have flooded the internet. Hundreds of condolences have made their way to his widow, Flora, and to his children and grandchildren. And millions of messages have circulated on social media sites remembering The Black Panther, as he was known, for his speed and skill.

Eusebio was born in the suburb of Mafalala, in the city of Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, Mozambique. He was the fourth son of seven born to Mozambican Elisa Anissabeni with her husband, the Angolan Laurindo Antonio da Silva Ferreira, a railroad worker. His father died of tetanus when Eusebio was eight years old. He and his siblings were left in the charge of their mother, in a situation of extreme poverty. As a boy, Eusebio often escaped his classes to play barefoot soccer with his friends in improvised playing fields. continue reading

Carlos Toro dedicated an article to him in El Mundo: “On the 25th of January, he would have turned 72-years-old and Portugal would have rendered him, like it is doing today, high sports and patriotic honors. ’Wherever I go, Eusebio is the name that people mention to me,” Mario Soares, president of Portugal from 1986-1996, once said.

“Forget about Cristiano Ronaldo, the young mythical figure of Portuguese sport, and about Luis Figo, who has the greatest number of international attendance for his country. The king of Portuguese football was, is Eusebio da Silva Ferreira. Eusebio. The International Federation of History and Statistics considers him to be ninth among the 50 best players in the twentieth century.

“A mulato, the son of a white father and a black mother, born in Mozambique, won the right to be saluted as one of the best soccer players of all time, including those we have in the 21st century, thanks to his performances in the imposing Benfica and with the magnificent Portuguese national team of the 1960s”.

Pelé in his Twitter profile said: “I regret the death of my brother Eusebio. We became friends during the World Cup of 1966 in England and last met in the game between Brazil and Portugal in Boston (in September 2013). My condolences to his family and may God receive him with open arms”.

Jaime Rincón wrote in Marca: “Eusebio’s career was unique from the start. His arrival in Europe was full of the mystery and emotion that usually accompanies great figures. At 17 years old, Eusebio was smuggled through the airport of Maputo on course to Lisbon. There, Benfica hid him in a small hotel room in the Algarve under a false name. No precaution was too small to secure the soccer player and prevent his ending up in the Sporting Club of Portugal.*

“With a small salary given his sporting achievements until then, Eusebio soon demonstrated that soccer was seeing a different type of player. Capable of doing 100 meters in eleven seconds, the Panther had power and ability, speed and definition. He possessed a veritable cannon in his right leg, a lethal weapon that made all the difference.

“At only 18-years-old, Eusebio dazzled on the day of his debut in Paris. Before another great such as Pelé, the Panther left the field with 3-0 on the scoreboard. With an insulting audacity, the pearl of Mozambique achieved a hat-trick that not even the subsequent goals of The King could erase”.

Sir Bobby Charlton, a living legend of British football and ex-player for Manchester United and England, remembered him like this: “Eusebio was one of the best soccer players I have had the privilege to play. I met him on numerous occasions after our sports careers were finished. I’m proud to have had him as both an opponent and a friend”.

Eusebio never came to Cuba, but we Cubans who love football and sports knew him. And we thank him for having shot down prejudices and taboos. And for proving, in any country and in any sphere of life, whether you be man or woman, white, mulatto or black, young or old, what matters is dignity and the spirit of excellence.

Iván García and Tania Quintero

Photo: Eusebio da Silva Ferreira. Taken by The Guardian, from an interview on June 6th, 2010.

*Translator’s note: There was fear that he would be kidnapped by a rival team.

 Translated by LW

6 January 2014

Is Baseball Finished in Cuba? / Ivan Garcia

Jackie-Robinson-1919-1972-620x330Fidel Castro has been an effective gravedigger. He buried sugar crops and the agricultural abundance of old. Recently, Cuba had to import sugar from Brazil and the Dominican Republic to meet the consumption needs of international tourists.

With this type of negative aura that has always surrounded Castro, it makes sense these days what baseball fans were saying after the dismal failure of Villa Clara in the Caribbean Series on Margarita Island: we are currently living through the last days of baseball.

I think not. We have the genes of baseball players in our DNA. Has it been dealt a fierce blow? It is true. Due to the obstinate and stupid policies of the state, baseball finds itself stationary, mired in crisis.

But we can make progress. If, for example, Cuban coaches could absorb the latest advances in the development of baseball via clinics (courses) with seasoned trainers from the United States. If the academies of the Major League organizations were allowed and if our players could play in the MLB without having to leave their homeland.

Although this would be the ideal, this nightmare of five and a half decades remains. In that sense, I am not optimistic. Because of the insane system established in Cuba, what could change within two years could equally extend for another fifty-five.

The methods used by autocrats to remain in power are known. Fear and repression inhibit many Cubans from publicly disagreeing. So people opt for a life raft. Marrying a foreigner. Or an offer letter of work anywhere in the world.

There are two possible scenarios. In the first, Raul Castro becomes a kind of tropical Jaruzelski and democratizes the island – I am skeptical – and the embargo is repealed. Perhaps, working hard, in around five or six years, Cuban ball players developed under modern methods would skyrocket into Major League teams.

The other option, the way we are going now, is that Cuba transforms into a discrete monarchy, where relatives, sons and compadres pull on the threads of the piñata and divide the loot amongst themselves.

The regime is engaged in unprecedented ideological spin. A mixture of family capitalism, few opportunities, micro-businesses and pure Stalinism.

The Castros want to negotiate, but with the gringos. Face to face. Seated at a table, dividing up the island as if it were their property. Under one of these scenarios, Antonio Castro, son of Fidel, would represent baseball and manage the future contracts of Cuban players.

The mouths of the Castro clan must be watering just thinking about that possibility. It has not yet arrived, but it looms, in backroom negotiations with businessmen of the style of Alfonso Fanjul.

If we want to raise the capacity of baseball, change must happen urgently. If the creole mandarins were sensible – 55 years have shown otherwise – they would design a new structure for the National Series. 16 teams seems to me too many.

Right now, according to the proven quality of local baseball, the right number would be a season with 6 teams and a minimum of 100 games.

The season should begin in September. You could have three stages. Six innings in the first 60 games. A round robin with 40 games and 4 teams. And ending with play offs between the top two in a best of seven matches.

The season would end in late January, so as not to overlap with the Caribbean Series or the World Baseball Classic. The few classy players that are left us, such as Alfredo Despaigne, Yulieski Gourriel, Frederick Cepeda, Norge Luis Ruiz, Freddy Asiel Álvarez or Vladimir García, if they are contracted to foreign leagues, it is preferable that they not to take part in the National Series.

The current level of our baseball only serves to stall us. Of course, before reforming the National Series, we should strengthen all of baseball’s development structures. From childhood to youth categories.

If the development categories of cadets and youth are still playing with limited quality balls, poor quality equipment, and bad playing fields, then the jump to premier level will not be achievable.

Cuba’s best trainers must work in the minor levels. All the people qualified to train players must have unlimited internet access to the latest information and game statistics.

Also, we should participate in academic and training camp baseball exchanges with the United States, Japan, South Korea and those Caribbean countries that play baseball. Cuban television should more frequently broadcast Major League games. Without the complex absurdities of broadcasting innings during the time that baseball-playing Cubans have to be on the move.

All that policy reorganisation would have to include selling affordable gloves and balls for children. Similarly, it would require the reconditioning and recuperation of those baseball fields that have been lost in the country.

The task is arduous and expensive. It remains to be seen if the state would find the resources or contemplate an agenda to improve the quality of the current game. If it’s smart, it would be the most practical idea. Then, in the unlikely event that Antonio Castro sits down to negotiate with MLB managers, we would have a greater amount of talent to offer.

Although I see the vision, insight has not been the greatest quality of the olive green autocracy.

Iván García

Photo: During the cold months in the United States, many players moved to the Caribbean to play baseball, including Jackie Robinson (1919-1972), who is pictured signing autographs at a stadium in Havana in 1947. A few weeks later, Robinson made history in his country by breaking the barrier that barred black players playing in the majors, thereby paving the way for other African-American, Caribbean and Latin American players. Taken by AARP Magazine.

Translated by: CIMF

18 March 2014

The Havana That the Castros are Going to Leave Us / Ivan Garcia

Sixty percent of the buildings cry out for basic repairs
Sixty percent of the buildings cry out for basic repairs

Autocrats always want to transcend their own times. The Roman emperors, Hitler, Mussolini and the communist dictators Stalin, Honecker or Ceaucescu, bequeathed their own styles of architecture.

In Rome they still retain coliseums and palaces. Mussolini left hundreds of works, constructed under the label of fascist rationalist architecture, rolled out in Italy at the end of the 1920s in the last century.

Hitler also put up buildings and spaces in the Nazi cult, with the patronage of Albert Speer, in an original architectural style inspired by neo-classicism and art deco.

Sixty-nine years after the psychopathic Führer shot himself in his Berlin underground bunker, just before the defeat of the Third Reich, the Germans are still driving along the magnificent autobahns built in the Hitler period.

A serial criminal like Stalin left us socialist realism – horrible, certainly – which encompassed all the arts. Nicholas Ceaucescu, another dictator doing it by the book, demolished a fifth of Bucharest and put up new buildings.

His greatest project was the Palace of the People, the second biggest building in the world, after the Pentagon in Washington.

Fidel Castro won’t leave any timeless architectural works. He put up thousands of schools and hospitals, but, apart from the Instituto Superior de Arte, in the Playa Council area of Havana, the rest of his designs disfigure the landscape.

And forget about quality of construction. Most of the buildings put up after the bearded people came to power look older than many built at the beginning of the 20th century.

In Havana, capital of the first communist country in America, the architectural legacy will be irrelevant. You’d have to search with a magnifying glass to spot any high calibre work.

Among them would be the Coppelia ice cream shop, designed by Mario Girona in the centre of Vedado, or Antonio Quintana’s Palacio de Convenciones in the suburb of Cubanacán. You could also make an exception of Camilo Cienfuegos city, in East Havana, and Lenin Park, a green lung provided on the outskirts of the city.

But architectural design from 1959 onwards is, to say the least, odd. If you could demolish the dormitory suburbs of Alamar, Mulgoba, San Agustín, Bahía, or the twenty or so horrible apartment blocks built with Yugoslavian technology in Nuevo Vedado, you would partly put right some clumsy construction mistakes.

Havana, a city which is pretty and conceited with its several kilometers of gateways and columns, and a splendid esplanade among its architectural offerings, maintains the greatest variety of styles.

It was designed for 600,000 inhabitants. Today 2.5 million people live there. The regime has neither modernised nor widened its streets or avenues or a site as important as the Albear aqueduct.

They have only patched and asphalted the principal arteries. They have not improved the roads of Las calzadas de Monte, Diez de Octubre, Luyanó, Cerro, Infanta, Avenida 51 or Puentes Grandes to deal with the increase in vehicular traffic.

Some 70% of the side streets are full of potholes and water leaks. 60% of the buildings are crying out for fundamental repairs.

Let me give you a fact. According to an official of Physical Planning in Havana, 83% of works carried out are done privately. The urgent need for homes to be built has resulted in constructions all over the length and breadth of Havana without benefit of professional advice.

Thousands of home-made cast-iron windows with hideous grills make the capital look even uglier. The impression you get is of a large prison. Without any order or harmony, desperate families refurbish buildings and houses of great architectural value, trying to improve their lives a little.

The once cosmopolitan Havana, at the forefront of new technologies like the telephone, radio, or long distance TV transmissions, has now turned its back on globalisation.

The internet is a science fiction dream for many of its citizens. And what was once a beautiful colonnaded city, which would inspire Alejo Carpentier, is, in the 21st century, a heap of ruined buildings and ancient automobiles.

The Castro brothers haven’t even been able to leave any legacy in the city where they have been governing for years.

Iván García

Photo:  Taken from Juan Valdés César’s blog where you can see more images showing the current state of Havana.

Translate by GH

23 March 2014

A Conversation with the Consul General of the United States in Cuba / Ivan Garcia

Timothy P Roche, U.S. Consul General in Cuba

Timothy P Roche, U.S. Consul General in Cuba

The old United States embassy in Havana, today the headquarters of the United States Interest Section (USIS, also known as SINA for its Spanish acronym), is a seven-story building with a surfeit of glass windows located a stone’s throw from the Malecon. Built in 1953 and designed by the architect Wallace K. Harrison, it is similar in style to New York City highrises.http://desdelahabanaivan.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2592&action=edit

In spite of not having had diplomatic relations with Cuba since 1960, the United States has the second largest diplomatic headquarters on the island, surpassed only by the monumental edifice of the Russian delegation.

The U.S. Consul General in Cuba, Timothy P. Roche, has served since August 2012. This reporter’s primary reason for requesting an interview with him was to solicit his views on granting visas applications for family reunification and tourism.

Before arriving at the consul general’s rather sober office, one must go through the usual searches and electronic checkpoints typical of embassies almost anywhere in the world. In hostile countries, U.S. embassies are targets of attack by Islamic terrorists, but not in Cuba.

There are other risks. Without high fences, heavy doors with electronic locks, patrols by Cuban security agents and a squad of stern Marines, thousands of people eager to emigrate to the United States — pursuant to the current Cuban Adjustment Act — might be tempted to break into the building.

Lynn Roche, a public affairs officer and wife of the consul general graciously guided this reporter to Mr. Roche’s office, which was flanked by map of the island and the Stars and Stripes.

Since 1994, following the emigration agreements signed by Cuba and the United States during the Clinton administration, at least 20,000 Cubans each year have left the country permanently in a legal, orderly and safe manner to be reunited with their families.

The impact has been dramatic. In the last two decades, nearly 450,000 Cubans have left their homeland, including a high percentage of educated young people. “In fiscal 2013, we issued over 24,000 visas for permanent emigrants to the United States,” says Roche.

The length of time to process a visa varies. Oscar Rojas, for example, spent five years trying to get to Florida to reunite with his mother. Others, like Susana Mateo, were luckier. After just a year and a half she received a visa to settle with relatives in Hialeah.

The consul general acknowledges that granting a permanent visa request takes time. “There is a very high demand from applicants and we have a limited number of U.S. consular officials in Havana who can interview them. It is true that the interview process takes more time for some types of visas, but we are working to reduce the wait time.”

He adds, “It depends on the category but in some cases involving permanent relocation, such as for a bride or groom, the waiting period is four or five months. For spouses, minors and parents of U.S. citizens, there is no waiting period at all. Once your casework is complete in the United States, you receive the next available appointment. Before the Cuban Family Reunification Program it could take up to eleven years for an adult. Now it takes just over three. And in the case of tourist visas, we managed to substantially reduce the wait. It used to take almost 5 years. We are now granting permission within six months and we are working to further reduce this time.”

With regards to the new multiple entry visas, valid for five years, which they begin to offer as of 1 August 2013, the official clarifies, “This visa is not to stay and live in the United States for five years. Nor is it to work or study in the United States. And it’s given at the discretion of the consular official.”

Cubans older than 45 who have traveled to the United States up to four times and recently had their visas denied, qualify as “inconsistent with the policies of the United States Interest Section” when asking for a tourist visa.

With regards to this, the diplomat said, “Every case is different. It’s difficult to explain a case without knowing the specific characteristics of each one. Now, for us it’s better to offer a multiple-entry visa to cases made up of people who travel and return to Cuba, because it’s a better service for the client and more efficient for us.”

Mr. Roche didn’t have at hand the number of multiple-entry visas awarded from 1 August 2013 to date. In any event, on the issue of tourist visas — which are also good for cultural and academic exchanges — the number is huge: from 8,745 to more than 33,000 in 2013.

For Cubans who complete the procedures to travel to the United States, the high prices in hard currency charged by the Cuban government for routine procedures or simple medical check ups are a problem. This is the case with Roiniel Vega, who started the procedures to travel to Miami to visit his son seven months ago, and doesn’t understand why USIS doesn’t have printed forms with the procedures for asking for a non-immigrant visa.

“To the more than 500 convertible pesos (CUC) you have to pay to the government for a passport, medical check up, and other paperwork for those who want to travel to the United States, you have to add 20 CUC to pay for filling out the forms electronically in areas around the Interests Section. I wonder why USIS doesn’t have printed forms, to lower the costs of the paperwork,” says Roiniel.

The U.S. Counsul says that, “There are three steps to asking for a tourist visa. And the first step is filling in form DS-160 on our web page. We know that the majority of Cubans don’t have access to the Internet, but we’ve seen that many people arrange to get access to the web in various ways. We don’t have the capacity and resources to do it any other way.”

Iván García

8 February 2014

Cuba: Internet in Your Home from September / Ivan Garcia

cuba_internet_0-620x330According to a spokesman for ETECSA, the only telecoms company in Cuba, they are going to start marketing internet in peoples’ homes, with ADSL included, from the first half of September.

We don’t yet know what the price of the installation will be. What has come to light in a document which we have seen are the different tariffs for national and international internet surfing.

The document, put out by Ibis Díaz Silva, commercial executive of ETECSA’s Oficina de Pequeños y Medianos Usuarios (Office of Small and Medium Users ), indicates that the 20 hour internet package will cost 10 convertible pesos a month, 50 hours 15 cuc (Cuban convertible currency), 100 hours 30 cuc, 180 hours 50 cuc, and 220 hours 60 cuc. There will be a 90 hour package, usable between 8 pm and 7 am which will be offered at 20 cuc. They will sell additional hours at 30 convertible pesos.

Additionally, starting from September, they will market the local intranet network at a lower price, where you can find official media. The connection speed will be between 2 and 4 megabytes.

Gradually, Raúl Castro’s government has taken some steps forward to provide internet access for Cubans. On 4th June 2013, ETECSA opened 116 navigation rooms in 15 provinces of the country.

Up to this month, according the ETECSA spokesman, about 600,000 customers have connected to the network. Last February 25th, the Gaceta Oficial de la República (Official Gazette of the Republic) announced new cellphone internet tariffs. And from 2013, ETECSA workmen have been busy putting in place wireless networks in different parts of Havana.

The prices of these new services have generated a lot of controversy. The point is that the Cuban man in the street, with an average salary of $20 a month, can’t afford the luxury of connecting to the internet while he has no chicken, fish or meat in his pantry.

One way or another, nearly everybody is complaining. Whether they are unknown citizens, like the private shoemaker Alfonso Ayala, who has never surfed the net, or official journalists like Elaine Díaz or Alejandro Rodríguez, who have criticised the excessive prices in their blogs.

“One hour at 4.50 cuc (Cuban convertible currency) is equivalent to 112 Cuban pesos. Repairing shoes, I make between 80 and 100 Cuban pesos a day. All my income is for buying food and supporting my wife and kids. As far as I can see the internet continues to be out of my reach,” says Ayala.

As far as the regime is concerned, the internet is an invention of the US special services with the aim of colonising information and culture. Only the inescapable necessity of not continually putting the brakes on Cuban professional development has forced the government to authorise access to the internet.

It all started in 1998, when the island was connected up, via satellite, more slowly and with a narrower band than a public university in New York. The official press blamed the technological backwardness on the trade embargo imposed by Washington, which forbids connection to the underwater cables owned by US companies, which surround the green Cayman Islands. And we know that Cuba and the USA are continuing with the Cold War. And truth is the first casualty of any war.

According to the ETECSA spokesman, in 2010, some gringo companies located in Florida were authorised by the Obama government to negotiate with Cuba to recommission an old unused underwater cable.

“The project was viable. It cost $18m with a bandwidth right for our requirements. But the government preferred to bet on the so-called digital self-government and designed a project jointly with Venezuela called ALBA1, stated the source.

At a cost of $70m, the submerged cable connected the twin cities of La Guiara and Siboney in the east, in Santiago de Cuba. There is a spur off it which goes off to Kingston, Jamaica.

There is a structure of corruption around the cable in the upper echelons of the Ministry of Communications and Information, which led to the desertion of a high-up manager of ETECSA in Panama in 2012.

There was no news about ALBA1 until 4 June 2013, following the government decision to open new navigation rooms. There is no doubt that the famous cable clearly improved the connection speed.

Before that, in a five-star hotel like the Saratoga, where Beyoncé stayed last year with her husband JayZ, the connection speed was slow and expensive. At best it didn’t get past 100Kb. And 2 hours of internet cost a bit over $15.

From September 2014 on, things are going to change, according to specialists I have spoken to. It could be that not many Cubans will be enthusiastic about the new provision, on account of its irrational pricing. But the ETECSA functionary referred to is optimistic and considers that the opening up of cyberspace will bring more positives than negatives.

Iván García

Photo: A Cuban surfs the net in one of the cyber cafes opened by ETECSA all over the island in June 2013. Taken by El Universal.

Translated by GH

9 March 2014

Cuban Dissidents Prepare for the Future / Ivan Garcia

Carlos Millares, Frank Abel García y Tamara Rodriguez

Carlos Millares, Frank Abel García y Tamara Rodriguez

While 17 young Cuban dissidents attend advanced courses to master the tools of leadership and business at a university center in Miami, in Havana, the newly formed Fundación Sucesores, imparts courses to the civil society in Havana. Run by sociologist Carlos Millares, 65, Fundación Sucesores has been giving classes to the nascent civil society since December of 2013.

“We told students the location at the last minute, so that the State Security wouldn’t put any obstacles in our way, preventing classes,” said Millares. The group has a collegiate direction. Besides Millares, the group is integrated by Frank Abel García, Daniel Palacios, Tamara Rodríguez, William Cácer, and Luis Alberto Diéguez. With the exception of Millares, everyone is between 26 and 40 years old.

“Since the second half of January, we’ve been teaching two courses: one for the formation of leaders, and another one for journalists and photo journalists. Each course has 10 students,” said Frank Abel.

Most of the participants are young people that recently became involved with political activism or independent journalism. The classes are ambulatory and secret.  One week, they can be at a room in ruins at the old part of the city and outside the capital limits the following week.

The leadership course lasts six months and among other subjects teaches history, law, social media, and public speaking. Intellectual dissidents such as Manuel Cuesta Morúa, lawyer René López, Julio Negrín, Arturo Torrecillas, Daniel Palacios and Carlos Millares, teach the classes.

Desks consist of seats at a dinner table or a bed. The students copy the content of the classes in flash drives. Professors only have one laptop. “We don’t have all the necessary resources, but the lack of resources cannot be an impediment to create and prepare people within the incipient society in Cuba,” said Millares.

The course of journalism lasts four months and includes 20 topics. Four of the six members from the board of directors from Successors Foundation became dissidents after they worked in State institutions.

Millares has the most experience of all. He has been part of different dissident organizations for the last 25 years. He was a curious and polemic general secretary for the Union of Young Communists in the faculty of medical science in the University of Havana.

His journey to the pacific opposition was a slow and painful process, like surgery without anesthesia. Frank Abel worked as chief of staff in Radio Rebelde, a radio station symbolic of the revolution. Abel became a provincial delegate at the radio station. He was involved in a case orchestrated by the cultural authorities against young intellectuals from OMNI Free Zone. His sense of justice made him break from the regime.

For eight years, Daniel Palacios was a sports chronicler from the official newspapers Trabajadores and Juventud Rebelde. He had a spot in the capital radio station COCO, in which along with other reporters, he tried to break with the government censorship. Palacios gave out the results from the games of the Major Leagues during his time on air in radio, and remembered that before the Castro dictatorship from 1962, there was a glorious past in baseball, Cuba’s national hobby.

“One afternoon, I received a call from Pelayo Terry’s office, who was then director of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Two men from the State Security threatened me and showed me mail that I had exchanged with Wilfredo Cancio Isla, a Cuban reporter from Miami. After my expulsion from my position as a journalist, they have continued to harass me,” Palacios said.

His exit from official journalism had repercussions for his family life. He lives away from his wife and daughter because he doesn’t have a place of his own. Most of his colleagues from within the state journalism have turned their backs on him.

“It has been hard but I feel good about myself, which is the most important thing,” Palacios said. Now, besides teaching journalism classes, he writes for Café Fuerte and Diario de Cuba.

Tamara Rodríguez was a commercial specialist at CIMEX, a military corporation that collects convertible pesos for the government. They tried to embroil her in a corruption case after she started to make friends with women from the Ladies in White.

After she broke ranks with the government, she became part of the group. Since the beginning of 2013, Frank Abel went to the home of sociologist Carlos Millares and told him about his interest in turning young dissidents into leaders.

Through different paths, opposition organizations in Cuba or in the United States decide to take dissidence as an option. Perhaps, today’s dissidence is uncomfortable for many exiled people from Cuba, due to their distinct pacifism and inability to create a powerful lobby group in the neighborhoods of the island.

Havana is far from being Kiev or Táchira. In Cuba, the opposition from the barricades suffers the worst. But the future could be different.

When new times arrive, nongovernmental organizations would have materialized the initiatives toward young Cuban dissidents, who have had trouble accessing a college education because of their political views. Some of these organizations are the Human Rights Foundation from Florida, in collaboration with Miami Dade College, which work with funding from private donations and the United States government.

From this side of the world, some people do not sit back. They start initiatives to promote values of democratic leadership and the use of journalistic tools among young activists.

The Fundación Sucesores is one of those initiatives. According to its members, this initiative is about a new Cuba, who above all, needs people qualified in the art of politics, democracy, and modern journalism

And that future is around the corner.

Iván García

Photo : Frank Abel García, Carlos Millares and Tamara Rodríguez talking to Iván García. Fundación Sucesores is also the name of the blog they have created.

3 March 2014

Havana: A Guide for Tourists / Ivan Garcia

Useful advice for tourists who visit the last bastion of the Cold War in the Caribbean

Useful advice for tourists who visit the last Communist barricade of the Cold War in the Caribbean

If you speak Spanish, it’s advisable to get to know Havana by taking private taxis. In a rented car, air-conditioned and with a map of the capital, it’s more pleasurable, but also more expensive, and you wouldn’t be able to chat with the habaneros.

If you know the city only through the guided visits to museums or cigar factories, organized by tourist agencies, you will have good photos when you return to your country, but you will only have seen a postcard of Havana.

You can decide to drink mojitos, stroll on the Malecon, flirt with prostitutes in a cafe where you need hard currency to listen to a duo singing Compay Segundo’s Chan Chan at your table. Or you can discover the other face of Havana, ignored by the official press. Then, first hand, you will know the priorities of ordinary Cubans.

The capital of Cuba has in its favor the fact that it still is not as dangerous as Caracas, Medellin or Michoacan. You can walk through rough and poor neighborhoods without fear of being assaulted (I advise you to go during the day).

Better than reserving a hotel is renting a room in some private home. For your trips around the city, the ideal thing is to move around in the old U.S. cars known as almendrones.

And talk to the passengers. There is no platform more authentic and liberal in Cuba than the private taxis. As in any capital of the world, the Havana taxi drivers possess a culture of speech and an acceptable level of information.

You will find out that many of the Cuban taxi drivers are doctors, engineers, retired military men or professionals who, after their work day, sit at the steering wheel, trying to earn some extra pesos that will permit them to complement their poor salaries.

The Havana taxi drivers seem to be dissidents when they speak, but they’re not. They, like numerous people you find in the lines or in the streets, openly criticize the government.

The list of complaints about the state of things on the island is extensive. Traveling in a 1954 Ford, with a South Korean motor and a Japanese gear box, you will know first-hand that people aren’t applauding Raul Castro’s reforms with much enthusiasm now.

Be prepared to listen to a dissertation on the daily hardships. One suggestion: before your trip around the city, in your backpack carry deodorants, tubes of toothpaste or soap to offer to the people you talk to. Right now, these articles are scarce in Cuba (see the Note at the end).

Havana taxis are a microphone open to different political opinions. And in their interior there is more democracy than in the monotone national parliament. In the almendrones there are usually people who think differently. Each reveals his opinion. Loudly and gesticulating with his hands, typical of Cubans.

Upon arriving at his destination, the passenger who supports the Regime says goodbye amicably to the one who wants profound changes in his country. Two details: the old Havana taxis don’t have air conditioning and the drivers listen to reggaeton or salsa music at exaggerated volume.

If you get into a jeep, which can fit up to 10 people, the trip is uncomfortable. But there is no better way to make people-to-people contact than to travel in private taxis. And they are very cheap. For 50 cents or a dollar on longer journeys, you can get to know the other face of Havana. It’s not recommended to take the urban omnibus: owing to the bad service and overcrowding, what should be an exploration of the city and a motive to make contact with its people can become a torture.

Iván García

Photo: Taken from Panoramix.

Note. In Cuba something is always lacking. Sometimes the scarcity is most visible in the capital, but usually where you find a lack of most products, food or hygiene, is in the interior of the country. After writing this piece, independent journalists were reporting that “eggs were missing.” I don’t know if eggs have reappeared, but now salt is missing.

On March 5, Ernesto García Díaz wrote in Cubanet that salt was hard to find in the grocery stores, markets and hard currency markets (TRD), where a kilo nylon bag of Cuban salt with the stamp “Caribeña” cost 45 cents (10.80 Cuban pesos). In the Ultra TRD [the government-run “Hard Currency Collection Store”], an employee told the journalist that “it’s been some time since we’ve had Caribeña salt. We are selling a fine Andalusian salt of the brand “Aucha” at the price of 1.65 CUC ($US 1.58) a kilo.”

In Cuba there are five saltworks that supposedly should guarantee the distribution of salt for the ration book, at the rate of one kilo for a nuclear family of up to 3 people, every three months. But because they haven’t managed to extract more than 400 million tons annually, the government has had to import salt, as occurred in 2008, when they bought 30 million tons of salt at a cost of 9 million dollars (Tania Quintero).

Translated by Regina Anavy

8 March 2014

What Is Happening in Venezuela Worries Cuba / Ivan Garcia

"If the media stops talking, let the streets talk"

“If the media stops talking, let the streets talk”

In one way or another, Cuba is taking note of the street protests occurring these days in Venezuela. The most nervous are the olive-green autocrats.

According to a low-level party official, since the death of Hugo Chávez on 5 March 2013, the regime has had various contingency plans filed away in case the situation in Venezuela did not turn out to be favourable to the interests of the island.

The official states, “If Maduro falls, we have a plan B. In the different groups, at least at the level where I work, it was taken for granted that Maduro would be a short-lived president. Although the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) controls most of the strings of power, there are divergent opinions among Chávez’s own followers about Venezuela’s relationship with Cuba. This type of socialism, with a democratic streak, is not to be trusted. Maduro can lose power both due to a plebiscite repeal or in six years. In our group meetings, it has been said that Maduro’s mandate only serves to gain time”.

The onslaught of opposition marches, barricades, and protests is shaking up different regions of Venezuela, but this force is also reaching the branches of power in Havana.

The Castro brothers still have much at stake in Venezuela. But just in case, Raúl Castro has opened a new window with Brazil in constructing the new port of Mariel and a Special Development Zone with a different jurisdiction.

And they almost begged the United States, enemy number one, to sit down to negotiate. Meanwhile, the Castro regime diplomacy crosses over to Florida, trying to seduce wealthy businessmen of Cuban origin. But the sensible businessmen continue to think about it.

When they look at the recent past, they only see shady management and a mysterious associate who changes the rules of the game at the first opportunity. Therefore, the Caribbean autocracy is going to fight mercilessly and to the teeth in order to keep its strategic position in Venezuela.

The key, as everyone knows, is petroleum. 100 thousand barrels a day acquired at sale prices keep Cubans from suffering 12-hour daily blackouts. When the skydiver from Barinas moved into Miraflores in 1998, Fidel Castro understood that after 9 years travelling through the desert, with finances in the red and exotic sicknesses devastating the country, the hour of his resurrection had arrived.

Cuba entered in a ”light” Special Period. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the island had experienced a deep-rooted economic crisis, but the faithful Bolivarian shared his chest of treasure. And this was an important part of the anti-imperialist project that so deluded the Commander.

The death of Chávez was the beginning of the end of the honeymoon. Maduro is faithful and he is allowed to lead. But he has no charisma. And after 14 years of economic insanity aimed at winning support among the most disadvantaged, all of the doubts, violence, and inflation have now exploded in the face of the PSUV.

Instead of letting go of the uncomfortable and parasitic burden that is Cuba, governing for all and looking after Lula and Dilma more than the Castros, Maduro, clumsy and stubborn, moved his tokens badly.

He professed to follow the Joropo and Pachanga of comrade Chávez. He designed a simple strategy: he shouldered his friend’s coffin and tries to govern Venezuela in his name.

And he is failing. In Cuba, either because of egoism or short-term mentality, the people on their feet, tired after 55 years of disaster, are crossing their fingers that the Venezuelan crisis does not shut off the petroleum faucet opened by the PDVSA (Petroleum of Venezuela, S.A.).

In a park in the Víbora district in Havana, a 70-year-old retiree expresses his opinion about the situation in Venezuela. “If that guy screws up, the effects on us will be tremendous. The power outages will continue, paralyzing the industries again and we will return to a situation equal to or worse than the beginning of the Special Period in 1990.”

Others are more optimistic. “It’s true, it will be hard. Since the Revolution, we have gotten used to living at the cost of someone else’s sweat. Before it was the USSR, now it’s Venezuela. If the worst happens there, we will have to accelerate the reforms here. Although this is already capitalism, but with low salaries”, states a lady identifying herself as a housewife.

A university student adds to the conversation. “Seeing the marches or strikes on the TV is something I envy. That freedom to protest before governmental institutions, such as in Ukraine or Venezuela… we need it here in Cuba.” And he added that “in FEU (University Student Federation) meetings, the situation in Venezuela is a primary theme, but I have heard rumors that there is more alarm in some Party groups.”

In this hot February, in spite of the news arriving from Caracas, the people on the street continue with their lives. Waiting in long lines to buy potatoes, which were lost in the battle. Going to the markets in search of food, vegetables, and fruit. Or sitting on the corner in the neighborhood to talk about films, fashion, football, or baseball.

And this is because for many on the Island, Venezuela is not in their agenda.

Iván García

Photograph: “If the media stops talking, let the streets talk”, says this banner painted by students marching on 13 February in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, some 172 km (107 mi) west of Caracas. Photo by Luis Turinese, taken from Global Voices Online.

Translated by: M. Ouellette

24 February 2014

Havana Hustling / Ivan Garcia

oficios-de-buscavidas-620x330This time the phone call came in the middle of the night and the message was grim.

Edania, a retired teacher who has set up a small business of making phone calls and taking messages for the neighborhood, hurried to give the bad news to a family that lives two doors down from her house, in the rundown neighborhood of La Cuevita in San Miguel del Padrón, in the northern part of Havana.

“The thing is taking off like wildfire,” says Edania. “The retired people can’t afford it, so I decided to take advantage of the fact that I’m one of the few people with a phone in the neighborhood. I started charging one Cuban peso to pass on messages and two pesos for local calls in Havana. If the call is outside the city, I charge 3  pesos per minute. Many people are providing this service, which is one of the officially recognized self-employment businesses, but I have no intention signing up at the tax office. I only get 150 or 200 Cuban pesos per month [$6-8 USD], which barely supplements my meager pension. I don’t charge for funeral news.” continue reading

In the interior of the island as well as in the capital it has become common for neighbors who have telephones to charge for calls. Richard, a retired resident of the Diez de Octubre district of Havana, has a small money box next to his phone with a list of the various call charges.

“I also sell mobile phone cards. I buy them for 10 CUCs [about $11 USD] and sell them for 11; the ones that cost 5 I resell for 6. But apparently someone in the neighborhood has been talking, because the state inspectors have visited me, demanding that I legalize the business. I told them to go to government offices and demand better pensions for the old people, and then come back and see me,” says Richard.

After the vaunted economic reforms in Cuba—an exotic blend of wildly exploitative state capitalism mixed with Marxist speeches and slogans by Fidel Castro—a torrent of quirky trades flooded the Havana neighborhoods.

The elderly are the losers in this wild mixture of everything from sidewalk pastry vendors to high-quality eateries. In the world of self-employment, everything is available.

From people who offer pirated DVDs of Oscar-nominated movies for 25 Cuban pesos, to elderly public-restroom attendants.

In this spectrum of emerging trades, you find “experts” in umbrella repair, button-covering, funeral cosmetology, matchbox-refilling, and shoe repair. For 50 Cuban pesos they’ll carry buckets of water and fill your 60-gallon tank.

Havana is a tropical bazaar. A hive of hustlers. On the avenue that encircles the old port of Havana, a diverse group of citizens converges to try to earn a living.

Right next to Maestranza children’s playground, Delia, decked out in a floral costume, works as an itinerant fortune teller. “I charge ten Cuban pesos for each card-reading. If you want an in-depth session then the price goes up to 25. It’s even more expensive for foreigners, who can afford more.”

Several tourist buses stop at Avenida del Puerto. As the visitors take photos of the Bay and the Christ of Casablanca statue, street musicians sing old boleros and guarachas, trying to attract their attention.

Leonel is one of them. “For 20 years I’ve devoted myself to making soup (singing while the customers ate). There have been good and bad days. But I’ve always made more than the wages the state paid. When no one in Cuba remembered Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, or Pio Leyva, God rest their souls, they also had to work as lunchtime entertainers, and to sing in seedy bars. They were lucky that a producer like Ry Cooder lifted them out of poverty,” Leonel said, playing a ranchera as he approached some Mexican tourists, hoping to pass the hat.

A dilapidated port-a-potty, serving as a urinal for the customers of three bayfront bars, is looked after by two rickety old men.

They charge one peso to urinate, three to defecate. “It’s because the toilet is clogged. We have to carry a greater quantity of water,” they say. They get the water for flushing right out of the bay, with a can tied to a rope.

“It’s hard work. We’re here up to twelve hours. But when I get home with 10 or 15 CUCs, I ask the Lord to give me strength to live a few more years so I can help my wife, who’s bedridden after a stroke,” says one of the old men.

The buses are now gone. A quartet of street musicians, all elderly, lean against the sea wall, waiting for new tourists.

“It’s been a long journey to return to the beginning. Before the Revolution I was already a soup peddler. For me nothing has changed. Except that life is more expensive and I’m older,” says the singer and guitarist. His dream is that on some tourist bus, a guy like Ry Cooder will come and rescue him from oblivion.

Iván García

Photo: In central areas of Santiago de Cuba, which like Old Havana are usually frequented by tourists, musicians also look for a living in streets and parks. Taken from Martí News.

Translated by Tomás A.

17 February 2014

The Silent Successes of the Cuban Dissidence / Ivan Garcia

Gustavo-Arcos-Bergnes-620x330Before the olive-green autocracy designed economic reforms, the peaceful, illegal opposition was demanding opportunities in small businesses and in the agricultural sector as well as repeal of the absurd apartheid in the tourist, information and technology spheres that turned the Cuban into a third class citizen.

General Raul Castro and his entourage of technocrats headed by the czar of economic reform, Marino Murillo, were not the first to demand changes in national life. No.

When Fidel Castro governed the nation as if it were a military camp, the current “reformers” occupied more or less important positions within the army and the status quo.

None raised his voice publicly to demand reforms. No one with the government dared to write an article asking for immediate economic or social transformations.

If within the setting of the State Council those issues were aired, we Cubans did not have access to those debates. The tedious national press never published an editorial report about the course or changes that the nation should have undertaken. continue reading

Maybe the Catholic Church, in some pastoral letter, with timidity and in a measured tone, approached certain aspects. The intellectuals who today present themselves to us as representatives of a modern left also remained quiet.

Neither did Cuban followers of Castro-ism in the United States and Europe question the fact that their compatriots on the island had no access to mobile telephones, depended on the State for travel abroad or lost their property if they decided to leave the country.

Who did publicly raise a voice was the internal dissidence. Since the end of the 1970’s, when Ricardo Bofill founded the Committee for Human Rights; in addition to demanding changes in political matters and respect for individual liberties, he demanded economic opportunities and legal changes in property rights.

Independent journalists have also, since their emergence in the mid-90’s and, more recently, the alternative bloggers. If the articles demanding greater economic, political and social autonomy were published, several volumes would be needed.

Something not lacking among the Cuban dissidence is political discourse. And they all solicit greater citizen freedoms, from the first of Bofill, Martha Beatriz’s, Vladimiro Roca’s, Rene Gomez Manzano’s and Felix Bonne ’s Fatherland is for All, Oswaldo Paya’s Varela Project, to Antonio Rodiles’ Demand for Another Cuba or Oscar Elias Biscet’s Emilia Project.

The local opposition can be criticized for its limited scope in adding members and widening its community base. But its indubitable merits in the submission of economic and political demands cannot be overlooked.

The current economic reforms established by Castro II answer several core demands raised by the dissidence. No few opponents suffered harassment, beatings and years in prison for demanding some of the current changes, which the regime tries to register as its political triumphs.

The abrogation of absurd prohibitions on things like the sale of cars and houses, travel abroad or access to the internet has formed part of the dissidents’ proposals.

Now, a sector of the Catholic Church is lobbying the government. A stratum of intellectuals from the moderate left raises reforms of greater scope and respect for political differences.

But when Fidel Castro governed with an iron fist, those voices kept silent. It will always be desirable to remind leaders that Cuba is not a private estate and that each Cuban, wherever he resides, has the right to express his policy proposals.

But, unfortunately, we usually ignore or overlook that barely a decade ago, when fear, conformity and indolence put a zipper on our mouths, a group of fellow countrymen spent time demanding reforms and liberties at risk even to their lives.

Currently, while the debate by the intellectuals close to the regime centers on the economic aspect, the dissidence keeps demanding political openings.

One may or may not agree with the strategies of the opponents. But you cannot fail to recognize that they have been — and continue to be — the ones who have paid with jail, abuse and exile for their just claims.

They could have been grandparents who run errands and care for their grandchildren. Or State officials who speechify about poverty and inequality, eating well twice a day, having chauffeured cars and traveling around the world in the name of the Cuban revolution.

But they decided to bet on democracy. And they are paying for it.

Iván García

Translated by mlk.

6 February 2014

Mariel, Brazil, Havana and Washington / Ivan Garcia

Lula-Castro-Puerto-Mariel-655x337-620x330Miami would like to remain Latin America’s main commercial port. In June 2013 President Barack Obama toured the $1.2 billion renovation and expansion now being carried out at the port of Miami.

Commercial interest is reflected in large-scale investments in the ports of Norfolk, New York, Baltimore, Charleston, Jacksonville and Savannah. According to the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA), public-private partnerships will invest up to $46 billion in port infrastructure.

With the expansion of the Panama Canal and the introduction of a new generation of container ships know as post-Panamax, which can pass through the canal with almost three times as much cargo, commercial trade in the Americas will experience a profound change.

The numbers dazzle the experts and countries in the region do not want to be left behind. Their primary interest is, of course, the vast market to the north that Canada and the United States represent.

But no less important is being positioned as a leader in the interregional port trade. This has unleashed a veritable “port war,” which has led to multimillion-dollar investments and higher concentration, with fewer ports for maritime traffic. These will have to be both larger and deeper to accommodate ships which will be bigger and can carry more goods.

Experts agree that post-Panamax traffic is likely to be concentrated in trans-shipment ports, as was the case with air transport. With that in mind, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, El Salvador, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Cuba are investing heavily in improvements and modernizations to their major port facilities. continue reading

The Cuban government has placed special emphasis on developing the port of Mariel, located 45 kilometers west of Havana, due to its excellent natural conditions. The project is backed with 682 million dollars from public and private Brazilian investors.

The first stage could be completed by the end of this month to coincide with the visit of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff to the CELAC conference, which will take place on January 28 and 29.

Construction is being carried out by the Brazilian firm Odebrecht. Management of the port and its container terminal, which in the future will be able to handle up to three million containers, will be provided by a Singapore-based firm.

Nine-hundred million dollars have been invested in the first phase. And in keeping with the trade demands of the future port, the Cuban regime has designated it a special economic development zone with its own special jurisdiction.

In the area surrounding the port of Mariel, an area of some 465 square kilometers, the government has begun making direct investments to benefit economic sectors such as biotechnology and textiles, among other areas.

The port of Mariel is geographically well-positioned for regional commerce. Under normal conditions, without an embargo by the United States, it would be a formidable competitor to its counterpart in Miami.

But under current circumstances, given the burden of the U.S. trade embargo, it is not unreasonable to ask if such a monumental investment would be beneficial to the Cuban economy.

In the past Fidel Castro came up with irrational economic schemes such as the plans for harvesting ten million tons of sugar, intensive farming or the construction of a nuclear power station in Juraguá, Cienfuegos, 300 kilometers east of Havana, where he wasted billions dollars with no results.

Castro II has abandoned the colossal volunteerism of his brother. With the usual paucity of information, the regime has yet to set forth the operational strategy it plans to deploy after the inauguration of the port of Mariel.

If one thing is clear, it is that as long as there is an embargo, whose rules stipulate a six-month prohibition from entering U.S. ports for ships which have dropped anchor in Cuba, the docks of Mariel will come out the loser, even without ever having engaged in the regional competition of post-Panamax ports.

The largest share of interregional trade is with the United States, Canada and Mexico, which are economic partners. The twenty-eight E.U. countries will think twice before making large investments in Mariel.

China is only an ideological partner of the Castros. In trade and finance it is tied to the United States. With characteristic pragmatism Beijing will keep placing its bets where the  money is.

And the money is in the north or in regions of Latin America such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela and Peru. I do not believe many ships flying a Chinese flag and trading with the United States will anchor in Mariel as long as the embargo remains in place.

Carrying a weight like that around one’s neck makes it difficult to attract large amounts of capital from leading companies. Of course, neither Raul Castro, Brazil’s former president, Lula da Silva — whose government authorized the expenditure — nor its current president, Dilma Rousseff, are fools.

A year ago the Brazilian foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, offered some clues when he publicly stated that the decision to invest in the port of Mariel was based on a post-embargo scenario.

The political strategy of Cuba’s autocrats is also moving in that direction. Regime officials are wearing out the soles of their shoes travelling the world in an attempt to attract fresh capital for the Mariel development zone.

And working through the U.S. Interests Section in Washington, they are lobbying to create and business-friendly atmosphere with the powerful clan of Cuban-American entrepreneurs.

Seeking the repeal of the embargo is perhaps the number one priority of the Cuban Foreign Ministry. The timid economic reforms and requests for dialogue with the United States by General Castro are made in hopes of lifting the embargo.

Except a few statements on Cuba by Obama and a handshake with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, the White House has so far not been seduced by the aging president.

Cuba is not China. It does not have that country’s huge market and a significant portion of its economy depends on remittances from Cubans living on other shores.

Washington continues to demand that Cuba respect human rights and democracy, and hold free elections — something it did not do with China or Vietnam —  but in this regard the island has very little to offer.

The political retirement of Castro II could change the political dynamic between the two countries. But as long as the embargo is in place, a sizable project, such as the port of Mariel, makes little sense. Any real uptick in the Cuban economy — whether in trade, tourism or new technologies — will always be diminished by the negative impact of the embargo.

At this stage of the game, if the military government really wants to undermine the foundation for the embargo and offer its citizens its citizens a prosperous society, it must come up with some clear-cut political changes. Otherwise, we will remain stuck in a time-out.

Photo: President Raul Castro and former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his visit in January 2013 which marked the start of the expansion to the port of Mariel, which was made possible by a major investment from Brazil. From Infolatam.

Iván García

18 January 2014

Goodbye to a Summit to Forget / Ivan Garcia

cumbre-celac-en-cubaIf you walk through the marginal and mostly black neighborhoods of Havana, you will not hear people talking about integration, inequality, human rights, democracy or freedom of expression.

They are hard neighborhoods. Their priorities run toward having containers full of potable water: it’s been decades since the precious liquid arrived in their precarious dwellings through the obsolete pipes.

Residents of these slums, like Gerardo, who pedals a bike-taxi 12 hours a day through Central Park environs, feel satisfied when they have food for a week, deodorant, tooth paste and detergent.

Poverty in Cuban is not just overwhelmingly material. It is also mental. A sine qua non for a wide segment of the population. It does not matter if you proudly hang an engineering or law degree in the living room of your house.

The system designed 55 years ago by Fidel Castro has been a champion in socializing poverty. For almost everyone. He is to blame for salaries being symbolic and unworthy.

But the worst is not the crude material poverty that shames you when, for example, you travel through one of the more than 60 destitute neighborhoods, real slums, that arm themselves on a night on the outskirts of the city. continue reading

The big problem for the majority in Cuba is that they do not have legal tools for changing the state of things. That’s they way it is. And people know it.

That’s why the solution for many is to emigrate. Or to do political juggling acts, pretending to applaud the official discourse, legal snares and to steal all they can on their jobs.

The wear and tear of a regime that still governs after five decades of economic failures disgusts a growing segment of the citizenry.

It is already known that in autocratic Marxist societies networks of commitments, information censorship, fear and police effectiveness are woven in an effort to contain the internal dissidence.

But the power of Fidel Castro, almost absolute until the 1980’s. has been eroding. Now the people do not keep quiet about their disagreements or unease about the State’s gross mismanagement.

Today on the island, in any line, park, corner or public transport, you hear racy criticism of the Castro brothers. And an interminable list of complaints. Nevertheless, those querulous debates go no further.

A high percentage of the population does not trust the mechanisms of government. People power is a mere adornment. Letters to a newspaper, a minister or any Central Committee office that attends citizen complaints do not usually solve or manage the disparate problems raised.

For some years Cuba has been living in a time out.  Many believe that the solution to societal and economic structural problems is biological, and that they will be resolved by magic, when the Castros die.

As bad as they live and for lack of a future, a wide segment of Cubans is indifferent to meetings like the recently completed CELAC Summit. They feel like a tropical political comedy.

In the modern world forums and meetings between nations abound and lack concrete actions and practices. Right now, politicians of the whole world live at a low ebb. They have not learned to manage the needs and desires of their people.

On the American continent corruption and extreme neo-populism abound. To their credit they are democratically elected presidents. Except Cuba. A contrasting difference.

Also striking is the anachronistic discourse of the Cuban regime when compared with that of other regional politicians.

The speeches of the island’s representatives seem like outputs from the age of the dinosaurs. You listen to how Pinera, Humala, Santos or Rousseff openly express needs that affect their countries and their tangible bet on democracy and human rights.

Raul Castro, out of focus in his inaugural speech, analyzed poverty, inequality and other phenomena in Latin America as if Cuba did not also suffer from them. He tried to seem like a teacher holding class for a group of students.

The future of the world is increasingly of blocs. It is positive that Latin America is seen as an inclusive entity. The great merit of the Second Summit was declaring Latin America a Zone of Peace.

But there are many challenges ahead. The continent continues to be the most unequal and violent region on the planet. Caracas, Michoacan or Tegucigalpa are true slaughterhouses.

Neither can one get around the tendency of the governments of Ecuador, Venezuela or Nicaragua to reform the Constitution at their convenience. It creates a harmful precedent: that of politicians endorsed by institutions saturated by colleagues and buddies from the party that are perpetuated in power.

Demagoguery floats in several nations of the region. Political honesty and frankness is a rare bird.

It is not possible that none of the 31 governors that were at the Summit in Havana, elected in democratic plebiscites, with opposition parties and free press, have not questioned the Cuban regime about its lack of freedoms and its repression of the dissidence.

Like a Russian doll, the olive-green autocracy tries to regenerate itself and govern without respect to the democratic clauses of CELAC.

If they are committed to integrating the Cuba of the Castros into the Latin American and Caribbean community, ethically, some leader should let them know. And not exactly in a quiet voice.

Iván García

Translated by mlk.

3 February 2014

The People of Havana Return to Their Routines / Ivan Garcia

mercado-negro-negra-vende-mani2-600x330Now Eduardo is back. In the wake of the Second CELAC Summit, an omnibus with police and paramedics made a sweep of the beggars who were camping out in Vedado or Old Havana.

“I was in a shelter known as La Colonia, in Boyeros municipality (20 kilometers west of the center of the capital). The treatment was harsh. It looked like a jail. But at least they guaranteed lunch and food,” said the vagabond, who usually bets on an image of San Lázaro to ask for money at the entrance of a complex of exclusive shops in the Habana Libre hotel.

After being warned by the police, a group of alcoholics and beggars who usually sell used clothing and old books on the corner of Carmen and 10th of October in the slum of La Vibora, stayed away for a week.

“They told us we made the city look ugly. A police official said we should get lost until the end of the Summit. The important visits, like that of the Pope or meetings of presidents, together with the cold, are a pain in the neck for us, because we have to go to places outside the city. We live like gypsies. Almost all of us sleep in cartons in some doorway. In the neighborhood of la Calzada and 10th of October, we find a few pesos by doing metal plating, cutting stone, and some neighbors give us food,” remarked Ariel, a hopeless alcoholic. continue reading

Barely did the CELAC Summit end, when the beggars and dumpster divers returned to their work.

These events are also usually trouble for those who live on the margins on the law. Like Ramiro, a part-time transvestite, who prostitutes himself on the central avenues after work.

“During those days you walk around wound up. The police get very nervous. A client told me that they were mobilizing, since they expected groups of human rights marchers or public demonstrations. Once it was over, I returned to the struggle,” says Ramiro.

Hookers in the suburbs in the style of Gisela, pretty and with an easy laugh, also make sacrifices. “I’ve been arrested twice for prostitution. I have to be careful. When they celebrate meetings like this, I “nail myself in” (stay at home). Later I go back to the routine.

Numerous dissidents, among them the intellectual Manuel Cuesta Morúa and the attorney Veizant Boloy, should now be returning to their homes, after several days of detention in police dungeons, to prevent them from holding a parallel forum.

Other members of the opposition, independent journalists, alternative bloggers and human rights activists were prevented by State Security from leaving their homes, and their cell phones were cut off.

The Second CELAC Summit, celebrated in Havana from January 25 to 29, didn’t bring too many benefits to the people of Havana. Among the lucky ones were the residents on San Lázaro Street, from the University staircase up to the Fragua Martiana Museum, in the Cayo Hueso district.

Owing to the presence of a torch parade in honor of the 161st anniversary of the birth of José Martí, a coat of paint was given to the facades of some buildings and homes, and several streets got new asphalt.

Owners of private restaurants and family businesses in zones neighboring PABEXPO, were closed on the days of the event. “I have a cake business, for weddings and parties, that I had to close, because of the exaggerated police presence and prohibitions for the circulation of autos. The clients disappeared,” indicated Alexander, the owner of a sweetshop in Miramar.

The “fat” expected by owners of private restaurants, craft vendors, and private taxi drivers remained far below expectations.

“The truth is that almost no one who took part in the Summit came by here, unless it was one or another first lady, say,” said a seller of paintings on the Plaza de la Catedral.

Paladars of caliber like La Guarida, located in the heart of the marginal neighborhood of San Leopoldo, kept hoping for reservations by the heavyweights. In November 1999, when the Kings of Spain attended the IberoAmerican Summit celebrated in Havana, the Queen Doña Sofía dined in the famous paladar (as private restaurants are called).

Josefina had more luck, with her hair salon in Old Havana. She gave a haircut to the indifferent Secretary General of the United Nations, the South Korean Ban Ki-moon. Though how much he paid for the cut isn’t known.

Iván García

Photo: Old Havana. While the woman trumpets her cone of “peanuts, toasted and hot,” very close to her are a policeman and a man having an exchange of words. Taken from Cubanet.

Translated by Regina Anavy

1 February 2014

CELAC for Cubans: Indifference and Repression / Ivan Garcia

48-600x330For Zoila, 38-year old nurse, the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that is now going on in Havana adds up to “politically correct” speeches, banquets and photos.

“It’s more of the same. They talk about poverty, integration and social inclusion while in Cuba inequality grows. It is a cheeky that our president Raul Castro speaks about those topics. He should blush, in country where people have salaries of less than 20 dollars a month. The worst part is not earning little money, the food shortages or their high prices, the worst part is that we have no way of changing the state of things,” points out Zoila, at a bus stop in Vedado.

Osniel, 33 years old, bartender at a bar that sells exclusively in foreign currency, while he prepares daiquiris and mojitos, unenthusiastically and from the side watches a flatscreen installed on the premises, which broadcasts news about the roll out of the CELAC Summit.

“Whether they are Latin Americans, from the Americas or from ALBA, these summits are only useful for presidents and foreign ministers, who take advantage of them to talk face to face. For everyone else they are ineffective. There’s a lot of talk about eliminating poverty, respecting human rights, and creating grandiose economic projects. But with the passage of time, it almost all stays on the drawing board,” the barman emphasizes.

On the streets of Havana, it is increasingly difficult to find people who are optimistic or who are not angry. The Diario de las Américas spoke with some twenty citizens about the Summit’s news interest. continue reading

For sixteen it is a real annoyance, and four said that after 55 years, they are used to it. “It is what Castro’s boat* brought,” says Eugenio, 73 years old, retired.  The Cubavision channel dedicates 12 hours a day to the Summit.  ”There’s no option but to rent films and soap operas. Or change to the sports channel; I don’t like baseball or soccer, but I prefer it over seeing such people giving speeches,” confesses Onelia, 56, housewife.

“The oven is not ready for the cakes. The news that started the year, the astronomical prices of cars for sale, has created too much distress. Then this optimistic discourse from the national press that contrasts with the hard reality that most of us live. In Cuba it seems that there are two planets. One artificial, highlighted by the government media, and the real one where disenchantment and uncertainty about the future worry many,” says Rogelio, 47, bank employee.

While the television harps on news about the Summit, Junior and a group of friends, after each ingests two Parkinsonil pills, buy a bottle of Mulata rum for 5 cuc, a week’s salary for a professional. They drink it all, to see if they can “change their bodies.”

“That ’molar’ (speech) does not interest me. The horde of old men in charge of Cuba does not notice that they are boring. Since I was born, in 1994, the same ’size’ (spiel), that if the Yankees, that if the ’blockade’ (embargo). But we continue the same or worse, above all the young. Without a future and ’stuffing tremendous cable’ (going through hardship). We escape taking pills with rum,” says Junior, hairless in the style of Brazilian soccer player Neymar.

Without intending it, Bruno Rodriguez was the one who knew best how to define the air of apparent political placidity that lives in the Summit. In a press conference, the Cuban foreign minister emphasized that he had never seen in an international forum an air of such harmony and consensus as he observed in Havana.

For the common Cuban, it all seems rehearsed. If there were discrepancies, they aired them discreetly. “It is shameful that the attendees of the Summit in their pronouncements have tried not to displease a host who is a dictator,” says a taxi driver.

Certainly, one has to chalk up a political goal for General Raul Castro. Not even his brother Fidel could agree with or attenuate the critics of his regime at international events held during the time that he was head of the country.

Whatever their ideological tendencies, the regional politicians seem like disciplined children. All facing the gallery. That strategy of extending the red carpet for the olive-green autocracy leaves the Cuban dissidence increasingly alone and isolated.

As of the moment of this writing, no one had met with opposition figures. Not even Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the OEA. The ridiculous level of commitment by Latin American democrats to a handful of women and men who claim political space and freedom of expression left the road clear for State Security forces to harass the opposition, independent journalists and human rights activists.

Jorge Olivera, 52-years-old, reporter, writer, and ex-prisoner of the Group of 75, on the night of January 23 two counterintelligence agents warned him not to participate in any dissident events during the Summit.

“They were emphatic. They told me they were not going to permit parallel meetings during the Summit. The cynicism of the Latin America politicians attending the event is worrying. No one has made a gesture or wanted to meet with us. They have a double standard. They speak and demand democracy, including in the CELAC charter, and they look away when it comes to the Cuban dissidence,” says Olivera.

A parallel forum sponsored by the Argentine organization CADAL (Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America) and dissidents on the island probably cannot be held due to the strong repression. They did not even permit the director of CADAL to enter the capital.

Manuel Cuesta Morua, co-sponsor of the forum, was detained in a Miramar police unit. The mobile phones of numerous opponents were cut off and others were not permitted to leave their homes or provinces. Dozens of arrests of activists were reported all over the island.

In Cuba, depending on who looks, the glass is half full or half empty. And there is not only one reality, but many and very different.

But it would be presumptuous to say that the harangues of the regime or the debates in the Summit are a news priority for the common people. Rather it is the opposite.

Ivan Garcia

Photo:  Before and during the CELAC summit, the main avenues and streets of Havana were taken by police officers like this one, of the special brigade, who are distinguished by the black uniform and always walk with a dog.  The photo, by Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca, was taken very close to Havana’s Central Park.

*Translator’s note: Fidel Castro and his associates started the Revolution by sailing on a small yacht from Mexico to Cuba. The yacht was purchased from an American who had named it “Granma,” which subsequently became the name of one of Cuba’s provinces and the country’s daily newspaper.

Translated by mlk

29 January 2014

CELAC Summit in Havana: The Regime is Cashing In / Ivan Garcia

E4CABC98-3159-402E-9759-7B8430EF074F_mw1024_n_s-620x330Under a warm sun and unusually cool breeze, a worker puts the final touches on the exterior of PABEXPO, an exposition and meeting center of 60,000 square yards, located in the Siboney neighborhood, to the west of Havana.

There, from Saturday the 25th to Tuesday the 29th of January, experts, foreign ministers and presidents will meet at the 2nd Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

The tourist group Cubatur S.A., obviously, is the most favored. Two weeks ago, in a document from the Minister of Foreign Relations loaded to the internet as a PDF, offers detailed information.

It consists of 116 pages and is titled Operations Manual for the 2nd CELAC Summit. The Cuban Organizing Committee offered free housing to every Head of State, one of the Foreign Ministers and another to the Head of the Delegation to the Meeting of National Coordinators.

Six other rooms, guaranteed at the same hotel and floor established for each attending country, will be paid by the delegations requesting them. The prices range between 170 and 340 CUC per night, in the case of doubles, and include transportation from and to the airport, breakfast, internet, and personalized assistance. If they want rooms superior to the standard, the price will be higher. [Ed. note: The CUC, Cuban Convertible Peso, is pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar but exchange fees increase its cost to about $1.10.]

Six hotels have been selected for the invited VIPs. Three five-star hotels (Hotel Nacional, Meliá Cohiba and Meliá Habana) and three four-star superior (Hotel Quinta Avenida, Occidental Miramar and Panorama).

Some 2,500 to 3,000 foreign reporters are expected to return. At their disposal there will be twelve hotels with room prices ranging from 90 to 400 CUC a night.

Cubatur also will make bank renting cars or other types of tourist transport. For three to six days an economy car will cost 51 CUC a day, a premium model 181 CUC and a van 185 CUC. continue reading

The organizers are offering six vehicles to each delegation. The foreign press and other participants will have to pay “an adequate collective transport.”

ETECSA, the only Cuban telecommunications company, will also have its harvest. Calls within the island cost 0.35 CUC. To the United States or another Latin American country, 1.60 CUC (to Venezuela is 1.40), and 1.80 CUC a minute to the rest of the world.

To install a fixed telephone line, ETECSA will charge 100 CUC, plus the price of the calls. The cost of renting links to navigate the internet depends on the speed. If it is 64 Kbps, the participants will have to pay 150 CUC for the installation plus 7 CUC a day.

For the fastest connection, at 2,048 Kbps, the installation price rises to 200 CUC and the daily cost of service is 186 CUC.

In addition, ETECSA will charge one convertible peso for every sheet received by fax, while an hour of access from PABEXPO will cost 4.50 CUC, the same price we Cubans pay when we go to a state internet room.

The media who intend to use a satellite phone will have to pay a 1,000 CUC license fee, and if they want satellite Internet the figure doubles. The current regulations in Cuba establish that it is mandatory to obtain a credential to work temporarily as a journalist in the country at a cost of 100 CUC, with the exception of the Presidential Press, which will receive credentials from the Organizing Committee.

The Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) will charge 200 CUC for an hour of editing, including the editor, and the same fee for an hour of using a transmission position. According to a source from ICRT, the multinational Telesur, financed with Venezuelan and Ecuadorian capital and Cuban advice, is exempt from these payments. And, in addition, it will also have privileged locations in the conference rooms.

A consulting economist estimated that the CELAC SUMMIT, in barely a week, fattened the coffers of the regime with between 180 and 220 million dollars. Not bad for some finances in the red.

25 January 2014