Author Archives: Lilianne Ruíz

Zero Violence / Lilianne Ruiz

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1368212654_violencia-cero-213In San Luis, a small town in Pinar del Rio, two young men caught the attention of State Security for distributing flyers for the Zero Violence campaign, and were detained.

Taken to the police station, one of them asked the repressor, “Are you in agreement with the violence?”

The cop responded no.

“Then, why stop me if all I’m doing is calling for no violence?”

The guy in uniform responded, “Because I’m not in agreement with what you’re distributing (the message). Give it to some other citizen to distribute.”

“Then I’m giving it to you, so that you will distribute it, among your people who are violent,” concluded the boy.

The Zero Violence campaign is an initiative from within the independent New Country platform, and is being conducted throughout the Island to create a change toward tolerance; which inevitably contradicts — disagrees with — Revolutionary politics; which is by nature intolerant and, let no one doubt it, violent.

“The authorities are trapped in their own contradictions. Between the image they want to sell of a calm and civilized country and their real conduct relative to repression,” says Manual Cuesta Morua, independent journalist, political analyst, president of the social-democrat Progressive Arch party, and national coordinator of New Country.

The victims of the repression agree with regards to the style flaunted by the agents: whether they’re uniformed police or State Security agents; even people recruited to carry out an act of repudiation try to ignore the existence of the other, the right to different, with an attitude masterfully defined once by Padre Conrado — recipient of the Tolerance Plus prize created by the same Platform — as “The Nullification.”

According to Cuesta Morúa, political violence, in Cuba, feeds on marginality, crude language, barbarism. People who are recruited to perform an act of repudiation are rarely the grande dames of the Revolution. Those who are mobilized to carry out these acts of verbal and physical violence are people who inhabit the marginality reproduced by the Revolution.

The Zero Violence campaign aims to work in marginal communities across the country, because from the moment that people learn not to use certain language and not to engage in certain behaviors, acquiring education instead of ideology, it is quite difficult later to break their own rules; also severed is the possibility of the State buying the attitudes of the marginalized for acts of repudiation, which are, as Cuesta-Morúa noted, “the suspension of politics.”

“When you become aware that you can’t, nor shouldn’t, project yourself violently against others, it quickly activated the culture of conversation,” says Cuesta Morua.

The culture of dialogue has been marginalized by the Cuban authorities, who need to be reminded of that phrase of the far-off Voltaire: I disagree with what you say, I completely disagree with that, but would defend with my life your right to say it.

“Violence in education is part of the organizational structure of State violence,” continues Cuesta Morúa. “Children in Cuba are taught to salute the flag with the slogan, We will be like Che.”

“El Ché,” as the Argentine guerrilla Ernesto Guevara is known, was a Communist and officiated for years, running the deaths before the firing squads of La Cabaña. Cuban mothers and fathers have never been consulted about whether they agree that this is the best educational paradigm. Cuban schools are State-owned, and are an investment in the ideological field. “When you teach a child to be like Che, he is subliminally instilling the culture of violence and disrespect for human rights,” added the activist.

1368212656_artistas-y-auspiciadoresThe women who joined New Country created this campaign and are its main promoters. They have organized workshops to teach their peers how to defend themselves in situations of violence, whether domestic or institutional. Through the Zero Violence Help Line, a series of phones have been placed at the service of people who seek advice, literature, or who decide to report an act of violence to the coordinators of the campaign. The coordinators would be responsible for investigating the complaint and for ultimately entering into the Orange Report, created for that purpose, cases of violence that come to their attention. With the hope of seeing what they can do to reduce them to the minimum.

Each year, 18 to 25 November, the Zero Violence Festival will be held, which last year featured guest artists like the rappers the Patriot Squadron, Silvito the Free and the punk band known as Porno para Ricardo. The boys of Omni Zona Franca, who are engaged in poetry, slam, performance, have also joined.

The days of November 18 to 25 coincide with the international day against child violence and gender violence, respectively.

Paradoxical as it may seem, as we said above, there have been a number of arrests of activists and promoters of the Zero Violence campaign in the west and east of the island. They are political arrests, obviously.

Taken from Cubanet.

10 May 2013


Calixto, the Resolute* / Lilianne Ruiz

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Calixto Ramon Martinez Arias, after his release. Image taken from Cubanet

This past Tuesday, the Cuban authorities finally acknowledged Calixto R. Martinez Arias’s right to go free, after he had served more than six months in prison, initially for the crime of “insulting the leadership figures of the Revolution.” He had no trial.

Martinez Arias twice engaged in what is known in the post-1959 history of Cuban political prisoners as “taking a stand” (literally, “planting oneself”): he declared a hunger strike. In the first, he went 33 days without eating, the second, 22. Until, after the second strike, it was reported by state security that his case had been reviewed and they had “understood” his demand for freedom.

“I started the first hunger strike to protest my stay in the Combinado del Este prison,” Martinez Arias said. “I also refused to wear prison garb. When an inmate declares a hunger strike, the guards use many methods to make them quit. The first thing they say is that you are committing a disciplinary infraction, which hurts your eiligibility for rights such as conditional parole, and for family and conjugal visits. And ultimately they take you to the infirmary where the doctor will take your vital signs and issue you a “suitable cell” notice, which means just that: you are fit to be taken to the punishment cells.”

“The punishment cell measures about 6 by 8 feet. It has no light. It has a “Turkish” toilet, and a water basin you can access twice a day, when the guards allow. There were days when they refused me water because a captain who claimed to be the second-in-command of Building 3, where I was detained, said that I could not drink water and took it away from me.

“By day you have to lie on the floor or stand. To that end, they remove the mattress. They left me my clothes, but took away anything with which I might cover myself. I spent very cold days, especially during the first strike. The cells are very wet and very cold, deliberately prepared to be that way. There were times when I had to sleep sitting on the floor, up against the wall, because the guards would come very late to give me the mattress. Lying on the floor you can contract a lung disease from the cold and moisture. The floor is very dirty because the cells are not cleaned. There are many insects: enormous rats, droves of cockroaches. It is a sacrifice that you have to make, convinced that it is all designed to psychologically torture you.

“During the second hunger strike, of 16 days, they took me to what they call ’the increased’ area, which is more severe. Then they took me out of there after one day to an even harsher cell. There the conditions were more brutal. They kept a surveillance camera on me at all times; they never turned off the light.”

In the second hunger strike, Martinez Arias started bleeding profusely from his gums and his teeth began to fall out. He lost 45 pounds. But he says: “I became a lot stronger.”

The “Official Organ of the Communist Party of Cuba,” the newspaper Granma, on Wednesday April 10, published an account of the “good conditions” in which prisoners live in Cuban jails. Regarding this, Martinez Arias said:

“This is an absurdity. I can assure you that they began preparing this article in December. In the month of December they informed us that journalists from the national and foreign press accredited in Cuba were going to visit the Combinado del Este prison. Major Rodolfo, who is in charge of the building where I was, a building for ’pendings,’ explained to us that the visitors would not be given access to our building because of the appalling conditions. Prisoners there live in a state of overcrowding, because every day many ’pending’ prisoners enter.

“It also has many leaks, and the bathrooms are in an extremely unsanitary condition. The building should be declared uninhabitable. Rodolfo explained that he was not going to take visitors there, because of these conditions, and that this was not a bad decision because, and I can almost quote him verbatim, ’when a visitor comes to your house, you want to show him the best, not the worst parts.’ For that reason, he said, they were going to repair a wing of building No.1. The foreign media should not be allowed to have access to the punishment cells. In fact, in none of the pictures they showed are these cells seen.”

In Cuba, the exercise of the right that everyone has to seek, receive, and distribute information, by any means of expression, without limitation by borders—as stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—may be considered a crime. But on occasion, to put an independent journalist in prison, as in the case of Martinez Arias, the authorities bring charges of common crimes against him, to deflect the political nature of the arrest.

On September 16, 2012, Martinez Arias had been inquiring of some terminal-workers near Jose Marti International Airport about a batch of medical aid provided by international humanitarian organizations to address the outbreak of cholera and dengue and that, because of official mismanagement, had spoiled.

On leaving the airport, as he and others took shelter from the rain, perched on the benches of a bus stop to avoid the puddles, a patrol car arrived and gave them all tickets; but Martinez Arias was transferred to the police unit of Santiago de las Vegas on the charge of being “illegally” in Havana, having an address of the province of Camagüey. Martinez Arias claimed in his defense that “the brothers Fidel and Raul Castro are natives of the province of Oriente.”

“Immediately” said the self-described activist “the police handcuffed me, took me to a dark hallway, and beat me hard.”

The police who detained and beat him then accused him of “insulting the figures of the leaders of the revolution.” He was automatically moved to the Valle Grande prison, and from there, as punishment for continually denouncing through his colleagues the human rights abuses of the prison population, he was taken to the maximum-security Combinado del Este prison.

During the first hunger strike, State Security informed Martinez Arias that the prosecutor’s petition stated that he had been “insulting” and “resistant”, for having offended a policeman.

“If I had reacted during the beating they gave me by dodging a blow, or by landing a defensive blow to the policeman who was giving me the beating, I would have been accused of ’attacking,’” Calixto said. Police in Cuba can feel “offended” and “attacked” if you don’t react with absolute passivity to their arbitrariness and brutality, and then they fabricate the charges of “insult” and “attack”, respectively, resulting in the person’s imprisonment.

Martinez Arias believes that the visibility conferred by having been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, together with the solidarity of human-rights activists, independent journalists in Cuba, and many foreign media with the participation of Cubans living abroad, managed to send a message to the government of Raul Castro that a person imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression is not alone, and you cannot keep them in prison subjected to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment without paying a high political cost that limits your room to maneuver with impunity.

 *Translator’s note: Literally “the planted one”

 Translated by: Tomás A.

This post appeared originally in Cubanet.org

12 April 2013


Abandon all hope ye who enter here / Lilianne Ruíz

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00-hugo-chavez-venezuela-08-03-13-300x200On March 5 Cuban TV aired the speech of Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan vice-president, where he announced to the world the death of Hugo Chavez; the perspective of Cubans turned toward the future, one that many perceive as tragic with regards to the economy, and that others perceive as hopeful from the political point of view.

The same thing is happening in Venezuela on a different scale. Cubans today share the only equality Socialism can provide, which is powerlessness against the Socialist State. In the Venezuelan case they have not yet reached the point where it is difficult to reverse; they are still going through the seductive chapter of the process.

In Maduro’s speech he emphasized the word “peace” in the doubtful context of the simultaneous announcement of the “deployment of the Armed Forces and the ’Bolivarian’ Police’” to “protect citizens and ensure peace and respect,” making ourselves into “vigilantes” (of peace). Again Maduro reiterated the same word, inviting people to “channel the pain in peace,” calling for the mobilization: “we shall gather in the squares, the people and the Armed Forces.”

In Cuba, there was not a single statement of opposition to Chavism in Venezuela to be seen. Despite the multi-state TV channel Telesur transmitting 24 hours on the Educational Channel 2 on Cuban television.

The mention of the opposition is always associated with conflict. In the broadcast of the March 7, in response to the question, “How is the country’s security?” a General answered, “On the alert, (the opposition) will always be conspiring,” adding, “all the people are in the street defending the Revolution,” and once more he spoke in terms of “deployment” of the intelligence services and the military.

“The Chavista people are united,” Diosdado Cabello said. While Elias Jaua, the current Venezuelan Foreign Minister affirmed, “The people want to continue constructing socialism.”

Cristina Fernandez, Argentina’s president, told Telesur: “This extraordinary concentration ratifies the massive support for Chavez,” referring to what the broadcaster defined as the “red tide” that accompanied the presidential coffin to the Military Academy where his wake is still being held, for 7 days.

More disconcerting still was the statement made by Nicolas Maduro about Chavez’s body, that “it will be embalmed, like Lenin’s.”

The propaganda of “21t century socialism” affirms that it intends to empower the people, down to the very poorest. For Cubans this hasn’t meant anything other than giving up all human rights, in return for receiving – as the crowning achievement of the utopia – a good ration of food, education teaching you to read and write, but which doesn’t favor your learning to think with liberty of conscience, and medical services.

That is to say, social security – which should be the function of any State whatever its political color – in exchange for liberty. Look at the almost religious exaltation of the leader, the emotional link, the comparison with “a father”, which will guarantee on a long term basis the complicated psychological phenomenon of a people submerged in slavery.

In the same way that in socialism (Leninist, Castroist, Chavista) the right to political freedom ends up exterminated; the same applies to economic freedom, because of their close relationship.

Using an allegory, the inclusion of what is called “21st century socialism” there is nothing other than an opening the mouth of the bag to the size necessary to take in more people and, eventually, the majority of votes in the elections (only when the members of whatever Socialist politburo feel obliged to organize free elections); after which, when everybody is inside the bag, the State terror will start to seal up its mouth and the end product will be comparable with the inscription which appears at the entrance to Dante’s “Inferno”: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”.

Venezuelans perhaps still can’t understand that the cult of the leader, alive or dead, establishes hideous social relations between those in power and the public which has been shaped to believe, and to ensure that all popular opinion believes, in a false idyll between the two parties, which results in just one power – the State. They still can’t understand that peace is in conflict with surveillance. And that one day they won’t have the freedom to choose.

Translated by GH

15 March 2013