The Sats Refugees / Camilo Ernesto Olivera

Havana, Cuba, December, www.cubanet.org — It was after 10 am Saturday, December 7.  The patrol car of the PNR (National Revolutionary Police) braked at my side, a few meters from where I live.  The uniformed officers got out of the car, and one of them asked me for my identity card.  With no further explanation, they pushed me against the patrol car, searched me, and put me in handcuffs.  Then they put me in the vehicle.

For almost an hour, we rolled through various zone of Mariano and La Lisa.  In an area near 100 Street and 51st, a Suzuki motorcycle approached.  The driver, dressed in civilian clothes, face hidden in the helmet, told the uniformed officers:

“Take hiim to Melena del Sur.”

After 5 pm I managed to return home.  It was growing dark when Antonio Rodiles called me by phone, and I told him what had happened.  A little later I was entering his house with a backpack loaded with necessities for surviving as a refugee there in the following days.  Like me, other members of the work team of Estado de Sats were coming together in the next hours. continue reading

When I arrived, Walfrido Lopez was polishing the details of the conference about means of communication and human rights.  The First International Meeting about Human Rights and Accords of the UN was due to open on the 10th.  Kissi Macias, wife of Luis Eligio, from OMNI, was there too, editing videos sent by various personalities.  At dawn on Sunday, Boris Larramendi arrived directly from Club Fabio, together with Ailer and Antonio who presented their concert there on Saturday night.

By that time, the news about detentions of activists and members of independent civil society was shaking the whole country.  On Sunday the 8th, Dixan, Sats collaborator, could not leave his house, and if he did, he would be sent to Vivac, detention center for political cases located in Calbazar.  Antonio and Ailer went to look for him, and a traffic patrol car, obeying orders from a motorcycle rider, intercepted them and then tried to capture them at the door to Rodiles’ house.  The police officers confiscated the car’s authorization document, and warned Antonio not to go out driving the car again.  Fortunately, now Lia Villares and her husband Luis Trapaga were sheltered together with us.  By that time, the wall of DSE (State Security) troops and uniformed police officers from the PNR (People’s Revolutionary Police) intensified.  By pure miracle, and with the darkness of night in his favor, David from OMNI passed through it and arrived at the house.  Also, Claudio Fuentes, Regina Coyula and the journalist from Hablemos Press Pablo Marchan jumped the fence.

On Monday we were 19 refugees.  The next days were of entrenchment, deep fellowship, and survival.  Also of much tension and stress, especially in the hours that followed the detention of Antonio, Walfrido, Calixto Ramon and Kissi on the 11th.  State Security surrounded the house, even on the ocean side.  The providential downpour that closed the area during the first hours of that night prevented greater evils. They were obliged to dismantle the repudiation platform that had been retrofitted with a powerful audio system.  The participation of two popular dance music groups was expected:  Arnaldo and his Talisman and Elito Reve and his Charangon.

Several stalls for the sale of rum and beer had been set up.  Evidently, the intention of the DSE was to ply with alcohol the “mass” of concert attendees and then use them in order to hide their civil troops among them, and to attack Rodiles’ house.  The suitable cloak  of night helped them to justify the witches’ sabbath. While it was raining, Boris Larramendi gave a concert of “pure blood,” and David of OMNI offered his own to welcome the return of the detainees at the stroke of 7 pm.

The silence that the ruling champions of the “Cyberwar” have kept during these days is a clear symptom of the demoralization in which their bosses of the DSE (State Security) find themselves.  A small group of refugees in Sats curbed the bullying of a corrupt and decadent regime.

December 23, 2013 / Cubanet

Translated by mlk

The Contradictory Spirit of Nostalgia / Camilo Ernesto Olivera

HAVANA, Cuba, December, www.cubanet.org — Between 1977 and 1978 Cubans living in the United States were able for the first time to return to the island to visit relatives. When my great uncle and great aunt came to our house, my father, who was an official in the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), could not be present. As a member of the Communist Party and the armed forces he had to obey orders, which were to refuse to greet them.

I remember as a child that my aunt and uncle stayed for lunch. There were tears in my aunt’s eyes when she saw the steaming, aromatic pot of black beans placed on the table. She said that, since she had left Cuba, she had not had beans and rice like the kind they make here. She later asked that we accompany her in a prayer of thanks. Even my uncle, who was not very religious, joined in — something I was only able to full understand years later.

In 1990 a group of students were returning home from Poland on a Cubana de Aviación flight. During a layover in Gander, Newfoundland almost all of them decided to take advantage of Canada’s then-generous asylum laws. More than twenty years later a member of the group was returning to Cuba as a tourist. He was travelling in economy class and his flight had several unscheduled layovers before landing at the Holguín airport.

His friend told us that during the last leg of the trip he managed to fall asleep. When they opened the hatchway door, a burst of steam and the penetrating odor of wet grass and rotting trash told him he had arrived in Cuba. This smell, so familiar during his childhood and adolescence, had been almost forgotten during the two decades he had lived in Canada.

At the moment they opened the hatchway door, all the memories came rushing back. An overwhelming sense of joy and sadness came over him. Later, surrounded by the love of family and friends, he managed to momentarily overcome this feeling. While in Banes he saw traces of the town’s devastation, the result of three hurricanes: one in 2008, another in 2012 and the main one, which has been destroying it since 1959. He also passed the homes of his childhood friends. Many were gone. The facades of others have or had been defaced with signs and placards stigmatizing their owners for opposing the government.

Recently, a young woman who was my first wife and one of my best friends in adolescence was visiting. She said, “Everything is more or less the same as when I left, but the decay of the houses and the people is evident. Now there are hard-currency stores for people with money, but the anguish and resignation have become became endemic.”

While we were having a beer to relieve the noontime heat, my friend used her mobile phone to show me the exact moment that she lost her internet connection. “I was chatting on Facebook and suddenly the whole screen froze. Then someone came up to me and said we were arriving in Cuba.”

She also told me, “I cannot understand how it is possible to feel nostalgia for a country where time has virtually stood still, like the image on my cell phone. It hurts me every minute, every house I knew from childhood that no longer exists, because it has been destroyed, because the rice dish of rice with black beans seems so different to me here. It feels like I am going back into my past, like I’m going to a cemetery to transfer a beloved family member from the crypt to the ossuary. ”

She took my hands and squeezed them hard between hers. It was as if she were trying to cling to nostalgia, drifting between love for what was and homelessness. Then we closed our eyes and let ourselves go.

December 11, 2013, Cubanet

Antonio Rodiles’ House Besieged at Dawn / Augusto Cesar San Martin, Camilo Ernesto Olivera

policias1HAVANA, Cuba  December 10, 2013, Augusto César San Martín / www.cubanet.org.- The home of Antonio Rodiles, leader of the independent group Estado de Sats, which from today through tomorrow is celebrating the First International Conference on Human Rights, was besieged by the police and plainclothes agents as the sun rose this morning. Third Street, from the Copacabana Hotel, is closed.

Around nine o’clock in the morning, this reporter was able to see a strong force deployed with the purposed of blocking political opponents, both from within the island as well as those who have managed to come from abroad, from participating in the day.

The director of Estado de Sats and the For Another Cuba campaign has said that this is the first attempt to organize an event of this kind, in which the topic of ratification of the UN covenants on human rights, signed by the Cuban government, will be addressed.

This reporter, in a taxi, tried in vain to reach the house, located in the Miramar neighborhood. The car was diverted. From 3rd and 42nd Streets the police are directing traffic. There are agents on the corners, with civilian staff. State Security cars and minibuses are located at the intersections.

The front of Rodiles’ house is deserted because 1st Street is closed. Cars coming from the Copacabana Hotel are diverted.

The Social/Labor Circle adjacent to Rodiles’ house has speakers playing the music of regime supporter Silvio Rodriguez very loudly.  The audio can be heard from 3rd Street.

The few participants who were able to reach the house days earlier have not been able to leave to avoid being arrested. Among them is the troubadour Boris Larramendi, from the Cuban group Habana Abierta (Open Havana), based in Spain.

Larramendi traveled specifically for the meeting and will close the event tomorrow, December 11.

The event from within

HAVANA, Cuba, December 10, 2013, Camilo Ernesto Olivera / www.cubanet.org.- Ultimately, and contrary to expectations, there was no direct police action against the organizer, Antonio Rodiles, who yesterday was accused of a traffic violation that he, in fact, had not committed. The initial session of the First International Conference on Human Rights was held without incident.

The turnout from the public has not been as expected, only twenty participants have managed to arrive, almost none from outside the country. But the foreign media and embassies accredited on the island, such as Spanish Television, have been able to report on the event.

The first panel, led by researcher Walfrido Lopez, was on human rights and the new media. Lopez presented a video on media from abroad which follow Cuba with interviews with directors and newspaper editors

Coming up is a panel on human rights in Latin America, and the another on institutional violence against women in Cuba.

There will also be an exhibition of posters of the event and for tomorrow a concert with Boris Larramendi troubadour, who came from Madrid.

As interference, the government, through State Security and its mass organizations, has mounted a kind of Street Plan in front of Rodiles’ house. They have staged a party with music and snacks for neighborhood children, who did not attend classes today, to justify closing the street to traffic.

Also, the social / labor circle known as La Copa (The Cup), located on 1st and 42nd Streets is being used as the command post by the political police.

Since early morning they have been playing the songs of troubadours who support the government, Silvio Rodriguez and the duo Buena Fe.

The operation recalls the era of General Abrantes, the Interior Minister in charge of acts of repudiation against citizens trying to leave the country. The siege techniques are the same except that no one is throwing eggs.

10 December 2013

Estado de Sats Presents “Notebooks for the Transition” in the Midst of a Police Operation

Screen Shot 2013-11-19 at 8.25.26 PMSaturday morning Estado de Sats presented the first issue of their magazine “Handbooks for the Transition” despite a political operation to prevent the audience from arriving; several activists were detained, Antonio Rodiles, director of the independent project, informed Diario de Cuba

According to Rodiles, Gabriel Barrenechea, a member of the magazine’s editorial board, and Andrés Pérez were besieged in their homes. Meanwhile, the artist Luis Trápaga was arrested on his way to the presentation, as was José Díaz Silva, who was beaten and held at least six hours.

Screen Shot 2013-11-19 at 8.27.26 PMHowever, about 60 people managed to attend the event. Rodiles said that some participants were arrested by regime’s agents on leaving, to take copies of the magazine from them.

“Despite arrests, violations, pressures, we presented ‘Handbooks for the Transition.” SATS will continue because the desire for freedom us unstoppable,” insisted the director of the independent project.

The monthly magazine, in print and digital editions, “has as its objective to address different themes about the future transition to democracy on the Island, with authors from within and outside the country,” Rodiles told Diario de Cuba this week.

The first volume includes articles by Walfrido Lopez (The Internet in Cuba-US Relations), Emilio Morales (Remittances have become an engine of the Cuban economy), Juan Antonio Blanco (Civilizational and migration change), and Antonio Rodiles and Alexis Jardines (Notes for the transition), among others.

Future issues will address topics such as economic liberalization and legality.

“We must begin to discuss these issues openly. We need to debate them, without fear,” said Rodiles.

Screen Shot 2013-11-19 at 8.28.08 PM

Diario de Cuba | 2 November 2013

Cuba Rock Agency Director Dismissed / Camilo Ernesto Olivera

Maxim Rock, last Saturday. Photo: Camilo Ernesto Olivera
Maxim Rock, last Saturday. Photo: Camilo Ernesto Olivera

HAVANA, Cuba, November 6, 2013, Camilo Ernesto Olivera / www.cubanet.org.- On Saturday, 2 November, Blanca Record was dismissed as director of the Cuban Rock Agency. This was the surprising and unusual response to a protest expressed through “official channel.”

Blanca Recode took office last June. Her appointment was signed by Orlando Vistel, Vice President of the Cuban Institute of Music (ICM).

For more than a week, a good share of the musicians belonging to the Cuban Rock Agency (ACR) joined together to demand the dismissal of this functionary. They drafted a letter where they explained the situation of the groups, the despotic manifesto of this director, and her threats of shutting them down and firing them.

On Monday, musicians and technicians addressed different levels of the Ministry of Culture and also the Council of State. One group managed to deliver, personally, a copy of their protest letter to the Vice Minister for Music, Orlando Vistel. He scheduled a meeting on the 31st with various of those making the demands.

As a result, the Vice Minister guaranteed a response to the demands of the musicians and the workers of the Agency in a short time. The promise was fulfilled in just under 48 hours.

During the weekend, events seemed to rush toward the firing last Saturday. On Monday, the 4th, they decided not to keep the lawyer and economist at the Agency. Other changes are expected in the coming days. Meanwhile, the Agency and Maxim Theater continue operating and the programmed concerts will go on.

This weekend, two groups from Colombia and Switzerland shared the stage with Cuban groups.

According to reliable sources who asked not to be named, the Deputy Minister Orlando Vistel accepted the rockers’ proposal to name María Gattorno as Agency director.

Between 1988 and 2003, Gattorno managed to sustain, against all odds, the well-remembered “Patio de Maria” in a small house of culture. She is is much loved and respected among musicians and the Cuban rocker and metalhead audience.

During the time the Rock Agency was created in 2007, Gattorno decided not to accept the leadership of this organization for personal reasons. At that time, the appointment of Max Yuri Avila to the office was approved, who at that time already had experience in the work of artistic production and entertainment. Now the challenge is much greater.

The official dismissed arrived last June emphatically stating that “the Agency is going to be closed.”  Reversing this is a challenge that lies ahead for the two generations of rock and heavy metal musicians who survive as a part of this State entity.

Certainly , the genre has survived in much worse circumstances. But keep in mind that winning a battle is not winning the war. More than five decades of eventful history of rock on the island testify to this.

Camilo Ernesto Olivera

Cubanet, 6 November 2013

The New Man, Fraud and Reggaeton / Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

DANI IS A WHORE / THE DONKEY (illegible)
BILLBOARDS OF DECREPITUDE – Photo by Camilo Ernesto Olivera

HAVANA, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org  A teenager, a wannabe to the “reggaeton fashion,” succeeds in paying for his Spanish Language exam grades on a regular basis: “In my high school you can do business, provided that you are willing to pay well.”  The young man, whose name I was not permitted to disclose, aims to get through the remainder of his high school years  in the same manner. “My older sister supports me since, “jineteando” [prostituting herself], she met a Yuma [foreigner] loaded with “baro” [money] and “got her claws into him.”

He aspires to attain fame in that musical genre, very popular in Cuba.  Because, in his own words “it is very lucrative, faster than going to school and getting a degree or going to a trade school.”  When I asked him what he’ll do once reggaeton is over, he looks at me incredulous:  “That’s never going to happen”.  Then he slowly looks at my long hair and says:  “And you guys, the “frikis” (rockers in the popular jargon), nobody sees you guys in the radio or TV.  But reggaeton everyone supports it, from the Communist party to Lucas on television”.

Musical Equipment for Sale…

Lucas, for those who don’t know, is a national television program that transmits musical video clips produced locally. In the absence of internet or other means, this program, directed by Orlando Cruzata, is taken like a barometer of the musical popularity in the island. Everyone knows that the burgeoning producer PMM is the Lord and Mistress of this television program. I try to clarify this last detail to the kid, but he doesn’t even flinch: “Of course, dude, the people with the most money are the reggaeton musicians; look at Daddy Yankee’s last musical video, he has a tremendous Lamborghini.”

Then he explains his point of view about what he considers to be a promising future:  “As soon as I finish 12th grade, if I don’t buy a diploma beforehand; my sister is going to give me the money so I can start my own musical group and buy the entry to a musical company… Then, I make a couple of hit songs so they stick (so they are popular) and I film a hot video clip like Chacal & Yakarta.  They’ll censor it, I become famous like Osmani Garcia and then I go to Miami.”

I listen to him, and think about that chant that we repeated singsong-like in elementary school:  “Pioneers for Communism…” or the other one that would add:  “Where a communist is born, difficulties die.”  Right after, the kid feels comfortable enough and improvises what in his view will be his first super hit on the “Lucasnómetro weekly.”

Just because you are in my field of vision doesn’t mean that you are the object of my gaze.

I am in a town on the periphery of the capital, Guanabacoa. It is Sunday, the day is boring and the week depressing.  After this instructive conversation with the “new man of the XXI.century.cubiche.cu”, I conclude that the paleontologists of the future will have a lot to talk about.

I go out to walk the streets.  I observe the overwhelmed faces of the few that challenge the mid-afternoon sun.  I am sweating and the smell of the accumulated garbage piles (“in each block a committee…”) keep me company the rest of the way.  I see a sign that looks like no one has been able to erase it.  It is pretty offensive and I take a picture for you readers.  Then I see others with “spectacular” spelling errors and I do the same.  Then I understand why the “owners of the estate” [the Castro brothers] want to start a battle with the teachers that tutor students privately.

Let’s remember that in medieval times, reading and writing were privileges for the high classes.  As was access to the universities.  The children of the nomenklatura will always have their home tutors. There is and always will be, as is always been, schools for the ordinary Cuban and schools for the children of the generals in charge.

As I am heading back, I stumble upon the “reggeaton superstar”.  I show him the pictures and ask him if he sees anything wrong.  He looks at them for a few minutes, he gives me the camera back and says: “Dude, everything is cool”.

Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro,  From Cubanet, 24 October 2013

 Translated by LYD

The Night of the Long Scissors / Camilo Ernesto Olivera

Fidel Castro Speaking in 1968
Fidel Castro Speaking in 1968

On 13 March 1963, during a commemoration on the steps of the University of Havana, Fidel Castro said: “For there walks a specimen, another byproduct we must fight (…), many of these lazy ‘hipsters,’ children of the bourgeois, walk around in their too-tight pants, some of them with a guitar thinking they’re Elvis Presley. And they have taken the extreme liberty of going to public spaces and freely organizing their ‘feminine shows’ (…), they are all linked, the little lumpen, the lazy, the Elvis Presleys, the tight jeans.

Then Castro added, “Don’t let these ‘hipsters’ think the streets of Havana are the streets of Miami.”

Also on a March 13th, but in 1968, Castro himself launched the so-called General Revolutionary Offensive, an operation that gave the coup de grace to small- and medium-sized private businesses, and that also killed the nightlife in the capital and in the whole country.

In the final months of 1967, in Czechoslovakia, the process of social democratization began that was remembered as the “Prague Spring”; something that set off an alarm in almost all the countries tied to the Soviet axis.

On 21 August of that year Russian military power occupied Czechoslovakia and dismantled the government of that country with the consent of the then Kremlin strongman, L.I. Brezhnev. This same year, in May 1968, there was the student rebellion that turned France upside down.

Meanwhile, in Cuba, in the months before March 1968, the usual audience of the nightclubs walked up and down La Rampa trying to kill their boredom. They take a turn around the central tower of the Coppelia Ice Creamery, along with spells at the cafe known as El Carmelo at 23rd, near the intersection of this street and the Avenue of the Presidents.

Other places frequented were the terrace of the cafe at N and 21, next to the Hotel Capri, the gardens of the Hotel Nacional gardens, and, in the area where it was located at the time, the Czechoslovak House of Culture.

A segment of youth, those who were assigned the adjective “enfermitos” — little sick ones — walked La Rampa at risk. The “hipsters” of the time, with their tight pants of Chinese khaki, their sleeveless shirts with embroidered decorations and their modified workboots. Long hair was the privileged headache of some.

In those days the young poet from Holguin, Delfín Prats, read his poems, “Language of Mutes,” in public. The Beatles’ White Album was listened to in secret.

At the same time, Ana Lasalle and her enthusiastic court of rabid leftists ravaged Vedado. The frenzied Communist lady actress wielded her scissors against manes and miniskirts. These scissors had their longest night on 25 September 1968, exactly 45 years ago today.

Around 9:00 at night that Saturday, a police cordon with uniformed and plainclothes officers fell on the area. The indiscriminately took prisoner everyone from casual passersby to pimps who besieged the Hotel Capri, where sometimes Greek or French sailors from ships anchored in the harbor stayed. The detainees were classified into three groups: Homosexuals, Hippies, and the third classification: Improper conduct.

According to those who experienced the events, two members of the rock group Los Pacificos were arrested very close to the corner of N and 23rd. That group, like another named Los de León (later, Los Kents), were very popular at the time among young rock fans in the Vedado area.

The group Los Pacificos didn’t survive the consequences of that harsh and bitter night and broke up.

In his speech on Tuesday, 28 September, Fidel Castro referred to the events of the previous Saturday. He justified the raid as a part of the offensive being waged against “social evils.” He generally accused those arrested of being involved in vagrancy, pimping minors and other things of this type.

On Sunday 12 October, the newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) published an extensive compendium about the raid that had occurred days earlier. The headline read, “Yankee Dream Destroyed, the boys of the fourth world.”

Other articles appeared in the style of: “How do bands of juveniles converted into vehicles of imperialist propaganda think and act?” There was also a photo essay, with images of some of the boys arrested under the title, “Is this what you want for your son?”

Specifically, an article by the journalist Alfredo Echarry noted: “Encouraged by the role models of imperialism and inspired by the workings of their youth gangs, they try to give a structure to disorganization. Immediately, groups and bands identified by different names begin to emerge, among them: The Zids, Los Chicos Now, Los Chicos Melenudos, Los Betts, Los Chicos de la Flor, Los Chicos del Crucifijo, Los del Palo, Los Sicodélicos, Los del Banano…” Within Echarry’s article, the term “ideological divisiveness” was the condemnatory stigma.

Today, 45 years later, the ghosts of that night of the long scissors seem to be revived in the schools. The “moralizing” offensive of Raulism evokes the demons of “the night of the three P’s” and that tragic 25 September 1968.

Although it seems incredible, the Revolutionary terror lurks still, ready to attack and “bring to heel” a society ever more disenchanted and rebellious.

Camilo Ernesto Olivera, Havana

From Diario de Cuba

25 September 2013

Cuban Schools: Sexual Favors for Teachers in Exchange for Good Grades / Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

HAVANA, Cuba , September 4, 2013, www.cubanet.org – Two police cars parked at the entrance to a high school. From one of them a man in civilian dress got out, and with long strides entered the school. Uniformed police also got out of the cars, but they remained outside the fence. The civilian went straight to the office of the director, who barely had time to react when the newcomer started dragging him, kicking, taking him almost to the center of the schoolyard.

The students witnessed the spectacle as if it were a Roman circus or a “pankration” fight. Most of them cheering the man and some recognizing him as the father of one of the girls at the school. Then, beating the director with a piece of wood until he was unconscious, the man called the police. They came in, handcuffed the defenseless individual on the ground, and carried him to the police car.

It was learned that the director was having relations with the daughter of the aggressor, an 8th grade student, and had been since she was in 7th grade. The romance was a secret until her girlfriend, who knew everything, committed an indiscretion. The offended father, with very good relations with the People’s Revolutionary Police (PNR), gathered all the evidence. The girl confessed. Furthermore, it was learned that the director was participating in a network of falsifying and selling school records.

Prostitution among students

Similar events are common in the schools of Cuba. They don’t always come to light because the students themselves cover for the teacher, or director, either out of their own interests or fear.

Any Cuban who spent part of his youth in the education system of boarding schools in the countryside, heard anecdotes of students being teachers’ lovers. Sexual relations between minors and adults, who were supposed to, under the law, be the children’s guardians. This writer saw, on more than one occasion, students involved with teachers in exchange for a higher grade on an exam, or to avoid having to repeat a year. The phenomenon was not unique to girls. Boys also offered sexual favors to male teachers in exchange for the same things.

Now the phenomenon is spreading. Prostitution is exercised between students themselves, under the auspicious cloak of festivals called “downloads.” In this mode the beneficiaries are the more affluent kids. It’s known for a boyfriend to lend his girlfriend to a classmate in exchange for money or other equivalent material goods. If the matter goes further, and it gets into “experimenting,” the boyfriend also gets into the bed. Bisexuality, more than a possible and legitimate tendency, is now a carte blanche to earn money.

Virginity is a burden

For girls, virginity is a burden that is removed as soon as they’re over twelve. A growing number of girls become sexually active even earlier. For guys, someone who is more than twenty is considered an “old man.” The fast and rushed “burning of stages” is part of the race for survival. The sex trade constantly asks for “fresh meat.” Moreover, many families raise their girls as “animals for the competition.” In blunt terms, they should be ready to find themselves a “daddy with little money.”

For boys, the job of “chulo” — pimp — is practiced within the school itself. It’s a kind of training that is later completed in the street. The school no longer instructs the “New Man.” Now it is a transit point for boys and girls whose sexuality emerges marked by cynicism, consequences and a reflection of a society sick to its very roots.

From Cubanet

4 September 2013

Playa Brawl: Cops Versus “Frikis” / Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

policiacubaesposas-300x160 HAVANA, Cuba, September, www.cubanet.org- At the beginning of the nineties, the Argentine journalist Andrés Oppenheimer published a book entitled, Castro’s Final Hour. The first chapter begins with the description of the execution of the accused in the murky Cause No. 1 of 1989. Then came the event, today nearly forgotten, of the rockers and metalheads of that generation of ‘80s remembered as The Playa Brawl.

One Sunday in August 1992, in what was then the House of Culture of the Playa Municipality. A a rock group called Dark Metal played. In the vicinity of Fifth Avenue and 70 and near the House of Culture on 68th Street, the police stopped and searched those who were heading to the concert. Later, various uniformed men showed up there. One version places the director of the House of Culture as the first responsible for what happened. This lady thought she saw a fight, in the “hard-core” exchange or clash between members of the public. She called for the police to come to the site and they used the pretext to unleash a spiral of violence and repression.

Outside, a growing number of police were using their batons left and right. The buses with members of the Special Brigade, equipped as anti-riot police, surrounded the site. Some agents arrested a guy and put him in a patrol car. Inside the car they sprayed with pepper spray and locked him in the closed car. A stone thrown at the rear window of the car and a courageous rescue saved the boy from suffocating. A group that tried to flee to the bus stop at 70th and Third was intercepted by the uniforms with a beating from their batons. Meanwhile, the traffic police closed Fifth Avenue.

The people in the cars looked on horrified at the guards mercilessly beat them, including girls who were almost children. In a moment the repressors launched dogs without muzzles against youth groups. A scene we had only seen in pictures coming from other countries. It intensified into something very much like a “Friki Intifada.” The police had to retreat from rain of stones. Several shots rang out. One of the guards, with an AK 47, shot a blast into the air. Another policeman took his gun. The soldiers retreated vowing to free the arrested. They lied.

Soon, a crowd of survivors began to march toward the police station at 5th and 62nd. It was there where they had taken most of the arrested. The initial provocateurs of the incident where there. Once in front of the place, the young people began to scream, demanding the release of detainees. It was the first time, since 1959, that this happened in front of a police station. The prisoners were released, most of the baring marks of the beatings.

Later, the authorities misrepresented everything. The lack of rule of law did the rest. However, the news went around the world immediately through foreign news agencies.

From Cubanet

1 September 2013

The Arcos Building is Falling to Pieces / Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

edificiosPhotos by Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

HAVANA, Cuba , August, www.cubanet.org – The Arcos building is in the block formed by
F and E, between 19 and 21 in Vedado. Everyone in Havana knows this unusual building built in the 1930s in the middle of one of the deepest ravines in Vedado.

It’s bad state of repair presents a serious danger to the many families living there, and the tourists who visit it as an example of rare architecture.

One of the neighbors, who asked not to be named, said that they have exhausted all possible official channels for requesting the reconstruction of the old building.

“This building has 71 apartments and is built in an ancient ravine in Vedado that we Havanans call ‘the hole.’ The Department of Multi-Unit Housing promises, the Plaza municipal government promises, the provincial government promises, they ensnare you and do nothing. Everyone is brazen, sh..politicians.”

The facts bear out this neighbor. For a long time now the structure of this property has been suffering as a result of the passage of time, lack of maintenance and neglect of the authorities.

The atypical characteristics of this building require specialized reconstructive procedures. Partial collapses have occurred, for example in the passageway that accesses the apartments from the entrance on 19th Street.

At present, the staircase leading to 19th is virtually collapsed. This staircase, and a long exterior passageway in the form of a balcony, connect 21st Street with 19th Street.

The route allowed pedestrians to avoid the obstacle of the deep and long ravine that cuts across F street in that area. The neighbors decided to avoid greater evils by blocking the way and placing signs warning of the danger.

You can see that the stair supports are broken, weakening it. From another angle, coming from 19th, the principal column that supports the stairs is extremely damaged.

Also the base and the support columns of the building all require attention. A photo accompanying this note is in eloquent in itself. It shows a sign painted by the neighbors which states : “We need help (now), responsibility and the promises to be met. We hope not to face the displeasure of putting ourselves dead.” (sic)

27 August 2013

From Cubanet