When I got to Varadero* / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez

varadero-cuba21
cubanet square logoCubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez, Havana, 30 March 2015 — Despite the fact that on the three occasions I ever visited Varadero my experiences were not particularly pleasant, that beach – which today for the majority of Cubans is almost as inaccessible as Waikiki – occupies a special place in my nostalgia.

The first time I was at Varadero was in November, 1970, during the Festival of the Song. I was 14 years old. I went with two friends who were more or less my age, fleeing our homes and playing hooky from school, chasing after the Spanish pop groups Los Bravos (without Mike Kennedy), Los Angeles and Los Mustangs. They weren’t really our top favorites (at the time when we had still not resigned ourselves to the break-up of The Beatles, we were crazy for Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Santana) but in the ideologically pure Cuba of the period, one could not aspire to something greater. Plus, we wanted the performances by those Spanish groups – despite how abysmally bad they sounded – to be our own version of Woodstock.

But the police rained on our parade. We ended up in a police station that stank of shit and where from a poster on the wall the Commander in Chief [Fidel] stared at us, scowling. I don’t know if his angry expression was due to our insolent ideological diversionism, or because the 10 Million Ton Harvest failed, and he had to devote himself to turning the setback into a victory at the expense of Nixon, whose name at that time was invariably spelled with a swastika in the newspaper, Granma. continue reading

By throwing us in the pokey, they almost did us a favor, because outside it was as cold as Kamchatka. The bad part was when the officers started to talk about cutting our hair, and we heard one say, “These guys are gonna get scalped.” Luckily these were no more than idle threats. They let us go at the Cárdenas terminal with the warning, “Get the fuck out here right now, Punks.”

My second visit to Varadero was in the summer of 1979. I went with my wife. We arrived unexpectedly, with a few clothes in a backpack. At that time, Varadero was not only for foreign tourists. Even so, we had to spend the night between the “Park of the Thousand Box Offices” and the sands of the beach. When the police threw us out of the park, we went to the shore. We drank Coronilla brandy, made love among the casuarina trees, and later, despite the mosquitoes, fell asleep in the sand. We were awakened by the border patrol, with dogs and bayonets, who told us that we could not spend the night on the coast. We then returned to the park, sans police. At dawn we returned to the beach and, when the sun was out, got into the water to wake ourselves up.

We were only able to obtain lodging (very reasonably priced) in a little wooden “hotel,” the Miramar. As old and decrepit as it was, I suppose it no longer exists.

We had a great time: all day on the beach, and at night we would go dancing to the beat of The Bee Gees at the La Patana club. The only downside was the couple in the room next door. When they made love, they would screech as if being murdered. Their screams penetrated the wooden walls, as if inviting one to emulate them – or to switch partners, because with all that racket, it was as if we were all entangled together in the same bed. When we finally caught sight of them one morning at the hotel entrance, these sexual athletes turned out to be a little chubby peroxide blonde, and a skinny guy with a mustache, nearsighted glasses and the look of an official from the Central Planning Council.

The third and last time that I was in Varadero was in 1986, during an excursion on a “day for outstanding employees” that my wife won at the State company where she worked. We went with the oldest of our sons, who had not yet turned three years old. All went well, until we ran out of drinking water and, while searching for a faucet where we could fill several bottles, we lost the boy’s left shoe. This was a real tragedy because that pair of Chinese Gold Cup shoes had cost us a fortune at the Yumurí store.

Since that time, I have not returned to Varadero – a place at first reserved for foreign tourists and the privileged elite, and now on the way to becoming a global resort, without an identity, depersonalized, only for the rich. Or rather, what we Cubans in our indigence understand to be “rich.” I don’t want to feel discriminated against, humiliated, or to be expelled in a worse way than I was back in 1970 – keeping in mind that, in the logic of the security personnel who watch me, a dissident would be much more troublesome than a kid disguised as a hippie.

Varadero, in my mind, continues to be associated, in a certain way and in spite of everything, with happiness. I don’t want to ruin that image.

The first time I was at Varadero was in November, 1970, during the Festival of the Song. I was 14 years old. I went with two friends who were more or less my age, fleeing our homes and playing hooky from school, chasing after the Spanish pop groups Los Bravos (without Mike Kennedy), Los Angeles and Los Mustangs. They weren’t really our top favorites (at the time when we had still not resigned ourselves to the break-up of The Beatles, we were crazy for Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Santana) but in the ideologically pure Cuba of the period, one could not aspire to something greater. Plus, we wanted the performances by those Spanish groups – despite how abysmally bad they sounded – to be our own version of Woodstock. .

But the police rained on our parade. We ended up in a police station that stank of shit and where from a poster on the wall the Commander in Chief [Fidel] stared at us, scowling. I don’t know if his angry expression was due to our insolent ideological diversionism, or because the 10 Million Ton Harvest failed, and he had to devote himself to turning the setback into a victory at the expense of Nixon, whose name at that time was invariably spelled with a swastika in the newspaper, Granma.

By throwing us in the pokey, they almost did us a favor, because outside it was as cold as Kamchatka. The bad part was when the officers started to talk about cutting our hair, and we heard one say, “These guys are going all the way.” Luckily these were no more than idle threats. They let us go at the Cárdenas terminal with the warning, “Get the fuck out here right now, Punks.”

My second visit to Varadero was in the summer of 1979. I went with my wife. We arrived unexpectedly, with a few clothes in a backpack. At that time, Varadero was not only for foreign tourists. Even so, we had to spend the night between the “Park of the Thousand Box Offices” and the sands of the beach. When the police threw us out of the park, we went to the shore. We drank Coronilla brandy, made love among the casuarina trees, and later, despite the mosquitoes, fell asleep in the sand. We were awakened by the border patrol, with dogs and bayonets, who told us that we could not spend the night on the coast. We then returned to the park, sans police. At dawn we returned to the beach and, when the sun was out, got into the water to wake ourselves up.

We were only able to obtain lodging (very reasonably priced) in a little wooden “hotel,” the Miramar. As old and decrepit as it was, I suppose it no longer exists.

We had a great time: all day on the beach, and at night we would go dancing to the beat of The Bee Gees at the La Patana club. The only downside was the couple in the room next door. When they made love, they would screech as if being murdered. Their screams penetrated the wooden walls, as if inviting one to emulate them – or to switch partners, because with all that racket, it was as if we were all entangled together in the same bed. When we finally caught sight of them one morning at the hotel entrance, these sexual athletes turned out to be a little chubby peroxide blonde, and a skinny guy with a mustache, nearsighted glasses and the look of an official from the Central Planning Council.

The third and last time that I was in Varadero was in 1986, during an excursion on a “day for outstanding employees” that my wife won at the State company where she worked. We went with the oldest of our sons, who had not yet turned three years old. All went well, until we ran out of drinking water and, while searching for a faucet where we could fill several bottles, we lost the boy’s left shoe. This was a real tragedy because that pair of Chinese Gold Cup shoes had cost us a fortune at the Yumurí store.

Since that time, I have not returned to Varadero – a place at first reserved for foreign tourists and the privileged elite, and now on the way to becoming a global resort, without an identity, depersonalized, only for the rich. Or rather, what we Cubans in our indigence understand to be “rich.” I don’t want to feel discriminated against, humiliated, or to be expelled in a worse way than I was back in 1970 – keeping in mind that, in the logic of the security personnel who watch me, a dissident would be much more troublesome than a kid disguised as a hippie.

Varadero, in my mind, continues to be associated, in a certain way and in spite of everything, with happiness. I don’t want to ruin that image.

Author’s Email Address: luicino2012@gmail.com

Translator’s Notes:
*The title of this piece is taken from a line in the song,
Conocí la paz, sung by legendary Cuban singer, Beny Moré. Varadero is a beach resort town in the province of Matanzas, Cuba.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

The Lying Cuban Press / Cubanet, Victor Manuel Dominguez

Archive photo Cubanet.org. An elderly man selling Granma. Headline: “Raul will speak tomorrow”
Archive photo Cubanet.org. An elderly man selling Granma. Headline: “Raul will speak tomorrow”

Montonous, grey, controlled, censored, demagogic, jingoistic, for more than half a century as spokesperson for phantom successes

cubanet square logoCubanet.org, Victor Manuel Dominguez, Havana, 31 March 2015 (Cuba Sindical) – The “Revolutionary” Cuban press, characterized as demagogic, monotonous, manipulative, with a grey design, poor quality paper, without stylistic and conceptual diversity, born of the mortal remains of a free press that was censored and later banned from the inception of the Revolution.

Always under state control, the role of spokesperson of governmental policy and ideology, the lack of objectivity is required, and the omission or disguising of what really is happening in the country. Faced with its pathetic role, several Cubans talked about censorship, rumors and secrecy in the national press.

The Tagline

“Still, we are lucky that we are not sentenced to jail for wiping our backsides with the image of Marx, Mao, Stalin, or the victorious face of a leader of the country on a first page, like the followers of Kim Il Sung used to be in Pyongyang,” Ernesto Penalver said ironically. continue reading

The former graphics worker for the newspaper Avance, the first media outlet closed by the revolution (1-19-1960), Penalver, at 75 years of age, resells newspapers in order to live. “Occupational hazard, sir. I cannot help but make the rounds. Although now I do it clandestinely and through the back door,” he said.

According to the septuagenarian typesetter, since the imposition by the Cuban authorities of “The Tagline” (12-27-59), a kind of opinion by the graphics workers who refuted, under each article, the supposed attacks against the Revolution, the end of press freedom that was seen coming.

“We did not write anything. The old communist agitators dictated and imposed it. After Avance, El Pais, El Mundo and the radio and television states CMQ were grouped together on March 31, 1960, into the Independent Front of Free Broadcasters (FIEL).

The unfortunate FIEL was the beginning of the end. Later would fall Diario de la Marina and the magazines Bohemia, Carteles and Vanidades, all with quality, without ideological restrictions, with diverse information, added Penalver. “In that year there was not a monkey with a brain in the press who would oppose Fidel. It was over.”

Newspaper and magazine vendor on Monte Street (photo by Victor Dominguez)
Newspaper and magazine vendor on Monte Street (photo by Victor Dominguez)

After getting up between five and six in the morning, Penalver says, he takes a swallow of coffee (if there is any), a bowl of Cerelac, if there is any left, and washes with stored water and unscented soap. Then he joins dozens of old people who stand in lines in order to buy and resell today’s national press.

Governmental Secrecy

“In Cuba we have good journalists, said a young woman who said she is named Isel. The only thing is that they are tied hand and foot, and above all, they are castrated of their opinion. Whoever steps out of the official line will never write a line in Cuba. At least in the national press. And examples abound to illustrate this point.

According to the young woman, the role of journalist hero and villain from the daily Granma in Santiago de Cuba, Jose Antonio Torres, first praised by Raul Castro in the newspaper itself and then accused as a spy and sentenced to 14 years in prison, is more than sufficient to discourage any kind of objectivity that questions the interests of the Communist Party and the revolution.

A worker from Water and Sewer Works who is tearing up Escobar Street from San Rafael to Malecon, asked if he likes the Cuban press, said, “I read between the lines. The truth is the opposite of what is said here. But, friend, what will I carry bread in or what are the kids at home going to use for whatever?”

Likewise, a lady who was buying the Cartelera supplement, with information about the month’s artistic events, said: “This is among the little that can be believed. Although sometimes you get to an exhibit or a theater, and the program is completely different. But at least it can be read.”

Later, regarding a question about the objectivity of the national press, she added, “Can print, television or radio press be believable when it talks about over fulfillments, advances, achievements, when the reality is inversely proportional to the report they give, as happens every day in this country?”

Also, she added, that hidden, almost non-existent, are the data about rates of violence in the country, the levels of drug use and prostitution, the alcoholism, thefts, some diseases, government corruption, other reports that could serve as a warning about the population’s behavior.

Another lady, who came from a battle royal to buy some potatoes at a Belascoain farmers market, said, “They don’t even blush when they talk about the victorious deployment of the potato harvest, knowing that people and they themselves have to fight and it’s not enough or to buy it from outside, from the scalpers, at two dollars a kilo. They are wholesale liars.”

Line of old people to buy and resell newspapers (Photo by Victor Dominguez)
Line of old people to buy and resell newspapers (Photo by Victor Dominguez)

In accord with many of those who spoke about the topic, the most read parts of the national press are the daily Juventud Rebelde’s complaints and suggestions section, Acuse de Recibo, and Granma’s letters to the editor, for being a kind of wall of lamentations where the people complain although nothing is resolved.

In these sections – a typical reservoir of calamities – are read complaints about mistreatment, dumps, collapses, blockages, withholding of wages, evictions, unfair penalties, illegal expulsion, lack of medicine, rallies, negligence, lack of control, corruption and fraud, among thousands of other acts that afflict the country’s citizens and are endemic within the Revolution.

Beyond publishing these bouts of complaint, only without solving them although the respective entities should respond to the people’s demands, Cuban journalists devote themselves to praising the phantom successes of the Revolution, and to pointing out the speck in the foreign eye of other nations at an international level, all the better if they are not members of ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) or CARICOM (Caribbean Community).

Thus the press in Cuba, according to popular opinion, only serves for wrapping trash, plugging holes, stuffing mattresses, and, above all, as toilet paper in hospitals, recreation centers, work places, sports centers, schools, bus stations and homes. And maybe someone can read it from time to time.

About the Author

Victor Manuel Dominguez. Independent journalist. He resides in Havana, Cuba. vicmadomingues55@gmail.com

Translated by MLK

The Mariel Exodus: State Terrorism / Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones

Posters from acts of repudiation during the Mariel Boatlift (1980)
Posters from acts of repudiation during the Mariel Boatlift (1980)

Against the “scum,” acts of repudiation, beatings and humiliations. Against Florida, an invasion of the unemployed

Cubanet.org, Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces, Guantanamo, 1 April 2015 – On the first of April 1980 a bus was driven through the entrance to the Peruvian embassy in Havana; its occupants entered and sought political asylum. Unfortunately, the non-commissioned officer of the PNR (National Revolutionary Police), Pedro Ortiz Cabrera, lost his life in the event. The event was followed by others extremely traumatic for many Cubans due to their violence. All would be indelibly recorded in the nation’s collective memory and would reveal the terrorist nature of the Cuban regime.

Fidel Castro demanded that the Peruvian government immediately hand over the people who had forcibly entered the diplomatic headquarters. To have pleased him, long jail sentences and execution by firing squad undoubtedly would have been the sanctions applied. But the government of Peru did not agree, and the Cuban regime adopted a measure that, like the others taken in those days, made it seem to their proxies that the ball had been placed in the opponent’s court.

The Measures Taken by Fidel

Fidel Castro ordered the withdrawal of protection and monitoring from around the diplomatic headquarters, inciting all Cubans who wanted to emigrate to enter it. Very soon, thousands of people from all the cities and towns of the country crammed into the place turning it into a tangible reservoir of the discontent that now was sapping society. continue reading

Cuba for the workers. Those who live on our sweat, let them go.
Mariel Boatlift act of Repudiation. “Cuba for the workers. Those who live on our sweat, let them go.” (Left side: “Let the scum go”)

The increase in the number of countrymen who wanted to emigrate was made evident, and the government, with the objective of discouraging the exits that it had sponsored, made terror its deterrent method par excellence. It was the first time that acts of repudiation were applied on the Cuban public stage. The beatings and humiliations abounded everywhere. The masses, encouraged by powerful groups and directed by individuals of doubtful social behavior, violated the most basic norms of respect for human dignity, and the country lived through several weeks of fascist practices that kept it on edge until the international community strongly protested.

The government demanded the refugees in the embassy and all those who desired to emigrate to present themselves at their places of employment or study in order to be given leave. The unemployed had to seek the document from the CDRs (Committees in Defense of the Revolution). That was the indispensable requisite in order to obtain the exit permit, and it would allow the mobs to intercept the petitioners in order to attack them.

Another Shameless Political Action

Some years had to pass to have access to other reports and above all to read and listen to the irrefutable testimonies on Radio Marti and right here, in order to understand the magnitude of the events and the perversity of the government in those demeaning days of our history.

With the single purpose of getting the advantage in a confrontation where he would always be seen as the victim due to the political, military, economic and moral grandeur of the opponent, Fidel Castro took dangerous offenders from the jails and put them in the embassy in order to create chaos, and then he demanded that the boats that came in search of relatives take these people as well. Together with them travelled not a few mentally ill, it was later learned.

It was a clever move, but of ephemeral value and revealing of the unethical essence of the regime whose immediate objective was to discredit the new emigrants, whom the government elite called “scum.” But also it tried to clean out the Cuban jails and export to the US potential disruptive social elements that Hollywood would portray in popular films like Scarface.

Time Relentlessly Passed

Thirty-five years after these events — which came to be known in the United States as the Mariel Boatlift — many of the Cubans who were catalogued as “scum,” thanks to their honest work and a society that is not perfect but that does guarantee all human liberties, enjoy a life in the US where maybe nostalgia for the home country occupies an important place, but one in which they live according to their way of thinking, with dignity.

Act of repudiation against the Ladies in White in recent times.
Act of repudiation against the Ladies in White in recent times.

The Mariel Boatlift was not a success of the Castro regime; to the contrary. One highly placed leader from that time, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, admitted to a Mexican magazine that the Revolution had nothing to be proud of with respect to what happened. It is rumored that it was the catalyst for the suicide of Haydee Santamaria and the object of analysis in the farewell letter that Osvaldo Dorticos wrote to Fidel Catro before dying from another gunshot. It was a Pyrrhic victory that very soon lost the artificial shine of the trappings that the Castro regime figureheads dished out in order to praise the supposed genius of the leader. His abuses, still unpunished crimes and inequities were unmasked to reveal the fascist essence of the methods used by the mobs encouraged and supported by the police and political leaders.

Since then the acts of repudiation against officially disfavored diplomatic headquarters and the peaceful opposition, especially the extraordinary Ladies in White and the brave members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), are still practiced in the streets and before the homes of those harassed.

This, together with repression and constant vigilance by the state security forces as well as the government’s refusal to respect political and fundamental civil rights, shows that state terrorism is a practice entrenched in the Castro regime. The Americans should not forget it, especially now when, behind the abundant dividends, they try to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

About the author

jesus-quinones-haces.thumbnailRoberto Jesus Quinones Haces was born in the city of Cienfuegos September 20, 1957. Law graduate. He was sentenced in 1999 in an unfair and illegal way to eight years incarceration and since then has been prohibited from practicing as a lawyer. He has published the books of poetry “The Flight of the Deer” (1995 Editorial Oriente), “Written from jail” (2001, Ediciones Vitral), “The Folds of Dawn” (2008, Editorial Oriente) and “The Water of Life” (2008 Editorial El Mar y La Montana). He got the Vitral Grand Prize for Poetry in 2001 for his book “Written from Jail” as well as Mention and Special Recognition by the Nosside Juried International Poetry Competition in 2006 and 2008, respectively. His poems appear in the UNEAC Anthology of 1994, in the Nosside Competition Anthology of 2006 and in the selected ten-line stanzas “This Jail of Pure Air” produced by Waldo Gonzalez in 2009.

Translated by MLK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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

Translated by MLK

Suspended or Censored? / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

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

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

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

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

Mercenaries at the service of the dictatorship?

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

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

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

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

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

Translated by Norma Whiting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blood bank in Havana
Blood bank in Havana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Translated by MLK

Raul Castro Plays Both Sides / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

raulmadurobama

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

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

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

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

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

The Grand Island Madman

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

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

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

The erosion of the system

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

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

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

Translated by Norma Whiting

The Gardens of Indigence / Cubanet, Gladys Linares

For the environmental project, “A Rose-Colored Planet,” children would be responsible for beautifying the green spaces of the capital. Dilapidated Havana requires much more than a community gardening project: sanitizing the city is the urgent business.

cubanet square logoCubanet, Gladys Linares, Havana, February 27 2015 — Now it turns out that children have the responsibility for creating green spaces for the enjoyment of the public, and ending more than fifty years of governmental neglect.

This is unheard of!

In the article, “They celebrate the work day in order to promote the beauty of gardens,” the newspaper Juventud Rebelde describes the environmental project, “A Rose-Colored Planet,” and an interest group composed of 500 children that would be responsible for beautifying the green spaces of the capital.

Will children be able to solve the problem created by the public services that go around collecting the large garbage and debris heaps that proliferate in the city, with 14-ton front-end loaders that destroy the sidewalks, curbs and gardens, and leave craters that become breeding grounds for mosquitos, rats, and other carriers of disease?

Any idiot knows that the complexity of this task requires continue reading

much more than a community project, because the duty of maintaining green spaces in good condition — as well as of implementing public health and sanitation projects — falls to the public administration.

Will children be able to solve the shortage of wheeled bins needed to collect the 20-thousand cubic meters of waste that our city generates? This dearth of bins is often the result of mishandling by Comunales * workers (who are not held accountable for their actions), or acts of “social indiscipline” such as wheels being removed, junk being discarded in the bins, the bins being set on fire, etc. Such actions convert densely-populated neighborhoods such as Diez de Octubre, Centro Habana, Arroyo Naranjo and San Miguel del Padrón into sites for those large garbage heaps referenced above.

Will our children be able to require that the workers who are currently installing the water meters in Marianao not leave behind debris, trenches and water leaks upon completing these projects?

But it is not only Aguas de La Habana which leave behind their mark of shoddiness. The gas company does it, too, when they complete some road “repair” project. They claim that covering-up and fixing the sidewalks is the Comunales’* responsibility, and despite efforts often made by area residents, these projects are not finished adequately.

All this negligence on the part of the State has provoked an exacerbation of acts of “social indiscipline.”  In the absence of parks and recreational areas, the children play in the streets, annoying the neighbors. In the absence of containers, the public alleges (rightfully) that garbage cannot be kept inside the house, so they throw it in the street. Perhaps it is no coincidence that we hear so often of neighbors and relatives of friends dying of leptospirosis, as happened last week to a young man and his dog, who lived less than 100 meters from one of those garbage heaps.

“A Rose-Colored Planet” includes among its objectives the creation of gardens for the enjoyment of hospitalized children and residents of elder-care facilities, applying the methods employed in French gardening — a fine and noble task. Starting at early ages, this community project develops civic consciousness, which we so need today.

But much more than children’s projects is needed to return Havana to its green lushness.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison, and others

Translator’s Note:

* Comunales is the state-run waste management company in Cuba. For other articles in Translating Cuba about related issues, click here.

Cuba Punishes Doctors for Using Revolico / Cubanet, Orlando Gonzalez

The government has cancelled your INFOMED email account due to its having been used on a classified ad website.

cubanet square logoCubanet, Orlando González, Mayabeque, Cuba, 12 March 2015 — Since February 23, the government has been cancelling some doctors’ and dentists’ internet and email accounts on the nation’s INFOMED network, which the state designates for health care professionals. The reason? Emails were being used to post classified ads on the popular Revolico website. Punitive actions like this are evidence of the government’s intention not to allow free access to Internet, at least in the short term.

The classified ad website  http://www.revolico.com is very well-known among many Cubans on the island. It lists a wide range of products available on the black market, including merchandise at prices much cheaper than those found in state-owned retail stores. The government has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to block access to the site. Nevertheless, Cubans have managed to make a mockery of the limitations by going continue reading

through web services designed to evade censorship (VPN and web proxies). An offline version of the webpage is also delivered to homes through the popular underground entertainment service known as the “national packet.” It contains all the classified ads from the previous week.

Fifty-nine-year-old retired dentist Tania Alonso stated, “INFOMED email is the only way I have of communicating with my family overseas. Now they have taken it away because a nephew of mine, who uses the computer in my house, posted an ad for his cell phone on Revolico and listed my email address. No one told me anything. Only after I asked why I had not had email service for a week did they tell me that I was being sanctioned and they had cancelled my account. I really don’t know if what my nephew did is as serious as all that.”

Doctors in several cities claim they have made complaints in the respective workplaces but have not received explanations for the sanctions.

“It’s unbelievable that visiting a classified ad page — a right in almost every country in the world, including Venezuela — is virtually a crime here,” says Jose Alberto, a gatroenterologist from the city of San Antonio de los Baños. “For this ’indiscretion’ the authorities punish doctors who have served on various international medical missions, taking away their only means of accessing the INFOMED network. I think this action is ridiculous and shows a total lack of respect for health care professionals. We are practically slaves to the government. We work for a salary which barely allows us to eat. In any other country of the world we would be more recognized and appreciated than we are in our own. I am a veteran of three international missions and they take away my access just for using my email address as the contact in a classified ad.”

Revolico.com, screen capture

Another health professional who did not want to be identified said, “I went a week without being able to access my email account and neither the supervisors at my workplace nor the technical support person knew why. Only after I called the INFOMED offices was I informed it had been cancelled.”

CubaNet contacted Carlos Javier Peña Díaz, a co-founder of Revolico and based in Spain, who agreed to comment.

“It’s been seven years since our website was blocked in Cuba and we still don’t understand why,” he notes. “Revolico’s only goal is to help Cubans by providing them with an alternative marketplace based on the classified ad model. They can use our website to easily advertise products or contact sellers.”

Doctors and dentists who have lost their accounts add that they do not agree with this action and will take their complaints as far as is necessary. Their letters of appeal were sent to the management of INFOMED ten days ago and those affected have not yet received a response.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being Forty Years Old in Cuba / Cubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera

dominó-coverThey are referred to as old folks, half-timers and the pure. They are shipwreck victims of a capsized island. They cling to debris, trying to stay afloat.

cubanet square logoCubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro, Havana, February 27, 2015 — Men and women in Cuba who have reached the age of forty are referred to as tembas (old folks), medios tiempos (half-timers) and los puros (the pure).

Those approaching this age have lived through the periods before and after 1989 on the island. Their childhoods were spent between schools in the countryside and schools like those in the countryside, an ostensible bonanza subsidized by the Council of Mutual Aid (CAME) and the war in Angola. As young people they heard the echoes of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and suffered through the crisis and blackouts.

Those who remain view their lives like those of shipwreck victims on an island that has capsized. Some cling to debris, trying to stay afloat. Others see fulfillment slipping away in a country that continues to deny them a future. continue reading

Cubanet interviewed people in Bayamo and Havana: one a small city, the other the capital. They offer a portrait of a generation for whom hope has been extinguished.

Bayamo, a country within a country

One couple agreed to be interviewed by this reporter on how they see their lives now and in the future. The man will turn forty in two years. Both declined to give their names.

“They say that in 2016 the outlook in Bayamo could be very different, but that is exactly what the government promised my parents and what I inherited from them was crisis and the urge to leave behind these people and this country,” he says.

“This is a beautiful city,” says the woman, “but it feels very small when we see the tons of opportunities we are missing. The ones who prosper here, more or less, are the ones who get help from those who left when they were young to try their luck in another country. I don’t want my children to live with the despair I inherited from my parents. On that he and I both agree.”

Another man, known as El Pelón (the Bald Guy), graduated during the educational chaos of the last decade.

“I have a lot of family living in the United States,” he says. “At one time I thought about making the crossing to Miami, leaving through Puerto Padre. But life got messy, so I’m still here. By the time you’re forty, you feel the initial urge slipping away. It’s like you have entered a stage of life where you are moving at half speed. You resign yourself to things. Arriving in a new country at twenty is not the same as when you are over forty.”

 In Havana forty at forty

The Maxim Rock theater is a hotbed for the young and not so young. It is Saturday in the capital. Tonight, two generations of music fans co-mingle, intent on having the best time possible. This reporter managed to have a conversation with one couple. He is forty; she is much younger. Both spoke informally without giving their names.

“Twenty years ago,” he says, “I was walking around Vedado, hunting for foreigners and ’hustling.’ It was the 1990s, the era of blackouts and all those nightmares no one wants to remember. You had to be brave to leave but also to stay. That’s what I tell people when they ask me why I am still living in Cuba.”

“Something will have to change. These people’s time has passed,” she says referring to the government. They are committed to the same old same old. But they are very mistaken if they think the public’s silence is due to resignation.”

Dominoes, a game of life and politics

At a Casa de los Abuelos senior center, a buiding which is somehow miraculously still standing, a group of men is getting ready to play another round of dominoes. Everyone here is past the age of forty. As in the game of life and politics, each playing piece is a bet to be wagered in silence. Their faces tell the history of this country, spanning the dying past that landed them at this table and a future as uncertain as a domino.

At the same time their counterparts are playing another round in Miami’s Maximo Gomez Park. They are veterans of nostalgia. Some still unabashedly await the imminent downfall of the two brothers, just as they did when they arrived in Florida at age twenty.

However, the prospect of reconciliation without freedom for Cubans living on the island continues to shadow those on both sides of the Florida Straits.

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

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

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

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

time we march on Sundays.”

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

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

CubaNet:  What do your PDPLB compatriots do?

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

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

CubaNet:  Do you enjoy the support of the people?

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

—————–

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

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

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

Author’s email address:  ernestogardiaz@gmail.com

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Spanish post
20 February 2015

Having a Boat in Cuba / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Having a boat carries costs

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

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

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

Navigation has its limits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 February 2015

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

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

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

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

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

.

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

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

Cleaning up history

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interim Constitution of 1934

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

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

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

Two readings of the same Code

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

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

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

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

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

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

Translated by Norma Whiting

An Ethical Path for Civil Society / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

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

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

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

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

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

An Ethical Path for Cuban Civil Society

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

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

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

162nd anniversary of the death of Father Félix Varela

Translated by Norma Whiting