Category: AUTHORS

Mummies Against Prostitutes: The Last Revolutionary Combat / Jose Hugo Fernandez

Havana, Cuba.  November, www.cubanet/org — The prostitutes of Havana never inspire as much pity as when we see them accompanied by those mummies of European and US Stalinism who today constitute their VIP clientele.  Really you have to have a heart of stone not only to go to bed with such a stinky and gassy old fogy but even to barely endure his proximity.

As soon as they disembark on the Island, without shaking off the dust of the road, these old gentlemen feed their spirit going to the Plaza de la Revolution and the Che sanctuary in Santa Clara.  Then, invariably, it is time for dessert.  So they get naked in Obispo Street in Havana, around Central Park or on La Rampa, in pursuit of our little hookers, the last flashes of the beacon of America.

“What a waste, buddy,” exclaim the gentlemen from around here on seeing them bargaining, while the women whisper, teasingly, and the oldest ones are scandalized at “the turns life has taken here.”  But they continue on their way, business as usual, confident, it seems, that they have left respectability in safekeeping, beyond the sea, along with their ancient wives.

If it were possible to take into account decency or common sense when dealing with this wildlife, you would have to ask why, at least, they do not attempt to take the prostitutes to some place apart, where they would be waiting for them without the need to expose themselves so boldly to absurdity and ridicule.  But that’s not how they are.  It is obvious that they have resolved to enjoy as God commands their last revolutionary orgy, now that only the devil knows the sacrifice that it cost to organize it, gathering for years the remnants of their salaries as retirees.

What a pity that there are no statistics that reflect how many casualties the worldwide revolution has suffered as a consequence of the heart attacks provoked by these encounters between the mummy veterans and our mud blossoms of the Fidelist legacy. In any case, they would say they’d died for socialism, if they managed to say anything, before shutting their trap, in the end, forever.

“Old age is an incurable disease,” Terentius warned us.  But it may be that he was not right, at least in this situation.  I believe that my grandmother was more accurate, and did not agree that people lose shame as they age because now nothing matters to them.  He who has no shame in old age — she used to say — never had any.

José Hugo Fernández

Cubanet, 21 November 2013

Translated by mlk.

A Gift from Pinar del Rio on Padre Felix Varela’s 225th Birthday / Intramuros, Yoandy Izquierdo Toledo

I remember every November 20th for a special reason (besides being the birthday of a dear aunt, and of a friend): on this day the Cuban nation gave birth to one of the preeminent pillars of our founding history, Father Felix Varela.

“The complete patriot,” as Martí called him, knew how to merge science and conscience in order to carry out the difficult art of showing the way toward freedom and social justice.

Pinar del Rio has the only full-body statue of Varela on the island, located on the grounds of the Cathedral. The work, done in marble from San Juan y Martinez by the sculptor José M. Pérez Veliz, shows us Varela in a walking position, looking into the distance, like someone watching over the fate of the city and the nation. In his left hand he holds his greatest work, Letters to Elpidio. About Impiety, Superstition and Fanaticism. He seems to be telling us from its pages: “Dear ones, never be arrogant with the weak or weak with the powerful.”

Twenty years after the founding of the now-defunct Center for Civic and Religious Training (CFCR) in Pinar del Rio, and seven years after the unveiling of this sculpture, we members of the Coexistence team, the successor to the work of the Center and its magazine Stained Glass, made a pilgrimage to the foot of this wonderful work in order to offer of our project of ethical and civic education – an edited volume of Coexistence Issues, containing courses taught by CFCR from 1993 to 2007.

Inspired by the Varelian maxim that “There can be no homeland without virtue,” we offer this book as a continuation and application of the legacy of the first one who taught us to think. It is a gift from Pinar del Rio to the Father of our culture.

Yoandy Izquierdo Toledo (Pinar del Río, 1987).

Diplomate in Microbioology, Manager of Coexistence Issues, Resides and works in Havana.

21 November 2013

Of Dubious Origin / Reinaldo Escobar

Wandering along San Lázaro Street, I encountered a man with a wheelbarrow. It was just when I needed a friend to move two bags of sand to the home of a relative. His human-powered vehicle was a hybrid of scooter and a wheelbarrow, constructed with huge roller bearings, but instead of four he only had two on the front; the bottom was a structure made from rebar covered with a kind of mesh used in chicken coops.

After agreeing on a price, we walked the seven blocks separating us from the site where they sold building materials. On the way, I noticed that his wagon wasn’t empty, but contained two objects difficult to define.

“And what have you got there?”

“Aluminum, to sell as raw material.”

“But what are those aluminum things?”

“Now they’re junk but they were gas meters.”

“Oh! I get it! Surely this is part of the plan to replace the old meters with newer more efficient ones… and how did you come by these old meters?”

“These aren’t old, they’re new. Can’t you see they’re aluminum. What happens is I smash them with a sledgehammer to make them unusable, and then they accept them from me as raw material.”

For a moment I ran out of questions, in fact even out of words. Finally we put the two bags of sand on the vehicle and retraced the seven blocks to the home of my friend’s relative. Before leaving I asked him,

“And what happens if the police catch you with the smashed meters?”

“I don’t know. They’ve never caught me. Surely they would tell me something about I’m transporting objects of dubious origin. But what’s that got to do with it? Your sand is of dubious origin and I myself have no official address here in Havana so I am also of dubious origin. Come on, man, are you going to tell me there is something in this country that isn’t of dubious origin?”

25 November 2013

Are Private Small Business Owners the Scapegoats? / Gladys Linares

LA HABANA, Cuba, November, www.cubanet.org – To us, the most interesting part of the National Television News is the weather report. “There is no use in watching the news,” says Julio, an octogenarian neighbor, “just to hear that the whole world is screwed up and in Cuba everything is going very well”.

After a speech on July 7th, 2013 by General Raul Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party and president of the Councils of the State and Ministers, a speech in which he criticized the Cuban people’s loss of values and the chaotic situation of the country, the news started transmitting on Tuesdays a series of reports titled “Cuba Says”.

The one aired this week has given rise to a series of commentaries among the people, for example, that the large amount of inspectors imposing high penalty fees and suspending licences is part of an arranged operation, without doubt created against the private small business owners, because in the State’s good service centers everything seemed to be too organized: employees wearing uniforms, talking about hygiene norms… for many it was obviously staged.

A neighbor was commenting: “Before giving the private owners the licenses to process and sell food products, they were inspected by Public Health, because that is what happened to my son before he could open the restaurant. How is it possible that right after they get closed because they don’t meet the requirements?”

“They are clipping their wings, it’s not like they are becoming rich with their businesses”, another man says, “They are not fooling anybody: they gave out all those licenses to mask the massive layoffs in 2010, but as always, that’s a way to keep them in check and controlled”.

The lack of hygiene in the state centers where they process and sell food products is nothing new, unfortunately. Just to give an example, the bread that people eat daily, is left on a counter for hours, full of flies. The same employee handles the bread, money, and writes down on the food booklet with his bare hands. When the bread is covered we all know it is because an inspection is due. They deliver the bread to the so-called Paneras — where the bread is sold but not baked — transporting the bread in carts pulled by horses, a cart or a bicycle cart, and it is stored in open boxes, made out of plastic, wood or woven baskets.

People prefer the service of privately-owned cafeterias because of the quality of the products, the speed and quality of customer service that most of them offer, while in state-owned cafeterias the menus are very limited, and many times flies are part of the menu. Even the more expensive establishments, like some of the pastry chain Sylvain, have missing glass on the counters and flies have free access to the pastry.

The cockroaches find a home in hospitals, urgent care facilities, and doctor offices, but also in food processing establishments: lunchroom, bakeries, and restaurants of selling in the national currency, the Cuban peso, or in CUCs, the Cuban Convertible Peso. This is the case of Plaza Carlos III or the cafeteria in La Rampa Movie Theater.

In the “bodegas”, where food rations distributed by the State are sold, rats are also found camping, that is why some employees have a cats in these establishments, hidden from the view of the customers. A neighbor was telling me how she didn’t dare to buy the rice last month, because she saw how the seller killed a mouse inside a rice bag and he didn’t even bother to throw it away.

The lack of concern on the part of the Government about the lack of hygiene is detrimental to the health of the population. The water pollution, the bugs in the trash that is not picked up for days, and other ills, are some of the consequences. People need their problems to be addressed with a real solution, instead of drawing attention away from them and using the small business owners as scapegoats.

Gladys Linares

Cubanet, 21 November 2013

The Future, Questions and Predictions to Break / Yoani Sanchez

Tag cloud about Cuba’s future

Ten prognostications, ten failures, ten predictions that did not even make it to a dead letter. This is what a Decalogue of possible future prognostications — personal and national — that would have been made in 2003 has been reduced to. Such that, knowing the twisted paths events take, today I am trying to imagine the surprises in store for us in the next decade. I know — at least I know this — it will be difficult, very difficult times are coming for everyone. To forget, as we go to bed one night, the huge problems we do indeed have, and pretend we will wake up to another day, isn’t going to happen. It’s very naive to believe we can shake off this totalitarianism and all that will result from it. It’s not going to happen, new problems and new challenges will begin. Are we prepared for them?

Are we prepared for a society where the responsibility lies with us and not with the State? A country where we can choose a president, but where he could perhaps turn out to be corrupt, a liar, an authoritarian? Are we capable of realizing, in that case, that we voted to name a “father,” rather than a public servant who answers to us? How long will it take for us to lose our suspicions about everything that contains the world “social” or about the unions, who today are simply transmission poles for the powers-that-be to the workers? Are we ready for tolerance? Can we live together peacefully with those of other political viewpoints and ideologies who take the microphones and propose their programs? Will our inexperience, perhaps,l launch us into the arms of the next populist? Are we aware that we will experience a Cuba where, most likely, there will be a lot of nostalgia for the Castro regime? What will we do if, instead of real change, those who are now part of the Nomenklatura exchange their olive-green uniforms for the suits and ties of entrepreneurship?

How will we react to immigration? Right now we only know the phenomenon of those who leave and also those visitors who — briefly — come as tourists to our land. However, we must know that if we manage to build a prosperous country, others will come to stay. How will we receive them? What will be the effects of so many years of shortages and rationing on personal consumption? Will families put themselves deeply in debt buying everything they see on TV? How will we resolve the dilemma of State property versus privatization? Will it be possible to maintain the extensive educational and hospital infrastructure throughout the country, while improving its quality, breaking the bonds of ideology, and paying employees dignified salaries? What will happen to the enormous governmental and official apparatus, whose costs fall on our shoulders to an extent we can barely conceive of?

As you can see, rather than certainties, I only have questions. Questions that haunt me when I speak of the future of my nation. At least some things are clear to me: I will be in Cuba, I will do everything I can to help my country and will try — through journalism — to dispel many of these doubts or to amplify them until someone responds.

The post El futuro, preguntas y vaticinios por romper appeared first on Generación Y – Yoani Sánchez.

Teacher Dismissed from Job for Reporting Fraud / Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces

GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, November, www.cubanet.org – Alain Lobaina Laseria is a mathematics graduate and worked in the Pedro Agustín Pérez Basic Secondary School in the municipality of El Salvador in Guantánamo. However, he has been dismissed from his employment for reporting failures and irregularities related to the education system.

When one teacher at the school went to complete a work mission to Haiti and another transferred to a polytechnic, Alain, who until that point had worked as a tutor, had to teach mathematics and physics to eighth grade students.  Upon receiving the groups he carried out an examination to check the students’ knowledge and the results were disastrous.  In one of the groups no one passed and in the other, from 72 students, only 7 passed.

As the course advanced Alain noticed that the students level of knowledge was extremely low. After carrying out the second test in mathematics, he failed 8 students because they had handed in their exam papers almost completely blank. After reporting the results, the teacher in charge of the grade carried out an analysis and threatened him, saying that he could not fail those students. From that moment onwards his situation in the school became very difficult.

Then he decided to write, under the protection of Article 63 of the Constitution of the Republic, a letter to the government and the municipal Party in which he reported the fraud that had been committed in the school and how he had been pressured to pass 100 percent of the students.

Furthermore, as a response to the public call to the highest levels of government and the Party to combat corruption and all kinds of violations, Alain reported other cases of fraud committed in Polytechnic No. 2, in the San Justo neighbourhood, in the Vocational Computing Polytechnic, in the Pre-University Vocational Institute of Exact Sciences and in the educational centres of the city of Guantanamo.

Shortly after Alain sent his letter, the Provincial Director of Education turned up at the school and read it in front of all the workers.  The purpose of discrediting him in front of his colleagues and making an enemy of him was made clear through the following warnings: “All of this school’s workers can be involved in this….this letter cannot be published in the Venceremos de Guatanamo Newspaper…and we will not tolerate a Gorbachov here in El Salvador”

In the final test, Alain failed various students, being the only teacher who didn’t promote 100 percent of students. In the re-evaluation test he caught a student copying the exam responses from a cheat sheet and reported the incident to the school administration. However, all he achieved was to have the school principal, Angel Velazquez, the secretary of the Party named Leticia, the municipal education teacher leader and the secretaries of the UJC (Young Communist Union) and the trade union reprimand him as if he were the guilty one.

Although Alain was opposed to the fraudulent student sitting another re-evaluation test, the aforementioned people agreed to allow it and they never investigated to find out how, suspiciously, the boy obtained the correct responses to the exam.

Upon starting this school semester, the principal of the school cancelled Alain’s work contract.  All this has occurred after the Granma Newspaper has repeatedly denounced academic fraud and the radio program “Speaking Clearly” of Rebel Radio and the television program “The Roundtable” have adopted similar positions.

Roberto Jesús Quiñones Haces

Cubanet, 19 November 2013

Translated by Peter W Davies

Rosa Maria Paya Speaking to UN Watch / Rosa Maria Paya


Remarks of human rights advocate Rosa Maria Payá on why Cuba should not be elected to the UN Rights Council, delivered at UN headquarters on November 4, 2013, at a press conference organized by UN Watch and the Human Rights Foundation.

Transcript:

On September 20, the Cuban government declared, in the Human Rights Council, that they would not allow democracy in my country. They reject democratic values, and they pretend to redefine them with twisted principles, in order to remain in power forever.

The Cuban mission declined all recommendations to stop political apartheid, and to ensure fundamental freedoms, among many rights requested by the Cuban people from the government.

My father Oswaldo Payá is the founder of the  Christian Liberation Movement [MCL]. He won the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament, and he struggled peacefully for the recognition, in law and practice, of the right of all Cubans to have rights. He promoted a referendum known as the Varela Project, which has the support of more than 25,000 citizens, more than the number requested by our Constitution. Ten years later, the Cuban government still refuses to answer this citizen call for a plebiscite, violating its own Constitution.

My father died last year, and it is known that cars from the Cuban State Security were chasing him, and that his car was pushed out of the highway. World leaders have demanded an independent investigation after the contradictory version given by the Cuban government, whose UN mission refused to allow this investigation, as requested during the last UPR.

How come the Cuban government belongs to the Human Rights Council, when they systematically abuse those who demand real changes, when they do not allow any investigation of extrajudicial crimes in which they could be involved?

When they abolished university autonomy, religious freedoms, freedom of movement, association and publication, while they took control of all mass media, in a nation where the most part of the people do not know Internet because it is not a right?

When they don´t respect property rights, nor the right to a free economy, only to promote now a fake reform that doesn´t guarantee the rights of Cuban workers, nor even the rights of the foreign investors?

How come the Cuban government is in the Human Rights Council, when their leaders transfer power dynastically, when during the last 64 years there have never been free elections in Cuba, they have never been subject to an effective popular vote, thus being illegitimate to represent us?

When they mock of the international community as they present themselves as victims before UN, while they traffic tons of weapons and explosives in a civil ship, violating UN´s resolutions about North Korea, and endangering many lives?

When they are the same military that shot thousands of Cubans from the beginning of the Revolution, who promoted armed movements in Latin America, who sank at sea the tug-boat “13 de Marzo” loaded with women and children, who murdered four civil pilots of the “Brothers to the Rescue” organization in international water, who imprisoned and deported most of the Varela Project leaders, who mistreat the activists of the Ladies in White movement, who have been in prison the young Yosvani Melchor for over 3 years just for being the child of an active member of the MCL, who threatened to death my father, my family, the members of the Christian Liberation Movement and many other dissident leaders, who split apart most of the Cuban families with their intolerance?

How can they belong to the Human Rights Council, when it´s the Cuba government the one that kidnap our nation’s sovereignty?

The presence in the Human Rights Council of the Chinese, the Russian, the Saudi and the Cuban regimes, is disappointing for the victims of repression, and it sends a message of complicity from the international community. Cubans know that we are responsible to lead our country towards a democratic transition, but this is a time for solidarity, and democratic governments should not share seats with criminals, which behave with impunity, since they are not suffering any consequence for their violations.

These are defining moments for my nation. It’s time to pressure the Cuban government to behave democratically, or, in defect, not to elect Cuba for the Human Rights Council, in order to preserve the legitimacy of United Nations.

Against democracy there are many economic and political interests, including those who defend a supposed stability, over a real peace based on universal rights. It is difficult to ignore lobbies and the power behind lobbies. But, to defend the values ​​for which it was created, the Human Rights Council has two choices: 1) to ignore that the sovereignty of the Cuban people is kidnapped; or 2) to defend the values ​​that are the basis of United Nations, claiming respect for the democratic demands of all Cubans, therefore defending citizen rights in all nations.

God help us all.

Thank you very much.

“The Prices In The All Stores Are Fined” /Jorge Olivera Castillo

Havana, Cuba, November, www.cubanet.org — The details of the corrupt practices detected in the Carlos III Complex of stores and in a municipal entity in the business of community services reinforce opinions about the incapacity of the government to stop a phenomenon that has metastasized in Cuban society.

As on previous occasions, people have counted on documentary proof of the facts, recorded on flash drives that are distributed furtively from hand to hand.  One never knows who is the initial provider, but presumably it is a premeditated act in the Ministry of the Interior. The lack of official information is compensated for by the traffic in copies, rented or sold, to a clientele eager to find out the identity of the guilty parties and their schemes to enrich themselves.

Both cases, occurrences in Havana, again reliably demonstrate the infeasibility of economic centralization. In most state enterprises. a lack of administrative control still prevails, which facilitates the growth of corruption in all its forms.

The efforts by the General Controller of the Republic to put a stop to it are worth nothing. Few wind up in prison. The rest contrive to continue their dirty shenanigans which include embezzlement, extortion and bribery.

“Prices in all the stores are ’fined.’  Besides being already inflated by order of the enterprise that provides the merchandise, extra is added that is later shared between the management, the financially responsible, and the employees,” a store clerk explained to me on condition of anonymity.

“Our salary is a pittance. If we don’t do this, it would be like working for free. It’s true that we steal from the customer, but those are the rules of the game. This is every man for himself,” he added.

In the conversation I found out that the managers make off with the greater part of the illegal revenues. In some cases their earnings exceed 300 convertible pesos a day. Such dividends represent a fortune in a country where the average salary is less then one convertible peso daily.

Among the beneficiaries of these illegalities must also be mentioned the hundreds of former counter-intelligence officials. Not a few are listed on the security payrolls of each shopping center, others work as inspectors of those who have to deliver part of the booty. Refusing to do it is the shortest path to jail.

In the end, everything functions without setbacks. They only have to comply with the established codes. From time to time, the general controller, Gladys Bejerano, in order not to completely lose her credibility, decides to put an end to some of the corruption. It is like putting your hand in a drum with your eyes closed. You will always extract a corrupt person, but at a low level, since the big ones are untouchable.

Jorge Olivera Castillo

Cubanet, November 20, 2013

Translated by mlk

Are We Caring for the Environment in Cuba? / Yoani Sanchez

Empty can, dumped in an area of the Havana coastline

A man dressed like a mechanic pours liquid from a tank into the sewer. A few yards away, two boys are scrubbing a motorcycle and the soapy water runs off onto the ground, watering the roots of some nearby trees. Several neighbors have set fire to a pile of trash: dry leaves, branches, but also a couple of batteries, a portable radio and even a laser printer cartridge. After re-using it a dozen times, the restaurant cook pours the burned oil down the sink, that is if he doesn’t take it home for his family to eat. The hairdresser upstairs does the same thing, when she tosses the used hair dye down the toilet. This irresponsibility in the treatment of waste products extends across the entire Island. Few are aware of the ecological damage caused by ordinary daily activities.

Separating trash such as cardboard and glass, which is natural to others, seems like a chimera in a country that hasn’t even solved the problem of efficient trash collection. Even today the containers on the corners overflow, bringing the flies, health hazards and stink that now make up an inseparable part of cities like Havana. Thus, it’s hard work to awaken awareness in a population whose priorities still center on the so-called community services working at all. However, much of the damage that we are causing to the environment is irreversible, and requires urgent measures to slow it down as quickly as possible.

The State sector is the greatest predator of our ecosystem, with its enormous factories that spew chemicals into rivers and the oceans, its many sugar plants without oxidation ponds, and its thousands of vehicles that don’t meet environmental standards. In addition, all this is hidden by the absence of transparency, the falsification of statistics and the prohibition on independent organizations that could address such behaviors. Nevertheless, we as citizens also have to share a good part of the blame.

The lack of an environmental mindset is felt in every detail of our lives. It’s notable, for example, the self-confidence with which so many Cubans cut down a tree, cement over their backyard where plants used to grow, throw chemical products into the water, mistreat and kill animals, or simply toss out recyclable materials. It’s not enough to ask children in elementary school to plant a bean seed to foster in them a love of nature. It’s also not enough to show ads on prime time TV calling on us to preserve the planet on which we live. Caring for the environment has to become a part of educational programs, strictly addressed in the law, and promoted in all areas.

The emerging civil society should also adopt this banner. Without lowering the torch of human rights and democratic changes, it’s time for civic movements to create environmental defense strategies for this Island we will bequeath to our children. Groups that report incidents against the ecosystem, organize recycling training programs, and try to protect natural resources should all take on a leading role. It’s great that we want the coming generations to be free, but we must start by guaranteeing we have a country to bequeath to them.

The clock is ticking. Nature does not wait. Tomorrow there will be no turning back.

The post ¿Cuidamos el medio ambiente en Cuba? appeared first on Generación Y – Yoani Sánchez.

24 November 2013

Havana’s El Trigal Market Reappears / Ernesto Garcia Diaz

MERCADO-EL-TRIGALHavana, Cuba, November, www.cubanet.org — The Cuban regime, in pursuit of “unleashing the productive forces,” has established, through Law Decree No. 318/2013, the new “Rule About the Commercialization of Agricultural Products in the provinces of Artemisa, Mayabeque and Havana.”  The communist leaders say that this new regulation is directed to eliminate the mechanisms that hinder the process of agricultural commercialization, as well as the “quest to make it more dynamic, efficient and flexible.”

The official newspaper Granma circulates, with optimism, various articles about this new Commercialization System which will begin to function this coming December.  The Havana population receives the news with despair and reservations, because it does not see substantial changes in the scarcity of food, their high prices, or the lack of quality and variety.

Producers continue to be circumspect because although the regulation permits the sale and purchase of the surplus once the contracts with the State have been fulfilled, the control and Statism that the regime maintains make them doubt that this will happen.  Also because the State does not sell them the necessary equipment to assure the safety of their products to their final destination.

It is reasonable to remember that during the decade of the ’80’s, in the capital of the Island, three farmers market hubs operated: Berroa, Ocho Vias and El Trigal. These centers have been led by the Council of the Administration of Provincial Popular Power of Havana and the ministers of Interior Commerce and Agriculture.

For many years, the commercial organization created facilitated the illegal markets or “black market,” which occasioned crimes of larceny, theft and diversion of resources, with the consequent loss of millions.  Audits and inspections by the Agricultural Ministry and other State agencies have reflected excessive costs and alleged losses.  El Trigal, not a few times, was implicated and closed for said causes.

On the other hand, on the esplanade of 114th Street and the Pinar del Rio Highway, belonging to the Marianao township, a wholesale agricultural market functions in the open, attended by productive methods, points of sale and brokers. This structure, headed by Colonel Samblon, will close in December, and has not been exempt from acts of vandalism and a regulated commercial organization.

The peculiar and striking thing is that the colonel mentioned, converted into the president of the non-agricultural cooperative who will operate the El Trigal market, will head that center under the supervision of General Colás, according to what I was able to learn there.

The farmer’s market will offer to sellers and buyers a night service between six in the afternoon and six in the morning.  To that end, it will rent spaces for the sale of merchandise.  The entry (as much for trucks as for persons), the loading and unloading, the weighing and other secondary services will be leased and collected by the cooperative.

Also, the competitors will be obliged to leave the market at six in the morning with their unsold merchandise in tow, in order to get in a new line and enter the enclosure again at six in the afternoon.  An agonizing way of marketing, conserving and preserving perishable products in an installation whose refrigerators are not operational!  In the daytime they will weigh the trucks that come from the provinces, for their distribution to the basic units or network of markets.

It is anecdotal to remember when the communist ex-dictator Fidel Castro Ruz, in August 1960, before 600 cooperative coordinators, said, “Now we enter a higher level, now we enter into a new project, a new purpose, a new aspiration: the aspiration to diversify agriculture.”  The ex-leader, with his “development programs,” years later destroyed the productive and industrial base of the Cuban economy.  Will we now be journeying through the dreams and deliriums of the General President?

In summary, the new commercial organization that the regime tried to implement will enrich the cooperative businessmen of military ancestry, at the expense of producers, private sales representatives and the people, who will continue enduring the experiments of the dictatorship of the Castro brothers.

Ernesto Garcia Diaz

Cubanet, November 12, 2013

Translated by mlk

Responsibility and Intelligence / Fernando Damaso

Since the very beginnings of the human history, the struggle for power has been an ever-present phenomenon. This “me first” mindset began with a tribal chief trying to hold onto it while someone else tried to strip him of it. It continued right through to the present day, passing through different phases — slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism — repeating itself endlessly.

There are always those who either hold power illegitimately or those who try to gain it illegitimately, whatever the cost. To achieve their objectives, they use words, ideas, concepts, categorization, projects, programs, tactics, strategies and, when necessary, even violence to marshal a majority of societal forces around themselves with the aim of strengthening their positions and quashing their opponents.

Cuba’s case is no exception. It began on October 10, 1868 when Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, considered afterwards the Father of the Homeland, tried to concentrate all military power (assuming the rank of captain general) and all civilian power (becoming president) in his own hands; this was not accepted by his constituents in Guáimaro, but throughout time it has materialized on different occasions, without excluding the present.

Today, one party and its leaders, with more than 54 years in the exercise of power, attempt to maintain it and a portions of the population, tired of this anomaly, try to displace them.

The change, that irremediably will happen sooner or later, could occur in a peaceful or violent manner, it will depend on the acts of the involved; although citizens might prefer the first choice. However, to achieve it high levels of responsibility and intelligence will be indispensable, so as not to get to extreme situations which could make matters worse.

In a new political scenario, where some sectors of the population slowly look to be gaining positions with the intention of dialog, although still with a great deal of fear, some old chants and claims, more of the heart than of reason, have lost their relevance and if they are brought up by any of the parties it will only be to obscure and complicate the solution to the national crisis.

No one is so naive as to pretend a unity that doesn’t exist, despite the propaganda, not even in the ranks of the government, where there have been multiple cases of the exercise of the dominant double standard, even by important characters who publicly make a big show of their position and in privacy defend another one.

Today more than ever due to the transcendence of the actual moment, in the opposition ranks they have to set aside the misunderstandings, personal and group quarrels, and perhaps one or more offenses and put their shoulders to the wheel in the elaboration and defense of a common position, which has to be sufficiently democratic to be accepted by all and sufficiently comprehensive and unbiased to be accepted by the government as well.

Only then it will be possible to find a solution that satisfies the majority of the citizens and even whatever minority, since no one should be excluded.

Now the proposals should be concrete and viable, leaving aside the highly manipulated history and, for that, is necessary that new forces that are created in the public arena, perhaps with particular visions of the paths to take and to set a precedent to the particular national interest. In the spotlight should be  responsibility and  intelligence, leaving behind the dogmatism, fanaticism and other isms that have caused so much harm.

 Transalated by LYD

22 November 2013