Category: Yoani Sanchez

What’s Happening Today in Angola? / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana | June 18, 2014 — He has been in power 35 years, he’s the father of the richest woman in Africa, and he has created in Angola one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. His name is Jose Eduardo dos Santos, and he’s visiting Cuba, which helped him to win a war that cost more than two thousand Cuban lives.

Yesterday afternoon the leader of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) arrived in our country, and the government received him as a fellow traveler. A long and bloody military conflict was fought on his territory beginning in 1975, in which more than 377,000 Cuban soldiers participated as well as some 50,000 Cuban civilians. Despite such prolonged and intense contact between the two nations, few on the Island are informed about the situation of this “liberated land” today.

Dos Santos has held the presidency in an authoritarian form, concentrating in his own hands the powers of the president and prime minister, as well as controlling parliament, the judicial system, and the main political party of that African nation. In 2010 a new Constitution was adopted which ended the division of powers and confirmed the president as supreme commander of the armed forces and as the figure who determines the composition of the Supreme Court. continue reading

Angola is torn between the greatest contrasts and the worst tragedies. The misappropriation of public funds and the diversion of state resources are common practices that have allowed many to enrich themselves. The country’s main sources of wealth have become its major sources of problems. Oil, diamonds and uranium, added to its reserves of gold, iron and bauxite, have fueled an entire legion of the corrupt, sheltered under Dos Santos.

Diarrheal diseases, typhoid fever, malaria, tuberculosis and sleeping sickness are rife among the Angolan people, putting the nation on the list of countries at “high risk” with regards to health. Currently, more than four thousand Cubans are serving “missions” in its territory, in areas such as education, construction and healthcare, but this represents barely a drop in the ocean of needs.

HIV also preys on Angolans. Official figures admit to only some 200,000 cases of people suffering from the virus, but its enough to walk the streets and villages to realize the high social impact of this scourge. The mistreatement of women, child slavery, and constant sexual crimes also have a high incidence. Cocaine trafficking and the sale of human beings into servitude are lucrative businesses.

As if this picture weren’t enough, Angola has worrying indices of human rights violations. Limitations on freedom of association and assembly are some of the rights violated, which coincides with the identical practices carried out by the “friendly government” of the Plaza of the Revolution.

However, alarming indicators with regards to health and repression do not deter many Cubans from taking the Angolan route. This time they will fight not in the trenches, but as employees in clinics, businesses and schools. In the African country they receive economic remuneration superior to the low salaries on the Island. The so called “missions” to Angola are much more sought after by medical professionals than are those in Venezuela. They are sold at the highest prices in the “influence market” within the Ministry of Public Health.

Neither the Angolan nor the Cuban national media have reported that the president’s eldest daughter has already passed the barrier of two billion dollars in personal wealth. Isabel dos Santos controls more than 25 percent of the shares in Unitel, one of the country’s two telephone companies. She also participates in businesses in Portugal, where she is said to be the principal shareholder in the country’s largest cable television company. The lack of transparency around power in Luanda, and the people close to the leader, have seized key positions in the national economy.

While her father visits Havana, Isabel dos Santos is in Brazil, where the magazine Veja has published several photos of the Angolan multimillionaire during the inaugural ceremony of the World Cup. According to the publication, some 600 people – among them businessmen and celebrities – have “accommodated” the businesswoman in luxurious rooms in Sao Paule, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, to enjoy the football parties and the euphoria of the World Cup.

Stories like these will never be told in the official Cuban press. The families who lost their children in that far off land don’t know what has become of the country where their loved ones fell.

Super Dad / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 15 June 2014 – Ricardo has raised his two daughters alone. One August morning he woke up and his wife had left. Later he learned she’d been intercepted on the high seas and spent months at the Guantanamo Naval Base before arriving in the United States. At the time, the youngest of the girls still slept in a cradle and the oldest was learning her first letters.

They had hard times. The maternal grandmother’s aggressiveness didn’t respect paternal custody. “These girls need a mother,” she shouted angrily, every time she saw him. Nor was it easy for him in the village. A man abandoned can go unnoticed in Havana, but in the provinces it’s a constant joke, the talk of all the neighbors.

He had to face it all alone. He had to explain to his daughters what it means to start menstruating, and also the importance of using a condom. He had to stand in long lines at the pharmacy to buy sanitary pads and sell some of his belongings to buy them extra cotton every month. He specialized in ironing uniform skirts, mending stockings, and removing nits from their hair. At first his braids were loose at the top and fell apart in a few minutes, but later he was a total master. continue reading

He never went back to sleep in the morning. There was always one of his “women” who had to get up early and he made breakfast and woke them up. One of them says her “papi” makes the best peas in the whole country, while the other still asks him to edit what she writes.

He doesn’t speak ill of their mother. He prefers to build up their hopes that somewhere in California there is a sad-looking lady who is waiting to reunite with her daughters. But the letters don’t come more than once a decade and the last time she was more worried about her own unemployment problems than the girls she left in Cuba.

Ricardo could have disengaged and done what so many others do. Cuban society never would have blamed him for sending his daughters to their grandmother’s house. After all, the popular refrain would justify it, asserting that “a father is nobody.” His case, however, is not so rare. It happens that his story is lost among so many of our everyday emergencies.

Today he went out early, without making any noise, wanting to get a haircut and buy a little rum to celebrate Father’s Day. It’s Sunday, “the girls” will sleep late and the kitchen will already smell of the pot where the beans are cooking.

One Less Thread in the Social Tapestry / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 12 June 2014 — In a country where there are so few spaces for debate, the loss of any one of them is a tragedy. The departure of Roberto Veiga and Lenier Gonzalez from the magazine Lay Space leaves us with even fewer opportunities for debate. Their work was characterized by its willingness to address controversial and difficult topics in the pages of a publication which, in recent years, became an obligatory reference. With a respectful spirit, a true concern for the nation, and the ability to present arguments, these editors opened a reflective space that we, their readers, fear will be missed from now on.

Differences in ideas should not lead us to personal confrontation. A lesson that should be learned by more than one person who takes ideological contradictions as a pretext to channel their lowest passions. So, despite my points of difference with many of the ideas of Veiga and Gonzalez, and especially with their category of “loyal opposition,” I have always respected their work and considered it to be of great value. The public existence of their voices improved the quality of discussions within the Island, encouraging different points of view – which is always a good thing – and brought together political tendencies that seem to run along contrary paths. I regret that they never accepted invitations to also participate in non-official debates within the country. I hope, now they have been “liberated” from their jobs, that we will be able to exchange ideas outside the protection of the Cátedra Félix Varela.

Cuba loses and I can’t imagine who wins with this dismissal. The next archbishop of Havana? Is the church so fickle? One day they snatched the magazine Vitral from us, to turn it into a shadow of the multicolored light it once was. Now, it seems, the same will happen with Lay Space. I am not convinced by the declarations of its current director who assures us that the work of the journal will continue. I believe deeply in the stamp each human being imprints on a work, and in the case of this publication it’s clear that Veiga and Gonzalez were its principal sources of inspiration.

The ragged tapestry of our civil society just suffered the tearing of another thread.

Cold Kisses Under the Tropical Sun / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

The fear of not being able to leave, of remaining locked on the island, is shared by many of my compatriots. Those who have never traveled fear they will grow old without ever knowing what’s on the other side of the sea. Cubans living abroad are not exempt from this fear. Many of them, when they visit the Island, have a recurring nightmare that they will not be allowed to board the plane when they leave. It is precisely this feeling overwhelms the main character of the novel “Eskimo Kiss,” by the novelist and journalist Manuel Pereira.

The book, as yet unpublished, describes the experiences of a man who travels to the land he left twelve years ago. His mother’s advanced age compels him return to the “country of mirages,” as he calls it. His arrival is accompanied by the panic of being trapped and that apprehension is mixed with the constant feeling of being watched. To him, his country is “like a moustrap” during the four days of the “humanitarian entry permit” the authorities have given him.

It is not only that perception of confinement that overwhelms the character of Pereira, but the difference between what he remembered from his homeland and what it really was. The distance, years and emotions tend to put a patina of sweetness and harmony on loved ones and everyday life that is often shattered when they are reunited. Nor does a nation fading away, in a moral freefall, do much to help allay the impression of suffocation that runs through the pages of this book. “Will he be able to escape?” we ask ourselves from the moment we start reading. To get to the answer we have to immerse ourselves in the reality—as well known as it is absurd—in which we ourselves are trapped.

The Free Territory of Skype / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

An article has been added to the saga against information technologies maintained by the official press. Last Thursday a report against phone fraud left many Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth) readers feeling that cellphones are a source of endless problems. To the barrage of accusations about the destabilizing plans that arrive via text messages, and the collapse of networks caused by titles that travel from one cellphone to another, we can now add the “personal profit” of those who use tricks to pay less for a call or for a text message abroad.

Every crime of fraud or embezzlement is legally and morally contemptible. However, the context in which these infractions are committed should be taken into account. We live under an absolute state monopoly of telecommunications. The only phone company in the country, ETECSA, has no competitors in its field and thus sets its prices much higher than the tariffs common in the rest of the world. A one minute call overseas costs the average worker about two days wages. With such a large population having emigrated, it’s easy to imagine the Island’s need to communicate with the rest of the world.

To this must be added the limited and scarce Internet access. Without any new facilities for services such as Skype, many prefer to resort to fraudulent practices rather than to give up calling other parts of the world. Penalizing the offenders who resort to tricks like voice bypass will not resolve the problem. I don’t imagine a lady in her sixties, with a son who emigrated, risks being fined for phone fraud when she can pay barely pennies to call via the Internet. Pushing a population into crime, and then condemning them for engaging in it, seems to me, at the very least, pure cynicism.

Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 31 May 2014 | 14ymedio

Alfredo Guevara In His Own Words / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

A recent interview published in the magazine Letras Libres, reveals Alfredo Guevara’s mood months before his death. The meeting, that came to be thanks to filmmaker Arturo Sotto, brings us closer to a man conscious of being on the last stretch of his life. His words try to find, or give sense to his existence, to justify some horrors and exalt some achievements.

Caustic but careful, Guevara ventures in topics of the past such as the divisions within the 26 of July Movement and its clashes with the forces of the Popular Socialist Party . Between one anecdote and the next, he reveals—perhaps without intention—details of a power taking shape among betrayals and rivalries. The scene of Celia Sánchez who lived with Fidel Castro in a house in El Vedado and would ask Guevara to expel the old communists from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) “by kicking them in the ass,” slips through his words, he lets it go just like any other story. continue reading

Reading the interview took me back immediately to a Sunday morning in the year 2013 in which I received a phone call. They were telling me about a police search in the home of the recently deceased Alfredo Guevara. Before dawn, several police cars and a minibus from the Technical Department of Investigation (DTI) had arrived responding to an alleged complaint about the traffic of art works. In the house there were only the housekeeping lady and an elderly man remotely related to Guevara.

A few minutes after receiving the news, we went over to verify what was happening. A few burly men, some in uniform, and a lady who could barely form any words because of fear, made up the scene we were able to glimpse when they open the mansion’s door a few centimeters. Using the old trick that we were looking for a “handyman,” we rang the bell, and were able to see that something very serious was going on inside. The news spread rapidly and the official voices were quick to explain the case as one of theft of the national cultural heritage. Nevertheless, some of us were not totally convinced by the story.

Through the testimony of those who witnessed the police raid, we learned that the officers placed particular emphasis in the search for documents. They took great pains to disassemble ceilings, to dig under mattresses, to explore drawers and file cabinets full of papers. Were they looking for some document or writing treasured by Alfredo Guevara? I have asked myself this question thousands of times since that day. The interview in the Mexican magazine Letras Libres confirms some of my suspicions.

We are before a man yearning for lasting relevance, and with valuable information in his hands; an elderly man who is able of realizing the re-writing that has been done to history to make it seem more heroic, more sublime. When he refers to Fidel Castro’s memoirs, Guerrillero del Tiempo, he states: “I think that he has his version and I have mine, but I don’t want to create any contradiction. I want to be very careful, I am afraid…” A man like that probably shields evidences of how things really happened. Some of them he lets slip in the excellent interview in Letras Libres.

However, the largest evidence that Alfredo Guevara leaves us is neither a photograph, nor a piece of paper signed by hand by someone, much less an official document extracted from some obscure archive. His main testimony is the deception perceived in his words, the bitter touch in his stocktaking, the final clarity of not knowing with certainty if history will absolve him or condemn him.

Miguel’s Drone / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Nobody knows how he got it into the country, with so many customs restrictions and government paranoia, but Miguel has a drone. Tiny, like a kid’s toy, and with a camera. In his spare time, this forty-something Havanan dedicates himself to using his new amusement to explore the nearby patios and rooftops of his neighbors. It’s so tiny that it’s barely noticeable when flying over the neighborhood, while it transmits images and videos to a screen in the home of its proud owner.

Right now it’s a prank, but if one day Miguel is discovered with his diversion, at best he could show up on official TV as a “CIA agent.” Who knows. An uncle of his was arrested on the street in the seventies for carrying a tape recorder that belonged to the government newspaper where he worked. He spent long hours at a police station, until the director of the publication himself had to intercede for him. Time has flown and now the “fearful” objects are other things, but the reprisals are usually the same.

In any event, beyond the presumed punishment, Miguel has now learned some valuable things. He has seen the pool hidden behind his neighbor the Colonel’s high fence, the satellite antenna a former minister has on the roof of his house, and even the bowl overflowing with meat for the rottweiler belonging to the painter who lives on the corner. He has also observed, with the device’s night vision, the man who, in the early hours of the morning, dives into the dumpster and emerges with his “treasures” under his arm, and the watchman who spends time opening the warehouse containers to steal from them, without leaving any traces on the security seals. Early one morning he even captured the president of his local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) trafficking in the alcohol from a nearby hospital.

Through the eyes of his drone, Miguel has been looking at Cuba from the air, and what he is seeing is a country divided into pieces that don’t fit.

Yoani Sánchez, Havana | 30 May 2014

“What is your network called?” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

They meet on a corner, eyes red from lack of sleep, their pants on the verge of falling down to their knees.  They aren’t yet twenty and have spent the night immersed in the plot of a video game.  Greeting each other they no longer use the popular “qué volá?*” nor do they mumble a grunt, but they speak to each other in the language they understand best: “What is your network called?” says the tallest to the other.  “Bad Team” is the answer that remains floating in the air.

With this simple exchange, the two young men have introduced themselves and offered the credentials that are most important to them right now. They have shared the essential: the name of where they can meet in the web of wireless connections weaving itself over the city. Despite police raids and the high prices of routers or an APN in the black market, wireless networks multiply. They serve as a substitute for the absent internet.  Through them move games, documentaries, OS updates, pirated software, magazines in PDF format, music, video clips, and the nascent private sector publicity.

“No one can stop it,” says a teenage boy with long and agile fingers, agile perhaps because of so much practice with the mouse and keyboard.  He is one of the creators of an extensive network that starts in La Habana del Este, weaves itself through the mazes of Centro Habana, and ends–with its digital tentacles–in the heart of San Miguel del Padrón. When a police offensive falls on a part of it to confiscate antennae and accessories, they immediately notice: “We notice that we lose users, that they disconnect themselves…and that gives us the clue that something is going on.” A virtual complicity unites them.

The government is right to worry; these youths are already living in the future.

*Translator’s note: Cuban Spanish equivalent of “What’s up?”

The Castros in Their Labyrinth / Yoani Sanchez (Fromthe New York Times)

By YOANI SÁNCHEZ,

HAVANA — A mix of grease and melted cheese drips from the pizza to the concrete floor. It’s a hot day and the man is holding the slice at the counter of a coffee shop. While he waits, the clerk comments on how this is “a country where no one understands.” To which the customer replies, now with his mouth full: “Well yes, and that 21st-century socialism thing is going to have to wait until the 22nd century.”

So far, the government of Raúl Castro has issued nearly half a million licenses for people to work in the private sector. This is a huge change from 1968, when every single job — even shining shoes — was nationalized. During the revolutionary offensive, all small businesses ended up in the hands of the government. Private Cuba was swept away and stigmatized, only to be reborn decades later. In 1993, spurred by an economic crisis, Fidel Castro permitted the reopening of the private sector. This turned out to be Mr. Castro’s worst defeat — one he tried to mask as a victory, as he usually did whenever he stumbled. continue reading

But it was left up to his brother Raúl to make the most concessions to the free market. “The longest distance between capitalism and capitalism is socialism,” according to a joke heard on the streets of Havana. This confirms the economic course taken by the administration in the last five years. Voices in the circle loyal to the system are accusing the government of betraying the regime’s Marxist-Leninist principles.

Those critics are right. Since taking power in 2008, Raúl Castro has granted a series of concessions that spin the island’s compass toward a system without paternalism, but also without rights. Permission to set up small private companies coincided with the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, who held government positions for decades and are now unemployed. The term for them in the official lexicon is “available.” This way no one can say they have lost their job in the proletarian paradise.

It is like trying to control a car that has been stranded for decades, but now that it is in motion, nobody knows which direction it will take — not even the driver.

The Castro regime has lost power with these small changes. Allowing Cubans to sign cellphone contracts helped swell the state coffers but gave citizens a tool for information and communication. Every little move toward flexibility has provided some economic relief to the administration and, simultaneously, a relative loss of control.

When immigration reform was enacted in January 2013, the new ability to travel without major restrictions eased social unrest. But dozens of dissidents and activists are now able to attend international conferences where only official representatives were allowed before. What Fidel Castro had prevented for decades began to happen.

Various governing bodies and other groups around the world can now hear the proposals, arguments and demands of Cuba’s democratic forces. The myth of the Cuban Revolution suffered a great loss as soon as its critics’ voices started to be heard. It is no longer a monologue. Now there’s a different and polyphonic choir, one the official propaganda tries to silence with the useless strategies of demonization and fear.

On the economic field, caution, fear and slowness characterize the so-called “Raúlist reforms.” The octogenarian leader appears to know that if he speeds up change, the entire sociopolitical model could dismantle before his eyes. While he keeps delivering the same message and proclaiming that changes are “for more socialism,” the reality makes it clear that Cuba is transitioning to a sort of capitalism exempt of labor rights and civic freedom.

On a street in Havana, a woman asks another if she watched the “educational channel three” the night before. She is cryptically referring to the signal captured illegally by satellite dishes — a phenomenon the police have tried but failed to eradicate. A growing number of Cubans build their own receivers to enjoy television programming from Florida. Copies of those shows, popularly known as “the package,” are distributed on USB sticks or external hard drives by clandestine networks.

Officials criticize “the package” as consumerist and banal, but the truth is the government fears the weakening of the information monopoly it holds. If children do not grow up watching shows and cartoons loaded with nationalism and slogans, it will be hard to have them behave like loyal soldiers of the Revolution. The television screen has always been a very effective means for government indoctrination.

It is probably this fear that is prompting the official propaganda backlash against technology. When the “Cuban Twitter,” known as Zunzuneo, came to light, the government media used the situation to demonize mobile phones, email, social networking and every single peripheral with which we communicate in these modern times. A few days ago, the newspaper Juventud Rebelde ran a cartoon of the Statue of Liberty holding a cellphone instead of a torch. The message was clear: Information and communication technology are the tools of the enemy.

Castrismo, however, is losing the battle. Biology is ending the historic generation, while the economic opening is creating a class that does not depend on government salaries, the growing dissident faction is slashing the regime’s international prestige, and the loss of control over information is reducing its leverage over people. All of these are, at the very least, death-threatening obstacles in its way.

The clock of history is advancing in Cuba, but in daily life time still struggles to move forward.

Yoani Sánchez, a Cuban writer, has launched the island’s first independent digital newspaper, 14ymedio.

“We can act creatively with respect to Cuba.” Interview with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Yoani Sanchez
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during the interview with Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sánchez, Washington | May 27, 2014

The debate about relations between Cuba and the United States has heated up following the publication of a letter signed by 40 American personalities asking President Barack Obama for flexibility toward the Island. The proposal has unleashed passions and speculation, also fueled by the imminent arrival in Havana of representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Cuban society, however, seems to remain out of the headlines, the hot articles, the replies — or support — like the so-called “letter of the 40” already circulating on the networks and in emails. Thinking about this uninformed population submerged in the big problems of everyday life, I did this interview with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who received me in Washington a few weeks before the launch of 14ymedio.

Question. The Cuban government has recently passed a new foreign direct investment law that has been met with both critics as well as a certain level of expectation. Will the promotion of this law change anything in U.S. Policy with respect to Cuba, specifically in regard to the ability of U.S. Citizens to invest in the Island?

Answer. U.S. Policy with respect to Cuba is guided by the commitment to support the desire of the Cuban people to freely determine their own future, supporting U.S. interests and promoting universal values. continue reading

Since President [Barack] Obama took office, we have shown that we are willing to promote pragmatic changes in our Cuba policies based on our interests and those of the Cuban people. Our policies with regards to travel, remittances and personal contacts are reducing the gap between divided Cuban families and promoting the free flow of information and humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people. These measures help to put resources in the hands of the Cuban people and help promote, in the words of the President, “spaces of freedom” in Cuba.

We note the Cuban government has made changes in its investment laws, and we expect that these efforts to attract foreign investment in Cuba to be accompanied by an expansion of the rights and freedoms so the Cuban people can develop their full potential.

    “We will continue looking for practical ways to support greater connectivity in Cuba”

Q. Although Cubans are able of circumventing censorship and the high price of Internet access, we still don’t have access to a number of websites and services because of current U.S. law. This includes access to online stores for Android or iOS apps and selected Google services. Is there any possibility of reducing these restrictions in the near future?

A. We will continue looking for practical ways to support greater connectivity and to help remove the obstacles that stand in the way of open communication and freedom of expression. In 2010, the United States eased restrictions and allowed for greater access in Cuba to free services that help connect to the Internet, such as instant messaging, chat and email. Earlier, in 2009, we changed our policies so that U.S. citizens could donate cell phones and other electronics to the people of Cuba. We also encourage U.S. companies to provide services and fiber optic and satellite communication services to Cuba, as we began talks with the Cuban government to establish direct mail service between the United States and Cuba. We want Cuban citizens to be more easily able to communicate with each other and with the outside world.

In 2009, in an interview with President Obama, I asked about a possible U.S. invasion of Cuba . His answer was a categorical “no.” However, Cuban leaders don’t stop talking about an imminent U.S. plan to overthrow the government in Havana. Beyond the official U.S. position, I would like to hear a simple answer to give to my son. What do I say when he asks me? Should we be concerned ?

A. I can give you the simplest of answers, and the answer is no. As President Obama said.

We support the development of a prosperous, secure and democratic Cuba and continue to support the brave Cubans who seek to exercise their freedoms. Our position is firm: only Cubans can or should determine the future of Cuba. These accusations are a relic of a distant past. They are being used to strike fear into the hearts of decent Cuban to divert their attention from the problems closer to home. The Cuban people deserve more honesty from their government.

    “To promote a change so that Cubans can enjoy a normal life”

Q. In recent months, your government has repeatedly used the term “creative” to describe the direction of U.S. Policy with respect to Cuba. I’m intrigued by this word: could you be more explicit?

A. President Obama has stated that he was not yet born when the United States declared a trade embargo against Cuba. Our goal is to promote positive change on the Island for Cubans to enjoy normal, productive lives in their own country, to have the freedom to express their views and the benefits of an inclusive and democratic political system. We have seen positive movement in some areas, such as increasing the ability of Cubans to travel abroad, but we remain deeply concerned about the continued detention and mistreatment of Cubans for exercising freedoms that are protected in other parts of the Americas.

The question is how we can act creatively to promote positive trends and show our support to the Cuban people while pressing to improve the conditions of human rights. Our opinion is that the President’s measures to facilitate family travel, personal contacts, communications, remittances and humanitarian donations have had a positive impact and contributed to the welfare of Cubans. Similarly, our work with the Cuban government on matters of mutual interest has benefited the citizens of both countries. We established these policy changes while defending our values and promoting democratic reforms in Cuba.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the detention of Alan Gross in Cuba is an important obstacle to improved relations between the U.S. and Cuba. We can be as creative as we want with our policy, but Alan’s case continues to be at the top of the list of issues to be resolved. He should be released on humanitarian grounds.

Reaping the Whirlwind / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Today, while I publish this text, thousands of students from Havana are sitting in front of their Mathematics exam. The schedule for admission to the University has had to incorporate a new test date for this subject, after a scandalous case of fraud. The leaking and selling of the questions ended with the cancellation of the previous test results, three teachers arrested, and an unknown number of students investigated.

Although fraudulent practices are common in Cuban schools, this case has provoked a profound reflection in our society, including in the official press. We have seen on our small screens dozens of interviews with people who repudiate cheating by copying another, and the lie of procured knowledge you don’t have. Few, if any, reflect on the environment of hypocrisies, double standards and simulations in which these teenager, now between sixteen and seventeen, have come of age. continue reading

This batch of students has been educated under educational experiments such as the so-called “emerging teachers.” Is it a greater fraud to put someone at the front of a classroom and call them a teacher when they possess neither the ethical values nor the knowledge to exercise such a worthy profession? How can we ask them to be honest, if the TV screen from which they receive their tele-classes never managed to transmit adequate moral codes? It is these kids, at this very minute seated in front of the math test, the children of my generation, who are surrounded by artificial academic results and inflated credentials.

It is worth remembering that for decades the schools and teachers whose classes failed to achieve grades of ninety or almost one hundred, were scolded, stripped of their credentials, and even administratively and materially penalized. Those were the days when from the dais Fidel Castro read the academic results of the high schools with their elevated promotion rate, knowing–in his heart–that this was a huge lie created for him.

It turns out that the teachers often dictate the exam questions in advance, walking among the desks of those who take longer, to whisper the answers to them or, simply, leave the room so the students are left alone to copy the answers from each other. Those of us who studied hard were always frustrated by the complicity of so many teachers and education experts with the practice of academic fraud. We are the parents of this generation that is today being evaluated in Havana’s classrooms. How could they have turned out differently? How can we ask them not to do what they have seen done?

Yoani Sánchez, Havana | 26 May 2014 | 14ymedio

To Dream Higher / Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sánchez, Havana | 21May2014

I don’t remember the title of the movie, nor the director, nor even if I saw it at a movie theater or on TV. I just remember the scene, a brief moment in which the protagonist takes off his coat and gives it to his friend. He confesses to him that the garment, modern, leather, was his dream. “Go, so that you can have higher dreams,” he snaps while handing over the object of his desires.

When a project that has been desired for too long is realized, we get the feeling that we must set ourselves new goals. 14ymedio.com has been my obsession for more than four years. First, I felt it needed to be born so that its information could contribute to Cubans deciding their own destiny with greater maturity. Later came the question of how to achieve it, and, from there, the drafting of a timeline as necessary as it was difficult to meet. continue reading

There was also a long period when my friends snickered as I talked about it. “The crazy newspaper woman,” more than one person called me. The most difficult part, however, was–and remains–giving this fantasy a real life. The stumbles have been innumerable. From the taxes for a power that sees in information a gesture of treason, to confronting the skepticism of some friends. But obsessions are like that, they tend not to let themselves be defeated too easily.

Today, I have achieved a dream. Unlike the character in that movie, it’s not a piece of clothing but a space for journalism in which many colleagues accompany me. Born with a desire to reach many readers within and outside of Cuba, offering a full spectrum of news, opinion columns and information about the reality of our Island. It will take a lot of work, there is no doubt. We will grow little by little, trying to ensure the quality of every published piece.

Now I can have higher dreams: in a year perhaps we will be at the corner kiosk. Who knows?

Ah… You’re Not in the “Package” / Yoani Sanchez

Collective taxi

Climbing into a collective taxi at midday, with its whole body heated by the sun and creaking at every pothole, is a shocking experience. You duck your head and make yourself small to sit on the improvised seats. A loose thread hanging from your pants leg or skirt catches on a badly set screw, its metal tip never rounded off. Then comes the hardest test: accepting the driver’s musical taste, which is playing full blast. But it’s also a unique sociological experience, a journalistic look that calls you to reflect on this peculiar reality we inhabit. continue reading

Some days ago I boarded one of these old “submersibles” that roll through Havana. Pure scrap metal but with the powerful speakers of a disco. The reggaeton was deafening. Most of the lyrics were sexist, repetitive… predictable, until there was one that got me thinking. The singer was making fun of someone and spit at them, “Ah… you’re not in the package.” It only lasted a few seconds, “Ah… you’re not in the package,” but it was enough. He was referring, perhaps, to another musician or artist who didn’t appear in the compilations of the so-called “combos,” selections of audiovisuals distributed in alternative ways, which the government abhors.

It’s noteworthy that in the popular repertoire, to be left out of the “package” means to be at the lowest rung of popularity. If a certain video clip, documentary, or movie isn’t included in these alternative compilations, it’s a sign of lack of fame. Most striking is when people have the ability to put together their own “television programming,” in those gigabytes of soap operas, documentaries or musicals… they never include the official programs. That is, the Roundtable show could be the target of the acid chorus, “Ah… you’re not in the package,” and it’s true, of the primetime news, the political events and whatever speech or government declaration is broadcast on the national channels.

The voice of the Cuban Communist Party has been left out of the “package”… because it’s boring, bland, repetitive… and lacks credibility.

16 May 2014

14ymedio / Yoani Sanchez

Yesterday I was arguing with a friend about the importance of journalism in the current Cuban situation. He wanted to convince me to join his opposition party and I reminded him that a reporter should not have any kind of militancy. It was an affectionate conversation, peppered with jokes, but one which made clear the different positions that must be taken by a reporter versus a politician.

Now here I am, remembering the conversation of a few hours ago and posting on my personal blog the face and name of a shared dream. A medium that we hope will support and accompany the necessary transition that is going to take place in our country. A space dedicated to narrating a reality where there are people like my friend, but also other people who applaud the current system, out of conviction, opportunism or fear. A space to report on Cuba from within Cuba.

It will be a difficult road. In recent weeks we have seen a preview of how official propaganda will demonize us for creating this medium. Already, in fact, several people on our work team have received the first warning calls from State Security. However, we have no reason to be hesitant. 14ymedio emerges with nothing to hide. Information regarding its editorial approach, ethics and financial commitments will be available on our web page which will go live on May 21. Although we had hoped to have it working today, I have to admit that technology is, at times, extremely capricious.

For those who are wondering why this name, so unique and different, the fact is that we originate from the fourteenth floor in the fourteenth year. In addition, it includes the “Y” that has accompanied me all these years, and the word “media” with all its journalistic connotations. We wanted to shy away from appropriating the name of Cuba for use on our masthead, and instead we have chosen the most universal of codes: numbers.

Now, all that’s missing is that it pleases you, generates debate, and provides you with information. Thanks in advance!

14 May 2014

Repression by Episodes / Yoani Sanchez

Photo from http://www.ojocientifico.com/

What does the insect caught in the web feel as it watches its predator approach? What are its thoughts in the seconds between the anticipation of the attack and death? It must be a lot like the days in which a repressive trap is built around an individual, a group, a society. Similar to that script that builds the justifications for a blow, molding public opinion, filling in the archive that will later be presented to the press or the courts.

The current strategy against the Cuban opposition resembles the slow creep of the spider’s legs toward its victim.

We are living in a soap opera episode-by-episode, an attempt to demonize technologies and the dissidence, who knows if to repeat those dark days of the Black Spring of March 2003. The blow approaches, in the insistence in which the press repeats certain refrains, its obsession with themes like Zunzuneo and trying to link it with the violence of four supposed terrorists recently discovered in the country. Like in a bad TV show, the threads are showing in the tying together of mobile phones, Twitter, death and war. Fortunately these soap operas barely work any more on a Cuban public too focused on their daily needs, overwhelmed by material shortages, saturated with ideology and obsessed more with escapism than with civic consciousness.

The trap is almost set. Will it be used? Who knows. But there’s not much that can be done to stop it, except to denounce it. At the end of the story the spider is always bigger, stronger, more imposing.

12 May 2014