The Last Days of That Amorphous Thing Called “The Masses” / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

Young Cubans marching in a government sponsored "protest" — Young Cubans marching in a government sponsored protest against the United States

Whatever the Cuban government does, that amorphous thing with no head or eyes, that they call “the masses,” is in its final days. And with it are also ending the repudiation rallies, detentions, physical attacks on the Ladies in White, and other forms of repression.

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 29 January 2015 — In the first elections of Cuban socialism, an old Communist leader would call the voters from his neighborhood and would instruct them which candidate they should vote for. I, being a provocateur and also a friend of his, told him, “Didn’t we agree to let the masses decide?” He replied to me, with a complicit irony while stopping the next voter in order to instruct him, “Yes, but we need to orient them.” continue reading

I say complicit irony, because that leader understood that I, by that time, should have known all too well that the trappings of democracy are a farce in socialism, mere props. Being, after all, totalitarian, one thing the Socialist State fears is that the citizenry – “the masses” as those who “orient” them call it – could think for itself.

From there proceeds the State’s lifelong fear of the artist, the intellectual – even of those whom it pretends to honor with its paper roses – and its fear of the individual, of the loner. In Cuba, the State – the better to keep an eye on him, and beyond that to convert him into one of “the masses” – made the peasant a member of a cooperative, he who had been granted two plots of land, and whenever possible made him live in housing developments where the units were joined window to window, allowing the residents to watch and overhear each other at good advantage.

Clearly, this fear had to be hidden. Taking advantage of the political circumstances of the moment (we’re talking of the months following the Bay of Pigs), the “Within the revolution, everything; outside the revolution, nothing”* pills were quickly manufactured, which had a certain flavor of patriotism on the outside, and much Soviet medicine on the inside.

Even though they appear to have been produced for use by the intellectuals, these pills have been a daily dose administered to the masses. We observe them when, arguing that “the enemy** is listening,” Cubans are prohibited to speak unless it is to praise the Revolution. Or when, without consulting the people, the government declares wars in which the country will participate with tens of thousands of men. Or when, as right now, the government makes peace with the “enemy” of just a minute ago, according to the surprising announcement by Raúl this past December 17.

All right, now. Following this announcement, which the people have greeted with emotion, these pills have lost their potency. Or, we must re-think this. Besides, logic and the reasoning of the Socialist State tend to not coincide. The foreign press continues mentioning (while the national press doesn’t discuss it) new detentions, operatives stationed outside residences, all with the object of preventing the opposition from attending anti-establishment events, and reporting names of dissidents whose passports have been confiscated or not renewed – who rightfully fear being returned to their former condition of “prisoners at large.”

But, why? When, after all, ‘round about two years ago, they were allowed to travel outside the country, and the government did not collapse. So, then, why this regression? And besides, why now, at this moment, when the hackneyed and same old song about the “plaza besieged” can no longer be invoked?

We are not so Hellenic, although anything can happen in a government full of secrets.

In any case, let the government do what it will now, that amorphous thing with no head or eyes, which the government leaders privately call “the masses,” is in its final days. And with it are also ending the repudiation rallies, detentions, physical attacks on the Ladies in White, and all manner of repression that has up to today been the government’s common practice.

Because, with the ratification of the United Nations Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – without which as a precondition for the agreements announced on December 17, 2014, Obama would have become a super-generous Santa Claus to Raúl Castro – the dissidents will, finally, enter into possession of the rights that will allow them to dedicate themselves, without government interference, to the formation of political parties, societies, professional schools and institutions, all essential to a democratic civil society. Why? Because in those little pills that are the Covenants — and the reason the government has not wanted to ratify them — is contained all that is necessary to articulate a democracy wherein the citizen can enter an electoral college and vote with decency, without anybody “orienting” him.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

* Translator’s note: A line from Fidel Castro’s so-called “Speech to the Intellectuals,” delivered in June 1961.

** Translator’s note: The “enemy” is a common epithet used by the Castro government and its supporters to refer to the United States.

The official press: “Made to conceal, not to publicize” / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez

A joke making the rounds: Napoleon said, “With Granma, nobody would have found out about my defeat at Waterloo:” (Photos: Internet)

Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez, Havana, 26 January 2015 – “Cubans are seeking a new conception of the press within socialism. All that can be predicted, without a doubt, is that it will be a democratic press, lively and original,” wrote Gabriel García Márquez in 1975.

That Gabo — always so unreal, so optimistic when it came to opining about his friend Fidel Castro’s Revolution. Such a quest does not show signs of obtaining results in any near future. It is easier to imagine the ascension into the heaven above Macondo of Remedios the Beautiful with a band of yellow butterflies*, than to reap, within olive-green socialism, a journalism free of shackles continue reading

, sparkling, with bubbles that the Genius of Aracataca** would foresee 36 years ago.

Even Gabo himself had to admit that the Cuban press “seemed to be made more to conceal than to publicize.”

Another brilliant writer, who could never be said to be complicit with the enemies of the Revolution – the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano – was more precise in describing the Cuban press when he said that “it seems to be from another planet.”

The official Cuban press, which manipulates, distorts, enshrouds and when it speaks truths, does so only halfway, only as far as is convenient, has nothing to do with the real Cuba. It seems to speak of another country, a virtual one, where everything functions in a manner quite distinct from how it is in reality.

Fidel: Omnipresent in the official Cuban press

In recent years there has been much talk about the need to create a credible journalism, one more analytical and critical. The task turns out to be a chimerical one. The press is forced into being the concubine of Power. They endowed it with the chastity belt of “informative politics.” Journalists are “ideological workers,” forced to constantly reiterate their loyalty to a stubborn and myopic regime which, as it racks up failures, divorces itself evermore from the interests of the people.

On repeated occasions, the “fearless leaders” have referred to “the need to reconcile the informative politics of the press with the interests of the country’s direction” and they have warned that “disagreements can be of form but never of principles,” because above all, “the defense of the Revolution” must take precedence.

Thus, official journalists find themselves confined to the sad role of mere propagandists and mouthpieces of worn slogans. Even those more honest among them, who can’t seem to hide their doubts and dissatisfaction, only go so far as the “danger” signal if they allow themselves to express any complaints during debates about informative politics. They all know how to have it both ways.

When, at the beginning of his mandate, General Raul Castro attended the VIII Congress of Cuban Journalists (UPEC), he said that some of the problems discussed were “older than Gutenberg.” But they are going to be resolved… and I say no more,” he said, smiling enigmatically. And he left everyone “in that.” Like halfway to an orgasm.

"To taste a better cup": What a farce! Cubans drink coffee mixed with ground-up dried peas.*** — “To taste a better cup”: What a farce! Cubans drink coffee mixed with ground-up dried peas.

The years have passed and our problems have not been resolved. To the General-President’s exhortations and chidings to official journalists have now been added those of Vice-President Díaz Canel. The result: Nothing. The official media — except for issuing some occasional critique that goes no further than the medium levels of government — continue to be as irrationally exuberant and attached to the inertia of the sermon as ever.

The idyllic and bubbling journalism inside olive-green socialism of which Gabo dreamed, now almost four decades ago, has not materialized.

The bad news, as General Raúl Castro has warned on various occasions, is that we should expect neither miracles, nor magic.

Translator’s notes:

*Refers to Remedios La Bella (“Remedios the Beautiful”), a female character in García Márquez’ novel, “100 Years of Solitude,” who resides in the town of Macondo, and who one day ascends into heaven, body and soul. Remedios is in love with a man who is constantly surrounded by a band of yellow butterflies.

**Aracataca is the birthplace of García Márquez.

Related articles: Al Qaeda Coffee; Coffee with Roasted Peas; Out of Coffee.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Message from Jorge Luis Sanchez / Polemica, 2007 Intellectual Debate

This debate seems far more serious and interesting than the candles feeding the shadows of a study, in this I agree with Arturo Arango. I have no time to sit and watch TV, I saw the little program. And I doubted, for when the pavonato took place, I was a child and didn’t suffer it directly. It touched others, more recent, in the eighties.

But this man of the seventies, I hadn’t seen his face. It drew my attention that whomever make the report skirted around, olympically, the fact that Pavón was the President of the National Council of Culture. Nor did the narrator’s voice dare to name the charge! continue reading

Maybe for the younger generation, a word as undesirable as “parametrado” doesn’t disturb our memory. I wrote this and circulated it on the night of the 6th, after reading Desiderio and Arturo, now I add that I agree with all this fruitful debate. That it should not be only the responsibility of those affected. Nor of those who lived through the nonsense. It should not the responsibility only of those affected. Or those who lived through the nonsense. My grandmother used to say this refrain: If you saw me I was playing, if you did not see me, you‘re fucked. When ignorance and malice unite!

Count on me for anything.

Jorge Luis Sánchez

Another message from Jorge Luis Sánchez

So?

A group gathers inside, to discuss and analyze.

A larger group, from outside, follows — with more or less computerized information — the result of what those inside discussed.

As in those bad American movies of the “Tanda del Domingo” (Sunday Show) TV series, it would seem that with the statement by UNEAC (Cuban Writers and Artists Union) all is resolved. It is subtly conclusive. It does not satisfy me. I do not feel represented by it, even though I am not a member of that organization.

Meanwhile, TV — which, full of incoherencies, censures Strawberry and Chocolate, among other films produced by the current political culture, a film that it contributed, not just to the culture, but to all of society, making us less medieval — our TV continues its particular Political Culture which in general is no more than the historic application of the not-Political Culture. Remember that what does not appear on television in this country simply does not exist. It is not.

Meanwhile, on the wound (the conflict), a band-aid (the Declaration) is applied, which lacks the demand for an efficient solution, thus it becomes a palliative, or something like a methodologically antique response, inefficient and unsatisfactory. I think that the UNEAC should have demanded, and TV should have responded. In this case, TV responded via the voice of the UNEAC, so that one should be left positively frustrated, and more confused.

Once again, the screwed-up practice is repeated of publishing a Declaration which, for the people, is incomplete, destined to be interpreted by clairvoyants, being that it omits any amount of data, and it dissolves in its generality.

In Centro Habana they have asked me what happened, and it tires me to summarize what has been happening all these days, all these years, all these decades. A paradox, this, because the majority of Cubans — for whom their existence is designed to be lived attached to the television set — don’t know what happened in the three television programs mentioned in the Declaration.

Serenity should not be related to the application of old solutions to old, and new, problems. I quickly tuned in, in case anyone said, publicly (more or less), that the Revolution is already tired of justifications.

Never will a clumsy move be resolved by another clumsy move.

At least unless a better outside sign of tranquility is desired, lessening the focus on the inside–another old practice.

Since I was born all the great and essential debates about the culture of my country continue to be postponed, with the conservative, monotonous and worn-out argument, “It is not the right time.”

So, when will it be the right time?

The Declaration might have been a better sign. It is not enough that they write that the Policy of the Revolution is Irreversible. To which provisions can one appeal when that guarantee is threatened? To which historical figure? Where? To a Declaration? To a Self-Criticism? Well? All right, then, it must be that sorrows beat up on each other, and Sindo said this is why they are not lethal.

Shall we eternally be children of contexts? Naively, someone told me that, between the 80s and the start of the 90s, it caused plenty of headaches for artists. Remember the film, Alice in Wondertown.*

*Translator’s Note: This film, which satirized Cuba’s bureaucracy, caused the early retirement of the then-director of the ICAIC, Julio García Espinosa.

Jorge Luis Sánchez.

January 18, 2007

Translated by Regina Anavy and Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Do Obama’s measures promote democratic change on the Island? / Antonio Rodiles

Diario de Cuba, Antonio G. Rodiles, Havana, 28 January 2015 — The recent visits to Havana by American legislators and by Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson, have reawakened controversy over the transparency in the process of political dialogue between the Obama administration and the Castro regime. So far, the aim of furthering a previously determined plan has been evident, as well as raising the profile of those political actors who support and conform to this policy.

Indispensable voices from the opposition movement have been conspicuously absent from the meetings held. Equally apparent was the reluctance to have a balance of opinions in these contacts.

On multiple occasions, in support of the new policy, the Obama administration has posited the premise that the Cuban people should be the ones who guide the process of change on the Island. This pronouncement implicitly seeks approval for the new measures and opens the door to strong criticisms of those of us who reject the unconditionality — and the notable lack of transparency and consensus — that have characterized the start of this process. continue reading

This premise, presented simplistically and with an added dose of false nationalism, tries to label those of us who demand firm commitments to the advancement of democracy and human rights,as individuals who are incapable of assuming our political responsibilities — stuck in the past or wanting foreign governments to come in and make the needed changes. The administration’s theory is curiously parallel to the old idea of “national sovereignty” employed by the regime for so many years and echoed as a part of the arguments of the self-declared “loyal” opposition.

Do Obama’s measures promote the Cuban people’s empowerment, insofar as their civil and political rights are concerned? Can the opposition generate a broad social compact, given the degrees of control, repression and impunity with which the regime operates? Are there guarantees that the new measures will generate a Cuban entrepreneurial class in the medium term? Can Cuban society move toward a Rule of Law, given the atomization, evasion and corruption in which the vast majority of Cubans live?

If we are realists, the answers are obvious. The current Cuba only functions through corruption and patronage. We lack the legal framework that permits the empowerment of the people in any aspect. There cannot exist any broad and extensive leadership by Cuban democrats and entrepreneurs as long as the regime can maintain these high levels of repression and social control without paying a large political price. And a peaceful transition to full democracy requires such leadership.

Peaceful and sufficiently ordered transitions of despotic regimes to democracies have occurred under intense international pressure coupled with an effective internal push. Political results have emerged when these regimes sense that their permanence in power is impossible and they start to fear that a total social collapse will put them in disadvantageous or dangerous situations.

The continued presence of the political heirs as a part of the new system is one of the flashpoints in any transition. Experience also shows that, in the majority of cases, this continued presence brings with it an inheritance of corruption and a web of influences, and that it ultimately hijacks the genuine interests in building full democracies. To allow a transfer of power to the heirs correlates to perpetuating the poverty of the Cuban people, and sacrificing the future of our nation in the medium and long terms.

The dialogue conducted by the current American administration has not achieved even the release of all political prisoners and the annulment of their sentences. Many of the freed prisoners were released conditionally and not to full liberty. Such is the case of the 12 prisoners from the wave of repression of 2003, released in 2010, who decided to remain in Cuba and who now find themselves on parole and prohibited from traveling outside the country. This dialogue also has not managed to prevent further imprisonments and waves of arrests, such as the ones that occurred at the end of 2014 and start of the new year.

To insist on the idea that Cubans don’t understand fundamental rights and that only basic necessities are their priority demonstrates ignorance of our reality and gives a biased view of our genuine democratic aspirations. Freedoms don’t need to be explained; even when they have not been experienced, the human being can recognize them. We Cubans are not the exception.

A probable failure of this political process would be very harmful for all concerned, but most of all for the Cuban people. The Obama administration should combine effective pressure on the regime with the consensual work of a large group of democratic actors from within the Island and in exile. If the desired ultimate result is truly the democratization of our nation, a change of direction is needed.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Alan GGross / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

The Silence of Alan Gross

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

We live not in the civilization of media, but of the mediocre. And from there directly we inhabit the miserable.

Cubans desperately need witnesses to our tragedy. In the absence of politicians on the Island, we pin our hopes on any alternative voice: bloggers, musicians, graffiti artists, performers, etc.

Just recently a supposed North American hostage has been released. Alan Gross completed his role in the democratic-totalitarian theater of legitimization of the Castro dictatorship. He is now free, but he remains stuck in the labyrinth of his lawyers and the six-figure compensation with which they have invited him to recuperate and remain reticent. In the United States, he will not for one moment stop being a true hostage. continue reading

Cubans therefore ask why Alan Gross does not speak to us. Does he not feel shame for his irresponsibility towards our nation? He has not asked for forgiveness–that is, if he were to consider himself guilty. Nor has he accused his olive-green tormentors who, according to him, drove him to the point of suicide and stole five of the possibly fewer years of life he will now enjoy in liberty.

Alan Gross was another of our sterile hopes for drawing attention to the criminal cruelty that hangs over every Cuban. But he has come out–along with his unhinged gaze–determined not to expend even one drop of saliva on the Revolution. He is the “sixth hero”* of this complicit comedy of trade and trickery. And he has no problem with the G-2.

Thus is perpetuated the impunity of the 56-year-old regime imposed upon Cuba by a gerontocracy and by millions of North Americans–and soon, by the “millions” of the North Americans. Except for the Cubans–including the agents of influence and the spies–socialism is loved in America. This is consummate statistics. And the month of muteness of Alan Gross is one of its most sensational symptoms.

Why does he keep silent, and what is he silencing, our USAID contractor in Havana? How was his trial behind closed doors? Was he tortured physically and verbally? What are the repressive buildings like inside, where he was disappeared even from his biography? With whom would Alan Gross speak in Cuba, and what did he know of the world during his time on the scaffold in unreal time? While in Cuba was he threatened with death or the death of his family if he did not cooperate? And, now, in the United States, what is the retaining wall that keeps him betraying us, while saving the very regime that destroyed him?

The meat grinder will not cease even when the Castro regime falls. There is no justice that can withstand such violence and vileness which were inculcated in us, between paternalism and panic. The world will never be as scared of the Castros as we are, their executors who in turn will be executed. Among the people there are too many Alan Grosses.

*Translator’s Note: The five Cuban spies who were serving prison terms in the US and were released in December, 2014, are labeled in Cuban government propaganda as “The Five Heroes.”

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

13 January 2015

Angelito Santiesteban Does Not Believe Himself the Center of the World / Luis Felipe Rojas

Graphic: Sonia Garro Alfonso, recently freed Lady in White. Collage over a piece by Rolando Pulido.

The writer and blogger Ángel Santiesteban Prats, from the prison where he is serving an unjust sentence, just published–thanks to the help of a friend on Facebook–a brief post expressing his thoughts about the recent releases of political prisoners. As always, Angelito is filled with Light and strength. May my embrace reach him though the faithful reproduction of his text.

Ángel’s post:

I have received the expressions of pain from many friends, my publisher, and my relatives–some stupefied, others offended–over my exclusion from the list of prisoners recently released by the Cuban government.

Upon completing almost two years of unjust imprisonment, I can assure everyone that never have I asked the correctional authories or, even less, the officials from State Security who have visited me, when I will be released. I will never give them that satisfaction, just as I have never inquired whether I will be given the pass* which is granted to all “minimum severity” prisoners like me, who am sentenced to five years. continue reading

Nonetheless, although I know that I am not on the noted list, my joy is infinite at knowing that those who were on it are now free. My suffering is universal. I feel all Cubans to be an extension of me, or vice versa, above all those who have suffered and do suffer for an ideal–and in particular that of freedom for our country.

I also believe that the list that so gladdened me was missing the names of other political prisoners who deserved to have been added. There will always be some who are excluded because government’s sleight-of-hand is very swift and, when it already has one list compiled, it as another of recently-apprehended inmates.

It is unfair to think that they should have taken one name off to insert another. Rather, they should have added to the list, because those who were freed deserved it, just as do those who still remain in the totalitarian regime’s jails–some shut away and subjected to inhumane treatment for many years, for whose imminent freedom I pray.

By the same token, and referring again to the recycling of political prisoners, we must now clamor for the immediate absolution and liberation of El Sexto, Danilo Maldonado, whom they keep in the Valle Grande prison for a crime of “disrespect to the images of the leaders.” This is a further proof of how jealously they hold on to their power, and of what they are ready and able to do to safeguard it. Power and its dictators are untouchable, and to live is to see it.

I will not live long enough to infinitely thank those who clamor for my release, and those who suffer because of my imprisonment, but we must clamor for all–just as my publisher entreats on the blog, “The Children That Nobody Wanted,” and my family through social media. At the least, may I be last on the list, as I will complain no more.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

January, 2014. Jaimanitas Border Patrol Prison Unit, Havana.

*Translator’s note: In an earlier post Ángel explained the Cuban penal system that allows prisoners with shorter sentences to leave prison every so many days for extended (overnight) home visits. He was granted one of these passes when he was in the Lawton Settlement, a work camp, but future passes were withheld.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

22 January 2015

If it were up to them, they’d shoot me / Angel Santiesteban

Warning: The regime in Havana has prepared a new legal trap for Ángel.

As is already public knowledge, Ángel Santiesteban has been held in a military border patrol base in Jaimanitas since August 13. He was placed there after several days of detention in the Acosta Police Station, following his surrender after having taken 5 of the 15 pass days that he had accumulated since his incarceration in the Lawton prison.

The night before taking his days, on 20 July, Ángel used his blog to denounce the great rumors circulating about his imminent transfer to the border patrol base for purposes of isolating him. This was after his son had declared, on Miami’s TV Marti on July 15, that as a child he had been manipulated by his mother and State Security to force him to lie and hurt his father. continue reading

After turning himself in and having been held for days in police station cells with no nourishment, he was taken to a location such as he denounced in that post. He is kept there in isolation, where his rights to visits and calls are ignored. He has no physical space so vitally needed so that he can keep himself healthy. To demand his right, Ángel declared a hunger strike for a period of days. We learned of this because Lilianne Ruíz, of 14yMedio newspaper, was able to interview him from outside the detention facility.

We barely have news of him, because he wants to say very little by telephone, and his jailers do not allow him to send letters or post on his blog. Every time he manages to get one out, it becomes a major feat and it takes very long to reach us. This is such that just this past weekend, I received a letter from October and another from the 15th of November.

Of course, he tells me nothing in them about the incidents and motives that caused him to go on the hunger strike in recent days. But he does tell me that although the request for an appeal (made on the 4th of July of 2013) of his case was accepted, nothing has been done to move it forward. This is more grave than it appears.

As all of you have read in the press these days, the Cuban government–in a clear move to “look good” for its negotiations with the US before the imminent collapse of the aid that it receives from president Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela–has let go about 20 political prisoners. That is, the government has not freed them–they have let them go into house arrest to await their pending trials. The most well-known case is that of Sonia Garro, who with her husband and another peaceful activist, had been held for 31 months without trial.

Ángel’s case is equally notorious because not only did his son declare what truly happened–thus dismantling the judicial farce that was invented to lock up and silence Ángel–but in addition, he already served a third of his sentence (in April he will have served half)–and he should have been released pending his new trial. At the least, they should give him a conditional release in April. However this is something they will not do–given the recent releases from which they excluded Ángel, they made abundantly clear their eagerness to keep him locked up as punishment for his oppositional stance.

Having consulted with legal experts, we have learned that it is possible that the regime is preparing a new legal trap for Ángel. Conditional release is given to persons who have already served part of their sentence, but who do not have anything pending in relation to their trial.

In Ángel’s case, having requested an appeal, they could remove his right to a conditional release, claiming that it is necessary to wait until the opinion is rendered regarding the appeal.

In addition, we have learned through various sources that in the artistic and intellectual sphere in Cuba it is widely remarked that high-level functionaries of the regime who are politically and culturally connected have privately said that Ángel “will be made to serve his full sentence to that he will be well-punished.”

Bearing in mind what Ángel himself told 14Ymedio (that the prison guards, responding to his demands, had told him to hold his horses because he had already done a lot of damage to the Revolution and that if he had accepted the offer of exile made at that time he would not find himself in prison now)–and also the political prisoner releases of this week (that sought to improve the government’s terrible image due to its repression and detentions of dissidents on December 10, International Human Rights Day)–this report, plus the analysis by the legal expert, takes on a maximum significance.

Ángel’s helplessness is absolute, now that his son also is in danger for having defied the government by telling the truth–and also because Ángel is unable to post his updates on what is happening with his.

Thank God, 14Ymedio was able to obtain his own words on what he is going through. We express our gratitude to Lilanne Ruíz for following Ángel’s circumstances so closely.

The post below is what Ángel sent me in his last letter. When he wrote it, he had no idea that Sonia Garro would be released. He still doesn’t know it. If he did, he would be overjoyed that she is able is to celebrate the holidays with her daughter, and he would have said so.

The children of Ángel will have another Christmas without their father. Ángel will have another Christmas alone and isolated.

The Castro clan will have another Christmas illegitimately usurping power and enjoying the privileges it robbed from the people.

The dictator brothers will have another Christmas violating with impunity the rights of all Cubans.

The Editor

If it were up to them, they would shoot me.

by Angel Santiesteban

In this border patrol military base where they now have me shut away and isolated, I am behind bars that reach to the roof of the patio, and I am guarded 24hrs/day, but not even that or anything else will be enough to make me back down from my goal to live in a free country, something that I do not know, even at my 48 years of age.

Regardless, it appears that they are learning that there is no way to make me change my opinion. I believe in God, and the time in prison has not been for naught, it has a purpose and God willing I am close to knowing what that is, not just for me but for my country and my family.

This is a struggle that has no room for half-measures but, unfortunately, many Cubans prefer to forget about those of us who are imprisoned, so as to not incur problems for themselves with the government.

Contrary to what many believe, the fighting spirit grows in jail because there will never be a better place to know the injustices a dictatorship commits within them such as the threats, the abuses and tramplings such as they wreaked upon me in La Lima prison and later in Prison #1580, where they would tie my feet and hands to make me ingest something foul which, I suppose, or they supposed, was nourishment.

At that point my strength increased and kept me going. With the smell of battle, blood flows with more force like a wild and untamable horse that rides through the veins.

Then they are the ones who fear, they turn away from our gaze, they avoid confronting us because the truth spoken in our face is more effective than their blows. They are the cowards because they believe that this is the most effective method to dampen our demands–without further justification, according to their logic, because they imagine that were they in our position, they would give up.

And this is their great deceit, the question they cannot answer, when they see our strength grow. When one has right on their side, a great part of the battle is already won.

Now, with more justification and strength for the battle because I have known more closely the injustice of the tyranny and the constant love and support that provide the confidence needed to remain in combat, I know why they don’t want Sonia Garro or me to be free, because we were too ’impudent’–perhaps that is the right word, to not use a vulgar term.

We faced down the political police–I on that 8th of November of 2014, when they beat me and it was seen on that video that fortunately went viral around the world and later the open letter that I addressed to Raúl Castro demanding the release of Antonio Rodiles. Sonia and I are intolerable for the government–especially so with she being of the Ladies in White and I an intellectual, we do not fit the mold that is extremely acceptable to them. They know that we do not fear them.

I don’t know how the government officials are not ashamed (but this would be asking the impossible) to still repeat the list of grave accusations that they laid on me, and then later they kept the two least serious ones, while the ’flaming witness’ for the prosecution and the accuser assured them that all were false.

Raul Castro ties the blindfold on a man about to be executed during the Revolution

I continue to wait in vain for the appeal that my attorney requested. If it were up to them, they would shoot me, but because they can’t, because times are different, then they have no other recourse but to keep me imprisoned.

On the other hand, they are gaining time, they are buying it so that Raúl Castro can serve out his term and somebody new can come in–some other Castro, surely, because the Castros will not relinquish power. I believe that they will not want to risk their position even with a puppet government that they control from behind the scenes.

While they ’take their time,’ here remain shut away those of us like Sonia and me, who have no fear, and who they have not succeeded in bringing to our knees.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Border Patrol Prison Unit. Havana. October, 2014

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

14 December 2014

Cuba is the Black Sheep of Human Rights / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar & Elizardo Sanchez

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 10 December 2014* — Coinciding with the observance of International Human Rights Day today, we spoke with Elizardo Sánchez, spokesman for the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) in Havana to review the current situation on the Island.

Q: Today the whole world commemorates Human Rights Day. What is the situation in our country at the close of 2014? Do we have reasons for hope or for worry?

A: The general scene of civil, political, labor and other fundamental rights continues to worsen. Although the rate of detentions for political reasons has diminished in recent months, this is because the government has understood that this type of arrest portrays a very negative image. It did the same before when it decided to reduce the number of political prisoners, which is currently at around 110 persons.

Nonetheless, the government has not reformed any laws, and it has not given up its repressive and threatening mission against all of society. Therefore, it cannot be said that the situation has improved. Unless a miracle occurs, it will continue to worsen.

Q: What are the repressive methods which are most used at this moment?

A: There has been a metamorphosis insofar as repression for political reasons is concerned. It no longer consists of lengthy prison sentences, or even of extended detentions. Instead, what occurs frequently are short-term arrests with the added element of other forms of intimidation, such as vandalism, including rocks being thrown at houses or residences being ransacked. There are also physical aggressions, which have increased throughout the year, be they overt or covert. continue reading

The repressive apparatus can be quite creative in its activities, such as taking the clothes off activists on some remote highway–or leaving them without shoes, which results in these people having to walk many miles barefoot to get home. This is in addition to the psychological effect inflicted on any individual when part of their clothing is taken from them.

Q: The Cuban government has called for this day to be observed throughout the country. How do you assess this new attitude?

A: We have been following the official media and we heard their calls for this day to be observed in parks and public places. Doing so, they neutralize any initiative undertaken by the independent civil society. An example is the announcement by the Ladies in White to meet today at the centrally-located corner of L and 23rd Streets. Very likely, this event will be quashed. The government will try to not have so much recourse to detentions, in keeping with the repressive trend this past year, 2014.

Q: Do you believe that Cuba will one day come to be a referee of human rights, even a regional watchdog to ensure their implementation?

A: This is the dream of many of ours. But, unfortunately, Cuba is today the black sheep of human rights within the inter-American sphere and the world. This is so because Cuba encourages abuses and blocks any attempt to bring forth certain complaints to the United Nations, as in the case of its complicity with the regime of North Korea.

Q: Would you say that there is an International Committee of Human Rights Violators?

A: The great violators of human rights tend to act in conjunction with the rest, shielding themselves behind each other and lending mutual support. That is, not only is there a negative situation maintained within the country, but the Cuban regime provides negative leadership at the international level, much more than any other government does. This is quite contrary to the leadership role that the Republic of Cuba took in the drafting of the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Our diplomats at that time were second only to the French and the North Americans in terms of leading that task.

We therefore hope that Cuba will again become a bastion in the defense of human rights, and that the whole infrastructure that the regime has in place today for its own ends will help to create congresses that promote respect for fundamental rights at the continental level. May those halls and convention centers provide space for the formation, popularization, protection and training of human rights defenders throughout the world.

*Translator’s note: This interview took place a week before Barack Obama’s announcement of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

10 December 2014

Look at Me, Miami and, If You Value Your Death, Don’t Cry / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Alan Gross, like every North American who comes in contact with the Castro regime and defends it even from within a captivity of little lies — attacking his own government with million-dollar demands — is a bad man. Gross’s little suicide threats, his lack of solidarity with Cubans in exile and civil society on the Island, his backward religiosity of psalms and miracle-mongering, his complicit silence as to the assassinations committed by the Castro regime while he was supposedly in prison, his lawyer subsidized by Havana, his support of the lifting of an embargo that had not appeared to be his concern when he was contracted by USAID, his servile flattery of President Obama, his admiring loyalty to the sacrosanct balls of Raúl, his suspicious loss of dentition at the record pace of one tooth per year, his (and his wife’s) insipid leftist pose, in short, what a fossil, what fealty, what Submerged States of Fidelity…

Meanwhile, the triumphal return to the Island of the 5 deadly spies, with their muscles worthy of hand-to-hand combat, their vacant stares of those who know themselves to be puppets of a dismal power that can pulverize them at any time, with their exaggerated dentitions, surrounded by a people who for decades have not been even plebes, a perverse and impoverished populace, terrified in their fear that swings from meanness to mediocrity, jabbering with the neighbors in a language that we free Cubans do not know because it is a jargon of the stable, of the State.

My Fellow Cubans, let us not kid ourselves. The stupidity of our country can be reined-in by taking advantage of this umpteenth criminal juncture in our history. We will never live in liberty. The Earth is cursed against our volatile beauty. The race that inhabits the Island is infected and cannot be decontaminated. The lucid ones, the virtuous ones, escape without ever looking over their shoulders, or else they will pay the brave price of being martyrs killed in cold blood, like the holy souls Laura Pollán and Oswaldo Payá. continue reading

The stampede cannot be stopped now in Miami. It is too late for us to remain so close to evil. We must run away, further and further to the north of the world. Throughout generations upon generations, the Castroites have become millionaires in South Florida. Castroism is the factual and media-conscious law in the Cuban exile community. It is the majority. The Cuban-American sensibility in itself is an insular invention: with that nostalgia bent-over and submissive to a frigid Fidelism, with that vernacular that sounds taken out of Google Talk, with those gold trinkets of 19.59 carats and eyebrows groomed to delirium. Please.

The legislators of Florida count for nothing. What does rule is the corrupting power of the mafias that Fidel has institutionalized in Miami, from the church to the academy, from the marinas to the slaughterhouses, from the swamp to the cane field, from the airport to its horrendous museums and mausoleums, with their fairs and their colleges and their constant kitsch, from the restaurants to the Revolution itself.

Miami has made its best effort, but today Miami is millions of Alan Grosses and Five Heroes. Forget all that about them being spies, My Brothers and Sisters. Miami is the pure heroism of unpunished horror. The Battle of Florida was lost. Not even Castro won. Miami won, which reproduced and grounded a kind of Castroism little by little during decadent decades. Take a look in the malls, My Poor People–take those little checkered shirts that are sold in bulk off their hangers. You’ll see the labels of Cuban State Security, My Poor Love. The tackiness and the vulgarity. It’s the dirty trick somewhere between magic and secretiveness. As in Cuba, there is not even one word said by Cubans that isn’t false. Castroism is that: the outer shell of Cubanness, its disposability, its hahaha.

My Fellow Cubans, it is time to recognize that not only do we not want changes in our nation, but that we abundantly want to never again have a nation. The experience of having been subjects of the Kingdom of Death is irreparable. Now we will all die very alone, somnolent in a peevish rhetoric that debases us. We deserve to remain dead for the rest of our lifeless biographies.

Nobody is sadder than we. Nobody is more “We” than I.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

18 December 2014

Activists present proposals for the next phase of US / Cuba relations

From L to R, top row and then bottom row: Antonio Rodiles, Félix Navarro, Berta Soler, Ángel Moya and Ailer González are some of the activists who signed the roadmap with proposals for a new stage between the United States and Cuba.

14ymedio, 16 January 2014 – This Friday, almost 300 activists, artists, journalists, academics and trade unionists representing diverse groups within the Cuban opposition presented a roadmap of proposals for what the civil society movement hopes to see beyond the reestablishment of US/Cuba diplomatic relations.

The statement by the Forum for Rights and Freedoms was presented on Thursday at the headquarters of Estado de SATS in Havana.

The principal objective of this initiative is to enable Cubans to be the lead players in the changes that lie ahead for Cuba, and to ensure that the new relationship with the US will bring real changes to benefit civil society on the Island.

“We find ourselves facing two options,” the document states. “One is to accept the mutation of the regime to one of authoritarian capitalism, wherein Cubans will have to resign themselves to pittances, while the heirs of the Castro regime dispose of our rights and assets. The other choice is to demand concrete and measurable changes that will lead to the formation of a true democracy.” continue reading

The proposals focus mainly on human rights and freedoms, and are based on the principles expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They seek to establish a multi-party democracy in which citizens will be able to directly and transparently elect their leaders.

The text outlines seven principal points. It seeks, first of all, the immediate release and overturning of convictions of all political prisoners; the elimination of the concept of “pre-criminal dangerousness” from the Cuban penal code, as well as all other standards that could contribute to justifying arbitrary detentions; and the reestablishment of constitutional-level judicial guarantees that will ensure the implementation of due process in judicial procedures.

In a similar vein, the statement calls for repealing all those articles of the Constitution and laws that violate the International Covenants on Human Rights, and restrict freedoms of expression, association, trade union membership, assembly, movement and conscience.

In conclusion, the document promotes the creation of a series of greatly important laws: a new Law of Association to include a multi-party system and guarantee rights of assembly, as per the standards of the International Labour Organization; a new Communication Media law that guarantees the right of expression and flow of information; and, finally, a new Election Law that emphases a multi-party system and transparent elections.

The Forum for Rights and Freedoms submits this document as a first step towards transitioning to a true democracy, and hopes to have the support of the international community.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

The Communist Party in the New Cuba / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

“There is only one option: Fatherland, Revolution, and Socialism”

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 13 January 2015 — Following the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, Havana has become a cauldron of ideas about how we could have elections by secret and direct ballot – an exciting thing to contemplate. Many here see it happening right around the corner, maybe within a few years, three at the most. Others completely deny it. They speak – not in favor, but they do speak – of the Chinese method as the successor to Raul Castro socialism.

Would the Communist Party participate in such elections? This is one of the topics for debate. Some would prefer not to even hear of this. Others – myself included – believe that it would be impossible to exclude the Party: because we are democrats, because otherwise the elections would be invalid, and because, still, the Communist Party holds the reins of power.

However, upon the new government’s establishment, there would be a movement to seize and recover all of the Party’s properties. All. That means, guest houses continue reading

, workplaces, office furniture and equipment, yachts, recreational facilities, means of transportation, bank accounts, etc. The idea would be to start over, on a level playing field, with the other political parties in existence then. And if by means of the Constituent Assembly this recovery could take place prior to the elections, even better – more democratic.

The consensus appears to be unanimous to prevent the current leaders from occupying public positions in the new government. Well, now, would these personages, civilian or military, have the right to run for office? There is no agreement about this, but based on what I have been able to detect from conversations on the street, the public for the most part does not see a reason to oppose this.

There is even talk of a Senator Mariela Castro and a Mayor Eusebio Leal. I do not doubt that they would win. With the appropriate official support, of course, Ms. Mariela Castro Espín has done commendable work—work that in no way diminishes the historical responsibility of her relatives in creating the tragic UMAPs—and this work has gained her a place in the social struggles of her country.

For his part, Eusebio Leal – “St. Eusebio,” as some call him — has shown how much can be done, even without plenipotentiary powers, for a city. Understandably, one hears talk of forgetting the air-kisses which the Maximum Leader, during his speeches, would covertly or overtly blow to Leal. That was, they say, the price the saint had to pay – but thanks to him, they also say – Old Havana exists today. Therefore, generally speaking, the future “dream” electorate of Havana exists because of Eusebio. And because of Mariela.

Well, now, what of the non-recycled candidates, i.e. the new blood, the candidates of the democracy? There lies the great unknown of the moment, the question without an answer among those who already see themselves before the ballot boxes, flags flapping away in the city covered in leaflets and palm leaves. Because they have had no place in the public life of the country, the dissident leaders are not known by the public. The government has never mentioned them – not during their almost-daily detentions, nor upon their releases. Prematurely aged as they enter and leave the jails, and well-known abroad; but in their own country the dissidents are no more, at most, than names heard in passing.

But, fine – it is said – the candidates will appear, the important thing is that elections are around the corner. In the organizing process of the parties, the fighters of old and the new ones, the ones yet to appear, will be known. Upon uttering these words the future elector is seen to sigh and assume an expression of, “Finally! At last! We will have a President and Congress that emanate from the will of the people.”

It is a joy not without its worries. Will free education and hospital care disappear with a democratic government? Here starts the guessing once again. Will the house one lives in have to be returned to its former owner? What about the plot of land granted by the government? As the Russians did, will the current rulers retain the enterprises created by the socialist State?

All of this is fodder for discussions on the street corners, but the joy is so great at even talking about democracy that the conversation veers again towards elections and the media that will facilitate them: radio, TV, the printing of leaflets, etc.

Nevertheless, those who had already been planning to leave the country are still packing their suitcases. And, those who claim to know very well that what is really coming is the Chinese method, sorrowfully spit through their fangs. Raúl and his generals are uninterested in hearing talk about these things, they say. Elections?? And they point to the recent events concerning the artist, Tania Bruguera.

Ultimately, whether these killjoys are right or not, Hope has come knocking, and it is impossible not to let her in.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Hope for a prosperous 2015 for Cuba / Cubanet, Miriam Leiva

Cubanet, Miriam Leiva, Havana, 6 January 2015 – The psychological barrier utilized by the Cuban government to keep its citizens subjugated was broken on the 17th of December. The surprising announcement that Raúl Castro would deliver a speech on US/Cuba relations, on live television, set off a tense anticipation of bad news. For 56 years, the US was the enemy aggressor, supposedly the cause of all problems in Cuba, and an excuse for repression.

The General/President went from the traditional reminder of the confrontation to a smile upon announcing the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the US. Continuing the surprise was the immediate broadcast of statements by US President Barack Obama. The following day both announcements were published in the newspapers and the news has been highlighted in year-end reviews on television as the most important event of 2014. continue reading

Since then it has become the main topic of conversation. Most Cubans, according to their aspirations, knowledge and analytical ability, pin their hopes on the US. Among the more interesting opinions heard on the street, an average citizen – envisioning potential benefits to the people and the nation – could be heard remarking on how the boom in North American travelers would stimulate the economy.

His reasoning was that there is no extensive hotel and service infrastructure in the country. Therefore, as occurred during the 1990s, more rooms to rent in private homes will be needed, as will more private restaurants and cafeterias. Similarly, a greater supply of agricultural and artisanal products will be required. There will be an increased demand for service employees and for individuals skilled in the construction and repair trades.

In brief, the reestablishment of US/Cuba relations could be of great benefit for the impoverished population, the community, and Cuba as a whole. Tourism in 2014 reached 3 million visitors, according to Cuban media. Certainly the government continues the policy of tourism apartheid in Varadero and the Cuban Keys.

In any case, Cienfuegos and other prime tourism spots lack the infrastructure to absorb imminent, substantial increases in visitor traffic. The cruise ship companies tend to be concentrated primarily in Havana, for which the Avenida del Puerto is being upgraded, but it’s unlikely to see a big boom, given current conditions, and it won’t affect earnings from other forms of tourism. The affluence of North Americans, with their varied interests and greater buying power, will substantially increase demand.

Within this context, new possibilities of supplies and greater economic assistance from relatives, friends, and non-governmental organizations based in the US would create the financial conditions needed for private tourism-related enterprises to flourish, as had happened on a tiny scale over the last twenty years, but now with a much greater expansion. Farmers could receive equipment and advise, they would be more productive, improve their quality and their earnings. After paying back an initial investment, they would no longer depend on external help. The self-employed would need to need to increase their methods and output, and they would be more independent.

The current support of the family economy would nurture the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in turn complementing the nation’s macroeconomy, as is the case the world over including in countries that are close to the Cuban government, such as Bolivia and Ecuador. One could also foresee the expansion of mini-enterprises, which in many places have provided opportunity to very poor people, primarily women who carry the full weight of their family, and allow them to access credit from outside the country to start their own businesses.

The Cuban government will need to expand its limits on substantial foreign investments for its own controlled projects, above all in tourism, and listen to the analysts and the multi-faceted cries from the people. The restrictions created to ensure that “nobody will become rich,” continue to drag down the quality of life for Cubans. Beyond that, it deepens poverty, corruption, and loss of values, evils engendered by the regime.

The opportunities that President Obama has opened could increase the Cuban people’s well-being and knowledge and contribute to their empowerment, as have measures adopted by the Island’s government since 2009. The Cuban government has the opportunity not to block their implementation for the benefit of the nation. All Cubans should be involved in the great challenges and opportunities that open before us.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Cold War, Hot Motors / Cubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

Is the Cuban government considering declaring as “heritage assets” the classic cars that roam the streets?

Cubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro, Havana, 2 January 2015 — Apropos of the imminent reestablishment of relations between Cuba and the US, General Motors (GM) recently expressed interest in exploring the possibility of doing business on the Island. Perhaps they see it as a promising market to sell parts and pieces for the cars that this automotive super-company produced during the 1940s and ‘50s.

As the old-timers tell it, US car manufacturers would test their products in Cuba, assessing whether the cars could withstand the harsh conditions of our tropical climate. American cars of such makes as Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, Packard and Ford, rolled around – and continue rolling today – throughout the cities and towns of the Island. continue reading

Although the US and Cuba broke diplomatic relations in January, 1961, there had been no new vehicles or replacement parts entering the Island directly from the North for at least a year prior.

A half-century later, American-made autos are vital to the transport of passengers on the Island. In the US, they are “classic cars,” high-priced collectors’ items. In Cuba, they are called almendrones.*

Cold War vs. Hot Motors

Agustín Godínez bought his first car, a ’55 Chevrolet, in 1970. In 2002 he acquired a Dodge. For years, only those vehicles that arrived in Cuba before 1960 could be bought and sold via a transfer of ownership outside State control. That was until recently.

“The American cars have continued rolling along, thanks to the inventiveness of our mechanics and machinists,” Agustín explained. “These fellows retool parts harvested from other cars. American cars can function with parts from the Soviet Volga, made in the ‘60s and ‘70s. They also work with parts from the Chaika (GAZ-M13), manufactured by the Russians in the ‘50s and ‘60s, which copied elements from the American autos Mercury, Chrysler and Dodge.”

Agustín Godínez and his 1955 Dodge (Photo by the Author)

Godínez added another crucial fact, regarding the resistance of these cars to the ravages of a tropical and salty climate. “During that period the bodies of these cars were made of heavy steel which included lead amalgam,” Godínez explained. “On top of that, you had the proper paint and maintenance.”

Today They Are Taxis, Yesterday They Were “ANCHAR”

In the second half of the 1970s, the Ministry of Transport created an association of private taxis. It admitted for membership only drivers of cars manufactured prior to 1959.

ANCHAR (National Association of Transport Drivers and Vehicles) guaranteed fuel at low cost. It also ran a store that stocked parts and pieces for those cars. The establishment was located in the capital suburb of Mónaco. The association regulated the fares charged by the carriers: basically, 50 centavos [based on the Cuban peso – CUP] per passenger, or up to 5 Cuban pesos per party, to travel to any point in the city.

In the 1980s, a trip to Guanabo Beach from the Havana train terminal would cost up to 2 pesos per person. The vehicles were identifiable by their orange-and-black paint jobs.

What Does a Classic Car Cost in Cuba?

In 1971, a vehicle manufactured in the second half of the 1950s could be had at a price that ranged between 1000 to 1200 pesos CUP. Other models, built in the late 1940s, could cost up to 600 or 700 CUP.

Currently, the private buying and selling of these cars is conducted in CUC [Cuban convertible peso], a national currency equivalent to the US dollar. The value of the autos depends on the model, year, and condition. For example, a Chevrolet from the late ‘50s could cost the buyer, at minimum, 7,000 CUC. At the exchange rate of 1 CUC for 24 CUP, this would be 168,000 Cuban pesos CUP.

At this moment it is unknown whether the Cuban government plans to declare as “heritage assets” the classic cars that exist in Cuba.

They stand out to any visitor: the streets of Cuba are a veritable rolling museum. One can spot specimens ranging as diverse as a Ford from 1929 and a 1950s Chevrolet, to the miniscule Polski, nicknamed “the little Pole.” The latter was copied from a model patented by Fiat, as well as the Soviet Lada Niva.

Since 1990 there have been no massive imports to the Island of parts and pieces for Eastern European-made autos. Even so, the Moskvich, and also the Lada models 1600, 2107, and Samara, are still circulating.

At the halfway point between East and West, 50 years are summarized in this Cuban motorized ajiaco** which has not ceased from rolling up to today.

Photos by author:

ADAPTACION-DEL-TIMON-DE-AUTO-FIAT-AL-DODGEFOTO-CAMILO-ERNESTO-OLIVERA-Copy — A Fiat Steering Wheel on a 1955 Dodge

Translator’s Notes:
*The nickname refers to the almond shape of these antique cars.
**Ajiaco is a traditional Cuban stew. The term is often used to convey great diversity or miscellany – similar to the idiomatic use in the US of the term, “pot pourri.”

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Granting the Cuban Child the Ability to Travel / Dora Leonor Mesa

Granting Visas to those younger than 18 years old during the School Year

By Lic Dora Mesa Crespo* and Lic. Odalina Guerrero Lara*
(Mesa Crespo is the Coordinator of the Cuban Association for the Development of Child Education (CADCE), an NGO.)
(Guerrero Lara is an attorney with the NGO Cuban Legal Association)

The obligation to study is specified in Cuban law (1) long before 1989, the year in which the Convention of the Rights of Child was signed. The Convention is an international treaty of the United Nations by which the signatory states recognize the rights of those younger than 18 years old. Currently thousands of Cuban families residing in the country have Dual Nationality, which is laid out as a conflict of interests and loyalties for the holder. continue reading

The person should have nationality because this grants rights and powers to individuals, for example the power to travel overseas with a passport that vouches for belonging to a particular nation. For International Rights, an affiliation with a State is needed to invoke the exercise of rights and protection.

Any request relating to family reunification (2) made by a child or their parents to enter a State Party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or to exit from one for purposes of family reunification, will be taken care of in a positive, humane and expeditious manner, i.e. as quickly as possible.

The States will guarantee, in addition, that the submission of such petition will not bring unfavorable consequences to the petitioners, nor to his/her family. The right to leave from any country will be subject only to those stipulated necessary restrictions that are in harmony with the rest of the rights recognized by the Convention.

The current possibilities for travel by Cuban minors (3, 4) should be analyzed at the moment that the visa is granted by the diplomatic or consular representative of the country where the person proposes to go.

Depending on the types of visa, the authorization for entry, passage or permanence in the destination State should be seen as a concession to minors if it exceeds the period of school vacations, because an absence from classes of more than that could be seen as harmful for the traveling student, as for the rest of the student body if the act is seen as discriminatory (5), infringing not only on social norms, but also internal laws (6) and international agreements.

To a certain extent, Cuba as a State Party to the Convention complies with the articles relating to Education. (7, 8) The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba establishes that education is a function of the Cuban state and is free. (9, 10) The Convention of the Rights of a Child recognizes the children as subjects of rights, but become as adults, subject to responsibilities.

Parents as representatives of minors should be concerned with what is established in the Family Code (11), which classifies as a duty the “tending to the education of their children; inculcating in them a love of study; minding their attendance at educational institution where they are enrolled, as well collaborating with the educational authorities on school plans and activities.”

Article 18 of the Convention, upon referring to parents’ responsibility in the rearing of their children, insists that “their fundamental concern will be the greater interests of the child.”

Parents should not impede their children’s enjoyment of their fundamental rights, nor leave them without direction and guidance in the use of liberty (12). For minors younger than 18 years, travel to other countries is very good. All the more reason: To study is essential.

*Translator’s Note: “Lic.” is an abbreviation of “Licenciado” or “Licenciada,” which identifies the individual as a licensed attorney.

1. Ministry of Education. Law # 680, 23 December, 1959. Comprehensive Reform of Education in Cuba. Chapter 10. Page 21. Cuba.

2. United Nations (1989) Convention of the Rights of the Child. Article 10. Page 5. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/mexico/spanish/mx_resources_texto

3. Council of State (14 January, 2013). Decree # 302. Modification of Law # 1312, “Law of Migration,” 20 September, 1976. Official Gazette of the Republic (044). Ordinary Law (1357). Cuba.

4. Council of Ministers (14 January, 2013) Decree # 305. Modification of Decree # 26, “Regulation of the Law of Migration,” 19 July, 1978. Official Gazette of the Republic (044). Ordinary Law (1360). Cuba.

5. Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Article 2. Page 2. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/mexico/spanish/mx_resources_textocdn.pdf

6. Ministry of Education (16 March, 2012). Ministerial Resolution # 11/2012. Educational Regulation. Official Gazette of the Republic (007) Special Law (20). Cuba. Article 19, Section H.

7. Ibid. Article 28.

8. Ibid. Article 29.

9. Council of Ministers. Law S/N of 6 June, 1961. Law of General and Free Nationalization of Education. Official Gazette of the Republic (7). Ordinary Law. Cuba. Available at: http://www.oei.es/quipu/cuba/Ley_educ.pdf

10. National Assembly (31 January, 2003). Constitution of the Republic of Cuba. 24 February, 1976. Official Gazette of the Republic (3). Special Law (7). Article 9, 35, 38, 39, 51, 103-106.

11. Idem. (15 February, 1975). Law #1289, 14 February, 1975, “Family Code.” Official Gazette of the Republic (6). Ordinary Law (71). Cuba. Article 85. Section 2.

12. Op. Cit. Article 5. Page 3.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison, and others.

7 November 2014

Neighborhood Circus / Rebeca Monzo

December has for decades always been a month of circuses, but, in the economically failed regimens, the circus is always present: “If there’s no bread, give them circuses*,” says an old refrain.

The principal actors at this year-end have been the unstocked farmers markets which, upon closing their doors, have given way to improvised fairs where, in place of food, police have abounded.

Yesterday on Monday, when I went to take a turn using the Internet, I took the P3 Bus, at the 26th and 41st stop, the closest to my house. The bus had barely made it past the next two stops when all of us passengers who were traveling to Playa** had to get off at 26th and 25th. The route was detoured due to an agricultural fair that was taking place on 24th and 17th, next to the farmers market at that location — which, by the way, was empty and closed off.

Three trucks filled with sweet potatoes, plantains and tomatoes made up the fabulous offerings at the fair. A line of naive customers waited their turn among dirty puddles, squalid stray dogs, and more law enforcement officials.

A friend and I, due to the absurd diversion of the only route, were returning in the afternoon, walking from the recently-restored iron bridge, searching for the P3 stop so that we could ride the bus back to our neighborhood. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the morning’s detour was still in effect. We were forced to continue on foot until we reached our respective homes in Nuevo Vedado.***

Upon nearing the trucks that bore the agricultural products on offer, I overheard the following comment: “Such a fuss over a tomato that’s more expensive than at the farmer’s market!”

Translator’s Notes:
*Literally, in this post, “A lack of bread, circus.”
**Playa is a municipality in the city of Havana.
***Nuevo Vedado is a neighborhood in the Plaza de la Revolucion municipality of Havana.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison, and others.

31 December 2014

Whatever the Cuban government does, that amorphous thing with no head or eyes, that they call “the masses,” is in its final days. And with it are also ending the repudiation rallies, detentions, physical attacks on the Ladies in White, and other forms of repression.

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