Category: Translator: Rafael

Young Rolando is a regular on the Malecon, in clubs, gay bars, the piece of beach called “My Cayito” and many places available for homosexual gatherings. Meanwhile his nursing Diploma remains hanging on the wall. At least that way he could pay back his grandmother, who did not get to see his “profession” change or the prosperous life he’s living now. At times he takes flowers to the cemetery and softly, almost in the ear of her spirit, begs her for forgiveness.

“This is crappy life I have to live, with no choices,” he says disappointed, while sucking his cigarette. “My grandmother has to understand wherever she is … She knows I tried everything and nothing worked.”

And he starts walking along the edge of the Malecon while the streetlights draw shadows he drags down like the ordeal of his own life.

by Ángel Santiesteban

Havana, September 23rd, on probation.

Translated by: Rafael

“Cuba is innocent, it should never be on the list of terrorist countries. When terrorists are those who have committed the murders?” he said recently, meaning, that any guerrilla and separatist movements they prepared and armed is not terrorism.

Besides that, he just shouted that negotiations with the United States must be slow; “He bought fish and he got scared of its eyes,” like we say in Cuba. It’s like dealing with madmen, who are incapable of providing minimal coherence. The Castros need to show that they lead the talks and they are not the eager ones, and do tricks as if it were an ordinary card game, where you pretend to have the trio of Aces.

While there are no signs of change and respect for human rights, it is a mistake to strengthen Cuba’s dictatorship. Unfortunately, I do not visualize that positive mood in the intentions of the totalitarian regime — that with no choice left — we will have to continue facing it for the rest of our abused lives.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

14 May  2015

Border Patrol Prison

Havana, Cuba.

Translated by: Rafael

The versatile “Miguelito” (little Miguel, i.e. Barnet, who was the youngest in that meeting in 1961, in the National Library), recalls, according to the note published in Granma, that Fidel Castro, in that meeting, besides being “in a context in which he was promoting important projects such as Agrarian Reform [which was useless, Barnet could clarify, but either way we clarify it] and also facing the first aggression from US imperialism, he was able to give a high priority to the issue of culture.”

Barnet knows it’s a lie. Lies. He’s a liar, an upstart.

He  knows, that Fidel Castro put together that meeting to put the screws on those who might think there would be freedom of expression in art and literature, if he didn’t, letus remember: “Within the Revolution, everything, against the Revolution, nothing,” the most terrible maxim from Castro in the meeting. Which means, who is not with me, is against me.

However, interestingly, the above phrase is not included by Miguel Barnet in his vibrant speech at the aforementioned assembly.

The president of UNEAC affirms that, thanks to that “presentation” from the Commander, there were many achievements for writers, for example, “to publish a book in capitalism, a writer had to get the funds from his own pocket, or look here and there, making concessions.”

It is not a lie, but it isn’t true either. Many writers received royalties, few, yes, by the publication of his work, but mostly for periodical publications. Writers then, in the Republic, had to perform two jobs, as in the Castro regime.

A good question for the languid yet protean Barnet, would be: Tell me if UNEAC would agree to publish from the exiled writers any rebellious book about the Castro regime and sell it throughout the island, if we would pay for it? I am willing to pay and I know many others would do the same.

But as we know, the answer is No. So, Miguelito, what advantages are we talking about?

“Today we have so many figures, so many great artists who have never had the chance to develop, as happened from the Words to the Intellectuals, and the idea from the Commander of democratizing culture and stimulating the search for new talents in the most remote places of the country,” says Barnet in the above note.

The Commander, he says, “democratized culture” and encouraged the search for “new talents.”

He lies. He knows he lies and he doesn’t even blink. He lies, he knew and his audience knew as well, but the island has already become a place where to lie in favor of the Castro regime is a tacit agreement among those who speak and those who listen. Bilge water.

I think this is a good question for Barnet: Isn’t there a huge group of artists, intellectuals, artists in general who live abroad, because there they could not, they cannot express themselves freely?

Isn’t there within the island punished, censored or imprisoned intellectuals, for publishing the truth about “politics,” as is the case with Angel Santiesteban?

Is there a future in Cuba for a young artist who attempts to break the rules of the dictatorship regarding what should not be in a play?

No.

We see every day how Miguel Barnet drags himself down more. And one of his fine moments is “to rumple the Commander’s beard” whenever he has a microphone in hand.

What a pity.

You know, Miguel, no one will love you, neither those who listen beyond those fallacies there, nor those above you, pretending to rejoice with your “revolutionary spirit.”

Many disdain you, because they know that you do know that what you say is false; you’re made of a different wood and thus result in a lousy actor. You’ll see it, you’ll see the day when the bells ring the alarm.

Good luck.

You see. That’s how things are going.

Translated by: Rafael

7 July 2015

The truth is, that after he stepped out of the car, he gave his signature to those ladies from UNEAC, the Cuban Writers and Artists Union. And then he did not sign when actress Ana Luisa Rubio was beaten outside her house because of her dissident attitude. A serious inconsistency for some who claims he has been humiliated by a building guard who would not let him in, he said, because of the color of his skin, and tries to make a national scandal out of it.

Of course, I declare myself totally opposed to any discriminatory act by race, sexual orientation, religion, origin, cultural or political views. I am opposed to any abuse like the one committed against the Ladies in White and government opponents throughout the island. You stand up against every injustice or none, above any personal cause.

I remember back in the mid-90s, I heard the then president of UNEAC, and today Raul Castro’s advisor, Abel Prieto, express disdain and speak in a threatening manner about Victor Fowler, regarding a complaint Fowler made publicly before a group of Cuban philosophers who were at the UNEAC building: “But what is Fowler saying? He better keep quiet, we just gave him an apartment.”

I found myself in precisely that place after winning the national UNEAC award for the genre of story and — the theme of my book being based on the Angolan war — Abel Prieto begged me to make a deal and remove five stories considered very critical from my book.

“In my mandate I have not censured anyone,” he told me. Therefore, that call was not censorship, because he offered me an apartment for making the deal, which I finally did after reminding him of his phrase against Fowler, fearing he would do the same to me. He threw his arm around my shoulders, saying, “politics”in the end, and laughing he assured me that he would not do it again, a way to recognize his negative and humiliating attitude.

Maybe, Victor Fowler may not need my wholehearted support, but — besides doing it for him — I do it for a personal need. For taking such positions, I find myself  behind bars today.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 13 April 2015

Border Patrol Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

 

I cannot forget, it still disturbs me when it crosses my mind, that later this “hairless bearded-one,”*  living in Cuba for forty years, had the mission of visiting Argentina, and when she returned Fidel Castro received her at the airport terminal. It was broadcast as an official event, and the reading of her horrendous speech with a lousy Argentinian accent was the talk of the town. Fidel Castro could not hide the discomfort in his face that such a repulsive human being caused him.

The truth is, as inferred by Felix Luis, that immense mass of fat of the unbearable, contains no brain, and she confirms that in every opportunity, such as when she told journalists she, “had suggested to his uncle (President) Chavez to nationalize all TV channels and radio stations, for his uncle Fidel had done it in Cuba and gave him good results. ”

I remember a friend who told me that, “There are people who are not satisfied with being stupid, but they make sure everyone knows about it.” Bragging of being the daughter of a murderer — who signed hundreds of executions by firing squads without fair trials — is only acceptable for a shameless and intellectually weak person; but for others to applaud her in public, it is a mistake that some will live with for ever.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

April 13th, 2015

Border Patrol Prison

Havana, Cuba.

Translator’s note: During the Revolution the guerrillas acquired the nickname “los barbudos” — the bearded ones — because they didn’t shave. Angel is using the feminine form of the noun — barbudas — and clarifying that Aleida is a “bearded one without facial hair.”

Translated by: Rafael

 

However, when the dictator on duty mentioned the independent journalists, he let slip the characteristic cynicism that shows on his face the “bird of prey” that he is. The tyrant is unable to recognize that it is not exactly a “stipend” we are entitled to, but a “beating” his henchmen launch against those who have decided to think differently, those step off the track and exercise journalism and free thinking, which is not taught nor learned at any foreign Embassy or US Interests Section. It is what lies within ourselves and comes out when we need to be honest to ourselves and we are pleased with the mere fact that the price for that sacrifice it is “whatever it takes”. And that does not make us brave or heroes, it just give us a faint smile and great joy in our souls.

Hopefully their “official journalists” at least feel useful instead of just “informative echoes” of the ideological office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

Yes, INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST and very proud; and although you don’t want to recognize that we keep you awake, we know what our duty is and what words and whose would offend us. Coming from you, your contempt is not considered an offense, we take it as a recognition instead, for the job of being the voice of the oppressed, of those who suffer under your Stalinist boot, and it encourages us to do it better and maintain the resounding conviction, “You cannot cover the sun with your finger’” nor even with jail nor with blood.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

13 May 2015

Border Patrol Prison

Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

It is true that, just when I opened my blog, some of them lavished me with “advice” for “my wellbeing”; opportunistic advice, that of course, I did not listen to. Thus, once they had to go on the attack, they should have tried to calm their dark consciences telling themselves “it was not for lack of counsel.”

I knew some of them well, very well, and I know for a fact what they really think about the government. I also know — backed up by witnesses — that those pretending to be more pro-government, forced to do so by paternal inheritance, have a discourse in the shadow, I mean when they don’t feel spied upon, even more aggressive than the discourse of many who are today in the opposition. Since survival in Cuba depends on faking it instead of being who you really are, people keep faking their delight like tender sheep that bleat praising the power of the totalitarian regime.

At that time, when they were ordered “to execute me” publicly, I did not defend myself. On the contrary, I supported their gender struggle and, as many may recall, I asked them to include in their demand to halt the public beatings of the Ladies in White who, in those days and still today, keep being abused by troops of women and men from the military wearing plainclothes.

If their demand was that honest, if their intentions were that noble and their feelings against violence were that profound, it should hurt them the same for any woman, regardless of her geographical region, the color of her skin and her political views.

Silence instead was the clearest of their answers: confirmation of their double standards and their foul play. Their gender struggle is just fashion, a political attitude of convenience, or a more opportunistic way to earn their cultural spaces.

Nonetheless, I refused to believe such a lack of solidarity. I was shocked, nor did I conceive that someone could advocate for women, putting all their criticism upon a disident like me (who, by the way, it was shown shortly after that the accusation was a hoax, and so far they have not apologized), leaving aside any abuse, whether it is domestic violence (which unfortunately occurs in Cuban homes often), or people who follow government orders (like those beatings that occur all over the island, in front of society as a witness and in front of independent  and foreign media, that capture the facts and support international complaints that these “worthy women” keep disowning even today).

When they savagely beat actress Ana Luisa Rubio, who was an icon of Cuban television, I appealed to the decency of those “righteous” women from UNEAC (Cuban Writers and Artists Union), who signers of every official call presented to them, and begged, I pleaded, for them to raise their voices in the Cuban cultural spectrum, to stand up for the civil rights of this colleague, to whom we owed solidarity and commitment as artists. Silence was once again their answer.

Through national media, the so-called Intranet, painful pictures were exhibited in which Ana Luisa Rubio, the beautiful actress, appeared unrecognizable after a gang from the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) provoked her, got her to leave her home and attacked her and dragged her down the street until she was unconscious. However, not even when those images went all around the free world through the internet, which some of them have access to, none of these “righteous” women stood up to condemn such vandalism against a comrade.

Recently, two Ladies in White were stabbed on the street in public, while trying to keep opposition leader Guillermo Fariñas from being murdered. Their lives were in danger, especially Percibal Maria Arango’s, who was in intensive care at Santa Clara hospital. Her attacker, Jose Alberto Botell, who besides these two women, stabbed three men who accompanied them, rather than a conviction, Botell received four years in prison — as a prize — because their victims are (political) opponents.

Lady Writers and Intellectuals from UNEAC: Regardless of the personal interest that you have in hiding this inconvenient truth, you cannot deny that the government you “support” is one of nepotism, a sponsor and partner in gender abuse. That is why I know you only say you defend a government like that — nowadays, honestly, and knowing most of you like I do, I doubt it. It is clear to me that it is all about opportunistic positions.

If they wanted to clear their consciences, they would denounce what happened a few days ago, on Sunday, May 31st, when a woman, mother, black, middle-aged and a patriot, Yaquelin Bonne, was brutally abused, as shouldn’t be allowed to happen even against the fiercest animal. International media have been busy spreading the word with the terrible pictures of the brutality committed against this woman, whose only “crime” is to be an activist for the human rights of all Cubans from the platform of the Ladies in White, worthy Cuban women whose unique weaponry, which they have shown well, is to march  every Sunday in front of the church of Santa Rita, after Mass.

Hopefully some of you have the courage, even, to show up on Sunday in front of that Church, and see with your own eyes the most horrible manifestation of the gender violence that you claim to fight against. If you realize, the only thing that will prevent you from being beside those worthy Ladies in White will be your continuing to live in fear or the convenience to an official order. I doubt as intelligent as you are — because I am a witness of such intelligence — that you believe that these women, because of difference in political views, have no right to be defended.

In the silence of all of your lies the biggest and meanest is the defense of machismo, complicity with the horror of gender abuse. With each humiliated or abused woman you keep a timely silence and you lose a new opportunity before history to show real commitment to your positions as intellectuals; before your time, the docile silence, but above all, before your own gender, as women, for being accomplices and taking part in a state that does not stop the outrage against those women who defy their directives.

God forbid, at least this time, do not allow yourselves to be manipulated by the fear to a totalitarian power.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

3 June 2015

Border Patrol Prison

Havana, Cuba

*Translator’s Note: UNEAC = Writers and Artists Union of Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

They have done the same thing against Paraguay and, more subtly, against Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, Colombia and Chile. Even though some of these governments voice a leftist speech, they do not align with such extreme attitude as of the aforementioned mafia, who do share their strategies from an ideological model established by Cuba, the most trenchant one being the use of doctors, technicians and personnel from several professions who are sent to “international missions” to “irrigate” among the impoverished classes, “like seeds are irrigated on a fertile  field,” the populist harangue, proposing to them a supposedly suitable mold for their specific needs, with no warning whatsoever that it is a failed formula, which has plunged into an absolute poverty and chaos both Cuba and Venezuela. Nor they are told that in these countries, when government has no choice but to face their own failures, they cling to an archaic historical excuse, but one that is still effective to deceive the unwary: blaming the government of the United States for the disaster.

This extreme leftist wing has used and keeps using their public platforms to attack previous and current US administrations, exposing a visceral hatred based on false populist speeches, but they do not use those same platforms as they should, to advocate for people’s freedom, especially to ensure people their right to dissent against governments, their right to criticize and express such criticism publicly, but also, above all, to create better economic opportunities to alleviate poverty, to ensure an effective fight against drug trafficking and crime in general.

Times today, fortunately, thanks to development in the fields like communications, do not allow the truth to be hidden anymore, as it happened in Cuba for decades. And even though those governments want to keep the wall up and strengthened, it is impossible to do so, and news transgresses the media silence of dictators.

I congratulate the Panamanian president, Juan Carlos Varela for the opportunity offered to Cuban dissidents to express and explain with dignity, especially to the rest of Latin America that still believes in justice, the abuses and outrages that the regime practices daily in the Cuban archipelago against those who defend the right to think differently. Thank you from my cell that has seen the light and the splendor of freedom.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

11 April 2015. Border Control Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

It is pitiful that suddenly, in an incoherent attitude, the presidents of the European Union behave so far from what they expressed in their speeches at the opening of Cuba-US talks with the United States. I do not think that negotiations with Washington and the European Union materialize, provided that they are willing to “drop their pants and being spanked” by Raul Castro, because any agreement that includes Democracy, meaning, multiple parties, human rights, free and direct elections, and the departure of Castro from power — simple needs of 21st century –Raul will not accept.

Anyway, old communist wolves will draw something out of this political match, especially now that the Venezuelan economy is in chaos and continues its free fall. Therefore they have rowed alongside Russians and Chinese, because if Cuba-US negotiations should not work, as it seems, they will have to take advantage of someone in order to survive, which is already a custom of the Castro tribe.

I remember that phrase from childhood when things seemed dull: “Every man for himself.” We will say the same words when the dictatorship’s tantrum begins. Meanwhile, tickets and showtimes remain the same at the exhibition of the “red mummy”.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats

14 May 2015

Border Patrol Jail, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

Mary was in intensive care because of the severity of the injuries she received she when stood in front of the assailant to protect the leader of the United Antitotalitarian Front (FANTU), Guillermo Fariñas, winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, for whom the attack was intended. The attacker also severely injured another glorious Lady in White, Isabel Fernandez Llanes, and three other regime opponents.

It is laughable that for such a criminal specimen, the prosecution would ask for a five-year sentence and the Criminal Court itself would reduce it by one year to leave it at four years maximum. Needless to say Botell was sent by the political police to get Fariñas out of the way because he openly opposes the negotiations between the United States and Cuba, unless the Castro brothers put an end to the systematic violations of human rights in advance.

If Fariñas had gone alone, or his companions had not reacted as they did, we would be grieving the loss of another opposition leader today. The type of violence shown by the attacker — who turned the scene into a carnage — even against women, shows that his intentions, meaning “orders,” were to assassinate Fariñas.

Had their plan gone well, we would now add another dead to our cause, just like they did with Laura Pollan, the leader of the Ladies in White, whose health condition deteriorated rapidly — strangely in and odd circumstances — in a hospital room commanded, supervised, ruled and surrounded by State Security agents.

Or as they did to Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, who died after an alleged “traffic accident”, in which there is evidence showing the hand of the political police behind it, as a result of which his family and one of his companions in the car raise their voices at international bodies to demand justice.

The lives of opposition leaders, especially those who oppose the Cuba-US negotiations, have their names on the government’s blacklist and, in advance, they have been labeled already: Berta Soler and the Ladies in White, Angel Moya, Guillermo Fariñas and Antonio Rodiles, are today the “targets under the sniper’s scope with a finger on the trigger”.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, 3 June 2015

Border Patrol Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

It is not misleading to point out that those two years of family separation have a crisis impact that results in a higher rate of divorces, in some cases in families with children; another common consequence is that many infidelities are forgiven by one or both spouses.

As far as I am concerned, I have witnessed, besides physical and psychological abuses committed against the inmates, who have all of their rights violated, including their schedules. Prisoners are sent to work in the hardest trades, from dawn and with a lousy breakfast, and are returned to their facilities after twelve hours or more.

Even I have sometimes seen that on their arrival, they have been forced to unload a few tons of cement bags — on their shoulders — or unload trucks of rebar and then receive a miserable salary that does not even guarantee them a minimum support for their minor children.

That slave work is done in the worst abusive conditions, with torn boots, tattered clothes, starvation, humiliation from correctional officers who guard them. This is a real slavery that has nothing to envy to the one practiced by the first settlers on their arrival on the island of Cuba.

The prisoners work seven days a week

This past May 1st, some prisoners decided to take the day off to wash their clothes, a task they usually do on their return from the daily work. And that attitude was taken by Major Aliet as an act of rebellion, and as punishment he kept them out of work for several days, which prevents them from receiving that puny wage, and, above all, prevents them from leaving the severity of the prison that drives them mad after several days cloistered. Any reaction to the abuse is sanctioned or they get additional charges to add more time to their sentences.

 

In the Border Patrol military facility of where I am — besides taking them out to work today, Sunday May 17th — they were denied the corresponding break time by the order of officer Parra, head of the prison logistics.

Then you have to listen to the Castro family trying to defend its dictatorship, its iron-dictatorship, its humiliating-dictatorship, its unbearable-dictatorship that rules us for over half a century, about which one can only feel ashamed for them.

We plead that international bodies accept this letter about these violations letter that lacerate Human Rights.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

May 17, 2015.

Border Patrol Prison, Havana, Cuba

Translated by: Rafael

Murdered Cuban Dissident 

Both sanctions, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, and the US State Department, are as serious as they can be for what they represent, but it is only the first one, because it does not carries penalties, it is bearable by the level of the Cuban government shamelessness; the second one, however, it has led to unbearable practical consequences today.

It should be added that the dictatorship was resentful in its core with the common position of the European Union, which together with the United States Department of State position, brought to its knees the challenging attitude, pride and arrogance of the Castro brothers after that extreme (human rights) violation such as the “Black Spring”, that sent to prison 75 dissidents with the malevolent idea — in the future — of exchanging them for five spies who were serving sentences in The United States, which the whole world rejected generally and categorically.

The strongest blows dealt to the Cuban dictatorship were, among others, the repudiation of the downing of the “Brothers to the Rescue” plane and the execution of innocent young people who attempted to reach Miami in a hijacked tugboat.

My question is: What has changed within the Castros’ dictatorship to no longer be considered a violator of human rights, nor a country that supports terrorism; we all know that if is not an (active) sponsor as it would want to be, it is precisely because of the economic sanctions.

As the proverb says in Cuba, “It would be a horse of another color” if the economy improved. It would re-awaken the hegemonic dreams that have never been forgotten but postponed until better times — in their precise, focused and not so foolish quest to legitimize their “anti-imperialist” front, and overtake the United States — their most powerful enemy ideologically — as the number one economy worldwide, if they have support from Russia, China and Venezuelan oil.

I am confident that President Obama and his team of advisers know it very well, and also that they know how to play the political “chess match” where the freedom of Cuba and its fate are decided and, why not, the fate of the United States by either sustaining or eradicating a “cancer” from its geographical hemisphere.

17 May, 2015

Border Control Prison.

Havana, Cuba

 Translated by Rafael

According to what guards who work directly with me told me, I knew they were prioritized among their units. Surely, the vast majority of readers will agree with me that those working in public health, education, agriculture, food and industry ministries or culture ministry, deserve more such benefit; but above all, pregnant women, elderly and low-income families deserve it.

However, agents of the repressive power — those thugs running the chain of injustice and abuse — are indispensable(for the regime, and therefore, the ones rewarded on top of their already high salary, compared with the average wage, and the ongoing perks such as affordable homes, most of which being built nowadays are given to them. They are also given appliances, furniture, clothes and food at low prices, not to mention vacations with their families, in areas only reserved for tourists, and so on.

Ultimately, after rewarding the aforementioned fields, which are directly in charge of the welfare of the people, I would agree that a raise for the police force around the country was needed if it was a force that responded in strict compliance with the law, always in favor the people, specially fighting against the proliferation of drugs, crime and rigor every society needs.

It is way different, rewarding those who, taking orders from a Dictatorship, abuse women as Ladies in White, who every Sunday are beaten, humiliated and imprisoned.

It is curious that this directive comes in the wake of talks between Cuba and the United States, and the European Union. I always say that the only thing these talks will achieve is to strengthen the dictatorship, and will give more economic resources to the regime to hold on to power and harden the totalitarian control, and they are already showing that.

Once they killed us with the money of the socialist era; then, they have continued doing so, thanks to Venezuelan oil. But soon it will be the economy sustained and supported by North America and the European Union financing these crimes.

Every time the people of Cuba are left more alone. Is it true or is just one of my bad impression?

Border Prison Unit, Havana

Translated by: Rafael