‘Tremenda Nota’ Journalist Who Obtained Asylum in US Freed

Yariel Valdés González, 29, was in the River Correctional Center awaiting an appeal presented by ICE against the decision by judge Timothy Cole that granted him asylum. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, March 5, 2020 — Five months after obtaining political asylum in the US, independent journalist and Tremenda Nota contributor, Yariel Valdés González, was released from the detention center in New Orleans in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was holding him until the resolution of an appeal.

“After 11 months I was finally able to set foot in the land of liberty. It has been a long journey, painful, stressful, sometimes disappointing, but definitely worth it. Only one night out from behind bars has been necessary to prove that better things are coming for me,” Valdés wrote last night.

The reporter, 29, was in the River Correctional Center awaiting an appeal presented by ICE against the decision by judge Timothy Cole that granted him asylum last September, according to the Washington Blade, a media outlet managed by the LGBT community and to which he also contributes. The Immigration Appeal Board, supervised by the Justice Department, rejected the appeal on February 28. continue reading

Valdés and his colleague Carlos Alejandro Rodríguez Martínez, editor of Tremenda Nota, had been detained in September of 2017 when they were trying to interview an official of the Communist Party of Cuba in the Villa Clara province about the preparations for hurricane Irma.

The reporter arrived in the US on March 27, 2019 and turned himself in to ICE officials at the Calexico Bridge in California, where he requested asylum, claiming he had suffered persecution in Cuba for his work as an independent journalist.

“I can begin my life again in this country,” the reporter told the Washington Blade.

“I hope to be able to continue my career as a journalist from here and continue the fight for a more democratic Cuba for the 11 million Cubans who have resisted and resisted this dictatorial regime that has been in power for six decades,” he added.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Invasion That Won’t Come

Nicolás Maduro dressed as a soldier during a Government ceremony in Caracas. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Carlos Blanco, Caracas, March 4, 2020 — There are fewer people hoping for an invasion to free Venezuela than those making fun of those supposedly waiting for it. These days, electioneering has changed the dishonest dilemma of “either we understand each other or we kill each other” for that of the no less ominous “elections or death,” until it could be “elections or Maduro forever.”

The logic that sustains the electoral illusion insists that nobody is coming to free Venezuela from outside and, given those circumstances, there only remains the domestic effort and, since citizens lack arms and military support, the only thing to do is go to the ballot boxes. Just as the accommodating wise men used to say, “Take what you can get.”

What’s certain is that there is not nor will there be an invasion unless the madness of the red leadership carries out open military actions abroad. This will not happen because the heads of the criminal organization have decided to dress up their external incursions with surreptitious funding for destabilizing groups and the always generous help for ELN, the FARC dissidents, the colectivos, and other gangs. continue reading

There will be no invasion because the United States is not in any political condition to do it and because the democratic forces of the country are not asking for it, among other things, because turning Venezuela into a space of prolonged foreign military occupation doesn’t interest or suit anybody.

If this is true, where will the internal forces for change come from? What role will the countries that support the removal of the regime and the restoration of democracy play?

I think that the internal forces can emerge from the progressive alignment of political and institutional factors that have differed in the past, but that now assume the goal of the replacement of the regime and understand that the electoral option with “the end of the usurpation” will lead to the continuation of the fraud.

The countries that reject the regime also differ from one another: those who try for elections of any type “with conditions” (which the regime will never give) and those who believe that it’s necessary to replace it with arm twisting. The first led by Europe and the second by the United States, Colombia, and Brazil mainly.

The convergence of the national coalition with the international coalition, between those trying for a regime change from within and without, is the key to building an irresistible pressure that will force supporters of the regime to crumble even more. One day there will rise those who will remove their little heads from the rotten environment full of flies and filth to say: Nicolás, let’s go, everyone hates us here.

There will not be a prolonged war a la Mao Zedong, but rather something I imagine similar to January 23, 1958 or April 11, 2002, when the generals, inspired, pressured, or frightened by the force of the people, said to the tyrant: “Either you run or you join us,” and, in the examples mentioned, Pérez Jiménez and Chávez ran…

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Editors’ note: This text was previously published by the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. We reproduce it here with permission.

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Cuba Needs a Civilizing Revolution

When activists, intellectuals, academics, religious figures, artists, students, professionals, and workers rise up and take a step forward, the door will be opened to a future of peace, brotherhood, and prosperity. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, February 28, 2020 — The English Revolution of 1688 was called ’Glorious’. It happened 48 years after the first one broke out in 1640. That one was against the absolute monarchy and was violent, and the king was sent to the gallows. But the second one was peaceful, freedom of the press was declared, and the first declaration of human rights was approved.

The final result was an order so stable that it has lasted until today. “The spirit of this strange revolution was opposite to all revolutionary intent,” the historian G. M. Trevelyan would say. Another historian, Juan Pablo Friso, explains why it is called that: “To be glorious a revolution must bring together this: that it is driven by impulses like moderation, consensus, pragmatism, prudence, and impartiality.”

That is what we Cubans need to put an end to the coven of these 60 years. If in 17th-century England it was to correct the errors of a bourgeois revolution, in 21st-century Cuba it would be to correct those of a supposedly socialist revolution. continue reading

The aim of socialism, according to Marx, was “to put an end to the divorce between producers and the means of production,” (in other words, workers should be the masters of the instruments with which they work) and that was a principle shared by other socialist theorists, like the anarchist Proudhon, who imagined a society of artisans and small business owners.

Of course, workers didn’t have the power to expropriate the bourgeoisie and take hold of those means, which is why they needed, according to Marx, to topple first the bourgeois State and raise in its place a revolutionary State responsible for carrying out this task: expropriating capitalists and landlords to then transfer those means to the hands of the workers, that is, two steps or phases: expropriation and empowerment.

But the Russian revolutionaries of 1917 made their own interpretation of socialist revolution, something then copied by their followers everywhere they triumphed: carrying out only the first part, expropriating but not empowering.

They invented the sophism that the revolutionary State, by representing the workers’ interests, should be the one managing those goods in their name. It was a very simple syllogism: “Everything belongs to the people. I represent the people. Therefore, everything belongs to me.”

The leaders of the Cuban Revolution followed that same line, expropriating the bourgeoisie without empowering the workers, and handing over to a new bureaucratic class the properties, which they distributed not based on ability but rather on “political reliability.”

And then they made their own contribution, marching in the opposite direction of the map of the route drawn by Marx, by expropriating as well, in 1968, from those who possessed their own means to make a living for themselves. This they called a “Revolutionary Offensive.”

The result was the most extreme form of monopolist capitalism of the State, with absolute control of the nation: legislative, judiciary, prison, sole owner of the press and all means of communication, of industries, banks, and companies, to which everyone must submit and serve, because not to do so was “antipatriotic,” and the cost could be ostracism or prison.

If revolution is a radical change of the structures of a society, then that revolution ended 52 years ago, with the “Revolutionary Offensive,” the last of the measures that radically transformed the structure of Cuban society. In all that time, at most there have been reforms, and to reform means “to change the form” while the essence remains intact. And if in all that time there has not been revolution, neither have there been “counterrevolutionaries,” but rather people unhappy with an unjust order.

However, when the structural crisis deepens and conditions mature for a new revolution, many of these unhappy persons who until then were adopting attitudes of rebellion, come to form the revolutionary crop of the new times to carry out a radical change of the structures established by the first revolution.

Now it would be a question of expropriating the only great monopoly that still remains, the State, in favor of the workers; that is, taking the second step that was never taken.

If that State has satisfactorily demonstrated its inefficiency in managing the goods that according to the Constitution itself belong to all of society, to the point that a large part of the industries in which Cuba used to excel have been destroyed, it must be removed for incapacity as an administrator of those means and transfer them to grassroots collectives.

Cuba is experiencing the greatest crisis of its entire history due to an order that blocks or checks all the means of productive forces. The Cuban leadership turned its back on a fundamental principle of Marxism mentioned by Engels during Marx’s funeral: “Man needs, first of all, to eat, drink, have shelter and clothing before he can create politics, science, art, religion, etc,” which is why it’s required to stimulate the creativity of human beings.

Cuban liberals, to demonstrate the superiority of capitalism to that socialism imposed on the Island, highlighted the fact that it is not the same when interest in productivity is only held by a small group of the Central Committee, than when that interest is held by thousands of capitalists. Following the same reasoning, the result would be even more significant when millions have that interest.

Individual or family ownership, for example, like the so-called self-employed, must be stimulated by reducing taxes and licensing costs, as well as eliminating the prohibitions intended, disloyally and unfairly, to protect the state-controlled companies from the competition of small owners, something that is paradoxical, since what normally occurs in capitalist countries is that laws are passed to protect small business owners from the voracity of monopolies, like the United States’s Sherman Act of 1890, which forced monopolies to dissolve or divide into various companies, and which even sat Rockefeller himself in the dock of the accused.

In Cuba, on the contrary, the State protects its monopoly with laws that limit the activity of the private sector, as one trying to protect a tiger from the possible aggression of a harmless kitten. This fact is revealing in itself, because if the State sees it as necessary to adopt coercive measures to counteract the competition of small businesses, this clearly demonstrates that state companies are inefficient, and moreover, the high efficiency of workers when they work for themselves.

What to do, then, with those inefficient state businesses? The key question would be why they are not efficient and why are private ones efficient. The answer is obvious: the State’s salaried employees lack incentives, while private employees are indeed stimulated. Thus, the solution is handing over to State workers a part of the utilities they produce, thus giving them a voice and a vote in the direction of the companies and businesses where they work. Is this capitalism? Quite the opposite. It would be a form of labor organization more in accordance with the original conception of socialism.

But this is not an ideological question, but rather the pragmatic search for the most effective methods to get the population out of the deepest crisis that this country has experienced in its entire history and prevent social explosions that will drag the country into total chaos.

And that is not the only danger: given the methods in which the decentralizations have been carried out, it is almost certain that there will be the birth of a business mafia which, without the control of the so-called historical leadership now at a point of disappearing, will have no qualms about making pacts with the big drug cartels needed for new routes to the United States market.

How could this new revolution be carried out in a peaceful manner? First, why does it have to be peaceful? Because a violent revolution would repeat the ways of thinking of the same civilizing paradigm in which was implemented the order that we want to supplant, in this case, the patriarchal thinking of armed violence and executions, which means falling again into the same errors that lead again to the starting point to repeat the same cycle. A glorious revolution need not be only political and economic, but rather, above all, civilizing, that is, in the consciousness of citizens.

Second, is a peaceful revolution to empower workers and restore citizens’ rights and freedoms possible? Carrying it out does not require the power of a revolutionary State, as Marx believed. Starting with the principle that no dictatorship is sustained without the collaboration of the people or part of the people, one concludes that nobody governs without the consent of the governed.

If civil society becomes aware of its responsibility for the salvation of a people on the edge of social explosion and chaos, it will have to act in unity and demand the necessary transformations. It will have to be conscious of its own force, what the leader of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, called “the power of the powerless.”

If, as everything indicates, that leadership does not commit to taking the steps that would avoid the approaching disaster, then it could become essential, before it’s too late, that the most conscious elements of the citizenry come together to make clear that necessity before civil society and call on it to wake up.

And when activists, intellectuals, academics, religious figures, artists, students, professionals, and workers rise up and take a step forward to demand, peacefully, without hatred, but energetically, the door will be opened to a future of peace, brotherhood, and prosperity.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Reason for Your Trip Doesn’t Matter, the Problem is Who You Are

“We will not allow any counterrevoltionary to go to Santiago de Cuba,” they told the reporter and religious activist. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Ricardo Fernández, Camagüey, February 21, 2020 — You pack your bags, full of plans and dreams, but you discover with anger that freedom of movement in Cuba is conditioned on the way in which you think and speak. It doesn’t matter how many times it happens or where you were going, it is always frustrating when the authorities arbitrarily tell you that you cannot travel.

On February 17, a captain of the Department of State Security (DSE) informed me that, again, I couldn’t travel. This time I wasn’t at José Martí International Airport, nor was I heading abroad. I had been invited to the church of pastor Alaín Toledano Valiente, in Santiago de Cuba. It was a purely religious event, but the reason of your trip doesn’t matter, the problem is who you are, or that’s what the DSE official whose pseudonym I can’t even remember said.

“We will not allow any counterrevolutionary to go to Santiago de Cuba,” he said emphatically before ordering two police agents to put me in patrol car number 424 which brought me to the Third Police Unit of Montecarlo in Camaguey. There they searched my belongings for filming equipment that could have betrayed that the purpose of my visit was journalistic. They found nothing, but the sentence against me didn’t change. continue reading

Being someone who thinks and acts according to his ideas, whenever they don’t agree with their own, it seems, they deprive us of all the rights that citizenship and the Constitution grant us. It is not the first time that they arbitrarily spoiled my plans. Nor is it the first time that they left me with no explanation about what happened. Once again I had to make conjectures, look for some logical reason that would abate the ire I was feeling.

Putting two and two together, it occurred to me that it is possible that the Government is trying to control the situation in the city, where a few days ago a group of residents confronted the Police, who were trying to prevent the lynching of an alleged rapist of an eight-year-old girl. The obvious question is: What do I have to do with what happened in Santiago? Am I a real risk in face of a possible social explosion, despite being openly pacifist?

Speaking about the Cuban reality without sugarcoating has put me on the same level as terrorists and drug traffickers, which is how I was treated by the State Security captain during the two and a half hours that my detention lasted. So that it would be on the record, the agent wrote an “official warning” that of course I refused to sign. The text says: “If he is detected in the Eastern provinces he will have committed a crime of disobedience.” And adds: “That is three years in prison.” Three years in prison for trying to visit the church of a friend in my own country.

As I was leaving the police station the same official passed by me on the typical Suzuki motorcycle and, as if I were an old friend, said to me: “If you want I can take you, public transportation is bad.” “Are you going to Santiago?” I responded in the same ironic tone.

Apparently he didn’t like my response, because he accelerated and disappeared in the distance while I was calling my wife, who thought I was on my way to Santiago, to tell her that the trip had been short…and in a patrol car.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Police Surround Palace of Justice in Santiago de Cuba for Trial Against Jose Daniel Ferrer

Ferrer, 49, spent almost eight years in prison after his arrest, in 2003, as part of the 75 dissidents who were victims of the Black Spring. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, February 26, 2020 — The trial against José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), began this Wednesday morning in the city of Santiago de Cuba , without having been previously announced in the official press, which has launched a massive smear campaign against the opposition figure in recent months.

Ferrer, 49,  one of the Cuban dissidents with the greatest international renown at, has been imprisoned since October for an alleged attack on another man, a charge that his relatives deny while insisting that it is a crime “prefabricated” by the Government. The prosecution is asking for nine years in prison for the Unpacu leader, who spent almost eight years in prison after his arrest, in 2003, as part of the 75 dissidents who were victims of the Black Spring.

This Wednesday the telephones of several Unpacu coordinators as well as that of Nelva Ortega, Ferrer’s wife, are “out of coverage,” as 14ymedio was able to confirm. continue reading

Since Monday afternoon, activists from the opposition organization have denounced the Police and State Security siege on their headquarters in Santiago de Cuba and the arrest of their coordinator in Havana, Zaqueo Baéz.

The activist Joanna Columbié, who lives in Miami, denounced in the morning hours the detention of her brother Dariem Columbié, who is coordinator of the movement Somos+ (We Are More). According to her, the young man was arrested in the area around the Palace of Justice when he was trying to attend Ferrer’s trial.

At the time of his arrest, Joanna was communicating with her brother and published a screenshot of the conversation in which her brother said that the Palace of Justice was surrounded by Security and political police agence to prevent access.

The opposition leader had asked his family, during a visit to him in prison on February 14, to begin a campaign with the hashtag #YoSoyElQueAcusa (I am the one who accuses).

“It is José Daniel who accuses the Castro dictatorship of crimes against humanity, of violating his rights and liberties, as well as those of all Cubans, of raiding and looting his home on repeated occasions,” explained his sister, Ana Belkis Ferrer.

In the operations they have employed “even firearms,” she says on social media, where she also denounces “the terrifying acts of repudiation against him, his family, and other members of Unpacu, attempted murder on three occasions, threats, slander, savage beatings, defamation campaigns, physical and psychological torture, depriving him of his liberty and putting his life at risk.”

In October in an interview with 14ymedio, Nelva Ortega explained that the habeas corpus she presented to obtain information on Ferrer’s situation was rejected by authorities.

Along with José Daniel Ferrer, the activists Fernando González Vaillant, Roilán Zárraga Ferrer, and José Pupo Chaveco, members of Unpacu, were accused of damages, deprivation of liberty, and assault.

“I have few expectations that José Daniel Ferrer will have a fair trial,” the European Union’s vice president responsible for Latin America, Dita Charanzová, told the Spanish newspaper ABC.

“Since they arbitrarily arrested him, there have been all sorts of irregularities in the process, in addition to the abuse and torture that José Daniel was subjected to. Thus, the European Parliament will be closely following the case and will react accordingly,” added Charanzová, who is also the representative of the Czech Republic in the European Parliament.

Hours before the trial the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, urged in a letter to his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez, to “immediately” release the dissident José Daniel Ferrer, leader of Unpacu.

Groups like Amnesty International and institutions like the Organization of American States have also asked for his release on several occasions.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Maria Werlau Calls for End to Cuban Dominion Over Venezuela

María Werlau wants to put this material “at the disposal of analysts and governments.”

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge Ignacio Pérez, Miami, February 26, 2020 — The Cuban-American researcher María Werlau had to fit together the pieces “like a puzzle” for her new book, in which she tackles in a comprehensive manner what she defines as the “asymmetric occupation” of Venezuela by Cuba, which, as she tells Efe, is “worse” than she imagined when she started.

“There are a few books and a lot of journalistic material, so I had to assemble everything. I don’t believe that there have been serious academic works of the kind that it is necessary to bring to this matter,” she said just before presenting this Wednesday in Miami María Werlau calls for end of Cuban dominion over Venezuela.

“There was a lot of loose and scattered material on different angles of the Cuban intervention, but there hadn’t been anything comprehensive on what was happening in Venezuela,” says Werlau, who arrived to the United States as a political refugee at eight months old. continue reading

“It was like a puzzle. On the way I realized that it was worse than what I had imagined,” she emphasized. Werlau, who is also an independent consultant, wants to put this material “at the disposal of analysts and governments.”

The volume, with almost 300 pages and 11 chapters, is published by the Free Society Project and is available in English and Spanish, although the additional chapter, The insurrectionary offensive of 2019: a change of tactics already tried, is only available in Spanish.

Cuba’s Intervention in Venezuela: A Strategic Occupation with Global Implications has around 1,600 bibliographic citations, more than 800 sources on the subject, and of those, more than 30 primary sources.

The volume goes back to the time of Venezuela’s constitutional government of Rómulo Betancourt (1959-1964), whom Fidel Castro immediately visited to propose “the same thing that he proposed to (Hugo) Chávez,” the “radical alliance” between the two countries, which remains in place despite the deaths of its architects.

“Fidel arrives in Venezuela (in 1959) 15 days after entering Havana (…). He arrives with the entire top brass of the rebel army and meets with Rómulo Betancourt and proposes to him the same thing he proposed to (Hugo) Chávez,” says the executive director of the NGO Free Society Project, better known as Cuba Archive.

According to Werlau, Castro was obsessed with Venezuela because of its geopolitical situation, as the doorway to the Caribbean, as well as its oil wealth.

The book, which according to the author “could have been the genesis of the Castro-Chávez relationship,” has a much broader content.

“It explains how, although Cuba is much smaller, poorer, and under-developed, it achieved the dominant role with a methodology derived from the totalitarian nature of its system,” as is read in the notes of the presentation.

Among the oral sources that Werlau consulted are retired generals in Venezuela and abroad, as well as experts in computer science.

One of those is Anthony Daquin, specialist in computer security systems, who spoke to Werlau about the fiber optic underwater cable that connects the two countries.

When Werlau says that to eradicate Cuban dominion over Venezuela “it’s necessary to cut the cable and start from zero,” it’s not a metaphor.

“In Cuba they said that (the cable) didn’t work, but I was impressed with what had been achieved,” she says.

“Cuba takes control of all the identity information of Venezuelans, manages communications, social media. The program to monitor this is called Estela [Wake]. Cuba has access to all of the identity of Venezuelans; I won’t even talk to you about the electoral register,” says the author.

“You don’t need a military force or weapons in the street to take a country,” explains Werlau on her concept of “assymetric occupation.”

But the author goes further and goes deep into the “social engineering” employed by Castroism, in the chapter Santeria, a sophisticated invasion. “Cuba had 20 more years to prepare its urban scenes, since Venezuelan money entered into the equation,” she says.

For this researcher, the lives of Castro and Chávez have a certain parallelism from both having received amnesty when in prison.

“Cuba sends a contingent of forces to help in the election campaigns of Chávez, who said he wasn’t a socialist, lying, because that was part of the plan,” she affirms.

“When Chávez went to Cuba in 1994 it was already arranged. Castro had proposed to him this role as his dauphin in taking the continent,” says the author.

“Fidel is the one who brought him to Havana and, although they have lied about this, there is a source who confirms that Fidel sent him to get him,” adds Werlau, who worked for three years in Venezuela with Chase Manhattan Bank.

For the author, “the socialism of the 21st century, as they orchestrated it in Venezuela, has important structural faults, because it requires a lot of time and money to break up democratic institutions from the inside.”

“The methodology works, the concern is what is going to happen without the quantity of Venezuela’s money at its disposition. That’s why they created the Pueblo Group and launch this new form of insurgency, which they have done best in Chile,” indicates Werlau.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Ideological Weaknesses of the Cuban Communist Party

Marxism-Leninism and communism as a goal keep appearing in the conceptualization of the Cuban model and in the Constitution of the Republic. But something is moving. Banner: “No one surrenders here.” (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, February 25, 2020 — The cliché has been coined that in that process called the Cuban Revolution, the first 30 years were those of the greatest ideological intolerance.

The firing squads, the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP) [agricultural forced labor camps for gays, religious and non-conformists], the obligatory atheism, the Revolutionary Offensive, the university purges, the parameters of the “Five Gray Years“*, the imposition of a rigid mold to form the New Man, the repudiation rallies, and an exhausting etcetera were caught up in the rhetoric of Fidel Castro and the strict application of what the inquisitors of the time understood to be Marxism-Leninism.

The smallest deviation from the canon was viewed with suspicion. The catechism had to be recited exactly as it was written in the classics and, in the worst cases, as it was interpreted in the manuals, on pain of being accused of “ideological weaknesses,” which usually meant as a consequence loss of party membership, expulsion from the workplace or school, and even prison. continue reading

The extinction or collapse of the socialist camp, what the then-Maximum Leader called the “desmerengamiento“** [literally, cake-melting], brought for Cuba a couple of “subjective consequences.” On the one hand, the discredit that theory suffered by being refuted by stubborn reality, and on the other, there was no longer anyone outside supervising. However, instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to get out from under the heavy burden of a failed dogma, stubbornness prevailed and it was established that this Island would be the impregnable bulwark for the socialist banners.

As if it was a curse, another 30 years have passed relapsing in that barren whim. Marxism-Leninism and communism as a goal keep appearing in the conceptualization of the model and in the Constitution of the Republic.

But something is moving on the board, more in words than in facts. The clear intention of remaining in power has run into the necessity of modifying language.

The first detail is that the president of the Republic and the announced next first secretary of the Party do not tire of repeating their mantra: “We have to think as a country,” which gives cause for the question of the devil’s advocate: So it’s no longer necessary to think as a working class?

Throughout those first thirty years, a slogan of that nature would have cost the membership card of any activist, because according to dogma, class interests are placed above nationalist interests.

If since the beginning we had been thinking as a country, we would have better considered the confiscations, which brought the embargo as a response; the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles, which came to the point of physically destroying us; the guerrilla interventions in Latin America, which we had to pay for with isolation; the military campaigns in Africa, for which the final payment was Cuba’s dead to install a new corrupt oligarchy in Angola.

But in those years there was only one person thinking and deciding.

Another novel detail of current times is the insistence that we must change mentality, said with the lightness of one suggesting changing a vehicle’s tires and with the vagueness of one throwing out a riddle. Nobody substantiates, nobody suggests the keys to understanding which neurons have to be retired.

Recently Ernesto Estévez, a notable scientist whose political opinions appear in the official newspaper Granma and other pro-government places, published in the official organ a disconcerting text entitled Dogmas, apocalypse, and the conquest of heaven, where he warns: “Cuba is today in the process of rupture with an exhausted paradigm.” And he points out: “But our antidogmatic rupture cannot be the return to capitalism, but rather to another order that allows us to advance further toward the attainment of a more just society.”

What is that “exhausted paradigm” called and when did Cuba begin to rupture with it? Supposing that his allusion to “today” isn’t referring to 1959, but rather 2020, and if the paradigm that we used to venerate is now exhausted, and it isn’t about a “return to capitalism,” then where do we go?

More recently, in his participation in a party event at the University of Information Sciences (UCI), Luis Antonio Torres, member of the Central Committee and first secretary in Havana, indicated to the center’s activists that it was necessary to “contribute to the economy, but also to produce revolutionary ideology.”

At this event it was suggested that the subjects that had to be brought to schools were “Why is the Cuban Revolution the only one? Why is there no other Party on the Island? Why is socialism the only option for a people like this one?” In other words, it is no longer necessary to go to the classics or to the philosophical essences, but “to the practical thing itself” and the explanations will have to be taken out of the concept of revolution that Fidel Castro turned into dogma in May of 2000.

The repeated phrase that Cuba will not renounce its principles, nor give in a millimeter on them, leaves open many questions, above all what a change of paradigms proposes.

Forgetting that the material is before the spiritual, that the working class is the most revolutionary, that when the means of production behaves as a straitjacket for the development of productive forces, it is the way that must change, are grave ideological weaknesses, without mentioning the acceptance of private property as a complementary element and the opening to foreign investment led by multinational companies.

There is a little less than a year until the very likely holding of the VIII Congress of the Party. In this period, which is brief, it will be necessary to produce a notable rearrangement of discourse. For this they rely on the forgetfulness of the people, the opportunism of those who manage the process, and the naivete of those who want to see identity changes where there will only be cosmetics.

The current and future “ideological weaknesses” of the only party allowed in Cuba will be the bedrock of strength of those who aspire to keep themselves in power, at whatever cost necessary.

Translator’s notes: 

*Parametrados / parametracion: From the word “parameters.” Parametracion (parameterization) is a process of establishing parameters and declaring anyone who falls outside them (the parametrados) to be what is commonly translated as “misfits” or “marginalized.” This is a process much harsher than implied by these terms in English. The process is akin to the McCarthy witch hunts and black lists and is used, for example, to purge the ranks of teachers, or even to imprison people.

**Desmerengamiento was a pejorative term coined by Fidel Castro to refer to the unraveling, the desmoronamiento (collapse, breakdown, undoing, crumbling), of the socialist bloc after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Cuban cakes and desserts are commonly made with meringue.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Jose Daniel Ferrer’s Trial Will be Held February 26, According to His Sister

José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, February 24, 2020 — The trial against the opposition figure José Daniel Ferrer, detained since October 1, will be held on February 26, according to a post by his sister Ana Belkis Ferrer on Facebook.

“The legal farce will be held on the 26th of this month at 8:30 at the Municipal Court of Santiago de Cuba, however they have not advised our family members,” wrote the sister of the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu).

In her message, Ana Belkis explains that they only learned the date of the trial via a summons to testify in the trial received by the coordinator of Unpacu, Ebert Hidalgo. However, she made clear that the citation did not mention the charges of which José Daniel Ferrer is accused. continue reading

The district attorney is asking for nine years in prison for the Unpacu coordinator for the alleged crime of damages, according to claims by his wife, Nelva Ortega, in a video last month.

The opposition figure asked his family, during a visit on February 14, to begin a campaign with the hashtag #YoSoyElQueAcusa (I am the one who accuses).

“It is José Daniel who accuses the Castro dictatorship of crimes against humanity, of violating his rights and liberties, as well as those of all Cubans, of raiding and looting his home on repeated occasions using firearms, of terrifying acts of repudiation against him, his family, and other members of Unpacu, of attempted murder on three occasions, of threats, slander, savage beatings, defamation campaigns, physical and psychological torture, of depriving him of his liberty and putting his life at risk,” said the opposition figure’s sister.

José Daniel Ferrer spent almost eight years in prison after his arrest, in 2003, as one of the 75 dissidents who were victims of the Black Spring.

This Monday marks 146 days since his arrest, during which various bodies and institutions all over the world have asked for his release. On social media his freedom has been demanded with the hashtag #FreeFerrer.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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A Year After Tornado in Cuba, Luyano Residents Still Swallowing Dust

In the street to the side of the church that lost its belltower, kids play volleyball, raising lots of dust. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, January 26, 2020 — First it was necessary to see everything. To walk through Mangos, Pedro Perna, San Luis, Quiroga, Melones, Reyes. All those streets of Luyano which, a year ago, showed a scene of terror after a tornado passed through on the night of January 27. Later, returning the same way, to see every new house that has been raised with its tin doors and windows and others still under construction.

Never before had a tornado been seen there. Twelve months have passed and the little kiosk where newspapers are sold is now again in its place.

In the street to the side of the church that lost its belltower, kids play volleyball, raising lots of dust. Some are in the shade, making fun of a girl and laughing like crazy, while others, under the sun, smack the ball. A year ago no one was laughing or playing in these streets. People would walk up and down without knowing what to do, with anguish and desperation painted on their faces. continue reading

In the street to the side of the church that lost its belltower, kids play volleyball, raising lots of dust. (14ymedio)

Yes, the dust is still lying on the ground, and the rubble, and pieces of beams, old buildings. From the wooden house that broke in two that day there is now no more than a lot full of stones and some wood. Beside it an identical house survived, with two of its inhabitants seated at the front door, drinking coffee and answering. “Yes, of course, we remember it well, how could we not remember that day? It seemed like an airplane was landing at our door. Since that day here everyone has been doomed to swallow dust,” one affirms.

An older man, resident of the block, remembers that when he was a boy something similar happened in Bejucal. “It was December 26, 1940. I remember it well because my second brother was born that day and my mother was very scared because of the news.”

On Calle San Luis, between Remedios and Quiroga, the hustle and bustle of a construction crew interrupts the street. Mounds of sand and other materials accumulate in piles in front of houses. In a walkway at the back a group of builders cuts pipes, sifts sand, or eats lunch. For all of the residents around here they are: “the brigade.”

A brigade of builders has been working for months on Calle San Luis but work is advancing slowly because often there is no fuel to bring in the workers. (14ymedio)

One woman, with a scarf on her head, brings coffee to the men and explains that “on that day” she wasn’t in her house. “I had stayed with my mother. When I arrived was when I saw the destruction. A column came down and the wall over there of the room as well,” she says.

When in Luyano someone says “that day” everyone knows that they are talking about the night of January 27, 2019.

“Here there wasn’t any subsidy or anything, it’s this brigade that you see working there that is repairing everything and they bring what is needed. They began a while ago, but it was about two months ago that they began to make progress. They already did my bathroom, now I’m waiting for the water installation, and in the room they only have part of the brickwork left to do, the roof is like new,” she said.

After the tornado the Government sent construction crews and cooperatives to rebuild the houses and buildings affected in addition to reconfiguring state owned places to serve as housing. In many cases subsidies were given to the victims to pay for the construction work and they were given discounts on prices of construction materials.

Calle San Luis is full of construction materials, on the sidewalk some young people listen to loud music while builders come and go in their work. (14ymedio)

The head of the San Luis crew explains that “everything is going well” with the work but that sometimes “the work becomes a little difficult because now there is no fuel to bring the workers each day, sometimes not even enough fuel to bring lunch or materials.”

Outside, on the sidewalk, a young woman dragging a carriage with her baby explains that her patience has run out. “I got tired of waiting, because I wasn’t seeing that they were making progress, so I moved. I come to take a walk here because all my friends are here,” she says, seated beside some young people listening to a loud reggaeton song that repeats “bebesita” again and again while she rocks the carriage without ceasing. She seems nervous. She says that she also had to leave because her daughter was getting sick a lot from all the dust.

There are things that don’t change. In the Luyano bakery the line to buy bread is almost the same as on that day.

The school on Pedro Perna street was made new, almost unrecognizable. “On this street they have given new homes to many people, some have come out winners and now they live better than before, their little houses here were really bad. Others are still waiting for construction to finish,” says a gentleman who, from his doorway, speaks with everyone passing by. Walls of yellow, blue, pink, green, all recently painted. Many houses still have bare walls, in others they are still laying bricks or putting up the framework.

It was night when the tornado came, so few people could see it. What everyone does remember is the fear that it brought to the people. “I couldn’t see anything, but from the booms it seemed like the world was coming down, horrible. I got under the little kitchen table, I was really scared, nobody had seen anything like it,” he adds.

Caption 5: A year after the tornado passed through Havana, many are still raising their houses from the foundations, others repair, while others already have new homes. (14ymedio)

The tornado wasn’t a small thing. It reached F-4 on the Fujita scale (winds of 300 kilometers per hour, equivalent to a category 5 hurricane) and its passing affected the municipalities of 10 de Octubre, El Cerro, Regla, Guanabacoa, and part of East Havana. According to official data there were seven fatalities and more than 200 who suffered injuries. More than 1,600 trees fell in the devastated area and 7,761 homes were affected, of which 730 were totally collapsed and others partially.

At dawn on January 28 in the street, hundreds of electricity and telephone posts were on the ground, one thing atop another, everything mixed together. Cars were upside down and crushed after turning over in the street.

Many doors and windows were also pulled out and water tanks flew like birds. The air column ended up dragging the weakest buildings like small kiosks and makeshift houses, as well as fences and traffic signs.

A year ago nothing else was talked about in Havana. In face of the horror many people mobilized to help those who had lost everything. House by house they came, giving the little they had: water, food, clothing, coats.

There are few photos and no video of that tornado. A security camera was able to capture part of its route and thus many were able to put a face on the horror they experienced that night. Social media was filled with questions that night, some sharing their first impressions of “booms” heard or “balls of light” seen in the sky, but the news on Cuban Television said nothing.

It was the next day that certainty came and the images of the disaster began to circulate, frightening half the world.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Police Search Home of Reporter Iliana Hernandez

Activist Iliana Hernández has spent several years confronting authorities, who submit her to strict control with frequent brief detentions. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, January 8, 2020 — The police began a search of the home of reporter and activist Iliana Hernández in the early hours this morning in the town of Cojimar, east of Havana, according to a report from CiberCuba.

“A group of people appeared suddenly at the home of the activist, and the spokesman was an official who identified himself as ’captain Lázaro Zamora,’ police investigator,” reported the website to which the activist also contributes.

“Good morning, first of all turn off the phone,” the police official told Hernández when the reporter inquired about the reasons for the search. “The police proceeded to snatch away her phone and cut off communication,” adds the note. continue reading

The activist has spent several years confronting authorities, who submit her to strict control with frequent brief detentions. On May 11 she was arrested during the march organized by the LGBTI community in the central Paseo del Prado in the direction of the Malecon.

On that day, several activists, among them Hernández, were intercepted and violently arrested by police and State Security agents.

A month later she was detained again when she was heading to celebrate her 46th birthday, and a week after that, again, for organizing protests demanding a reduction in the prices charged by Etecsa, the state telecommunications company.

The activist has been one of the people most involved in these campaigns that in summer kept the authorities in suspense about the number of people joining them by getting the topic trending with the hashtag #BajenLosPreciosDeInternet (Lower Internet prices).

Police searches and raids on the homes of opposition figures, activists, and independent journalists have been a frequent repressive tactic in the past half century in Cuba. As a general rule, officials seize literature, work materials, electronic devices, and mobile phones.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Researcher and Essayist Tato Quinones Dies in Havana

Throughout his life, Serafín ’Tato’ Quiñones dedicated himself to defending the values of Afro-Cuban culture. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, January 12, 2020 — The researcher and essayist Serafín ’Tato’ Quiñones passed away in Havana this Sunday afternoon at age 77. Considered an expert in Afro-Cuban matters, the also-historian published several studies on racism in Cuban society and the Abakuá fraternity.

Born in Havana in 1942, Quiñones worked as a history professor and journalist, and was also the founder of and a contributor to numerous publications, carried out several socio-cultural investigations, and worked as a screenwriter for television programs.

Self-educated, controversial, having a deep knowledge of diverse religions and practices of African origin, Quiñones leaves a hole that is difficult to fill in the national culture. continue reading

Several of his stories, compiled under the title Al final del terraplén, el sol (At the end of the embankment, the sun) won the David Prize in 1970 and his volume A pie de obra (1990) showed his maturity as a narrator. One of his most recognized books is Ecorie Abakuá: Cuatro ensayos sobre los ñáñigos cubanos (1994), which consists of four essays of short length.

Throughout his life, Serafín ’Tato’ Quiñones dedicated himself to defending the values of Afro-Cuban culture and the participation of ñañigos and abakuá in the wars of independence. He made several documentaries that highlight the syncretic particulars of Cuban santeria, among them La magia del tambor in reference to the Batá drums.

In his book Afrodescendencias, he mixed genres like chronicle, interview, storytelling, legend, and essay to tackle the link between blackness and race, oral tradition and slavery, racism and society. A volume with a relaxed but critical tone which includes testimonies from Cubans whose activism or participation in secret societies, like abakuá, put them face to face with social and political prejudices.

After learning of his death on Sunday, on his Facebook wall, the professor and essayist Julio César Guanche published a message in homage to Quiñones. “The most learned babalawo of Cuba has died, the most complete historian of the Abakuá fraternity, a champion of the popular world.”

For his part, the professor Esteban Morales lamented the death of this “man of pure heart and commitment to the homeland… We lose him when we need him most for the decisive battle that we must fight against racism.”

One of his last public presentations happened in September when he gave the conference Addodis and Alakuata: A brief attempt to broach homosexuality seen from the Cuban popular religion of the Orishas.

His wake will be held at the funeral home at Calle 70 and 29th in the Havana municipality of Playa.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Venezuela’s Destruction of the Amazon

The Venezuelan environmental disaster is the worst in all of Latin America, says Miguel Henrique Otero. (Wilmer González)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miguel Henrique Otero, Madrid, December 3, 2019 — The Venezuelan chapter of the destruction of the Amazon is, probably, the most brutal and savage of all. While on an international scale the fires happening in Brazil or the advance of deforestation in countries like Peru and Colombia never stop being reported, the southern region of Venezuela only makes news when there are enormous massacres, like the one that just happened in Ikabaru, a small mining town only 6 kilometers from Brazil. On November 22, six people were murdered and an undetermined number wounded as, with their bodies the target of bullets, they crossed the border in an attempt to save their lives.

The first thing that must be said is that this is not an exceptional incident. Since 2000, there has been an intensification in violence around mining. A superficial review of the news archives turns up a surprising number: at least 43 cases where the number of deceased is greater than 2 people.

I speak here of publicized incidents. Because, according to the testimonies of the region’s inhabitants, there have been other massacres which have not been recorded in the media. There are testimonies of entire families who have disappeared, who were living in very remote areas, whose fates are unknown. Social leaders from the region suspect that they were kidnapped, brought to other places, and executed. It is part of the practices established in the region: you either eliminate competitors or devastate an entire community, to clear territory and create the conditions to begin mining exploitation. continue reading

The entire southern region of Venezuela, especially the Great Savannah, which has National Park status meaning that it should be especially protected, and the Venezuelan Amazon — which extends more than 450,000 square kilometers and is distributed throughout the territories of the Bolivar, Amazonas, and Delta Amacuro states — is a kind of invisible and opaque area for a wide majority of Venezuelan society. The main reason for this, among many other reasons, is the fact that it is a precarious region in many senses: its highway administration is irregular and risky, its infrastructure fledgling and ruinous, its public services nonexistent, sporadic, or simply terrible.

The main thing is that it is one of the most dangerous areas in the world, spread out in fragments. The most peripheral strip is in the care of military officials, whose primary function is to impede free circulation, preventing photojournalists, television teams, journalists, special investigators, academics, parliamentarians, NGO members, and others from entering. Their task consists of guaranteeing that the area is an unlimited field of mineral extraction, under the most brutal techniques, without taking notice of the consequences of that activity that advances without any controls.

Operating in this territory, as has already been reported, are groups of narcoterrorists from the National Liberation Army (ELN) from Colombia; gangs who practice illegal mining, supported by armed groups who operate with an arsenal of extraordinary power; and mafias composed of civilians and soldiers, who control the distribution of food, fuel, medicine, and other basic goods.

Brazilian journalists working in the media in the north of that country, who have managed to travel to some of these settlements, refer to the “overpopulation” of weapons, drug trade, brothels, illegal alcohol sales, gambling houses, and other presences, which show how violence and the groups who exercise it in a systematic way have control over almost the entire territory.

The destruction surpasses the worst expectations. Satellite images show devastated land and lakes contaminated with mercury. The arrival of the rains is a disastrous factor: it drives contaminated water toward the rivers and small sown fields. As a result of all this, traditional fishing and vegetable harvesting leads to the consumption of contaminated foods.

The river basins are being deforested, with the impact that has on the climate and the water cycle. Experts have warned that the quantity of sediment that is being deposited in the rivers will continue to cause increasingly lethal floods. The systematic destruction of the Caroni river basin will end up affecting the entire country, because its capacity to feed the Guri Dam is in decline.

The Venezuelan environmental disaster, which will not occupy the place it deserves in the agenda of the Climate Summit beginning on December 2 in Madrid, is the gravest of all Latin America, almost comparable to those of China and Russia: infected drinking water systems; accumulation of toxic waste in all the oil and mining operations of the country; unmanageable quantities of trash in the State companies; collapsed systems of waste collection; cities, towns, and small settlements eaten away by black water, rodents, and bad odors.

Of the multimillionaire operation of Arco Minero one can only say that its results are on display: the social and economic conditions of the region’s inhabitants have n improved, nor has the promise of “ecological mining” (a false statement in itself) been kept, nor has any good been generated for the Venezuelan economy. Arco Minero is the purest and most extreme expression of the savage, murderous, violent, and impoverishing extraction that is the hallmark of the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.

Editors’ note: Miguel Henrique Otero is director of the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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An interview with Maria Werlau, by Carlos Alberto Montaner

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, December 7, 2019 — With the publication of Carlos Alberto Montaner’s interview of María Werlua, we at 14ymedio begin a series of videos which will tackle the work of personalities, activists, and academics in Latin America.

In the voice of the Cuban analyst, journalist, and writer, these videos touch on themes ranging from the human rights situation in the region, to the state of democracy and the authoritarian regimes that still remain in the continent.

In this conversation, filmed at the beginning of 2019, the main theme revolves around the book that Werlau just published, The intervention of Cuba and Venezuela: a strategic occupation with global implications. continue reading

It is a detailed investigation that gathers proofs that “Cuba has essentially occupied Venezuela not with a tradtional military force but rather by assymetrical methods, strategically placing assets” within institutions and society, points out the activist and academic.

María Werlau, who runs the NGO Archivo Cuba and works as a consultant, denounces the human rights violations on the Island, as well as the fact that “Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela is only propped up thanks to the sinister help of the intelligence and counterintelligence of the Cuban metropolis.”

Recently Werlau commented on a report on Venezuela written by the high commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, in which proof was shown of how Chavismo neutralizes, represses, and criminalizes the opposition and the dissidence.

A situation that Werlau says “derives from a comprehensive plan of integration drawn up by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro of ideological, political, military, security, economic, judicial, and sociocultural nature, which also covers information and communications. Without the knowledge of Venezuelans, Cuba has conspired for decades to occupy the dominant role.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Cuban Government "Whitewashes" Spying Against Its Citizens, Claims Human Rights Group

Police arrest demonstrators who participated in the LGBTI march on May 11, 2019 not authorized by the government. (Nuevo Herald)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, December 4, 2019 — There were at least 218 arbitrary arrests in Cuba during the month of November, a month which also saw the publishing of a Decree that legalizes or “whitewashes” spying on citizens, claimed the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights in its most recent report published this Tuesday.

Havana, Matanzas, Villa Clara, and Santiago de Cuba were the provinces that were most affected by the arrests, said the organization headquartered in Madrid, adding that “dozens of those affected were also violently arrested, fined, and threatened by police.”

The majority of those arrested “were trying to perform political activities the headquarters of their organizations, attend Mass, or travel to another province or municipality of the country.” Many others were “besieged in their homes to prevent them from going out to the street during celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the city of Havana.” continue reading

The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights also denounced the Decree Law 389, which includes electronic vigilance. The new legislation “increases the arbitrariness of the state in practices that violate human rights, like the right to privacy and the inviolability of communication,” it detailed.

“The Cuban government has a long record of using technical resources to tap and later publicly air communications between persons who are committing no crime,” reminds the OCDH.

For its part, the Cuban Center of Human Rights (CCDH), led by the ex-political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque, warned that “among the principle methods of harassment that the political police currently practices, is that of not allowing dissidents to leave their homes.”

Home arrests violate “the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human being, established for all Cuban citizens,” pointed out the independent organization in a report disseminated this week.

The Center also denounced the imprisonment of the opposition figure José Daniel Ferrer García and harshly criticized the editorial published by the official newspaper Granma against the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba; the editorial tries to foment in the Cuban population “hatred against those who defend liberty, human rights, and democracy.” A strategy also followed by the video “full of lies” broadcast on national television.

The organization cited 78 prisoners of conscience in Cuban prisons, 29 with long sentences for other crimes against national security, and 21 under leave and house arrest, for a total of 128 political prisoners, detailed the report.

With a number that differs from that of the OCDH, the Center reported 196 detentions during the month of November. Among them were 122 women, “who remain the most besieged, in particular the Ladies in White.”

The organization warned of a “peak in detentions during the visit of the King and Queen of Spain, around November 11,” also the time around festivities for the half-millennium of Havana and during the day of the third anniversary of the death of Fidel Castro, on November 25.

Throughout this month there were also reported “eight people who were not allowed to leave the country because of migratory regulations,” for a total of 208 who have been “regulated,” according to data provided by the Patmos Institute and which have been gathered in this report.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Cuba Blames "Reactionary Oligarchies" For Instability In Latin America

“The legitimate protests and massive popular mobilizations happening on the continent…are caused by poverty and growing inequality,” says the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Twitter)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, December 4, 2019 — The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded this Tuesday in a statement to the United States’s accusations that the Island and Venezuela were involved in the protests shaking Latin America.

In a lengthy statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Washington and the “reactionary oligarchies” of being responsible “for the dangerous upheavals and political and social instability in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

“The legitimate protests and massive popular mobilizations happening on the continent…are caused by poverty and growing inequality,” said the Ministry. continue reading

“Neoliberal formulas aggravate the exclusionary and unsustainable situation of social vulnerability,” added the Ministry, which pointed to, among the reasons for the disturbances in various countries of the region, “privatization, shortages, and the cancellation of public services and increase in citizen insecurity.”

The Ministry added that the demonstrations in Latin America “reveal the crisis of political systems, the lack of true democracy, and the discrediting of traditional conservative parties.”

According to the Cuban Ministry, “The United States defends and supports repression against demonstrators” with the conspiracy of what the Island called “the great media outlets.”

The US special representative for the crisis in Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, said this week that Cuba and Venezuela “have made many statements and messages on social media” in an effort to “exacerbate the protests” in Latin America.

“One has to pay attention to the public statements of Cuba and Venezuela in recent weeks that have basically tried to promote a major destablization everywhere, I believe that it’s clear that it benefits them, that they are promoting it, and that they will continue speaking publicly about it,” he added.

The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, also made reference to the influence of the two communist countries in the massive protests Latin America is experiencing.

“We in the Trump administration will continue to support countries trying to prevent Cuba and Venezuela from hijacking those protests and we’ll work with legitimate [governments] to prevent protests from morphing into riots and violence that don’t reflect the democratic will of the people,” said Pompeo.

Cuba and Venezuela have also been pointed out as countries of origin of an enormous quantity of tweets that egged on violent protests in Chile.

The Cuban government denounced what it considered a persecution against leftist leaders like Dilma Rousseff, Rafael Correa, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, some of whom have pending legal processes for alleged corruption.

Cuba also denounced what it considered a coup d’etat in Bolivia, where its ally Evo Morales was forced to resign after massive demonstrations over alleged electoral fraud, and the worsening of the Venezuelan crisis, for which it blamed the “corrupt” Juan Guaidó. According to the Cuban government, “it hurts imperialism that Cuba has demonstrated that another world is indeed possible and that indeed an alternative model to neoliberalism can be built.”

“In the dramatic situation that the region and the world are experiencing, Cuba reaffirms the principles of sovereignty, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states, and the right of every people to freely elect and build its own political system,” added the Ministry.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.