Translator: GH – Page 11 – Translating Cuba

What Women Want / Luis Felipe Rojas

Patricia Jaramillo, author of the book “What the hell do they want?” Photo – Luis Felipe Rojas.

Luis Felipe Rojas, 28 January 2016 — Patricia Jaramilla is a Colombian lady, whose composure helped her write What the hell do they want? — an independent production, which isn’t a manual, but a “code for women,” which is the subtitle of the text which she gave me as a present a few months ago.

We are talking about an energetic and relaxed writer, who produced a book in order that men could once and for all understand what it is they want. These are the times of the best sellers and not all works go the same way, or at the same speed, but this one promises to be a super best-seller, coming from an “indie” writer. continue reading

In this work, she deals with women who are beautiful and mocking, heroic, and half-mad. They are manipulative and intelligent women, who penetrate mens’ thoughts: queens who end up with all the territory we once laid claim to, and that we men foolishly flaunted.

In the pages of her book there are tips to face painful separations, final divorces and the scabs that emerge from the boredom between couples who cross the threshold of habit. “Understanding feminine codes can be an almost impossible task, and this is because men have not learned to decipher them,” says the author.

At the last Miami Book Fair I ran into Patricia Jaramillo, who was hiding from the sun under a tent where her writer friends were also selling newly released books. Patricia went out in the middle of the street, asking people questions, and inviting them under the awning displaying the cover of her book: some bought it and most tried to decipher the puzzle: What the hell do they want?

Following is one of the many gems in the book:

“Why doesn’t your wife want to have sex (with you)? What are the excuses women use to say no? What the hell do they want?

— I’m watching a program on television.

— I’m dirty and / or sweaty.

— I’m exhausted

— I’m trying to watch the movie.

— I had too much to drink and/or eat.

— I have to get up early tomorrow.

— I’m sick.

— I’m on my period, etc.

The truth behind all these excuses:

“She’s angry! Surely that is the most frequent reason why a woman will refuse sex. If there is an area of relationships in which women think they are in control, surely it is intimacy. Refusal shows who’s the boss in bed and punishes you for her anger. She could also be avoiding sex with you, because she isn’t enjoying it.”

The truth is, they are always an enigma, women are a dark tunnel and you have to go slowly, win her over with patience, and only in this way will we save ourselves and solve the riddle: “What the hell do they want?”

Patricia Jaramillo wants to help us to understand and, also promises a new release: “What the hell do men want?”

Translated by GH

If We Are Talking About Terrorists / Mario Lleonart

concasacuba2-jpg — Photo: with friends Roberto Pisano and Leonardo Delgado

Mario Lleonart, 29 January 2016 — A few days ago (January 15th and 16th) I took part in a gathering in Miami of the Coordinating Liaison Committee of the Cuban National Meeting, of which I am a member, along with eight others. On the 18th, on Martin Luther King Day in Saint Petersburg, Florida, I paid tribute to King, joining in the parade in his honour distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the 19th I visited locations in Sarasota and Manatti, Florida, which had been pounded by tornados early in the morning of the 17th. continue reading

While I was doing this, the political police made appointments with or visited people who know me in Cuba, who take part in forums of the Instituto Patmos, parishioners, collaborators, friends, neighbours and family members, to warn them that it was dangerous to have anything to do with me, inviting them to cooperate with their secret services, and to turn them against me. After I returned to Cuba some of them dared to tell me about these contacts, pressures, harassment and threats. One of the reasons put forward by the Cuban Gestapo, without any support, was that I had met terrorists in the USA.

In the afternoon of the 20th, I visited Leonardo Delgado, a one-time political prisoner, in his house in Tampa. He has been battling lung cancer for five years. With him was Roberto Pisano, one of his prison companions. His stories about the ancient Cuban prison are shocking.

That morning I had received some mail from Cuba, testifying to the arguments put forward against me by the State Security. Listening to Pisano and Delgado’s stories made me think how ridiculous it was that someone in Cuba would say that I had met terrorists in the US, since it was in fact the opposite.

I replied to the mail saying that if, by any chance I had had a meeting, without knowing it, with terrorists in the USA, it would have been if I had unknowingly met an undercover agent, one of the hundreds illegally infiltrated into the US by the Cuban political police. Like those involved in the shooting down of the four Brothers to the Rescue pilots, or those who specialise in assassinating without leaving any traces.

Translated by GH

Necessary Investigation Into Dead Cubans In The Nicaraguan Jungle / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 18 January 2016 — Why don’t the countries which are implicated carefully investigate, in a reasonable period of time, the disappearance of these Cuban migrants? Why doesn’t the Nicaraguan government carry out an effective judicial investigation into these cases?

The accusers whisper, but, out of fear, do not accuse. They speak cautiously about dozens of Cubans abandoned in the jungle.

We will only have a rough idea of the number of those who have disappeared when those who are arriving and those who are still in Costa Rica, decide to break their silence. continue reading

Although for now there is no exact number of Cubans who have disappeared, whether assassinated, or lost, we are beginning to hear worrying tales, referring to the Nicaraguan jungle as a mass grave, where the bodies of some of our countrymen are hidden.

Sadly, while they ignore all this, the useless media is pleased with itself, and entertains itself scrutinising with disproportionate voracity and exaggerated delight, the motives, whether political or economic, which oblige these people to abandon their country.

This Friday, the first group, out of the thousands of Cubans who are stuck in Costa Rica, arrived in Laredo, in South Texas. According to the authorities in the Central American country, the selection criterion for this group of 180 was how long they had been there, that is to say, the date they entered the country.

But no one says that the list was modified because, in spite of the order of arrival, or the date of entry, some of them didn’t have the money – over $550 – to pay to continue their journey, or because, simply, they had disappeared.

And little or no attention is paid to the predictable slipping away of Cubans who, fed up with waiting, unwise or impatient, under their own steam, or with the help of traffickers – and most of them know who they are, where they live and how to contact them – decided to enter the jungle in order to get to their destination and today are dead, or locked up in Nicaraguan prisons.

The accusers whisper, but, out of fear, do not accuse. They speak cautiously about dozens of Cubans abandoned in the jungle, and of some mutilated with machetes, but they don’t say how many. They also, between themselves, say that some countries in the area know about this, but are not saying anything. It is serious and brutal, like a small-scale extermination.

For one of those people, who didn’t want to give his name, because he is still there with his family, the fact of not hiding the bodies of Cubans who tried unsuccessfully to escape from Costa Rica, by way of the Nicaraguan jungle, has two explanations: lack of interest in or respect for the fate of a Cuban, and a clear warning, with an element of threat, directed at the rest of those stuck in Costa Rica: “Don’t even try to get through the jungle.”

Fortunately, everything seems to indicate that our countrymen will arrive at a safe port, but, unfortunately, we will only have a rough idea of the number of those who have disappeared, when those who are arriving and those who are still in Costa Rica decide to break their silence, which casts a shadow over their complicity, and when all of them arrive in the United States and the families of the lost ones start to ask about their relatives’ whereabouts.

With so many unanswered questions, I wonder why don’t the countries which are implicated carry out diligent investigations within a reasonable period of time into the disappearance of these Cuban migrants? Why doesn’t the Nicaraguan government carry out an effective judicial investigation into these cases? Why doesn’t the press, both here and there, make any comment about what seems to be a badly-kept secret? There is no choice, we will have to wait, investigate and ask questions of our arriving fellow-countrymen.

Translated by GH

Cuban Education in Free-fall / Ivan Garcia

Ivan Garcia, 21 January 2016 — Seven in the morning on a weekday. After a frugal breakfast of bread and mayonnaise and an instant powdered drink, Yamilka Santana, fourteen years old, puts on her backpack, weighing a little over 12 kilos.

She isn’t going on a trip, nor is she going camping. She is going off to her junior high school, Eugenio María de Hostos, in la Víbora district, a thirty minute drive south of Havana.

“I am taking all my books and exercise books in my backpack, as we don’t yet have a timetable for our classes. There are about twenty notebooks. Also, a snack, a lunchbox, and a sunshade. It looks as if I am going on a journey abroad”, Yamilka says, smiling. continue reading

About 350 pupils study in her school. They need to stay in school from eight in the morning until twenty past four in the afternoon. The state does not provide them with a school breakfast. Nor lunch.

It only gives them a snack, which most of the kids don’t eat. “It’s rubbish. Bread and a hamburger, which has a strange taste, or horrible potato croquettes. The bread is almost always hard and old. You have to be really hungry to be able to eat it”, says Melissa, a seventh grade student.

The school patio where they line up in the morning is uneven. In a wide area, previously used for sport, there are no basketball backboards and the smooth-finish concrete surface is lifting.

When it rains, the water penetrates the walls and the roof. “You get more rain inside than outside. When you get heavy downpours, they suspend classes”. says Josuán, from the ninth grade.

More than a few parents have complained to the school. “It’s dangerous for the kids. They haven’t carried out any maintenance to the school for years, and one day the roof or the walls could collapse and that would be a tragedy. The government should be concerned about the bad state of most schools in Cuba”, says Magda, mother of one of the pupils.

But the complaints have had no effect. The government’s response is to paint the fronts of the schools with a coat of cheap paint. The teaching materials are insufficient and are deteriorating.

“Ten-year-old books are passed between pupils. There aren’t enough for everyone. I share a book with two or three kids. The notebooks, pencils and school supplies hardly last a term. Parents have to pay for the rest of the things out of their own pockets”, a teacher from Eugenio María de Hostos tells us.

The first problem the parents and families of the children and young people who are studying have to deal with is the uniform. In Cuba, uniforms are compulsory up to pre-university and degree courses.

Every other year, the state sells two uniforms per student. “But they screw you. They almost never have the right sizes. And you have to go to the market, where they charge you 5 convertible pesos for a uniform, which is equivalent to 125 Cuban pesos, five days’ pay. Some families get them, much better made, in Miami, explains Berta, mother of two.

In primary school, skirts, shorts and trousers are a wine colour, and blouses and shirts are white. In secondary, mustard yellow with white blouse or shirt. In preuniversity, blue. Technical education has ochre coloured uniforms. Nursing and medicine students wear white blouses and shirts and violet skirts and trousers.

Twenty six years ago, when Fidel Castro’s Cuba was subsidised by the Kremlin, public education in the island guaranteed snacks and lunches for students.

Also, two uniforms a year, a pair of school shoes and sport shoes for physical education. That was when a proud Castro repeated in his lengthy speeches that Cuban education was among the best in the world.

Now, parents have to buy the sneakers and snacks, which accentuates social differences.

“In spite of the fact that the school management asks families to avoid any ostentation, there are clear inequalities. There are students who come with sports shoes costing 100 CUC or more. Tablets, smartphones and even first generation laptops. They also bring good snacks and lunches. Others feel bad. With patched up tennis shoes and only eating bread and oil”, the director of a school tells us.

Up to the date of writing, no primary, secondary or pre-university in Cuba has an internet connection, producing backwardness in the use of information technology, which has a negative impact on the younger generation.

“We have adolescents who arrive at school, never having used a computer and never having surfed the internet. That is fatal in the 21st century”, comments Richard, a computing teacher.

But if the shortage of decent equipment and adequate food is notable in Cuban schools, the free-fall in the quality of education worries parents a lot. From their already battered domestic finances, they have to pay for private tutoring by experienced teachers.

“I pay 4 CUC a week to the retired teacher who gives my daughter tutoring, 16 convertible pesos a month, nearly half my salary. It’s a big sacrifice, but I do it not just so that my daughter gets good marks, but also that she builds up her knowledge and will be able to take a university course”, says Magda, referring to a seventh-grade student.

The deterioration in the quality of public education in the island is reflected in rude behaviour and in an alarming reduction in adolescents’ and young peoples’ level of culture. They hardly read or learn at all.

“We have not yet caught up with the 21st century. If we keep going like this, most of our current students will not be able to adapt to the requirements of the modern world. We are twenty years behind in terms of modern teaching methods”, explains a retired female teacher.

Very few people in Cuba want to be teachers. Low salaries and poor social standing are among the reasons. Many qualified teachers prefer to work as porters in five star hotels, as taxi drivers, or making pizzas in private restaurants. Or to emigrate.

Photo: from El País de Colombia.

Translated by GH

Alaska, Another Route for Cubans / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 1 December 2015 — As a part of the basket of measures relating to the migration crisis concerning Cubans in Costa Rica, and with the obvious intention of protecting human interests, starting from 1st December, Cubans wanting to travel to Ecuador will have to get a visa to enter that country.

The regulation is an attempt to control the stampede; but already the human traffickers, taking a bird’s eye view and with financial resources, are trying to find new routes to connect Havana with the United States. Now it seems crossing the last frontier is the latest thing.

I would like to make it clear that not one single letter of what I am writing here is any attempt to encourage illegal emigration continue reading

; but, to write about the matter with my eyes closed or making political points, is to make myself a central part of the problem.

Crossing Central America, Cubans in the hands of traffickers have to confront the dangers of the jungle, get around conflict zones ruled by guerrillas and drug traffickers, and put up with the aggravation of being constantly ripped off by corrupt locals. Things more improbable, but just as dangerous as the Siberian steppes.

The latest madness also costs 10,000 – 12,000 CUC per person.

Cubans, conscious victims of people traffickers, fly Havana – Moscow by Cubana de Aviación (CU0470) 1.156,00 €, or by Aeroflot Russian Airlines (SU0151) 627,39 €.

Arriving, still a few at a time, at Sheremetyevo International Airport, the Cubans are received by guides who put them up in previously-reserved houses and hostels. I have been told that it is all quite a challenge, they give them warm clothes, something to eat, and then, like polar bear cubs, God knows in what conditions, they get onto a whaling ship and cross the Bering Strait to arrive in Alaska, which is American territory.

We know the rest, the Cuban Adjustment Law.

The situation in Costa Rica, will eventually be sorted out. How? I don’t know. That is for governments and diplomats to work on. But let’s not kid ourselves. The problem exists and the exodus continues.

Already, Havana is whispering that Oceania is another way, heading toward the Cook Islands, Niue, Tuvalu and Samoa, states which have visa-free agreements with Cuba, nothing complicated, and from there travel to American Samoa, which, as its name indicates, is also American territory.

The person I was talking to told me something which shook me: “Water should be free, drinking it is a vital part of a human being’s existence; but water gets bottled and sold. Don’t you think that is profiting from life? Getting people out of Cuba, people who are going to flee anyway from that country, is less shameful than selling bottled water.”

We did not dramatise the tragedy saying that in order to control the migration the rules of a million dollar organisation are going to change. It isn’t like that, we know that the Cuban and United States governments, and the whole region is working to trap the traffickers; but this is tackling the effect without doing something about the cause. The solution is to create a Cuba with rights, liberties and opportunities. Then, no-one would want to escape.

As you know, when hope dies, so does love. That, for a disillusioned people, the traffickers are seen as strange roses growing in the ashes of a disaster; but, I think that the most dangerous thing is not the traffic in Cubans, but that the island will be converted into the most perfect location for the transit of people from many other countries, who are seeking the same destiny; but with a different objective: Terrorism.

Translated by GH

Everything Changes, So That Nothing Changes in the Cuban Armed Forces / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 14 December 2015 — For the Cuban government, December is a month of notable events and anniversaries. And, although it tramples on the right of people to support Human Rights Day, it is worth repeating; it allows people to celebrate the anniversary of the landing of the yacht Granma, the Revolutionary Armed Forces’ birthday, the jubilee of the Battle of Ideas, the anniversary of the Battle of Alegria de Pio, and praising the fact that, since 1977, following a historic manoeuvre of calculated ambiguity, it also permits the celebration of Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Strange, cruel, and unusual, because partying is what is important and because, as my grandmother, who didn’t need to study to gain wisdom, said, “All believers think that their religion is better than their neighbour’s one.” continue reading

Nevertheless, right now, when the phantasmagorical menace of an imperialist invasion has ceased to exist, when the fable which describes the subversive presence of the enemy in the north has lost all its efficacy, when it looks like Raúl’s reforms are going to last, and when we shouldn’t say that Cuba is a dictatorship, but an “authority” which, without doubt, continues to commit ignominious excesses in pursuit of the interests of the state, the Cuban idealogues should abandon the “poetry of ’59”, and work hard at developing an institutional make-up which crystallises, I am not saying makes transparent, Cuba’s vision to the world.

What I am talking about is, obviously, a psycho-political veneer. For example, the Union of Military Troops could change its name in order to change the facade, and in this way the new recruits to Military Service will emerge a little more agreeable than when they went in.

“To change everything so that nothing changes”; well-known paradox of the novel The Ocelot, by the Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, is the sophistry of the Cuban government. What was once called the Rebel Army, and then the Ministry of Defence, and later MINFAR; can now be called PATRIGAL, which is a bit closer to the present-day business reality, which is a mix of “patrimony” and “national”, and which is led by a General.

The uniform and soldiers’ ranks, which still belong to the dead structure of the non-existent Warsaw Pact, could also be redesigned. Get rid of the uncomfortable, ghastly and rather undignified and hot olive-green uniform, and turn to a more symbolic, indigenous and airy one, like the ones used by the Mambisas in the struggle for liberty. The difficult bit will be in equalising the distinguished, cultured and recognised Camagueyan strategist, Major General Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz with Brigadier General Lázaro Pichs Sobrino, Director of the Ministry of FAR, without adjectives to set them apart, and to know that the only war he has seen is Fast and Furious (Part II), on the small screen.

I am not suggesting the Adidas sweat-suit should be the national uniform, because that has become the preferred get-up of the ex-leader, and that would be a complication. Quite apart from the recent corruption scandal, of volcanic proportions, which involved a representative of the famous German company and unscrupulous directors of the Cuban sports industry.

Lastly, and only from eagerness to attract sympathy, as an additional measure, they could transform the military barracks into motels, just as they did one day with lodgings number 222, in order to convert it into the garrison which now includes Mr. President’s house.

To end now, as the Chinese proverb says about China, “BIG SOULS HAVE FREE WILL”

Translated by GH

Macri Victory Encourages Cuban Democrats / 14ymedio, Mario Lleonart

Mauricio Macri, new president of Argentina

14ymedio, Mario Lleonart, 26 November 2015 — Mauricio Macri won. For those who hope for democracy in Cuba, the best option won. Although the recently-elected President hardly mentioned the island during his campaign, it is clear that the cause of liberty in Cuba will have a friend in him. His references to the situation in Venezuela have also been a wake-up call for the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana.

If he manages the transition well in his country, his will definitely be a major mandate. Nevertheless, Macri needs to get himself prepared for governing Argentina, starting off from the disaster left by Cristinismo [ed. note: Cristina Kirchner’s administration], which will signify quite an achievement in view of the obvious boycott by officialdom, which is showing a certain reluctance in handing over power. A gesture far-removed from what politicians who are really interested in the future of the country, and respectful of the popular will should do. continue reading

An indication of Macri’s intelligence and ability is his new cabinet. In the election of each post one can see a genuine intention to get Argentina to rise again like a phoenix from the ashes. The appointment of Susana Malcorra to the chancellorship was accompanied by the news of a top-class team to lead the country from December 10th.

The up-to-now Head of the Cabinet of the General Secretariat of the UN, a position in which he has performed exceptionally well since 2012, has earned public praise from Ban Ki-moon himself. “I have valued his advice, admired his dedication and benefitted from his leadership,” he once affirmed. Praise which is confirmed in Malcorra’s experience, in relation to international relations, an area in which Argentina has been very lacking.

Without doubt, the head of the cabinet could not be anyone else than Marcos Peña, one of the best thinkers in Macri’s electoral alliance, Propuesta Republicana (PRO). He was also one of the principle interlocutors at the time of laying out discussion points when he was head of the campaign. His youth — 38 years of age — is in keeping with the tone of this new party, which has been capable of destroying such a damaging Peronist tradition.

A demonstration that each Minister has been considered with the necessary care is the appointment of the social activist, ex-Buenos Aires legislator and present National Deputy, Sergio Bergman to the Environmental portfolio. This rabbi, chosen in 2011 as legislator for the City of Buenos Aires for the PRO, is an important and eloquent expert in relation to the present global context.

Bergman has been an unwavering opponent of the Argentina-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, signed by President Cristina Kirchner in relation to the matter of the attack perpetrated in 1994 on the headquarters of the Argentina Mutual Association of Israel (AMIA, its initials in Spanish), which resulted in the death of 85 people. His appointment is further evidence of the change of direction represented by Macri’s victory from the terrible course Argentina has been following.

The delay in naming the Minister of Employment also indicates the respect shown in this instance and says much for the care taken by Macri not to make a quick superficial decision on this position which is of such importance to the Argentinians, especially in times of change such as these.

Working with that team, Macri will be able to put behind them the dark times of scandals like the Chavista [ed. note: a reference to Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chavez and his and the current administration in that country] briefcase transported to Argentina by a businessman to finance Cristina’s campaign or the unpunished assassination of the Public Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, as well as the squandering of public money.

The new government will put an end to the period of justice denied, as in the case of the attack against the AMIA The renaming of the Centro Cultural Kirchner will symbolise the passing from one era to another.

The first target for Macri in the international field will be his participation in the next Mercosur summit, to take place in Asunción in December. He has already announced that he will insist then on the application of the democracy clause to Venezuela “for the perscution of the opposition.”

What has happened in Argentina will probably be reflected in the next few days in the Venezuela elections. The popularist policies urged by the Havana regime remain stuck in the past.

Translated by GH

The Growth of GDP, and the Cuban Railway: Past and Present / Dimas Castellano

Dimas Castellano, 31 July 2105 — According to a report presented by the Minister of Economy and Planning, Marino Murillo Jorge, in the Fifth Ordinary Sessional Period of the National Assembly of Popular Power, during the first haf year of 2015, the GDP grew by 4.7%.

In reference to transport, among other things, he said: in the first half year of 2015 this sector grew 6.5%, but the goods sector fell short by 700,000 tons, so that there is production which could not be transported and raw materials which was not delivered on time to its destination; between 20 and 25% of the $2,100,000 which, up to the month of March, was paid for demurrage of containers and ships was caused by deficiencies in the railway system and road transport. In order that delegates might understand the importance and characteristics of transport, he explained that for journeys of over 280 km the best way to transport things is the railway, so that, it is important that its activity levels return to normal. continue reading

A quick look at the history of railways in Cuba permits a clearer evaluation of his proposals

Among the freedoms conceded by the cities to the Creole-Cuban landowners at the end of the 18th century was the right to import machinery, whose introduction onto the island was a decisive move for the sugar industry.

In 1794, during Francisco de Arango y Parreño and Ignacio Pedro Montalvo’s first technical study journey, what most attracted their attention was the steam engine. Arango y Parreño saw in that the solution to the bottleneck in the Cuban sugar factories. In order to experiment he ordered a Watt, as these machines were called, named after their inventor. [1] Although the steam engine was not invented for specific purposes, the one acquired for Cuba was the first in the world which was applied to sugar production. [2] From 1820 on its use increased, continued in 1840 with the vacuum evaporator, as substitute for the open Jamaican trains, (a reference to the type of pails used in the processing machinery, and nothing to do with railway trains) and from 1850 on with the centrifuge to mechanise the purification operation. All of this made Cuba into the world’s largest sugar producer.

With the application of the steam engine to the wheels of the wagons, came the locomotive in 1804. In 1825, the first public railway in the world was opened in England and, in 1830 the first line for the haulage of passengers and goods. Arango y Parreño, being aware of the latest advances in the technology, understood the importance of its introduction on the island. On November 19, 1837, only twelve years after England, the fourth railway in the world was opened in Cuba. That day Havana was linked up with Bejucal. The following year the Havana – Güines line was completed, and twenty years after that all the sugar-producing areas in Cuba were joined by rail.

The railway dealt with the high cost of transportation, which was one of the brakes on the sugar industry. Up to 1830 the shipment of sugar from Güines to Havana represented 25% of the value of the product and, when the railway started up between those two points (1838), the transportation costs fell by 70%. But, apart from the economic considerations, the railway accelerated the unification of the island which had begun at the end of the 17th century, creating a similar physical and social picture throughout the island, leading to the emergence of Cuba as a social and economic entity.

Between 1899 and 1908, the Cuba Central Railway and the Cuba Eastern Railway were created. One of their objectives was to integrate the railways which had been constructed since colonial times. That process was speeded up by Military Orders 34 and 62 enacted by General Leonardo Wood, during the government of occupation, which developed the sugar industry as much as it did the railways. In 1909, when Major General José Miguel Gómez took on the presidency of Cuba the cities of Havana and Santiago de Cuba were already connected by the Central Railway.

Taking into account the fact that Cuba is a long thin island, it was understood since colonial times that the railway was the ideal mode of transport and consequently an efficient infrastructure was created which united the country from north to south and east to west.

Owing to the deterioration suffered after 1959, the Revolutionary government proposed the building of a central double-track line, 1,149 km long, for high-speed trains. On January 29, 1975, Fidel Castro opened the first 24.2 km section, but the plan collapsed, as such things nearly always did. Thirty-one years later, the same Fidel said: “We were intending to construct a new line employing all the technical resources required. Many curves were straightened out, but the work could not be finished, not just because we did not have the experience, but also for international problems which were arising. ..” In the same speech, delivered in 2006, he added: “Today we have just taken delivery of 12 locomotives, and not just any old locomotives; they are simply the best we have ever received in our country; the most modern, the most efficient, and the most economical.” [3]

From the year 2006 up to the present the official Cuban press provides information on what happened regarding the railway. The deterioration due to lack of attention in a 15 metre strip on both sides of the track, including some stretches which remained buried under rubble, required, in the year 2010, 30 million pesos to clean up and restore. [4]

With an integrated focus on the matter, Cuba arranged the purchase of 550 wagons, tankers and rolling stock, while at the same time investing in 112 Chinese-made locomotives. [5]

They did not put enough effort into solving the difficulties presented by the railway lines; in spite of spending nearly 600 million dollars in the last five years on the acquisition of equipment, machinery, tools, material and new productive lines capable of reversing the grave deterioration in the railways.

On January 20, 2011 capital repairs were started on the 40 km of the Central Line, planned for that year. According to the engineer Bárbaro Martínez, principal specialist in the National Company of Lines and Construction Works of the railway, “The damage ws such that we had to carry out a very major reconstruction task, equivalent, you could say, to building a new line.” [7]

The deficiencies in the tracks continue to be the principal cause of accidents. Interviewed by the newspaper Granma, the engine drivers of railcar 2125, Jorge Inerarity Estrik and Joan Camayo del Pino, recognised that, apart from the deterioration of the track, many accidents occur due to crew negligence, basically due to getting drunk, and other violations, and not complying with instructions. And frequently the cattle owners intentionally let their herds wander and wait with bags and knives until they are run over [because it is illegal to kill a cow in Cuba]. [8]

In 2011, manual maintenance of more than 7,000 km of track was realised, more than that delivered in 2010. Nevertheless, in spite of the achievements in the rail system, there are still factors obstructing all the effort put in to deal with all the accumulated deterioration over decades as well as the difficult economic situation in Cuba.

The Capital Industrial Works Company (Railway Sleepers) of Villa Clara last year was unable to meet its production plan, in spite of having built a new line with Italian technology, and a surface treatment plant. There was no lack of concrete or ballast, but there were difficulties with plastic for the excavation mechanism, the cleaning, the die-making, the service provided by the national mechanical industry, and other problems. and other problems. “For these reasons they failed to complete 45 thousand units, which prevented the renovation of 24 km of track.” (one km of track needs 1,800 railways sleepers. Right now, they are working with the left-overs from the last half-year of 2011, having not received any supplies.

From the foregoing analysis we can draw at least three conclusions:

1 – that the importance of the railway was understood by the ranchers over two hundred years ago, and from then up to 1959 the railway worked efficiently, so much so that you could set your clock by the punctual timekeeping of the trains;

2 – the goods left untransported in the half year examined is not news, it is the result of problems related to a common factor: the non-viability of the present Cuban model; and,

3 – the surprising fact is that in spite of the effect of the railway on the other sectors of the economy, the latter increased by 4.7%.

Footnotes

1: James Watt (1736-1819) Scottish engineers who invented the double-action steam engine
2: “The sugar factory, Cuban economic and social sugar complex” (Fraginals, Manuel Moreno)
3: Juventud Rebelde (Cuban daily paper). Alina Perera Robbio “We have procured the best locomotives in the world”, Sunday January 15th, 2006
4: Granma. Lourdes Pérez Navarro “Clean up the mess next to the railway track”.
5: Granma. Lourdes Pérez Navarro “The railway is waiting for its time”, Thursday, August 19, 2010
6: Granma, Lourdes Pérez Navarro “Investments which move trains” Friday May 28, 2010.
7: Lourdes Pérez Navarro. “Opening the way for the Central Line” Granma, Friday, 11 February, 2011.
8: Lourdes Pérez Navarro. “Accidents keep happening on the railway”. Granma, Thursday February 17, 2011.
9: Maylin Guerrero Ocaña. “Railway renovation moving on.”, Granma, Thursday, May 17, 2012
10: Lourdes Rey Veitía. “Without linking things up, the railway won’t advance” Monday, March 5, 2012.

Translated by GH

Eight Years of the Cuban Independent Writers Club / Ivan Garcia

Iván García, 16 November 2015 — In the depths of the peeling, unpainted building where the journalist and independent writer Víctor Manuel Domínguez lives, a lady, who is waiting for customers behind a display counter of cheap Chinese jewelry, is reading a well-used copy of a book by Corín Tellado.

On a rusty, narrow vertigo-inducing staircase, a dirty abandoned dog urinates hastily and without pause. Dominguez has lived in that ruinous building, in the very heart of Havana, for thirty years.

In the living room there are more books than furniture. With some music of Gal Costa in the background, Victor Manuel looks over dozens of manuscripts which will compete in the Vista-Puente de Letras competition [ed. note: for Cuban writers resident in Cuba] which it is anticipated will in the future be divided between Havana and Miami. continue reading

The writer looks through a mountain of papers which overflow his black briefcase, and explains: “Exactly on December 17th, when the world received the news about the change of direction between Cuba and the United States, in Miami the Writers’ Club awarded the Gastón Baquero prize for independent literature to the poet and free journalist Jorge Olivera,” talking without leaving off from smoking one cigarette after another.

“There have been changes. This invitation is also extended to writers in exile. But the Club’s work is not treading water. Last Saturday, November 7th, we presented the Vista Puente de Letras project, a tribute to the Puente publication, censored by the government in 1965, and to writing as a vehicle of communication,” says Victor Manuel, and he adds: “Fidel Castro’s government has always treated as anathema any outbreak of autonomy. There are plenty of examples of intolerance of free thought. Like the banning of Puente, the Stalinist decision of the court against Herberto Padilla, or the suppression of María Elena Cruz Varela’s Criterio Alternativo, who was made to retract her poems in an openly-Fascist move.”

Domínguez explains that in 1996 a diminished group of independent journalists, those who had had books published, “decided to finance a literary project which was discredited by the government’s scribes. Typical of any totalitarian regime: they attack the person, not the work. What with the repression and exile, the group dissolved. On May 7th 2007, Jorge Olivera and I started the Independent Writers Club. We didn’t have anywhere to arrange literary gatherings. We were like gypsies. Some embassies and consulates, including Germany, Sweden, Czech Republic, Norway, Poland and the US, opened their doors so we could read poems and fragments of our writings”.

But the best was still to come. “2013 was a watershed. The new migration regulations permitted club members to travel abroad and carry out some exploratory lobbying in different places, in order to find a publisher who would put out our work. Before 2007 specific works by imprisoned dissidents or writers were published. But the contact with foreign publishers, especially Neo Club Press in Miami has been fundamental,” emphasised Victor Emanuel.

He goes to his tiny kitchen and makes some coffee. “It was a giant leap forward. Last year we published six books. and in 2015 we are going for ten, and in the Vista Puente de Letras edition, coming out in Miami next December we have planned another five works. Right now we have about 50 writers who have joined our club. Among them more than 15 have come from official institutions or are still in them. Qualitatively the project is in very good health and is addressing bluntly and without prejudice all Cuba’s social and political issues”.

I ask him why have so many writers who belonged or belong to the UNEAC (Writers and Artists Union of Cuba) have decided to join the project. Victor Manuel thinks before answering.

“For various reasons. 17– D [ed. note: 17 December 2014, the date of decision to re-establish US-Cuban relations] marked a before and after in the national life. It was the starting pistol for many intellectuals to have new hopes and see new possibilities. Also the state publishers are in clear decline, since every year they publish works very punctually. They accord more importance to committed writers and to political tomes. Any writer’s desire is to be published and they see the Club as an open window to achieve that. Also, Cuban society is slowly losing its fear,” added Domínguez.

The dissident journalists and intellectuals consider that an important dam has been breached. “Dividing walls have been blown up, which, as a result of fear and control of intellectuals had prevented us crossing to the other side of the street. The government understands the power of the written word. Doctor Zhivago, the Gulag Archipelago or Three Trapped Tigers have more ability to make you think than an ideological tract. That’s why they censor poets like Raúl Rivero, political scientists like Carlos Alberto Montaner or novelists like Zoé Valdés.”

From January 2016, Writers Club is thinking of publishing a magazine every four months. The first number will be dedicated to the poet and journalist Raúl Rivero, who lives in Madrid and who will be 70 on 23rd November. Intellectuals and journalists who aren’t gagged want to pay homage to Rivero’s life-long work. His work cannot be hidden by distance, official censorship or exile.

For Victor Manuel, Raúl Rivero is like an incorporeal spirit. “He is always with us in Havana”. Our job is to multiply talent and give free rein to the literary creativity of Cubans in and outside of the island”. That is what the Writers Club is trying to do.

Iván García

Translated by GH

How Does History Help Us? / Dimas Castellano

Dimas Castellano, Havana, 17 September 2015 — 120 years ago, between 13th and 18th September 1895, twenty delegates selected from the five corps that the Libertador’s Army was divided into, and formed into a Constituent Assembly, promulgated the Constitution of Jimaguayú.

This Constitution, different from others in that it wasn’t structured in three parts — organic, dogmatic, and with a reform clause — but rather contained 24 consecutive articles without divisions into titles, sections or chapters. In it the Government of the Republic resided in a Government Council with legislative and executive powers. The executive power devolved upon the President (Salvador Cisneros Betancourt), while the legislative power stayed in the hands of the Government Council. In addition to a judicial power, organised by the Council, but functioning independently. The posts of General in Chief and Lieutenant General were vested in Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo respectively. continue reading

Appearing in the people’s history as a counterpoint to absolutism, constitutionalism is fundamental to governability. The constitutions reflect the requirements for social development. In that sense, the Magna Carta of Jimaguayú was an expression of the need of the new political and legal order of the Republic in Arms. It constitutes an important link in Cuban constitutional history.

On its 120th anniversary, the weekly Trabajadores of Monday September 7th and the daily Granma of 16th of the same month each included reports, under the headlines: “Neither Marti nor radical”, and “120 years after Jimaguay respectively, which I am going to comment on.

1 – In Granma the historian Rolando Rodríguez is cited, who stated that Jimaguayú is a document of overwhelming importance in the history of Cuba, an indication of the legal and republican idea and the determination to provide a constitutional direction to the Cuban insurrection.

If that constitutional text is recognised as a necessity of the new political and legal order demanded by the island and an important link in our constitutional history, how can the official historiography consider it as a “document of significant importance in Cuba’s history”, without a critical reference to the present Cuban constitutional situation, which has little or nothing to do with — starting off with the divisions of power — the legacy of Jimaguayú?

2 – The article in Granma says that “Martí longed to drop the authority that the Cuban Revolutionary Party had awarded him at a representative meeting of the Mambisa combatants …” [Ed. note: term used to refer to any pro-independence fighter in the Wars of Independence]

In José Martí’s War Diary — referring to his encounter with Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómezon May 5th 1895 in La Mejorana — he wrote “… Maceo and Gómez talk in low voices, near me [1]: hardly speak to me. There in the hallway; that Maceo has another idea about government; a council of generals with authority through their representatives, – and a Secretary General: the land, and all its functions, which create and support the army, like Army Secretary. We are going to a room to talk. I cannot sort out the conversation for Maceo: but V. stays with me, or he goes with Gómez? And he speaks to me, interrupting me, as if I were the continuation of the shyster lawyer government, and its representative … I insist on being ousted by the representatives who are meeting to form a government. He does not want every operational head sending his man, his creation: he will send four from the Oriente: “within 15 days they will be with you. – and will be people who will not let Doctor Martí mess with me there …” [2]

One may deduce from this text that in La Mejorana Martí considered his removal. These were his words: “I insist in being deposed before the representatives who are meeting to select a government.” That is not a longing, but a demand to not be removed other than by an assembly of representatives.

If the Revolutionary Party of Cuba started off on the basis of an analysis of the Ten Years’ War as an organising and controlling entity, and one which promotes awareness and is an intermediary link to get to a republic and that great mission had hardly got under way, it is difficult to accept that their hope was to shed their authority.

Also, if Martí’s attachment to institutionalisation and democracy led him in 1884 to move away from the Gómez Maceo plan, when he took the opportunity to write to the General in Chief: “But there is something which is higher than all the personal sympathy which you can inspire in me, and this apparent opportunity: and it is my determination not to contribute one iota by way of a blind attachment to an idea from which all life is draining, to bring to my land a personal despotism, which would be more shameful and disastrous than the political despotism I am now supporting.” How can it be affirmed that Martí “was longing to be shot of the authority afforded him by the Revolutionary Party of Cuba”?

3. Granma says: “It is also established that every two years there would be an assembly charged with proposing necessary changes in accordance with changed circumstances, which would elevate it to a higher position than that approved in Guáimaro.”

If the 1959 revolution is seen as heir and continuation of the constitutional legacy, it would seem to be contradictory that, on taking power, instead of re-establishing the 1940 Constitution as it had promised to, it replaced it with statutes known as the Fundamental Law of the Cuban State, without convening any constituent assembly.

Cuba remained without a Constitution until 1976 when there was approved the first revolutionary constitution modelled on the that of the Soviet Union, which prohibited any modification before 1992. Then, in 2002, the system installed in 1959 was declared irrevocable. With that decision, the Cuban constitution ceased to reflect ongoing changes which occur in any society, and became a braking mechanism on society.

The question is: How can our constitutional history be praised from the standpoint of a reality which negates it?

4. In the Trabajadores weekly paper, Antonio Álvarez Pitaluga states in En la de Jimaguayú that there was no balance of power and nor did they defend Martí’s thesis. It is said that Enrique Loynaz del Castillo and Fermín Valdés Domínguez defended José Martí’s hypotheses, but I think that it is now difficult to sustain that position, because if you look through the documentation, above all the minutes of the Council of Government, you see that in all the Assembly’s discussion there was not a single mention of Martí, nor of his documents, nor any analysis of his thoughts. That is to say, they avoided it; you don’t necessarily have to say they did it intentionally, but rather unknowingly, because many of the people there knew him, his work, his revolutionary activity, but not his thinking or his documents.

The questions are: 1 – Was Fermín Valdés Domínguez unaware of José Martí’s thinking? And 2 – if Fermín Valdés Domínguez, followed by the majority of the delegates, defended the division and limitation of powers, which was one of José Martí’s republican ideas, was the important thing that his name should appear in the documents, or that the majority should defend and impose his ideas, as actually happened?

The 120th anniversary and the two articles published demonstrate that you cannot deal with any historical event, much less one of such importance as the constitutional text of Jimaguayú, without relating it to the present in order to show that we have either gone forwards or backwards. If we do not have regard to the limitations of the present constitution which cry out loud for fundamental reform, how does history help us?

[1] In the original, “I hear” is crossed out

[2] Martí, José. Texts chosen from three volumes. Volume III, p. 544

Translated by GH

What Human Rights Are They Talking About? / Dimas Castellanos

Dimas Castellanos, 6 February 2015 — The conversations about normalisation of relations between Cuba and the United States, which were held in Havana on 21st and 22nd January, didn’t, as far as we know, advance the matter of human rights, because of differing understandings about the topic.

From the Magna Carta in 1215, up to the international treaties of 1966 — by way of the Act of Habeas Corpus (1674), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the Declaration of American Independence (1776), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), and the Universal Declaration (1948) — human rights, at least in the west, are universal, indivisible, and interdependent and are expressed in concepts and principles to do with recognition, respect, and observance of judicial guarantees which protect the integrity and dignity of the human being. Therefore, the referred-to difference lies in reasons unconnected with this concept. A quick look at our constitutional history will demonstrate this. continue reading

In 1811, Father José Agustín Caballero, representative of the growing creole class, set out an Autonomous Government Bill for Cuba. This Bill envisaged an Assembly of Deputies of the People with power to pass laws and an Executive Power formed of a representative of the monarch, accompanied by a Council, which would give a collegiate character to the government.

In 1812, the independent-minded lawyer, Joaquín Infante, put together the Constitution Bill for the island of Cuba. This contemplated the division of powers (legislative, executive, judicial and military), tolerated religions, giving predominance to Catholicism, observed the rights and social duties related to equality, liberty and property and recognised freedom of opinion.

In 1821 the Constitution Professorship was created in the seminary of San Carlos. In his opening speech, Father Félix Varela, who was the head of that institution, declared: I would call this professorship, the professorship of liberty, of human rights, of national guarantees, of the regeneration of the illustrious Spain, the source of civic virtues.

In 1832, Father Varela presented to the Courts an Education Bill for the Economic, Political and Autonomous Government of the provinces of Ultramar, geared to Cuban circumstances. This Bill, which was not discussed due to the restoration of absolutism, disapproved of the putting in place of political liberties and rights exclusively for white creoles. On this basis there was put together the first Cuban Bill for the abolition of slavery.

In 1869 the Constitution of Guáimaro was approved, which applied to the territories occupied by the Mambises. In this, the division of powers was endorsed, and it established that the House of Representatives could not attack the freedoms of worship, publishing, peaceful gatherings, education and petition.

In 1878, as a result of the Zanjón Pact, Spain established in Cuba, among other things, freedom of the press, of meeting and association, which gave birth to Cuban society. From those freedoms, the first political parties sprang up, fraternal associations, unions, journalism bodies and the first strikes.

In 1895 in Jimaguayú and in 1897 in Yaya, the second and third Mambisa constitutions were approved. In the first, military authority was split from civil and the civil government was devolved to a Government Council with executve and legislative functions. In the second, the Government Council had the right to pass laws and regulations in relation to the Government of the Revolution and military, civil and political life.

This included a part dealing with individual and political rights, in which everyone in the country had their religious opinions and worship protected, and had the right to freely express their views and also to gather and join together for legal purposes.

The 1901 constitution endorsed the division of powers, the idea of habeas corpus, freedom of expression, rights to gather and join together, and freedom of movement. Under its protection, a whole range of civic associations were created, and an immense network of newspapers and broadcasters. Its effect was reflected in the Protest of the Thirteen, struggles by the peasants, students, and especially the manual workers, who achieved the legalising of the First of May as Labour Day, and played a decisive role in the overthrow of Gerardo Machado in 1933 and the abolition of the Platt Amendment in 1934.

From Diario de Cuba

Translated by GH

Three Al Jazeera Reporters Sentenced to Three Years in Prison in Egypt / Luis Felipe Rojas

AFP/ Khaled Desouki. The journalists from the Qatari network Al Jazeera, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, seated in the prisoners’ cell during their trial in Cairo on 29th of August 2015

This Saturday, an Egyptian tribunal sentenced the three journalists from the Qatari network Al Jazeera to three years in jail,despite the international campaign for their acquittal.

The Australian Peter Greste, the Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and the Egyptian Baher Mohamed were found guilty of having “spread false information” and of having worked in Cairo without the necessary permission. continue reading

The judge Hasan Farid also indicated that “they were not journalists” as they hadn’t registered as such with the relevant authorities.

The reporters were accused of having supported by their coverage the Muslim Brotherhood formed by the Islamic President Mohamed Mursi, toppled by the army in 2013.

Fahmy and Mohamed were present at the tribunal and Greste was sentenced in his absence, after having been expelled to Australia in February by presidential decree.

The verdict is “a deliberate attack on freedom of he press” was Al Jazeera’s reaction in a communique.

“The only fair outcome of this case was acquittal” due to the “lack of evidence”, declared Amal Clooney, Fahmy’s lawyer, after the verdict.

Before the hearing, Amal Clooney indicated that there would be meetings with responsible government officials to request, if they should be sentenced, a presidential pardon or expulsion.

Translated by GH

Cuba: Waiting for Cable TV / Ivan Garcia

Ivan Garcia, 21 August 2015 — When you tell Felicia, aged 76, a housewife, that with that “strange and complicated gadget” which you operate with your fingertips she can make an audiovisual connection with her son who lives in Miami, she shakes her head as if to say you are pulling my leg.

Tablets, laptops and smartphones, seem to her like things from science fiction. She is convinced that her rough fingers can destroy those little toys with their flat screens.

Felicia prefers to sit down on the sofa in her house and watch five hours of Brazilian, Turkish and South Korean soaps or costume dramas produced in the States.

Right now, she is waiting anxiously for the local messenger who is going to let her rent various episodes of Game of Thrones. The weekly packet is an audiovisual collection of films, serials and foreign soaps downloaded by private entrepreneurs and then marketed; it’s a primitive local leisure industry. continue reading

“Two years ago, a neighbour who had an antenna, let me use the signal for 8 CUC a month, with a listing of programmes from Miami and comedy items from Spain. But since the police shut down her business, I rent videos or the “weekly packet.” It’s because Cuban TV is so bad that people have no option but to spend money on other alternatives,” Felicia explains.

The reports in the national and foreign press emphasis the increase in internet services in the island, but they say little about any opening up of cable TV.

In a survey of 15 people, of both sexes and aged between 14 and 76, all of them approve of improved access to the internet, but are waiting for some news about an opening-up of prepay television channels.

Yudelis, aged 16, would like to have a “bundle” of available channels to see documentaries like discovery Channel, different news analysis in CNN or HBO serials.

Eusebio, 27, prefers a cable channel so he can watch live broadcasts of NBA and MLB games and international Tennis Opens. “Cuban television is making an effort on its sports channel, but it falls short. Many events are delayed. And when they transmit them, you already know the result.”

There are huge fanatics of the channels from Florida. Ileana, 34, obsessively consumes Caso Cerrado or Belleza Latina. “If they permitted cable TV you could choose your favourite programmes”.

Sergio, 41, an economist, thinks that opening up a television signal would be a really good deal for the government. “It could be more profitable than the internet. Remember that in Cuba it’s only a minority that has a computer or smartphone, but almost everybody has a television.”

Carlos, 59, a sociologist, thinks that the political prejudices of the military autocrats count for more than economic profit. “In cable TV there are poor quality programmes which add nothing to general culture. But every person is able to make their individual decision as to preferences and what to do with their free time. An opening like this would short-circuit the State’s monopoly on information. The problem for the government is not that people would be able to see recorded crap, but that they would know, for example, about Antonio Castro’s vacations in Greece and Turkey.”

In President Obama’s 17th December 2014 roadmap to empower the Cuban people, there was no mention of the intention to market the US prepay Spanish TV service.

And this isn’t mentioned either in Raúl Castro’s timid economic reforms. The olive green government has only committed itself to digitise TV by 2021.

If you are interested in the Florida channels, you have to pay the equivalent of $10 a month to shady people who market the service, or rent the “weekly packet.” There’s no choice.

Iván García

Photo: Two Cubans watching a South Korean soap in their house. Taken by Panamericana.

Note: After more than three decades of the Brazilian reign, South Korean soaps have gained ground with the Cuban public. The boom in “doramas” (Asian dramas) on the island exploded after the successful transmission of The Queen of the Wives. That was followed by My Beautiful Woman, You are Beautiful, Unlimited Dreams and Secret Garden, but some 30 or so are going round from hand to hand, nearly all of them from Miami, where the “doramas” are very popular with the Cubans and Latinos living in Florida.

On a visit to the island, the actor and singer Yoon Sang Hyun, known in Cuba for his interpretation of the butler Seo in the My Beautiful Woman soap, said that the success of the South Korean series was down to their showing real life personal relations, and including some comedy, romance and drama, but without over-dramatising it.

The South Korean soaps follow a similar model to the Brazilian, Mexican, Colombian and Venezuelan TV dramas, and show the Cubans an unknown country, although for a while they have been selling Made in South Korea appliances (Samsung is the best-known brand). Seoul and Havana have had no diplomatic relations since 1959 due to the historic political and ideological alliance between the Castro regime and the Kims in Pyongyang. According to the Yonhap agency, “Cuba and South Korea can normalise their diplomatic relations in the very near future.”

Lately, the Cubans have also latched onto the Turkish soaps, although the Brazilian ones remain the favourites. Cuba is a precursor country of the genre: it was a Cuban, Félix B. Caignet (1892-1976), author of the famous radio serial The Right to be Born, in the ’40’s, who fixed the srructure later adopted by television for its melodramas (Tania Qunitero).

Translated by GH

A new case of fraud shakes Cuban universities / Mario Lleonart

A new case of academic fraud this Thursday has shaken the universities. A group of first year medical students in Villa Clara province were able to see in advance the answers to the morpho-physiology exam, which was sat Thursday July 2nd. According to various witnesses, the sale and circulation of the test was so widespread that it occurred in other venues, such as Sagua la Grande.

The immediate solution they are going to arrange is to get all the first year students to repeat the exam next Monday July 13th. At this stage it is not known whether any penalties will be applied to those who committed the fraud, nor whether they have made public the source of the leak. The only details which are known have come from those who have to retake the exam, with some students complaining they are paying for the guilty ones.

This type of scandal in the academic world has occurred frequently in all educational levels. In July last year this daily paper reported the leak of various final tests in Medical Faculty Number 1 in Santiago de Cuba. On that occasion 23 students were directly involved in the leak and distribution of the contents of the second year anatomy and statistics exams, 4th year English, and the so-called State Test. On that occasion, the Teachers’ Board at the centre called for a sanction of two years’ suspension from higher education for the students involved in the act.

Translated by GH
9 July 2015

Castro’s Forgotten Ones / Ivan Garcia

Ivan Garcia, 2 June 2015 — When he is lucid, Dubiel has a photographic memory. Nearly 30 years later, he still remembers the names of remote villages in the Angolan jungle and tells anecdotes of the civil war which involved more than 300 thousand Cuban soldiers and reservists between 1975 and 1991.

Dubiel came back traumatised. It was very hard for him to see the bodies of his friends flying through the air in a minefield, and the deaths of his comrades after making friends with them in the trenches.

For a while he received psychiatric treatment and tried to adapt himself to civil life. Didn’t do any good. Alcohol and psychotropic drugs did him in. Disorientated, he fell an easy prey to dementia. continue reading

Changed into a human wreck, his family abandoned him. He survives collecting empty beer and drink cans which he then sells as raw material. He sleeps wherever the night catches him.

Smelly and starving, he wanders the streets of the La Vibora neighbourhood, with a jute bag of cut up cans over his shoulder. The last time he saw himself in a mirror he was shocked.

“I was a good-looking guy. I finished my college prep year and had some girl friends. The Angola war made me crazy. If I could, I would sue the government, which is responsible for my situation. There are others like me all over the country. Forgotten, and dropped like shit. Right now I couldn’t care less. I would prefer to die. The quicker the better” he says, as he knocks back a cheap, argumentative drink.

Dubiel is one of the 436,000 old men and women who need social help in Cuba (18.3% of the Cuban population, over 2 million people, are over 60). The authorities haven’t been able to plan a coherent strategy to bring to a halt the upsurge in begging in the country.

In the case of Havana, the government’s answer is to round them up on certain dates (the visit of the Pope or a foreign leader) and stick them in a camp in the south of the city, where they wash them with high-pressure hosepipes and give them two meals a day.

After a few days they go back to live on the streets. It wasn’t always like that. In the 1980’s, you didn’t tend to see beggars and madmen sleeping in doorways. The castros’ subsequent actions later contributed to the spreading of poverty.

Social security collapsed when the state suddenly lost the generous Soviet subsidies. In the spring of 2015, there has been an increase in the numbers of beggars and invalid senior citizens who live by begging for money in the streets or selling newspapers and old clothes.

They are the people who have lost big time from General Raúl Castro’s timid reforms. While the world’s press is praising the cosmetic changes and the glamour of a handful of private businesses, the old people and the street tramps remain forgotten.

After 40 years working as a builder’s mate, Lázaro, with the skin hanging off his bones, receives a pension of 193 pesos (about $8). His family threw him out of the house. One afternoon in 2014 he turned up at a ruinous state asylum for old people in need of shelter.

“They told me it wasn’t a serious case. It wasn’t one for the police, a family complaint. And they clarified that if I wanted to enter an old age home, starting in January 2015 I would have to pay 400 pesos a month. And my retirement is less than half that. To go into one of the church homes, you have to give them your home. And I don’t have one. For half a century, whether we wanted it or not, we were all property of the State. Now for Raul Castro we’re vermin,” commented Larazo.

Very close to Prado and Neptuno, the corner that inspired the first cha-cha-cha, between the collective taxis and the clueless tourists taking selfies in the ruins, a bearded and dirty old man sleeps barefoot on a marble bench.

“The man came from an eastern province. He usually sleeps here or around the Malecon. Eating from overflowing garbage cans. Barely speaking. The call him “The Galician.” It’s said he was in the war in Angola. I don’t think he gets anything from social security,” says a neighbor in the Colón neighborhood.

Fleeing the poverty and lack of a future in the old sugar workers’ towns, thousands of people come to Havana looking for better luck. A segregation law, Law 217, effective as of 22 April 1997, marks the easterners as pariahs. And in the face of the police harassment they spend the night in makeshift shelters of cardboard and tin on the outskirts of the city.

They are pockets of extreme poverty, squalid slums with sewage-polluted water and without electric light. Many of the old people and people who live on the street, begging or drunk, came from the east of the Island. They are illegals, they have no rights. The worst things happen to them,” a social worker explains.

The regime butchered social assistance. The policy is to bring only those citizens who demonstrate they really need it to the institutions.

The problem is that outside of this definition are thousands of elderly and needy who aren’t classified as such by official decree. Like Dubiel, a former “dog of war” in Angola.

Translated by GH

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