In Baseball / Regina Coyula

My worst fears came to pass. Holland has us sized up. Like the majority of readers pontificated, we aren’t going to the next round. I’ll leave it to those who know the analysis of factors of the defeat of a team into which so many resources were invested. Marginally, my personal impression is that the charisma of Victor Mesa was adverse to the team and applied additional pressure to that it already carried. Differently than those who are happy about it, I so lament not being able to see them play in San Francisco.

Translated by: JT

11 March 2013

Havana: Bread’ Pills’ and Weed / Iván García

Néstor, a baker, on one of his dawn work shifts, after selling 60 lbs of hard bread to the owner of a private cafeteria, places a “missed call” from his mobile to a guy how lives in another Havana neighborhood. (He calls, lets it ring once, and hangs up.)

It’s the agreed-upon signal. Some ten minutes later, the man appears on a motorbike. Néstor makes his buy. Two “yuma” marijuana cigarettes for 10 CUC. And a stash of powered Ketamine for 100 pesos. In the reeking bakery bathroom the baker prepares a “bazooka” — he mixes the Ketamine with the grass, and after wrapping it in a cartridge colored paper, he carefully smokes it with joy. As a complement, he makes a deal with another baker and with 2 CUC they acquire a half-liter of white rum.

Not everybody hooked on strong drugs in Cuba has the 50 CUC or more that a gram of mecla (cocaine) can cost. So then other options are sought. The most common is the native marijuana, that can be bought for 20 pesos a cigarette. Or Parkinsonil tablets, offered in clandestine Havana at between 20 and 25 pesos each tab. continue reading

But there are many and varied forms of “flying”. According to Yulieski, a suburban low-life and admitted drug addict, there is a list of medications that leave the effect of euphoria just like some other drug, besides being cheaper. From Homopatrina Drops through injections for asthma. Those who work night shifts, like Nestor the baker, are already used to “pilling” themselves up or smoking pot, to chase the sleepiness and tiredness away.

But it’s among the “celebrities”, as they call the people who frequent clubs and fashionable discotheques, where drugs and psychotropics cause furor. Many of the attendees who can pay a cover of as much as 10 convertible pesos, carry a gram of cocaine in little rocks or marijuana cigarettes in the folds of their jackets or in their cigarette boxes.

“The fastest way to roll good joints is with coke in rock or powder. It’s as important as having money or a car. In general, after the disco, private parties are put on on the beach or in a house supplied with enough liquor, sex, and drugs”, explains the “celebrity” Yasmani.

“Some reggae musicians are sick on powder and grass, also sons of government officials, and intellectuals of renown,” he assures me. “Drugs and pills, together with alcohol, play important parts in the Havana night.”

The worst, besides the harmful effects on the body, is that the number of youth drug addicts is growing. At the start, it seems like such an inoffensive hobby. And they do it to “change the body,” as the baker Nestor likes to say.

Then it turns into an indispensable necessity. Nestor himself, thanks to the sale of bread, flour or oil under the table, in a morning looks to make 500 pesos. For some time now, owing to his excessive addiction to drugs, he comes home with empty pockets.

Iván García

Photo: Smoking marijuana. Now and again, the authorities discover marijuana fields in any province of the island.

Translated by: JT

30 Jan 2013

If It’s Not Rotten, Why Does it Stink? / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado

Graphic downloaded from “deconceptos.com”

Yamile Bargés Hurtado is a 48-year-old woman who was put through a legal process which leaves us feeling defrauded. In 2003, she traded an apartment in the Bahía neighborhood for a similar one in El Vedado with Mrs. Teresa Luisa Rivero Domínguez, co-owner of the building located at 355 3rd Street at the corner of Paseo and 2nd. Both were one-bedroom, small square footage residences; but Yamile’s was in perfect condition (new) and that of Teresa Luisa in ruins.

In 1998, Mrs. Rivero became widowed and was awarded the residence her husband, Baltazar Toledo Rodríguez, willed to her and whose title she shared. Later, the grandson of the deceased Toledo, Eliazar Yosvany Rivero Toledo, argued that the (grandparents’) marriage had broken down, and sued his grandmother that he should be registered as a co-occupant, although he had never slept in the apartment; and so it was done. The grandson never spent a night in the house, according to testimony Yamile Bargés obtained from her neighbors in the building.

Since moving to the apartment, Bargés Hurtado made huge sacrifices to improve its condition. She arranged and expanded it to be more comfortable — now it has another bedroom and more than double its original square footage — she obtained the legal licenses and subsequently, legally added the modifications to the property. In doing so, she converted a little one-room apartment — originally valued at 806 pesos by the community technical architect — into a property priced at $5,408.24.

In 2008, five years having passed of living there, after having done all remodeling and following the death of Mrs. Teresa Rivero, Bargés discovered that a dispute existed over the property. If the trade had been a legitimate fact and both women were owners of their dwellings, Yamile (her name is written without an accent) didn’t understand how someone could question her rights.

In the year 2006, the Provincial Court passed final judgment on the complaints against Mrs. Rivero Domínguez who, at the time, was in serious (medical) condition. The Court mentioned that she had lost her rights because neither she nor her notary appeared on either occasion it had summoned her.

Teresa Luisa’s son, after having been cited himself, said that he had submitted a certificate that would testify to Rivero Domínguez’s inability to appear. Without review and in absentia, the legitimate award of her house — which came to her on her husband’s death, and of which she was co-owner — was cancelled.

In the heir’s declaration — apparently altered, with blanked-out lines and in a different font — the name of the litigant grandson does not appear. The children of Mrs. Rivero swear that he was taken into account and was part of the same. Why did he not appear in any written documentation? Where does one go to look for the original file if there is inadequate manipulation of the documents?

One supposes that Burgés would have been named as one of the affected parties, but this wasn’t so. In 2006, the cancellation of the deed to her house had been finalized, and she didn’t find out about it until 2008, when she was notified of the lawsuit. A record dated 2002 alleged that the grandson had been asserting his right as “former heir” for years, violations of which do not expire. It is worth adding that in all the ordinary proceedings 114/08, they never mentioned the co-owner character of Mrs. Teresa Luisa Rivero, who’d always been referred to as “the widow”. To top it all off, she had an attorney who didn’t adequately defend her rights; to the contrary, she seemed to be allied with her opponents.

After 4 years of judicial dispute, the People’s Supreme Court confirmed the Provincial Court’s findings in favor of the plaintiff Eliazar Yosvany, to whom was awarded the residence. Next November 15th the principal victim and her daughter must abandon the building in which they have resided for almost ten years.

This is a proceeding in which there are many victims, but one of Teresa’s children, age 70, lives in the apartment passed down by his mother, and now must abandon it so that Yamile Bargés can return to her original place. Or maybe, pretending to defend the supposed rights of a grandson, they violated the rights of a dead owner and her children. What is the value attributed to a will in Cuba?

The character of a widow of Teresa Luisa wasn’t worth anything — the award of her residence was cancelled — neither was her condition of co-ownership, nor the will she left to her descendents (all this is said to be in favor of Eliazar Yosvany, but there is nothing in writing), nor the privileges of her inheritors or those of Bargés Hurtado. How many rights have been trampled upon? Beyond current law, a new legal ethic which restores citizens’ faith in the upholding of law and procedure is both necessary and possible.

In this case there is no doubt that, to honor the old refrain “the laws and its traps were made together,” the number of arbitrary acts seen seem to go beyond legal norms and have left Yamile Burgés a serial admission in the psych wards of Calixto García andManuel Fajardo Hospitals. Fortunately, Yamile keeps photocopies of each one of the papers or documents issued and required for the lawsuit.

I have no legal aptitude nor knowledge of the legal resources that should compensate all parties, but I feel obligated to give my opinion of a process I won’t say is corrupt, but that stinks badly enough.

Translated by: JT

November 6 2012

Number 54033 (Part 1) / Cuban Legal Advisor, Yaremis Flores

By Yaremis Flores

The afternoon of November 7th I couldn’t imagine that I’d trade my name for a number. I went out at approximately two in the afternoon to take a serving of soup over to my father, who’d been admitted into a hospital. While I was going down the street I live on, the #950 patrol was driving slowly around the area. When I was almost crossing the road, I heard a sharp braking. An agent from State Security called me by my name and said the usual: “You have to come with us and turn off your cell phone.”

I had made the made the call to which I have a natural right and no one can deny me beforehand. Thus I at least was able to report my arrest. Because of my short height, the fact that I’m a woman and unarmed, I didn’t deserve the corpulence of badge numbers 29128 and 29130, by whom I was taken to the back seat of the patrol car without knowing the reason for nor the place of my destination. When I asked, the agent limited himself to saying “you’ll see where we take you, I felt like meeting you, but today you’re going to find out who I am.”

My surprise wasn’t much at seeing my destination was 100 and Aldabó. I’ll confess I thought at first it would only be a few hours’ detention. Under the pretext of spreading false news against international peace, they took blood samples from me and seized all my belongings. An officer told me that I must read a sign on which are listed the rights and responsibilities of detainees, as if they were worth much. Then I was led into a small room where they gave me a gray uniform and told me to always carry my hands behind my back: so that I’d not be reprimanded!

They gave me two sheets, a blanket, a towel and a mattress pad. I forget who, but someone said “she will spend a few days here.” During more than three hours of questioning, the case officer tried to deciphermy thinking and collaboration with Cubanet. He sought an explanation of whathis superiors classified as a process of metamorphosis: “from a judge to a counterrevolutionary.” Making it clear that that would not be our only conversation, an officer took me to a cell with two other prisoners, who had been there more than 30 days.

Many worries came to mind: my father’s health, my little 3 year-old girl, and the reaction of my husband, friends, and family. I showed calm. That night I ate nothing. I tried to sleep. When I almost succeeded, some blows to the cell bars and the jailer’s shouts startled me. “54033, 54033!!!” I didn’t answer. When she opened the cell, the bitter woman looked at me and said “Girl, you don’t hear me calling you, or they gave you a beating with gusto.”

Then I remembered that I had in a small blouse pocket a little piece of cardboard that said “54033/201.” It meant my prisoner number and my cell number. One of the girls told me “now this is your identity card.” Meanwhile, the jailer told me to get all my things together. A little dazed, I began to fasten my shoes and she warned me: don’t fix up so much, you’re not going very far, you’re going to another cell. “Then I’m going to another cell,” I answered. This was my first night in Aldabó.

Translated by: JT

November 12 2012

Virgilisms / Regina Coyula

I’ve been reading Virgelio Piñera a lot in this, his centenary year, and I’ve even written a couple of works about him. But Virgilio “might have given himself a banquet” with national absurdity. We have signs of this through tall tales and gossip, and also through Granma, which despite cherry-picking his works and the letters they receive, they have regaled us with this Virgilian story that adorns the Letters to the Editor section of this past Friday.

Unknown registrations continue in my house

Before I start, my sincere thanks for having published my letter this past August 3, 2012. In that letter, I denounced my situation about having two people registered in my house who’ve never lived in it, at the same time they appear as “transients” in their mother’s house, with whom they’ve lived since birth.

Following the publication of my letter, inspectors from MININT [Ministry of the Interior] investigated the truth of my claim, but nothing has come of it. The prosecutor’s office, after declaring that I’m in a “legal limbo”, has left me submerged in it.

The order that has the CIRP — the ID card — only under willing and express request of the person involved, is the equivalent in my view, of arguing that the thieves will only be caught if they willing present themselves to a unit of the National Revolutionary Police. When a person acts in bad faith, as in the case of those enrolled in my house, of course they will not give themselves up spontaneously.

It’s really inconceivable that such a simple and obvious case hasn’t found a solution after two years of all levels of effort.

A. Marín Rodríguez

After things like that, and as a tribute, we could rephrase that to say, If Kafka had been Cuban, he would have written of local customs to say:If Kafka had been Cuban, he would have written Virgilisms.

Translated by: JT

October 17 2012

Cuban Baseball: Open the Gate / Ivan Garcia

As a result of the next baseball season, the State press and fans have unleashed a debate, looking to raise the level of ball played on the island. There were more than 170 proposals to design a new competitive structure.

In a meeting with the national press, the Cuban Federation let it be known how the next tournament will be structured. The league will open on 25 November in José Ramón Cepero Stadium with a matchup between the present champions, Ciego de Ávila and the runner-up Industriales. Sixteen sides will participate, one for each province plus the special municipality Isla de la Juventud. The Metropolitanos team is eliminated, with their 38 years of history in the local classic.

The schedule will consist of two stages. In the first, 45 games will be played in a round-robin to find the best 8 teams. The sides that go on to the next round will be able to draft up to five players from the teams that didn’t qualify. This phase will be of 42 games. In two playoffs of the best of seven, the four winners will play for the national championship.

It might be that the old structure of 4 divisions and two zones, East and West, was already inadequate. In the last twelve years, the level of baseball has declined a lot. The problem isn’t about a team. Many remain. The keys to elevating the quality of play happens to have a new structure. But the worst evil isn’t that of structure.

The design of the Cuban baseball system used to work. It was a pyramid of skills that included little league, Pony leagues, Youths, and provincial series, culminating in the national classic.

Sports schools perfected and trained the best talent nominated by coaches. Afterwards the harvest was brought in. Until 2006, Cuba won most of the International Baseball Federation’s organized tournaments in every one of its categories.

Now we barely win championships. And that worries fans and specialists. In world tournaments of Pony or Youth Leagues, it’s understandable. The best talents of Asia and the United States take part. But at the highest level, except for the Classics, those authentic discards with skills of little caliber enroll for their respective countries.

In my opinion, there’s a glaring error on the Federation’s part. And it is to implement changes thinking only about the national team. The series on the island cannot be a satellite that circulates outside that orbit. It must be independent. When the season has more quality, the higher the level that will be achieved by the Cuban team.

What we’re talking about is how to really raise the level of ball played. The options are many. But all will happen by opening the gate and allowing the best ball players to compete in foreign leagues. The ideal would be to arrive at an agreement with the Major Leagues such that Cuban players can sign contracts without having to abandon their country.

But current laws complicate the proceedings. As such, other destinations would have to be chosen. Japan and South Korea, due to the high level of their leagues, would be the best.

Another step that can’t be overlooked is pay and material conditions for the players. It’s a failed subject. Local idols who were sometimes Olympic champions got 300 convertible pesos — about 340 dollars — a ridiculous amount for a first-rank sportsman; although in the difficult economic conditions this country lives in, it’s a ’fortune’.

An effort should be made so that players in the national series can earn salaries greater than 3000 pesos ($130). The solution might be to raise the price of tickets to stadiums from one peso to five, with part of the proceeds distributed between players. Not equally. The regulars would earn more. The extra class, much more. Local and foreign companies based in Cuba, with its productions, could be sponsors.

It should not be possible that a national champion, as in the case of the Industriales in 2010, should motivate its players through gifts of cement shingles to repair the roofs of their houses, or microwave ovens, defective on top of it.

The majority of Cuban ball players live in precarious conditions. Only a handful of stars live in good houses or have cars. When they look at their colleagues who’ve left the country, they know that playing in a mediocre league they will earn enough to help their own and live decently.

Then they decide to leave. It’s true that few reach the Big Leagues. But they try to integrate themselves in whatever Caribbean, European, or Asian league. Another big problem is the little attention paid by the Federation to the farm systems that feed the national series.

Provincial tournaments of the big leagues are very short. Many games are suspended for lack of balls, bats, and transportation. Ball players are playing out of uniform and don’t even have a snack. You have to love baseball a lot to play in 92 (Fahrenheit) degree heat under these conditions. To this, add that the official press barely covers them — they’re almost clandestine.

In the lower categories, the evil is worse. The fields are true potato fields. The quality of the balls and equipment is terrible. In the stands we’ll find parents, loaded down with lunches and snacks for their kids. When a boy decides to play baseball, his parents have to buy his equipment in hard currency. Cash must also be paid for the making of uniforms.

On a radio sports show called Sports Tribune, on the capital’s COCO station, every night official honest journalists such as Yasser Porto, Daniel Demala or Ivan Alonso go at it bare-knuckled, attacking the evils that afflict Cuban baseball. And they offer solutions.

It’s obvious that their claims have fallen on deaf ears. The COCO journalists weren’t invited to the last meeting where the announcement was made about the structure of the next season.

The Federation is walking a tightrope. It doesn’t wish, want or cannot, address the theme with all of its artists. The solution offered is pure makeup. Cuban baseball’s difficulties won’t be resolved in this manner, nor will the ceiling of competence be raised, because it’s not only a problem of structure. There are many others.

Photo: Taken from The Cuban History. René Arocha, first ball player to desert, 18 July 1991. Since then, more than 150 baseball players have left Cuba and with major or minor success have managed to compete (or still compete) in professional leagues in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Caribbean countries, Europe and Asia, such as Rey Ordóñez, Liván Hernández, José Ariel Contreras, Rolando Arrojo, Orlando “El Duque” Hernández, Kendry Morales, Aroldis Chapman, Osvaldo Fernández, Ariel Prieto, Alex Sánchez, Vladimir Núñez, Danny Báez, Michael Tejera, Yuniesky Betancourt and Yoenis Céspedes, among others.

Translated by: JT

October 7 2012

Cuba: Baseball and Rumors / Iván García

If you want to see first hand how the syndrome of secrecy works in Cuba, visit the office of the commissioner of baseball. Such is the lack of information, that not even the managers of the teams know for sure the day and month the new season will start. No one knows what the new structure will be nor the amount of equipment. Or the number of games that will be played.

It’s all rumors. According to reliable sources, the next National Series might field 16 teams. One for each province and the municipality of Isla de la Juventud. They would do away with the Metropolitan team, the second of the capital, despite being at the bottom of the standings in the last five years, its exit could cause many talented players to be without a team.

The amazing thing is that for a couple of weeks, Metropolitan began its preparation for the upcoming season, as officially no senior official from the baseball federation has spoken on the subject. In any organized league, the schedule is known months in advance as is the start date of the season. Last season, two weeks before opening day the details were still unknown.

Another absurdity is the transfer of players. In order to respect territoriality, players must play for their provinces. Only in prominent cases are they allowed to compete in other teams. It has set up a summer soap opera with the alleged departure of the excellent player Yulieski Gourriell from the Sancti Spiritus team. For personal problems, Yulieski’s family decided to settle in Havana.

The All-Star third baseman said in an interview that he intends to play with the famous Cuban baseball team, the Industriales. But the case was handled like a top state secret. On September 3rd the suspense ended. The sports authorities refused Gourriell permission to wear the blue jersey.

In 52 seasons there have been major players moving to different situations. Most striking was the case of the national team starter, Antonio Muñoz, who moved from Sancti Spiritus to Cienfuegos.

Or Villa Clara’s Alejo O’Reilly who decided to play for Ciego de Avila.

If it’s decided to remove Metropolitan, the selection of The Industrialists would have a team full of stars in the batting, but after a few years, young talent stagnates if it’s not able to play regularly. It happens that the current structure of Cuban baseball has a pronounced slump. Many youth who complete their category does not have a tournament where they develop their skills.

Before they competed in a league championship parallel to the local championship. Now that tournament disappeared. In the last 12 years Cuban baseball has seen its quality fall into a tailspin. The causes are known. The principal is the departure of about 250 players who have chosen to play as professionals abroad. Another problem is the outdated concepts of preparing pitchers and batters.

With just five months to the World Classic III, even the baseball authorities still are not clear what kind of tournament is going to be played. In November, the national team will probably stumble a couple of times with its peer from Taipei, China as a warmup for the Classic. Ideally, the local season breaks in October. But it is very likely that due to the stop in Asia the championship will open in late November. If so, there would be a break in the series to prepare the players who participate in the Classic III.

If in questions of baseball there is a lack of information and mystery abounds, what can we expect on important issues like immigration reform or internet marketing. Cuba is a country of riddles and rumors. Learn to read between the lines. The press, rather than inform, misinforms. And those who must make decisions mock the media and citizens. It happens in everyday life. In politics and in baseball.

Photo: Logos of provincial baseball teams in 2010

Translated by: JT

September 15 2012

Lessons / Regina Coyula

Sometimes the Cuban democratization process seems easier as I see it almost every day. LaySpace and the Felix Varela Center, under the supervision of the Church; Temas and last public Thursday, the magazine Criteria and other academic spaces seem to have, if not the magic bullet, at least an idea of how. In these environments it is common to hear terms such as participation, empowerment of civil society, multiparty, electoral system, all terms that converge and are consumed in democracy.

The government has chosen the ostrich technique, as if to look the other way, the problems discussed in the above forums, — and in others less conventional but equally active — will be solved, or rather, did not exist. This attitude is essential for the maintenance of power, but it is irresponsible to ignore that this active minority pronounced in forums or brief published magazines and retail distribution roll, is precisely the group of people who are thinking about Cuba.

Moreover, the government has had a delayed reaction, it is not until recently that there is talk in the media of Cuban civil society, for example, referring to the artistic intelligentsia gathered under UNEAC (the Writers and Artists Union). It was a bloody end, having long before been adopted to opposition groups, and therefore unrecognized, groups that in any normal country defend their space without earning the scorn of the government. Some organizations can not in any way rule out others, in this exclusion is implied a sort of political racism that is as detestable as other forms of exclusion.

I just said it, it comes in handy for commenting on a proposed initiative by the Critical Observatory, for the next elections, to vote with a D in the column blank, an initiative that has received much criticism. It is not a call to insurrection to seize power. It is a citizens’ initiative, one more of the many and varied that are needed for democratic learning.
It is true that all the D’s will go in the column of the voided ballots, but the presence of citizens in during the vote counting allows them to know the data base, that is how many ballots were voices (even if they don’t vote, they are on the list of voters, it is their right by law).
The more citizens take the initiative, the more interesting is the comparison of these numbers with the official figures. The government could also publish, in one of their tabloids that they print for any need, the outcome of the vote in every school in the country, divided into provinces and municipalities, and even districts if you wanted to be picky and silence those who believe that the result is manipulated.

I get lost in these topics that I think about so much and yet I find it difficult to write with the brevity I wanted. I remember blogger Yoani Sanchez in a police station facing an official who is warning her that she is disqualified for dialogue. This functionary at best didn’t know that to have a personal blog makes you responsible for yourself and your opinions; this functionary at best interpreted as political interest her interest in politics. Or maybe he thought of nothing and only complied with an order.

My son is starting at the university as an undergraduate, and in an introductory class on Commercial Law the emphasized the need to know the laws, the rights and duties of citizens, and when he asked who had read the Constitution, or at least skimmed it none of the students raised their hand. The helplessness involved such ignorance is an alarm with respect to the future, because I have the impression that these young people have been subjected to such politicization that they are immune to politics, and that is not good.

These two moments, though at first glance may it not seem so, are related to the exercise of citizenship as an inherent right. For now, I’ve left the little blue booklet of the Constitution for my son on his nightstand. I do not know if the political police who scolded Yoani already have learned that in a civil dialogue partners are elected by their constituents. And to grant or deny rights is the law.

Translated by: JT

September 17 2012

A Summer Night’s Nightmare / Jeovany Jimenez Vega

This has been a rainy year in Cuba, and as if to do justice to the energy of this season, in Artemisa last Saturday afternoon it rained buckets including a concert of terrible thunder. An hour after having cleared up, around 5 PM, the guest who didn’t make it was seen approaching: the blackout. The strange part of it was that the presumed break waited an hour after the last ray of sunshine to make its appearance on the scene. The hours passed, with midnight the terrible certainty arrived: this would be a long day, we slept without electric current in the midst of this horrid summer. It wasn’t the first time, nor the end of the world nor much less, but in this country of timid advances and serious setbacks, I couldn’t help shuddering at the thought that these nightly blackouts would return to be a part of the daily landscape.

But if we speak fairly, we have to recognize that we haven’t had power outages for years, at least in my and neighboring towns, they stopped being habitual only to convert themselves into real news, then the strategy of getting better autonomy in the territories by installing generators gave, seemingly, the hoped-for results. Today, the blackout occurs only in the case of breakage, and is generally short. But when it comes, it does it with the aggravating factor of finding most Cuban homes enslaved to electrical service, then together with the sensibility of selling us electrical appliances — it must have something to do with an idiosyncratic problem — the insensitivity of shutting down our liquid gas service, by which more than one Artemisan saw themselves dark in the afternoon-night of this Saturday.

Inevitably, my mood soured by the intense heat made my thoughts fly back in time and I remembered — how could I forget? — those summer nights of 1993 and 1994, those tortured nights of neighbors sleeping in doorways, and at the heat of the roofs, at the mercy of the mosquitoes, to flee from the suffocating heat. In those days the “alumbrones*”, because the daily blackouts lasted between 16 and 20 hours, even whole days, they were, together with the scarcity of food and the virtual absence of transport, the most palpable evidence that we had hit bottom.

Although the morning came, it wasn’t until almost Sunday mid-afternoon, after 17 hours that seemed too long for fixing a break, that the service was re-established and I breathed a sigh of relief. Over the kitchen, like witnesses to an involuntary vigil, stood the burned-up remains of the candles and the memory of this nightmare of a summer’s night.

*Translator’s note: “Alumbron” is a Cuban word coined to mean when the electricity is ON. The existence of the word is testimony to the fact that at certain times in recent Cuban history the electricity being ON has been the unexpected state of affairs, while blackouts were the common and expected state of affairs.

Translated by: JT

August 10 2012

 

Prosecutorial Ethics / Cuban Law Association, Alberto Méndez Castelló

By Alberto Méndez Castelló

Some days ago, some 400 employees of the General Prosecutor Office of the Republic across the country signed a code of ethics. The notice was published on the front page of the daily Rebel Youth on Saturday, June 9th, under the title “Ethics Are Our Prosecutor”.

According to the article, the code has as its precepts justice, honesty, creativity, humanism, austerity, and professionalism, corresponding to socialist principles.

On receiving the newspaper, a woman didn’t even finish reading yesterday’s news, throwing it in the trash, which constitutes an unusual event: more than inform, the paper the news is printed on has other uses in Cuba, for which is it uneconomic to throw it in a waste basket instead of the toilet.

For such detachment, the woman claimed to have an experience with the law that made her hate everything having to do with judges and prosecutors:

“I can’t forget, and every time I hear them spoken of my stomach turns”, she said.

In Cuba, the prosecutor is the state organ to which the Constitution assigns two fundamental objectives: control and preservation of what we call socialist legality here, and the exercise of punitive action on behalf of the State.

“Due to problems with someone from state security who sued him, the court seized from my husband a TV that was owned by our son. I went to a prosecutor to intercede for the child’s rights, but instead of an advocate for civil rights, what we found in the prosecution was another accuser,” argued the boy’s mother.

According to Article 514 of the Law of Civil Procedure, third parties — this is the right that a third party alleges among other litigants — must be founded on the ownership of the property seized from the debtor or in the right of the claimant of exercising his credit with preference to the creditor.

The same law indicates in Article 521 that the complaint of third parties must present the title on which it is founded, without which it will have no recourse.

Article 48 of the same Law of Civil Procedure makes it clear that it is the prosecutor who represents and defends minors in the defense of their property and rights in cases such as this.

“We delivered the certificate of ownership to where it says that my husband bought the TV and ordered its installation in the name of our son. We brought seven witnesses to the trial and hired two lawyers,” she said.

“The witnesses stated that the purchase of the TV was actually made specifically for the child. Even the director of commerce who signed the ownership certificate testified that the set belonged to the person in whose name the buyer had ordered its installation,” he added.

“All for naught: the prosecutor of ’socialist legality’ presented just one witness; of course, under threat of being forced, if he didn’t present himself to testify, which he did in a second appearance. Imagine the rest of the story … the child lost the TV, there was someone from State Security in the middle”, the mother lamented.

As regards the exercise of public penal action in the name of the State, one also needs a strong stomach to work as a prosecutor in Cuba.

“The precept of Null Crime — this is an elementary principal of Criminal Law, where the alleged deed has to conform exactly to the type of crime prescribed by the law — in this case of the Cuban Penal Code, which has so many marshes that, rather than legal concepts designed to prosecute offenses, they resemble tricks designed to justify what is not sanctioned at any cost”, said a specialist in criminal science.

“Suffice it to mention the much bandied about Article 91 (acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the State) in which several dozen people were convicted in the Group of 75, and, more recently, for which Alan Gross will pay for with 15 years in prison,” said the specialist.

“The article in question does not specify what is the crime for which one can be sentenced from 10 years in prison to the death penalty,” said the lawyer. “It only says, ’He who in the interest of a foreign state commits an act with the aim of undermining the independence of the Cuban State or its territorial integrity.’”

“What deed? Perhaps an armed attack? Oral or written propaganda?”, the jurist asked.

The American Alan Gross is a prisoner in Cuba for bringing communications equipment onto the island, and Albert De Bouchet took his own life in exile in Spain after serving prison time for writing journalistic articles in Cuba.

Cuban prosecutors might have signed a code of ethics, but above all they must know that ethics doesn’t make one moral, in the sense that it is not by knowing a lot about ethics and possessing intellectual training in that respect is one is a person with better civic training.

They must know: a jurist, however academic, can be an individual of bad moral character. In fact, he is if he puts forward as the accused a private citizen of proven integrity, and yet asks that he be condemned because of what the codes say, that is what his masters say, regardless of the unwritten laws of morality.

It is well-known that without morals, no justice can possibly exist, and in Cuba, whoever does not know that morality is questionable.

Translated by: JT

[published in Diario de Cuba on June 20]

Published in Cuban Law Association site: July 9 2012

Carlos Saladrigas and the Two Cubas / Iván García

Right now there are two Cubas. The visible, of official gridlock, popular disenchantment, and an unknown future. And that in which what happens in the few spaces in which the regime allows bare-chested debate, and where those who think differently aren’t called “mercenaries”, nor are they accused of being agents of the United States.

It looks like gibberish. While a Cuban who yells “democracy and freedom” in the public way is crushed with billy clubs and karate chops dispensed by intelligence experts in street fights, slowly and behind closed doors, liberal thought gains ground, respectful and tolerant.

One of these pockets of democratic debate is located in the old San Carlos seminary, in the old section of Havana. There, on March 30th, the magazine “Lay Space”, a publication of the Catholic Church, organized a conference there with the Cuban-American entrepreneur Carlos Saladrigas. Its title: Cuba and the Exodus.

Access was free. In the packed room close to 200 people gathered. You could see alternative bloggers like Yoani Sánchez or Miriam Celaya. Independent journalists a la Reinaldo Escobar and Miriam Leiva; economists marginalized by the State such as Oscar Espinosa Chepe; activists for racial integration such as Juan Antonio Madrazo and Leonardo Calvo, and a new generation of dissidents, like Eliécer Ávila or Antonio Rodiles.

Also in the discussion were distinguished neocommunists such as Félix Sautié or Pedro Campos; the moderate politician Esteban Morales; the anti-State priest José Conrado and His Worship Monsignor Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, an authentic man whom nothing deters.

The majority of the democratic dissidence on the Island approves of these grounds for civilized debate. It’s the society on which they bet.

At 4 o’clock sharp in the afternoon in the central hallway of the Félix Varela Salon, Carlos Saladrigas made his way. He wore a white long sleeve guayabera, a trimmed beard, and wire-framed glasses.

After greeting the audience, he took out his Apple tablet and began his presentation. It wasn’t extensive. In little more than 30 minutes he drew with a broad brush his impressions on Cuban exile.

Saladrigas knows what it is to be dispossessed. Son of a political family during the republican era, he inherited from his father the genes of a pure and tough negotiator. His story is the vision we have of the United States. The solitary boy who arrived in an operation frocked by the Catholic Church, known as Peter Pan, and when his family could travel, he had to wash dishes and pick tomatoes in South Florida, as Saladrigas himself tells it. Then he became a successful businessman, with an estate valued at several million dollars.

Between that Saladrigas — who cried inconsolably and prayed in the last row of wooden pews at a small parish church in Miami in the 60s, and this one — seated with his immaculate guayabera in a debate arena in the Cuban capital, there is a 180-degree turn.

At one stage, he asked for the head of Fidel Castro on a tray; it was the shot at a target for all he’d lost. He had to live transplanted in Miami, while he felt the lullaby of la Habanera Tu or La Bayamesa in the distance.

After having been a conservative who disavowed all dialog with the olive green autocrats, and opposing a crossing loaded with Catholics to the other shore, he would travel to Cuba in 1998, during the visit of John Paul II, Saladrigas moved his political positions from the ultra-right to the center, perhaps leaning a little towards the left.

The ’why’ of his transformation is something that isn’t clear. If we were to take at face value his public statements, we would have to come to the conclusion that his Catholic faith put to the missile test was one of the causes of his political transplantation. There are those who allege other reasons.

In his rear-view mirror, Carlos Saladrigas observes how the pages of the almanac turn inexorably and the Cuban economy springs leaks everywhere. Castro II is betting heartlessly on State capitalism. And a virgin island opens its legs to, in the near future, receive the dance of the millions. Perhaps he doesn’t want to arrive late for the cutting of the cake.

At least so thinks a sector of exiles and dissidence on the Island. You can’t be naive. Something is cooking in the sewers of power. In that very salon, some months ago, a firm Fidelista like Alfredo Guevara responded to questions from “sellout mercenaries” such as Oscar Espinosa Chepe, ordered to be imprisoned in the spring of 2003 by his friend Fidel.

Through the San Carlos seminary have also passed some suspicious types, like Arturo López-Levy, graduate from a US university, and professor in Denver, cousin of Luis Alberto López Callejas, son-in-law of General Raúl Castro and the best picker of hard cash in Cuba.

The dissertation of Carlos Saladrigas was nothing to write home about. Old news. What every Cuban knows, because he has at least one relative in exile. The key wasn’t the bland, politically correct chat. No. It was the message that the round trip which sent Saladrigas into dissidence and exile has for the future of Cuba: reforms are underway and he wants to be one of the agents of change.

After his presentation, Saladrigas responded to a battery of questions. He ran several analyses from which we can learn that the Cuban-American impresario is not playing a sterile game, and is well-connected and informed, more than one might imagine.

He assured us that within 5 years, Cuba’s situation will unfailingly change. And, of course, ’no’ to more socialism, contrary to what was said recently in a press conference given by the economy czar, Marino Murillo, when he said that no political reforms would take place.

With serenity and self-assurance, Saladrigas drew a dream future of an inclusive, tolerant, and rich Cuba. To achieve it, he said, the country will rely on its enviable human capital. The astute businessman winked at the regime in affirming that the best merit of the Castro brothers was having known how to administer poverty.

“There are nations that can generate riches, but do not know how to administer poverty”, he noted. With the intent of stimulating those disaffected who are waiting for the slightest opportunity to flee Cuba, he said “if you were 25 years old, you wouldn’t get out of the country before me”.

Carlos Saladrigas sees it all very clearly. Too clearly. I noticed that he did not question the hundreds of detentions of dissidents for the visit of the German Pope, or the spontaneous blow to someone who shouted “Down with communism” in the Plaza Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba. Nobody else asked, either.

And it is these open spaces for the Catholic Church that generate a certain mistrust and some, not meaning all, attend to see and hear, not to investigate. It’s the lack of custom after five decades of listening to only one discourse. And many still don’t believe it.

Photo: Juan Antonio Madrazo. Carlos Saladrigas makes his way to the dais to give his presentation, after having greeted the independent economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, standing, in a black shirt.

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Translated by: JT

April 1 2012

Could the dissidence become a valid interlocutor for the Cuban regime? / Iván García

In politics, all isn’t what it seems. Considering that there is no way out, a solution always looms. Above all and more than ever, dictators desire power. But when this isn’t possible, they negotiate the future.

Not so much for love of their country or her people. Simply to preserve their lives and their perks. Augusto Pinochet killed thousands of dissidents in Chile, but in the end, he had to open the doors to change.

The despicable racist government of Pretoria imprisoned Nelson Mandela in a tiny, narrow cell on Robbin Island for 27 years. But before the clamor of the majority of the South African people, then-President Frederik De Klerk had no option other than to negotiate a political exit with the mythical Mandela.

Those who persist in power with a knife between their teeth know the game they’re playing. The masses are unpredictable. They are capable of applauding a six-hour long speech under a fiery sun, or of unleashing their ire and furiously bludgeoning the politicians whom they consider their oppressors.

Remember Mussolini. Or the Rumanian Ceaucescu. If the revolts in North Africa and the Middle East leave us any clear lesson, it is that autocrats are no longer in fashion. Farewell to Ben Ali and Mubarak, Gaddafi and Saleh. Another tough guy, Bashar Al-Assad, has his days numbered in Syria. While the more violently they act, the worse is the fury of the governed.

Have no doubt, Fidel Castro has taken note. He is a student of modern history and every now and then he likes to remind us of it in his somber reflections.

The Castro brothers know that the economic situation in Cuba is very serious and worrying. They must have some contingency plan up their sleeve.

The system has shown itself to be lethally useless to bring food to the table and to produce quality items. We go to work to steal. Efficiency and production are at rock bottom, as are wages.

The future for many Cubans is to leave the country. Those without a future have come to be unpredictable. A time bomb. The present situation is like the sandpaper on a box of matches, at the slightest contact it can burst into flames.

The Castro brothers are maneuvering in a difficult terrain. And if the internal situation in Cuba squeezes them, it might be that they could negotiate with the dissidence. Not for all, just for a part — that which they consider convertible to their interests.

According to some veteran opposition members, it’s very probable that Cuban intelligence has designed a parallel opposition which, in some convenient moment, will serve as a wild card and political actor in a future without the Castros.

It might be paranoia. In totalitarian states, suspicion and the absurd become habit. But it isn’t insane to think that to give the dissidents a space if circumstances force their hand, could become a part of the island’s mandarin’s calculus.

Supposedly, they’re not going to hand over anything, they will have to continue dealing as they are accustomed to, using denunciations, street marches, and – above all – doing a better job with the citizenry.

If the opposition dedicates itself to work in search of its community, does proselytizing work among its neighbors, and doesn’t only offer a discourse to foreigners, it will have a part of the struggle won.

It’s important to increase the denunciations of mistreatment and lack of freedoms to the European Union, the United States, and to the international organizations that watch over human rights. But now is the time to write fewer documents, which almost no one in Cuba reads, owing to the repressive character of the regime and the low access of the populace to the internet.

It’s also time to combine all the points that unite the dissidents and to obviate the discrepancies between the different political factions. The goal of the peaceful opposition must be dialog with its counterparts, as has happened in the old Burma with Aung San Suu Kyi at its head.

To push a regime that has despised and mistreated its opponents into negotiations, there has to be a 180 degree turn away from the old tactics and strategies.

Cuba’s fate worries everyone. The destiny of our motherland will be decided in the next ten years. Or less. For that matter, the opposition could turn into a valid player.

If it is proposed, it will come about. The dissidence has points in its favor. A leaky economy, an inefficient government, and the discontent of a majority of Cubans over the state of things.

In the short term, if the chore is done well, the regime will sit down to negotiate with the opposition. Believe me, the Castro brothers don’t have many cards to play, although they’d like to make it appear otherwise. And dialog is the best option for them — perhaps the only one.

Photo: Taken from the blog Uncommon Sense. From left to right, the ex-political prisoners of the Group of 75: Oscar Elías Biscet, Ángel Moya Acosta, Guido Sigler Amaya, Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, Diosdado González Marrero, Eduardo Díaz Fleitas, Félix Navarro Rodríguez, Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique, Librado Linares García (in dark glasses), Pedro Argelles Morán and Iván Hernández Carrillo. José Daniel Ferrer García could not be present. The meeting was held on 4 June 2011, in the Matanzas village of El Roque.

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Translated by: JT

February 24 2012

Cuban Justice Forsakes the Marginalized / Laritza Diversent

For 15 days I participated as a spectator in two trials held in the Havana Court, both pursued for the crime of murder. The first, on November 28th, I was counsel for the family of the accused, six poor people from Mantilla — a bad neighborhood of Arroyo Naranjo where I was born, grew up and live today.

They were judged for the homicide of a jeweler. The principal pieces of evidence? Traces of odor found in the ropes with which they tied the victims. Although there were only two attackers, the prosecution asked for 18 to 30 years of deprivation of liberty for all.

The goldsmith died after their aggressors fled with jewels and money. His wife gave him two pills, which he swallowed, despite a fracture in the toroid cartilage (Adam’s apple). The forensic examiner didn’t attend the trial, but in his report he certified that the victim had been violently strangled.

Those ‘insignificant’ details weren’t called to the attention of the bench. On the contrary, the bench showed special interest in the criminal histories of the accused. None had killed before, but with this criminal history, surely they were likely to have done it, which is equivalent to calling them guilty.

The other was heard on December 13th. On that occasion, I was counsel for the family of the victim – also from Mantilla. Amado Interian, an ex-police officer, shot Angel Isquierdo Medina, a 14-year-old boy, a crime that shocked the community. Four witnesses were present when the trigger was pulled. Even so, the prosecution asked for a 17 year prison sentence for the victim.

“This was no murder, it was manslaughter”, said his defense attorney. An easy thing to prove with the legal death certificate. The projectile entered through the left buttock, crossed the kidney, the aortic artery, the left lung, and exited through the shoulder; but the cause of death was acute anemia.

Again the bench placed special interest in the history of the accused. 30 years of service performed by an ex-officer on the police force diminished the fact that he fired at three black adolescents, on top of a honeyberry tree.

Angel’s family members asked me if they could appeal. The decision depended on the prosecution, who supposedly represented the victim. They are right and it’s very sad; cows have more protection from the State than does a person.

“What more can we do?”, the mothers of those six imprisoned men and the family of the adolescent asked me. Have faith and patience. We keep cheering for the lady with the blindfolded eyes, with the scales in one hand and a sword in the other.

I will probably be a hypocrite, I told myself, “to ask those mothers to have faith when I lost it some time ago”. It was then that I felt ashamed of being an attorney. I understood that sometimes I cry from powerlessness and others I cannot sleep.

It’s difficult for me to say that the luck of leaving the courtroom acquitted or convicted depends on whether you live in a bad neighborhood, if you’re black and poor, if you have powerful friends or convertible pesos to pay a lawyer, but not a defender, a learned one who might manage the benevolence of the prosecutor and the bench.

Those two trials left me with a bad taste and the certitude that everyone in this country runs risks. You don’t have to be a dissident. Whatever is exposed to judicial proceedings where the most minimal guarantees of due process are not respected.

Translated by: JT

January 20 2012

Executioner / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

He was a boy who was accustomed to ask permission for everything; that they should take him by the hand and sometimes lead him through dangerous streets, and as a matter of education, they’d chew him out and impose punishment on him if he misbehaved. When he was an adolescent, he understood that you have to listen to wise advice from experienced people; that you couldn’t go everywhere because danger lurks and you have to behave well to escape punishment. Now he is a man and expresses without permission that he wants no advice nor company to go wherever he’d like. He discovered that the hand that guided him has been and is his executioner, and that this is the larger punishment.

Translated by: JT

January 20 2012