This is without a doubt the most enjoyable stage of my long journey and not because other places haven’t been filled with beautiful impressions and lots of hugs, but because here I have met up with several colleagues from the Island. Some of the people who, in our country have grabbed hold of new technologies to narrate and to try to change our reality, today are gathered here. The young attorney Laritza Diversent, the director of Estado de SATS, Antonio Rodiles, the keen blogger Miriam Celaya, the information engineer Eliecer Avila, and joining us for one day as well, the independent reporter Roberto Guerra. Here in Stockholm it has felt rather like Cuba, though certainly not because of the weather.

The Internet Forum has allowed us to feel like citizens of the world, to share experiences with those who live in different situations but, in essence, surprisingly similar ones. It’s enough to chat with another attendee for a little while, or to listen to a talk, to realize that in every word spoken here is the eternal human quest for knowledge, information… freedom. Expressed on this occasion through circuits, screens and kilobytes. This meeting has left us with the sensation that we are universal and that technologies have made us into people capable of transcending our geography and our time.

23 May 2013

Mario Silva and Fidel Castro

This past May 20 the National Assembly deputy Ismael Garcia of Venezuela in Caracas made public a recording of a telephone conversation between a famous member of the Chavez Nomenklatura, Mario Silva, and Cuban Lieutenant Colonel Aramis Palacio from Castro’s State “Insecurity.”

In the recording Mario Silva details for the Cuban Colonel the maneuvers by which Diosdado Cabello, the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela and one of the strongmen of Chavezism, has fraudulently been enriched to the detriment of the Venezuelan state.

Also exposed in the conversation are the intense conflicts that exist in the Chavista leadership in sectors involving the armed forces of Venezuela. Mario Silva exposes all these things in detail for the purpose of informing the Castro regime higher ups in Havana, who we know have decisive power in Venezuela.

Mario Silva and Hugo Chavez

In Venezuela the scandal has been terrible. The corruption and Castro regime interference everyone imagined or suspected was confirmed by a personality who had the full confidence of the late Hugo Chavez.

For nine years Mario Silva has been the host of The Razor, Chavez’s favorite TV show, who “used to call him to give him some news,” or to help up to Silva in his work as destroyer of the credibility of outsiders. To each attack or complaint of the opposition, Chavez responded with a “Mario, continue investigating.”

That space, which began by criticizing private media coverage, became the arena where they lynched without mercy: victims included Miguel Henrique Otero, editor-president of the newspaper El Nacional, whom Silva called “bastard”; the former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles whom he called a “murderer” for the deaths that occurred after the announcement of close election results of April 14.

Mario Silva and Hugo Chavez

The deputy of the Venezuela National Assembly, Ismael García, made the recording public and requested an official investigation. So far this investigation has been rejected by all levels of government. A reaction that confirms they have much fear once the recording is authenticated forcing them to air the claims of Mario Silva.

The fact that after nine years Silva has just announced he will stop producing his famous TV show is sufficient proof of the veracity of his conversation with the Cuban henchman. This is the first chapter of the story. It was announced that new secrets will be made public.

Chavezism and Castroism have suffered another serious failure that will have grave consequences and further weaken the covenant of thieves that has allowed the looting of Venezuelan wealth, among other things, to maintain the bankrupt dictatorship in Cuba.

23 May 2013

El Sexto paints his graffiti on the streets of Havana, on walls, ruins, buses, traffic signs, etc., demanding freedom and recently remembering Laura Pollan, the late leader of the Ladies in White.

His public art is often diluted by the authorities, usually with pink paint. In one of his images El Sexto says that art is more powerful than the weapons of his oppressors. In December 2011, after his arrest, the political police tried to discredit him by saying that in reality he wasn’t a counterrevolutionary, nor an artist — he was nothing, just a simple drug addict.

El Sexto is a kind of Robin Hood, an anonymous face in Cuba that survives assuming a social commitment and, therefore, El Sexto is everywhere coming from everywhere, responding to the alienating media campaign which for over a decade has produce slogans for the release of five spies convicted in the United States.

Maldonado defines himself through an interview granted to on-line page, The Stark Life. Although the Cuban Internet is Paleolithic, the world follow us and we follow the world, he concludes.

The Editorial Board, Cuban Blogger Magazine

On the billboard: “Free our [Five] Heroes. Speech: “The citizen who calls himself ‘The Sixth’ has been detained for mistreating the public art. And now.” Artist: Garrincha

New graffiti is present on Havana’s walls. In large cursive letters thier author writes the word “Sexto” — Sixth — at times finishing off the the writing with a star, other times adding to the text the image of a face. It reminds me of the pioneer of Cuban graffiti, Chori, who left barely a wall in Havana without his signature made with white chalk back in the ‘60s, and, they tell me, from before that.

Is it a proper name, or perhaps the name of a hip hop group that in my profound musical ignorance I can’t call to mind? A retiree whom I greet now and then in the line for newspapers, asked me if this poster could be some kind of advertising for the Sixth Communist Party Congress, in the style of a campaign invented by Robertico Robaina in the years when he was first secretary of the Young Communist Union (UJC). Do you remember? 31 and Ever Onward and that Ever whatever, commander, ever whatever. But it doesn’t seem that Julio Martinez, the most insipid youth leader in the history of Cuba, is the one that has had the initiative.

Who knows? Maybe it is the sixth child of a marriage, or someone demobilized from military service who celebrates his release remembering the number he had in his unit or a sex maniac with poor spelling, and I can’t even rule out the hypothesis of my retired friend that it is a militant communist who, in this way, is reminding his party leaders that they have already celebrated the end of the congress.

Part of the Dossier of El Sexto, which will appear here piece by piece.

El Sexto Awakes

Graffiti, a term that comes from the Italian “graffio” meaning “scratch,” has existed since the dawn of humanity. We see it in the cave paintings of Lascaux, in France. Our ancestors marked the walls with bones and stones and left us their testimony. Also, in ancient Greece and the ruins of Pompey texts have appeared that revealed election slogans, drawings and the various obscenities of their inhabitants.

In Havana, in the early nineties, with the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the economic crisis that the government called “the Special Period,” we found at various points in the city a symbol of the Abakuá fraternity. It consisted of a circle within which are two rods superimposed on a cross with arrows at both ends, which means “the roads are closed.”

At different times, other symbols and texts have gained ground in the urban environment and, systematically, government agencies have been alerted to erase, detect, apprehend, prosecute and imprison the graffiti artists. But as the system’s structural crisis became endemic, we became used to — both the repressors and repressed — the appearance, more or less ephemeral, of suggestive messages encoded in different parts of the city.

A few years ago, in Plaza along 23rd Street, an enigmatic text appeared. It was red, consisting of a vertical line with an arrow at the upper end that made an inverted letter V, and another, normal, much smaller, on the lower end. To emphasize, the reverse S was upside down. Virtually overnight the graffiti appeared on facades, walls, traffic signals, park benches, and whatever flat surface was available.

There was no need to be an expert in esotericism, the sign told us we had the change the situation of our society. Not only by the reverses word. The weight of the large V on the little one, on the lower part, indicated the instability of the system.

Recently, I met a young active graffiti artist who signs his work with “El Sexto” — the Sixth — and is designated National Graffiti Artist Vanguard. From a long time back I have seen his mark all over the city, that authenticates his self-identification. Now, in the most unexpected places, his texts and the characteristic signature line appear.

Distinguishing himself from others, who have also dabbled in the art of graffiti, he also prints flyers. And so he shatters the ancient iconography of the system of government. Among them are: “Give Back My 5 Euros,” which satirizes the alienating campaign for the 5 spies of the Wasp Network imprisoned in the United States; “With Reason Held High” in opposition to the slogan of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs); and “The Sixth Truth” where his image and the word Truth appear which discredits and shows the phobia occasioned by the truth. In his way, The Sixth transmits an important message: We are beginning to exercise our rights.

Please! Keep El Sexto in your sight. We will not allow the totalitarian regime to devour this young man, as they did to others when there were no modern information and communication technologies.

Part of the Dossier of El Sexto, which will appear here piece by piece.

October 2011

Danilo Maldonado – El Sexto. Photo: Claudio Fuentes

HAVANA. – Raul Castro speaks in the Communist Party conclave. “Comrades, we can see a better Cuba coming on the horizon.” A guajiro (peasant) is listening to him on TV, and as he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “horizon” he looks it up in the dictionary: visual boundary of the earth’s surface that never arrives. “Ah, chico,” the guajiro boasts, “Now I understand what the president wanted to say!”

Cuban jokes are starkly ironic about themselves. But thanks to these little social x-rays, life goes better. Even now, with the Castro brothers’ Revolution proposing a battery of economic changes to try to save Cuba from bankruptcy. LNR [La Nacion magazine] traveled to the new Cuban labyrinth alongside ten personalities who form a part of this brand new society trying to rise from the economic ashes. They are the faces of change.

Daniel Lozano for La Nacion

Part of the Dossier of El Sexto, which will appear here piece by piece.

22 May 2013

A running tap, a manhole with the cover in the middle of the street, a medical clinic bordered by sewage, make up a picture of the Cuba that does not come out in the official press nor on the agenda of the tour operators who work on Cuba in the area of international tourism.

In Cerro or Centro Habana, on many occasions, the waters running down the avenue are often confused with the sewer water that escapes through the pipes ruined by time.

22 May 2013

It is sad that Mr. José Graziano da Silva, director general of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO, for its acronym in English), asserts that the credit has been possible thanks to the priority given by the Cuban government to guaranteeing its people’s right to food and the policies implemented to achieve this objective.

Nonsense, but explainable. It’s hard to see beyond the growth with its perfection that aims to show a government that distorts all its data and knows that for the vast majority of international organizations, the world is reduced to numbers. We are numbers and calculations; very dangerous arithmetic that some Cuban officials handle with excellence. My country is a place of impunity reigned over by an impeccable combination of politics and prostitution.

I don’t want to go overboard citing old familiar tactics used by the Cuban government to lobby and win votes in the different international level forums. It makes no difference if it’s the CDR, FMC, UNICEF, FAO, HRC, EU, UNDP, OEI, CARICOM … Every acronym is handled the same, national or international. When there are funds, nothing will be impossible because in island politics you just have to wait and what is won is lost and what is lost is won.

In the mid ’90s, a young neonatologist who worked in the Ramón González Coro OB-GYN Hospital in Havana Vedado, formerly the Sacred Heart clinic, was among the many selected to be part of a commission that would study what then was a TOP SECRET investigation.

Hiding a smile, and trying not to show her immense gratitude for such reliability, the talented doctor went to work. And counting on the full support of the Council of State itself, she thought that telling the truth would be the seed of what with great passion she called “My Revolution.”

The hurried exploration found that the Cuban infant born underweight, which later resulted in a considerable and irreversible decrease in size of the Cuban child, which even scientifically established standards considered “alarming.”

For this study, which lasted some time, this multidisciplinary team compiled a spreadsheet which took into account variables such as maternal age, health status assessment to detect pregnancy, treatment with nutritional supplements, weight gain in pregnancy , history of curettage, etc.. All these data were extracted from the records of pregnant women in doctors’ offices, and in the various departments of statistics for each local polyclinic.

The final report revealed that the factors associated with the preterm birth of many Cuban infants weighing under 2,500 grams, are inadequate nutrition of the future mother (this represented the highest percentage of cases studied), anemia during pregnancy and an inadequate time between births.

Since then, and as appropriate, the results were altered and the real results were shelved under lock and key. And my friend, who left medicine and has dedicated herself to painting, says that facial hair is not the only thing that connects Cuban officials with the Taliban.

21 May 2013

http://www.hsn.com/

My appreciated usual accomplices and visitors:

On May 15th my husband’s laptop just died. It blinked when I was working on it and the monitor turned itself off forever. It was the family computer, a practical tool that, like housing and multiple personal articles in Cuba have to shared with sons, their girlfriends and friends. It was six years old and we’d had it repaired on several occasions, but this time it decided to rest from the overwork and heat we submitted it to for years.

Just when we are engaged in the promotion of the “360 Cuba” Project, we published here, the sudden loss of this instrument central to the methodological and sustainable deployment of the program and the rhythm of publication of opinions in the blog.

The lack of support in resources — I’m one of the bloggers who doesn’t have a PC — makes me think that perhaps there has been a sustained move by the Cuban political police to obstruct our development — my husband is an opposition leader and also has a blog — stopping our development or better still, killing us through the media.

Of course that will reduce my writing output, but would not give up my right to continue broadcasting my opinions, because I consider it a duty of every citizen with their time, history and homeland, charting the reality that surrounds him with words and complaints, especially when it involves, as in the case of Cuba, a dictatorship.

This inconvenience has paralyzed us for now, but circumstances sometimes impose challenges on us which, while closing a door open windows and lead us to creativity. I looked for possible alternatives because I refuse to passively accept the situation which gives another victory to the Cuban dictatorship, and although small, a defeat to those of us who push for and defend democracy.

21 May 2013

Photo: L Felipe Rojas

This Sunday, April 21, the First Book Fair in Spanish was held in West Palm Beach, an event that brought together thirty writers of different nationalities such as Mexican, Cuban, Spain and Argentina, with the purpose of promoting the literature in the language of Cervantes.

22 April 2013

… so we can continue to do what we’re doing, and do a lot more.  For five years this has been an all volunteer project, with all expenses coming from the founders’ pockets.  Recently Give2Cuba took over the expense of hosting our website.  And now you can make tax-deductible donations through Roots of Hope to keep this project up and running. Your donations will allow us to greatly improve what we do and to extend the reach and impact of the words of the bloggers, independent journalists and activists working for freedom and democracy in Cuba.  Any contribution is welcome.  Please click here or on the image above. Thank you.

Ángel Santiesteban pointed to his “oddly” slanted handwriting. The sign says: In this house we don’t vote. We toss it out.

Literature and Justice

The award-winning writer Angel Santiesteban is imprisoned unjustly for his confrontational attitude to the Castro regime.

On Wednesday, February 27, at the headquarters of the Estado de Sats project there was a farewell to Angel Santiesteban Prats, the award-winning writer. The next morning, he will present himself to serve the prison sentence imposed on him.

That same day, on asking my opinion as a lawyer, I began to know the details of his case. When I started to read the documentation, the conviction that I was in the presence of a crude judicial hoax took hold of me.

The center of Santiesteban’s misfortunes is his ex-wife Kenia Rodriguez Guzman. She wants to emigrate, but as a loving mother she wants to do so together with Eduardo, the son of her union with Angel. For this she needed his authorization; but he does not want to leave Cuba nor be separated from his offspring, so he refused permission and expressed his willingness to assume custody of and care for the boy when she left.

It was then that the former wife, who on top of everything suffers from psychiatric disorders, offered to make accusations that involved him in criminal proceedings. On a first occasion, the complaint for an offense of threats failed, as the prominent writer was acquitted.

In July 2009, Kenya accused her former husband of trespassing into her home and beating her in the face. With the passage of time, she “enriched” her statement, saying he had stolen her family jewels and, almost a month later, that he had raped her and tried to murder her by suffocating her with a pillow. There was also talk about an alleged attempt to burn down Kenia’s house.

In short, the authorities discarded the additional complaints of the woman as unfounded. Naturally, the question arises: If we reach the conclusion that she lied about the alleged theft, murder and rape, then why not admit the probable falsity of the other complaints that she made!

This would follow not only from the contradictory testimony of the complainant, but also other elements of the case. Eduardo‘s teacher testified to a conversation with him: At first, the child accused his father to her, but then began to cry and on the teacher asking why he was crying, the boy told her that his mother told him to lie against Angel.

Alexis Quintana deserves special mention. This individual, in his alleged status as the only eyewitness, was the star of the havoc that Santiesteban, according to what Quintana said, tried to wreak in Kenia’s home. However, in a video presented to the Court, Quintana acknowledged that he had seen nothing, and that his statement was lies, made at the insistence of the woman, and that he received gifts in payment for it.

These two statements are very important, not for their relationship with the facts of the case (with which they have no direct link), but for what they bring to the lack of credibility of the complainant. If she does not hesitate to influence others — including her own son!– to formulate false statements against the object of her hatred, why wouldn’t she herself lie!

Three witnesses testified to having been with the defendant in another place at the time of the alleged incidents. The Court, in rejecting these witnesses, invokes the statement of the minor child Eduardo. However, he said later he spent the afternoon only in his father’s house, so that his statement did not in any way contradict the other three witnesses, who were ignored in a Olympian manner.

Given the absence of incriminating evidence, the courtroom, to back up the version of the complainant, called a handwriting expert. Like the charlatans that follow Lombroso to “demonstrate the responsibility” of an accused person, studying the shape of his ears or the prominence of his chin, so the supposed expert dared to swear before the Court that Santiesteban was guilty… based on his handwriting!

After forcing Angel to copy by hand an entire page of the garbage published by the official newspaper Granma, a lieutenant colonel in the Interior Ministry rose to assert nothing more and nothing less than… The size, form and slant of his handwriting constituted irrefutable proof the he was guilty of the charges.

In short, the Court, based on the statements of an enemy of the accused (who is also a mental patient), and the “handwriting expert,” declared Santiesteban guilt of the crimes of housebreaking and serious injury.

Article 287.1 of the Penal Code, which establishes penalties of three months to one year, or a simple fine, was used to describe the first of two violations; however for this crime the court set the illegal sentence of two years in prison, double the maximum allowed! For the serious injuries, which call for a sentence of between two and five years, the court imposed the upper limit. Suspicious supreme severity for an intellectual lacking a criminal record!

With respect to those bodily injuries, their seriousness was established based on the supposed perforation of an eardrum, causing hearing loss. But in the medical certificate not a single word is said about it. Thus, even if one considers some aggression on Angel’s part, there was reasonable doubt that this event cause the injury suffered by Kenya, who was even hit by a vehicle.

Another curious fact: Although this was supposedly a common — not a political — case, the appeal was heard by the Court for Crimes against State Security. The delay of years undergone in the conduct of this case and the whole set of circumstances already mentioned, lead us to assume that Angel Santiesteban is being pursued for the rebellious stance he took against the regime.

National and international public opinion must interest itself in this case.

Rene Gomez Manzano
Attorney and Freelance Journalist
Havana, March 4, 2013

21 May 2013

The poor hygiene threatens the health of the patient

The Julio Trigo and The Dependent Hospitals don’t offer full service. Doctors choose to give basic treatment to avoid complications due to lack of hygiene and the poor condition of patient rooms.

An unnamed doctor “Julio Trigo” says that he has been forced to send patients for home treatment. “I should not be so, but the hospital is horrifying conditions, cockroaches walking through walls, this is a disaster!” Says the doctor.

Julio Trigo Hospital is the main one for the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo and The Dependent Hospital is one of the main hospitals for the municipality of Cerro. They have lost the confidence of the residents of the two areas, according to  the comments of delegates (one delegate from Cerro and one from Arroyo Naranjo) from each municipality, who did not want to be identified.

An unnamed doctor at “Julio Trigo” says that he has been forced to send patients home for treatment. “I should not be so, but the hospital conditions are horrifying, cockroaches walking along walls, this is a disaster!” Says the doctor.

Marielena Garcia, 45, accompanying a patient explains she was waiting for her mom to get better to take her from the hospital to finish the treatment at home. “I was sitting on the side of the bed and a cockroach dropped on my face. The beds are dirty, you even get the smell of urine, you have to bring several sheets to avoid complications of infection,” says Garcia.

An unnamed doctor at The Dependent Hospital says that all the patients who come to the hospital complain about dirt. “It’s a risk to send the patient home, but better than the complications with bacteria,” said the doctor.

Alfredo Gonzalez, 32, says that in the middle of 2012 he went to The Dependent Hospital with a deep machete wound and almost lost his leg to an infection acquired from instruments that weren’t disinfected.

Maria Rodriguez, 48, says she’s complained about the management, but never had the chance to see the hospital director in person.

The country has refurbished hospitals in the capital, but after a year many are back to the previous bad condition. The chairs, the beds and the drinking fountains reflect the care of the people and the workers.

20 May 2013