The Sad Centenary of Virgilio Pinera – Part I / Angel Santiesteban

Virgilio Piñera and Fidel Castro

It has always surprised me how Cuban intellectuals, particularly the generation that lived through the seventies, which later came to be called “the five gray years,” have this bad public memory, and in general, among people they trust, they express the pain they still feel for the abuses committed against them by the functionaries faithful to Fidel Castro and his ideological and military leadership.

Many decades went by without these demons that marked them for life being exorcised, some called traitors for writing “counterrevolutionary” literature, others classified as homosexuals for being weak, along with “ideological licentiousness,” being religious, having long hair, wearing tight pants or listening to the Beatles, Nelson Ned, Cheo Feliciano, Julio Iglesias, Roberto Carlos. There was so much censorship and insanity that Kafka’s narrative began to be realistic.

They created the Military Units to Aid Production (known as UMAP*), concentration camps in the style of Stalin’s Russia. The voices of the dead from this time, who didn’t survive the torture, still call out for justice, and their souls are still waiting, impatient, for the day their names are cleared and returned spotless to their families, and their executioners pay for the injustice committed, as well as those who planned the punishment.

Many of those intellectuals who are still silent, were witnesses of those abuses, others they learned of from friends and acquaintances, all in the end were silent accomplices to evil and crime. A generation that mostly preferred to pretend they had forgotten and to continue to repeat ad nauseam compulsory slogans such as “I’m a revolutionary,” “I support the Revolution,” “I’m loyal to Fidel,’’ and to maintain that imagefearing they would suffer again what they already endured.

The executioners’ return

When the famous “War of the Emails” or I should say, “little controlled war” — when those terrible characters, visible puppets of the Cuban socialist fascism — coincidentally began to reappear in the public media, the officials of that time said it wasn’t on purpose. But in this country for more than half a century nothing happens by chance, where everything is controlled by Fidel Castro, like the great plantation he’s turned Cuban into: Birania, in honor of the name of his father’s ranch and the place of his birth, which, by the way, as part of his personality cult was turned into a museum many years ago. And, remembering his father who used to give exhaustive orders, where nobody dared to make a decision, as happens now with his brother Raul Castro who doesn’t take a single step without having consulted with the “Maximum Leader.”

The truth is that a young writer raised the alarm by email and, for the first time, the spirit of rejection was contagious. The State, seeing that the intellectual situation was running high, called to the still very disciplined elite of that generation for a meeting at the Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC). They promised, there, that these ousted officials would not return to the cultural arena, that everything that had happened was a “coincidence” and outrage of the official media censorship.

For the intellectuals who had been called together, it was enough that they’d been taken into account and they guaranteed that their executioners would not be “reactivated.” With pretty words, Fidel Castro and the Party Central Committee, that is the Party’s Department of Ideology, had no other choice than to make an official declaration, like a sea wall holding back the tsunami, that would be published in the official organ, the Granma newspaper.

And what a surprise it would be for those intellectuals that the final version published was very different from the one written at UNEAC! Some details, words, commas were erased or changed. But that generation that well learned very well to shut up, to whisper in the corridors, also let that event pass unnoticed.

Another unnoticed detail is that at that famous UNEAC meeting, the President of the Cuban Televisions Studios was summoned — a “retired” army officer who, dressed in plain clothes continued under military orders as a clerk at the whims of the Regime — and he didn’t show up because he knew that they would make him accept the blame for those mysterious appearances of the wicked on “his” television. Instead he sent another minor official who took notes of what happened, in which intellectuals demanded a retraction, an official apology from the President of the TV that would be published in the national media.

Promises gone with the wind

Weeks later, when they intellectuals present at the meeting began to inquire into public repentance, they were told it was a promise of the above mentioned President of Television and it would be given at the right moment; of course it never came. And again these intellectuals silenced their voices faced with that commitment. Of course they didn’t understand, or didn’t wish to, that they had been manipulated in the very rights of their spaces, of their work, and of their history full of ears; they were the seawall.

Meanwhile, the emails continued, and some started narrating passages of those events. The note in the newspaper wasn’t enough, they had to be other concessions, they let the blood run from their old wounds. And behind closed doors, by personal invitation to the headquarters of the Casa de las Americas, they agreed that they would expiate their sufferings. Later, far from social media, they went to the Superior Art Institute (ISA), and there like little girls they shed their long-stifled tears.

I was always waiting for one of the injured to point out the real culprit, whom we all knew was Fidel Castro, the intellectual author of all our national sufferings. But, unanimously, they all preferred to remain silent. Nobody mentioned the name of the Beast of Biran, for them was enough being allowed to expel, like volcanoes, all they had suffered, so that, satisfied, they went back to silencing their secrets and stopped being news.

Mentioning the real culprit of the terror

In an email exchange with the writer Amir Valle, I told him the artists had spoken their minds with those functionaries who were no more than puppets, but that nobody mentioned the name of the real cause of the Evil: Fidel Castro.

I was surprised to see a file with all the collected emails, from one side and the other, and that mine wasn’t taken into account. Then several writers who were present in the meeting at UNEAC told me that wouldn’t be very “intelligent” to mention the comandante, that they must act sensibly. In other words: they could play with the chain, but never with the monkey.**

That was enough to confirm what I already knew for sure: the fear of that generation was so deeply seated, that the roots barely reached the surface. Thus, the names of those victims of UMAP, the parametrados***, the excluded, the executed (no one remembers, any more, the atrocious shooting of the writer Nelson Rodriguez Leyva, author of the marvelous book “El Regalo” (The Gift), published in 1964 with the Virgilio Piñera’s collaboration), the censored, the anguished, the tortured, like Piñera himself, Lezama Lima, Rodríguez Feo, Reinaldo Arenas, Heberto Padilla, among others who should be still expecting their compatriots, friends and colleagues to settle the debt and point out the real culprit of their personal disgraces and the national cultural ones.

The culprit of all that literary and artistic work that the established Regime of Terror had cut short by their authors’ fear, and the need to survive at any cost, a military and communist dictatorship that launched its absolute Power against any vestige of free creation.

Translator’s notes:
*UMAP — Military Units in Aid of Production, a euphemism for concentration camps for homosexuals, religious, and others considered in need to “re-education” or simply confinement.

*“You can play with the chain, but not with the monkey,” is a common Cuban expression.

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

Translating Cuba is in the process of translating the emails exchanged in “The little email war,” also called “The Intellectual Debate,” and they can be found here and here.

Translated by @Hachhe

September 5 2012

Response to Fernando Ravsberg / Rosa Maria Paya Acevedo

Rosa Maria from her Facebook page

Fernando Ravsberg, correspondent for the BBC in Cuba, has published an extension of the misrepresentations, manipulations and deceits with which the Cuban official media have sought to confuse the Cuban people and the rest of the world for over half a century. He has published it in his own blog, perhaps because the daily four pages that the newspaper Granma— the Communist Party’s organ — publishes were already full.

This time, to the falsehoods copied from the Round Table (the government’s political talk show) and to the absurd accident theory that the government provides to explain the deaths of my father, Oswaldo Paya, and of Harold Cepero, Fernando adds some entanglements of his own invention. He claims that Angel Carromero, the young Spaniard who was driving the car, and Aron Modig, the young Swede also in the car, traveled to the island to proselytize and to distribute money.

Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero. Source: cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com

My friend, Harold Cepero recently wrote that “those who have the courage and freedom to choose a path of peaceful political work know they are exposed to nothing short of absolute solitude, labor exclusion, persecution, imprisonment or death.” His life and death are sincere and radical confirmation of his thought.

Ravsberg chooses not to mention that most Cuban dissidents lose their jobs, that they and their families are treated as social pariahs and are condemned to misery, especially outside Havana, where the foreign press is not interested to go. Instead, Fernando highlights the hypocritical moral debate regarding whether or not the opposition should be provided material support, as if elsewhere and in other times, during the struggles in oppressed societies, with many examples in Cuba’s history, regime opponents had not been positively supported by sympathizers and exiled communities.

Fernando Ravsberg. From PenultimosDias.com

I wonder how many countries of the world Ravsberg knows where dissidents cannot travel freely in their own country because their names are in all police stations and airports. In what other dark corners of the planet do political police stop opposition members from meeting through blackmail, threats, beatings, arrests or “accidents.” This is the reason why young supporters who came to meet my father sometimes facilitated transport for him. This fact is far from the version that this reporter from the BBC and the Cuban government are determined to sustain.

Fernando lies intentionally because he knew my father very well and is aware that no one could give him orders on how to organize the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), a movement with 24 years of history with young members who have a clear vision and path. My father enjoyed freedoms that Fernando probably has never experienced despite coming from a democratic country: the freedom to live responsibly, to be consistent with one’s principles, thoughts and feelings, to be illuminated by his faith, these freedoms know no owners.

Mr. Ravsberg employs the most cynical colonialist tone to discuss the concerns of my people, simplifying us, saying that us, “the cubanitos”, will have enough if food appears in the markets and buses at the bus stops. Subtly he adds himself to an orgy of lies which aims to entertain the public, with a façade of poorly implemented economic reforms, which cover the fraudulent change my father often denounced.
Ravsberg, you enjoy the privileges that come with living in Cuba as a foreigner, you live above the disadvantages of all Cubans.

Your children can get in and out of the island, as they live their lives in Spain, but my brother has not been able to go meet his uncles in Madrid. I wonder if you have had to wait 5 years to visit your son, that’s the punishment doctors receive when they decide to live Cuba. You’re so used to ignoring these disadvantages that you dare to suggest Cubans do not care about human rights. How dare you despise people in such a racist way, the people you have lived off for so many years?

Thank God that today there are many initiatives in the cultural, political and social fields that manifest the dissatisfaction of the Cuban people and promote peaceful change. I would like to remind you that the Varela Project is supported by over 25,000 signatories, and it continues to exist because it intends to make changes in the law and not in the constitution, its purpose is to realize basic rights we still must conquer.

Thousands are signing the Heredia Project, which aims to give the people the right to leave and enter Cuba freely, to reside in any part of the country. It demands a stop to the humiliating internal deportations Cubans suffer and seeks to guarantee equal opportunities without exclusions due to ideology and to provide internet access to all at a price that the people can pay. These are independent and spontaneous initiatives that reflect the aspirations of many citizens.

Cubans, inside and outside the island, need our basic rights to design and build the Cuba we want. Our ingenuity, hard work and skills, which have been demonstrated even in times of crisis, are proof that we will be prosperous despite the destruction 50 years of communism will leave behind.

I assure you, Mr. Ravsberg, the food and the buses will come when we Cubans have our right to work for the right price and have real economic, social and political opportunities that allow us to participate in the process of building our own future. This is why we are fighting for our rights; this is the freedom we are demanding. We are getting closer to obtaining it because even those who persecute us, those whom you serve, are also our brothers, they are also Cubans and will benefit from democracy.

You have been in my house many times and now pretend not to remember how to spell my father’s name, a technique you have learned from the Roundtable. You have used my father’s name to supplant the truth, and have offended his memory, my family, the entire opposition and all Cubans. That is too low even for a correspondent for the Roundtable.

Translated by Cleonte

5 September 2012

A Bonsai-sized Opening / Fernando Damaso

I am not going to write about chess, that game-science that many practice, but about another opening move—the economy—that is a part of the retooling of the Cuban economic “model.” This long-delayed opening-up, drawn out in its study, discussion, approval and application, is burdened by absurd, restrictive measures that limit its very growth, much like a bonsai, which is allowed to reach only a certain size.

As has already been discussed on numerous occasions, it is necessary that the country stop penalizing prosperity and quit promoting poverty. This erroneous path, whose only objective seems to be requiring the majority of citizens to live in destitution, does not allow them to develop their initiative or the realization of their life goals. Instead, it has only led to disaster for the people as well as for the nation.

The agencies created by the state (controllers, inspectors, etc.) are the scourge of the citizen. The rules and regulations (high taxes, excessive fines, etc.)they approve and apply (at quite a fast pace) contradict the public rhetoric and actually hinder the initiative necessary for an efficient economy. In such an unhealthy and less than propitious environment one would have to be a masochist to stay, fight and succeed.

Nevertheless, some obstinate entrepreneurs, against all odds,manage to make a go of it, providing alternative sources of employment and offering better services than those offered by the state, thereby demonstrating the superiority of private enterprise over state enterprise. Perhaps this is why the state has to legislate against them. Since it cannot win in an open competition, it must make use of the prerogatives of power to do so.

This attitude shows once again that they are really just “travelling companions,” thrown together by undesirable circumstances. The deeply dogmatic “model” will accept only those changes that are skin-deep and that do not affect its totalitarian roots. As a result we talk only about this issue without saying a word about the political and social changesessential andnecessary for restructuring society and saving the nation.

If this bonsai-sized opening is to bear fruit, it must provide at least a minimum amount of oxygen to the dying economic model.

September 5 2012

The birthmark of the rabbit shows his life in the snow… JLL* / Lilianne Ruiz

I am reading The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. The first time the book showed up (the expression seems fantastical, but in Cuba that is how one gets these books), I was washing diapers. I preferred to read it and laugh quietly in the early morning so as not to wake up my baby instead of passing it on. For me Slowness was a good introduction to Kundera’s world. These books were widely believed to be forbidden, but many people read them anyway, even those who distanced themselves from the masses. Perhaps years ago this book was indeed being confiscated. An old work colleague once found me reading a book by Carlos Alberto Montaner (during working hours, no less!), and out of genuine concern suggested that I cover it up and hide it because “they can arrest you for that.”

I still don’t know if anyone was jailed for reading, but in fact there was a belief in a right to detain us for having an independent library and for organizing activities. During the Dark Spring, practicing journalism or independently collecting information carried a twenty-five year sentence.

The Communist monarchs felt the same impulse as the Chinese emperor who carried out a transcendental book burning from which The Book of Mutations miraculously escaped.

But what inspired me to write this post was a point of discrepancy in my reading of the author which made me think that, in a totalitarian system (or post-totalitarian, as Havel would have it), all disobedient citizens could be suffering. According to Kundera, “in the files of the police archives lies our only immortality.”

I do not agree. There are many times that I hang up the phone bothered, not frightened, at the thought that others could be listening in. Besides the disgust at imagining the violation of privacy to which we all have a right, however, I am bothered by the thought that what I say will be interpreted by people who do not know me, or who are trying to pigeonhole me. I cannot be simply this pigeonholed dossier. If only they could at least understand the complexity in being human, they would become it themselves.

When human beings give a speech – the most innocent or the most cautious – and are sincere, they have respect for the silences between sentences. It is not necessary to say everything, and I am fascinated by what is said between the lines. I have read somewhere  that this is where truth lies – in the emptiness between words. It is clear that this is something a communist cannot understand, nor a person who abhors his own freedom. There are instances when a person cannot understand everything, or cannot mention everything. According to a poet out of Origins this is the ideal state for poetry, much like that by the Delphic Oracle: ...an I-don’t-know-what behind their stammering.**

The night should seem like any other night anywhere else on the planet, but the first sounds of morning return to disillusion us. “You are in Cuba.” The resemblance was a mirage because neither by night nor by day do those who prop up the inspector’s stage set rest. One way to rebel is to prove that, just as a weed keeps growing, nothing can deprive us of the infinite subjectivity of our existence.

In the dark night of my terrors, (like the mule who launched deep-seated questions in his eyes), who knows if I’m given to ask who Is and whether in the Kingdom the nostalgia and chiaroscuro of poetry will remain.

Translator’s notes:

*”The birthmark of the rabbit shows his life in the snow” is a line from Paradise, Jose Lezama Lima’s novel. The passage reads: “The birthmark of the rabbit shows his life in the snow. Otherwise, homogeneity would destroy him, as if a spring had been born at the bottom of the ocean, or a drop of water trapped inside a quartz crystal. To other rabbits, that birthmark in the snow makes him visible, and it disguises him as a rabbit from his pursuers.”

**The last line of Stanza 7 of St. John of the Cross’s poem The Spiritual Canticle.

September 4 2012

Lines, Sweat and Tears / Rebeca Monzo

Lately I have been making travel arrangements, representing the son of a friend who lives abroad, for whom she’s given me legal power of attorney because he is still a minor of 17, though he has been serving his military service since he was 16. Doing this, I’ve been able to learn two very important things which are not general knowledge, and so perhaps it is my duty to divulge them:

While standing in line for the paperwork and inquiries with the relevant authorities, I’ve realized that men of military age don’t need to finish their service to be able to travel to the United States, due to the existence of an immigration agreement in which that country awards 20,000 visas a year to Cuba and Cuba, in reciprocity, exempts from military service those young people who want to travel to that country. This is not relevant to the case I’m working on, as it involves a question of traveling to Europe for family reunification.

I’ve also been able to learn from several people involved, that it’s not necessary to get international law firms to attest to degrees or certificates of study to present them in the U.S. Getting this paperwork, when you can even do it, is very expensive and must be paid for in hard currency. In this case you don’t have to do it because the agreement exists and the United States accepts the stamps and signatures from the universities and study centers that issued them.

As this information could be of great interest to many people, I’ve decided to publish it on my blog. However, it’s a good idea for everyone in the process of traveling to the United States to confirm it by directly asking the appropriate authorities. To my knowledge, this hasn’t been adequately disclosed and there are many people who, as well as sweating under the extreme heat, and standing for long hours in the lines, have left in tears, faced with the frustration and loss of time, for not having clarified these issues. I hope this information will be helpful to some people and they can avoid unnecessarily wasting their time and wearing themselves out.

September 4 2012

Among Conspiracies and Euphemisms… / Miriam Celaya

Fumigating the streets with petroleum vapors. Picture taken from Cubanet

This week, the official press published a lengthy press release that stated that the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) considered what they referred to as “the outbreak of intestinal infection caused by water pollution” had ended. It lasted for two months in eastern Cuba, leaving three dead and fewer than 500 patients, according to official data. Judging by the media, the cholera came and left the island without further damage. Indeed, it seems that — gone or not — what could have been an epidemic of devastating dimensions in a country where the lack of hygiene is widespread has been relatively controlled.

However, what the MINSAP’s note does not include is the intensification of a real epidemic that is gaining ground: dengue fever. The press has not made any statement about the proportions of the current dengue epidemic hitting most of the country. In the capital, an anti-vector campaign remains in place, managed directly by the military, including mobilization of medical personnel and paramedics who work seven days a week with extended hours.

Even with all these measures, there has been no progress in controlling the dengue. One element that undermines the population’s perception of the risk is precisely the lack of information. At the same time, the rainy season this year has been severe, even before the most recent rainfall throughout the Island brought on by Tropical Storm Isaac, which added to the poor state of water networks, the proliferation of vacant lots, the accumulation of trash, and the schools, closed for summer vacation, and not properly inspected by those in charge, has all led to the increased outbreaks of the mosquito that transmits the disease.

An example: just in the area around to the Van Troi polyclinic (at the corner of Carlos III and Hospital, Centro Habana), four to five new cases of dengue fever are reported every day. There are three quarantine hospitals in the capital dedicated to the admission of the more delicate cases, while those who get the classical, less severe case of dengue fever, are treated at home by doctors in their health area, a system that reduces hospital load, but increases the risk of infection at the community level.

Meanwhile, the dengue appears to be another state secret. The authorities are more interested in maintaining the flow of foreign tourists to the Island than in safeguarding the health of the population. Maybe one day this situation will reverse itself, but, meanwhile, ordinary Cubans are footing the bill.

Translator: Norma Whiting

August 31 2012

Customs Duties Soar in Cuba/ Yoani Sanchez

A typical family’s “luggage” when returning to Cuba. Source: AP

As of Monday, a steep increase in the tariffs on importing goods took effect in Cuba. Resolution No. 122 of 2012, from the General Customs of the Republic of Cuba, establishes new fees for shipments to the Island by air, sea, post, or courier. It also stipulates that these duties will be paid by Cuban nationals in convertible currency, which is a severe blow for the residents of the country. The new measure establishes high tariffs for the entry of certain goods and has provoked strong discontent among wide sectors of the Cuban population. The articles affected by the charges range from clothing to toiletries and food, and even flat-screen TVs and computers. Few goods escape the increase.

The resolution contradicts the government’s intent to encourage small private businesses. For many self-employed workers these imports are a significant supply source. Every week thousands of pounds of raw materials, repair parts and appliances arrive on the Island, which end up in the non-State sector of production and services. They come in parcels, in the suitcases of Cubans who have been abroad on official missions, and also with the so-called “mules.” These latter are Cubans, primarily from Miami; emigrants whose trips home are paid for by agencies who arrange for them to – openly – carry goods for others to the Island.

Although the Cuban authorities insist that these new tariffs are similar to those of other countries, the absence of a wholesale market in Cuba has led many to consider the measure “a huge mistake.” The discontent and confusion have reached a point to where the official media have had to explain the details over and over. In an article appearing this Monday in the official newspaper Granma, they offered “some clarifications about the new rates.” Among these, we find that all products valued between 50.99 pesos (about $2.50 U.S.) and 500.99 pesos (about $25.00 U.S.) will be charged customs fees to enter the country of 100% of their value. If the traveler does not present a receipt for the object, then the value will be determined based on the “Customs Valuation List For Non-Commercial Imports.”

Among the objects most in demand by Cubans right now are flat-screen televisions and washing machines. When maritime shipping began to be allowed between Florida and Havana last July, these appliances were the most shipped. The ship “Ana Cecilia” that links the two shores, transporting parcels sent by exiles, could be seriously affected by the new customs tariffs.

Self employed are hardest hit

Many Cuban families sustain their domestic economy thanks to parcels sent from abroad, but it is among the self-employed where this has the greatest influence. The new General Customs resolution will negatively impact these emerging entrepreneurs.

In a pizzeria in Central Havana Juan Carlos, the owner, accumulated imported cheese in his pantry in anticipation of looming shortages. According to Juan, a good part of the dishes on his menu are made with Parmesan cheese, grated, packaged and sent from Florida by his brother. “To buy it here in Cuba in a store selling in hard currency, I would have to pay triple,” he says. But now the import of that product will raise his costs and he won’t have the profits necessary to ask that it be sent from abroad.

“For now I am planning to increase the prices of everything that uses ingredients brought by mules.” One only has to look at the menu of the busy restaurant to realize that the prices of many items will soar. Pasta with pesto now costs the equivalent of about $4.35 U.S., but soon Juan Carlos will increase it to $5.00. “The customer is going to have to pay the consequences of this absurd measure,” the young entrepreneur predicts, while overseeing the temperature of an enormous pizza oven.

Not only will it affect food businesses, the new customs duties are going to be a hard blow to the informal market in clothes and shoes. A thriving informal network brings in tons of pants, women’s blouses, underwear and shoes from nearby destinations such as Panama, Mexico and Ecuador. A profitable trade supported especially by counterfeit apparel.

For now, the informal market and self-employment sector are waiting to see how much damage they’ll be caused by the increase in import taxes. Already some have begun to talk about this possibly being a part of Raul Castro’s “counter-reform.”

4 September 2012

The Only Thing That Interests The Castros About Emigres Is Their Money / Ivan Garcia

They have gone from being persecuted, insulted and accused of being traitors during the first three decades after the Communist revolution to becoming the main pipeline for the dollars that prop up the regime.

The story of the Cuban diaspora in the last 53 years is marked by verbal lynchings, graffiti and artillery attacks of rocks or rotten eggs on the houses of those who were leaving the country, years in jail for those who tried to leave, and an irate Fidel Castro at a public trial calling them “worms, low-lifes and scum.”

Taking a plane to Florida or setting off on a rustic craft with a sailor’s compass meant unleashing Castro’s implacable fury. During the 1960s would-be emigrés were made to work long hours doing agricultural work before the government would issue them exit visas.

A letter received from or sent to a relative on the other side of the pond would prompt an urgent meeting of the trade union or the party, and the person would be accused of “ideological weakness.” Underprivileged blacks would be intimidated with tales of racism. If they abandoned the fatherland, the Ku Klux Klan and its dogs, trained to eat Negroes, would mercilessly tear them apart.

According to the Castro-controlled media, the first wave of emigrés were bourgeoisie, businessmen, misfits or people who had earned their money taking advantage of the poor. Later they were low-lifes, good-for-nothings, convicts, prostitutes and faggots incapable of becoming examples of the New Man in an “unparalleled society, the threshold of heaven on earth.”

After the fall of the Berlin Wall Cuban professionals and athletes defected the first chance they got. The offensive language has now been shelved, but acts of repudiation have been revived as a weapon against dissidents.

Those who leave Cuba are still written off by the official media. There are no reports or in-depth articles about achievements of Cubans overseas.On the island there was no impact from the two home runs,from both sides of the plate in the same inning, by Kendrys Morales. Of the awards and prizes given to writers and poets in exile, not a word has been published.

As Rubén Martínez Villena said, they are only useful once they are dead. LikeCabrera Infante or Celia Cruz. The nation’s press has not reported on an article written by prominent academics at the University of Florida, whose data and statistics provide evidence of the strength of the Cuban exile community.

When leafing through Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth), nowhere will you find any mention that in 2011 the country received more than two billion dollars in remittances. Cuban Americans spent a similar amount during vacation trips to Cuba and in endless purchases of consumer goods for their impoverished relatives.

Radio Rebelde says nothing about a study by the Pew Hispanic Center which reports that the median income for Cubans in the United States over the age of sixteen is $26,478, greater than the estimated $21,488 for the rest of the Hispanic community.

It is undeniable that, thanks to the Refugee Adjustment Act*, members of the Cuban diaspora enjoy privileges that other Latino immigrants do not. But the gains they have achieved are undeniable. They are leaders of important companies, are a force behind Miami’s growth and vitality, and constitute a handful of politicians with Cuban backgrounds. Eleven delegates to the Florida legislature are Cuban.

The official press maintains a low and ambiguous profile with respect to the exile community. Foolish rhetoric would have us believe that people emigrate only to get a car and a well-furnished, air-conditioned apartment. Yes, people leave in order to have decent salaries, satellite antennae and unrestricted access to the internet.

But they also leave the country to be reborn as free men. Hold a plebiscite among the more than two million exiles and, I am quite certain,the results would confirm that a majority do not want to retain the Castros in power.

The regime knows this. It is aware of the danger that closer ties and a loosening of emigration restrictions would pose. The exiles’ economic power and business know-how would put an end to the shoddy workmanship and habitual idleness of Cuban factories. They would become a potential threat to the status quo of the governing class, which now controls all reserves of hard currency.

To the Castros the only thing about emigration that interests them is the money. Exiles can come visit Cuba and spend a lot. Every time they bring in more dollars. But they do not like them too much. There can be no investments in strategic economic sectors. It’s better to keep burdening them with brutal tourism taxes and let them send packages to the island. Castro has no desire to treat emigrés fairly.

They will never allow overseas Cubans to hold political office or vote in elections. It is very difficult to change this mentality. These autocrats have always viewed the diaspora as a time bomb, a bunch of “worms,” a legion of traitors.

When exiles learn how to use their economic power as a weapon, it will force the government to change the outdated dialog and the anachronistic laws. In the meantime, it needs them only to fill the collection box.

Photo: Taken from the Gold Alert website.

*Translator’s note: A U.S. law, passed in 1966 with amendments added later, that allows Cuban refugees to apply for permanent resident status after living in the U.S. for one year.

September 1 2012

Executions in Alphabetical Order / Dora Leonor Mesa

It does not matter if you are superstitious or not. In Cuba anything can happen; even the most unimaginable of things.The three Parcas, the Fates, are out on recess in Cuba.

Why deny that they are interested in the Spanish alphabet to cut the threads of their canvases? What will be the next choice? Silliness??

P,Q,R,S…

The sudden death of the renown opponent leader in Cuba, Osvaldo Paya Sardiñas is full of enigmas. Leaving all accusations and suspicions aside, ten months before another Sakharov prize winner passed away: Laura Pollan.

Pollan, Laura, with her first surname with P. Paya, another P. A mere coincidence, if the also well-known mason opponent Gustavo Pardo weren’t finally obliged to go into exile after being pointed as a CIA agent in the last rerun of the TV show “Razones de Cuba”(Cuba’s Reasons). First aired on monday march 22 of 2011.

Such accusation, for any Cuban, is a clear death sentence by shooting.

In the Greek mythology, the Parcas are three goddesses who determined human life and destiny. Known in Latin as Parcaeand as Moiras in Greek, the Parcasassigned a part of good and evilto each person at birth, although by the own clumsiness the evil could be increased.

Melancholic maidens or severe elderly women,portrayed in art and poetry, alwayswere represented as weavers.

Clotho, the Spinner, who spins the thread of life.

Lachesis, the distributor of fortunes, decides their duration and assigns their destination to each person.

Atropos, the Inexorable, carries the feared scissors that cut the thread of life at the right moment.

Did Lachesis intervene to save the life of the mason Gustavo Pardo?

Does the Inexorable Parca Atropos have a list of Cuban dissidents whose surnames have the initial P?

Around 15:45 of 23 July 2012 a gray hearse brought the body of Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas to the entrance of a church of Cerro, in Havana. The car plate was HXX190 or HXX901 or HXX091? It’s hard to remember in the middle of the emotional hit and three hours waiting.

The Funeral was supposed to start at 8:00, then changed to 11:00. The address of the church was another dilemma solved by SMS messages sent between friends and acquaintances. It was recommended to forget the doubts and wait in the park outside the church, next to the news agencies cameras and the political police.

The hearse plate adds 1 and is an interesting number (9 + 1 = 10). The plate of the crashed car in which Para Sardiñas and other 3 companions were traveling (T 31402) also makes 1 according the numerologist criterion, those who practice the divination through graphs and numbers.

More than 400 people attended the prayer for the dead, a brief Catholic Mass in honor of the deceased. The applause of the attendees after the immense courage and activism of Paya lasted about 10 uninterrupted minutes. The priest’s voice was barely able to control the cheers and shouts of Freedom. Only when the troubled widow spoke, her voice turned the pain and anger int a respectful silence.

The National Anthem or Bayamo Anthem sang by the attendees, seemed like a scream more than a march. Paya died near Bayamo, at the east of the island.

Thereport of the UN Committee against the Torture (http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2012/06/01/11/28/ thvNr.So.84.doc )states that Cuban civil society and its families are under risk conditions. Therefore the international community must be on the alert. Also Cubans, wherever they are.

It’s time to protect the Cuban alphabet letters of the Opposition, among them, to those more common or those they bother, as the S, the V, the F.

At anytime, the three spinners change the threads and letters. Their last patch started from the end. The Parcas played with the hunger of Z from Zapata. After the feared maidens they beat to death the S of Soto Villar. Amid this net, without a doubt, are other cut threads.

Perhaps a rough day, the severe elderly women will jump to the beginning of the alphabet to sweep away whatever they find. The decisions of the Parcas can not be altered, even by the gods.

A, B, C,…F,G,..

The blind scissors are the worst part of the thread. It’s never known when and which thread will be cut.

– Cut again.

– No, it’s fine.

– I wouldn’t be so sure.

– These threads are strong

– Go on! Cut them all!

Translated by @Hachhe

August 7 2012

Two Letters: Two Positions / Fernando Dámaso

Recently I read two letters that caught my attention. The first, written by Rafael Hernández, a pro-government political scientist based in Cuba, under the title “Letter to a young man who leaves,” trying to undo this massive trend, arguing the supposed benefits of the existing system in the country, offering them as some splendid options faced with a cruel world, ruthless and full of injustice, as is the capitalist. In aid of this he waves (it couldn’t be otherwise) the worn flags and slogans of a failed experiment on the path to extinction, in which most Cubans no longer believe,that left only ruins and misery and a divided nation, physically (the older men here and the younger scattered all around the world) and emotionally (with divided families by absurd hatreds).

The second one, written by the young Iván López Monreal, based in Bulgaria, under the title “Letter from a young man who left,” respectfully with solid arguments dismantles one by one the ones used by the government official. Without unnecessary offenses,in a measured tone, the young Cuban exposes his contradictory feelings before leaving, and how leaving the country was a logical course given the impossibility of realizing a healthy life project; the sorrow faced with the failure of his parents who had believed and devoted their best efforts to the experiment, and his actual situation: free and master of his fate.

It would be suitable that many citizens may have free access to those two documents, in which two different visions: one static and stuck in the past, and one in movement with his feet in the present, address in a civilized manner, in a controversial dialog, rich in contributions that show about the reasons of both sides.

After reading both letters, it appears as a logical conclusion that the present socialism, still updated, has nothing more, neither material nor spiritual, to offer to the Cuban people than repeating to the point of boredom the rhetoric of the so-called glorious past, with conveniently manipulated facts and figures in the name of a noisy patriotism, far from the true patriotism based on the love and respect for the land where one comes to life, and but for so many absurdities, where one should spend it and also in the end have some rest.

Archive photo

Translated by @Hachhe

September 2 2012

Playing with Funny Money / Rebeca Monzo

The Society of Cuban Musical Artists (ACDAM) is failing to fulfill its primary reason for being, which is to pay artists who belong to the organization in a timely and appropriate manner.

Over the course of a year, as I have been told by one of those affected, they have only been paid for the first trimester. Payment is made in the so-called “national currency”—those pesos that make up salaries and pensions and that cover only very few expenses. The other currency is commonly known as the chavito or CUC (and formally, the Cuban Convertible Peso). While both are national currencies, the latter is more difficult to acquire and the only one that can be used to buy essential goods in state-run hard currency stores— the only places to find certain everyday consumer items, which are sold at highly inflated prices.

As justification for this failure the ACDAM alleges that ARTEX (Artistic and Literary Promotions Management) has not yet settled accounts with them. In other words, the old “run-around.” This money, however, has now been in state coffers for a while and not in the pockets of the people who are supposed to be paid for their work. A swift solution to this problem is imperative since in many cases the payments are the only means of support for these Cuban artists’ families. It is not acceptable to keep “playing with funny money.” This situation, and others like it, suggest the country is dealing with a serious lack of liquidity.

September 1 2012

Blogger, Therefore I Am / Dora Leonor Mesa

The execution of the sentence of case 174 from 2010 remains without solution and the procedures to get back my house’s backyard are still under a sabotage

On Wednesday August 22 I went for the umpteenth time to the Diez de Octubre Court. I was lucky. At least I talked to the President of the Civil Chamber. I asked her why she didn’t take all the incomplete work from the GECAL Director to the prosecutor’s office as she herself included in the act. She went mad!

– Your function is to resolve it! No?

One of those present began to laugh. She said something funny?

Suddenly the president of the Court arrived. I talked with him a few minutes. All I get was that he would give me an answer from his interview with the Chief of the Chief of GECAL in early September. I asked him for a copy of his formalities in writing. The laughter continued.

It occurred to me to ask if I could submit an appeal for the space the company GECAL wants to take from us, a name changed while still belonging to the Government of the province of Havana.

The magistrate recommended going to the Court of Cerro. With the changes, this is where the appeal on the grounds of unconstitutionality and other civil proceedings under the Diez de Octubre municipality are handled.

I went immediately to the Court of Cerro. They informed me that I have to do all the processing through a lawyer, even if all the documentation of the file is in the Court of Diez de Octubre (¿?).

I asked God for strength and managed to get myself to the center of town to talk to my lawyer. I asked if he would continue representing me. In sum, with prayers and inquiries, the general tour lasted three hours. A package adorned with the dismal urban transport. Walking is health.

Concluding that the blows of life give strength,I take every trip to learn some laws:Property damage, an appeal,writ of protection of fundamental rights. Not bad for an ordinary citizen.

I got home and found the pots empty. The refrigerator desolate. Non gratus!

I’m starting to believe that in Cuba it’s more fun to try to enforce the law than to cook.

I lost my interest in good cooking!

Also I have to write for the blog. At least Plapliplo is a break.

I hesitate for an instant.

-Family, wait a little bit.

Yes I’m a blogger: I post therefore I am

Translated by @hachhe

August 28 2012