From Pieces of the Island Blog: Testimony from Ladies in White

More Testimonies from House Raid Victims: “I was threatened that If I don’t Leave the Ladies in White, They’d Kill Us All” (Read this blog!)

After the brutal house raid which occurred in the home of Lady in White Glisedis Pina Gonzalez in Holguin this past Saturday August 18th, all the detainees have been released.  Three of these activists have shared their testimonies with this blog, offering details of the harassment and threats they endured while being held in police units under the hands of State Security and the political police:

Rosa María Naranjo Nieves
Lady in White

“The mobs of State Security agents broke into the home (…) one officer, in charge of matters with minors, grabbed a 14 year old and arrested her, nearly stripping her of her clothes.  Our response was to protest because of this, and he beat all of us.  Those women who were not hit inside, they were later beat outside by the mobs.  In my case, they punched me on my back and pulled my hair.  They then twisted my arm and shoved me into a police vehicle, which took me to the Instructional Unit of Pedernales.  That was on Saturday, August 18th, in the afternoon and I was held till the morning of Monday, August 20th.

On Saturday night, while I was in the cell, I started to get dizzy and desires to vomit.  I told the guards I felt bad so they took my blood pressure, which was on 210 with 120- very high.  They told me they did not have the medicines to take care of my blood pressure but later ended up giving me something and it went down slightly.  When I had it on 170, they shoved me into the dungeon again”.

Danay Mendiola
Lady in White

“A MININT (Ministry of the Interior) agent whose name I did not get, beat us and applied immobilization locks on us.  They took us in police vehicles.  In the Unit, they beat us more.  They mistreated us, insulted us.  We were taken to the Pedernales Unit and kept there from Saturday to Monday.  We screamed slogans like “Down with hunger”, “Long live Human Rights”, and “Freedom for all political prisoners”.  They mistreated us, we were hungry, and I feel very weak.  In fact, my throat is in pain.  But we are going to keep fighting.  The more repression they carry out against us, the more strength we obtain to continue in the struggle.

A State Security agent known as ‘Chacman’- from Holguin- went to see me in my cell on Monday night and he told me that if we (referring to the Ladies in White) continued to be active, then he, and others, were going to kill us, because we are ‘counter-revolutionaries’.  He asked me what I gained with doing what I do.  I told him the only purpose was for the freedom of Cuba, and that if they keep repressing us, we were going to get more strength.  We are under total threats, every single Lady in White from Holguin province.

Chacman threatened me again, saying that if I did not leave the Ladies in White, he was going to kill us all, little by little, and slowly.  This happened on Monday.  He went to my cell to tell me this”.

Alexei Jiménez Almarades
Independent journalist

“I am the husband of Lady in White Eleiny Villamonte Cardozo.  I had left my wife in the Glisedis’ house that afternoon, and when I returned to pick her up, I noticed that the entire entrance of the house was surrounded by mobs, organized by State Security.  A minor was accompanying me- my wife’s 16 year old female cousin.  The mobs violently rushed at us.  What was interesting, though, was that State Security alleged that the mobs were everyday neighbors, but it is obvious that this mobs were manipulated and sent by the counter-intelligence Department of Holguin.

I was aggressively attacked, they hit me on my arms, on my ribs, and I thank God that I was wearing a helmet for my bicycle.  They grabbed sticks and hit me with them, but the helmet protected me.

Afterward, once the women were detained, I directed myself to the State Security Unit at around 12 AM to demand them that they release all the detainees.  The agent known as ‘The Polish’ came out.  He quickly called a police car and they detained me.  Once detained, I remained in protest and on hunger strike, demanding freedom for the detained activists”.

From “Pieces of the Island” (English) / “Pedazos de la Isla” (Spanish)

Translating Cuba readers:  Pedazos/Pieces is a must-read blog; it reports news from Cuba in real-time, much of it reported out by telephone from activists on the island, focusing on eastern Cuba — the Oriente.

25 August 2012

What Does a President Do? / Yoani Sanchez

From: cubanexilequarter.blogspot.ca

The question of the title was inspired by Fidel Castro himself when, on March 28 of this year, he asked Benedict XVI, “What does a Pope do?” Beyond the childishness of the question, it made me reflect on what any president would say if we inquired about his agenda, how a dignitary would narrate his usual day-to-day. Surely his schedule would include participating in the council of ministers, receiving other presidents, overseeing the functions of state, being present at public acts, plus this or that speech on particular dates.

The list of his responsibilities, of his commitments, would be long, from the hectic days in the presidential palace and the difficult discussions in the congress or parliament. Perhaps he would even preside over factory openings, or sites of social interest, and hold more than one press conference with the national media.

If the president is a statesman with a marked populist tendency, he would probably have to leave time to have his picture taken with children, snapshots amid a walkabout, and to be filmed distributing refrigerators, rice cookers and water heaters. He would put long speeches on his daily activity list, a variety of interventions where he talks about genetics in an auditorium filled with scientists, and about intensive grazing before sunburnt farmers.

Because, for political egomaniacs, the presidency is like a stage where every day there must be a lavish and intense spectacle. So they divide their days between true executive tasks and the work of self-promotion, in obvious showing-off to stay in power. But what happens when the maximum leader of a country offers no evidence of meeting even a small part of his agenda? What can we do when citizens don’t have the slightest mechanism to know whether our president is working or not?

So far in 2012, Raul Castro has given very few signs of industriousness in office. If we count the hours he has appeared in public, the speeches he’s made, and the trips he’s taken… we have to conclude that his productivity is extremely low.

Repeated absences from international events, summits and regional meetings, highlight to his lack of activity. Just one short international tour in the eight months of this year, to reliable allies such as China, Vietnam and Russia. But we add to that almost no travel in his own Cuban territory.

He did not go to Sancti Spiritus provence at the end of May to see with his own eyes the devastation left by the floods. Nor did he go to Granma province where — after a century with no reported cases — a cholera outbreak has so far caused several deaths. Nor did he go to some of the Havana and Camaguey hospitals where the numbers of those infected with dengue fever is climbing into the hundreds.

One could say that his public appearances have been limited to welcoming a few foreign leaders, a speech at the First Conference of the Cuban Communist Party at the end of January, another at the National Assembly in July, and a few brief words at the commemoration of the assault on the Moncada Barracks.

Beyond that we have no evidence that the General President is assuming his responsibilities or — on the other hand — that he’s not on a permanent vacation. Especially because nothing suggests that far from the spotlights, the former Minister of the Armed Forces is undertaking frenetic political and organizational activity. The slow pace of Raul’s reforms disprove that possibility.

It is worth noting that this is not a demand that the current Cuban president maintain the same omnipresence his brother had in the national media and in the smallest details of the lives of eleven million people. Nor that, in a frankly demagogic approach, he start to make us believe that he is aware of everything when in reality he spends more time in leisure than in working. It’s definitely not about that.

But the exercise of an executive job implies mobility, efficiency, long work days and sacrifice. If this man of 81 is not able to fulfill his presidential agenda because his physical and mental capacity don’t allow it, then resign. A country can’t be administered “once in a blue moon,” from the palace couch, and much less by showing up only on significant anniversaries.

In February of 2013 it will fall to Raul Castro — as he himself declared — to begin his second term, after having inherited power through consanguinity. He then has the option of waiving his continuation in office, given his apparent inability to perform the major responsibilities involved in running a country.

He could vacate the post for some substitute… most likely one he himself would designate. But should he decide to continue and cling to power, will there be another five years of sporadic appearances and a few public events? Of long silences and absences at the times and places of crises? A new period of having to ask sarcastically: What does a president do? What does THIS president do?

26 August 2012

On the Day After, Who Could Replace the Castros? / Ivan Garcia

Some people in Cuba are already placing bets. Everyone knows that within five to ten years power could change hands. The unknowns are whether the successor will have the last name of Castro, and if the inefficient political and economic system will be preserved.

Raúl Castro crafted a law limiting time in political office to two five-year terms. If he were to apply this to himself, he would have to retire from national politics in 2016. If one assumes his official rise to power occurred in 2008, then his retirement would begin in 2018.

But autocrats often do not abide by their decrees. Rules are for others, not for themselves. And many on the island believe that as long he is of sound mind and enjoys good health the general will continue to rule the nation.

Cubans like to prognosticate. And to bet. The underground lottery is a popular pastime. For example, baseball fans are making predictions about the World Classic in 2013. On questions of politics, however, they are cowardly. Fidel Castro always considered it a crime to be politically ambitious, and his subordinates were always careful about saying anything that might be construed as a declaration of a future possible presidential candidacy.

More than a few heads have rolled for coveting the throne.Roberto Robaina, a former foreign minister, has become the owner of a successful private restaurant. Others, such as Felipe Pérez Roque y Carlos Lage, fell from grace and are now two obscure, low-level bureaucrats. In the last Communist Party Congress, the younger Castro warned of the dearth of young politicians and functionaries, and stated that, in the future, no president would be able to rule for more than a decade.

An eighteen-person survey a group of well-informed people, who have access to the Internet and illegal cable antennae, believe that, if the nation continues on its present course, Raúl himself will handpick the next president.

Who might be the successors? Seven believe it will be Alejandro Castro, coordinator of the secret services. He is young and has the Castro name, which would allow for the continuation of the family dynasty. Four believe the next president will be someone from Raúl’s old guard and point to Leopoldo Cintras Frías, minister of the armed forces.

Two of those surveyed think that, in a Cuba of the future, a military junta will rule. Five believe that Mariela Castro, Lázaro Expósito, Marino Murillo, Luis Alberto López-Callejas or Miguel Díaz Canel might be president given their family ties or political affinities with Raúl Castro.

What would the political landscape look like? Those surveyed could not even imagine, but speculated a bit and wagered some guesses. Nine felt that, if Fidel Castro were no longer alive, the successor would opt for a market economy and a strong government run by a committee with the presidency rotating among its members.

They could craft a country with a democratic veneer like Russia. If the United States negotiates, dialogs with and accepts whoever might be Castro’s successor—shielding itself from security concerns over illegal immigration, terrorism and drug trafficking—it might prefer an authoritarian government. It would not be overly concerned if such a government discreetly violated individual freedoms, provided it controlled its borders. This would be preferable to a weak or corrupt democracy, which might turn the island into a giant raft or a fertile ground for international narco-trafficking.

They also believe that Castro’s successor would seek a relationship with Washington that casts aside the Cold War diplomacy crafted by Fidel Castro. Several of those interviewed felt that the United States would not tolerate a “Castro light”government and would continue to press for real democracy with the participation of all the political actors.

If it came to pass, which opposition politicians or dissident leaders could govern the country the day after the Castros? Those surveyed felt that, given the level of repression and lack of leadership, no one figure stood out at the moment.

Some believe that Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas would have been a good candidate, but after his unexpected death, they now favor Oscar Elías Biscet. Others mention Manuel Cuesta Morúa because he has more experience and a longer resumé than Eliécer Ávila or Antonio Rodriles.

Although unknown by the general public, the blogger Yoani Sánchez was mentioned by one person as a possible candidate. However, in an extensive interview I did with Yoani, published in two parts—the first in February, the second in September—she indicated she was neither an opposition figure nor a dissident, and did not see herself in a political role. She rejected it because she finds politics repulsive.

All eighteen of those surveyed think the opposition should focus its work on the community and developing a viable, inclusive and coherent political platform. They feel the future president of Cuba need not necessarily be an opposition figure or someone tied to the current regime. He or she could be an ordinary citizen, now walking among us, who, at a given moment, could become a leading figure. Or a Cuban exile with good political connections in the United States and to the financial world. Someone brought up in a democratic and transparent environment. Whichever version Cuba becomes after Castro, all agree that the role Cuban exiles play will be fundamental.

Personally, I am leaning towards a woman, provided it is not Mariela Castro or Aleida Guevara, who are too closely tied to the Castros. Cuba is in need of the female soul. I would not mind if it were Miriam Celaya, Laritza Diversent or Rosa María Payá. I am quite fed up with all the chest thumping. There’s been enough testosterone.

Photo: Rosa María Payá Acevedo, twenty-three years old, reading a few wordsat Havana’s Saviour of the World church on July 24, 2012during a funeral mass for her father, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, shortly before his internment at Cementerio de Colón. Taken from the blog, Razones de la Palabra, Radio Netherlands.

August 26 2012

Three Crosses Over Julian Assange / Luis Felipe Rojas

As incredible as it may seem, Julian Assange is (in his own way) a cyber-dissident.  In some way or another, he enjoyed the benefits of democracy, he was born in it, he grew tired of what he said were its errors, and turned against it.  But, what would have happened if amid the thousands of cables he filtered to the press there were those which spoke of the abuses of power in governments such as those of China, North Korea and Cuba, or the connections between Venezuela and the populist fleet of ALBA?

That is a cross which Assange must carry, a question he must answer.  The diplomatic cables in which they speak of Chinese cyber-dissidents locked away in the dungeons of Canton, the complaints of Western diplomats in regards to the poor handling in Caracas, Quito or Buenos Aires shine in their absence.

The government of Havana reproduces information of European newspapers, but does not publish any analysis over cases of Cuban journalists.  Up to the moment, there are no official opinions with respect to this.  If Assange would have snuck into the British Embassy in Havana, the mild Fifth Avenue would have already seen the deployment of mobs of repudiation and the assault troops of the extinct Colonel Tony de la Guardia would have assaulted the embassy with physical blows.  As said in Cuban terms: A different rooster would have crowed.

The images which the sole television programming of Cuba lets us see show dozens of demonstrators (apparently Ecuadorians in London) asking for the respect of freedom of expression.  In that instant, Julian, the exile, steps out to the balcony to defy the American government, salutes his sympathizers and appears in numerous channels which some uninformed people like us were able to see.

Even with the diplomatic jams which have taken place, Julian Assange enjoys a promotional health which many would like.  What does not convince me of the Assange affair are the interests of the cursed triad: Moscow-Havana-Quito.  We must have to wait for the end of the soap opera, to see what will happen.

Translated by Raul G.

 

Sarcasm / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado

The Cuban government defends the rights of American citizens to travel to Cuba.

For foreigners, they file complaints and take matters to court, something they refuse to do for their own countrymen and women, where they determine, without a moment’s hesitation and with no qualms, those able to temporarily travel wherever they like and those from whom they snatch away this lofty ambition.<

And Cubans who reside elsewhere — including those within the United States — do not escape this selective, discriminatory pointed-finger which decides who gets to enter home soil and who doesn’t.

These laws are capricious and one-sided: a fifty-year long, degrading blockade of the rights and freedoms of the Cuban people.

Translated by Christopher Andrew Smith

August 25 2012

Campaign for a National General Strike / Jorge Luis García Pérez Antunez

The National General Strike is an important initiative sponsored by theOrlando Zapata TamayoNational Front for Civic Resistance and Disobedience. As its name indicates, this initiative seeks a partial paralysis of the entire national infrastructure through strong and systematic actions by the forces of internal resistance. In its first and second stages the General Strike is part of a continuing campaign of non-cooperation. This strike can be successful only after a real and resolute decision by a significant number of citizens to deny responsibility for, or to cooperate with, the oppressive regime.

It must be made clear that, although the National Front is calling for and sponsoring this crucial campaign, it can only be viable with the participation of each and every constituency for change, whether it be the National Front, political parties, movements, regional coalitions—in other words the energetic forces of Cuban resistance, which are the primary vehicle of democratic change.

The campaign for the National General Strike will use only peaceful means so that no constituencies which take part can in any way confuse the strike with economic sabotage, or the destruction of or attacks on state or private property.

It is the policy of the General Strike to be dissuasive and persuasive, acknowledging that, to succeed, we must work patiently, motivated by great faith and certainty. The only true potential for change comes from citizens who support us, as well as those who simply look upon us with indifference, fear or admiration for what we are doing. This includes those we see walking beside us, in line behind us, from a private office, and even those attacking us in so-called acts of repudiation. All can unite with us and contribute to the great day of the General Strike.

The campaign for a General Strike can, in a powerful way, also help to do away with the worrying fear of change that persists in many areas of society, especially among those who are ill-informed and those most compromised by the current regime.

The concept must be clearly understood, both by the promoters of the General Strike as well as by those who hear its message. The purpose of the strike is not to destroy, obstruct or cause damage to anyone or anything. Its intention is to peacefully boycott the means of production that confer profits on those who misgovern the millions of Cubans who are hungry, oppressed, and without liberty or the right to protest.

The Strike is a decision and commitment by everyone, or by a great and significant majority of Cubans, to say, “Enough!” The strategy of the General Strike is in accordance with basic, universally recognized rights and freedoms, which—together with the peaceful tactics it employs—gives it legitimacy and puts it in harmony with human dignity itself, something of primary importance.

Though a recent idea,one born that was born in Cuba, the strategy of the General Strike Campaign is based on innumerable precedents and inspired by similar actions around the globe. These have been successful in spite of a number of differing circumstances, such as culture and language.

The change which the General Strike seeks is viable under any circumstance in the struggle against the oppressive and totalitarian system.

The first phase of the campaign is outlined below:

To effect a total or partial strike before doing the necessary preparation or raising public awareness is so unlikely as to be almost impossible—even more so in a country like ours in which repression affects everyone and is everywhere, where a sinister and comprehensive system of repression controls, spies on, and penalizes the slightest and most moderate expression of discontent or dissent. It is unthinkable and impossible to bring the country to a total or partial standstill when little or next to nothing has been done domestically to systematically provide information to the average Cuban, who is misinformed and bombarded by the state media monopoly.

Therefore, theOrlando Zapata Tamayo Front forCivic Resistance proposes an introductory phase to develop an intense and on-going public awareness campaign. This program will present the citizenry with mottoes and slogans with social themes, which will initially identify us as being concerned with the needs of the people.

This will help convince Cubans of the nature of their situation, that they have rights, and that these right must be respected. This information blitz will be carried out through visible channels such as text messaging, Twitter accounts, CD’s, flash drives, printed material, as well as through pamphlets, placards and signs posted in visible, public spaces.

We can also solicit support, through broadcasts and other media, from friends who support the Cuban cause. This duration of this initial campaign, to be called “Cubans, Defend Your Rights,” will be open-ended if it is determined that it can—given its importance—be postponed,or rather extended,to other phases of the larger campaign.

This first phase is one of outreach, both internally and externally, to the public, which has the potential to play a leading role in the very necessary and essential change. It will be launched in light of the hard reality that most Cubans lack access to the internet, satellite television or cable.

Regrettably, outside of Cuba a not insignificant number of people are able to analyze Cuban reality from the viewpoint of an open society with a free flow of information, one of numerous advantages common in other countries. In Cuban society only the official version can be published, and only when and how the governing elite decide to publish it.

Luis García Pérez Antúnez

Secretary General of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience, who will neither be silenced nor will leave Cuba, and who reiterates that his primary objective today is the “National General Strike.”

Placetas, Cuba

August 24 2012

Trash / Luis Felipe Rojas

Jacqueline Rush Lee, ‘Slice Trio: Volumes Series’, 2001. (JACQUELINERUSHLEE.COM)

This article- written by Luis Felipe Rojas Rosabal- was published on the digital newspaper “Diario de Cuba” on August 23rd, 2012.

Every so often I cleanse my soul and body. Better said: I cleanse the area around my body, because I can’t cleanse my soul any more. I organize the room where I write in a bit, I read, I drink something, and I sleep.

Recently, I started to pile up the books which I will definitely not re-read, or which I won’t read at all because after I bought them I discovered that I didn’t like them or because I am partially anti-conceptual, anti-theoretical. There are essays which I can’t read past the first few pages, ever. I am a chaotic being who can play at others essays but not my own. That, I hope, is a fortune…for possible readers.

I was re-reading and throwing some out when I found myself with no other option than to give some to others. I cleaned the shelf and my memory, and then I received a message from #OLPL: “Where do you cross Linea and 19th? In which Havana-Valkyrie crossing?”

I was stupefied. The linguistic branches of #OLPL tend to be mangroves within themselves, so I asked him again and he told me that he was quoting one of my verses. I jumped from a jump, I woke up with my eyes open, I rose up, and I nearly fell down.

The Book of the Dead

A Havana-esque and urban guy, a laboratory and library street rat, was quoting me at around 11 PM when CUBACEL opened the doors to the slaves and allowed them to use their phones for 10 cents per message; but I didn’t call. Instead, I turned to the book ‘Songs of Bad Living‘. It’s a ball of paper, which the Loynaz Editions (operating out of Pinar del Rio) gave me as a prize for my insolence of believing myself to be a poet and launching myself in a competition, which has already left four dead, including myself.

On the cover, there appear three people as the jury. One is the poet Alberto Acosta Perez, who suddenly died a few months ago; and the other two are Holguin native George Riveron (who crossed the oceans of the Antilles, stepped on Mexican soil, and got lost in that other Havana which never becomes smaller, that Miami which everyone wants to touch with the sole of their shoes). George is the other deceased in the official lists, because until the day he comes back tame and begging for forgiveness, he won’t stop being a deserter. For the bandit-hunters of the MINREX, he is a disgraceful being who betrayed their trust in a letter, a permission of freedom for some weeks.

The other deceased person on the official lists is Jorge Luis Arcos — recidivist, dissident, sketched, and sheltered in his Argentine den. Arcos, without a crossbow and some good ammunition, will not return to Havana. His punishment is double for having left and augmenting the editors council of the disappeared magazine “Encounter of Cuban Culture“.

A few years ago, publishing anything on “Encounter” was a sacrilege, according to the Ministry Council. The Central Committee would “pull your ears for it” and so too would the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, with a committee in every block against those who publish, read and traffic the magazine. Arcos, after the official insults of the ‘La Jiribilla‘, managed to make it out of the public light unharmed. Of course, him by one side and his head by the other.

Stirring up editorial trash

The question, in verses, of #OLPL has to do with Havana cartography, because Linea and 19th Street never cross each other without the legs of a woman, a Valkyrie, at least in El Vedado, and it’s true. I didn’t write those quarrels looking at Havana to cross the streets or the inactive traffic lights of the 90′s, that century of horror.

The poem “Lessons of Terror” has a fragment which reads: “…I don’t want anyone to take me by the arms/ pushing my back against that wall which is Saturday night/ where I don’t know which woman to kiss/ if the Valkyrie of Linea and 19th, or the black girl with the money/ one awakes like that, asking how many ways of betraying for the money we stole as children…”

But what #OLPL has is “Obverse of the Beloved Beast“, from April Editions, 2004 (and which appeared in 2006), and later disappeared during the middle of that year due to an official decree (without decreeing). The Havana cartography which #OLPL demands are due to the fact that those streets never cross each other, just like those of us, the dead of that book, will not cross: Alberto Acosta, Jorge L. Arcos, George Riveron, and me, a deceased person according to the official media, by decree of colonels which, at that time, commanded and prowled through the Cuban Book Institute and the Ministry of Culture: Abel Prieto, Iroel Sanchez and Fernando Leon Jacomino.

They will see, or not see, how I have passed from dead by official standards to being officially published due to a decree which no one has signed but which has made it possible for “Obverse…” to be distributed even in the lost bookstores of Eastern Cuban towns. They, who for decades made irreversible scars with their scalpels and cotter pins on books, records and theatrical plays, now spread a shadow which they will have to share with us, the ignoble dead who cross each other in a Havana, a Cuba, a street which goes beyond the consonance of being or not being on Linea and 19th.

Translated by Raul G.

The Papal Mantle and The Red Mass – Reflections on the Pope’s Visit to Cuba / Yoani Sanchez

Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

The miter leans slightly with the rhythm of the ritual, leaving his back exposed to the stone face of José Martí. On the table of the Mass, the chalice rests and reflects from its golden surface a relief of Che Guevara mounted on the facade of the Ministry of the Interior. Benedict XVI officiates mass in the Plaza of the Revolution, and the whole scene could not be more contradictory, more unreal.

In the red heart of red Cuba, the Lord’s Prayer is heard, and a few yards from Raúl Castro’s office, a multitude responds with an “amen” instead of the traditional “fatherland or death.” In the street in front of the altar, ordered reticles contain those attending the Catholic liturgy. When the television cameras pan the scene it’s clear many of them don’t know how to pray or how to cross themselves.

There is also a VIP area filled with the members of a government that defines itself as Marxist and atheist. The Communist Party leaders aren’t wearing olive-green but rather suits and ties, but even so they clash with the white clothes of the many believers and the red of the cardinals. Wednesday, March 8 has barely dawned and the island seems exhausted by the two days St. Peter’s successor has already spent among us.

The visit began in the east of the country. After the jubilant throngs that greeted him in Mexico, the Pope found a surprisingly orderly people here, lined up along the road between the airport and the city of Santiago de Cuba. The crowd carried no posters nor were shouts of joy heard; it was simply a gentle stream of people with little flags waving in their hands. An image perfectly suited to the adjectives “educated, composed and organized” which the newspaper Granma had used a few days before to describe the people who would wait for Benedict XVI.

Also, with sufficient lead time, schools and workplaces received their marching orders. “We must show respect to His Holiness, believers as well as non-believers. No one can miss Mass,” they were warned at meetings called by union, party and student leaders for this purpose.

Knowing the euphemisms that rule Cuban official language, reading these marching orders was clear: no enthusiasm and no spontaneity; anything that departs from the program will be punished. In some companies, whose employees received a bonus in convertible currency, the message was even more direct: those who don’t attend will lose the hard currency cash stimulus. Which explains, in part, why so many atheists and materialists showed up at dawn in the plazas on the days when the Supreme Pontiff celebrated Catholic worship.

Cachita

The preparations for the papal visit had started months earlier, when it was announced that His Holiness would visit us for the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the image of the Virgin of the Caridad del Cobre. Our patron, popularly known as Cachita, was found in the Bay of Nipe in the early 17th century. Two men and a teenager, all three named Juan, found her floating in the water.

So Cachita, rescued from the waves by those arms, became the Mary of a people who, centuries later, would launch themselves into the Straits of Florida on rafts, doors converted into boats, and trucks made watertight so they would float. The Mambisa Virgin, who was also with those who demanded Cuba’s independence from Spain at the point of machetes, now adorns the altars of our compatriots scattered across the globe.  She has her shrine in Miami, as she has her sanctuary in Santiago.

Cachita was the first rafter, only did she not escape, she arrived, not wanting to reach other horizons but to stay with us forever. And in honor of this “traveler of the faith” Joseph Ratzinger also came to Cuba. To pray in a temple full of offerings, known as El Cobre, for its proximity to copper deposits. In the entrance hall of the busy church — the Chapel of Miracle — is a varied collection: locks of hair dedicated by girls planning to marry a foreigner alternate with booties from babies written off by doctors but who managed to survive. Bracelets from the 26th of July Movement left there by rebels who once wore scapulars, but ended up banning them. In one corner a card recalls the dissidents imprisoned during the Black Spring of 2003. Only under Cachita’s cloak can such plurality coexist.

Fidel Castro’s mother herself offered this Virgin the silhouette of her son sculpted in gold so that he would survive the rigors of the Sierra Maestra. Ernest Hemingway’s Nobel Prize lies side-by-side with several military orders that belonged to the Fulgencio Batista’s soldiers and officials. All the elements of the national melting pot come together at the feet of Cachita, under the protection of the crown that adorns her head.

Benedict XVI also brought his own gift for our patron: The Golden Rose, one of the highest decorations awarded by the Catholic Church. And with each day the offerings grow, as five hundred people cross the threshold of that temple daily,; on the weekends the numbers double. Some from devotion, others out of curiosity. Who knows?

Joseph Ratzinger entered this sanctuary one warm March morning, surrounded by the faithful. On the steep road leading there he didn’t see any of the vendors who normally offer wood carvings of the Virgin of Charity. Nor were there the traveling sellers or flowers, candles and little pebbles speckled with copper.

Also missing were the Ladies in White, who every Sunday make a pilgrimage to the temple of our Patron Saint. They were there for several days before being warned by State Security to stay away. Several of them were subject to house arrest, while others fared worse, ending up in one of the area’s jail cells.

Like someone who cleans the house to receive an important guest, the Cuban government had decided to sweep all the inconvenient citizens under the carpet. To achieve that, they triggered the strongest campaign of repression of recent years.

Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

From atheism to faith

In a population that has had to wear so many masks to circumvent the controls, it is difficult to distinguish between those who really believe in God and those who don’t. Among those who showed a vertical materialism thirty years ago, today are many devout and mystics. However, despite this emergence of religiosity, we remain a people of few practitioners, perhaps for lack of  perseverance, or perhaps because freedom from worship, once interrupted, delays its return in all its aspects.

Many who feigned being anti-religious when it was an ideological sin to have a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in your home, are now confessed Santeros, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Seventh Day Adventists. Cubans coming out run through an odd and surprising route, through agnosticism to faith, from doubt to belief. Crucifixes are no longer hidden under shirts, and altars to saints are in plain view in the living rooms of thousands of homes.

The custom of baptizing children has returned after several generations that never received this sacrament. Church weddings are back in fashion, and it’s common in hospitals to see the sacrament of last rites. Catechism classes are filled with children whose parents had to learn in school that “religion is the opium of the people.” National history seems to have closed a cycle of guns to begin another of rosaries.

And not only religion, the Church as an institution has gained ground in our society in recent years. Among other achievements is the possibility of opening a new seminary to train priests. Catholic masses are broadcast on national television on certain important dates and even the political discourse has cast aside its old anti-religious slogans. December 25 has been a holiday for fourteen years, an accomplishment of John Paul II, and now Benedict XVI has given us the first Good Friday off in several decades.

The papal visit of March 2012 was also focused on strengthening the spaces already recovered and extending pastoral action to other areas of society. One of the long deferred dreams of the Cuban archdiocese is to be able to teach Christian ethics in the Island’s schools. Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino has been playing a decisive role in these present conquests and their possible future expansion. His personal history includes a stay, in the mid-sixties, in the so-called Military Units in Aid of Production (UMAP). Under these initials were hidden forced labor camps surrounded by barbed wire where homosexuals, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other politically incorrect “elements” were interned. Perhaps from having lived there the Archbishop of Havana knows what the Cuban government is capable of against those who oppose it.

Ortega y Alamino led the controversial negotiations between Church and State that culminated in the release of the prisoners of the Black Spring. Applauded by many and criticized by many others, those conversations were notable for the absence of various stakeholders who had been peacefully demanding the release of those dissidents and independent journalists.

The Ladies in White — wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of the prisoners — were excluded from the table where it was agreed to draw back those locks and, for many of the incarcerated, exchange the bars for departure into exile. The Church emerged strengthened by its role as mediator, but perhaps not even its ancient wisdom allowed it to measure the enormous responsibility it had assumed.

In a country where all the roads by which civil society can make demands or question the government have been cut off, any small path that opens in that direction is immediately crammed with requests. The effects of the Catholic Church assuming political leadership at that moment did not fail to be felt.

On March 13, in a Havana temple consecrated to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, a group of thirteen people gathered, asking that a list of demands be delivered to the Pope. The list ranged from the authorization to form political parties to respect for economic freedoms. They refused to leave when the mass ended, and demanded a chance to speak with some representative from the Church hierarchy.

After three days without anyone offering them food, an unarmed commando moved in and removed the occupants by force. Undertaken with the consent of Cardinal Jaime Ortega, this eviction maneuver sparked a deep discontent among other activists, even those who had expressed their disagreement with the tactic of breaking into a church.

One unfortunate note published by the Havana Archdiocese in the Communist Party’s Granma newspaper implied that the official and ecclesiastical discourses could once again be almost identical in certain situations. The incident was broken up in a misguided way before the arrival of Benedict XVI, so its political cost will linger for a long time. Cachita’s golden mantle did not serve, on this occasion, to protect all her children.

Wojtyla vs. Ratzinger

Parallel with citizen disconnect, another shadow cast over the arrival of His Holiness was the luminous trail left by his predecessor. The Polish Pope, Karol Wojtyle, traveled to Cuba in January 1998 and so was the first Pope to arrive in our land. We experienced, then, moments of hope and doubt. We’d recently emerged from the hardest years of the so-called Special Period, with its economic crises and endless blackouts. The Berlin Wall had fallen nearly a decade earlier, partly due to the influence of this Traveler of the Gospel on events taking place in Poland and other Eastern European countries.

John Paul II came preceded by the thunder of a political bloc that had disarmed while Fidel Castro’s government put into practice small and controlled economic reforms to avoid a collapse. The man who had been educated in Jesuit schools and later renounced the faith waited at the foot of the stairs for the old anti-communist born in Wadowice.

Seldom has a welcoming ceremony had so many explicit and subliminal messages as those that would be read on that January 21, 1998 at José Martí Airport. Face to face were the Guerrilla and the Pastor, the atheist and the pontiff, he who imposed the writings of Marx in the schools, and he who spread the Holy Bible.

Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

John Paul II had ventured a phrase that would not come to pass in the nearly fifteen years between one papal visit and another:

“Let Cuba open itself to the world and let the world open itself to Cuba.”

These were his words but insularity — more political than physical — continued to mark the national direction. His presence in several Cuban provinces was met by an enthusiasm that his successor couldn’t even begin to equal. One of the popular signs of the disgust that met Benedict XVI was the absence of jokes about him. In a festive people who laugh even in the midst of great material scarcity, the jokes and funny stories that greeted the coming of Karol Wojtyla could have filled a book.

But in March of 2012 Joseph Ratzinger found us more serious, more tired. Pepito, the eternal mischievous urchin of so many popular stories, didn’t deign to appear on this occasion. As one day faith abandoned so many Cubans, now it was sarcasm that had taken its leave. All we managed to come up with were a few word plays, as in Spanish the word “papa” means both pope and potato — that tuber so missing from our plates. An elementary and trite play on words between the resident of the Vatican and this savory bite that has disappeared from our forks: “Instead of habemus papam, what we want is potato,” Cuban housewives joked.

Fourteen years later it was clear we were no longer the same, but neither was the pope. The Commander-in-Chief did not wait for him at the airport, rather the red carpet was watched over by his little brother, Raul Castro. The heir to the triple tiara was received by the Cuban heir to the throne.

In his welcoming speech, the General President said that the country was absorbed in a process of transformation. As if the ancient memory of the Church could forget that similar phrases had been pronounced before the previous pope. If the hosts feared that Benedict XVI might emit criticisms about the management of the Communist Party on Cuban soil, real life calmed them. His public speeches were centered on pastoral themes and the boldest phrase that came out of his mouth was to assure us that “Cuba is looking to the future.” Beyond that, there was incense in abundance while social and political references were scarce.

There was no time on the papal agenda to meet with the outlawed voices of civil society. Well in advance, the Ladies in White had solicited at least one minute to tell His Holiness of this other Cuba that the official side never includes in its conversations. There is no one better than they to make such a demand.

Every Sunday for the last nine years dozens of these women have attended mass at Santa Rita, patron of impossible causes, to pray for their imprisoned family members. The peaceful women’s movement they represent has spread to seven provinces and, although many of the Ladies have accompanied their husbands into exile, there are now more than one hundred members on the Island.

Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega’s failure to include the Ladies in White in his negotiations with the Cuban authorities has been strongly criticized, as these women have — without question — the merit of having put their lives in danger in the streets, before a government that penalizes political opposition and free expression with long prison sentences. If the cardinal and the president had opened this space, there would have been faith that the pope would have met with them.

But Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, already on Cuban soil, said that Benedict’s schedule was too tight for a meeting with the dissidence or other civic groups. But he could dedicate half an hour of his scarce time to the ex-president Fidel Castro, with whom he met at the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana.

A frail old man, accompanied by several of his children and his wife, spoke with the man who, in his day, was the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith. This meeting irredeemably tilted the papal visit to the side of officialdom. In Mexico he had refused to cross words with the victims of clerical child abuse, and in Cuba he abstained from an exchange with the victims of governmental abuse.

The pope yes, the citizens no

Benedict had used up all the controversy his stay in Cuba would raise days before he landed at Antonio Maceo Airport. He addressed the Island’s model in very strong words while on his plane en route to Mexico. “Communism is no longer working in Cuba,” he decreed, in what seemed to be the preamble to a visit marked by tensions between Catholic doctrine and a government that declares itself — even today — Marxist-Leninist. But as the papal delegation approached our skies, the discourse was moderated.

Although the national press did not publish these criticisms from His Holiness, most people learned of them thanks to the illegal information networks and the persecuted satellite dishes that capture channels from Florida. Everyone knew, but few made their knowledge public. In schools and workplaces it was insistently repeated that attendance at the Pope’s Mass was an imperative, in the same tone used to announce the May Day parade.

Despite the controls deployed, in the middle of the plaza of Santiago de Cuba a man named Andres Carrion shouted, “Down with communism!” His words echoed in the morning air above the psalms and prayers, even reaching the ears of those closest to the pope. Immediately two plainclothes police evacuated the daring activist who had made a mockery of all the fences.

Once Carrion was beyond the area visible from altar, a man wearing the insignia of the Red Cross hit him in the face and brought a stretcher down on his head. Before the astonished eyes of the foreign press and the opportunistic lenses of several cameras, the scene explained very well how the circles of vigilance were set up around that gathered flock. With police camouflaged as the faithful, as nurses, as lighting technicians. If anyone expected to see a booted soldier with a gun on his belt repress the indignation, what happened would have confused and affected them even more.

The image of that individual, supposedly there to provide first aid, slapping a handcuffed man and beating him with what should have been emergency equipment, provoked the most notorious scandal of the papal journey. The report of what happened reached the ears of the International Red Cross, which demanded an investigation of the facts. Their Cuban spokesperson, several days later, issued a note of apology without specifying the identity of the aggressor.

The short video showing the beating has been seen by millions of Cubans, although the official press never referred to what happened. People must know that Andres Carrion will be charged with public disorder and it has also leaked out that the Vatican entourage intervened to avoid the the application of a very severe penalty.

Perhaps this intervention was motivated by what the Pope had said about Communism before coming to Cuba and what Andres Carrion had chosen to shout in the middle of the plaza. One of them was received with honors after asserting that a system wasn’t working, and the other was locked up and expected to be tried for his actions. Dramatic paradoxes of who and where.

The truth is that the Cuban government’s meticulously planned script for the three-day visit suffered an irreversible setback from one man’s scream, a sobering surprise.

State of emergency… undeclared

To prevent something like what, in fact, happened, innumerable measures — including the most excessive — were taken ahead of time. Throughout all of Cuba hundreds of people were victims of an intensive crackdown during the last week of March.

The Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation was able to account for more than four hundred activists taken to police stations or subject to house arrest. The scope and effectiveness of this raid, popularly dubbed the “Vow of Silence,” betrayed its meticulous preparation weeks and months in advance.

Amid the hardships we live with, a repressive deployment of these proportions must have exhausted the national coffers and compromised a share of the resources urgently needed for other sectors.

There are those who say the Pope’s stay among us served as a dress rehearsal for the enforcement mechanisms being made ready for “X-Day,” as the day Fidel Castro’s death is announced has come to be called. And for this, everything will be brought to bear. At least we now know how the first twenty-four hours will pass after the “Great Death”: dissidents behind bars, communications cut, eyes lurking around every corner.

Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Transportation was virtually paralyzed hours before the Alitalia plane landed and Internet access was cut in schools and workplaces a week in advance. The mobile phone company, Cubacel, became an accomplice, cutting the lines of any potentially “dangerous” users. Even the black market experienced anxious moments with the excessive number of police in the streets. The country was under an undeclared state of emergency.

By the time His Holiness spoke at the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana, filled with believers and non-believers, he had probably already heard of the ideological purge that had rounded up numerous sheep from his flock. Why didn’t he allude to them in his homily? What was the reason for his not pronouncing a few words during his farewell at the airport as a reminder of those who were prevented from approaching his entourage?

One of the detainees of those days tells how they took him to a cell east of the capital, with boarded-up windows. The timing of his arrest, on a public street several hours before the Pope landed in Havana, seemed like something from the script of a bad action movie. In the cell where they held him he found three other opponents who were arrested when they went to a police station to inquire about the whereabouts of a missing colleague.

Through a small hole that opened onto the street he spent the night shouting telephone numbers so that some passerby might call his family, because they denied him the right to make a single phone call. Through the gap he just managed to see the feet of kids playing baseball, the shoes of old people walking to the bodega, and skinny legs of the dogs.

All night he repeated the same digits over and over until he had no more voice to continue. He still doesn’t know who contacted his friends and family, but when he was released they were already aware of his arrest. Perhaps a stranger heard those numbers coming from a small hole flush with the sidewalk and miraculously decided to act as the messenger of such an urgent errand.

Several weeks after Benedict XVI arrived on our Island, the phones still weren’t working and civic activists remained in detention. Like that prisoner in the boarded-up cell, many Cubans are still waiting to unravel the method, the mechanism, through which they can let the Supreme Pontiff know what happened behind the scenes of his visit.

From this side of a closed shutter, within a guarded cell, or in a plaza occupied by State Security, there can always be a small hole through which to send a message. Do they hear it on the other side? Does the papal mantle reach, this time, to protect all of us?

May 2012

End of Service! / Regina Coyula

On Monday, my son is thinking about enrolling as a university student. These are his first two weeks as a “civvie” after one year of military service. This was a year wasted, because except for the roughly six initial weeks of service known as “The Trial”, during which he ran, jumped, fired guns, pushed paperwork and, above all, marched a lot, he spent the rest of his time earning money by working with the private transport trucks around San Antonio de los Baños and becoming an expert at clearing scrubland with his bare hands.

According to the stories I’ve heard about the dismal experiences people have had on their military service, my son had a pretty good time of it, made loads of new friends with whom he spends his brief holidays at the beach, or at concerts or playing pool. They all bring up anecdotes and, smiling, remember the brutes they had for superiors. This is probably the memory that most sticks out for them during that time.

Translated by Christopher Andrew Smith

August 24 2012

Letter From a Young Man Who Has Left / Ivan Lopez Monreal

Pomerie, Blugaria. Source: landisbg.com

Site manager’s note: This letter is not from one of our regular bloggers. It is from a young Cuban who has emigrated to Bulgaria, and was written in response to a post on (the now “paused”) blog “La Joven Cuba,” detailing why young people should not emigrate from Cuba. The letter is “going viral” on Cuba-related websites and we thought our readers would want to read it.

Dear Rafael Hernández:

I have read with great interest your “Letter to a young man who is leaving.” I feel it applies to me, because two years ago I left Cuba, I’m 28 years old and I live in Pomorie, a spa city situated in the east of Bulgaria. The reason why I write to you is to try to explain to you my stance as a young Cuban emigrant. Without solemnities nor absolute truths, because if leaving my country has taught me anything, it’s discovering that such truths do not exist.

Maybe some of those who have left in the last few years (there are thousands of us) are clear about the moment they decided to do it. Not me. Mine was progressive, almost without my realizing it. It began with that oh-so-Cuban resource that is the complaint. Trifling, perhaps. About what isn’t available, about what has not come, about what happens, about what doesn’t happen, about not knowing. Or not being able to.

The complaining is not serious, what’s serious is that it becomes chronic, like an illness, when nothing seems to resolve itself. And one can accept that that’s how it is, and that it’s your country for better or for worse, or move on to the next category, which is frustration. Or discover that the solution to the majority of the problems is out of your hands. Or they won’t let you do it. Or even sadder: they don’t seem to matter.

To abandon or to remain in your country is a very personal decision that should never be judged in moral terms. I chose this route because I wanted a different future from the one that I foresaw in Cuba, and I left to look for it knowing that it could go badly, but I wanted to run that risk. I’m not going to lie and say it was painful. I did not cry in the airport. On the contrary, I was happy. In fact, I freed myself.

You are right to say that my generation lacks those emotional ties that generate experiences such as the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis or the Angola war. But make no mistake, I have also had my epics. At best not as epic, but certainly equally devastating. In these twenty-two years mentioned, I have watched the country for which my parents fought degrade itself. I have seen my elementary and secondary school teachers leave. I have seen families argue for the right to eat bread.

I have seen the Malecon full of nervous people screaming against the government, and even more nervous people screaming in its favor. I have seen young people building rafts to flee to who knows where, and a mob throwing cat shit against the house of a “traitor.” Rafael, I have even seen a dog eating another dog on the corner of 27 and F in Havana.

And I have also seen my father, who was in Angola, his face pale, without answers, the day a hotel custodian told him that he could not keep walking along the Jibacoa beach (across from the international camping area) because he was Cuban. I was with him. I saw it. I was ten years old, and a ten-year-old boy does not forget how his father’s dignity goes to shit. Even though he had returned from a war with three medals.

You talk to me about the social conquests of the Revolution. About education and medicine. I am going to talk to you about my education. I had good teachers, and when they left they were substituted for others less prepared who, in turn, were replaced by social workers who wrote “experience” with an S and who were incapable of pointing on a map to five capitals of Latin America (they didn’t tell me this, I lived it). My parents had to hire private tutors so that I could truly learn. My parents did not pay them; my aunt based in Toronto did.

To be honest, I owe a good part of my education to the clients of the Greek restaurant where my aunt worked. But there is more. In my older sister’s time it was extremely rare that a student receive a grade of 100%. In my time a 100% came to be something common, not because we students had become more brilliant, but because the professors lowered their requirements to cover up the school’s failure. And you know what? I was lucky, because those who came after me had a television instead of a teacher.

I have very little to say about medicine, because you live in Cuba. And except for remaining free, which I admit is still commendable, the state of the hospitals, the precariousness of badly-paid doctors and the growing corruption push the health system even more toward that third world you did so much to avoid. And the truth is that, today, a Cuban who has hard currency has more opportunities to receive better treatment (giving gifts or even paying) than one who doesn’t, even though it’s illegal. And even though the constitution says otherwise. As sad as it is to admit, Rafael, the education and medicine available to today’s Cubans are worse than those which my parents enjoyed.

You say that the country exerts a great effort, that there is an embargo. And I respond to you that there is also a government that takes fifty years to make decisions on behalf of all Cubans. And if we have reached this point, it would be healthiest to admit that it has failed, or was unable, or didn’t want to do things differently. For whatever reason. Because its failure is also full of reasons. And instead of digging in with its historical figures in the Council of State, it should give way to those who come after.

Rafael, it’s very frustrating for a young person of my age to see that 50 years have passed in Cuba without producing a generational change-over because the government has not allowed it. And I’m not talking about giving the power to me, as a 28-year-old. I am talking about those 40-, 50- or even 60-year-old Cubans who have never had the chance to decide.

Because today’s people who are of that age and who hold positions of responsibility in Cuba have not been trained to make decisions, but rather to approve them. They are not leaders, they are officials. And that includes everyone from ministers to the delegates of the national assembly. They are part of a vertical system that does not provide room so that they can exercise the autonomy that corresponds with their positions. Everything is a consultation. And contrary to the old the saying: instead of asking for pardon, everyone would rather ask for permission.

You say that in my country one can vote and be elected to a position from age 16. And that the presence of young delegates has diminished from the 80s until now. You even warn me that if we continue on like this, there will be fewer young people who vote and therefore fewer who are eligible. And I ask you: what purpose does my vote serve? What can I change? What have the delegates of the national assembly done to spark my interest in them?

Let’s be honest, Rafael, and I believe that you are in your letter, so I also want to be honest in mine, we both know that the national assembly, as it is conceived, only serves to pass laws unanimously. It is ironic to call an institution that meets one week a year an “assembly.” Three or four days in the summer and three or four days in December. And during those days it limits itself to approving the mandates from the Council of State and of its President, who is the one who decides what happens and what doesn’t happen in the country. Sadly, I cannot vote for  this president. And I’m not sure I would want to do so.

A few days ago I heard Ricardo Alarcón confess to a Spanish reporter that he doesn’t believe in Western democracy “because the citizens are only free the day they vote, the rest of the time the parties do what they want…” Even if that were the case, which it is not (at least not all the time, and not in every democracy), he would recognize that since I was born, in 1984, voters in the United States, for instance, have had seven days of freedom (one every four years) to change their president.

A few times they have done this for the better, and others for the worse. But that’s another story. A young person my age from New Jersey has already had two days of freedom to, for example, throw out Bush’s Republicans and elect Obama. Cubans have not been able to make a decision like that since 1948 (not including Batista’s elections, of course). And if you tell me that the capacity to elect a president is not relevant for a country, I insist that it is. And more relevant for a young person who needs to feel like he’s being taken into account. Even though it may be only for one day.

You probably think that we who left chose the easier route, that the more difficult one was to stay in order to solve problems. But I have to tell you that my grandparents and my parents stayed in Cuba to wrestle with those problems. To give me a country that would be more advanced, equitable, progressive. And the one they have given me is one in which the people celebrate being able to buy a car and sell a house as if it were a conquest. But that is not a conquest, it’s recovering a right that we already had before the Revolution. Is this what we’ve come to? Celebrating as a victory something so simple? How many other basic things have we lost over the years?

For my parents it’s painful to assume that failure, and they don’t want it for me. They don’t want me, at 55, to have a salary I cannot afford to live on, neither the salary nor the ration book. Because it’s not enough. And they don’t want me to survive only by turning to the black market, to corruption, to double standards, to pretending. They prefer that I be far away. At 28 years old I have become my parents’ social security — how else do you believe two people could survive on 650 pesos?

Yes, Rafael, hundreds of thousands of us Cubans have had to leave so that our country doesn’t collapse. What Cuba receives in our remittances is superior, in net value, to nearly all of its exports. Yes, the country has lost youth and talent, and instead of opening a realistic debate about how to stop the bleeding, it remains anchored to an ideological immobility that is nothing more than fear for the future. And what do I do in a country whose rulers are afraid of the future…? Wait until they die…? Wait until they change the laws out of generosity and not out of conviction? What do I do in a country that continues to reward unconditional political loyalty over talent? What do I aspire to if what I am and what I do is not enough? Do I become a cynic? Or do you motivate me to face the consequences and say what I think out loud? Some young people from my generation have already done so, and where are they?

Let’s remember Eliécer Ávila, a student of Eastern University who had the courage to ask Ricardo Alarcón why young Cubans could not travel like other people, and who was retaliated against by the system. He was not to blame for the presence of a BBC camera there, nor for the ridiculous response that Alarcón gave him (the barbarity that planes would fill the sky and crash into each other). Today Eliécer lives as an outcast for political reasons. And he is not a terrorist nor a mercenary nor an unpatriotic person, he is a humble young mullato man, an academic, who made the mistake of being honest. How sad to have a revolution that ends up condemning someone for being honest. You want me to stay for that, Rafael?

Leaving your country and your family is not an easy path. Nor is it the solution to anything, it is only a beginning. You go to another culture, you have to learn another language, you have some very bad moments. You feel alone. But at least you have the relief of knowing that with effort you can get things. My first winter in Bulgaria was very difficult, I found work as a driver and I spent four months loading and unloading washing machines to save money to be able to travel to Turkey. A dream I had when I was a young boy. And I went.

I did not have to ask permission to leave nor did my plane crash into another. I could complete Eliécer’s dream. And it made me happy to have done so. I’ve known other realities, I’ve been able to compare. I’ve discovered that the world is infinitely imperfect, and that we Cubans are not the center of anything. We are admired for some things just as we are hated for others.

I have also discovered that leaving has not changed my leftist convictions. Because the Cuban left is not the left, Rafael. Call it whatever you want, but it is not the left. I am part of those who search for social progress with equality of opportunity and without exclusions. Think what you want to think. Without sectarianism or trenches. Because that only serves to confront society and substitute dogmas for truths.

Finally, Rafael, chance wanted me to end up in a country that was also governed by one party and a single ideology. Here there was no Velvet Revolution like in Czechoslovakia, nor did they demolish a wall like in Berlin, nor did they shoot a president like in Romania. Here, as in Cuba, the people did not know their dissidents. Here there were no fissures, and nevertheless, in a week it went from being a socialist state to a parliamentary republic. And nobody protested. Nobody complained. I cannot help but ask myself: did they spend 40 years pretending?

Since then it hasn’t been a bed of roses; they have faced several crises, and the population has even come to live with poorer quality than what they had in the 80s, but curiously, the vast majority of Bulgarians do not want to go back. And the socialism they left behind was more prosperous than what we Cubans have today. But in this country they don’t think about the past, they think about the present. In bettering the economy, in resolving the inequalities (they exist here, as in Cuba), in fighting the double standard, the personalities and the corruption that the state generated for decades.

The day that this present matters in Cuba, no doubt, we will see each other in Havana.

Ivan López Monreal
Pomorie, Bulgaria

Translated by: Regina Anavy, Courtney Finkel

August 22 2012

The Impossible Cuban Existence of Julian Assange / Yoani Sanchez

Photo from Wikipedia

I’m not going to analyze the ethical and journalistic implications of Julian Assange’s work. I confess that I sympathize in part with his ideology, at least the part that proclaims the need for transparency in diplomatic and government affairs. But in Cuba all the cables brought to light by Wikileaks have not been published; they’ve barely even made reference to those where the Cuban government comes out well. Hence, the need for an Internet connection to get an objective idea of the scope and objectives of the phenomenon headed by this Australian, now granted asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

I can, however, arrive at a couple of conclusion, at least with respect to the use being made of the “Assange Case” by the official Cuban press. As I don’t need the elusive fiber optic cable, nor an illegal satellite dish to watch the National News every day, this time I have all the elements I need to form an opinion.

The first thing that comes to mind is that a government that has made secrecy and silence a basic pillar of its power praises a hacker who represents the exact opposite. As if the overbearing mother who has locked her daughters in the house throws out a compliment to the libertine whose offspring are running all over the neighborhood.

Ecuador’s London Embassy where Assange has been given asylum. Photo: Wikepedia

The declassifier of memos is now applauded on our small screen by a system that has been careful not to leave any traces of its outrages on paper. The “Robin Hood of Information” himself — as some have called him — receives approval from the Sheriff who has locked us in the feudal castle of censorship. Something doesn’t fit, right? How is it possible that the promulgators of so many omissions now wave the flag of a man who promotes the exact opposite?

The sudden fascination of the Cuban media with the Wikileaks director can only be understood as a part of a shabby “anti-imperialism” where “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is always true. They even apply that maxim in cases where the means are obviously divorced from the ends, as is true for the information policy of Raul Castro’s government and the massive “leaks” promoted by Julian Assange.

But the absurdity reaches incalculable heights when the “Roundtable” TV program, known for its anti-journalism and complacency with power, presents this young man of 41 as a hero of the web. This is, without a doubt, the most contradictory thing I’ve seen lately… never mind that I live in a land of great paradoxes.

If right now a young State Security official declassified the total financial cost to the country of the operations focused on opponents and the repudiation rallies against the Ladies in White, what would happen? If tomorrow a doctor, motivated by personal and professional honesty, published the real number of people infected with dengue fever in Cuba, what would they do to him?

Let’s imagine a soldier — in the style of Bradley Manning — who leaked military memoranda between the governments in Havana and in Caracas. Would there be any clemency for him? And were it to be the case that someone revealed the true dimensions of Fidel Castro’s personal fortune, would they let us hear about it?

If a simple personal blog of opinions brings down the entire repressive apparatus against a citizen, it makes chills run down my spine to imagine what would happen to someone who created a page of leaks and declassifications.

But, let’s look at that; authoritarian regimes don’t leave their footprints on paper. Their archives rarely contain anything that compromises them because orders are given verbally and without witnesses. They are specialists in sending someone to kill their adversaries merely by the raise of an eyebrow, fomenting guerrilla actions across a whole continent by whispering a few phrases, deploying nuclear missiles in their territory under the impunity of silence, and postponing for 15 years the publication of the death toll suffered in a war on African soil.

But what these systems that are enemies of information are most skilled in, is detecting potential Julian Assanges within their own countries. They sniff them out from when they are young, when they ask questions here and poke around there, when they don’t go along with the pap that passes for news on official TV and try to investigate further.

They watch them from the minute they start to question what’s wrong and stick their noses into some thorny issues. And then they act quickly against them. Either buying them with some ephemeral privileges, or making their lives impossible so they’ll go into exile, or demonizing them so no one will believe them.

There is no way to become a Julian Assange in Cuba and stay alive, believe me.

23 August 2012

“They Rule Because You Obey” / Angel Santiesteban

I read this phrase that I chose as a title on Facebook, and in the background were photos of Fidel and Raul Castro, the brothers who have tyrannically ruled Cuba for more than fifty years.

It’s true, those Dictators rule because we Cubans on the island obey, because to confront them is to fear losing your life; we know that we are waiting for hordes of mercenaries with machine guns and tanks that will mercilessly drive over our bodies. What is also true and also sad is that those who publicized it were other Cubans whose only rebellion was to abandon the national territory. It’s as if they have forgotten their sufferings and their fears, as if they don’t remember their past.

It seems unjust to me that those who saved their lives by putting geographical distance between them and this island, now push us to make decisions that could end in our deaths or in long prison terms, as Cubans know well what awaits those who dare to challenge the Castro brothers. It is dishonest that after putting the sea between them, they now demand attitudes that they themselves were not willing to take.

On other occasions I have said that, for the most part those who have emigrated, whom I unconditionally support for having taken this decision, complied until the last possible moment and in a disciplined way with all the laws and requirements of the regime. Most did not renounce their membership in the Committees for the Defense of the Revolutions (CDR), nor the Cuban Workers Union (CTC), nor the Territorial Militia (MTT); intelligently they remained mute so as not to attract the attention of the authorities and so they were granted the “White Card” — the permission to leave the country — an action I don’t criticize, nor would it go well for anyone who did otherwise.

But for these same reasons it does not appear just or humane that they now ask for self-immolations from those who, like them, at least desire and need to survive the totalitarian system that rules the Cuban archipelago.

As it is also true that if all of us had remained here, the country would have exploded in a popular revolt like a pressure cooker, from the pressure of the terror, freeing ourselves from these dictators whom we have suffered for such a long time. Some would repeat the popular phrase: it’s easy to push without hitting.

To reach such conclusions is offensive, because to humiliate those on either shore is useful only to our enemies. Better they should suffer for their compatriots left inside here, and try to care for them, because in the end most of the dead and the prisoners are those of us who stayed from the conviction that we must find, together, the road that leads us to the democracy that Jose Marti dreamed of in the century before last, and that we still have to conquer.

I always say that those inside the island and the outside create the perfect scream. Without them — without you — we would be only half, our pain would find no echo, nor, therefore, any receptors. Our pain comes from the mouths of those who are in the lands of freedom, those who are not persecuted by censorship, and those who have no henchmen waiting at the doors of their homes to silence them with blows.

And so, both sides, the exile and those of us who inhabit this island of ghosts, we need strength, we are the perfect chemistry to oust the tyrants of this place that belongs to everyone equally.

August 24 2012

Free the Five* / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado

A friend gave me this picture that she got with some applications, programs, movies and TV series that she’s used to managing through her computer. I don’t know the author’s blog, but from the ingenuity of the graphic surely we can find a little time to visit places outside our political and ideological creed. Those of us who live in Cuba have to put more effort into it than our compatriots who live beyond our borders, and we are left with no other alternative than to join the enthusiasts of “this just campaign.”

*Translator’s note: The post/graphic is a take-off on “The Cuban Five,” five Cuban spies imprisoned in the U.S. who are a major cause célbre in Cuba. (One of the five is now on parole.) None of the items in the picture is available to ordinary Cubans.


August 23 2012