Uniforms Against Illegality IX / Agustín Valentín López Canino

Julio has finished his story of the abduction where his more than 200 pounds became an inanimate object, consisting of an amorphous substance lacking in spatial location, without any perception of a social being, crosses to the other side where the parents of Antonio Rodiles have remained for more than 7 hours without, for a purely human reason, the uniformed ones having deigned to offer them a seat or a glass of water except the kindness of that ambulance placed on front, a symbol of free medical care waiting anticipating a fatal outcome. He reports to them the status of their child and continues his trip home.

“I have the need to be seen by a doctor,” I told him.

Commander Galves looked at me indignantly:

“Do you still have the cynicism to ask us for medical assistance?”

The next morning the doors remained welded shut. Lieutenant Cross, head of the Political Police, said it was a personal order of Castro.

Vitamin Water / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

The situation regarding the quality of the drinking water has caused Cubans to take measures to avoid being infected with diseases.

Formerly the rivers were the source of drinking water and the Almendares River served the people via ditch in the street that ran from the river past the fronts of the houses, and people only had to take a bucket and fill it with water and go back inside, and that’s where the name Zanja — ditch — Street came from.

With modernity the rivers began to be contaminated to the extent that no Havana river could be used for drinking water. The factories continue to dump waste into rivers and we continue to lose wildlife. The quality of the water lines is in a worse state every day and the water comes with sand and the smell of sewage.

Boiling water to purify it has another effect as drinking boiled water sickens the kidneys and men’s prostate gland. Putting the bottle of drinking water in the sun and then in the night has been an effective tool, but will not be effective over time.

First without water, and then with contaminated water, nobody cares, nothing happenes, many complain and others remain silent. Doubts rise, no one knows what to do, boil the water, freeze it, or simply nothing, but what can’t be done is to drink the water.

August 8 2012

Wasting Time and Resources / Fernando Dámaso

The Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC), a governmental organization that tries to sell itself as being non-governmental (NGO), has announced the dates for its congress in 2013. Its theme of “a revolutionary journalism in defense of socialism” is unambiguous. We now know with certainty what will be discussed and what will be unanimously approved. They could call off the congress and save both time and resources. For the confraternity that is the UPEC, revolutionary journalism means agreeing with whatever the government decides, supporting it and proclaiming it to the masses, being unconditional in its politics without question or providing any sort of unauthorized criticism, and carrying out orders. This “defense of socialism” thing seems ironic. How do you defend something that has been a failure throughout the entire world, including Cuba? The alternative press and independent journalists don’t count; they aren’t Cuban and belong to another galaxy.

I remember an immigration authority at Havana’s José Martí Airport once stopped a group of passengers who were about to enter the building after descending from the plane. He told them, “Form a queue at the end of this imaginary line,” and pointed to the floor. The passengers looked at each other in astonishment and began grumbling about this utterly absurd proposition. Our “revolutionary journalists” neither look at each other nor grumble. They see all too clearly that the line is real, not imaginary, and that they cannot cross it.

In the much criticized republican past, there were journals and journalists of all political persuasions. Alongside the conservative Diario de La Marina there was the radical (communist) Hoy. Between these were various gradations: El Mundo, Información El País, Excelsior, El Crisol, Mañana, Prensa Libre, Alerta, La Calle, Ataja, Tiempo en Cuba and others. Citizens had access to differing opinions. In accepting those they felt had the most value most based on their own personal beliefs, they were able to adopt new opinions or reinforce those they already held. The press is not a single entity in the service of the powerful, as the public has been led, and continues to be led, to believe.

If it wants to be respected, perhaps the UPEC should commit to a form of journalism that is truly critical (especially as there is so much to be critical about) — one that is responsible, free, that does not seek permission and does not have ideological attachments, that reflects the thoughts and beliefs of different segments of civil society and not just those of the government. To continue playing the game referred to as “unified thought” — something that has never existed, does not exist and never will — is an unfortunate decision.

August 7 2012

A Citizens’ Demand / Regina Coyula

“For Another Cuba”

A person who I hold in great esteem led me to discover a truth of Perogrullo*: I’m a citizen. Something so evident had remained half-intertwined among other dangerous ideas like liberty and democracy. For me, it’s been like a child learning to walk: first, clumsily, then more confidently, until there’s no turning back.

It’s because of this that I’ve received the Civic Demand for a Better Cuba with enthusiasm, because it seems logical to me that I, as a part of the people, who are sovereign and elect public officials to execute popular mandate (at least, in theory), convey knowledge and conviction regarding the fact that the ratification of the United Nations Compact by the government will bring benefit to all to citizens who, like me, have not realized it.

I’m not speaking about political affinities, but rather about exercising a civil right.

*Translator’s note: A truth of Perogrullo is a statement of the obvious. Perogrullo’s origins are disputed, but he was a real or fictional person from sometime between 1200-1600.

Translated by: Will Bettinelli

August 6 2012

The Path Depends on Ourselves / Pablo Pacheco Avila

Me with my wife and son

The most important month of the calendar for me is July.  Firstly, it is when my only son was born and second, it was the month that I left Cuba.

Life, without one choosing, imposes change on us.  Many times, these changes are too rough to handle, like crosses hanging over our backs, but human willpower is limitless.

Just a few hours ago, it was the second anniversary of my arrival to Spain, and the first of arriving to the United States.  I remember that I told my family after talking on the phone with Cardinal Jaime Ortega in the provincial prison of Ciego de Avila, “We have to pack our bags, without even thinking of returning, at least as long as the same ones who are forcing me to leave are in power”.

Fifteen or twenty minutes before boarding the plane with my wife and son in a semi-empty terminal of the “Jose Marti” Havana Airport, I felt the strongest of emotions I had ever felt.  I found some of my partners in cause and their families.  A nightmare of more than 7 years was ending, but most of all, it was the illusion of discovering a path with lots and lots of expectations of living in a foreign land.

Time flies.  It goes by so fast that sometimes we do not even notice.  Yesterday, I was being consumed in a prison cell of high severity in Cuba, and today, right now, I enjoy freedom in this country which has always lent a helping hand to Cubans.

Now, I look back at the past and I laugh, although with a mixture of pain- it is inevitable after everything we lived- but I thank God for all the good and bad things he has given me.

Many of my brothers have found the path, while for others it has been more difficult, but I am certain that each one of them will find that route of happiness and prosperity.

Those who are no longer with us will always be remembered with love and respect, especially Orlando Zapata Tamayo, our martyr.  Zapata was the climax which opened up the iron bars which, during years, kept us in inhumane conditions for simply thinking differently.  His sacrifice caught the attention of the free world, that world which sometimes, because of complicity and other times because of ingenuity, was on the side of those who oppress, on the side of those who have ruined an entire nation.  Of course, the political and economic interests have surpassed human rights, the rights of a people to live in freedom, prosperity, and of living like human beings.

Those who decided to continue the struggle from the inside and said no to exile deserve an outstanding position in the history of Cuba.  Not all of us have the valor of living with the Sword of Damocles hanging over heads.  Supporting them from here is more than a duty, it’s an obligation.

Right now, I dry my eyes off and do so with a bittersweet emotion.  I live free, alongside my lovely wife and my rebel son.  I can see my mother everyday and my two brothers frequently.  That, for me, is more than enough to be happy.  However, pain does invade my heart each night.  Cuba is still a slave.  Those in power continue ruining it, and whats hurts me the most is seeing how people decide to take refuge in fear and double-standards to just end up enslaved.

I look back again and I thank God and all those who have lent me a hand.  I have to look towards the future, for in the past one cannot dwell, and the future is unpredictable, while the present is magnificent for me, for I have what I have dreamed of in life.

Translated by Raul G.

17 July 2012

Again, Maria / Yoani Sánchez

mjAll the women in my family tree are named María. Me too, but in second place, in a dissonant mix of modernity and tradition. I carry this extravagant “Y” in contradiction with the most common woman’s name. So the Marías have been everywhere throughout my life: one brought me into the world, another – gray-haired and with a smoker’s cough – took me to school the first day, and I even played dolls with a sister who also has that name. Years later, in Zurich, one of them opened the doors of her bookstore to me so that I could work surrounded by literature and love. And now a new María has come to my aid, whom I have never been able to meet personally.

She began to translate my texts into English more than four years ago. At first with very little knowledge of Spanish, María José tried to bring my daily brushstrokes into her mother tongue. Her first questions after reading my posts were very nice… “What is a malanga’?” “How much is a convertible peso worth?” “What is a ‘cola’?”… because this transportation engineer has no fear of asking questions, nor does she think it ridiculous to ask about anything she doesn’t know. And that was what I loved about her from the start, her humility. When one interacts with the academic world where everyone shows off their knowledge while hiding their shortcomings, to find sincere people – not the least smug – comes to seem like a balm.

With so much browsing, and even more working, this woman who has now passed her fifties, created a supportive network of translators around the alternative Cuban blogosphere. She started helping me with my blog, and then extended her energies over many other virtual spaces that address the problems of this Island. Godmother from afar to these restless godchildren, MJ tells how her life has changed since embarking on such an adventure. And she doesn’t tire. She looks for translators for versions in French, Hungarian, Polish or Japanese; subtitles interviews; helps promote books; goes to American universities to narrate her experience, and still has time to work at her profession, and look after her parents and daughter. How lucky I am. A patient and generous María has come, once again, into my life, a María who although not part of my family tree, is part of my family.

7 August 2012

Raul Castro Knows That Food is a Time Bomb / Iván García

Photo: RCTV.net

General Raúl Castro acknowledges that beans are more important than canons. For the green khaki overlords food is a matter of national security.

Since taking power on July 31, 2006, Castro II has tried to revitalize agricultural production. But, so far, nothing. The efforts of the enormous and inefficient Ministry of Agriculture have not allowed people to dine on meat, eat malanga*, or purchase fruits and vegetables at affordable prices.

Nothing has come of leasing out the land to increase harvests. Nor of paying three pesos for every liter of milk. Nor of raising the prices paid to private farmers. It is a structural problem. Never, not even when the former Soviet Union spent billions of rubles to subsidize the Cuban economy, has anyone been able to resolve the issue of food production.

With some regularity Fidel Castro liked to remind us that he was an expert in the field of agro-technology. Since the early years of the revolution he has invested time and resources to increase agricultural and livestock production.

In France he looked to livestock experts like André Voisin. He wanted the Frenchman to apply his thesis of rational grazing to the tropics. The then young and arrogant comandante assured Cuba that it would harvest so much malanga that it would be able to export it.

He said the same thing about citrus. In Valle de la Picadura on the outskirts of Havana the guerrilla leader designed immense air-conditioned dairies where he dedicated himself to crossbreeding livestock to obtain superior breeds which might provide greater amounts of beef and milk.

I do not believe any president in the world has been so intimately involved with the problem of food production is his country, or with such paltry results.

He planted coffee throughout the island. He introduced new and more resistant varieties of sugar cane. He planted strawberries, peaches and apples in a mountainous area of Sancti Spiritus province that had a special microclimate.

In spite of his successive failures, Castro never quit. In the 1990s, without the subsidy from Moscow, he established fifty agricultural camps to plant a strain of bananas called “microjet.” He was so excited with the abundance of bananas that he ordered cookbooks to be printed so that housewives might learn to prepare new recipes.

One night he asked his consultants to ship some McDonald’s hamburgers to him by air. He wanted to compare them with some burgers he had created and christened “Zas.” After trying the gringo hamburgers, he declared the Cuban versions better. The Zas burgers were sold in cafes that were converted into hamburger restaurants, two per person.

He acquired some freezers from Argentina. Once in Cuba they were used to manufacture non-dairy ice cream whose flavors were derived from lemon, orange and grapefruit concentrates. He then said that the citrus products would provide a person’s daily recommended dose of vitamin C. Such was his passion for farming and livestock that he produced beans, cattle and buffalo, as well as cheese and ice cream products on his vast estate known as Zone0.

But the end result was that he destroyed the nation’s sugar industry. If there was one thing Cubans knew how to do, it was how to grow cane and produce sugar. The production of the sweet granule is now comparable to what it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Cuba has gone from being “the world’s sugar bowl” to be being an importer of sugar.

The number of heads of cattle has dropped to a minimum. Here’s a fact for you: More cattle are slaughtered on Cuban fields than in state slaughterhouses. All the projects of the comandante end in farce. Today we have neither cows nor milk, nor coffee, nor bananas, nor beef, nor fish or shellfish.

His brother Raúl knows that the food issue is a time bomb. If the regime could stuff the grocery store shelves, it would be able to more comfortably govern a population whose bellies were full. But a cudgel cannot coax crops from the soil. Cuba spends almost $500 million annually to purchase food. Castro II’s plan is to reduce imports.

Furthermore, the measures put in place are incomplete. Leasing out land for ten years and prohibiting someone who works the land from building a home on it is utter stupidity. Ideally, the land would be leased for ninety years or more, and farmers would be allowed to build houses on it.

If the regime wants to significantly reduce prices, it should close state distribution facilities. Theft and fraud in these facilities have made some people millionaires. Raúl Castro himself acknowledges that embezzlement at Havana’s agricultural markets totals 12 million pesos.

The ludicrous prices the state pays for products does not provide farmers with an incentive to increase production. Those who work the land prefer to sell what they produce to private middlemen who offer them better prices.

A private farmer must sell80% of his harvest to the state. If this figure were between 20 and 25%, and producers could commercialize their surpluses, the exorbitant prices of meat, fruits and vegetables would fall.

Another hurdle is the inability of owners to sell their animals. They may only do so to the state, which pays less than 10 convertible pesos ($11) per cow. The solution is to cut the animal’s throat and pretend it was an accident. Or to arrange with a slaughterer to sacrifice the animals at night and then report them as having been stolen.

Absurd laws lead to pitfalls. If the government were to create wholesale markets, the prices for food prepared and sold by private sector workers would fall. Five years ago a pizza cost 5 to 7 pesos in the capital. Now the cheapest one costs between 12 to 15 pesos. A glass of juice that used to cost two pesos has risen to three. A small snack from one peso to two. Meanwhile, workers’ salaries remain frozen in time.

General Castro knows that the food shortage is like a sleeping volcano. It it were to erupt one day, it could blow the regime to pieces.

There is no more effective opposition than the significant and growing segment of the population that has no money, the people who eat little and poorly. In an attempt to halt the discontent and fill the empty pots, Castro II has tried to introduce a series of measures to raise food production while lowering its cost.

So far, it has not worked. Meanwhile, Fidel Castro watches events unfold from his perch in political retirement. He assures us that he is looking into a plant called the moringa that will, once and for all, solve the nation’s food problems. Believe me, this is no joke.

*Translator’s note: A subsistence crop which produces starchy cormels similar in size to potatoes and cooked in similar ways.

August 6 2012

A Young Man’s Life Endangered Because of the Holidays / Ricardo Medina

ImagenSerguei Lanza Figueroa, 33 years old, resident of Calle 28 #601, municipality of Cespedes , province of Camagey, discusses his brush with death, after being refused admission to the Manuel Azcunce Domenech Provincial Hospital of Camaguey on July 24, because it was a holiday leading up to the 26th of July. When he presented himself along with his mother Lucia Figueroa Mantilla, suffering from severe appendicitis pain that led to peritonitis, due to rupture of the appendix, he belatedly underwent surgery late on August 4 in the same hospital.

August 6 2012

The Collapse / Cuban Law Association – Veizant Boloy

Veizant Boloy

Across the country, inhabited homes continue to collapse. The housing deficit and the bad conditions of housing in Cuba can be cataloged as a “chronicle of an announced collapse,” something inevitable because of the progressive deterioration of the constructions on the island.

There is no research process undertaken to investigate what is responsible for the collapses, much less a subsequent compensation to those injured. The performance of the search and rescue brigades is the only thing that improves, their catalog of irresponsibility of the residents or victims.

The parliamentarians in their last regular session did not prioritize a discussion of the topic.

In these times of cholera, Cuba is at the center of the hurricane and the edge of the sword before the world. The opinions about those who hold the reins of government are expressed. The guilty in the shade are those who lead and let it happen, and if this is so how blind are these minds.

The institutions behave impiously and the populace pays with its blood and its lives the price of being captive. It is alarming, those who are sheltered under the grim shadow of a system in ruins.

It’s obvious, half a century of delay in Decree Law 288, issued by the State Council, at the end of last year. The legal statute authorized and buying and selling of real estate, but it is still impossible. The poor Cuban people, with a salary of roughly $15 U.S. a month, cannot aspire to even a modest apartment.

The government recently gave birth to private subsidies through bank loans but over 50% of the requests are rejected. On the other hand, the speculation in and hoarding of construction materials have made it “mission impossible” to acquire the materials legally, as demand grows in sync with their disappearance.

According to Gladys Bejerano, Controller General of the Republic, stressed in the VII National Audit, the new guidance on self-regulation would be applied in the Construction sector; specifically with regards to the sale of materials and to the awarding bank loans and subsidies to individuals.

More can be done, over-population is an important factor to be taken into account in the marginalization. Cuba in general is flat, with large tracts of land unused in agriculture or housing construction. Several generations live in the same house.

A Christian friend sees this from a positive viewpoint: It’s good to keep the family together.

August 6 2012

Pass it Along — Rumors / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

Every day the rumors grow in society, rumors with political, social or economic content that bring, as a consequence, despair, dissatisfaction, stress and mistaken plans.

This expression occurs with the loss of some product as happened with the rice when there was a shortage in agricultural markets and the rumor of rice selling at 10 pesos in national money (MN), they started to arrest the rice resellers in the streets and then the state started selling rice at 5 pesos MN, raising the price 1.50 pesos MN because in fact the previous price had been 3.50 pesos MN.

Another example is the outbreak of cholera, many are talking about cases in Havana hospitals and in Granma province in the east. The official side says the epidemic in under control and the independent journalists say the situation is worrisome.

So then, who is tossing these rumors around? Perhaps it’s the same people who want to psychologically upset the citizens or it’s just a recourse by the government in order to try out a future vision and see what effect it has on the population, if it’s for the “better” or worse.

August 6 2012

Summing It Up / Luis Felipe Rojas

I’ve been meaning to complete this request for a while. Anier, who lives in Pennsylvania, asked me to do it, and his father asked him to ask me. His ‘old man’ wanted to see the signs, how the modern self-employed sell their things. I know their are wonders, there are very professional people who have truly created ingenious things, simulating the neon and colored stars for the nocturnal hours, but I was able to snap these photos during the daytime in the city of Holguin. The new store owners advertise themselves this way. These are not idealized photos of today’s brightness. They were made by chance so that my friend from Pennsylvania and his father can have a selection of what they asked me for.

Sign reads “Watchmaker; Digital or Analog Calculators, Change of Batteries”

Everything is re-sold: coffee, sodas, pastries, varied salads and the best creole food. On the corners of ‘Luz and Caballero’ and Jose Antonio Cardet streets, they sell a delicious pork stew- in my opinion the best in all the area; though I don’t know how they are doing it now with all the elevated taxes and new sanitary regulations for handling food.

I took these photos so that I could pass by here a year from now and see just how far Cuban persistence has gone. For that moment, I would like to see that the landscape has changed. I’d like to see a forest of signs announcing services which have been falsely lent or prohibited from us for decades. I want to be optimistic and think that small businesses will flourish in Cuba. I have taken these photos so that the illusion won’t blind me. I cross my fingers so that I do not have another deception.

Sign reads: “The Brothers’, Restaurant and Bar”
Sign Reads: “Cuban Kitchen”
Sign reads: “Cafeteria, Milk and Coffee… Pastries”
Signs read: “Ice Cream”. Back letters say: “Jewelry”

Translated by Raul G.

6 August 2012

The Privileged Ones / Mackandal – Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere

The privileges granted by the regime to the Cuban military elite, behind the back of the people’s will and stepping over any consensus from the citizens, have as solemn goal to buy the loyalty of this elite.

Bought loyalty is not acting in a reasonable and conscious way, which would be the right thing to do. Give the level of misery and hardships that the country is facing, the military elite should be willing to give up their privileges and live under the same hardships that the majority of the people, who they claim to defend, suffer from. But, unfortunately that is not how it is. The armed forces, far from protecting the interests of the citizens, are the loyal dogs of a ranch called Cuba.

The thirty-five new colonels, personally promoted by President Raúl Castro, are living proof of what this article emphasizes.

They swore to be loyal to him and the Party. They do not care about the people or the country’s path toward democracy. They are loyal to him and the Party, shamelessly, like a dog with a bone.

Cuba deserves a better fate and leaders fully committed to the honor that is gained from freedom and political plurality.

The manipulation of patriotic morality and of the motherland itself when only a few receive privileges from those who have even taken from the country the sense of its own history.

A disproportionately large army is ready to repress, imprison, and kill for a blind loyalty that often turns against themselves.

These privileges granted by the regime have created a new class that sucks away everything from the people who are exploited even in matters of the dues they pay to the union which repeatedly end up in the hands of the military. The same thing happens to the money from wages and remittances. In hard currency stores, owned by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), the constant changing of prices on the products, the abuse of the customers, and the threatening authoritarianism are part of the bitter daily routine.

The so-called “reliable” are Communist Party militants, who wear a uniform that protects them from all suspicions, as well their children and relatives, after having been involved, more than once, in corruption scandals. Without generating any profit, they suck it all in, being real good-for-nothings and parasites embedded in the heart of the motherland.

These privileges are precisely why a large part of the population rejects the police as much as the military.

We must question openly this new classist, racist, and insatiable elite of those who are the first and loudest to shout patriotic slogans, to the point that with their gaping mouths it seems like they are going to eat the Revolution, with their little flags and everything.

Experiences from events that took place in similar societies after the collapse of Communism tell us that those who hold power are the ones who later become the owners of corporations and public goods, forming a solid pressure group that will continue working towards increasing their personal wealth at the expense of people’s sacrifice.

With no force based on reason, but with reason based on force and money in their pockets, the dreams of the motherland and the fate of every citizen are in their hands.

Who are those who give them these privileges, never granted before by any other government? Do they have the moral authority to criticize anyone?

Published by Primavera Digital, July 14, 2012.

Translated by Chabeli