Several Activists and Reinaldo Escobar, Editor-in-Chief of “14ymedio”, Arrested / Cubanet

Cubanet, 30 December 2014 — The activist Eliezer Ávila and journalist Reinaldo Escobar, Editor-in-chieft of the independent daily 14ymedio and husband of the blogger Yoani Sánchez, were arrested this morning at 11:40 am by members of the State Security outside the building where Escobar lives, according to the lawyer Laritza Diversent from Havana.

The source, after a telephone conversation with Yoani Sánchez, added that the patrol officers of car N.328, carried out the arrest violently. So far the whereabouts of detainees is not known. According to Yoani she was not allowed to leave her residence.

It is presumed that the authorities are trying to prevent the attendance of opposition figures at the performance of artist Tania Bruguera to be held this in the Plaza of the Revolution.

Also arrested were activists José Díaz Silva, leader of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic (MONR), and the Lady in White Lourdes Esquivel, according to the Twitter account the opponent Manuel Cuesta Morua.

Five Years of “Crossing the Barbed Wire”: How Long Should I Continue? / Luis Felipe Rojas

Photo of the author: @alambradas
Photo of the author: @alambradas

My baby, my third child, this blog, is five years old and at times I ask myself this question. How long should I continue? I started writing against the grain of what a blog was, doing it like a daily without wi-fi, nor nearby cybercages, but with the recklessness with which one distributes a samizdat.

I remember, it was December 2009. My brother Orlando Zapata Tamayo #0ZT began a hunger strike, impelled by the Castro regime to take off the mask: the arrests and beatings of activists for supporting #0ZT happened in Holguin and several other cities, one after the other. I wanted my neighbors to know, the neighborhood snitches, the police, those who were afraid and those who supported me then and have supported me since, that it is you, the cyberactivists, the fine people who have accompanied me in sixty months of words and actions.

Now with the new refrain of “intimate enemies” I paused, passing several weeks without publishing, listening to my friends, reliving the same party with such naivety. My parents told me that in 1959 people were stunned by so many firecrackers and so much sabotage, on January 1st coming out to salute the rebels, and on the second loudly crying out “To the wall!” (demanding executions), and on the third beginning to fall silent, three days after the Cuban Revolution.

Now the road is long because in Palma Soriano, Manzanillo and Cumanayagua there are still hungry people who know nothing of diplomatic relations. In Camagüey, my friend Millet continues to have the Rapid Response Brigades after him every day to prevent him from putting up a poster against the government or buying kerosene on the black market. Last weekend they defaced Mirna Buenaventura’s house with tar, in Buenaventura, where people now call the Yankees “the fraternal and supportive American people.”

Now that the Furies have changed their spots there are friends who stayed inside the fence and are not going to shut their mouths because they never have. Yannier P. wrote from Guantanamo to tell me, “You don’t have to write for us, we know the horror. Write so that the world will know the horror to come.” I want to send a bouquet of flowers to my friend Nancy Alfaya, a Christian woman with a bulletproof resistance: her husband, the writer Jorge Olivera Castillo received 18 years in prison, but Nancy refuses to stop laughing. In Havana she leads a workshop against violence against women, is the first to read Olivera’s poems, and goes to church every day in the poor neighborhood where she lives. I want to send flowers to Nancy but I would not want them to arrive wilted.

I would like to write an article and travel to shake hands with Manuel Martinez Leon, in La Jejira in Holguin, with Emiliano Gonzalez in El Horno, in Bayamo, or Barbaro Tejeda in Mayari. The three are dissidents, open opponents of the Castro brothers’ tropical dictatorship and work the land from sunrise.

Emiliano has given me interviews seated on a mountain of peanut bags, and wrote to tell me of the tortured rules of the State cooperatives and that he dreams of fields of peanuts while they hold him prisoner in stinking dungeons.

Barbaro has talked with me on a trail where he goes to fish illegally, to be able to eat and to feed his family. For years the “Watching the Sea” Detachment — a kind of rapid response brigade with the pretext of being anti-drug troops— monitors and represses its neighbors in Puerto Padre, Levisa and Macabi, throughut Cuba. They cannot sell fish, catch fish or eat fish. They don’t know which law prohibits it, but the people there who talked to me are afraid of breaking the rules. Sometimes Barbaro Tejeda fries plantains or beans and dreams of a modern fishing rod.

With friends like this my blog will have ten more years of life. Still, I have to explain to the world why Cuban mothers live without their children and what the Law of Pre-Criminal Social Dangerousness is; first I have to learn to write a legal monstrosity of such a package. Ileana, my Venezuelan friend living in New York doesn’t know what Showing Contempt for the Figure of the Commander-in-Chief is, and I have to explain with examples.

Many more years of life, of survival, remain to this blog. A house organized from within and not for elegies without knowing its neighbors, living in the turbulent and brutal south or north that now appreciates us.

27 December 2014

Economic Crisis in Venezuela Leads to a Black Market Among Travelers / Ivan Garcia

en-la-habana-se-raspa-el-cupo-mejor-f-620x330
It is 7:30 PM in a commercial shopping district in San Diego, Califormia. Four Venezuelan tourists approach Spanish-speaking customers browsing among tablets, smart phones, flat-screen TVs and laptops with a business proposition.

“If you are going to buy something with cash, please let me pay for it with my credit card and you can give me the money instead. The thing is that in my country, Venezuela, getting hard currency is very complicated,” says a young woman in a slow, deliberate voice.

Venezuelans can find such “swiping-the-card” transactions difficult in a country like the United States where people rarely make large purchases with cash. But on this particular warm autumn night, one Venezuelan is lucky.

A group of Latin American journalists who were attending a workshop in San Diego did some bartering. To understand the official exchange rates and the black market for US dollars in Venezuela requires a quick doctorate in economics.

According to these Venezuelan tourists there are three different exchange rates. The official one is for necessities but varies when it comes to dollars for travel or for purchasing raw materials used in products the government considers luxuries.

In the treacherous streets of Caracas the US dollar trades at a different rate of exchange on the black market. These different types of exchange have contributed to runaway inflation of almost 61% and an uncontrollable rise in prices for staple foods such as powdered milk powder and cornmeal.

Venezuelan tourists describe how an Apple laptop is two and a half times more expensive in Venezuela than in any other country in the world due to the devaluation of the national currency, the bolivar.

Because of the economic crisis, business seizures and rules governing fixed prices, many people — especially those in the middle class — have been forced to turn to the informal economy to weather the storm.

The young Venezuelan woman, a mother with a young daughter, told me that despite having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree, she takes advantage of trips abroad to “swipe the card,” or to buy merchandise on credit to resell in Caracas.

“We’re becoming nothing more than peddlers thanks to Maduro and the way he blindly copies Cuba’s inefficient socioeconomic system and its controls,” she says.

Another Venezuelan bought two Sony Play Station 3 video games. “One is for my kids; the other is to sell. I have to take advantage of the $1,800 I got at the official exchange rate. If I can lay my hands on a few hundred dollars, I can exchange them for 110 “bolos” (bolivars) when I get back to Venezuela. And with the money from the sale of the video game, I’ll probably be able to have decent Christmas dinner.”

Whether it be California, Florida or Havana, the unstoppable economic crisis has turned many Venezuelans into brokers. In central Havana’s Carlos III shopping mall Venezuelans can often be seen “swiping the card.”

Transactions involve buying a freezer, television or furniture for a client and paying for the purchase with a credit card. Later the client reimburses the credit card holder with cash in the form of convertible pesos.

They often have an angle. Joel (not his real name), a medical student, notes that “for purchases of several hundred CUCs (convertible pesos), we offer a 15% to 20% discount. Cubans, who are nobody’s fools, agree to this. Then with those convertible pesos, we buy dollars on the black market at 95 or 96 cents per CUC. Back in Venezuela, those dollars we got through transactions or the official currency exchange, we sell on the black market. It is a windfall. This way I can support my family without any problem.”

Maura, a Venezuelan on a visit to Cuba, is getting ready for her wedding to a Cuban. She wanders the markets where things are priced in Cuban pesos and buys large quantities of bath soap and detergent.

“In Havana a bar of soap costs five to six Cuban pesos, around twenty cents to the dollar at the official exchange rate. I have already bought eighty bars of soap to resell in my country.

Liudmila, a resident of Caracas’ violent Petare neighborhood, took advantage of a training trip to the island to purchase over-the-counter and prescription medications through a Venezuelan friend who is a medical student in Cuba.

“It’s the only way I have to get medications for my relatives,” she says. “For me it’s profitable because I get dollars at a favorable exchange rate since I am here on an official visit. Life is hard for everyone.”

Iván García

Photo: Increasing numbers of Venezuelans, both government supporters and opponents, travel to Havana to acquire dollars, “swipe the card” or buy merchandise intended for sale on the black market. Ríete del Gobierno. http://www.rietedelgobierno.net

Fideless / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Last Christmas with Fidel Castro

-Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

December is a sad month, precious, blue-lit and dreamily silent. I was born in this month. And in this month, in a year not so distant as it now appears, I shall return to Cuba with a Nobel Prize in Literature, the first of the Cuban Nobels, which I will rub in the face of the dictatorship that we will still have in Cuba by that date, and of which prize money I will use unto my ruination to hasten our liberty.

December is over before it barely starts. It is an atemporal month, achronological, almost uchronic [imaginary], outside the calendar, at the border of that mystery which is the changing year.

We are others, and we die piece by piece every December. In fact, almost never do all of us who started out the year reach the end of it. We who gather together this month do not know if we will get to the next month a year from now. Death reaps the best among us. Every December there are fewer and fewer Cubans left. We survivors are the worst, we are the one discarded, even by the gods.

This Christmas 2014 is also our first Death Celebration* without the dictator, who died on us without ever facing justice. With Fidel deceased ** (1926-2014), all now seems easy, expeditious, unnecessary. The Revolution was a nightmare had by a few million. The memory is renewed at a vertiginous velocity. In a little while, the new Cubans will not know or be able to spell the unnameable name of Fidel Castro – which in a few months will barely resonate in the curriculum for the Prehistory of the Nation, dissolved by the virtue of apathy and the amnesia of new generations.

The death of the hegemonic one has surprised us all. He didn’t even say goodbye, the jerk, just as he didn’t announce his arrival but rather imposed it by death blows, lies and evil. Fidel Castro has gone forever from our nation and he has left us incredulous and distrustful, to the point that we prefer to pay attention to this historic milestone. We still do not believe ourselves to be alone, without the delirious despot. We will not believe it, either, when his brother Raúl Castro announces it to us, surrounded by his octogenarian military elite — perhaps on January 28, 2015, to make Fidel’s death coincide with the birth of José Martí.

But today once again is Christmas. Part of the lost country will gather together the best of its spirit on this date. Hope will cease to be a congenital illness, and the blue light of the child-god will warm our home-mangers, making them less awful, making us less perverse in being human zeroes who aspire to be human beings,*** after a half-century or half- millennium of multitudinarially murdering each other over nothing.

It is Christmas once again, my soul brothers and sisters, and in 2015 will shine the words that for centuries should have been spoken among Cuban, but which have remained buried by the string of tyrants that have brought about our unnecessary independence. Perhaps it is the season to grow closer to being a civilization of free cosmopolitans and move ourselves away from Slaveamerican barbarity.

It is Christmas, and I love you all.

Translator’s Notes:

*The author is making a play on words in Spanish, using the common name for Christmas, “Navidades” (Nativity) to contrast with the quasi-rhyming word for morbidity, “Morbilidades.” 

**An alliterative play on words – deceased in Spanish is “fallecido.” 

*** A play on words in Spanish – the word for “zeroes” sounds very similar to the word for “beings”

25 December 2014

Change of Scenery / Fernando Damaso

Clearly, though we have not been aware of it until its recent announcement, there has been a change of scenery in Cuban policy, at least in regards to differences between the two governments.

This shift requires a repositioning of the forces in play as well as a tactical and strategic revision. To simply accept or reject it based on preconceived notions is not enough, nor does it demonstrate intelligence or responsibility. A serious and profound evaluation of what this represents and of the possibilities it offers or precludes is necessary. All human actions — especially those involving politics — present both positives and negatives. Taking advantage of and advancing the former while minimizing the latter is not easy but it is certainly possible.

After more than fifty years of maintaining intransigent positions, a major hurdle has been overcome through the will of the governments of Cuba and the United States. This is good for both the Cuban and American people.

It it is now the turn of  Cuban civil society, both on the island and overseas, to help consolidate this initial change and advance other political, economic and social policies. Therefore, the government and civil society must set aside years of confrontation and rejection, and put Cuba first.

What has been achieved externally must be repeated internally. This constitutes the best path towards achieving a peaceful transition to a democratic, inclusive and peaceful regime in which there is equal opportunity for all Cubans with all their differences.

The repetitive, triumphalist rhetoric — exemplified just a few days after the announcement of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in the phrase, “With a people like the Cubans, the Revolution can last for 570 years” — should not be a cause for concern; it is simply more of the same.

Incidentally, it reminds me of Hitler’s claim that the Third Reich would endure for 1,000 years. Fortunately, history does not take verbal overstatements seriously. Nevertheless, one should be cautious; the best-laid plans are sometimes destroyed on the ground. Let us hope that is not the case here.

One truly worrisome aspect is the suggestion that only a few Cubans are opposed to the system — and this because they receive material and moral support from outside Cuba.

In reality, there are hundreds of thousands who disagree with the regime, although only a few hundred say it out loud. It would be a terrible error for the authorities to believe their own myth about the unity of all Cubans with regard to the Revolution.

23 December 2014

MONEY MONEY MONEY / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo and Clive Rudd

How to Raise Funds: A Manual for Cuban Democrats  

Clive Rudd, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

The successive “investigations” (or filtrations of intelligence) of the Associated Press (AP) and other media, that try to demonize the material support of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and governments in solidarity with the democratic cause in Cuba, is not a new phenomenon nor is it exclusive to the free world.

The Cuban government has known how to utilize the attacks on the funding for democracy. This has been at the expense of committing historic malapropisms that defy any comparison with the fundraising done by José Martí and his Cuban Revolutionary Party, or even by Fidel Castro in his insatiable quest for dollars in Mexico, Costa Rica and Venezuela (which was then not to fund anti-government propaganda but to buy weapons and train armies and, in short, impose violence for life on our society).

The new form of expression of this demonizing campaign (which essentially plagiarizes the methods employed by the Havana government) is led by the AP and The New York Times (NYT). There are many other “useful idiots” but their voices don’t resonate as much. Since the time of the Sierra Maestra and the bad reporting by Herbert Matthews, Castroism has been a series of blows to maudlin effect on North American public (shameless) opinion.

It is obvious that the message of these hegemonic media cannot be so clumsy as that of the Havana dictatorship, being that they convey between the lines a subliminal message to the Good Capitalist of the North: “The donation of funds by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other organizations to support democracy in Cuba, far from achieving the desired objectives, is counterproductive and useless.”

This message is more than well-known. It is the same argument employed with impunity to lobby for the lifting of the embargo: “The embargo doesn’t work and therefore should be lifted immediately and unconditionally.”

All right, then. In the name of the Cuban and North American peoples, thank you. However, the problem lies in that to defend this argument of inefficiency, there need to be firm proofs, not opinions. Also, the most solid proofs are achieved by comparing the initial objectives of a program with its final results. Here is where things get tough because, for a serious news medium to say that a program was “amateurish and profoundly unsuccessful,” there must be access to documents that have gone cold and are now obsolete (which the AP has been able to gain) but there also must be investigative reporting done that includes access to all or the major parties involved in the matter, including the Cuban people.

As has been known from responses of certain parties included in the AP’s last crusade, all indications are that there have been lies or results have been fabricated to rate these USAID programs as “profoundly unsuccessful.”

According to his interview in the El Nuevo Herald newspaper, Aldo Rodríguez, leader of the musical group Los Aldeanos, did not receive one cent from USAID, he did not compose his songs at the request of this agency, nor did he receive a laptop from subversive foreign elements — three assertions made in an “objective” piece by AP.

These campaigns of the AP, in symbiosis with the Cuban government, to demonize fundraising in support of pro-human rights projects on the Island, have media reach precisely because the national public is a captive audience under the monopoly of the State, and also because it is not common for us Cubans to do public fundraisers, as occurs in any democratic country of the world.

In countries where there are free elections and institutions, fundraising rules and regulations have been created and there are even specialists trained in the technique of quickly and effectively raising monies for political campaigns and the propagation of ideas. This is a subject yet to be included in the curriculum for Cuban democrats and any other social actor who will not want to submit himself to a despotic governmental dictum.

It would be most useful for our civil society, inside and outside Cuba, if we would create a sort of manual for raising funds legally and efficiently to support the alternative projects on the Island. Thus, we Cubans would be the ones to judge which citizen initiatives have been successful and which ones not so much, as we learn from their results to improve those methods of collecting, distributing and utilizing funds for democracy in Cuba. The ends justify the means.

Cuba’s solvency was always handicapped by Castroism. Only a poverty-stricken people is vulnerable to enslavement. At the beginning, it was accomplished through ideological class hatred. Currently, in Castroism’s latter days, it is done through paranoia about a foreign conspiracy (even though Havana has received funding from the United Nations as well as from Qaddafi’s criminal regime).

Therefore, People, perhaps it is time for us to behave less as secret victims and more as modern members of a global economy, transparent in its accounts and convinced of the legitimacy of its anti-totalitarian mission, beyond the laws of Castroism and the media campaigns that prop it up.

Enmeshed in the Raul regime make-believe reforms, we Cubans should not lose our focus to a Fidel who is as much fossil as fatal. Despite the pathetic AP and the NYT, our radical redemption still goes by this watchword: “Within the dictatorship, nothing; against the dictatorship, everything.”*

*Translator’s note: This last line is a riff on Fidel’s famous/infamous statement, “Within the Revolution, everything; outside the Revolution, nothing,” from his so-called “Speech to the Intellectuals” delivered in June 1961.

 Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

26 December 2014

Will the poorest Cubans whose properties were seized be indemnified? / Cubanet, Jose Hugo Fernandez

Photo:Havana’s Chinatown prior to 1959
Photo: Havana’s Chinatown prior to 1959

Cubanet, José Hugo Fernández, Havana, 24 December 2014 – How many – and which – private properties seized by the regime could be returned to their owners or their descendants? Alternatively, how many indemnifications could there be once the US embargo is finally lifted? This topic has once again taken its place in our discussions, online and on the ground. Once again, we are given to speculate about everything pertaining to major enterprises, and North American and Cuban landowners.

Curiously, there is less talk about the small businesses. Those were the ones whose owners worked hard all their lives, never suspecting the disrespect and cruel coldness with which the Revolutionary government would expropriate them. These entrepreneurs were forced to abandon their establishments and take nothing but the clothes on their backs. Begging the pardon of the large investors who saw their assets taken away, it seems to me much more crucial to consider the tragedy of these small business owners. I believe that now that “our” dictatorship is trying to make a place for itself among “normal” governments, it should start with the intent to mitigate (being that it cannot erase) this shameful chapter in our history, by at least indemnifying the descendants of the entrepreneurs.

They must number in the hundreds of thousands, if one considers that each town, each neighborhood, and often each street, hosted swarms of small businesses owned by persons of modest means, who built them up penny by penny with the sweat of their brow.

By way of illustration, it would perhaps suffice to cite the example of the honest and hardworking business owners of Havana’s Chinatown – just one case among millions, but one which helps to clarify the issue because of being concentrated in a small area.

By 1959, a little more than a century had passed since the arrival of the Chinese to Cuba as quasi-slaves. The only property owned by each and all of them upon disembarking here was their family name – and even this they had to give up. Even so, when Fidel Castro took power, Havana’s was probably the most important Chinatown in the continent.

The neighborhood boasted its own Bank of China, with $10-million in assets – a true fortune in those days. It had a network of import businesses that directly brought in products from Asia to be used and sold here. There was a Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, which was connected to a considerable number of entrepreneurial associations, such as the Union of Commercial Retailers. It would be exhausting to list the vast number of dining establishments – some world-famous – and other businesses providing the most diverse services, that were located in this neighborhood.

Havana's Chinatown today
Havana’s Chinatown today (photo by author)

The Chinese population of Havana operated its own health care system, endowed with medical practices and laboratories, as well as a fully-equipped clinic and patient pavilions, and a broad network of pharmacies. Three independent newspapers, three radio stations, four cinemas, a theater, an athletic club, a retirement home, a cemetery, multiple societies and recreation centers – all of these composed the cultural life of the neighborhood. In short, as I have indicated, the list of assets would be too long. Just on one small block, on San Nicolás Street, between Zanja and Dragones, one could see more commercial activity than what is observed today in the whole neighborhood. It goes without saying that the scene on that stretch of San Nicolás is heartbreaking to see.

In 1960, Alfonso Chiong, president of the Chinese Colony and editor of one of its newspapers (The Man-Set-Ya-Po), was informed by the regime that he would have to resign his post. Upon refusing to do so, he escaped to Miami to avoid being sent to jail. According to the newspaper Avance Criollo*, when Chiong arrived at the Miami airport he carried, as his only capital, five dollars in his pocket. Mario Chiu, secretary of the Colony, had less luck – when he refused to resign, he was thrown into the dungeons of La Cabaña prison.

The tragedy was already in progress. It was unstoppable and quite possibly defining. Soon afterwards the flourishing Chinatown turned to ruin, while the entire poor neighborhood found itself as lost, vulnerable and frightened as had its ancestors when, a century before, they arrived on our shores.

*Avance Criollo newspaper; Friday, November 18, 1960.

Translated by Alicia Barrequé Ellison

Message from Cuba from the Cuban Democratic Project / Rafael León Rodríguez

Taken from Wikipedia.org

The latest developments in negotiations between the authorities of the Cuban government and those of the United States augur interesting expectations for peoples on both sides of the Straits of Florida in the coming year of 2015. The announced normalization of diplomatic relations at the level of embassies will certainly strengthen the creation of new and significant bridges for both societies.

To what extent this new political context will help the empowerment of civil society in Cuba will depend, primarily, on whether Cubans will be able to continue working peacefully to achieve Cuba’s return to democracy, freedoms and the rule of law.

The Cuban regime must recognize, finally, that human rights constitute an indivisible whole. The ratification and implementation of the International Treaties on Civil and Political rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, signed by the government of the island in 2008, and they are still a crucial unresolved issue this, they must endorse the law.

If the blockade or embargo of the United States against Cuba is one more violation of the human rights of the Cuban people, this hiding behind the adoption of a Constitution in 1976, now disregarded, to legitimize a singular government party and discriminate against political plurality, is also. Both violations must cease.

We so-called Cuban political minorities have inalienable rights that must be respected by the authorities of the regime, which, after 56 years of totalitarian power, show that in the interior of the country the only things “updated” are the poverty, hopelessness, failure, corruption and escapism.

Many people in the world, because of goodwill, accompany the Cuban people in an attempt to facilitate the recovery of their freedoms and improve their situation through dialogue and negotiation. Pope Francis sublimely represents all of them. We thank you.

We are confident that the coming year will bring Cubans to the so long-awaited national reconciliation, with justice and peace. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a bright New Year 2015 of our Lord.

Rafael León Rodríguez, General Coordinator
Cuban Democratic Project

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

24 December 2014

Plebiscite not only for Cuba, but by the Cuban people / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

The American President, Barack Obama, decided on behalf of Cubans. His holiness the Pope decided on behalf of Cubans. The Army General Raul Castro decided on behalf of the Cubans. Everyone, except the Cubans , decided on behalf of Cubans.

After more than six decades without any consulting of the popular will in free and competitive elections, it’s finally time for Cuba to decide for Cuba with everyone participating and for the good of all. It’s finally time for Cubans to decide for Cubans.

Any international solidarity will be useless if Cubans don’t have a say. Any dissent and national opposition would lack a legal framework as long as there is no referendum by Cubans. There is no legitimate government without the effective participation of the governed. No consensus will be credible as long as Cuba does not decide for Cuba.

One learns in the open exercise of freedom, how to live in freedom. The American President and His Holiness, and the General of the Army and all authorities of good faith in the world are invited not to decide but instead to accompany Cubans in this decision, in a historic meeting where the transit from totalitarianism towards an open society or another controlling regimen is defined.

The demand for a national referendum is already in motion. May no one speak for the Cuban people but rather support  the Cuban people so that they may recover their voice.

Translator’s note: The graphic is a “suggested design” by El Sexto for a new Cuban flag.

Translated by William Fitzhugh 

23 December 2014

‘We keep searching for you, Homeland’* / Antonio Rodiles

December 17 is a watershed in the recent history of our country. It is the break point between those who are betting on neo-Castroism or who are willing to participate in its moves, and those of us who argue that our nation should rebuild itself around the basic premises of freedoms and fundamental rights.

No nation has to assume our burdens and resolve our conflicts, but undoubtedly the measures taken by President Barack Obama will provide great benefits to those who intend to mutate to this new authoritarianism. It has been a grave error to set aside the many voices and stories that have so much to say about Cuba, and to listen only to the Castros and to a handful who pretend to know how to transition to democracy.

In parallel, they have tried to show that those who advocate an unbending position with regards to full respect for fundamental human rights are retrograde and extremist people, obsoletes who revel in pain and lack a vision of the future. What a naïve and dangerous game they propose as an exit strategy from totalitarianism. Can they ignore so much history and fail to understand that in a transition there are actors who cannot be omitted?

The longest dictatorship in the hemisphere has destroyed our country materially and profoundly damaged the Cuban soul. The reconstruction of the nation requires more than investment, cellphones and flash memories. Cuba is not a computer on which new software can be installed to make it become socially functional.

We need a consciousness and memory of what has happened to us, our frustrations and pains, what we do not want to repeat or never again perpetuate. Without this recognition we will continue to be a dispersed and broken nation, without the spirit to be reborn. Cuba needs to be re-founded with a fresh impulse, full of strength and a sense of freedom. Starting from clear demands to return the dignity, the pride, and to allow the design of a future without the burden of the Castro regime.

There is a great deal for us to rethink: projection, messages, strategies and even aesthetics. But the hope of shaking off an elite that has shown the most profound contempt for Cubans is a genuine sentiment that steers us. A political solution is only possible if it is based on full respect for the human being.

The current United States administration has to change course if it wants to be an agent of credible change, and it must pay attention to the demand of thousands of Cuban citizens who from within and outside the Island insist on a solid and firm commitment to human rights. The ratification and above all the implementation of the United Nations Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights should be a key tool as a precondition to move us forward in the Cuban dilemma. The European Union has already paid attention to this demand, adding the International Labor Organization (ILO) standards. A clear and firm repositioning is the only way to give credibility to a process that began with profound mistakes.

What is needed is a strong push to infect with desires of freedom Cubans who, in the face of survival and evasion, have lost faith. To find a solution to our long conflict, it is a premise that all political actors, from within and outside the island, must participate.

It is no longer about the Castro regime, the Castro regime is dying. The conflict is between accepting a neo-Castro authoritarianism, or moving to a true democracy.

The phrase that is the title of this article is a quote from Reinaldo Arenas.

The “Weekly Packet” Rules in Cuban Homes / Cubanet, Anddy Sierra Alvarez

paquete-semanalCubanet, Anddy Sierra Alvarez, Havana, 28 October 2014 — With the delivery of the “weekly packet” to Cuban homes, the people have taken an important leap toward access to information and entertainment. In a country where the only television is state-run and there is no mass consumption of the Internet, this phenomenon helps to build society. Cuban television has faded to the background.

The so-called “weekly packet,” which is normally distributed on external hard disks to individual residences, contains the latest foreign films of the week, shows, television series, documents, games, information, music and more. This packaged content is favored by the Island’s population over the programming provided by Cuban state-run television. In the past, entertainment would be delivered via clandestine satellite TV, but citizens caught in this illegal act would have to pay heavy fines.

Mariam González, 47, of Havana’s Arroyo Naranjo borough, relates that thanks to the “weekly packet,” many people have avoided the jail time or fines that used to be the consequences of using satellite antennas. “Several of my friends were fined over the years up to 10,000 Cuban pesos for receiving the satellite signal in their homes,” González said, adding that, “now, we only have to pay one dollar and we have access on a hard drive to the latest programs from the week just ended. We connect it to the TV set and enjoy the content whenever we want. It’s better than nothing.” continue reading

Ángel López, 31, is a fan of such TV series as Grimm, Revolution, and The Blacklist. He notes that “the packet is my font of information and without it in the house, life would be extremely boring.”

“Besides,” he adds, “my cousin watches nothing other than series like Cold Case, and that is not something broadcast on state television.”

Alejandro Batista, 38, affirms, “I prefer to spend a dollar over being a zombie. Cuban programming is no good, it’s stagnant…well, actually, we are stagnant!” he added with a wry smile. Packet prices vary according to the day of the week. On Sundays the “weekly packet” of 1 terabyte is priced at 10 dollars, on Mondays and Tuesdays, 2 dollars, and other days, 1 dollar.

Tomás González, 32, is a distributor of the weekly packet. “Every Monday I receive the packet for 2 dollars,” he said. He then downloads the content onto USB drives of 4, 8 or 16 gigabytes (Gb), which provides an alternative (to the hard disk) way of distributing programming to individual households.

“I sell the 4-Gb USB drives for 10 Cuban pesos, the 8-Gb for 20 pesos, and the 16-Gb for 30 or 40 pesos,” González explained. The younger generations don’t waste time on state television. Miguel Ponce, 21, had this to say about state-run television: “Cuban TV holds no interest for me and, as far as I know, none of my friends wastes their time on that. Now, HD movies are a whole other thing…”

With its lack of variety and offerings that do not meet what the public wants, Cuban TV loses ground.

Alejandro Batista notes that “the government for so long refused to broadcast foreign programs and now we have them on USB drives. But,” he asks, “what makes me wonder is, how long can Cuban television continue, if each day the public leans more towards the foreign programs that we can get on the packet?”

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Press Workshop in San Diego / Ivan Garcia

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In early October, when I was invited to a workshop on investigative journalism at a university in San Diego, the first thing I did was search the internet for background information on those courses.

I knew that the speakers were superior.  It’s not every day that an independent Cuban journalist has the opportunity to dialogue with reporters from the US of high caliber, some of them Pulitzer Prize winners.

I confess that I had an attack of skepticism when I saw the schedule for the workshop.  The presentations dealt with the border conflict between Mexico and the United States, new technological tools for investigative journalism, and how to approach reporting on health and the environment in a creative and entertaining way. continue reading

How would I be able to combine those themes with the reality of my country, which for 56 years has been ruled by autocrats named Castro?  I was mindful also of the existence of a law which allows the sanctioning of an independent reporter with 20 years of incarceration, and that the internet is an expensive luxury.  In a country in which the average salary is 20 dollars a month, one hour of internet connection costs 5 dollars

With those doubts in place I enrolled in the workshop. Twenty-two colleagues from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica and Cuba, all living in different contexts. Perhaps for the Venezuelans the realities are analogous. It was an honor to be the first Cuban to be invited by the Institute of the Americas at the University of California, San Diego.

I am one of those who believe that journalism is an occupation always open to new experiences. The workshop was designed in a meticulous manner. Denisse Fernandez, the assistant, was on top of every detail. From the accommodations to the transportation, even providing dinner at the hotel, foreseeing that my arrival in San Diego would be around midnight on a Sunday.

From the first presentation by reporter Andrew Becker, the workshop awoke my enthusiasm. To learn of the raw realities of the border of Tijuana, the emigration problems and drug trafficking seen from a new perspective was an impactful lesson.

I intend to adapt the tools I learned and the experiences narrated to the Cuban context. Although the cloister of the workshop presenters was not typical of academics seduced by Fidel Castro’s revolution, the state of affairs on the island obviously did not preoccupy them.

I had to repeatedly explain to them our reality. And why certain standards and tools of modern journalism are anachronisms in Cuba, where there is no requirement for an institution to disclose information or statistics.

Yes, certain web applications for use in investigative journalism were novel. But if I do not have internet access in my home, nor is there public access to the internet, not to mention that many websites are blocked, how can one use these tools?

“Can you imagine, ” I said to Lynne Walker, one of the most extraordinary journalists I have ever known, “If I were to ask my boss at Diary of the Americas for $2000 to cover a story, when they operate under a minimal budget?

“If I took eight weeks to report a story I would simply die of hunger. The independent journalism that is done in Cuba, in web pages that receive funding from foreign institutions or newspapers with scarce financial means would not allow that.

“They operate like meat grinders. You must constantly be submitting articles, and because there is no profitable business model, digital journalism becomes an establishment of survivors.”

Lynne listened to my arguments with patience. Smiling she replied, “Then we submit to defeat. Will we be stopped by the fear of being murdered by a drug cartel in Tijuana, of being unemployed in Caracas, of being poorly paid or having no internet access in Cuba? It’s all about being creative. Overcoming barriers.  And always think big. Never accept a No. Those are the basic rules.”

Besides gaining new knowledge and learning new journalism techniques, the best part were the ties of friendship made with Latin American colleagues.  Because of the slightly egocentric mentality of many Cubans, we tend to believe that our political and social problems are the most severe in the world.

But you must modify your way of thinking when you meet reporters of interior Mexico who for months have had to operate with police escort because of narcotrafficking, or men like Columbian Fabio Posada who was chief of an investigative unit of the newspaper El Espectador, or John Jairo, who frequently receives death threats since reporting a story in Cucuta.

With the six Venezuelan reporters attending the workshop I shared an almost natural chemistry. They are now living through what we experienced in Cuba 56 years ago. The compadres of the PUSV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) intend to dismantle piece by piece democratic institutions and freedom of expression.

Certainly, Cuba continues to be substandard in the exercise of freedom of the press. But the rest of Latin America is not doing much better.

Ivan Garcia

Photo: The participants of the Investigative Journalism Workshop (November 10-14, 2014) display certificates earned on the last day. Taken from the blog Journalism of the Americas.

Trip report (IV)

 Translated by: Yoly from Oly

On Cuba, Hope and Change / Alexis Romay

President Obama, a man who actively promotes the audacity of hope and based his presidential campaigns on the idea of change, has combined both concepts in his long gaze at Cuba: he hopes Castro will change. However, that option isn’t remotely possible in Cuba. Back in 2003, Castro Bros. added to the Cuban Constitution that the socialist character of the Cuban revolution is irrevocable.

Lest you think the Cold War is over, and it’s time to move on, Raul Castro is there to remind you not to forget. Both Castro and Obama had agreed to announce the news of a new dawn for Cuba-USA relations, simultaneously, at noon on December 17th, a day that has particular significance in Cuban lore, as it celebrates San Lázaro, the patron saint of the needy, the one who brings hope to the people.

Obama conducted his press conference standing up in a properly lit room. He’s a young man, during his second presidential term, talking naturally. Castro, a player from the Eisenhower era, was sitting down in an obscure mahogany time capsule. He read from several sheets of paper (paper!), with the affected tone reserved for a grandiloquent speech, the only tone with which he has always addressed the Cuban people. continue reading

Obama, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces, was wearing civilian clothes. Castro showed up in his military uniform with all the medals he has bestowed on himself over the years (he’s been the head of the Cuban Army since he and his older brother took power in 1959). That choice of attire was carefully considered.

Raul Castro appeared between two black-and-white framed photos. In one, he poses with a comrade in arms who died fighting the previous dictator —not Fidel, the one before him. The other photo shows Raul with his late wife, the most powerful woman in Cuba in the last half-century. As much as the president of the United States wants to move forward, Raul Castro is a man living in the past.

But if the retro look wasn’t enough, then Castro opened his mouth. These were his first words: “Since I was elected President…” That’s exactly the moment the educated audience should have known this is a complete farce: Raul Castro has never been elected.

The agreement to open an American embassy in Havana was preceded by a quid pro quo mambo in which an American spy serving time in Cuba was traded for three Cuban spies. (According to the trophy-of-war selfie Raul Castro took with them upon their arrival, his spies were well fed in their American prisons). The USAID subcontractor Alan Gross, who lost most of his teeth and over 100 pounds in his Cuban prison, was released on “humanitarian grounds” after five years of wrongful imprisonment for handing out laptops and cellphones to the Cuban Jewish community.

Additionally, Obama announced he wants to revisit Cuba’s standing in the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. Yet, the same day of this exchange, the long tentacle of North Korean repression reentered America’s collective consciousness by dictating to Sony Pictures (and its global audience), that if Sony releases “The Interview,” there will be terrorist retaliations.

Nothing has changed in Cuba since July 2013, when the Chong Chong Gang, a North Korean ship, was caught in Panamanian waters carrying 240 tons of weapons concealed under sacks of sugar. The ship and the weapons were coming from Cuba, from the same regime that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in the early sixties, the same regime this new development is trying to appease.

In his inaugural speech on January 20, 2009, Obama hinted at the Castro dynasty: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” But Castro’s fist is as tight as it has ever been.

On the morning of December 20th, 2014, the news of a Cuban Coast Guard sinking a vessel, carrying women and children, that was fleeing the island started to reach English media outlets. So far, one passenger has been reported missing. Expect more snubs to the US government (and the Cuban people) where this came from.

There’s a parable that illustrates the doomed relationship between Obama and Castro. A man sees a scorpion drowning in a puddle. He weighs the outcome of his actions, but decides that his nature is to nurture, so he picks up the scorpion. The scorpion’s nature is to sting. The man reacts to this venom by opening the hand, which drops the scorpion back in the water. With his limbs beginning to swell and about to hallucinate, the man sees a scorpion in a puddle. And he feels an urge to save the creature.

***

Alexis Romay is the author of two novels and a book of sonnets. He blogs on Cuba, literature and other tropical diseases at http://belascoainyneptuno.com.

Note: English text provided by the author.