The Free Territory of Skype / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

An article has been added to the saga against information technologies maintained by the official press. Last Thursday a report against phone fraud left many Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth) readers feeling that cellphones are a source of endless problems. To the barrage of accusations about the destabilizing plans that arrive via text messages, and the collapse of networks caused by titles that travel from one cellphone to another, we can now add the “personal profit” of those who use tricks to pay less for a call or for a text message abroad.

Every crime of fraud or embezzlement is legally and morally contemptible. However, the context in which these infractions are committed should be taken into account. We live under an absolute state monopoly of telecommunications. The only phone company in the country, ETECSA, has no competitors in its field and thus sets its prices much higher than the tariffs common in the rest of the world. A one minute call overseas costs the average worker about two days wages. With such a large population having emigrated, it’s easy to imagine the Island’s need to communicate with the rest of the world.

To this must be added the limited and scarce Internet access. Without any new facilities for services such as Skype, many prefer to resort to fraudulent practices rather than to give up calling other parts of the world. Penalizing the offenders who resort to tricks like voice bypass will not resolve the problem. I don’t imagine a lady in her sixties, with a son who emigrated, risks being fined for phone fraud when she can pay barely pennies to call via the Internet. Pushing a population into crime, and then condemning them for engaging in it, seems to me, at the very least, pure cynicism.

Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 31 May 2014 | 14ymedio

La Timba’s Ghost Bus / 14ymedio, Luzbely Escobar

Ruta-Foto-Luz-Escobar_CYMIMA20140525_0002_16Route 67 is what we in Cuba call a ghost bus. But for the inhabitants of the popular La Timba neighborhood in Havana, it’s the only public transport that leads to the city center and the historic old town. La Timbans know when it runs and even commit to memory the names of the drivers. Osvaldo is one of them and displays his National Vanguard status for his dedication to the art of driving.

In the eighties there were several routes serving this poor Havana neighborhood. During the Special Period the Ministry of Transport reorganized the service and cancelled many of them. The No. 67 remained as the only survivor. In runs from the Palatino area and usually operates with one bus on a two-hour schedule. The first bus leaves at 6:20 in the morning, taking early morning workers to their destinations. On days that are a true miracle, there are two buses which run every hour.

Some older people, to avoid having to walk with their heavy bags, wait for the single bus to travel just one or two stops. They are few and belong to a brotherhood that knows the schedule by heart. A kind of “No. 67 Club” made up mostly of the elderly who recall the glory days of their favorite bus.

Sometimes a member of the club will warn another not to wait because the bus is broken down and not running. They have contacts and use them, to find out if it already left the stop, if the driver is sick and couldn’t come to work, or if there is some technical problem that has left it back at the repair shop. In addition to their loyalty to the No. 67, they are characterized by optimism, trusting that, in the end, the bus will appear coming around the corner, with a slight sound of the horn as the doors open in front of the patient passengers.

Their fan enthusiasm even manifests itself in some outsized jealousy toward the Route 27. Originating from the same stop, this latter has been assigned additional reinforcements, evident in a larger number of buses. An indignant passenger asked about this disparity and the annoyed driver responded, “It’s that we are Palatino’s poor daughter,” and “we don’t collect as much as the No. 27, so we don’t get priority.”

The passionate users don’t understand how it is possible that the social function represented by their preferred route is not valued. Nor how in these instances the case is considered only from the economic point of view. They don’t understand because, for them, this route is part of the life of their community. It’s a piece of their environment. The No. 67, as they call it, is an essential part of the urban culture of La Timba.

Luzbely Escobar, Havana, 29May 2014 | 14ymedio

Cuba: A Land Without Messages From the Afterlife / Luis Felipe Rojas

The title came from Ramón Tirso, one of the most hardened and prolific lecturers that I know on the whole Island. Tirso has spent time in three Cuban universities, studying the most disparate careers among them. From physics to art education, with a stop in pedagogy of the English language (today he speaks four languages), my friend from Camagüey complains about the lack of connection between our country and the rest of the world.

Precisely now that international borders are being erased thanks to the information highway, the country is locked up tight as a drum. Every day Cuban writers (those eternal ambassadors) communicate less and less with the living centers of international literature. The entrenchment of the so-called engaged intellectuals, owing to their affiliations with the ideological apparatus of Havana, has rendered them truly unknown among their peers beyond the seas.

Let’s take for example Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Cuba’s “most successful representative today.” Translated into 18 languages, Padura’s novels are displayed on the shelves of the libraries of prestigious universities, the author is received by important academies of letters but he is unable to be an interlocutor to bring a message to his followers there in the island.

The novels of the author of The Man Who Loved Dogs are sold in our country at a rate of a few hundred copies in the increasingly unattractive Havana Book Fair… and “if I’ve seen you, I don’t remember”, according to the refrain (in other words, I don’t want to remember). The numerous literary prizes (including the National Literature Prize), decorations or even privileged appearances in the only three national newspapers, do not give him a million readers. The only million copies distributed in Cuba are those on the “ration card.”

With an emissary like this, we are perfect strangers.

Warming the arm

Each people needs to stretch its tongue, run it along through the world’s trails so that they know how their village speaks, and in their village they may know what paths their thinkers retrace.  How can they live decades without the interviews, the fears and descriptions of the creative processes of a Borges, Phillip Roth or the best of journalism that marinates Europe or the Middle East?

The fictions of Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Reinaldo Arenas were known from their own saddles in England and the United States, respectively.  If their works are known today within Cuba, it is not due to editorial policy but to the animosity of its rulers.

The painstaking work of some good Cubans and their friends made issues of Havana for a Dead Infant and The Color of Summer pass among the complicit in order to travel what should have been a common path.  But those fictions of which I speak found, more than a thirsty reader, a tired citizen.

A battlefield, a devastated grassland

Making of Havana a fermenting center of the intellectual and combative left in past decades generated one of the most abominable literature that you might find, readers corrupted by the slogans of the barricades and the appellation of being perfect, idiots and Latin Americans, names which are going to take us a century to live down.

A simple practical exercise suffices in order to know how we are doing in terms of literary consumption.  I invite anyone to try to get a permit to access the archives of the Jose Marti National Library, without passing through the tribulations of a hellish bureaucracy or a string of negatives that lead him to desist.

And what, today, is the arsenal of the provincial libraries? When do they ever update their stacks with books that don’t come from the political publishers, Olive Green, the Social Sciences, or those already common bricks that praise comandante Chavez?

From a nearly monthly update as we had in the ’80s, we’ve gone to a laughable annual Havana book fair to see an interesting book from another country. At this rate, in addition to leaving us with no memory of the world, without messages, we are left without readers.

Translated by: Scott Miatech and mlk

27 May 2014

Answer To Those Who Don’t Accept the Embargo / Angel Santiesteban

A public letter addressed to President Obama with the intention of lifting the embargo or, at least, lessening it, has been signed by figures who demonstrate that Human Rights on the Island do not matter to them at all.

For some, shame means a check with several zeros. I cannot hide that it fills me with consternation that there exist people in this world who defend the dictatorship although I suspect that those who do it do not think of anything more than economic gain, perks or future payments for political “lobbying” services. One way or another, it means the same thing for ethics and humanity. Their shameless acts rival each other for the championship of the most cynical.

No one with honor can raise his voice to strengthen the tyranny of the Castro brothers, which — for more than a half a century — has sunk our country into misery. They cannot hide behind the apparent good intention of “helping the Cuban people” when we know that absolutely nothing will improve in our reality; to the contrary, as the totalitarian regime is strengthened, the same will occur with the iron yoke that they exert over the people, repression and assassinations of dissident leaders will increase. That is the only thing that they will achieve if they raise or lessen the embargo on the Castro family.

To those to whom it does not matter then, sign and protect the Cuban dictatorship.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton prison settlement.  May 2014

Follow the link to sign the petition for Amnesty International to declare Cuban dissident Angel Santiesteban a prisoner of conscience.

Translated by: Michaela Klicnikova and mlk.

29 May 2014

Alfredo Guevara In His Own Words / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

A recent interview published in the magazine Letras Libres, reveals Alfredo Guevara’s mood months before his death. The meeting, that came to be thanks to filmmaker Arturo Sotto, brings us closer to a man conscious of being on the last stretch of his life. His words try to find, or give sense to his existence, to justify some horrors and exalt some achievements.

Caustic but careful, Guevara ventures in topics of the past such as the divisions within the 26 of July Movement and its clashes with the forces of the Popular Socialist Party . Between one anecdote and the next, he reveals—perhaps without intention—details of a power taking shape among betrayals and rivalries. The scene of Celia Sánchez who lived with Fidel Castro in a house in El Vedado and would ask Guevara to expel the old communists from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) “by kicking them in the ass,” slips through his words, he lets it go just like any other story. continue reading

Reading the interview took me back immediately to a Sunday morning in the year 2013 in which I received a phone call. They were telling me about a police search in the home of the recently deceased Alfredo Guevara. Before dawn, several police cars and a minibus from the Technical Department of Investigation (DTI) had arrived responding to an alleged complaint about the traffic of art works. In the house there were only the housekeeping lady and an elderly man remotely related to Guevara.

A few minutes after receiving the news, we went over to verify what was happening. A few burly men, some in uniform, and a lady who could barely form any words because of fear, made up the scene we were able to glimpse when they open the mansion’s door a few centimeters. Using the old trick that we were looking for a “handyman,” we rang the bell, and were able to see that something very serious was going on inside. The news spread rapidly and the official voices were quick to explain the case as one of theft of the national cultural heritage. Nevertheless, some of us were not totally convinced by the story.

Through the testimony of those who witnessed the police raid, we learned that the officers placed particular emphasis in the search for documents. They took great pains to disassemble ceilings, to dig under mattresses, to explore drawers and file cabinets full of papers. Were they looking for some document or writing treasured by Alfredo Guevara? I have asked myself this question thousands of times since that day. The interview in the Mexican magazine Letras Libres confirms some of my suspicions.

We are before a man yearning for lasting relevance, and with valuable information in his hands; an elderly man who is able of realizing the re-writing that has been done to history to make it seem more heroic, more sublime. When he refers to Fidel Castro’s memoirs, Guerrillero del Tiempo, he states: “I think that he has his version and I have mine, but I don’t want to create any contradiction. I want to be very careful, I am afraid…” A man like that probably shields evidences of how things really happened. Some of them he lets slip in the excellent interview in Letras Libres.

However, the largest evidence that Alfredo Guevara leaves us is neither a photograph, nor a piece of paper signed by hand by someone, much less an official document extracted from some obscure archive. His main testimony is the deception perceived in his words, the bitter touch in his stocktaking, the final clarity of not knowing with certainty if history will absolve him or condemn him.

Miguel’s Drone / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Nobody knows how he got it into the country, with so many customs restrictions and government paranoia, but Miguel has a drone. Tiny, like a kid’s toy, and with a camera. In his spare time, this forty-something Havanan dedicates himself to using his new amusement to explore the nearby patios and rooftops of his neighbors. It’s so tiny that it’s barely noticeable when flying over the neighborhood, while it transmits images and videos to a screen in the home of its proud owner.

Right now it’s a prank, but if one day Miguel is discovered with his diversion, at best he could show up on official TV as a “CIA agent.” Who knows. An uncle of his was arrested on the street in the seventies for carrying a tape recorder that belonged to the government newspaper where he worked. He spent long hours at a police station, until the director of the publication himself had to intercede for him. Time has flown and now the “fearful” objects are other things, but the reprisals are usually the same.

In any event, beyond the presumed punishment, Miguel has now learned some valuable things. He has seen the pool hidden behind his neighbor the Colonel’s high fence, the satellite antenna a former minister has on the roof of his house, and even the bowl overflowing with meat for the rottweiler belonging to the painter who lives on the corner. He has also observed, with the device’s night vision, the man who, in the early hours of the morning, dives into the dumpster and emerges with his “treasures” under his arm, and the watchman who spends time opening the warehouse containers to steal from them, without leaving any traces on the security seals. Early one morning he even captured the president of his local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) trafficking in the alcohol from a nearby hospital.

Through the eyes of his drone, Miguel has been looking at Cuba from the air, and what he is seeing is a country divided into pieces that don’t fit.

Yoani Sánchez, Havana | 30 May 2014

The Deadly Poison of Political Discourses / Miriam Celaya

che-paredSocialism is like dancing a milonga* in the midst of a carnival parade of rumba dancers

HAVANA, Cuba – Indians and Cowboys, heroes and villains, the good and the bad… these are terms often used in movies, soap operas and literature to classify polarizations of characters, placing them, by virtue of that dual machination, in hostile camps where, invariably, good triumphs over evil.

This same framework does not escape politics in its most simplistic interpretation, especially manifesting itself through the yardstick of a young and radical left, whose obstinacy is almost as astonishing as it is scary, by appealing to the nostalgic past and “better” times of the so called real socialism, when the Soviet era of influence extended over the better part of the world and even invaded, though not quite congealing, a reality so culturally different, in culture and in spirit, as that of Cuba. continue reading

It seems surprising, after the resounding disappointment of Eastern Europe’s “Marxist-Leninist” experiment, the proven economic inefficiency and widespread corruption of the model, in addition to the repression applied against any manifestation of free thinking, to find, among relatively young Cubans, who in addition consider themselves libertarians, such expressions, full of admiration and longing for that “beautiful and giant nation” as they refer to the defunct Soviet Union, especially in a social environment that is increasingly more distant to that monster’s, so such a stance is an anachronism similar to dancing a milonga* amid a rhumba carnival dance troupe.

Paradoxically, these diehard nationalists, whose common denominator is the absolute rejection of anything that smacks of “Yankee imperialism”, are the staunch defenders of what was once the metropolis of Cuba for thirty years, the USSR — that peculiar form that the Russian imperialism took for a time — and they don’t accept that a “bureaucratic elite” which held power, and particularly Mikhail Gorbachev, brought about “the betrayal of possibilities” of a socialist system that could not be sustained after 70 years of tight control over the economy, natural resources, political power and over society as a whole. They believe that in a few months barely a handful of bureaucrats swept off the socialist moral force and its achievements against millions of the “aided,” who later ratified at the polls the return to capitalism. That’s why our sleepless party animals are demanding another opportunity for the standardization and consecration of poverty. This is indeed the point: like postmodern Cathars, they demonize material wealth, as if poverty itself constituted supreme virtue.

Noting this, but being aware of everyone’s right to express their own political and ideological credo, which is what freedom is about — and also democracy, which these subjects distrust so, because it was born in bourgeois societies, and it’s fitting of them — we have to add that these are groups (the principle of the “collective” is essential) lobbying for the rights of workers, especially those of laborers, though they might not be, based on the absolute rejection of “capitalism”. They are so many other messiahs, especially those who worship that other ardent killer, Che Guevara, who, after executing so many Cubans, promoting so much violence in different regions, received a taste of his own medicine and made a disappearing act.

Their ideas and political strategies are, therefore, based on the old outlawry-Twentieth Century principle of socialism’s struggle (the “good”) against capitalism (the “bad”), where humankind — the workers, the “masses” — will achieve their due prosperity once the former triumphs over the latter. It doesn’t matter that we are already moving through the second decade of a new century, where knowledge, technological revolution, information and communications are essential, indispensable conditions for seeking global solutions for the present and the future of humankind; where political borders are increasingly blurring, and where the narrow concept of “capitalism” and “socialism”, “rights and lefts”, are not enough to define the complexities of an era that is giving birth — not without labor pains — to new relations and principles of global coexistence, including political ones.

But the infantile left (which, fortunately, is not the whole so-called “left”) is so caught up in flashbacks and in the contemplation of their virtuous navels that they have no clue.

Maybe that’s why they use trite phrases (as that kitsch one with an aura reminiscent of Guevara: “socialism cannot be built with the dull weapons of capitalism”) and, at the same time, they dusted off old and dull slogans and historical figures that were the authors or founders of the thought trends of which they are the self-proclaimed heirs, perhaps due to a congenital disability to establish some new paradigm of thought, better suited to the times. None of them has bothered to define what those “dull weapons of capitalism” might be which have allowed its continuation for over a millennium.

And it is not about denying true claims. I share, in principle, the critical attitude of those leftist sectors before the issue of foreign investments, be it at Mariel, in the field of tourism (hotels, golf courses, marinas, etc.) in various industries, in the field of agriculture or in other economic areas that this regime has systematically destroyed for 55 years. But, for the sake of the presence of the “transnationals” or because that “places us in the flux of capital and the global capitalist economy” — by the way, the only global economy is the capitalist economy, the “socialist” one is village economy, of whores and sugar mills — for, after all, I am definitively in favor of all that means prosperity, development and wealth, but Cubans on the Island are excluded from partaking in it, because such investments will only enrich the autocracy and its elite, and because workers will not even have the right to enter into contracts directly with those companies; on the contrary, they will be doubly dispossessed by the Government-State-Party through its employment agencies and by an abusive wage system.

At any rate, it is not seeking equality or in defense of socialism that thousands of Cubans leave the country each year, nor are those who risk their investments in a private enterprise inspired by Che or the USSR. It is well-known that true freedom lays in the full exercise of the capabilities of individuals, in their chances of success, not in the hypnotic miasma of ideologies. Let’s not blame capital for our own failures, because in Cuba there has not been any deadlier poison than that of the political discourse.  The Cuban Nation was forged on the desire for prosperity of her children, on the work and the talent of millions of them, not on the primacy of one ideology over another: such are the dull weapons that History has bequeathed to us.

Translator’s note: A milonga is an Argentine dance… as (in)appropriate in Cuba as another famous Argentine import.

Cubanet, 27 May 2014 | Miriam Celaya

Translated by Norma Whiting

Memories of One December 10th / Jeovany Jimenez Vega

Act I: The Barricade

I notice the foul stench the moment I turn the corner and see the piles of garbage blocking the street. A pair of patrols is stationed, threateningly, half a block away. I keep walking as though it has nothing to do with me but a State Security agent — dressed in civilian clothing and without identification, as per usual — stops me and I realize that it is, indeed, about me.

“Good afternoon, where are you headed?” he challenges me.

“To a friend’s house,” I reply, allowing myself this small amusement.

“But… to whose house?” asks a second agent, approaching inquisitively and also dressed as a civilian, of course.

I cut to the chase and look him in the eye. “Yes, I’m going to [Antonio] Rodiles’ house.”

“Let me see some identification,” he demands, as though issuing an order. The radio transmits my information and immediately the agent returns, this time with an unequivocal command. “You cannot pass!”

“Yes, I need to get by,” I reply.

“No, you cannot,” he shoots back.

“Then let’s see what you do about it because I need to pass,” I say self-righteously.

Because of my “insolence,” I am subjected to a thorough search for a cellphone I do not have.

“Frisk him and take him away!” he finally orders. It is 4:20 PM. continue reading

 Act II: The Detention

I try telling the agents of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) that the handcuffs are not necessary, but they clamp them on tightly. In a few minutes I am at the Territorial Unit of Criminal Operations and Investigations (DIVICO 3) located on 62nd Street at 7th and 9th in Playa, where I am met along the side of the parking lot.

They take off the handcuffs but their imprint — on the skin, that is — will last for hours. The booking officer asks for my name and the group to which I belong. I identify myself and I say that I do not belong to any group. There is no point in telling him I am a doctor, who would have been at Rodiles’ house for only 20 minutes because the next day I am on call at the hospital for 24 hours and must now get home. Moments later another agent appears and asks, “Haven’t you had problems with your work…  or something like that?”

“Yes, that’s me,” I say, almost interrupting to save him from further reflection. Having verified my coordinates, he leaves. That is when the man I presume to be the boss relaxes his tone of voice a bit. I tell them they are making a serious mistake, that it will lead to nothing, that they have no right to detain me, that they should try other methods.

“So, tell me,” asks the official, “how would you solve this?”

I tell him it was not up to me to solve the problem. He spends the next hour trying to persuade me to go home but I insist that first I have to go to Rodiles’ house.

“You can go there some other time but not today,” he tells me emphatically. “If you try to do it again, we’ll just arrest you again. We’ll be at this all day, so let’s just avoid the hassle.”

During this “impasse” I manage to talk for a few minutes with Gorki Avila, who is in great pain after his “peaceful” arrest. The agents come back, convinced the game is deadlocked. They confiscate my camera and send me to a jail cell.

Act III: Convicted

It is an almost hermetic cell of about 50 square meters and about 6 meters high that, in addition to a door, has a single barred window half a meter tall and about 5 meters from the floor. Three granite benches are the only elements besides the walls, which are painted with several layers of quicklime in an attempt to cover up the graffiti of slogans and curses that bear witness to the cell’s history. Inside are thirteen detainees whose luck today has been similar to mine. They tell me that before they arrived there were others who passed through and estimate that — in this one unit — there may have been fifty prisoners, including several women.

Act IV: The Wait

In time boredom and heat set in, forcing me to remove my pullover. The hours pass in fleeting conversation with occasional outbursts from those screaming at the top of their lungs at the sons of bitches. At the end of the afternoon they bring in Gorki, who is still in pain and complains repeatedly of a headache. After awhile we manage to get him medicated at a nearby clinic and he returns, his pain eased.

About 8:00 PM hunger sets in. Those who so desire are taken to eat but I decline. I guess captivity has taken away my appetite. It is at this moment that the official I saw earlier that afternoon chooses to diffuse the tension— he says to call him Mandy — by playing the good cop. In a tone that in other circumstances might be described as conciliatory, we chat and even philosophize a bit. I take the opportunity to reiterate, for the third time, that I need to call home and, also for the third time, that I am running out of time.

Just then it occurs to me that not only am I being arbitrarily detained but that I am what would technically be described as a missing person. My family will have been waiting for me for several hours without knowing of my whereabouts. For a long time the cell door has remained open, giving the impression that we could leave our confinement and go have a cup of coffee at the corner, if only we were dumb enough to believe it.

The hours pass and little by little the detainees are released so that by 10 PM only five of us remain. Around 10:30 PM they call out for Edilio, an attorney with the Cuban Legal Association, along with another detainee. Now there is only Gorki, Aldo (who manages the Castor Jabao website*) and I. Around 11:00 PM three mats appear and it is then that I resign myself to spending the night in jail.

 Act V: “Liberated”

In the morning the bars finally open and they call out my name. I say goodbye to Gorki and Aldo, who would remain there 12 hours more. At the exit a PNR official shows me a document. In the place where I am supposed to sign, someone has already written, “Did not sign,” which saved me the trouble since that was exactly what I was thinking anyway. The document mentions something about counter-revolution but I tell them they should look for counter-revolutionaries among the crooks who are embezzling this country. They give me back my camera but not before completely draining the battery

After the Terminal Lido stop the bus takes me towards Artemisa. I am gross. I quickly bathe, have something for lunch and head back to Havana for my shift at the hospital because, in spite of it all, it is not the members of my team nor my patients who are responsible for my detention.

Last Act: The Next Day’s Pill

My shift is a killer. When I get home that evening, I open the newspaper Granma to find that in a farewell address at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, President Raul Castro spoke movingly of the need for the people of Latin America to be “respectful of diversity, with the conviction that dialogue and cooperation are the way to resolve differences and civilized coexistence of those who think differently…”

I do not find out about this until the next day for reasons that are obvious. As the president of this country, who now chairs the United Nations Human Rights Council, is delivering his speech, this Cuban was being detained for 16 hours for trying to attend a State of Sats meeting. This amounted to a violation of his right to freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and freedom of thought, considering he was only thinking of going to this meeting.

The question one then has to ask is, What is the Cuban government afraid of? Could it be that the it has not ratified the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights or the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which it signed in 2008, because it intends to continue its attacks on our civil liberties. This is precisely why, now seven weeks later, I am providing an account of these events. In light of the evidence, further comments are unnecessary.

*Translator’s note: a satirical Cuban website. 

29 January 2014

 

“What is your network called?” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

They meet on a corner, eyes red from lack of sleep, their pants on the verge of falling down to their knees.  They aren’t yet twenty and have spent the night immersed in the plot of a video game.  Greeting each other they no longer use the popular “qué volá?*” nor do they mumble a grunt, but they speak to each other in the language they understand best: “What is your network called?” says the tallest to the other.  “Bad Team” is the answer that remains floating in the air.

With this simple exchange, the two young men have introduced themselves and offered the credentials that are most important to them right now. They have shared the essential: the name of where they can meet in the web of wireless connections weaving itself over the city. Despite police raids and the high prices of routers or an APN in the black market, wireless networks multiply. They serve as a substitute for the absent internet.  Through them move games, documentaries, OS updates, pirated software, magazines in PDF format, music, video clips, and the nascent private sector publicity.

“No one can stop it,” says a teenage boy with long and agile fingers, agile perhaps because of so much practice with the mouse and keyboard.  He is one of the creators of an extensive network that starts in La Habana del Este, weaves itself through the mazes of Centro Habana, and ends–with its digital tentacles–in the heart of San Miguel del Padrón. When a police offensive falls on a part of it to confiscate antennae and accessories, they immediately notice: “We notice that we lose users, that they disconnect themselves…and that gives us the clue that something is going on.” A virtual complicity unites them.

The government is right to worry; these youths are already living in the future.

*Translator’s note: Cuban Spanish equivalent of “What’s up?”

Turn Off The News / Juan Juan Almeida

When last week, the official gazette announced special admission permits for those foreigners who buy or rent dwellings in Cuba, several news media outlets, seemingly not very well informed, put together a whole hornet’s nest.

Wow, what a way to let yourself be manipulated.  It’s hard to believe that so many know-it-alls don’t know that since the end of the ’90’s, when the island’s real estate boom became fashionable, the Cuban government already gave the gringos who bought (or rented), temporary residence, renewable annually, and the right to import a car.  Before reporting, take a refresher.

Translated by mlk.
28 May 2014

Judge or Divide? / Antonio Rodiles

HAVANA, Cuba – The debate set off by the letter from more than 40 personalities asking for the relaxation of restrictions towards the Havana regime letter from more than 40 personalities asking for the relaxation of restrictions towards the Havana regime has been copious. Those who support, as a premise, that Cubans must regain their fundamental rights and freedoms have responded with intensity and been very explicit in declaring that it would be members of the regime who would have the most to gain from these measures. Meanwhile, the silence from the Island of those who support this document is striking. I haven’t read a single article defending it.

Amid the controversy, today I came across an interview on the new site of Yoani Sanchez, who in the past has expressed support for the agenda of Carlos Saladrigas, one of the principle promoters of the anti-embargo missive. The interview refers to the debate and its headline caught my attention. I quote:

“The proposal has unleashed passions and speculation, also fueled by the imminent arrival in Havana of representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Cuban society, however, seems to remain out of the headlines, the hot articles, the replies — or support — like the so-called “letter of the 40” already circulating on the networks and in emails. Thinking about this uninformed population submerged in the big problems of everyday life, I did this interview with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who received me in Washington a few weeks before the launch of 14ymedio.”

Cuban society has not remained “outside,” and more and more one hears the opinions of citizens of “this uninformed population submerged in the big problems of everyday life,” who openly  acknowledge that it is not the embargo that is responsible for so much hardship, but a dictatorship willing to continue preying on the country. continue reading

The writers, intellectuals, journalists, activists, political prisoners, readers and forum members, from outside and within the island, who have expressed themselves lately on the subject through articles and comments in DiariodeCuba.com, Cubanet.org and other sites, also make up the Cuban nation. Those who offer their opinions from within and support projects and other independent media and constantly confront the repression of a dictator and his regime, also belong to Cuban society.

Amid intense debate and without even taking part, to attempt to be the voice or the channel that can inform the Cuban people about what is happening is pretentious and a dismissal of those who have engaged in this controversy.

The need for political honesty is fundamental, 55 years of Castrismo has been too long a time of simulation. Now is a time for greater transparency and clarity. Hopefully that openness is an essential part of the political game, even if it hurts. Hopefully those in Cuba who have their agendas, and their companions, will provide something of interest to demand the rights of those who are totally defenseless, and not resort to justifying themselves in relativism.

When the future of a nation is at stake, it is important to respect diverse opinions and visions. But it is also basic to pay special attention to those well summarized in an phrase by the journalist Raul Rivero, those who are “very close to the fire.”

The debate about the embargo occupies a primordial space in Cuba today. But it should contain as an essential element the demand for our basic rights. And here we have the United Nations Covenants as fundamental tools. Ratifying them and implementing them would give us a real scenario of changes and then, perhaps, we would begin to glimpse another Cuba.

May 28, 2014 | Antonio G. Rodiles

Open Letter to President Obama on Cuba: Support Civil Society in Cuba

Editor’s note: As this letter is the source of much discussion and debate, we are providing an easily accessible copy (that you don’t have to download), for our readers’ convenience.

May 19, 2014

Dear Mr. President,

Your administration has taken several important steps to support the Cuban people by opening travel for Cuban-American families, expanding remittances, and enabling purposeful travel for more Americans. Those policies have fostered direct contacts between the United States and the Cuban people, provided a lifeline for average Cubans, and empowered Cuban civil society. As a result, Cuban society and U.S. society are sharing more information and are more connected today than in the past fifty years.

Now more than ever the United States can help the Cuban people determine their own destiny by building on the U.S. policy reforms that have already been started. Such efforts would seek to provide openings and opportunities to support the Cuban people in their day-to-day economic activities, and in their desire to connect openly with each other and the outside world and to support the broad spectrum of civil society, independent, non-state organizations created to further individual economic and social needs irrespective of political orientation. Doing so not only promises to deepen the contacts between the U.S. and Cuban society, it will also help Cubans increase their self-reliance and independence. continue reading

But timing matters and this window of opportunity may not remain open indefinitely. At the same time, the U.S. is finding itself increasingly isolated internationally in its Cuba policy. In the current political climate little can be done legislatively, but the Obama Administration has an unprecedented opportunity to usher in significant progress using its executive authority at a time when public opinion on Cuba policy has shifted toward greater engagement with the Cuban people while continuing to pressure the Cuban government on human rights.

The undersigned members—individuals from the private sector, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and foundations— acknowledge and appreciate the steps you have taken to improve U.S. – Cuban relations. We further propose the following recommendations that you, Mr. President, can take through executive authority to deepen the changes already underway by giving greater freedom to private organizations and individuals to directly and indirectly serve as catalysts for meaningful change in Cuba.

1. Expand and safeguard travel to Cuba for all Americans

a. Expand general licensed travel to include exchanges by professional organizations, including those specializing in law, real estate and land titling, financial services and credit, hospitality, and any area defined as supporting independent economic activity.

b. Expand travel by general license for NGOs and academic institutions and allow them to open Cuban bank accounts with funds to support their educational programs in Cuba.

c. Authorize U.S. travelers to Cuba to have access to U.S.-issued pre-paid cards and other financial services—including travelers’ insurance—to expand possibilities for commerce with independent entrepreneurs and safeguard people-to-people travel.

2. Increase support for Cuban civil society

a. Allow unlimited remittances to non-family members for the purpose of supporting independent activity in Cuba and expand the types of goods that travelers may legally take to the Island to support micro-entrepreneurs.

b. Establish new licenses for the provision of professional services to independent Cuban entrepreneurs.

c. Authorize the import and export of certain goods and services between the U.S. private sector and independent Cuban entrepreneurs.

d. Allow U.S. NGOs and other organizations to lend directly to small farmers, cooperatives, self-employed individuals, and micro-enterprises in Cuba.

e. Permit family remittances to be used as credits or equities in Cuban micro-enterprises and small farms.

f. Allow U.S. academic institutions to issue scholarships for exceptional Cuban students.

g. Allow for Cuban entrepreneurs to participate in internships in U.S. corporations and NGOs.

h. Promote agricultural exchange studies between U.S.-based NGOs and private cooperative farms in Cuba.

i. Authorize the sale of telecommunications hardware in Cuba, including cell towers, satellite dishes, and handsets.

j. Authorize general travel licenses for the research, marketing and sale of telecommunications equipment.

k. Authorize telecommunications hardware transactions to be conducted through general license in the same manner as existing transactions for agricultural products.

3. Prioritize principled engagement in areas of mutual interest

a. The Obama Administration should engage in serious discussions with Cuban counterparts on mutual security and humanitarian concerns, such as national security, migration, drug interdiction, and the environment, among others. The United States should leverage these talks to press Cuban officials on matters such as the release of Alan Gross and on-going human rights concerns.

4. The Obama Administration should take steps to assure financial institutions that they are authorized to process all financial transactions necessary and incident to all licensed activities.

John Adams, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (Retired); former Deputy U.S. Military Representative to NATO; former Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, U.S. Army

Ricky Arriola, CEO of Inktel

Joe Arriola, former Manager of the City of Miami

Bruce Babbitt, former Governor of Arizona; former Secretary of the Interior

Harriet Babbitt, former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States

Carol Browner, former EPA Administrator; former Director of White House Office of Climate Change and Energy Policy

Diana Campoamor, President, Hispanics in Philanthropy

Paul Cejas, former U.S. Ambassador; President and CEO, PLC Investments, Inc.

Gustavo A. Cisneros, Chairman , Cisneros Group of Companies

Jeffrey Davidow, former Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere

Byron Dorgan, former U.S. Senator

Andres Fanjul, Fanjul Group

Richard Feinberg, former Latin American Advisor to the White House; Professor, University of California, San Diego

Christopher Findlater

Mike Fernandez, Chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners

The Right Reverend Leo Frade, Episcopal Bishop of Southeast Florida

Pedro A. Freyre, Partner, Akerman LLP

Dan Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture; former Congressman from Kansas

Lee Hamilton, former U.S. House Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Jane Harman, former Congresswoman

David Hernandez, Co-Founder and CEO of Liberty Power

Vicki Huddleston, U.S. Ambassador (retired); former Chief of the U.S. Interests Section; former Director of Cuban Affairs at Department of State

Peter J. Johnson, Associate to David Rockefeller

Eduardo Mestre, Senior Advisor at Evercore; Board member of Avis Budget and Comcast Corporation

Marcelino Miyares, President MM Communications Inc.

Moises Naím, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

John Negroponte, former Deputy Secretary of State; former Director of National Intelligence

Michael Parmly, former Chief of U.S. Interest Section, Havana

Ralph Patino, Civil Trial Attorney; Futuro Fund Board Member

Jorge Pérez, Chairman, CEO and Founder, The Related Group

Ambassador Thomas Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs

David Rockefeller, Honorary Chairman, Americas Society/Council of the Americas

Christopher Sabatini, Senior Director of Policy, Americas Society/Council of the Americas; Editor-in-Chief, Americas Quarterly

Carlos Saladrigas, Chairman of Regis HR Group and Concordia Behavioral Health; Chairman of the Cuba Study Group; member of the board of Duke Energy Corporation and Advance Auto Parts, Inc.

Ken Salazar, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior; former U.S. Senator; former Colorado Attorney General

Susan Segal, President and CEO, Americas Society/Council of the Americas

Ambassador Charles Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela; President, Institute of the Americas

Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of the New America Foundation; former Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State

Hilda L. Solis, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; former Member of Congress

Enrique Sosa, former President of Dow Chemical North America

Admiral James Stavridis, Commander of U.S. Southern Command 2006-2009; Supreme Allied Commander NATO 2009-2013; Dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University

Alan Stoga, President/Founder, Zemi Communications; Vice Chairman, Americas Society

Strobe Talbott, former Deputy Secretary of State

Arturo Valenzuela, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Professor of Government and International Affairs, Georgetown University

Alexander Watson, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs

George Weiksner, Vice Chairman, Credit Suisse

The above signatories have signed this letter in their personal capacities; they do not reflect the views of their company, organization or university, current or past.

“Mommy, I want a new uniform” / 14ymedio

School uniforms. Photo: Luz Escobar
School uniforms. Photo: Luz Escobar

The sale of school uniforms started in Pinar del Rio this morning, a moment eagerly awaited by parents and students at different levels of education where the satisfaction of having a new outfit mixes with the frustrations of long lines and the problems with sizes.

A few days ago the Ministry of Education and the Ministry Domestic Trade reported that the pennant will be raised for the sale of uniforms on Wednesday. Unlike other years, this time the sales haven’t started in the capital. The provinces of Ciego de Ávila, Villa Clara, Guantánamo and Pinar del Río are leading off and the other regions of the country will be added throughout the month of June. continue reading

The news wouldn’t be significant if it weren’t that in recent decades the purchase of school uniforms has been an agonizing process for Cuban families. The national newspapers are obliged to publish a schedule of the sales and the rules governing them: a voucher with the student’s name, their town, province, school, gender and grade, authorizes the purchase of a school uniform.

Even the central store, La Capitana on Maximo Gomez Street, has come to 14ymedio to learn people’s opinions. Some two hundred mothers and grandmothers, as confirmed by this newspaper, are outside and inside the store. The line started forming yesterday afternoon.

The uniform for elementary school costs 9 Cuban pesos (CUP), and can be bought by students in the first, second, third, fourth and sixth grades, or those starting this level; while the junior high uniform costs 22.50 CUP for boys and 15.50 for girls. This year they’ve extended the possibility to grades that previously didn’t receive the so-called “uniform voucher.”

A similar policy was followed for junior high, high school and other educational levels.

Migdalia Herrera, with an eight-year-old son in elementary school, says she’s been there since last night. “I don’t want what happened in other years, when the medium sizes didn’t come, and I had to alter the shirt and the shorts,” she said. The main complaint of those who have already purchased uniforms is centered on the availability of “too few sizes for small or thin children.”

Another seller, The Sensation on Martí Street, also in Pinar del Rio, came to 14ymedio to ask about the “problem with sizes.” Assuncion Valdez has twin granddaughters who are starting in kindergarten. “Fortunately, I’m a good seamstress, because these skirts need to be taken in a lot at the sides,” she says while showing the uniforms she’d already bought.

The parallel path

Outside the stores where they’re selling the uniforms are resellers. A blouse for junior high students costs around 50 CUP in this informal market, almost ten times the price in the subsidized market. Many parents are forced to buy illegally because the school uniforms wear out or their teenage children grow too fast.

Not only reselling helps alleviate the shortage of uniforms; a new phenomenon is expanding: importing these garments made abroad. Given the high demand on the island, some stores located in Miami, Florida offer almost identical – and better quality – copies of Cuban school uniforms. “My daughter said to me, ‘Mommy, I want a new uniform,’ and I have to ask my sister who lives in the North,” says Lilian Herrera, with a daughter in the third grade.

Similar scenes and comments are being repeated today in Ciego de Ávila, Villa Clara and Guantánamo.

The Best Option, A Meeting / Juan Juan Almeida

For the seventh time jurists and professionals associated with the administration of justice from 16 countries are meeting in Cuba. This isn’t some low level meeting, having been convened by the People’s Supreme Tribunal (TSP).

In his opening words, the president of the TSP, Ruben Remigio Ferro, who is not the father of my writer friend Dania Ferro, highlighted the importance that the event presents because the exchange of experiences — in his judgment — will contribute to the employment of good practices within the Cuban judicial system, which is being adjusted at the same time as the updating of the economic model. And he put special emphasis on the achievements reached in the process of renovating the law and the activity of the courts, and in the confidence of Cubans in their institutions of justice.

This latter is not believed even by the mother who gave birth to him, with apologies to the lady. Trust in the institutions of justice?  That for Cubans on the island is science fiction.

Whatever, have a happy weekend.

Translated by mlk.

23 May 2014

A Creative Proposal / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

2011-01-30-DSC08153Sitting at a bus stop waiting for the bus are the Gonzalez brothers. Among children’s stories and entertaining laughter one hears the surprising proclamation of a 65-year-old man.

“I will give you 80 centavos for one Cuban pesos,” says the man. The Gonzalez brothers stop talking and, in whispers, question the gentleman’s offer. They listen over and over but only pretend to hear.

It’s been thirty minutes and the tiredness starts to set in, with no place to sit down, the brothers watch the entrepreneur of 2014. “So far no one has approached him to make the exchange,” says one brother to the other.

Hours and hours pass for the man to earn 20 centavos for every Cuban peso.

But for every Cuban peso people use to pay the bus fare — 40 centavos — they lose the remaining 60 centavos because they don’t have change.

19 May 2014