English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
The narrow streets of old Havana are a blazing market. Past two in the afternoon, the sun doesn’t let up on the sellers of cheap goods, prostitutes in their element and old musicians looking for a few convertible pesos entertaining some chubby Norwegians at lunch. It is a passageway of scoundrels and survivors. On Obispo … Continue reading “In Havana A Debate on Democracy / Ivan Garcia”
After a week on a hunger strike, several Cuban dissidents ended their fast this Tuesday afternoon. The number of opponents refusing to eat had reached 30 throughout the country, with their main demand the immediate release of the activist Jorge Vazquez Chaviano. Accused of the crime of “illicit economic activity,” he was sentenced to 18 … Continue reading “30 Cuban Hunger Strikers Win Release of an Opponent / Yoani Sanchez”
It has not been on any national news. No newspaper has echoed the demand of the 27 Cubans across the island who are on a hunger strike demanding that the Castro clan’s government release Jorge Vázquez Chaviano. Six of the 27 people on strike are in Havana, at the home of Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, … Continue reading “The Shadow of Death / Lilianne Ruiz”
The light is dim, the room narrow, the murmur of Santo Suarez seeps through the walls. On the bed is a bone-thin woman with freezing hands and a barely audible voice. Martha Beatriz Roque declared a hunger strike a week ago. I’ve come to her wrapped in the busyness of daily life and in the … Continue reading “Survive / Yoani Sanchez”
On Sunday morning the health of several of the hunger strikers showed serious symptoms of deterioration. The number of activists now refusing food has risen to 27 people throughout Cuba, according to the group’s spokesperson Idania Yáñez. The principal demand of the strike is the immediate release of Jorge Vázquez Chaviano, a dissident condemned for … Continue reading “Health of Cuban Hunger Strikers Deteriorates / Yoani Sanchez”
This Monday several Cuban dissidents started a hunger strike which has already been joined by 25 people throughout the country. At a press conference, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello explained that that the strikers are demanding the immediate release of Jorge Vázquez Chaviano, age 42. In 2011 this activist was sentenced for the supposed crime of … Continue reading “25 Cuban Dissidents on Hunger Strike / Yoani Sanchez”
In less than a year the Cuban opposition has lost two of its most important leaders. On October 14 of last year life of Laura Pollán, the principal coordinator of the Ladies in White and the key figure in the release of the Black Spring prisoners, was cut short. A week ago a car crash, … Continue reading “The Death of Oswaldo Payá and the Opposition in Cuba / Yoani Sánchez”
In tune with the new airs of delayed economic reforms that General Raul Castro aims to promote, under one of the measures made public on Monday 9th May, Cubans on the island can take holidays abroad. On the street it has been the story of the year. It displaced the Brazilian soap opera, the gossip … Continue reading “Will Cubans Be Able to Holiday Abroad? / Iván García”
Tuesday 9 May, on listening to the reading, on the National Television News, of the official daily press note from Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, I remembered the old joke about Napoleon, Granma and the Battle of Waterloo: “If Napoleon had had a newspaper like Granma nobody would know, yet, … Continue reading “Granma, Napoleon and the Insurgents / Miguel Iturria Savón”
DEATH IN MAY Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo It begins happening more every day. First as an accident, then as business-as-usual. The despicable childishness of the police beating innocents (in the street and in prison) is also a sinister little game, eventually an assassination. As the pyramid of governability disintegrates in Cuba, as the budget for … Continue reading “DEATH, DEATH AND MORE DEATH / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
An event of such magnitude always leaves its mark. The death of Orlanado Zapata Tamayo, at the age of 42, is indelibly engraved on my memory. In the afternoon of 23 February 2010 I was at the home of the independent lawyer and journalist Laritza Diversent, reviewing some legal cases which might be of journalistic … Continue reading “The Day Orlando Zapata Died / Iván García”
“Not even by paying 10 CUC (12 dollars) can a family get a pipa (water truck) in order to fill buckets, tanks and containers,” says Liudmila, a resident of El Calvario, a desolate hamlet south of Havana. Although there have been deliveries of water lately, shortages continue. In the first week of January, in El … Continue reading “Havana Without Water, Another Headache for the Regime / Iván García”
More than 50 dissidents and activists were arrested on December 10 in Cuba by the combined forces of the National Police and State Security for attempting to mark the International Day of Human Rights, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation led by Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz. The Universal Declaration of Human … Continue reading “Cuba: More than 50 Opponents Arrested on Human Rights Day / Iván García”
There is no doubt the dissidence on the island is looking for a space. The document: A Future for Cuba. Issued on December 2, it is counter-proposals to the government’s measures — a balanced document that fits this time in Cuba — from a group of ten people, among them the economist Martha Beatriz Roque … Continue reading “The Time of the Cuban Opposition / Iván García”
He arrived home on Saturday. After 7 years and 8 months behind the bars of a cell and the creaking of locks, the dissident economist Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique, 68, at 6:30 in the morning of his first Sunday in freedom, sat in the park facing the modest apartment where he lives in the neighborhood of … Continue reading “Who is Arnaldo Ramos? / Iván García”
