Justice and Prayers for Angel Yunier Remon Arzuga #FreeElCritico / Angel Santiesteban

Ángel Yunier Remon Arzuaga ’El Critico.’ Jailed since March 2013 for being a non-conformist rapper and an opponent of the Cuban dictatorship. In July he contracted cholera in prison.

Jailed since March 2013 for being a non-conformist rapper and an opponent of the Cuban dictatorship. In July he contracted cholera in prison.

The chain of suffering continues for Cuban opponents. Now adding to the injustice committed, among many of the dictatorship, against the artist and human rights advocate Ángel Remon Yunier Arzuaga, who was hospitalized in intensive care and reported to be in critical condition having gone on hunger strike.

He has been imprisoned since 26 March of this year, after the fascist hordes who obey the totalitarian regime of the Castro brothers, undertook in an act of repudiation in front of his house. In addition to being a victim of government provocation, as a great irony of the dictatorship and that we can never get used to, he was accused of “attacking,” and so the prosecution requested eight years of imprisonment.

Since his arrival in prison, he has suffered the hostility of his repressors, those who dealt out to him multiple beatings, and he was infected with cholera.

It’s no secret that Ángel Yunier Remón Arzuaga’s crime, like that of all of us opponents who are in prison, is to confront the system, which for a long time, if it ever was, stopped being communist or left leaning politically, and only responds to the desire for power of Fidel and Raul Castro in their State without rights.

Yunier Angel belongs to the duo “The Children Nobody Wanted” — to my honor* — and if that wasn’t enough, with the suggestive name of “The Critic,” together with Yudier Blanco Pacheco. The lyrics of their songs are hymns among youth, making an impression with immediacy and profundity on Cuban youth who then learn and repeat the verses. Through their voices they feel that they also reclaim that which belongs to them by right: freedom.

His real and unforgivable offense, in the eyes of the political police, is to think differently, and expose this through his art. State Security sought to stop his rise in the Cuban culture.

Taking from experience the awesome rise of Los Aldeanos (The Villagers) and the phenomenon it immediately caused among the youth. Guided by a sense of support towards this young artist, I am obliged to announce that if the worst is to happen to this activist for the rights and freedom, from the place where I am detained, I will start an indefinite hunger strike.

May God be with Remon Yunier Angel Arzuaga, may He protect him in the name of his baby of nine months, his wife, and all the Cubans with shame and good feelings that accompany him in prayer.

The dictatorship is responsible for his life. The die is cast.

Ángel Santiestebn-Prats

Lawton Prison settlement. November 2013.

*Translator’s note: “The Children Nobody Wanted” is the title of a book by Angel and also the title of his blog.

Translated by: Shane J. Cassidy

6 November 2013

Abortion on an Island Where Women Don’t Want to Give Birth / Polina Martínez Shvietsova

Aborto-hospital-1-300x149HAVANA, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org – Cuba has been suffering a fertility crisis since the late seventies. And although voluntary abortion is legal, it is a problem because the island’s birthrate is below the replacement rate, with a consequent aging population.

Abortion is also a health problem, as it is used by young people as the main method of contraception.

There are young women who have had three to six interruptions. According to statistics from the National Fertility Survey (NFS) in 2009, 21% of Cuban women between 15 and 54 years have had at least one pregnancy which ended in induced abortion or a “menstrual regulation.”

Such behavior, the study indicates, is sustained by “confidence in the Cuban health system” and the right of access to such service. However, it is necessary that the public, especially young people, understand that voluntary abortion is not a method of contraception.

At the root of the problem is the increasingly earlier onset of sexual intercourse, promiscuity, the little and poor use of contraception. This brings a pregnancy which, in turn, brings an abortion, and, ultimately, infertility, as well as problems such as ectopic pregnancy, another cause of infertility in women, cervical cancer or whose occurrence is increasingly frequent at early ages.

Aborto-2Cuban women delay the age when they first give birth. Health professionals must be prepared to work with a high-risk pregnant population: women over 35 years of age.

Also keep in mind the pregnancy among teenagers. According to statistics from the Fertility Survey, about 85% of young people know that there are contraceptive methods but do not use them. While 60 % report having used the, but for the vast majority they do it sporadically.

The scarce family doctors try to persuade women of childbearing age to become pregnant. This leads to a suspicion of possible directions from the government to curb the population decrease, rather than to stimulate the birth rate, as is done in other countries.

It occurred to me to ask at random, “Does anyone know any happy young couple?” Encountering stable and happy young couples is very rare. Many couples do not want children because of unemployment, low wages, the  currency, the deterioration of housing, overcrowding with several generations living together, and a great desire to emigrate.

Polina Martínez Shvietsova

Cubanet, 5 November 2013

Sad Tiger / Orlando Luis Pardo Luiz

(1)

The unfathomable universe, lonely and cold.  Your footprints on the cement, still soft in our sidewalk. Your small steps, near and probably lost: Apology of the p. The world, the city, of the town: Cuba, Havana, Lawton. The sea, the year. The hum of the space left by you. The unspoken words, yet waiting. Like tigers, like me. The sadness of zero years in a country not as deserted but as defected: detested. 2000, 2001, 2002. Cuba, Cuba, Cuba: Hypothesis of country. 2003, 2004, 2005. Armenia, Armenia, Armenia: Hypostasis homeland. And the loud rabid sound of a car that turns the corner and stops in front of me. 666: is a police car. The law finally has remembered me.

(2)

Half hour before, I was a free man of the world. Half hour later I would be a free world of the man. Now, for the time being, that uniformed man interrogated me:

-Your name- he said

I looked at him.  I was afraid to say the truth.  I hesitated.  But at the end I told him.  And I was wrong.  I think.  Or maybe not.

-William Saroyan- I said.

The day was beautiful, the town peaceful, and his gaze was noble. He wanted to destroy me, that is true, as perhaps he wanted to destroy himself too. However, even now I am convinced that the mulatto policeman had a noble gaze. Simply he was tired, overwhelmed by himself. And by me.

-Your indentification- he said.

Of course, I didn’t have identification.  Otherwise, this story wouldn’t have existed.  I told him.  That I didn’t have identification, otherwise our story would have never existed.  Plus I was sitting on the sidewalk of Fonts and Beales, the strangest two streets in Lawton, just in front of my house.  However, the latter I didn’t say it.  I shouldn’t confess everything ahead of time.  With the law is like that.

-Then you have to come with me- he said, and started pronouncing phrases through his walkie-talkie.  He was euphoric, perhaps he would never forget that day.  I was happy for him.

Accompany him. The idea appeared fatal. I told him. He pushed me and handcuffed me great skill, hands to the back. It hurt me, but I kept silent. He hit me without too much force in the legs. It was an action that I never understood. In fact, I still don’t understand it. As if he was looking for something, as if he wanted bend something in me. And that was simply impossible. In fact, it still is.

We rode in police car 666 and the car accelerated up Fonts and then slowed down at Beales, until he parked in front of the police station. At the side of a children’s playground, now in ruins.

I was a good man and I was crying. Crying of happiness.

The driver was looking at me surprised; he would scratch his head under his blue hat. The mulatto too. He couldn’t shift that crazy noble gaze from me. I told him.

-Shut up already, you sound like a little girl- he said

And I followed instructions. And just like that we lost our first possibility, in 50 or perhaps 500 years, to have a conversation.

I don’t know. Now I suppose that was the price of our mutual happiness. Mute happiness.

(3)

Isn’t it suspicious that even language exists? And that also rusty railcars from Railways of Cuba exist, stopped at the Luyano crossroads? And the Metropolitan Buses crossing the railways, shimmering in the moonlight, lunatic moles, like dead tigers almost to be point of being revived from a shot at the heart? And the pain of the yellow lines over a zigzagging street that during the day the asphalt has melted? And the metro buses, and big rigs, and bicitaxis, and other reality particles? And the flat feet of the pedestrians, as pedants and forgivable as any policeman, as flat as the eternal first page of the Jairenik newspaper, as precarious as the cries of the Chinese Fu to the long and narrow neighborhood: Jaileni…, Jaileni…, Jaileni…? And the blue color of the night, of the sea, and the uniforms of the authorities? And the extended hands of the beggars at the restaurant, sitting down without dreams at the old sandwich place at Lawton’s bar waiting not for a coin but that it would never dawn? And the natural flowers, like the plastic ones: kimilsungias with super red petals, Bulgarian roses of worker descent, tuberculosis tulips, and lilies from the Pastrana River? In fact, isn’t it even suspicious to live? Just like your radical absence in Havana, except in my room. Just in like your sad smiling picture, hanging from my wall, perhaps from the neck. Just like that smile without memory that, night after night, you remind me that just now you are forgetting me. From another town, anywhere in the world, except Lawton.  From Miami, Mexico, Montevideo; from Manila, Moscow, Milan; from Marcella, Melbourne, Madrid or La Mecca: amnesia of the sh. Like the smile three times sadder of that woman in black and white hanging at the lobby of the police station. Under it, someone has written her name and hung a flower. Plastic, of course. But the typography is miniscule and I can’t read it from the bench on which I am detained without a major accusation. Perhaps “Celia”, perhaps “Cielo”, perhaps “Celia in the Cielo” or the reverse. I really don’t know. And me, isn’t it suspicious that I even exist?  And the tiger, the beautiful beast that ignores which of the successive cages they have moved him to, isn’t it very suspicious this sudden exhibition?

(4)

They took my fingerprints.  There was no ink and they did it with an open pen refill.  Blue ink, just like the cap of the driver, and the splendid sky of that January, and the uniforms of all those men there. Good men forced to all like the same color fabric.

They took my fingerprints.  For the first time I saw my fingerprints.  All fingerprints look like those of a criminal.  However, not even criminals can stop being good, despite the ink marks on the top right corner of a “Detention Form”.  Or Defunction.

Next to me an old lady was shaking, her hands opening and closing the zipper of her bag.  A nylon bag, full of something that no one could now imagine what.  Cubanacan S.A., Made in Armenia.

To my other side, squeezed on the other side of the bench, two young girls of 15 or 16 looked at Celia or perhaps at the fake room ceiling. Either way, both with rabies. Good girls trapped by the equitable strap of hate. Black. The old lady was white. Three sad faces and not even a trace of the tiger. I simply didn’t exist. And it was fine like that. If I had existed then, the story wouldn’t exist later.

At that time, kids were screaming outside, having fun in their play ground or paradise now in ruins.  A man dressed in plain clothes walked up to me.  He kneeled down at the bench and looked at me with all the benevolence of the New Year, century and millennium.  After that look without bad intentions, Armageddon could come: humanity was saved.  I sensed that this man was a saint and that he was far above good and evil.

-They have told me that your name is William Saroyan- he said.

I nodded.

-Could we trust in your word?- he said

I nodded.

-And in the wildness of your look?- he said and smiled.

I nodded, and also smiled.

And without realizing, we were giving each other a long hug in front of everyone’s surprise. Incapable of the smallest reconciliation, them; incapable of the greatest rancor, us. However, everything had been an error. Horror always is. And then, the man dressed in plain clothes whispered just like when someone says I love you in your ear:

-You are under arrest.

Definitely, he was an immortal.

Or perhaps I loved him.

Or both things at the same time.

(5)

And, ultimately, they are nothing but days of the universe flush with January, time retracted by the tedium of looking at it all wrong. A Sputnik knife, or an Inout pressure cooker, an Amadeo shoe. Nothing fits, everything evaporates in the evaporated milk of reality. Nata Nela. I had a Polaroid camera , and the world at times reminded me a snapshot scene and sometimes a very scenic snapshot. I took photos. Nothingness. Objects left behind. Books without letters. Kids that died with me. Waterfall promises. Wishes to feel wishes. Empty looks, emptied by the boredom of looking at it in reverse. Mine on a rooftop in Lawton, for example. Yours in a corridor of Armenia, for example. Your look humiliated by another Polaroid camera far away, on the other side of the ocean, perhaps two or three meters away: hanged, perhaps by the neck, over the most solitary wall in my room, in my house. And the Caribbean Ocean, the year of the Horse. The indigo blue, the blue uniform from the Industriales baseball team. Nothing settles, all memories float like drool. And, ultimately, they are nothing but days of the universe flush with January: lost time, or even better, a story out of time.

(6)

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Rock Wagram? – said investigator number one.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Arak Vagramian? – said investigator number two.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Aram Garoglanian? – said investigator number three.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Wesley Jackson? – said investigator number four.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Ulises Macauley? – said investigator number five.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Armenak Saroyan? – said investigator number six.

-No- I said.  That’s only my father’s name.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Takuji Saroyan? – said investigator number seven.

-No- I said. That’s only my mother’s name.

-William Saroyan, do you swear then be called William Saroyan and nothing else than William Saroyan? – the man dressed in plain clothesshook me by the shoulders.

-No- I said. That’s only my name.

(7)

Every man is always a good man in a mistaken world. No man is capable of changing even half the story around him. Nor a word. Nor a syllable. Nor silence. Loneliness and sadness are the tribute and the failure of every good man. That’s why we are tragic and innocents and we have long distance loves that will never leave us. Even if we are jailed because the law, finally, has remembered us and it asks us to confess some name, even a false one. Preferably a false one, but plausible: Who would dare to profane the word truth? Itis like a beautiful silence that at the end always obliges us to participate. It overlaps and involves us. From there, then, our implied guilt. From there, out notable guilt. These are the rules of the game. Good laws, like all laws have always been.

(8)

I was released, on my word. That is, under silence. They ask me not to say to anyone what had taken place. It was useless to convince them that in reality nothing had taken place, and it was just there where my story was. I was released even without a fine, by the pure trust of the police institution.

When I got home they were holding a wake for me.  My mother, who had not yet passed away, was pouting again. And my father, dead in 1990 something, was consoling her as badly as it was impossible:

-Don’t cry, Takuji.  Our son will soon be fine – he would repeat.

The neighbors lookedat them as if they were raving lunatics. And they were. Then they looked at me, as if suddenly they had become the raving lunatics. And they had. And even then, they all slipped stampeding from my wake, the most hysterical yelled “Alleluia, he has been resuscitated.”  But I only kissed my mother and a squeeze for my father. It was so unknown that I guess it was just as well.  I assured them that there was no horror:

-Dear parents: nothing has happened here – I lied to console them.  It has all been a misunderstanding.

And then I walked through the mansion at Fonts and Beales, straight through the longest and narrow halls of the world, and I closed the door of my room to cry. It was a winter cold: the driest season of the year, of the old century, and of the new millennium. Therefore, not one tear I cried.

I looked at the picture of my old love, also in black and white. Just like Celia, or Sky, perhaps Celia in the Sky, or to the contrary, in the police station.  Just like the mud accumulated on the sidewalk after the successuve stations of the world.  And at that point the phone rang and it was her.

Her, her, her.

After exactly one decade, I heard her voice again.  The voice of my old love, or at least, my own voice pronouncing again that old word: love.

(9)

All man who lives without love has to look for love.  No man can live in love for too long a time, nor does he want it even if he wants it. And at the same time, love too soon grows bored from any man’s history.  These are also, the rules of the game.  Magnificent rules, for a magnificent creature. The rest is all literature: literally, hard letters. Exquisite cadaver.

(10)

-I have missed you a lot- she said in Armenian from Erevan.

-Me more- I answered in Armenian from Lawton.

It had been a long time since I had spoken the mother tongue. All the same, it took half of phrase to restore my country to me.  I remembered the first verse of the hymn: “Oh, Armenia, the absent sea under your blue peaks on the horizons, they are enough promise for my adoration.”

-And I adore you too- she instantly replied, now talking in Cuban from Europe.  The calling card is ending: so is best that I call you tomorrow.

Best tomorrow.

And she hung up.

My old love hung up, hung up, hung up.

Leaving me with the silence in my mouth. Leaving again hanged only from my wall, perhaps by the neck. As smiling and sad as if my room were the lobby of the police station.

And I didn’t even have time to answer her in Cuban from Cuba. There was a knot in my brain before the one in my throat.  It had been a long time that I hadn’t spoken that borrowed tongue. Stray. On occasions, not even half a million phrases are enough to be silent.

(11)

The solitary, fathomless and universal cold. Your footprints in the now rigid cement of our sidewalk: rigor mortis. Your footprints dissected, distant, definitely unknown: deception of the d. The mute, the wicked, the mud: Cuba, Havana, Lawton. The sea, the year. The ringing of the silence left by you. Never ask for whom the bells are silent. The over used words, still lying in wait. Like tigers, like me. The sadness of the zero years in a country not as deserted as defected: detested. 2000, 2001, 2002. Armenia, Armenia, Armenia: homeland bandage. 2003, 2004, 2005. Cuba, Cuba, Cuba: homeland apostrophe. And the endearing silence of the car that turns the line and stops in front of me: the joke of the bells announcing that the paper ended. The rusty keys of my old Underwood still doubling the alarm. All aboard. All aborted. Until you finally forget justice. The good thing is that one can dispense of the righteous. It’s as easy as to dispense with a beginning, with no story, and to  simulate an end. Irreparable laws to mitigate, without too much success, the noble excellence of our unreality. Good laws, of course, as any laws they should always be.

Translated by LYD

3 November 2013

The Welcome of Our Brothers in the USA / Mario Lleonart

US churches and ministeries plus the media and secular institutions are giving us a warm welcome.

Tomorrow at 9 am we will participate in the special service dedicated to the Protestant Reform Day that will be celebrated at 9 am in the Lutheran Church “Prince of Peace” (6375 West Flager Street, Miami, FL 33144).  We were invited by its pastor Lenier Gallardo; we listened to him from Cuba for many years preaching a liberating gospel through the program “Yesterday, Today and Always” or through his famous sermons of seven words each Holy Friday, through WQBA.  In this special service the sermon will be provided by the Baptist pastor, also a prolific writer, journalist and historian, Marcos Antonio Ramos, and with whom we already had the honor of sharing at Miami Dade College.

Then at 11 am we wiil have the responsibility of preaching in the New Jerusalem Baptist Church at 760 SE 8 St in Hialeah, invited by its pastor Luis Estevez.  We already did it at Adonai and Mi Ebenezer, invited by its pastor Moises Robaina; at Estrella de Belen, invited by its pastor Javier Sotolongo; at Bethel, invited by its pastor Gerardo Garcia and at Nazaret, invited by its pastor Noel Perez.

We have also been invited to the Baptist program of Multicultural Radio (UNAVISION RADIO), to several programs of the services of “Onward” by 1450 AM; and to the program of Life (1080 AM) and Radio Luz by 1360 AM, this last can be heard perfectly in Cuba, and we had the unforgettable opportunity of being heard by our brothers there.

To top it off, pastor Javier Sotolongo gave us the opportunity to exercise a professorship in the Miami Bible College that he directs.  The live transmission of his church services permitted us to reach with our preaching many around the world, including those who had the privileged and very exclusive possibility of accessing from Cuba.

We are receiving invitations to go share with churches and ministries in other cities and states like Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey and Indiana.  We were already in Washington DC where one of our most important stops occurred: the visit to the headquarters of the World Baptist Alliance where we were received by the unforgettable brother Raimundo Barreto who directs the Commission of Justice and Liberty there; in Oklahoma where we met courageous brothers, typical inhabitants of the not coincidentally named Bible Belt of the United States. We thank God for offering us the excellent opportunity of also proclaiming his Word on this shore where we also have found so much of Cuba present.

Translated by mlk.

26 October 2013

Jumping into an Empty Pool / Osdany Morales

Luis Trapaga Morales 1
Art by Luis Trápaga.

1

If this were a Woody Allen film, Ariel Costa thought, the evening he arrived in Santo Domingo, I would meet two women at two different bars.

I would vaguely fall in love with both. One would be American—an actress vacationing in the tropics. The other would fit the same description with the same three attributes. But the first would be blond, the second one brunette.

In short order I would marry the blond. Together we would fly out to Los Angeles. Her father would see something of himself in me, as he was years ago when he was younger, except for the part about me being Cuban. Stirred by the reflection of his own image, my father-in-law would arrange for me to meet with producers. They would acquire the screen rights to my short stories with the idea of turning them into blockbuster movies. I’d settle for an oceanfront home where I would write, all the while feeling inscrutably happy.

One morning, on the golf course, my father-in-law would introduce me to Orson Martinez. He is the ghostwriter who would adapt my stories into screenplays. Orson Martinez is French and spellbound by American movies. His successful screen adaptations have brought several stories to life and have spawned over seven sequels. Some even made it past a fourth prequel.

Orson Martinez’s theory is that if you are French and so taken with Hollywood movies, the best thing to do is move to California and start making films. The rest would take care of itself. I am clueless as to what “the rest” is, although my wife and her father seem to know. They both nod and then look at me.

Orson Martinez takes the book I published in Cuba. He waves good-bye from his convertible as he drives away with my book. He sends a text message to let me know he made it home but has yet to read my book. He sends a text message again after reading the first story and then another after the second story. After that there are no more texts. He shows up at my house in Los Angeles at exactly twelve past four. The pages of my book are all scribbled with notes. Although I don’t quite get it, he found a movie somewhere in those stories.

My wife asks whether it has a role for her. It does. It is that of a woman whose son goes missing. She asks him whether it also has a role for her dear friend Jimmy. It does. He is the one who kidnaps the child, but that is to be revealed only towards the end of the movie. My wife squeals delightedly. She is torn between texting or phoning. She decides to call. Jimmy, she whispers on the phone, we have a screenplay. We both have parts. Jimmy’s own squeals are heard on the other end of the line. It’s Ariel’s script. Wait until you read it. You’ll be so excited you’ll be jumping into an empty pool.

READ THE REST OF THIS STORY AT SAMPSONIA WAY MAGAZINE, HERE

Translated by Diana Álvarez-Amell

Thankful / Rebeca Monzo

Yesterday, November 1, in the afternoon hours, once again we crossedthe now familiar threshold at Estado de SATS.  In this opportunity, I was the guest of honor, with an exposition of my art in patchwork titled “Women,” dedicated to a gender I belong to and of which I feel proud of, because each day we manage, despite the shortages and inconveniences, to integrate ourselves more into society, sharing and competing side by side, fair and square with many men, without neglecting those tasks that, as mothers, wives and daughters, ancestrally, were “assigned” to us.

I was moved by the beautiful opening words about my trajectory, spoken by my good friend Regina Coyula, but even more was the satisfaction of my friends’ presence, that despite of having work and professional relationships with the only employer of our country, had the courage of ignoring the operation orchestrated by State Security, now so habitual, and came closer, for the first time to this emblematic and “stigmatized” place.

I noticed and missed the presence of some friends that I thought would be there, above all women, the gender to which this exposition was dedicated; some were sick and some had last minute incidents, which sadly must have pleased the “comrades that were taking care of us.”  However, the exposition met its objective, and we showed once more that Estado de SATS is an inclusive place, where arts and thoughts converge, and where the common denominator is the aspiration that Cuba be again a free and democratic country, with all and for the well being of all, as our Apostle Jose Marti would have wished.

My most sincere gratitude to Estado de SATS, the organizers of this beautiful event and to all that came to provide me their support.

Translated by LYD

5 November 2013

“I Am a Prisoner Because of a Tantrum by Raul Castro” / Juan Carlos Linares, Angel Santiesteban

Havana, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org — Without any doubt, the prosecutor at the oral hearing clung to the least of the supposed crimes, “Housebreaking and Injuries,” being proved by the very “witness” who lied.  The farce of a trial was a settling of scores for Santiesteban because of his opposition to totalitarianism, and so he was made to know by the political police officer, named Camilo, a month before he learned the sentence of the Tribunal of Room 1ra. of the State Security, in his special headquarters in Carmen and Juan Delgado: Five years in jail.

How do you describe your transition from famous person of Culture to dissident?

I have always expressed the desire to count on a little corner of the least important newspaper, on the last page, to communicate my views there, wrong or not, as any mortal.  On a trip to the Dominican Republic, the last I could take abroad, the writer and brother Camilo Venegas showed me something that he called a blog, unknown to me, and that affected me. I returned to Cuba with a fire inside, a flame that grew to upset my view of what surrounded me and worried my contemporaries. Trying to be a voice. From that moment, they began to create my dissident and then criminal file.

They applied the most extreme accusations to me, like running over a child in the street with my car and fleeing, attempted murder, armed robbery, wife beater, even rape, and other stupidities that would make you laughter if they had to do with a fictional comedy and not the real life of a man, and by which I am now a captive.

Who did they use against you?

An ex-wife from whom I was separated for more than two and a half years.  She was angry about multiple situations about which I do not scoff.  I have never said this because it embarrasses me.  And I did not expose it at the trial because it intruded on minors.  Today they are adolescents.  My ex knew about my daughter, 32 days younger than our son. Add to that that I never agreed to marry her.  Later I began a relationship with a talented, beautiful, popular actress, which increased her rancor.

My ex spoke horrors to our son of my new partner, even without there having been a simple dialogue between them, and she still hates her. It happened also that at that time my ex was having a relationship with Mayor Pablo, chief of the chiefs of Playa Municipality Sectors, and that’s where they brought him in. I do not know who manipulated whom, or if both parties did it, but they had grudges against me, that is to say, my ex and State Security.

I do know that they employed the instructor, Captain Amauri, who falsified and hid proof in the preparation of my file. I accused him before his superiors in a letter, calling him an illiterate liar. He was expelled from the PNR (police) for bribery, and although he worked my file, they decided not to present it at my trial.  Maybe one day he will tell the truth about what happened.  I trust that time will bring the truth to light, even if making excuses that he was following orders.

How deeply do you feel the damage that they have done to you?

My journey towards opponent has taken me away from literary media, and of course, driven away colleagues that I used to consider “friends,” leaving only a few: enough. I like to think that each one of those few true friends for me are worth more than the whole group of cowards that fled. All that cultural marginality that they have fabricated around me gives me immense pride.

I have passed through punishment cells, and if thinking differently brings this punishment, I believe that I am in the proper place for me.  At least now I feel far from all pretense.  Really my crime was writing an open letter to Raul Castro, challenging him to free Antonio Rodiles, and some days before, the demonstration that we carried out in front of the police station on Acosta Avenue. Those events were the triggers for my incarceration. I am a prisoner because of Raul Castro’s tantrum, of that I have no doubt. I call it a tantrum to make a decision that does more damage than good, to persist in satisfying his ire. You have to be sick with power to carry out the violations that historically the Castro brothers have to hit out against those who have opposed them.

What do you remember about the trial?

A handwriting expert, Lieutenant Colonel, made me copy nothing less than fragments of an economics article in the Granma newspaper.  According to them, by the heights of my letters and the slant, I am guilty.  It sounds like a joke, but it is real.  My lawyer argued that the handwriting proof is not defining.  It is not accepted internationally.  It is a pseudoscience.  The expert insisted that it is a science, which dates to the 17th century, and that it was defining. My lawyer, young, cited several handwriting specialists, whom she did not know, according to what was argued in the trial.  They are on the internet and their literature is found in Havana, which she also did not know. It was evident that she had gone there without preparation, only to follow an order of the State Security. They refused my five witnesses, and did not admit the arguments of manipulation. They imposed a five year sanction on me which was not for the crime that they imputed to me.

How much benefit will you extract from prison as a writer?

It has been a great experience. I try to get the best and greatest benefit. Surrounded by killers, drug traffickers, thieves. I have the best relationships with them. I take advantage by writing and finishing some literary projects.  I finished the novel The Summer that God Slept. I sent it to the Frank Kafka Novels from the Drawer Contest in the Czech Republic, and I received the news that I had won the award. Tremendous happiness!

The book relates the agony of a group of boat people who escape on a raft, the vicissitudes of the sea, picked up by a boat that takes them to Guantanamo Naval Base, life in the camp, the indisciplines, the corrections, the internal problems that emerge, until they decide to return to Cuban territory crossing the mined country that is in the zone.  It has a lot of testimony.

To be in a less rigorous prison setting and to give you a pass, that you received recently, will that be a form of ceding by the government?

To the contrary. I believe that they distanced me from the jail conflicts that I constantly denounced in the prior jails through which I passed. I got involved in inmates’ situations and defended them. For my punishment, I’ve been assigned to the “minimum” incarceration regimen, that is to say, less danger, from what I can tell, by regulation, to be in camp and not in maximum security prison.  Sending me to prison 1580 was a violation of their own laws.

In the camp one leaves with a pass every sixty days.  In seven months here, I should have left many more times, but State Security did not want it.  Here, where I am, the inmates go out every 27 days, but as I do not work or collaborate on re-education, they do not permit me to leave monthly.

On the other hand, I have always had positions in Freemasonry, the latest was at a national level, and I had to dedicate a lot of time; also, the free thinking project of Estado de Sats… I gave that space all the time necessary because it seems to me a laudable and tangible purpose for the political change that Cuba needs.  So once a prisoner, I told myself: Get to work!

Juan Carlos Linares

Translated by mlk

Cubanet, 25 October 2013

All Rights for All Families / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada

The “National Meeting of LGBT Families with Sons and Daughters” will take place 16-17 November, 2013 at the National Secondary of Buenos Aires, located at Bolivar 263 in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.

The meeting will bring together LGBT families with children from around the country. It aims to discuss means that will allow us to rely on legal tools and different social, educational, and cultural aid in order to move through the process of inclusion and visibility in areas of education, work, health, and society in general.

This community meeting is designed around the idea of integration, where boys, girls, and teenagers from our families can socialize within a perspective that celebrates differences as a value that enriches us as a society.

The event is organized by 100% Diversidad y Derechos (Diversity and Rights) and relies on the support of the National Secretary of Childhood, Adolescence, and Family of the National Ministry of Social Development, the National Cultural Secretary, the National Secretary of Human Rights, and the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism (INADI).

During the meeting, we will work in committees related to different themes. These groups are designed to strengthen and empower LGBT families with children and aim to discuss visibility, rights, and full inclusion. We will also rely on discussion panels where we will address the advances and challenges of family diversity in our country.

In addition to sharing experiences in each region of the country, we will work to identify obstacles to inclusion due to visibility in different areas, good recording practices, challenges for inclusion of family diversity in cultural and educational aspects, access to rights, and timely needs.

The specific objectives are:

– Promoting social and political recognition of LGBT families with children in the areas of education, culture, health, work, unions, and communication, facilitating community empowerment and their full inclusion in society.

– Contacting LGBT families with children and identifying their legal situation in recognizing their filial and documented relationships.

– Promoting access to and information regarding the use of assisted reproduction techniques for LGBT families.

– Accompanying and advising two-mother families as beneficiaries of the DNU 1006/2012 and other facts.

– Accompanying and advising two-mother families in registering their sons and daughters in the context of same-sex marriages.

– Accompanying, informing, and offering judicial advice regarding the adoption process, for female couples and single women as well as male couples and single men.

– Discussing and generating proposals for inclusion from the perspective of family diversity in cultural areas, especially those destined for children and adolescents.

– Discussing and generating proposals for inclusion from the perspective of family diversity in educational areas, especially at the preschool and primary school levels.

Translated by: M. Ouellette
4 November 2013

“Notebooks for the transition,” A Magazine for Discussion / David Canela Pina

tiroHAVANA, Cuba, November www.cubanet.org.- This Saturday morning the civic project Estado de SATS (State of SATS) presented a new magazine titled Notebooks for the Transition, which aims to “offer a forum for analysis and plural participation,” for all Cubans interested in “thinking and visualizing that other Cuba which is already urgent” according to an editorial note. It says that the first issue is “dedicated to the issue of transnationality.”

Notebooks for the Transition is a magazine produced and coordinated by the State of SATS civic project, which has had as one of its main strategies to become an ideological “bank,” where ideas and trust in this “human capital” that has been invested in other parts of the world due to the exodus of Cuban society can return. In this issue, for example, collaborators include intellectuals and artists who don’t live on the Island: Juan Antonio Blanco Gil, Emilio Morales, Alexis Jardines, Carmelo Mesa Lago, Garrincha, among others. Their presence is distant for now, but as the transition to democrat becomes more visible and effective, the process of return of many of these social actors will no longer be an event, but become a flow, that newly enriches the naitonal sap.

Presentation of Notebooks

Despite the police operation, that prevented some people from coming to the meeting site, leaving their homes, and even their provinces, as was the case of Jose Gabriel Barrenechea. More than forty people attended the launch of the first issue.

From L to R - Antonio Rodiles, Ailer Gonzalez Olivera and Walfrido Camilo Lopez
From L to R – Antonio Rodiles, Ailer Gonzalez Olivera and Walfrido Camilo Lopez

The panel that presented the details of the magazine was made up of Antonio Rodiles, overall project coordinator Estado de SATS, Ailer González, its artistic director, Camilo Ernesto Olivera, freelance journalist, and Walfrido Lopez, a computer specialist. The first three are part of the Editorial Board, along with José Gabriel Barrenechea and Alexis Jardines, who is the only member currently located outside of Cuba.

During the exhibition they addressed issues such as the integration of Cuban society, the economic and “knowledge” remittances, the leadership structures, civic maturity as a prerequisite for the conscious transition, the role of Cubans inside and outside Cuba in the new political system, etc.

Not just for regime opponents

Rodiles commented that “Cuban society is badly damaged and fragmented, so we need to bring together Cubans around a frank discussion.” And he said that in the transition to democracy “it must be not only activists and opponents, but also ordinary citizens.”

With regards to the role of the internet in building a democratic society Walfrido Lopez said that it is not enough for some Cubans to move freely on the internet, with their thousands of Twitter followers and hundreds of Facebook friends, but unable to create a network of internal communication with the Cubans on the Island.

In the current economic context, Rodiles said the “economic flow between Cuba and Miami is the centerpiece of a change in Cuba,” which is already funding private businesses, buying houses, etc.  And he added that emigrant remittances provide the largest source of revenue to the national economy and today reach 62% of Cuban homes.

“The transition begins with us”

Camilo Ernesto Olivera raised the old problem of how to achieve this national unity of interest, at least within the opposition. Then he said that we must first move ourselves toward a civic consciousness and a maturity based on respect. “The transition begins with us,” he said. Rodiles, meanwhile, said that national unity should not revolve around a leader, a new Fidel Castro  and called for a “polycentric opposition.” He said that “the relationship between individuals is what generates human and social capital,” and therefore “our magazine is aimed at creating those links among all Cubans.”.

With great wit, Ailer Gonzalez enunciated that “differences of opinion between the opposition do not strengthen the regime, rather they strengthen the opposition,” as they increase its capacity for public debate.

Rodiles stressed that “the influence of Cubans abroad is extremely important,” while Gonzalez addressed Cubans who live and struggle in their own country: “What is your role in the new Cuba? Being an opponent is not an occupation. Everyone should begin imagining the place they will occupy in the new Cuba.”

Finally, Ailer Gonzalez concluded the meeting with these words: “Thank you to all the Cubans in the world. We are waiting to rebuild Cuba.”

Summary of the first issue

Although Notebooks for the Transition has an essentially academic and research profile related to the present and possible future of Cuba, it has also opened spaces for literature, translation and history (with the section called Documents).

This issue, which corresponds to the month of October, is composed of several sections: Editorial, Survey, Dossier (the main section), Documents, Translation and Literature.

In the Survey, some people in Santa Clara respond on “the issue of Cuban emigration and its role within the nation.” The Dossier meet has five articles: “The Internet in Cuba-US Relations” by Walfrido Lopez; “Remittances have become an engine of the Cuban economy” by Morales; “Civilizing and Emigration Change” by Juan Antonio Blanco Gil; “The Dominican Republic: a transnational nation-state” written by a group of authors; and “Notes for the transition” by Antonio Rodiles and Alexis Jardines.

The Documents section rescues “a forgotten letter from Enrique José Varona” written in 1900; and in Translation is published an excerpt from the book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism by Michael Novak. Finally, the Literature section reproduces the poem “Bottle” by Otilio Carvajal (included in his unpublished book Born August 13), and also the poem “Fragment” by Angel Santiesteban.

David Canela Piña

Cubanet, 4 November 2013

3D Movie and Video Game Rooms Going Underground / Julio Cesar Alvarez

cine-3D-composicion-300x112Havana, November 2013 – Movie and game rooms created by the private sector to stave off boredom is a sample of what can be achieved in a short time with the decentralization of the economy. The government’s recent ban on these recreational activities, shows who is holding back the changes.

What is Cinema: Art? Cultural colonization? Brainwashing? Entertainment?

Most viewers say, when asked, they are looking to be entertained, have fun, let out a few choice words when technology and ingenuity show them something surprising. At least, for many, this is the sine qua non ingredient of “the stupendous reality called cinema,” to quote Ortega y Gasset.

cine3D-cafeteria-y-video-juego-300x163On the other hand there are the the ideal comfort conditions to enjoy a movie. Most respondents mentioned an air conditioned room, comfortable chairs or armchairs, being about to snack or nibble on something while watching the movie. Some want to enjoy a drink at this moment.

These two conditions, a good time and comfort, are met in the private 3D moving rooms serving the public, although they don’t have a license to practice the activity.

Although Fernando Rojas, the Deputy Minister of Culture said on 27 October that they did not intend to prohibit this type of activity, but to regulate it, the fact is that the Cuban 3D movie room owners woke on 2 November to find their exhibitions prohibited.

sala-videojuego01“The exhibition of films, which includes 3D rooms and computer games, have never been authorized and this type of self-employment activity will cease immediately,” read the information note published by the official organ of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party on Saturday, 2 November.

The owners of such rooms, such as Ronny in Vibora, hoped that the government would grant licenses to legalize them, even if they were supervised by the municipal Ministry of Culture. “I’ve invested thousands of dollars in the business. What am I supposed to do with all this equipment. How can I recover my investment?”

The House of Culture of the 10 de Octobre municipality, had among its plans to contract this type of service as activities for children. But with the new ban no one dares to talk to them about it.

“It wasn’t a bad idea. The kids love the 3D cartoons, the glasses amuse them, and they see their favorite characters in this dimension. If we managed to get some of these 3D owners to set up this kind of exchange, we can bring 3D to more kids who have few chances to go to a private function,” said a cultural promoter from the House of Culture, who preferred to remain anonymous.

The video game business

Less widespread than 3D movies, but gaining customers in parts of the city, is the video game business. The El Maravilla Technopremier, a complex technology for the self-employes, on 10 de Octubre avenue, between San Francisco and Concepcion, offers a variety of IT services, such as software installation, hardware repairs, printing and scanning, computer classes, and a modern video arcade that runs 24 hours, allowed us to take photographs, but declined to give statements.

Sala-video-Juego-de-El-Maravilla-300x225
The video game room El Maravilla, photo, Julio Cesar Alvarez photo

At a price of 20 pesos in national currency per hour, the room has networked computers to play games like Call of Duty, Word of Warcraft, FIFA, and others. It also has Xbox 360 with Kinect (Body Motion Detector) with more than 30 games in this class. Quite a deluxe set compared to what they can offer with the old software and computers at the Youth Computer Clubs.

With the new ban, the kids who currently attend these places, which are more than a few, will have one less place to play the video games they like. They will have to line up again at some Youth Computer Club to access games authorized by the”cultural politics of the government,” such as Gesta Final, a Cuban videogame that recreates the period 1956-1959, when the rebels led by Fidel fought in the hills of the Sierra Maestra.

“At the rate we are going we will have to go underground to see movies or play the games that we like,” said Juan Carlos, a 16-year-old fan of computer games.

For ordinary Cubans, the decision to ban the 3D movies and video game rooms means fewer entertainment options for a people tired of seeing what they force to watch you to see in the cinemas, falling apart from time and ineptitude.

But for the soldiers of the Cuban Ministry of Culture, a Goebbels-inspired institution responsible for ensuring the “purity and quality” of what is displayed or played with the greatest concern being “the final triumph of a mass preference for Hollywood movies that enthrone banality and trashy entertainment.”

Julio Cesar Alvarez

Cubanet, 4 November 2013

Manuel Cuesta Commits to a “Common Strategy” for Change in Cuba / Manuel Cuesta

MORUA-300x228
Manuel Cuesta Morúa

On Monday, Cuban dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa, spokesman for Progressive Arc of Cuba, and a Cubanet journalist, committed to a “common strategy” of the opposition to bring about political change in the island, and he denounced the repression exercised by the Government over private initiative in the economy.

Cuesta Morúa, on a visit to Spain, said in a press conference that “Cuba is changing, it is a fact… but not as result of a citizen strategy to move towards democracy,” but as “a kind of social mutation.”

“The people,” said this social democratic leader, “have been seeking their own paths… to confront that difficult reality we’ve been living for more than fifty years.”

According the the Cuban opponent, the Government, “has no national project to resolve the serious accumulated problems and the reality of daily life for Cubans… it’s mission is to remain in power,” he concluded.

In this situation, the strategy of civil society is “to connect citizens with a new strategy of consensus, with the end of seeking a new constituent assembly.”

Failure of economic returns

He denounced the failure of economic reforms the Executive tried to make in 2008 and said that there is a “profound social fragmentation” on the island, along with signs of “racism, poverty, extreme poverty.”

He said that Raul Castro’s government exercises repression over private initiatives through “taxes, lack of incentives, or outright repression,” because “he is not interested in generation a middle class.”

However, he said that “the only coherence for a national project in Cuba is a political opening accompanied by an economic opening.”

As an example of the failure of the Cuban economy, he said that the remittances coming in the country from Cubans abroad reach $5.1 billion dollars, versus $4.1 billion from tourism, the sale of drugs and sugar.

“We rely more on the support of our families than on the production of Cuba, “ he said.

According to the opponent, the reforms announced by the Castro Government, such as the elimination of the dual currency, is due to pressure from potential foreign investors that require improvements to develop their projects on the island.

With regard to the travel and immigration reform that allows Cubans to leave the island, Costa Morúa affirmed that it is “collateral damage” that they had to accept on the request of some “partners” of Cuba who asked for “gestures” to support them in the international community.

He also said he is in favor of lifting the U.S. Embargo of Cub, which “doesn’t help society nor the democratization of the country,” and provides “the best alibi” for the Government, “nationalism.”

Asked about the possible assassination of the regime opponent Oswaldo Payá, he said that he, “doesn’t subscribe to that thesis… I don’t think there’s clear evidence that points to a State plan to assassinate Oswaldo Payá,” dead after a car accident last year on the island.

He said he believed that his death answers “to the inability, lack of professionalism of the Cuban intelligence services, which followed him and weren’t able to control the harassment to which he was subjected.”

From Cubanet, 4 November 2013

Prison Diary LXIV: The Dictator Doesn’t Learn That Infamy Multiplies The Opposition Forces / Angel Santiesteban

The Mistake of the Dictator

The great slip-up of dictators is to come to believe that the pain from the abuses they cause is sufficient to overwhelm their opponents. For them, arranging for mobs of criminals, people without principles or feelings, mercenaries who obey those who pay them, although only pauper’s wagers, and like a dog who submits in exchange for a bone, they follow orders to be sadistic.

Cuba is a breeding ground of these dogs who bite right and left to protect their food. They prowl around their bowls fearing someone will snatch them. Then, they are so committed, they know no way out. Their recurring nightmares are those they subjected to justice who will spend many years in prison. So they are determined to scare off those who pursue political change, and so avoid being punished for their misdeeds.

When it comes to justice, as opponents we suffer their beatings, prison, exile. Paying the price of these experiences only strengthens our ideals, deepens the necessary convictions more and more to fight for a better Cuba where individual liberties are guaranteed, as explained by the Constitution of the United Nations in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba has evaded for more than five years by not signing the UN Covenants, in order to continue its flagrant violations of Cubans’ most elemental rights.

Several countries, hiding behind “respect for the right of peoples to choose their politics and regime,” have become accomplices of totalitarianism, as if Cuban citizens have chosen famine, family division, laziness, fear, denunciations and State terror against everyone who is opposing the system.

Unfortunately, there is an embargo on Cuba. I am sure that if the dictatorship, as has been demonstrated, had  power — which thanks be to God they don’t because of their own ineptitude — today we would even further away from the possibility of achieving the democracy and freedoms that every day we crave more, and that for us are the only possible path to the social development of the nation.

The embargo, even if it hurts us, should continue. “Friend” countries of the dictatorship, and even those who are not, have the luxury of playing with “respect for the rights of others,” when the dictatorship itself does not respect individual opinion. While they  frolic, Cuban continues to survive badly, accepting as an everyday thing that its children throw themselves into the sea trying to reach a better life.

In this same interval of time and actions, opponents persist and their dreams and rights, and risk their lives, like Laura Pollán and Oswaldo Payá, among other brave fighters, and resist the beatings and humiliations, because what the dictators do not learn is, it is only cowardice that corrodes and is able to feed their fears, and their infamy multiplies the forces who oppose them.

The image I carry with me and that feeds me, is to imagine them asking to be forgiven, justifying the unjustifiable, claiming they were following orders or did not know, and returning to the coffers of the State the stolen money scattered across the globe. Because that will be the only way to prevent the next leaders from repeating this dark part or our history. Then, I do want to hear that not forgetting is synonymous with bitterness. I prefer to be convinced that justice is the equivalent of shame.

4 November 2013

Upon Returning from Distant Shores / Reinaldo Escobar

The impressions of recent days will not fit in the brevity of a post, but it is my fault for not updating my blog while outside Cuba. First of all, friends. Embracing Ivan Canas, Pablo Fernandez, Celso Rodriguez, former colleagues of the magazine Cuba International (I had already seen before Raul Rivero and Manuel Pereira Salado Minerva); reconnecting with José Antonio García, Adolfo Fernandez, Jose Antonio Evora, Alcibiades Hidalgo; to meet personally dozens of compatriots in exile whom I knew only from telephone contact, old and young generations of Cubans, all of them anxious to do something for their country, “How can we help?” they asked in every corner we visited … “How about this?” And one assumes the huge commitment of lifting spirits or lowering expectations and finally returning to the island to see with the renewed perspective provided by the interweaving of views with different trends.

Upon returning from distant shores one’s soul is filled with mourning and shadow: the repression increases, the process of reforms stops and reverses, fear silences protests, simulation sculpts masks, corruption metastasizes, cities crumble, while others continue to sing their eternal flattery of the powerful, the media hides the reality and the reality suffocates citizens, who confront the dilemma of emigrating, faking compliance, or challenging. Cuba is going badly and time threatens to make the damages caused irreversible. I am overwhelmed by the responsibility of not doing enough.

4 November 2013