They Are Prosecuting an Activist Against Evictions in Old Havana / Luis Felipe Rojas

The opponent Madelín Lázara Caraballo, detained for nine months in a prison for HIV-AIDS sufferers, in San Jose de las Lajas, will be tried Wednesday at the Old Havana municipal court.

She is accused of the crimes of “public disorder, Article 200.1.2, contempt, 144.1, incitement to crime, 202.1.3, and resistance, 143.1, of the Penal Code, for a single and joint sentence of three years imprisonment ,” according to a report released by Major Zeida Hernández González, head of Reeducation of that prison.

Within the Cuban opposition Lázara Caraballo has been principal of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR) in Old Havana and a member of the Republican Party of Cuba (PRC) in the Havana municipality.

On numerous occasions Caraballo was present as a Human Rights activist in sites of potential evictions, as confirmed by several activists and independent journalists from Cuba. Martinoticias had access to this evidence through the program Contact Cuba, led by Norma Miranda and Luis Felipe Rojas.

“This crime she is charged with, is because of her constant activism,” says independent journalist Dania Virgen Garcia. “Every time there was an eviction in Old Havana, she supported these people. “

Among the charges Lázara Caraballo now faces are those cited by the prosecutor, who said that “she joins with people whose conduct is antisocial who are not occupationally related” and that “she had shown herself countless times against the revolutionary process.” However, among the witnesses is an administrator at a private business where she worked part-time, and other workers will testify at the trial.

Madelín is a woman suffering from HIV-AIDS, but her case is aggravated because she was two small children, a teenage daughter 13 and a boy 6. The situation at home is bleak.

Her mother, Zoila Betancourt, is 80 and carries all the weight of the family and has not seen her daughter since February.

In an interview with Contact Cuba Zoila said the 13-year-old occasionally visits  Madelín in prison but because of her age she can not travel frequently to the site.

Zoila recalls that on her only visit to the prison to see her daughter, “When I saw her I cried until I left.”

Vladimir Calderón Frías, a HumanRights activist, accompanied Madelín Caraballo to several activities and believes the authorities have shown her no mercy because she is very aware of the evictions that occur in her environment and the threats that the authorities use against citizens.

Vladimir confirmed with his testimony, the danger that others have seen for the family of this opponent, as her 13-year-old daughter is being raised practically alone, at a time in her life as difficult as adolescence.

Until 2011 Caraballo Betancourt supported the Ladies in White movement, and was arrested several times, beaten and her house was kept under strict police surveillance.

“That is a the reason there is now a prosecution request for three years’ imprisonment,” said Calderon Frias.

9 July 2013

Prison Diary XXXV: The Silence of the Lambs / Angel Santiesteban

It’s been over a month since Sunday, May 26, when Cuba was named — in the 38th Congress of the International Federation of Human Rights in Istanbul, Turkey — as the country in Latin America that commits violations against each and every one of the civil and political rights.

What should be a national holiday, can’t be celebrated because it’s like the story of the first centuries of the colonizers, having to wait for the boat, powered by the wind and the will of God, sailing the Atlantic.

The silence about the violations is another violation that adds to the Calvary that we Cubans suffer. To this chain of silences is added that of the journalists with access to the Internet who remain silent until their bosses dictate the news and the style in which it must be presented; while their conscience slept, making this humiliation of their profession an everyday event.

In September the Cuban functionaries will return to Geneva, and, once more, try to cover their misdeeds, displaying their cunning and deceit, underestimating the intelligence of others.

For now Cuba, as for over half a century, is served by the voice of the people. The news passes from one to another, crossing the city and the whole island, with the echo of those who listen to Radio Martí and those who can read it on the Internet.

Really, we are close to the reality of Cuban changing, we just have to push the wall, making the ultimate effort to produce the social change we need.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, Prison 1580, July 2013

12 July 2013

In What Corner of History Did We Forget Happiness / Lilianne Ruiz

Bus. Photo from www.cubadebate.cu

HAVANA, Cuba, May 14, 2013, Lilianne Ruiz /http://www.cubanet.org.- A bus in Havana is a greasy oven, smelling of sweat; something we would like to avoid. Especially in the month of May at 4 pm. If you get a seat and can escape the crush a little, it seems a touch of fortune. But Cubans have forgotten many important things in the midst of so many speeches.

The buses have yellow seats which people call “for pregnant women and kids.” There are six seats, no more; on some routes there are only three. The picture above of these seats shows they aren’t for old people and you can see grandmothers standing, waiting for the awareness that often takes too long.

A woman who has managed to get on the bus with a child of about seven in a school uniform, after crossing the aisle, is standing in front of a lady of about 50, carrying a pink meringue-covered cake. She’s sitting in the children’s seat. The mother says she will take the cake, but to allow the child to sit because he’s very hot and very tired. But the lady answers that it was an older child and he has no right to take the seat.

The mother’s eyes light up with anger. We try to imagine what time she had gotten up to go to work and bring the child to school, how she copes with the paltry wages to procure food for the family, school snacks, shoes; at what moment fear failed her and she dared to say:

“What you say is the size of the rights of my son, is the size of your humanity. This is what Communism has done to our people: it has made us forget the most important whys of life.”

The seated lady erupted in threats: that she should, “be careful what you say because you have a son to raise and they can make you pay for your words.”

These threats are written in the revolutionary tradition. What one can’t do is convince a significant portion of the people of the “humanitarian intentions” of the regime, where freedom (freedom to disagree!) is not recognized as the most important value of the person.

The lack of a custom of freedom has led to a lack of awareness of individual responsibility.

In an article by Carlos Alberto Montaner, regarding violence perpetrated in the National Assembly of Venezuela against eleven members of Democratic Unity Party, he says: “That’s the logic of Castro in a nutshell: the enemy is intimidated, beaten up or imprisoned to obey. And if he stubbornly resists they can always shoot him as a form of collective punishment.”

Our history is full of examples, that the young mother probably did not take into account when she spoke. That Communism dehumanizes and is incompatible with the International Bill of Human Rights, are further considerations: a mother may, in 20 seconds, destroy the official Cuban discourse.

In addition to being right — about the forgetting cultivated in this system — I continue to wonder in what corner of history we Cubans have also forgotten our happiness.

6 July 2013

A Purita Idea / Regina Coyula

When it seems to me that mediocrity will win the battle in our little country, there are things that make my day. Last week I passed by a privately-run cafe across from the Surgical Hospital on 26 Avenue and saw that they sell Purita brand dried rosemary, oregano, basil and celery. I asked for garlic, which I knew, the employee told me they always ran out early. I bought a package of celery and with this residual aroma delighting me, Saturday I went to where they process spices.

In San Mariano between Párraga and Poey, in Vibora, the unusual fireplace and the garish colors of the house serve as unambiguous reference. I had been once, but I couldn’t see the young entrepreneurs. This time I got lucky. Boris Albrecht Zaldivar, a 26-year-old mechanical engineer, is one of the parents of this creature and the licensee of the light foods processor-seller.

Boris tells me the conversation with Carlitos (Carlos Fdez-Aballí Altamirano), from which arose the idea of what today can be considered a successful business despite being still in the red. Without knowing about garlic, or dehydration, with no feasibility or market study, they decided, and then experimented.

A combination of financial need and talent led to feverish experiments and from these came the design of the machines that carried a friend with a workshop. They were ugly, but functional. These engineers also took into account the energy consumption and pollution. Along the way they learned that they intended to start up business is considered “scientifically” not profitable for poor performance, a difficulty that in practice they have overcome. They made their feasibility and market studies, and of course, there was nothing in that niche. Spices in Cuba are overwhelmingly imported.

Producing it is one thing, selling it is another. Because their products are quality, they were able to contract with hotels, sell retail is in places like this cafe I mentioned at the beginning, but the main places are the farmers markets, and, why not, the hard currency stores.

With Carlos and Boris’s experience of having a cooperative in Spain for the construction of housing modules from a core (wrecked by remoteness of the managers), Purita, with Alexander and Fidel as wholesale and retail sellers respectively, Erlin of operations, along with Boris and Carlos, now can become one of national cooperatives within the Ministry of the Food Industry. With this they can expect to receive bank loans, rent an industrial space and expand production. Boris thinks big, not in terms of numbers, but with the pragmatism of his scientific and technical intelligence.

As we said goodbye he surprised me: he knows my name (I hadn’t mentioned it), knows my blog, and said to me, a little sarcastically, “You’re an independent journalist.” I explained that writing a blog doesn’t pay anyone, and we would have started another long and rich conversation but for the threat of a huge downpour. This post is a good excuse to pick up where we left off.

12 July 2013

Eating the Yankee / Rosa Maria Rodriguez

Wendy, my good little dog

Wendy, the family dog, has always been pampered by my youngest son and me. My first born and husband haven’t been as engaged, but lately she’s been sick and since them everyone has equally lavished expressions of affection. Like any dog, she is greedy and comes up to beg when she sees “the human herd” eating something.

Recently, I had an idea that we found interesting, causing laughter and reaffirming that it’s not only us people who show a preference for the quality of food. Rafa, my husband, bought a packet of Brazilian hot dogs — I’m sure they make good ones, but those sold here are mediocre or bad — and given the olfactory insistence of the dog, I offered her one of those we had in the fridge (American), along with one of the recently arrived one.

The fuss of my surprised caught my children’s attention, they came to see what was going on and asked me to repeat the experiment I’d just told them about. Wendy, over and over again, first and eagerly ate the American hot dog, and then, with a certain disgust, the Brazilian one. It doesn’t matter if we’re rightists or leftists, it’s always “attack the Yankee” first and without mercy.

We laughed imagining the allegory that would surely be used by leftist extremists about the “Yankee-ness” of a dog with an “imperialist” name, and who knows what other nonsense. At that point, my husband arrived with the reminder that those sausages are not free, and with friendly mathematical calculations and scolding us ever so gently with financial common sense he put an end to the foolishness.

9 July 2013

International Arbor Day / Rebeca Monzo

On the street where I live, a couple of months ago, the last tree that gave shade fell at the hands of a neighbor. It has been attacked on several occasions by this character. On one occasion, the girth of the trunk was split by a circle made around it, with the aim of keeping the sap from circulating and thus killing it. Horrified, I started phoning all entities responsible for the environment, for help. I called an office and was given the phone number of another, arguing that they did not address these issues and so on.

After communicating with a half-dozen different phone numbers, I found the company that took care of the green areas. They said they only thing they could do was to fine the aggressor 150 Cuban pesos (the equivalent of 6.00 dollars), but they could not save the tree. Outraged I tried my own methods to avoid its death. To do this, I took damp soil from around and very carefully made a kind of plaster around the trunk covering the wound with strips of canvas, like a bandage. Every day I went down to moisten the damaged area and pour plenty of water on the roots.

Some days passed and the tree began to recover and resumed its green leaves. I had saved it! But again the neighbor insistence reappeared to liquidate it. This time the deadly weapon it was oil poured on its roots, with the clear intention of drying it up.

Still, the tree survived, because the sap continued to circulate in the face of the trunk that was outside the scope of the predator. But, weakened as it was at the other extreme, it later fell on the perimeter fence, causing major damage to it and blocking the sidewalk as it leaned towards the pavement. The perpetrator of this disaster that sought out the Electricity Company, which was doing repair work in the vicinity, which came to cut it, because the tree also affected a cable that damaged his home.

This tree could have been saved with tension wires pulling it back into position, but this would have to have been in a civilized and thus organized country, where institutions exist that concern themselves with protecting trees, not in ours.

This, simply, was chopped with a machete and left in the same dangerous position. After several days, a brigade from the same company came, but this time equipped with an electric saw to cut it into pieces. As always, they only took away the large pieces of the trunk, leaving lots of branches and leaves scattered on the sidewalk, blocking the crosswalk: One tree less in a country where the sun beats on all of us equally. No one else can take shelter in its shade.

It is pitiful to watch how each day a growing number of trees are indiscriminately “killed” either by the residents or by companies not responsible for the care and maintenance of the green areas. The amazing thing about all this is that, even though the media in our country talks a lot about the environment and there are even television programs devoted to it and its conservation, there is actually no official place where one can go. We need to have the conditions and the power and resources necessary to enforce measures to protect flora and fauna.

The irony is that at this very moment, in session in the Palace of Conventions, Ninth Environment Symposium is being held. The protection and care taken for flora and fauna by the government and citizens should be indices that are taken into account by international organizations to measure the culture of a country.

11 July 2013

Citizen Culture and Civics / Fernando Damaso

Photo: Peter Deel

It is good that the President, although not part of his core responsibilities and somewhat belatedly, has spoken publicly about the loss of ethical values and disrespect for morality, problems about which many citizens had been warning, without being heard, for many years. It is also good to have noted the deterioration of moral and civic values such as honesty, decency, shame, decorum, honor and sensitivity to the problems of others as well as to have come to the conclusion that we have regressed in citizen culture and civics and that we are a society increasingly schooled, but not necessarily more educated.

Although in his statement he did not discuss the many causes that have provoked this terrible situation, preferring to blame the so-called Special Period, ignoring that material misery generates moral misery, that man thinks as he lives, and you can not demand of a population that mostly moves in the margins or close to it, not to be more or less marginal, or not to steal from the State when it steals from them with low wages, the dual currency and the high prices they must pay for services and products.

The balance of the above is positive, especially when it calls for the establishment of a climate of order, discipline and exigency in Cuban society and states that can not become one more campaign. Aware of our extremism, I hope that this call does not become a call for a new witch hunt, and that they take appropriate measures to avoid it.

From all of the above, the reference to the reversal in citizen culture and civics is of great importance. Our Apostle, José Martí, spoke of the need “to be educated to be free.”A society cannot be  truly free if it is not educated, regardless of all the instruction its citizens receive. It’s a truth as big as a temple.

Nor can a free society function without the daily practice of citizenship, which includes, among many things, both the performance of duties as well as the exercise of rights, in full harmony. I think the president, who confessed having meditated a great deal about all this, is aware of the real extent of his plans and their application in practice shows it.

11 July 2013

Cholera in Havana with Fatalities / Dania Virgen Garcia

HAVANA, Cuba, 9 July 2013, Dania Virgen García/ www.cubanet.org.- For several days there has been an increase in the cases of cholera in the provinces of Havana and Guantánamo.

In Havana, where there are reports of more than 40 children admitted to the hospital, the municipalities most affected are Diez de Octubre and Cerro.

In Cerro pediatric hospital there are more than 37 children; in Accion Medica hospital, at Coco and Rabi, Santos Surez in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, on July 5 four cases were transferred to Cerro pediatric hospital.

At Pasteur Polyclinic, on Santa Catalina Street, also in Diez de Octubre, on the 5th, a three-year-old boy, Abel Lizuela Martinez, was transferred in a delicate state to Cerro Pediatric

From Guantánamo, at the opposite end of the country, Niober García Fournier of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, reported another death from cholera: that of José de la Cruz Castillo, 42 years old, resident in 12 Sur, between Santa Rita and San Gregorio, on July 1. He was in Room 12 Bed 3 in Agostino Neto Provincial Hospital. His wake was held for six hours. The health authorities barred the family from access to the interior of the funeral home, so they had to hold the wake for him in the street. The deceased worked in the provincial Meat Company.

Also, in Guantanamo prison there is a quarantine for cholera. Visits and the bringing in of articles to meet the basic needs of the inmates are restricted.

10 July 2013

Loss of Ethical Values / Rebeca Monzo

“We have painfully perceived, for more than 20 years of the Special Period, the increasing deterioration of moral and civic values like honesty, decency, shame, decorum, honor and sensitivity to the problems of others.”

So reads one of the paragraphs of Raul Castro’s discourse before the Cuban parliament, published today, Tuesday, July 9 in the daily Rebel Youth.

I ask myself, why did he have to wait more than 20 years to put the brakes on a situation that was already noticeable and perceived to be worsening?

At this point the social indiscipline and human deterioration is almost uncontrollable. There are many factors that have influenced it and they were known by all. The fragmentation of the Cuban family, product of the political confrontations and political estrangement among their members, many times imposed by the regime itself, is perhaps the crux of all the subsequent social misfortune. The family was always considered and in fact is the fundamental social nucleus of a nation.

The misconduct of the marginalized, like screaming loudly in the middle of the street, the use of obscene words and the vulgarity of speech, have been present in our daily lives. Television, one of the most influential of the mass media, also has contributed to exposing all kinds of vulgarities and mediocrities, in terms of image and vocabulary.

Throwing trash in public roadways, as well as indulging physiological needs in streets and parks, is something now of daily routine and are acts that are carried out before the indolence and apathy of observers, maybe for fear of being verbally or physically assaulted by the actor himself if attention is called.  Walk in the morning through the old Asturian Center, now a museum, and you will be horrified to have to move away from the doorways by the strong odor of urine that these emanate.

With respect to the increased consumption of alcoholic beverages by the populace, their indiscriminate sale in almost all the state establishments from early hours is noteworthy, being that the only one responsible is the State itself.  It is a shame to see in any state business, very neglected and rundown, a little table dragged to the middle of the sidewalk for the sale of rum, so that the pedestrian does not have to bother entering the place in question to drink.

As far as the abuse of the school uniform, generally the teachers themselves have given the bad example, dressing inadequately to stand in front of a student body and make themselves respected teaching a class.  All of this of course has been a product of the bad training of many teachers, the prolonged shortage of clothes for sale, the low salaries and the transportation difficulties, which has brought about having to use a kind of clothing that does not impede climbing into a truck or hanging from the platform of a bus.

Nevertheless, barely hours after publishing the discourse in question, a friend of ours was an eyewitness to an event in the farmer’s market at 17th and K streets, in Vedado, when a young man came running and tripped and almost fell on an elderly woman, who sells plastic bags at the exit of said establishment.

She, feeling battered, uttered one of the most gross curses, “now so in fashion,” which begins with “P.”  Then out of nowhere came another man, also young, dressed in plainclothes, who immediately asked for the woman’s identity card, in order to impose a fine of 200 pesos, not for selling bags (which is considered a crime), but for the “curse.”

The woman began to cry living tears, explaining that she was retired and hypertensive, that she had no money, etc.  When the young man in plainclothes saw that those present began to encircle them, he told the vendor that “this time he was going to pardon the fine,” but instead he was going to “draw up” a warning.  This made the woman burst into tears again, before the astonished gaze of all those present, who daily often utter these curse words and others even stronger, before the indifference of everyone.

Translated by mlk

9 July 2013

Counter-revolution / Cuban Law Association, Julio Alfredo Ferrer Tamayo

Lic. Julio Alfredo Ferrer Tamayo

REVOLUTION, for Fidel Castro Ruz, Historic Leader of the Cuban Revolution, is the sense of the historic moment; it’s changing everything that should be changed; it’s full liberty and equality; it’s to be treated and to treat others as human beings; it’s our own emancipation through our own efforts; it’s standing up to powerful dominant forces inside and outside our social and national space; it is to defend values we believe in no matter what sacrifice; it’s modesty, disinterest, altruism, solidarity and heroism; it is fighting bravely, intelligently and realistically; never lying or breaking ethical principles; it is the profound conviction that there is no power in the world able to crush the force of truth and ideas. revolution is unity, independence, fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, it is the foundation of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism. Gathered together like this in the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policies, discussed in the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, ratified by the President of the Republic of Cuba, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, like a fundamental compass in the construction of a prosperous and sustainable socialism.

Starting off from this definition, it is possible to work out what is COUNTER-REVOLUTION; whatever opposes or contravenes that concept. When we are not treated or don’t treat others as human beings; when we lie and violate ethical principles; when we are immodest, selfish, mean and egotistical; when we do not defy powerful dominating forces in our social and national space. when we do not fight bravely, intelligently and realistically; when we don’t change everything that should be changed, when there is not full equality and liberty; when they don’t allow the Cuba Law Association to exercise its clear human right to have its constitution, and to realise our dreams of justice for Cuba.

Translated by GH

8 July 2013

Don’t Lose Any More Time / Fernando Damaso

In defense of the current Cuban model and its updating within the straitjacket of the so-called Guidelines, some citizens are frightened by the idea of the possible restoration of capitalism in Cuba, mechanically repeating verbally and in writing all the propaganda that has been overwhelmingly spread by the news media. Nobody stops to point out the negative aspects of the current model (its main critics lie precisely within them), they simply deny the positives of change.

Fifty-six years of capitalism in Cuba, despite its shortcomings, problems, fratricidal conflicts, dictatorships, politics, theft of public funds and other misfortunes, represented development and wealth, unlike fifty-four years of socialism, even with its many misfortunes, which have only represented underdevelopment, involution, lack of productivity, backwardness, poverty and accumulation of problems, both old (lack of housing, unemployment, racial discrimination, etc.) and new (lack of possibilities, exodus, inefficient services, social indiscipline, arbitrariness, bad manners, rudeness, etc.). These realities, however much they try, cannot be hidden: they appear whenever you explore, even superficially, our past and present history.

In recent days, at the current session of the National Assembly, they have repeated the need to perfect the socialist state enterprise, forgetting its failure for seventy years in the former USSR, forty in the former socialist countries, and fifty-four in Cuba. They also have declared that socialism is the compass. Ideological stubbornness has never solved any problem.

To continue parroting these absurdities is to lose resources and time. What’s important is to end the current impasse and join the real world. The work isn’t easy, but it will only get harder if we don’t all join together in our efforts to achieve it.

8 July 2013

Cuban Hospitals Are Falling to Pieces and If They Repair Them, It’s With the Patients Inside / Lilianne Ruiz

Havana, Cuba, July 2, 2013 Lilianne Ruiz/www.cubanet.org —  Ruben Benitez is not his real name. His real name is not used because he is a father and family man and afraid of losing his job. Doctor by profession he remains disconcerted by the death of his father which occurred in the Calixto Garcia hospital.

According to which he himself said, upon arriving at the Intensive Care ward, the words of the nurse who helped him were:

“What’s going on here?  Is it raining?”

The ward was filled with water puddles due to a broken air conditioning pipe.

Dr. Benitez knows the rules especially when it comes to requiring an admittance, and added:

“Me, clearly, and that’s it, because I wanted to solve my problem.”

He assures it was not for lack of medications. “Nor for lack of attention from medical and nursing staff, despite all situations of indolence and some other abuse on finding his too demanding companion uncomfortable. It was because the hospital was so filthy,” he said.

“The medical staff doesn’t say so, apparently, but in a hospital where the same elevator carries the construction workers, the doctors, and even the trash, you can’t carry a seriously ill patient because that’s taking an infection from the mouth right to the lung.”

Doctor Benitez’s father was admitted for chest pain and he developed complications ending up with hypostatic pneumonia, which killed him.

The doctor looked at me with surprise when I asked if he thinks you shouldn’t transport a seriously ill patient in an elevator with other people. On asking him I remember my father being admitted to the hospital and the number of times I went up with him lying on a gurney, trying to protect him from the man who was carrying the trash, in the presence of doctors talking, which forced me to see that situation as “normal.”

“You can’t be doing construction in a hospital with patients inside. The floor is cleaned every day and within the ward (after fixing the air conditioning) apparently it’s cleaner. But outside, it’s not what you see, it’s that you can run a finger over the floor and it’s covered with cement dust, because they’ve been doing construction in the hospital for many years,” the doctor commented.

“It’s very depressing to see a family member in this situation and not be able to do anything,” he said. “He died of hypostatic pneumonia, but it can’t be determined if he contracted it simply by lying flat, or whether it was the result of an infectious environment that should have been avoided.”

He says he rejected the idea of an autopsy because it mean extending the suffering without resolving anything, no power to sue anyone.

According to Dr. Benitez, in his role as a companion, the most shocking was the sum of all these terrible conditions of life there, from the disruption of the builders to the sewage water running in front of the ICU room, when the first downpour of the season.

“When you don’t know the topic it’s very easy to fool you, but when you’re a doctor, not so much…”

In Havana, a few years ago it was said that the director of the Cancer Hospital had forbidden their workers to talk about the relationship to talk about the construction of the hospital and the number of deaths:

“Because it’s logical that there is a greater risk death for patients who are receiving expensive chemotherapy treatment (which normally causes immuno-suppression) and who ingest dust,” the doctor pointed out.

When he was a student, in 2004, in the Fajardo hospital, on a visitor’s pass, it could have been the same builder shouting over a running drill. “Even though it was on another floor, the reverb didn’t let you talk.”

Repairs with intensive care patients

At least ten years ago they started the repair work on the capital’s hospitals. What I could never understand, neither the doctors nor the patients, is why they all have to be restored at the same time.

Some, like the Cardiovascular Institute or the Fajardo Hospital, have been declared “terminal.” Others seem to have stalled, like Calixto Garcia. The Clodimira Acosta obstetric-gynecological appears to be a lost building, despite having started on the reconstruction work.

Statistics reveal that the number of deaths by infections in hospitals being repaired have tripled.

There are no alternatives but to go, when you get sick, to the same dirty and dilapidated hospital we’re talking about.

Only those with a high level of personal relations are allowed to receive medical attention in the elite places like CIMEQ or the Cira Garcia International Clinic.

The experience in the “hospitals for the people,” make Cubans repeat, as a collective consciousness, that “What you can’t do here is go to the hospital.”

Tuesday, 2 July 2013

6 July 2013

“The Lives of Others” Cuban Version / Lilianne Ruiz

Note: This and other photos in this post are of State Security agents.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 2013, Lilianne Ruiz, www.cubanet.org — On every street in Cuba there are so-called “revolutionary vigilantes,” people who work independently for the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). They meet periodically with an official from the State Security to inform and report on everything that is happening. But it is not a state governed by the rule of law that protects this complex apparatus of  surveillance and repression. State security in Cuba is a political policy meant to prevent political diversity and to guarantee the stability of the country’s sole political party.

As in the 2006 German film The Lives of Others, which had worldwide impact due to the historical period it portrayed, this secret agency relies on auxiliary divisions which are provided with the technical means “to be able to operate in a personalized way and to maintain effective control,” says Raúl Borges Álvarez, who until 1989 served as a counter-intelligence official.

“Sometimes there are people they cannot penetrate with an agent so they are controlled through technical means. Up until 1989 there were more than thirty departments in the General Counter-Intelligence Agency. One of those departments was the 21st, which is in charge of dealing with counter-revolution.”

As a result of the imprisonment of his son, Ernesto Borges Pérez, on political charges, Raúl Borges Álvarez got involved in protest activities, which gradually led him to become part of the island’s political opposition.

He reports that there is a department of visual surveillance, which in Cuba is referred to as K/J. It is involved in following individuals either by trailing them physically or through the the use of surveillance cameras, which are placed at nearby locations to monitor those who enter or leave a building, often an individual’s residence.

“They can even monitor private activities in order to blackmail someone with information about which he might be embarrassed,” adds the former agent.

Surveillance of correspondence such as mail sent to dissidents, also known as K/C, is handled by employees at 100th Street and Boyeros Avenue. This surveillance center is referred to as International because information from all over the world, as well as from inside the country, is reviewed here. The name of the “person of operative interest” is part of a list and the official to whom “the case” has been assigned is informed of the content of the correspondence, according to Borges Álvarez. “Later, copies are made of these letters and it is decided afterwards whether or not to send them on to the addressee.”

Telephone surveillance, or K/T, is carried out twenty-four hours a day. There they are analyzing everything that happens, and transmitting it. When it is communicated to the operative official “who attends the dissident” depends on how interesting the conversation is.

“This way they can disconnect it to block a telephone interview that might be reporting an incident to the foreign media, something that’s not reported in the national media because it is property of the State; they can frustrate a meeting; they can try to sabotage a political project; they can impede the organization of a protest to demand rights.  But above all,” he says, “they are privately studying the profile of that person, to then see how they can control him.  From trying to recruit him by means of intimidation and blackmail, to taking him out of circulation.”

Political police study individual profiles like a serial killer would

The appearance of State Security in the person of an official operative can signify detention, threats, loss of liberty.  All this complex, repressive apparatus that has as its objective the dismantling of efforts for non-violent change on the Island, tries to make believe in the first instance that rights do not exist.

When that is not possible, given the determination of an opponent, they will try then to destroy him. You have to remember that one of the guarantees of the stability of a totalitarian system is maintaining on an individual basis a crisis of identity where the person decides not to take on initiatives that might contradict the views that originate from the top, in this case the “Revolution.”

As it deals with individual aspects like liberty, identity and the demand for rights, the political police, having studied the phenomenon of repression and submission (which was documented since the times of Lenin and Stalin), directs itself to the destruction of the individual.

The most scandalous thing is that in order to carry out the institutionalized rape of human rights in Cuba, the political police study beforehand the profiles of people, as would a serial killer who studies the routines, strengths, weaknesses, fears and hopes of his victims.

On the payroll of Department 21 are agents with violent behavior who are then recognized by the government with orders of distinguished service, rapid advancement, and perks. All those benefits, which stimulate cruelty, are obtained by carrying out arbitrary arrests, surrounding meeting places, doling out beatings which can leave subsequent complications and consequences, mental and physical torture and intimidation against opponents.

The ideological excuse for these abuses rests on the falsehood that those people who engage in politics far from the Communist party, or defend liberties and human rights, are “mercenaries and agents of imperialism.”

Some independent political and human rights organizations on the Island advocate the creation of new legislation that prevents the system and its agents from enjoying powers to seclude, detain, and punish human beings who persevere in their dignity and inalienable rights.

 Translated by mlk

6 July 2013