The Unruly Ghosts of Camilo and Arnoldo / Juan Juan Almeida

Camilo y Ochoa
Left – Arnaldo Ochoa. Right – Camilo Cienfuegos

February 6 marked the 81st anniversary of the birth of one of the most emblematic figures of the Cuban Revolution. A personality who, simply by mentioning his name, arouses passions, conflicting opinions and some unknowns; I am referring to the man with the open smile, Camilo Cienfuegos.

Undoubtedly charismatic and popular, the strange conditions of his demise, plus the lack of information with respect to it, continue to fire the many questions that stimulate a controversy still open after fifty years. The interesting thing is that an equal controversy can be sparked simply by referring to Arnaldo Ochoa. continue reading

Suspicion on the street, or common sense, tells us that someone who can’t assimilate that a plane might fall into the sea without leaving the slightest trace, also can’t believe that one of the island’s soldiers who participates in narcotrafficing, and uses at will the resources of the State to back him up, can do so without the knowledge of his leaders.

It is understood that in a regime like Cuba’s the word “innocent” is always in abundance; everything on the island is a part of a culture of corruption that prevails at the highest sphere. But… what can the Commander and the General have in common.

Let’s see. Camilo and Arnaldo, each in his time, were respected, bold, attractive, critical and cheerful men, followed by their subordinates. Leaders that shared, in addition to their limited education and overflowing military merits, that spirit of adventure that is seductive to the masses.

Today, for many, both are heroes; for others they are unruly ghosts hammering at their conscience.

It is time to rewrite our history without falling into passions, and without the excessive display of this strange ability we often have to turn a man into God or a mortal into Lucifer. This as they are: Herod was a dictator, but he was also the largest builder of the ancient world.

Neither the “Famous man from Yaguajay” nor the “Bold man of Cuito Cuanavale,” competed in publicity with the figure of Fidel. On the contrary, they remained loyal to their “boss” and witnesses attest to this.

One a priori and the other a posteriori, the two, always excelled over Raul Castro, envy, a sentiment of mediocre people, and that prevails in the current president of Cuba.

I have heard a lot; but I have no evidence with which one can unite Camilo’s cadaver with Raul’s bullet; but with the body of Ochoa, yes.

“Where you’re sitting, Ochoa sat, and for not telling me ’the truth’, look what happened to him.”

These were the words that, one morning in December of 2003, I received from Raul Castro during his interrogation of me in his office on the fourth floor of MINFAR. You can draw your own conclusions. For me, it was enough.

February 15 2013

Court Suspends Eviction / Laritza Diversent

Digital StillCamera

Laritza Diversent

On January 21 the Havana Court suspended Yamilí Barges Hurtado’s eviction, planned for March 22, from her house facing the Cohiba Hotel, as well as that of the heirs of the other partner in the house-swap in the east of Havana.

According to Barges Hurtado, a sheriff from the court of justice announced the decision to representatives of the state-run organizations in her neighborhood, at approximately 5 pm. The official said the court of justice suspended the eviction because of questions of security. “Nobody told me,” Bargas Hurtado said.

Eleazar Yosvany Toledo Rivero, 34, responsible for removing Yamilé from her property, was also informed, by a phone call from neighborhood leaders, of the decision. Supposedly the plaintiff told the court on January 18 of the impossibility of carrying out the eviction for lack of transportation. continue reading

The excluded heir asked the Court to nullify the swap undertaken by both families ten years ago, and for the right to occupy Yamile’s house facing the Cohiba. The court granted the property without acknowledging her.

Regardless of the court, he didn’t give up. He called the heirs of Rivero Dominguez heirs and representatives of the state-run organizations of the Vedado and Bahia neighborhoods, to a hearing on 25 January. “I wasn’t summoned” adds Barges Hurtado, who says the eviction is scheduled for February 5.

Yamile learned of the suspension by the heirs of the other property in the trade and neighbors summoned by the court of justice. “It is a psychological war,” she says. On November 15 the eviction was planned to occur and didn’t happened. “I can’t take it anymore, I have psychiatric problems, whatever happens,” she adds.

In Cuba it is not common for courts to order evictions. Evictions, called “extractions,” are made by the Department of Housing, after declaring the occupants of a building illegal. In the case of Barges Hurtado, the administrative body acts when the People’s Provincial Court recognizes the property ownership one of the heirs at issue.

The heirs of the other property in the trade plan to sue Eleazar try to demonstrate their right to the house and to stop the eviction. Yamile will be presented in the process as a stakeholder. She needs legal advice and only the lawyers affiliated with the State-run National Organization of Collective Law, the only one of its kind in the country, can represent people before the courts or state agencies. She does not trust anyone.

According Yamile she contracted the services of three lawyers to defend her. The first, Mrs. Clara Elena Diaz Olivera was bought by the counterparty, Ms. Alba Rosa Perna Recio. The others, on learning who was representing the excluded heir, gave up the case as a lost cause.

Barges Hurtado says there is corruption in the case because with the judge Dania Pardo Garcia, former president of the Judges Commission, there are friendly relations. “At the last hearing, the went to lunch together,” she says.

February 14 2013

Credibility / Regina Coyula

Foto tomada de internet

It is not the theme of my blog address the issues of other countries, but the fate of Venezuela is so interwoven with our own, that I make an exception. Years of learning “Granma Grammar”–the language of the Party’s daily newspaper–teach us that if there were a single publishable image of the Venezuelan president, it would already have been published, especially after the opportunity offered up by the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Chavez is dying of the complications of his disease, one doesn’t have to be a doctor to know that metastases do not remit. Those who are governing in his name have shamelessly manipulated him to hold onto him like the apostles holding onto Jesus. continue reading

And I wonder how the Venezuelans will feel, including the president’s followers, when they realize the farce of his recovery has been playing on the feelings of the people; his own family with double the pain of the imminent loss and the manipulation.

I can’t feel that this farce at his expense is what he would have wanted. This seems to me true especially for the ultimate Chavez, much more sensitive because of his awareness of the gravity of his situation.

The President governed in the majority and won his elections. But the political validation of Venezuela’s current “hard men” is weak. When the time comes, what credibility will Nicolas Maduro, Elias Jaua, Diosdado Cabello have? This, in the face of the population, can be very serious.

Because it was them, not a doctor, not a relative, who issued encouraging news, while in Havana they watched the terminal phase of the illness. Will the Venezuelan people trust these functionaries who kept the real condition of the president secret?

The discredit is so undeniable that one wonders if we will see a conspirinoia to detail whether it would be a good move to get them out of the game in favor of other less visible (but perhaps more opportune) figures from the Chavez camp, and to do all this without appearing to have done so.

Reasons of State will be alleged, but the fissure is there. Something that has become clear to me in the two month absence of Chavez: however much they invoke him, none of his acolytes is Chavez.

February 13 2013

Responsible Citizens; Citizens with Rights / Reinaldo Escobar

barcenaAlicia Barcena, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said in Havana that the new economic policies dictated by Raul Castro to make people pay taxes will open the way for there to be responsible citizens. What the Mexican Specialist did not say was that when citizens are given the responsibility to share the social costs through their taxes, they also must provide them legally backed rights to express themselves freely and to associate freely.

To be responsible for the economic costs of a social process about which you have no say, you can not change, can not be an “enviable” practice.

14 February 2013

Panel: The Covenants, Five Years Later

Felipe Péres Roque and Ban Ki-moon at the signing of the covenants in New York on February 28, 2008.  http://www.porotracuba.org/about/
Felipe Pérez Roque and Ban Ki-moon at the signing of the covenants in New York on February 28, 2008.
http://www.porotracuba.org/about/

Five years after the Cuban government signed the UN covenants, what is the situation of civil and political rights and of economic social and cultural rights in Cuba? How is the campaign For Another Cuba growing, and what has been the government response? What are the realistic expectations for change in the short and medium term? All these issues will be addressed by actors in the Cuban reality.

You can be part of this panel by sending your questions via text message and receiving a response in real time via twitter. Be part of the change, we tear down these false barriers. Cuba changes if you want it to. We are waiting.

Twitter Tags: #ratificapactos and #cincoañosynada

Date and Time: Saturday, February 23 10:30 a.m.

Place: Ave 1ra # 4606 between 46 and 60 Miramar Beach

13 February 2013

Adjusting to the Needs of the People / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

Photo from Telemundo 51

Cubans began to flee the country from the time of the triumph of the government that was established in Cuba at the beginning of 1959. Never before had such a large number of compatriots fled, leaving the equity they had built over their whole lives, along with parts of their families.

Historical propaganda against communism had demonized leftist models and, rightly, opened the floodgates to the Cubans, who were left to make their way through those liberating waters, with all who had the conditions and resources abandoning the island, because they didn’t want to wait to see where “that current” might lead them. continue reading

The reality exceeded the imagination of many, and in the diaspora they reinforced each other and created strong Cuban communities in the hopes of returning to the homeland.

“The Cuban Adjustment Act” was approved on November 2, 1966 by the Congress of the United States. Public Law 89-732 allowed the Attorney General of the United States to “adjust” the status of Cuban refugees who were in the U.S. to that of permanent residents.

It’s been 46 years and yet this legislation remains in force. For some time and with the intention of eliminating the law, we have heard that the Cuban government blame the U.S. for the deaths of Cubans who take to the seas in rustic boats in hopes of achieving and enjoying the freedom that another country gives its citizens, because the government of theirs kidnapped most of their rights from them.

For some years there have been questions about the validity and sense of the Cuban Adjustment Act from various interests.Even in the documentary film by Guillermo Alvarez Guedes, “Everything is Between Cubans,” there are different opinions on the issue, but I see a trend against more Cubans entering the country that also welcomed them.

The majority opinion involves a controversy, because those who came before, as is natural, adapted better to the lifestyle of the United States than did those who came after them, who brought, “and still do,” the totalitarian habits and boots of more than half a century of helplessness.

Why do some reject others? The issue could trigger a lengthy debate that runs from the origin of our identity to the elimination of the “Cuban Adjustment Act,” and desired by the authorities of the archipelago.

But the future of this legal precept is the responsibility of the government of the United States and the interests of the Cuban community in that country, while the continuing emigration of our fellow citizens, which over time has diversified toward any geographic coordinate, is the responsibility of Cubans.

I do not know what will be the fate of the legislation that is the object of concern of so many and of questions by others. I suppose it is a media target and enters the spotlight cyclically because those who actually have the power to make a decision about it and change it or repeal it are issuing opinions or collecting information about it.

In either case I distance myself from this issue because it’s not within my area of competency, and because I think that, instead of coming forth with rigid and arbitrary repressive policies on emigration, the fundamental purpose of all governments should be to “meet the needs and desires of their people” and to create conditions so that their citizens want to remain in their native land, in the highest and noble duty of progressively rebuilding a better Cuba in a sustainable way.

9 February 2013

Not All Is Lost / Luis Felipe Rojas

no-todo-esta-perdido

“We are also concerned about the fate of the writer Angel Santiesteban-Prats,sentenced to five years in prison on December 8, 2012, officially for “housebreaking and injuries” after a process in which the charges were fabricated and witnesses bought.

“An intellectual recognized in Cuban society, who has received several awards, the only thing Angel Santiesteban-Prats did was criticize the government in his blog, The Children Nobody Wanted.

“They could imprison him at any time. Finally, Reporters without Borders learned of the arrest on Feb. 5 in Havana, of Hector Julio Cedeno, just for having photographed a group of government inspectors who were harassing hawkers. The independent journalist is still in custody.

“Are these obstructions and persecutions really the critical debate that you defend?”

February 12 2013

Deputy Attorney General of Cuba Questions the Conviction of Inmate Michel Martinez Perez / Yaremis Flores / Laritza Diversent

07 SEPT 2012

Young man sentenced to 10 years for “illegal slaughter of cattle” based solely on evidence from a dog, granted new trial.

By Yaremis Flores

Carlos Raul Concepcion Rangel, Deputy Attorney General of the Republic of Cuba, asked the Supreme Court to review the penalty of 10 years imprisonment imposed on Michel Martinez Perez. The common prisoner has gone on hunger strike over 3 times, insisting on his innocence.

“There have been breaches and inaccuracies in the criminal proceedings,” Conception Rangel acknowledged in writing, in his request which was granted by the highest court on the island.

The Provincial Court of Matanzas, in March 2012 found Martínez Pérez, along with other defendants, responsible for the illegal slaughter of cattle, theft and robbery with force. The only evidence against him was an “odor print” taken at one of the crime scenes. continue reading

This type of test only indicates his presence in the place, but not necessarily participation in the crime. Its level of certainty does not resemble that of a DNA test. It is debatable how the trace is collected, which relies on the canine technique, because a dog is the one who determines if the smell matches the suspect.

Regarding the smell test, “Irregularities appear in the proceedings that cast doubt on the quality of it,” said the Deputy Prosecutor, adding that there is a “logical contradiction” between testing and inspections of the scene.

The deputy prosecutor said Michel denied involvement in the events at all times, but it his co-defendants identified his as involved at the start of the investigation. This was placed into doubt when, after the investigative phase, the co-defendants recanted during the trial, but the judges only considered the incriminating statements.

The law of criminal procedure requires a court to rule on the basis of the evidence presented at trial. But Cuban judges, given the authority to freely assess the evidence, often violate that mandate.

“Since his arrest in August 2011, Michel tried to draw the attention of the authorities to the process,” said Iván Hernández Carrillo, a former prisoner of conscience who has supported and followed Michel’s case.

Pérez Martínez was reported under the care of physicians when, in June 2012, he began a hunger strike that would extend to almost 50 days. His last voluntary starvation was undertaken from October 19, after the results of the judgment on appeal of the Supreme Court.

The same court that agreed today to review the decision of the Matanzas judges, maintained the same sentence against Michel when it re-examined the record in 2012.

As a consequence, the prisoner refused to eat for 48 days. He then spent almost two months in hospital. “My son has lost weight and his health deteriorated, everything that happened is an injustice,” said Jesus Lázara de Jesus, his mother, by telephone.

Within 10 days, as of January 28, Michel should hire a lawyer for the holding of the new trial. In acceding to the request of deputy prosecutor, the conclusion that he committed the crime should be set aside and another reached, conforming to the guarantees of due process.

According to a source that will not be revealed for security reasons, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights allegedly requested information from the Cuban government about the legal status of Michel Martinez Perez.

February 12 2013

A Surprising Resignation / Fernando Damaso

The announced resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has shocked world public opinion, for being an unusual phenomenon and also constituting a demonstration of profound respect and love for the Church and the faithful. The action, personally, validates his modesty and honesty, showing his ability to publicly acknowledge when his physical and mental abilities prevent him from exercising the responsibilities of the high office to which he was elected.

The Pope, leaving the road open for his successor, also implicitly accepted the need for changes in and modernization of the Church, in keeping with the times.

His example should at least give pause to some politicians who, with diminished physical and mental capacity, which they demonstrate daily, still cling to power, like a divine gift, not realizing the damage they do to their people. Examples abound and are the order of the day. Of course, this requires great courage and total detachment!

February 12 2013

SOS Urgent Action for Hector Julio Cedeno — Amnesty International / Luis Felipe Rojas

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Hector Julio Cedeño Negrin, another detailed Cuban independent journalist. Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

We need to join our voices for this independent journalist who is not one of the best know in Cuba. I send this letter to Amnesty International, you can write your own:

Dear Sirs of AI:

This February 5 the independent journalist Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrín was arrested taking photos of an abuse committed by State Inspectors against independent workers in the streets of this city.

Cedeño Negrín reported via telephone from a police station to the “Hablemos Press” Press Agency that the soldiers and members of the inspectors corp threatened him, he returned to his house for a camera and tried to capture the harassment being committed, but he was beaten by several of those present and during his arrest he tore the shirt of a police officer who was hitting him, and now the want to charge him. Those are the facts. continue reading

This time it is again a brave opponent who daily confronts the Cuban political police with his writings, taking to the streets to talk with his neighbors and with people and actively participating in various demonstrations. On several occasions he has been beaten for trying to put flowers on the Malecon in Havana to commemorate the victims of the March 13 Tugboat, for recording the activities of the Ladies in White and for being a strong advocate of human rights.

Hector Julio Cedeño sends each of his writings to government political bodies, national and provincial newspapers, and every person of the Communist Party he believes appropriate. For these actions he has been threatened several times. The known represser of State Security, Col. Tamayo, personally threatened him with jail about four months ago. At other times, even when I was at his house, young police officers to ordered him not to leave his house when they were undertaking any demonstration, orders, which of course he did not obey.

Right now we are afraid that one more injustice is being committed and they will end up trying him or Detaining him for several months without charges, as happens with other compatriots. The issue is someone who is active and confrontational that the forces of repression want out of the way.

On behalf of hundreds of activists and intellectuals, I hope that you will issue a statement as something from you puts the authorities of my country on high alert and shows the solidarity with his case.

Thank you for your attention,

Luis Felipe Rojas, author of the blog “Crossing the Barbed Wire”

February 10 2013

Of Utopian Socialism and Savage Capitalism / Ivan Garcia

2470799_0When, three years ago, Octavio, 52, asked a relative in Miami for a loan of $ 8,000 for the purpose of opening a ’paladar’ (private restaurant) in the Havana neighborhood of La Vibora, he was sure that his business would prosper. Not so. In this false Cuban winter, he still owes $8,000 to his relative. And even worse, he had to close the restaurant due to unprofitability.

“In addition to having just a few customers, purchasing fresh, quality food was an ordeal. For these businesses to work you have to have good contacts in the black market. Buying food and supplies legally doesn’t work, you can’t progress. Not to mention that there is no wholesale market and the taxes are very high,” he says.

To fail at a private venture is disappointing. Of course in real capitalism there are winners and losers. But the Cuba of Fidel Castro was always considered an anti-capitalist sanctuary and enemy of the free market. continue reading

When in 1993 the Castro government authorized the opening of farmers markets and handicraft workshops, it was under a strict fiscal control and the jealous supervision of a battalion of state inspectors who, because of the rules and prohibitions imposed on self-employment, found it very easy to catch the owner in violation of the laws drawn.

Over time, the private work languished, suffocated by a raft of measures that prevented it from thriving. In October 2010 General Raul Castro reopened the private sector and relaxed the rules.

It was logical. The olive-green autocracy wanted clear out the public accounts and payrolls inflated with unproductive workers and employees who were quite heavy a burden. The regime’s plan was to layoff a million and a half workers in three years. To fend for themselves, setting up timbiriches — tiny businesses — selling croquettes or refilling cigarette lighters.

So quietly, without the sound of revolutionary marches, erasing the official discourse of “Fatherland or Death We Shall Overcome” and sticking out its tongue at Marxist rhetoric, the Castro government morphed from a socialist system (at least as we read in the Constitution) a formidable apparatus of state capitalism, corporations run by anonymous military men in white guayabera.

For a ton of Cubans, accustomed to 54 years on chanting slogans and cheering, waiting for orders from above and receiving meager subsidies, it was traumatic to be told from the podium that they should change their mentality.

Of the more than 450,000 private workers licensed to practice on their own, many had been doing it for a while clandestinely. Upon opening the door of a disguised capitalism, those who were caught naked were precisely those who worked for the state. They were people adapted to earning a ridiculous salary every month, working very little, and experts in stealing or adulterating finances for their own benefit.

In the absence of courses in small business management, investment and marketing, the self-employed have had to learn the laws of capitalism through failures. The most profitable businesses right now are renting rooms, private taxis, photographing quinceañeras, weddings and birthdays. But except for hired drivers, who due to the chaotic urban transport operation generate profits, for every one who succeeds, three fail.

More than 60,000 have returned licenses. Still and all, most consider it preferable to work on their own, giving up the miserable state salary. Then people take risks and make commitments to open their own path. Along the way they have learned to swim upstream.

This is the case with Jesus, a successful photographer who has a good gig taking photos at parties, especially girls’ fifteenth birthdays. “My experience tells me that, aside from the professional quality of your work, you have to know how to sell yourself,” he said in his studio, built in a garage. He pays 10 CUC a month to advertise in the phone book. And he paid 50 CUCs to a sign painter to make a striking lit up sign at the entrance to his house.

Or Gerado, who works renting rooms and advertises on the internet. They are lessons not learned by Octavio, the former owner of the paladar in La Vibora.

In this island version of capitalism in the worst African style, future proprietors have to know that good connections with sellers in the clandestine market are fundamental to not failing. Others try to fall in love with money. It’s customary that, for every customer introduced to a paladar or who rents a room, the owner gives a 5 CUC finder’s fee, and some free food and a couple of beers if it’s a private restaurant.

With such rigid laws that prevent getting rich, one of the ways to move forward with a business is through financial chicanery, hiding income, buying products under the table, using unfair methods of competition, even betraying your competition to the tax police.

That Octavio failed is not a surprise. “In this scene honesty has little value. You have to fight like a dog. Otherwise you won’t succeed. He is a good example.

Although it still hasn’t made it into the history books, Cuba has gone from wild utopian socialism to capitalism. In silence.

Ivan Garcia

Photo: Taken from Swiss Photographer capturing the contrasts of Cuba, a report published in 2009 in Nación.com of Costa Rica.

23 January 2013

Neither Chicken nor Fish? / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado

Paco is an elderly low-income man, sometimes grumpy, but generally of good character, caring and helpful; I ran into him scratching around the shops in search of food for himself and his “old lady.” I know him from when we lived closer, before he moved a half-mile from my house and I know that he always alerted the neighbors when some of the scarce products came into the state stores; he let us know so we wouldn’t lose out.

He told me that in the Diez de Octubre neighborhood there was no chicken at all in January. I mentioned to him that in Guanabo they got chicken on February 1, and I thought that perhaps the good fortune would come to his neighborhood in the coming days, but so far that hasn’t happened. continue reading

He goes to the butcher’s every day but doesn’t buy anything, because he “is hunting” for when they give chicken in place of fish, and he still has “credit” with the ration-market butcher because he ran out of what he had to sell. That is, they owe him the regulatory portion of chicken and substitute fish instead.

How is it possible if, in Cuba, the small quota assigned on the ration card is established in accordance with the number of consumers. Elementary mathematical deduction tells you if the Chicho butcher has 200 ration books and a total of 800 customers, he would get the quantity of a consumable for this number of clients. That is, it’s expected that however little there is, it’s enough for everyone. Then, what happens with Paco’s “teeny ration” of chicken? What mathematics does the butcher apply here?

He told me that there are many claims made on the butcher himself and in the relevant entities, but they have been ignored. It seems that every little cheep-cheep that “isn’t enough” for the users, finds its way to some municipal officials. He told me that sometimes the truck comes to unload merchandise and the proprietor (co-owner with the State) of the butcher shop where he goes to buy is absent enjoying some alcohol poisoning, surely paid for with stolen goods and underweight sales to the customers.

Paco and his wife, both retired and with no other economic rewards to extend their insufficient retirement over thirty days, get no rest because they are running all over after the bits of food the authorities assign through the ration book, as they can’t allow themselves to shop in the hard currency stores, or even at the unrationed — and excessively high — prices in national currency.

They are both over 70 and are seriously thinking of going back to work because they can’t go through life “under the blazing sun” with such stresses and frustrations. “If we aren’t resting why are we retired?” “This is no kind of life,” I hear him complain every time we meet.

December 31 1969

The Small Farmers Association, Today as Yesterday / Dimas Castellano

A report released on Friday, January 25, 2013 in the newspaper Granma reports that the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) replaced or “released from their duties” 632 presidents of agricultural cooperatives. The president of that institution, Viego Felix Gonzalez, said at the Eighth Plenum of the National Committee, that a cooperative can not function well if those who direct it do not. The news is proof that what in Cuba is called by the term “cooperative” are actually enterprises created, controlled and directed by the State. continue reading

To Gonzales’ approach must be added that much less can a cooperative work well if it ignores its basic principles, defined by ACI (1): “The cooperative is an autonomous decision of persons united voluntarily to meet their economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a publicly-owned enterprise together with a democratic structure, where every associate has the right to one vote and decisions are made by the majority, with an elective management and equitable share, with proportional distribution of the surplus.

The absence of these principles in the agricultural cooperative is related to the removal, after 1959, of the peasant associations which were born in Cuba in the late nineteenth century. Among many others: in 1890, the Neighborhood Associations in the areas of Manzanillo and Bayamo; in 1913, the Farmers’ Association of the Island of Cuba; in 1937, the celebration of the First National Peasant Congress, as well as the committees, federations and peasant unions across the country; and in 1941, the celebration of the Second National Peasant Congress and the creation of the National Peasant Association (NCA) to fight eviction, for the ownership of land, improved markets, prices, credits and income rebates, a movement in which many fighters were killed, among whom was Niceto Perez, killed on May 17, 1946.

In 1960 the leader of the Cuban revolution said: It is necessary for small farmers, rather than being sugar cane growers, tobacco growers, be simply farmers, and we organize a large National Association of Small Farmers. For this purpose some existing organizations were disbanded or merged into the National Peasant Association, which in May 1961 became the ANAP.

In order to reduce the number of independent farmers a policy was defined to “cooperativize” the existing 200,000 peasant proprietors (100,000 that existed before 1959 and another 100,000 who received title deeds with the First Agrarian Reform Law 1959).

On the basis of the National Peasant Association began to be created the first Mutual Aid Brigade and starting in 1960, the Credit and Service Cooperatives (CCS) made up of peasants who maintained ownership of the land and the means of production, but no legal ownership.

In the same year, 1960, by government decision, the Sugarcane Cooperatives were created in areas that had belonged to the sugar companies, but soon were transformed into state property, so that the cooperative was reduced to a few associations made up of private farmers. Fidel Castro himself stated: those cooperatives did not really have a historical basis, since cooperatives are actually formed by farmers who own land, so it was decided to convert them into state enterprises.

Starting from the thesis of the First Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in 1975, the development of Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPA) was promoted, formed by peasants who joined their farms and other means of production “voluntarily”; a process in which ANAP concerned itself with convincing the farmers in order to weaken the resistance to giving up with their land and joining cooperatives.

Eighteen years later, in 1993, faced with the inefficiency of state farms, in an attempt to make them produce, they created the Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC), and leased them idle state lands in usufruct.

As we can see, neither the sugarcane cooperatives nor those created later were born from the voluntary union of their associates, but rather they were created by external decisions. Their productive and economic activity was subordinated to the State’s plans to meet the demand of domestic consumption of the population, while the marketing of their products was the job of the State Procurement and Distribution Agency. Thus, the agricultural cooperatives emerged in Cuba and beyond the control of the peasantry and contrary to the need as defined by the ACI Congress in 1995.

Due to failure of cooperatives without autonomy, in August 2012 a package of measures was dictated, and a new general regulation for the UBPCs with the objective of “liquidating” the dependence of these associations on State enterprises. That document states that managers are not cadres appointed by the State, but elected by the members in General Assembly.

Despite this provision and the fact that the President of the Council of State reaffirmed on December 13, 2012, in the last session of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the need to break the colossal psychological barrier that results from a mentality rooted in habits and concepts of the past, the ANAP, anchored in time, replaces hundreds of presidents of agricultural cooperatives, as if we were in 1961 undertaking three strategic missions in the current scenario: work to increase domestic food production; defend the principles of the Revolution, standing with justice for reason; and the political and ideological education of farmers and their alliance with the working class.

This is proof that, along with the introduction of new measures imposed to implement the right of farmers to freely associate, which is impossible to do through an institution which, in addition to having been created from, by and for the purposes of State, continues to act today as it did yesterday.

(1) International Cooperative Alliance developed the principles of cooperatives during its founding in 1895 and enriched them with the Cooperative Identity Statement, adopted in 1995 at the Second General Assembly.

February 11 2013

Of Chavez and Cuban Dissidents / Ivan Garcia

chavez

In the last few weeks, foreign reporters investigating the health of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, have been calling me. My response is always the same. Living in Havana, where the Caracas strongman is being treated for cancer, does not mean one has access to up-to-the-minute news.

The mystery surrounding Chavez’s health is evident. Without access to the internet, Cubans’ only sources for news are local media outlets—all official. They disinform more than they inform.

It is the opposite outside of Cuba, where there is more detailed information on the condition of the lieutenant colonel from Barinas. I often get updates on the Cuban-Venezuelan soap opera when I go online once a week from one of Havana’s hotels. continue reading

Or when my mother calls me from Lucerne, or friends call from the United States or other countries. But everyone knows that reporters are sometimes looking for a different angle. That is when they ask for commentary or analysis on the future of Cuba.

This is somewhat complicated given the lack of transparency of the military regime. But in Cuba we all wet ourselves any time someone tries to map out the future of our country.

Babalu worshipers, fortune-tellers, independent journalists and dissident politicians—we all read between the lines of the official news and believe we can sense what direction the regime will take. Cuba in the next five years.

We all seem to be emulating Walter Mercado.* We hope our predictions come true. Some believe that, after the Castros, we will have real democracy. Others are more pessimistic.

They think we will see something resembling North Korea’s Sung dynasty. Certainly, if we do not learn from the reforms carried out in the 1990sby some communist countries of Eastern Europe, we could end up being the perfect haven for recycled leaders who change colors abruptly and weave a tight web of associates and business partners.

There are several possible scenarios. Most people dream of a democracy with presidential elections every four to six years and numerous political parties, of a place where it is not a crime to criticize something, of abundant freedoms and a first-world level of prosperity that, with any luck, might transform us into a “Caribbean tiger” similar to the Asian tigers of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.

Such optimism frightens me. To those who believe this, I would ask: From where will we get the resources and from where will honest leaders come who can lead us down this road? The response is almost identical among those who believe that in ten years Cuba will find nothing about Switzerland to envy.

They say that Cuban exiles from Miami and elsewhere in the world will arrive with capitalist experience and saddlebags stuffed with dollars to invest in the country. I hope so. I would certainly like that. But money from the likes of Fanjul, Saladrigas and Bacardí will not necessarily bring us the democracy for which we all hope. I would bet instead on our compatriots in the diaspora, those who are holding down two jobs and sleeping with visions of the Malecón dancing in their heads.

Bookish optimists would not consider it to be a problem if, the day after the departure of the departure of the Castro brothers, the island woke up to find itself penniless. Nor do they see a threat to a future democracy coming from the hundreds of military leaders turned businessmen who now wield money, resources and political connections.

Few in Cuba stop to think about how we will negotiate legal disputes over the debts owed to individuals and businesses who lost their assets when they were nationalized by Fidel Castro. “They will be paid with vouchers or something similar, and everything will be ironed out,” say some, who quietly predict that in 2013 we will see important developments in the life of the nation.

Optimism is always contagious. But when a foreign journalist asks me for an analysis on who the future leaders might be, my mind goes blank. He might well be a rabid Castro type like Balaguer in the Dominican Republic who, after the death of the dictator Trujillo, tried to pass himself off as a democrat. He or she might also be one of today’s dissidents.

International reporters like to mention names. The betting pools favor Yoani Sanchez, although in numerous interviews the blogger has stated that the president’s chair is not for her. It would not be bad if the future president were a woman. Except for Mariela Castro, I would vote for any one of them. There are the attorneys Laritza Diversent and Yaremis Flores, though in their own minds they don’t think of themselves as stateswomen.

Or Rosa María Paya! If there is one thing that Cuba needs, it is a feminine soul. We have more than enough testosterone. An any rate, it is not clear to me that the current leaders of the dissident movement—regardless of their gender —would be in a position to form an open, transparent and truly democratic government.

Within the dissident community there are so many egos and so much destructive posturing that it can provide little or no real help. If they could cast this aside and work in concert by adopting a common platform for the peaceful struggle of creating a democratic republic, it is likely that this dream of many will turn out to be more than an illusion.

In the meantime, we are still ruled by the Castros. And in addition to power and the means of repression, they also retain a plan for succession. But life often brings unexpected surprises.

Chavez’s death was not in Fidel or Raul Castro’s original script, but it could change the final outcome. For better or worse.

Iván García

Photo from ABC.

*Translator’s note: A well-known TV astrologer and psychic.

7 February 2013

Journalist on Hunger Strike About to Turn 60 / Luis Felipe Rojas

Hector Julio Cedeío Negrín Foto: Luis Felipe Rojas
Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrin. Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrin, a native of Banes, Holguin will be sixty years old in three months. Cedeño Negrin declared a hunger strike on Tuesday February 5, on being arbitrarily arrested while taking photographs of police abuse in Havana, where he has lived for more than five decades.

Cedeño Negrin told Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez of Hablemos Press that he feels weak and has some dizziness. “An officer of the political police officer came to see me in the cell, but no one else has communicated to me about my arrest. It is a small cell of 9’ x 12’,” he told the news agency, adding that he continues not to take food or water.

The freelance writer has repeatedly denounced abuses of the Ladies in White, human rights activists and the general public, specifically in the district of Jesus Maria, a neighborhood with difficult living conditions in Habana Vieja.

Cedeño Negrin is not one of the better known independent journalists from the Cuban alternative press, for this reason it is necessary to make an urgent call the international organizations responsible for ensuring freedom of the press and protecting internal dissidents and regime opponents. Cedeño Negrin has also been arrested when he went to show solidarity with his brothers in the struggle at the times of arrests, beatings or hunger strikes.

This is the time to be with him in the defense of his rights.

February 12 2013