Sunday, February 24 was the culmination of a Cuba’s own “original” electoral process. Deputies of the National Assembly of People’s Power – whose own candidacies had been previously approved by the Communist Party Central Committee – nominated and elected the President, Vice-President and Secretary of the Assembly. They subsequently elected the President, First Vice-President, five Vice-Presidents, Secretary and remaining members of the Council of State. As in any human endeavor there were positive and negative aspects.

First things first. It is laudable that no member of the Council of State can serve more than two five-year terms in any one post, and that there is also an age limit on office holders. The re-elected President has also publicly stated that this will be his last term in office, and that the First Vice-President will be someone who does not belong to the generation of Cuban revolutionaries – the so-called “historic leaders.” Although this announcement has come somewhat late, people are welcoming the measures, taken after more than half a century of a one-person government with two faces, even though they will have to wait until 2018 for them to take effect.

On the other hand, to repeat yet again that socialism is irreversible, and that all that is left to be done is to perfect it, update it and save it when the majority of the citizenry consider it to be beyond salvation – especially in light of its demonstrable failures and inefficiencies over the course of more than fifty years – is not a pragmatic approach.

It is quite clear to everyone that its principles and dogmas, maintained through force, are the main impediments to real freedom and the development of productive forces, which are the only hope we have for overcoming the deep economic crisis in which we find ourselves.Nor is it useful, though it is now routine to do so, to speak of essential political and social changes necessary to save socialism. Instead, we should be talking about how to save the country, which is something much more important. In spite of some accommodation by the “historic leaders,” the principal levers of power remain firmly within their hands.

The changes in the offices of the President, Vice-President and Secretary of the National Assembly are merely cosmetic. Since the right to be elected as deputies is not granted to all citizens, no matter they may think, the Assembly is not representative of the full political spectrum of the nation. If it does not change the way it operates, it will continue to be more of a formality than a reality, a mere echo change for the state.

In short, the waiting game continues, now with a five-year extension.

Photo caption: “Closing of the Constituent Session of the Eighth Legislative National Assembly of People’s Power, February 24, 2013.”

February 26 2013

The bus stop at G and 27th, three in the afternoon. Several people gather around a skinny seventy-something. He’s not selling peanuts, he’s not selling newspapers, he’s not selling candy bars, he’s not selling anything. He is exchanging one Cuban peso for 80 centavos. It works because although public transport costs forty centavos, in practice breaking a Cuban peso into smaller coins is difficult because Cuban pesos are only in the places selling on the ration book (at the bodega and the bakery) are fractions handled.

People prefer to make change with the skinny guy, outfitted with a cardboard box of his own invention hanging just below his chest, because with a peso you can only pay for one trip, and if you change it you can pay for two, others prefer to favor the retiree before tossing a coin in the farebox.

And so it goes! I say to myself annoyed at my camera. I try to speak to him but he crosses diagonally across G Street to the stop for the P-2, which starts its journey towards Alamar there.

I tried to calculate (you already know, numbers aren’t my strong point): With five people making change, he can buy himself a small coffee; with forty a pizza. How many hours a day will he have to dedicate to tramping from stop to stop, how many times will the police stop him. But in any case, the next list of allowed self-employment professions should include money-changer, coin-breaker, or something like that.

February 25 2013

With the arrival of the anniversary of the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the Cuban martyr and human rights defender on the Cuban island, hundreds of arrests were carried out in order not to allow any festive and peaceful festive activity on the part of the opposition to the Castro regime.

A party such as the Hard Frontline, with an office in Los Pinos neighborhood, was besieged and some were locked up for no reason.

We are going through a transition, if they comply with the guidelines agreed at the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. These five years will be the last that will under the thumb of Raul Castro and there will be a weakening of totalitarian power and a coming of the path of true democracy.

But if so will these be unforgettable years for the Cuban opposition?

State Security and its support brigades (keeping the regime’s boots clean) are becoming more violent. Each anniversary of a death of Cuban dissidents leads to several arrests, repudiation rallies, persecutions, “accidents,” or unwanted trips.

On anniversaries like these the Human Rights Commission in Cuba will report simultaneous arrests and the rate of arrests of dissidents in Cuba will increase.

The fight for some is on time, for others, this would be an opportunity for the Cuban Dream: democracy and freedom from all political taboos.

25 February 2013

Knowing how to read between the lines is a prerequisite to understanding Cuban politics. The structure of power on the Island is short on details, such that we must interpret the silences as well as the seemingly inconsequential data. The ascension of Miguel Diaz-Canel, to the vice presidency of the Council of State has followed a well-known script, easily detected by analysts and the curious for months. His growing presence in the national media and his having accompanied Raul Castro to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit, already augured his ascent to the second post of the Cuban elite.

Díaz-Canel possesses characteristics that undoubtedly influenced his appointment. A man who shines very little, himself, from whom we cannot recall a single phrase of his monotonous speeches, someone who projects absolute fidelity, a good physical presence and a dose of youth (at 52), so needed by Raul Castro to show that his government is generationally renewing itself. Restrained and sober in public, he seems to know that charisma only bring problems when you are that close to the historic nomenklatura. He has skillfully passed all the tests of loyalty and tameness the General President has put in his path, before being allowed to sit in the number two seat. continue reading

Without McDonald’s, Burger King or KFC, fast food par excellence in 21st century Cuba consists of fried food and croquettes made from unknown ingredients.

Throughout Havana there are thousands of street vendors specializing in rustic cooking. They sell fried food and heavy croquettes. Some like Ignacio prepare the coating for their fried items with wheat flour, salt and chives. Jose Antonio merely adds a commercial seasoning mix. Yoana prefers to craft hers from yams or corn meal. They are not bad if eaten hot.

Cold is another matter. A greasy packaged ball that tastes like plastic. In the capital croquettes often are not made by the vendors themselves. They usually buy them from special fish markets and then resell them for a 50% profit. continue reading

I must be brief because I’m dedicating myself to “the tasks belonging to my sex” while Yoani undertakes her exemplary work as a citizen ambassador. What most caught my attention in the recent “elections” was Raul Castro repeating that Machado Ventura would not leave, nor would we have to wait another day to know the names of the members of the new Council of State. What I most admired was the popular indifference. As I noted in my Twitter account, there were no popular celebrations, people didn’t go out into the street to celebrate the reelection of their leader, the car horns didn’t make the slightest noise, and it didn’t occur to anyone to hang a Cuban flag from their balcony. If we compare this chilly reception with the demonstrations we saw in Ecuador at the reelection of Correa, or the symbolic welcome Chavez received in Venezuela, we have to conclude that those Revolutionary emotions, that overwhelming enthusiasm so bragged about, have died forever.

This will be not only be the last term of Raul Castro, but also the swan song for the already dying Cuban revolution.

25 February 2013

Ring, ring, ring …. international calls always take an eternity to open a passage through to a phone in Cuba. As if they had to push through a thick, dense atmosphere. Finally a voice answers on the other end of the line. It’s a friend whom I try to ask about what he thinks of the recently confirmed Council of State and the naming of Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice-president. “What?” is the only answer I get at first. Then I explain that this Sunday, from Brazil, I was following the formation of the Cuban National Assembly and I would like to complete the report with some impressions from the Island. My friend yawns, confirms that he didn’t watch TV yesterday, and that no one has said anything to him. And I realize that I suffer from the evil of hyper-information, mixed with a certain distortion, produced by my distance from Cuba. I had forgotten the indifference shown by many of my compatriots when confronted with certain issues that are so predictable they no longer generate any expectations.

The designation of the number two man in the Cuban nomenklatura has probably been more commented on and discussed outside the Island than inside. In part because for several months the national media has already been suggesting — with constant allusions to this 52-year-old engineer — that he could become the successor to Fidel Castro. So few were surprised when the former Minister of Higher Education became, as of Sunday, yesterday, the “dauphin” of the Cuban regime. Their biological clock has the octogenarians governing the Greater Antilles at a crossroads: either establish the inheritance now or forever lose the chance seems to be dictating the hands of history. So the line of succession has been left to a much younger figure. They have based their choice on their confidence in the fidelity and manageability of Diaz-Canel, trapped between a commitment to his superiors and a conviction of how limited his real power is.

History shows us that the behavior of these dauphins while they are being observed by their bosses is one thing, and something else entirely when those bosses are no longer around. Only then will we discover who the real man is who yesterday became number two in Cuba. However, I have hopes that the fate of our country will not be decided by this Council of State, nor by this presidential chair. I have hopes that the era of the olive-green monarchs, their heirs and their entourage is ending.

25 February 2013

The writer Rafael Vilches from Bayamo-Holguin supports his colleague Angel Santiesteban, now that they want to imprison him.

By Rafael Vilches Proenza

Angel as you were that morning at the presentation of my Defenseless Angels, and have been all these years of friendship with my martyrdoms and happy times, the last time we saw each other was not at Maria Antonia’s house, but in the house of some friends and we talked a lot. Now I raise my hand for justice and I know what I’m exposed to.

I thank everyone who read my novel and gave me their valid and sincere opinions; Edgardo Higinio Fonseca who in his time wanted me to rewrite; Hector Garcia Quintana who when he was editing for the Spanish publisher El Barco Ebrio (The Drunken Boat) and he made me reread the novel calmly because he felt that it lacked complete fragments; Yoenia Gallardo who read the first printing; Yulia Carrazana who in copying the novel ate some piece and was guilty of this rewrite; Eliezer Almaguer who forced me to rewrite it entirely sitting beside me as a fussy editor and as the friend and brother he is. And again the El Barco Ebrio Publisher for trusting in me and publishing it. Thanks friends.

I am one voice joined with other voices for the cause of the writer and friend Angel Santiesteban, knowing the consequences. Freedom for Angel Santiesteban. Where are those who said they were his friends? Where are those who told me that he was the best narrator of Cuba?

We are all afraid. But there is something worse than fear. Human misery.

PS: Juventina Soler let me know that the person who presented by book in Havana was Guillermo Vidal

February 21 2013

In films, documentaries and music videos the image presented of Havana is one of ruined buildings, dirty streets with trash strewn everywhere, shuttered businesses, and badly dressed citizens wandering around aimlessly. The Havana of Morro Castle, the Paseo del Prado, clean streets, elegant shops and citizens appropriately dressed is only a memory for those of advanced age.

The ongoing disappearance of buildings, homes and public places seems endless. One has only to walk through any urban district and look around to notice detached cornices, missing plaster, exposed bricks that have been eaten away, missing glass and woodwork, to say nothing of buildings that have not been painted and stone that has not been washed for years. This spiral of decay affects the conditions of every type of building. A few days ago I wrote about hospitals. Today I address the issue of schools.

The neglect and decay of the buildings of most of the old private schools—mainly La Salle of Vedado and La Salle of Nuevo Vedado (La Salle University), Marists of la Vibora, Piarists of Havana and Piarists of La Vibora, Villanueva Catholic University and others—is more than worrying. A lack of maintenance and repairs over the course of many years has left some of these buildings, designed and constructed to be magnificent educational centers, practically in ruins, threatening the physical aspects of the city itself and even affecting it qualitatively.

In the case of these schools it is inconceivable how attention could not have been paid, allowing them to deteriorate, while many current educational centers have been set up in inappropriate locations, such as re-purposed houses and residential buildings, or in facilities built of lesser quality. The loss of all this architectural richness as well as the loss of the value to be gained from their use results from the widespread apathy that has afflicted our society like a plague for too many years. Those responsible can provide dozens of justifications in their defense, but the stark reality of a city gone to seed indicts them.

February 23 2013

Among the somewhat reasonable excitement over the traveling out of Cuba of some of the most glamorous of the dissidents like Yoani Sanchez, Rosa Maria Paya, and Eliecer Avila, extremely alarming things are happening. Two independent reporters arrested (they released Cedeño but Calixto Roman continues to be locked up). Angel Santiesteban gets of every morning in Havana with the shock that they could send a patrol car to pick him up to serve his five-year sentence. The number of arbitrary arrests, the beatings and the hours of harassment of human rights activists and opponents in general is increasing, and as events go, it could become a fateful record. continue reading

Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

Independent journalist Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrin, was released after spending 12 days in a detention center on a charge of assault.

The spokesperson told martinoticias.com that he must report in weekly at the police station in Old Havana, pending investigations into the reasons why he was arrested. He was also warned that he should maintain strict house arrest.

“I declared a hunger strike from the time they arrested me,” Cedeño said, adding: “I’m not going to report in and I’m not going to sign any document that incriminates me because the ones who committed the crime are the inspectors who were extorting people.”

Taken from www.martinoticias.com *

February 18 2013