Drugs in Cuba: They Exist / Ivan Garcia

ivang2Whether the glass looks half full or half empty is the best way of describing the consumption of drugs in Cuba.  Let’s make a trip through different neighborhoods of Havana in which marijuana, psychotropics and different kinds of cocaine are sold and consumed.

Emilio has been smoking marijuana since age 13.  “My father told me, if you’re going to have harmful vices, it’s better to smoke herb than drink alcohol.”  And he not only smokes marijuana. He also sells it. Right now, he offers a Creole marijuana cigarette for a convertible peso.  Months ago he sold several ounces of “yuma” herb.”  A premium quality joint costs 5 CUC.

“Business is booming. You invest 400 convertible pesos and serving the client well, you earn a little more than half. Of course you run the risk getting caught by the police,” says Emilio on a pleasant January night.

Contradicting what was expressed by General Raul Castro in Santiago de Chile during the CELAC Summit, that in Cuba drugs do not exist except for “a little marijuana,” an anti-drug police body specialized in combating the sale and consumption of drugs operates in the country.

If they catch someone selling drugs, the criminal penalties can reach 30 years. Even a life sentence. Since 1998, combined police and State Security forces have conducted lightning operations trying to dismantle the emerging Havana drug trafficking cartels.

On these raids people have fallen that years ago were outside of the business. Like Samuel, a habitual drug addict.  “I give him anything.  When I have money, I prefer crack or sniffing powder. But these are luxury drugs. The usual is smoking herb or drinking ’methyl’ or Ketamina.”

Samuel has been to prison twice for drug possession. “I’ve never been involved in selling,” he explains.  In the old part of Havana, probably the township with the highest level of drug consumption in the country, crack and melca are in fashion.

A gram of powder is through the roof.  From 30 to 35 convertible pesos four years ago to 80 to 100 CUC that it costs today.  “And it’s flying.  The prices have shot up because of the scarcity of the product.  The police are doing a better job.  Every day it is harder to find a fisherman or farmer that will offer you cocaine from the packets that arrive on the shores,” notes a retailer.

The flow of drugs in the seas adjacent to the archipelago is intense.  Residents of coastal regions are dedicated to hunting for the stray packages because of maritime accidents or due to harassment by the coast guard when the traffickers get rid of their merchandise and throw it into the sea.

Not just the marginalized

Hitting a bale of cocaine floating on the coast is like winning the grand prize in the lottery.  A kilo of melca at wholesale represents a good quantity of money.  And that’s why many risk their hides without stopping to think about the dire consequences that consumption causes.

According to a source that preferred anonymity, another route for drugs to Havana is through corrupt recruits that appropriate a share of the confiscated narcotics.  “When they go to burn the confiscated drugs, I assure you, many times part is missing,” he says.

In the capital there are people dedicated to the retail trade.  In Central Havana crack, that lethal mix of chemical products with melca is much in demand.  Also the “yuma” — that is foreign — marijuana.  The dispensers claim that it is Colombian.

Drugs in Cuba are not just a thing of the marginal slums or incurable drug addicts.  In the intellectual world also a joint or a gram of cocaine is appreciated.  Above all among the Havana show business world.  “Reggaeton musicians and certain cinema and television artists pull more dust than a vacuum cleaner,” claims a melca” seller.

And drugs on the island are not a new phenomenon.  If in the ’80’s consuming marijuana or amphetamines was a minority thing, in the later decades, at a glance, consumption has grown.  For lack of governmental statistics, the streets speak for themselves.

When asked, ten young people ages 18 to 26 years assured this journalist they consume marijuana frequently.  They have snorted cocaine.  And they are fans of methylphenidate, a substance that is similar to amphetamines but whose pharmacological effects according to doctors are similar to those of cocaine.

Although the official press barely speaks of the phenomenon, in all the townships of Havana there are clinics for assisting people hooked on drugs and psychotropics.  An anonymous telephone number exists to help those affected.

Also, radio and television air publicity about the harmfulness of narcotics. It is evident that the military autocracy prefers to live with its head in the sand, fueling a discourse about the purity of the Revolution commanded by Fidel Castro that no longer exists.

The authorities prefer to hide stains like corruption, prostitution, and drug addiction.  But, let there be no doubt, drugs exist.  Their nonexistence in Cuba is another myth that now can be thrown in the trash can.

From Diario de Cuba

Translated by mlk

February 2 2013

612 Candidates for 612 Seats / Yoani Sanchez

Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Wearing tight clothes, short and with a skinny build, the Frenchman Alain Robert scaled the façade of the Habana Libre Hotel on Monday. With some 27 floors and over 400 feet high, this building has one of the best views over the city. People gathered underneath, with cameras and cellphones to capture the feat of this famous “spiderman,” who has already scaled the heights of the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, 2,716.5 feet high. The little man commenced his climb just one day after a much larger national event, although one with much lower expectations. The election of deputies to the National Assembly failed to attract people’s attention as much as the sympathetic Spiderman.

Unlike the Cuban electoral process, at least the man climbing the walls could produce some surprises. Meanwhile at the polls everything was “signed, sealed and delivered” ahead of time. Instead of voting between one candidate or another, Cubans simply had to ratify the 612 people proposed for the 612 seats allotted in parliament. One seat for each name that appeared on the ballot, a place in the highest organ of the People’s Power for every individual whose photo was posted outside the polling places. In short, no surprises.



Perhaps this is why the theme of the bold climber gave us so much more to talk about than did the results of the valid votes nationwide. As expected, there was not a single opponent to the government who managed to enter parliament, no one with different political ideas will become a member of the National Assembly. Not even a single deputy who doesn’t possess the same ideology as the party in power. The boring homogeneity of the same thinking.

5 February 2013

Days of Silence / Rebeca Monzo

Although I have not written anything for quite a few days, a thousand ideas are turning over in my head that I cannot seem to organize enough to put down in black and white.

As usual, events on my planet are annoying and even painful, and although far from the theatre where they are taking place, they still affect me. Especially troubling is the five-year prison sentence of Angel Santiesteban, whose only crime was civilly and publicly expressing his opinion without defaming or offending anyone.

On a separate note, there is the news that Yoani Sanchez has finally been issued a passport, which will allow her to travel, and that Eliecer Avila has already dons so, and at this moment is in Sweden. The fact that this has not led to a “turbulence in our air space” gives me comfort. However, I have grown used to thinking that these supposed “gifts” are often traps that cause some resentment, which is only overcome when travellers return to “our planet,” myself included. Of course, I am always nervous when I pass through Cuban customs after a trip, although on this occasion, as in all my other previous trips, I do not think I will come back weighed down so as “not to give them the satisfaction.”

For my part, I am still convalescing from the fracture in my right hand, and mentally preparing myself for another surgery to remove the fasteners used to set the bone. As much as I can, I am trying to enjoy the company of my sons and granddaughters since there is no guarantee that I will see them again. Not only is there the distance and expense of a trip, for which they are paying, but because my meager pension and whatever I earn from my work as an artist barely provide me with an adequate diet in my country, I cannot afford to do as I please.

Nevertheless, I am enjoying the experience of new landscapes and cultures, which until now I have only known through books I have read.

Within a few days I will travel to Spain, where years ago I lived for a time and where my younger son currently lives. I then hope to break my days of silence to tell you about my stay in the mother country.

February 5 2013

A Stupid Answer, Heaven is not Congested / Agustin Valentin Lopez Canino

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Agustin, Eliecer y “la novia”

The boy stands to the side of the entrance, on his left is his girlfriend who has accompanied him to say goodbye. He carries a bag over his right shoulder and looks around as if startled. On the floor a dark suitcase where he’s packed maybe a few clothes.

Today I arrived at a very different airport from those many times in which tears of pain and impotence were like stones behind my eyes. Also my passengers had been other who didn’t flee, or retreat in fear and resignation of living in fragments terrorized by communism. Today the rivers of tears sometimes seen in the past, have decreased and undefined goodbyes sleep in the past. Many hands will be raised in goodbye but it will no longer be the solemn gesture of a possible eternal separation.

I return to the past for a minute. My daughter’s back lost on the other side of the dictatorship’s dingy hallway, having abandoned her medical studies so as not to get caught in the shackles of tyrannical government. Someone who loved her had paid ten thousand dollars to a network of human-traffickers, well-structured by corrupt state officials, perhaps all honorable members of the Cuban Communist Party. It was a payment for the exercise of one of the Human Rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration.

This afternoon I arrived there with some exceptional friends to say goodbye to Eliecer Avila, the young man who, with the ingenuity of the peasant who believes in integrity and respect for the human person, some years back publicly asked Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly, for a simple explanation of why Cubans cannot exercise Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — the one regarding arbitrary detention — and the mediocre satrap with one of the most ironic stupidities by a representative of the Communist government, under whose direction a nation has been torn apart, its people enslaved and the country crushed: If we give permission for everyone who wants to travel travels, the airspace would be so congested: power not only corrupts it also leads to imbecility.

Those words, so offensive to the intelligence and contrary to the human condition of freedom, rights and justice for all, was the trigger. From that moment, the boy was selected for social exclusion. The boot of the tyrant was placed on top of him to squash him like a repugnant insect, but the boy under the boot turned into stone. It is the blindness of power, confuses butterflies for lions, humility for weakness, hatred for love, forgiveness for submission, and bread and wine for the Lord’s Supper, excrement and sewage for their own waste.

I approach him and give him a hug as if his veins run with my own blood and more. Later I ask him to answer two questions.

How do you feel to be traveling today and having been, I think, one of the first people to directly demand from a government official the right of all Cubans to travel?

Eliecer: Well, first I’m thrilled and second satisfied that in some way my desire to have a country in which, in order to change a law to better the country, no one has to do anything violent, disrespect anyone or start a war; it is simply enough to clearly express the opinions of the people and the leaders act in response to this. So I think this step, however small, can be very important in all of our lives.

Do you think that this form of peaceful demand is right for everyone, most beneficial for everyone?

Eliecer: For me it’s the only way to ensure a future of peace and harmony. I think that opening new wounds doesn’t close old wounds. Therefore, I believe that at least for me, respect and dialogue will be my only attitude.

Thank you and I wish you success, I tell him.

No longer the naive peasant (and I say this as the greatest praise), who asked Alarcon with kindness, respect and decency for the right corresponding to the human condition, not from the pressure of the independent press, giving to know the reality of the day-to-day life, the strength of the opposition under the prison regime, the exclusion, exile, discrimination and open repression in criminal acts of barbarism, we would never acquire this right. It’s good that we don’t incite to violence, but the government has never been willing to transparent and respectful dialog with people who think differently, and until this is achieved, what is left in Cuba will continue to live in bondage and uncertainty.

When he was nearly inside the NBC cameras approached. Some curious people approached and asked who this character was, but the people don’t know anything beyond what the hypocrites, demagogues and perfidious dictatorial programs say in official discourse.

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This has been one of the largest and most efficient achievements of the Revolutionary press, hiding the truth and hiding the sons of the nation that make it honorable behind the word mercenaries. Its essence was the betrayal of decency and ethics.

I hear a taxi driver who works for Cubataxi for hard currency ask another, “Why don’t they take a picture of me?” And the other one answers, “You want to lose your job?”

Once inside the terminal a young woman approaches Yoani and says to her, “You’re Yoani, right? I’m from Spain and I read your blog.” The painful irony of love. What is freedom. Most travelers are Cubans, none has come to greet any messenger of freedom. The people you love the most, for whom you demand their rights, some ignore you and the majority don’t know you. Your people for whom you have risked everything and for whom you write, and they don’t know who you are.
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The dictatorship has been charged with murdering information. But we have the consolation of Christ crucified by those he came to save. The young man who went to Europe today with the right of return, shows his ticket, delivers his suitcase, raises his right hand and is lost behind a door.

We turned around and left the airport, I looked up at the sky looking for airplane congestion blocking the view, but all I see is the afternoon light dispelling the darkness of the foolish minds of tyrants who rule the people by force of power and not through waving the flag of freedom.

This time I entered the airport happy and left happier, I had fulfilled a promise I made to myself when I watched my daughter leave with tears in my eyes. Today I melted but with passion and love, not for feeling shame on my conscience for having betrayed my people.

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4 February 2013

The House Across from the Hotel Cohiba / Laritza Diversent

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Yamilé Barges Hurtado

HAVANA, Cuba, December, http://www.cubanet.org. On November 15, the People’s Provincial Court (TPP) in Havana planned to evict Yamilé Barges Hurtado from her home, located across from the Hotel Cohiba, after annulling a home-exchange that made nine years ago.

That day they also planned to evict the heirs of Teresa Luisa Rivero Domínguez, the other party in the home-exchange in the Bahia neighborhood, a suburb to the east of Havana, Yamilé’s birthplace. According to anonymous sources, the eviction was not due to lack of transportation.

To date, the TPP of Havana has not changed its decision, an action taken at the direction of the Municipal Housing Office (DMV) in Plaza. In the Cuban legal system there is no eviction action. Evictions, euphemistically called “extractions” are made by the DMV, after declaring the occupants of a building illegal.

Yamile Barges Hurtado received a court notice on November 27 to appear on December 6. The Rivero Dominguez heirs were also cited.

In judicial practice, after a sentence has been handed down it is not usual to summon the parties again. But the judges warned that in January they would be cited again to review the case and carry out the eviction, although Yamilé is not an illegal occupant.

The Plaza DMV must act when the TPP recognizes the property to one of the heirs of the dispute. The action of the court is limited to communicating its decision to the Housing officials.

Yamilé’s mental state deteriorates with each threat of “extraction.” She broke the doors, windows and floor that she managed to build with so much effort. “I will not leave my house with the amenities that I created for my family to anyone,” she said.

She argues that she can’t live any more with the uncertainty. “I think my problem is already solved,” she added. Her daughter stopped going to the university so as not to leave her alone for a single minute. Her depressed state and the effects of her medication are obvious.

February 4 2013

The Bad Luck of Angel Santiesteban #YoTambienEscriboInclinado / Angel Santiesteban

mala-suerteBy Ladislao Aguado

The Cuban writer Ángel Santiesteban–as almost no one knows or cares to know–is sentenced to five years in prison, a sentence he will have to serve unless a miracle happens and the island’s government pardons him. To secure the conviction, Cuba has constructed a legal pantomime, behind which is hidden Angel’s one and only cause: trying to write as a free man.

But in dictatorships freedom always has its price and the price is always punishment.

Now, it happens that Ángel Santiesteban is a very unlucky man. Yes, because the vast majority of those of us who could prevent–or at least make the effort to prevent– his going to jail, are busy with our lives. Some in Cuba, others in exile.

Yes. Cuban intellectuals, regardless of which shore we inhabit, this time like so many other times, we have put our heads down and again, instead of our mouths having air to scream with, we have stuck them up our asses.

And the dictators know this: with a band of asses for intellectuals, writers, actors, artists, university professors, filmmakers, libraries–and the list goes on–you can’t defend the dignity of a man, his right to write for or against whatever he pleases, to say that is where he believes the truth lies, however false.

But that’s the way things are. Those who live on the island are thinking right now about some silence or abstraction, instead of about Angel Santiesteban. They are thinking about themselves, generation after generation, gift after gift, complicity after complicity. They are paying for that silence the exact value of their submission and the favor of settling in the decorated penury in which they live. If someone dares to raise his voice–everyone having been warned ahead of time–they will end up sharing Angel Santiesteban’s fate and the totalitarian prison usually treats rebels with special violence.

Here in exile things are no different. The price of survival is to take little interest in the fate of Angel Santiesteban. Everyone raises their personal reasons, the exact size of their withdrawal, their disbelief on reading the news of that out-of-the-way place from people who are so obstinate–to the amazement of this majority–that they insist on shouting into the wind.

The most fortunate, those who could incite public opinion, which is often deaf to the injustices unless the horror shows up in the newspapers, are too interested in not bothering anyone with extraneous questions to take the side of a writer who. sadly, lives in Cuba without much influence abroad though a great talent, they say.

And so Angel Santiesteban, who doesn’t expect miracles, already knows that everyone, here and now, here in exile and on the island, is concerned about tomorrow and what will happen to them this year, and what they expect will finally end up being their lives.

February 4 2013

Angel Santiesteban: International Support Can Awaken the Courage and Pride That All Human Beings Keep in our Hearts

“We live in a State without rights.”

Interview with Ángel Santiesteban, sentenced to five years in prison by the Cuban regime.

By Félix Luis Viera, México DF

Cuban writer Ángel Santiesteban, one of the most outstanding storytellers of the Island’s literature in recent times, has been sentenced to five years in prison. His offense: “housebreaking and injury.” However, the one sentenced said that “No court sanctioned me: State Security sentenced me for opening a blog and opposing the government.”

They have tried Angel Santiesteban for crimes of a “housebreaking and injury.” However, those who brutally beat him, who locked him in a cell for several days, where they humiliated him with gestures and words, did not have to try him, although they live under the same Penal Code.

CUBAENCUENTRO interviewed the Cuban writer, about to go to prison.

Everything indicates that in the coming days you will go to prison to serve the five-year sentence, how do you feel?

Ángel Santiesteban (AS): I feel sad, but I felt that since before the imprisonment of Sonia and Calixto, among others; but before them there were others who also went to jail unjustly, including the poet Raul Rivero. I’ve been sad since I was born, since my mother taught me that Communism was the symbol of human misery and that we lived in a dictatorship. As I saw starting with my biological services and my writer brothers left for other places in search of freedom and a better future.

Despite everything I feel strong, and a strange happiness even though, because I feel that a government which imprisons its opponents does it because it is weak, that its stay in power is becoming increasingly short, time is running out. And that makes me very happy. And that’s what matters.

Are you still saying you’re innocent?

(AS): Totally. But more than this affirmation, the evidence presented speaks for me, where we see the disrespectful handling of the law against me, where the lie is unveiled. No one is guilty until proven otherwise. In Cuba it’s the opposite, so I already showed that I am innocent, but even that is not enough.

Do you consider your sentence is the regime’s revenge for what you’ve been writing in your blog, The Children Nobody Wanted?

(AS): I started writing the blog at a mature age, therefore, my sentiments and work were already tested. Only a few months after opening the blog and starting to criticize the system, I’m discovered to be an unknown monster. It’s too coincidental. You don’t have to be very smart to understand.

Are you afraid of retaliation against your family while you are in jail?

(AS): My biological family is in Miami. Anyway, we all suffer reprisals in Cuba, from the point of view that you can not defend your rights. Cubans are accustomed to shutting up because they can then be threatened, judged and abused.

Is there anything you want to say to the international public?

(AS): Despite the economic crisis afflicting the world, please, stop for a minute and turn your eyes on our archipelago. How long will we have to suffer so much injustice? In Cuba there is a fear of dissent, of opposing the State; but international aid can awaken the courage and pride that all human beings hold in their hearts. I can assure you that only rarely in history has there been such a repressive dictatorship, they barely allow us to look up, they watch us constantly and if we make a single move that threatens their confidence we are already surrounded and suffer terrible from state security. I can assure you that the Castros do not violate our rights, because we don’t have any. We live in a state without rights.

Published by CubaEncuentro

February 4 2013

Poor Profits / Fernando Damaso

Archive photo
Archive photo

Last week, according to the official Cuban press, between the First Summit of CELAC in Chile and the UNESCO-sponsored Third International Conference for World Equilibrium, the elections and homages to Jose Marti, it seemed that we were on the international hit parade. Nevertheless, if we make a dissection of each event, we show that it is not exactly so.

In the First Summit of CELAC, as is usual in this type of event, there was a lot of talk about the same as always, and the same words were allowed to be heard that are always heard: peace, justice, development, mutual understanding, consensus building, integration, sovereignty, solidarity, cooperation, dialogue, and many others. Now it remains to be seen how the gap between the words and the deeds is overcome.

In the Conference about World Equilibrium, a group of old Latin American intellectuals from the left (those on the payroll), accompanied by some from other latitudes (also on the payroll) digressed about how to resolve the world’s problems, and came to the conclusion (there could be no other), that it was necessary to banish capitalism at once, and implement a system that might or might not be called socialism of the 21st century. A pity to waste time and resources to arrive at such a genial conclusion.

Also, as in these days Jose Marti is remembered for the 160th anniversary of his birth, they felt obliged to introduce some aspects of his worldview, as much to shore up the principal thesis as to, out of the blue, condemn the Spanish daily El Pais, as an example of manipulation by the mainstream media. Also, proclaimed by one of the speakers was the process of global extinction of the written press, and he even said that, if Marti were alive today, he would be a blogger, on facebook, on twitter, with that unhealthy habit of transferring people from eras, through ideological spiritualism, and making them talk. It was not clear if forming part of the official camp or the alternative.

In case that were not sufficient, in the elections of February 3, the presence of the Apostle — as we call Martí — was not lacking, this time admonishing the young people to vote in demonstration of their Marti vocation, together with revolutionary principles. As it is easy to prove, once again, and it already constitutes an epidemic, Marti has been used and used again, according to the convenience of everyone.

Taking into account these events, the profits January left to us are quite poor. Hopefully the coming months will be more rewarding.

Translated by mlk

February 4 2013

A Clarification for the Unbiased Observer / Reinaldo Escobar

At ten o’clock this morning, Monday, February 4, not even the government website Cubadebate had fresh news about the final results of the so-called “Elections” in Cuba. Clearly we can bet that all 612 candidates were approved for the 612 posts as Deputies. Perhaps that’s why the news that Fidel Castro has reappeared filled the morning news on TV.

As on every occasion in the past, we will receive, in due time, a flood of numbers that break down by province the number of voters at the polls and the number of annulled and blank ballots. No one will be able to dispute this data, despite the fact the official media insists on proclaiming that any citizen can be present at the time of scrutiny — even foreigners!

The electoral law establishes that on completion of the count, the managers of each polling place will record the results on a blank ballot, identical to that used to cast the votes, where only the names of the candidates appear. This ballot must be displayed to inform the public.

The law is particularly emphatic in insisting that it is forbidden to use any other paper to write out this information. In all these years it hasn’t occurred to anyone to design and print a model where there are spaces for the number of ballots annulled and left blank, along with the number of people appearing at each polling place.

If there were such a model, anyone would have the time to travel around by bike or on foot to the schools in their municipality that served as polling places, and in coordination with others compute the results for the province and at a national level. The lack of such a model would require civil society to have an observer in every one of the 30,000 schools throughout the country to tally this information.

When there is no way to prove, compare, or disprove, with evidence, data of such importance and which generally serves as a measure of discontent, there is a right to suspect the transparency of the process. There are many people who don’t need to know the details I describe here to lack confidence in the electoral results. It is a clarification directed at the unbiased observer who tries to take an objective position.

4 February 2013

Partagas Thursday / Fernando Dámaso

This weekend there are elections and, as elections are always extremely boring in Cuba — before the first vote is cast it’s already known who will be elected — I feel nostalgic.

Partagás Thursday, a TV variety show from the fifties, was broadcast on that day of the week by CMQ TV, Channel 6, at nine in the evening and lasted an hour. The main figure was an internationally renowned artist, who was the main course, complemented by various musical numbers with other artists and two fixed pieces: a choreographed ballet by Juliette and Sandor, two Argentineans living in Cuba, and a skit with performances by Violeta Vergara (the daughter of Rita Montaner)in the role of Pelusa (Fluff), a newsboy street philosopher, and her counterpart, the actor Alejandro Lugo, who had already been Rita Montaner’s counterpart in a satirical program called “Better I Shut Up,” also on CMQ. Also, not surprisingly, the ads of the commercial sponsor, the Partagas cigar company, were a part of the broadcast.

The entire program, as usual on television in those years, was shown live, using two or three of the studios in the Radiocentro building on Calle M between 23 and 2l in El Vedado. The producer general was Joaquín M. Barcelona. Our job in the advertising agency, Agencia de Publicidad Mercados, Surveys y Publicidad S. A., was the commercials: one at the beginning and one at the end, usually filmed previously, and one in the middle of the program that was generally filmed live. Visually it was different every week, although the message was repeated, corresponding to the current campaign. It involved, as exclusive broadcaster, the actor Enrique Santiesteban, and as a model, also exclusive Ziskay Gladys, a beautiful brunette Chinese woman.

Gladys in 1958

For the most part the ads were for cigar and beer companies, emphasizing the sensual, lightly touching on the erotic, as was all that was allowed in those years. The line that couldn’t be crossed was very faint, and we were always walking on the razor’s edge, subject to a suspension imposed by the inquisitor Tarajano, president of a so-called Morals and Ethics Committee, who would, according to their criteria, determine whether something was moral or not.

We struggled over the depth of the neckline on the model’s shirt, or the length and adjustment of her shorts. Also with the intention of her gestures and even the look in her eyes and the placement of her lips. The concern was to maintain a sensual image, without violating the parameters established by the Committee. Usually we got by with it, but sometimes we were punished with suspensions of one, two or three programs, which forced us to use only a speaker and still images or filmed footage.

The entire program was rehearsed in the morning, sometimes until after noon, and was broadcast at night. On finishing one, we were thinking what to do next, all within the maelstrom that meant having different commercials on different programs: on another musical on Wednesday, on a soap opera three times a week, on baseball broadcasts on Saturdays and Sundays, on kids’ shows in the afternoon, and on the “Show at Noon” on weekdays, and more on an educational program on Sunday night.

Our Agency’s Department of Radio, Film and Television, responsible for these activities, was made up of five members, among whom we shared responsibilities: Sergio, Ramiro, Juan Jose, Rita and me. Sergio, the eldest and the artistic director, mainly looked after the soap operas, his specialty. Ramiro, a jack-of-all-trades, produced two programs and most of the remaining commercials. Juan Jose produced a program on Channel 4, and looked after all matters relating to cinematographic films. Rita, Cuban-French, was a utility player and participated in practically everything. I worked directly with Ramiro in producing commercials and later I was in charge of producing two programs and the commercials for baseball, as well as participating in the rest.

To carry out our work, we coordinated and undertook other joint activities with various producers of our programs: Tito Borbolla and Jorge Fraga for the soap operas, Roberto Miranda for baseball, Joaquin M. Barcelona for the musical, etc. In addition, we worked with with the writer Marcos A. Behmaras who was the scriptwriter for the soap opera “Mámá,” and the announcers Enrique Santiesteban, Eusebio Valls, Maria Antonia Fariñas, Taty Martell, Carmen Ibarra and others.

Those years at the Advertising Agency, which grew from a department of 21 between L and M, adjacent to the La Roca restaurant, through the two neighboring apartments in Paseo and 13 to get to the building of L and 25, are unforgettable moments.

January 31 2013

Opinion: The Need for a Different National Assembly / Fernando Damaso

The National Assembly is an institution often called into question in Cuba. Perhaps its role should be restricted simply to that of a “megaphone” for the government. In reality serious discussion and debate are notable only by their absence. All its delegates hew to a single political and ideological line — the official one — and their primary task is to achieve unanimity in approving what the authorities propose.

The composition of the Assembly is not a true reflection of the various political, economic and social segments of Cuban society today, but simply one aspect of it — those addicted to “the model.” Also, the fact that it meets only twice a year in sessions lasting two or three days means it lacks effectiveness and credibility.

Officially, the Assembly is supposed to function through so-called “permanent commissions,” made up of various delegates who work throughout the year on specific topics, but these commissions do not constitute the Assembly and should not supplant it.

The commissions are also supposed to be in charge of fulfilling governmental directives by preparing proposals and resolutions  that are later discussed and approved in plenary sessions by delegates briefed on them in workshops held some days before. In reality, most delegates convene and meet in the National Assembly without any real or effective prior participation or deep knowledge of what will be discussed.

If there was participation through free and democratic elections and its delegates truly represented all of Cuban society without any sort of disqualifications or exclusions, then the National Assembly would function quite differently.

Most importantly, it is essential that it be a legislative body that operates in regular sessions of longer duration. The Congress of the Republic held regular sessions lasting no less than sixty working days at a time, and could be convened for special sessions whenever necessary. The Assembly should have a permanent headquarters where delegates carry out the tasks for which they were elected. They cannot continue to be “virtual delegates,” as most currently are. Only a few — those who really make decisions — work as professional legislators. Nor is it appropriate, except in very specific cases stipulated in the Constitution, for delegates to have outside responsibilities such as state jobs, as is now generally the case.

Such procedures, which are the norm in other assemblies, parliaments and bicameral legislatures (those with senators and representatives), would assure that those who are elected (the true representatives of the people) give primary attention to the problems of the country. It would provide an incentive and restraint on the government when it proposes legislation for discussion and approval, something that could also be done by delegates and even citizens. This would lead to a true balance of power between the legislative and executive branches, an essential element for the exercise of good government and a way to control arbitrary actions by the president.

To achieve this, the judicial branch must also be independent and not subservient to either the executive or legislative branch. As I am sure you can appreciate, this is no easy task. It requires political courage since it would mean changing ineffective systems established and maintained in spite of their not having served the interests of citizens for many years, but it is an unavoidable step necessary for national salvation.

From Diario de Cuba

February 2 2013

The Bad Sleep Well / Julio Cesar Galvez

Foto tomada de Internet
Photo taken from the Internet

By:  Julio Cesar Galvez

General Raul Castro will visit Chile in the next days, January 26-27, in order to participate in the First Summit of the Community of Latin American and Carribean States and the European Union (CELAC-EU).  On this date he will again meet face-to-face with Cristina Fernandez, president of Argentina; Evo Morales, of Bolivia; Ollanta Humala, of Peru, and of course with Nicolas Maduro, Fidel Castro’s new pretty-boy, who now serves as the hand-picked president of Venezuela.

Maybe in the Chilean capital they will again meet to continue tracing the strategy that permits them, although one day the dream of glories will end, to become the new Latin American colonial masters of the 21st century.

They all passed through Havana recently in order to see and talk with Hugo Chavez during his post-operative process, but the truth is that the press only published and reflected conversations and handshakes with Fidel and Raul Castro.  Not a shadow of Chavez.  Nothing.  No commentaries about how they had seen him, or photos at his side, to say the least.  As the grandmothers in Cuba used to say years ago:  “If I have seen you, I don’t remember.”  Just in case, “Solavaya.  Pa llá pa llá.”*

The meeting with the president of Brazil Dilma Rouseef is not to be missed, she will surely inquire how the South American giant’s investments go on the island; nor that with the Nicaraguan commander, Daniel Ortega, although a little distant from the clan at the moment, in spite of how much he praises the Castros and Chavez fearing to lose the subsidies with which Venezuela favors him.

It will surprise no one that he talks animatedly with Mariano Rajoy, the president of Spain, or with his Foreign Minister, Manuel Garcia Margallo. In the end, one must be grateful to the Mother Country.  Ah, so it is, don’t talk to me about Carromero. That’s all in the past, and the main thing, in times of crisis, is business.

Santos, of Colombia, will laugh in the photo that they will take together and they will agree that many of the FARC can continue on vacation, as it may be, another month in Cuba.  “The poor guys, after so much time in the scrublands, they well deserve a rest!”

Rafael Correa will tell him, whispering in his year ear, how his presidential re-election campaign is going, and Pinera, who is not disposed for anyone to tarnish the handover of the Pro Tem presidency of CELAC on the 28th of this month, is not worried about delivering the top leadership of a democratic organization to a man accused of complicity in a political assassination.  Simply, he washes his hands like Pontius Pilate.  Done!  Castro as president of Cuba enjoys diplomatic immunity.

We do not doubt, something that is in the calculus of probabilities, that Holland, the president of France, and even the German Chancellor herself, Angela Merkel, will hold bilateral meetings with the leader of Cuba.

Everything will be a celebration, hugs, congratulations, photos, good omens, while they think of the juicy investments and fabulous commercial agreements they will establish. They will all be complicit, nothing new under the sun, in the repression and the beatings by the political police against all who don’t go along with the official discourse; from the legal violations of civil and constitutional rights of the inhabitants of the Greatest of the Antilles by the regime; from the hunger, misery, physical, psychic and moral impoverishment, through which the Cuban people traverse.

For the 90 political prisoners who currently find themselves in Cuban jails, especially Sonia Garro Alfonso and her husband Ramon Munoz Gonzales, detained since March 18, 2012, and who they keep incarcerated without informing them of any charge.  For journalist Calixto Ramon Martinez Arias, in prison since September 16 of last year, for unveiling the existing cholera cases in the country, and the regime refuses to this moment to recognize the number of deaths from this epidemic.  The case of American Alan Gross, sentenced to 15 years in prison, for the supposed crime of subversion, for the simple fact of providing to the Cuban Jewish community internet communication equipment.

Many things will be talked about in the days of the CELAC summit with the European Union, except the problems that in reality affect the whole world.  Latin America will keep exporting its in-demand raw materials.  Europe will try to take advantage of its former colonies in order to solve the severe economic, political, ethical and social crisis through which it is passing.  The people of these countries will fight to improve their standard of living and to exit from the usual routine, while the leaders — ah, the leaders! — as always:  Mine first.

*Translator’s note: These two expressions are both incantations to ward off evil.

Translated by mlk

January 24 2013