Democratic Democracy / Regina Coyula

The imminent election and the omnipresent allusive propaganda, makes me dwell on what might the way in which democracy is manifested, not only in speeches television spots, but what the citizenship itself feels, as an entity that looks out for its interests and listens to their concerns and demands.

If arrogance and testosterone were not so abundant within the government (make no mistake, all those women who are candidates are bit players; in fact the majority are also), a candid look back would be enough to confirm the need to oxygenate or reinvent the People’s Power National Assembly.

With this fear of losing power retained for so many years, more than half of the current and future members, hold high positions in other areas of the party or the government, or both, and with the desire for island democracy they propose to represent unknown places, with those who don’t even have a job, to have a comprehensive slate for the election.

The work of the committees is not televised, but in these fleeting moments when the National Assembly meets, what we see is a chorus, which more than a reaffirmation indicates mediocrity. This conglomerated unanimity shouldn’t make decisions that affect the national life, this happy world far from the contradictions, but mostly far from the people they are so fond of invoking.

As to dream is also to live looking forward, I follow with interest the evolution of social networks, and with some good ideas taken from Open Government, it is evident that a tool like Twitter is perfect for the exchange (synergy sounds nice)between those elected and their voters. Despite the time they’ve stolen from us, the Internet will arrive for everyone, and the political interaction via 2.0 must be present.

The difficulty of the endeavor is its attraction. It would be great for us to shake off the apathy, and to hold neighborhood meetings warmed by opposing views, where the ablest and not the most loyal (to the Party) are nominated, where the votes are divided, the nominations are open and a Mr. Nobody with an attractive project can unseat a minister; where a student proposes that, in accordance with the labor laws, our octogenarian historical leadership retire. And all without one neighbor accusing another as being a mercenary or provocateur. Is it possible to make Cuba a country difficult to govern, without becoming ungovernable?

February 2 2013

Jose Contreras: Idol or Traitor / Pablo Pacheco Avila

Jose Contreras returns to Cuba - photo from Internet
Jose Contreras returns to Cuba – photo from Internet

Time has two unique conditions, is irreversible and unstoppable. Time is perfect as it is capable of putting everything in its place.

For over 50 years Cubans have suffered a cruel and ruthless dictatorship. Those who have experienced it know that hate and human misery are limitless. But if something has helped prolong our pain for so long it is the travel and immigration policy regime imposed on us.

Not being able to travel freely and know reality beyond our island has been, more than punishment, a crime and our dead who were trying to reach freedom are examples of what I write.

Today I remember the defection of José Ariel Contreras, the best pitcher in the country at the time. The national press wore itself out with vituperative epithets against the strong brown man and the miserable fanatics who preferred playing ball over the dictatorship. Contreras was banned and vilified. We, the faithful, who admire the sport of balls and strikes, wished Contreras well in the best baseball in the world.

I do not think Jose Ariel defected for political reasons, he just wanted to better himself and he succeeded. Victory in the Major Leagues, although personally I expected more from this pitcher.

Ten years after his departure from Cuba, Contreras connectedhis media Home Run: He returned to his homeland to see his ailing mother.

They questioned him on your team Pinar del Rio Cuba or the team for abandoning him today enjoy a baseball game or the pleasure of walking through Central Park in the Cuban capital, the fans that were faithful and others who were not, now hail him dearly.

I would like to see the regime spokesmen write a few lines about this idol of Sandino. It doesn’t matter if they write for or against, just that they write.

Once again, time shows me that, in a dictatorship, the idols can become villains overnight and he villains into heros, although I can’t stop wondering how an ideology can be capable of so much misery and deceit.

From now on, the new immigration and travel law can be a double-edged sword for Havana. Cubans who travel abroad will come to know a very different reality from that they have lived all their lives, they will know that the lie has short legs and Contreras’s mates would notice, if they are the least bit smart, that in capitalism the limit is the human being.

February 2 2013

Just Sitting Around Waiting for Internet Access / Yaremis Flores

cartel020213With another year of the period of pretend “reforms” implemented by the Government ending, free access to information remains distant and unchanged. Besides buying and selling homes and traveling abroad, internet access is one of the most anticipated changes Cubans.

However, in 2012 the Ministry of Informatics and Communications (MIC) issued no legal statute to open the possibility of connecting for individuals. One of the justifications most commonly tossed out was that “economic and technological constraints prevent a broader distribution of that service.”

At least twenty of the resolutions issued last year by the Minister of Information, Medardo Diaz Toledo, allowed the preparation and circulation of postcards and stamps in tribute to historical dates and events like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day , etc … But only one statute alluded to internet access. In May, the MIC charged the State-owned phone company ETECSA with the task of implementing programs to provide this service at the headquarters of state associations of disabled people.

Some speculate that the connection charge will be reduced to 6 CUC an hour, still excessive. Others, more optimistic, aspire to surf the web from home, a grace which, in Cuba, only high government officials and personalities linked to culture, science and sport enjoy.

A senior MIC official insisted that even with the installation of a fiber optic cable, it is impossible to guarantee massive internet access “due to internal problems of a technical and financial character.”

“There are many homes that still do not have telephones and the local computer platform will not support an avalanche of connectivity,” he said.

According to statements by Hilda Arias Perez, director of ETECSA Mobile Services — the only telecommunications company in Cuba — the island has more mobile phones than fixed.

“The total number of fixed telephone lines has reached 1,162,000, of which 109,000 correspond to the alternative fixed-line mode,” the official newspaper Granma announced on 18 January.

It also said that, “It is the country’s will to bring cellular service to the people.” Commercial activity for 2013 seeks to increase the number of mobile users, which amounts to about one 1,680,000.

Supposedly, the MIC is not focused on developing fixed lines, and so has to improve internet. So, Toledo Díaz reduced the rates for cellular telephony. In a short time it reduced the cost of the call from 60 to 45 cents CUC, and the cost of sending text messages from 16 to 9 cents CUC.

On January 11, the Official Gazette of the Republic published reduced the cost of voice calls from 45 to 35 cents a minute CUC.

In the last Universal Periodic Review, four years ago, the Cuban government accepted Vietnam’s recommendation about “improving information infrastructure for the benefit of society.” The government will be further reviewed at the Human Rights Council from 22 April to 3 May.

For now, only a select few have access to information. Access will continue to restrict digital pages that are “contrary to social interests, morals, good customs and affecting the integrity or security of the State,” and specific locations to connect to the network at prohibitive prices will be maintained.

A law that protects the free access to information on the Island? Might as well sit around waiting.

Translated from Diario de Cuba

2 February 2013

A General with Open Doors / Juan Juan Almeida

ulicesBorn March 8, 1942, in the district of San Fermin, municipality of El Cobre, Gen. Ulises Rosales del Toro is a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, and the Councils of State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba.

The son of peasants, he is stubborn, rather untamed, intense, hard, sensitive, kind, compassionate, has a naive attraction for ridicule and mystery.

His first education he took the course at a school located next to Boniato Prison, on the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba, learning about the life of the prisoners developed a certain sensibility faced with the suffering of others. He climbed the Sierra Maestra not for political ideas but from an understanding of the problems of the farmer, as well as from a young man’s passion for adventure itself.

In 1963 he was part of the Cuban military expedition to Algeria, and in 1967 he went to Venezuela. Angola was a crack that began to open in the wall of his loyalties and from then he was a general at the academy; chief of staff of the Army.

In December of 1988 days after the signing in New York of the trilateral accord between Angola, South Africa and Cuba, where Namibia’s independence was agreed on, the acceptance by South African of no further support for UNITA, the withdrawal of the Cuban troops from Angola; General Rosales del Toro, tired of the ineffectiveness of bullets and convinced of the effectiveness of dialog to achieve consistent agreements, brought to Cuba the proposal to negotiate with the United States and so to try to put an end to many years of tension; but instead of an answer, he received the order — with hints of punishment — from the Presiding Military Court that tried General Ochoa in 1989.

It’s not easy to recover from such a vile thing. It is well-known that General Rosales ceased to be one of the Revolution’s “privileged,” talks now like Raul is no longer the imitation but a Gothic aversion. Maybe because of this and because of the respect Ulises still arouses among the soldiers and the officials, what’s more that old tendentious and sadomasochistic manner of submission to a chosen one, in 1997 he was named Minister of Sugar.

Neither the best attempt to eradicate the old military habit, nor long hours of study were capable of cleaning up bad procedures that take root in this sector. The harvest maintained its accelerated pace, striding toward its inevitable disaster; marked by neglect, inefficiency, corruption, and poverty-level wages that drives the diversion of resources.

The constant industrial breakage and interruptions aggravated the sugar production to the point where it fell into the tank. In November 2008, before the Ministry of Sugar was eradicated, the veteran general, rationalizing and voluntarily despite his disappointment, is named Minister of Agriculture.

It’s worth nothing here a refrain that’s particularly apt: when the charity is great even the saint worries. With prudence and great skill, his door remains open to investors, diplomats and businessmen.

Like a strange disease that becomes a cure; Ulises Rosales del Toro is emerging as a good ally for whomever, in the mood to negotiate, tries to attract (buy) soldiers.

February 1 2013

San German, Story of a Stray Ball / Luis Felipe Rojas

I watched this in the last provincial baseball series in Holguín province. San Germán and “Calixto Garcia” (Buenaventura) faced off. I was looking at a couple baseball players and I took these snapshots, the most common pitch in baseball, a fastball to the head.

All photos: Luis Felipe Rojas

January 11 2013

Eliecer Avila Takes to the Crowded Skies

eliecer more camerasproxyeliecerandnewscamerasproxyeliecer going abraodproxySite manager’s note: Eliecer Avila is the computer science student who, in a session at his university where Ricardo Alarcon,  vice president of the National Assembly, came to meet with the students, asked Alarcon a series of questions that the students needed answers to, “to help us do our work.” Their work was monitoring the internet and responding to the regime’s critics. The session was videotaped and the video eventually found its way into cyberspace.

Although Eliecer was sincere in his inquiries — the students truly wanted ammunition to do a better job supporting the regime — Alarcon’s answers exposed him to ridicule as the video went viral around the world.

Among his most surprising answers was that one of the reasons Cubans could not travel freely was because if they did so, there would be too many planes in the sky.

Both men’s lives changed. Eliecer was expelled from the university and ultimately became an activist for a free and democratic Cuba. Alarcon, who was Cuba’s representative to the UN for nearly thirty years, and later Foreign Minister and who, as of this date, remains the president of the National Assembly, will be replaced in that post after tomorrow’s elections.

Today, Eliecer is taking his chances in the crowded skies and traveling outside Cuba for the first time. Photos are from Yoani Sanchez’s twitpic.

Here is a link to Eliecer’s and Alarcon’s conversation, with English subtitles.

2 February 2013

Human Rights Watch Comments on the Cuban Dictatorship [VIDEO] #YoTambienEscriboInclinado / Angel Santiesteban

Vivanco highlights the lack of an independent judiciary and the enforcement of a penal code worthy of the Inquisition through condemning only on suspicion.

But more than suspicions sustain the regime. My case is a clear example of how justice is handled, charges and evidence are invented, and false witnesses are bought to convict and send to prison a writer to silence him, a writer who decided to take off the mask and expose what is happening in Cuba through a blog: The Children Nobody Wanted. To freely express what I want for my family and my country IS NOT A CRIME although the prosecutor’s calligraphy expert doesn’t like because I write with “some” tilt, and draw my letters a  very suspicious size. However, my “suspicious” handwriting has been recognized in Cuba and internationally. And today the world echoes my unjust conviction.

And this global cry for justice for me also has an impact on all of my colleagues, also unjustly persecuted, harassed and imprisoned. The international spotlight turns on a ruthless regime and my case becomes secondary.

The lack of imagination that has been invested in inventing my case clearly shows the impunity with which the government violates all human rights. But the world is now taking notice and denouncing it.

I said and I repeat: at the gates of the prison, I feel that I won the game, because if a government has had to cheat to silence my voice and send me to prison thinking they are going to silence me it is proof of their defeat. Neither imprisonment nor beatings will silence my voice. I will continue fighting for freedom and democracy for Cuba from wherever I am. I am innocent. The dictator knows it, the world knows it. And I face whatever comes with complete dignity and my head high.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, Cuban writer

Translator’s note: The announcer in the following video from Channel NTN24 says that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has commented on Angel’s case. The person interviewed in his home is one of the supposed witnesses to Angel’s “crime,” where he claims he was not, in fact, a witness to the events that supposedly took place: “No, I didn’t see anything.” The mob scene is a “repudiation rally” outside the late Laura Pollan’s home, headquarters of the Ladies in White. At the end of the video the director of HRW for the Americas says that everything is planned and controlled by the regime.


February 2 2013

F as in Family / Lilianne Ruiz

??????????Text in schoolbook: The soldier has a gun. He loves peace. In good hands, a gun is good. The Plaza is very pretty. The sky is blue. The people’s militia parades. Thousands of handkerchiefs salute. It is Fidel! We see him happy. Long live Fidel!

For some time I’ve been disgusted that I have to accept my daughter learning to read with sentences that combine the memories and feelings of childhood with the political interests of the State. But I assumed that some point I would prepare my own report and send it to Amnesty International, complaining of the bad work of UNICEF in Cuba, for its failure to act with respect to the political indoctrination children receive here. continue reading

But the last straw was Olivia’s computer teacher. I went to see her to clarify an event the child told me about when we were walking to school. Moises, one of her buddies, said he had a Biblical name and the teacher automatically put an end to the conversation saying to the children, “This is not a church.”

I knew the answer I would find is that education in Cuba is secular. Thus, the values of the Gospel should be taught to them at home. But I didn’t expect that the response from the computer teacher would be that in class, once the children crossed the threshold of the door, she could teach them anything she wanted. I pointed out the posters of post-totalitarian political icons that are hung on the walls of the classroom and said that no one had consulted me, as a mother, about whether I agree with those values.

I knew, without being able to get what they were showing me, about the “educational” software that teaches the children, which contains the ideological campaign that sets the moral tone for many of these people who are now six years old. When I couldn’t stand listening any more I expressed that when Cuba is a free country she would be ashamed of what she was telling me.

In the end, regardless of my rebellion, my daughter continues attending her class and I’m not sure if the computer teacher has recognized that she cannot put herself above my rights as a mother to choose the education of my daughter.

February 1 2013

The Capital of Cubans? / Miriam Celaya

habana310113A sign near the tunnel entrance reads: “Welcome to Havana, capital of all Cubans”. It’s a lie. For years, many Cubans have been literally captured and deported from the capital to the cities and towns where they came from originally, as if they were an unwelcome plague.

“Havana can’t take it anymore…” was the catchphrase of a song made famous long-ago in the 80′s by Los Van Van, whose lyrics, often vulgar, have been a kind of chronicle of what is officially approved to be divulged.

Los Van Van are not just tolerated by the authorities, but belong to an elite club of “artistic” government spokesmen. In fact, the old song was complicit in backing the segregationist government policy of expelling people from the provinces from the capital. continue reading

So it goes, in good measure. Cubans “from the interior” are not really welcome in Havana, thanks to official apartheid, which even has a law on the matter: the controversial Decree 217, which regulates the provincials’ residence “permit” in this city.

Of these, the ones whose stay has been approved for work or for “duly justified” reasons, must carry a “transitory” identity document that allows them to move through the streets without the risk of being nabbed by the police (which, paradoxically, is composed almost entirely of individuals who come from “the interior”), and sent by force back to his hometown. By the way, China established a regulation in the 50’s to stop the exodus to the cities, under which a rural worker (mingong), on moving to the city, was forced to apply for an urban residence permit (hukou). This demonstrates that the Cuban system is really nothing new.

At any rate, as a rule, expelled Cubans return to the capital again in a matter of hours. The city, despite its state of poverty, offers more options for survival that the provinces do. It is an endless cycle that brings to life that childhood game of “cops and robbers.”

Things of the Orinoco

However, brooding over what is happening these days in Cuba, one gets the impression of watching an absurd movie with numerous subplots. While they have started to implement some changes –however limited, ambiguous and insufficient– to migration movement of Cubans to and from overseas, it seems contradictory that tight control is being kept over internal migration to the capital, and nobody seems to care.

The excuse of the city’s housing stock shortage and the overuse of services caused by the constant exodus from within, does not properly justify discrimination against Cubans on the basis of their birth region, since, when it comes to the interests of government programs, whether those to fill employment needs in repression, contingent on construction or emerging teachers sectors (“instant teachers”, as they are known), etc., regional origin doesn’t seem to be an obstacle. In fact, there have been many born in the provinces who have benefited from such programs solely for the purpose of establishing residence in the capital. The segregation policy has not been accompanied by development plans in the provinces that are attractive enough to retain the workforce there.

What’s more, Havana is not, in fact, the capital of all Cubans, but in recent times, it’s becoming the capital of Venezuela, since this is where the governing body of that neighboring country holds its meetings and where –according to certain suspicious analysts and according to what evidence suggests– decisions of the Venezuelan government are being made under the political monitoring of the Cuban government. It would seem that the Caracas-Havana airfare is less onerous than the Santiago-Havana train ride, assuming how frequently members of the Venezuelan executive branch travel.

So, while Hugo Chávez himself had to seek permission from the National Assembly in his country to come to Cuba to treat his very serious health problem, and while Cubans in the provinces must request permission from the Office of the Register of Directors (MININT) to stay in the capital, the Venezuelan Vice President, as well as the President of Parliament and other government officials of that nation seem to come and go freely to Havana several times a week.

Like high school kids used to say years ago “These are things of the Orinoco, which you don’t understand, and neither do I.”

Translated from Diario de Cuba

Translated by Norma Whiting

31 January 2013

Najasa Votes Against Itself / Henry Constantin

ro carrascoMy travels to Najasa — southeast of Camaguey — were marked by my first impressions on arriving. The first time, I was amazed at the hills with cliffs that followed the highway from Cuatro Caminos — the sunny capital — to Manolin, as if the truck had come from Camaguey to bring the mountains of the Oriente or Pinar del Rio; another, the incredibly green farms and very few cows. I remember other first images: the much-repeated that this abused and very straight road to to some beloved farm; the view of the wide river that crosses Najasa and gives its name to the city; and Artola’s house, made of wood, that was once a command post of the guerrillas and today is more useful — as a museum. But the first impression of this last trip was different: more irritating and laughable. continue reading

carreteras destruidas y campesinos esperando hasta las 10 am por la recogida de la lecheI entered the terminal cafeteria. They sold various snacks: mortadella, sausage, croquettes; some soft drinks and, obviously, cigars, tobacco and rum. But this time there was another product: a rectangular carton with four papers stuck to is, each one with the photo and biography of one of the municipal candidates to the Provincial and National Assemblies, for the February 3 elections.

The most striking was that of a woman, probably a good person, who is the parliamentary candidate, although in Najasa I asked and no one knew her, they hadn’t seen her at nine in the morning on the road to Cubanacan for lack of transportation to get to her job, nor getting up in the morning with a farmer to see the conditions in which she milks the cow even though it’s prohibited to eat it.

Her election is assured, although I may have been the only reader of her biography. This candidate for Najasa was born and educated in military schools of Havana, she was the military prosecutor and director of the legal counsel of the Council of Ministers, and the only thing that makes me mention her in this blog is to show evidence of how people who are placed where they should be deciding the present and future of Cubans, are precisely those least suited to defend it.

todava quedan vacas y atardeceresThe other candidates of the troubled township are Communist Party cadres, those of who will fill the seats of Olympus; we know they will not change anything in the lives of their constituents. I’m sure the are better people than those who post their dry resumes, but what are the the needs of the people of Najasa?

Because none of the biographies tell me which of those candidates will desire and have the courage to take the floor in the Assembly and rail against the inefficient state monopolies — ECIL, Acopio, and the Meat Collective at the head — that absorb the milk, crops and meat produced by farmers.

Or which of them will tell the commander Guillermo Garcia Frias, director of the deeply in debt National Wildlife Company, to ask permission and pay for every air conditioned night by the pool for himself — about 40 CUC for other Cubans — on his visits to the La Belen (un)Protected Area; for every State pig — or is the people — that he orders roasted for his pleasure, when tons of children all around the school that morning have half-empty stomachs; for every half-gallon of gas he burns on his family excursions. Where does the promotion of these candidates announce which one is interested in what and explain them to the thousands of farmers who in 2013 still don’t know what the Internet is and how it can change your life, and then go to collect their signatures and throw them on the table of someone who can’t even log off to get them?

Anyway, how do I know if any of these candidates prefer to be true to the people they represent rather than to their political leaders? Their biographies don’t tell me, nor do their faces. And it seems the same all over the country, that has passed across our TV screens lately.

I think all this sitting at the stop heating toward the mountain, where we waited almost 3 hours without transport, we being a pregnant girl, a high school boy, an old woman with two children, a drunk man, and another who became desperate and went to drink beer or rum — that we don’t need. Like us, like Najasa, this February 3rd Cuba still waits, and votes against itself.

But with less and less patience.

January 31 2013

Delegates, Deputies, Voters / Regina Coyula

mafalda_eleccionesSupporters of the Cuban electoral process often cite the millions of campaign dollars spent in the United States as justification for not allowing any kind of campaigning or fund raising. But that is not quite the case. Every day there are television, radio and press reports on “the candidates of the Fatherland,” and on how to vote using ballots differentiated by color.

Photos of the candidates with a short biography on each one—their political activities are emphasized—can be found in large establishments in every district throughout the city. The future deputies travel to these districts—a sure sign that they do not live there—visiting workplaces, science facilities, schools and cultural centers. And if the locals are lucky, this will be the first and last time they ever see them. continue reading

Putting the entire centralized propaganda apparatus at the service of the electoral campaign costs money. I would say a lot of money.Money that is provided by that amorphous mass of “contributors” called “our working people,” who are not given details as to how their contribution will be used.

Special schools have been established in transport terminals. Am I to vote there for the candidates who will represent me? No, I must vote for them in the district where the school is based. There is no better example of demagoguery, although it has a subsidiary psychological purpose. Or is it the opposite?

In the enthusiasm to be part of an electoral system established in opposition to the bourgeoisie, the candidates do not propose a program. They do promise to be extremely loyal to the Revolution, but they are almost always inept at doing what they were elected to do. Elections have become a pantomime in which citizens take part, even when they see no value in it, with a mixture of fear and apathy. This attitude is expressed in the popular axiom: “There is no one to fix it, but there is no one to tear it down either.”

In the past I have noted that no one is really elected, but rather approved by the mysterious committee on nominations —closed nominations—which chooses a certain percentage of women, young people, blacks, and more recently religious and homosexuals, to give the appearance of diversity. It is an approach that is both artificial and disrespectful towards minorities, who are the ones feeling most unrepresented.

They have wanted to make us believe that money plays no role in politics, that our legislators receive no salary for their public service. But no one who joins the “professional cadre” lives on air. Everyone not only keep his or her former salary, but they enjoy expense-paid trips, a car with an allotment of gasoline, hard-currency vacations and other items that in Cuba count as perks and lead to a jump in their standard of living.

Meeting twice a year and expecting to resolve in three days all of this country’s problems, which pile up from one legislative session to another, is impossible. As bourgeois as he may appear, the professional official has to be effective because, if he does not fulfill the expectations of his constituents, he could end up impoverished, or even subject to prosecution

After twenty-seven years of existence, People’s Power has proven to be so ineffective that it should either be reformed or abolished.

January 30 2013

“Angel Santiesteban is going to jail, and no one says anything.” / Angel Santiesteban

angel2

(THE RETURN OF MARTIN FIERRO)

Whoever is a friend,
never leaves him in the lurch,
but doesn’t ask him for anything
or expect everything from him:
always the most loyal friend
is honorable conduct.

Jose Hernandez

Where are you Knight (dashing ones?)?

Published by Amir Valle/Published in De Literature/Published 01-30-2013

Angel Santiesteban is going to jail. So simple.

The Cuban judicial system shows, once more, that justice does not exist for those who think differently than Raul Castro who clearly is trying to become a Chinese dictator, which is to say, deceptively combining supposed economic and social reforms with greater repression. The fools, idiots and dreamers of good and bad faith who so abound in our world will open their mouths amazed in the face of the “reforms” and shut them once more in the face of repression.

Angel Santiesteban is going to jail and no one is saying anything.

Circulating on the internet are all the proofs that demonstrate his innocence, all the videos where the witnesses confess that they were forced to testify against Angel, to lie in order to create an image of the writer as an offender. And until this moment I have not seen any of the intellectuals who proclaim themselves champions of justice publicly speak against a maneuver so dirty, so low. Their names do not appear, not even to comment on the numerous articles in defense that other people have published these days, since the Cuban judicial system condemned this outstanding writer to five years in jail.

UNEAC Writers Remain Silent to Preserve Their Little Privileges #YoTambienEscriboInclinado / Angel Santiesteban

1359689197_1A6ADABE-1E7A-4B19-A6D4-8900BE61BE79_w640_r1_s_cx8_cy7_cw63“Leonardo Padura, as in the past, has been indifferent to the injustices the Communist authorities are committing towards me.”

The author Ángel Santiesteban told Marti Noticias that faced with his prison sentence without evidence at trial, his ex-colleagues in the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC) have known to maintain a complicit silence so that, he said, they will preserve their little privileges such as trips abroad.

He added that his wife, the actress Sheila Roche, went to members and directors of UNEAC, Miguel Barnet and Alex Pausides, and that they assured her that nothing would happen but, when he was convicted and sentences, they responded to her questions with silence. continue reading

Meanwhile,Santiesteban said that Leonardo Padura , as in the past, has been indifferent to injustices being committed by the Communist authorities and that, despite the fact that some news agencies present him as a dissident, the writer of detective novels “plays with the chain, but never with the monkey,” as the common expression goes in Cuba.

However, Santiesteban recognizes that Leopoldo Luis, a former member of the Bearded Cayman cultural publication, asked on Twitter for the writers of the island to protest the court case that had been fabricated and said that no author deserved to be sentenced for his writing.

The Superior Court upheld the Cuba regime’s sentence of 5 years against the award-winning writer Ángel Santiesteban, who was accused of housebreaking and injury. The author, who was awarded the Casa de las Americas prize, among other awards, regretted the decision and said that he is an innocent man.

Santiesteban said that at the trial they did not present any evidence against him, and that one of the supposed proofs rests on the declaration of a lieutenant colonel in the regime who argued that his handwriting indicated his guilt.

Meaning, more than anything, the official said that the author is guilty of his own writing. The Cuban writer added that his problems with the law in Cuba began when he decided to write freely in his blog, The Children Nobody Wanted.

Angel Santiesteban, waiting to be sent to prison to serve his sentence, said his only regret is not having taken off the mask, which he was forced to wear to live under the regime in Cuba, much earlier.

From Martí Noticias

February 1 2013

The Everyday Marti / Julio Cesar Galvez

Foto tomada de Internet
Photo from the Internet

By Julio Cesar Galvez

The figure of José Martí has been used in an unmeasured way for their search for political prominence by the Cuban regime, long before the seizure of power on January 1959.

Many young people are unaware of the truth about the man who fell in Dos Rios fighting against Spanish colonialism. He has been co-opted by the educational system imposed on the island for more than half a century, which has twisted history at will. But many Cubans, scattered throughout the world, remember this figure, the thinking and actions of José Martí, not only on the 160th anniversary of his birth, but every single day of the year.

Undoubtedly, and without any chauvinism, Martí can be classified as a person of exceptional qualities within the group of nineteenth century men of ideas and thinking throughout the Americas. continue reading

I will not attempt to recount, much less make a personal comparison between Martí and José de San Martín, the valiant warrior who ceded the glory to Simon Bolivar, in Peru; the Mexican priest Miguel Hidalgo, who was magnanimous to his defeated opponents; Sucre, the betrayed and murdered Mariscal de Ayacucho; or the Indian Benito Juárez, El Benemérito de las Américas, who furthered the ideals of Father Hidalgo, who went in his carriage to defeat the invading French, when he said: “The people and the government should respect the rights of all. Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace. ” They all were and are great Americans.

From a very young age he became interested in reading. Inhis imagination he traveled with thinking of the classics of Greece and Rome to the most ancient East. Drank as from the national fountains of the priest José Agustín Caballero, of José Antonio Saco, Domingo del Monte and Father Felix Varela. He recognized the work of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and internal struggle of the misunderstood exil José María Heredia, the “Cantor del Niágara.”

He castigated Carlos Manuel de Cespedes and Ignacio Agramonte for disagreements, what’s more he understood that with them predominated zeal for the best performance of duty to the Fatherland. He praised Constituent Assembly of Guámiro, which he considered the birth of the democratic future of the Cuban people.

He loved beauty, life, flowers, women, children, poetry, his neighbor, the freedom and independence of his homeland … but was also misunderstood.

José Martí still remains a misunderstood figure for most Cubans. The infinite legacy he left is in his voluminous correspondence sustained through the years with family, friends, writers and literati, personalities of his era and independence fighters; in his speeches, in his newspaper articles; in his reinvented, multifaceted complex poetry and his tremendous work as a revolutionary fighter.

His oratory, his power of persuasion, passion and personal commitment to provide the basis and foundation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, and his hard work on the unification of the Cubans, rising above differences and opinions found between independence fighters prior to the “necessary war” to achieve independence from Spain, are still themes that are studied today.

He was a prophet or a predestined, perhaps ahead of his times. He always lived with the worry of finding solutions to the complex problems of his beloved Cuba. In many ways he lived an adverse life. A third of his life was spent outside the island. Spain, Britain, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Jamaica and the United States formed the corollary of his extensive experience as a political exile.

Now, 160 years since the birth of the Apostle, his dream of a Cuba, “With all and for the good of all,” is unrealized. Used as propaganda standard for the personal ends of the dictators for more than 50 years, Cuba is far from the example of civility and morality I was always taught since I was a little boy in school.

Those who recall his birth every January 28 are aware that Jose Marti still has much to teach and do for the future of Cuba.

January 28 2013

Cuba 2013: Realities and Perspectives / Rafael Leon Rodriguez

Cuba Workshop 2013

Organizado por el Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba y la Alianza Democrática Cubana, y auspiciado por la Fundación Konrad Adenauer, se desarrolló un taller en la capital mexicana los dias 28 y 29 de enero en el que participaron miembros de la sociedad civil cubana de la isla, de la diáspora e invitados de varios países. El Proyecto Demócrata Cubano, participante activo en el taller, envió el siguiente documento que compartimos con nuestros lectores. continue reading

Organized by the Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba (Christian Democratic Party of Cuba) and the Cuban Democratic Alliance, and sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a workshop was held in Mexico City on January 28 and 29 in which members of Cuban civil society on the island, in the diaspora and guests from various countries participated. Proyecto Demócrata Cubano (The Cuban Democratic Project), an active participant in the workshop, sent this document to share with our readers.

KAS Conference Papers 2013 and Council of the ODCA in Chile

Documents Conferencia KAS 2013 and Consejo de la ODCA en Chile

Spanish post
January 31 2013