If It’s Not Rotten, Why Does it Stink? / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado

Graphic downloaded from “deconceptos.com”

Yamile Bargés Hurtado is a 48-year-old woman who was put through a legal process which leaves us feeling defrauded. In 2003, she traded an apartment in the Bahía neighborhood for a similar one in El Vedado with Mrs. Teresa Luisa Rivero Domínguez, co-owner of the building located at 355 3rd Street at the corner of Paseo and 2nd. Both were one-bedroom, small square footage residences; but Yamile’s was in perfect condition (new) and that of Teresa Luisa in ruins.

In 1998, Mrs. Rivero became widowed and was awarded the residence her husband, Baltazar Toledo Rodríguez, willed to her and whose title she shared. Later, the grandson of the deceased Toledo, Eliazar Yosvany Rivero Toledo, argued that the (grandparents’) marriage had broken down, and sued his grandmother that he should be registered as a co-occupant, although he had never slept in the apartment; and so it was done. The grandson never spent a night in the house, according to testimony Yamile Bargés obtained from her neighbors in the building.

Since moving to the apartment, Bargés Hurtado made huge sacrifices to improve its condition. She arranged and expanded it to be more comfortable — now it has another bedroom and more than double its original square footage — she obtained the legal licenses and subsequently, legally added the modifications to the property. In doing so, she converted a little one-room apartment — originally valued at 806 pesos by the community technical architect — into a property priced at $5,408.24.

In 2008, five years having passed of living there, after having done all remodeling and following the death of Mrs. Teresa Rivero, Bargés discovered that a dispute existed over the property. If the trade had been a legitimate fact and both women were owners of their dwellings, Yamile (her name is written without an accent) didn’t understand how someone could question her rights.

In the year 2006, the Provincial Court passed final judgment on the complaints against Mrs. Rivero Domínguez who, at the time, was in serious (medical) condition. The Court mentioned that she had lost her rights because neither she nor her notary appeared on either occasion it had summoned her.

Teresa Luisa’s son, after having been cited himself, said that he had submitted a certificate that would testify to Rivero Domínguez’s inability to appear. Without review and in absentia, the legitimate award of her house — which came to her on her husband’s death, and of which she was co-owner — was cancelled.

In the heir’s declaration — apparently altered, with blanked-out lines and in a different font — the name of the litigant grandson does not appear. The children of Mrs. Rivero swear that he was taken into account and was part of the same. Why did he not appear in any written documentation? Where does one go to look for the original file if there is inadequate manipulation of the documents?

One supposes that Burgés would have been named as one of the affected parties, but this wasn’t so. In 2006, the cancellation of the deed to her house had been finalized, and she didn’t find out about it until 2008, when she was notified of the lawsuit. A record dated 2002 alleged that the grandson had been asserting his right as “former heir” for years, violations of which do not expire. It is worth adding that in all the ordinary proceedings 114/08, they never mentioned the co-owner character of Mrs. Teresa Luisa Rivero, who’d always been referred to as “the widow”. To top it all off, she had an attorney who didn’t adequately defend her rights; to the contrary, she seemed to be allied with her opponents.

After 4 years of judicial dispute, the People’s Supreme Court confirmed the Provincial Court’s findings in favor of the plaintiff Eliazar Yosvany, to whom was awarded the residence. Next November 15th the principal victim and her daughter must abandon the building in which they have resided for almost ten years.

This is a proceeding in which there are many victims, but one of Teresa’s children, age 70, lives in the apartment passed down by his mother, and now must abandon it so that Yamile Bargés can return to her original place. Or maybe, pretending to defend the supposed rights of a grandson, they violated the rights of a dead owner and her children. What is the value attributed to a will in Cuba?

The character of a widow of Teresa Luisa wasn’t worth anything — the award of her residence was cancelled — neither was her condition of co-ownership, nor the will she left to her descendents (all this is said to be in favor of Eliazar Yosvany, but there is nothing in writing), nor the privileges of her inheritors or those of Bargés Hurtado. How many rights have been trampled upon? Beyond current law, a new legal ethic which restores citizens’ faith in the upholding of law and procedure is both necessary and possible.

In this case there is no doubt that, to honor the old refrain “the laws and its traps were made together,” the number of arbitrary acts seen seem to go beyond legal norms and have left Yamile Burgés a serial admission in the psych wards of Calixto García andManuel Fajardo Hospitals. Fortunately, Yamile keeps photocopies of each one of the papers or documents issued and required for the lawsuit.

I have no legal aptitude nor knowledge of the legal resources that should compensate all parties, but I feel obligated to give my opinion of a process I won’t say is corrupt, but that stinks badly enough.

Translated by: JT

November 6 2012

Remains of a General Exhumed in Las Tunas / Ignacio Estrada Cepero

The remains of the Liberation Army General Julian Santana Santana no longer repose in the cemetery near the Villa de Santa Ines, where he lived until his death on July 31, 1931.

Julian Santana Santana was born on January 9, 1830 in Tenerife, Canary Islands. He traveled to the island when he was only 21 years of age, feeling that he identified with  creole thought. It is known that after his arrival in Cuba he very begin working on the conspiracy against the regime of Spain.

The remains after their exhumation and reburial, will like in the cemetery where lie the remains of the well known General José Vicente Garcia Gonzalez, located in the cemetery that bears the same name as the latter generally considered one of the key figures in the wars of independence.

Documentation from the era says that Julian Santana Santana participated in many battles in the East, Camagüey and Las Villas for which he was promoted many times reaching the rank of General in order of Antonio de la Caridad Maceo Grajales.

The exhumation and reburial was performed after prior approval by Julian Santana’s descendants still living in the Finca Santa Ines. Everything was done after extensive research conducted by Carlos Romero, a member of the Sons of Hiram Masonic Lodge. They are aware that Julian Santana was also linked to a fraternal organization named Tropical Star for 64 years.

October 29 2012

Cuban Catholic Church Dedicated its 2013 Calendar to the Personality of Cuban Priest Felix Varela / Ignacio Estrada Cepero

By: Ignacio Estrada Cepero, Independent Journalist

The Catholic Bishops Conference of Cuba dedicates its upcoming calendar year, to 224th anniversary of the birth of Father Felix Varela.

The almanac is already recognized by some of the Cuban Catholic faithful as one of the finest sellers in recent years. A comprehensive biography of the Cuban priest accompanies each page, making a journey from birth to every stage of his life.

It is the first time that the Cuban church pays tribute on one of their annual calendars to the man who is recognized as “The Deer of God.”

It must be remembered that this humble Cuban caused great changes in Cuban education coming to be called by all as “The one who taught us to think.” This little Cuban priest experienced persecution by the Spanish regime and had to go to the United States where he died at 65 years of age.

In the first papal visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II referred to the work of this Cuban priest saying, and I quote “… illustrious son of this land is P. Felix Varela y Morales, considered by many as the cornerstone of the Cuban nationality. In his person was found the best synthesis of faith and Cuban culture. A teacher of generations of Cubans, he taught that by taking responsibility the first thing you should learn is the difficult art of thinking correctly and with your own head … ”

The calendars are now on sale in all parishes and places of worship on the island.

November 5 2012

The Work of a Cuban Artist Guilty of Attempted Criminal Sexual Abuse is Exhibited in Havana / Ignacio Estrada Cepero

Auspiciadores de la Expo

Expo Colectiva

Imagenes 2003. Grabado

Los Machetes de la Virgen 2008 Tecnica mixta sobre semillas de framboya.

Tu luz ilumina mis largas noches 2012 TGK

As of last September 7 several Cuban institutions with the cooperation of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway are sponsoring the group show the group show “Substitutes for Faith.”

The exhibition brings together 12 contemporary Cuban artists, including Agustin Bejarano who is exhibiting a total of three works at the show . Bejarano recently appeared before a U.S. court, where he pleaded guilty to an offense of attempted sexual abuse, a year and a half after being accused of molesting a child under 5 years of age.

Last Wednesday, while his work was exhibited at the former St. Francis Convent, the painter Agustin Bejarano was found guilty by the court of Miami and imprisoned on charges of abuse of a minor and lewd conduct.

An article in the American newspaper Nuevo Herald, explained that the Cuban artist would serve a sentence of 42 months in prison and 10 years of probation, and that from this point forward his name would appear in the registry of “Sexual Predators.”

Judge Dennis Murphy said in open court that Agustín Bejarano will be deported to Havana after serving the sentence that was imposed by the Miami-Dade Criminal Court.

The sexual scandal of the Cuban painter has not had repercussions in the media on the island, and none of the country’s cultural institutions has formulated a note expelling the artists from its official ranks.

The work “Your light illuminates my long nights” of the three displayed in Havana, was created by the artist this year while awaiting his appearance in court.

Some Cuban legal experts say that if the crime confessed to by Bejarano had been committed in Cuba the sentence could be longer than that imposed in the United States.

The exhibition was scheduled to conclude on Friday, November 2.

November 5 2012

Yellow Journalism / Fernando Damaso

The yellow French-Canadian hack, living in Cuba, who often enjoys ample space in the official press to publish his diatribes, usually dedicated to writing against the Cuban mafia in Miami and against all those who think differently from the official politics, expanded his catalog and undertook to write against Yoani Sanchez.

In his characteristic offensive and unethical style, something he would not be allowed in Canada but which here, based on his official immunity, he practices, lacking all respect, he applies derogatory epithets and, without even taking into consideration that he’s talking about a woman, shows off all his baseness. It’s terrible to allow a foreigner to offend a Cuban citizen, without anyone overruling him, but here, where politics takes primacy over humanity, these things happen.

I’m not convinced of anything he accuses Yoani of because he provides no evidence, it’s all media speculations, but I know who he works for and who he is paid by. Becoming a hack from this dirty page, he has far exceeded his local prospects, perhaps due to this archaic national complex that whatever comes from the outside is valued more.

I do not buy anything that accuses Yoani because provides no evidence, as are their media speculations, but I know for whom he works and who is paid. Become a dirty hack page, has far exceeded the prospects of the court, perhaps because of this archaic national complex that what comes out is valued more.

In this case, what comes from the outside, is simply bogus.

Translator’s note: The article referred to accuses Yoani, as usual, of being a paid mercenary of the empire (the USA) and being a traitor to her own country. The article was briefly available on Granma’s English language site but seems to have been taken down.

November 13 2012

Testimony of Angel Santiesteban after the events on Thursday, November 8, 2012 / Angel Santiesteban

Angel moments before his arrest. Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

“I’m happy, I’m doing my duty.” #OlaRepresiva #FreeRodiles

Interview filmed by Claudio Fuentes Madan

My name is Angel Santiesteban Prats, I’m a writer and Cuban blogger, government opponent.

It was really sad what happened there, the whole world has seen the terrible video, where unfortunately we show what happens in Cuba every day. Thank God we now have a video to show, these so difficult minutes, but they occur constantly and almost never can we record everything that happens … and worse, for example, the same beating they gave Rodiles, that could not be recorded, if they weren’t already in the street, right now.

When they hit me in the car I really thought I they were going to fracture my skull. I did not think that a person could take some punches as strong as that. And that is why I tried to get out.

At the Santiago de las Vegas station, something unpleasant happened: the official called “Camilo,” according to what he told me, took me to a room and put a gun to my head. I felt the pressure of the metal on the places he’d injured from the blows he’d given me minutes earlier and he said, “To you, what I should do is shoot you in the head.”

They were the longest seconds of my life and I said, I don’t know where I got these words, I really was terrified, terrified at the moment, about how far the madness of these assassins would go, and I said, “At some point you will have to pay me.”

Seconds later he removed the gun and says, “Better, when you go out to the street, we will give you a hammer on the head and say it was an assault, it will be left that it was an assault.” I have understood that they have done this to others, I actually talked to another who was there at the Santiago station and he said they had done the same thing to him.

We are in terrible times, times of anguish. When the tyrant is throwing his final tantrum is when he becomes most dangerous and that’s when it can cost lives.

We are really very concerned with the lives of the activists, the people who are willing to offer themselves, to sacrifice themselves, but in any event we want to take care of them, we don’t want anything to happen to them.

So we want the world to help us, from wherever each person is, his words, his voice is an echo of the pain we feel here. Any person who rises up, to help us and support us, is also struggling in a sense against the dictatorship in Cuba.

Claudio Fuentes: If you could say something to those who beat you …

Ángel Santiesteban: You should know that I don’t hold grudges. I pity them. I feel especially sorry for their families: they are tarnishing the future of their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, who, embarrassed, will have to accept, “Yes, yes, that was my great grandfather …”

And may they realize what they are doing and when they are given orders to repress, may they do it for themselves, may they save themselves.

Justice does not expire. When you make a mistake, 30, 40 years will pass but you have to pay for that mistake and sooner or later, they will have to pay before justice for all this abuse committed against their people, the citizens, whom they are trampling underfoot and behaving toward as true assassins. They are behaving towards us as true assassins.

Claudio Fuentes: Something you took pleasure in during the time you were arrested, the silver lining…

Ángel Santiesteban: Yes, well, first with Eugenio Leal, we spent the night talking about cinema, literature, art, and Freemasonry and it was a really an enjoyable night. When I got to the dungeon Leal was there, because I had been taken first to hospital, and at his side was was Veizant [Boloy, Yaremis Flores’ husband], and it came straight from my heart and to say to them, “I am honored to be here with you tonight in the dungeons, to share this night with you in this place, it’s an honor for me, I feel it … and well afterwards, with Claudio, with you, that went super well.

I think they suffered to see us laughing. And just talking about literature, we talked about cinema, photography … and really it’s where you feel most human, where you feel a deep affection for your companions.

None of us thought of ourselves there, we were actually thinking of Yoani, of everyone, of Veizant’s wife, of [Antonio] Rodiles, we thought of them. If we would have said “we are already free” we would have passed the time a lot better, but we were really concerned about the fate and suffering of these people.

We knew what they had done to Antonio Rodiles and that made us suffer greatly, we did not know his fate. Remember that they took us from the street, from the monument there, that was a perfect place for them to massacre us and leave us there, shot, that is what I fear will eventually happen.

And their destinations unknown, they took Yoani, we did not know what her fate would, also at that time they had taken you to another place, and we feared they were beating you, that you were suffering.

But honestly if we knew at that moment that we were free, we would have felt better, despite the body aches we all had, I think the best, I admit it, is the glow I feel in having been a part of it, like in the 19th century, as if we were seated in Guaimaro*, the height of all this great history that we Cubans have.

To be there, there’s no other way, for me I am proud to be fighting for the people of Cuba, for my family, for myself, for the future of this country that deserves, starting now, to have a brilliant destiny, a destiny of peace. We’ve had more than a century of supposed democracy and that hasn’t happened: we have suffered, we are constantly suffering.

Claudio: Finally, I would like you to repeat some words you sent your wife from in there, you managed to get out, “Tell her that I’m happy here, because I’m doing what my heart and my conscience ask of me.”

Ángel Santiesteban: Yes, and they told her! When I was there, my wife was up at the station and I ordered them to tell her I sent her a kiss and to tell her how I was… And it came out of my soul and I said to the officer, “Tell her I’m happy, that I am in the place my heart has brought me to, that I am very well here. That she should go and rest and not worry herself, that I am doing my duty.”

Angel’s shirt as it was returned to his wife after his arrest and beating.

*Translator’s note: Guáimaro is the place in Cuba where the Revolutionary Army of Mambises met in 1869 and created the Constitution for a new nation free from Spanish colonial oppression.

Source of interview text: tweetymail.com/users/PorOtraCuba [For Another Cuba]

13 November 2012

Innocent Little “Survey” / Miriam Celaya

At a polling place: “See? no cheating… at least in the ballot box.” Photo taken from an official site.

The results of the ballots –the so-called “elections”- in Cuba this past October 21st were reported in the official media as a demonstration of the people’s loyalty to the Revolution, which is to say, an example of allegiance to the government. Nothing new in that discourse. Every two and a half years, there is a repetition of the choreography in which government and “voters” play their role in the comedy, pretending to do their part: the former, holding elections, the latter, making choices.

Although this time the process featured more apathy than usual on the part of the voters, and the authorities were less irksome with propaganda, and even stopped the usual practice of niggling voters by sending Pioneers to insistently knock on doors of the most unlikely to go out and cast their votes, attendance figures again placed above 90%, as befits any self-respecting totalitarian regime. However, even if we gave credence to the official data, the number of dissenters was clearly endorsed at 1,161,431 Cubans of voting age who did not go to the polls, invalidated their ballots, or left them blank, three sufficiently clear ways to at least protest the lack of confidence in the system by a significant number of the population.

At any rate, the fear of retaliation and the zombie effect continue to be the norm in the population. A few days after the elections, I decided to make inquiries among voters in some neighborhoods of three of the more densely populated municipalities in the capital: Cerro, Diez de Octubre, and Centro Habana. Knowing how impossible it would be to organize a formal and complete survey, I thought it more expeditious to assume the position of a fellow citizen innocently seeking information needed for a personal matter, and to improvise, according to the situation. My objective was to confirm what we all know, including voters who vote in an effective manner, that is, those individuals whose ballots are valid upon scrutiny, because they vote for only one of the candidates for delegate districts, they do so automatically. Even so, most of those who consider themselves party to the system ignore even the most basic information of their “elected”.

Thus, I showed up randomly in 46 different blocks of said municipalities, sometimes knocking on doors where an always rickety sign declared it to be the headquarters for the CDR; others, I would turn to any civilian strolling around the area or simply taking in the sights on his doorstep. In total, my questions were very basic, and, as I said before, I modified them whenever appropriate:

  1. Do you know who the district delegate is, his name, address, how I can get in touch with him and his schedule to meet with his constituents?
  2. Did you vote for the elected delegate?
  3. How do you get in touch with the delegate?

Only one housewife could give me a half-answer for the first question, because the delegate lived in her building, though she didn’t know where or when he held office hours. The rest, people would tell me they did vote –except in one case, when an individual answered, with some suspicion, that he was away on that day, and he wasn’t very communicative- though nobody could tell me with any certainty the name of their delegate, let alone his address or how to get in touch with him. Only three individuals told me that the candidate they voted for had been elected, but couldn’t quite remember his information (last names, address, etc.) “I think his name was Juan Luis or something like that”, “I think he lives in the green building around the corner” were some of the most accurate information I found. Other descriptions were even ambiguous: “He is military, bald-headed”, “Yes, of course, he’s a mulatto who hobbles a bit when he walks, but I don’t remember his name or where he lives.” As can be seen, people have a high political sense and a close bond with their representatives, as proclaimed in the official media.

As far as my many relatives and friends, close or not-so-close, the pattern was of similar behavior, though, of course, no one was reluctant to answer. Only one person admits voting for a delegate (a valid ballot), though he has no idea of his name or who the guy is. The rest voided their ballot with “D” or crossed it out. A smaller group and I did not go to the polls.

Certainly, my little “survey” is not worth any official purpose, but I invite any Cuban to verify for himself the truth in what I say. One does not have to be very sharp in his questionnaire. Any question about what led an individual to vote for one or another of the candidates, or about the nature of his expectations will immediately raise suspicions on the part of the surveyed and will only produce evasive answers. We have had over 5 decades of fear, and a lot of people still seem to sense a guardian dog of the regime behind any other Cuban. But they will be able to see without doubt that the official discourse stands on a scaffold so fragile that it would not withstand even the simplest poll of any agency qualified for such purposes.

Of course, a makeshift Cuban pollster would also run the risk of approaching the wrong person. He could stumble onto the most zealous “combatant” on the block, the one who sees “the enemy” behind the most innocuous question, and then the person conducting the survey might spend a night in a dungeon and get out after signing a “memorandum of warning “as punishment. I must confess that I’ve been lucky, or maybe the snitches and the Talibans are waning. I don’t know. That would be another kind of survey, that, I have to admit, I still don’t dare to perform.

Translated by Norma Whiting

November 5 2012

The Influences of Paya Over My Life / Mario Lleonart

Away from the capital and without any contact with the Christian Liberation Movement I thank God who made use of small signs of liberty that came to me from here and there in order to guide me in the middle of the sad and confused Cuban reality.  Even in reading from a book as poisonous as “The Dissidents” I realized where good and evil were really found.

Maybe the most significant and influential for me have been the so-called spiritual leaders in exile, Cuban pastors and priests who in Miami, and beyond religious differences, kept very alive their love of Cuba and shared it like a fire in periodic prayer meetings and through joint projects and whose news and messages arrived at the island through radio programs like those conducted by Francisco Santana such as “The Cuban and His Faith” or “Cuba, Your Hope,” or Lenier Gallardo, pastor of the Lutheran Church “Prince of Peace” in spaces like “Yesterday, Today and Forever” or in his classic Sermon of the Seven Words each holy week.

As part of that faith group and representing the Baptists was Marcos Antonio Ramos, very influential as pastor and intellectual in exile and of great reputation among Cuban Baptists.  They not only defended the validity of the Varela Project in exile, in the middle of many instances of misunderstanding and confusion but also in an indirect way and thanks to the broadcasting helped to inform many like me on the island.

Whatever happens from here on I will be eternally satisfied that I will not be able to say that they did not knock on my door, and when they knocked I accepted the challenge:  I am a signatory of the Varela Project and I refused to endorse the reform of the Constitution that declared the irrevocable character of socialism in Cuba, a clumsy reaction of the regime before the mastery of Paya, celebrated by Carter in his visit to the island as well as various figures from around the world.

The correctness of my citizen decisions I owe in great part to the influence that notwithstanding such obstacles came to me from one Paya with whom I never had the honor of shaking hands, but from whom I always had the joy of finding myself spiritually near, and now more.  The arguments that were heard from this brave man, opposing all the useless indoctrination of the regime’s propaganda to which I was exposed during all the years of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, made me react to the reality that I had a right to rights, and with me my fellow man, the totality of my fellow citizens, with all and for the good of all.

Translated by mlk

November 1 2012

Can I Wake Up? / Yoani Sanchez

rodiles_libertadSometimes when I’m restless I dream that I move, that I change houses over and over without being able to enjoy any of them. In this recurring nightmare, my life is dismantled and my childhood photos are lost in some moving van. But this only happens to me on nights of midlevel anxiety. This week, for example, has been different. The wee hours find me walking on an endless dark road. I put my head on the pillow and return to this trail surrounded by high grass, with the sound of cicadas boring holes in my ears. I’m not alone, at my side are familiar faces: my friends of laughter and dungeons, of hugs and terrors. We talk and the phrases are cut in half because they disappear into the weeds, they go… they take them. Every night I no more close my eyes than the bushes return to swallow my loved ones.

I get up in the morning and tell myself, “It’s all over, it was just a dream.” But after a while the phone rings and someone tells me that Antonio Rodiles remains in custody, accused of resisting an arrest as arbitrary as it was unjust. I go to the bathroom, my eyelids still half open and realize that just a few hours ago Angel Santiesteban had been released after they forced him into a police car with blows. The morning coffee percolates on the stove and I check my cellphone, full of denunciations of the abuse of the Ladies in White in several areas of the country. The light still has the red hue of dawn and I already feel that the long road retraced in my dreams extends into reality.

It’s not the weeds, but the intolerance; not the song of the cicadas but the shouts of the authoritarians; not the night but the lack of freedom. Because when noon comes I’ve already found I can’t escape them, pinching my forearms or even putting my head under cold water doesn’t work. It’s a fact that those “abducted” friends are a concrete reality, tangible, not a nocturnal delirium. The afternoon advances and I understand that my nightmare is all around me and I end up returning to the trail surrounded by high grass. But this time there is only me, talking to myself so the darkness won’t scare me to death. Someone – I don’t see who – grabs me and shoves me into the weeds. It’s three hours before the alarm goes off and I wake up.

12 November 2012

Number 54033 (Part 1) / Cuban Legal Advisor, Yaremis Flores

By Yaremis Flores

The afternoon of November 7th I couldn’t imagine that I’d trade my name for a number. I went out at approximately two in the afternoon to take a serving of soup over to my father, who’d been admitted into a hospital. While I was going down the street I live on, the #950 patrol was driving slowly around the area. When I was almost crossing the road, I heard a sharp braking. An agent from State Security called me by my name and said the usual: “You have to come with us and turn off your cell phone.”

I had made the made the call to which I have a natural right and no one can deny me beforehand. Thus I at least was able to report my arrest. Because of my short height, the fact that I’m a woman and unarmed, I didn’t deserve the corpulence of badge numbers 29128 and 29130, by whom I was taken to the back seat of the patrol car without knowing the reason for nor the place of my destination. When I asked, the agent limited himself to saying “you’ll see where we take you, I felt like meeting you, but today you’re going to find out who I am.”

My surprise wasn’t much at seeing my destination was 100 and Aldabó. I’ll confess I thought at first it would only be a few hours’ detention. Under the pretext of spreading false news against international peace, they took blood samples from me and seized all my belongings. An officer told me that I must read a sign on which are listed the rights and responsibilities of detainees, as if they were worth much. Then I was led into a small room where they gave me a gray uniform and told me to always carry my hands behind my back: so that I’d not be reprimanded!

They gave me two sheets, a blanket, a towel and a mattress pad. I forget who, but someone said “she will spend a few days here.” During more than three hours of questioning, the case officer tried to deciphermy thinking and collaboration with Cubanet. He sought an explanation of whathis superiors classified as a process of metamorphosis: “from a judge to a counterrevolutionary.” Making it clear that that would not be our only conversation, an officer took me to a cell with two other prisoners, who had been there more than 30 days.

Many worries came to mind: my father’s health, my little 3 year-old girl, and the reaction of my husband, friends, and family. I showed calm. That night I ate nothing. I tried to sleep. When I almost succeeded, some blows to the cell bars and the jailer’s shouts startled me. “54033, 54033!!!” I didn’t answer. When she opened the cell, the bitter woman looked at me and said “Girl, you don’t hear me calling you, or they gave you a beating with gusto.”

Then I remembered that I had in a small blouse pocket a little piece of cardboard that said “54033/201.” It meant my prisoner number and my cell number. One of the girls told me “now this is your identity card.” Meanwhile, the jailer told me to get all my things together. A little dazed, I began to fasten my shoes and she warned me: don’t fix up so much, you’re not going very far, you’re going to another cell. “Then I’m going to another cell,” I answered. This was my first night in Aldabó.

Translated by: JT

November 12 2012

Sensitive People / Reinaldo Escobar

I had a friend who had a very short fuse. Alcibiades was a man with a bad temper and his family and the neighborhood learned the lesson that no one should contradict him. As a result, among other consequences, he was always the last to hear bad news and in his entire adult life he lacked a thermometer to measure the effects of his own actions. Obviously he died of a heart attack.

I remembered Alcibiades when people from civil society were arrested, having gone to the police station out of concern for their friends. An agent of State Security, whose name I couldn’t learn, warned me with authoritarian gestures that “they” were not going to tolerate any provocation. I’ve thought a lot about that warning.

We could wear ourselves out clarifying that this is not a provocation but very sensitive people and we end up concluding that the only way of not provoking them is to follow the old advice of the poet Heberto Padilla in his Instructions to Enter a New Society:

One step forward, and
two or three back:
but always applauding.

Every day more Cuban citizens refuse to follow these instructions. A sense of self-esteem is growing among us and turning us into individuals, far from a domineering “us.” This inevitably leads us to disobedience. “They” whom I can’t name as “the authorities” so as not to irritate the other sensitive people, sooner or later will have to face the reality that they are on the brink of ungovernability, because anger is not usually gradual nor does it build slowly but surely. The anger that originates in seeing our most elemental rights trampled jumps directly from meekness to rebellion.

As I am an optimist and an enemy of violence, I think we have to time to seek an understanding. To whom does it fall to take the next step? I think it’s precisely up to “them,” initiating a process of political reforms that need to start with the decriminalization of political dissent, the dissolution of the mechanisms of repression against those who think differently, and a clear message to all of society where it is proclaimed, once and for all, that a legitimate rule of law will be established in the Nation.

12 November 2012

Rodiles, Targeted by the Regime / Luis Felipe Rojas

Two opposite dynamics have had to change their actions in order to prevail: government repression and the peaceful opposition. Everyday Cubans have taken up arms with new technologies, they have supported each other with the scarce glimmers left behind by the inefficient Constitution of the Republic, while the oppressors have had to beat them out on the street without consideration, leaving themselves to be photographed by anonymous citizens and assimilating the political cost before international public opinion.

The recent temporary detentions, beatings and interrogations against a large number of Cuban dissidents have revealed two important aspects between non-conformist citizens and guarantors of the old Stalinist power. The victims protested in front of an important department of the Ministry of the Interior in the Cuban capital. On one hand, it has been proven that the intensity of the beatings against them is the same, while the dissidents have combined the most useful of diffusion tools to spread their message, and their membership has been increasing.

In the scuffle which State Security started this past 10th of November, there was a well-known writer, various lawyers (three of whom were detained and taken to dungeons), a scholar, a blogger known to the entire world, five former political prisoners from the group of the 75 (The Black Spring of 2003), the 2010 Sakharov Award Recipient, various human rights activists, and Antonio G. Rodiles, the director of the independently produced TV show Estado de Sats, which was recently nominated for an Emmy.

In other words, the group of detainees represented a large range of social disagreement happening right now.

Rodiles…the new repressive wave.

At this point in time, many ask themselves why the aggressions against Antonio Rodiles. What did the prudent political police officials find in this restless intellectual? The Citizen Demand for a Another Cuba could have gone by as just another initiative, but the restrictive claws of the high ranks of the Military’s Counter-Intelligence do not want to take any more chances.

The Citizens’ Demand for Another Cuba, which demands that the government ratify the covenants it signed at the UN in 2008 and “immediately put the legal and political guarantees in practice,” in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has gained the support of diverse sectors of the dissidence in Cuba. In this manner, with each passing day more Cubans in and out of the island are supporting it — a detail which rapidly gains support.

Rodiles, a young intellectual, devised a way to report and shed light on the most diverse of thoughts and anti-Castro activism through filmed interviews in his home. The “televised programs” of Estado de Sats are filmed and edited in a beautiful, yet simple, fashion, without any technological gadgets and as soon as they are uploaded onto channels for massive diffusion such as YouTube, they quickly receive much attention throughout the entire national geography.

Yoani Sánchez… stepping it up to another level.

In the video of the arrest this past 7th of November, one can see precious details of the brutal repression, and there are two aspects which should not be forgotten if one wants to know the current Cuban reality. The first is that, once again, an anonymous citizen filmed high-ranking soldiers during an operation. The second factor is that the repressive actions are being accompanied by a face, and in that sense, the blogger Yoani Sanchez carries a fundamental weight.

Known for her brief writings in the most popular blog in the Spanish-speaking world, Yoani has been the protagonist of courses and workshops about the tools of the modern technological world, and of citizen empowerment.

That brief video of an Immigration official, lacking arguments, notifying her that she had no Exit Permit for leaving Cuba, went around the world. Yoani was inaugurating the sessions of cyber-victims, promoting (nearly online) her outrage. Without a doubt, the strategists of the Cuban Intelligence fell in the trap of a haughtiness which they did not need and with which they cast blame on themselves.

The husband of the dissident blogger, journalist Reinaldo Escobar, being pushed by a mass of braggarts with lynching licenses was another episode for which he and Yoani supplied the architecture. Escobar challenged a notable operation and posted himself, like a neighborhood kid on a central street of the capital, to await his ‘opponent’ and this time turned the screw: the accredited media outlets in Havana filmed and projected the images of these government sponsored repressive acts against a defenseless citizen to the world. Once again, Yoani Sanchez was pulling the strings, and moving the chess pieces.

When a well-known independent journalist revealed his ties to the political police, Cuban television let loose its machinery of propaganda and aired a series of documentaries titled “Cuba’s Reasons,” where they exhibited photos, videos, and other testimonies about the Civic Resistance. As a response, the author of Generation Y took it to another level and created an improvised television studio in her house. She started to publish interviews with members of civil society which she put in the series known as “Citizen’s Reasons,” revealing the freshest of faces and thoughts of those confronting the old military dictatorship.

They seem like small skirmishes, but with her actions Yoani Sanchez has received the same amount of praise outside of Cuba as slanders published by former president Fidel Castro, as well as an acceptance among the important actors of the Cuban opposition, acknowledging that she has opened a crack, a path paved by legitimate appropriations of civic tools which have always been there but which the dictatorship has criminalized.

The act of a citizen publishing the face of repression in Cuba from his/her cell phone arms the arguments against the regime’s henchmen. It is not an invention of the famed blogger, but it was she who put it in practice, which consecrates her in the history of the Civic Resistance on the island.

Translated by Raul G.

12 November 2012

Arrests / Regina Coyula

On Thursday, listening to the news, I hear that the police brutality lawsuit filed by the Occupy Wall Street movement against NYPD had been come out in favor of the indignant. Despite how badly everything seems to work in the United States according to Cuban radio, television and the press, sometimes I have glimpses of legislative power acting independently, glimpses that I don’t have in our own national legal system. The same day I heard that news, numerous arrests of members of civil society fulfilled the not so veiled threats contained in the note from MINREX (Ministry of Foreign Relations) from the week before last.

Our rulers forgot the path of their youthful ideals, when they believed in beauty and goodness and with moral superiority confronted the henchmen. I look with concern on their message that they want to make it clear that there will be no opening, no space for a peaceful opposition. They, who overthrew Batista by force of arms, fear ideas, words. Our poor country, tumbling to nowhere.

November 12 2012

The Solitude of a Cosmonaut / Fernando Damaso

Photo: Peter Deel

Lately, in correspondence with the new travel and immigration law passed, much emphasis was placed on protecting national brains and talent for the sake of development. The story below continues this interesting narrative.

In the years of the Cold War, the conquest of the cosmos was a major scene of clashes between the Soviet Union and the United States. With objectives more about political propaganda, than truly scientific, the former planned manned space travel with a cosmonaut from each socialist or friendly country, always accompanied by a Soviet, who commanded the ship and was the chief.

Two Cubans were designated for this: the main one and the second as a double or substitute, whose identities constituted state secrets during their training in the Cosmonaut City, near Moscow. Both Air Force pilots, they studied, prepared and trained for over three years until their turn came. The principal, of humble origin and black, was the officially preferred. The double, more capable but white, had to lose out, unless a mishap occurred at the last minute.

To ensure the flight met its propaganda goals, posters were prepared separately with each image, just in case, and properly sealed packets were distributed to the appropriate bodies, to post when official notice was given that the manned spacecraft was underway. The one not used should then be destroyed. To ensure that the first Cuban and also first Latin American cosmonaut was also humble and black, a high-level delegation from the Cuban government traveled to Baikonur, where the spacecraft was leaving from: they were not fully confident that the Soviets would ensure it, perhaps more concerned the success of the journey than with its propaganda value.

Once the mission was completed, in October 1980, there was an intense propaganda campaign, praising socialism as the only system where a humble black Latin American citizen could fly into space. There were plenty of receptions, public events and tours of towns and cities. After a few months of glory, the cosmonaut who flew and the one who didn’t fly, instead of going on to become a part of the cosmonaut detachment, for which they had prepared and trained, and on which valuable material and financial resources had been spent, were designated for different tasks.

The first was made president of the SEPMI (Society of Patriotic-Military Education), created to prepare and train children and adolescents in sports with profiles for possible military use (shooting, parachuting, etc.). The second, went to work at the Academy of Sciences in the field of studies of the cosmos. Both, in fact, have lost the time and effort spent to prepare as cosmonauts, thinking that this would be their profession, as their missions were just one-time political propaganda.

Neither the Soviet Union nor Cuba had seriously thought of them as cosmonauts, as had happened in other countries (and even in the Soviet Union itself), which had become a profession with many trips into space, taking into account the human cost and material preparation, plus the experience with each trip.

Cuban Cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on the 30th anniversary of his spaceflight. From Tumblr.

I do not know what the cosmonaut who actually flew currently thinks (the one who didn’t fly has since died), but I guess in his inner self must feel frustrated and used, remembering how his talent and time were wasted. He was a cosmonaut for a single trip, dedicated afterwards to telling and retelling, on each new anniversary, what happened that day. Today the journey does not interest anyone, and as a historical fact, it has faded over time, as happened in the Soviet Union itself.

Now trips are undertaken by crews from different countries, in the spaceships of this or that country. No Cuban cosmonauts participate in any of them. They’ve left off making political tasks into scientific tasks. Congratulations!

November 1 2012

Minorities and Majorities / Rebeca Monzo

Ceramic by C. Monzó

On my planet the news media is always talking about Puerto Rican independence groups, but they always fail to mention that their members make up only 2.6% of the population. As a result, the misinformed inhabitants of my dear planet think that this represents the feelings of the entire Puerto Rican people.

At every opportunity they bring on some independence party leader, as well as some artist (always the same ones), and give them air time and media coverage which is denied to the average person. I completely understand that minority opinions must also be heard and taken into consideration, but those who govern must govern for everyone, and their representatives are always and invariably chosen by a majority of the voters. This has long been the case in those countries in which democracy is practiced.

I do not understand why they defend these foreign minorities here and never take into account those of the their own country. If they took into consideration the results of the last elections, they would realize that we constitute 20% of voters. And that is only if we assume the results released by the regime itself are reliable. If you take into account the abstentions, annulled ballots and those who do not go to the polls, it is clear we make up a substantial portion of the citizenry who, by choosing these options, have demonstrated that we are not in agreement with the current system. If an insignificant minority of a neighboring country is so important to our leaders, why don’t they extend the same consideration to those who represent the opposition in their own?

I think that after the recent elections in Puerto Rico, where it has been demonstrated that the will of the vast majority of the people is to become one more state within the union, they should not continue with the same old story about seeking independence for this country in the United Nations and forming groups to support its calls for sovereignty—something which is the sole responsibility of its citizens, who have just expressed their desires through sovereign vote.

November 10 2012