The Shadow of Death / Lilianne Ruiz

Hunger strikers
Hunger strikers
Liliane (in red dress) and Ladies in White with hunger strikers (seated)

It has not been on any national news. No newspaper has echoed the demand of the 27 Cubans across the island who are on a hunger strike demanding that the Castro clan’s government release Jorge Vázquez Chaviano.

Six of the 27 people on strike are in Havana, at the home of Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, who is in imminent danger of death. This Sunday I saw her for the first time and I hope it is not the last. Presumably the government druids might be calculating that Martha Beatriz Roque’s death would only mean an international scandal that after reaching its peak would subside, as on other occasions after deaths caused by the regime.

In these 53 years of arbitrary sentences, executions, political assassinations covered by the revolutionary propaganda machine with the complicity of some foreign correspondents (such as the irritating South American employed by the BBC), with regards to deaths from hunger strikes we have learned, to our despair, how this bloody regime believes it can deal with the scandal occasioned by one more death, from the evidence of human behavior in the face of others’ pain, which consists of changing the channel unless they have very specific motivations that seem to be lacking in Cuba.

Also Vázquez Chaviano has served his initial sentence without the prosecutor acknowledging the political nature of his imprisonment. It’s old ploy to mislead the public dating from 1959, to make them believe that in Cuba there is no political opposition, that is it just about foreign interests and a band of mercenaries. The first place to read and understand the mechanism that has sustained this campaign is the trial of Hubert Matos. Incredible as it seems, this has determined the entire subsequent history of the Cuban political prisoner.

Chaviano was taken prisoner when a police search — ordered by State Security — found in his home a gallon of paint and a wooden bed that he himself was making to sleep on with his wife. He was sentenced to prison for a year and a half and when he completed the sentence he went one morning to see the Pope, like the rest of Cubans “called” to do so, and was arrested. On this occasion he received an “add-on” of another year and a half in prison. As from the beginning, he was without defense, without rights.

Chaviano’s true “sin” was to be the delegate in Sagua de Grande of the Human Rights Party of Cuba, and a member of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front.

On September 10, the day after he should have been released according to his original sentence, his brothers in the struggle declared a hunger strike to demand that he be freed immediately.

I saw Martha Beatriz like a corpse in her bed, unable to speak, unable to tolerate the three words I managed to say to her, “Do not die,” ready to die. But I didn’t take photos, I couldn’t do it.

Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” is also on hunger strike. He has lost consciousness on several occasions. What alarms me, and with this I want to alarm all sensible Cubans about what is happening in our country, is that the government of Raul Castro and company is planning to let these people die. I do not want them to become the decals on our T-shirts as long as we can still do something while they are alive.

Martha Beatriz cannot resist many more days, and all hunger strikes leave scars and our Antúnez is too valuable to lose. They are willing to sacrifice themselves but their genes are not common in this town of people who eat only at home in their own misery.

The government could just walk away and let them die and continue to sweep away a generation of very well cultured opponents, people who, frankly, I don’t see replacements for on the immediate horizon.

Wherever you are, protest. Don’t let them die.

September 18 2012

From Instigators to Pacifists / Miriam Celaya

Marco Leon Calarcá, FARC Spokesperson. Photo from AP, La Habana, 7 de septiembre de 2012.

Last Tuesday, September 4th, the Cuban media aired a video in which Rodrigo Londoño (alias Timochenko), Commander of the General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) declared the armed group’s interest in participating in a peace and reconciliation dialogue, with the participation of all Colombians.

Mauricio Jaramillo, FARC commander, confirmed at a press conference held at Havana’s Palacio de Convenciones that the empirical meetings mediated by the Cuban government since February 23, 2012 at the Cuban capital had come to a close, and that a negotiation table with the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos had begun.

Needless to say, the peace process in Colombia must be viewed very positively, since it could bring to a close the long decades of armed conflict in that country, at a high human and economic cost, with all the implications this has for the region.

Nevertheless, the time seems propitious for a pause, primarily addressed to Cubans on the island, who today get their  information as a fait accompli, with most of them having no clue of the nature of the process, the conflict, its evolution and the reasons their government, incapable of having a dialogue with its own people or of solving the acute internal problems, and lacking any political will to drive the necessary changes, turns out to be the mediator and guarantor of a dialogue between the Colombian narco-guerrillas and the president of that country.

Many Cubans are unaware that an armed FARC emerged decades ago inspired by the ideas of a Castro-style chimeric Latin-American Marxist revolution, that this army was trained, supported and financed by the Cuban government, and that, after the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe, it became focused on terrorism, a nest of kidnappers and extortionists, and an armed institution of Colombian drug trafficking,  spreading violence and insecurity in Colombia and the region, the remains of a failed strategy. From Marxists to leaders of the Colombian cartel.  From trafficking in communist ideology to trafficking in cocaine. Nothing short of that.

Those Cubans who wonder about the basis of the government mediation in the Colombian conflict probably ignore the close historical ties that link it with the narco-guerrillas, and that the so-called Colombian guerrilla is the last remaining shred of the exportation of the Cuban revolution in this hemisphere, launched by Fidel Castro in his golden years.

That is to say, Cuban mediation in the Colombia-FARC issue, far from being a novelty, is long-standing: the Cuban government is not mediator for prestige, but for its complicity and responsibility in the conflict. And though even now the function of the Cuban authorities in this case is quite different, and now the olive-green dome dresses as the dove of peace, we must not forget that it was the supporter of the violence in Colombia and many other Latin American nations in the past.

Throughout these years, Cuba has also been a safe haven for many narco-guerrillas who have been forced to leave their country before the onslaught of the Colombian constitutional army under President Álvaro Uribe, who had the crucial support of the U.S. government, and whose actions dealt crushing blows to the FARC, narrowing its parameters. Each whack delivered to FARC has also meant an effective blow against the influence of the Cuban revolution in Latin America.

It becomes clear that the Cuban government had sufficient means of communication with the FARC leaders to now act as a negotiator of the conflicting parties. Naturally, in the official media in charge of disinformation in Cuba, the government -historical ally of the narco-guerrillas -is mediator, while the U.S. government –collaborator of the constitutional government of Colombia- is interventionist. In Cuba, that same media has always presented the FARC, and not the governments of Colombia, as the legitimate representative of the aspirations to social justice of the Colombian people

Yesterday, instigators; today, peacemakers. The Cuban dictatorship’s imitative capacity seems endless. Many interests must hide behind this move by the cunning and long-lived revolutionary caste, but there’s no question that, when the last page of the history of the FARC is turned, another piece of the black history of the Castro revolution will be entombed, the one that encouraged violence and death in order to perpetuate the megalomania of a failed messiah, who today has definitely disappeared from the scene.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Originally appeared in Diario de Cuba, 10 September 2012

The Dilemma Repeats Itself / Reinaldo Escobar

In the midst of the candidate nomination assemblies for the district delegate elections, the opposition media has revived the discussion about what to do on the day we are supposed to vote. The options are the following:

  1. Go to the polls as one more citizen, read the biographies of the proposed candidates, and vote for whomever we see fit.
  2. Go to the polls and deposit a blank ballot in the ballot box.
  3. Go to the polls and mark the ballot with some message, which automatically annuls the ballot.
  4. Don’t go to the polls and exercise the right to abstain.

In option number 1 (which I daresay most people will choose) there is a sub-option that in our neighborhood some opponent will have managed to jump the barriers and get themselves on the list of candidates, in which case, and assuming we support our colleague, exercising our vote will have a different meaning.

In the case of options 2 and 3, they will have no influence on the election results because only valid ballots are counted and only if we are present at the hour of scrutiny can we know the number of invalid ballots, because the law establishes that the public report of the count is made on an unused ballot where there is no space to write the numbers of annulled or blank ballots. Nor are ballots with slogans recorded.

Those who choose option 4 should know whether their name has previously appeared in the registry of voters, because it is common practice at the sites where the lists are prepared not to include those who haven’t previously voted. If the name is not on the registry the absence won’t even influence the percentage of abstentions.

As unequivocal proof of the already traditional disunity of the opposition movement, in the October elections there will be no consensus about what the conduct should be of those who don’t believe in the process, much less will it be possible to figure out how many of those who cast their vote for some candidate did so out of conviction, out of pure formality, or from fear of being marked by the regime’s watchdogs. There are still people who believe that the ballots come numbered or that there is a camera in the voting booth or that they take your fingerprints from the paper.

It seems to me they’re already reading the headlines in the Granma newspaper.

17 September 2012

Survive / Yoani Sanchez

Martha Beatriz Roque Photo from El Nuevo Herald http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2012/09/16/21/52/XJ9rE.Em.84.jpeg
Martha Beatriz Roque Photo from El Nuevo Herald
The light is dim, the room narrow, the murmur of Santo Suarez seeps through the walls. On the bed is a bone-thin woman with freezing hands and a barely audible voice. Martha Beatriz Roque declared a hunger strike a week ago. I’ve come to her wrapped in the busyness of daily life and in the rush of information; but her face wears the calmness of time and experience. She is there, as fragile as a little girl of such weightlessness that I could lift her up and lull her to sleep in my lap. I’m surprised by her clarity, the categorical manner in which she explains to me her refusal to eat. Every word she manages to pronounce — with such intensity — doesn’t seem to come from a body so diminished by fasting.

I thought I would never again be at the bedside of a hunger striker. The false optimism that all future time had to be better had led me to believe that Guillermo Fariñas with his prominent ribs and dry mouth would be the last dissident who would turn to starvation as a weapon of citizen demands. But two years after those 134 days without eating, I am again seeing the sunken stomachs and sallow coloring of those who refuse to eat. This time there are now 28 people throughout the country and their motive is, once again, the helplessness of the individual before a legality too marked by ideology. Because of the absence of other ways to challenge the government, the intestines empty themselves as a method of demand and rebellion. Sadly, all they have left us is our own skin and bones, and the walls of our stomachs, to make ourselves heard.

Before leaving Martha Beatriz’s house I counseled her, “You have to survive, this type of regime you have to outlive them.” And I went into the street, wrapped in the guilt and responsibility that every Cuban should feel before such a sad event. “Survive, survive,” I kept thinking, when talking with the family of Jorge Vázquez who should have been freed on September 9 and whose immediate release is the demand of those fasting. “Survive, survive,” I told myself, seeing on TV the faces of those who have turned disagreement into a crime in this country, and civil protest treason. “Survive, survive, we will survive them,” I promised myself. But perhaps it is already too late for that.

Agents Arrest Promoters of Citizen Demand For Another Cuba / For Another Cuba

Cuban police violently arrested three regime opponents in the Havana municipality of Marianao on Thursday August 16, while they were handing out copies of the Citizen Demand For Another Cuba, according to the digital newspaper Cubaencuentro.

Citizens Diosbel Suárez, Idalberto Acuña and Santiago Cardoso, members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, were beaten and pepper sprayed in the place where they were promoting the text of the Demand, and were taken to the Sixth Station of the National Police.

“They even repressed people who were filming the event or reading the Demand,” Antonio G. Rodiles told the digital newspaper Diario de Cuba; Rodiles is the coordinator of the Estado de Sats project and one of the promoters of the Demand.

The Demand, delivered in June to the National Assembly of People’s Power, calls for the ratification, by the Cuban government, of the international pacts signed at the UN in 2008 and the implementation of the “legal and political guarantees” of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

23 August 2012

El Biogas… or an Epilogue to the “Energy Revolution” / Miriam Celaya

This beautiful example of a cow is, of course, not Cuban. Photo taken from a website

Someone said that necessity is the mother of invention, a phrase that could explain the proverbial fame of Cuban “inventors”, always having excess necessities. However, to establish itself as a source of well-being and progress, the invention process requires certain material resources and civil freedoms beyond imagination, intelligence or the desire to do something, otherwise it becomes a backwards move.

Thus, the noted Cuban inventiveness — at least for the last half-century – has manifested itself primarily in the philosophy of misery, where each invention is not based on creating something truly new and revolutionary (and here the term refers to the technical side) but on the repairing or patching up of old equipment previously invented or — as we usually say — in the discovery of warm water, which consists in changing what was a novelty in the XIX century and applying it as a good thing in our current everyday indigence. Examples abound, but the newspaper Granma (Wednesday, September 12, 2012, page 3) (Wednesday September 12, 2012, p. 3) recently presented to us one of the countless cases which, in addition, are offered as paradigms of efficiency in the official press.

“Biogas in a bag obtained in Pinar del Río”, is the headline of a half-page long article which informs us, in a tone full of optimism, that they have already been successful at packaging biogas in plastic bags in Pinar del Rio” something new, even if it’s just an “isolated” experience, but one that “could transcend into a greatly useful innovation.”

It is known that biogas is highly flammable, so the editor is quick to reassure us: this is about –- the architect of the initiative stated — a safe process, because the biogas can be collected in the same plastic bags used at The Conchita Cannery for storing tomato pulp, which are “hermetically sealed, very resilient and able to withstand high temperatures.” He adds: “there is no need to compress the gas when using them, therefore, the process becomes much easier and efficient.” The process is that easy, since each device (bag) takes about 30 minutes to fill and “enough biogas is provided for food preparation for two days for a family of three.”

Though the use of biogas is not a recent discovery or anything of the sort, and we are familiar with numerous non-industrial applications in various regions of the globe, the report takes great pleasure in reporting the benefits of this fuel. Among them, the reporter reminds us that it is a renewable energy source, benefitting the environment by taking advantage of a gas that otherwise would end up in the atmosphere, increasing CO2 pollution, and helping families economize by reducing electricity consumption. The idea is to replace the consumption of electricity used in cooking food, because the latter is usually used “in most Cuban homes” thanks to that so-called energy revolution (remember?) promoted a few years ago by the unmentionable (remember him too?).

But, fundamentally, the article promotes the innovation of packaging biogas in plastic bags, a process so simple that it will allow the expansion the operations by excluding ducts to bring biogas from places where it’s collected to the kitchens of the homes, and, at the same time, this system avoids possible sanitary complications of such facilities.

To wrap it up, a small box appears that illustrates the indisputable benefits of the invention, generated by the creativity of an innovative Cuban to solve a local problem and that the official press presents as a palliative to the energy crisis that hundreds of thousands of Cuban homes are enduring, not to mention what awaits us. The Box reads:

It is estimated that one cubic meter of unburned biogas released into the atmosphere equals one ton of CO2.

In contrast, its usage will allow cooking three meals for five people, or generate the energy equivalent to 0.5 liters of diesel, 0.6 liters of kerosene, or 1.6 KW-hour of electricity. In order to accomplish this, the researched bibliography indicated that it’s just processing of one day’s worth of the excretions of three cows, four horses, nine pigs, ten sheep or one hundred thirty chickens.

Here, my friends, lays the crux of the equation… or, rather, the essence of Cuban innovation. It turns out that the invention is really economical, it only requires that the would-be consumer of biogas somehow find a way to get some plastic bags at his neighborhood cannery, which may not be so difficult if he knows some potential supplier who works there, if the manager is a friend of his –- in which case he could make use of State resources — or if he would accept selling them at a reasonable price, if in Cuba any price can qualify as such. That minor inconvenience solved, all he would have left is the tiny problem of availing himself of three cows, four horses, nine pigs, ten sheep or one hundred thirty chickens whose fecal matter would guarantee the cooking of three family meals, as long as the family consists of only five members.

In other words, poop would be the most expeditious route to food on the table. All that’s left is to pray, so no uninvited guest shows up who may alter the scrupulous planning of the family biogas bag. Though, on second thought, there is always the recourse of making a quick collection of raw material for this fuel with the voluntary contribution of family members and neighbors, taking into consideration the equally proverbial generosity of Cubans. I have only one concern, and that is the appearance of another innovator who will discover a way to make this resource more productive and effective with the use of some laxative…Good riddance!!

Translated by Norma Whiting

September 14 2012

Spaceman Solo / Dora Leonor Mesa

The dancer dances surrounded by cords. He is lonely. Amid ropes, some chairs also take up the insufficient space. In front of the man, the spectators watch. Mozart’s music sounds different inside the show. The dancer wears white; he moves, suffers each gesture he makes. Desperate he raises a woman’s hand in the auditorium and take her into stage. They dance.

The woman follows the steps a few moments but it’s not enough. The artist sits her in a chair. And in that way he acts with other audience members. They dance. Each companion becomes part of his pain and performance; though he goes on dancing alone. The music ends.

“I’m cold, cold, cold,” the interpreter exclaims. Now on the stage are many people but no one helps. The guests on stage doubt. What’s going on? Should they help the artist? Except for the ropes, nothing moves. They are the stage and the obstacles of the dance.

“They arrest an artist as in a fugitive criminal hunt.”

This perfomance has other aims: To emotionally disturb other creators, friends and their families? To tear to pieces the beauty of the world of art and communication?

Orlando Luis Pardo was recently detained in a cell for several hours. It’s not enough being a photographer to capture the talent of the Cuban blogger’s images. I look for the picture “A newspaper seller.” It takes the breath away of the most unwary. The seller could be from Haiti, Ethiopia or Somalia, but no; he is Cuban. Yes, from Cuba; that exemplar island in education, health, beaches. It’s a shame the photograph makes him doubt.

“Is he really Cuban, that man of the picture, black, clown or poor; or all at once?”

The image of that person wearing rags and newspaper disturbs each onlooker.

The ropes that surround the best Cuban bloggers, male or female — very soon any blogger — resemble those of the work “Spaceman Solo” by choreographer Narciso Medina. Ropes with their own names: Harassment, Suspicion, Humiliation. Caustic spiderwebs, omnipresent to cause an immense loneliness; to paralyze the artist regardless the occupation: photographer, writer, sportsman. It’s the same.

Those ropes want to silence — especially — the humans with inspiration, a stunning gift that Nature deals at random.

The signs show that there is so much nervousness in the government’s highest spheres. There is no money, no youth, no magic wand effective to show how Generation Y broke the dike. On the contrary, the Blogger Academy discovers the recipe to forge talents. It does not even have to get close to the potential “abductees”. A cloud of infectious blogger air. Infection that in the end expands as a virus or a bacteria: invading a living creature and multiplying in him. Immediately, the change.

The bloggers Orlando Pardo, Yoani Sánchez, Luis Felipe Rojas, Wilfredo Vallín and many other lucid people are a problem. Their work is in the net of nets. To top it off, with a boomerang effect behind the detractors. Talent, communication and technology. The end of loneliness.

Translated by: @Hachhe

September 14 2012

Health of Cuban Hunger Strikers Deteriorates / Yoani Sanchez

Martha Beatriz Roque on 13 Sepember.  Source: martinoticias.com

On Sunday morning the health of several of the hunger strikers showed serious symptoms of deterioration. The number of activists now refusing food has risen to 27 people throughout Cuba, according to the group’s spokesperson Idania Yáñez. The principal demand of the strike is the immediate release of Jorge Vázquez Chaviano, a dissident condemned for the alleged crime of “illegal economic activity.” In the legal file of this opponent – which this writer gained access to – the date his sentence was set to expire was September 9, 2012. Instead of being released that day, the activist remained in prison in solitary confinement.

At a press conference on Monday, September 10, the dissident Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello announced the start of the hunger strike. At first there were 11 people, but day-by-day the number has grown. Amnesty International has demanded an immediate explanation for why Vázquez Chaviano has not been released on schedule. Yesterday morning, Saturday, he was transferred to Guamajal prison, also located in the central province of Villa Clara. His family has not been able to see him, but several sources confirm that also is refusing food.

Although several official government blogs have published information saying that Roque Cabello had received medical attention, she has refused any contact with the physicians. I visited Martha at her home in the capital neighborhood of Santo Suarez and witnessed first hand her physical deterioration. Dry lips, sallow skin, and trembling limbs were some of the symptoms of the famous economist. Meanwhile, in the living room of her home a group of five activists also maintain their decision not to take food, only liquids.

Two priests from the Parish of San Juan Bosco visited the well-known opponent of the regime, in what she described as strictly religious meetings, not political. Many activists from other opposition groups have also passed through to provide support or to ask the dissident to abandon her fast. Judicial authorities have informed the family of Vázquez Chaviano that he will not be released from prison until April 2013. However, the strikers claim that this is a flagrant violation of the laws in the country. Thus, they have decided to continue without food.

So far no government representative has made contact with the hunger strikers to begin a negotiation. Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello’s home is visibly monitored by cars belonging to State Security, as I myself confirmed.

Vazquez Chaviano’s Sentencing Certificate showing that his sentence was from 16 March 2011 to 9 September 2012

Translator’s note: Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello suffers from diabetes, which quickly exacerbates the effects of her fast.

16 September 2012

Why I Stay (Part 2) / Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez

I stay in Cuba and do not leave because otherwise I cannot imagine having to ask for a white card or exit permit in order to permanently choose the place where I want to spend the rest of my life. I stay in Cuba because I could not bear the humiliation of having to seek permissionfrom my country’s oppressors to return to my homeland at a time and for a period of their choosing. I prefer to stay because I fear that I will forget how to say “gracias” and “adiós,” and adapt to saying “thank you” and “bye.” Or will trade “está bien” for “O.K.”

I stay because in the hot afternoons of summer I prefer the breeze that comes down from the mountain to huddling in rooms where boxes with fake air called air-conditioning seem to chill you to your bones. I believe it is better to stay and thus avoid the tormented nostalgia of not being able to return to the plot of land where I was born, or the thought that my community, the Yuma, might say I am a foreigner and not a Cuban.

If you ask me why I stay, I would say because I believe in change and I want to be as close as possible when it comes. I stay because, if I left, my oppressors would no doubt say there is one less—one less anti-establishment voice, one less person protesting in the streets. I stay because, by doing so, I help to discredit those who say the ultimate objective of any dissident is to leave Cuba. I stay because every day I remember the torture and mistreatment I suffered for more than seventeen yearsin political prison, where they did not even let me attend my mother’s funeral.

I choose to stay each time I see the bite marks from the political police’s attack dogs. I stay because I have no feeling for Anglo-Saxon culture. Because my language is Spanish and my classics are those of Cervantes and not Shakespeare. Because since I was little I babbled the word “mamá” and not “mother.” And because no one can take away my second surname—my mother’s family name—as is common practice in countries of the north.

I stay because I cannot stand another way of life being imposed on me, living with strangers and being far away from where there is so much to do. I stay because my efforts at liberation are aimed at encouraging the thousands and thousands of my compatriots who have struggled for the return of a free Cuba, such as the brothers with long prison sentences, their family members, the victims and finally the a very significant segment of my people forced into exile.

I believe that my duty before leaving is to fight for the return and reunion of everyone in a free Cuba. Therefore I stay, especially when I imagine the sadness of our martyrs who died on foreign soil without seeing their fatherland free—martyrs likeJulio Machado, Mario Chanes de Armas, Eusebio Peñalver, Msgr. Agustín Román, Fr. Loreto and all the many anonymous heroes buried in faraway lands. For all of them and for those who died in Castro’s dungeons, firing squads or the Straits of Florida. Or those likeLaura Pollán, Osvaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, victims of the subtle brutality of Castro’s tyranny. For all of the above I stay.

September 14 2012

The Sad Centenary of Virgilio Pinera – Part II / Angel Santiesteban

As in the great circus, this year, on the centenary of the birth of the great writer, the “official culture” of the island has fired the warning shot that tells the contestants that the fight has begun. The regime has raised the vestiges of censorship that still remained on the famous intellectual, whom they made suffer in life until he became a gloomy shadow that crossed the city sky. They have published his works, along with dozens of comments that fill books without letting his fears and censors come to the surface. All the things that made him suffer, and all those who persecuted him, never showed up even in the marginal notes.

The question is how much Virgilio didn’t write thinking it wasn’t worth the trouble or that it would bring possible punishments. How many marvelous absurdities was literature deprived of by the gendarmes of the official culture.

On many occasions he showed his fear. A fear which, like a cancer, took over his battered body. And those who turned their backs on him, who fled from his greeting thinking him prejudicial to their official acceptance, now fill sheets with flatteries, now no one avoids him, no one is capable of seeing themselves as miserable beings forced by circumstances to be such cowards.

As in a play, they try to lower and raise the curtain and start over, to create and recreate his inventions, and collect the praise that is given now. So it will be with all those who in their time were drowned, alienated, cast out of the intellectual word such as Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas, Carlos Montenegro, Guillermo Rosales, Lidia Cabrera, Enrique Labrador Ruiz, Lino Novas Calvo, Carlos Victoria, among other essentials Cuban writers.

Sugar-coating history

As one of the his best biographers told me, “now every one wants to be his friend,” cluttering pages with the intention of getting into the best part of the cultural history and, by the way, collecting some pocket-money, and if possible sharing his memory in some cultural festival abroad. And of course, still remaining silent about his reality during all the years of the revolutionary period: his worst nightmare.

The Cuban dictatorship, with the support of some intellectuals who accept the proposed carnival — whenever it brings them some benefit — trying to erase the censor’s hand, his arm wielding the whip over Virgilio’s delicate body and defenseless soul. It is as if the past had been performed by others, as if all these apologists had no part or fault in all the poet’s suffering.
On repeated occasions Piñera accepted being “afraid,” an uneasiness he suffered in his spirit and in his work, and that wherever he is, still demands to be vindicated, demands justice for such great sadness that they caused him.

Translated by @Hachhe

September 15 2012

My Neighbor, My Neighbors / Regina Coyula

My neighbor Alejandro is the ideal neighbor. Nothing about him is annoying. He never plays loud music. There is never any shouting in his house. His daughters are polite, well-educated girls. Alejandro is one of those who gets up at dawn or from the television on Sunday to take a neighbor to the hospital. Alejandro never missed guard duty, a meeting or voluntary work for the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. His attendance at sessions of the Assembly of People’s Power or at political events was always discreet but assured.

For the neighbors like me who did not see it, we later found out that day before yesterday, very early in morning, Alejandro’s house was the object of a huge political sting operation. There were four patrol cars as well as numerous unmarked cars and a van. From my neighbor’s house they took the washing machine, two computers, musical equipment, microwaves and other household electrical appliances. And they took Alejandro too. The neighbors noted that they left the refrigerator on account of the girls.

My neighbor had accumulated merit points over the years, the type of merits that perhaps helped him get approved by a state employment agency to work in a foreign-owned firm. Now a high-ranking official from the Ministry of Agriculture, who has been detained for months as the subject of a corruption investigation, says he received a kickback from Alejandro to benefit his firm just as a purchasing decision was about to be made.

That is the story in the neighborhood. I also found out that they were in a big hurry, that the police did not even wait until his oldest daughter had left for school before making the arrest. I asked if anyone intervened, but was told Alejandro’s next door neighbors watched from a window or the sidewalk.

September 14 2012

A Power That Has No Power / Fernando Damaso

Photo: Rebeca
In recent days there have been assemblies to “elect” the members of the National Assembly of People’s Power. This will start with electoral districts and municipalities, and continue with the provinces until the process will end with the selection of delegates to the National Assembly, who in turn will choose the country’s president and vice-president.

When the experiment initially started in Matanzas province many years ago, one of fundamental goals of People’s Power was to “bring power to the base, making all citizens participants.” This was attractive in theory, but not so much in practice when it was extended to the entire country. Those who were elected had no real power. The only thing could do was “cry out in the desert” since they lacked the material resources to resolve local problems, and the government did not provide them.

It is true that, legally, any citizen can aspire to be a delegate in his or her home base, but in reality it is not as easy as it seems. To do so, you have to share the ideology of “the model*”—at least in words and actions—if you aspire to be “elected.” If you have the courage to introduce yourself as a candidate who offers criticisms or espouses change, you are quickly sidelined by the mechanisms set up to do this —mass governmental organizations under the direction of state security or the party—which apply the necessary pressure to make sure you are discarded as a possible candidate even before you can be introduced. This is confirmed by the fact that never, in the many years since People’s Power has existed, has a candidate been elected who did not share the views of the authorities.

The possibility of being elected only exists at the base since further along in the process delegates are chosen from among the candidates elected to represent all citizens—those in the municipalities as well as the provinces and throughout the nation. As a result,in some circumstanceseveryone is approved by unanimous vote. If prior to the voting there is some debate, it is essentially to support what the authorities have already proposed, never to debate it further or to change it.

This closed circular loop known as Cuban socialist democracy guarantees that nothing will change from one election to the next—even when names or secondary surnames** change after people pass away or fall from grace—keeping the principal figures eternally in power in spite of their mistakes and blunders. The population,committed to survival and protected by a double standard, participate in the voting process on a massive scale. They treat it as one more formality, knowing that nothing will change and that the outcome will not impact their daily lives, much less provide a solution to the nation’s problems.

A power that has no power lacks the ethical structure to support itself, and urgently needs to be brought up to date if all citizens, not just those chosen for their unconditional support of the “model,” are to actively participate political, economic and social life of the country. It must be able to make use of their knowledge, experiences and efforts.The nation is made up of all Cubans, wherever they may be, and not just the few.

*Translator’s note: In Spanish-speaking countries a person has two surnames – the father’s surname followed by the mother’s. The writer is hinting that political power can be passed down from father to son or daughter.

September 14 2012

Doing Business in Cuba Is Like Surfing Rough Seas / Ivan Garcia

For a business relying on foreign capital to succeed in Cuba, it is essential to create a web of friendships with influential people in the government. Everyone knows how you cultivate these relationships. With good whiskey, gourmet meals and especially with thousands of convertible pesos. For ten yearsRómulo (not his real name) was the right-hand man to an entrepreneur who ran furniture businesses on the island.

Among the annual business expenses were the soirees and buffets in which the guest of honor was the former first secretary of the Communist Party in the capital. “These pesos are what open the door to a series of bids and sales of equipment to state agencies. But there is a cost. I remember that as part of one contract we had to furnish the party’s provincial headquarters for free,” he said.

Established laws are not an obstacle to juicy commissions. In spite of the creation of an office to fight corruption, headed by Gladys Bejerano and charged with halting under-the-table deals and the flow of “black money,” the biggest problems for any businessman in Cuba are the complicated and extensive laws on foreign investments and the need to have powerful friends who can guarantee you a market monopoly.

The island is certainly not a good place for serious capitalists to invest. It is more of a field for adventurers. There are the regime’sbreaches of contract and absurd actions. At the drop of a hat they can shut down your business and confiscate all your equipment, or come up with a regulation that prevents you from withdrawing bank funds that exceed $10 million – a kind of corralito a la cubana.*

Doing business in Cuba is like surfing on rough seas. Another problem is the hiring of contract workers through a government agency. Having to pay the government 100% of each worker’s salary in hard currency, which in turn pays them poverty-level wages, means that theft and shoddy workmanship are the order of the day. Foreign business owners often solve the problem by paying their employees a little extra on the side, or by giving them baskets of food and other essential consumer goods. Capitalism in Cuba is business practiced among friends.

Brazil under Dilma Rousseff has changed bidding procedures by transforming the state into an entity that does not hire, but rather adjudicates and awards contracts based on the lowest bid, eliminating corruption in the bidding process. In contrastthe golden rulein the Cuba of GeneralRaúl Castro is to court influence with the regime’s officials by opening up the checkbook to make sure the machinery is running.

The more powerful the business partner, the better. In the 1990s, hotel investors likeMelíá were promoted by Fidel Castro himself, who unveiled several tourism projects. We are not seeing the worst; it is yet to come. Cuba’s legal system is set up to turn it into the worst version of unbridled capitalism, with factories where employees work for a dollar a day, and without independent labor unions to defend the workers’ rights.

Suspicious capital consortiums like RAFIN, the majority shareholder of ETECSA, the state-owned telecommunications company run by khaki-green businessmen, promise to be major players.** Now the GAESA group, led byLuis Alberto López-Calleja,son-in-law of RaúlCastro, controls a broad sector of the Cuban business world. In ten years we could go from a capitalism of friends to a capitalism of family members. Everything points to this.

Photo: The Shipsterns Bluff in Tasmania, Australia can reach heights of five meters and is one of the biggest and heaviest waves in the world. Source: correrolas.com

*Translator’s notes: Corralito, or corraling, refers to a series of measures taken by Argentina in 2001 to prevent a run on its banks.

**The Cuban state company Rafin S.A. recently bought Telecom Italia’s 27% share in ETECSA for $706 million. Khaki-green or olive-green is a term often used in Cuba in reference to the Castro-led government.

September 14 2012