14ymedio, Havana, 28 December 2016 – Cuban Faces of 2016: The name of Victor Mesa has filled the sports pages this year. The explosive and controversial baseball manager announced in February that he would no longer manage baseball in Cuba out of fear for his physical safety and that of his family. This statement came a few days after he beat up two students in Pinar del Rio, having confused them with another individual who criticized him.
In March, Mesa led the selection of the Cuban team against the Tampa Bay Rays, who played a friendly match at the Latin American Stadium in the presence of presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro. In November, the National Baseball Commission (DNB) reported that the Matanzas team manager had been disqualified for nine games because of “inappropriate behavior” in a game between his players and the team from Holguin.
With Mesa there are no half-tones. Followers of the national pastime love him or hate him. His last scandal came after the announcement of the Cuban team for the 4th World Baseball Classic (WBC) to be held next March. “Nobody approached the managers when it came time to come up with the 50 shortlisted,” criticized the manager of the Crocodiles.
Buying toys for their children on Three Kings Day is an major effort for most Cuban families. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 5 January 2017 – Chocolates, toys and technology star in the letters that Cuban children are writing to the Three Kings right now. The tradition of giving gifts to children on Epiphany, the 6th of January – the day the Three Kings are believed to have reached the manger to honor Jesus’ birth – arrived with force after decades of fierce atheism, but this year the economic crisis has cut the expectations of gifts.
Patricia, 28, works in a private day care center in Havana’s Miramar neighborhood. Last week she helped the children write letters addressed to Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar. “Most asked for electronic tablets, cars with batteries or video games,” she says. continue reading
The children at Patricia’s nursery are the children of parents with a high purchasing power: foreigners resident in the country or owners of private restaurants. They are willing to pay between 60 and 100 Cuban convertible pesos a month (about the same in dollars) for the care of their children and to satisfy all their whims for January 6.
However, the picture is very different in the vast majority of families. “I warned them that they have to ask for something cheap, because I have had many expenses,” says Yaimara, the mother of two girls, ages five and ten. The woman finished repairing the roof of her house and has been left in a complicated economic situation.
“The thing is, it’s not like before,” reflects Yaimara, who complains that “everything has gone up in price” and she cannot “reach into my wallet and buy toys, because now everything goes for food.”
A box with pieces to set up a small zoo costs 27.90 CUC, the monthly salary of a qualified state worker
The network of state markets is preparing for the occasion. The centrally located Carlos III Plaza in Havana has one of the toy stores most frequented lately. Inside, dolls compete with kitchen sets, costumes and small musical instruments.
A box with pieces to set up a small zoo costs 27.90 CUC, the monthly salary of a qualified state worker. Lower-income families buy plastic figurines or crystal marbles. “I’ve been saving up for this all year,” a grandmother told 14ymedio as she bought a truck with a tiny driver.
Others ask the Magi for food. “I want chocolates and soft drinks,” says Daniela, a sixth grader from a school in Cerro. Her parents warned her that “there is no money for toys” and the girl has adjusted her expectations in line with the family’s wallet.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the Government supplied subsidized toys through a rationed market for industrial products. With the fall of the Soviet Union that was eliminated. Those who were children then are now parents and juggle to meet the demands of their own children.
For them, informal commercial networks are an alternative. For 25 CUC, the Revolico classified site (a kind of Cuban Craigslist) offers Lego City sets* that include three small figures: a deep sea diver and two scuba divers. Cheaper options are inflatable balls for 3 CUC, jump ropes for only 1 CUC and teddy bears for less than 5 CUC.
*Translator’s note: The Lego Deep Sea Starter Set – which appears to be the set referred to – is available for less than $10 (in some cases much less) in the United States. 25 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) is roughly $25.
A member of the opposition movement Ladies in White is arrested during a demonstration on International Human Rights Day in December 2015. (EFE)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 5 January 2017 — The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), a dissident group, denounced today that it had documented at least 9,940 arbitrary arrests for “political reasons” in 2016, the highest figure of the last six years.
With a monthly average of 827 arrests, the opposition organization said that Cuba is in “first place” in Latin America for this type of “repressive action.”
In its monthly report, the CCDHRN reports that in December there were 458 arbitrary arrests of “peaceful dissidents,” up from 359 in the previous month, but a much lower figure than in other months of last year; data from January to April showed more than 1,000 arrests a month. continue reading
According to this organization, in December there were also 14 physical assaults by political repression groups against peaceful opponents, 37 acts of harassment and intimidation, and two acts of repudiation, “true civil lynchings without the loss of human lives until now.”
The CCDHRN documented, in December, 14 physical attacks by the political repression groups against peaceful opponents
The commission notes that the opposition groups most punished by this harassment are the Ladies in White, who march every Sunday to demand respect for human rights on the island, and the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU), which has suffered “vandalism and robbery by the police” at its headquarters in Santiago de Cuba and at the homes of some of its activists.
The CCDHRN also expressed concern over the situation of two political prisoners imprisoned since November: Eduado Cardet, coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, and Danilo Maldonado, the graffiti artist known as “El Sexto,” who is considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
“El Sexto” has been detained since the early hours of November 26 for painting “He’s gone” in a central place in Havana on the occasion of the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. He is being held in a maximum security prison without trial.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, led by the well-known dissident Elizardo Sánchez, is the only group to record and report the numbers of these incidents in Cuba.
The Cuban government considers dissidents “counterrevolutionaries” and “mercenaries.”
The absence of heavy armaments promoted an image of austerity, as did these troops dressed like soldiers from the last century. (Twitter)
14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Havana, 4 January 2017 – The March 2nd “military parade and combatants’ march,” dedicated to the late Fidel Castro and to Cuba’s youth, which lasted an hour and 40 minutes, offered four main messages: projecting an image of austerity; no aggressiveness towards the new American government of Donald Trump; demonstrating an image, unreal, of youthful engagement; and no internal changes. There may be others.
1-Projecting an image of austerity
The iconic yacht Granma, surrounded like sea waves with young “pioneers” and “mambisa” calvary, harking back to Cuba’s 19th century wars of independence, filled the parade, which was lacking in heavy armaments, cannons and tanks. Nor were there rockets or “strategic weapons.” Rather it was a review of the troops carrying their long rifles, state workers, many young people from military schools, and more than a few children organized to show broad respect for the newly deceased leader. continue reading
The absence of heavy and strategic long-range and mechanized armament promoted an image of austerity in the face of the serious economic situation that the Government has not hidden. Since the assumption of real power by Raul Castro, the traditional parades and speeches in the Plaza have been characterized by sobriety and speed.
2-No aggressiveness toward the new Trump Government
The speech for the occasion, evidently prepared under the direction of the Party-Government, was handed over to the meteor of the FEU (University Students Federation), Jennifer Bello, who is also a newly appointed member of the Council of State. The speech was marked by the “reaffirmation” of the traditional “principles,” especially in relations with the United States: the lifting of the blockade/embargo, the elimination of interventionist programs and the return of the Guantanamo naval base.
However, the absence of offensive weaponry may also be a sign of the interest in not showing any aggressiveness to the outside, particularly towards our neighbor to the North, at a time when a new tenant arrives at the White House.
This fact, incidentally, could be influenced by Putin’s Russia, which has just intelligently responded to President Barack Obama’s recent moves to oust 35 Russian intelligence officers for their alleged interference in the recent presidential elections in the United States. Putin decided to assume that this is an irrelevant act, and to wait for the relations between the two powers to assume a new rhythm with the inauguration of Donald Trump.
In sum, the discourse of the designated youth “leader,” along with the highlighting of the traditional policies toward Washington and the absence of offensive weaponry, would be sending a two-way message to Trump: “We do not want problems with the US, but we are not going to change.”
3- Show an image, unreal, of youthful engagement
Another message is intended to show a greater role of youth in the current stage of the “Revolution,” touched up by the presence of women younger than the average age of the “historicos”: Raul Castro, Machado Ventura, Ramiro Valdes and Guillermo Garcia who were in the reviewing stand.
However, it was damaged by the same old speech from the young star and by the fact that these four figures were the center of the choreography presiding over the parade, relegating to a secondary position, away from the center, Miguel Diaz Canel, who could indeed represent that younger blood in his position as vice-president.
The excessive image of youth engagement does not reflect reality, since the young woman gave the same speech, old in both form and content, while it is evident that those who identify themselves as the “historic generation,” decorate their surroundings with young faces who will be present only as long as they remain loyal.
I do not pretend that the irrelevance granted to the vice president suggests that he himself is in disgrace, but it does show that the young faces are only adornments and can be moved like dominos, or disappear, as long as they do not affect the power of the historical ones, certainly now that they lack their natural glue: Fidel Castro.
4- No internal changes
Finally, as a whole, the speech, the parade itself and its images carry a message of immobility: no substantial changes, no democratization and the repression against dissent and different thinking will continue.
The death of Fidel Castro does not bring freedom for the Cuban people. (EFE)
14ymedio, Jose Azel, Miami, 3 January 2017 — Raul Castro, in his one-minute announcement on Cuban television reporting the death of his brother, referred to Fidel Castro as “the founder of the Cuban Revolution.” The label of “founder” shows the unalterable faith of the regime in its continuity.
Fidel Castro, although a background presence, had been effectively out of power for a decade. Raúl has orchestrated an uninterrupted succession with himself as first secretary of the Communist Party, and people selected by him in the new generation of communist leadership.
This is the bittersweet reality for we Cubans who love liberty, and whom often believed in the slogan No Castro, no problem. Fidel Castro may be gone, but the regime remains structurally intact. The death of Fidel Castro does not bring freedom for the Cuban people. His legacy is that of thousands executed by firing squads, brutal repression, concentration camps, and every possible violation of human rights. He turn what was, in 1958, one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America into an impoverished dysfunctional state from which 20% of the population has escaped. continue reading
Fidel Castro may be gone, but the regime remains structurally intact
In addition, according to the report Freedom in the World by the organization Freedom House, Cuba remains the only country in the Americas considered “not free,” with ratings in the worst categories in terms of political rights and civil liberties. Even so, the Castro brothers are not dishonored as architects of this tragedy, but distinguished by the obsequiousness of many world leaders.
Cuba today is a nation with a discredited ideology, a declining senile leadership and a bankrupt economy. So what will be next for this tragic island? Let’s begin by examining what I call a culture of acquiescence.
Meme is a neologism coined by British scientist Richard Dawkins to explain how ideas and social behaviors are transmitted through non-genetic means, in contrast to genetic transmission. For example, a boy who is constantly exposed to domestic violence may come to accept violence as natural. In political science, I explain memes as sociocultural genes that help to understand how, in totalitarian societies, the presumption of power dethrones the presumption of freedom.
Usually, the use of power is not enough to preserve an oppressive regime. At some level there must be a tacit acceptance that the ruling class has some legitimacy to exercise power. In China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba, revolutionary mysticism linked to Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-Sung and Fidel Castro served to confer such legitimacy. Over time, the presumption of freedom is replaced with the acceptance of the legitimacy of tyrannical powers.
In China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba coercive power has engendered memes of acquiescence by accepting the widespread presumption that the leaders were born with the right to govern and people are born with an obligation to obey. This is also part of Fidel Castro’s legacy.
The “black swan” could be an unknown Václav Havel or Boris Yeltsin in the armed forces who is able to emerge and consolidate power as a true reformer
Thinking about post-Fidel Cuba it is essential to keep in mind that the history of the island in the last sixty years is the history of the Castro brothers and their ideas. The Raul Castro’s inner circle is not made up of cowering Democrats not waiting for the right moment to put into practice long-suppressed Jeffersonian ideals. His way of governing is inseparable from his ideology.
If we assume that change in Cuba will not come as a result of some intervention from the US or internationally (from the outside in), nor as a result of any upstream events like the Arab Spring, we are left only with change that comes down from above. That is, a change that originates in a leadership alien to democratic culture and imbued with a negative incentive towards democratic reforms.
Of course, the imponderable, the possibility of an improbable black swan, is always present. The black swan could be an unknown Václav Havel or a Boris Yeltsin in the Revolutionary Armed Forces who is able to emerge and consolidate power as a true reformer. However, at the current juncture, one does not see the possibility of moving towards liberal democracy, or even towards change.
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Editor ‘s Note: José Azel is a senior researcher at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami and author of Mañana in Cuba.
Home antenna for the reception and sending of WIFI signals, used in alternative connection networks. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 4 January 2017 – All one has to do is turn on a small wifi antenna and aim it toward the balcony for a computer screen to show the long list of wireless networks that link the entire neighborhood. Invisible threads that connect hundreds of users. The material support of this network are the NanoStations, Bullets, Rockets, Routers and Yagi antennas, the most coveted technological objects on the island.
“In that building over there, there are like nine networks,” says Ricardo, known as Rupert at the node he administers in the Havana’s Playa district, in the west of the city. The young man, with a degree in geography, decided one day to invest in several devices to send and receive wifi signals. In a short time he set up a network with more than 250 users. continue reading
“Before it was very difficult, because we couldn’t find the equipment, but now the market is saturated,” Rupert tells 14ymedio. Although no store in the country sells this type of technology, the informal market offers a wide range of receivers, wireless stations, antennas and even specialized technology for its mounting and configuration.
Customs rules that went into force in mid-2014 are very clear about the importing of data networking devices such as routers and switches. The regulation warns that in order to bring them into the country, the traveler “requires previous authorization from the Ministry of Communications,” but in practice the authorities do not always apply the established rules.
The Bullet is a device widely used by young Cubans for the creation of wifi networks. (14ymedio)
“There are workshifts where the customs officials are stricter and confiscate every NanoStation they detect, but others turn a blind eye because they end up with a lot of this equipment,” an employee of General Customs of the Republic who works at the international terminal of José Martí International Airport told this newspaper,
The worker, who requested anonymity, said that along with flat screen TVs, air conditioners and smartphones, the wireless communications devices are among the items most frequently brought in by the “mules” who operate on the short distance flights and import merchandise for the informal trade networks.
The equipment for wifi is shifting from satellite dishes. Although many families still choose the TV programming that arrives this way, a la carte consumption of audiovisuals is growing. The alternative wireless networks have joined the “weekly packet,” with a varied assortment of games, documentaries, courses and forums, where you can’t talk about politics and religion nor share pornography.
The advantage of the networking devices lies also in their discreet size and their ability to pass unnoticed. “Unlike an antenna, a Nanostation doesn’t raise any suspicion, it is small, it can be placed on a balcony and people who don’t know think it’s just a small white box that has been left there,” says Rupert. However, he notes there have been several police raids in his neighborhood to dismantle the networks, but says it is a long time since they’ve been back.
SNet, the biggest spider
StreetNet, abbreviated SNet, is the queen of the wireless webs that cut through Havana. It extends everywhere and its tentacles reach each neighborhood. In cities like Santa Clara, Cienfuegos, Pinar del Río and Santiago de Cuba, similar initiatives also operate. In the middle of this year, it was estimated that more than 30,000 users in the capital were plugged into SNet, but in recent months its growth has been strengthened by the arrival of more infrastructure.
SNet’s strong point is its social networks, which allow users to interact as they would on Facebook or Instagram, share files and play games. It contains more than fifty sites that work without having to connect to the internet and offers the ability of uploading or downloading heavy files through the FTP protocol.
But every king can be dethroned and SNet also has competition. “The smaller private networks are growing very fast,” Rupert told this newspaper. “People are looking for smaller virtual spaces where they can meet and share and now that anyone can put up a network, they don’t have to wait for an SNet administrator to give them a password to enter.”
For those who can’t afford the costs of a NanoBeam, one of the most ambitious teams of those who put up wifi networks, they can get inventive. Kirenia and her brother Amaury are dedicated to making Yagi-Uda directional antennas with a power of up to 19 dBi, the unit of measurement that describes the ability of the apparatus to capture and receive signals.
“At first we made an antenna to play on the web with some neighborhood friends, but then we started to sell it and now we have a lot of interested people,” says the young man, 21, a resident of Santiago de las Vegas in the south of the Cuban capital. He learned the rudiments of his work through “some manuals downloaded from the internet,” and since then he is passionate about designing the stylized anatomy of each antenna, which he offers for a price between 25 and 40 Cuban Convertible pesos (roughly the same amount in dollars).
“The one I’m doing now is for a customer who lives near an Etecsa (Cuban phone company) wifi network,” says Kirenia. “So you can tap into the network and navigate from the living room in your house,” she says, although “ideally there are no great obstacles in the way, like buildings or trees.”
In one of the countries with the lowest internet penetration in the world, reaching a Nauta wifi signal from the state service, installed in some plazas and parks of the country, becomes an obsession for the antenna “cacharreros,” as Karina calls them. “There are people who live several kilometers from one of these zones and who want to connect, but even though the antennas are good, they can’t do magic, because the signal often is not stable and there are many users connecting at the same time,” she reflects.
Currently, the island has 1,006 public internet browsing points, including 200 wifi zones, with a total of 250,000 users connecting every day, according to recent information released by the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (Etecsa).
Kirenia’s dream is to buy a LiteBeam, the ultimate “creature” to mount wireless networks that have entered the country illegally; it looks like a small satellite and reaches up to 23 dBi. With such a device she believes she can “make a powerful network to share a good volume of content.” The girl calls herself a “woman internaut.”
The arrival of the state-owned internet in homes could change the landscape of the alternative wireless networks. At the end of last year the government began a connection test with some 2,000 users of the popular councils in Catedral and Plaza Vieja in Old Havana, but the timetable for extending access has not yet been made public.
But while waiting for the great World Wide Web to connect them with the world, Rupert, Kirenia and her brother Amaury are already weaving invisible threads with their Yagi antennas, NanoStations and LiteBeams.
14ymedio, Havana, 30 December 2016 – Cuban Faces of 2016: Joanna Columbié’s baptism by fire began in September of 2015, when the dissident was detained to prevent her participation in the 2nd National Council of the political movement Somos+ (We Are More). With degrees in History and Nursing, Columbié was working at that time as an education methodologist in the municipality of Céspedes in Camagüey. Police pressures led to the loss of of her state job.
Columbié runs Academy 1010, an independent educational project that seeks to develop leadership skills among its students with a view to the nation’s political future. In the opinion of the opponent, “it would be a fatal mistake to come to democracy with people not prepared to assume it.”
Last November, the second session Academy 1010 was severely suppressed by State Security and several students were arrested. Columbié denounced the police siege. She is a member of the opposition Democratic Action Roundtable (MUAD) coalition and participated as an observer in the referendum on peace accords in Colombia.
In Havana, there have been great shortages in construction materials since last November.
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 3 January 2017 – This week Luisa Camejo’s biggest headache will be getting the rebar she’s lacking. For months she’s been piling up stacks of cement, bricks and other materials to build an improvised room in the Cerro district of Havana. If she’s lucky she’ll soon finish her house built with her own efforts, in a year when the state plans to build fewer than 10,000 houses on the entire island.
The authorities recognize that the housing problem is the primary social need in Cuba – analysts estimate the deficit at some 600,000 homes – but in the last decade the number of homes built has fallen by 20%. In 2006, there was a historic peak of 111,373 housing units erected, but by the end of 2015 the total barely exceeded 23,000, more than half of which were built through private efforts. continue reading
With the gloomy economic announcements in the last session of the National Assembly, alarms have also been set off about the development of the housing fund in the short and medium term. In his speech to the parliamentarians, Minister of Economy and Planning Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz declared that in the next twelve months the state will only finish some 9,700 homes.
The areas prioritized for the new buildings coincide with the five municipalities affected by Hurricane Matthew in its passage across Guantanamo province, a region where more than 38,000 homes were totally or partially destroyed, and for which the government is raising international aid to rebuild them.
Homes built between 2006 and 2015. (14ymedio)
The Alaves Emergency Fund, established by the Provincial Council of Alava and the Municipality of Vitoria, in Spain’s Basque Country, just announced it will allocate 52,000 euros for schools and workplaces in the area of Cuba affected by the hurricane, but foreign aid is barely a drop in the ocean of Cuba’s housing deficit.
The difficult situation facing thousands of families has led many to stop waiting for the state’s construction plans – in the style of those undertaken in the years of the Soviet subsidy – and to seek their own solutions. A tortuous road, where the obstacles range from getting the materials to the cost of labor.
Luisa, 61, lived for six years in a place that she, her two daughters and her husband sneaked into. “There was no bathroom and we had to see to our needs in a can and empty it every day,” she tells 14ymedio. With the 2011 enactment of the law that allows the buying and selling of houses, Camejo acquired a small piece of land near Sports City, with a rickety wooden house on it
These last three years she has dedicated to construction, spending full time locating and acquiring the materials for the house, supervising the brick layers and making with her own hands everything from formwork to mortar. “We are living amid dust and sacks, but at least it’s mine,” she reflects. So far, she has spent 2,000 Cuban Convertible pesos, a decade’s worth of the salary from her former job as a teacher, from which she retired a couple of years ago.
In the middle of last year Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, vice-president of the Councils of State and of Ministers, made clear that the solution to the problem of the house in the country resides “in individual effort”
At the beginning of the century, Vice President Carlos Lage was the official functionary in charge of the housing program. The goal, in those years, was to build 150,000 houses a year to relieve the problem. Luisa hoped to benefit from an apartment in a microbrigade building built by a social contingent, but the brief economic flourishing the island experienced with aid from Venezuela was extinguished shortly thereafter.
“We realize we have to solve this problem ourselves,” she comments. Shortly afterwards, Lage was ousted and no other face of the government took on the public commitment to families needing a roof.
Instead, in the middle of last year, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, also vice-president of the Councils of States and of Ministers, made it clear that the solution to the housing problem in the country resides “in individual effort.”
Despite the attention, the result is insufficient. The retired teacher is now worried about problems with the supply of construction materials, with the east of the island given priority, according to decisions made in the capital. “We have a lot of problems getting pipes and everything related to electrical installation,” she explains. She also needs “tiles, concrete glue and gravel.”
Since last November, there have been weeks of shortages of building materials in Havana, a situation that could slow even further the completion of construction projects. But Luisa seems determined to finishing her own personal plan. “This year my bathroom and my own shower, even if I have to tile it with my own hands.”
Norma’s mangoes fruited this year in January instead of summer. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 January 2017 – The flag that waves in the breeze or a cloudless sunrise on the first day of January, are seen by the people of Santiago as good omens for the year to some. But Norma Santiesteban, 77, has her own source of prognostication. The mango bush in her backyard is bearing fruits that, only in 2017, arrived outside the season, which is usually limited to the summer.
Cuban peasants have woven a thousand and one rural myths around mangoes. When the trees are loaded with flowers, the aged prophesy that it will be a year “with little food.” On the other hand, if in April the branches are bent under the weight of dozens of small fruits, then the guajiros smile and predict economic abundance for their fields.
Norma, born on La Fortuna Farm in the Sierra Maestra, still does not know how to interpret the whims of her backyard. At the moment she has begun to pick some mangoes, although they are still green, for fear that “the children of the neighborhood” will climb the tree to grab them.
With the alarming situation facing the Cuban economy and the somber forecasts announced in the National Assembly, Norma is taking advantage of the sudden whims of nature that has brought her mangoes in January.
The assembled should not have been all those excluded by the official discourse. Placard: “I am Cuba, Fidel, Revolution” (Twitter)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 3 January 2017 — The images from the January 2nd parade and the march of the “combative people” provoked questions in many: Who are these Cubans who went to the Plaza of the Revolution? What characteristics define those who awoke at dawn, shouted slogans in front of the podium or marched diligently carrying a pro-government placard?
The official press defines them with positive adjectives – grateful, loyal, combative – and includes them in slogan of the day, which each of them repeated on Monday: “I am Fidel.” But it is also possible to draw the contours of their nature from what they are not, or at least what they should not be… continue reading
It is clear that in the wide esplanade, in the shadow of the Ministry of the Interior, missing were those who maintain political differences with the Government or those who did not have the desire to fake overwhelming revolutionary enthusiasm. Those who still had an end-of-year hangover and could not drag themselves out of bed so early are also on this list.
If we take at face value officialdom’s description of the faithful gathered there, nor should we concur that they include that “anti-social scourge who neither study nor work”
However, if we take at face value officialdom’s description of the faithful gathered there, nor should we concur that they included that “anti-social scourge who neither study nor work,” a group whose principle ideology is survival and who label “on the left” (as in “under the table”) everything that is done outside the law to survive the rigors of daily life.
It is assumed that those in the Plaza included none of the many who traffic in tractor and bus fuel, “diverted” from those uses. Nor even the negotiators in gas and oil “extracted” from electricity generation equipment, freight transport and state-owned vehicles, who resell the product to the drivers of private vehicles.
In that mass of inflamed people one assumes there were no faces of those who sell food or personal hygiene products “diverted” from kindergartens, hospitals, schools, workers’ cafeterias and even prisons and military units. Because “these kinds of people” had no place in a march called for the unimpeachable.
Under that logic, among the combative construction workers none of those who marched feed the black market with cement, sand, bricks, bathroom fixtures, cables, electrical outlets and all the other things extracted from state-owned works. Not to mention those who commit the crime of buying “diverted” resources to repair their homes.
Among the seniors, who represented those who worked on the literacy campaign, former militiamen or internationalist fighters, none should have been the elderly who buy newspapers from the state kiosks at 20 centavos and resell them for one peso. Nor would there have been any retirees who, at the doors of the markets, offer at retail prices cigarettes, plastic bags, coffee and spaghetti, taken from what they receive on the ration book, to round out their pensions.
Among the thousands of children and teenagers who waved flags, carried banners and chanted slogans there was no space for those who sell their bodies to tourists or who dream of leaving the country
The list of those who – under no circumstances – should have been part of the rally organized by the government on Monday could be extended ad infinitum. In those tight ranks there was no room for the unproductive, for negligent service workers, for those who manipulate weights in the markets, or for the administrators who fix the numbers before the auditors show up.
Among the thousands of children and teenagers who waved flags, carried banners and chanted slogans there was no space for those who sell their bodies to tourists or who dream of leaving the country, whether by crossing the Straits of Florida or crossing the jungles of Central America, not to mention through a loveless marriage to a foreigner.
Nor expected to show up would be those who buy the test for admission to higher education or falsify a medical certificate to escape military service.
And also missing should be those who star in that phenomenon the official media calls a “crisis of values” and exemplify it with the use of “symbols alien to our culture,” like celebrating Halloween, preferring soccer over baseball or wearing a T-shirt with the American flag on it.
If none of these types excluded from the official discourse, stigmatized by propaganda and condemned by the system, marched this Monday… who, then, filled the Plaza?
Jose Ramirez Pantoja, Holguin Radio journalist and author of the blog Verdadecuba. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 27 December 2016 – Cuban faces of 2016: The journalist José Ramírez Pantoja starred this year in one of the most publicized cases of censorship within the official press. The reporter was fired from his job at Radio Holguin after being accused of printing on his personal blog the words of Karina Marron, vice president of the official newspaper Granma, who expressed concern at a union meeting about a possible social explosion like the 1994 Maleconazo.
Ramírez Pantoja says that the injustice committed against him has led him to consider the need for a journalism that is more serious and committed to people’s needs.
The Granma Memorial originally opened its doors on December 1, 1976. (Tripadvisor)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 30 December 2016 — The Granma Memorial, an open-air exhibition that shows the namesake* yacht along with other vehicles and weapons, reopened Thursday in Havana after undergoing a comprehensive restoration to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the expedition led by Fidel Castro.
The site, located on the grounds of the former Presidential Palace which is now the Museum of the Revolution in Old Havana, was completely renovated with an “attractive museography” that changed the way the pieces are exposed, according to a statement from the state-run Cuban News Agency. continue reading
The repairs included a new lighting system that “offers greater splendor, a better image and perception of the historic yacht,” the replacement of hydraulic networks and air conditioning, work on the garden and the paving of the interior street.
The Granma Memorial was inaugurated on 1 December 1976, with a collection which highlights the yacht in which Fidel Castro, his brother and current president Raul Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara and others traveled from Mexico to Cuba.
The boat is displayed in a heated glass facility “for better preservation.”
The Granma left from Mexico with more than 80 men who landed in eastern Cuba on 2 December 1956, to become the germ of what later would be the Rebel Army with Fidel at the head, and which would triumphantly enter Havana a little more than two years later.
The ship is considered a symbol of the Revolution and its replica will be in the parade on 2 January 2017, in the mass march that will celebrate the anniversary.
This commemorative parade of the triumph of the Revolution is usually held every December 2nd, but this year was postponed a month due to the mourning period for the death of Fidel Castro on 25 November at age 90.
Also carrying the name Granma is the country’s most important newspaper, the organ of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba (the only party permitted in the country), and a province on the east of the island.
The site, which receives more than 500 visitors daily, also shows pieces related to historical events of the 20th century on the island, including two aircraft, one of them captured by the Rebel Army during the fighting in the eastern Sierra Maestra.
The second, a Seafury model, was one of the few aircraft of the revolutionary fleet that faced the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
Also on display are vehicles used in the last war by Camilo Cienfuegos, Ernesto Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Juan Almeida, some with bullet holes.
Also featured is the red truck that carried a group of young people who stormed the Presidential Palace and attempted to assassinate then President Fulgencio Batista, on 13 March 1957 and the turbine of an American U-2, shot down by the Cubans while it was spying on the island during the Missile Crisis in October 1962.
Nearby is the Monument to the Eternal Heroes of the New Homeland, with an “eternal flame” that was lit by Fidel on 19 April 1989.
*Translator’s note: The yacht, owned by an American in Mexico, was named ‘Granma’ when the revolutionaries bought it and they did not rename it; instead they ended up naming things in Cuba after that American’s affectionate moniker for his grandmother.
Raúl Castro with senior level government staff greets the crowd from the stand in the Plaza of the Revolution. (EFE)
14ymedio, Mario Penton, 2 January 2017 – With a military march and a “parade of the fighting people” the new year dawns in Cuba. This time there were no tanks in the Plaza of the Revolution, but thousands of Cubans were taken there from their workplaces in order to demonstrate unity with the Communist Party and the figure of Raul Castro in the absence of his brother Fidel, who died on 25 November of last year.
The event was dedicated to the young, “those who are carrying on the work of the Revolution,” to the deceased leader and to the disembarkation from the yacht Granma, which in 1956 brought a handful of revolutionaries from Mexico to Cuba who overthrew the government of Fulgencia Batista. All this in a year that is called ‘complicated’ after a fall of 0.9% in the GDP, which reflects the failures of the Raulist reforms and resurrects the old ghosts of the Special Period. continue reading
“It is ironic that they dedicate this demonstration to young people, because they are the first ones who are escaping to wherever they can because that don’t see hope or any possibility of progress in Cuba,” says Manuel Perez, a young Cuban psychologist who emigrated to Argentina looking for better work opportunities.
Residence awarded to Cubans in the U.S. (2010-2015). Upper line: Number of residents. Lower line: Number of arrivals by land.
Carlos Amel Oliva, youth leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), shares this view.
For Oliva, the Cuban government is in the midst of “a campaign whose strategy is well thought out” to revive nationalism among young people, following the ideological vacuum left by the reestablishment of relations with the United States.
“Young people are indifferent to these old demonstrations. The only thing that interests many young Cubans is to escape to any country to find what they cannot find in theirs,” he says.
In the last three years more than 100,000 Cubans have arrived in the United States by various means to avail themselves of the Cuban Adjustment Act and obtain residence in that country. A large proportion of these migrants are young or of working age, which increases the problem of the aging of the population on the island. In 2025 Cuba will be the oldest country on the continent in demographic terms.
Negative migration balances, coupled with a low level of fertility, the already obsolete just-opened technology park, and the scarcity of foreign investments, which amounted to scarcely 6.5% of what was planned, constitute serious problems facing the country. Added to that is the crisis in Venezuela, the Cuban government’s main ally, which has substantially reduced trade with the country, according to official data.
Cuban trade with Venezuela. Blue: Commercial trade with Venezuela. Green: Cuban exports to Venezuela. Red: Imports from Venezuela.
“When the enemy disappeared, there was no one to fight against. That is something that should be given much attention and hopefully the US administration will maintain an intelligent discourse and offer no reason to revive the old Cold War discourse,” says Oliva, 29, who opposes the regime. This Unpacu leader believes that the warlike message was also addressed to the US government.
For Arnoldo A. Muller, president of the Social Democratic Co-ordination of Cuba, a Cuban opposition organization attached to Cuban Consensus, an umbrella organization that brings together several organizations in exile, the January 2nd march “is a demonstration of strength.”
“They want to maintain the continuity of the system and do not want change. It is a message about who has military control over the country, the regime makes it known to the people that Castroism continues,” he says.
The military parade was barely able to count on some troops trying to recall the significant moments of Cuban independence battles and the struggles against the government of Fulgencio Batista. Transportation in the city was focused on bringing thousands of people from their workplaces, and there were reports of traffic jams due to the terrible state of Havana’s main arteries.
From the province of Pinar del Rio, Dagoberto Valdés, director of the Center for Coexistence Studies, adds that military parades “are a throwback to the culture of war” and “the legacy of a history that has been written about warlike events and not about the development of civil society.”
For Valdes, it is a manifestation “of that tradition that has believed that the triumph of the Cuban nation is to make it strong as a Republic in Arms and not as a Republic of Souls.”
Valdés believes that, on the contrary, it is necessary to “change the logic of war for that of peace, the inheritance of war for the ethical inheritance, the building of the republic over virtue and love.”
Meeting in Havana between the teams negotiating the peace in Colombia. (@ComputerPazGob) (TranslatingCuba Ed. note: … the all-male teams….)
14ymedio, Sergio Segura, 2 January 2017 – Cuba is no longer subordinate to the dictates of the man who imposed his will for more than half a century. The time has come to talk to the people, to recognize and give public voice to those who manifest different opinions.
The departure of an autocrat by natural death has very positive precedents in history. Changes occur peacefully, through dialogue and consensus. The most beautiful of these transformations occurred in Spain after the death of Franco. The case of Pinochet in Chile could also light the path of those who remain at the head of the Cuban Government at this time. The end of Ceausescu and his family, for refusing to hand over power to a people tired of his dictatorship, was pitiful.
It is not violence that Cubans on the island want, as they aspire to maintain several social achievements created by the Revolution in a new Republic, where the dream of José Martí – whom we Cubans of all stripes call our Apostle – is realized: With all and for the good of all.
It would do no harm to advise the opposition groups – which are many – to send a request to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos asking that, in reciprocity for the attitude of the Cuban Government as a mediator for his country to achieve a final peace, he brings to a table of dialog in Colombia, in a respectful and impartial manner, negotiators from the Cuban regime and the country’s internal dissidence to reach a constructive agreement for the election of who will be, on 24 February 2018, the next president of our Republic.
14ymedio, Havana, 28 December 2016 – Cuban Faces of 2016: The name of Victor Mesa has filled the sports pages this year. The explosive and controversial baseball manager announced in February that he would no longer manage baseball in Cuba out of fear for his physical safety and that of his family. This statement came a few days after he beat up two students in Pinar del Rio, having confused them with another individual who criticized him.
