Author: Iván García

Although the news conference focused only on the return of the three imprisoned spies, ETESCA employees clandestinely copied onto flash drives online posts outlining the White House’s new direction for U.S. foreign policy, which is intended to help empower Cuba’s emerging civil society and small business sector.

The country’s military rulers reacted with astonishing indifference to Obama’s new strategy and executive actions as they relate to the embargo. The Castros live in a parallel universe.

They are not sure what to do with the ball at their feet. The best thing the Communist Party bureau that controls the news could do was to present a rosy portrait of the three espionage agents.

As the drama was quickly unfolding, it became clear that Obama was taking his landmark decision seriously. On Thursday, January 15 Washington announced a package of measures clearly intended to benefit ordinary people as well as Cuba’s emerging private business sector.

In this instance Noemi and her colleagues had to do their own searches for the information. “At first there was a sense of celebration over the return of the three spies, but not now. It’s not being talked about it. We had to secretly surf the internet and copy news articles that are important to Cubans,” she says during her lunch break. 

There were no reports on the story on national radio and television news shows. By 1PM the top headlines were the new denominations of Cuban currency, the preparations for the January 28 torchlight march and, in international news, the annual United Nations’ water conference in Zaragoza, Spain.

Despite the poor media coverage, Osmin, who owns a candy store in the Santos Suarez neighborhood, was commenting on the good news with some clients by 2PM.

“I found out about it from a neighbor who has an illegal cable antenna. It’s unbelievable that the government still has not reported the news. I get the impression they are a bit disoriented, that it has not sunk in yet. These measures open the door to small business being able to secure credit, though it won’t be an option if they don’t authorize it,” he points out.

In a shopping mall at Puentes Grandes and 26th Avenue, four young men with garishly colored headphones around their necks are surfing the web in an internet cafe. Though engrossed in the match between Real Madrid and Atletico match for the Copa del Rey, they had heard the scoop.

“I think it’s great that the Americans have changed course and adopted a new strategy. Now we’ll see what our government has to say. It’s pointless to import information technology and cell phones if the state sells them at unaffordable prices,” says one of the young men.

His comment provokes a small debate. Osvaldo, a doctor who regularly goes online once a week to send emails to his son in Ecuador, thinks the government’s reaction is deceptive.

“The focus has been only on the release of the agents. Everything else, including the measures announced today, evokes more fear than joy. It’s not in tune with the average, ordinary citizen, who is usually optimistic about each new breakthrough. For fifty-four years the government has blamed all it failures on the United States. People need the government to provide its official version of events and outline the strategy it plans to follow,” says the Havana resident.

Josefa, a housewife, heard the news during a phone call from Miami at the time she heard about the birth of her grandson: “I was told they are thinking about revoking the airlines’ licenses. I hope this lowers the cost of a ticket. Flying from Havana to Miami is too expensive: 422 CUC for a flight that lasts less than an hour. To make this happen will require good will from the Cuban side. But I am afraid these people (the regime) are only interested in money and power.”

In a small park in Casino, a neighborhood in the Cerro district twenty-five minutes from central Havana, two friends kill time playing chess. “I heard about it at breakfast,” says one. “The government couldn’t care less about Obama’s policy; they will adopt only what suits them. And, apparently, they want to retain control of the economy, finance and people’s lives. As long as this caste of elders remains in power, nothing will change. The best thing about Obama’s policy is that it unmasks them.”

It remains to be seen whether the new measures adopted by the United States will be able to destroy the Castro regime’s potent blockade of economic autonomy and political freedom for its citizens.

A month after December 17 average Cubans are no longer quite so optimistic.

Ivan Garcia

Photo: A woman wearing clothes featuring the American flag walks through Havana. At one point such actions were prohibited, so Cubans often wore hats, shirts, shorts and leggings with American symbols cautiously. As of December 17, however, they are on open display in streets throughout the island. Source: Terra, EFE.

17 January 2015

There is no other nation on earth where the child of immigrants can aspire to a seat in the Senate or consider a run for the presidency. While in other countries foreigners might remain foreigners for generations or perhaps for their entire lives, in the United States if you work hard and are daring, talented and creative, you have a 99% chance of success.

No one in the United States questions these qualities of being in the forefront and uniqueness. Ask any Cuban, Colombian, Brazilian or Russian resident in Miami.

Things can go badly, but it is always possible for those with dedication and talent to get ahead. Cubans fled to this warm coastal town after Fidel Castro took power at gunpoint in January 1959.

Members of Cuba’s elite — distinguished architects, accomplished physicians, people who knew how to generate wealth — arrived here in the 1960s.

They turned a peaceful swampland where retirees came to live out their days into the proud city that is today’s Miami. Of course, immigrants from around the world also made their own contributions.

But numbers and statistics do not lie. Several members of the US Congress are from Cuba. Florida legislators as well as numerous mayors and public officials are also of Cuban descent.

The ascent of Miami’s Cubans is a palpable demonstration of the centrifugal forces that are unleashed by political and economic freedom. Ninety miles from Miami lies Havana.

It is a metropolis which fifty-six years ago was beyond comparison to Miami or any other city in Latin America.  Havana always was and still is a beguiling city despite its decay.

Havana has an urban layout better than that of Miami. It is a pedestrian-oriented city with miles of colonnaded arcades impossible to find in the sunny American city.

Downtown Miami, replete with skyscrapers, recalls Havana’s Vedado district in the 1950s, when construction began on a slew of technologically advanced tall buildings.

At that time Havana had three tunnels as well as several casinos and bars where the likes of Bebo Valdes sang boleros and played piano.

Whether you like it or not, the triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution brought on a regression in the urban order. If Castro come to power in 2014 rather than 1959, Havana would have been a magnificent capital, with skyscrapers all along its coast and examples of its unique architecture mixed in, much like San Juan.

But it was not to be. By cutting off generations of riches at their roots and centralizing the economy, Castro opened the floodgates, so that the most talented people abandoned the country. The strength of all that creativity and hard work planted the flag in Miami.

As you tour the city and see Miami Beach, the Marlin’s baseball stadium, the Heat’s American Airlines Stadium, the Brickell financial center and the recent additions to the port, you cannot help but be impressed with the vitality of its inhabitants.

Clean, well-lit streets, a lot of greenery and quality infrastructure. There are always flaws. Urban transport is disgusting; there are beggars and Little Haiti is scary.

Neighborhoods look like designs in the Sims game. Pretty, tidy and recently painted. Although not as solid as those residences in Miramar, Jaimanitas and Fontaner in Havana which were built by the relatives of those Cubans who today live in Coral Gables, Hialeah or Doral in Miami.

Miami is the key to the survival of the olive-green autocracy. The billions of dollars and the merchandise are a blood transfusion for the regime and poor relatives in Cuba.

Cubans on the other side of the Straits, shortly after arriving, notice the difference. They are still talking with that crazy accent that mistreats the Castilian language.

They still talk too loud and some have taken with them, to the Florida media the bad taste and kitsch inherited from a system that spread mediocrity. But they are free citizens.

They rant equally about the Castros and Obama. About learning how to manage economically and legally in capitalism. Because the United States is a not a country, it’s a business. And the newcomer is taught how to deal with debts and taxes.

Miami is what Havana couldn’t be. With an excess of light, an abundance of food, and without Fidel Castro.

Ivan Garcia

Photo: Aerial view of Miami. Taken from the blog Gorge Mess.

Notebook of a Journey (VI)

30 December 2014

“Endless tirades in the Granma and Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) newspapers, books, conferences about his life and work. Probably a museum opening, several effigies throughout the country and its cities, and important speeches everywhere.

“His intangible presence would once again be imposed on Cuban life, and we already have too little money, food, and lack a future,” said Norge, gesticulating with his hands.

Fidel Castro is a controversial figure. He is loved and hated with the same intensity. To his devotees, he is beyond good or evil. To his detractors, is to blame for the economic disaster in Cuba, the housing shortage and the fourth world infrastructure.

For 47 years he ruled the destiny of the Island with an iron fist. His revolution put more emphasis on politics than economics. He curtailed freedom of speech and press and eliminated habeas corpus.

He administered the country like his private ranch. He had unlimited powers. Without consulting the ministers, the bland national parliament, or his citizens, he opened the public coffers to build a center for biotechnology, bomb shelters or to buy in Africa a herd of buffaloes and experiment with their milk.

He led the nation at the blow of campaigns. One morning he would mobilize the country to sow coffee, bananas, and to build a hundred nursery schools.

In foreign policy his was a subversive strategy. Until he came to power, a Latin American leader never spent so much money and resources trying to export a social model.

Between 1960 and 1990, Castro sent troops or advisers to a dozen African countries. Also a tank brigade to Syria in the Yom Kippur War with Israel in 1973.

He had a huge reserve of cars, trucks or canned sardines. From a mansion in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood, sitting in a black leather swivel chair, he directed from a distance the civil war in Angola. Like a neighborhood bodega owner, he was fully informed about the ranch consumed by the troops who took part in the battle of Cuito Canavale, south of Angola.

He was punctilious. His interlocutors, simple wax sculptures maintaining a parallel government at his orders, diverting the nation’s funds to achieve some of his whims.

Frequently walking through an underground passage that connected his office with the newsroom of the newspaper Granma, he wrote extensive reports, changed the layout, or edited the news.

In times of hurricanes, he moved to the Institute of Meteorology, in Casablanca, across the bay of Havana, and from there predicted the likely direction of a cyclone.

Or he moved aside the manager of the national baseball team to personally outline strategies to follow in a game of Cuba against the Baltimore Orioles.

For 47 years, Fidel Castro was undisputed star in the administration of Cuba. In all its facets. After his retirement due to illness in 2006, he dedicated himself to writing extravagant reflections which augured the end of the world and investigating the ‘exceptional’ properties of moringa..

The latest news of Fidel Castro was written in the newspaper Granma analyzing a New York Times editorial on Cuba. After three months of silence, in recent days rumors of his death have filled the international media.

Perhaps the dither started in Twitter when the former Kenyan minister and leader of that country’s opposition, Raila Odinga, on 4 January announced the death of this 41-year-old son, named Fidel Castro Odinga.

But the truth is that the old guerrilla has not publicly opined on the landmark agreement of 17 December between Havana and Washington. And he hasn’t even taken a photo with the three Cuban spies imprisoned in the United States, whose return to the island has been one of his political priorities since 1998.

While the world sounds the alarms, the sensation among many ordinary Cubans is that they prefer a low-news-profile Fidel Castro.

“Let him die when God wills. Quietly is better. He already talked a lot. He was too intrusive and the protagonist in our lives for nearly 50 years,” says Daniel, driver of urban buses in Havana.

The stressful daily work in Cuba offers little room for speculation about the health of the former commander-in-chief. Juliana, retired, expects the news any moment. “He’s probably not in good health. But they’ve killed him so many times in Miami, that when he does really die people are not going to believe it.”

In the past nine years, Castro I has passed to being a minor player in national politics. Many people appreciate it and wonder what would change in Cuba’s situation after his death.

If there’s something the regime knows how to sell, it is that Castroism will persevere after Fidel.

Iván García

Photo: Fidel Castro on January 8, 2014, when he attended the inauguration of Kcho’s art in the Romerillo neighborhood in the Playa municipality, Havana. Taken from Giornalettismo.

13 January 2015

In one of the pavilions at Miami’s International Book Fair, Hector Carrillo, Radio Marti producer, told me about his father, a notable architect, who lost all his properties and one autumn night died far from the country that saw his birth.

His “sin” had been to create riches and design architectural spaces that once made Havana a cosmopolitan city. Carrillo was born in the United States, but he felt Cuban. He eats black beans and drinks Cuban-style coffee.

The film critic Alejandro Rios, a more recent immigrant, who probably didn’t lose any family member at the execution wall or in a Castro-regime dungeon, also has his demons in tow. He grew up and became a man in a Havana neighborhood, breakfasting on coffee without milk and with a mother who darned his father’s old socks so his brothers could go to school.

Unlike the previous compatriots, Juan Juan Almeida grew up as an olive-green bob vivant. Shops and entertainment at his fingertips. When, in the ’90s, people were suffering malnutrition and daily 12-hour black outs, the families of the nomenklatura, among whom was Almeida’s father, continued drinking Scotch, sleeping with high-class prostitutes, and fishing from yachts. That did not prevent Juan Juan from suffering the despotism of Raul Castro.

Four generations that have come to dissent against the Castro’s by different paths. And with different narratives, bet on a democratic future for Cuba.

The most important thing is not what viewpoint should prevail. In these 56 years, in one way or another, we have lost something. From our condition as free men to irrelevant citizens.

The government never asked us permission when the time came to trace their grotesques policies. We always should accept, without question, their strategies. Boarding schools in the countryside. African wars, verbal lynchings towards people who left Cuba, and systematic campaigns against the “enemies of the people”: nothing more and nothing less than ten White House administrations.

Ask any Cuban if they didn’t applaud the promises and illusions of a deceit.

President Obama’s new policies will not change the rabidly totalitarian mentality of a litter of old men who rule our destinies. But there are several Trojan Horses.

The United States needed to throw overboard that weighty and counterproductive foreign policy ballast. In the world, they ask others to support their crusade for democracy.

The United States has been, and is, a paradigm of freedoms. The mambises generals of the War of Independence asked the United States for help to free themselves from Spanish colonialism.

The United States thinks and acts according to its geopolitical interests. I will continue to bet on democracy and human rights on the planet, but behind it is the stage of the gunboats or installing satraps at the convenience of Washington.

The new rules of the game open up a formidable framework of options for the Island’s dissidence. That can take advantage. Now the regime has no pretext as a country under siege.

The time for the Cuban opposition to pass on the offensive is past. And trace a coherent political strategy which it can shout out to a wide segment of the population.

It’s time to demand a place in the political establishment. It has every right in the world to govern. Especially when 56 years of Castro regime socialism has been a disaster.

There are many issues that affect the citizenry, the dissidence could wave them as a political flag. How can the government now justify excessive taxation on private work. Or the prohibitions on 3D cinemas and private stores.

There is almost unanimous agreement among Cubans, that the prices in the convertible peso stores are absurd and exaggerated for a working population that, on average, collects a monthly salary of $20.

Yes, there is a United States embargo. But why not debate the internal blockade against creativity, freedom of expression, politics and economy in our society.

Will they lower the science-fiction level prices of cars for sale? Will the lower the five-dollar-an-hour cost of navigating the internet? Will they eliminate the irrational customs taxes and fees.

Will the repeal the dark gag law, that calls for 30 years in prison for dissidents and free journalists?

Now the dissidence can, joining the clamor of the majority, be a sounding board and force the State to raise the miserable wages, authorize independent unions, the right to strike, and allow free contracting for labor and direct payment of wages by foreign businesses.*

If they are in tune with the feelings of ordinary Cubans, the dissidents will add followers and gain spaces. It’s quite probably that the government, still intoxicated by their diplomatic triumph, will not cede. And it will maintain control of the media and harass the opposition.

According to Raul Castro’s latest discourse at the closing of the monotone national parliament, nothing will change.

The regime is not going to give anything. It never did. Certain rights will have to be grabbed.

*Translator’s note: Under current law, foreign-owned businesses must contract with the government for labor and workers are paid only a small portion of what the businesses pay the government.

4 January 2015

Among several ordinary Cubans consulted, no one could offer a coherent narrative for why the next 12 months will be different. Perhaps a conditioned reflex. A hunch.

A fat and sweaty truckdriver, shirtless and sitting on his vehicle’s fender offered a clue. “In 2015 things change or we’re fucked. I believe that what happened on December 17 is the certification of the death of the revolution. I don’t know how the pieces fit into place. But Socialism and the New Man are on their way to the cemetery. Capitalism arrived, sneakily, and administered by the usual suspects. In the coming year important things will happen,” he predicts. He takes a sip of Mayabe beer and bets 20 CUC with a friend, that his premonition will come true.

The majority of Cubans are overflowing with optimism. Unlike December 2013, the principal topic of conversation is not the unattainable pork, at 35 pesos a pound, the Spanish nougat at 3.50 and four CUC, and a bottle of red wine costing of week’s wages.

According to Anselmo, retired military, “We are heading to democracy. I don’t know what the road will be. But Raul Castro is the undertaker of a system that didn’t work. There will be no more disproportionate army and spending so much money on the defense of the country for a supposed threat from the United States. The day after the door opens, I promise you they will not be able to close it.”

Nancy, economist, draws the future in her mind. “The coming year they are going to unify the two currencies. 90% of the service units (government enterprises) will become private sector or cooperatives. According to the level of foreign investments, a portion of the workers will receive six times their current salary. It’s still not perfect, But what matters is that we are starting to move. The stage of everything being a disaster and blaming all the economic failures on the Yankee blockade (embargo) is over.”

Despite the expectations, many Havanans continue working on the paperwork for their final departure from the country. Even more urgently than before. Sergio, self-employed, is one of them. “In 2015 Obama can repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act. Then we are going to be up the creek without a paddle. If it is the will of the government on the island, things can get better. But I prefer to be on the other side looking back at the scene. If the Cuban reality changes and there are options created to progress, I will return. I hope that the regime will change some of the immigration laws. And that we will never lose our status as Cubans.”

Evening falls in Havana. And the movement of people buying gifts, drinks and food to celebrate 2015 with their families continues. It has always been this way

What’s new is that for the first time, the new year could bring a positive turn to their lives. You can judge it according to how you see it. For some the glass is half empty. For others half-full.

The sensation that is palpable when you walk through the city and talk with people is that hope has returned.

Iván García

A sympathetic guy who spoke horrible Spanish. When he learned we were journalists, four from Venezuela and one from Cuba, he said: “Chavez, Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein what characters.”

On weekends the city comes to life. Downtown San Diego is beautiful, well-lit and active. At the entrance to the Old Spaghetti Factory a beggar with a long beard and a military coat calmly ate a serving of boiled spaghetti without tomato sauce or cheese.

“He likes it like that. He is a man who barely speaks. Probably a crazy war veteran. We give him food and at the end of the shift he takes out the trash,” and Argentinian who has spent five years in San Diego tells me.

Not far from Petco Park, the fabulous baseball stadium, site of the San Diego Padres, there are businesses, bars and a boulevard. At a sports shop you can buy caps and shirts from this club. The shirt of the Cuban pitcher Odrisamer Despaigne cost $96.

The seller, a Padres fan, believes that Despaigne will be a lethal weapon in the upcoming season. “He has everything. A good fastball, a change-up and intelligent command of pitching. His style and balance is like Duque Hernandez’.”

He wanted to know Odrisamer’s numbers in Cuba. And all the possible information about future baseball stars on the island. Cuban baseball players, after the performance of Yasiel Puig and José Dariel Abreu, are all the rage in major-league baseball.

After the workshop in investigative journalism at the University of California San Diego, we Latin American colleagues wanted to say goodbye with a toast. That night I forgot my passport in the hotel. At every bar we were asked, in the correct manner, to show our IDs.

In the United States you are only allowed to drink alcohol if you’re over 21. “But I am clearly over 21 (I am 49),” I told the clerk, but he was unfazed. “Those are the rules. And if there is something this society has it is citizens who comply to the letter,” an American journalist told me.

This respect for the rules is evident in everyday life. People wait for the light to indicate when pedestrians can cross. Drivers respect the rules of the road.

“On all the highways there are electronic surveillance systems. If you’re caught drinking while driving, in addition to losing your license, you can go to jail, because it is considered extremely dangerous. When you exceed the speed limit, the next day they send you a $500 fine with the radar photo where you can see your car. People follow the rules: the penalties are severe and hit your wallet,” a San Diegan explained to me.

I was struck by the pride toward military institutions. In a café in the old part of the city a group of sailors entered. On seeing them, people started to clap. The owner of the café treated them to a drink.

When you tour the battleship Missouri, now a museum docked in the bay, you know the interest of people towards the armed forces. There is a United States Naval base in San Diego. Also an institution that takes care of war veterans.

In Balboa Park, on the outskirts of the city, an area of 100 acres, is the fabulous San Diego Zoo, one of the most important in the world. At the entrance there is a life-sized sculpture of an elephant covered in grass. The zoo has more than 4,100 animals of 800 different species. Some like a giant panda, in danger of extinction.

A little further south is the beach. It is the several mile-long stretch of sand with dark-toned water and unpredictable waves. In its favor, San Diego has a Mediterranean climate and the infrastructure of a first-world city.

Notable is the architecture of the University of California San Diego located in La Jolla, or that of the Petco Park Stadium. But its beach, which kisses the Pacific Ocean, falls short compared to a Cuban beach. Varadero compares favorably to the beach of San Diego

Iván García

Photo: Ariel view of San Diego California. Taken from the website: El Latino de San Diego

Notebook of a Journey (V)

29 December 2014

“Just imagine. We would have a fleet of cars and trucks. If the government allowed it, private-sector workers would raise the quality and service of urban transport and freight. Of course, they would have to do away with unfair taxes. For a society to flourish, tax rates should be as low as possible. I think right now the government is on the right track,” he says with an optimism that is contagious.

Others are not so optimistic. Abel, a half-blind old man who is the custodian of a nausea-inducing public bathroom, smiles when asked what he hopes will result from the new political agreement with the United States.

“Nothing. You’d have to be a real asshole to believe these guys (from the regime). How can you believe people who have always demonized capitalism? If they have agreed to this change, it’s because they are desperate. It doesn’t matter if it’s socialism, capitalism or feudalism; an old man who takes care of a bathroom is just that. I don’t believe any ‘yuma’ would do his business in this filth.”

The news flash that sparked the diplomatic turnaround between the two countries has been well-received by almost all Cubans. Some with expectations bordering on science fiction.

“You’d be very naive to believe that overnight streets would be repaired, buildings would be painted, markets would offer cheap food, wages and purchasing power would skyrocket, and people would be as happy as partridges,” says Osniel, the owner of a cafe in a neighborhood west of Havana. “It’s not the American blockade that is to blame for everything going downhill; it’s the system. And as far as I can tell, the ones who created this disaster are still in power. The upside of having good relations with the Americans is that the government’s mismanagement of the economy and its failure to generate wealth will be obvious.”

The military regime has worked the story to its advantage. In the official media, front page headlines trumpet the return of the three spies imprisoned in the United States.

At the moment Cuba is talking about nothing but the future.

President Obama — mistaken or not in granting excessive concessions to a government that still does not respect freedom of expression or political liberties, that has conned half the world with its lukewarm, half-baked economic reforms, that refuses to allow Cubans to participate in the larger economy — presented a well-organized and coherent plan of what he is proposing. In contrast, General Raul Castro appeared before television cameras in an outmoded military uniform without any proposals for a people burdened with shortages, with its cities in ruins and with few prospects.

The opening of an embassy and the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the former enemy is not enough. At least that is what Julia, the owner of a small hotel business, believes.

“Raul should have provided more details,” she says. “Are they now going to do away with those ridiculous customs duties that hinder private business. He didn’t say anything about that or a lot of other things. After the excitement over the release of the ‘five heroes’ (three spies) dies down, life will go on and people who own businesses will want to see their taxes reduced.”

The military regime should be pleased with itself. Apparently, it got the better deal in negotiations. As usual, all it had to offer in exchange was prisoners.

It is a strategy adopted by Fidel Castro: to always keep the jail cells filled with prisoners to be used as bargaining chips. The owners of private restaurants and cafes, people who rent out rooms and others have their doubts about a bonanza of gringo tourists on the island.

“The competition for tourists in the Caribbean is fierce but some money will stick,” says Armando, a clandestine tobacco salesman. “It’s common knowledge that American tourists are the biggest spenders but it’s yet to be seen if they will visit a country that has lost its charms. Maybe they will come out of curiosity to see an old bastion of communism ninety miles from their shores,” says Armando, black market seller of cigars.

Olivia, a sales representative for a five-star hotel in Havana, thinks the new measures will have a positive impact on the nation’s economy. “In 2012 there were 58,000 hotel rooms and 25,000 more were being projected,” she notes. “That won’t be enough to house an influx of American tourists which calculations indicate could soon top two million visitors.”

In a Council of Ministers meeting, Marino Murillo, the island’s portly economic czar, predicted that the country’s GDP would grow 4%.

To Reinier, an economist, such statistics seem ludicrous. “I now realize that the projected GDP was calculated based on diplomatic relations with the United States being restored in 2015,” he notes. “Even so, I have my doubts there will be a huge influx of tourists or that we will see multi-million dollar US investments. There is more to tourism than hotels. There is also additional hotel and roadway infrastructure, and those areas are off-limits. As far as significant investments in strategic sectors go, if there is no independent judiciary, Yankee capital will not come to Cuba.”

There is a common thread among those Cubans interviewed: The pretext of an imperialist enemy is now gone. If things go as expected and the embargo is lifted, only the regime’s “blockade” on private business, family imports and freedom of expression will remain in place.

The most optimistic believe Raul Castro’s moment has finally arrived, that he will implement changes that will lead us towards democracy. Others believe it is more likely that pigs will fly.

Iván García

*Translator’s note: “Yuma” is a term similar to “gringo” but with more friendly connotations.

The opponent Antonio Rodiles is still digesting the news. “Everything has been sudden, surprising. For the moment one will have to analyze it in order to understand its full scope.”

Felicia, an engineer at ETECSA [Cuban Telecommunications Company], the only telecommunications company in Cuba, says that she had a meeting in the morning with her boss, where they told her that President Obama, thanks to the management of the Government of Cuba, had freed the three spies imprisoned in United States.

“They did not tell me that it was an exchange. I learned that after listening to the words of Raúl Castro. I think this is good. After all, between the two countries, there has never been a war. It was an artificial conflict created by Fidel and fueled by each different US administration. At some point it had to conclude,” says the Havana engineer.

After 56 years of a long journey through the desert, stormy relations between both countries seem to be returning to calm. There are still loose ends. The theme of the economic embargo now is gaining ever more strength for the Olive Green Autocracy and the indefatigable and powerful anti-embargo lobby based in the United States.

But the ball is in the court of Raúl Castro. If he really wants a serious relationship, based on trust, he has to offer something in exchange so that the surly Congress, with both Houses run by the Republicans, will unravel the embargo.

That means taking a substantial 180 degree turn with respect to battered and stepped-upon Cuban dissidents. In recent decades, they have suffered 25 years, imprisonment, banishment, beatings and verbal lynchings for demanding democracy and political freedoms.

General Castro will have to do more than free dissidents. It was positive gesture, to release the peaceful opposition Sonia Garro, her husband, and a political activist.

But what must change is the current scene. It is in the hands of the Cuban Government to sign the UN covenants and legalize the differing political tendencies.

It is difficult that after a year of secret negotiations between the two nations, they have not reached an agreement on the issue. According to the Cuban President, this is only a first step.

Gradually other issues will be discussed which remain on the agenda of one and the other country. The General can make history. His brother was the creator of the Revolution and he ruled with an iron fist for 46 years.

During that time, Raul was the Minister of Defense and he supported the autocratic policies of Fidel. Now, Castro II can put Cuba on the rails along a democratic path.

He has the unique possibility of changing the course of a nation overwhelmed by a leaky economy and a population exhausted by the excess of political discourse and the long embargo, which is not the key element of the current socialized misery in Cuba, but the great pretext used by the Havana regime

Waiting for new reports about the thaw between the two countries so close geographically and so distant politically, people standing on the island hope that a change of strategy will benefit everyone.

Puzzled and surprised, freelance journalist Jorge Olivera believes that it is too early to assimilate the good news. “We have to wait to see if this translates into real change and definite openings for political dissent. I hope that all the drama that we have lived with for so long has reached its end.”

Iván García

Photo: Flags of Cuba and United States inside a private taxi that circulates around the streets of Havana. Taken from América TeVé [television from Miami].

18 December 2014

Garcia admits that working as an independent journalist means ignoring many of the rules of journalism. “I cannot introduce myself as a journalist to the people who provide the material for my stories. I hang out with and talk to hookers, drug dealers, people from the ‘other Havana.’ I practice another form of journalism because Cuba is a different country.”

He recognizes that the government’s changed attitude towards people like him who write about Cuba for independent foreign news media — even for media outlets such as Radio Martí and TV Martí — is something independent journalists have now but did not have in previous eras when they were subject to beatings or years of imprisonment.

“Many of the things they have been allowing, which might seem like openings and which the regime presents as change, is something independent journalists and opposition figures in Cuba have been asking for since the 1990s,” he says.

The Cuban government’s emigration reform law passed in 2013 makes it possible for many dissidents and most Cuban citizens to travel overseas. For some, however, the frequent trips abroad by members of the opposition are an indication that the government has become dismissive of the role they play.

“This means opponents have to find ways to get stronger politically. Since people began travelling almost two years ago, the only thing we hear about when someone comes back from visiting these places is what they were able to buy.”

Garcia believes the dissident community has been unable to find a political voice on the international stage while at the same time when the government has gained attention for its purported reforms. “It seems to me that in politics two years is enough time. I don’t think anything has been achieved. I feel I have to right to raise some questions because I think the dissident movement represents me,” he says.

The reporter, who has been subject to criticism for exposing the political situation and social degradation of his country, says many in Cuba have been deceived.

“People are tired of the Castros and the embargo, which in Cuba is called the ‘blockade’ because the government uses it as an excuse to explain why nothing works. But they don’t trust the dissidents either. The most compelling dissidents might be the Ladies in White but all the reports of internal divisions within the group have hurt their image.

“The other thing is that society has become fragmented. People have been leaving the country for three generations and this has resulted in a big intellectual gap in every speciality, in every field of knowledge and science. And people will keep choosing to emigrate as long as things are bad economically,” he adds.

In spite of this bleak analysis, however, Garcia believes that Cuba is bound to change. “I have no way of knowing this for sure but I think the country will move from a totalitarian regime to a society where democracy gets introduced little by little,” he says.

He adds that “any future American president, whether Democrat or Republican, will have to try negotiating with Cuba once the Castros are gone. By then we will have seen if there is a dissident who can assume political leadership in a democracy, someone with a serious position, because right now there are a lot of lies.”

For Garcia, the prominent dissidents from the 1990s such as Vladimiro Roca, Martha Beatriz and Félix Bonne among others have not only grown older but “can no longer count on support from the U.S. government — which is to say resources and money — because Washington is banking on the new generation.”

“One of our problems as Cubans is that we have no respect for historical memory. We climb ahead by trampling over corpses. This should not be. There were others who came before us and others before them who were executed by the regime.”

According to Garcia, beyond regime change and the need for a political restructuring, the Cuban situation “requires a period of social recovery that will take about five or six generations because the value system does not exist as can be seen by the absence of even a vocabulary for it among younger Cubans.”

“The impoverishment of Cuba means a girl goes to bed with a man for a beer and is applauded for it. This is really what we do not know how to overcome. It is also a fact that the worship of money distracts people from confronting important issues like the violation of their own rights,” he adds.

Garcia points out that he has been witnessing with increasing frequency any number of Cubans — mostly young people — preparing to travel illegally to the United States in the hopes of benefitting from the Cuban Adjustment Act.

“It has to be amended. To me it no longer makes any sense. Refugee status should be reserved for those who actually suffer from political persecution, not for those who seek protection from the Adjustment Act only to return to the island the next year, which they supposedly had to flee due to political problems.”

“The same thing happens with the law that provides protection to those who arrive on land but returns those Cubans who are intercepted at sea (known as the drive-foot wet-foot policy). This strikes me as being pathetic, not to mention all the deaths it has caused. The Florida Straights is the biggest cemetery in the world.”

This trip to the United States was the first foreign trip in Garcia’s entire life and, although he sees an uncertain future for his country, he concludes, “I don’t see myself anywhere else but Cuba. I believe it is the place I belong. In spite of everything, I like my country.”

Iliana Lavastida Rodríguez, Diario las Américas, November 25, 2014

Photo: Ivan at the Diario las América, on Monday Nov. 17, 2014. distributed through Twitter with the caption: “The great @DesdeLaHabana showing us his from Cuba on a visit to us.”

I found the San Diego Airport more functional than Miami’s. What I liked best so far is San Diego. A gorgeous city, with clean streets and well cared for houses. For those who have been accustomed to living in a barely lit capital, I was impressed with the great amount of light.

The temperature was 66F degrees, but there was little humidity, the climate was agreeable.

In the hotel rooms there is free internet, but there are computers only in the lobby. The rooms are comfortable. A television with a lot of channels, large bathroom, microwave, dryer, iron, coffee maker, refrigerator and an air conditioner I had to turn down.

Tuesday, November 11

Since the Institute of the Americas started these workshops in 2009, it’s the first time a reporter from Cuba came. The professors’ curriculum is very high level. Yesterday in the afternoon there was a debate about the difficulties of engaging in journalism. It was enriching. The 25 participating journalists are anti-Castro, Venezuelans stand out, with whom I have very good chemistry.

There’s little time for writing. The agenda is packed. When I return to Havana I have thought of writing a dozen stories. I was wrong about what I might expect from the workshop. For years to come, they will think to include subjects related to Cuba. It happens that our country is the ugly duckling of the continent.

The breakfast is too much. In matters of food, the gringos overdo it. We had a good time on Coronado, an island that was and still is a military base, they have a World War II aircraft carrier that is a museum. We dined there. The pizzas gigantic, and the servings of shrimp, it was painful to toss them out when there is so much hunger in the world.

We are going to visit the weekly newspaper Zeta in Tijuana, where in the last 14 years the drug cartels have murdered five journalists.

Wednesday, November 12

Tijuana is a city bordering San Diego and two million people live there. The border crossing seems like a maximum security prison. It is a bad copy of San Diego. There are developments with the same architecture as their neighbors, with the difference that in Tijuana there six thousand well-capitalized factories and businesses.

The interior streets are dark and pot-holed, like Havana. From the border crossing the border the difference is notable. You can smell it in the air. On a narrow boulevard there is a cluster of shops and fast food joints.

I didn’t like the city. It looks like a stage set. It seemed to me that people hide more than they say. You walk the streets and they look at you like you’re a freak. There are many unemployed with apparently nothing to do, but they are doing something: selling a devastating drug called Crystal. It’s a drama. The poor and hopeless people use it to the point of madness. A dose costs some four dollars.

We had lunch at a top restaurant. Excellent food, slow service. By late afternoon we were in a “tolerant” neighborhood. We went with a police patrol and city official. Prostitution is legal. There are around ten blocks of nightclubs and brothels. The prostitutes pay taxes and have to keep their health cards current. In the clubs there are a lot of Chinese, spending dollars on go-go girls.

I was the only one in the group who had to stumble back to San Diego. The immigration official didn’t understand why I presented several gringo visas and was entering the United States from Tijuana. I suppose it must have been a red alert, as nearly 15,000 Cubans a year enter the United States through Mexico.

I replied that if I had wanted to stay I would have done it in Miami and not gone to San Diego. “I like your country, but I have one, it’s called Cuba, I was born there and my family is there,” I told him, and asked him if would have abandoned his.

The guy smiled and answered, “All journalists are the same, they love to turn the tables, but the reality is that Cubans in Mexico stay at the first opportunity.” “I’m not one of those,” I answered. “I think the United States is at fault, they should repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act to end that problem.”

He waved goodbye cheerfully and told me he hoped I wouldn’t write a report accusing him of racism (I’m black) or intolerance towards Latinos, because, “I’m also of Latino descent, it’s nothing personal, but it is my work.”

Colleagues who were waiting in the bus to take us back to the hotel applauded when I got in. In a few days they have learned certain Cuban realities they didn’t know. After the myth of Che Guevara, healthcare for all and good education, here is an autocratic regime.

Iván García

13 November 2014