Luis Pavon Tamayo: Symphony in Grey Minor / Norge Espinosa

Nicolás Guillén, Alfredo Guevara and Luis Pavón Tamayo at the funeral of Bola de Nieve.

It took five minutes of broadcast television for his brief resurrection to send a shudder to Havana. In January 2007, the first broadcast of Impronta (Imprint), a space that sought to the highlight relevant names of Cuban culture, generated amazement and protests. Those who saw this very short program couldn’t get over their shock or indignation, because as the initial figure the producers chose was Luis Pavón Tamayo himself, not so remembered for his flimsy poetry, but for his role of censor and extremist during the time he presided over the National Council of Culture, between 1971 and 1976.

Those dates are enough of an encrypted signal for many, etched in the memories of more than a few, and in the official amnesia, of the infamous Five Grey Years. Five years, ten years, a dead time, in which from these offices, Luis Pavón and others of no less fatal memory, like Armando Quesada, who were determined to make a painful reality from the arguments of the proceedings of the First Congress of Education and Culture, relying on them to expunge from the artistic world those who, in several cases were undisputed leaders in letters, drama, dance and many other expressions.

Mediocrity that was imposed under those orders still operates as trauma, and no doubt along with those who now rejoice at the news of the grim profile to Luis Pavón, there are some who still see him return like a ghost to follow them robbing the peace from their dreams. Because in his last days Luis Pavón was already a ghost, and not even that attempt on Cuban television could transform him, as perhaps was intended, in the palpable body within the culture to which he himself railed so much and that he’d already begun to forget. continue reading

That old man we saw in those quick minutes on Impronta was about to die. His unusual reappearance in that program unleashed the little email war, which, in the way it usually happens in Cuba, started as a surprise and ended as a hangover. Several Cuban intellectuals, direct victims or not of his leadership, sent emails to denounce the ghost, to demand the exhumation of the buried corpse, and why not, to demand apologies that never came. These messages attest to the trauma: those more restful, or concentrated on disclosing rarely aired data, along with those that linked spasms and pathos, and a badly silenced thirst for delayed revenge.

Cuban television then fell apart in internal gibberish that lasted some weeks, without knowing how to fix the mess, while the emails went pack and forth piling up in that wave in which, like we hadn’t seen much, their voices and demands united Cuban artists living on and off the island, without getting official responses.

UNEAC, which had little to do with the failed revival, published a note that clarified less, and figured it would be better silent about it, under pretexts as petty an not wanting to torment people with possibly irrelevant clarifications, while the “naivete” committed was blamed on the youth of some of the members of the Impronta team.

Doubtful naiveté, considering that Armando Quesada was walking through the halls of ICRT until shortly before the program aired, and was trying to conceal the silent battle that was going on at the institute itself blaming not the veterans who saw the furry ear of parameterization* up close, but those who never explained to them the hidden truth behind that bitter concept.

The results of all this were motley, but without doubt the most enduring was the lecture series organized by Desiderio Navarro from the Centro Teórico Cultural Criterios, in order to reorganize part of the undigested memory of that time of terror and Pavón, and that ran through spaces as diverse as the Casa de las Américas, the Instituto Superior de Arte and the ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry).

A book with several of these conferences was published and quickly sold out. The expected edition that would add to these texts the remaining pieces about rock, Cuban cinema, and theater (a theme I assumed given the reticence of several specialists who doubted the challenge), was never consummated. By the time I delivered my lecture, “The masks of grayness, theater, silence and cultural politics in the Cuba of the ‘70s,” it was already January 2009. In those two years the fervor, the demand, the flare ups of the first moment, had been melted into the great Cuban forgetting, that keeps us coming back over and over to the same ghosts, because in reality, we never completely exorcise them. Or they don’t let us carry the exorcism to its ultimate conclusion.

Neither weight nor name nor work

Luis Pavón was born in 1930 in Holguin, and just died in Havana, perhaps in his house in Playa, or in some hospital. He was a member of the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC) and became known as a poet, shall we say “modest,” from the time of the triumph of the Revolution with notebooks as Discovery, and Time and its flags flying, titles charged with the scent of slogans.

He was a lawyer, and when the CNC was closed to make way for the Ministry of Culture, he became rector of the School of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP). Urban legend transforms jim into Leopoldo Avila, the specter who attacked with martial prose, from the pages of the armed forces’ magazine “Olive Green,” Virgilio Piñera, René Ariza, Anton Arrufat and other “deviants”, persisting in the theater of the absurd, in works too ambiguous in personalities too inappropriate.

The rants also reached out for Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Heberto Padilla and playwright José Milian, branding as pornography his work “The Taking of Havana by the English,” released in 1970 by Teatro Estudio, very shortly before the First Congress of Education (and later of Culture, at the suggestion of Fidel Castro during one of his speeches), granted him almost total power which he used to erase names such as these.

Whether he was really Leopoldo Avila is something that Pavon is carried to the grave, at a time when we have also reported the death of Alfredo Guevara and Jaime Crombet. Everyone has taken their secrets, like faces in a large album that is never opened. It will be some time before some of these truths are aired, and national memory becomes a bit more rich.

He had an old age, but greyish and far from the glare of attention that he himself managed, neither cleaning up or softening his past. In Impronta he wanted to represent himself, manipulating a phrase from Che, which it wasn’t really, rather a dedication that the Argentine had stamped on a copy of his book about his journeys as a guerrilla.

If the idea of the program was to launder his image, resurrect himself from the effigy of an innocuous and quiet gentleman, the reaction sparked by such an endeavor prevented the maneuver being repeated by others with  their own history. Buried alive,  this mock tribute only served to throw a few more shovels of dirt over his head.

His poetry is now unreadable and unmentionable, though perhaps it sounds more dignified translated into Slavic, if we remember that among his decorations, Pavón held the Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, awarded to him by Bulgaria. His articles in the press, an invitation to the worst oblivion, stand as examples of the worst intolerance that prevailed in our press for a long time, leaving sequels that are seen even today, from time to time.

In an anthology prepared by Luis Suardíaz, David Chericián and Eduardo Lopez Morales, his face is found sandwiched between the verses of Roberto Fernandez Retamar and José Martínez Matos, in the same volume where some of his victims emerged once again as part of a generation that never actually was one.

I remember another picture of him, where he appears next to Alfredo Guevara at the funeral of Bola de Nieve, who had died suddenly in Mexico. It was 1971 and Pavón was beginning to enjoy his power at the CNC. Functionary and undertaker, he must have felt profound relief before the body of the scandalous Piano man. One down, he would have said, at the front of that literally funeral procession.

I spoke with Luis Pavón Tamayo, as I recall, only once. By phone. I had already given my lecture, and the materials that supported it, I realized I had to go deeper into the subject. There’s a book, I thought, in all this, I am still mulling over these testimonies of those who experienced first hand the grayness of that time.

I wanted, however, to hear as many voices as possible before entering into such an undertaking. And as I spoke to and interviewed Ramiro Guerra, Ingrid González, Antón Arrufat, Armando Suárez del Villar, José Milián, Iván Tenorio and many others, I wondered what Luis Pavón could tell me about that time.

I got his number, I called him. They had already warned him. He repeated through the wire the pantomime that the TV program wanted us to believe. He appealed to his old age, his infirmity, to delicately refuse me an interview. He was not, like Julie Davalos has done, reveal to me to the other sides of the matter.

Perhaps, while we spoke, he would have shrunk into his chair, to more credibly plat the part of the elderly martyr. A panicked old man, like those imagined by Virgilio Piñera in a work that presaged the silence and terror of his final days.

Thus, there was no interview. I don’t think I would have gotten much out of it. But to be fair, I felt I had to at least try. Archives disappear, ashes blow away, diaries and pages — dictated by others from the dark side of the mirrors that saw what we would, perhaps, like to know — are erased, and so a certain side of History is dismantled.

Some of the personalities of this other work die, and with them some nuance, chiaroscuro, an index of truth, is thus corrupted,  it escapes us in the effort to rebuild the keys to a mistake. What I would have revealed given news that pushes me these lines, for example, by Suarez del Villar himself, disappeared almost a year ago. To imagine that answer, I will persist in the chapters of my book.

Luis Pavón died, and Havana said goodbye to him under a drizzle. At this point, I find no news of his death in the national press news. I will be interested to see if they remember him and how. In what way they say goodbye to a person who no longer has weight, nor work, nor name.

Some of his old colleagues: those other gray and barely surviving commissars, measuring the time they have left in this world from the disappearance of one who was such an energetic soldier in fulfilling his fatal mission, to whom they might dedicate a moment of silence. Probably less than a minute: the time in a downpour between one lightning flash and the next.

Norge Espinosa Mendoza | La Habana | 28 May 2013

Translator’s note:

*Parameterization/ parametración: From the word “parameters.” Parameterization is a process of establishing parameters and declaring anyone who falls outside them (the parametrados) to be what is commonly translated as “misfits” or “marginalized.” This is a process much harsher than implied by these terms in English. The process is akin to the McCarthy witch hunts and black lists and is used, for example, to purge the ranks of teachers, or even to imprison people.

UN Experts Concerned About the Situation of Violence Against Women on the Island / Yaremis Flores

HAVANA, Cuba, August 1, 2013, www.cubanet.org.- The members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) bluntly expressed their concern “with the persistence of violence against women, including domestic violence in Cuba,” says a report published last July 25 on its official web page.

They said that the phenomenon remains underreported, “due to the prevalence of discriminatory socio-cultural norms and denial by the Cuban State of the existence of different types of violence.” Later in their report, they stated that Cuba does not recognize the exploitation of prostitution. This particular issue, was fully addressed in an article from the Spanish newspaper ABC published last Tuesday.

The critiques were reported following an examination of Cuba by the Committee, in a version edited and published not only in English.

The Committee was concerned by the lack of knowledge about the human rights of women in the national population and proposed firmly establishing a legal culture based on non-discrimination and equality of women.

CEDAW noted that although Cuban law prohibits discrimination based on gender and stipulates that all citizens have equal rights, they remain worried that Cuba “has failed to include in its legislation a definition of discrimination against women” nor is there a law specifically against domestic violence.

One of their suggestions was to ensure effective access to justice, including the provision of free legal aid programs and protection for victims of violence. They also recommended that the Cuban establish an effective and independent mechanism of monitoring for women detainees, which they can access without fear of reprisals. continue reading

Thus, they considered it important that Cuba provide mandatory training for prosecuting judges, police, doctors, journalists and teachers to ensure a raise in awareness of all forms of violence against women and girls.

The CEDAW Committee drew attention to the lack of a complaints mechanism for reporting cases of discrimination and violation of the human rights of women and the absence of a national human rights institution.

Although the report referred to the Federation of Cuban Women and the Houses of Orientation to the Woman and Family receiving complaints, the numbers of complaints received were limited and outdated. Actually, not all Cuban women identify these spaces as a possible solution to their problems and in some cases they simply transfer the case to another government institution.

With respect to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Committee noted that not all organizations could participate fully in the process. They urged the State to improve cooperation with NGOs.

In this last review only three aspects received positive mentions. Among them, the adoption of laws such as social security, the ratification of some international standards such as the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and the high representation of women in the National Assembly.

The number of recommendations and key concerns were almost double those from the previous periodic review. However, in a press conference given by the Cuban Minister of Justice, Ms. Maria Esther Reus González, to the media NOTIMEX and Prensa Latina, describing the CEDAW committee’s presentation as useful to Cuba.

Ms. Reus González said that this exercise “has allowed us to showcase the achievements and empowerment that Cuban women have achieved, while it has served to hear the suggestions, views and opinions of experts and the Committee experts, who will always assist in the improvement of the economic model and legislation that is developing in our country.”

After a thorough reading of the CEDAW report one understands their deep sense of concern about the situation of the island. On the other hand, the denial of some of the problems by the official Cuban delegation does not allow relieving the context of women.

According to the Committee, Cuba will have to inform in writing, within two years, the steps taken to implement the recommendations and they invited the State to submit to the next examination to be held in July 2017.

1 August 2013

Chong Chon Gangsters, S. A. / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

(ELHERALDODELHENARES.ES)

The North Korean vessel Chong Chon Gang, with its belly caramelized in arms and detained in the Panama Canal, floats above the level of State terrorism to settle itself in the much more explosive field of fiction.

Like a Tarantino totalitarian puppet – similar to the 5 Spies/Heroes of the Wasp Network in the USA… here all roles are relative – the supposed captain took a knife from the art (?) director and tried to cut his own throat, perhaps to later save the Great Comrade from the third litter, Kim Jung-Un, the trouble of doing so.

The Cuban government was quick to secretly negotiate a settlement with Panama, before the shit hit the media. Given the magnitude of smuggling – for less than this many capitals have been bombed – it would not be surprising that from Havana they offered a free license to open in Cuba, not one, but a thousand Panama canals the length and breadth of the island. Benicio del Toro promised it in Vietnam and Alfredo Guevara almost did so in the Caribbean.

The Panamanian President in person, with his neorealist name of Ricardo Martinelli, was the one who sounded the alarm, as a dramatic effect to his electorate. And he did it, of course, on Twitter, which is the measure of all things, and where even God now has verified accounts in different languages.

Our Minister of Foreign Relations then made his mea Cuba, and acknowledged that he had shipped some old rockets and planes that, at this point in the comic strip, couldn’t do any more damage. They were weapon props, those that now and again accidentally kill an extra or a double, who don’t even show up in the film credits.

Then, more and more containers appeared, including some with explosives. It was a classic cut to the chase because there’s no decent dramaturge without a bomb as the climax. The tanks, wandering suffering souls in greater misery than the thinkers of Havana and Pyongyang, should have sat down right away to rewrite the ending. Even in a democracy there are leaders that work like this, without all the loose ends tied up beforehand by the government script.

The sugar sacks were packed molecularly in a clandestine Cuban port, so now they must be unloaded by hand, one by one. At the beginning, it was to take days. As of now, it will take a few weeks. Nobody knows for sure the actual number of sacks, so no expert dares dismiss the possibility that this constitutes an irrational number. Or infinite. In that case, the Panama longshoremen have fallen into a trap worth of Borges. Perhaps into a Chinese Box. In any case, the perpetual downloading is another discovery of the aleph.

In the aftermath of the Revolution, it is pertinent to erase the evidence of the barbarities. Under the sugar, weapons as an element to divert attention. Beneath or within the arms could be camouflaged the key narrative of this entire debacle.

What are the North Koreans really taking from the Cuba of Castro 2.0? I recognize that my despair as a writer begins here.

Cadavers, for starters, that source of irreplaceable suspense: illustrious dead – or falsely disappeared – whose DNA remains they want to send to the cosmos or make into plasma thanks to the nuclear program of Kim 3.0. Of course, it could be a wholesale money flight, drawn from remittances of the entire Cuban exile, to mock for the millionth time the Washington trade embargo (another obsolete weapon, in this case against the Revolution).

Given the interminable tons of sugar, it’s possible they are also taking entire dynastic families, who perhaps haven’t figured out yet that the ship isn’t moving any more; so they are still in their high-tech containers, playing Go or digital golf, not knowing that Pyongyang is no longer expecting them. Ricardo Martinelli should tweet a little less and ensure the safety of these stowaways who, until recently, were the political thugs of the fatherland. If it’s “with all and for the good of all,” the emigrants of the elite and the revolutionary repressors can’t be excluded.

It is true that the Chong Chon Gang might explode from its undeclared criminal cargo — in Cuba there is a tradition of civilian planes and boats that flew for this reason — but it’s no less certain that the tragedy could have occurred in the narrowest region of the American continent, which by all rights would reduce any international condemnation to the rank of terroristhmus.

It’s true that they violated several provisions of the United Nations, always so controversial and manipulated when it comes time to vote, but we already know that many powers ignore them when they block their interests. It’s true that in Cuba today we barely produce the sugar consumed by our own people, but no one has yet literally tested a single grain from these sacks (perhaps it’s Caimanera salt, or sand from Veradero passing off this luxury item?). It’s true that Cuba could end up more isolated along with the ALBA block, and forced to pay millions for what could be considered an act of military aggression in times of peace.

But the obsession with the truth shouldn’t blind us before the triviality of verisimilitude, without which no art is authentic. Condemn us, it doesn’t matter: Hollywood will absolve us.*

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo |  2 Aug 2013

*Translator’s note: A reference to Fidel Castro’s declaration at his trial for leading the attack on the Moncada Barracks: “Condemn me, it doesn’t matter; History will absolve me.”

Who Provoked the Riot in the Guatao Women’s Prison? / Dania Virgen Garcia

Havana women’s jail. Photo: Ismael Francisco/Cubadebate

Havana, Cuba, July 25, 2013, Dania Virgen Garcia / www.cubanet.org.  A reliable source who asked to remain anonymous for reasons of safety — it is clear that this source is not political prisoner Sonia Garro, illegally confined in that prison — said that those who provoked the riot in the Guatao women’s prison west of Havana this last May 26 were male and female officers of internal order.  These had been transferred to other prisons without being prosecuted for incitement to commit crime, among other crimes that were sanctioned by military laws.

The source blames the riot on the first petty officer of internal order, Yunieski Figueredo Garcia; Yasnay Velez Hariarte, Chief of Re-Education, transferred to prison 1580 in San Miguel del Padron, a municipality where they conferred on her an apartment near this prison; Ismari Torres Pexidor, re-educator of detachment 3; and the chief of internal order, Rosaidi Osorio Palmero, alias “Iron Lady,” who was transferred to the prison Valle Grande.

All those mentioned maintained strong corruption with the so-called White Collars.

The deputy warden of the prison, officer Betty, was transferred to the National Direction of Jails and Prisons, located at 15 and K, El Vedado, in Havana.

The six prisoners who initiated the riot, most very young, still are in the Manto Negro women’s prison.

According to the source, “They sent the worst management team from MININT (Ministry of the Interior).”

The new head of the prison, Major Sara, was previously the second.  She arrived sanctioned by another prison. Until she serves out the sanction, Lieutenant Colonel Diaz is standing in for her.

Yunieski Figueredo, alias El Negro, husband of the chief of internal order, Rosaidi Osorio, still continues in the prison as if nothing had happened.  This deputy receives the new inmates.  He is accustomed to harassing the prisoners to force them to have sex with him.

The source alluded to the fact that the White Collar prisoners, who run the economy and finances in the prison, were prohibited from exercising their duty and were replaced by officers who had no experience in the matter.

One group of prisoners who worked in the “Luis Ramirez Perdigon” military school dealt with the location of prisoners in the penitentiaries as well as other military details.

Now, the White Collars are located as cleaning helpers in different Havana hospitals, like the Surgical Clinic, the Pediatric “Juan Manuel Marquez,” Calixto Garcia and the Oncology Hospital.

A racist jail

The Guatao prison hosts more than 100 prisoners for economic crimes, embezzlement, corruption and theft in customs packages, among others.  Every week women with these crimes enter.

“Lieutenant Colonel Diaz is racist,” assured the source.  She refers to fact that the jailers who direct the leading platoon, who are mostly black, were replaced by white jailers, which has inconvenienced the officials.

She said that the prisoners who are pregnant or have recently given birth, who are in the galleries of the Manto Negro prison, live in extremely deplorable conditions. The galleries are very humid due to the seepages in the walls and roofs.

She indicated that in the Guatao prison there are two jailers who belong to the repressive rapid response body that put down the Ladies in White; their names are Yarelis Hernandez Herrera and Maria Pedroso Herrera, both deputies.

The former director of the Manto Negro women’s prison, Lieutenant Colonel Mercedes Luna, was promoted a couple of years ago to the National Directorate of Jails and Prisons (15 and K).  Now she is serving on an international mission in the Republic of Angola.

dania.zuzy@gmail.com

Translated by mlk

3 August 2013

Fearful Debates at “Topics” Magazine / Agustin Lopez

“Last Thursday”

Don’t talk about politics because they’ll hang you, but I hung myself first and talked about politics afterwards.

In front of me there are four panelists, I imagine that they’re people who are knowledgeable about the matter, prominent scholars on the subject of Cuba and its miseries, but full of demagoguery and revolutionary utopias, they were born, grew up, and came of age within the political fanaticism of socialism, submissive and obedient to the directives of the Party and the whims and the ego of the Maximum Leader, so they substituted their needs and looked for sustenance, listening to and making what was bad, and they didn’t deal with looking for what was good.  I’m not judging, I am trying to be just and find reason.

The debate presented today is: Bread winning: incomes and standards of living.
Maria del Carmen psychologist and scholar on the subject, presents the moderator.  Jose Luis Rodriguez prestigious professor.  Betty Anaya Cruz also an expert on the subject and the pompous reporter Yasley Carrero Chavez.

Between them they make a detailed presentation of income, salaries and standards of living.  At no time do they explain how to obtain a salary that covers the necessities, incomes that raise us to a dignified standard of living and earn us our bread in an honest, honored form.  Of course, the means don’t exist in a socialist system and even less in this mutation implanted in Cuba.  They concur that salaries only cover 50% of the necessities and the other 50% comes from other sources of income.  They don’t dare say that it comes from corruption or from selling or exchanging dignity and decorum for leftovers from the State.  If they make direct political critiques they’ll hang.

A leading official representing the State in matters of commerce states that: “Not even if they raise the salary several times will it cover basic necessities and resolve the problem.”  Fuck, I say to myself, why is this mediocre person here if he already committed suicide, he is more dead than socialism, I hope he goes home and runs his errands to the corner store, and to think that he represents society and has a prominent post.

The panelist Jose Luis Rodriguez uses data to show that people’s savings in banks have grown.  Wow! Damn! Now I believe that shame has a price in the stock market.
So I wrote my first question on a scrap of paper that was on the seats.

If the system implanted in Cuba is socialist, based in Marxism and Leninism, and I read in one of Lenin’s books that the salary earned by the worker in a socialist system serves to satisfy his basic material and spiritual needs within the society and still have a little left over for other enjoyment:  What has happened that this hasn’t come true, does the system work?  Could we reverse the situation without political changes?

I didn’t believe they would give me the floor for my question but they gave me three minutes in front of the microphone and so I repeated what I had written and I added these words about the increase in savings: Was it the honest and honored worked who had saved his salary?  The worker can’t save anything.  Therefore it’s not saving but robbing, embezzlement, corruption and other undignified forms of raising income.  

I understood that all this problem of salary and everything else has been engendered by a socialist system and we are going to solve it with more socialism; that’s like a doctor faced with a bacterial infection wanting to heal it with more bacteria.  Thank you I’m done.  

They finished by giving a social and economic tint to the debate, supporting the new reformist model, as always avoiding the subject of necessary political change.  Terror and demagoguery.  If they directly confront politics they hang.

TOPIC: What is the income? What is the standard of living? What is the relationship between them?

19 July 2013

CID Funds New Delegation in Marianao to Honor the Memory of Oswald Paya /CID / HemosOido

This Saturday, July 20, Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID) has opened a new office in the Municipality of Marianao to honor the memory of the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, murdered by the dictatorship along with his compatriot Harold Cepero, 22 July 2012 near the city of Bayamo.

On July 22, 2012, at about two in the afternoon, the car driven by the Spanish politician Angel Carromero was hit by a red Lada, one of the cars that had been following and harassing it. In mysterious circumstances, Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero who were in the back seat, were pulled alive from the accident and then the dictatorship announced the death of both.

On Sunday July 21, 2013, eight activists from the October 10th township CID delegation met in pantheon of the Daughters and Fathers of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Colon Cemetery shelter where his family laid Oswaldo Paya’s body before leaving for the United States. The members of the CID delegation laid flowers, carried a Cuban flag, sang the national anthem and prayed for the repose of the martyr and their comrade in the struggle.

CID supports the repeated request of the Payá family and the Christian Liberation Movement to hold an international inquiry into the events that led to the murder of Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero.

24 July 2013

The "Yumas" Pay Between 80 and 120 CUC per Night / Leon Padron Azcuy

HAVANA, Cuba, www.cubanet.org Recently Cuban “parliamentarians” discussed the issue of prostitution among young people. According to the press official, they drafted strategies to face this evil, as well as pandering, widespread today all across the Island.

It is known that, since 1959, the regime openly proclaimed that women would not have to sell their bodies, since the revolution would provide work and wages. But it all ended up in the book of failure. Currently prostitution is a survival option in Cuba.

The maneuvers to eradicate it have only been from the repressive order, without hitting the target. Deportations to the interior of the island, temporary detention centers, police operations, jail for social dangerousness, and countless fluctuating measures have been implemented, but all are useless.

So I doubt that the alleged Cuban parliament has the solution in hand to solve this problem that corrodes Cuban society on a daily basis.

“No matter what profession we have, it doesn’t do us any good. Only through going to bed with tourists do we have the opportunity to visit the most famous restaurants, cabarets, clubs and hotels in the island, to buy good clothes and shoes, and to solve the pressing problems of our family, until one day we can get out of this country.” Thus spoke Yeilis, a young woman from Guantanamo, age 19, who has lived in the life for two years, in Havana.

Another prostitute, who declined to be identified, said, “La Cecilia, Dos Gardenias, the Salón Rojo at the Capri, La Mesón, Don Cangrejo, El Diablo Tun Tun and las Casas de la Música, among others, are our favorite resorts to link up with tourists. Here the payments of “yumas” (foreigners) to the prostitutes range from 80 to 120 CUC* per night, excluding payments for security and surveillance, police and custodians, and bribes for the staff at the rented home.”

It is noteworthy that at this point Gen. Raul Castro laments the gloomy Cuban outlook with regard to the crisis of values, especially among youth. And while it’s better late than never, the General wasted the opportunity to recognize the direct responsibility of the regime, whose only concern over the years has been to maintain its sole command, regardless of the deterioration of “moral and civic values, decency, shame and decorum” that the nation exhibits.

Maybe his daughter, the “parliamentarian” Mariela Castro Espín, unlike the supreme leader of the revolution, could propose something more profitable to combat this scourge.

Leonpadron10@gmail.com

*Translator’s note: Roughly equivalent to the same amount in dollars.

24 July 2013

Up To 12 Hours to Attend Medical Emergencies / Lilianne Ruiz

   HAVANA, Cuba, July 2013, www.cubanet.org.- When a Cuban family is afflicted by disease there are many who depend on the favor of some neighbor with a car to take them to the hospital. Moreover, the paramedics and nurses of the Comprehensive Emergency Medical System (SIUM) depend on the “thanks” for their patients to “resolve” a chance to eat a better lunch or a to get a few pesos above their salary.

Juan López (he has asked me use a pseudonym), in order to take his father to the hospital, called SIUM and waited three and a half hours for the ambulance to come. The Center Coordinator told him onthe phone: “Your case is the first on the list be we can’t resolve it.”

“After that long wait I was at my limit. I went to look for a neighbor with car, some way to get him there,” said Lopez. “Time passed and the disease was evolving.”

Once a medical emergency is reported the time stipulated to a rescue is 10 minutes. A young SIUM worker asked not to be named to provide testimony. We will call him Nurse X.

He has a license in nursing and counts on their being a key system, in communication with the Provincial Coordinating Center at 44th and 17th, in Playa. Key 1 means there’s an emergency call. Key 2 indicates they’re on their way and should be there in 10 minutes. From 2 to 3 is working with the patient. And 4 is on the way to the hospital. Key 5 means that the case has been admitted and they’re ready to take on another.

“In reality, we spend up to 12 hours to pick up a patient, but there are seven bases all over Havana and on occasions there are seven or eight cars (ambulances), no more. Other times there are 11 or 12 for the whole province. For example, the based in Plaza also covers the demand for Cerro, Centro Habana and Habana Vieja. There are days, like today, when we are working with just one ambulance.”

The delay experienced by the population is the result of a long list that prioritizes the most severe cases. But from the position of Nurse X the work is continuous.

“Often, we leave at eight in the morning and it’s three in the afternoon and we haven’t eaten lunch. People offer us a soda, some snack, even money. Others have nothing to offer. Some are upset by the delay and protests. Sometimes we’re notified of a case of hip fracture, but after 10 minutes we get a case of loss of consciousnesses and the fracture has to wait. If then a heart attack comes up, the fracture falls further behind.”
Few Cubans have car; you can’t even say that one member of each family has one. The salary of a worker is so tiny that it’s not even enough to take a taxi to the hospital even when it’s a medical emergency.

There are three categories of ambulances, intensive, intermediate and basic. But Nurse X tells us that “it is possible that an basic care ambulance arrives for a critically ill patient and all you can do is verify it and call back to the Coordinating Center. Then they send a second ambulance has that has electrical equipment and a defibrillator, but that isn’t equipped with artificial ventilator and the patient needs to be intubated.”

The look of incredulity on my face leads to, “It happens.”

Nurse X works in an intensive care ambulance, supposedly designed to assist the most severe cases of the city. But because of the deficit of cars, he has even had to take care of transferring patients between hospitals. “I have come to work with 14 or 15 cases in a day, not only life support, but whatever shows up.”

Many buildings of Havana, especially in the downtown area, are several stories, with very narrow stairs. After an exhausting effort, no time to rest, nor is there a coffee before the next call. The SIUM staff work 24 hours. They complain about working conditions and the lunch menu: “Many times you can find yourself with a tray of flour with boiled or scrambled egg, soup with rice. ’International Nurse’s Day’ seems like a lot of hogwash.”

Someone with a degree in nursing, with SIUM, working 24 hours on and 48 off, earns between 740 and 750 Cuban pesos a month, the equivalent of about $30. “There are like 12 or 13 shifts a month. You have to put your feeton the ground, you have to eat and I have a daughter. That’s not nearly enough.”

Like many of his colleagues, Nurse X aspires to leave on a medical mission (outside the country) to improve his economic situation, but to do that he should first leave the ambulances and work as a nurse in some hospital.

“The SIUM is my life, but there comes a Training Course and they won’t release you for lack of personnel. So you stay and unfortunately if Public Health personnel don’t go on a foreign mission they’re nobody.”

The system also serves a political purpose

At the SIUM National Base, based in Arbol Seco Street, Central Havana, things are different. From the outside you see a parking lot with several modern ambulances. The first impulse of the reporter is to ask the medical staff chatting at the door  how many cars the National Service has and what kind of cases they serve. A doctor’s response is blunt: “You have to go with a paper to the institution to which you belong, at the direction of the center, to get answers to those questions.”

We do know that people complain of the delay and the quality of service. ’’The population is poorly educated. This is not a taxi service,” he replies.

I insist, invoking the public interest in the matter. The doctor’s answer is a lie flung in my face with cynicism: “There is no conflict between the interests of citizens and the interests of the State.”

The national SIUM is responsible for performing institutional transfers between provinces, but mainly for covering international events or other events, as on May Day at the Anti-Imperialist Bandstand. They are sent to the airport, to the Palace of Conventions. To the Parliament and any activity that has to do directly with the government. It was employees of the Cuban Red Cross who, during the previous visit to Cuba of Pope Benedict XVI, took the stretchers on hand for the public that might “suddenly fall ill,” and as observed worldwide, used a stretcher to assault a peaceful opponent.

Provincial SIUM workers see the nationals as “people working with very few tools and delivering very good service.” But also “ideologically filtered.” A paramedic from the provincial service who has also requested anonymity explained that “even the driver of the national delegation has passed courses in political training. They are internal officials working for State Security.”

The national SIUM ambulances themselves are equipped with everything you need to face any emergency. He himself asked to be part of that service because ” these people eat well” and don’t have the problems of the provincial SIUM. “When people see these ambulances they believe they’re looking at SIUM, but they’re not. In those cars all equipment works.”

Lilianne Ruiz

From Cubanet

26 July 2013

Estado de SATS Celebrates Three Years / David Canela

1.-Público-2-300x225HAVANA, Cuba, July 29, 2013, David Canela / www.cubanet.org.-The civic project Estado de SATS this Saturday celebrated its three years of existence with a children’s party. About 10:30 in the morning Rodiles’ house was full. At the party two clowns performed, exciting the children with games, dances, songs and puppets. Children’s music videos were also projected.

Estado de SATS was born as an event of dialog between the actors of civil society, who attended in many voices and independent groups (artistic, religious, legal, community) to talk about the the future of Cuba. It was held in Gaia House in Old Havana, between 23rd and 25th on 25 July 2010. As the meeting led to open debate, outside an established script, the project was censored, and no other State institution was permitted (or risked) to host it again.

For this reason, Antonio González-Rodiles, one of the principal coordinators, decided to resume it in his own house, in the municipality of Playa. The original idea of the project, of being a marketplace of social diversity, and a public space for alternative ideas–beyond the narrow limits of official discourse ideological–crystallized again on March 5, 2011, when Raudel Collazo and Adrián Monzón were invited to speak about their artistic projects. Since then (and with the exception of Festival Click), the sessions are no longer structured as a “mini-conference” but as a meeting for a specific topic.

Since then, in March 2011, it adopted the slogan Where art and thought converge. In its three years of work, they have held panels, interviews, screened documentaries and films–which had not been shown before in Cuba–poetry recitals and one of short stories (with the writer Ángel Santiesteban), parties, presentations and music concerts, independent project fairs, exhibitions of photographs, art, cartoons and publicity spots.

Over time they have created some spaces or specialized programs, such as Analysis Forum (FORA), for political, social and legal debate, Cinema at All Costs, for the display of audiovisuals, and recently CafeSatso, devoted to literature.

Other independent projects have collaborated with Estado de SATS: Omni-Zona Franca, the Endless Poetry Festival, Voces Cubanas, the Cuban Law Association, Cubalex, EBE (of Spain), Talento Cubano, among others. Many people in the diaspora and Cubans in exile, through speeches and videotaped interviews, media outreach, or the donation of works (for example, the exposition of CoCodriloSmile graphic humor). In addition, Radio and TV Marti and Cubanet have helped to broadcast some of their programs.

From March 2011 to June of the current year, there have been around 66 meetings (one of them when Antonio Rodiles was imprisoned in November of last year). Of these programs, 30 were held with the public and 35 with no audience. One had to be suspended due to police repression; those who could were able to get there recorded his testimony.

Estado de SATS is also the civil society project that promotes the Citizen Demand For Another Cuba, which calls on the Cuban government to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

CARTEL-SATS

Monday, 29 July 2013, from CubaNet

29 July 2013

Notes for the Transition / Antonio Rodiles, Alexis Jardines

ajindex
Alexis Jardines

HAVANA, Cuba, July 29, 2013: The political landscape of the island has been energized recently. In the international arena the event with the greatest impact is undoubtedly the death of Hugo Chavez and his succession embodied in Nicolas Maduro, a man with few political tools who, despite many odds, has managed, for now, to maintain a certain equilibrium. However, given the difficult economic situation being experienced by Cuba and the uncertain scenario facing the Chavistas in Venezuela, Cuban totalitarianism is forced to avoid placing all its bets on Venezuela.

arindex
Antonio Rodiles

For the elite in power, time, as a part of the political equation, becomes the most important variable. The relaunch of their position in the international arena has become one part of their priorities, and it shows that a new moment in relations with Europe and the United States is vital in the search for new economic and political partners who will provide them stability and legitimacy.

In the interior of the island, the transformations in the economic sector are not generating a new impression given the years of accumulated statism, decapitalization and the precarious situation in multiple sectors. A genuine process of reforms would involve much deeper actions that would stir up a reality already admitted to be a social disaster, as acknowledged even by Raul Castro in his latest speech. But the fear of losing control has become an obsession and the principal obstacle.

The ability of some regime opponents to travel represents, in this sense, the boldest step taken by the elite in power, a clear commitment to improve its image abroad and to rid itself of the stigma of lack of freedom of movement. It is highly likely that this move was taken under the assumption that some bitter pills would be no more than that, that reality would remain stuck in its usual straitjacket, because we opponents would not penetrate the media and, on our return to Cuba, State Security’s absolute control and lack of social expression would keep everything in its place.

Given this scenario, we have to ask ourselves certain questions: Is Cuban society in a position to push for greater freedom and independence? Can the opposition capitalize politically on these trips? And by capitalize we mean our capacity to articulate and project ourselves inside and outside the island as pro-democratic forces with civic or political weight in both venues; a projection that also allows us to end the nefarious cat and mouse game with which State Security, as the arm of the system, has kept us inefficiently occupied. It then becomes imperative to mature as an opposition and as civil society, to be able to widen the cracks in an exhausted system that holds onto control and exercises State violence as elements of social containment.

The experience of multiple transitions shows the importance of understanding the moment of change as a step in the process of national reconstruction and to see it not as a discontinuous turning point. In an extreme scenario like the one facing us, a successful transition will necessarily involve the active participation of skilled human capital with a strong social commitment and a clear vision of the nation that it wants to build.

Without a social fabric that represents least a micro-cosmos, of the mid- and macro-cosmos we visualize, it will be very difficult to build a functioning democracy. Unsuccessful examples are plentiful and it is irresponsible to omit them. The famous Arab Spring-become-Winter is the most recent case, and shows that the establishment of a political system requires a process of maturation and articulation of civil society. To imagine the change and reconstruction of a broken, fragmented country, not only in the physical sense but also in its social and individual dynamics, is an essential exercise if we aspire to construct a democracy that contains the ingredients of every modern nation

As the opposition we must break with paradigms that imply regression and a copying of what has been experienced, in which glorious symbols, epics and personalities play a significant role. An imagined future that places too many hopes on an expansive “spark,” and that often postpones effective work with visions of the medium and long term.

It would also be healthy to readjust the idea that has dominated our minds for more than half of a post-republican century: the desired unity of the opposition as the only path to effective pressure to promote change. We believe that the main role of the transition should fall on civil society, while the opposition, as a political actor, must push with discourse and coherent action so that civil society has the necessary reach and penetration.

Hegel was right in saying that “everything that was once revolutionary becomes conservative.” The words lose their original sense and are redefined to change the context that nurtured and sustained them, so much so that the logic itself of revolutions backfires.

The truly revolutionary act is an abrupt gesture, a moment of rupture that disrupts the established order.  All revolutions, including scientific, are designed to transform, to subvert, the bases of the model or previous paradigm and, in this way, to bring it down.

Thus, what is new in our time is to understand the possible abruptness as a moment in a process, which must be permeated with the ingredients that shape modern societies: knowledge, information, thought, art, technology. The revolution is a time of evolution, but not the inverse.

In the second decade of the present century we can not think of any social processes without taking into account the transnational nature of them. In our case it would be impossible to analyze a transition to democracy and a process of reconstruction without involving the diaspora and exile with its political actors. While they are not anchored in the everyday life of the island they are living elements of the nation and as such gravitate to her. About this, the ordinary Cuban is not wrong. In the Cuban imagination part of the solution to our problems is in Miami (as the diaspora is generically defined). The modern vision of contemporary societies must come from and consist largely through constant reinforcement between the island and its diaspora. The opposition and exile should be precisely the hinge that makes such articulation possible.

And this, in our view, is the other element that would end up framing the Cuban scenario: how, looking forward, the opposition overlaps with a transnational civil society so that the binary logic of the internal and external, of the figures of the “Cuban insider” and “Cuban outsider,” come to an end. For this to happen it is not enough to recognize, on the level of discourse (as the regime does as well), that there are no differences between us, that we are equal, etc. It is something more: we are one and indivisible and this single Cuban has to have the right to exercise the vote and to influence the political present and future of his country, regardless of where on the planet he finds himself or lives; this is, for the opposition and the exile itself, not only a political problem, but a conceptual one.

As political actors we must show that we are an option for governance, presenting the human capital at our disposal, the capacity we possess to generate a political and legal framework capable of filling the possible void that would be left by the one-party nomenklatura. To prove that we could ensure security not only for the country but for the whole region, and last, but no less important, the ability to overtake at the polls the campaigns of the Castro supporters in any eventual free elections.

This would be, perhaps, the most desirable scenario in terms of expansion of the transnational civil society and the corresponding constraint of the totalitarian State. Let us, then, be careful not to confuse succession with transition; let us learn to see ourselves as ordinary Cubans and to demand our full civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights as reflected in the two United Nations Covenants. Let us admit that for the transition the human capital dispersed through the State institutions is needed as badly as the skills, knowledge and financial capital of those who have had to grow up far from — but not out of — their country.

The problem of the Cuban nation today is the problem of the democratic transition and reconstruction, a process that will be possible only if it involves the largest number of Cubans, wherever they may live. We do not say that the country belongs to everyone, which is a de jure declaration; we say that all of us, together, make up the Cuban nation, which is already a de facto declaration.

Antonio G. Rodiles and Alexis Jardines
Monday, 29 July 2013

Published in Cubanet  and in Diario de Cuba

29 July 2013

Cuba’s Civil Society Is Transnational Says Rodiles / David Canela

From left to right: Antonio Rodiles, Roberto de Jesús Guerra, Yaremis Flores, Jorge Olivera, and Manuel Cuesta. Photo by the author.

HAVANA, Cuba, July 22, 2013, David Canela/www.cubanet.org — Last Saturday the independent Estado de SATS project sponsored a panel discussion among Cuban civil society activists. The participants included attorney Yaremis Flores, journalist Jorge Olivera (one of seventy-five dissidents imprisoned during the 2003 Black Spring crackdown), Roberto de Jesús Guerra, director of the news agency Hablemos Press, and Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a political analyst. The topic of the event was the current situation on the island following the latest political reforms and especially after recent trips overseas by many independent activists.

In regards to the experience of trying to be part of a globalized world, Flores emphasized that “the issue for Cubans is the lack of information.” Referring to his work representing those involved in legal cases, whose rights have often been at risk, he said, “If you cannot travel (to Geneva), they can send you information.”

Guerra and Olivera emphasized the need to strengthen the intellectual and organizational capabilities of the peaceful opposition. We must “continue organizing and empowering opposition groups,” said Guerra. For his part Olivera pointed out that the government “tries to manipulate international public opinion and buy time, which means we must adopt a more articulate and professional approach.”

According Cuesta Morúa, “the government has moved the battle of ideas abroad, and in Cuba tries to present a friendly dissent or a loyal opposition.”

The trend to a more balanced and dynamic migration flow would be a catalyst in the modernization of the country, as there is now a “transnational Cuban civil society,” as Rodiles called it.

As for the present, not all agreed with the idea that we are in a political transition, — as the journalist Julio Aleaga said — although this has not been officially declared. He explained that the reforms in China had begun in 1979, although its results were visible a decade later, with the Tienanmen protests, and that the Soviet Union no one imagined, in 1985, that Perestroika would be the dismantling of socialism.

Olivera believes that in the future “there will be a negotiation between the government and the opposition, because the country is in ruins.” In this regard, the journalist José Fornaris enunciated that “we have to prepare a program of government,” and not be ashamed to admit that we want to be part of the new government.

When the panel was asked what recommendations would that give to those traveling abroad, the lawyer Yaremis Flores suggested bringing evidence and documents on specific cases that demonstrate the problems of Cuban society that are not exposed in international forums, and so give a new face to the society, that humanizes it, and belies the manipulated figures from official groups of the government.

Cuesta Morúa added to avoid saying “I speak on behalf of …”, “I am the voice of …” He said there are receptive people abroad, who don’t want to hear protests, but rather proposals. And with regards to his experience at the last meeting of the Latin American Study Association (LASA), he noted that for the first time they broke the monopoly and the image (official) of Cuba at these academic meetings, due to the actions of independent sectors of the Island

This coming Saturday will be the three-year anniversary of the Estado de SATS project.

22 July 2013

From Cubanet

Santiago on July 26: The Santiaguans Have Nothing to Celebrate / Aleaga Pesant

HAVANA, Cuba, July 26, 2013, www.cubanet.org.- Like every five years, the most important celebration of the revolutionary calendar, the  assault on the Guillermón Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on 26 July 1953, returned to the most Caribbean of our cities. The protocols and extreme security measures that accompany Raul Castro Ruz looked ridiculous in the middle of the overall apathy of the population affected by the severe economic crisis affecting the country and especially the east.

Low wages, serious unemployment, underemployment, school dropouts and migration to other provinces, together with the impact of a hurricane last year that affected many houses, are the most important reasons for Santiaguans are not interested in the celebrations. With all this the authorities were determined to inaugurate monuments, including one dedicated to Juan Almeida, or allocating billions of dollars to the restoration of the Plaza Antonio Maceo, to restoring road signs to give an image of normalcy before the visits of foreign politicians.

Ten thousand Santiaguans, according to official figures, were designated to be in the great square of the old Moncada barracks, now a school, on July 26, escorted by a large photograph of more than ten yards high of Fidel Castro Ruz, leader of the failed assault.

And if a particular feature is the spectacle this time, it is the large presence of Latin American and Bolivarists presidents.

Evo Morales (Bolivia), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), José Mujica (Uruguay), Nicolas Maduro (Venezuela), as well as the Chancellor of Ecuador and the prime ministers of Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Lucia, accompanied the senior military dictatorship.

The foreign political speeches marked by anti-Americanism, and the exaltation of  “Cuban solidarity,” became a marathon “relay race” that lasted for more than two hours.

It is speculated that such rhetoric is intended to build consensus abroad, following the incident of the Cuban ship carrying weapons to North Korea, making it the unwelcome guest of the political spectacle. And toward the interior, given the difficulties faced in implementing the reforms.

I turned sixty, and what do I have?

The General President Raul Castro Ruz, keynote speaker, in a short speech he read, promised that the State will ensure the development of the city of Santiago de Cuba, destroyed after Hurricane Sandy (October, 2012), which lost 50% of housing stock, as well as suffered extensive damage to communications infrastructure.

He then offered a triumphalist reconstruct of the events of the last sixty years. And he referred to the process of delivering, gradually, the responsibilities of government to another generation of communist leaders. Of new challenges, not even a word.

However, not everyone agrees with the triumphalist epic vision repeated by the government through the media about the assault on the Guillermon Moncada Barracks.

Jorge Hernandez is the shopkeeper in my neighborhood in El Vedado. A newly emigrated black Santiaguan who, when asked about the significance of the 26 July 1953, and the assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, he passed his hand over his head, looked me straight in the eye and without blinking said:

“I turned sixty and what do I have? … My life is already passed and I have nothing. I was born the year of Moncada in San Pedrito. As a child and young man, and until much later, I thought as I was told, that the Moncada assault opened the way for me. But at sixty, I repeat the question: What do I have?”

Pepe, a neighbor, a veteran of the 13 or March Directorate, almost eighty years old, imprisoned several times in the Castillo del Príncipe, for his revolutionary and anti-Batista activities, is less radical in his perception:

“The Revolution was something very beautiful, but unfortunately was betrayed, when the Communists made a clean sweep and lost their Catholic essence, that was the responsibility of Fidel Castro, who seized the that we had gotten with so much effort. For a long time, the celebration of the Assault on the Moncada was for me a special day, glorious. Today is just a sad day, to see what is left of our dream and at my age is hard to see how this will end.”

However, Alfredo, an economist currently working in Luanda, Angola, for the military corporation ANTEX, thinks that Moncada was a defining moment in the history of Cuba, which proved the genius of Fidel and the Cuban revolutionary spirit:

“We have a new Moncada ahead, and it is to support Raul’s requests on the need for social discipline, to carry out the guidelines of the National Party Conference (the communists), in order to make socialism sustainable and especially to internationalize the campaign to free our Five (now four) Heroes imprisoned by the empire.

In Santiago de Cuba, on the old road from Cobre, Guillermo Espinosa sees the matter from another point of view. Besieged by the political police, he hasn’t been able to leave his house since July 23, because they are threatening him to arrest him the minute he sets foot outside. According to him, the majority of Santiago’s democrats have been arrested or detained in their homes, as they did on the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, in March of last year.

To Guillermo, 45, the assault on the Moncada Barracks was the continuation of a cycle of violence that began in the Republic and has not yet ended.Because the so-called revolution established a military dictatorship that deprived the people of all freedoms.

“Sixty years later,” he says, “the country is poorer in the economy and in spirit. The calls for economic measures are an aspirin for a body already sick unto death.”

aleagapesant@yahoo.es

From Cubanet

26 July 2013

When You Are King, When You Are Executioner / Regina Coyula

(SGNEWWAVE.COM)

I only knew Luis Pavón by reputation. Talking with my husband, Rafael Alcides, and with friends, he was almost never mentioned directly. We talked about “the pavonato,” that dark period that was aired for the first time in the glimpse of freedom we came to call “the little war of emails.” Alcides, for personal reasons, did not visit the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC) in that grey period imprecisely denominated a “five-year period.”

His only approach to publishing in that era was a novel that he offered for review… and it was lost. In some box in a work corner in the house is the typed correspondence that went back and forth demanding his original, and from the Union publisher answers with no answer. Alcides can’t get out of his mind that his novel ended up in the drawer of some compañero from UNEAC.

But this isn’t the story. Alcides came to know Pavón in 1987, when he was ousted, an obscure official who ruminated on his “glory,” and offered to take him home from the Wilfredo Lam Center in old Havana in his Lada. As the trip gave them some time to talk, Pavón complained that the writers who had suffered the rigors of the Five Grey Years, most of them friends of my husband, treated him with contempt, insulting him; humiliation on top of humiliation, as the UNEAC International Relations officer, he had to carry the suitcase of people whom he had once received as president of the National Council of Culture (CNC).

Alcides, who actually was a friend of many victims of the policy of the parameterization* and exclusion, replied that it was logical and Pavón should understand. To which Pavón replied that he had only followed orders. “There are orders that must not be followed if you want to be saved by historical memory,” said my husband. “But I am a disciplined militant,” was the reply. “But the true militants are saying no,” said Alcides.

Five years later, they met again at the house of a mutual friend. Pavón was already retired and recommended with special enthusiasm the Bulgarian novel, “When you are king, when you are executioner.” Alcides didn’t know of it, so the third — and last — time they met, Pavón gave him a copy. What particularly interested Alcides it what he would have liked to say Pavón: in every king is there always an executioner? Does every king have his executioner?

The television program Impronta rescued Luis Pavón Tamayo from oblivion for the worse, and silence now before his physical death confirms his civil death years ago. The victims of the policy he represented are comfortable between acknowledgement, travel and awards; they prefer Pavón make the target of all the darts. They know that Pavón did not improvise, and if there was any official apology, would be unofficial and individual. The disciplined militant embodies the king as the object of all the hatred.

Leopoldo Avila**, the alias who martyred intellectuals from the pages of Verde Olivo***, was not a single person. This can be glimpsed in the disparity in the style of his articles, but the healthy selective memory, enjoyed by restored, prefers to see only Luis Pavón Tamayo as executioner.

Alcides remembers him as a man who spoke softly, pleasant and polite without being pedantic. A expendable poet, although with sensitivity. A memory fleeting and friendly. Ultimately, he came to know him when he was no longer king nor executioner.

Regina Coyula | La Habana | 1 Jun 2013

Translator’s notes:

*Parametrados / parametracion: From the word “parameters.” Parametracion (parameterization) is a process of establishing parameters and declaring anyone who falls outside them (the parametrados) to be what is commonly translated as “misfits” or “marginalized.” This is a process much harsher than implied by these terms in English. The process is akin to the McCarthy witch hunts and black lists and is used, for example, to purge the ranks of teachers, or even to imprison people.

**”Leopoldo Avila” was the pseudonym used by Pavón (and others) in the pages of the magazine Verde Olivo.

*** Verde Olivo (Olive Green): The illustrated weekly magazine of the Cuban Armed Forces, founded in 1959; Pavón served as the magazine’s editor for a time.

18 July 2013

Sugar and Missiles: From General to General / CID

When, at the end of June, the North Korean General Kyok Sik Kim arrived with a delegation to Cuba it was assumed that something was brewing between the two dictatorships. What else could one deduce from the words of this general when he was in Havana:

“Both parties were informed of the situation in each other’s countries and have exchanged ideas to boost the friendly relations of the two armies and two peoples of the two countries.”

Two weeks after this visit, the North Korean ship Gang Chong Chong was detained in Panama on its way back from Cuba. In the boat there was a cargo of sugar and below it, the Castro regime belatedly admits, there were 240 tons of weaponry.

To date, the military equipment has been identified, on a preliminary basis and through photos, by the So far, the military equipment has been identified, a preliminary and through photos, by the weapons specialist British firm HS Jane, as Soviet land-to-air missiles and an and fire control unit for RSN-75 radar.

It is assumed that the destination is North Korea, but this is pure speculation. After 24 hours of silence the Castro dictatorship declared it was obsolete equipment from the Soviet era being sent to North Korea for repair and that it included two batteries antiaircraft nine unarmed missiles and two MIG-21. This argument raises the question of why this equipment was sent to North Korea, not Russia, for repair. Furthermore, why was it hidden?

The silence kept by North Korea is suspicious as was the fact that the North Korean ship captain tried to kill himself when he was discovered smuggling. Until the crew refused to facilitate the inspection.

It’s a little childish that Castro’s tyranny has believed that the United States was not going to realize that Cuba was moving missiles on a North Korean ship. It is clear that delayed 24 hours to say it was material for repair because they didn’t know what to do until someone came up with the excuse. As much they want to justify the international ridicule, General Raul Castro and General Sik Kim Kyok have been caught in the act.

It is a crime to transport military hardware through the Panama Canal without proper declaration and the Chong Chong cargo violates a resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations banning the import and export of such weapons as those of North Korea. Given this violation, we expect absolute silence from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which Raul Castro became president of this past January, as they have been doing with the abuses committed against the people of Cuba and democracy.The ship could have carried Soviet ground-to-air missiles fired by a person. The Castro regime has these deadly missiles that can easily destroy personal aircraft in flight. In the hands of terrorist groups, with which Cuba and Korea have such close relations, they can wreak havoc on civil aviation in the world.

This scandal should serve as a warning to those in the European Union who are maneuvering so that the Common Position is replaced by a more conciliatory policy towards the dictatorship in Cuba.

The Castro regime may have explored with North Korea the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons and in view of transfer that has just been discovered in Panama, one day we could wake up with a story that can be very serious for the United States and Latin America.

The Castro regime is a terrorist regime that supports other terrorist regimes and kidnaps hostages to negotiate; hopefully some businessmen and politicians in the United States will insist on a settlement with the tyranny, understanding that in Cuba power is controlled by a group of violent and unscrupulous individuals.

16 July 2013

Santiago de Cuba: Prognosis Guarded / Regina Coyula

Santiago de Cuba suffered a heart attack last year. The family conceals her dark circles, puts on makeup, and dyes her hair, but can’t control her chronic hypertension. All this to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada Barracks.

With the characteristic superstition of the materialists in government, the celebration of this fixed date should be held in the “cradle of the Revolution.” In Santiago the public lighting was replaced with sodium vapor lamps; the major parks were refurbished with lighting, benches, and plants; the Heredia theater underwent a renovation for the cultural gala to be held on the eve of the political event; Antonio Maceo Square received an extensive engineering repair that included the underground area.

The television station reopened its studio. Of course Saturnino Lora Hospital, the Palace of Justice, and the barracks, all involved in the events of July 26, 1953, received benefits; also the little Siboney farm and the Venus Hotel, the latter included in the homeland tour.

Abel Santamaría Park, judging by the pictures, was rescued from significant deterioration. According to a worker in charge, 400 inactive pumps were unclogged and restored in the cube-shaped fountain, the park’s landmark. The places related to the assault 60 years ago are now spotless. I wish I could say the same about the housing stock.

It doesn’t matter that they’ve raced to restripe the major streets, or planted many trees overnight. The scars that were left after Hurricane Sandy buffeted the battered housing stock overlie the pre-existing ischemia. The patient’s symptoms point out the precariousness of the Santiago population.

In the midst of the the economic update that simply does not show tangible results for the average citizen, Santiagans find that Daddy State not only gives insufficient help as before, but has no ability to respond to the urgent needs of the victims. Some materials are subsidized staples, but most have to be purchased at market price. A family that lost its home can only hope for credit and assistance to build a home with a kitchen and bath, no matter how many family members there are.

Although the commemorations have lost their massive character to be required activities with seating and entry activities as listed, the cost of such an act is not negligible: foreign guests protocol houses, hotels, houses transit agencies, military and transport aircraft executive squadron numerous inputs and then moving back and forth from the leaders and guests, electricity, amplification equipment, personal security devices and counterintelligence, artists and technicians who will take part in the gala preview, press, billboards, banners and billboards that adorn the avenues to the palm-leaf hats and sweaters, but the fuel to run all this gear and other items that escape me.

The Santiagans would have preferred a tribute to the fallen and the city itself was allocated the amount of all these resources to restore the heart rhythm of a city, whose symptoms allowed diagnosing the cardiovascular accident caused by Hurricane Sandy.

Raul Castro has missed a great opportunity to achieve political gain without seeming to.

Regina Coyula | La Habana

From Diario de Cuba

24 July 2013