Author: Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

As part of the Multilateral ’Cuba 360’ Program I taught the course “The technologies of information and communication for the socialization of ideas. Cyber-activism and citizen journalism in Cuba,” which began on August 12, had enrollment of eight tenacious and restless young people, eager for training, and concluded on Friday, September 6. The course abducted me for more than a month in the interest of the quality of the methodological preparation, the domestic chores and the vicissitudes of summer in search “of the potato of the day” with lines everywhere and the systemic scarcities.

Of these eight students, seven graduated “with diplomas” of knowledge, which are the most valuable titles, but without the paper. They remain for the next cycle of education, several points that originated in the practice and others that impelled by circumstances, in short… we will continue working for ever greater quality classes and that such relationships provide more in the way of the training of democratic-minded people who know their rights.

We also hope that in the next course we will have a computer to teach the lessons of some branches of technological knowledge and that in the future we will be able to graph all the efforts and perseverance of a month in a historic “family” photo and publish it without fear for its participants. We thank everyone who contributed their modest logistical support, but rich in disposition and goodwill, so we could undertake this effort to convey our experiences. We will continue to open the doors to literacy and democratic praxis to all those Cubans who want to travel with us in new workshops. We have now started one more machine of freedom: we took the first step!

16 September 2013

A few days ago the Cuban actress Diana Rosa Suárez appeared on a national television program. Chatting with the moderator and responding to his questions, she reported that — at last! – after ten years, they had finished restoring the Delirium cabaret, where she used to work before it closed. She noted that once again she could be seen there and invited viewers to pay a visit to the piano bar on the top floor of the National Theater of Cuba, located in the Plaza neighborhood.

Cynical humor aside, her comments masked a a feeling of relief and the inevitable comparison Cubans living in the capital will make to the Focsa Building. Located in Vedado and built in 1956, it is considered one of the marvels of Cuban civil engineering. At 29 floors, with a height of 121 meters and housing 373 apartments with views of the sea and the Malecon, it took only two years and four months to build. Talk about contrasts!

12 September 2013

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Note: This post is from before the new Internet centers opened.

The Cuban authorities are ready to one more investment for the society that will bring them good dividends: opening navigation centers so what we Cubans can access the Internet away from our homes and with the computers of others. This is further evidence that we should bear up after years of our right to receive and send information and opinions being violated, and wait for government leaders to prove we can sail in cyberspace without their having a heart attack.

To this we have to add the situation with transportation to get to these internet places, there re 118 in the whole country, which is the equivalent is one cup of coffee per municipality.

Among the prices of the navigation services that the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) has offered foreigners residing in the country for years — not given to any citizen of another country who is a simple tourist — the cheapest is called the “Night Plan” which establishes a quota of 11 hours daily between 8:00 pm and 7:00 am the following day, costs 70 hard currency pesos (CUC), for thirty days.

That is, 330 hours a month for 70 CUCs. But with the new service that takes effect on June 4, 11 hours of internet in these centers would cost 1,485 CUC per month. If the workday for these cyber centers is 12 hours a day — as in the hotels — they would earn 1,620 CUCs. These results are just for a computer to navigate the Internet. What rogues!

According to a journalistic work appearing on the front page of the daily Granma, a functionary from ETECSA affirmed that there would be a total, nationwide, of 334 machines in those establishments that would provide a chance to surf the web a few days from now. This figure, multiplied by 1,620 hours, is 541,080, which is more than half a million convertible pesos every months. The deal of the century!

I want to clarify that I am in favor of public internet services. What burns me is discriminating against individual users who could afford — and they have the right to it — a connection from the comfort of their home. My well-founded fear is that some leaders are accustomed to fattening their wallets and will continue enjoying this right, either via computers or cellphones.

It’s worth noting the deteriorating logic of computers for the systematic exploitation of what usually in Cuba is the facile evasion of the authorities when they want to avoid the people’s doubts and find a quick out of their questions: “every computer costs the Cuban state I don’t know how many dollars on the international market,” etc etc. They will omit, of course, they every 120 hours of use (five days) of each machine will more than recover the cost of the machine.

In an interview the deputy minister of communications, the engineer Wilfredo Gonzalez Vidal, who libelously said in the official newspaper Granma, between flattering the Cuban State and ambiguous answers, which shows his limits on making decisions in this field, among many issues, said:

“We are aware that the initial fee for this service, in particular, is high and that, to the extent that ETECSA could recover its investments, mainly in connectivity infrastructure, computer platforms and the cost of international connections, we will gradually increase the access points and will study the behavior of the service to lower the rates, similar to what has been done with cell phone service.”

If ETECSA has to recover the investments it’s made, wouldn’t it be better to bring this benefit to users in their homes? The economic gain would be greater and the investments minimal. Why not start there?

It calls to mind the time when, publicly, the previous Cuban president said that not everyone could read the cables, that “had to be prepared” — always discriminating against and disrespectful of the rights of others — because the enemy spreads its poison through the media, blah blah blah…

So they crush us Cubans of the archipelago and violate our freedoms over and over again. We never stop exercising our right and civic duty to denounce such arbitrariness and to fight this State monopoly over the communication media. This official trust or consortium, two-faced and double standards, show their generosity in offering as a perk to their spokespeople a service that is everyone’s right.

But we shouldn’t be surprised at such attitudes and practices from a government that shows a humanist face to the world and after more than 54 years still oppresses its countrymen, and ignores often and with impunity, the principles that should govern the legal system in Cuba.

Nevertheless, we are pleased that technological development has forced — finally! — their taking the first step. We hope that the paralyzing mentalities of forever don’t obstruct the development and the freedoms that new technologies offer to the people.

30 May 2013

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (1952-2012). Image taken from a Christian Liberation Movement magazine.

Text of quote: “Let them call free and democratic elections on a the basis of a new electoral law and an environment that allows all Cubans to have the right to be nominated and elected democratically, to exercise freedom of expression and of the press, and to freely organize political parties and social organizations with total plurality. Yes or no?”

Oswaldo Payá came into this world and left it in leap years. He was a righteous man, devout Catholic and exemplary parent. As he was also with his country and with his time and his proposal to compel change to the iron structures of the Cuban dictatorship; but in exchange he received bullying, harassment and constant threats — open and veiled — against his person and his family.

He worked for the nation and the full exercise of the rights of Cubans. He thought up and developed multiple proposals for the democratization of Cuba, which the government authorities systematically ignored for more than two decades. Is is that men who carry freedom in their souls and think and feel in a clearly democratic way, something that naturally repels tyrants.

In this year since his death in circumstances disputed by his family, small changes have occurred in the way of achieving the oligarchic objectives  and perpetuating the government. Many have stepped aside to advance and to gain ever more space for externalizing the designs of the dictatorship, and among them are the annihilation of opposition political organizations inside Cuba. The ubiquitous presence — the unseen, which is equally or maybe more effective — of Cuban intelligence, the same here as in the world, conspires to prevent democrats from achieving our goals.

Today, when many opponents and dissidents seem confused in finding the way and means to achieve the desired democratization of Cuba, the dictatorship is consolidating and positioning its family, friends, and trusted staff.

They find it easier due to the absence of a path and a common and unifying leadership animated not by the violence of the raised machete, but by the sincerity, uprightness and intelligence of a proposal for a liberating transition and real changes.

A year after the death of Payá, they continue to lack the support of the world community to strengthen our society in the search for authentic paths not vitiated by police influence. That leaves us to imagine viable proposals that are agreed and achieve international support to promote them.

23 July 2013

On June 4, the 118 Internet centers that had been announced in the State press begin operating in Cuba. As I receive the newspaper Granma on Mondays I get Juventud Rebelde, Trabajadores and Tribuna de La Habana, several days earlier I began to search the newspaper, which should have information about the places that would offer the services, the addresses, but as of the writing of this text, nothing has appeared; why?

The downpours of the five days prior to the date in the western provinces drowned my ability to access the network during that time in places where usually I connect and so I do not know if in the foreign press showed the list to which I refer. Maybe the leaders hoped that foreign tourists come to navigate the Cuban cyber waters and for this they maintained discretion.

The fact is that the government media did not pay much attention to the issue. It could be that the silence that is due to a Party direction, perhaps thinking, from their disconnected cloud, that it might produce social congestion at these access points and are trying to avoid it with silence.

It is also possible that, on the contrary, they forgot to coordinate with the newspaper editors — which is unlikely — in order to “give abundant air” to the news in question. There is also possible, even more remote, if we take into account the tight control over the media by the authorities, and that the indifference is due to how distant the Internet is for the majority of the citizens, the excessive process of computer and telephone equipment, and that computers are almost never offered for sale in this country. Generally computers are imported by the minority of Cubans who can travel abroad.

The so-called southern television (TeleSUR) that is weighs on me to mention, committed and manipulated and whose north is leftist propaganda, mentioned the fact with great media fanfare on one of their news broadcasts, and assured that the opening of these cyber centers is part of the process of the “computerization of Cuba.”

If in the national media they claim there are already around two million cellphone users, why not include these potential navigators who already have the tools to set sail? As always happens in dictatorships, the paralyzing fear, secrecy, rights violated with extremist caution, and the unjustified deception on the pretext that “the enemy is listening,” are already very fragile arguments in a globally interconnected world.

This Monday the 10th the newspaper Granma mentioned for the first time that there was a cybercafe in the Focsa Building, with 9 seats for internauts. Where are the others?

The bembé is a religious festival of the Yoruba pantheon inherited from ethnic groups uprooted from Africa and we incorporate it into the Cuban cultural monuments. The news of cybersurfing points, however, wasn’t the celebration that many had anticipated. We’re left, then, with continuing the long and patient wait because everyone uses that service with the tools at their disposal, without ridiculous prohibitive pattakíes or discrimination, to celebrate with all Cuban users the respect of one of the fundamental rights on the part of the Cuban dictatorship, which constitute a real national celebration.

11 June 2013

Yoel Martínez, guitarist and member of the duo Buena Fe, (Good Faith) bought a house facing the sea. He and Israel Rojas hired a brigade to repair it and convert it into a bar-cafeteria-restaurant, Melesio’s Grill, which opened its doors the public on July 12.

With that name, and with both musicians being from Guantanamo, many think they named it in honor of a family member, but that’s not it. According to the source, the 90-year-old actor Reynaldo Miravalles, whose granddaughter lives in Cuba and represents him, is the one who made the “strong investment” in assembling the business and chose the name in memory of his beloved character, Melesio Capote, who played in the telenovela “The Rock of the Lion” and who lives in people’s hearts. They say that in the few days since the establishment opened, the son of Carlos Lage has visited it — will a green jar be found? — as have foreigners and some members of the Anacaonas orchestra. There are also many who expect it to be a major sales success because the prominent Cuban actor will promote it from Miami.

Business hours are from 12:00 pm to 12:00 am every day of the week, the staff wears uniforms and there are two work teams directed by Israel’s wife; on one team is the daughter of Cuba’s former Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. In addition, that assert that there are cameras everywhere to avoid costly mistakes. Two neighbors on the block live on-site: a cleaning assistant and a night custodian.

The locating of this private gastronomic center has generated great expectations among the neighborhood peanut gallery, in which they might expect to take a drink or enjoy a meal accompanied by some national entertainment celebrity. But the cheapest menu offering costs 5 CUC and already the neighborhood “roosters” resignedly assume that “this fight” is not theirs.

However, we wish the young entrepreneurs success in their business. To Miravalles, that the “mantel” of health will ways protect him, that fortune will rain on his life and his business, that abundant fruits will rain down in return for the good faith of his investment.

16 July 2013

Wendy, the family dog, has always been pampered by my youngest son and me. My first born and husband haven’t been as engaged, but lately she’s been sick and since them everyone has equally lavished expressions of affection. Like any dog, she is greedy and comes up to beg when she sees “the human herd” eating something.

Recently, I had an idea that we found interesting, causing laughter and reaffirming that it’s not only us people who show a preference for the quality of food. Rafa, my husband, bought a packet of Brazilian hot dogs — I’m sure they make good ones, but those sold here are mediocre or bad — and given the olfactory insistence of the dog, I offered her one of those we had in the fridge (American), along with one of the recently arrived one.

The fuss of my surprised caught my children’s attention, they came to see what was going on and asked me to repeat the experiment I’d just told them about. Wendy, over and over again, first and eagerly ate the American hot dog, and then, with a certain disgust, the Brazilian one. It doesn’t matter if we’re rightists or leftists, it’s always “attack the Yankee” first and without mercy.

We laughed imagining the allegory that would surely be used by leftist extremists about the “Yankee-ness” of a dog with an “imperialist” name, and who knows what other nonsense. At that point, my husband arrived with the reminder that those sausages are not free, and with friendly mathematical calculations and scolding us ever so gently with financial common sense he put an end to the foolishness.

9 July 2013