Author: Translating Cuba

Whispers in the Wind

I looked at the picture of the political prisoner Ariel Sigler, taken after his release from prison. I closed my eyes, while various feelings swept over me. Once again I felt the reaction of the effect of his example. I wiped away the tears and composed myself.

I tried to imagine the future, before shouting aloud, “What destructive power and indolence! Who will pay for so much suffering? What is the formula for not harboring hatred and resentment? What will those say who today claim that all who dissent on the island do it for money? How much is seven years in prison worth, or the risk of going there?”

It is time to think in the present. What present? We live unique moments, but we can’t stop breathing uncertainty and incredulity. What will happen tomorrow? Doesn’t anyone know how and when the situation will end (if some day it will end)? A question to which there is no answer. Which is more disastrous, Greek tragedy or Cuban?

As they saying goes: “Everything that begins must end,” and another, “There is no evil that lasts 100 years, nor a body that can resist it.” Proverbs are laws of daily life, but how sad when daily they fill you with pessimism.

This is my present: daily walking the streets, taking public transportation, and feeling the reign of alienation. There is a single reality and worry for the preoccupied faces that pass by along the avenue: what to put on the table to eat. They sleep, but they do not have dreams. They know that there will be a tomorrow, but they are resigned not to think about the future.

They don’t know that there is an “unprecedented dialogue” between the church and the current leadership for the release political prisoners, that democratic governments of the world are pressing for respect of human rights on the island. They only know that there is a “media war against Cuba.” So they are informed by Granma, the Round Table, and Star News (NTV).

Instead, I try to find out and convey what is happening, so that the news runs from mouth to mouth, forming the snowball and later the avalanche. The listener keeps silent. You feel the look of doubt when with faith you pronounce the word “change.” It seems you do not understand, you are confused. Are you deaf, blind or dumb? No, they just think you’re crazy. There everyone stays, afraid to repeat what they hear, and your words remain, like a whisper in the wind.

Laritza Diversent

Translated by: Tomás A.

The United States Interests Section in Havana on that Country’s Independence Day

This year, as usual, the United States Interests Section in Havana held a well-deserved celebration of the independence of the United States and, as always, invited members of Cuban civil society. I think that Cuba is one of the few countries in the world that has outlawed this celebration, and far from honoring it, it discredits it with already tired epithets. Since I left prison in 2007, every July I receive with satisfaction and gratitude an invitation for myself and my wife,  Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera.

But this year I could not be there for various reasons, all of a repressive nature.

First, my wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera was suffering the pain of intercostal neuritis brought on by the cowardly agents of the political police in two brutal beatings and arrests in less than a week, for the simple and sole reason of trying to exercise two rights: to deliver a letter in the diocese of Santa Clara bound for Cardinal Ortega so that he might intercede before the tyranny of Havana in order to save the lives of both his brother, Mario Alberto Pérez Aguilera, as well as that of our beloved compatriot Ernesto Mederos Arrozarena, both on hunger strike in prison in Agüica.

Second, although the opportunity would have been conducive to telling those present to lend aid in the case of Mario Alberto and Ernesto, it was precisely the concern over their lives that has turned me into a sort of spokesman for the desperate and constant efforts Yris to that effect.

Third, if in other less complicated circumstances they have arrested me while trying to reach the capital, and at times after managing to do so, it appears that the hunting dogs are after my person, I don’t believe that with the bullying and harassment of which I’m a victim at this time in my own house, I would have been able to make it even as far as the bus or train station.

Congratulations to this great and hospitable nation in this patriotic day. I am convinced that sooner or later, we Cubans may also celebrate on May 20, in a free and democratic Cuba, where you and we can attend with reciprocity and without these absurd prohibitions of the repressive Castro regime, as it was in the times of the Republic, as it is in the free and civilized world.

Vacations, a Headache for Many Families

Summer vacation is here.  This means joy for children, adolescents, and young adults.  But many parents will have to take some aspirins.  If they managed to save some money in the moneybox during the last year, like 45-year-old Mario Guillen, then they might withstand the blow.

Guillen, a steel mill worker who works 10 hours a day in a factory on the outskirts of Havana and dedicates his free time to making steel windows and doors, is a cautious man.

When he shattered his red piggy bank, he counted 438 convertible pesos (that is nearly 330 dollars).  Sitting with his wife on a humid and rainy night towards the last days of June, they made some plans.

They have two sons, one is 10 and the other is 14.  Both are on summer vacation from school.  Guillen and his wife made their plans a month ago.  “We are thinking of taking our kids to the theatre, to the theme park, a quality restaurant, and the pool.  No beaches, they have told me that with oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico there have been numerous predatory marine animals that have migrated to our shores”, his wife, Mariana, worriedly states.

Rumors of fierce sharks and giant seals circling around the coasts off the beaches East of Havana really worry the parents.  According to specialists and the official press, all these rumors are false.  But some parents still harbor these fears.

The Guillen couple will also purchase provisions for the two months of vacation that their sons have.  Now, instead of feeding them once a day, they will need to also be given lunch and snacks.  “We’ll have to get some pork meat on the black market, in addition to fresh fish and chicken, rice, beans, oil, ham, sausages, and powdered soda.  We’ll spend nearly 150 convertible pesos (120 dollars) on that,” points out Guillen while he makes calculations on his old Chinese-made calculator.

At least the Guillen family has enough money to plan their kids’ vacations.  But if you ask Rogelio Ortega, a black man with huge eyes and a protruding belly, what recreational plans does he have for his 5 children, he’d stare back at you as if you were a strange creature.

“Same as always, lots of television. The boys could go play baseball or soccer on the streets, without shoes though, so they won’t ruin the few they already have. As for the girls, they’ll have to help their mom and grandma and play with their dolls.  If I get my hands on some money, I’ll take them to the coast on a random weekend so they could go for a swim between the rocks,” he explains in a very calm manner.

“You are not scared of a possible wave of sharks?”, I ask him. Ortega pats me on the shoulder and says:  “Those sharks are gonna have to be scared of my kids instead.  If they see it close to them, it’s most probable that they will probably eat it, fin and all,” he says while laughing.

Families like that of Rogelio Ortega are already familiar with what summer vacation means. More of the same. TV, one meal a day, and the kids having to deal with it whichever way they can. Their finances don’t produce enough for any other option.

For Junior Mendoza, 20, a university student, vacations just mean work.  “My parents don’t have the resources, I usually end up working in whatever clandestine job I can find for those two months. Sometimes I end up working at a cafeteria, an illegal cigarette factory, or even selling clothes and pacotilla (cheap merchandise).  I’m the salvation of my family during the vacations,” points out the young man with a piercing on his right ear.

For now, the World Cup serves as entertainment for the majority of Cuban families.  When June 11 comes around the series concludes, then that’s when the good stuff starts.  An abundance of worries, lack of money, and lack of provisions.  The government promised a wide variety of recreational options.  A wide billboard announcing TV programs, including 55 new series and nearly 500 films.  There will be sales of books, parties, fairs in public squares, and even some food offers.

Those who were able to save some money, like the family of Mario Guillen, will be aware of such events.  Those who don’t have even a cent, like the smiling Rogelio Ortega, could not care less about what they offer for the 2010 vacations.  For his family, summer is not a special event.  On the contrary.  It is a headache.

Ivan Garcia

Photo:  johnhope14, Flickr

Translated by Raul G.

The Cinema, Soccer and Vuvuzelas

Exciting atmosphere. It’s 2:10 in the afternoon and outside the Yara cinema, right in the heart of the central 23rd Avenue, there are hundreds of people with T-shirts, caps, flags and scarves for the Spanish and other countries.

Most of the fans are young students from the nearby University of Havana, who wait, biting their nails, for the second round match between the Spain of Iker Casillas and the Portugal of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ubaldo Arias, 23, who studied this last year for a career in philosophy, is at the front of group supporting the Red Fury. Dressed in shirts of “Guaje” Villa, Fernando Torres and Xavi Hernandez.

They chant slogans. They are convinced Spain will be the new world champions. Some dark guys with their “canary” green and red mock them.

Arias and his band enter laughing, while fraternizing they tell them, “See you in the final.” There is still a stretch of competition. But the expected Spain-Brazil duel for the title is a real possibility.

A few minutes later the line forms. They start to sell tickets at two pesos (10 cents in dollars). The theater looks like a mini stadium. It’s full.

On the big screen they’re showing the last game with Lithuania. The room erupts with the racket of a thousand demons when the mustachioed Vicente del Bosque appears getting off the bus at the South African stadium.

The fans are chanting the names of the eleven Iberians, when they emerge on screen. “Ole, ole, ole Casillas, ole ole Tarzan Puyol, ” and so on until the 23 Spanish players get off the bus, on this island where it usually takes baseball to get most Cubans to their feet.

Since they started the second round matches, the theater management, ICAIC and the Institute of Radio and Television has the bright idea of showing the games on the wide screen.

People appreciate it. No alcoholic beverages are allowed inside. The various loyalties are discussed with passion and respect for the firm support of their different teams.

It’s true that Brazil, Argentina and Spain steal the show. But there are also, on the island, many rooting for The Netherlands and Germany. The good mood engulfs the bewildered tourists, who watch the enthusiasm with which Cubans enjoy the World Cup.

Latin American students are given their turn at the Yara cinema, to support the teams of their preferences. They are the coming generation. It could be the World Cup of America.

Four teams in the quarterfinals and a hunger for glory. It is not only Brazil and Argentina. Uruguay knows what it is to raise a cup and look askance at Julet Rimes’ trophy. Paraguay wants to make history.

But first they have to pass through comfortably placed Spain. While reaching the quarter finals, the different gangs enjoy the beauty of their triumph and suffer when their eleven goes tearfully back to the locker room.

No one can deny the good mood in the Yara. When David Villa scored the winning goal against Portugal that sent them into the quarterfinals, those in attendance, about two thousand of them, deliriously shouted GOOOOOOOOOAL.

At dark, many embraced. They jumped and shouted, “SPAIN! SPAIN!” These are the good things of football. The worse, the annoying high pitched noise of the vuvuzela. I don’t know how they managed to appear in Havana. But before such an event, someone passes them out. A World Cup is a World Cup.

Iván García

Photo: Kaloain Santos

Iván’s Blog: Iván’s File Cabinet

My Memory, Good and Bad

What you see here is a detail of the “La Coubre” Terminal. Its specialty?: Putting passengers on the Waiting List. Is there a Cuban who hasn’t passed through here? Well, yes, of course, company directors, highest level military, and officials powerful enough to make all their journeys by plane from Havana at the cost of their company or institution.

At times I berate myself for not being more meticulous with some of my accounts, I should have counted the nights I’ve slept at La Coubre waiting for a bus that never shows, meaning that it wouldn’t have been in the itinerary, but that it has failed eighty time on the way, blown a piston, blown a tire, or the drivers have made more than the twenty regulated stops between Havana and Holguin.

I can count the times I’ve had almond ice cream, eaten half a pound of ham, or that I could buy myself a book by Humberto Eco for five dollars: ONCE.

But no way do I remember the number of times the Havana-Santiago de Cuba train has been canceled an hour before departure. I can’t remember because I lost count.

I have to accept my propensity for mental Vaseline. Bad things lead me down the road to amnesia.


To comment on this article please visit:
Luis Felipe’s Blog: Crossing the Barbed Wire.

Waiting for the Americans

There is still a labyrinth of parliamentary procedures. But the U.S. Congress is considering authorizing the travel of its citizens to Cuba. The measure appears to have great potential for adoption.

Already the Castro brothers are sharpening their teeth. If the gringo politicians say yes, cash registers will overflow with dollars. Let the ‘bucks’ (dollars) we are waiting for come, it could mean the government of the island!

And how needed they are. We know that the Cuban economy is not even treading water. For 17 years, since they legalized the possession of dollars in 1993, in large part, the emigrants, the despised ‘worms’, as Fidel Castro liked to say with some rage, are those who have kept the impoverished economy from sinking.

Yes. Its more than one billion greenbacks a year are the lifeline of a regime that has always been repulsed by the “American way of life.” The United States is public enemy number one for Fidel Castro. But there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since 1959.

And while you stir the guts of the old guerrilla commander, in this 2010, the land of Stars and Stripes is the leading seller of food to Cuba. Also their NGOs are the ones who provide the most help. And Cuban-Americans, are an important segment of the people who come to go sightseeing and spend hard currency.

The embargo is a fossil of the cold war. A joke. It only served as a pretext for Castro to maintain his authoritarian policies and to deny a handful of essential freedoms to his people.

It always had more holes than Swiss cheese. While Castro, the one with the beard, shouts himself hoarse in any public plaza, talking about what the country suffered because of the”blockade,” while hard currency shops and cafes sell Coca Cola and Dell computers.

For the rest, the world condemned the prohibitory and unilateral policy of Washington to Havana. It is healthy that the administration of Obama reconsiders. And demolishes all the scaffolding mounted on a stage that many years ago said goodbye.

Cuba is no longer a prodigal and conflicting son of the former USSR. Let it be known, Latin American and African guerrillas are not training in military camps on the island, to create pockets of civil war in other nations.

To not allow U.S. citizens to travel to the island was a major folly. It brazenly violated their rights. The champion of democracy and freedoms could not afford such nonsense.

Either way, Americans who wanted to, could come to Cuba through a third country. More than 50 thousand per year, according to reliable figures. Although they feared the Castros.

If the embargo ends and travel is allowed he will continue ruling with an iron fist all who oppose him, and then the eyes of the world will be on an anachronistic and undemocratic regime.

Already the local mandarins have tried out a few variations. If the Yankees take their foot off the accelerator, it could be that the Cuban government, kicking the ball back into Obama’s court, might make some mid-sized changes, maybe even some profound ones.

Those who govern our destinies do not believe in representative democracy. But will do what they have to do to stay in power.

No wonder that during the stay of the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, in the coming days, they will release 52 political prisoners from the Black Spring of 2003. As a reward for Spain’s Socialist Party, a faithful friend through thick and thin. And as Spain will be able to claim the laurels, it will not appear that such releases have been conditioned by the possible openings from Obama’s government.

With that, the Castros will kill two birds with one stone. They get the international pressure to ease up a bit, and incidentally, unlock the European Union’s common position. That fox Moratinos knows a thing or two.  He already said there could soon be some surprises.

This summer brings a three-way political game. United States, Spain and the Cuban Catholic Church, which is chosen by the government to serve as mediator in the conflict with the Yankees and the release of political prisoners.

The brothers from Birán need peace and some leeway to implement a series of tough and unpopular ecnomic measures to get the country out of the hole created by bad management. If tomorrow the Yankees land in Havana, it won’t only benefit the managers of tourism. It will benefit the Castros, too.

And, of course, the Cubans who live on the informal economy. And there are many. Gringos putting dollars into the hands of private homes for rent and buying illegal tobacco boxes. Whores chasing after the blong guys, tall and unmarried from America, they might even propose marriage.

As I write this note the news still hadn’t run from mouth to mouth, but the neigbors I talk to receive it with great joy. Even the married and ex-military party militant. The happiest, the private taxi driver who brought me to a hotel and the waiter who served me coffee while I connected to the internet.

The two gave me an opinion that I happen to share: “If the Cuban government wants the Americans to come en masse, they’re going to have to eliminate that diabolical 20% tax on the dollar.”

Otherwise the Yankees are going to keep on visiting Punta Cana.

Iván García

Photo: Patricio Bridges, Flickr

Ernesto Mederos Arrozarena

Political Prisoner Ernesto Mederos Arrozarena

Perhaps, dear reader, this name may remind you of little or nothing, but for me, and for all of us who have the privilege of knowing him, it means a lot.  I met him a few months after being released from prison in 2007.  I had gone to Colon with my wife to visit her brother who, at the time, was in Aguica prison.  The home of the Merejo and Cari family was, and is, the point of reunion and hospice for every brother that arrives in that city.  It is where bags are put together and distributed that will go to the political prisoners.  Pancho and Regla, another family, also join them on this humanitarian mission.  Each of them are love and solidarity personified.  Yet there are always dispositions, temperaments, and attitudes that stand out from all the others and this is true of Ernesto, who, as we Cubans say, is the center where it all comes from.

Ever since I met him, I knew I was in the presence of someone loyal, inseparable, simple, and brave.  Then came the protests around the Civic Plaza of the Revolution, the protests in front of the Holguin prison, the arrests in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, the sit-ins, and the hunger strikes.  In sum, the struggle, sacrifice, and loyalty all describe the life of this passionate patriot from Matanzas who currently finds himself between life and death since June 7th due to a hunger strike together with the political prisoner Mario Alberto Perez Aguilera, who has inspired Ernesto to carry out numerous civil acts of protest.

Ernesto Mederos Arrozarena cannot die, he is demanding his freedom.  Mederos Arrozarena should not be in prison because his only crime has been to attempt to travel to Santa Clara last August 4th to take part in a peaceful homage to the day of the “Maleconazo”*, the day of resistance.  Mederos Arrozarena has to return safe and sound to the warmth of his old mother, Celia, who is more than 90 years old and finds herself in a delicate state of health.  Her friends and family, in order to prevent a fatal outcome, tell her that Ernesto is actually on vacation.

*Note: The Malaconazo was an uprising that broke out in Havana on August 5, 1994, along the Malecon (the waterfront seawall and arterial street),when thousands of Cubans took to the streets shouting “Libertad” or “Freedom.”

Translated by Raul G.

No Problem

“Ungrateful!  Talking trash about the Revolution and today you have a name only because it gave you free health care and education.  Besides, it guarantees you a monthly allotment of basic goods while around the world millions of people die from hunger every day.”

“You know, I don’t like talking bad about anyone behind their backs.  In fact, go ahead and look for her so I can look her in the face and let her know how I feel.  Show me who she is.  How can I talk to her?  Give me her address, I’m going to knock on her door.”

“Don’t pretend to be clever.  You know very well what I’m talking about.”

“Yes, I know, and you also know what I mean.  Today I want answers and if she is not here to give them to me, then you tell me.  I want to know why you lied to me and also to my parents.  You said it was the best and only solution, so that we could all equally achieve progress.  My parents believed it and I believed them. I dedicated my body and soul to studying, I became a professional.  What was the use, if I don’t even respect myself?  Today, in the union meeting they demanded the help of all us workers to confront illegalities and corruption. They collected the written agreements of all workers: their names, phone numbers, address, size, weight, and skin color…”

“Why was all of that necessary?”

“I don’t know, ask them.  But look, don’t interrupt me.  I gave my information and signed everything.  You know I’m the chief of the warehouse and I have to set a good example.  If I don’t I then run the risk of being questioned and may even lose my job, which I struggled a lot to get, and there a bunch of people who would do anything for that to occur.  A little place like that is worth a lot of money…”

“That’s for sure, the new chief who came has you under his foot.  The guy fires everyone so he can bring in his own people.  He already started with the economic group, they ordered an audit and they threw them out.”

“Back to what I was talking about… Man, I’m tired.  Sometimes when I get home from work my kid starts talking to me.  I don’t know what to tell him, he wants to be like me.  Who am I?  A mechanical engineer who works at a warehouse stealing all I can get my hands on in order to survive.  How do I explain that to him?  That’s not the future I want for him.  I studied, that’s true, but for what?  I have a degree that I can’t use.  The sad part is that in the morning I repeat all that gibberish about “conquering and sacrifices in order to preserve the Revolution” to all the workers when we all know very well that this can’t go on.  Leave the excuses, girl, I’m you’re boss, but with me you don’t have to lie.  By the way, why didn’t you come today?”

“I had to take care of an issue I had, I don’t have a single grain of rice in my house.”

“That’s enough, enough.  Don’t explain so many things to me.  I’ll throw you a rope with the personnel lady.  Tomorrow go by where the union lady is and just sign.  We need the agreement of 100% of the workers so that the corporation could be distinguished in the semester emulation.”

“You know that with me there is no problem!”

Laritza Diversent

Translated by Raul G.

Precise Reason to Demand Justice

Written by: Yadaimí Domínguez

I propose in this post to expound on, in the matter of Criminal Law, the unjust sentence Yamil received for a crime he never committed and the evil intention of the Court on passing sentence, willfully ignoring the practical proofs that show his INNOCENCE.

In Cuban Criminal Procedure there are 19 grounds. I want to dwell on GROUND 10 as it is the one conforming to case #11/2008 of the Second Chamber of the Provincial Court of Havana in its process of review, a ground on which my brother was prosecuted and sentenced to 10 years deprivation of liberty.

Ground 10 proposes the following:

The content of the sentence does not fit with the practical proofs during the process or there are circumstances not taken into account that can influence the decision handed down.”

For these analysis of this ground I took into account the opinion of Dr. Marcelino Diaz Pinillo, Professor of Criminal Procedural Law of the University of Havana.

We believe that this grounds for review is one of the most significant in ordinary criminal procedure because of the intrinsic weight it brings. The issue is that the trial court, at the time of passing judgment and then sentence, already had all the evidence and could have reached the conclusion that his sentence was not consistent with the proof provided, that is, the logical test of the proof is in error, illogical and unfounded, and thus led to an injustice.

Of course it is not possible that a Court of Review could reach this conclusion if it doesn’t have in its hands all the elements that make up the evidence and all the rational made by the trial court to reach its erroneous conclusion. It follows that the lower courts should place on record, with precision and accuracy, the evidence and arguments they made in the case; this must be reflected in his sentence and also should be included in the minutes of the trial. With little doubt, this is the only way to determine whether the trial court did or did not make an accurate appraisal of the evidence that was available.

Based on what I am exposing today, it calls into question the assessment of the evidence and the appreciation of the circumstances made the trial court, although it was in their hands and, inexplicably, resulted in an unjust sentence. Because of this the Court of Review enters the discussion of the validity or otherwise that resulted in the sentence. The acceptance letter of the visa of my sister-in-law, processed by Yamil; the weather report certifying the bad weather from the Meteorological Institute, the Witness Declaration from the border guards who escorted my brother to the Hemingway Marina, the convincing testimony by Marleny gave orally, the contradictions between the prosecution witnesses in the full trial and the other objective evidence in favor of Yamil were elements that the court had to take into account in passing sentence and none of them were taken into account in the analysis and drafting of it.  What an injustice!

It has always been a subject of great debate, the absolute validity of the proven results of the sentence, their intangibility. Not one of our legislatures, to this day, has accepted the violation of this principle. And then, we find that the legislature accepts this attack on proven results. It is our intention to open up this old controversy, only to point out the importance of what it implies and some consequential questions that it brings.

A first consideration will be that if this were to be accepted into the review it will obviously have to be admitted on appeal, as it would be consistent with the postulate. The review procedure is the last link in the chain of procedure, and it would not be logical  in earlier times not to admit this.

On the other hand, I think the question of principle of the invulnerability of proven results, or its intangibility, can not be treated only as a theoretical problem and one of legal dogmatism, it needs to be approached also as a practical and dialectic problem. Judicial practice in recent years, and I think always, has shown that if the court “ad quem” cannot come to a value and change the resulting outcome, justice may suffer.

We know that this issue creates difficulties of all kinds: uncertainty among the judges involved, indiscriminate attack on the sentences by the parties, great efforts that reflect clearly which were the practical proofs, etc, notwithstanding all these questions, judicial practice dictates. It is not about opening the sluices and letter the water run unchecked, but about opening and directing its flow, establishing in a definitive and clear way the form and the cases that led this attack on the first resulting sentence. Noting that, when logical reasoning suggests, it is necessary and required, from every legal point of view, to amend the judicial error that has been produced by the rupture between the evidence and what was reflected in the resulting action. The important thing is to get better sentences each time and with them justice prevails.

If this applies, as it must, then the Court will Review of the case #11/2008, and the agony in which my brother and everyone in his family lives, will come to its end.

The Horror From the Sweetness

In one of life’s random events I came across Letters From Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi in a Havana bookstore. I didn’t find it in one of the individually managed stalls selling used books, but in a local State store that sells colorful editions in convertible currency. The small volume, with a photo of her on the cover, was mixed in among the self-help manuals and recipe books. I glanced to both sides of the shelves to see if someone had put the book there just for me, but the employees were sleeping in the midday heat, one of them brushing flies off her face without paying me any mind. I bought the valuable collection of texts written by this dissident between 1995 and 1996, still taken by the surprise of finding them in my country where we, like her, live under a military regime and strong censorship of the word.

The pages with Aung San Suu Kyi’s chronicles — reflections on everyday life mixed with political discourse and questions — have barely touched the shelves of my home. Everyone wants to read her calm descriptions of Burma, marked by fear, but also steeped in a spirituality that makes her current situation more dramatic. In the few months since I found the Letters, the vivid and moving prose of this woman has influenced the way we look at our own national disaster. The thread of hope that she manages to weave into her words instills in them an optimistic prognosis for her nation and for the world. No one has been able to describe the horror from the sweetness as she has, without the cries overwhelming her style and the rancor being reflected in her eyes.

I can’t stop wondering how the texts of this Burmese dissident made it into the bookstores of my country. Perhaps in a bulk purchase someone slipped in the innocent-looking cover, where an oriental woman tucks some flowers, as beautiful as her face, behind her ear. Who knows if they thought it might be from some writer of fiction or poetry, recreating the landscapes of her country motivated by aestheticism or nostalgia. Probably whoever placed it on the shelf didn’t know about her house arrest, or the richly-deserved Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991. I prefer to imagine that at least someone was aware that her voice had come to us. An anonymous face, some hands quickly placing the book on our shelf, so that when we approached it we could feel and recognize our own pain.

The Route Jeans and T-Shirts Take to Cuba

Until now, the main route for private merchandise has been Miami-Havana, and from the capital it fans out to the rest of the country. Although it could also make the reverse trip, from an eastern province to the west of the island.

Private imports of products from abroad tend to come from Cubans who have the opportunity to travel overseas for their work, such as merchant marines, doctors, nurses, sports coaches, and emigrants, among others.

In recent months, the customs authorities have focused their attention on articles imported by emigrants, particularly those based in Ecuador, a nation that has become attractive to Cubans since June 2008, when President Rafael Correa declared that foreigners could enter the country and stay up to 90 days without needing a visa.

An opening that Cubans have not squandered. Add to that the advantage that since 2000, Ecuador replaced the former national currency, the sucre, with the U.S. dollar.

According to the Ecuadorian Immigration Office, in 2008, 10,940 Cubans entered the country and 9,935 left. In 2009, 27,114 entered and 23, 147 left. And in January and February of 2010, 4,800 arrived and 3,357 departed. Mario Pazmiño, former director of intelligence, estimates that 7,000 Cubans have stayed in the country, many of them with the aim of getting Ecuadorian citizenship.

On the other hand, it’s estimated that of the 296,000 Cubans who traveled to the island in 2009, about 200,000 were from the United States and in 2010 that number could approach 300,000. Since the easing of travel restrictions on the part of President Obama, some 20,000 passengers have arrived in Cuba each month. Every one with the accompanying “worms” (huge bags), full of all manner of cheap and knock-off goods.

Although official figures are not available, it is assumed that the volume of merchandise imported by way of individuals is enormous. And not just from Ecuador and the United States: thanks to a half-century of socialist poverty, Cubans are among the greatest buyers and sellers of schlock in the world.

Starting January 1, 2010, General Customs of the Republic increased the taxes on goods subject to customs fees. It also stressed controls of non-commercial imports coming in with Cuban travelers, with an emphasis on those coming from the U.S. and Ecuador.

On the internet we find cases like that of Jorge, age 35, who in Cuba raised pigs for sale. Now, in Quito, he spends every morning shopping, looking for t-shirts, jeans and cheap jewelry, original or replicas.

Jorge told the reporter that the greater part of everything “shoddy” he sends to Cuba. If he manages to get through without any problems at Customs, it doesn’t take him long to sell his goods, at lower prices than those in the “shoppings” or hard currency stores.

In Quito, the local sellers are extremely happy with their Cuban clientele. Ximena, a shop owner, decided to replace her inventory of towels with a line of children’s clothes, in great demand by Cubans. Angelita, an administrator of a commercial center, says that for the last year-and-a-half the Cubans have become their main customers, and they’re “so active that sales are up 40%.”

Ecuadorian police sources estimate that 70% of the Cubans who come to Ecuador are what they call “porters,” men or women who contract a marriage to be able to enter and leave the country easily, the better to realize their “commercial activities” between the two countries.

Whether from Ecuador, the U.S., or another country, the better part of all this merchandise is going to end up on the black market. Alfredo, 43, decided to give up his desk in a state office last year to dedicate, himself to”bisne” (business). “My role is to guarantee that the schlock gets to the people on the street immediately, as they are the ones who most need it.”

Laritza Diversent

Photo: Cuban in Quito buying shoddy goods to sell in Cuba. Google-Images.

Here Comes the Wolf! / Regina Coyula

My neighbor Tomás is very concerned because he just found out that a new war is coming. The newspaper on Tuesday June 29, confirmed his suspicions of Friday. According to his reading the imperialists will use the World Cup to fall on Iran*. He doesn’t doubt it, as Fidel warns of it in two of his regular columns, which are titled “Reflections.” Tomás does not ask why he wasn’t aware of such serious news until now, despite the fact that the initial incidents did not occur last week but much earlier, but these incidents have passed through our information sources with a very low-profile because they involved leaders friendly to the Cuban government.

Now that tempers have heated up they warn us of imminent war. People better informed than I am are astonished because the war is not in any of the news from other parts of the world (well, I guess in Iran and North Korea they don’t talk of anything else). My neighbor Tomás’s concern is how the war would affect us, for he, God in Heaven and Fidel on Earth, also according to his own words, Fidel has never been wrong about external politics, and he adds sadly, “It’s unfortunate that it hasn’t been the same with regards to internal things affecting us.”

*Translator’s note: More precisely, Fidel has been saying — in his newspaper column — that there will be a global nuclear war before the end of the World Cup in South Africa.

Sugar, Half a Century of Failures

55-21The article by Juan Varela Pérez, faulting the control and dedication in the sugar harvest, published in the daily Granma on May 5, 2010, is evidence that the critical condition of Cuban sugar production reflects the situation of agricultural production and the of the economy in general.

Among other things Varela said that “the current year’s harvest, 2010, can be described as poor in production and efficiency,” it has been “the poorest since 1905,” and the Ministry of Sugar  and the Business Groups had no control and had to enforce organizational alternatives that would allow them to solve the difficulties which as of March 25 resulted in “a deficit of over 850,000 tons of sugar cane,” that cane yields in 2005-2008 “grew 24 tons per hectare to 41.6, again depressed and showing a costly decrease,” and that to reverse the current crisis demands a comprehensive review and recommendations to analyze how to improve the cane yield “whose production is now the lowest paid work in agriculture.”

To understand the magnitude of the disaster, we review some data of Cuban sugar production in the last 115 years. In 1895 for the first time the country produced 1.4 million tons of sugar, an amount that fell with the incendiary torch during the War of Independence. In 1903 production was 1 million tonnes and in 1907 reached 1.3 million, in 1919 4.0 million was exceeded, and in 1925 the figure reached 5.3 million, in 1948, 6.1 million and in 1952 the country achieved the colossal figure of 7.2 million tonnes. In 1959 there were more than 6 million tonnes and in 1970 it reached 8.5 million, a record number in our history, with the drawback that the determined effort to accomplish this disrupted the entire Cuban economy.  Then the harvests between 1982 and 1990 were close to that of 1970, until 1999 hardly reached 3.8 million tonnes.

To address the decline of sugar, Ulises Rosales del Toro, Major General and Chief of General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), was appointed Minister of Sugar. In that position, he forecast a recovery and in 2001 reached the figure of 5 million tonnes. To that end he directed two projects: the Sugar Industry Restructuring and the Alvaro Reynoso Task. The first was aimed, among other things, at achieving an industrial output of 11%, which meant removing 100 tons of cane, 11 tons of sugar, but in 2002, 71 of the 156 sugar mills closed and 60% of the land was redistributed from cane to other crops, even though Cuba has enviable conditions for its production. The second, which is named after the famous Cuban Alvaro Reynoso, intended to achieve a yield of 54 tons of cane per hectare (well below the world average), which was also unsuccessful.

The strategy proved to be unfeasible. In 2001 there were 3.5 million tonnes produced instead of 5.0 million, an amount similar to 1918, and in 2002 it dropped to 2.2 million tonnes, the lowest in 80 years. In 2003 it dropped to 2.1 million and in 2004 there was a slight recovery which reached 2.52 million, then it fell precipitously in 2005, which produced only 1.3 million, the worst sugar harvest in the last hundred years — a figure that was produced in Cuba in 1907 — while the yield per hectare, as explained by Juan Varela, suffered a slight increase before continuing to decline.

The other measures taken for the agricultural economy have been, essentially, the enactment of Law 259, on the distribution of land in usufruct, and changes of staff in charge of the ministries.

The first measure, Act 259, is limited to handing over idle land in usufruct for 10 years; these are lands which were invaded by the marabou weed, to the point that the area of cultivated land between 1998 and 2007 decreased by 33%.  Despite this, the Law retains ownership in state hands. On Thursday, May 13, on the television show The Morning Journal, the journalist Ariel Terrero said that although Act 259 increased the number of farmers, they lack the equipment, resources and experience, and that Cuba is importing 80% of consumed agricultural products; that the yield of bananas grew over the previous year, a year which was also very bad for cyclones, but yield decreased in many other areas such as taro, fresh vegetables, etc., and that half of the land given by Act 259 is still not producing.

The second measure, changes of staff, has not had any positive effect; Ulises Rosales del Toro, after eight years without being able to stop the decline in sugar production, “based on his extensive experience of leadership and political authority and the need to enhance agricultural production, of the country,” was appointed Minister of Agriculture and in his place, as Minister of Sugar, Luis Manuel Ávila González, was appointed but later dismissed. More recently, the First Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Gustavo Rodriguez Rollero, was promoted to Minister and Ulises Rosales and elevated to the post of the comprehensive care of the Sugar Ministry, Agriculture and Food Industry.

The essence of failure both in sugar production and the rest of the economy, is the subordination of the economy to politics, the inefficient current structure of ownership and wages that do not correspondence to the cost of living. A millennium of experience and economics have shown all over the world that human beings act depending on their interests, so when the interest is gone, as has happened in Cuba for the reasons discussed, the result can be no other: preventing citizens, by law, from ownership, and paying them an insufficient income, means what instead of engaging in production they will remain outside the law, with the consequent detrimental ethical deterioration.

Hunger Strikes, Weapon of Cuban Dissidents

A tragic fashion. Objectionable to many. The only option the opponents have. They believe that in this way they can force the regime. It is their war cry. But it is not a new weapon.

Already in 1972 a 53-day hunger strike took the life of opponent Pedro Luis Boitel. It was before the era of the internet and global media. Few learned of it. One of the principal dissident organizations on the island bears his name.

After 1959, it was one of the most-used measures by those imprisoned for opposing Fidel Castro and his revolution. According to Archivo Cuba, of the 59 to date, at least 12 political prisoners have died from hunger strikes. Others gave up or, at the request of family and friends, reconsidered their position.

Oscar Elias Biscet, a gynecologist who began his criticism of Castro condemning abortion and demanding respect for basic human and political rights, used fasting as a tool to draw worldwide attention and to put the stubborn and rigid commander’s back against the wall.

He failed. Nor did the opponent Orlando Zapata Tamayo succeed, he died after 86 days without food in the hellish prisons of the island.

Right now, there are several Cubans who, as a way to protest for their demands, have chosen hunger strikes, more or less strict.

One of them is Egberto Escobedo Morales, who on April 16 declared a hunger strike in prison in Camagüey. Escobedo was arrested in July 1995 and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, for the alleged crimes of “spying, theft with force, and enemy propaganda.” With his strike, he demanded that the regime dialogue with internal opposition. His situation critical, ten days ago he was taken to hospital Combinado del Este in Havana.

Guillermo Fariñas, a psychologist and freelance journalist, has maintained his strike from the February 24, as reported in this blog. A twitter from the opposition Martha Beatriz Roque, reported that on the night of Sunday 27 June, a group of dissidents was going to spend the night outside the hospital Arnaldo Milian, of Santa Clara.

Since March 11 Fariñas has been in intensive care there, but his health has deteriorated alarmingly. His current physical status is unknown. Although he is permitted visitors, similar to the June 19 case of Ariel Sigler Amaya, recently released from prison, they have not let anyone take photos or videos.

It is not the first time that Fariñas has decided to use hunger strikes as a weapon of pressure. Is the 23rd. A record.

One who uses this method for the first time is Juan Juan Almeida García, son of the legendary Juan Almeida Bosque, one of the stalwarts of the Revolution. He has gone two weeks without food but he is taking liquids. He has decided to undertake a hunger strike because the government will not let him travel abroad, to visit his wife and daughter. It remains to be seen whether the son of the guerilla can move the general.

Unlike Zapata, Escobedo and Fariñas, Almeida junior is someone close to the Castro family. For a while he lived in the home of Raul Castro. And he became a close friend of Alexander, Raul’s only son. He does not make political claims. He just wants to respect for his rights and to be allowed to leave and return to his country.

Others who have decided to use hunger strikes as a weapon of pressure in 2010, are accused of trafficking in persons, fourteen of them in the Ariza prison in the province of Cienfuegos.

In Havana, the Cuban Yamil Dominguez, 37, has gone 75 days without eating, only drinking water, in the maximum security prison, Combinado del Este.

Yamil was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to 10 years for the crime of human trafficking, in an illegal trial according to independent lawyers. After three years in prison, and after exhausting all legal requirements established by the Constitution, Dominguez opted for the hunger strike.

Independent sources report two Cuban political prisoners in their respective prisons who have declared a hunger strike, Diosdado and Abel Linares López Díaz Pérez, as well as the opponent Guillermo del Sol Perez, who recently released a letter stating that he has been proclaimed Fariñas’ successor, if he should die.

The fatal fashion of dissidents and prisoners, political or common, of refusing food and liquids, promises to continue to grow. But no one in the regime has taken them seriously.

There is no history of a hunger strike in Cuba that has softened the hearts of the Castro brothers. Still, the Cuban prisoners and opponents believe that hunger strikes are a weapon to pressure the regime. So far, none have succeeded.

Iván García

Photo: ABC. Juan Juan Almeida, then 5 years old, standing next to a model of the yacht Granma and Raúl Castro.