Web Platform Reflejos Closes the ‘14ymedio’ Blog / 14ymedio

"Esteemed user of the Platform "Blogs Reflejos": You have repeatedly published content that is not in keeping with the objectives of the platform Reflejos, not complying with the conditions you previously accepted. For that reason the blog is suspended...
“Esteemed user of the Platform “Blogs Reflejos”: You have repeatedly published content that is not in keeping with the objectives of the platform Reflejos, not complying with the conditions you previously accepted. For that reason the blog is suspended…”

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 27 March 2015 – The new Cuban blog platform, Reflejos, has decided to close the 14ymedio blog for “repeatedly publishing content that does not conform to the objectives with which the platform was created,” according to an email sent this Friday by the administrators.

The daily is accused of “failing to meet [the site’s] the conditions of use” with no other details. Nevertheless, when it was launched March 18, Kirenia Fagundo Garcia, a consultant on Reflejos, explained that there were no “restrictions as far as topics addressed on the blogs and users interested in the service.”

The blog opened by this daily on the digital platform was designed to bring its contents to Cuban readers since our site has been blocked on the Island’s servers since its creation in May of 2014.

During the few days in which it was active, the blog published a varied group of texts that ranged from culture to recipes to opinion columns. Neither verbal violence nor personal attacks were used, and the majority of commenters were internet users very interested in the topics that the posts covered.

The 14ymedio blog has been the object of many criticisms by bloggers associated with the Cuban government. At the beginning of this week, the official site for CubaSí news lamented the presence of “mercenaries in service of the US” on Reflejos. The writer of the article, M. H. Lagarde, accused 14ymedio in wrathful terms of having “contaminated” the platform with “counter-revolutionary propaganda.”

The digital platform is part of the Cuba Va project of the Computer and Electronic Youth Club. Set up on the free content manager WordPress, it has several technological deficiencies such as slow operation, low storage capacity (barely 250 megabytes per blog) and problems with the image upload tool. Nevertheless, in spite of these technical difficulties, we had managed to create a functional “mirror” of 14ymedio, on a service that calls itself Reflejos (Reflections) and that was announced from the beginning as a space for the blogs of the Cuban family.

Translated by MLK

Polarization and civil society / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

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14ymedio bigger 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 26 March 2015 – The family of Yamila, age 41, is a sample of Cuban society. The father is a member of the Communist Party, the mother a Catholic who never embraced the Revolutionary Process, there is a brother in Miami and she herself is working for a joint venture where she earns convertible pesos. When they sit down to eat, they discuss the high price of food, the low salaries, how boring the telenovela is, or how late the remittances from the emigrants are this month.

For decades the ideological fire has stirred no passions in Yamila’s living room. The father is increasingly tempered in his political views; the mother prays, while buying in the illegal market; the relative who lives on the other shore and comes every now and then on vacation is an obliging forty-something who saves every cent to bring them a flat screen TV. These are the daily problems that concern them and hold them together. The struggle to survive makes them set aside any differences.

This microcosm of the Cuban family today has a lot to teach those who, from polarized positions, try to say what civil society is and isn’t, continue reading

try to put limits and Manichean labels on the diversity of phenomena that make up our reality. Any definition of the framework of this complex tapestry that makes up a society should be constructed with the objective of recognizing all of its parts and the right of each to exist.

Branding some as regime supporters and others as traitors only deepens the social distances and delays the necessary transformation that this country needs to experience.  

Branding some as regime supporters and others as traitors only deepens the social distances and delays the necessary transformation that this country needs to experience. In the current social fabric there are identifiable strands that have to be considered and that no snip of intolerance should exclude. If we are aware of our responsibility in this process of inclusion, then we will try not to arbitrarily cut off any part of the fabric.

The issue heats up as we approach the Americas Summit in Panama, where both the Government and the opposition are ready to present their own versions of Cuban civil society. All indications are that, despite conciliatory longings on the part of the Panamanian organizers, this platform is only going to hear a skewed version from each side, not the so necessary discourse of respect for the other and for plurality that the Cuban nation needs at this moment.

While it is true that the so-called mass organizations such as the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) behave in the ideological arena like transmission poles from the powers-that-be, it also needs to be borne in mind that each of them encompasses a large number of Cubans – whether as an automatic response, the inability to choose other options, fear, or true complacency – and every one of our families is made up, for the most part, by members of these organizations. To ignore them is to amputate a part of our reality.

To disqualify, per se, a person because they are a part of the FMC, the CDR or the ANAP, for example, becomes an act of sectarianism and eliminates from the national discussion an essential area of the citizenry. Among them are some very capable people from the professional point of view, who will be part of those supporting the economic, social and legal reconstruction of Cuba. Many of them will be at the Panama Summit – subsidized by the Cuban Government and chosen for ideological reasons – with proposals that should be heard.

Panama could be the moment when Cuban civil society meets and understands that no child of this land should be excluded from the national debate. 

Sociologists, economists, intellectuals and Cuban academics will bring solidly supported studies that address the core theme of the meeting: Prosperity with Equity: The challenge of cooperation in the Americas. Instead of rejecting them because they come with directives to convert the event into trench warfare, it would be very healthy to interact with them and their proposals with respect. Panama could be the moment when Cuban civil society meets and understands that no child of this land should be excluded from the national debate.

On the other hand, the Cuban government official campaign has already begun to vent its venom on dissident figures and groups, the opposition and independent journalism which will also attend the event in April. Those attacks are not directed at damaging the self-esteem of the activists, already used to the verbal violence constantly directed at them, but rather to avoid any possible dialogue between this part of our civil society with that part recognized as closest to the Government, the one that defends the current state of affairs on the island.

Non-government attendees will travel, for the most part, with tickets and accommodation paid for by foreign institutions and entities, given the material poverty they experience from their situation of illegality. However, the selection process for those who will attend, incarnated that part of Cuba that has lacked internal democracy and a necessary transparency. Driven by improvisation and material precariousness, these representative should know that they will also be evaluated for the ideas and proposals they bring, not just for anecdotes about the pain and repression they have experienced.

If the dissidence wants to show its adulthood, it must communicate in Panama that it has a plan for the future and not only that it knows who to survive under the heroic status of being a persecuted group

If the dissidence wants to show its adulthood, it must communicate in Panama that it has a plan for the future and not only that it knows who to survive under the heroic status of being a persecuted group, but also that it knows how to engage in politics in an intelligent, measured and thoughtful way for the wellbeing of all Cubans. Its agenda should include not only calls for respect for human rights and a framework for individual and collective freedoms, but must also address the most pressing everyday problems of the citizens they want to represent.

It is also important for this other share of Cuban civil society that does not feel recognized in the mass organizations, nor in the opposition parties, understand that their role is to be a bridge, not an island. Pointing fingers at both sides from the moral stature of those who are neither “subsidized by the Cuban Government” nor “employees of the empire,” only adds more fuel to the fire of distrust.

The small private sector that is trying to prosper on the island, the sectors tied to the Catholic Church and other denominations, the academics who have tried at all costs to maintain an independent view in their analysis, and those groups who defend the rights of minorities, working for female emancipation, independence for artists and filmmakers, or an end to racial discrimination, all should know that it is not helpful to sit on the fence watching the confrontation between the two poles. They have a responsibility to modulate and form a part of the tapestry, not snip away at it or remain outside the conflict.

At Yamila’s dinner table everyone wants to live his or her life, have his or her own autonomy. They have managed it, in the shelter of their home and the understanding that comes from family ties. Can we reach it as a nation?

And where did that glass of milk go? / 14ymedio, Orlando Palma

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14ymedio bigger 14ymedio, Orlando Palmo, Havana, 25 March 2015 — The newspaper Granma published Wednesday a comprehensive report on milk production in the province of Camagüey. This scenario is grim and confirms the downward trend in terms of delivery of this precious food. Since 2012, Camagüey’s milk production and sales to the industry have declined, both in the cooperative and private sectors.

Although in the last five paragraphs it outlined with moderate optimism the possibilities of the sector recovery program, a reading of the article, signed by journalist Miguel Febles, reveals a problem that extends across many sectors of the economy, which can be summed up in the affirmation that the bureaucracy continues to be the heaviest weight dragging down food production in Cuba.

In short, the problem is that farmers must deliver the milk they produce to a pre-determined collection center. There samples are taken to assess the quality of each delivery, which is tied to the price of the product. However, instead of paying everyone according to the quality of food they bring to the center, the quality is averaged across all deliveries and the price paid to the farmer is derived from that average. The result is to demotivate improvements in quality.

Milk production in Cuba only covers 50% of domestic demand, so the country needs to import half of the milk consumed 

One of those interviewed, Alexis Gil Perez, director general of the Provincial Dairy Company, explains that the contracts are not with individual farmers but with “the productive base.” Gil Perez argues that this does not violate any procedure. “If there are opinions or dissatisfactions, we would have to revise the documents that govern the activity, and this decision can only be taken at the national level,” he adds. “Meanwhile, we must comply with the established provisions. It is not within my powers to vary the range of what we pay for milk.”

In a ceremony held in Camagüey on 26 July 2007 (commemorating the rebel attack on the Moncada Baracks), General Raul Castro said that every Cuban would be able to drink a glass of milk. Nearly eight years after that desire failed, the immediate proposal is not even to improve the distribution of what is collected, but to stop the decline in milk production observed in that province since 2012.

Milk production in Cuba only covers 50% of domestic demand, so the country needs to import half of the milk consumed. Its distribution is controlled by the government and private companies are forbidden from trading in milk products, even in the farmer’s markets.

 

Kuwait invests $ 21 million in hydraulic networks Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 26 March 2015 — The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development awarded $21 million for the rehabilitation of water supply and sewer networks in Havana, as reported Thursday in the official media. With the signing of three agreements Wednesday, the second phase of the project gets underway; the project began in 2012 when the Fund awarded a credit to work on water resources in the capital.

The total amount of Kuwaiti aid for rehabilitation of networks amounts to $52 million in the last three years. It is expected that the works will be completed in all of the capital’s municipalities within 14 years.

The Cuban side at the time of the signing of the agreements was headed by Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, while the general director of fund development, Abdulwahab Al-Bader, represented Kuwait.

“This is the fourth time we concluded agreements with the island and we are committed to continuing to provide credit to support works of such magnitude,” said Al-Bader. He added that his institution is ready to support the third stage of the capital rehabilitation and also evaluate the potential to contribute financially to other projects related to renewable energies.

The situation of hydraulic networks in Havana is a source of constant complaints from the population and heavy loss of water due to leaks and breaks. It is estimated that over 50% of the water pumped in the country is lost due to poor distribution infrastructure.

EU Diplomat Federica Mogherini: ‘There is no distancing from civil society’ / 14ymedio

Federica Mogherini, just outside the press conference where a reporter from 14ymedio was not allowed to enter
Federica Mogherini, just outside the press conference where a reporter from 14ymedio was not allowed to enter

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 24 March 2015 – On Tuesday afternoon the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, held a press conference for Cuban official media and foreign correspondents in Havana. According to the representative, Cuba and the European Union aspire to reach an agreement on political dialog and cooperation before the end of the year.

At the press conference, held in the Taganana Room at the Hotel Nacional, independent Cuban media were not allowed to enter. However, despite the restrictions, a 14ymedio reporter managed to get some statements from the official as she left the location.

Thanks to the collaboration of Herman Portocarero, European Union Ambassador to Cuba, this newspaper was able to have brief contact with Mogherini at the end of the press conference. continue reading

The official regretted the incident that blocked journalist Reinaldo Escobar from entering the area of the press conference and agreed to answer some brief questions.

In its questions, 14ymedio, recalled that during the rift between the Cuban authorities and the European leaders there was increased contact with alternative civil society, whose representatives have been received in several European Chancelleries. Thus, it’s worth asking, “Does the current approach of the European Union to the Cuban government mean that this relationship with civil society will be reduced or eliminated?”

Mogherini replied, “No, there is no distancing from Civil Society. The Europeans, the European Union, always talk with civil society, with every civil society.” To which this newspaper asked if she thought that relations between Cuba and the European Union were improving. The European head of diplomacy said, “I believe it is advancing.”

The issue of the United Nations Human Rights covenants that the Cuban government has signed but not ratified was also a subject of questions. Mogherini responded that, “The subject was discussed, but I cannot speak to it. I can’t speak on behalf of the Cuban government.”

Mogherini made an official visit to Cuba this Tuesday, the first for a European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs to the island, to advance the dialogue seeking a normalization of relations between Brussels and Havana.

Cuba is the only Latin American country with which the European bloc does not have a bilateral agreement. Since 1996 relations have been determined by the “Common Position” which has conditioned ties with Havana to advances in democracy and human rights in Cuba.

‘CubaSí’ accuses ’14ymedio’ of “contaminating” the new platform of Cuban blogs / 14ymedio

"Mercenaries in service to the US blog on Cuban platform"
“Mercenaries in service to the US blog on Cuban platform”

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 23 March 2015 — The government information portal “CubaSí” regrets, this Monday, the presence of “mercenaries in the service of the United States” on the new blogging platform “Reflections”launched last week by the Cuban government. The author of the article, M.H. Lagarde, angrily cites the blog opened on this platform by 14ymedio, which has found a way to reach Cuban readers on the Island’s servers with the contents of the independent digital newspaper since its creation in May of 2014.

In his article, Lagarde accuses 14ymedio of having “contaminated” the platform with “counterrevolutionary propaganda,” although, at the time of its release, the government portal explained that it had no “restrictions with regards to themes addressed in the blogs and users interested in the service.”

“The fact undoubtedly ranks as the first provocation realized by Cuban mercenaries in the face of the Summit of the Americas to be held in April in Panama, continue reading

where by the express desire of the Government of the United States there will be active participation of the reduced Cuban ‘civil society’ that responds to its interests,” Lagarde writes.

“According to the imperial perspective, [Yoani Sánchez] and her team of ‘journalists’ of 14ymedio play an important role in the so-called war of the fourth generation based on the use of new technologies. The function of these groups has been, so far, to serve as media mourners who encourage and justify sanctions and invasions against the countries that are not liked by the United States,” he adds.

Lagarde provides as “proof of the faith the current American administration has in its puppet Yoani Sanchez,” the visit of Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Roberta Jacobson to the digital newspaper’s headquarters during her first trip to Havana this last January.

While most of the readers’ comments in CubaSí support Lagarde’s diatribes, several dare to disagree. Oscar Sanchez, for example, is blunt: “As a Cuban citizen, Yoani has the right to an opinion. No one has the only right nor the absolute truth.” And Heru added, “I believe in respect for diversity and, if they open a blog on Reflections, they are completely within their rights, I don’t see why so much fuss and crowing.”

For his part, Rafa opens the door to dialog, in his way, “We are not afraid, they confront our ideas with those of the adversary, traitor and puppet of the empire.” And Yosbel Marin, more combative and intransigent, expressed his suspicions toward his co-religionist: “M.H. Lagarde, with this article, will just publicize 14ymedio. Why? Naivety or intentional?”

Who is behind the mirror? / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

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14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 19 March 2015 – On Wednesday, with great fanfare, the digital site “Reflections” was launched as part of the Cuban Youth Computer and Electronics Club’s Cuba Va (Cuba Goes) project. On its homepage you can read that this is the first Cuban blogging platform, although DesdeCuba.com, a blog portal, was launched eight years ago and, despite being blocked on the Cuban server, offers content generated in Cuba, where the majority of its authors live.

According to Kirenia Fagundo Garcia, who serves as senior specialist on Reflections, “there are no restrictions on the topics discussed on the blogs and users interested in the service,” on this platform. Each blog has only 250 megabytes allocated to post texts, photos, videos and sound, although Fagundo has made clear that it is planned to increase the initial capacity.

Despite the commitment to freedom announced by the portal, “the only condition is that the bloggers divulge the truth about Cuba, without offenses, disrespect or denigration.” continue reading

Thus, several questions immediately arise: Who gave the Youth Computer Club the power to determine what is “the truth about Cuba”? Who is behind this project? Who is funding it? What institution, undoubtedly State or Party, will approve the content to be published?

To test the limits of the new platform, this daily has created a new blog on the service, under the title 14ymedio, with the purpose of bringing the contents of our digital portal to Cuban readers on servers on the Island. The process was easy, although to create a new site we had to provide the number of the user’s State-issued ID card, undoubtedly a surprise.

Moreover, the portal has several technical deficiencies, frequent error messages and agonizing slowness. Obviously it has been opened without having done sufficient technical tests to check its operation. The site 14ymedio.cubava.cu has been activated and the content manager that works with the entire platform is WordPress. However, it has been impossible, so far, to publish our first text. Technical Problems?

In the coming days we will test whether the new blogging platform is as plural as announced, or nothing more than one more simple mirror of the official discourse.

 

A Mutilated Civil Society / 14ymedio, Regina Coyula

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Regina Coyula, Havana, 23 March 2015 — Just try it. On the street, randomly ask: What is civil society? You’ll be lucky if you find any satisfactory answer and will have better luck if, unlike for me, more than one person even deigns to answer you. To speak of civil society in Cuba is like teaching new material in school.

First the concepts, then, explain which is considered more successful according to the teacher’s vision. A meticulous educator looks for good examples. It is essential to mention the thesis of Alexis de Tocqueville of civil society as an intermediary between the individual and the State. Also interesting is Habermas’s approximation about individual rights that guarantee and foster free association. continue reading

Like almost all social science concepts, we find different and even opposing views on the subject. Where the philosophers agree, regardless of their political affiliation or their religious creed, is that civil society exists and functions independently of the State, and in many cases as its counterpart.

Only then, after talking about the subject enough so that the citizenry feels informed, can we speak of the role of civil society.

It has still been less than a decade that the term civil society, along with its close relatives, human rights and non-governmental organizations, was either nonexistent or cursed in the Cuban press. But with the growth of alternative civil society, which is attacked and simplified, accused of following an agenda dictated by the enemy, has the issue seeped into the discourse of the official press. To public opinion, contaminated with the unhealthy idea, now trying to present as civil society organizations that, for the most part, are created and financed by the government itself.

The upcoming Summit of the Americas will put to the test the ability of both – the civil society recognized by the government and the alternative one, unrecognized and derided – to show the continental community their projects and results. Since the constitution itself observes the difficulty of the alternation given that, according to Article 53, freedom of expression is only recognized in relation to the aims of socialist society. This article makes clear that the mass media are state or social property, and limits their use exclusively to working people and the interests of society.

The government tries to know and represent the interests of Cuban society but, given the deterioration of social conditions, the boundaries become blurred between popular support for the authorities and the desire of citizens to try another formula. Only within a totalitarian context is it possible to control the discontent, deaf to discordant voices and to make practically impossible the legalization of an independent project. This lock is constitutionally established in Article 62, that doesn’t recognize the freedoms when they don’t fit with the aims of the socialist state and the decision of the Cuban people to build communism.

I read Friday, in the newspaper Granma, the article “Our civil society.” I agree with some of the points of view of the journalist Sergio Alejandro Gomez. In effect, domination is not always applied by force or coercion and the powerful like to appropriate words and their meanings. However, I disagree with the manner in which the journalist resolves the current problem with civil society. The Cuban State represents the interests of the great majority (while it demonstrates the contrary), but this government has rejected the free associations established by Cuban citizens.

It is clear that the heterogeneity of the Cuban Civil Society Forum is circumscribed to differences in matters of religion, gender equality, racial equality or sexual diversity. Immediately observable is the absence of a political opposition, It’s very fair that the above rights are recognized, because bad memory can’t omit the fact that minorities were also discriminated against in Cuba. But as long as political opinion and initiative outside the State are not present, civil society will be incomplete, and any democratic observer immediately perceives this anomaly.

As pointed out by the Granma journalist, the society is not homogeneous. Homogeneity is not the personality of brothers brought up under the same roof. However, the Cuban state wants to achieve with these organizations of its civil society a symphony that supposedly affirms to the writer that this is a civil society unlike any other.

Holguin repairs a street after a hundred residents threaten not to vote in the elections / 14ymedio, Fernando Donate

Open sewers dddddd
Open sewers in the street (Fernando Donante)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Fernando Donante Ochoa, Holguin, 23 March 2105 – the Holguin municipal government decided to hurriedly solve the problem of sewage running down 8th Street between 29th and 35th, in the La Quinta neighborhood, after having received a letter signed by more than 100 people who threatened not to vote in the elections for delegates to the Municipal Assembles of People’s Power on 19 April, if their demand for a solution was not met.

A commission composed of government functionaries went to visit the residents, according to Lino Rubisel Almira García, one of the signatories. “They visited us two days after they received the letter, at the end of last October. The committee wanted to make us desist from the decision, but when they failed to achieve their objective they agreed to approve an investment as soon as possible.

The speed with which the work was begun surprised even those who didn’t trust in the efficacy of a letter with political content adverse to the government to resolve a historic demand, raised since the early eighties in every “Renditions of Accounts Assembly” of the delegates with their constituents. continue reading

During all this time, the fetid sewage that ran along the street endangered the health of the inhabitants of more than 60 homes, according to the complaint of Leopoldo Peña Jiménez, another of the signatories, resident of the place since 1979.

The fear of the critical epidemiological situation of the city since 2014 – with the increase in illness like dengue fever, cholera, and hepatitis – resulted in a death that “forced us to use politics when we didn’t get results through established mechanisms,” added Peña.

During the “Process of Renditions of Accounts” of last October, the delegate reported that the work was not in the investment plans and that a long-term solution was projected due to the difficult economic situation threatening the country.

The speed with which the work was begun surprised even those who didn’t trust in the efficacy of a letter with political content adverse to the government

However, Peña remembers that, “When, in the eighties, the government had available resources, the requests to representatives and officials of the People’s Power was characterized, year after year, by false promises that, after they weren’t met, were excused with absurd justifications.”

Given the indolence of the authorities, the residents began to resolve the problem with their own efforts in 2010, placing 8 plastic tubes, each 3 yards long. The solution was insufficient, but the government never provided the necessary resources.

The current work began mid-month last November, and the work, paralyzed as of a month ago, is still incomplete. Those affected point out that there is a section where the putrid waters still flow, and lament that there are still seven open manholes in the sewer, which in addition to blocking free flow, constitute a danger for the risk of falls, especially at night in streets lacking good lighting.

The neighbors continue to wait for the completion of the works, and according to Lino Rubisel, are “willing to write another letter, if necessary.”

Cubalex states that its work is in ‘danger’ / 14ymedio

The lawyers of Cubalex Laritza Diversent and Barbara Estrabao day the report on the Commission.(14ymedio)
The Cubalex lawyers Barbara Estrabao (L.) and Laritza Diversent (R.) on the day the report to the Human Rights Commission.(14ymedio)

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14ymedio, 22 March 2015 – Last Friday the Cubalex Center for Legal Information circulated a statement in which they report that their work is in “danger.” The independent entity said that after their presentation of “a report about Cuban prisons, the campaigns of defamation and harassment increased” toward their members.

In the text there is reference to a robbery that occurred in Cubalex’s offices on March 12, when “unidentified people broke in and (…) stole a laptop, a tablet, an iPod, a modem, an external hard disk, several flash memories and computer parts.”

The statement goes on to say that “the fact that no other objects of value were stolen, only those that could contain information about the work of the organization, leads one to assume (…) that the aggressors came on the part of the state authorities.”

In recent months Cubalex has reported being a “target of a smear campaign that includes libelous notes accusing the organization of corruption.” The texts are published on the Internet, most of the time anonymously or without specifying the source of the complaint.

Laritza Diversent, attorney and member of Cubalex, reports that since 2013 there has been “increased surveillance, harassment and threats against members of the team.” The lawyer explained that the pressure on the group increased after the presentation of the report on the detainees in Cuba, before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The harassment includes “threats to prosecute the family members of the Cubalex team and to confiscate the building where the office is located.”

Given this context, in its statement Cubalex demands that the Cuban government “guarantee and protect the work of organizations and leaders engaged civil society of in defense of human rights.” In addition, it asks “the international community to rule in favor of the guarantees of our work.”

The Cubalex Center for Legal Information is headquartered in Havana and is considered a non-profit organization not recognized by the Cuban state. It has offered free legal advice since 2010, concerning the legalization of housing, immigration procedures, inheritance, labor, criminal review processes, constitutional procedures and the defense of civil and political rights of Cuban or foreign citizens who ask them.

Heavy Police Operation against Merchants and Carriers / 14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Santiago de Cuba, 21 March 2015 — Since early this Saturday, a heavy police operation had as its objective self-employed workers, street vendors and private carriers in Santiago de Cuba. The forces of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) reported that the raid was aimed against high meat prices in the farmer’s markets and the sale of potatoes in illegal distribution networks.

Most of the arrests and fines occurred in the Venceremos and Altamira suburbs of Santiago de Cuba. The uniformed agents arrived in the first hours of the morning and demanded the vendors show their licenses for engaging in commercial activity. Until midday, the toll of the operation was the seizure of dozens of kilograms of pork meat and thousands of pesos in fines.

Romilio Jardines, vendor of meat and agricultural products, was fined 700 Cuban pesos, although he said that his merchandise was not removed. Nevertheless, he affirmed that “they came prepared in case one refused.” The operation included special forces known as “black berets” who surrounded the area’s markets and the main streets of both suburbs. continue reading

Alexander Benitez was among merchants who suffered the seizure of his products. “The found me selling pork meat at 27 pesos a pound in the doorway of my house and they came and demanded the license,” recounts this Santiago native. “When they saw that I had no license they confiscated the meat, the scales and also fined me 1,500 pesos.” Benitez says that he approached the police to get the scales back “because they were borrowed” but “they handcuffed me and put me in the police car.”

One of the covert sellers, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed that it was true that “many self-employed workers have very expensive meat and a pound of potatoes for seven pesos, but the government in the state markets has none at any price.” The residents of the province complain that the tuber has still not been distributed to the people through the network of state markets, although in other cities its sale has already begun.

Not only sellers of meat and agricultural products were the objective of the police operation, but also drivers of cars and motorcycles were investigated. Among them the driver of a private transportation truck who was fined 2,500 pesos and had his license plate taken away. One motorcyclist for a state enterprise also was sanctioned 30 pesos for not having changed the license plate to the new system that has been implemented in the country.

By the beginning of the afternoon, many merchants and carriers in the Venceremos and Altamira suburbs were fined, but once the police began to withdraw their forces, the areas around the farmer’s markets started slowly to fill again with vendors and drivers.

 Translated by MLK

Wheeling and Dealing with Plastic / 14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz

Plastic footwear stall at the market of La Cuevita (14ymedio)
Plastic footwear stall at the market of La Cuevita (14ymedio)

Markets all over the Island are supplied with objects made on the illegal circuit of a material mostly derived from industrial waste or leftovers from the dump

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz, Havana, 20 March 2015 – At the market of La Cuevita in San Miguel del Padron, some thousand people from all over the Island daily buy household goods, flip-flops and toys, all made of plastic. The purchasers come especially from rural areas where the economic situation is more precarious and the only thing that abounds is scarcity.

In order to sell in the market it is necessary to have a state license and a letter signed by the producers, also authorized, from whom the articles must be bought. The inspectors who pass through the sales stalls may require this letter, but in practice they pass with hand extended seeking money in exchange for not imposing a fine of 1,500 pesos on whomever continue reading

has skipped the State’s rules of the game.

There are many manufacturers who have no license. In the Cotorro township flip-flops are manufactured and in La Guinera, a settlement located in San Miguel del Padron, there are producers of household goods. The toys, with twisted forms and faded colors, are brought from the eastern part of the country.

The first step is gathering the recyclable plastic among the wastes of industrial smelting and rummaging through the garbage in search of plastic items that can be exploited, without discarding the possibility of melting the trash cans themselves. In order to improve the quality of the final product, the manufacturers add virgin plastic. This granulated raw material is bought under the table, gotten directly from state warehouses.

The mishmash is heated. When the material is quite melted it is injected under pressure into various molds. The injecting machines as well as the molds are produced by hand. When it liquefies, the homogenized paste takes on an earthy color, but artisans save the day using different colored dyes.

According to one of these artisans, who allows no photos on his patio, in many neighborhoods of the capital the police would have to search patio by patio and house by house because “reality is stubborn,” as he learned many years ago in a Communist Party school. “Even beer can be canned clandestinely,” he says. “Such machines are all over Havana. Where you least imagine it, there is one. The problem is to make the product and get it immediately out so that the chain is not discovered.”

The bowls and plates, funnels or any other object resulting from this mix of materials are not completely safe for storage of food intended for human consumption. “I don’t use any of the bowls that I buy in the candonga for keeping food from one day to the other. But they are cheaper than those made in China which are sold in the hard currency stores and cost a third of a worker’s salary,” says Morena, a housewife who frequents the market.

The vendors place themselves at the entrance to the market. Some offer strings of onion and garlic, others little nylon bags. An old lady sells a bag of potatoes that she has just bought after a long line, and a teen carries a box of ice where he keeps popsicles that sell for 15 Cuban pesos. They often have to go running. A patrol passes every twenty minutes.

The police pass by often while overseeing legal sales in the market (14ymedio)
The police pass by often while overseeing legal sales in the market (14ymedio)

“If you resist arrest, they beat you. Then they take you to the 11th Police Station, and railroad you and you don’t know if you’ll come out with a fine of 1,500 Cuban pesos or go directly to the Valle Grande prison,” says the popsicle salesman.

A man in his forties recounts how the police detained him once, accusing him of retailing without any proof, and they asked him for his identity card just because he was carrying a briefcase full of plastic plates that he had just bought. “It would be of no use to say it is my hobby to throw them in the air to practice my slingshot aim. Just like if they want to they seize everything and give you a fine. The police do not act for the benefit of the people,” he laments.

Mireya, almost seventy years of age, is the last link in the productive chain of plastic products. While others work in little brigades for a particular producer, authorized or not, she does it alone. She has put together brooms and brushes manually, with production wastes from state industry, for more than 20 years. “If they catch me doing this I can have serious problems with the authorities. I don’t do it to get rich. I have to assemble 100 brushes to earn 400 Cuban pesos [about $16 U.S.], and from that I have to invest part in order to buy the materials,” she explains.

Mireya does not want to get a license because she thinks the taxes are too high. Besides, she could not justify the materials that she uses to fabricate her brooms because, in spite of dealing with industrial waste, there exists no legal way of acquiring them. The bases and the bristles she buys from someone who, like her, has no license either and sells them more cheaply.

“What I would have left after paying for the license and the taxes would be more or less the same as the wage of a state worker. With that, added to my pension of 270 pesos, I can’t even live ten days. If you don’t believe what I am saying, take the rice and beans from the store, divide it into 30 piles to see how you eat and how you live. Then necessarily you have to live wheeling and dealing,” she concludes without ceasing to close the plastic threads with wire pincers.

Translated by MLK

Nineteen Cubans sentenced for the diversion of eight million eggs / 14ymedio

Thirty unit egg cartons (14ymedio)
Thirty unit egg cartons (14ymedio)

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Nineteen citizens who worked for the Havana Base Business Unit for the Collection and Distribution of Eggs and the Provincial Commerce Company were sentenced this week for the diversion of more than eight million eggs. The Prosecutor asked for sentences ranging from 8 to 20 years, according to a report today in the newspaper Granma.

The diverted merchandise represented 389 invoiced shipments that never reached their destination, which caused “an economic impact exceeding 8,907,562 pesos.” The official newspaper referred to the crimes imputed to the accused as ranging from misappropriation to falsification of bank and continue reading

commercial documents.

The systematic theft began in March of 2012 when the Avicola Production and Commercialization Company officially took on the UEB Collection and Distribution of Havana Eggs. A short time later, after intensive analysis of the entity’s situation, the director of UEB asked to be released due to “illness, which pointed to the existence of serious irregularities.”

From that moment, an investigation of the free distribution of eggs in the capital was opened. A complaint was also opened before the Territorial Department of Criminal Investigations and Operations and a special audit of UEB requested.

With these new controls, “there came to light accounting errors, breaches of obligations on the part of the directors, specialists and drivers, violations of established routes for the delivery of eggs, the falsification of invoices; as well as the existence of an entire criminal chain, fueled by the lacerating lack of control, the vulnerability of the procedures and the total loss of ethical and moral principles.”

An article presented the testimony of the penal investigators in the case, first deputy Barbara Rondon Vega and Capital Pedro E. Cordero Riveron, belonging to the Criminal Investigation and Operations Division. According to Granma, Gilberto Diaz Mojena, UEB marketing, “authorized the billing of notable quantitites of eggs to different entities, located in the municipalities of La Habana del Este, Cerro, Mrianao and La Lisa, basically.”

Cartons of eggs, with thirty units each, were sold on the black market at a price between 35 and 40 Cuban pesos

“At the end of the month […] María Regla Pis Martínez, deputy director of commerce of the Provincial Trading Company […] altered the actual pre-prepared plan for units located in those areas, to make them coincide with the actual deliveries.”

Another of those involved, the driver Valery Caballero Moreda, “with the illegal sale of 1,209,600 eggs, contained in 53 invoices, caused a monetary effect upwards of 1,814,400 pesos. Meanwhile, the driver Juan Eliecer Perdomo caused a shortfall of 839,700 pesos, due to the illegal distribution of 559,800 eggs, corresponding to 29 invoices.”

The cartons of eggs, with thirty units each, were sold on the black market at a price between 35 and 40 Cuban pesos, although at times of scarcities the price could go much higher.

Granma concludes that, “While it’s true that the convictions, although severe, don’t resolve the problem alone, sometimes the malefactors need to feel the full weight of the Law, beyond their shame in front of their families and society.”

“Recognizing changes does not mean we go along” / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

José Daniel Ferrer, Felix Navarro, Hector Maseda, Jorge Olivera and Librado Linares
José Daniel Ferrer, Felix Navarro, Hector Maseda, Jorge Olivera and Librado Linares

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14ymedio, Havana, 19 March 2015 — Twelve years after the Black Spring, 14ymedio chats with some of the former political prisoners currently living on the Island. Two questions have been posed to those activists condemned in March 2003: one about their decision to stay in Cuba, and the other about how they see the country today.

José Daniel Ferrer

The whole time we were in prison, the Castro brothers’ regime did its best to pressure us, to force us to abandon the country. A few of us decided to say no, regardless of the circumstances. Today I am more convinced than ever that my having stayed is worth it. We are doing our modest bit to have a nation where there will never again be something like that spring of 2003, when so many compatriots paid with prison for attempting to exercise their most sacred rights.

“Today I am more convinced than ever that my having stayed is worth it”

Many things have changed, but they still maintain the repression, and sometimes increase it, against human rights activists and also against the people. Recognizing the changes doesn’t mean we go along, because what we don’t have is a prosperous and democratic Cuba. In the last days when I walked freely on the street, at the beginning of 2003, some people approached us and whispered in our ears, “I heard you,” referring to having heard us on some station like Radio Martí, one of the few media where they could learn about what the pro-democracy forces were doing.

Felix Navarro

Having stayed in Cuba after leaving prison is probably the best idea I’ve had in my entire life. continue reading

 On Saturday July 10, the day on which I spent my 57th birthday in prison, I received a call from Cardinal Ortega. He informed me that he was forming the third group of ex-prisoners and that I could leave together with my family. I thanked him for the gesture and the fact that the Church had always fought alongside the unprotected and against the injustices, but I would not abandon the country even if I had to serve the entire 25 years of my sentence. On 22 March he called me again and the next day they released me from prison. Along with José Daniel Ferrer, I was the last to get home.

Right now I’m on conditional release, on parole, but I am convinced that sooner or later they are going to allow me to travel normally like any other Cuban. In my case, I have no intention of traveling abroad as long as the president of Cuba is not a democratically elected member of civil society.

“I would not abandon the country even if I had to serve the entire 25 years of my sentence”

In my opinion, the country has changed, but for the worse. It is true that since the beginning of December of last year the political police have stopped repressing in the way they had been the expressions of peaceful struggle of the Ladies in White in Cardenas and Colon. Before that, every Sunday they prevented their walking down the street, they were beaten and insulted, put into vehicles and abandoned to their fate at whatever place. This doesn’t happen any more and we believe it is very helpful, but the repression continues in other ways, with police citations and surveillance.

Héctor Maseda

I was contacted three times by the Cardinal to leave for Spain and I said no. When they told me I could get out of prison on parole I refused, making my point that Raul Castro had announced months ago that we would all be released. I left prison against my will. In September 2014 I made a complaint to the People’s Power Provincial Court in the section for crimes against the security of the State and the Council of State for them to release me unconditionally. They responded that the court had determined that I would have to remain under control. I have no interest in leaving the country, this is my decision and I don’t have to explain it to anyone.

“I left prison against my will”

Some changes have occurred in our country, but I continue to insist that they are not fundamental. The government of Raul Castro maintains very rigid positions. The fact that relations with the United States are being reestablished is perhaps the most notable change, but behind this are the economic interests of the Cuban and American governments. In the case of Raul Castro, what he wants is to extend his dynasty in power, but I can’t see what the benefits are for the Cuban people.

Jorge Olivera

Just under five years ago I decided not to accept the offer to go into exile in Spain. I received a lot of criticism, but my closest friends, my wife and my family supported me in my decision. At one time I desired to leave Cuba, but one has a right to change and today I have no regrets. In the most difficult moment of the dilemma I chose to stay for many reasons, one of them is the trajectory of the independent press, where I worked with Habana Press since 1995, and also my convictions. After thinking about all aspects, I considered it better to stay here trying to open spaces for independent journalism, to bring our experience to the young people. I am here, happy, although it seems a contradiction in terms, because I am doing what I love and contributing with my modest efforts to a better country.

“The country has changed and will change again, perhaps not with the speed we want”

Life is dialectical and everything changes. Sometimes we do not notice because we are in the forest, but the world has changed and Cuba as well. The Cuba of 12 years ago was very different. Now, for example, events that no one expected have occurred, like the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. They have opened spaces that were unthinkable back then, there are people who don’t see it that way, people who think it is very little, others say nothing has changed. The country has changed and will change, perhaps not with the speed those of us on the pro-democratic route would like, but there have been changes. Our work is made visible with the existence of new technologies, Internet and cellphones; discreet but important spaces have opened up that have contributed in a greater or lesser way to improving our work, both in the political opposition and in the alternative civil society.

Librado Linares

When I had been in prison for about a year and a half in Combinado del Este in Havana, some officials from State Security interviewed me to find out my willingness to leave Cuba as a way to be released from prison. I told them flat out no, and their leader assured me I would serve the 20 years without any benefit. I decided to stay because of the commitment I have to the development of a dynamic of change that will do away with the Castros’ totalitarianism and produce a transition to democracy. On the other hand, I greatly identify with and have a great sense of belonging to Cuban culture, with its values, the people in the neighborhood, the climate, with las parrandas de Camajuaní. I can’t find this in any other country.

“We are more pluralistic, less monolithic”

Some experts in the areas of transition have said that there are four types of non-democratic regimes: totalitarian, post-totalitarian, sultanistic and totalitarian, but in the ‘90s a process of “de-totalitarian-ization” began and this has happened because of the pressure from the internal opposition and internationally and because of other reasons, including biological. The regime has been evolving toward post-totalitarianism and perhaps intends to move towards an authoritarian military regime.

They want to stay in power and that has led to allowing certain improvements in freedom of movement, they have facilitated aspects of the issue of ownership and non-state management of the economy, such as land leases and non-farm cooperatives. Despite the enormous repression, the opposition has been gaining spaces. We are more plural, less monolithic. People are forgetting their fear, breaking their chains and learning to speak up in public and to demand their rights.

Summit of the Americas: Fear of Others’ Ideas and Little Faith in Their Own / 14ymedio, Eliecer Avila

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Eliécer Ávila, Havana, 19 March 2015 – In less than a month the Summit of the Americas will be held in Panama, on April 10-11. A good part of the world will focus its attention this time on Cuba and the United States, the two countries that have announced their intention to reestablish bilateral relations, ruptured more than 50 years ago.

Many hope that this summit will not be like so many others, but rather a milestone in history, embracing the essential discussion about the only non-democratic state in the hemisphere, a discussion that has been unreasonably postponed for more than half a century.

Before the imminent possibility of no control over all the variables of the meeting, the Cuban government is ever more nervous. One of the plays already seen backstage, is accusing the dissidents of wanting to “undermine” continue reading

the ALBA alternative summit and other absurdities of this style launched by their opinion agents on the Internet.

Anyone who knows how these mechanisms operate is aware that these opinion matrices are not injected for fun, but rather in pursuit of creating an adequate framework for other moves that can range from preventing some people from leaving Cuba to organizing acts of repudiation and their other usual activities in their actions in Panama.

Still fresh in our memories are the spectacles orchestrated by the Cuban embassies on Yoani Sanchez’s first tour, especially in Latin America. Also, more recently, in Guadalajara as a part of the cultural summit in which the sympathizers of the Cuban government grabbed the microphones, spit and offended those who, with much effort, were trying to speak in a civilized manner.

Why so afraid of words? Should America forever endure the rudeness of a government that believes itself superior, divine and unquestionable?

Why so afraid of words? Should America forever endure the rudeness of a government that believes itself superior, divine and unquestionable?

This time, in addition to the external shock troops, they will bring their own civil society. Civil because they will not be put in uniform, civil although they have cars with official plates, official budgets, official sites and, best of all, a discourse more official than that of the government itself.

But none of this matters if the hosts manage to create a decent and safe space for all voices to be heard. Hopefully, a little bit of political decency will surprise us. It’s high time.