30 Ladies in White Arrested / 14ymedio

Police Mount an Operation to Prevent a Meeting in Havana

14ymedio, Havana | May 23, 2014

As of midnight Thursday, the police deployed a strong operation around the headquarters of the Ladies in White in Havana. Once a month these women gather in a house on Neptune Street, for what they call a “literary tea.” This activity is frequently under pressure from State Security and groups organized by the government, who shout slogans and place loudspeakers facing the house.

In conversation with 14ymedio Berta Soler, leaders of the Ladies in White, described the situation they are facing at this time. “This is the 129th Literary Tea and we planned to have a reading of poems and letters, but the street was already closed off from the night before,” said Soler. According to her, “They had already detained some thirty women and others were blocked from getting here.” continue reading

This newspaper’s reporters confirmed the closing of Neptune Street and the diversion of traffic to surrounding roads. At least two buses with uniformed as well as plain clothes personnel had been  brought to the surrounding area. Groups usually used in the so-called acts of repudiation were stationed in the capital’s Trillo Park.

Several neighbors consulted confirmed that the police forces began arriving in the early hours of the morning. “We can’t live in this neighborhood any more,” said an elderly woman who lives in Hospital Street. According to her, “When there are so many police there are a ton of things you can no longer do. Not even the pushcart vendors want to sell here.” She was referring to the roaming sellers of fruits and vegetables who pass through the city’s neighborhood’s with their merchandise.

The Ladies in White are a peaceful women’s movement created after the 2003 Black Spring, a time when Fidel Castro’s government condemned 75 dissidents and independent journalists were condemned to long prison terms.

Our Terminology / 14ymedio

Screen Shot 2014-05-21 at 4.49.49 PMReinaldo Escobar, 14YMEDIO, Havana | May 21, 2014

The economic restrictions imposed by the United States on the government of Cuba are called “embargo” in one political pole and “blockade” in the other one. The country where such measures originate can be called “the imperialism” (or “the empire”), or by its actual names: United States, USA, and North America. The team of people that makes the main decisions in Cuba is called “the Cuban government,” “the authorities” or the “Castroite regime,” as well as other flattering names such as “the Revolution’s historic generation” or unflattering ones such as “the Castro brothers’ dictatorship.”

The term “revolution” is sometimes written with a capital R, mostly if it has another name attached to it: French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Cuban Revolution. In the 1980s, in order to refer to the process that Lenin headed in Russia in 1917, it was almost mandatory to use the following formula: “The Great October Socialist Revolution.” In fact, this was the name given to a sugarcane combine factory in Holguín. In our case, one can opt for the most affected formulas, such as “the process initiated in 1959” if one does not want to use the noun “revolution.” continue reading

Those of us dedicated to writing about Cuban topics are constantly subjected to the scrutiny of our critics based on the terminology that we choose. What should I call Fidel Castro Ruz? Should I call him “our invincible commander in chief”? The simple and loving “Fidel,” or the distant “Castro”? Once, in the middle of a brainstorm, someone suggested “the hyena of Birán” and the suggestion stood as a joke. Perhaps it would be appropriate to call him “the Cuban ex-president,” but neither extreme likes it.

Now that we face the prospect of beginning a new journalistic experience with intentions of objectivity and moderation, we find ourselves trapped in the damned circumstance of terminology that, like water to the island, surrounds us everywhere. It is easy for a panel member on the Round Table[1] to use labels such as “the Miami terrorist mafia,” “the media war against Cuba,” and others lacking as much imagination as they lack any sense. They are paid to do that.

Nevertheless, how could we capture in one word the millions of Cubans who for varied reasons have decided to live outside their country? Should we say “exile,” “emigration” or “diaspora”? It is obvious that we will not say “scum” no matter how unexpected (treasonous) was their leaving this oven (melting pot), where we were manipulated (formed) as trash (the New Man).

In this launch, full of mishaps and emotions, we would like to make clear that each author owns his or her own terminology, as long as it does not trespass the most elementary limits of respect. This space can accommodate passion, all passions, but not insult. To the most sensitive, we beg for tolerance, for words can be the material wrappings of thought, but not the prison of ideas.

[1] The Round Table or la Mesa Redonda de Reflexión is a political “orientation” TV program in Cuba.

A Newspaper is Born in Cuba / 14ymedio

Screen Shot 2014-05-21 at 4.49.49 PMJournalists and intellectuals sign a statement of support for 14ymedio.

14YMEDIO | 21 May 2014

“Today we welcome a new communications medium, a digital daily that is born in a country without freedom of the press: Cuba.

“The creators of this risky enterprise, directed by blogger Yoani Sanchez, share our democratic values. In their declaration of principals, the 14ymedio team is committed to promoting ‘truth, freedom and the defense of human rights, without ideological or party ties.’

“Cubans look to the future and need information media that opens respectful spaces for debate on the Island. We are sure that this initiative will contribute to the peaceful and democratic transition and the construction of a new country.

“The undersigned, writers and journalists from different countries, call on the Cuban government to respect the right of this medium to exist and be distributed. And we ask that it not limit the freedom of expression and the right to information of its citizens.”

  • Mario Vargas Llosa, writer, Perú / Spain
  • Rosa Montero, writer and contributor to El País, Spain
  • Fernando Savater, “Claves de razón práctica” Magazine, writer, Spain
  • Fernando Trueba, movie director, Spain
  • Arturo Ripstein, movie director, México
  • Paz Alicia Garciadiego, scriptwriter, México
  • Arcadi Espada, journalist, Spain
  • Arsenio Escolar, journalist, director of 20minutos, Spain
  • Pablo Hiriart, journalist and conductor of Noticiero 40, México
  • Moisés Naím, columnist for El País, Estados Unidos
    Rafael Pérez Gay, writer and journalist in Milenio. México
  • Lech Walesa, ex-president of the Republic of Poland, Poland
  • Vicente Molina Foix, writer, Spain
  • Edward Seaton, director of The Mercury, United States
  • Fidel Cano, Director of El Espectador, Colombia
  • Jaime Mantilla, director of Hoy, Ecuador
  • Carlos Salinas, journalist of Confidencial, Nicaragua
  • Nuria Claver, editorial coordiantor of CLAVES de Razón Práctica en PROGRESA, Spain
  • Juan Malpartida, Escritor and director of Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Spain
  • Martine Jacot, journalist for Le Monde, Francia
  • Pedro Zambrano Lapenta, director of El Diario, Ecuador
  • Roger Bartra, sociologist and essayist, México
  • Esteban Ruíz Moral, artist, Spain
  • Adam Michnik director of la Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
  • Maciej Stasiński, journalist for la Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
  • Carlos Alberto Montaner, journalist, writer and politician. Cuba/United States
    /Spain
  • Mirta Ojitos, Cuban journalist at Columbia Univeristy, NY. Cuba/United States
  • Dagoberto Valdés, director of the magazine Convivencia, Cuba

Math Exam for University Entrance to be Repeated / 14ymedio

Screen Shot 2014-05-21 at 4.49.49 PMLeaking of the contents forces the Ministry of Education to cancel the results and repeat the test.

14YMEDIO, Havana | May 21, 2014

The Ministry of Higher Education and the National Admissions Committee decided to cancel the results of the Mathematics Exam for Admission to Higher Education for students in the city of Havana. The move came as a result of the leaking of the test contents, which many students in Havana had access to.

The official notice states that the exam will be repeated at 9:00 AM on 26 May. The news has caused consternation among young people who already completed the 12th grade, because access to the university requires passing exams in Mathematics, Spanish and History. Most of these students have been preparing for months, including studying with private tutors. continue reading

The exam was held on 8 May, and shortly afterwards it was learned that several of the capital’s high school students had previously obtained the questions. “Unscrupulous people stole the exam, despite the measures taken,” according to the statement by the Ministry of Higher Education.

“We have to pay for their sins,” a girl from Havana’s Nuevo Vedado neighborhood said. She had barely passed the test without having known the questions ahead of time. “Now  they’re going to ‘toss a pea,’” she added, using teenage slang to suggest that the second test will probably be harder than the first.

The investigations uncovered the involvement of at least three teachers who participated in the preparation of the test; severe penalties await them. As an additional measure, the History and Spanish tests are also being modified at the last minute, for fear that they, too, could have been leaked.

2011, That Year So Remote / Yoani Sánchez

14ymedio

Yoani Sanchez

In October Laura Pollan left us, in a dark hospital on a drizzly day, in a year, 2011, that had been born already battered. In the early months, the final prisoners of the Black Spring had been released and national and international headlines gave most of the credit to the Catholic Church and Spain’s Foreign Minister, downplaying the struggle of the Ladies in White, the pressure exerted from the street, Guillermo Fariñas’ hunger strike, and the wake of outrage left by the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. April, the cruelest month, brought us the Communist Party Congress focused only on economic issues, preferring the word “adjustments” to “reforms,” and consolidating the power of a blood heir to the Cuban throne.

August, with its dog days and its scarcities, wasn’t very different. “Where are the changes?” many asked themselves. It wasn’t until October that they began to trickle out. We could buy a used car, but not freely associate ourselves with a party nor express ourselves without punishment. Then came the most daring of Raul’s measures: it was possible to buy or sell a home, although the most modest of them necessitated the total wages of 45 years’ work. Something was moving in a society mummified for decades, but so slowly we despaired. In mid-December we learned that more than 66,000 Cubans had obtained the nationality of their grandparents, emigrants from the Asturias, the Canary Islands, Galicia… people kept escaping. The despair is not perceived in the streets as much as in the long lines at the consulates.

The area of land allowed to be given to farmers in usufruct grew, but the price of food grew almost as much. The press spoke of advances, but the reality showed stagnation. Private restaurants invaded every neighborhood with their menus of spicy dishes and their anxiety about whether they would be left to survive a while longer. The mute choir of the National Assembly confirmed that for 2012 the country would need much more money to import the foods that could well be produced on our own soil. And the expected travel reform was kept from us again, for the umpteenth time.

On Saint Sylvester night few homes displayed parties or music, at least in Havana. But I felt relief that the year was ending. Of 2011, with its advances overstated by propaganda and its setbacks silenced, once was enough.

4 January 2012