14ymedio – Page 580 – Translating Cuba

Away From “The Honey Of Power” Carlos Lage Focuses On Fighting Mosquitoes / 14ymedio, Zunilda Mata

President Raul Castro with Carlos Lage, then vice president, when everything was still complicity. (EFE)

14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 30 May 2016 – Every evening he emerges with his briefcase from the place where he purges his fate of being ousted. Carlos Lage, former vice president of Cuba’s Council of State, works on the campaign against the Aedes aegypti mosquito at the 19 de Abril polyclinic. Seven years ago he was removed from office and accused by Fidel Castro of being addicted to “the honey of power,” but today he is an employee of the Ministry of Public Health and avoids talking about his past.

At 64, Lage barely practices the pediatrics that he specialized in after studying medicine. His activities as president of the University Students Federation (FEU) and subsequent responsibility as secretary general of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) left him no time to attend patients. After his political downfall, in 2009, he went through several minor administrative positions in which he has had little contact with the public. continue reading

Currently, the man who is also the former secretary of the Council of Ministers works in the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology in a polyclinic that often receives visits from foreign delegations. More than once, in the hallways, he has run into former colleagues and diplomats who revered and honored him when rumors suggested he might become the first vice president.

The name of Lage was among the successors mentioned in the proclamation with which Fidel Castro announced his departure from power due to health problems, read out on national media on 31 July 2006. In paragraph six of that text Lage is called out for his accomplishments, such as being the “driving force of the energy revolution program” and the management of its funds. Off the Island, the vice president was seen as a civil figure with whom it might be possible to negotiate a future transition.

Between 1993 and 2009, from his high position, Lage represented Cuba at several Latin American summits, in speeches before the United Nations and at the inaugurations of numerous presidents. Popular humor baptized him as “the administrator of the madhouse,” for showing a certain sense in the midst of the political delusions that characterized those moments in Cuba.

However, rather than promote him to the position of first vice president, in February 2008, Raul Castro named the orthodox Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, thus sending a clear signal of strengthening the power of the so-called “historic generation” and avoiding potential reformers. A Reflection published by Fidel Castro confirmed the disgrace, when he accused Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque of having played an “undignified role.”

Now, every morning, el benjamín—the youngest son—separated from power imparts guidance to workers in the campaign against the mosquito that transmits dengue fever and chikungunya. The rest of the day he receives complaints from residents of Nuevo Vedado about the fumigators and medical personnel linked to the inspections for mosquito breeding sites.

Lage’s relations with the rest of the polyclinic workers are cordial, according to what several of his colleagues told this newspaper. Few dare to remind him of the times when his order was sufficient to appoint a director or remove an administrator. Often, after work, he offers a colleague a ride in his red-wine Russian made Lada, a replacement for the car he kept in his time in power.

In the corridors of the healthcare center he is called “the goodies bag man,” an allusion to his order at the beginning of this century that put an end to the bags with products like soap, frozen chicken and detergent that were distributed among healthcare personnel. Scornfully, his current compañeros remind him of that cut.

Not even in the domino games regularly organized at his home, where he invites other polyclinic workers, does Lage speak of that 3 March 2009, when Raul Castro removed him from his position as vice president. He was also dropped from the Central Committee of the Communist Party and lost his position as a deputy in the National Assembly of People’s Power.

“He will not mention his previous life,” an employee of the 19 de Abril laboratory told 14ymedio. “At first they maintained a visible surveillance operation” on him, said the employee, but “over time it has been lessened.”

An attempt to obtain statements from Lage himself received no response. “That man knows that silence is what keeps him alive,” commented his colleague.

Korea, That Distant But Nearby Country / Yosmany Mayeta Labrada

The audience outside the Infanta Multicinema during the first day of the South Korean cinema week in Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Havana, 28 May 2016 — When Cuban children playing mention distant countries, they talk about Singapore, Burundi and Korea. But in the latter case, they do not think about the country controlled by Kim Jong-un, but the one on other end of the peninsula, where Samsung was born. With film production the same thing happens: the theaters fill up for productions coming from the land of Hyundai and remain empty if the films come from the country’s “eternal president.”

With all seats occupied and dozens of people outside the theater, the screening of the first movie of South Korean Film Week in Havana occurred this Thursday at the Infanta Multicinema. The event, which this year celebrates its third edition, was organized by Cinemateca de Cuba with the Cuba-Korea Exchange Association. continue reading

The audience that gathered in the centrally located theater turned out to be very diverse, especially considering that Cuba does not have diplomatic relations with South Korea and this Asian country lacks official representation on the island. Nevertheless, officials from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) attended, along with the very official Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).

Also in attendance were South Korean students residing on the island and several diplomatic representatives of other nations, including the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China.

The founder of the Busan International Film Festival, Kim Dong-Ho gave the welcome in Spanish and said that a week of the films of his country would help with “understanding Korea” and “improving our relationship.” After he praised the cultural level of Cubans he closed with an emotional “thank you” that hastened the applause of spectators. Then came darkness and with it a point of light that widened on the screen.

The night gave way to “A Hard Day,” by South Korean director Kim Seong-Hoon. The thriller maintained its suspense until the end, with the avatars of Detective Gun-Su, trying to hide the body of a person he ran over. A standing ovation just as the credits started to roll confirmed that the organizers were right to choose this film to “break the ice” for the week.

Among those responsible for the careful film selection is Susana Molina, vice president of ICAIC, who told 14ymedio that “all the films in previous years have been good quality, but the curation of these was done by Tony Mason and also this edition presents a wider program.”

The programming for Korean film week will run until next Thursday. Stand outs among the films are titles such as: I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK, Moebius, 200 Pounds Beauty, Coin Locker Girl, and The Satellite Girl and the Milk Cow. Productions that deal with romance and survival in a world of violence, as well as police dramas and the conflicts of an obese girl trying to make it in the world of pop music.

However, few moments are likely to exceed those of opening night, when the cinema mixed diplomacy with a certain dash of showbiz. After the screening of the first film, the celebrations moved to the Bar Su Restaurante in Miramar, where the surprise of the evening was the presentation of young Cubans who sang in Korean and danced typical dances of the region.

From the tables nearest the stage well-known actors such as Enrique Molina, Isabel Santos and Luisa Maria Jimenez applauded and laughed, all spellbound by that distant but nearby country.

The “Little Witches” Arrived / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

”Little witches” (known is rail lilies in English) in the 14ymedio newsroom. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 14ymedio – There are those who believe that the pages of newspapers only have space for tragedy, armed conflicts and diatribes against politicians. In a world where the newspapers prioritize the extraordinary and the TV screens are filled with crises or shipwrecks, the little things, the common moments, lose narrative space. However, a good part of our existence takes place among the everyday, in the middle of a cycle that repeats itself over and over, like the seasons and the flowerings.

In the 14ymedio newsroom, 130 feet above the ground and amid the informational hustle, these “little witches” have been born. Known as “rain lilies” in English, no one planted them in a flowerbed, but they have arrived in the earth of some other plant and bloomed this summer. They are fragile and fleeting, but their simple presence convinces us that life continues, despite the problems, the fears, and the stubbornness of the leaders.

With their herringbone stems and ephemeral petals, these “little witches” have wrested a smile from the work team that reports a reality where there are few reasons for joy. One afternoon, just after a very long power outage, they sprang into bloom, on the same day that the political police browbeat one of our provincial collaborators. But here are these “little witches,” to remind us that being journalists is also narrating the diminutive, describing the ordinary and supporting freedom, like a plant, that returns to bloom again.

“I Am Prepared To Go to Prison Today,” says Berta Soler / 14ymedio

Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, during the art exhibit by El Sexto in Miami, Florida. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 May 2016 – From early hours Sunday a major police operation surrounded the headquarters of the Ladies in White in the Havana neighborhood of Lawton, according to denunciations by several activists from that organization. At least “13 women and four opponents were brutally intercepted outside the house” and forced into police cars in the last 13 hours, dissident Luisa Ramona Toscano Kendelan said by telephone to 14ymedio. continue reading

The group that surrounded the property included, as has become customary, a conga line with music through powerful speakers and signs that use the opposition campaign slogan “We All March” together with the phrases “with Fidel,” “with the Revolution” and “with socialism.”

At several points in the city similar operations prevented the women who form part of the human rights organization from reaching Santa Rita Church. Several on-scene witnesses report that at least two Ladies in White had managed to reach the vicinity of the parish on the western periphery of Havana.

Minutes before her arrest and in statements to this daily, Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, declared that she was ready to confront the risks of leaving her organization’s headquarters in order to exercise the right of “peaceful demonstration.” She explained that she was prepared to go “to prison to await the trial” with which they threatened her last week for a charge of resisting the authorities.

“I am prepared, I have my blood pressure monitor, my pills, shots, personal hygiene articles, flip flops … I carry it all. I am again going to commit the crime they accuse me of, so I expect to end up in the Manto Negro women’s prison.”

In the morning hours in the Matanzas province, Lady in White Leticia Ramos Herreria, who urged agents to take her directly to prison to await trial, was detained. Nevertheless, the State Security officers responded to her that “it was still not time.”

Translated by Mary Lou Keel

UNPACU Activists Denounce Raid On Their Homes / 14ymedio

UNPACU Activists marching in protest. “We all march, for the release of political prisoners, for fair wages, for freedom for the Cuban people, for democracy, for decent housing, for respect for human rights. (UNPACU Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 May 2016 – This week has been one of surprises for several activists from the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) who denounce that they have been victims of a raid on their homes and the confiscation of their belongings. The dissidents detailed that the political police raided three houses in the city of Santiago de Cuba on Saturday morning and a fourth in Havana on Wednesday.

Ermito Morán Sánchez, an UNPACU activist, confirmed to14ymedio that they “raided the homes of Carlos Oliva Torres, Yusmila Reyna and Karel Reyes where they seized printed materials, a camera, and other items in response to our activities to disseminate the reality of this country among the people.” continue reading

In a telephone conversation with 14ymedio, Yusmila Reyna said that at six in the morning, while her family was sleeping, there was a “knock on the door.” It was the police with “a search warrant for subversive activities.” An officer showed her a paper, but did not allow her to read it carefully or to take it in her hands. The incident occurred on 12^th Street in the Mariana de la Torre neighborhood in Santiago de Cuba.

Reyna managed to read that the order specified that they came to “seize methods of communication, money, and any other means of counterrevolution.” A total of ten uniformed officers plus two in plain clothes, who supposedly came to witness the search (Cuban law requires two civilians to witness such a search), participated in the operation.

The raid lasted over an hour and ultimately they seized working notes, two laptops, an electronic tablet, two hard drives, a printer, a camera, “and even receipts for items acquired abroad,” according to Reyna.

The activist circulated a text where she says that “acts like these do not prevent us from continuing our work in defense of human rights and accelerating the process of democratization of our island.”

During the search of her house they also seized a number of issues of the magazine Coexistence, documents relating to the initiative Otro 18 (Another 2018)—in support of free multiparty elections—and documents relating to the Roundtable for United Democratic Action (MUAD).

“They took two staplers and the boxes of staples, and a hole-punch. They didn’t leave any document I was working on and warned me that any demand [for the return of the seized items] would have go to the ‘Confrontation Offices’ but that they were not going to return anything.”

Meanwhile the dissident Arcelio Rafael “Chely” Molina Leyva said that Wednesday morning the police arrived to search his home, which serves as the UNPACU headquarters in Havana.

“They came with several gentlemen in plainclothes and after a thorough search took three laptops, a battery to recharge cell phones, two mobile phones, office supplies, news from international agencies, printed civic material and digital backups,” Chely enumerated.

This is the fourth search of this nature by the political police on UNPACU’s Havana headquarters. As a part of the operation they arrested Carlos Amel Oliva Torres, who despite having a temporary residence permit for Havana was taken to the third station of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) in Santiago de Cuba, where he is still under arrest.

Oscar Elias Biscet Says That Cuba Can No Longer “Bring Down” The Opposition / EFE (14ymedio)

Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 26 May 2106 — Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet said Wednesday, on arriving at the Miami airport from Spain, that the opposition on the island is “well defined” and that the regime “can no longer bring it down.”

Biscet, who was happy to be in “land of freedom” for Cubans, told reporters that he would explain to the Cuban exile community in South Florida his civic political project to end the dictatorship and promote democracy, through a method of non-violent struggle. continue reading

The medical doctor said that the opposition is “very united” and that part of the opposition is his initiative, the Emilia Project, which has gathered the support of more than 3,000 signatures.

He noted that the signers are “brave people, who gave their names, who gave their addresses, their identity card data, saying they do not want more communism.”

Biscet, 54, was optimistic that this group would become “a crowd that would end the dictatorship in Cuba.”

He said his initiative seeks to “make change by shifting the superstructure” and he calls this “the revolution on non-violent human rights.”

The dissident was arrested in late 2002 and sentenced to 25 years in prison for being part of the so-called Black Spring, where a group of dissidents known as the Group of 75, were accused of conspiring with the United States.

Biscet was released from prison in March 2011 during the process of the release of political prisoners carried out by Raul Castro’s government after mediation by the Vatican.

The dissident, who visited Madrid to give a lecture and see friends, admitted this week in Spain that he is afraid of reprisals in Cuba when he returns.

Cubans Demonstrate In Front Of The US Embassy In Quito / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

Cubans demonstrating in front the US embassy in Quito, Ecuador, on Friday. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 27 May 2016 — Hundreds of Cubans, more than a thousand according to organizers, marched this Friday morning in front of the United States embassy in Quito, to ask for Washington’s intervention in the negotiation of an immigration agreement that would allow more than 5,000 migrants reach the US border.

“They didn’t let us go past the embassy. The Ecuadorian police blocked the way,” said Peter Borges, who leads the protests along with Fernanda de la Fe. continue reading

According to the activists, it was a peaceful demonstration intended to deliver a letter to the ambassador to ask him to mediate with the Ecuadorian government for the passage of thousands of Cubans who want to emigrate to the United States and take advantage of the Cuban Adjustment Act. Since 1996, the Act has given special treatment to the island’s citizens who are able to reach US territory with regards to emigration.

“Cubans do not want to leave here, we spent several hours in the demonstration,” said the activist.

The letter, which they were not able to deliver, denounced the “horrendous episodes of extortion, rapes, murders and the disappearance of entire families,” which the migrants have suffered on their journey as undocumented emigrants across the continent with the objective of “reaching the freedom and well-being permitted by the generous United States government.”

The purpose of the missive is “to seek help to avoid further loss of human lives.” The letter also states that Cubans living in Ecuador are worried because “the Ecuadorian government has implemented a document review process for a large group of ‘irregular’ Cubans who make their lives here on the occasion of this crisis and as a form of retaliation.”

The demonstration comes after the Mexican government rejected a similar request on 18 May. On that occasion, Jaime del Arenal, Mexican ambassador in Ecuador, explained in a communication that the Cubans, many of whom have not been able to regularize their immigration status in the country, “do not qualify for the granting of visas.”

According to the organizers, the initiative also seeks to avoid adding to the number of Cubans who are stranded in Turbo, Colombia, after Panama closed its border to the passage of undocumented migrants. Panama recently transfered more than 3,800 Cubans to Mexico as the result of an an exceptional migratory agreement.

Following the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States and the worsening of living conditions on the island, tens of thousands of Cubans are trying to reach the US border for fear that the Cuban Adjustment Act will be repealed. In the current fiscal year alone, between October 1 and April 30, 35,652 Cubans had been accepted under the special “parole” program available to them in the United States. It is expected that more than 60,000 Cubans will arrive in the United States this year.

Cuban Migrants Criticize The High Prices Of Airfares To Mexico / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

Cuban migrants stranded in Mexico wait to buy airplane tickets to Mexico

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 6 May 2016 — Accustomed to standing in long lines on the island, thousands of Cuban migrants stranded in Panama were waiting for hours Friday to buy an airline ticket to Mexico. Among these “middle class rafters” criticism was rising over the high price of airfares which has reached $805 for an adult ticket.

José Antonio Quesada and his wife, both lawyers, are among those who were waiting in the sun today to get tickets. As of May 5, the Panamanian Government authorized the sale of airline for Cuban migrants and at least 800 of them have already purchased their tickets to continue their journey. continue reading

The two attorneys spent 1,669 dollars in tickets, including the trip by bus to the airport, the equivalent of more than five years wages for a in Cuba. Both have managed to raise the money with the help of relatives in Miami, but they are concerned because they have no more cash for when they reach the U.S. border.

Quesada and his wife traveled from the island to Ecuador with the intention of settling there and improving their economic condition. However, the obstacles to legalizing their residence and finding jobs pushed them to make a difficult journey through Colombia and the Darién jungle. They departed with the hope of taking advantage of Cuban Adjustment Act which grants immigration benefits to all residents of the island who reach United States.

Now the two professionals are among the lucky ones who have been able to purchase a ticket for flights starting next Monday to the city of Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas State, Mexico. The cost of the trip by plane for a child between 2 and 11 years is $332 whereas for a child under a year the amount drops to $160.

The sale of tickets has been marked by the absence of official statements from the Panamanian president’s office, which arouses suspicions among migrants, who fear shady dealings with regards to prices or lack of transparency in the process. “The Government does not give us information,” complains the Cuban Elizander Roque.

As of noon this Friday hundreds of migrants from the island had undertaken, on their own, to travel to the David’s Mall, 25 miles from the shelters where they are staying in Los Planes, Gualaca, to buy tickets.

The prices have surprised Sisleydis Moret, a 25-year-old Cuban who says she feels “desperate” at not having enough money to buy them, due to the expenses of supporting herself during her stay in Panama.

The ticket from Panama to Mexico costs $805 per each adult. (Courtesy)

Her companion in the hostel, Keily Arteaga, age 29, is in a similar situation. “The news was like a bucket of cold water,” she says and comments that, “now we don’t have the money they are asking for.”

Arteaga, who resides in a house in San Isidro, left Ecuador because she was not able to legalize her immigration status. She had “a good job” but she was illegal, which mean that “all the doors” were closed to her, she explains. She says she has taken advantage of “all of this turmoil” of the immigration crisis in Central America to reach Panama.

Those who travel accompanied by several family members experience the most delicate situation. Isleyda Lelle said she was glad to hear that tickets sales had begun to Mexico, but now she needs to wait for her mother, resident in the United States, to help her “complete” the cost of the trip for her, her brother and her sister-in-law.

For Andy Llanes, the situation is more difficult because he says that he does not have “a single dollar” to buy the ticket. “My journey was very hard, we were attacked along the way and they stole from us all that we had.” In the trip to Panama he details that his partner “was raped and now the poor woman is pregnant from the Coyote who abused her.”

Llanes says the only thing he owns is the “flip-flops” he is wearing and says that if he cannot continue the trip, he will stay in Panama because “I won’t return to Cuba even if they threaten me with death.”

Alfredo Córdoba, regional head of the National Migration Service in the Chiriqui province told 14ymedio that he still does not know what will happen to those Cubans who cannot afford the airfares.

An official source who requested anonymity explained that Cuban migrants found in Puerto Obaldia have not received their passports yet and so far there are no specific directions about whether they will or will not be part of the humanitarian program.

This newspaper has gotten in touch with both the Panama National Migration Service and the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but so far we have not received answers to our questions.

Ed. note: Since this article was written the price of the airfare was lowered and then the sale of tickets was cut off altogether. Translations of articles detailing these subsequent events will follow.

Translated by Alberto

Internet Domains, Sovereignty And Freedom / 14ymedio, Regina Coyula

Of the approximately 7.4 billion people living on the planet, only 3.2 billion are connected to the Internet. (CC)

14ymedio, Regina Coyula, Havana, 25 May 2016 — For Cubans who update their domestic entertainment weekly with the now famous, private and anonymous “Weekly Packet,” a subtitle in bright greenish-yellow letters at the beginning of movies has become familiar. It is the ever present www.gnaula.nu, which appears so frequently that it spurred my curiosity: I found it impossible to recognize what country corresponded to the extension “.nu” so I turned to the always useful Wikipedia.

Surprise. The country where all the movies we watch at home are pirated is Niue, an atoll with the pretensions of a little island, attached to New Zealand. In 1996, an American (who of course doesn’t live in Niue) took the rights to “.nu” and in 2003 founded the Niue Internet Society, and offered to the local authorities to convert the quasi-island into the first wifi nation of the world. The offer was rounded out with a free computer for every child. Nothing spectacular; we’re talking about a population of barely 1,300 people. continue reading

The irony is that while “.nu” generates enormous profits, the inhabitants of Niue who want to connect from home and not from the only internet café are obliged to pay for installation and service.

So I find another curiosity: the second most used internet extension after “.com” corresponds to another little place in the corner of the Pacific, also unnoticed, a group of islets of roughly four square miles. Tokelau is the name of this place whose domain “.tk” hatched in 2009 and was free, and today it is the virtual home of hundreds of thousands of sites of dubious probity.

The way in which the territorial domains of each country (ccTLD, which stands for: country-code-top-level-domain) are managed is very different. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has left the who and how to the discretion of each country. Many countries have privatized it either in the hands of institutions or companies created for that purpose, while in others it is done by an entity attached to a stage agency.

The two ways of operating ccTLDs have advantages and disadvantaged. Deregulating the extensions tips the balance toward the more profitable companies to the detriment of the agencies, NGOs and social and cultural institutions. Decreasing the influence of governments, can weigh heavily on the sovereignty of countries with fragile economies or small and young countries.

As a counterpart, state-regulation administration tends to protect social and cultural interests, a successful management style that can lead to gains that positively impact national life. It can also happen that the process for buying a ccTLD are restrictive or discriminatory, sheltering under deliberately vague rules to be applied at their discretion, as is the case with Cuba’s “.cu”.

In Latin America, Argentina is the only country that offers a site for free; hence the millions of sites with the extension “.ar”. This gratuity is about to change because a way to collect payments is being studied. In Chile and Nicaragua domains are administered through public universities. In Guatemala it is also done through a university but in that case a private one.

State regulation occurs in Venezuela through the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), and in Cuba through the Information Technologies and Advanced Telematic Services Company (CITMATEL).

Colombia, and without going into details about its antecedents, is a reflection of a similar debate ongoing in many countries. A private company owns its ccTLD and they believe that the fact that 89% of the owners of a “.co” site are foreigners living outside the country, far from violating national identity, internationalizes Colombia and brings its brand to the entire world. What underlies these debates is that the market is imposed on cultural values and little can be done in the defense of an intangible patrimony.

But ultimately, who governs the Internet? Any observant newcomer claims that the United States governs it. On its territory are the institutions and the majority of the servers intended to organize what would otherwise be chaos.

The now well-known ICANN assigns domain names (DNS) to IP addresses, has a contract with the government and is located in California. Very influential internet companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon are also American. By September there will be news of a change; simply that ICANN will be independent of the United States Department of Commerce.

In this asymmetric influence are counterpoised the interest of other parties involved and also of the internet. International organizations such as those dealing with trade (the ITO), intellectual property and the International Communications Union have been involved in conjunction with ICANN. Virtual space modifies the notion of sovereignty, with added risks to equality and diversity; so the term governance has gained importance in the design of policies, where governments, civil society, business, academic and technical innovators come together.

In the same way that innovative technicians have placed in our hands the protocol that ensures open access to the internet from any type of device, it behooves governance to establish policies, even if they are not binding, to guarantee freedom of expression and information, full access and limits on control.

Shameful Friends / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Alexandr Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus since 1994. (CC)

14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 25 May 2016 – People with whom we share sorrows and joys are a reflection of ourselves, however different they may appear. As friends we choose them to accompany us, but also to complete us, with the diversity and continuity that our human nature needs. The problem is when our choices of coexistence are not based on affinities and preferences, but on interests and alliances focused on annoying others.

In the same week, the Cuban executive has embraced two deplorable authoritarian regimes. A few hours after Cuban Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez met with government functionaries in Belarus, Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution hosted a meeting between Raul Castro and a special representative from North Korea’s Workers Party. Disgraceful comrades, shamelessly embraced and praised by the island’s officialdom.

In a world where civil society, calls for the respect for human rights, and movements that promote the recognition of rights are making themselves heard ever more loudly, it is difficult for the Cuban government to explain his good relations with Europe’s last dictator and with the cruelly capricious grandson who inherited power through his bloodline. What united the island’s authorities with similar political specimens?

The only possible answer is sticking their finger in the eye of Western democracies and the White House. The problem with this attitude lies in the demands from these fellow travelers for commitments and silences. Diplomatic friendship is converted into complicity and the comrades end up defining the nature of those who have chosen their company.

‘El Sexto’: “Myths are very dangerous, but an idea can break them.” / 14ymedio, Maria Tejero Martin

Danilo Maldonado – known as El Sexto – at the Oslo Freedom Forum. (OFF)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Maria Tejero Martin, Oslo, 24 May 2016 – Danilo Maldonado is known as El Sexto the name engraved in ink on his skin and that he paints on the walls of Havana to plant an idea of freedom in his compatriots, like a seed that flourishes and breaks the “dangerous myths” that, he says, surround Cuba.

When he was nine he caused his mother grief when he drew Fidel Castro in his military uniform but with the head of a monkey; by his twenties he had decided to turn himself into the antihero El Sexto (The Sixth), in response to the regime’s campaign to free Los Cinco (The Five), Cuban agents arrested in the United States. continue reading

In his thirties, after the United States initiated contacts with Cuba after years of the embargo, Maldonado “knew I would go to jail” he told EFE, when he was inspired to paint the names “Raul” and “Fidel” on the backs of two pigs for a piece of Orwellian inspired performance art which he was unable to carry out.

“The worst thing is that I never got to release them, but I went to jail, I went to jail for something that never existed, without cause or role,” explained Maldonado, who was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

His incarceration prevented him from collecting the Vaclav Havel Prize for creative dissent a year ago in Oslo, and today he is in the Norwegian capital for the first time, where he is participating in the Oslo Freedom Forum, although he says that he has already attended this annual forum of activists and defenders of human rights “in conscience.”

This is a basic word for this artist who considers himself a “prisoner of conscience” who seeks to “awaken” the conscience of Cubans and open the eyes of foreigners whose romanticism prevents them from seeing that the vintage cars that circulate around Havana “means that we are stuck in time.”

Meanwhile he draws on a page, showing the Little Prince that he carries on his long lean arm. And if, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s character would say, “the essence is invisible to the eyes,” Maldonado feels that his mission is to attack just there, on the plane of abstract consciousness, where he “works with things that don’t exist to make them a reality.”

Like freedom in Cuba, he laments, although he is “sure” that art will first bring rights to the island and later allow them to become reality, in the same way, he explains, that he conceived the hunger strike he undertook in prison as a work of art titled “Mao’s awakening.”

“I said that if consciousness could change what is, it should save me from there, I would die because I would have been talking complete shit. The bars have to opened by the hands of the repressor himself, only in this way will art exist. And so it happened,” he affirmed.

Maldonado believes that art can serve as a catalyst for any change, like a predecessor, and says that “an idea can destroy what exists.” Even the regime.

“I want to bring down a dictatorship that has lasted for a very long time in my country, demystify it and demystify the false canons it was selling, like that of Che Guevara,” says El Sexto.

“Often it sold [the idea] that wearing green and roaming the world with weapons was cool. And it is not cool. Cool was a guy like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi or Christ. But cool is not the type of people who believe they are rebels and what they are is a murderer who wants to impose his idea,” he added.

Maldonado does not mince words, either to defend the caricatures of Muhammad or to charge his followers who have spent centuries killing in his name.

“That is what I don’t want to have happen in my country, that I die and that fucking nutcase passes as a savior. What I want is that my art demystifies and destroys him, leaves his essence in the base and that people understand he is not good,” he says, referring to Castro.

For him, he is confident that “art can do anything,” even with some “very dangerous myths.”

“They manage to go on for so long that if people don’t chip away at them they are more dangerous dead than alive. But an idea can destroy and undermine anything (…) That is why they fear me and follow me. They took me prisoner because they know of this influence,” says the artist, who says he will continue living in Cuba and will give his life for what he considers his duty: “Awakening” consciences.

Cuba is Not Brazil or Venezuela / 14ymedio, Pedro Campos

The leaders of the so-called wave of 21st Century Socialism, gathered during the creation of the Bank of the South. (DC)

14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Havana, 24 May 2016 – The receding tide of the populist wave in Latin America, in particular the delicate situation in Venezuela and the ouster of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, has uncovered all kinds of speculation about the supposed relationship of cause and effect controlling political-economic and social process in Cuba.

Those who are still waiting for the problems within the island to be solved believe they can be resolved from outside, while the ‘statist fundamentalists’ take advantage of the ‘threat’ to entrench themselves in their anti-democratic and anti-socialist positions.

However, Cuba is not Brazil or Venezuela, in any sense. Its processes have different origins, circumstances and dissimilar dynamics of development and, therefore, an evolution that proceeds along uneven paths. continue reading

Suffice it to recall that this populist wave began almost 40 years after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, at a time of the sharp decline, due to natural exhaustion, and the disappearance of the socialist camp, and that Hugo Chavez came to power through democratic means, subject to the general principles of democracy and its mechanisms.

Now, it is precisely the setting aside of these democratic institutions and the assumption of authoritarianism that is at the center of the reversal of that wave.

This has nothing to do with the emergence and evolution of the Cuban political process, its origin and its authoritarian essence. It emerged as an offshoot of the violence and social polarization inherited from Batista’s coup d’etat and the subsequent armed confrontation. This made possible a government that went against the grain of the demand for democracy that served as a base of support for the fight against the Batista dictatorship and that was built on the confrontation between the United States and the USSR, during the Cold War.

The “socialism of the Cuban state,” which is neither socialist nor Cuban, was not what inspired this wave, but it rode it for its own benefit, encouraged the confrontation with “American imperialism” that feeds the geopolitics of its subsistence and, in any case, encouraged its authoritarian and state-centric tendencies that brought it to the current situation.

We mustn’t forget that it was Chavez and his oil that made possible the abandonment of the reforms forced by the fall of the socialist camp and the subsequent so-called “Special Period in a Time of Peace” in Cuba—a time of severe economic crisis after the loss of the Soviet subsidies.

We must also remember that the paradigms of the so-called 21^st Century Socialism, which originated and gave strength to this wave, were related to democracy and participatory budgets leading to greater citizen involvement in decision making of all kinds, with the direct intervention of workers in the property, management and distribution of wealth and the Marxist concept of the law of value, pushed by Hugo Chavez, Heinz Dieterich and the People’s Summit held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2006.

These fundamentals were never adopted by the Cuban government-party-state and later were gradually abandoned by Chavez himself in favor of state-centrism.

This phase of decline depresses the influence of the Cuban government in the region and could affect the support that, for Cuba’s state monopolies, are represented by Venezuelan oil and the billions of dollars Cuba obtains in “leasing fees” for Cuba doctors and paramedical personnel hired out in “medical missions” abroad.

But from there to an assumption that the Cuban government is threatened, is quite a stretch. To expect regional pressures in support of respect for human, political and civil rights, yes; to imagine a regional isolation similar to the 1960s, no. Suffice it to recall the new scenario in Cuba-US relations and the possibilities for economic exchange.

“Only Revolutionaries can destroy this Revolution,” Fidel Castro said in November 2005 at the University of Havana. This is true: the most dangerous enemies of the Cuban political process, who have been leading it to stagnation and to the “abyss,” are those who themselves are entrenched in power and who stubbornly impede the advance toward the democratization of politics and the socialization of the economy.

The political system defined by a dictatorship of the proletariat, originating in Stalinist Russia and perfected by the guerrillas in power, liquidated the opposition early on, eliminated its material base of support by nationalizing everything, and excluded all of the democratic mechanisms—multi-party elections and the full exercise of civil and political rights, the recall referendum process, impeachment, and a democratic constitution—essential to confronting authoritarianism. These mechanisms must be created from below.

Thus, democratization will be a process, not an act, that demands the creation of an atmosphere of relaxation and harmony that can facilitate an inclusive national dialog; the recognition of fundamental freedoms; moving to a new Constitution that is the fruit of the creation and democratic and horizontal discussion of the Cuban people and approved by referendum; promulgation of a new democratic electoral law; and the establishment of a modern state of law with full functional and informational transparency, under permanent popular control: a Republic that is democratic, humanist and supportive, one in which there is room for everyone.

The Step-Motherland’s Droit de Seigneur / 14ymedio, Miriam Celaya

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo and Minister of Development, Ana Pastor, greeting Raúl Castro. (EFE / Estudios Revolución)

14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 23 May 2016 — Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, recently made his second visit to Cuba. Unlike his first, in November 2014–when the general-president did not deign to meet with him—this time his “highest excellency” Spanish Foreign Minister was emphatically welcomed by the upper echelons of power.

This new attitude between both sides is not so strange, since García-Margallo was in a “democratic” mode in 2014, triggering the olive-green gerontocracy’s suspicion and displeasure. Now, the Chancellor has come solely in a business mode, with the mission to strengthen and expand as much as possible Spain’s investments in Cuba before the resources of the powerful northern neighbor intrude (for a second time) in the territory of the former Spanish colony, once again depriving Spain of its devalued Crown jewel. continue reading

This time, the Castro’s media monopoly reported cryptically, in a brief note, the exchange with “the distinguished visitor,” who was accompanied by senior officials in the fields of Development and Cooperation of the Spanish Government and by the Ambassador of that country in Cuba, citing “positive relations between the two nations” and “the recent signing of agreements in Madrid regularizing Cuban’s intermediate and long term debt,” which “creates favorable conditions” for strengthening of relations between the two countries.

There is no doubt that the current scenario proved advantageous for the Spanish Chancellor when talking business with the satrapy

On Cuba’s side, the meeting was attended by the Foreign Minister, a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, and the Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister. It was obviously a business visit that was took place in greatest secrecy.

So, as usual, details of interest did not reach the public about bilateral economic issues, debt terms and repayment of potential Spanish investments, although it is known that Spain is one of Cuba’s main trading partners and has maintained a strong business presence for more than two decades in Cuba, especially in the tourist and hotel field. Therefore, these should be topics of importance for the population, in the midst of the deep Cuban crisis.

In another sense, but equally secret, there were the activities carried out by the same Spanish Foreign Minister during his previous visit. Less than two years ago, the now “most excellent” visitor raised great distress at the Palace of the Revolution when he delivered the keynote On Living through the Transition: a Biographical View of Change in Spain–also behind closed doors and in the presence of a handpicked audience—in such a government space as the Higher Institute of International Relations. The piece established a comparison between the Spanish reality at the end of the Franco era, the beginning of the process of democratic transition, and the Cuban reality today, under the late Castro regime.

In retrospect, it is fair to concede that—although García-Margallo’s speech in November 2014 in Havana did not reach the national media—none of the governments and representatives of democratic nations who had visited us until then had so boldly expressed criticism towards Cuban official policy nor had they spoken about the importance of freedoms of speech, press, assembly and association.

However, on his first visit, the Spanish Foreign Minister did not enjoy the same privileges as US President Barack Obama, whose speech–directed to all Cubans and not to a select group of Castro’s faithful—was broadcast in real time through Cuban media, and it made a deep impression in the minds of ordinary people. Of course, the US president is not one to be provoked.

It is as if favoring the protection of the interests of Spanish business in Cuba must necessarily involve forgetting the exclusion Cubans live under, so exploited by those same entrepreneurs

That explains why Cubans did not learn about the audacity of García-Margallo, the first representative of a democratic government who mentioned, before an official venue’s microphone, ideas as subversive as the importance of political party pluralism as a pillar of democracy and national harmony, efficiency of peaceful political transitions in order to achieve true lasting changes, and the regaining of freedoms violated by long lasting autocratic regimes.

On that occasion, García-Margallo referred to the need for monetary unification and acceleration of changes in Cuba, decentralization of decision-making, ratification of the United Nations covenants on civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, and freedom of association, among other topics that are also taboo for the Cuban government.

In short, we would need to point that, when comparing the Spanish foreign minister’s approach on his first visit to Cuba with his second, there is no doubt that there was a setback in terms of defense of human rights and democracy for Cubans, as if favoring the protection of the interests of Spanish business in Cuba must necessarily involve forgetting the exclusion Cubans live under, so exploited by those same entrepreneurs. All this goes against the grain of the hypocrisy of officials of that country, who, when it is convenient for them, make reference to “the close historical, cultural and blood ties that bind our two nations.”

Now it turns out that García-Margallo has even chosen to be the interpreter of the wishes of the Cuban people, so his purely business mission in Cuba is not only justified by the large presence of Spanish capital in the former “always faithful island of Cuba” but because “the Cuban people now primarily want progress and economic development, and we will help in that change.” Unfortunately, we do not know how he will manage to do that. For now, freedom and the ratification of the covenants, blah, blah, blah … is still pending. Ah, Spanish politicians, always so fickle!

If Cuban rulers of the past 57 years are so very “Spanish,” it is not surprising that things in Cuba are so very topsy-turvy

However, the current considerate stance of the Spanish authorities towards Castro once again addresses the question of “roots,” no matter the tree. According to media allegations, Mr. Garcia-Margallo recently stated “in Cuba, apart from human relationships, Fidel’s and Raul’s father was a soldier who fought on the side of our troops during the [War of] Independence, and he later changed sides,” so the dictator brothers “are very, very Spanish.”

Well, finally! That explains everything: if Cuban rulers of the past 57 years are so very “Spanish” it is not surprising that things in Cuba are so very topsy-turvy, and even less strange that now—in the midst of the transition from Castro-communism to Castro-capitalism—the step-motherland’s claim for a certain droit de seigneur is being encouraged from La Moncloa*, especially when history, always so whimsical, seems to be closing another cycle that–bridging the gaps—mimics that episode over a hundred years ago when Spain and the US were quarreling over the spoils of the Island-in-ruins.

*Official Madrid residence of the Spanish Prime Minister

Translated by Norma Whiting

Lady in White Berta Soler Threatened With Prison / 14ymedio

Berta Soler at the Havana airport. (File / 14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 May 2016 — Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, faces a prison sentence of three months to five years for the alleged crime of resistance. The activist was arrested last Sunday when she attempted to go to the Cathedral of Havana for the inauguration of the new archbishop of the capital. After being charged by the authorities, she is required to available to them at all times and cannot leave Cuba before her trial. “I didn’t become an opponent [of the regime] in order to travel and I am prepared to go to prison if that is the decision. I won’t even get a lawyer,” Soler told 14ymedio.

The group of 31 activists, among them 22 Ladies in White, was intercepted on leaving the Ladies in White’s headquarters in the Lawton neighborhood. The repudiation rally against them before the Sunday Mass was organized for 9 in the morning and involved many people who were not even from the neighborhood. “Although we already knew we wouldn’t be able to get there,” Berta Soler said, “we decided to leave [for the church] because our house is not a jail cell.” As commonly occurs, tempers flared and finally the police arrived to arrest them.

“When they stopped us we sat down, which is a common practice in peace movements around the world, except in Cuba,” Soler emphasized.

Berta Soler was driven to the Alamar neighborhood where, she said, there was “a classroom reserved by the PNR (People’s Revolutionary Police).” At about six or seven in the evening they told her that this time there would be formal charges. “At first they said that I had scratched a policewoman, but eventually they dismissed the charge of attack,” she said.

That night an official who said she was the investigator/prosecutor on her case told her that she was accused of resistance. “I didn’t respond in any way and went to sleep. At a quarter to ten at night they came to find me to sign the accusation but I didn’t sign any document. We (and they as well) have videos that show I never lifted a hand to anyone or attack anyone, not even verbally.”

Berta Soler says she has no problem complying with the requirement that she not leave the country. “At the moment I have no plans for any trip. The closest is an idea to go to Geneva, but that still has not materialized. If before [the trial], or at any time I need to leave the country for some event, they will have to stop me from traveling at the airport itself,” she said.

The date of her trial has not been set.

Rosa María Payá: “Totalitarianism is not broken in Cuba, we can not pretend it is” / EFE (14ymedio), María Tejero Martín

Rosa Maria Paya (Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo)

EFE (via 14ymedio), María Tejero Martín, Oslo, 23 May 2016 — Cuban opposition member Rosa María Payá said Monday ,in an interview with EFE, that the “totalitarianism” of the government led by Raul Castro “has not broken” despite the open contact with the United States and the European Union (EU), and so she asked that these approaches be used to achieve “concrete progress.”

“Rapprochement with Cuba is very good, but it depends on how and how it is sold. It also has negative consequences, such as the rest of the world perceiving an internal process of openings toward democracy, and this has not occurred,” said Payá in the Norwegian capital, where she has come to participate in the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF). continue reading

The dissident said that “totalitarianism has not been broken” despite the “legitimacy” with which it might have re-clothed itself after the visits of personalities such as US President Barack Obama, the high representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, Federica Mogherini, Pope Francis or the Rolling Stones.

Payá, daughter of the prominent opposition leader Oswaldo Payá, who died in 2012 in a car crash which his daughter blames on the Cuban regime, believes that the international community has an “opportunity to pressure the regime for this change toward freedom.”

Payá criticized the “excuses that can be cynical, but are invoked as pragmatic” which are used as an argument to initiate dialogue with Cuba placing special attention on economic relations and relegating to the background demands for human rights and freedom.

“People say things like if we negotiated with China, why not with the Cuban regime. Under this line of thinking, why not with North Korea?” she said.

We regards to negotiations between Brussels and Havana, she considers it “worrying” that no light has been shined on the text that serves as a basis for contacts between the two parties and warned that it is not enough to simply include “a mention of human rights, because tyrannies have already learned to deal with these mentions.”

“The support has to be concrete, specific and on measurable issues. Not only speeches in support of democracy, of human rights,” she said, calling for support for the holding of a plebiscite on the island, access to communications media and information, and the release of political prisoners.

“Totalitarianism, which has not been broken, is broken when the ability to decide does not reside in the same group of generals. At that moment the transition will have begun, which won’t happen in a single day. We cannot pretend this is happening,” she said, in a message she directed to “the international community,” from whom she asked for “support.”

” Cubans are human beings just like everyone else, like Spaniards or Belgians. We did not endure five decades in order to have Airbnb, but rather all out rights (…), having more Americans to travel to the island is not enough, it is a racist approach to think so,” she claimed.

To Payá, inaction may also affect the international community itself and democratic countries.

In this regard she pointed to how the situation in Venezuela has been evolving under the leadership of Hugo Chavez and president Nicolas maduro, but also the ideas that have come from “political parties in Spain.”

Looking ahead to the upcoming Spanish elections, Payá stressed that “the Spanish people are sovereign, so it is up to them to decide,” although she expressed her concern for “the influence of the totalitarian regime in Havana and the Chavista regime which is concerned with undermining Latin America and exporting its ideas to Europe.”

About the rise of anti-democratic positions, the Cuban opponent once again called on democratic countries to act.

In terms of rights, “Cubans were already in the worst situation ten years ago, but now the rest of the world is worse off as well,” she warned.

Danilo Maldonado, known as "El Sexto," is also speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum this week. — Danilo Maldonado, known as “El Sexto,” is also speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum this week.

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