Cubanet – Page 15 – Translating Cuba

Their Weapon is the Word, Peaceful is their Struggle / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

The dissidents, labeled as “mercenaries,” seek only, through peaceful means, democracy for Cuba (file photo)

Our “mercenaries” do not plant bombs, nor do they plan attempts on people’s lives, nor sabotages, as did those who today are in power.

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 30 April 2015 – A young Communist, lamenting how the Cuban government delegation (supposedly there representing Cuban civil society) made fools of themselves in Panama, told me, “Well, at any rate, all you people are mercenaries.”

“First of all,” I responded, “exclude me from that group. I do not belong to any party, I am an independent voice. Secondly, regarding that ‘mercenary’ label, even the government doesn’t believe it. It has always been thus: for the autocrat, there is no ‘opponent,’ no ‘adversary’ – there is only ‘the enemy.’ ”

I took a mental trip back to the administration of José Miguel Gómez, when, to take advantage of the recently enacted Platt Amendment, the striking term “annexationist” came into use to exterminate the opponent, the enemy. Indeed, extermination is the issue. The “mercenary” term began having the demolishing effect of ten tons of cast concrete falling on its target. continue reading

It is the equivalent of the Germanophile appellation, nurtured by the Major General of the Liberating Army, Mario García Menocal, in the days of the First World War, and when Cuba, following the United States’ lead, declared war on Germany and even purchased 30 aircraft and trained 30 aviators to send them to the battlefields on the other side of the Atlantic.

It is poetic to observe, at all times in history, the behavior of the autocrat toward his enemies. In those days, there were no strikes, especially in the sugar industry where, other than the local “Germanophile,” no true Germans (Germans who came from Germany to help Cuban workers) took part. There are even reports of ambushes and crossfire between the rural police force and Germans who, with the help of certain elements in the area, managed to break through the enclosure and, on one occasion, sink a submarine that was to have collected them at the heights of Nuevitas.

But the Germans lost the war and the Russians expanded the territory that had been taken by the Czar and, on the ideological front, spread out over the world. Machado, to keep up with the times, started calling his political enemies “Bolsheviks” and preached hatred towards the “Russian experiment.”

To save the country from such an odious potential destiny, one must cast the enemy to the sea, for the expeditious man does not waste time executing the common malcontent, nor agitating him until he grabs four boards and two truck tires and heads for the sea.

No, a man like General Machado throws the fellow to the sharks right there at the mouth of El Morro, so that if this enemy is heard from again, it is only through fishermen’s bad habit of describing a wristwatch still on an arm, or a pair of underpants still bearing a Chinese laundry stamp, which they at times discover upon opening a shark’s belly – for which reason President Machado, being unable to tape fishermen’s mouths shut, ended up outlawing shark fishing.

Batista during his second term, perhaps exaggerating a bit but not lying, called the 26^th Enemy (i.e. the 26^th of July Movement) by a name that turned out, to a great extent, to predict the future: “Fidelocommunist.” I say, to a great extent, because many worthy members of the movement did not accept its surprising turn towards the Leninism which was evident by the time they emerged from The Sierra. It was the “traitor,” the “pro-imperialist,” created under duress by Fidel Castro, that served as the model (for those who did not come down from The Sierra and stopped applauding) for the later, “worm,” “scum,” “unpatriotic one” – and, from the Bay of Pigs, the “mercenary.” *

In other words, the dissident, who, having no place in the totalitarian state where it is the ruler who imparts the law and distributes employment, needs the help of the countries and institutions interested in democracy; just as, for reasons opposed to democracy, the Cuban government has aided numerous foreign political movements and has, in turn, been helped by Russia, China, Czechoslovakia and other socialist countries, and later – and up until today – by Hugo Chavez’s (and now Nicolas Maduro’s) “Chavista” Venezuela.

But, you know what? Even those little epithets created to diminish the opponent get worn down and lose their edge from overuse, i.e. “mercenary,” which used to inspire such fear, and is already being disputed by children when organizing their games, and which is borne with pride because of what it implies, with that same pride with which half the Cuban exile community today bears yesterday’s dishonorable title of “worm.”

I don’t know if I have convinced you, but the young Communist (a law student, by the way) did not reply to me. Along the way I had made him note that our “mercenaries” have put their trust in words and images to serve as their weapons, which can be seen in the only space where with much effort they manage to rear their heads: the Internet. No bombs, no assassination attempts nor sabotages, such as were committed by those who today are in power. So peaceful and patient they are that, so as not to hurt anybody, they don’t even want to proclaim themselves as “dissidents.”

About the Author

Rafael Alcides was born in Barrancas, municipal district of Bayamo (Cuba) in 1933. A poet and storyteller, he was a master baker in his teen years. He has worked as a farmhand, cane cutter, logger, wrecking crew cook, and manager of a sundries store in a cane-cutters’ outpost. In Havana in the 1950s he worked variously as a mason, broad-brush painter, exterminator, insurance agent, and door-to-door salesman. In 1959 he was the chief information officer for the Department of Latin American Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Relations, and spokesman of this agency in a daily television program in which he hosted and interviewed foreign political personalities. He was chief press officer and director of Cultural Affairs in the Revolutionary Delegation of the National Capitol.

Among his most recently-published titles are the poetry collections, GMT (2009), For an Easter Bush (2011), Travel Log (2011), Anthologies, in Collaboration with Jaime Londoño (2013), Conversations with God (2014), the journalistic Memories of the Future (2011), the multi-part novel, Ciro’s Ring (2011), and the story collection, A Fairy Tale That Ends Badly (2014).

As of 1993, he had been employed by the Cuban Institute of Radio & Television for more than 30 years as a scriptwriter, announcer, director and literary commentator when, at that time, he ceased all publishing and literary work in collaboration with regime in Cuba.

As a participant in numerous international literary events, Rafael Alcides has given conferences and lectures in countries in Central and South America, Europe, and the Middle East. His texts have been translated into many languages. He was honored with two Premios de la Crítica, and a third for a novel co-written with another author. In 2011 he received the Café Bretón & Bodegas Olarra de Prosa Española prize.

*Translator’s Notes: The epithets “worm,” “scum,” and “unpatriotic one” have been used for decades by Fidel Castro and his supporters against those who oppose the regime.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

No More Blackouts? / Cubanet, Gladys Linares

The blackouts occur very frequently “at the time of the water,” in those 4 or 5 hours on alternate days that the liquid arrives at our houses

“If water and electricity have the same owner, why do they turn off my power when I need it most?”

Cubanet.org, Gladys Linares, Havana, 28 April 2015 – The word “blackout” was eliminated by the Electric Company. Nevertheless, blackouts continue, managed, disguised, masked with terms like free channel, breakdown, maintenance, pole change, broken cables, etc., causing a thousand and one miseries among the population.

For Andres, a self-employed man who sells pizzas, spaghetti and smoothies in Lawton, the blackouts, he says, have turned into a nightmare. He says that recently he cannot sell a smoothie because the fruit pulp was spoiled in a blackout, and as his oven is electric, when the lights go out he cannot make pizzas, either. continue reading

Several times a week the same hell confronts those who are obligated to cook with electricity; without it there is no food. There are those who solve the problem with a cylinder of gas (almost always bought on the black market because few have the 500 pesos necessary for getting a contract for the unrationed gas canisters).

The Island stopped in time

The first electric plant was established in Cuba in 1889 (in Cardenas), only seven years after New York’s first electric plant was inaugurated. For the republic’s half century, few complained about blackouts. But after 1959, the Cuban electric system did not escape the disaster, and as in so many spheres of our calamitous economy, it was at the point of collapse.

In the Tribune of Havana newspaper of August 15, 2010, the program’s chief engineer, Pedro Felipe de las Casas, declared that he had carried out 75 percent of the necessary improvements in order to offer a high quality service to the capital’s clients, and among those works he mentioned were: rush changes, increased transformer capacity, improvements in street lighting – though not in the outlying neighborhoods – and to conclude he said, “So far 3,109 low voltage areas have been eliminated which stands out as one of the results most noticed by the people.”

Tendido-eléctrico-y-árboles-sin-podar-en-la-Calzada-de-Porvenir-Lawton — Power lines and untrimmed trees in Calzada de Porvenir, Lawton

In spite of the government’s triumphant propaganda about energy efficiency, frequent fluctuations in voltage continue which damage appliances, and in the neighborhoods we spend long hours without electricity.

The pruning of trees that damage lines that hang from poles is only carried out in a marathon manner in the face of an imminent cyclone. The branches are another of the frequent cause of electric service interruption or of accidents. On Friday, April 10 in the suburb of Abel Santamaria, a 12-year old boy climbed a tree to knock down mangoes and was electrocuted by a line that passed through the branches.

The lights go out when the water arrives

The blackout happens very frequently at the “water time,” that is to say, in those 4 or 5 hours in which on alternate days the vital liquid arrives at our houses. When this happens, you can hear the curses of the neighbors who had washing machines going (although many have to wash by hand). Worse occurs in the case of multi-family buildings or other multi-story houses: without electricity the motors don’t start, and without motors to run the pumps, the water does not get to them.

For these reasons, more than a few are outraged, and some wonder: if in 48 hours we only have water for 5 hours, maybe 6, generally 4 hours, if it is true that they turn off the electricity to make repairs, if the water and the electricity are from the same owner: Why do they have to take my power when I need it most? Is it that you cannot make the repair in the other 40 hours?

On one of these days that corresponded to the arrival of the water, an affected neighbor, who asked me not to mention her name, called 18888 and asked the operator how long was the blackout was going to be. She countered her: “In Cuba there are no blackouts.”

On another occasion another neighbor called to find out, and they told him that a pole at 16^th and Conception (Lawton) had caught fire. To verify it, he went out for a spin on his bicycle in the area but did not manage to find the supposed incident.

Julia Cecilia Ramos, an old lady who receives a monthly pension of 240 pesos (less than US$10), was due her payment on March 26. She arrived at the CADECA closest to her house, and the store was closed for lack of electricity. She continued to the bank, and there found the same situation. The old woman told me that she decided to return to her house, “because the blackouts in Cuba, although they no longer exist, they last hours.”

Caption: Blackouts and water shortages go hand in hand in the daily tribulations of Havana

About the author

Gladys Linares. Cienfuegos, 1942. School teacher. She worked as a geography teacher and a principal in different schools for 32 years. She joined the Human Rights Movement at the end of 1990 through the Women’s Humanitarian Front organization. She actively participated in the Cuban Council and the Varela Project. Her chronicles reflect the daily life of the people.

Translated by MLK

The Internet: A Space for Diversity and Freedom of Expression / Cubanet, Ernesto Perez Chang

Young people are indifferent to politics. Cell phones, video games and television series are their priorities (photo by the author)

We have to wonder how much the Cuban government invests in restricting this essential information tool in our time, blocking it and even minimizing the “harmful effects” of its free and generalized use

Cubanet.org, Ernesto Perez Chang, Havana, 24 April 2015 – Faced with the problem of the limits on access to the internet in Cuba, one would have to wonder not how much the Cuban government invests in expanding the reach of this information tool, essential in our time, but how high the costs will rise in order to restrict it, block it and even to minimize the “harmful effects” of its free and generalized use.

It is known that every state enterprise, institute and agency has an information department charged with not only managing the internet but monitoring the navigation of every user, censoring it and reporting any “suspicious maneuver.” The specialists do not work of their own will but must carry out to the letter the rigorous instructions provided by the national Information Security team strongly tied to the Ministry of the Interior. continue reading

A great portion of State resources are tied up in the strict control of information and in filtering the communications of absolutely every email account that is hosted on Cuban servers or that uses them, according to a worker for the network Infomed, who prefers to remain anonymous. According to this person, who makes a living from offering email service on the black market, all messages that pass through the server are rigorously investigated. Through specialized programs, customers are studied, words and key names are marked, elements are deleted as a routine practice.

A review of ads on the Revolico.com classified ads page reveals immediately how exhaustively internet connections and email accounts are monitored. Almost all who seek services from clandestine providers advise that they will only employ them for “family” or “serious” purposes. Although they sell on the black market, the vendors of hours of connection forbid doing “problematic” searches or sending content “contrary to the Revolution.” Thus, any opponent in Cuba finds it very difficult to make a deal for the purchase of an internet or email account with an international outlet. The computer experts who take risks with such clients are very few, and when they do it, they double their prices due to the danger they may run.

Disguised censorship

On the threshold of a new millennium, the creation in Cuba of the University of Computer Sciences (UCI) and the increase in software development centers were not linked to a willingness to update our knowledge in those new areas of the scientific universe but as a defensive strategy in the face of the “penetration of information,” the most feared of all the ghosts in a totalitarian environment.

Nevertheless, all the projects of cyber defense have become a double-edged sword due to the fact that a work of computer censorship so huge and in a country sunk in misery must mobilize thousands of people to whom access must be given to that which will have to be prohibited, and these will use their “power” not to exercise it fully but in order to find the cracks in the system that will permit them to personally profit.

Although the University of Computer Sciences is the study center most monitored and controlled by the Cuban government, as much there as in any of the country’s other computer departments, there are many students and specialists who live not on their stipends and salaries but by clandestinely providing services related to the internet. Those who review all the speeches by Fidel Castro where he addressed the topic of the internet will be able to recognize his insistence, if not to say his desperation, to create a cyber shield in order to hide the world and continue his disinformation maneuvers.

ETESCA Telepunto office. Long lines to access email and internet service (Photo by the author)

Much software and many applications created in official Cuban institutions are aimed at control of the web and its accessibility. The so-called “initiatives” to carry information to all the people in Cuba are intended not to share free connectivity with all citizens or to end privileges but to create “monitored diversification” of the Cuban internet and sites with the .cu domain that function as substitutes for the true Worldwide Web, where the topic of “Cuba” is approached only from the regime’s perspective.

To diversify the Cuban platforms for blogs, continuing the history of censorship from the first, loyalty to the system will continue to be demanded along with abstention from free expression of opinion; it is known that the sites classified as tied to the official press, more than providing a service, are trying to displace the uncontrollable Revolico.com; the Cuban encyclopedias, out of date and ideological, badly imitate Wikipedia. These are some of the “sterile” products that the government intends to fight the “dangerous internet.”

When I hear Cuban leaders put forth with such insistence the idea of “responsible use of information and the internet,” I feel that they are putting a patch over the immense information abyss that censorship will generate. Undoubtedly, not being able to dominate the monster, they will continue generating laws much more absurd than the current ones in order to punish freedoms, so it will be as if someone said to me: “They will allow all Cubans to set in front of a computer, but they will be prohibited from turning it on.”

It is surprising the number of computer students, particularly at the mid-levels, who do not know what it is to navigate the internet. Some do not even have a computer at home. In Cuban universities it is a real ordeal, both for students and professors, to get permission to freely access the internet.

Youth pass by worn out speeches

It is no longer news to assert that the great majority of Cuban youth shy away from political speeches, from commitments of loyalty to a regime and to its social model. Television, radio, press, newsreels, round tables and all those devices of manipulation of the masses that between the 60’s and the 90’s were effective for the regime, now are distant worlds for the new generations who have learned, due to the bitter experiences of their parents, to nullify that which they find “bothersome” and to search for alternatives of escape, as much physical as spiritual.

Several young people confess to having absolutely no interest in anything related to the revolution and its leaders. Many admit to never having read the newspaper Granma or having seen the newscast or the Round Table. There are even those who have never heard or read a speech by Fidel Castro, much less by Raul, in spite of it being required study in all Cuban schools.

Demand by Connect Cuba on a Havana Street (photo by the author)

A young neighbor, a high school student, has told me: “I’d like you to see the people in my school when the principal gets into those political talks. Everyone puts on headphones and it’s over. The same with the classroom. No one is interested in any of that. When they require work about Fidel or any of that trash, I tell my dad to do it or I pay the teacher but I am not wasting my time. To make us read Granma, sometimes they ask us to talk about some news item but people invent anything about the Pope or the doctors in Venezuela or some gossip that came out on the dish and with that it’s dead. In the end, on the television they always say the same thing, and the teacher doesn’t waste his time on that either.”

Nevertheless, with each passing year technology will be developing new means for information to reach everyone, and at the same time, get away from the domination of a few. In spite of knowing that they are fighting a losing battle, the Cuban leaders keep investing resources just to make the imminent collapse much slower. Mobile telephones, the internet, and the so-called “packet of the week” (international television programming and other content prohibited in Cuba that people transmit by digital media) have achieved in a few years what the regime’s opponents have not been able to manage in more than half a century.

The internet is delivering the coup de grace to the dictatorship and the most interesting thing about that is that it has not done it with political speeches or programs of action but by providing a space for diversity and freedom of expression, the most feared enemies.

About the author

Ernesto Perez Chang (El Cerro, Havana, 15 June 1971). Writer, graduate in philology from the University of Havana. He studied Galician Language and Culture in the University of Santiago de Compostela. He has published the novels: Your Eyes Are in Front of Nothing (2006) and Alicia Under Her Own Shadow (2012). At the end of 2014, the publisher Silueta, in Miami, will publish his most recent novel: Food. He is also the author of books of stories: Last Photos of Mama Nude (2000); Sade’s Ghosts (2002); Stories of Silk (2003); Variations for the Preliterate (2007), The Art of Dying Alone (2011) and One Hundred Deadly Stories (2014). His narrative work has been recognized with prizes: David de Cuento of the Cuban Gazette twice, 1998 and 2008; Julio Cortazar Latin American Story prize on its first call in 2002; National Critics Prize in 2007; Alejo Carpentier Story Prize in 2011, among others. He has worked as editor for numerous Cuban cultural institutions like the House of the Americas (1997-2008), Art and Literature Publisher, the Center for Research and Development of Cuban Music. He was Chief Editor for the magazine Union (2008-11).

Translated by MLK

Cuba Increases Control over Its Doctors / Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones

The government is trying, among other measures, to curb hiring of its professionals by foreign clinics

Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces, Guantanamo, 20 April 2015 — The exodus of Cuban health professional does not stop, and the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) apparently has decided to act to counter a phenomenon that is damaging domestic medical services but much more the country’s income.

A document attributed to the senior management of MINSAP, adopted in a meeting held in mid-March of this year, has been making the rounds in the e-mail of health professionals in which the sector’s new policy is expressed. This event was confirmed to CubaNet by an official from the Provincial Management of Public Health in Guantanamo, whose identity we do not reveal for obvious reasons. continue reading

The document has 18 instructions. The first three are focused on the re-organization of services and the re-location of professionals as a result of the staff review carried out last year.

The other 15 are directed to curbing the exodus of health professionals through private contracts or other avenues and steering the application of the measures in each case.

The document

One of the most controversial, instruction number 4, establishes that Cuban doctors in Angola must be relieved, but without increasing the collaboration with that country, until its authorities stop handing down measures that discourage the hiring of Cuban professional in private clinics or institutions.

Another measure, number 5, directs the withdrawal of the passport, in the airport itself, of professionals who later return from the completion of a mission.

Measures 6, 7 and 8 aim to get the private clinics of other countries to hire Cuban doctors through MINSAP, an agency that claims the right to review the professional’s individual contract, obviously so that the doctors pay the corresponding tax to the Cuban government and in no way receive all the money that is due them from the agreed upon wage.

Measure number 10 requires concluding the process of cancelling the diplomas of the 211 professionals who left service without authorization, and number 11 directs MINSAP’s vice-minister of International Relations to carry out a study of the existing rules in the International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), as it relates to the migration of the sector’s professionals.

Punishing the “undisciplined”

Rule 12 considers it a serious breach for a health professional to not return to Cuba upon fulfillment of his mission abroad without good cause verified by MINSAP, and it requires final separation from the profession by those who engage in said conduct, with the subsequent withdrawal of the degree.

Meanwhile, Rule 13 orders the creation of records of disqualification for those professionals who violate the established procedures for leaving the country. If any of them repents and returns, Rule 14 directs that they cannot be re-located in their previous workplace but in an inferior status.

Another cage for the army of white coats

Rules 16 and 17 of the document are intended to promote meetings with ambassadors of the countries where Cuban health professionals travel, largely for the purpose of discouraging their being recruited to remain and practice in that country.

The heads of Cuban medical teams and ambassadors have received that same instruction. Besides interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, this shows one of the thus-far-discouraged facets of Cuban medical collaboration, which is none other than exerting pressure over the countries receiving these types of services to make them faithful to the regime’s policy, which is clearly established in instruction number 4 with respect to Angola.

Finally, number 18 establishes a monthly coordination between MINSAP and the Department of Identification, Migration and Foreign Affairs of the Interior Ministry so that it will report to MINSAP on the doctors who leave the country as well as those who have begun proceedings for that purpose, in order to take appropriate measures.

Being a health professional in Cuba, a doubtful advantage

The above measures show the doubtful advantage of being a health professional in Cuba, although the same could be said with respect to other professionals.

Determined to provide the country with qualified personnel, the government never concerned itself with steadily encouraging the efforts of the professionals themselves. That explains their massive exodus to foreign countries and other better paying jobs with the consequential social loss.

At the dawn of the 21st Century, renowned Cuban professionals have been subjected to a financial exploitation that not even the fiercest capitalist would have dared to impose. Paid miserable wages, many times they sign unfair contracts that the government offers for them to work abroad because it is the only chance they have of improving their housing or getting housing, or acquiring a car or having some savings for their retirement.

In doing so, at a sometimes irreversible familial cost, they damage their freedom and self-esteem in service to a government for which they are only a source of income that allows it to continue dominating the people.

About the Author

Roberto Jesús Quiñones Haces was born in the city of Cienfuegos September 20, 1957. He is a law graduate. In 1999 he was unjustly and illegally sentenced to eight years incarceration and since then has been prohibited from practicing as a lawyer. He has published poetry collections “The Flight of the Deer” (1995, Editorial Oriente), “Written from Jail” (2001, Ediciones Vitral), “The Folds of Dawn,” (2008, Editorial Oriente), and “The Water of Life” (2008, Editorial El Mar y La Montana). He received the Vitral Grand Prize in Poetry in 2001 with his book “Written from Jail” as well as Mention and Special Recognition from the Nosside International Juried Competition in Poetry in 2006 and 2008, respectively. His poems appear in the 1994 UNEAC Anthology, in the 2006 Nosside Competition Anthology and in the selection of ten-line stanzas “This Jail of Pure Air” published by Waldo Gonzalez in 2009.

Translated by MLK

They Voted for Everything to Continue the Same / Ana Mercedes Torricella

My neighbor Nelly, when she learned that I did not go vote and I again clarified that I did not want to leave Cuba, told me: “You independent journalists and dissidents are going to be alone with the hard-liners and the snitches! Come on, you have to leave, there is nothing else!”

Cubanet.org, Ana Mercedes Torricella, Havana, 22 April 2015 – On Sunday, April 19, those who voted in the municipal delegates election of the Popular Power did it under compulsion, as is customary. They voted, like it or not, for business as usual and for “the same people.” In other words, “these people,” as many Cubans say in reference to the regime.

For the majority, the voting does not matter. Their most expensive and cherished interests are food and the money to acquire it.

I have some neighbors who live a misery of fear. The youngest, who was very beautiful, managed to marry an Italian, and she move to Genoa. Some years ago, when she came to visit Cuba, she bought gifts and brought them Euros. But that family did not use that money to buy furniture or to fix the dilapidated dwelling: they used it to buy stereo equipment. Currently, they alleviate their hunger with blaring music, which they listen to while they drink rum or some other cheap liquor. continue reading

Often they get the speakers to the front door. So the whole neighborhood feels the music. They get them out when it is one of their birthdays, for Mother’s Day, the end of the year or any other day that there is something to celebrate. And also when there is some party for the Revolution or what they call elections.

Last Sunday, from before midday, my neighbors had the speakers out and put on the music. If that can be called music. They were the first to vote. “To get out of that shit fast,” they told me. They voted for any of the candidates. It was all the same to them. Later they ended the day with reggaeton and cheap alcohol.

My neighbors speak horrors of “these people,” they say that they owe them no gratitude, but they give no sign of giving up voting and every time insist that they need them for something, the recommendation certificates that the CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) grants to “those who fulfill the work of the revolution.”

Compulsion, extortion and blackmail are the mechanisms for arranging massive membership in the CDRs, the FMC (Federation of Cuban Women), the CTC (Cuban Workers Center) and the other official organizations that the regime puts forward as “civil society.” Repression, always present, completes the picture of the necessary unanimity.

That was the scene on Sunday, April 19, in the districts open to called elections for delegates to the municipal assemblies throughout Cuba.

The candidates’ biographies had the usual typographical errors in full view with almost no one interested in reading them. Maybe with a little more discretion than on other occasions, the PC (the trusted people of the only party) indicated for whom to vote.

According to preliminary official figures, 85% of registered voters voted. Then they corrected and added a little: 87.30%. We suppose that the true percentage of abstention was higher. Now the government does not dare to speak of more the 97% participation as it used to some years ago.

A 13 to 15% abstention rate may be normal in other countries, but in Cuba it is quite significant: here the only ones who do not vote are those who are openly against the regime.

To not answer the call to vote suggests losses that not everyone is ready to assume. He who works for the master, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient state may lose his job. He who is self-employed might lose his license. He who lives in the limbo of a tolerated illegality, like the lottery bet takers or the vendors of something stolen for someone, will have to confront the police.

In these terms, the best thing is to go vote early and not look for trouble. “Overall, everything is going to be the same!” is the general consensus. No one wants to look for trouble, and not going to the polls is certainly looking for big and very serious trouble.

This is a bleak truth. Especially for young people. Like Nelly. Almost no young person has plans for the future in Cuba. All aspire to go. Anywhere. By plane or raft, with passport or without. They no longer want to share the air with “these people” who don’t let them live. Much less to bring children into this corrupt environment. So, Cuba languishes, ages, dies of stagnation.

On Sunday April 19 they voted for everything to remain the same, which means not only bad, but worse.

Translated by MLK

The seventh summit showed that we are not alone / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

President Obama speaking at the Civil Society Forum at the Summit of the Americas in Panama

The Summit of the Americas legitimized our right to exist as civil society and as an alternative to dictatorial power. It was a victory of democracy over the empire of totalitarianism.

Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, Panama, 13 April 2015 – With smiles, handshakes and the usual “family photo” of all the presidents, the Summit of the Americas ended in Panama. This time the hemispheric event had the distinction of hosting, after a half century of absence, the visit of the prodigal son: the representative of the longest dictatorship of the continent, as well as a varied delegation from the Island’s civil society.

Apart from the numerous irregularities, related to the organization of the event, and the almost obvious complicity of local authorities with the obstacles that tried to sabotage the participation of alternative civil society representatives in the various forums of the summit — including power cuts, credential problems, and the well-known repudiation rallies orchestrated by the delegates of the Castro regime’s “civil society” and its continental acolytes — one could conclude that the balance of the conclave was positive for Cuban democrats. continue reading

Needless to say, the vociferous covens starring “revolutionary” wildlife had the opposite effect to that intended: far from demonizing opponents and members of independent civil society, they demonstrated to the rest of the delegations the intolerant nature of the regime and the veracity of the testimonies that have denounced the repression against every different alternative on the island, as well as the disrespect of the Cuban authorities towards the hosts and the other countries of the region.

Not only did the delegates from many social organizations openly express their support for the exercise of the rights of expression of Cuban democrats, but many representatives of the continental Left expressed disgust with the intransigence and violent methods used by pro-Castro attendees, a posture that in their opinion sullies the image of the Left and contaminates its projects in the region.

However, with the morbid interest aroused by the spectacle of violence, the tabloid press has given these repudiation rallies greater prominence than they deserve, and has emphasized the imprint of their protagonists on the Summit, as if that was the highlight of the agenda.

However, for independent civil society the true importance of the Panamanian meeting consists in the fact that its voices have finally been recognized at a major regional event, as well as the joint and harmonious participation of Cubans living within and outside the island, welcoming plural and diverse ideas and positions, capable of mutual respect, and finding commonalities among all of them. In fact, those voices – and not those of the “repudiators” of the Castro regime’s supporters – were the ones that ended up represented in official documents of the Summit, with several opponents to the regime participating in their drafting.

Equally important was the meeting between US President Barack Obama and well-known Cuban dissidents, undoubtedly a gesture of support for the struggle for human rights within Cuba and a clear message that that government will continue to support pro-democracy activists, regardless of the negotiations being conducted with the Cuban authorities at the highest level.

Overall, the exchange between political leaders and leaders of social networks around the hemisphere was of great importance, making independent Cuban civil society visible at the regional level, attesting to the existence of an alternative discourse to that allowed by the regime, a discourse that claims spaces and demands rights, and that made clear the variety of proposals that exist within Cuban society.

It was also an opportunity to participate in debates which included deep analysis about the danger of the spread of totalitarian regimes in Latin America, and the risk this poses to democracy and peace in the region; debates where the continued and increasing violations of human rights and encroachments on freedom of the press and expression in several of our nations was denounced; debates that strongly questioned the role of the Organization of American States (OAS) as a body that is obliged to ensure democracy and enforce the Inter-American Charter, which are the founding objectives of the organization and which have been set aside with the permissibility, indifference and complicity, both of the leadership of the OAS as well as the region’s democratic leaders.

For those of us who had the privilege of participating in this Summit it was an invaluable experience that showed how it is possible to discuss in a civilized manner, beyond politics and ideology, and the certainty that we are not alone in our struggle for the democratization of Cuba.

The Summit of the Americas, as I have argued in all spaces in which we participated, was not a goal, but an important step in legitimizing our right to exist as civil society and as an alternative to dictatorial power. It was undoubtedly a victory for democracy over the empire of totalitarianism: an unpublished chapter after the long history of exclusions that we Cubans have experienced in our hemisphere. Hopefully now that the doors, despite many adversities, have been opened, we are at the beginning of a process of regional integration that promotes democratic openings within Cuba.

Enough with the Charades, Cuba Deserves Free Elections / Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones

In order to “elect” there must be different political parties to choose from, and only one is legal on the Island: The Communist Party

Cubanet.org, Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces, Guantanamo, 17 April 2015 – Coming up on April 19 there will be “elections.” Many countrymen ask about the changes that the Electoral Law will introduce.

The most democratic electoral law in the world?

In Cuba there are no elections, just votes. There are no elections because in order to elect there must be different platforms, and here only one is legal. Absolutely all the delegates and deputies respond to this; that’s why it does not matter for whom you vote.

Every time one of the People’s Party (which is the “people’s” in name only) elections approaches, the official media overwhelm us citing the supposed blessings of our electoral law, according to them the most democratic in the world. continue reading

It is an illusion. The only supposedly democratic thing in our electoral system is the election of candidates as district delegates. It’s true that the residents of each of the zones into which the district is divided elect a candidate through a direct and public vote, but that is the visible tip of the iceberg. The hidden part is comprised of the multiple meetings of “the community revolutionary elements” – i.e., Party members, “combatants” (former soldiers), leaders of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the Cuban Women’s Federation (FMC), etc – where those attending are directed how to block any candidacy unwanted by the regime and who to vote for.

The people that staff the polling stations are subordinate to the government. They count the votes and give the results to the stakeholders who are present at each polling station, but there exists no access by the people to the vote count in the Municipal Electoral Commission, which receives the results from each polling station in the district and reports who was elected.

The delegate as well as his voters lack any real power to make decisions and transform his neighborhood, and it is for that reason that the former has turned into a mere complaint clerk.

Finally, 50% of the delegates to the Provincial Assemblies from the People’s Power and the same percentage of the deputies that make up the National Assembly are not elected by the people but “handpicked” by the official Candidates Commission. In these assemblies there will never be a decent, hard-working and patriotic Cuban who disagrees with Communist ideology. So what is the democracy of this law?

A Cuba “with all and for the good of all”

The Constitution of 1976 in its preamble declares that it is the will of the government that the law of laws be presided over by the profoundly Martí desire to make the first law of our Republic be the worship by Cubans of the full dignity of man.

Article 1 states: “Cuba is a socialist state of workers, independent and sovereign, organized with all and for the good of all, as a united and democratic republic for the enjoyment of political liberty, social justice, individual and collective well-being and human solidarity.”

The drafters of the socialist magna carta deemed that such desire was fulfilled. But reality, more stubborn than any triumphalist sentence, proves that the Cuban state is not organized “with all and for the good of all,” as José Martí dreamed, but for the “Revolutionaries.” The other citizens are excluded, jailed and discriminated against. Reality demonstrates that a single political party supplanted the State and controls everything, prohibiting the existence of any other organization of that kind.

In such conditions there is neither democracy nor political liberty. There is no social justice because in order to access certain jobs and higher education, loyalty to the Communist Party and the Revolution is demanded and because increasingly the State abandons the elderly, the disabled and low income people.

There is no individual well-being because workers receive miserable wages and have to buy basic products in a currency other than that in which they are not paid and that is worth 25 times more. There is no collective well-being because public services degrade further every day, and health and education are in a precarious state. There is no human solidarity because there is physical assault and intolerance in the face of diversity, as was demonstrated once again at the recent Summit of the Americas. Of what full dignity of man do the Communists speak?

What many Cubans do want

What many Cubans do want is to enjoy the same civil and political rights that the citizens of 34 other countries in the continent have.

They want to decentralize the State’s absolute power and to build democracy from the neighborhood up because sovereignty lies with the people, and they have to have the means to express it. For that reason it is spurious for a leader who has not been elected by ordinary people to make a decision or to believe that he expresses the interests of an entire people without consulting the opinion of the citizens.

Cubans want to elect people who really represent them at the different levels of government and are not merely uncritically consenting.

They want all the delegates to the provincial assemblies of the People’s Power and the deputies to the National Assembly of the People’s Power to be elected in their districts through direct and secret vote, publicly verified, and that the same occur with those who lead those government organs and other important offices like prosecutors, tribunals and police units.

They want to choose the political program that most satisfies them and to elect their president in multi-party elections supervised by international agencies.

That is the desire of the majority of Cubans, and as long as it is not fulfilled, the Communists should have the decency not to talk about elections or democracy.

About the Author

Roberto Jesús Quiñones Haces was born in the city of Cienfuegos September 20, 1957. He is a law graduate. In 1999 he was unjustly and illegally sentenced to eight years incarceration and since then has been prohibited from practicing as a lawyer. He has published poetry collections “The Flight of the Deer” (1995, Editorial Oriente), “Written from Jail” (2001, Ediciones Vitral), “The Folds of Dawn,” (2008, Editorial Oriente), and “The Water of Life” (2008, Editorial El Mar y La Montana). He received the Vitral Grand Prize in Poetry in 2001 with his book “Written from Jail” as well as Mention and Special Recognition from the Nosside International Juried Competition in Poetry in 2006 and 2008, respectively. His poems appear in the 1994 UNEAC Anthology, in the 2006 Nosside Competition Anthology and in the selection of ten-line stanzas “This Jail of Pure Air” published by Waldo Gonzalez in 2009.

Translated by MLK

“Many Voters Will Not Vote for Me” / Cubanet, Orlando Freire Santana

Hildebrando Chaviano (photo by the author)

“Some do not know me well, some are prisoners of fear.” Interview with opposition member Hildebrando Chaviano, candidate for delegate to the People’s Power.

Cubanet.org, Orlando Freire Santana, Havana, 15 April 2015 – Independent journalist Hildebrando Chaviano is one of the opposition candidates nominated by districts in the capital with a view towards the midterm elections to be held this coming April 19. In order to learn of the most recent events surrounding his nomination, we visited him in his apartment on the 28th floor of the Focsa building in the El Vedado neighborhood.

Q: Have you noticed any change recently in your neighbors’ treatment of you?

A: “I can tell you yes, indeed. But a change for the better. Neighbors approach me and greet me cordially. Even those who have never had a close relationship with me, now I notice they are friendlier.

“However, the neighbors from the building are one thing, and another is the workers of the State establishments located here in Focsa. Many of them, due to the extent of their working hours — especially those in the food business – will vote at this polling station on the 19^th. And certainly, I am aware that they have distanced themselves from me. I am convinced that they have been told categorically that they may not vote for me.

“Even recently there occurred a telling event. Some reporters from the German television station Deutsche Welle visited me. When they were leaving we came to the building’s reception area where they wanted to take some pictures of me. The receptionist, very startled, left the place, because according to her own words, ‘Not for anything in the world could I appear in those photographs.’” continue reading

Q: What has been the popular reaction to the exposure of your biographical data, full of insults for being a “counter-revolutionary?”

A: “My perception, basically through conversations with my neighbors, is that this time the biographies have been more widely read than in prior elections. They have even told me that they have seen passersby, who have nothing to do with this polling station, stopped in front of the photos and biographies.

“Most of the neighbors are convinced that the insults placed in my biography are revenge by the authorities for a nomination that they did not expect.”

Q: Do you believe that voters are ready to support an opposition candidate?

“It is undeniable that there are many voters who are not going to vote for me. I am not referring to neighbors from my building but to people in the rest of the district. Some because they do not know me well, and others are prisoners of fear. Among the latter ideas are entertained like ‘what if there is a hidden camera that films the voting,’ ‘what if each ballot has a password that identifies the voter’… Nevertheless, it is no less certain that people want something different, and many see me as a brave person who has decided to confront the machinery of power.”

Q: Do you believe that an opposition delegate can adequately carry out his work in the midst of the bureaucratic structures of the People’s Power?

A: “I think so, as long as you have a program of action. Because, look, here almost all the delegates that enter office do it without a defined program, and therefore they become simple ‘errand boys’ between their voters and the municipal governments. Under those conditions, obviously, they end up swallowed by the governmental bureaucracy, and they also lose the trust of the voters.

“I appreciate that my trips abroad have given me insights about initiatives that could be implemented at the community level.”

Biography written by the official electoral commission (photo courtesy of the author) — Biography written by the official electoral commission. Among other things it says that Chaviano is a counterrevolutionary and that his activities are funded by foreign groups (photo courtesy of the author)

Q: What message do you send to Cuban voters a few days before the election?

A: “The voters must lose the fear of voting for an opposition candidate. They should be convinced that it is possible to vote for a candidate who does not represent the interests of the government. Because even in the hypothetical – and almost impossible – case of finding out the identity of the voters, it would not be possible to repress so many people simultaneously.”

Translated by MLK

The Ordeal of the Independent Journalist / Cubanet, Jorge Olivera Castillo

Ernesto Perez Chang, writer and journalist CubaNet (Internet photo)

Cubanet, Jorge Olivera Castillo, Havana – The sensation that the Cuban regime is counting on a kind of blank check to carry out its abuses is increasingly apparent.

The monthly reports of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), which expose to the world the repressive actions of the political police against pro-democracy activists, are ignored by the majority of international organizations responsible for monitoring this topic, flashing past their computer screed and being archived as soon as they read the headlines.

It is logical, before the avalanche of events that anyone with a minimum of responsibility would classify as cruel, inhumane and degrading, without the intervention of censorship which contributes to its relevance. Month after month the arbitrary and violent arrests are repeated, the acts of repudiation that often include vandalism, and the drama of the political prisoners whose incarceration exposes them to a major dose of arbitrariness. The international interest in the face of these episodes is markedly declining, fortunately always with exceptions, which to some extent helps the issue from disappearing from some agendas.

A method within the scientific repression applied by the Ministry of the Interior in its effort to prevent the growth of protest movements, are its veiled threats, blackmail, and covert actions that end with the loss of a job, or the impediment to occupy a certain place, all lined up against the friends and family members of the “counterrevolutuionary.”

In this jurisdiction of State terrorism we now find the writer Ernesto Perez Chang who decided to inscribe himself on the roll of independent journalists. It is only the beginning of his ordeal. He knows it and assures that he will not go back on his decision. Something truly meritorious in the scenario that demands the complex and inexorable combination of talent and courage.

His work leaves no room for doubts. Along with his pedigree as an excellent storyteller, he has exhibited in his still short journey in the unofficial press, his gifts for reporting and background. Without pretensions of turning myself into the bird of ill omen, nor to assume pedagogical poses, I would suggest not underestimating the capacity of the common adversary to do him harm, with its lack of scruples and determination to take the most misconceived reprisals.

I say is with knowledge of the cause. In the blink of an eye, I was arrested on 18 March 2003 and one month later I was sentenced to 18 years in prison for writing outside the established lines. It is often alleged that times have changed, but the criminal nature of the Power has not. Prison may be used as a last resort corrective, but the manual of the G-2 political police agents overflows with “persuasive” tactics.

Before concluding I reiterate my support for a colleague who had the courage to jump the barriers of fear and censorship. It doesn’t matter when he did it, what matters is that we are sharing a necessary and enriching and spiritual experience. Hopefully other government writers will decide to take off their masks and start to publish in the pages available to them to write with objectivity and transparency. That have nothing to do with obeisance to illegitimate and excluding Powers.

Made in Cuba / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 10 April 2015 – Thinking of my son Reuben (whom I have not seen in twenty-one years, five more than his age when he emigrated in 1993) I wrote in 2003 a text collected in a booklet in 2011 which was published by Mangolele, in Logrono, Spain. Here it is:

ASTRONOMICAL

Miami is far away.

As far as a remote planet.

And in that remote planet

today lies a part of my heart.

In Miami, Lord,

in that remote planet

that was so close

in the days of Pan American.

I never traveled by Pan American. When I was in Miami in 1959 (as part of an official delegation attending the July 4 celebrations) I went on the ferry, and returned from Tampa by Aerovías Q. Nor was I a shareholder in Pan American. But the name Pan American, like all the names of my past, formed a part of my identity. continue reading

I remember them, however far away they are, they give me back my sky, my streets, my people, the odors of my neighborhood, they take me back to certain days, certain events, and then, suddenly, unable to abstain, the word “Camagüey” brings me the vision of Ignacio Agramonte, machete held high, with this thirty-five immortals on that afternoon of victory when he snatched General Julio Sanguily from the well-armed Spanish column of one hundred and twenty soldiers who had taken him prisoner.

For an instant, the past and my cultural self were then something so much of the present, so timeless, that not even Agramonte and his legendary cavalry were beings of the past, nor was his corpse burnt after death because it frightened the king’s soldiers*, nor did any one of his immortals grew old. All of them were, to me, like in their portraits, or perhaps they had just departed on the 1:00 pm train to almost surely return in the evening.

Triggering fantasies and truths that, equally, can, and in the Cuban case, make such patriotic attributes as the flag and the shield, the tocororo**, and the flower called mariposa, to Ingelmo shoes, for instance.

Today, when everything we see and touch in Cuba is Chinese or comes from Brazil, or Chile, or Spain, or the United States if it is something to eat, because from food to ideology we are ruled by foreigners, today young Cubans have to show their identity card to verify they are Cubans.

It was a disgrace that I didn’t know in my past when I so hungered, like I was talking about the other day in a dinner table conversation with my son Rafael, who is twenty-one and like the young of all times needs to complete himself knowing the world where he was born in a time before him, this region of the past where the young were not, and that later they books tell them about with the gaps that books usually have, especially when interested hands wrote them. I lived in a Cuba where the mark “Made in Cuba,” present even on my toothbrush, reminded me of my nationality and reinforced it. Other than the vehicle fleet and electronics, almost everything else in those times was “Made in Cuba.”

And as one lives proud of the pride of their country, I was proud to know that many Cuban products were equal in quality with the best brands in the world, and even superior to them. All this in a republic fifty-six years old in 1958, and in a Havana that, outside the center, was less than seventy years old, and then with painted houses and reputed to be among the most beautiful cities of the world. They were killing in those times, the dead appeared every day, but not even Havana stopped growing (its three tunnels and most important buildings and hotels and hospitals were built between 1952 and 1958), nor can we forget the new production every day of tires, footwear, textiles, preserved foods. (We had seventeen brands of soft drinks.) Because, curious dichotomy, the killing went on on one side and the industry on another saying without lying, “To eat what the country produces is to make a homeland.”

Many of these productions, it is true, were made with imported supplies coming partly or entirely from the United States, cut off after 1959 by the economic embargo law imposed on the socialist government, but it is a calamity that cannot explain the total absence of 99% of the manufactured goods circulating on the island of the patriotic mark “Made in Cuba” that, in those remote days of Pan American, was a source of such pride to us, who also felt ourselves to be a proud product “Made in Cuba.”

Translator’s notes:
*A fragment lifted from this poem.
** Cuba’s national bird

“The Regime Wants the US to Buy Cuba with the Dictatorship Included” / Cubanet, José Luis León Pérez

Guillermo Fariñas, coordinator of the "Juan Soto García Guilfredo" United Anti-totalitarian Forum (FANTU), winner of the 2010 European Parliament "Andrei Sakharov" Prize — Guillermo Fariñas, coordinator of the “Juan Soto García Guilfredo” United Anti-totalitarian Forum (FANTU), winner of the 2010 European Parliament “Andrei Sakharov” Prize

“If the Cuban government aspires to be included among the democracies it must accept and respect the opposition.” Interview with Guillermo Farinas.

Cubanet.org, Jose Luis Leon Perez, Santa Clara, 7 April 2015 — Before leaving for Panama for the Civil Society Forum, Guillermo Farinas, Coordinator of the United Anti-totalitarian Forum (FANTU), who holds a critical view of the negotiations between Cuba and the United States, agreed to an interview with Cubanet.

What is your opinion about the Seventh Summit of the Americas, about the presidents of Cuba and the United States sitting for the first time at the same table?

Dialog is better than war. Personally, I think that Barack Obama erred by not taking into account Cuban civil society, the internal, non-violent opposition, when he took that step. But we must not concentrate on criticizing Obama, but the Raul Castro regime, his character and that of the top leaders, our true adversaries. continue reading

When Raul Castro returns from the Summit, will there be more tolerance toward the opponents?

The Cuban government wants the United States to buy Cuba with the dictatorship included. So far, the US administration says that it will invest in Cuba without dictatorship. I believe that depends on what happens in Venezuela. Fidel Castro and his brother have shown themselves to be opportunists. They are searching for another lifesaver, and they see it in the United States. But President Castro needs to understand that in order to be able to advance in this world he must comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

What do you hope for from the Summit for Cuba and Latin America?

That they engage in dialog and understand the different political trends and be able to come to agreements and forget historical strife, to strengthen Latin America as a zone of peace. With respect to Cuba, not just the government is represented at this Summit. There the world will be able to appreciate the presence of the opposition by Cuban civil society. It will be shown that in Cuba there is not that unanimity that the Cuban government has peddled for 56 years.

In your recent letter to Raul Castro, you sought to include in the new Electoral Law the Transparent Ballot Box project. What is your objective?

The Cuban government aspires to insert itself into the world but without fulfilling democracy, and with democracy there is no exceptionality: either there is democracy or there is not. That’s why we must fight. It is necessary, in order to avoid spilling blood, to take into account the different opinions. I raised it in my letter to Raul, as president of all Cubans, and not just the Cubans who follow his political ideals.

If the Cuban government aspires to join democracies, it must accept and respect the opposition that exists in any democratic country.

How did the Transparent Ballot Box project come about?

We agreed on it at a meeting of the United Anti-totalitarian Forum. Now we are raising awareness about other political projects in order to form part of the Steering Committee.

“Transparent Ballot Box” proposes that all political trends that exist in Cuba be represented and permitted to participate in the next general elections that are going to take place in the year 2018. Also that all public offices, including the President of the State Council and Ministers, be by direct vote. And that all citizens born in Cuba, although they may reside abroad, have the right to vote and to participate in the elections

We also think that all candidates for eligible public offices must have the material resources to be able to bring the messages of their respective plans in equality of conditions. And it is important there be international observers to supervise the election processes. These points that we ask to be included in the new Electoral Law are based on Article 88, subsection G of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba.

Do the members of the Steering Committee represent all the opposition political trends?

This committee is not finished. On return from the Summit we will continue this labor. I can tell you about this committee that there are people from all over the country. We have not been able to speak with some but we are sure that they are going to accept this plan.

Members of the United Anti-totalitarian Forum

Do you plan to involve all citizens?

The most important thing is not that the opposition signs; we must add all the citizens who are discontented, hopeless, angered by the deceptions that they have suffered through for more than 56 years of Revolution, so that in a civilized way they ask the government to change. When ten thousand citizens or more present an initiative, their opinions have to be taken into account.

Do you think the government will permit you to gather the necessary signatures?

I think they are going to try to discredit Transparent Ballot Box, they will try to add false signatures, they will use blackmail in order to prevent people joining the project, they will try to create unfavorable states of mind, they will cultivate discouragement.

Against all that there are countermeasures. We must do something so that they regard us as people, as the non-violent opposition, as civil society independent of the government. We have to seek power in the number of signatures, which is the most important thing. When that happens, the governments of Cuba as well as the rest of the world cannot be indifferent.

According to 14ymedio, opponents like Hildebrand Chaviano, of Plaza of the Revolution and Yuniel Lopez O’Farrill of Orange Creek, could become pioneers of a nascent opposition within the government. What is your assessment?

Hildebrando Chaviano and Yuniel Lopez OFarrill

In 1996, in the Santiago de Las Vegas township, the residents voted for an opponent who put himself forward, and the government committed him to a psychiatric hospital for three months. That they now permit several opponents to be nominated is a step forward. But it is too little, too late. They are doing it now because they want a democracy to appear where there is none, because there exists no law of association and parties, and without that, there will be no democracy.

Do you want to add anything for the readers of Cubanet?

I am sure that during the Summit, some members of independent civil society and the opposition will be the subject of attacks on the part of the intolerant followers of the government of Raul and Fidel Castro. We are prepared to refute the provocations with non-violent methods. In Panama it will be seen who the terrorists are, who imposes violence.

About the author

José Luis León Pérez

He graduated as a doctor and Comprehensive General Professor in the “Felix Varela” Higher Education Institute of Villa Clara in 2007. He worked in several ESBUs (Basic Urban Secondary Schools) in Santa Clara. He served as a Methodological Consultant and teacher in the “Lazaro Cardenas del Rio” Computer Science Polytechnic Institute located in the same city. He holds a Masters of Science in Education. He serves as a citizen-journalist and independent blogger. He is also a proofreader for the weekly El Cartero Nacan and Nacan magazine, both alternative independent publications. He was born in Santa Clara, Villa Clara, where he currently resides.

Translated by MLK

Antonio Rodiles interview: “Truth is on the side of the opposition” / Cubanet, Ernesto Perez Chang

Cubanet, Ernesto Perez Chang, Havana, 9 April 2015 – The discussion parallel to the Panama Summit (Summit of the Americas) lacks the presence of Antonio G. Rodiles, because the Cuban government, very “opportunistically,” has retained his passport.

A recognized opposition activist and director of the Estado de Sats (State of Sats) civic project, this talkative, jovial, controversial man who was young athlete, doctor of science and professor at prestigious universities in the United States, one day decided to leave the comfort of academic life to return to Cuba and challenge the regime, building, in his own home, a space for public debate as an alternative to the stagnation that affects Cuban society. continue reading

The announcement of the conversations between the governments of the Cuba and the United States has generated different positions among the Cuban dissidence. The opinions of Antonio G. Rodiles in a certain way deviate from those of the rest of the opponents, calling attention to those things that should be paramount at the dialog table where many do not feel represented.

“From my point of view,” warns Rodiles, “is very illogical to accept a path where there is no clear request to the regime in Havana. We all know that the principal objective of the regime is to maintain itself in power. They cannot maintain it much longer because this elite is going to die of natural causes and clearly they are working for the transfer of power to their family. (…)

“If the international community (…) allows them to make this transition without asking anything in return it is going to be happiness for them, and anguish for us Cubans (…). Our position has been made clear against a political process, we are peaceful fighters and we believe the solution for Cuba has to be a peaceful and a political one but this must be through a clearly defined process, there must be transparency, which was not what happened (…).

“It is clear that in a negotiation process not everything is going to be said, not all points are going to be put on the table, but at least the line and the logic of what you want to accomplish should be, and so far we have not seen that Cubans’ civil and political rights are the end point of this conversation, and this is what overwhelmingly concerns us.”

Although the constant dedication of the Estado de Sats project consumes a great part of his social and family life, Antonio G. Rodiles – who affirms that he grew up “hearing the Voice of America and Radio Marti,” and without hearing “that Fidel and Raul Castro were heroes,” despite being the nephew of one of Raul Castro’s trusted confidants – agreed to meet with us, for hours, to talk about what we wanted to know about his past, his obsessions, his personal perspectives on a democratic future, and even his daily life, shaped by a sense of commitment to his ideas and with respect for dialogue, qualities that have made him a true leader for a good part of the opposition within and outside Cuba.

Video below is in Spanish

Castro Followers Attacked Peaceful Dissidents in Panama / Cubanet

The opponents were putting flowers at a bust of Jose Marti. Cuban diplomats took part in the beating. The Castro-ites also interrupted the Civil Society Forum. See the video.

Cubanet.org, 9 April 2015 – A pro-Castro group today attacked Cuban dissidents in the heart of Panama City, where on Friday the Seventh Summit of the Americas will begin — in which Cuba will have a starring role due to the rapprochement with the United States; President Raul Castro as well as representatives of the opposition have been invited.

The dissidents claimed that on leaving a tribute at the bust of the Cuban national hero Jose Marti in Porras Park, located some yards from the Cuban embassy in Panama, they were surprised by the Castro followers.

“We went to the Jose Marti bust to leave a wreath. There were several people there who began to scream obscenities at us and tell us to leave. A moment later several people from the Cuban embassy came out and physically attacked us,” said Leticia Ramos, a member of the Ladies in White. continue reading

As she reported on the America Teve channel, a man identified as a diplomatic officer struck her. Orlando Gutierrez, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, known as Antunez, and other opposition leaders were there also and were attacked.

These incidents are in addition to another confrontation that occurred in the opening session of the Civil Society Forum, which is being held parallel to the Americas Summit, when the governmental delegation decided to withdraw. “We as a civil society are defending our own, we cannot be in the same space” as the dissidents, Luis Morlote, a representative of the Cuban Artists and Writers Association (UNEAC), told reporters.

Morlote and several dozen Cubans with Cuban flags and pro-government banners, left the venue and expressed their indignation at the presence of opponents like Guillermo Farinas, Manuel Cuesta and Leonardo Calvo. The Cuban delegation said it was leaving the initial session but would return to the roundtable discussions that would take place Friday.

Cuba’s presence for the first time at the hemispheric event and its collateral activities was marked by the polarization of Cubans supportive of the revolution – the majority group – and the opposition attendees. “And no, we don’t feel like being a US colony” and “Out, out,” the pro-government Cubans shouted for more than an hour and a half; they also handed out a tabloid in which they accused the dissidents of being “mercenaries.”

The demonstration heated up the room and delayed the arrival of many of the forum’s invitees from other countries. “We expect reciprocity and understanding by all who come to our country,” said the annoyed Ruben Castillo, coordinator of the forum. “Civil society is going to participate in an elevated dialog,” he added. The forum, opened by the Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela and the secretary to the OEA (Organization of American States), Jose Miguel Insulza, takes place from April 8 to 10 and seeks to make recommendations to the presidents attending the seventh summit.

Translated by MLK

Children’s Baseball in Cuba / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

The categories of children’s baseball in Cuba are rescued by parents of the “little ballplayers” because, it seems, the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) has no resources to provide the necessary sports equipment.

The categories of 7-8 years and 9-10 years are supported by the parents of the child athletes, as long as INDeR doesn’t provide the minimum materials, such as: gloves, special balls, bats, among others. It doesn’t allow the development of Cuban baseball.

Rolando Suarez, a 45-year-old coach, spoke of the ingenuity required to get a result in competitions. “Thanks to the parents we can train the children, because INDER gives each school coach only one or two gloves, one bat and two Kenko balls, which last only four months. During the remaining 6 or 7 months, I have to ask the parents for help to continue to coach.” continue reading

According to some instructors, these categories have special rules, one of which regulates to the play to a solid rubber ball (known as Kenko), a different material from the balls for the older ages, which use synthetic materials. The Kenko balls cost about 300 pesos each.

Suarez also explained, “I have an enrollment of 20 students in the 7-8 category, and in 9-10 I have 19 students. What INDER gives me isn’t enough!”

Another children’s coach who asked to remain anonymous, explained that the lack of resources also hits the parents’ budgets, “Several students have left the sport because it’s very expensive.”

Michel Garcia, a 37-year-old father, commented, “My son has his sports uniform, glove and a bad thanks to me but not everyone can spend more than 2,500 pesos for these expenses.”

According to a methodologist in the capital municipality of 10 de Octubre, who is in charge of educating coaches and supervising the training with the purpose of ensuring good preparation, and who asked to remain anonymous, commented that everything the Municipal Sports Authorities delivered to the coaches, is usurped by them.

“They sell gloves, balls and bats to the parents of the students. It is a sport where the majority of the parents have money, and demand creates the market,” he said.

This methodologist continued, explaining that many parents have complained to the Municipal Sports Authority in 10 de Octubre, about the conditions for the children playing baseball, a sport supposedly prioritized in Cuba.

So far, the conditions don’t seem to change. Coaches like Racel Perez, 28, consider another option, “I have to coach a different sport,” he laments.

From Anddy’s blog, previously published in Cubanet

23 March 2015

Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Citizen Participation / Cubanet, Martha Beatriz Roque

Cubanet, Martha Beatriz Roque, Havana, 2 April 2015 — Whenever the topic of democracy and the Cuban regime comes up, the top leaders say that this is the most democratic country in the world. The latest version is that “‘democracy’ is subject to interpretation, and every country understands it in its own way.”

This also occurs with citizen participation, which assumes a receptivity on the part of government officials to listen to what the citizens want to communicate to them, to help improve the politics and management of public concerns. It means that all who want to get involved in matters that affect the people will be heard, and they will be allowed to contribute their points of view, concerns and possible solutions.

Even so, although the regime talks a good game, the totalitarian power looms over the practically null power of the people, which makes citizen involvement quite difficult in Cuba, thus preventing the growth of participatory democracy. continue reading

Today, in the modern democratic society, another way in which citizen participation takes place is through Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) which, in most cases, push for certain social and humanitarian causes.

The regime in general pays very little attention to the participation of the citizens, however through “opinion surveys,” which it conducts constantly, it knows perfectly well what they are thinking, but there is no interactivity in the process.

And the issue, according to the Constitution of the Republic in its Article 62, is that none of the recognized liberties of the citizens can be exercised against what is established in the Constitution and the laws of the land, nor against the existence and ends of the Socialist State, nor against the decision of the Cuban people to construct socialism and communism.

It is for this reason that to maintain a majority control of citizen participation, there are those inappropriately named NGOs – the ones which the regime wants to be recognized as members of the civil society, and which in the official context are called “mass organizations.” Notable among these are the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs).

This organization was founded by Fidel Castro on September 28, 1960, in a public ceremony in front of what is today the Museum of the Revolution, with the objective of carrying out acts of collective vigilance against foreign meddling and acts of destabilization committed against the Cuban political system.

The CDRs have a structure controlled by the State which, besides their social labors, performs the principal mission of monitoring and controlling the public and private lives of individuals and all the neighbors, on a very close level.

Automobile of the National Leadership of the CDR, with a State license plate (author photo)

Despite their being considered an NGO, it can be publicly seen that the CDR supplies come from the government, even though they collect a monthly per-member fee of 25 cents in national currency for financing their operations. For example, the cars driven by the nomenklatura of the CDR—at all levels—bear the organization’s logo and a State license plate. They have a considerable number of buildings to maintain the provincial, municipal and zone structures. If only one of these organizational levels were eliminated, housing could be provided to some of the families in the country who have no roof over their heads.

One of the official arguments for considering the CDRs as promoters of citizen participation in the common good, is its intervention in elections. According to Article 68 of Law # 72 (the Electoral Law), the CDR includes the Candidacy Commission, along with other supposed NGOs, such as the Cuban Workers Center (which the CDR presides over), the Federation of Cuban Women, the National Association of Small Farmers, the Federation of Secondary Students, and the Federation of University Students.

The CDRs are in charge of keeping current the Registry Book of Addresses, which is the official roll in which all citizens must register when they move from one location to another. In most cases the official in charge of the registry is the president or the person responsible for neighborhood monitoring. It is difficult to comprehend that an official document that serves, among other things, to keep lists of voters, is in the hands of a non-governmental agency. Even less understandable is that the Law stipulates that those responsible for these registries must produce, within fifteen days following the publication of the call to vote in the Official Gazette of the Republic, a list of citizens who reside in their areas of purview who have, in their judgment, the right to vote, according to established law.

In addition, the CDRs are the font of primary information for the “verification” done of individuals by their workplaces, the police, State Security, etc. – which implies, by the same token, an obligation to the state, and an official linkage.

Among other duties they perform: blood donation, street sweeping on designated dates, collection of raw materials, participation in repudiation rallies against those who dissent from the regime, and the constant monitoring of the neighbors in their block. In some coastal areas they support the fight and vigilance against possible drug importations via the seas that surround the Island. They have quotas to achieve in the mobilizing campaigns to recruit participants for the parades and demonstrations in the Plazas of the various provinces.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see a television program of official accounting, from the Interior Ministry, titled, “On the Trail of….,” in which they publicly show that their main source of information are the CDRs.

Site of the National Headquarters of the CDR (author photo)

It is possible that they also consider it citizen participation to nominate those persons, during neighborhood meetings, who should be sold television sets or be assigned telephones. They have been so involved in State matters that, even during the Mariel Boatlift, they were ordered to give away the houses that were left vacant.

The CDRs violate human rights, because they have been involved in “acts of repudiation,” which have included abuse, intimidation, and, on occasion, physical mistreatment, against those who have been deemed “counterrevolutionaries,” or enemies of the Revolution. Still today, in the minds of two of the generations that have lived through the dictatorship, memories persist of the events of Mariel, in which the CDRs actively participated, harassing entire families, physically and verbally mistreating them, simply because they wanted to emigrate.

Although throughout the entire existence of this organization, numerous reasons can be identified which support the contention that the CDR is indeed an “official” entity, one would have to particularly name the fact that its National Coordinators have been members of the Council of State in the eight legislatures conducted to date: Jorge Lezcano Pérez, Armando Acosta Cordero, Sixto Batista Santana, Juan Contino Aslán, and Juan José Rabilero Fonseca. They were all representing this “NGO” until 2013. By the same token they were all at some point members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

This is the citizen participation of which the Castro dictatorship will boast, through its official spokespersons, at the Seventh Summit of the Americas.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

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“Some do not know me well, some are prisoners of fear.” Interview with opposition member Hildebrando Chaviano, candidate for delegate to the People’s Power.

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