Salaries for Doctors on the Island Will Increase / Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones

Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones, Guantanamo, 16 February 2015 — A rumor is keeping the medical sector in Guantanamo euphoric, and it provokes immediate outbursts of joy in hospital corridors, in homes and in every place the supposedly good news is known. No one knows the origin of the rumor nor its hidden intent.

According to those who are in charge of spreading it, very soon the government will increase the salary for doctors. And, as happens with every rumor, there are always those who know everything about it and affirm that the new increase will be put into force to try to contain the exodus of physicians abroad by way of continue reading

a 30-day exit permit, a type of safe conduct that helps them flee.

These experts assure that the new increase will raise physicians’ salaries to 5,000 pesos per month (200 dollars), an astronomical pay in Cuba, but that they’ll only receive it if they agree to sign a document saying they will remain in the country for five or ten years without asking for the exit permit.

However, a few days after the rumor appeared, the voices of others begin to be heard. They speak clearly, affirming that not even with this increase, which would place the doctors in the vanguard of the Castro Communist labor aristocracy — now made up of Party and governmental bureaucracy along with the sportsmen of high performance and the high officials of the armed forces and the Ministry of the Interior — would they be able to contain the massive exodus of these professionals abroad. Above all to Ecuador, a country that doesn’t request visas and where there already exists a developing but prosperous Cuban medical community that has taken care of communicating to its colleagues on the Island the high lifestyle that is rapidly achieved in the land of Eloy Alfaro.

Because 5,000 Cuban pesos are around 200 dollars, a sum very inferior to what any Cuban doctor could earn abroad.

Between the well-being within reach and the promises of a prosperous and sustainable socialism, which no one knows when it will arrive nor if also there is another rumor or a new feverish chimera of the Cuban leaders, you don’t have to rack your brains to decide. Stupid people are more scarce every day, and the ideological teque* has been in intensive care for some time.

I don’t know what the government will do to stop this flight of doctors, which has a direct effect on one of its most trumpeted social accomplishments — currently in a very precarious state, among other things because of the lack of specialists — and on the export of health services, which is perhaps, together with tourism, the most lucrative activity of the Cuban economy at this time.

In case the rumor becomes a certainty, let’s see what happens with the other professionals, because the flight of qualified personnel is not limited to the medical sector. Pandora’s Box is open, and the government doesn’t give any signs that will let us believe it is possible to close it and, above all, to convince us.

*Translator’s note: “Teque” is literally a spinning top, and is used in Cuba to mean old, worn out, political harangues.

Translated by Regina Anavy

A Bucket of Cold Water / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

Imagine you are at a party where a suckling pig is being roasted and all of a sudden, at the height of the festivities, Raúl Castro comes along with a bucket of water and douses out the fire. I cannot conjure a more apt image to illustrate the effect the army general’s speech at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit had on the spirits of Cuba’s dissidents.

What Raul said was a recycling of what the secretary of state was saying. It was the spitting image, cut to size, to summarize the state of affairs. While the inhospitable bucket of water was being filled, he left it to the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) to release the statement by the American government indicating that the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between that country and ours did not include a lifting of the embargo, the closure of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo or permission for American tourists continue reading

to travel to Cuba.

“So the Americas have not had to hang their heads as low as TV and newspapers have been telling us,” noted one party stalwart while waiting in line at a pharmacy.

With the PCC not being terribly secretive on this issue, one dissident was heard to express the following words of despair:

“Rather than making our work for democracy easier, this could make it more difficult. The United States and the Soviet Union had diplomatic relations and even then it was a cat and mouse game. Given that experience, if up till now they have imprisoned us, in the future they could execute dissidents for being American spies, which is what happened to Russian democracy advocates in Soviet times.”

Other dissidents are less pessimistic. After the initial impact of the unwelcome bucket of water that Raul used to dampen the festivities, some began to look at the glass and realized it was not half empty but rather half full.

Times have changed. No matter how much Raul might like to resurrect the tactics of the USSR, he cannot. According to Marx every organism contains the seeds of its own destruction, as I heard said to a proverbially enthusiastic dissident and learned man. Such is the case with socialism, to which Raul Castro must ever increasingly apply capitalist remedies in order to survive. The now almost five-hundred thousand self-employed workers — an army that just keeps growing — will be the gravediggers of the system.

Clearly, they are not politicians; they are merchants. They are in the business of making money and, not surprisingly, would prefer not to court problems with the government that might stand in the way of their making even more money. The great paradox, however, is that, by choosing to be economically independent, they have become a potent political force.

Behold a people, a sector of workers, with initiative but with no knowledge of their rights, as the dissident scholar of my story keeps saying. For example, the “botero” still does not know that, by paying taxes, he has the right to demand streets without potholes. The same applies case by case, sector by sector, to the restaurant owner, to the mechanic. Before you know it, you have created a public with intentions similar to the multitudes who stormed the Bastille.

Based on what they have told me, other dissidents more optimistic than the one mentioned above are betting on the perhaps exaggerated notion that Raul and his few remaining cohorts from the old days do not have many civilians from which to choose. And with perhaps even more exaggerated optimism, they do not see anyone in the Council of State with the status to command respect in their homes much less, they claim, under circumstances in which a fixty-six-year-old government has shown that socialism is no more than a fantasy dreamt up by Karl Marx.

Havana, the Cuban city from where I am gauging the pulse of the political situation, is experiencing a period of forecasting comparable to that of the Institute of Meteorology during hurricane season. Except that, unlike cyclones, no one knows when or where things will happen.

Meanwhile, the public — the frowning general public — is dying from trying to catch a bus while waiting for remittances from overseas, as if the guy with the bucket is not on their side. Neither the divinations of dissenters nor the enthusiastic forecasts of the governement’s new economic model matters to them. Trying to interpret this feeling, a seasoned retired teacher who sells empanadas in hospitals told me the following:

“Don’t waste your time listening to them. It’s not going to happen here. And they can stop talking about Raul and his opponents. What happens will be what God wants.”

20 February 2015

Cuba: Medical Impotence / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

While the government exports thousands of doctors, old diseases are coming back, such as dengue fever, tuberculosis, whooping cough, chikungunya, and cholera, and new exotic diseases are appearing that had never before been seen on the Island.

Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 18 February 2015 – For a few days, Maritza thought that her four-year-old son’s persistent cough was due to a combination of a cold and his chronic allergies. The crisis had started with a fever and a few episodes of hacking cough, and had escalated over the next couple of days, even though he was no longer running a fever. The pediatrician’s diagnosis confirmed Maritza’s suspicions: Alain was suffering from a viral infection, so they would follow the normal treatment in cases like his: they would watch him, give him plenty of liquids, expectorants and antihistamines

But after two weeks, his coughing got so much stronger and frequent that Maritza ended up having to go to Pediatric Hospital at Centro Habana so that her son – already cyanotic and having respiratory spasms continue reading

— could be treated with oxygen. Almost by happenstance, an experienced doctor who heard the child cough took an interest in the case, and, after a more detailed examination, made her diagnosis as whooping cough, a disease Maritza had never heard of and against which – at least in theory — all Cuban children are protected, thanks to subsidized national health system vaccination programs. Furthermore, according to official statistical records, whooping cough (pertussis) was eradicated from Cuba many years ago.

Thanks to that doctor’s providential presence, Alain was treated with the appropriate antibiotics and, following the advice of the doctor, Maritza asked a relative who resides abroad for an emergency shipment of a medication that does not exist in Cuba, pertussis suppositories, used in the treatment to lessen the child’s coughing crisis.

Alain is recovering now, but his convalescence may take up to three months or more. Maritza has overcome her anxiety, but wonders how many children will be in the same predicament, considering that this highly infectious disease is circulating around the Island, and health authorities have not sounded the alarm. In fact, she recently found out that in the past several years the incidence of whooping cough has been on the rise, not only among children, but also among adults.

The lack of information in the official media results in the population not having a clear perception of the risk, and turns Article 50 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba into meaningless babble. The article establishes the right of all Cubans to medical care and health protection, and points to the State as guarantor of that right.

Turning back the clock

Dengue fever, tuberculosis, whooping cough, chikungunya*, cholera … With the reappearance of old diseases, the introduction of others that did not exist on the Island and the lack of effective drugs, it would seem that Cuba has regressed to the nineteenth century. However, the Cuban national health system remains a prestigious benchmark for international agencies, particularly since lending Cuban medical services abroad has become the most important source of the government’s capital income and a powerful political tool, given that it allows displaying as example of solidarity and altruism what is actually a poorly disguised form of modern slavery.

So, while the government exports the service of tens of thousands of medical professionals at the expense of a loss of attention to Cubans, and the exposure of the Cuban population to multiple imported diseases, the institutional bureaucracy of international organizations congratulates itself on being able to count on a whole army of doctors mobilized by the regime to deal with epidemics and other pathologies. The government of any moderately democratic nation would never be able to recruit doctors as if they were mercenaries.

The truth is that Cuba currently has two opposing systems: one of “health”, which only exists in theory and today is a sad imitation of what it once was; and the other of “unhealth”, much more efficient, endorsed in a completely dismal hospital and services infrastructure, and in the continuing incursion of exotic diseases, imported by our doctors from the most infected corners of the globe, since, upon their return home to Cuba, the practice of a rigorous quarantine plan and infection risk control is not followed.

All this in a nation that, in the late 50s of the last century, stood out among the top in terms of health care at the regional and global levels, with a respectable hospital network in addition to membership clinics, emergency clinics, maternity hospitals and other health services, both free and private.

At this rate, it is likely that, when the Castro regime finally ends, we may have to request emergency services from the World Health Organization itself and from the International Red Cross in order to address Cubans’ health crisis, as occurred during the US occupation after the 1898 War of Independence, which created the basis for what would become, during the Republic, one of the most enviable health systems of its time.

*A viral disease transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Mariela Castro’s Eloquent Silence / Cubanet, Tania Diaz Castro

Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela Castro Espin

Cubanet, Tania Díaz Castro, Havana, February 19, 2015 — Homosexuality has been around longer than humans have been walking upright. But Fidel Casto — working through State Security, an organization he founded and of which he has always been in charge — has done everything possible to banish it from Cuban soil. He once looked upon it as a cancer capable of eating away his dictatorship.

In an August 2010 interview with the journalist Carmen Lira for the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, the Cuban leader for the first time confessed feeling guilty for the emergence of homophobia in Cuba, an attitude that is still prevalent in the country’s top leadership.

In the interview he acknowledged that “there were moments of great injustice” and noted that he personally had no such prejudices. On this particular occasion the Comandante was not lying. Several of his friends in positions of power were widely known to be homosexuals, including Alfredo Guevara and continue reading

Pastorita Nuñez. To the guerrilla leader, they were neither “twisted trees” nor “a byproduct not found in the field,” as everyone else used to describe them.

The thousands who were identified by State Security suffered imprisonment, harsh treatment and were forced to do hard labor in the notorious Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP).

Half a century has passed. The Castro dictatorship is still in power. The same problems still exist, only to a lesser degree. It is perhaps for this reason that the current president’s daughter, Mariela Castro, spends her free time on a campaign of sorts against homophobia and discrimination in general.

It seems that she may have been inadvertently criticizing her uncle, Fidel Castro, when in an interview with the ANSA news agency she said, “There is no doubt that in their creation in 1965 and in their operations, the UMAPs were arbitrary.” Arbitrary is another term for unjust, despotic, abusive and tyrannical.

Mariela’s current silence is curious given what recently happened on the TV soap opera La Otra Esquina (The Other Corner), which can be seen on Cuban television’s Channel 6.

As is now public knowledge, this soap opera — written by Yamila Suarez — was apparently forced to conceal a storyline concerning the characters Oscar and Esteban, a gay couple played by two wonderful veteran actors.

Changes involving episodes being edited and brief blackouts occurring during the broadcast strongly suggest that, since the show could not be cancelled — its schedule had already been announced and there was no available replacement — it was censored on orders from the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party.

So what has the defender of gay rights done in response in the months since?

Nothing.

She has not said if she participated in the heated discussions at the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) in an attempt to fend off eliminating the love story between the elderly Oscar and Esteban in favor of more filial relationships that had nothing to do with the plotline

In last week’s episode a photo of the two lovers could be seen on a table. They were standing with their heads pressed together, a classic and tender expression of love. The censors forgot to remove from the set this and other props that revealed what was going on.

On February 9 the independent journalist Frank Correa denounced the action in an editorial published on CubaNet, thus bringing to public attention the difficulties La Otra Esquina had to go through to get on the air.

In this production Mariela exited stage left.

She was not looking to create more problems with her little old uncle.

The way the show has been changed is evidence that in Cuba homophobia is still with us.

20 February 2015

“It Is State Policy To Misinform People” / Cubanet, Roberto Jesus Quinones

Leinier Cruz Salfran (photo by the author)

Cubanet.org, Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces, Havana, 13 February 2015 — Raul Castro’s government, in spite of rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, continues the work of keeping people from freely accessing the internet.

On Monday, January 19 Cubanet published a report about the detention of the young Guantanemero Leinier Cruz Salfran on Saturday, January 17 by State Security agents. The reason? Leinier was gathering together a group of young people outside of the Hotel Marti, connecting through his laptop to the building’s WiFi and sharing the Internet with the others present who had also brought their portable computers to the location.

We contacted the young man who agreed to grant us this interview:

Q: Leinier, why did State Security detain you?

Because according to them I was committing a crime of Illicit Economic Activity.

Q: What did you do?

I shared the use of the Internet with other people through Hotel Marti’s wifi continue reading

connection.

Q: How many users came to connect to the Internet at the same time because of your initiative?

There was no fixed number, there were days when more than fifty people connected on the ground floor of the Hotel Marti which was generally where I was connected.

Q: What was the typical connection speed when everyone was connected at the same time?

The Hotel Marti has a bandwidth of 6 mbps (megabits per second) which equates to a download speed of 600 kb per second. The speed was sufficient for chatting, participating in a video conference or carrying out an audio session on Facebook. The speed was acceptable.

Later the hotel managers applied a speed limit of 2 mbps for each direct client. Only three people could connect directly to the hotel without interference. If another person connected the speed was divided among the four.

In the end, I had to tell the users that they could not do video conferences because now the bandwidth was insufficient for everyone. Everything was limited to opening pages, downloading email and voice sessions.

Q: How would you rate the internet connection opportunities that exist today in the city of Guantanamo?

There are very few internet access points, just two Internet rooms with 10 computers for a city of more than 150,000 residents. Furthermore, now the Hotel Marti denies Internet access to Cubans, who now cannot even pay a dollar to go up to the terrace which is where they have placed the wifi access.

Also, in the Hotel Guantanamo, the equipment for the point of access used to be in the lobby and now they put it on the second floor and even removed the antennas, which they only put up between 4 and 8 pm. Whoever wants to access the internet has to pay one dollar per hour. This part a decision by the government itself.

Q: The police accuse you of supposed illicit economic activity. Did you charge for sharing Internet access or did you share the cost of the connection with your friends?

I never charged because I knew they were following me. After I started sharing the connection I knew that I had become a dangerous enemy for the authorities and I knew that at some point I was going to confront them face to face, obviously on their terms, so I just shared the cost of the connection.

Q: Is there a law in Cuba that prohibits sharing the connection cost among several users?

I don’t know. During the interrogations they spoke to me of a crime called Violation of Contractual Services, something like that, in which the crime of violating a contract incurs a penalty of up to three years incarceration. Apparently they were convinced there was no evidence of any illicit economic activity, however, they emphasized that I violated the contract with ETECSA (Telecommunications Enterprise of Cuba) by using the Nauta (Internet) service, but in my opinion they did not want to go to the extreme of sentencing me.

Q: Did they return your laptop, flash drives and camera that they took during the search of your home?

No, they still have not told me what they will do with them. They took them from me and have left me disarmed because I am a programmer.

Q: Do you plan to do it again?

No, no I cannot trip on the same rock, it would be stupid if I did that. I think I have to focus my efforts on other artists, other projects that I have in mind until I find a person with strength and the chance of helping me carry them out.

Q: Why do you think they authorities hinder cheap Internet access for young Cubans?

I believe that it is the policy of the State to maintain massive disinformation for the Cuban population, and that is demonstrated by the fact that this government has never permitted free access to information. Here we have no chance of getting computers, mobile devices, access to satellite TV, the Internet, there are no satellite phone connections or access to information technology. What they have done to me proves it.

Q: What is your current legal situation?

Apparently I am not going to have a trial. They told the mother of my daughter who communicates with me to go to the Operations Unit to process the application of a fine, God knows for how many pesos, but I have decided not to go until such time as they communicate it to me as the law provides, through a document. The same way that they came with a search warrant the very day that they arrested me in front of my neighbors as if I were a delinquent and arrested me, that’s how they must do it for me to go there.

(We went to the Hotel Marti, the place where Leinier carried out his supposed derelict activity for which he was arrested. This reporter tried on three occasions to speak with the hotel manager, leaving his address and telephone number with a note in which we expressed that our intention was to bring to her attention what Cubanet published so that she could offer her viewpoint. In spite of our efforts, the lady did not agree to an interview.)

About the author

Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces

Born in the city of Cienfuegos September 20, 1957. He is a law graduate. In 1999 he was sentenced unfairly and illegally 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 Sheepfolds of Dawn” (2008, Editorial Oriente), and “The Water of Life” (2008, Editorial El Mar y La Montana). He won the Stained Glass Grand Prize for Poetry in 2001 with his book “Written from Jail” as well as Special Mention and Special Recognition from the Nosside International Poetry Competition in 2006 and 2008, respectively. His poems appear in the 1994 UNEAC Anthology, in the 2006 Nosside Competition Anthology, and in décimas selections “This Jail of Pure Air” by Waldo Gonzalez in 2009.

Translated by MLK

The Honey That Used To Heal Us / Cubanet, Reinaldo Cosano

Where to find in Cuba that medicine that cured our grandparents? (Internet photos)

Cubanet.org, Reinaldo Emilio Cosano Alen, Havana, 6 February 2015 – Bee venom is considered 500 thousand times superior to any antibiotic. But where to find that medicine and food, previously so abundant, older than mankind?

The sick man came to the clinic with a bad cough. The doctor diagnosed bronchopneumonia. She prescribed antibiotics. And issued the challenge: “If you find honey, don’t stop taking it.”

After many inquiries he found a farmer who empties his hives, puts the honey into discarded rum bottles and sells them on the black market for 50 Cuban pesos (two dollars; a fifth of the average monthly salary) each.

It is not worth questioning the hygiene of the package or the quality of the honey, issues that are for the European Union and other importing countries. The Apicultural Research Center in Havana analyzes and certifies nine physical-chemical parameters for all honey for exportation.

“Here we check aspects like moisture continue reading

, diastase and hydroxymethylfurfural – which describes the freshness of honey – acidity, electrical conductivity, non-soluble solids, reducing sugars and apparent sucrose,” explains Maidelys Pena Garcia, technician in Food Technology in that laboratory. (…) For the export of honey to the European Union there exist rigorous regulations, among them limits on residues of prohibited substances like pesticides and antibiotics.

Some years ago they stopped selling honey in the pretty pitcher-shaped glass jars in the CUC (hard currency) stores. There was no explanation why the State, which controls honey from the agricultural phase to the retail, gave up the lucrative business in the so-called border market (in foreign currency). It was also sold at reasonable prices in state farmers markets. What happened to the honey?

Even the popular honey-filled candies disappeared from the marketplace some unknown time ago.

“The state buys all the honey from the farmers but the lack of honey in the domestic market incites traffic on the black market, theft of hives. The hives are mistreated because the thieves always are in a hurry,” says Diosdado Ferrer, an old beekeeper from the Mayabeque province.

Deforestation and frequent periods of drought are other causes that reduce the production of honey, royal jelly, propolis and wax. The bees can die of hunger. A temporary solution is the transfer of the hives to sites with better blooming, among them the coastal flowering mangroves.

Each worker bee visits some 7,200 flowers during his fifty days of life in some two hundred thousand flights in order to make barely five grams of honey!

Bees and other useful insects effectively contribute to the pollination of flowers and the production of fruit, another cause of the reduction of agricultural production in the country.

“Bees form part of the food production chain, hence the great concern about their deaths. In temperate climate countries 30 percent of foods that are produced are thanks to bee pollination,” says Doctor Adolfo Lopez Pinero, director of the Apiculture Research Center.

Our grandparents cured themselves with honey from bees, which was sold in all the stores of the country. But that was also when we were the world’s sugar bowl. The bees are not at fault.

Translated by MLK

About the Author:

Reinaldo Emilio Cosano, Havana, May 1943, graduate in Philology from the University of Havana. He worked as a professor the last twenty years of his professional life. He was fired from teaching for lack of “political suitability,” as recorded in the minutes of the final separation. He was a member of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and participated in the Democratic Cuban Coalition. He has been writing for more than ten years for CubaNet, through the Sindical Press agency, of which he is manager. E-mail: cosanoalen@yahoo.com

Corruption, the Cancer of Cuban Public Transportation / Cubanet, Ernesto Perez Chang

Cubanet, Ernesto Perez Chang, Havana, 7 February 2015 — More than a decade has passed since the first big purchase of busses from China and Russia was made in order to ameliorate the transportation problem in Cuba, and no improvement is in sight. Contrary to what was promised then, moving from one point to another becomes each day a greater agony for low-income citizens.

Although officials from the Ministry of Transportation continue blaming the economic embargo and the world crisis for all the difficulties they face, it is well known that there are other phenomena, many of them related to corruption.

In that sense, it is not surprising to encounter silence in the official media and in the statements by some officials in which they try to hide the million-dollar embezzlements that continue reading

the importing and transportation companies must confront every year such that what is invested on one side passes to the pockets of a few on the other.

Besides the negative figures supplied by Ricardo Chacon, Director of International Relations for the Ministry of Transportation (MITRANS), in the press conference held in 2014 in order to “denounce the embargo,” there were other data missing about the damages caused to the Cuban economy by the frauds and thefts committed by some of the senior leaders of strategic enterprises related to transportation.

According to what we could learn through an official from Havana’s Provincial Transportation Department, who for obvious reasons has asked our discretion as far as his identity, a great part of the economic losses that were suffered last year, as in years before, is due to the chaos and the embezzlement of great sums of money by senior leaders of enterprises like Transimport, whose director, Jesus Jose de Hombre, was arrested some months ago and is under investigation for an act of corruption that also involves the director of the company Autopartes, tied to the illicit sale of thousands of engines that were intended for public transportation.

Alternative transportation in Lido, Marianao — The people ride in the backs of trucks

On the streets of Cuba it is common knowledge that the black market for parts and vehicles, as well as for all services related to the field, is supplied by a network of corruption that reaches the highest levels in government institutions. The inability to honestly administer all these enterprises that function as true mafias is obvious when the constant resignations by officials are taken into account, the frequent changes of high managers as well as of the ministers and vice-ministers related directly or indirectly to transportation but, also, when it is revealed to us the exaggerated price of a vacant position in any of the warehouses or offices related to the sale or import of automobiles and auto parts.

A worker – whom we do not identify for his safety – for one of the warehouses of the Gaviota enterprise group, in the capital, tells us about this particular:

“The job as assistant to the Warehouse Chief goes for a thousand dollars and those that have to do with marketing also are “nibbling close.” There are people here who have entered on the bus and left in a Hyundai. They enter without a peso in their pockets because of what they had they spent on buying the job but later they get twenty times what they invested. Here I have seen new cars being removed, just arrived through the port. Later old cars are put out to rent, as if they were the new ones.”

All of the old trucks and cars that circulate through the city, above all those dedicated to the particular business of transportation, are known to get their spare parts in mechanisms of the dark market due to the absence of legal providers. It might seem like a miracle that cars in use for more than half a century still continue rolling on the country’s highways but a glance inside of any of them would dispel such amazement.

The driver of an almendron (a 1950s American car for hire) says about the expenses that keeping those vehicles functioning implies that necessity has become part of the urban profile.

“You have to go out and look for all the parts. As there are none, they stab you with the prices. If you want to have it running at least eight hours, so that the business pays you, you know that in a year or two you are going to have to “re-motorize yourself.” Every week you have to give it maintenance so that it doesn’t die and adapt all kinds of parts. And none of it is legal, they all require papers and you pay this and that and the other so that everything comes out okay. Everyone who has a car rolling on the street has to make an arrangement if you don’t want to forget about the car. The State requires you to go to the black market because it doesn’t give you anything. They know what they are doing and they have seen a windfall in that. He who makes the law makes the trap.”

Alternatives in the transportation crisis (photo by author)

Even though for the foreign visitor it could all work wonderfully – given that they travel the best routes of the country in comfortable panoramic buses and not in horse drawn carriages or unsafe trucks like those at the Lido terminal in Mariano – the transportation outlook on the island is quite grim. There is no way to break that cycle of corruption that the government itself has created and not because of inability or innocence. So many years committing the same mistakes only points to something quite high, at the head of the State, someone knows how to finish that infallible refrain that seems the slogan of every social project: There’s good fishing in troubled waters.

About the author:

Ernesto Pérez Chang (El Cerro, Havana, June 15, 1971) Writer. Graduate of Philology from the University of Havana. He studied Galician Language and Culture at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He has published these novels: Your Eyes Face Nothing (2006) and Alicia Under Her Own Shadow (2012). At the end of this year the outlet Silueta in Miami will publish his most recent novel, Food. He is also the author of books of stories: Last Pictures of Mama Nude (2000); The Ghosts of Sade (2002); Stories From Headquarters (2003); Variations on the Illiterate (2007), The Art Of Dying Alone (2011) and One Hundred Lethal Stories (2014). His narrative work has been recognized with the prizes: David de Cuento, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), in 1999; Gazette Story Prize of Cuba on two occasions, 1998 and 2008; Julio Cortazar Latin American Story Prize in its first call in 2002; National Critic’s Prize in 2007, Alejo Carpentier Story Prize in 2011, among others. He has worked as editor for numerous Cuban cultural institutions such as the House of the Americas (1997-2008), Art and Literature Editorial, the Center for Research and Development of Cuban Music. He was Editor in Chief of the magazine Union (2008-2011).

Translated by MLK

The Smell of Money / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

CubaNet, RAFAEL ALCIDES, Havana, 3 February 2015 – In the Havana of recent days, hope and despair continue to grow. Hope, in the people: who have already begun to paint and fix up their houses, with visions of the peaceful invasion by the Americans of the future. Because, it is said with much authority, without anybody knowing the provenance of this fact, by about the end of April, we will have them arriving in waves of a million per week and, of course, neither the State-owned hotels nor the paladares (private restaurants) currently existing have the capacity to accommodate them.

An acquaintance from the neighborhood, retired and living with his wife and son, a doctor, in a small, two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor, facing the street, has already begun remodeling to take advantage of the coming boom. He has built a separate entrance to the unit from the side that faces a hallway, and on the patio has fashioned a little guestroom equipped with a shower, sink and toilet. Now he is on the hunt for a bidet, an air conditioner and a mini-fridge continue reading

– all of which need to be of the “gently-used” variety, because that is all he can afford with the bit of cash sent to him from Miami. Besides, he still needs a pair of twin beds to replace the box spring inherited from a sister who emigrated 20 years ago, and which will continue to be his son’s bed until the first American arrives to rent the room.

The government, of course, could try not to cede any ground, to take advantage of the negative effect of the struggle for democracy on the future psychological wellbeing of the people, and it will not ratify the United Nations covenants on human rights nor, much less, hear talk of elections.

Pitying me, an acquaintance of my daughters – a successful owner of a paladar who was in the midst of preparing his papers to leave the country when an opening to a bonsai-type of capitalism designed by Murillo* appeared – told me that, to him, “all that” about democracy and Human Rights is of no interest. He is no politician, he said, nor has he dreamed of writing for the newspapers. Rather, he is a businessman who has done well for himself, and he expects that with the million Americans expected to be flocking here every week, he will do even better. Making money is his thing. To that end, he has already begun setting up a second “paladar.”

Hence the sorrow, in that word’s best sense, or perhaps, the despair, of the opposition. It is a sad fact, but also inevitable: the smell of money tends to make conservatives out of even the ultra-radicals of yesterday (as we saw happen in the USSR lately). A reaction, this, all the more terrible in a country such as ours where 70 percent of the population, never having known democracy, has learned to live without it — and also being a country where survival has required pilfering here and there, dreaming of having things, of being able to live like one’s cousins in Miami. A dangerous indirect alliance with the government that will not be easy to break.

The opposition’s despair increases with the government’s silence, its apparent immobility. I say “apparent” because the government has not ceased to make changes, to transfer to “non-agricultural cooperatives” (and by extension, it is fitting that the newspaper Granma should one day speak to us of “non-veterinary doctors,” “non-merchant marines,” “non-porno artists,” “non-retired military personnel”) even small-town aqueducts. Another shift not even dreamed of before now: a new investment law with room for the native citizen (i.e. the Cuban residing on the Island) in joint venture with foreigners or as sole proprietor – a development which, it goes without saying, cancels, makes obsolete, Murillo’s brilliant and sophisticated botanical design.

However – and I repeat, however (and this is indeed the great enigma): Is the government making these changes with an eye towards opening a path for democracy? Or conversely, is it to facilitate the Chinese method, in which the pessimistic opposition presupposes the State will be immersed waist-deep in its eagerness for continuity? Only time can tell.

Apart from these “non-Lenten winds”** optimism reigns supreme. Havana goes on renovating itself, When carpenters cannot find lumber, they buy old armoires, tables, doors to recycle the wood, to keep up with their orders and deliver furniture to the owners of houses or paladares who are preparing to accommodate a million Americans per week. Those who grow flowers increase their sowings. The bricklayers charge ever higher prices. A spirit of rejuvenation reigns, as the romantics might say, throughout the land.

Of course, regarding elections, I hear less and less.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Translator’s Notes:

*Marino Murillo is Cuba’s Minister of Planning and Economy. The late Cuban economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a regime opponent, coined the term “bonsai businesses” to refer to the types of small private businesses now allowed by the regime: bonsai, of course, are very small, and are subject to constant “trimming” to make sure they are not allowed to grow to any significant size.

**Likely a reference to the novel by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, “Los Vientos de Cuaresma (Lenten Winds)”. The protagonist is a policeman who is growing increasingly disaffected with contemporary Cuban society. The story takes place in the spring, during the Lenten season, when hot southern winds arrive in Cuba.

The Last Days of That Amorphous Thing Called “The Masses” / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

Young Cubans marching in a government sponsored "protest" — Young Cubans marching in a government sponsored protest against the United States

Whatever the Cuban government does, that amorphous thing with no head or eyes, that they call “the masses,” is in its final days. And with it are also ending the repudiation rallies, detentions, physical attacks on the Ladies in White, and other forms of repression.

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 29 January 2015 — In the first elections of Cuban socialism, an old Communist leader would call the voters from his neighborhood and would instruct them which candidate they should vote for. I, being a provocateur and also a friend of his, told him, “Didn’t we agree to let the masses decide?” He replied to me, with a complicit irony while stopping the next voter in order to instruct him, “Yes, but we need to orient them.” continue reading

I say complicit irony, because that leader understood that I, by that time, should have known all too well that the trappings of democracy are a farce in socialism, mere props. Being, after all, totalitarian, one thing the Socialist State fears is that the citizenry – “the masses” as those who “orient” them call it – could think for itself.

From there proceeds the State’s lifelong fear of the artist, the intellectual – even of those whom it pretends to honor with its paper roses – and its fear of the individual, of the loner. In Cuba, the State – the better to keep an eye on him, and beyond that to convert him into one of “the masses” – made the peasant a member of a cooperative, he who had been granted two plots of land, and whenever possible made him live in housing developments where the units were joined window to window, allowing the residents to watch and overhear each other at good advantage.

Clearly, this fear had to be hidden. Taking advantage of the political circumstances of the moment (we’re talking of the months following the Bay of Pigs), the “Within the revolution, everything; outside the revolution, nothing”* pills were quickly manufactured, which had a certain flavor of patriotism on the outside, and much Soviet medicine on the inside.

Even though they appear to have been produced for use by the intellectuals, these pills have been a daily dose administered to the masses. We observe them when, arguing that “the enemy** is listening,” Cubans are prohibited to speak unless it is to praise the Revolution. Or when, without consulting the people, the government declares wars in which the country will participate with tens of thousands of men. Or when, as right now, the government makes peace with the “enemy” of just a minute ago, according to the surprising announcement by Raúl this past December 17.

All right, now. Following this announcement, which the people have greeted with emotion, these pills have lost their potency. Or, we must re-think this. Besides, logic and the reasoning of the Socialist State tend to not coincide. The foreign press continues mentioning (while the national press doesn’t discuss it) new detentions, operatives stationed outside residences, all with the object of preventing the opposition from attending anti-establishment events, and reporting names of dissidents whose passports have been confiscated or not renewed – who rightfully fear being returned to their former condition of “prisoners at large.”

But, why? When, after all, ‘round about two years ago, they were allowed to travel outside the country, and the government did not collapse. So, then, why this regression? And besides, why now, at this moment, when the hackneyed and same old song about the “plaza besieged” can no longer be invoked?

We are not so Hellenic, although anything can happen in a government full of secrets.

In any case, let the government do what it will now, that amorphous thing with no head or eyes, which the government leaders privately call “the masses,” is in its final days. And with it are also ending the repudiation rallies, detentions, physical attacks on the Ladies in White, and all manner of repression that has up to today been the government’s common practice.

Because, with the ratification of the United Nations Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – without which as a precondition for the agreements announced on December 17, 2014, Obama would have become a super-generous Santa Claus to Raúl Castro – the dissidents will, finally, enter into possession of the rights that will allow them to dedicate themselves, without government interference, to the formation of political parties, societies, professional schools and institutions, all essential to a democratic civil society. Why? Because in those little pills that are the Covenants — and the reason the government has not wanted to ratify them — is contained all that is necessary to articulate a democracy wherein the citizen can enter an electoral college and vote with decency, without anybody “orienting” him.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

* Translator’s note: A line from Fidel Castro’s so-called “Speech to the Intellectuals,” delivered in June 1961.

** Translator’s note: The “enemy” is a common epithet used by the Castro government and its supporters to refer to the United States.

The official press: “Made to conceal, not to publicize” / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez

A joke making the rounds: Napoleon said, “With Granma, nobody would have found out about my defeat at Waterloo:” (Photos: Internet)

Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez, Havana, 26 January 2015 – “Cubans are seeking a new conception of the press within socialism. All that can be predicted, without a doubt, is that it will be a democratic press, lively and original,” wrote Gabriel García Márquez in 1975.

That Gabo — always so unreal, so optimistic when it came to opining about his friend Fidel Castro’s Revolution. Such a quest does not show signs of obtaining results in any near future. It is easier to imagine the ascension into the heaven above Macondo of Remedios the Beautiful with a band of yellow butterflies*, than to reap, within olive-green socialism, a journalism free of shackles continue reading

, sparkling, with bubbles that the Genius of Aracataca** would foresee 36 years ago.

Even Gabo himself had to admit that the Cuban press “seemed to be made more to conceal than to publicize.”

Another brilliant writer, who could never be said to be complicit with the enemies of the Revolution – the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano – was more precise in describing the Cuban press when he said that “it seems to be from another planet.”

The official Cuban press, which manipulates, distorts, enshrouds and when it speaks truths, does so only halfway, only as far as is convenient, has nothing to do with the real Cuba. It seems to speak of another country, a virtual one, where everything functions in a manner quite distinct from how it is in reality.

Fidel: Omnipresent in the official Cuban press

In recent years there has been much talk about the need to create a credible journalism, one more analytical and critical. The task turns out to be a chimerical one. The press is forced into being the concubine of Power. They endowed it with the chastity belt of “informative politics.” Journalists are “ideological workers,” forced to constantly reiterate their loyalty to a stubborn and myopic regime which, as it racks up failures, divorces itself evermore from the interests of the people.

On repeated occasions, the “fearless leaders” have referred to “the need to reconcile the informative politics of the press with the interests of the country’s direction” and they have warned that “disagreements can be of form but never of principles,” because above all, “the defense of the Revolution” must take precedence.

Thus, official journalists find themselves confined to the sad role of mere propagandists and mouthpieces of worn slogans. Even those more honest among them, who can’t seem to hide their doubts and dissatisfaction, only go so far as the “danger” signal if they allow themselves to express any complaints during debates about informative politics. They all know how to have it both ways.

When, at the beginning of his mandate, General Raul Castro attended the VIII Congress of Cuban Journalists (UPEC), he said that some of the problems discussed were “older than Gutenberg.” But they are going to be resolved… and I say no more,” he said, smiling enigmatically. And he left everyone “in that.” Like halfway to an orgasm.

"To taste a better cup": What a farce! Cubans drink coffee mixed with ground-up dried peas.*** — “To taste a better cup”: What a farce! Cubans drink coffee mixed with ground-up dried peas.

The years have passed and our problems have not been resolved. To the General-President’s exhortations and chidings to official journalists have now been added those of Vice-President Díaz Canel. The result: Nothing. The official media — except for issuing some occasional critique that goes no further than the medium levels of government — continue to be as irrationally exuberant and attached to the inertia of the sermon as ever.

The idyllic and bubbling journalism inside olive-green socialism of which Gabo dreamed, now almost four decades ago, has not materialized.

The bad news, as General Raúl Castro has warned on various occasions, is that we should expect neither miracles, nor magic.

Translator’s notes:

*Refers to Remedios La Bella (“Remedios the Beautiful”), a female character in García Márquez’ novel, “100 Years of Solitude,” who resides in the town of Macondo, and who one day ascends into heaven, body and soul. Remedios is in love with a man who is constantly surrounded by a band of yellow butterflies.

**Aracataca is the birthplace of García Márquez.

Related articles: Al Qaeda Coffee; Coffee with Roasted Peas; Out of Coffee.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Behind the Performances / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

To think that the “common Cuban on the street” –not the dissidents or the usual disobedient individuals- would spontaneously make use of the open microphones at “that” Square, to demand rights from the government is naive, a utopia. The idea is beautiful and romantic, but far, far away from reality.

HAVANA, Cuba. – During the final days of 2014 and the first three of 2015, the bells have been ringing for artist Tania Bruguera and the wave of arrests sparked by her announcement of the performance Tatlin’s Whisper # 6, after which she intended to provide a minute of freedom of expression for the common Cuban at the Plaza “de la Revolución” itself.

Authorities responded with their usual violence, detaining several dozen dissidents, opposition activists, journalists, and other members of the independent civil society and tossing them into dungeons. Some of the detainees had not even intended to participate in the event, and were arrested only for the crime of leaving their homes on the “wrong” day.

Comments on the subject have swarmed the digital media, as befits the case of such a recognized and award-winning artist as Bruguera, with a prolific career, though she was almost totally unknown to the potential recipients of her performance. continue reading

Tania Bruguera, in short, has suffered the same fate that the other members of the opposition and of the independent civil society have faced for decades: censorship and repression by the regime, while those same “common Cubans” suffer from the proverbial ignorance –be it as a result of misinformation or disinterest. So we reaffirm the urgent need to avail all Cubans of the bulk of information that allows them the civic empowerment and the willingness to come out as actors of the changes.

Ineptness or intention?

The reasons for Tania Bruguera’s intention to perform are too well-known and are more than justified. The repression orchestrated by the Cuban government, however, though predictable, is counterproductive at a time when it should strive to present a more tolerant face.

The General-President has lost a golden opportunity to score before the international public opinion somewhat, showing such an outrageous stupidity that could only be understood if he had the deliberate intention to launch a challenge to Barack Obama’s conciliatory position and the democratic world as a whole.

Anyone who knows the Cuban reality knows that it would have been very easy for the dictatorship to annihilate the “Tatlin effect” and, incidentally, make a fool of the artist using its usual methods. Namely, to let her reach her stage and her microphones, and then control or prevent entrance to the “counterrevolutionaries” – probably the only Cubans who would have dared to exercise their freedom of expression publicly and to voice their opinions and demands – mobilize its more loyal militants (and also their milidummies) to fill the space and to have them take the microphone to launch the usual praises of the revolution and its leaders.

They could even have used their agents, infiltrated in the opposition ranks, to offer the “mad-dog faces” of those who want to see the end of the socialist paradise, to have faked their support for Bruguera’s play by sharing the Plaza’s venue with works of La Colmenita, or by simultaneously celebrating any other “cultural act” with the participation of the many artists who usually lend themselves for such cases. It would have been, no doubt, a massive event, and the General-President would have shown the world, at the same time as the existence of “the most genuine and spontaneous freedom of expression of the Cuban people,” the firm commitment by the people to the revolution and its unquestionable conquests.

He chose, however, brutality, a disproportionate official reaction that sends misleading signals that are inconsistent with the relaxed atmosphere that we should be starting to breathe with the burial of the war hatchets after half a century of confrontation with the natural enemy of the people. But did anyone really expect a different outcome?

Behind the performances

There are those who wonder, following the events, if Tania Bruguera’s performance was worth it, since it turned into an occasion of unleashed repression at a time of year when family traditions are of peace and celebration. The answer to this depends on the artist’s objectives, not on the reaction by the Cuban government.

If her intention was to draw attention to international public opinion about the dictatorial nature of the government, the mere purpose was a success and was worth it. But its price, namely, the official repressive reaction, is the norm in Cuba – as is well known by independent civil society on the Island, with decades of first-hand resistance against the government – and the artist is not responsible for this.

On the other hand, exercising civic rights and free expression of all kinds are worth the effort, be it a performance or simply an everyday practice, but we must not enhance the facts or attribute to the artistic event the capability of “obstructing the normalization” of relations between Cuba and the US. The propensity for drama is definitively one of the evils that we Cubans drag with us, which turns us into myopic politicians.

So, to pretend that “common Cubans” – not “mercenary” dissidents, or the usual disobedient individuals – could make spontaneous use of open microphones in a public place (particularly “that” public place) for citizens’ complaints and demanding of rights from the government is naive, a utopia, or a combination of both. The idea is beautiful and romantic, but far, far away from reality.

Let’s idealize it: the fact that ordinary Cubans, immersed in survival, need venues for freedom, does not mean that they are ready to openly challenge the government, especially if after the performances they will continue to be inevitably tied to this Island prison. A lot more is needed to overcome the fear of one minute on stage and before a microphone.

A quick poll is sufficient to verify that the recipients were unaware of the act. In fact, neither the artist’s proposal nor the wave of related arrests has emerged in national public opinion.

Havana residents who this last December 30^th observed the unusual police presence in the areas adjacent to the Plaza never knew what it was about, and probably did not give it much importance. We have to understand them: those were the days of the agricultural fair and, as the last straw, in many municipalities, chickens “for the people” were being distributed.

It’s not cynicism, but realism. In terms of rights, we Cubans we have a long way to go, including –by the way – overcoming the temptation to place on the desk of the US Presidential demands that the Cuban authorities will be responsible for complying with. At least, such is the opinion of this Cuban, for whom the exercise of freedom of expression has always been practice, not performance.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Steak: Prohibited for Ordinary Cubans / Polina Martinez Shvietsova

HAVANA, Cuba, 10 September 2103, Polina Martinez Shvietsova, www.cubanet.org –If you sell tenderloin or minute steak from your doorway, Caution! You could put yourself behind bars. Before 1959 it wasn’t like this. The country possessed a livestock of around six million head of cattle, the same number as the Cuban population, there was one cow per person. Cuba was a great producer of sugar cane, which, among other benefits, represented the feed base for our livestock in the Republic. continue reading

The products derived from this bovine multitude were for the daily consumption of the people. Beef was not lacking in the butcher’s shops, plazas and stores on sale for different prices. If a rich man ate fillet steak, the poor skirt steak — from there came la Ropa Vieja — beef was attainable for any pocketbook. A portion of this meat was destined for export and industries of processing and preserving. Also the skin of cattle was used in the making of shoes such as the well-known brands “Ingelmo” and “Amadeo.”

In the early sixties, the nationalizing interventions took place in Cuba. The hardest hit businesses were the American owned, including the livestock businesses in the east of the country. Then the humble man of the countryside was integrated into the defense “of the country.” Thus abandoning the agricultural work and development of livestock herds.

Some peasants continued cultivating and trying to survive, despite the nationalizations of small farmers, because the “benevolent revolutionary state” had given, and then taken away, some twenty caballerías (a Cuban land measure) were expropriated from the great landowners and their proprietors by inheritance.

The peasants of the Escambray — in the east — were forcibly removed from their lands and exiled to new urban communities in the distant province of Pinar del Rio in the far west. They formed the Centers for Agricultural and Livestock Teaching and Polytechnic Institutes. They organized large dairies, such as that of Jimaguayu, in the province of Camaguey, and “El Valle de Picadura” in Matanzas. But everything was slowly abandoned to inertia and official disinterest, until it was left in ruins.

In centers for bovine development, feed for the livestock came, by and large, from Soviet subsidies. Our darling cows were fed with grains like peas, sorghum, corn and some agricultural by products from sugar cane. Nevertheless, after the abundance and excessive squandering suddenly appeared diversion and robbery of resources.

Nearly twenty years after the end of Soviet subsidies, the lack of beef for the populace remains as dramatic as in the old times of “economic bonanza.” Only a few Cubans are able to perform balancing acts and taste it even once a year. Even in the large markets which sell in CUC, the lack of beef and its derivatives is notable. For the greater part of half a century, steak has been a prohibited dream for the humble person in Cuba.

From Cubanet

10 September 2013

The Communist Party in the New Cuba / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

“There is only one option: Fatherland, Revolution, and Socialism”

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 13 January 2015 — Following the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, Havana has become a cauldron of ideas about how we could have elections by secret and direct ballot – an exciting thing to contemplate. Many here see it happening right around the corner, maybe within a few years, three at the most. Others completely deny it. They speak – not in favor, but they do speak – of the Chinese method as the successor to Raul Castro socialism.

Would the Communist Party participate in such elections? This is one of the topics for debate. Some would prefer not to even hear of this. Others – myself included – believe that it would be impossible to exclude the Party: because we are democrats, because otherwise the elections would be invalid, and because, still, the Communist Party holds the reins of power.

However, upon the new government’s establishment, there would be a movement to seize and recover all of the Party’s properties. All. That means, guest houses continue reading

, workplaces, office furniture and equipment, yachts, recreational facilities, means of transportation, bank accounts, etc. The idea would be to start over, on a level playing field, with the other political parties in existence then. And if by means of the Constituent Assembly this recovery could take place prior to the elections, even better – more democratic.

The consensus appears to be unanimous to prevent the current leaders from occupying public positions in the new government. Well, now, would these personages, civilian or military, have the right to run for office? There is no agreement about this, but based on what I have been able to detect from conversations on the street, the public for the most part does not see a reason to oppose this.

There is even talk of a Senator Mariela Castro and a Mayor Eusebio Leal. I do not doubt that they would win. With the appropriate official support, of course, Ms. Mariela Castro Espín has done commendable work—work that in no way diminishes the historical responsibility of her relatives in creating the tragic UMAPs—and this work has gained her a place in the social struggles of her country.

For his part, Eusebio Leal – “St. Eusebio,” as some call him — has shown how much can be done, even without plenipotentiary powers, for a city. Understandably, one hears talk of forgetting the air-kisses which the Maximum Leader, during his speeches, would covertly or overtly blow to Leal. That was, they say, the price the saint had to pay – but thanks to him, they also say – Old Havana exists today. Therefore, generally speaking, the future “dream” electorate of Havana exists because of Eusebio. And because of Mariela.

Well, now, what of the non-recycled candidates, i.e. the new blood, the candidates of the democracy? There lies the great unknown of the moment, the question without an answer among those who already see themselves before the ballot boxes, flags flapping away in the city covered in leaflets and palm leaves. Because they have had no place in the public life of the country, the dissident leaders are not known by the public. The government has never mentioned them – not during their almost-daily detentions, nor upon their releases. Prematurely aged as they enter and leave the jails, and well-known abroad; but in their own country the dissidents are no more, at most, than names heard in passing.

But, fine – it is said – the candidates will appear, the important thing is that elections are around the corner. In the organizing process of the parties, the fighters of old and the new ones, the ones yet to appear, will be known. Upon uttering these words the future elector is seen to sigh and assume an expression of, “Finally! At last! We will have a President and Congress that emanate from the will of the people.”

It is a joy not without its worries. Will free education and hospital care disappear with a democratic government? Here starts the guessing once again. Will the house one lives in have to be returned to its former owner? What about the plot of land granted by the government? As the Russians did, will the current rulers retain the enterprises created by the socialist State?

All of this is fodder for discussions on the street corners, but the joy is so great at even talking about democracy that the conversation veers again towards elections and the media that will facilitate them: radio, TV, the printing of leaflets, etc.

Nevertheless, those who had already been planning to leave the country are still packing their suitcases. And, those who claim to know very well that what is really coming is the Chinese method, sorrowfully spit through their fangs. Raúl and his generals are uninterested in hearing talk about these things, they say. Elections?? And they point to the recent events concerning the artist, Tania Bruguera.

Ultimately, whether these killjoys are right or not, Hope has come knocking, and it is impossible not to let her in.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

The opponent Antonio Rodiles is not allowed to leave Cuba / Cubanet

Cubanet, 13 January 2015 – The director of the opposition group Estado de SATS, Antonio G. Rodiles, reported Tuesday that the regime has refused to allow him to leave the country, as stated in his account on the social network Twitter.

The opponent was arrested the day of Tania Bruguera’s performance, with his wife, Ailer Gonzalez, whose passport was also withdrawn. Bruguera, currently in Havana, has also been denied permission to leave the country.

Cubanet spoke with Rodiles by telephone. He told how he had gone to the office of the Ministry of the Interior where passports are processed to renew his passport (the Cuban passport is valid for six years, but must be “renewed” every two to maintain its “validity”) and the official attending him, after searching for his name on the computer, simply informed him that his passport could not be renewed and, consequently, he could not travel abroad “for reasons of public interest.”

Days earlier, during the arrests that Rodiles and his wife, the artist Ailer González, were subjected to during the performance that Bruguera attempted in the Plaza of the Revolution, one agent of the Ministry of Interior had told Gonzalez to hand over both passports, which she did not do.

It is significant is that, so far, Rodiles and Ailer González, who had no direct involvement in organizing Bruguera‘s performance, are the only opponents against whom the government has taken this step.

Hope for a prosperous 2015 for Cuba / Cubanet, Miriam Leiva

Cubanet, Miriam Leiva, Havana, 6 January 2015 – The psychological barrier utilized by the Cuban government to keep its citizens subjugated was broken on the 17th of December. The surprising announcement that Raúl Castro would deliver a speech on US/Cuba relations, on live television, set off a tense anticipation of bad news. For 56 years, the US was the enemy aggressor, supposedly the cause of all problems in Cuba, and an excuse for repression.

The General/President went from the traditional reminder of the confrontation to a smile upon announcing the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the US. Continuing the surprise was the immediate broadcast of statements by US President Barack Obama. The following day both announcements were published in the newspapers and the news has been highlighted in year-end reviews on television as the most important event of 2014. continue reading

Since then it has become the main topic of conversation. Most Cubans, according to their aspirations, knowledge and analytical ability, pin their hopes on the US. Among the more interesting opinions heard on the street, an average citizen – envisioning potential benefits to the people and the nation – could be heard remarking on how the boom in North American travelers would stimulate the economy.

His reasoning was that there is no extensive hotel and service infrastructure in the country. Therefore, as occurred during the 1990s, more rooms to rent in private homes will be needed, as will more private restaurants and cafeterias. Similarly, a greater supply of agricultural and artisanal products will be required. There will be an increased demand for service employees and for individuals skilled in the construction and repair trades.

In brief, the reestablishment of US/Cuba relations could be of great benefit for the impoverished population, the community, and Cuba as a whole. Tourism in 2014 reached 3 million visitors, according to Cuban media. Certainly the government continues the policy of tourism apartheid in Varadero and the Cuban Keys.

In any case, Cienfuegos and other prime tourism spots lack the infrastructure to absorb imminent, substantial increases in visitor traffic. The cruise ship companies tend to be concentrated primarily in Havana, for which the Avenida del Puerto is being upgraded, but it’s unlikely to see a big boom, given current conditions, and it won’t affect earnings from other forms of tourism. The affluence of North Americans, with their varied interests and greater buying power, will substantially increase demand.

Within this context, new possibilities of supplies and greater economic assistance from relatives, friends, and non-governmental organizations based in the US would create the financial conditions needed for private tourism-related enterprises to flourish, as had happened on a tiny scale over the last twenty years, but now with a much greater expansion. Farmers could receive equipment and advise, they would be more productive, improve their quality and their earnings. After paying back an initial investment, they would no longer depend on external help. The self-employed would need to need to increase their methods and output, and they would be more independent.

The current support of the family economy would nurture the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in turn complementing the nation’s macroeconomy, as is the case the world over including in countries that are close to the Cuban government, such as Bolivia and Ecuador. One could also foresee the expansion of mini-enterprises, which in many places have provided opportunity to very poor people, primarily women who carry the full weight of their family, and allow them to access credit from outside the country to start their own businesses.

The Cuban government will need to expand its limits on substantial foreign investments for its own controlled projects, above all in tourism, and listen to the analysts and the multi-faceted cries from the people. The restrictions created to ensure that “nobody will become rich,” continue to drag down the quality of life for Cubans. Beyond that, it deepens poverty, corruption, and loss of values, evils engendered by the regime.

The opportunities that President Obama has opened could increase the Cuban people’s well-being and knowledge and contribute to their empowerment, as have measures adopted by the Island’s government since 2009. The Cuban government has the opportunity not to block their implementation for the benefit of the nation. All Cubans should be involved in the great challenges and opportunities that open before us.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

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Whatever the Cuban government does, that amorphous thing with no head or eyes, that they call “the masses,” is in its final days. And with it are also ending the repudiation rallies, detentions, physical attacks on the Ladies in White, and other forms of repression.

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