Category: Eduardo Herrera

It has been two years since Laura Pollan abandoned her physical presence and became eternal.  Now she is in the Sta. Rita Parish, the Quinta Avenida walk, and in many Havana streets where they saw her walking invincible clutching her peaceful gladiola.  She is also in her family, who lived and saw grow her example of a small woman who demanded liberty for political prisoners and rights for Cubans in general and who confronted the paramilitary mobs however huge.

She is in the world, which followed her brave citizen journey and distinguishes and remembers her with the respect and dignity that she deserves, and she is also in all of us who pay tribute out loud through the media or in the anonymous silence of our thoughts.

From her clear eyes she gave us the clarity of a journey that is shortened more each day in order to truly institute respect for fundamental rights of all society and to democratize our country.

She contributed her integrity and efforts to shorten that distance and to make the government’s decadent hardliners release — even with the legal structure of their election — the Cuban political prisoners that had been sentenced to disproportionate penalties for peacefully dissenting from the Castro dictatorship.

This October 14 we faced again an act of repression, intransigence and abuse on the part of the Cuban government against the Ladies in White.  The violent eruption of pro-government gangs at #963 Neptune Street, the headquarters of the organization that was Laura’s home, when they were about to carry out a tribute for the second anniversary of her death, is a proof of how much some government leaders exert themselves to feed the infantile fairy tale of “citizen justice” that “spontaneously” defends the inefficient government that ruined Cuba and that “sacrifices itself” in command for more than 50 years.

That well-crafted, although unworthy strategy of turning society against itself is a tall tale designed to intimidate people and keep them paralyzed so that they can continue to easily exercise power and control.

Between the years 2010 and 2012 we lost several comrades in arms.  They were three consecutive years that made the world pay more attention our country and be concerned about those deaths so opportune for the Cuban regime.

Laura left us in 2011 and the future of Cuba is still being decided between ineluctable changes that will necessarily come, the minimum proposals to day from  Raul Castro, which do not solve Cuba’s big problems and the potential ones which the government undertakes in trying to carry out in order to keep or recycle the fiefdom that they inherited from their relatives and staunch supporters from the highest military ranks.

The year 2013 is almost over and he offers Cuba true and false signals that the authorities detail in order to confuse the international community, but mainly in order to prevent the country’s senior management from changing hands.

Laura, like many, knew this, so from the field of flowers where her daughter stands alert, combative and victorious, and her example is multiplied and many other gardens of gladioli continue to march to achieve a real democratic state of law in Cuba, and to prevent another group of dishonest men from kidnapping the country’s government.

24 October 2013

It is not my invention, it was on Cuban TV where they announce the creation of national social network called “The Clothesline,” for domestic users. Do you think they’re finally respecting our rights to have Internet? Hopefully! But in any event it wouldn’t be a “half respect” nor even a half measure of respect, but the total lack of it, for them to limit or prohibit our access to sites like Twitter and Facebook to constrain our social, virtual and mental frontiers.

To force us to interact entirely within the country is a violation of a fundamental human right and also, ironically, almost like inviting us to a prison to take part in a conference about the freedom that will be offered to someone condemned to 55 years in jail.

A friend — the very best of friends — and reader called me on the phone to tell me about Cuban social mesh. She noted the coincidence with a writing of mine that she couldn’t remember the title of, but she did remember the metaphor.  I remembered it too, but I had no idea of the approximate date nor the context in which I used it.  Later I hunted for more information and was able to recall it.  I put the noun “clothesline” in the XML code I keep the blog in and it appeared in the post SOS: The Weapon of the Word, which I published on 16 August 2011.

In the third paragraph of the text I stated: “But here we are and will be as long as God allows it.  I will continue using the clothesline — in the original text it’s not in bold — of WordPress to hang my opinions without letting myself be intimidated by those who come along with their shears, cutting freedoms to feed despotism.”

Coincidence or inspiration?  Don’t know if an official “liked it” and borrowed the term, like Aida says.  If that is what happened, I think it’s a real shame that they don’t have the same ’ears’ when it comes to paying attention to the multiple political and economic proposals that we, the opposition, have been working on throughout the years; proposals whose implementation would help untie the knots of many of the problems which, as a country and as a nation, we suffer.

However, I invite them to continue visiting the websites of the political organizations — illegal according to the dictatorships — and the blogosphere of the emerging alternative civil society, and which there are many talented people who have spent decades offering antidotes and paths in an endless stream, preventive and therapeutic solutions and ideas.

Let’s drink from our own source in a respectful, participative and diverse dialog, including the range of cultural identities.  No matter what the discriminating historic leaders say, we still have more, “much more to give!

27 October 2013

Dear cyber-accomplices and visitors in general:

My writings reappear now that circumstances allow me to return to publishing. It has been more than fifteen days — I don’t know if it was a technical problem or one of censorship — that I haven’t been able to administer the blog. Now, thanks to a friend, we resolved the problem and I’m going to continue my democratic psychotherapy, draining my freedom of conscience through the blog.

My apologies for the outdated texts; it’s as I said once before, I want to express my opinion or position vis-a-vis certain topics.

My respects to everyone always,

Rosamaría

24 October 2013

As part of the Multilateral ’Cuba 360’ Program I taught the course “The technologies of information and communication for the socialization of ideas. Cyber-activism and citizen journalism in Cuba,” which began on August 12, had enrollment of eight tenacious and restless young people, eager for training, and concluded on Friday, September 6. The course abducted me for more than a month in the interest of the quality of the methodological preparation, the domestic chores and the vicissitudes of summer in search “of the potato of the day” with lines everywhere and the systemic scarcities.

Of these eight students, seven graduated “with diplomas” of knowledge, which are the most valuable titles, but without the paper. They remain for the next cycle of education, several points that originated in the practice and others that impelled by circumstances, in short… we will continue working for ever greater quality classes and that such relationships provide more in the way of the training of democratic-minded people who know their rights.

We also hope that in the next course we will have a computer to teach the lessons of some branches of technological knowledge and that in the future we will be able to graph all the efforts and perseverance of a month in a historic “family” photo and publish it without fear for its participants. We thank everyone who contributed their modest logistical support, but rich in disposition and goodwill, so we could undertake this effort to convey our experiences. We will continue to open the doors to literacy and democratic praxis to all those Cubans who want to travel with us in new workshops. We have now started one more machine of freedom: we took the first step!

16 September 2013

A few days ago the Cuban actress Diana Rosa Suárez appeared on a national television program. Chatting with the moderator and responding to his questions, she reported that — at last! – after ten years, they had finished restoring the Delirium cabaret, where she used to work before it closed. She noted that once again she could be seen there and invited viewers to pay a visit to the piano bar on the top floor of the National Theater of Cuba, located in the Plaza neighborhood.

Cynical humor aside, her comments masked a a feeling of relief and the inevitable comparison Cubans living in the capital will make to the Focsa Building. Located in Vedado and built in 1956, it is considered one of the marvels of Cuban civil engineering. At 29 floors, with a height of 121 meters and housing 373 apartments with views of the sea and the Malecon, it took only two years and four months to build. Talk about contrasts!

12 September 2013

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Note: This post is from before the new Internet centers opened.

The Cuban authorities are ready to one more investment for the society that will bring them good dividends: opening navigation centers so what we Cubans can access the Internet away from our homes and with the computers of others. This is further evidence that we should bear up after years of our right to receive and send information and opinions being violated, and wait for government leaders to prove we can sail in cyberspace without their having a heart attack.

To this we have to add the situation with transportation to get to these internet places, there re 118 in the whole country, which is the equivalent is one cup of coffee per municipality.

Among the prices of the navigation services that the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) has offered foreigners residing in the country for years — not given to any citizen of another country who is a simple tourist — the cheapest is called the “Night Plan” which establishes a quota of 11 hours daily between 8:00 pm and 7:00 am the following day, costs 70 hard currency pesos (CUC), for thirty days.

That is, 330 hours a month for 70 CUCs. But with the new service that takes effect on June 4, 11 hours of internet in these centers would cost 1,485 CUC per month. If the workday for these cyber centers is 12 hours a day — as in the hotels — they would earn 1,620 CUCs. These results are just for a computer to navigate the Internet. What rogues!

According to a journalistic work appearing on the front page of the daily Granma, a functionary from ETECSA affirmed that there would be a total, nationwide, of 334 machines in those establishments that would provide a chance to surf the web a few days from now. This figure, multiplied by 1,620 hours, is 541,080, which is more than half a million convertible pesos every months. The deal of the century!

I want to clarify that I am in favor of public internet services. What burns me is discriminating against individual users who could afford — and they have the right to it — a connection from the comfort of their home. My well-founded fear is that some leaders are accustomed to fattening their wallets and will continue enjoying this right, either via computers or cellphones.

It’s worth noting the deteriorating logic of computers for the systematic exploitation of what usually in Cuba is the facile evasion of the authorities when they want to avoid the people’s doubts and find a quick out of their questions: “every computer costs the Cuban state I don’t know how many dollars on the international market,” etc etc. They will omit, of course, they every 120 hours of use (five days) of each machine will more than recover the cost of the machine.

In an interview the deputy minister of communications, the engineer Wilfredo Gonzalez Vidal, who libelously said in the official newspaper Granma, between flattering the Cuban State and ambiguous answers, which shows his limits on making decisions in this field, among many issues, said:

“We are aware that the initial fee for this service, in particular, is high and that, to the extent that ETECSA could recover its investments, mainly in connectivity infrastructure, computer platforms and the cost of international connections, we will gradually increase the access points and will study the behavior of the service to lower the rates, similar to what has been done with cell phone service.”

If ETECSA has to recover the investments it’s made, wouldn’t it be better to bring this benefit to users in their homes? The economic gain would be greater and the investments minimal. Why not start there?

It calls to mind the time when, publicly, the previous Cuban president said that not everyone could read the cables, that “had to be prepared” — always discriminating against and disrespectful of the rights of others — because the enemy spreads its poison through the media, blah blah blah…

So they crush us Cubans of the archipelago and violate our freedoms over and over again. We never stop exercising our right and civic duty to denounce such arbitrariness and to fight this State monopoly over the communication media. This official trust or consortium, two-faced and double standards, show their generosity in offering as a perk to their spokespeople a service that is everyone’s right.

But we shouldn’t be surprised at such attitudes and practices from a government that shows a humanist face to the world and after more than 54 years still oppresses its countrymen, and ignores often and with impunity, the principles that should govern the legal system in Cuba.

Nevertheless, we are pleased that technological development has forced — finally! — their taking the first step. We hope that the paralyzing mentalities of forever don’t obstruct the development and the freedoms that new technologies offer to the people.

30 May 2013

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (1952-2012). Image taken from a Christian Liberation Movement magazine.

Text of quote: “Let them call free and democratic elections on a the basis of a new electoral law and an environment that allows all Cubans to have the right to be nominated and elected democratically, to exercise freedom of expression and of the press, and to freely organize political parties and social organizations with total plurality. Yes or no?”

Oswaldo Payá came into this world and left it in leap years. He was a righteous man, devout Catholic and exemplary parent. As he was also with his country and with his time and his proposal to compel change to the iron structures of the Cuban dictatorship; but in exchange he received bullying, harassment and constant threats — open and veiled — against his person and his family.

He worked for the nation and the full exercise of the rights of Cubans. He thought up and developed multiple proposals for the democratization of Cuba, which the government authorities systematically ignored for more than two decades. Is is that men who carry freedom in their souls and think and feel in a clearly democratic way, something that naturally repels tyrants.

In this year since his death in circumstances disputed by his family, small changes have occurred in the way of achieving the oligarchic objectives  and perpetuating the government. Many have stepped aside to advance and to gain ever more space for externalizing the designs of the dictatorship, and among them are the annihilation of opposition political organizations inside Cuba. The ubiquitous presence — the unseen, which is equally or maybe more effective — of Cuban intelligence, the same here as in the world, conspires to prevent democrats from achieving our goals.

Today, when many opponents and dissidents seem confused in finding the way and means to achieve the desired democratization of Cuba, the dictatorship is consolidating and positioning its family, friends, and trusted staff.

They find it easier due to the absence of a path and a common and unifying leadership animated not by the violence of the raised machete, but by the sincerity, uprightness and intelligence of a proposal for a liberating transition and real changes.

A year after the death of Payá, they continue to lack the support of the world community to strengthen our society in the search for authentic paths not vitiated by police influence. That leaves us to imagine viable proposals that are agreed and achieve international support to promote them.

23 July 2013