Antonio Rodiles Petitions For Habeas Corpus for Arbitrary Detentions

Today the director of the civic organization State of Sats, Antonio Rodiles, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the Provincial People’s Tribunal of Havana on behalf of two pro-democracy activists who were detained and who remain incommunicado.

The first petition was filed on behalf of José Díaz Silva, who was arrested near his home last Thursday, October 10, when he was arbitrarily detained by an agent from State Security identified only as Gastón. Díaz Silva was transferred to the detention center known as “El Vivac.” So far, no preliminary injunction has been brought against him and he has been denied visits from family members.

The other petition was filed on behalf of Díaz Silva’s wife, Lourdes Esquivel Veiyto, who was detained at 11 AM on Friday after appearing at the Santiago de las Vegas police station to seek information on the whereabouts of her husband. Esquivel Veiyto is a member of the Ladies in White.

Rodiles believes Díaz Silva was detained because the activist had been leading a workshop on the UN’s International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights.

“This is a reaction to the Citizen Demand for Another Cuba, which calls upon the government to ratify the conventions signed in New York on February 28, 2008 at the United Nations,” explains Rodiles in his petition for Díaz Silva’s release.

The couple lives in Santiago de las Vegas in the Boyeros district on the outskirts of the capital. Due to repeated punitive detentions of Díaz Silva and his family, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (CIDH) has issued a precautionary injunction to protect their rights, lives and physical well-being.

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 From Cubanet, 14 October 2013

Cubans Are Losing Their Fear / Antonio Rodiles, Estado de Sats

Antonio Rodiles
Antonio Rodiles

By Carmen Muñoz for ABC.es

To Antonio G. Rodiles (born Havana, 1972) it seemed “unthinkable” that a Cuban musician would dare to ask for free elections during an official concert, until the jazz musician Roberto Carcassés did it last week in the capital. “It’s a sign of the new times,” said this physicist, director of the Estado de SATS (State of SATS) think tank, and coordinator of the citizen campaign For Another Cuba. The arrest of the human rights activist over 19 days last November, accompanied by a brutal beating, had wide repercussions.

After participating in Prague in a forum about transitions, this Friday he will meet in Madrid with the Secretary of State for Latin America, Jesus Gracia, and speak at the Real Instituto Elcano. His biggest challenge now is the international meeting on human rights that he is preparing for this December 10 in Havana. “If now they let us (the dissidents) travel. Why don’t they let Cubans and interested foreigners enter the country to participate in a civil society activity. We challenge the system to demonstrate whether it is really changing or not.” This Saturday he returns to the island.

– Do you think Roberto Carcasses incident has ended with the sanction imposed by the regime?*

AR: Robertico Carcassés will just have to deal with it, the regime is waiting for the storm to pass to go after him. He has put on numerous concerts, inside and outside the island, and has never put on any demonstrations like this, even though people know that neither he nor his father (the showman Bobby Carcassés) are unconditional supporters of the regime, like Silvio Rodriguez. His daring is a sign that times are changing in Cuba, people want substantial changes, of greater significance, the current ones are just superficial. Cubans are losing their fear, they are daring more, 54 years of a totalitarian regime is too much time. They now understand that for there to be changes the system must change. What Carcassés did was unthinkable, he didn’t do it as an act of suicide.

– Did the singer Silvio Rodriguez challenge the dictatorship by inviting Carcassés to his concerts?

AR: Silvio tried to throw water on the fire, to find the smartest solution for the system. The censorship of Carcassés censorship would have implied that the news of the act of free speech had acquired major notoriety, counterproductive for the regime.

– What message about the Cuban reforms did you send to Spain?

AR: They are totally inadequate, especially when the country is undergoing such an crisis. For Cuba not to collapse we need to undertake structural changes that would imply accepting all the political, economic, social and cultural rights contained in the UN covenants to enter into a real transition process.

– What do you think the appeal this week from the Cuban Catholic Church for political changes to accompany the economic?

AR: Recently the Church has taken an unwise position. However, it seems very important to me as a political actor and it would be highly recommended to begin to focus on and respect the fundamental rights in Cuba. If that happens, it could play a vital role in the short and medium term.

– Do the new times also affect the dissidence?

AR: There is a rethinking of many points of strategy, of projection, that may have had something to do with the ability to make contact with the outside world through immigration reform. Opponents can travel and make contact with politicians from other countries, Cubans abroad … which leads to a new scenario.

– And to repression?

AR: They have changed their tactics but continue doing it. Now it’s surgical, focused on the projects and actors that the Government considers dangerous to its totalitarian hegemony of power. There are still beatings, large operations to block the opposition from attending events, and short duration arrests. Lately they don’t even take those the arrest to police stations, they abandon them in inhospitable places.

State of SATS and For Another Cuba

During the summer of 2010, Antonio G. Rodiles launched this “think tank mixed with art” in order to “create a public space for discussions” in Cuba among intellectuals, artists and human rights activists . A group of eight people, among them the writer and political prisoner Angel Santiesteban, coordinate exhibitions, documentaries, debates or videos that seek to impact the civil society.

From these discussions, emerged the idea of promoting the For Another Cuba campaign, with the objective of urging the Castro regime to ratify and implement two United Nations covenants on civil and political rights, and on economic, social and cultural United Nations. The creator and director of Estado de SATS adds that “its implementation is a kind of road map to begin the transition from the recognition of fundamental rights.”

Translator’s note:
*After this interview the regime withdrew the sanction — that he would not be allowed to perform in public — against Robertico Carcassés.

Source: ABC.ES. Interview originally published on 9 September 2013

A Call for a Meeting on Human Rights and UN Covenants, 10 December 2013 / Estado de Sats

1ero-224x300Estado de Sats
At the confluence of Art and Thought
A Call for a Meeting on Human Rights and UN Covenants

The independent Estado de SATS project invites artists, intellectuals, activists and defenders of human rights to participate in the First International Meeting on Human Rights and the UN Covenants as part of the Campaign for Another Cuba and the 65th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Estado de SATS has worked, for the past three years, in the creation and growth of a public space where different perspectives on the reality and future of our nation can be discussed.

Since August 2012, along with diverse groups and activists committed to the social situation of our nation, we began the Campaign for Another Cuba. This initiative has involved a growing number of Cubans within and outside the island in a civic demand that the Cuban government ratify and implement the United Nations Covenants on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights.

At a time when Cuban civil society is growing, it is essential that there be direct exchanges among different actors within and outside the island. Holding this meeting will allow an approach through art and thought to the vital subject of human rights. Activists, artists, intellectuals and professionals — Cubans and the international community — will spend two days sharing views and experiences, in a country where such guarantees and rights are not a part of everyday reality.

The inaugural meeting will be held on 10 December 2013. The event will include subject panels, audiovisual displays, an exhibition with the theme Art and Human Rights (painting, graphics, photography, installations), performances, and a closing concert.

For more information those interested can email estadodesats@gmail.com or telephone (535) 371-6460 in Havana.

Estado de SATS Team

– See more HERE

We aren’t the kind of people they are trying to make us out to be / Ernesto Santana Zaldivar, Antonio Rodiles

Antonio Rodiles. Photo: Ernesto Santana Zaldívar

HAVANA, Cuba, August, www.cubanet.org- The organizers of Estado de SATS have worked very hard and the result is that, three years after its inception, in July 2010 in Casa Gaia, this civic project is a fundamental component in the network of organizations that, from civil society and with great variety in points of view, fight to promote changes to democratize our country. Because of this it has also been repressed by the political police and accused of everything the authorities usually accuse those who propose a solution to the crisis. Estado de SATS takes as a fundamental cause that there is no dispute between Cuba and the United States, but rather the dictatorial practices of the Cuban government against its own people.

Hence in the last year, they have focused most of their efforts to disseminate and gather support for the Citizens’ Demand for Another Cuba which, as we know, demands that the Cuban government ratify the UN Covenants on Human Rights. In that work, the project has engaged with many important civil society groups for the sake of a purpose that supersedes political interests, and focuses on citizens and their basic needs.

In recent days, we were able to talk with Antonio Rodiles about the prospects of the project, three years since its inception. The director of Estado de SATS said “Our main goal now is to achieve much more drawing power. Hopefully State Security will stop bothering us,” he said, although he recognized that “at this time there really is something less than harassment of the work we are doing.”

The idea, according Rodiles, is to try to reach many more sectors and to be a place that helps articulate civil society, and above all,”to be able to expand and work on all the plans we have: holding exhibitions, film screenings, panels, debates, literary cafes. All we can do to articulate civil society and grow like any normal country.”

Although it seems like a very easy program to carry out, the reality suggests otherwise. The proof is in the recent past and if recently the political police haven’t harassed as many activities, it has been in part because they have not been as intense as around a year ago, when the Citizen Demand was launched. “Evidently,” observes Rodiles, “we know that everything is not as we would like, but well, I  think it’s important to accept the challenge and work focused on everything we have proposed, despite the obstacles.”

Some people have commented that, lately, they have been showing college students videos about civil society activists, including Estado de SATS, where it’s presented through the usual procedures, with a negative image. On this subject Antonio Rodiles says, “The same as always. That’s part of what the system can’t quit doing.”

But, he says, he would like to know exactly what they’re putting out there so he’ll be able to make statements about it. “Unfortunately,” he says , “there is a group of people who have always been characterized by trying to devalue and personally offend any opponent, anyone who thinks differently from the official line.”

In events such as this he sees a disturbing characteristic. “I think this shows the low level of those who have organized it ,” he says, “because they are not able to enter into any discussion of ideas or plans . It is a manipulation, but in any event, thank God, the new technologies allow us to show who we are,” he says, convincingly.

Well, ironically and contrary to the intentions of those who orchestrate this slanderous propaganda, the results could be otherwise. “In a way, this type of action helps disseminate our work. When people look for our CDs, our work, and they see them, then they realize perfectly well that we are not the kind of people they are trying to make us out to be,” he concludes.

He’s probably right. In addition, the days are long gone when some opponents thought Estado de Sats was a project of the “opposition light” and it has gained respect and collaboration, including that of almost all of the most important  political opponents, as well as countless artists and intellectuals.

As the director of this project, what lies ahead is a major challenge. Perhaps the hardest path, with all the cultural activities and the panels put on, but especially with the commitment to strengthen the Citizen Demand for Another Cuba and the continuation of this work, in cooperation with other civil organizations, he tries to contribute, gradually, to the extent possible but always with sights set still higher, for a positive change in the country.

A few months ago, Antonio Rodlies and Ailer González — his domestic partner and main collaborator — were in Miami and there at Cuba 8 and at Miami Dade College, they organized panels and concerts of Estado de SATS, besides promoting the Citizen Demand, which has managed to strengthen the support of Cubans from the outside, but inside Cuba there has not been remarkable progress of the campaign in recent months.

According to Rodiles itself, the term “Estado de SATS” (State of Sats) is a phrase used in the theater to represent the moment when all the energy is concentrated to begin the action, or when an athlete is at the precise moment before the starting gun. It is the concentration required to later explode. Hopefully, after three years of hard and complex work, this project is mature and ready to take off, against all obstacles, as the crucible where the forces of the emerging civil society are articulated.

Call for Estado de SATS : First International Meeting on Human Rights and UN Covenants

The independent Estado de SATS project invites artists, intellectuals, activists and human rights defenders to participate in the First International Meeting on Human Rights and the UN Covenants as part of the Campaign for Another Cuba and the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Estado de SATS has worked for the past three years in the creation and growth of a public space where different perspectives on reality and the future of our nation can be openly discussed and planned.

Since August of 2012, together with various groups and activists committed to the social situation of our nation, we started the Campaign for another Cuba. This initiative has been involving a growing number of Cubans on and off the island in a civic demand that the Cuban government ratify and implement the United Nation Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant  Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In a time when Cuban civil society is growing the direct exchange with different actors within and outside the island is essential. Holding of this meeting will allow an approach from the perspective of art and thought to a subject as vital as human rights. Activists, artists, intellectuals and professionals, Cubans and the international community, will spend two days sharing views and experiences, in a country where such guarantees and rights are not part of the everyday reality.

The inaugural meeting will be on December 10, 2013 and during the event there will be thematic panels, audiovisual displays, an exhibition with the theme: Art and Human Rights (painting , graphics , photography, installations), performances and a closing concert .

For more information the interested can communicate to this email address: estadodesats@gmail.com.

About the author

Ernesto Santana Zaldívar, born in Puerto Padre, Las Tunas, 1958. Graduate of the Enrique José Varona Pedagogical Institute in Spanish and Literature. He has been a radio writer for Radio Progreso, Radio Metropolitana and Radio Arte. He is a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Awards won: Mentions in the genre of story in the David contest of 1977 and Trece de Marzo, 1979; prizes in Pinos Nuevos, 1995, Sed de Belleza, 1996 (both in the genre of story) Dador, 1998, (novel project) and Alejo Carpentier, 2002 (novel), the Franz Kafka Prize, 2010, for his novel The Carnival and the Dead.

From Cubanet

23 August 2013

First International Conference on Human Rights and the UN Covenants / Estado de SATS

The independent project Estado de SATS invites artists, intellectuals, activists and defenders of human rights to participate in the First International Conference on Human Rights and the UN Covenants, as part of the Campaign for Another Cuba and the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

sueño
United for the Same Dream

Date: December 10-11, 2013

Place: Havana, Cuba

– Subject panels

– Audiovisual Screening

– Exposition on Art and Human Rights (photography, painting, graphics, installation).

– Experimental and Playback Theater

– Concert

For more information:

estadodesats@gmail.com

www.estadodesats.com

Note from Estado de SATS

Phone screen: On the way with a friend I got a message that said SATS is suspended today, is that true? / It’s false, State Security sent it; yes there will be Estado de SATS / Thanks, we’re coming there without fail and will be in SATS.

On the afternoon of August 16, State Security deployed an inordinate operation at intersections and around the site of Estado de SATS to stop the public from coming to the screening of the documentary Ai Weiwei Never Sorry, at our usual audiovisual space, Cinema at All Costs.

Earlier, with the complicity of the telephone companies ETECSA And CUBACEL, they blocked the cellphone service of all members of the Estado de SATS working team, and sent false messages announcing the suspension of the event using Antonio G. Rodiles’ cellphone, in a serious act of identity theft, punishable internationally as the crime of fraud.

Despite this, 33 people came, as many others were detained on the way and coerced to return home, some beaten and handcuffed were “freed” later on the highway heading to Pinar del Rio.

Days ago, on August 5, they had mounted a first operation and threatened and intimidated young people leaving Estado de SATS after the first day of a Playback Theater workshop.

The next day, two of these students could not attend as they were arrested, forced to ride in a police car, and abandoned in a distant city.

In recent days there have been similar brutal acts of abuse against activists and Ladies in White in the province of Matanzas. The constant violation of individual rights is routine in Cuba, and the regime aims using violence to silence any dissenting voice.

Over the past year the operations and arrests around Estado de SATS were  increasingly violent, reaching its climax with the beating and detention for 19 days of Antonio G. Rodiles last November.

Now, they are starting again.

We are continuing to exercise our liberties. We will sustain our civic work anchored in respect for the human rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Covenants, whose ratification and implementation we are demanding through the Campaign For Another Cuba.

Our commitment in the face of mediocrity and totalitarianism will continue to be creativity and talent.

Our responsibility, a better country

Estado de SATS team

17 August 2013

Estado de SATS Celebrates Three Years / David Canela

1.-Público-2-300x225HAVANA, Cuba, July 29, 2013, David Canela / www.cubanet.org.-The civic project Estado de SATS this Saturday celebrated its three years of existence with a children’s party. About 10:30 in the morning Rodiles’ house was full. At the party two clowns performed, exciting the children with games, dances, songs and puppets. Children’s music videos were also projected.

Estado de SATS was born as an event of dialog between the actors of civil society, who attended in many voices and independent groups (artistic, religious, legal, community) to talk about the the future of Cuba. It was held in Gaia House in Old Havana, between 23rd and 25th on 25 July 2010. As the meeting led to open debate, outside an established script, the project was censored, and no other State institution was permitted (or risked) to host it again.

For this reason, Antonio González-Rodiles, one of the principal coordinators, decided to resume it in his own house, in the municipality of Playa. The original idea of the project, of being a marketplace of social diversity, and a public space for alternative ideas–beyond the narrow limits of official discourse ideological–crystallized again on March 5, 2011, when Raudel Collazo and Adrián Monzón were invited to speak about their artistic projects. Since then (and with the exception of Festival Click), the sessions are no longer structured as a “mini-conference” but as a meeting for a specific topic.

Since then, in March 2011, it adopted the slogan Where art and thought converge. In its three years of work, they have held panels, interviews, screened documentaries and films–which had not been shown before in Cuba–poetry recitals and one of short stories (with the writer Ángel Santiesteban), parties, presentations and music concerts, independent project fairs, exhibitions of photographs, art, cartoons and publicity spots.

Over time they have created some spaces or specialized programs, such as Analysis Forum (FORA), for political, social and legal debate, Cinema at All Costs, for the display of audiovisuals, and recently CafeSatso, devoted to literature.

Other independent projects have collaborated with Estado de SATS: Omni-Zona Franca, the Endless Poetry Festival, Voces Cubanas, the Cuban Law Association, Cubalex, EBE (of Spain), Talento Cubano, among others. Many people in the diaspora and Cubans in exile, through speeches and videotaped interviews, media outreach, or the donation of works (for example, the exposition of CoCodriloSmile graphic humor). In addition, Radio and TV Marti and Cubanet have helped to broadcast some of their programs.

From March 2011 to June of the current year, there have been around 66 meetings (one of them when Antonio Rodiles was imprisoned in November of last year). Of these programs, 30 were held with the public and 35 with no audience. One had to be suspended due to police repression; those who could were able to get there recorded his testimony.

Estado de SATS is also the civil society project that promotes the Citizen Demand For Another Cuba, which calls on the Cuban government to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

CARTEL-SATS

Monday, 29 July 2013, from CubaNet

29 July 2013

Notes for the Transition / Antonio Rodiles, Alexis Jardines

ajindex
Alexis Jardines

HAVANA, Cuba, July 29, 2013: The political landscape of the island has been energized recently. In the international arena the event with the greatest impact is undoubtedly the death of Hugo Chavez and his succession embodied in Nicolas Maduro, a man with few political tools who, despite many odds, has managed, for now, to maintain a certain equilibrium. However, given the difficult economic situation being experienced by Cuba and the uncertain scenario facing the Chavistas in Venezuela, Cuban totalitarianism is forced to avoid placing all its bets on Venezuela.

arindex
Antonio Rodiles

For the elite in power, time, as a part of the political equation, becomes the most important variable. The relaunch of their position in the international arena has become one part of their priorities, and it shows that a new moment in relations with Europe and the United States is vital in the search for new economic and political partners who will provide them stability and legitimacy.

In the interior of the island, the transformations in the economic sector are not generating a new impression given the years of accumulated statism, decapitalization and the precarious situation in multiple sectors. A genuine process of reforms would involve much deeper actions that would stir up a reality already admitted to be a social disaster, as acknowledged even by Raul Castro in his latest speech. But the fear of losing control has become an obsession and the principal obstacle.

The ability of some regime opponents to travel represents, in this sense, the boldest step taken by the elite in power, a clear commitment to improve its image abroad and to rid itself of the stigma of lack of freedom of movement. It is highly likely that this move was taken under the assumption that some bitter pills would be no more than that, that reality would remain stuck in its usual straitjacket, because we opponents would not penetrate the media and, on our return to Cuba, State Security’s absolute control and lack of social expression would keep everything in its place.

Given this scenario, we have to ask ourselves certain questions: Is Cuban society in a position to push for greater freedom and independence? Can the opposition capitalize politically on these trips? And by capitalize we mean our capacity to articulate and project ourselves inside and outside the island as pro-democratic forces with civic or political weight in both venues; a projection that also allows us to end the nefarious cat and mouse game with which State Security, as the arm of the system, has kept us inefficiently occupied. It then becomes imperative to mature as an opposition and as civil society, to be able to widen the cracks in an exhausted system that holds onto control and exercises State violence as elements of social containment.

The experience of multiple transitions shows the importance of understanding the moment of change as a step in the process of national reconstruction and to see it not as a discontinuous turning point. In an extreme scenario like the one facing us, a successful transition will necessarily involve the active participation of skilled human capital with a strong social commitment and a clear vision of the nation that it wants to build.

Without a social fabric that represents least a micro-cosmos, of the mid- and macro-cosmos we visualize, it will be very difficult to build a functioning democracy. Unsuccessful examples are plentiful and it is irresponsible to omit them. The famous Arab Spring-become-Winter is the most recent case, and shows that the establishment of a political system requires a process of maturation and articulation of civil society. To imagine the change and reconstruction of a broken, fragmented country, not only in the physical sense but also in its social and individual dynamics, is an essential exercise if we aspire to construct a democracy that contains the ingredients of every modern nation

As the opposition we must break with paradigms that imply regression and a copying of what has been experienced, in which glorious symbols, epics and personalities play a significant role. An imagined future that places too many hopes on an expansive “spark,” and that often postpones effective work with visions of the medium and long term.

It would also be healthy to readjust the idea that has dominated our minds for more than half of a post-republican century: the desired unity of the opposition as the only path to effective pressure to promote change. We believe that the main role of the transition should fall on civil society, while the opposition, as a political actor, must push with discourse and coherent action so that civil society has the necessary reach and penetration.

Hegel was right in saying that “everything that was once revolutionary becomes conservative.” The words lose their original sense and are redefined to change the context that nurtured and sustained them, so much so that the logic itself of revolutions backfires.

The truly revolutionary act is an abrupt gesture, a moment of rupture that disrupts the established order.  All revolutions, including scientific, are designed to transform, to subvert, the bases of the model or previous paradigm and, in this way, to bring it down.

Thus, what is new in our time is to understand the possible abruptness as a moment in a process, which must be permeated with the ingredients that shape modern societies: knowledge, information, thought, art, technology. The revolution is a time of evolution, but not the inverse.

In the second decade of the present century we can not think of any social processes without taking into account the transnational nature of them. In our case it would be impossible to analyze a transition to democracy and a process of reconstruction without involving the diaspora and exile with its political actors. While they are not anchored in the everyday life of the island they are living elements of the nation and as such gravitate to her. About this, the ordinary Cuban is not wrong. In the Cuban imagination part of the solution to our problems is in Miami (as the diaspora is generically defined). The modern vision of contemporary societies must come from and consist largely through constant reinforcement between the island and its diaspora. The opposition and exile should be precisely the hinge that makes such articulation possible.

And this, in our view, is the other element that would end up framing the Cuban scenario: how, looking forward, the opposition overlaps with a transnational civil society so that the binary logic of the internal and external, of the figures of the “Cuban insider” and “Cuban outsider,” come to an end. For this to happen it is not enough to recognize, on the level of discourse (as the regime does as well), that there are no differences between us, that we are equal, etc. It is something more: we are one and indivisible and this single Cuban has to have the right to exercise the vote and to influence the political present and future of his country, regardless of where on the planet he finds himself or lives; this is, for the opposition and the exile itself, not only a political problem, but a conceptual one.

As political actors we must show that we are an option for governance, presenting the human capital at our disposal, the capacity we possess to generate a political and legal framework capable of filling the possible void that would be left by the one-party nomenklatura. To prove that we could ensure security not only for the country but for the whole region, and last, but no less important, the ability to overtake at the polls the campaigns of the Castro supporters in any eventual free elections.

This would be, perhaps, the most desirable scenario in terms of expansion of the transnational civil society and the corresponding constraint of the totalitarian State. Let us, then, be careful not to confuse succession with transition; let us learn to see ourselves as ordinary Cubans and to demand our full civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights as reflected in the two United Nations Covenants. Let us admit that for the transition the human capital dispersed through the State institutions is needed as badly as the skills, knowledge and financial capital of those who have had to grow up far from — but not out of — their country.

The problem of the Cuban nation today is the problem of the democratic transition and reconstruction, a process that will be possible only if it involves the largest number of Cubans, wherever they may live. We do not say that the country belongs to everyone, which is a de jure declaration; we say that all of us, together, make up the Cuban nation, which is already a de facto declaration.

Antonio G. Rodiles and Alexis Jardines
Monday, 29 July 2013

Published in Cubanet  and in Diario de Cuba

29 July 2013

Antonio Rodiles Will Return to Miami This Tuesday / Estado de Sats, For Another Cuba

Antonio G. Rodiles en el lanzamiento de la Campaña Por otra Cuba en Miami este mayo
Antonio G. Rodiles at the launch of the “For Another Cuba” campaign in Miami this May

The renowned activist and Castro regime opponent Antonio G. Rodiles, director of the Estado de SATS movement (an independent and intellectual group that encourages the exchange of ideas) will visit the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at Casa Bacardi, 1531 Brescia Avenue at the University of Miami, Tuesday, 30 July 11:00 am to give a press conference.

Acompanying Rodiles at this press conference will be the attorneys Veizant Boloy González, member of the Organizing Committee of the Citizens’ Demand For Another Cuba and correspondent for Cubanet and Primavera de Cuba, and Amelia M. Rodriguez Cala, who has defended many political opponents.

This event is open to the public. If you wish to attend please call the Institute at 305-284-CUBA (2822).

Universal / Yoani Sanchez

sif2013Someone sitting at the table behind spoke in French, while in chairs at the side two Brazilians exchanged ideas. Two steps further on some activists from Belarus were talking with some Spaniards who had also come to the Stockholm Internet Forum. An event that began on May 21 in the Swedish capital bringing together people interested in digital tools, social networks and cyberspace. A real Tower of Babel where we communicate in the lengua franca of technology. The global and virtual village is now contained in an old factory on the edge of the sea. And in the midst of this back and forth of analysis and anecdotes, are six Cubans, also willing to contribute their labor as cyber activists.

This is without a doubt the most enjoyable stage of my long journey and not because other places haven’t been filled with beautiful impressions and lots of hugs, but because here I have met up with several colleagues from the Island. Some of the people who, in our country have grabbed hold of new technologies to narrate and to try to change our reality, today are gathered here. The young attorney Laritza Diversent, the director of Estado de SATS, Antonio Rodiles, the keen blogger Miriam Celaya, the information engineer Eliecer Avila, and joining us for one day as well, the independent reporter Roberto Guerra. Here in Stockholm it has felt rather like Cuba, though certainly not because of the weather.

The Internet Forum has allowed us to feel like citizens of the world, to share experiences with those who live in different situations but, in essence, surprisingly similar ones. It’s enough to chat with another attendee for a little while, or to listen to a talk, to realize that in every word spoken here is the eternal human quest for knowledge, information… freedom. Expressed on this occasion through circuits, screens and kilobytes. This meeting has left us with the sensation that we are universal and that technologies have made us into people capable of transcending our geography and our time.

like_webb23 May 2013

Call for Posters Exhibition: For Another Cuba / Estado de Sats, For Another Cuba

The Estado de SATS project and the Campaign For Another Cuba invite all Cuban designers and visual artists to participate in the exhibition: Posters For Another Cuba, which will open in the city of Miami on May 4, 2013.

The artistic proposals will bring visions from different aspects (economic, political, cultural, humorous, social and spiritual) to shape the design of a new Cuba.

The works must be inserted into a template to later be printed as 17” x 22” posters. The template that provides a framework for art can be downloaded from the following link http://www.estadodesats.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/poster-template.pdf

Artwork must have a resolution of 300 dpi and be in CMYK mode.

It can be full color.

There must be a margin of at least 1” on all sides.

The works will be donated to (become the property of) the Campaign For Another Cuba and will be a part of the Campaign’s promotion and advertising.

The slogan of the campaign is “Cuba changes if you want it to.”

The logo and the name of the campaign should not be covered by art.

The artwork should be sent to the following email unidosporotracuba@gmail.com before April 30, 2013.

The exhibition will be inaugurated on May 4, 2013, in the city of Miami and later be opened in Havana at the Estado de SATS project headquarters.

For more information about project status go to: www.estadodesats.com

For more information about the Campaign For Another Cuba go to: www.porotracuba.org

23 April 2013

Alert About the Situation of Angel Santiesteban / Estado de Sats

ANGEL-FOTO-I-300x154The writer Ángel Santiesteban has been transferred to Prison 1580, and the attorney for his case Amelia Rodriguez Cala could not see him today, despite having made a formal request and this right being guaranteed under the law. The officials denied the visit and told her that Angel was in “voluntary starvation” and a ”cell with special restrictions” (read hunger strike and punishment cell).

Days earlier while in La Lima Prison, Angel refused to accept a pass to leave and asked to be present at a visit planned by national and foreign journalists accredited in Cuba to that penitentiary; this information was received through anonymous calls that informed us of his being transferred to Prison 1580 on Sunday afternoon, and that a violent situation arose because of this.

The attorney Rodriguez Cala tells us that during the long years of her career, even in political cases, she had never been denied an inmate visit. It is extremely troubling that she has not been allowed to see Angel and she issues an alert on the possible conditions in which he is being held. We make an urgent call to national and international public opinion about the violations being committed in this case. We ask for your solidarity and justice.

11 April 2013

Where is Cuba Headed? / Antonio Rodiles

Five years ago expectations were high with regards to the selection of the new government elite. Many people speculated about who would be the next first vice president. Bets focused on two candidates: Carlos Lage Davila and Jose Ramon Ventura. Whoever was chosen, observers theorized, would suggest Raul Castro’s orientation over the next five years. Speculations centered on two conflicting approaches: Raulista, or reformist; and Fidelista, or conservative. Apparently, one of them would mark the pace and type of reforms.

The result is not only confirmed in the act of selection, but was signalled when Carlos Lage and his friend Felipe Perez Roque were ousted along with other senior officials. The accusations were known: they betrayed the confidence of the maximum leaders through the improper conduct of “cadres” under their control. It later emerged that on several occasions they had mocked their long-time bosses and that they wanted a greater share of power.

In 2008 the international context was different. Raul Castro attempted to launch a renewed image with the signing the United Nations human rights covenants in New York, along with shallow but widely publicized and promoted reforms. Hugo Chavez had become an inexhaustible source of resources and support for the disastrous economy bequeathed by Fidel Castro. Barack Obama was emerging as the probable next president of the United States, one who would, according to his calculations, widen the chances of ending, or at least relaxing, bilateral differences without his having to give up too much in return. That same year three hurricanes lashed the Island, the precarious economy fell even further, and the dependence on Venezuela deepened. continue reading

Despite the measures taken by the new U.S. administration, the Cuban government offered very timid signs that it wanted to created a new dynamic. Clinging to a society totally controlled by State Security and a huge army of informers, the Cuban government preferred to send a signal of loyalty to those in its pay. In November of 2009 the contractor Alan Gross was arrested to turn him into a bargaining chip for the five spies involved in the hysterical attack that pulverized four Brothers to the Rescue pilots in the air.

The year 2010 brought an outbreak of greater activism from the opposition. The Guillermo Fariñas’ hunger strike, the Ladies in White activism, the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s after a prolonged hunger strike, unleashed strong internal and external pressure around the issue of political prisoners, which ultimately proved unsupportable. The need to put an end to a situation, which by all lights was becoming dangerous, brought about the intervention of the Catholic Church, which served as a liaison between the government and the pro-democracy forces.

Showing signs of political folly, the Government maintained its expectations of achieving favors from the Obama administration at very little cost. According to the counselors of tolitarianism, the “reforms” of the “economic model,” supported by Venezuelan subsidies, would bring about neo-Castroism at an “adequate” pace and without too many tensions.

However, the much-vaunted transformations have not taken off. Foreign investors have not approached, unlike in the ‘90s. The economic dependence on the “brother from the Bolivarian country” – Hugo Chavez – and the death of that Venezuelan president, have shaken the planned scenario.

The Venezuela situation has now become more complicated with its own economy is reeling with soaring inflation and shortages. Chavez’s chosen candidate, Nicolas Madura, is unable to project a sense of confidence in a situation that clearly exceeds his political arsenal.

For the Cuban government, the need for a Plan B is urgent, and all eyes immediately turn to the United States.

The Cuban Government’s Plan B

The Cuban government would need, at the very least, a relaxation of economic sanctions. Only now is the government aware of the magnitude of the mistake it made in imprisoning Alan Gross. The release of the contractor would send the worst possible message to all Cuban secret agents, but would at least guarantee the start of a more fluid process of exchanges, with the final objective of relaxing the embargo. Everything seems to indicate that the old tantrums don’t have the same impact.

Within Cuba, great expectations created by Raul Castro are fading and the government needs to take steps so that Cubans can breathe a little more freedom. Relaxing the controls of the iron-fisted travel and migration policy, in hopes of easing the growing shortages suffered by Cubans, is one of the more “audacious” steps taken by the totalitarians.

The naming of new figures to fill the senior government posts occurred within this scenario. Esteban Lazo, named president of the National Assembly, symbolizes everything about the system that is old and unworkable. He will take the reins of an assembly that has never had a divided vote, not even on the very trivial issues which they discuss. Lazo represents a retaining wall to block any initiative that might arise or come to this governing body.

Substituting Miguel Diaz-Canel for José Ramón Machado Ventura – as first vice president, and presumptive heir – is an attempt to provide a needed succession. Diaz-Canel, younger, obedient, uncharismatic, lacking his own popularity, got the call. A person who will depend entirely on the willing consent of a military apparatus that has strengthened its influence in recent years, indicating that this is the social design intended to be perpetuated. I do not think that these designations generate new dynamics. The elite only intends for these people to execute the plan designed to their and their heirs’ specifications.

The opposition, then, begins to play an interesting role. The collaboration among different groups is ever more articulated. Work in recent months has been woven around the campaign “For Another Cuba,” which demands the ratification and implemention of the United Nations covenants on human rights as a road map for a process of transition, thus signalling that it is possible, here and now, to find a viable path. Civil society is prepared to take bolder steps and we hope this will be the case for all actors.

What can we expect in the short and medium term?

The Government will continue to assign key positions to its most reliable cadres, people who will guarantee that “neo-Castroism” is set in stone. They will also gather a set of bodies who will be allowed to show a certain “renewed” face to the world, and so try to relaunch and normalize their international relations.

This new design requires an economy that can afford it, this is the critical point How can a completely disjointed and broken economy be made viable? This can be achieved only with an injection of capital, an injection that today could come only from our northern neighbor. Nobody wants to invest in a country that doesn’t pay its debts.

The U.S. embargo and the European Community Common Position are key pieces in this political chess game. If the government receives an infusion of resources in the current, unchanged, situation, it would enable it to keep its hyperatrophied repressive apparatus intact and we could say goodbye to our democratic dreams for the next 20 to 30 years. When I hear several pro-democracy actors advocate for the immediate and unconditional end to the embargo, I perceive a lack foresight with regards to the possible political scenarios. Are they unaware of previous experiences in other regions? Are they unaware of the famous phrase, “economic opening with political opening”? Is the massive debt we have already left to our children and grandchildren not enough?

If the democratic community signals the totalitarian government that ratification and implementation of the fundamental rights set out in the UN Covenants is the only path to a solution to the Cuban dilemma, and if it conditions any measure relaxing the economic sanctions to the fulfillment of those international agreements, it will not take long for us to see results.

The Cuban government has not been and is not reckless, still less so in the current context. It is illogical that the elite would want to pass on a time bomb to their family and close associates. The opposition, for its part, in its vast majority, is promoting peaceful change.  Changes that transition us to a true democracy with the full and absolute respect of individual liberties, and not the typical totalitarian monstrosity of failed nations. A monster that in the medium term, totally secure, would be burdened with more corruption, more insecurity and more social conflicts.

It is extremely understandable that the Cuban people desire the opportunity to live in peace, to be prosperous, to enjoy their families and their land. We need to leave behind this whole nightmare of warnings of combat, wars of the entire people, territorial militias, socialism or death, and impregnable bastions. We need to overcome crazy ideas like the Havana cordons, microjet bananas, “open airwaves,” battles of ideas, guidelines, and this string of stupidities and mediocrities. Things that have plunged us into this disaster which today we all, absolutely all of us, have the inescapable obligation to overcome. We urge another Cuba.

Antonio Rodiles

Angel Santiesteban, Scheduled To Go To Prison February 28th, Will Give a Presentation at Estado de Sats on the 27th

Zone of Silence
Presentation and lecture by Ángel Santiesteban

Wednesday 27 February at 6:00pm.

You can send text messages of support to the writer at:
53716460 53233726

You can follow the presentation live via Twitter @estadodesats
@AGRodiles @ailermaria @aimaraperez28 @solucioncuba

Place: Estado de Sats headquarters

Address: Ave 1ra % 46 y 60 #4606 . Miramar. Playa

santiesteban por pulido

Santiesteban by Pulido

The writer Ángel Santiesteban-Prats must report to prison on Thursday, according to his reports on Twitter.

The author, winner of the Casa de las Americas prize and keeper of the blog The Children Nobody Wanted, was sentenced to five years in prison for the alleged crimes of “housebreaking and injuries.”

More information can be found here.