14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 July 2015 – Four years Ecuador has been the route of Cubans who want to reach the United States. For many it was the first step towards the El Dorado of the North. In recent weeks, a fear has been growing that the South American nation might toughen the requirements for access to its territory. Entire families could stay on the island with their bags packed and and dreams broken.
Luis, 27, is the youngest of two brothers. In mid-2014 he put together the money for a ticket to Quito and left. Single, with no job, no bank account or property, no consulate would have granted a visa, considering him as a “potential immigrant”. However, Ecuador does not require a visa for Cubans, nor even ask for a letter of invitation.
The Ecuadorian Constitution adopted in 2008 proclaimed “the principle of universal citizenship, free movement of all inhabitants of the planet and the progressive end of foreign status.” President Rafael Correa said at the time that he was determined to “dismantle the invention of the twentieth century which were passports and visas”. And there the Cubans went en masse. continue reading
Healthy and young, Luis was confident that his hands and entrepreneurship would allow him to make his way anywhere. And so it has been: in one year, in La Mariscal, he has managed to make money as an auto mechanic and has saved something to help his family. His obsession remains the same: hitting the road to take him to Miami, where relatives have promised a roof and work. In a drawer, he saves a two-dollar bill that will bring him good luck on the way.
The route from Ecuador to the US includes a path through seven countries
The route from Ecuador to the United States includes a path through seven countries: Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. It is a road full of dangers, ranging from extortion to death. Of all the variables, it is the most feared is deportation. Returning to the Island becomes the worst nightmare.
Some cross the Darien Gap, 80 miles of tropical jungle extending between Colombia and Panama. Mountains, passes between mountains, muddy terrain, crocodile infested rivers and jungles full of beasts. It is in this area that criminal groups linked to drug trafficking and the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) also operate.
From October 2013 until August 2014, almost 13,400 Cuban immigrants arrived at the border between the US and Mexico, according to a US Customs and Border Protection. Many of them made the route that Luis planned for months. All that’s missing is family members in Havana completing the sale of the family apartment to be able to afford tickets to Quito. His family already has a buyer. Every night his mother lights a candle and thinks of Ecuador, the first step on a long road.
Diplomatic sources in the United States Interests Section in Havana, who preferred anonymity, say that this year the number of Cubans who will enter the United States, legally or illegally, could exceed 70,000. The fear that the process of reestablishing relations between Washington and Havana will put an end to the Cuban Adjustment Act has triggered the departures.
In 2013, it seemed that Quito might turn off the tap of entry for Cubans. The country started requiring a “letter of invitation” to put the breaks on the migration avalanche. But a few months later, in 2014, it eliminated this requirement in virtue of the “excellent framework of bilateral relations” with Cuba.
The Cuban migratory reform that went into effect in January of 2013 also contributed to the increase of people leaving for Quito. Now, without exit visa requirements to leave Cuba, the main obstacle is the purchase of a plane ticket with prices averaging around $650 from the island.
Ecuadorian authorities reserve the right to decide which Cubans can enter their country
However, the apparent “open door” policy does not work for everyone. Ecuadorian authorities reserve the right to decide which Cubans can enter their country. The decision is taken during an interview with immigration at the airport. Any inconsistency, any doubt and the passenger is put back on the plane heading home. Activist and independent Cuban journalist Ernesto Aquino, was rejected a few weeks ago when he arrived in the country for a leadership course organized by an independent entity. He was returned to Havana without appeal.
Among those on official missions* in the South American nation, desertions are common. To prevent the escape of Cuban doctors the Cuban Ministry of Health has implemented new policies that include “suspension from the practice of the profession” of those who “left the service without authorization.” Unable to practice as doctors in Cuba, the doctors have another motivation to reach the United States.
Barbara, 42, was among the first Cuban who went by way of Ecuador. Almost ten years ago she made a marriage of convenience and settled in that country waiting to take the big leap. She was deported to Cuba when the Panamanian authorities surprised her at the border. Now she is in Havana, desperate and without a place to live. “I can’t stay in my parents’ house because not one more person can fit there,” ahe explains. Her only option now is to cross the Straits of Florida by raft. For her, the door to Ecuador is closed.
*Translator’s note: For example “medical missions” – that is the Cuban regime’s scheme to send doctors abroad as a major source of hard currency income, as the receiving countries pay much more per doctor than the doctor is paid.
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 20 June 2015 — A couple of weeks ago, the neighbors crowded onto the ground floor of a twelve-story building near Tulipan Street. “He committed suicide … They say he hanged himself with his own belt,” ran the rumor among them, while pointing to the apartment marked with number 1. The police presence in the area and patrols around the site confirmed that something had happened.
Some men in civilian clothes who were a part of the operation detailed it for the curious, “He was the nephew of Vladimiro Roca.” The information would take hours to be refuted, and many still don’t understand that the false suicide hid a raid to keep Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca from going out to do his work as an independent journalist. The bad taste with which the political police handled the matter, lying about the death of a man, competes in this case with the abuse of his rights. continue reading
Last Saturday, the reporter and activist sent a letter to representatives of the Inter American Press Association and Reporters Without Borders. It not only condemned the repression suffered by him, but also that against the “Ladies in White, opposition activists, journalists, bloggers, independent journalists and photojournalists committed to the struggle for civil rights.”
Friday, 14ymedio spoke with Valle Roca at his home to learn the details of his situation and the reasons that led him to write that letter.
14ymedio/Luz Escobar. When did the harassment against you begin?
Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca. Starting from when I begin to cover the news about the Ladies in White and I captured on video the arrests and beatings they received every Sunday. Starting from that moment I have been subjected to beatings, they have beat me on the legs and one time they fractured a rib. And State Security officials have told me very clearly, we do not want you to go to go to Santa Rita Church anymore, we do not want to see published any more images or recordings under your name, YuriTv, we don’t want you to put anything else on YouTube.”
14ymedio/Ruiz. The worst moment?
Valle Roca. On May 9, they threw me in a car here at Avenues 26 and 41. It was about ten at night. I had gone out to buy cigarettes. Later was the eighth Sunday of repression for the Ladies in White, who woke up in my apartment surrounded. From two in the morning there were police there and they justified their presence by telling the neighbors I had hanged myself. In reality, I was inside the house with two Ladies in White, as it was easier to get to Santa Rita Church from here. So we were going to go together.
14ymedio/Ruiz. Was it very hard to hear the news of your “own death” from the mouths of others?
Valle Roca. I see that as the story of “a death foretold.” I found out because the journalist Reinaldo Escobar called to ask what was going on. He said he was concerned because he had got the news from someone who passed by and asked. After the statements I gave him, then Radio Martí also called me and countless people, but it was all false.
14ymedio/Ruiz. And last Sunday you were again a victim of repression?
Valle Roca. The political police intercepted me on 28th Street between 7th and 9th in Playa. It was a very spectacular arrest; without explaining the reasons, I was immobilized, handcuffed and they threw me back of the car. After several turns they took me out in Coyula Park and put me in another car with four other men. When I figured out where I was I was in Villa Marista [a State Security prison]. Where I was warned by a senior official, and finally they took me in a car to a deserted grassy area.
He put the gun to my head and then kicked me in the side and told me, “You already know what’s going to happen to you.”
The one on my right got out, opened the door and drew his weapon. He put the gun to my head and then kicked me in the side and told me, “You already know what’s going to happen to you.” They got in the car and from there threw me my cellphone and backpack. I got out and tried to orient myself until I managed to reach Via Blanca where, thank God, a truck stopped for me. The driver asked if I’d been left stranded and I made up a story about having been assaulted, I thought if I told him the truth he would be afraid. He left me off near Sports City.
14ymedio/Ruiz. How did the idea come up to write a letter?
Valle Roca. I didn’t do it for me but for all my fellow journalists who are suffering the same thing. For example, for Enrique Díaz and Vladimir Turró Páez who are also being threatened with death. We want to document all these allegations of threats on video, a video with all the journalists who are in danger. Journalists in similar situations include Agustín López Canino, Juan González Febles, Luis Serafin, Rubén Dario Garcia and Angel Moya, who make videos and also bring to light a lot of information about the Ladies in White. It’s for all of them that I wrote the letter.
14ymedio/Ruiz. Has the repression limited the work of independent journalists?
Valle Roca. Not at all, we continue working. They believe they’ve discredited us a little, but we continue denouncing what goes on. When I can’t leave my house, I report by phone, and Antonio Gonzalez Rodiles is also collecting testimonies. Of course, sometimes they affect us because they take our cameras or phones and they erase all the recorded contents, but we continue to work.
They believe they’ve discredited us a little, but we continue denouncing what goes on
14ymedio/Ruiz. What journalistic techniques do you use in your work?
Valle Roca. Especially photography and video. I film and shot photos with my cellphone. Then I have to edit and convert them for uploading. I edit them in Adobe Premier.
14ymedio/Ruiz. What reaction do you expect to your letter?
Valle Roca. That solidarity with reporters will increase and that there will be a statement to help us to continue to make known what is happening and that a commitment on the part of the government is achieved. I feel as if I were a war reporter, under constant threat.
14ymedio/Ruiz. Do all your neighbors now know that the suicide story was a lie?
The poster for the film “The Companion” by Pavel Giroud. (FACEBOOK)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 5 May 2015 — Cuban filmmaker Pavel Giroud announced Tuesday through his Facebook profile the completion of the long process of his film El acompañante (The Companion), after finishing the assembly stage and sound mixing in the Clap Studies of Medellin, Columbia.
This film project has received awards on multiple occasions in its preproduction phase. One of the most important recognitions was the best project award at San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, as well as the SGAE Julio Alejandro Screenplay Award, awarded at the Malaga Film Festival. continue reading
These tributes provided indispensable economic support for the shooting of the film, undertaken as an independent project, outside the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC). Another key factor was the success of his previous film La edad de la peseta, (English title: The Silly Age), for which the young director won the award for best feature film at festivals in Cartagena and Cinesul, as well as the Chris Holter Humor in Film Award in San Francisco. The many awards garnered by this film led some publications to elect Giroud as one of the ten most promising young directors in Latin America.
Among the stars of the film are the Cuban singer Yotuel Romero and Armando Miguel Gomez, who recently starred in Meleza (Molasses). Pavel Giroud had announced in several interviews the presence of the Brazilian actor Lázaro Ramos, who, despite a highly successful debut in Madame Satã, is better known in Cuba as André Gurgel in the Brazilian telenovela Insensato corazón (Foolish Heart). The actor, however, eventually did not participate in the shooting.
The film recreates the story of a great boxer from the eighties who ends up spending his days at the bedside of an HIV patient at a sanatorium in Los Cocos, as a form of punishment for testing positive for banned drugs. The athlete must follow the steps of the patient, a hero of the war in Angola who is spending his days at the facility against his well and who needs a companion for his weekly excursions outside the sanatorium.
After long months of research and interviews, the director found the documentary Al Margen del Margen (Beyond Outcasts – 1992), filled with images of a sanatorium and testimonies of the patients. Although “The Companion” is fictional, the real story of a sanatorium gave it a sharper focus. This film is the first time that the subject of AIDS patients has been addressed in Cuban fictional film.
Among the many businesses that have flourished since the recent relaxations for self-employment, there are not many bakeries. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 April 2015 — Eliot’s Bakery dawned this Friday with the kneading blade broken and a line of people waiting to buy a baguette or a bagel. Eliot’s brother hurried over to fix the broken blade, because, “You can’t have a day with no sales, the loss is tremendous,” says the concerned baker.
This self-employed worker has opened a unique business in Havana’s Timba neighborhood, offering a great variety of baked goods. Every day that he manages to overcome the high prices of raw material and the infrastructure problems, he counts as an accomplishment. continue reading
Among the many businesses that have flourished since the recent relaxations in self-employment, there are not many bakeries. Given that there are growing complaints about the poor quality of this product in the rationed market, it is surprising that daring Cuban entrepreneurs haven’t set out to knead and bake for every taste.
Very close to Colon Street, in one of the buildings known as “pastorita” on Bellavista Street, a few weeks ago a poster appeared announcing wonderful breads in a huge freshly printed graphic. In a ground floor apartment a simple wooden shelf has been installed to display the products. The bakery’s strong point is bread, but there are also panetelas, cakes and other fine desserts.
A bag of 15 large rolls costs 20 Cuban pesos and they even have sesame seeds. The word has passed among the neighbors and now they ask for special order breads that live only in the memories of some of the oldest people. From the early hours of the morning there is an unmistakable aroma of loaves slowly baking in the oven.
Every day that he manages to overcome the high prices of raw material and the infrastructure problems, he counts as an accomplishment.
The place also offers products of a more standard size that cost a peso each, as well as hotdog buns and others shaped like croissants. Eliot doesn’t need to go out hawking his wares. Sitting on the balcony of his house, he serves all those who come looking for a taste or texture other than the insipid bread from the State bakeries.
A few years ago he tried to open a barbershop in the apartment courtyard, but it didn’t go well. The thing ended up at the police station and they confiscated what little he had acquired to start his business. A pair of old barber chairs were loaded onto a truck and, in the end, he even spent a long time at the station, having lost his cool with the big guys dressed in blue.
Luckily, life smiles on him now. The mothers of the area can count on getting snacks for their kids, and the owners of nearby cafes wake up at dawn to get a good supply that they later sell as snacks and sandwiches. Briseida, a retired woman who collected her pension this morning, waits for the broken blade to be returned. “Today I’m going to give myself the taste of some good bread,” she says.
Danilo’s (El Sexto’s) works displayed on the walls of La Paja Recold studio (Luz Escobar)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, 29 March 2015 – As part of the campaign to demand freedom for the artist Danilo Maldonado, known as “El Sexto,” several artistic activities took place this Saturday at la Paja Recold, the studio of the band Porno para Ricardo.
On the walls of the place were works by the graffiti artist who has been incarcerated since last December 25. El Sexto was arrested shortly before carrying out a performance that consisted of releasing in a public square two pigs with the names of “Fidel and Raul.” The crime that has been charged against him is contempt.
Several friends from all over the world and human rights organizations have demanded his immediate release. Yesterday’s activities joined those demands for his freedom. Among the most important moments of the afternoon was the performance by Tania Bruguera of The Whisper of Tatlin which opened the studio’s microphones to the fifty attendees of the encounter to ask for – in a minute each – Danilo Maldonado’s liberty. continue reading
The host band Porno para Ricardo, played the lead musical part with several songs from their repertoire. Subsequently rappers including El Opuesto, Maikel Extremo, Rapper Isaac and Lazaro Farise Noise appeared on stage. All demanded the release of the artist and demonstrated solidarity with his cause. Also a book was opened in order to gather signatures of support for the #FreeElSexto campaign. An option paralleling that already implemented on the digital platform Change.org and that is intended for those who do not have access to the Internet.
The artist Tania Bruguera told 14ymedio she had attended the event, “Because I think this is a case of the violation of the artist’s rights.” “It is not right that an artist who did not even carry out the work should be made a prisoner,” she stressed. Bruguera is precluded from leaving Cuba and is in the midst of legal proceedings because of events arising from her attempt to organize a performance last December 30 in the Plaza of the Revolution.
In spite of her delicate legal situation, the artist attended the event in order to offer her support to El Sexto’s cause. Because she says that “An artist that is in jail just for imagining a work and trying to make it, it is an injustice.” About the performance that the graffiti artist would have carried out, Bruguera points out that, “Public figures, whether politicians or celebrities, are likely to be criticized (…) they have to assume that people who do not have that power, they are able to make them aware of their discontent through humor and satire.”
Bruguera quipped that, “If they made prisoners of everyone who makes jokes about Fidel and Raul Castro, half the people would be incarcerated.” And she concluded, “The artist’s freedom lies in having the right to say symbolically whatever he wants.”
Gorki Aguila, meanwhile, explained that, “It is important that artists join together among themselves (…) art has an incredible power to summon.” El Sexto’s grandmother, attending the event, said that, “The right of a man to live as he wants to live must be respected, Danilo does not harm anyone, he respects everyone, but he also asks for respect for himself, that they let him do what he wants.”
With respect to the prison conditions in which this artist has lived, the grandmother says that, “He was sleeping on the floor for two months because for him, as for many other prisoners, there was no bed. They don’t let even an aspirin in. Danilo is chronically asthmatic, he had pneumonia, and they denied him antibiotics.”
The lady also told of the continuing threats by State Security to many of the invitees so that they would not go this Saturday to the tribute to El Sexto. The pressure included the visit of two officers to the home of Gorki Aguila in order to deliver to him a police citation that required him to appear at the police station that same afternoon. The musician refused to go on grounds that a citizen must be given at least 24 hours notice of such an action.
Lia Villares said that during the next Havana Biennial, which will get underway at the end of May, “We are going to do something.” The blogger anticipates that it will be, “A work by El Sexto that was not displayed here today.”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 19 March 2015 – On Wednesday, with great fanfare, the digital site “Reflections” was launched as part of the Cuban Youth Computer and Electronics Club’s Cuba Va (Cuba Goes) project. On its homepage you can read that this is the first Cuban blogging platform, although DesdeCuba.com, a blog portal, was launched eight years ago and, despite being blocked on the Cuban server, offers content generated in Cuba, where the majority of its authors live.
According to Kirenia Fagundo Garcia, who serves as senior specialist on Reflections, “there are no restrictions on the topics discussed on the blogs and users interested in the service,” on this platform. Each blog has only 250 megabytes allocated to post texts, photos, videos and sound, although Fagundo has made clear that it is planned to increase the initial capacity.
Despite the commitment to freedom announced by the portal, “the only condition is that the bloggers divulge the truth about Cuba, without offenses, disrespect or denigration.” continue reading
Thus, several questions immediately arise: Who gave the Youth Computer Club the power to determine what is “the truth about Cuba”? Who is behind this project? Who is funding it? What institution, undoubtedly State or Party, will approve the content to be published?
To test the limits of the new platform, this daily has created a new blog on the service, under the title 14ymedio, with the purpose of bringing the contents of our digital portal to Cuban readers on servers on the Island. The process was easy, although to create a new site we had to provide the number of the user’s State-issued ID card, undoubtedly a surprise.
Moreover, the portal has several technical deficiencies, frequent error messages and agonizing slowness. Obviously it has been opened without having done sufficient technical tests to check its operation. The site 14ymedio.cubava.cu has been activated and the content manager that works with the entire platform is WordPress. However, it has been impossible, so far, to publish our first text. Technical Problems?
In the coming days we will test whether the new blogging platform is as plural as announced, or nothing more than one more simple mirror of the official discourse.
US Congressional Delegation holding a press conference in Havana (Luz Escobar)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 19 February 2015 — On Thursday afternoon, the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi led a press conference in which she provided a summary of her visit to Cuba, in addition to answering questions from foreign journalists and independent press. The meeting was held on the outside of the residence of Lynn Roche, Head of the Public Affairs Section of the US Interests Section in Havana (ISIS).
During the conference, Pelosi was accompanied by Congressmen Eliot Engel (NY), Jim McGovern (Massachusetts), Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut), Collin Peterson (Minnesota), Nydia Velázquez (New York), Anna Eshoo (California), Steve Israel (New York) and David Cicilline (Rhode Island). Prior to the meeting with journalists, the delegation had met with Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino the highest authority of the Catholic Church in Cuba, as well as holding “a meeting with members of civil society continue reading
,” although no names or groups were detailed.
During the press conference, Congressman Eliot Engel emphasized that “now the ball is in the Cuban government’s corner… We want to see a flourishing civil society,” he said. Engel also highlighted his hope of “seeing part of free civil society at the Summit of the Americas,” although he acknowledged being “very concerned about the issue of human rights” on the island.
Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, said she was “excited” and “proud” of the work that his delegation undertook in Cuba. The Democrat had arrived with the rest of Congressional Democrats Tuesday and on Thursday also met with the Vice President of the National Assembly, Ana Maria Mari Machado, along with twenty members of the controversial Cuban parliament. Pelosi also expressed her pride in President Barack Obama for “the audacity to make such a shift in policy towards Cuba.”
According to what the members of congress explained to the press, both sides in the negotiations for the reestablishment of relations between Cuba and the United States recognize that “this is a time to look more toward the future than the past.” For his part, Steve Israel said that “for this process to succeed both countries have to focus more on the future and less on the past. December 17th was an historic moment for the two countries, but the real story is making the changes.”
Jim McGovern said that “if the embassies open” it could improve the negotiation process because both governments are speaking directly. “We have a more mature relationship. We can not agree on everything, but I think possibly we can achieve much more if we base our relationship on mutual respect… We will continue talking about human rights,” he said, but stressed that it must first a policy “that has proved to be a failure” should be changed. Finally, he supported “establishing formal diplomatic relations, rather than trading accusations and pointing fingers at each other.”
Later Israel himself speculated on how this ongoing process will be looked back on, and “how those who embraced the future of those who embraced the past will differ.”
At the end of the press conference, the delegation of Democratic members of congress met with First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel. To a question from 14ymedio regarding whether they had noticed any desire on the part of the Cuban government to cooperate on the issue of computerizing Cuban society and access to new technologies, Anna Eshoo stressed that “younger people in Cuba, in particular, are hungry for this, and recognize the empowerment that access to broadband would bring.”
Congresswoman Eshoo said that she “had the pleasure of sitting at lunch” with the blogger Harold Cardenas from La Joven Cuba blog, and had “a wonderful discussion.” As for the “preservation of values” that has so concerned the Cuban ruling class lately, the congresswoman said she let them know she understood their position.
Nydia Velázquez conveyed to the those present that they “would like to share [their] experience in promoting economic development,” especially in the field of small private businesses, which in the case of the US are “the backbone of the economy.” This would help the economic growth of many Cuban families, said the congresswoman.
‘Control of History’ (1st part) by Saavedra. (Photo by Luz Escobar) Assignment: “Draw Che.” Grade received from teacher: 50 points out of 50.
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 10 January 2015 – Outside the Galiano gallery in Central Havana yesterday, dozens of people gathered to enter the Añejo 27 [Aged 27] exposition. Some passersby were puzzled by the reasons for the tumult, perhaps thinking that eggs or pork had come to the ration stores. However, it’s “just art,” one disappointed girl told another who grimaced on hearing it.
The doors open and in the salon are hanging works from almost thirty years ago. “A liqueur from the past” with a strange taste of the present. The author of these drawings, collages and oils is Lázaro Saavedra, an artist with a stroke of the ironic and few words. Even so, 14ymedio managed to talk with him amid some images that characterize his work and his artistic generation.
Escobar: Graphic art and humor are in mourning this week because of the events at the weekly Charlie Hebdo. What did you think when you heard about this tragedy?
Saavedra: Rather than thinking, in the face of news like that what one feels is a very emotional reaction. continue reading
Escobar: Eight years have passed since the “little war of e-mails” in which you participated very actively. How has cultural policy changed at that time?
Saavedra: Everything has remained the same.
Escobar: In this exhibition, Añejo 27, there is an impressive effect in many of the themes and situations. Aren’t you frightened?
Saavedra: And what are the specific issues in which this effect is noticed?
Escobar: For example, this picture in front of us reminds me of the homework of my daughters who are now in elementary school.
Saavedra: You’re referring to the “Portrait of Che”? Yes, of course, it’s still current. That is, the entire canonization of historical figures continues.
Escobar: Tania Bruguera’s performance didn’t happen. Do you think it was too soon for a call like that?
Saavedra: I think so, it was too soon.
Escobar: What about Cuban art today, does it enjoy good health?
Saavedra: That’s a difficult question because if you think about health you have to counterbalance that with disease. In the answer to this question about disease, we have to be thinking about the cure for things to be better. Then we will have to detect what would be the points of sickness.
‘Control of History’ (part 2) by Saavedra. (Luz Escobar) Assignment: “Write a composition on Che.” Text of the composition: “Che was Bolivian. He liked to smoke cigars. He had long hair and a very bright star on his forehead. His gaze was impressive and also very tender. He loved children very much and because of this they killed him in Argentina.” Grade received from teacher: 0 points out of 50.
Escobar: The disconnect in artistic language, for example, with respect to what is happening in other countries in the world?
Saavedra: The disconnect in language has always been a constant in Cuban art. For example I did Volume One precisely because of this disconnect in Cuban art. In these times to do a work with new language could be considered a work of “ideological diversionism.” To some extent that is also what happened with Tania’s work, there is a disconnect in the appearance of the work with the traditional concepts of art.
Escobar: You’ve stood out as a teacher of new generations. What artistic surprises do young people have in store for us?
Saavedra: I don’t know now because I haven’t been teaching at ISA (Superior Institute of Art) for a few years, it’s been since about 2009 that I lost contact with the new generations.
Because of work problems I haven’t been able to give classes, in fact that is one of the doubts I have of myself. I would like to at least prove first hand, that is at the primary source, that this is what is being done at ISA. I refer to the place, because another thing is what comes out of ISA versus what is archived in ISA, which are two different things.
The police car in front of the apartment of Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani Sanchez. (14ymedio)
The director of this newspaper, Yoani Sánchez, is under house arrest
14ymedio, Havana, 30 December 2014 – Contacted by phone at her home, the director of 14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, explained the circumstances of the arrest of her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, and of several other people this Tuesday in Havana. She is under house arrest. Patrol car No. 507 is stationed in front of the building where she lives, while four plainclothes offices are controlling the building entrances. continue reading
Reinaldo Escobar was arrested when he left the building where he lives in the company of the activist Eliécer Ávila, founder of the group “Somos Más” (We are More). Both were handcuffed and put in a patrol car waiting in front of the building in the Havana neighborhood of Neuvo Vedado. Reinaldo’s daughter, Luz, who was with her father, has not been arrested, but a State Security agency told her, “We are not going to let you leave.” The same official visited Luz Escobar’s home yesterday to warn her not to go near the Plaza of the Revolution today, where the artist Tania Bruguera has scheduled a performance titled “Tatlin’s Whisper #6” for 3:00 in the afternoon, to demand freedom of expression for Cuban’s citizens.
Also arrested were photographer Claudio Fuentes and his companion Eva, while the activists Antonio Rodiles and Ailer González were not answering the phone. Social networks also inform us of the arrests of José Díaz Silva, Raúl Borges, Lady in White Lourdes Esquivel, and of the 14ymedio reporter Víctor Ariel González.
Members of the #YOTAMBIENEXIJO [I also demand] platform issued a press release denouncing their inability to contact Bruguera. The organization explained that the artist’s telephone number is blocked and expressed their fear, given the arrests of the leaders of civic organizations currently underway.
Gerardo and Agustin were stuck for two days with water up to their knees, among the trunks and roots on the coast. They had chosen a point west of Havana that they nicknamed the terminal for its frequent illegal exits, but the trip was thwarted. “They detected us, I don’t know how, because it was in the middle of the night and you couldn’t even see your hands,” they relate, still somewhere between surprised and upset. The capture of the two seems to be due to a new device, half truck, half scanner, that goes in search of rafters.
Last Friday a rare entourage was exhibited a few meters from the central Havana corner of L and 23. Two military jeeps, an overhauled vehicle and a motorboat were shown to the stupefied students who formed a circle of interest just outside the Cuba Pavilion. The teens fluttered around the objects, and an officer explained the modern work tools for “protecting the Cuban coasts from illegal entry and exit.”
The purpose was to familiarize the students with every detail of the work in the Ministry of the Interior’s Border Guards in order to attract potential soldiers. The device that they described with greatest pride was a truck that once belonged to the Trasval chain messenger service and that they themselves have fitted with GPS and motion and heat sensing cameras. Its mission? Finding amid the underbrush, darkness and waves those who have decided to escape from the Cuban paradise. continue reading
The curriculum of each of the members includes not only detailed knowledge about the functioning of the new technology but also proficiency in techniques of self-defense and neutralization of the “enemy.” The students seem to listen to the explanation with the playfulness of being halfway between the hiders and the seekers, between the coastal police and the fleeing rafters.
Barely a couple of years separate Gerardo and Agustin from those youngsters in the interested circle. Maybe they once crossed an intersection or shared a jitney or waited for the green light together at a stoplight. Nevertheless, if those students were to decide to become part of the Border Guard Troops, on a night as dark as hell some would be shivering amid the mangroves and others would push the buttons of a device designed to hunt emigrants. “We have to hold them and guard them until the people from Villa Marista come to look for them,” says one of the officers to motivate even more those who listen to him under the December sun of a Havana afternoon.
A girl asks about firearms, and a man wearing a beret pulled tight to his ears tells her that they must not go out armed on these missions due to “incidents that have occurred where fatal shootings have happened.” But continuing, he explains that they plan to place on the truck “an arsenal for confronting possible entry of speedboats with armed people or explosives.”
From the outside, the singular truck looks like a featureless gray box, but passing through its side door one finds a bathroom and a space that can be transformed into a bedroom or meeting room. The table used for discussing upcoming plans and operations folds up and is stored. The benches are opened and converted into two bunks, one on each side, where up to four people can sleep. The climate control permits them to endure the hot nights without opening the door which would cause them to suffer the persistent coastal mosquitoes.
Border guard boat. (Luzbely Escobar)
They carry a coffee maker, a rice cooker and a so-called “Queen” cooker (a Chinese-made pressure cooker) for cooking outside the truck. In order to make it all work, they carry an electric generator “so that the current is not a problem,” they assure with a certain vanity. The boast about resources does not stop there. They relate that they have “a campaign table in tow to set up the outdoor kitchen and a tent with a 40-person capacity.” This last is for the detainees, in case the people of Villa Marista take too long and they have to sleep at the capture site.
“This is a combat truck because it was born in combat,” one of the pompous drivers is heard to exclaim. “It is a unique prototype in the country and is called a mobile command post,” he stresses. “The boss,” he says while he points his index finger up, “says that he is going to make one more advance, but well, this takes financing, this takes resources.”
The news is worst for those who evade because this team acts as if they were really slave hunters with an obsession. “This is a fixed rotation. We go out for 20 days to the coast, and we have no relief. Those are 20 days without seeing the family,” they say, explaining the conditions in which they work.
In order to attract the girls to the circle of interest, an officer with ten years of experience clarifies that “in communications there are many women who do not have to go to the coast.” They laugh and blush, then he returns to the charge saying that “all the communications offices are climate controlled, there are many women who do this work.”
Nevertheless, after looking a while at the device the teens begin to speak of going on vacation with it to the beach, with its bunks and electricity. In the end one of them laughingly says thanks for the “classified information,” and heads down the street to the sea. In the air remains doubt about the next encounter between those adolescents and the officers: Will it be to petition for entrance into the elite group or to beg them not to tighten the handcuffs?
Our team had a conversation with the New York Times journalist who has authored the editorials about Cuba.
14ymedio, 1 December 2014 — Ernesto Londoño, who authored six editorials on Cuba published recently by the New York Times engaged in a friendly conversation on Saturday with a part of the 14ymedio team, in the hotel where he is staying in Havana.
Our intention was to interview him, but he told us the rules of his media prohibit his giving interviews without previous consultation. He also declined our proposal to take photos. Instead, he was eager to listen to our opinions in an atmosphere of mutual respect. There were two hours of conversation dedicated to refining, enriching and debating the controversial ideas that the newspaper has addresses in his editorials.
The following is a brief synthesis of what was said there, arranged by topics and ascribed to the author of each opinion.
Journalism
Yoani Sánchez: Cubans are going to need a great deal of information to avoid falling into the hands of another authoritarianism. In 14ymedio we are including a plurality of voices, for example on the issue of the embargo. We leave it to the reader to form his own opinion from a variety of information.
Reinaldo Escobar: The official Cuban press, which is all the press, there are no public media, they are private property of the Communist Party. Now, has there been a change? Yes, there has been a change. Since a few years ago the newspaper Granma has had a weekly section with letters by readers where you find criticism of bureaucrats, things that don’t work or prices at the markets. But look, the emphasis is on the self-employed markets.
So far I have not read a profound criticism of the prices at the convertible peso markets that the Government has, which are abusive. Nor can you talk about the legitimacy of our rulers or the impracticality of the system. Here are two big taboos, and in the third place, the topic of political repression. If they report on a repudiation rally, they show it as something spontaneous on the part of the people, without telling how the political police were behind it, organizing it all.
Miriam Celaya: There are changes indeed. The problem is that there are real and nominal changes, and these changes are generally nominal. Now everyone in Cuba can legally stay in a hotel, which before was forbidden. They never explained why it was forbidden before. But Cubans cannot really afford the luxury of a hotel stay, with wages being what they are; nor can they buy a car, a house, or travel. The problem with the reforms is that they are unrealistic for the vast majority of Cubans. They are a government investment in order to buy time.
There are two of those reforms that are particularly harmful and discriminatory for Cubans. One is the foreign investment law, which is explicitly for foreign investors and it does not allow Cubans to invest; and the other is a new Labor Code which does not acknowledge autonomy, the right to strike, and which spells out explicitly that Cuban workers cannot freely enter into contracts with potential companies investing in Cuba, which constitutes a restraint and a brake.
Víctor Ariel González: Yes, things are changing, but we ask ourselves if really those changes offer a brighter horizon and why people keep leaving, even more are going than before.
More Apathetic Youth?
Miriam Celaya: It is a backlash against ideological saturation, a submissiveness which conditioned almost every act of your life to obedience, to political subordination, whether picking a university career, a job or an appliance, anything. Everything was a slogan, everything a roadblock. This has subsided somewhat, but previously, it was impossible to take a step without hearing “Motherland or death, we will triumph” and go, go… The investigations they undertook to see if you belonged to the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution… the youth of today have not experienced that bombardment of “the enemy that harasses us.” I did not bring up my kids in that, on the contrary, I tried to detoxify them. So this generation, the children of the parents of disenchantment, grew up devoid of that and are at a more pragmatic level, even at a marketing one, whose greatest dream is to leave the country.
Economy
Eliécer Ávila: The law governing the leasing (in usufruct) of lands for farmers to work them was the basis of a plan for increasing food production and lowering prices — so that the average salary for a day’s work might be more than just three plantains.
I come from the banana plantations of El Yarey de Vázquez, in Puerto Padre, Las Tunas. The nation’s food supply is the most critical element in our collective anger. In January of last year, a pound of onions cost 8 Cuban pesos (CUPs). Later, between March and April, the price rose to 15. In May it increased to 25 CUPs and now, the onion has disappeared from low-income neighborhoods. It can only be found in certain districts such as Miramar, at five convertible pesos (CUCs) for 10 onions — more expensive than in Paris — while the monthly Cuban salary still averages under 20 CUCs per month).
I know very few farmers who even own a bicycle. However, any young person who joins up with the Ministry of State Security is in no time riding around on a Suzuki motorcycle.
Embargo
Yoani Sánchez: When talking about the end of the embargo, there is talk of a step that the White House must take, and for me I don’t care for the idea that what happens in my country depends on what happens in the White House. It hurts my Cuban pride, to say that the plans for my future, for my childrens’ future, and for the publication of 14ymedio depend on what Obama does. I am concentrating on what is going to happen in the Plaza of the Revolution and what civil society here is going to do. So for me I don’t want to bet on the end of the embargo as the solution. I want to see when we will have freedom of expression, freedom of association and when they will remove the straitjacket from economic freedom in this country.
Miriam Celaya: The reasons for the establishment of the embargo are still in effect, which were the nationalizing of American companies in Cuba without proper compensation. That this policy, in the limelight for such a long time, has subsequently become a tug of war is another thing. But those of us with gray hair can remember that in the 70’s and 80’s we were under the Soviet protectorate. Because we talk a lot about sovereignty, but Cuba has never been sovereign. Back then, Soviet subsidies were huge and we hardly talked about the embargo. It was rarely mentioned, maybe on an anniversary. Fidel Castro used to publicly mock the embargo in all forums.
Reinaldo Escobar: They promised me that we were going to have a bright future in spite of the blockade and that was due among other things to the fact that the nation had recovered their riches, confiscating them from the Americans. So what was going to bring that future was what delayed it.
Miriam Celaya: The issue remains a wildcard for the Cuban government, which, if it has such tantrums about it, it’s because it desperately needs for it to be lifted, especially with regards to the issue of foreign investments. I am anti-embargo in principle, but I can see that ending it unilaterally and unconditionally carries with it greater risks than the benefits it will supposedly provide.
Victor Ariel Gonzalez: The official justification says that as we are a blockaded country so we have the Gag Law. Because we are under siege and “in the besieged square, dissidence is treason.” There are those who believe that if the embargo is lifted that justification would end. But you have to say that this system has been very effective in finishing off the mechanisms for publicly analyzing the embargo, it has killed off independent institutions.
Then, how will people be able to channel discontent and non-conformity with the continued repression the day after the lifting of the embargo?
Reinaldo Escobar: They will have another argument for keeping repression when the embargo is lifted. Write it down, because “this will be the test” as they say around here: “Now that the Americans have the chance to enter Cuba with greater freedom, now that they can buy businesses and the embargo is over, now we do have to take care of the Revolution.” That will be the argument.
Repression
Yoani Sánchez: In this country people are very afraid. Including not knowing they’re afraid, because they have lived with it for so long they don’t know that this is called “fear.” Fear of betrayal, of being informed on, of not being able to leave the country, of being denied a promotion to a better job, not being able to board a plane, that a child won’t be allowed to go to the university, because “the university is for Revolutionaries.” The fears are so many and so vast that Cubans today have fear in their DNA.
Eliécer Ávila: We also need to understand how Cubans make their living. Ninety percent of Cubans do not work where their calling or vocation would take them, but rather where they can survive and make do. In this country, to be a Ph.D. in the social sciences is truly to be the idiot of the family. This is the same guy who can’t throw a quinceañera party for his daughter, who can’t take his family out to dinner at a restaurant. The successful person in this society is the manager of a State-owned cafeteria. This is because he controls the supplies of chicken, oil, rice, etc. and sells the surplus on the black market — which is really how he makes his living. The fundamental tactic to create social immobility in this country is [for the State] to make as many people as possible feel guilty about something.
Self-employment
Eliécer Ávila: People think that because there is now self-employment in this country, that there is a way to be more independent of the State — which is true up to a point. But the question is, how does a self-employed business person survive? I had to leave my ice cream business. After having received my degree in information technology, I was sent to the interior as a sort of punishment for having an incident with Ricardo Alarcón, who at that time was the President of the National Assembly. It was a turning point for me as I tried to become one of the first self-employed people in my town. I had a 1967 German ice cream maker. The process requires 11 products — including coagulant, which someone had to steal from the ice cream factory. Or rather, I should say, “recover,” because in this country we do not call that kind of thing “stealing.” The milk had to be taken from the daycare center, or from the hospital, so that it could be sold to me. The point is, there simply is no other way.
All of these private businesses that are springing up and flourishing are sustained by illegality.
Yoani Sánchez: … Or in the capital that comes clandestinely from abroad, especially from the exile. There are restaurants in Havana that could be in New York or Berlin, but those have received foreign money or are engaging in “money laundering” from the corruption and from the highest leadership itself.
Eliécer Ávila: Many of these businesses are created so that government officials can place their children, grandchildren and friends in them, people who are no longer interested in the creation of the “New Man” nor in achieving a communist society. Rather, they want to launder their money and insert themselves in society like any other person.
I do not know a single communist worker in Cuba who has been able to launch a business. Those committed Revolutionaries, who gave their all, are today the people who don’t have onions in their kitchens.
Yoani Sánchez: Self-employment has been presented as one of the major indicators of the “reforms” or the Raul regime changes. But on the issue of self-employment many things are not considered: they have no access to a wholesale market, they can’t import raw material nor directly export their products. Thus, the annoyance all Cubans have with the customs restrictions that went into effect in September. The Government justifies is saying that “every country has this kind of legislation,” but in those countries there are laws for commercial imports.
Miriam Celaya: They made a special regulation for foreign investors, so they can import, but not for Cubans.
Yoani Sanchez: Another issue that greatly affects the economy is the lack of Internet connection. We’re not just talking about freedom of expression and information or being able to read 14ymedio within Cuba, but that our economy is set back more and more by people not having access to the Internet.
Luzbely Escobar: It’s not only that: Self-employment is authorized only for selling or producing, but the professionals cannot join that sector with their abilities. You cannot be a self-employed lawyer, architect or journalist.
Miriam Celaya: A large administrative body was created to control the self-employed and it is full of corrupt individuals, who are always hovering over these workers to exploit them and relieve them of their gains. Some tell me that there are fixed fees for inspector bribes. Here, even corruption is institutionalized and rated.
Eliécer Ávila: In this country, for everyone who wants to lift his head towards progress, there are ten who want to behead him. There is much talk of “eliminating the middleman.” However, the great middleman is the State itself, which, for example, buys a pound of black beans from the farmer for 1.80 CUPs, then turns around and sells that pound for 12 CUPs at a minimum.
The New York Times Editorials
Eliécer Ávila: It would be a great favor to Cuba if, with the same influence that these editorials are intended to have on the global debate about one topic [the embargo], they also tried to shed light on other topics that are taboo here, but that go right to the heart of what we need as a nation.
Miriam Celaya: I have an idea. Rather than making gestures about the release of Alan Gross, rather than making gestures about making the embargo more flexible, I think that the strongest and clearest gesture that the Cuban government could make would be to liberate public opinion, liberate the circulation of ideas. Citizens should manifest themselves; this is something that is not happening here.
Reinaldo Escobar: Without freedom there is no citizen participation.
Miriam Celaya: What is going on with these editorials? They are still giving prominence to a distorted, biased view, composed of half-truths and lies about what the Cuban reality is. They are still giving prominence to what a government says, and Cuba is not a government. Cuba’s government today is a small group of old men, and when I say “old” it’s because of their way of thinking, of individuals who have remained anchored in discourse rooted in a cold war and belligerence. The Cuban people are not represented in that government.
Yoani Sánchez: I read editorials when they came out but last night went back to read them more calmly. The first editorial is perhaps the most fortunate, because it achieves a balance between one side and the other, but there are some that I think are really pitiful. Such as the one about the “brain drain” because these medical professionals are living a drama in this country that is not recognized in these texts.
First, I am against the concept of the theft of, or brain drain, because it accepts that your brain belongs to someone, to the nation, to the educational structure, or to whoever taught you. I think everyone should decide what to do with his or her own brain.
That editorial gives no space to the economic tragedy experienced by these professionals in Cuba. I know surgeons who may be among the best in their specialty in Latin America and they can’t cross their legs because people would be able to see the holes in their shoes, or they have to operate without breakfast because they can’t afford breakfast.
Miriam Celaya: There is something in that editorial that cuts and offends me, and it’s that slight of condescension, for instance, in this quote: “Havana could pay its workers more generously abroad if the medical brigades continue to represent an important source of income”… But, gentlemen! To do so is to accept the slavery of those doctors. It is to legitimize the implied right of a government to use its medical personnel as slaves for hire. How can that be?
Yoani Sánchez: With regards to these medical missions, I must say that the human character, no one can question it, when it comes to saving lives. But there has to be a political side and that is that these people are used as a kind of medical diplomacy, to gain followers, and because of this many countries vote at the United Nations on behalf of the Government of Cuba, which has practically hijacked many countries because they have Cuban doctors in their territories. It becomes an element of political patronage.
Another aspect is the economic, which is pushing doctors to leave because they can see the appeal of having a better salary, they can import appliances, pots for their home, a computer. Also, every month their bank account gets a deposit of convertible pesos, which they only get to keep if they return to Cuba and don’t desert from the mission. From a labor and ethical point of view it is very questionable.
Another issue is the negative impact it has on the Cuban healthcare system.
Luzbely Escobar: You go to a clinic and it is closed, or of the three doctors on duty, only one is there because the other two are in Venezuela, and then there is total chaos.
Miriam Celaya: In these editorials, I have read “Cuba” instead of “the Cuban government,” and I have read that the members of “the dissidence” were considered “charlatans.” These definitions, in addition to being disrespectful, put everyone in the same bag. Here, as everywhere else, society is complex, and, while it’s true that there are charlatans among the opposition – and among the government too — there are a lot of honest people who are working very faithfully for a better Cuba, with the greatest sacrifice and risk.
When they demonize it, then it seems that they are speaking the government’s language, as if they had written this in a room of the Party Central Committee and not in a newsroom of a country in the free world. Such epithets, coming from prestigious media, end up creating opinion. That’s a big responsibility.
Dissidence
Yoani Sánchez: In this country the nation has been confused with the government, the homeland with a party, and the country with a man. Then this man, this party and this government have taken the right to decide on behalf of everyone, whether it’s about growing a tomato or a cachucha pepper, or what ideological line the whole nation is going to follow.
As a consequence, those of us who have ideas different from those of that party, that government, and that man in power, are declared to be “stateless” or “anti-Cuban” and charged with wanting to align ourselves with a foreign power. It is as if now, that the Democratic party is governing the United States, all Republicans were declared to be anti-American. This is, like all the countries in the world, plural. If you walk down the street you are going to meet every kind of person: anarchist, liberal, social democrat, Christian democrat and even annexationist. Why can’t this so plural discourse be expressed in a legal way? And why do people like us have to be excluded from speaking and offering opinions?
Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison, MLK, MJ Porter and Norma Whiting
14ymedio, Luzbely Escobar, Havana, 5 December 2014 – Although its organizers deny it, La Tendedera (The Clothesline) is trying to emulate Facebook inside Cuba. The competition is tough because among the youngest on the Island Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has many followers. More than a year after its creation, its tropical competition has only managed to attract 4,500 users, and there are no clear figures on how many are really active.
In an interview published Wednesday by the newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), Kirenia Fagundo, leader of the project Cuba Va (Cuba Goes), which includes La Tendedera, tells readers about the obstacles and challenges facing the digital site. At the beginning, the social network was designed for those without access to the Internet, the young woman explained. However, currently it is only possible to access it from the Youth Computer Clubs, which inhibits its expansion and is an inconvenience for users.
Presented to the public on 7 September of last year, La Tendedera isn’t hosted at the Cuba Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) national data center, which “would facilitate connectivity through the intranet.” The programmers didn’t want to wait for it to be ready and opened public access to those attending the Youth Clubs. A mistake that has been detrimental to the quality and expansion of the service.
The slowness at which the website loads is one of the problems most mentioned by La Tendera’s users. The platform is way too heavy for the low speed Cuban networks. Although, according to Fagundo, it’s hoped that a lighter version will be hosted on the ETECSA servers and finally be accessible from the national intranet.
On inquiring among several users, what comes to light is not only the speed and the access restrictions which conspire against this tropical emulation of Facebook. The most widespread criticism, not reported by the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, is the impossibility of interacting with users beyond our national borders. You can only connect with other domestic users who have registered on the service. “If I travel outside the country I can’t update my profile, because you can only access it inside Cuba,” says Julian Casanovas, a high school student.
The announcement a few weeks ago, that Youth Club will begin to charge for its services, has been a new obstacle for La Tendedera, although the majority of these sites still having implemented the charge. “If only a few people come here now, imagine when you have to pay to do it,” says the administrator of one of the sites in the Plaza of the Revolution municipality, who asked to remain anonymous.
La Tendedera’s creators don’t appear to have learned the lesson. Despite the great limitations imposed by the Cuban networks’ slow speeds and lack of connectivity, they are planning to create a national version of Twitter, provisionally called Pitazo (Whistle). Will this new project also languish before the indifference of users and the competition from the large social networks? The answer can already be anticipated. Cuban users don’t seem disposed to put up with limitations.
Havana has chosen to title itself as one of the Wonder Cities of the Modern World, a contest organized by the by the Swiss New 7 Wonders Cities Foundation.
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 July 2015 – Four years Ecuador has been the route of Cubans who want to reach the United States. For many it was the first step towards the El Dorado of the North. In recent weeks, a fear has been growing that the South American nation might toughen the requirements for access to its territory. Entire families could stay on the island with their bags packed and and dreams broken.
