AUTHORS – Page 727 – Translating Cuba

What if Fidel Were to Survive Raul? / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 10 March 2015 — Let’s call him Hermes. Everything he says is said in private. I will not reveal his identity but, given the positions he has held, it is worth listening to what he has to say.

We all know these are confusing times, but imagine how much more confusing they would be if Fidel were to survive Raul. While hard to believe, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. While respectful of nature, for him it is the statistics that are significant.

We have in Havana fifteen thousand people living in provisional housing. In other words people whose homes have partially collapsed and who are more or less living continue reading

in these places as best they can, some for twenty years or more.

We also have some one-hundred fifty thousand people “approved for housing.” In other words people who should be in housing but are not due to a housing shortage. That’s one-hundred fifty thousand people whose roofs could fall in on them even without a downpour.

That’s one-hundred fifty thousand people who hug their loved ones before they go to bed at night as though they were going off to war. One hundred seventy-five thousand people, both in temporary housing and waiting for housing, who — as architect Miguel Coyula pointed out at a conference sponsored by the Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC) — is equal to the population of Matanzas.

Add to this political threat, says Hermes, the fact that Havana — with the exception of Nuevo Vedado — has still not been fixed and is like a wheel about to lose its spokes. Add to this the serious problems of internal plumbing and electrical wiring and carpentry… Replacing a window, just one (and most of them are rotted from termites), costs 100 CUC or more.

These problems are not unique to Havana; they are found throughout all of Cuba. Exactly how this has happened is not clear, but it is worth asking — adds Hermes — if, once Fidel and Raul are gone, will Cubans be willing to continue living and dying under such conditions.

His salary does not allow him to carry out repairs on his house. Nor would a bank be able extend him credit based on that salary, something that might have been possible one-hundred fifty or two hundred years ago. And even if it could, where would the country get the cement and the wood for such a monumental reconstruction effort. We are, therefore, faced with a problem created by socialism but for which socialism has no solution.

That’s the issue, says Hermes. That’s it. In other parts of the world there are the “landless.” Here there are the “roofless,” the ones who need things repaired, the ones who cannot wait to have things repaired. In these dramatic population figures, which encompass more than seventy percent of the country’s housing stock, he sees the inevitability of change, of the transition to democracy. Of course, all of this depends on Raul and Fidel not being around, as he points out.

Raul and Fidel were heroes. They were forged in war. The founded a religion based on it. They started handing out houses, handing out cars, handing out scholarships. For years they were like the Magi. For years they could count on bad American foreign policy decisions and people imagined themselves fighting alongside them. But aside from the legacy of destruction left by the Magi, what will their hand-picked successors and all those like them be able to offer?

Think about it, he suggests. Do the numbers. The path to the future will be based on pragmatism, not ideology. It is a matter of survival. Whoever comes after will not be able to imitate the Chinese. The country has been disappointed with the future that was offered to them a little over half a century ago.

Now the future as we imagnied it is gone. Anything with even whiff of socialism will cause a Cuban to quickly and decidedly go for his proverbial axe. We live in the age of the internet, says Hermes, and if the level of development we have seen in those countries which have left utopian socialist visions behind were not enough, we can now witness in Cuba the financial well-being of those who struck out on their own and began working for themselves.

For all these reasons Hermes is sleeping soundly. His digestion is good and he is laughing at the pessimistic prognostications of today’s soothsayers. He knows, as his numbers indicate, that anyone who did not seem to be political — the average guy who watched his house age without being able to make repairs or who watched it fall down — will be at the forefront of deciding the question of democracy’s future, even in the event that Fidel survives Raul.

"I’ve seen them leave." The Castro Genocide, Cuban Documentary

12 March 2015

An Innocent Proposition / Reinaldo Escobar

Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 11 March 2015 – The announced intention to promulgate a new Elections Law has already generated controversy.

It is striking that there is no talk of reforming the current law, only of writing a new one. As a blog is no space for legal dissertations, I want to limit myselt here to formulating a completely innocent proposal:

“Let the Cuban voters know how the candidates think.”

Or, to put it another way:

Let every voter have the ability to know how the deputies he or she elects is going to vote continue reading

in the Parliament.

Currently, this is not possible (although everyone assumes that the deputies are going to approve everything proposed to them). The current elections law, in the second paragraph of Article 71, referring to electoral ethics, establishes:

To determine which candidate will receive his vote, every voter will only consider the candidate’s: personal characteristics, prestige, and ability to serve the people.

And it then specifies:

The advertising presented will be the biographies, accompanied by a reproduction of the image of the candidate, and will be posted in public sites or through the mass media or other forms of dissemination, according to the provisions dictated by the National Electoral Commission.

If a miracle were to happen that allowed the candidates to express their unique proposals, then the voters would not be limited to considering only their biographical merits but also, as an essential thing, their political opinions, their platforms.

The homophobic and the homosexual would know who has the idea of legalizing same-sex couples, the private entrepreneur and the state bureaucrat would know who proposes to lower taxes, the baseball fanatic and the opera aficionado would be able to know, before exercising their vote, which candidate proposes to invest in a stadium and which in a theater. And much more. Who is communist or liberal, who is a social democrat or a Christian democrat.

But we leave the innocent formula so as not to upset the enemies of multi-partyism:

“Let the Cuban voters know how the candidates think.”

A People Without Representation / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Damas, 7 February 2015 — The great tragedy of the Cuban people at the present time is that it lacks true representation. I speak of the average Cuban citizen, who constitutes the majority of the nearly 12-million inhabitants of this Island.

The government, which during the first years of the 1960s signified hope for a better life in a democracy for Cubans, very soon (with the imposition of socialism and its later institutionalization and bureaucratization) began to abandon its representation of the people’s interests and separated itself from them — being preoccupied instead with establishing and consolidating the institutions, organizations and mechanism to perpetuate itself in power indefinitely. Today the regime finds itself separated by light years from the average Cuban continue reading

, besides being alienated from the hopes and dreams he has for his life.

Neither does the opposition represent the average Cuban because, besides being unknown by the greater part of the citizenry, its platforms are more along philosophical and intellectual lines than practical solutions to the problems related to low wages, the housing shortage, terrible services, nutritional needs, the high cost of living, and other daily issues, which occupy the time and minds of those who struggle day-to-day to survive with their families.

This situation is easy to perceive on the street.

At this moment, although it is painful to admit, the majority of Cubans care little if their government is a dictatorship or a democracy: what matters to them is the opportunity to work, to earn enough money and solve their immediate material problems, thus raising their wellbeing and that of their families.

This means the ability to acquire what is needed to feed and dress themselves, and live in a decent home. In addition, they want to enjoy good services, even if they have to pay for them, and have disposable income for recreation.

Too many have been the years of limitations and shortages while pursuing false chimeras. The speeches and promises, come from where they might, have lost their effectiveness and are no longer of interest.

Whoever can ensure a solution will have the support of the majority of citizens and, whoever does not, will have their full rejection. It is that simple.

This necessitates, from both those who govern as well as their opponents, a serious revision of tactics and strategies, if they desire to reach the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of this country.

These are not times for walking in the clouds, visualizing pleasant projects for a virtual future, but rather for having one’s feet on the ground and mobilizing average Cubans to resolve the present problems. All else will come later.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Rationing in Venezuela: A ‘Déjà vu’ for Cubans / 14ymedio, Miriam Celaya

14ymedio, Havana, Miriam Celaya, 11 March 2015 — Commissar Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela to the misfortune of its people and – let’s admit it – also for the prolongation of our own misfortune, has just announced recently the installation of 20,000 digital fingerprint readers in state food markets and in several private sector retail chains that, according to him, adopted the initiative “voluntarily” after meetings held with the government.

Let’s draw a merciful veil over the aforementioned secret meetings and imagine the atmosphere that must have reigned there in the midst of the “permanent economic war” that Venezuela suffers, the successive “soft coups” that have been provoked almost bi-weekly in that South American nation – according to the president’s denunciations – and the growing repression of opposition factions and civil society that demonstrate publicly and openly against the government. continue reading

It is not very hard to guess what caused the “voluntariness” of these businessmen, who are definitively representatives of the “oligarchies” constantly defamed in official speeches and press.

But returning to the topic of Comrade-President Maduro’s above-mentioned fingerprint readers, his lofty purpose is, while guaranteeing the feeding of the people, to counter smuggling, or more exactly, “the smugglers” since smuggling can exist without socialism but socialism has never existed without smuggling.

This way, the fingerprint readers – which will limit the purchase of foods and other products in high demand whose supply has been greatly depressed causing lines, hoarding and disturbances in the stores – now are added to the prior rationing through magnetic cards established in 2014. It is clear that the Bolshevik Nicolas has not the least ability to overcome his country’s economic crisis, but at least in contemporary times the new technologies permit digital management of the misery. It is without doubt a real contribution of Socialism in the 21st Century which the late Hugo predicted in his glory days, before being planted in the Mountain Barracks and turned into a tiny little bird dispensing bad advice*.

Decades later, the Venezuelan government model – if it is possible to call it that – is dragging the country in a sort of reverse race through experiences similar to those that we Cubans have gone through under Castro-ism.

Those of us born before or in the years immediately following the catastrophic accident of January 1959 remember clearly some of the bureaucratic variants created to manage poverty, an ill that the older ones among us believed had been almost overcome with the economic boom experienced in the 50’s.

This administrative strategy, typical of war and famine economies, was first established for food products, and a little later, with the decline of Cuban industries due to the extreme nationalization of the economy, it was rapidly extended to other consumer products, such as clothing, footwear and other goods. Then came the industrial products book, popularly known as the store booklet, which currently functions only for the acquisition of school uniforms.

This version of control not only indicated the limits of access to the said articles, but it also reached the point of establishing shopping schedules for groups, with subsections inspired in the strongly sexist standards of the Revolution, which assigned two days a week – Monday and Thursday – on which only women workers could shop; an enviable privilege in the widespread poverty that, moreover, took for granted in a Revolutionary way that trifles like shopping were not worthy of men.

Decades of shortages, manipulated in detail by those in power, sowed in ordinary Cubans an extreme dependence on the State – an always insufficient provider but the only one possible – and a whole culture of systematized poverty that includes a peculiar glossary with phrases that we drag around even today in popular speech: “what they are offering” in this or that establishment, “what’s assigned to you,” “what’s expiring,” “plan jaba**,” “chicken diet***” and many similar ones that reflect the national acceptance of misery as the common destiny, something that one day – hopefully not too distant – should embarrass us.

Rationing in Cuba has been quite an institution that has played a role in the socio-economic realm and also in the political, functioning more as an instrument of subjection of the people by the Government than as a true guarantor of a just distribution of consumer goods, established with a vulgar egalitarianism that annulled individual initiative and turned the citizen into dough.

The ration book has constituted a mechanism of social control, even to the point that currently the Government has not been able to eliminate it, on pain of absolutely abandoning the most disadvantaged social sectors, especially the elderly without filial protection and the many humble homes which receive no remittances from abroad nor have any other hard currency income. In spite of that, the food products rationed and subsidized through the book – that artifact that constitutes a complete leftover of the Cold War – are today fewer than a dozen, and they barely cover precariously some of the most pressing food needs while the rate of inflation keeps increasing and wages hardly have even symbolic value.

That is why, when I now witness the Venezuelan rationing process, when I hear the openness with which Comrade-President Nicolas Maduro disguises in modernity the cataclysm of misery that looms for his people, I cannot escape a kind of jolt, like déjà vu. We Cubans already traveled that path, we walked half a century over its thorns and we are convinced that it only leads to disaster. We have painfully and abundantly proven that misery is the only thing that, divided among many, touches more.

Personally, I hope that the poor Venezuelans, who lately pursue their food anxiously and stand in long lines at stores with empty shelves, manage in time to avoid that serious confusion that sometimes leads people to interpret as justice that which is the manipulation and burial of freedoms.

Translator’s notes:
* Nicolas Maduro says that Hugo Chavez appears to him as a tiny little bird, and dispenses advice. In this video, otherwise in Spanish, he imitates the sounds the bird makes flying around his head and then imitates the bird whistling a message.
** “Plan jaba” is literally “sack plan” and can mean one of two things: (A) you leave your bag and come back and pick it up at a convenient time so you don’t have to wait in line all day, which is allowed for some working people; or (B) you get a “special bag of extras” because of age, illness or pregnancy, and again, you just pick it up.
*** “Chicken diet” means that you get extra protein because of age, illness or pregnancy.

Translated by MLK

Adopting Other Terminology / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Damaso, 7 March 2015 — According to official pronouncements, conversations between the governments of Cuba and the United States are proceeding in a serious, respectful and substantive way regardless of the fact that each party is defending its own point of view.

But what is striking is the way representatives of the official media continue to use the worn-out terminology of the Cold War by repeatedly parroting terms like anti-imperialist, anti-annexationist, anti-colonialist and other anti’s from the voluminous repertory crafted by the international left. continue reading

While it is true that they do not have the freedom to alter their rhetoric and must wait for orders from above before doing so, it seems that should have already happened. It seems it pains them to be do something positive and forego using such inappropriate language.

These “sweet words” don’t fool anybody; they have fallen out of favor. Besides, they were never used in reference to Soviet imperialism, which oppressed Eastern Bloc countries by imposing its political system on them, nor to the so-called “fraternal republics” which made up the Soviet Union. Such sweet words have always carried deep ideological overtones and have only ever been used in reference to the “enemy” or, in other words, to western governments.

The current language should be one that focuses on peace, respect for diversity, dialogue, cooperation, coexistence, development, well-being and other related themes. The old, obsolete language should be cast aside if we aspire to live together in a civilized way.

[Our apologies to the translator of this post for the delay in posting it here; it got “lost” somehow, until an eagle-eyed reader noticed that it was on Fernando’s blog but not on Translating Cuba.]

Only One Question / Angel Santiesteban

Angel Santiesteban, Border Patrol Prison Unit, Havana. February, 2015 — I do not have access to the news online nor the articles by specialists and political scientists in the daily papers with respect to the recent dialogues between President Obama and the president of Cuba. And, as the days pass and we are ever farther from that 17 of December of last year — when their secret contacts and accords became known — there is a question that continues to grow in my mind, and it is: why did the initial list of prisoners to be exchanged not include those who have been jailed in Cuba for almost 30 years?

How is it possible that these prisoners were left out of that list of 53 Cuban political prisoners? I am not saying that they should have been substituted for any of those on the list, simply that they should have been included. And the more I ponder this, my puzzlement grows like a snowball. continue reading

It simply seems to me a sign of disrespect to play politics and forget those men, those brothers, those human beings who have been suffering in the worst of captivities for decades. Would that, in a second “round,” as always happens in these political maneuverings, these men are taken into account. This I pray.

Remember that those imprisoned Cubans are serving sentences that are double those that were being completed by Castro’s spies.

Perhaps, as the song says, “they have it all figured out,” and in fact they were left for another future spy exchange — such as for Ana Belén Montes, their spy in the Pentagon — or to soften up the North American Congress so that they will lift the embargo.

I suspect that the script is already written: Obama and the Castros have a common enemy, which is the Republican Party. They are the ones who need to be convinced, because, were it up to the Democrats, they would already, in the blink of an eye, have set up a satellite of China or Russia in the Caribbean — which is what they’re doing, of course, the only difference being that it is official, made legal by the American government itself.

I already foresee that this hand will be bitten, and will catch rabies.

Border Patrol Prison Unit, Havana. February, 2015.

* Editor’s Note: There are 9 political prisoners who have been incarcerated more than 20 years. Their names (and years imprisoned so far) are: Pedro de la Caridad Álvarez (23), Daniel Candelario Santovenia (23), Elías Pérez (23), Erik Salmerón (23), Raúl Manuel Cornel (22), José David Herman (22), Miguel Díaz (21), Armando Sosa (21) and Humberto Eladio Real Suárez (21). Fifteen other prisoners have been detained for periods between 12 and 19 years. (Source: Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) and see also Human Rights Watch Report based on CCDHRN reporting.)

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

6 March 2015

Are There More Than Enough Reasons? / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Damaso, 16 February 2015 — The Young Communist League (UJC) is a government organization, established and directed by the Party and the government, with the objective of controlling the youth of the Island politically and ideologically. It proclaims itself the sole representative of young Cubans, similar to how other government organizations operate in this totalitarian system — such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), who consider themselves to be the representatives of all Cubans, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which purports to speak for all women, and continue reading

many others.

In the month of July, on the 18th and 19th, this organization will celebrate its Tenth Congress. The great number of activities planned in advance of this event is notable. They include assemblies, reunions, sporting, cultural, and productive events, and more. All of these will extend way beyond the actual days of the Congress, up to August 13, the birthday of the “Maximum Leader.” In total, almost eight months of events will have taken place before, during and after the Congress in July.

If we consider the amount of time invested plus other costs that all these activities will generate, it is to be expected that the results of the Congress will be “of the utmost importance,” not to mention, as has been the case with the previous nine, “historic.”

The theme of the Congress is “There Are More Than Enough Reasons” and, according to its organizers, it will be manifested in three ideological tracks: “There Are More Than Enough Reasons to Celebrate,” “There Are More Than Enough Reasons to Carry On,” “There Are More Than Enough Reasons to Prevail” — which started on January 4 and will extend until the Congress is held.

Up to now, according to what is published in the press, in the municipal assemblies all discussion appears to be concentrated on the so-called passivity, accommodation and lack of commitment of the militants — in addition to the loss of values, the vulgarity, corruption, social indiscipline, criminal behavior, ideological subversion, and other problems present in Cuban society today, of which the youth are part.

It is a secret to nobody that these problems (and others) are of long-standing and, in spite of many declarations throughout the years, and numerous congresses of the government organizations, have never been resolved. I have the impression that in this Congress there will be much music and dancing (the musical groups and performers who will liven up the proceedings and even the songs that have been created for the event have been identified), theatrical and cinematic shows, book sales, sporting competitions and other similar activities, interspersed with one or another “productive activities” — all to show the world how joyous and enthusiastic our Cuban youth are, led by their “vanguard,” the UJC.

In the end, all congresses carried out by Cuban government organizations suffer from the same malady: “All talk and no action.” This one will be no exception.

Perhaps the UJC should start to think about how it will survive in a democratic setting, which will arrive sooner rather than later, and where it will have to compete with other youth organizations, which will definitely not be government-sponsored. To think that all Cuban young people, or the majority of them, are socialists and communists is no more than a totalitarian utopia, which daily life constantly refutes.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Being Forty Years Old in Cuba / Cubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera

They are referred to as old folks, half-timers and the pure. They are shipwreck victims of a capsized island. They cling to debris, trying to stay afloat.

Cubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro, Havana, February 27, 2015 — Men and women in Cuba who have reached the age of forty are referred to as tembas (old folks), medios tiempos (half-timers) and los puros (the pure).

Those approaching this age have lived through the periods before and after 1989 on the island. Their childhoods were spent between schools in the countryside and schools like those in the countryside, an ostensible bonanza subsidized by the Council of Mutual Aid (CAME) and the war in Angola. As young people they heard the echoes of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and suffered through the crisis and blackouts.

Those who remain view their lives like those of shipwreck victims on an island that has capsized. Some cling to debris, trying to stay afloat. Others see fulfillment slipping away in a country that continues to deny them a future. continue reading

Cubanet interviewed people in Bayamo and Havana: one a small city, the other the capital. They offer a portrait of a generation for whom hope has been extinguished.

Bayamo, a country within a country

One couple agreed to be interviewed by this reporter on how they see their lives now and in the future. The man will turn forty in two years. Both declined to give their names.

“They say that in 2016 the outlook in Bayamo could be very different, but that is exactly what the government promised my parents and what I inherited from them was crisis and the urge to leave behind these people and this country,” he says.

“This is a beautiful city,” says the woman, “but it feels very small when we see the tons of opportunities we are missing. The ones who prosper here, more or less, are the ones who get help from those who left when they were young to try their luck in another country. I don’t want my children to live with the despair I inherited from my parents. On that he and I both agree.”

Another man, known as El Pelón (the Bald Guy), graduated during the educational chaos of the last decade.

“I have a lot of family living in the United States,” he says. “At one time I thought about making the crossing to Miami, leaving through Puerto Padre. But life got messy, so I’m still here. By the time you’re forty, you feel the initial urge slipping away. It’s like you have entered a stage of life where you are moving at half speed. You resign yourself to things. Arriving in a new country at twenty is not the same as when you are over forty.”

In Havana forty at forty

The Maxim Rock theater is a hotbed for the young and not so young. It is Saturday in the capital. Tonight, two generations of music fans co-mingle, intent on having the best time possible. This reporter managed to have a conversation with one couple. He is forty; she is much younger. Both spoke informally without giving their names.

“Twenty years ago,” he says, “I was walking around Vedado, hunting for foreigners and ’hustling.’ It was the 1990s, the era of blackouts and all those nightmares no one wants to remember. You had to be brave to leave but also to stay. That’s what I tell people when they ask me why I am still living in Cuba.”

“Something will have to change. These people’s time has passed,” she says referring to the government. They are committed to the same old same old. But they are very mistaken if they think the public’s silence is due to resignation.”

Dominoes, a game of life and politics

At a Casa de los Abuelos senior center, a buiding which is somehow miraculously still standing, a group of men is getting ready to play another round of dominoes. Everyone here is past the age of forty. As in the game of life and politics, each playing piece is a bet to be wagered in silence. Their faces tell the history of this country, spanning the dying past that landed them at this table and a future as uncertain as a domino.

At the same time their counterparts are playing another round in Miami’s Maximo Gomez Park. They are veterans of nostalgia. Some still unabashedly await the imminent downfall of the two brothers, just as they did when they arrived in Florida at age twenty.

However, the prospect of reconciliation without freedom for Cubans living on the island continues to shadow those on both sides of the Florida Straits.

Outside of Havana, the partial results of the referendum give a solid majority to Berta Soler / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White. (CC)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 10 March 2015 — The leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler, talks about the first voting on the referendum to determine whether she will remain at the front of the organization, and denounces the repression that accompanied the consultation. The first results are very favorable, although the votes from Havana still need to be counted, those results are expected to be known on Wednesday.

Escobar. What is the latest news about the recall referendum?

Soler. It was planned to hold it this coming March 16, but considering the conditions in each province and the problems of some Ladies in White that should be dealt with, it was decided to move up the date.

Escobar. Was Matanzas the first province to vote?

Soler. Yes, they voted last Saturday. For me it has been impressive since this province has 33 Ladies in White with voting rights and all continue reading

participated. Of these 32 voted “yes” and one voted “no.”

On Sunday, many of them went to the sites of each delegation to exercise their vote. Of the 22 members in Guantanamo, 18 participated and 16 voted “yes” and two annulled their ballot. In Santa Clara 12 of 13 members participated; eight voted “yes.” In Santiago de Cuba, of the 12 with a right to vote 10 chose “yes” and two chose “no.” In Bayamo, five voted “yes” and one did not show up. Today, Tuesday, the referendum was held in Holguin, with 22 “yes” and 4 “no,” plus one annulled ballot and one blank ballot.

“If the Cuban government has pasted up photos of “The Five,” we know we have the right to do that for our prisoners”

The vote of seven people from Ciego de Ávila is now pending now, as are five votes in Pinar del Rio and at least another 92 in Havana.

In all the provinces the vote has followed the same rules. There is a ballot box, the girls come, watched by observers from various organizations that have nothing to do with the Ladies in White, like UNPACU and the Republican Party for example.

Escobar. How is the information reported?

Soler. By phone. As soon as the voting ended, with observers present and the ladies who were there, the ballots were opened, the counting was done and the results publicly announced. It was then sealed and the votes were sent to Havana so there can be a count before Wednesday.

Escobar. Has there been any kind of repression?

Soler. Yes. An observer from Granma province was arrested in the morning and as of five in the afternoon had not yet released. In Havana, we pasted up pictures of Ángel Santiesteban and El Sexto (Danilo Maldonano). We did it, we are doing it and we will continue to do it, because if the Cuban government has pasted up photos of “The Five,” we know we have the right to do that for our prisoners.

I congratulated everyone including those who said no. I wanted there to be “no” votes so people could see that is it possible to vote “no.”

They arrested seven Ladies in White in Virgen del Camino along with three human rights activists from other organizations. One security agent who is called Luisito said to Dayami Ortiz, “If you vote for Berta you’re going to spend four days locked up with prisoners.” Sobrelis Turroella, who is ill, was also taken prisoner yesterday in Alamar. They said to her, “How’s your cancer going?” “You’re really sick, what are you going to do with cancer?” Or, “If you vote yes, instead of fining you 1,500 pesos for having ‘undocumented’ sugar, we’re going to find you 3,000 pesos.”

We looked for this referendum to be clear, very transparent, but the Cuban government wants to tarnish it. So far, there are 112 “yes’s,” nine “no’s” and five ballots blank or annulled. I congratulated everyone including those who said no. I wanted there to be “no” votes so people could see that is it possible to vote “no.”

This process emerged from a disagreeable incident and, in the end, will strengthen the movement. I think that in Cuban civil society we have to learn democracy by practicing democracy.

Francis Sanchez, Another of the Writers Tired of Mediocrity? / Angel Santiesteban

Writers tired of mediocrity

Ángel Santiesteban, 9 March 2015 — I recognize that at times I don’t mention writers living in Cuba for fear of harming them, although I know how most Cuba intellectuals think, I know, I’m aware of it, because of what they do, the game continues and what will they get in return for faked docile behavior in support of totalitarianism.

Among those I don’t mention is Francis Sánchez, a writer from Ciego de Ávila, whom I have accompanied for years in his intellectual development, and then, that call to his conscience to express his political feelings. To this end, he has faced fierce government criticism, harsher in the province than in the capital, being more isolated from the international media and with fewer Human Rights activists. Thus, he has had to swim upstream and against continue reading

the current most of the time.

I know his family, whom I don’t name so as not to cause them to be hurt; I have visited his house, I have crouched in that space of creative lineage, I have accompanied his sons and bought them fish food (they are already teenagers), and they consider me a family friend, to my personal pride. I also thank them that through them I met Laurita in Mexico who helped me, against their will, to create this blog “The Children Nobody Wanted,” and I will always be grateful.

It has been gratifying to know that — despite the pressures of State Security, the Provincial Party and the cultural marginality of the functionaries who direct this organization — Francis has answered his call to conscience, resisting the tension of knowing himself to be walking a tightrope, on the razor’s edge, and he has exhibited his work “Cicatrices” (Scars), in the gallery of the artists and human rights defenders Luis Trápaga and Lía Villares.

Take care brother, they are lurking, and fabricating a case against you and it will be like an absurd journey into hell, that you won’t believe until you see the total darkness. In any event, there at the point of no return, my voice will be with you, my cry joined with that of your family. I send you a huge hug and my pride in our friendship, and the mutual need to express ourselves honestly in our time, feeling the light that crosses our body, in that full transparency brought to us by the true artists, and first of all by our José Martí.

I ask the international community to keep Francis Sánchez and his family in sight, preventing another institutional abuse to silence his voice, his art, which is so painful to the dictatorship.

Take care of politics! / 14ymedio, Pedro Campos

14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Havana, 4 March 2015 – The political and electoral system put in place in Cuba in the name of a socialism that has never existed, on which bureaucracy placed its bets and with which it has always won, has distinguished itself for its representative and indirect character, like that of the representative democracies that it has always criticized in other countries.

That indirect and representative form, where those at the bottom only count when its time to vote for candidates that have been predetermined by the top – except in the case of district delegates – of whom all that is known is a small biography, has only served to depoliticize constituents and make them lose interest in politics, which is nothing more than a way to manage continue reading

issues that concern everyone, be they political, economic, fiscal, labor, judicial, or social.

Since no one is elected for the policies they would put in place to resolve issues in the community, the region, or the country, people simply don’t discuss politics nor do they vote for a specific policy. Thus far, those elected are the one’s who are “best trained” to make and defend the policies that have already been established by the Government-party. This has been the essence of the “socialist democracy.”

Given that the vast majority of Cubans have left politics in the hands of the same people who have governed this country – under a single party and in a single direction – for over half a century, they have decided and continue to decide all our destinies.

It’s time for Cubans, regardless of our ways of thinking, to begin taking care of politics, making it work for all our interests and pulling it from the stagnation into which it has been plunged. We should do the same with the economy, to extract it from the high levels of centralization that have characterized it. The point is not to be consulted about what should be done; it’s to make ourselves the deciders of what occurs.

No one explains what the Party’s Central Committee’s announced new electoral law proposes

The last plenary session of the Party’s Central Committee approved the establishment of a new electoral law. There are no doubts that it is necessary, but no one explains what the new legislation proposes or how it will impact citizens, if we will participate in its drafting and if we will vote for it in referendum or not, as it should be due to its importance.

Meanwhile, independent civil society demands a new constitution, rule of law, a multi-party system, and democratic elections, and the left, additionally, urges the delivery of a more direct democracy, increased public control, and more effective forms of participation and decision-making.

How will we Cubans participate in the discussion process regarding the new law so that politics doesn’t continue to take care of us and instead it is us who takes care of politics?

How to reconcile that new law with the demands of a great part of Cuban society? Why link it to the negotiations with the United States when it deals with a topic that is solely the responsibility of the Cuban people? Will a new electoral law be democratic or just a patching up of the previous one aimed at keeping up appearances and prolonging the Party’s time in power? How can a new electoral law be conceived without having previously changed a Constitution that has various antidemocratic articles such as the following?

Article 5: establishes the rule of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) over the society.

Article 53: restricts the freedoms of expression and press insofar as it advances the interests of the socialist society, a socialism that also lacks a precise definition.

Article 54: limits the rights to assembly, protest, and association to existing organizations that are subordinate to the PCC.

Article 74: establishes indirect elections for the offices of President and Vice-President at the hands of the National Assembly of People’s Power.

Article 116: establishes that Provincial and Municipal Assemblies are responsible for indirectly electing mayors and governors.

How can a new electoral law be conceived without having previously changed a Constitution that has various antidemocratic articles?

How to discuss and approve a new electoral law in a country whose political climate does not allow free expression of different ideas or the right to form political associations to defend them.

Regardless, relative to the electoral system, Chapter XIV of the Constitution is sufficiently ample and imprecise to allow for almost anything, even when it seems to contradict other aspects of the Magna Carta, it would be too hasty to draw conclusions for now, given that there are also many other articles that would justify an electoral law that would be entirely democratic.

Regarding this with an optimistic eye, which would not be supported by the actions of Raul Castro’s government in this area, it would be possible to expect that this announcement could be a prelude to others, essential for the creation of a climate of national dialogue and confidence needed for the longed-for process of democratization to open up.

Consequently, we should practice politics, organize ourselves and continue to demand, through every possible track, the creation of a political atmosphere that will be conducive to a necessary national dialogue without exclusions; the establishment of thorough respect for the freedoms of expression, association, and election; the beginning of the works toward a new democratic Constitution that will be approved in a referendum and will allow for the establishment of a rule of law; and continue to push for the complete liberation of the country’s forces of production from all the bonds, regulations, and monopolies imposed by the salaried state forces.

Take care of politics, or politics will take care of you!

Translated by Fernando Fornaris

Queens for a Night / 14ymedio, Rosa Lopez

Painting of a woman's face (Silvia Corbelle) — Painting of a woman’s face (Silvia Corbelle)

14ymedio, Rosa Lopez, Camagüey, 8 March 2015 — On the kitchen table is a smeared plate of pink meringue. It’s been there since Friday afternoon, when she brought that piece of cake from the party for Women’s Day. After the celebration, the music and a boring speech from the factory director, Magaly returned to the routine of her life. To a house where a double workday awaited her, with no union, no protective laws, much less a salary. Almost sixty, she’s learned that the speeches about gender equality are just that, speeches.

In the distant year of 1869, within a few hours of the proclamation of the Guaimaro Constitution, Ana Betancourt launched a phrase that would mark women’s illusions with the processes of political change in our country. “Citizens: the woman in the dark and quiet corner of the house waited patiently and with resignation for this beautiful hour in which the new revolution broke her yoke and continue reading

unchained her wings.”

Which is what Magaly felt as a teenager when she went to a meeting of the Federation of Cuban Woman (FMC) for the first time. In those years she was also a part of a squad in the Territorial Troops Militia (MTT), and at the same time she did volunteer work almost every weekend and was raising two small children.

Those were the days of the so-called “orchestra woman” this graduate in Chemical Engineering says now, with disappointment — a time when women thought they could play all the instruments at once. Her disenchantments are shared with many women who gave the best years of their lives to a process where emancipation was only achieved on paper in official reports. “Before every problem where I needed some kind of protection for being a woman, I found myself helpless,” remembers Magaly, sitting in the living room of her house, an old mansions with cracked walls in the city of Camagüey.

“I experienced moments of domestic violence with a husband who was obsessed with me, but the police would never give me a restraining order“

She details the situations where she felt the weight of her ovaries like a difficult burden to bear. “I experienced moments of domestic violence with a husband who was obsessed with me, but the police would never give me a restraining order and when I complained they told me that we had to ‘work things out ourselves.’ Imagine how frightened I was, barely able to go outside.”

She became an expert in hiding bruises behind dark glasses and looked for a lover who “would punch out the abuser, and so it was resolved, because here it’s only done man to man.”

“When I divorced that husband, just to top it off, they only gave me a monthly support payment of sixty pesos [roughly $2.40 US] for each child. What could I do with that?” she asks, upset. Although in Cuba child support after a divorce is obligatory, the amount is determined based on the legal earnings of the father, or of his salary in Cuban pesos. In a society where the Government itself recognizes that wages are not people’s principal source of income, calculating support in this way puts the main economic burden of raising children on the mothers’ shoulders – who retain custody in most cases.

In Magaly’s family the women were always strong and fighters, she says, while showing some photos from the past. “My grandmother participated in 1923 in the First National Women’s Congress, when there were 31 women’s associations in the different provinces.” It was the first meeting of this type in Latin American and in its discussions they demanded the chance to campaign for women’s suffrage. The voices of women were also heard in getting laws to protect children and to achieve equal social, political and economic rights.

After reviewing the history of the women in her family tree, Magaly says that “when the Revolution triumphed my mother was very excited by the advantages this would bring us.” However, the consensus opinion is that with the speeches about emancipation that accompanied the process from its first day, women achieved major representation in public positions and a double workday, but very little changed inside the home.

“All my friends spent the day working on domestic issues, some even left their jobs to be able to dedicate full time to their homes,” says this professional who makes a living reselling products she manages to extract illegally from the factory where she works. She clarifies her statements with a dose of irony, “It’s true that having an abortion became very easy and divorce is achieved at the blink of an eye, but the machismo structure of society remains intact, leaving us the role of almost-slaves in the home.”

“Having an abortion became very easy and divorce is achieved at the blink of an eye, but the machismo structure of society remains intact”

“And the FMC?” she asks loudly. “Well thank you for convening meetings and giving us more tasks to do because that’s all it does.” This in reference to the only women’s organization allowed in the country, founded in August 1960, which today comprises more than four million females. The majority of them have joined the federation in an almost mechanical gesture, very similar to the push making so many Cubans members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

Magaly belongs to that generation that grew up surrounded by promises of equality. “Most of my classmates at the university were women, but today a large percentage of them are no longer working.” The economic collapse of the Special Period sent many women who had worked in a company or state entity back to their homes. Today, many depend economically on their husbands, and upon retirement receive they will receive only a symbolic pension, leaving them to be supported by their children.

Someone knocks on the door while this woman from Camagüey describes her daily life. It is an onion seller who asks two days wages for one bunch. There’s no choice but to buy them, because “I’m soaking some beans and I have to have something to put with them,” she says, wrapped in a robe so old it’s transparent. When the transaction is over she continues talking about her frustrations. “My friends can’t afford hardly anything, even to buy makeup they have to jump through hoops.”

“But I don’t fight it,” she concludes. “What I can’t do without is diazepam,” she explains, taking from her purse a packet with little white pills that are prescribed for anxiety, muscular spasms and seizures. In Cuba there is an extensive illegal market for this drug and other anti-anxiety medications which are greatly used by women. “This is the real emancipation, almost all the women I know take something like this… it is the pill that makes us feel like queens, at least for a night, while we sleep.”

The Annual Potato Ritual / 14ymedio, Orlando Palma

comprar-papas-Habana-Luz-Escobar14ymedio_CYMIMA20150309_0004_13 — A line to buy potatoes in Havana. (Luz Escobar / 14ymedio)

14ymedio, ORLANDO PALMA, Havana, 9 March 2015 — Last weekend, the arrival of the potato in several farmers markets in Havana provoked fights that recalled the despair of the most difficult years of the Special Period. Hours after the squabbles ended, it was possible to buy potatoes in the same places, but from the hands of those clever enough to speculate in the product.

The Ministry of Agriculture authorities insist that the current crop of the tuber is notably larger than last year’s, however the lines and fights to buy them also seem to have multiplied.

In the current “potato campaign” 60,000 tons of the product are expected, but precedents raise fears that this estimate will not be reached. The 2014 harvest fell significantly short of the production plan, delivering 53,300 tons instead of the 65,700 tons projected. The difference was felt on the dinner tables of Cuban families and provoked desperation in neighborhoods and continue reading

villages, something that is easy to observe whenever you see a truck with the precious foodstuff.

In the case of the city of Havana, given its population density, the situation becomes more complex. The product is sold in at least 51 authorized markets in the neighborhoods of Playa, Plaza, Centro Habana, La Habana Vieja, Diez de Octubre, La Habana del Este, San Miguel, Boyeros, Arroyo Naranjo and Cerro. These places are battlegrounds where people wait for hours, shouting and shoving.

The panorama of long lines and fights is now repeated in the illegal market, where the prices for potatoes have also shot up. If at the official stalls a pound costs one Cuban peso (about 4¢ US), buying them under the table is going to cost you one convertible peso, twenty-five times the official price. And that despite the fact that sales are restricted to twenty pounds a person, a limitation the resellers seem to overcome with ease.

If at the official stalls a pound costs one Cuban peso (about 4¢ US), buying them under the table is going to cost you one convertible peso, twenty-five times the official price

Nancy Wilson Perich, Commercial Deputy Director of the Provincial Company of Agricultural Markets, looks to the future with optimism, however. According to what this functionary told the official media, the number of stalls selling potatoes will increase to 210 during March, and they are expected to sell 26,500 tons, of which 3,500 have already been sold.

Most of the potatoes arriving in the capital this season come from the provinces of Mayabeque, Artemisa, Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Ciego de Avila. Perich Wilson says that of the 60,000 tons expected from February to April, about 30,000 will go to into cold storage in Havana, Güira, Alquízar and Guines for later sale.

“Operation potato” not only involves the Provincial Company of Agricultural Markets, it also involves the Ministry of Domestic Trade, the Logistics Group of the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Revolutionary Police themselves, who are in charge of controlling lines and maintaining discipline among buyers. A long involved chain, which can neither produce nor distribute this staple efficiently.

Farmers point to the scarce supply of seed as responsible for the decrease in the presence of the potatoes in Cuba. Most seeds are imported from the Netherlands and Canada at a cost of over 10 million dollars. The national variety, known as Romano, can’t produce the yields of the foreign seeds, but it has the advantage of coming earlier in the year compared to the foreign supplies, which only begin to arrive in the country starting in the month of November.

Farmers complain of poor seed distribution, doled out to them in dribs and drabs, late and often in bad shape

Farmers complain of poor seed distribution, doled out to them in dribs and drabs, late and often in bad shape. To this is added the climate requirements for good growth of the tubers, which need a temperature between 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit for full development. The good news is that, at least in recent weeks, the cold fronts that have hit the western region have been favorable for potato cultivation.

The same has not been true for the supply of fertilizers, insecticides and the quality of the irrigation systems of the farmers engaged in this work. Problems are felt in towns such as Alquízar, Güira and Artemis, with a long tradition of potato farming, where farmers reported delays and gaps in the delivery of the “technology package.” The bad technical situation or absence of sprayers for pests is one of the obstacles most mentioned by the producers.

The potato problem, however, transcends potatoes. It is not just about the difficulties facing production. In 2000 there was a very positive peak of 348,500 tons, almost six times today’s production. The situation is closely related to the increase in prices and the lack of substitute products.

This is also the case with rice and meats, which in recent months have experienced cycles of shortages and rising imports. Given the high price of beans, the potato becomes a product that can salvage a meal. The desperation to buy potatoes does not represent a special fondness on the part of Cubans for its flavor, but an urgent need to alleviate the lack of food that has increased in recent months because of shortages.

The English Patient (remake) / Rebeca Monzo

After seeing “The English Patient,” a magnificent film directed by Anthony Minghella and played brilliantly by actor Ralph Fiennes in the principal role, I felt as though I had been to its locations on those days when I have had to visit and remain for hours around América Arias hospital — so-called in honor of she who was once First Lady and a great patroness of the arts, the wife of President José Miguel Gómez of the Republican era.

Anyone with a relative or friend who is a patient at this hospital, better known as “Maternidad de Línea” (“Línea Street Maternity”), if he has seen the same film, will do as I did: mentally recreating the movie’s locations as he moves among the trash and continue reading

underpinnings of the facility.

This maternity hospital, built in 1930, is another great example of the Art Deco style, as was the once-magnificent, now-extinct (as a result of governmental apathy and neglect) Pedro Borrás hospital — today gone to ruin by “the work and dis-grace*” of the Revolution. Both of these structures had been designed by the famed Cuban architectural firm of Govantes and Cabarrocas.

The interior and exterior appearance (of the América Arias facility) gives the impression of an abandoned hospital — and really, it is — except for an operating chamber and two emergency waiting rooms that are kept up. In the midst of this great deterioration, a valiant medical team does the impossible, with practically no resources, to save lives. Anxious relatives pace from one end to the other while they await news from the operating room, with no place to sit.

A friend remarked to me that, upon spotting at one of the patios only two construction workers shoveling a bit of cement mix, she drew closer and asked them why, in such a big hospital needing repairs, there were so few workers. They both responded that this was because of a lack of allocated construction materials.

How is it possible that in our country there are hotels constantly being planned, remodeled and built, while the population can hardly count on halfway-decent and clean hospitals to go for treatment? The common citizen — the one who suffers from these shortages and the absence of hygienic conditions — takes as a bad joke and a sign of disrespect the healthcare propaganda that is so replicated throughout the Cuban media.

*Translator’s note: A pun on the phrase, “By the work and grace of the Holy Spirit”

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

2 March 2015

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